Fox Lake wants to streamline municipal operations

Fox Lake village officials say they want to streamline some municipal operations to accelerate the business planning and zoning process and improve the efficiency of board meetings.

A resolution expected to halve the time and cost of introducing new businesses to Fox Lake is set for a July 23 public hearing. The village board vote on the matter is expected July 28.

"One of the comments I've heard was that Fox Lake was one of the more difficult towns to work with in Lake County - it is my intent to make it a lot easier," Mayor Ed Bender said. "We hope to be more easy to use with the developers and provide a quicker turnaround for our decisions as a village."

New business plans currently require two 45-day periods of review by the planning commission and zoning board of appeals. The new ordinance would require one 30-day period of joint review by the planning commission and village staff.

Trustee Nancy Koske said the bill makes it cheaper and easier for new business to come to Fox Lake and improves the village's ability to regulate new business projects effectively.

"Fox Lake wants to roll out the welcome mat for new business," Koske said. "But we will still be able to put the brakes on anything we don't like."

Building commissioner Bill Hart anticipates a smoother process with an emphasis on solid planning, saving the village man hours and avoiding infrastructure conflicts.

"We hope to address infrastructure issues upfront instead of during the final stages of engineering," Hart said. "Whereas the process used to take up to six months, we're now looking at something closer to six weeks."

Bender is also looking to revamp the fragmented format of village board meetings.

The current format calls for several short committee meetings followed by the village board meeting. Bender hopes to condense meetings into a single session under a unified agenda.

"I've interviewed several communities to see how they operate so we're not breaking any new ground here," he said. "Committee meetings will be embedded in the board agenda - this will let us go right through it while improving communication amongst our trustees."