Departing DuPage county board chairman looks back

Robert Schillerstrom is convinced he could have won a fourth term as chairman of the DuPage County Board.

But, he says, it was time to move on.

During the second part of our conversation with the Naperville Republican, he talks about why he made the choice to pass up a re-election bid and decided to run for the GOP gubernatorial nomination.

Schillerstrom abandoned the bid to become governor shortly before the primary. He also talks about what went wrong with the campaign.

Finally, Schillerstrom has some advice for state Sen. Dan Cronin, who officially will become county board chairman on Dec. 6.

For the first part of our interview with Schillerstrom, see the front section of today's paper.

Q. You have been county board chairman for 12 years. What's it going to be like not being in elected office?

A. It's going to be different. Obviously, 12 years is a long time and you get used to doing things. You get used to having the opportunity to shape public policy. That's an exciting thing, and I certainly enjoyed having the opportunity to do that.

But one thing about elected office is you don't own the offices. You just pass through them.

I had been there long enough. It's time for somebody else to come in and to look at it a little bit differently and to do it their way. And I'm OK with that.

It's nice to be able to leave on your own terms. I feel very comfortable about leaving at this time. Like anything else, it's going to be a change for me. But it's kind of exciting, too, to have an opportunity to do different things.

Q. Is there one accomplishment you are most proud of?

A. I guess if I was going to say one thing, because everything else is built on this, it's the fiscally responsible government we've put in place that has put us in a very good fiscal position. That's probably the most important, because if you don't have your financial house in order, it's really difficulty to do other things.

The fact that we have been able to keep our financial house in order, yet be able to reduce taxes and give money back to the taxpayers, we've shown that government can be fiscally responsible. We're able to say we can provide many services that other governments don't, and we provide them in a very cost effective way.

Q. What's your biggest disappointment?

A. I don't have a disappointment that is equal to what I am proud of. I think I've had so many more successes than I have had failures.

Q. If you didn't enter the governor's race, do you think you would have won re-election as chairman?

A. Definitely. If I had run for re-election, I am very confident I would have won. But I think that even if I hadn't run for governor, I probably wouldn't have run again (for chairman) either.

That does sort of come back to my philosophy of we don't own these offices. I have been here 12 years. I think I have been here long enough. It's time for me for to do something different. And it's time for the county to have another leader.

Q. Why did you run for governor?

A. First of all, running DuPage County is like being the governor of a small state, and I had great successes here. Like a lot people in Illinois, I was, and am, very frustrated with state government. Just simple things like you can't spend more than you bring in. You can't be all things to all people. Sometimes you've just got to say “No.”

And I thought the philosophy that I had used so successfully in DuPage County was one I could I employ at the state of Illinois.

I am still very confident that if I was the governor of this state, I would do things dramatically different from the way they've been done in the past. I could turn this state around. Obviously, you've got to get elected before you could do that, and I was not successful in that particular realm.

The problem with my campaign was that I couldn't raise money. There were too many (Republican) candidates. There were too many candidates out of DuPage County. I still think if I had another $1 million, I could have won.

Q. In the old Republican Machine days of DuPage County, do you think there would have been as many GOP candidates from DuPage in the governor race?

A. No. It's part of the problem with the Republican Party. Because we, the candidates for governor, have all been active in the Republican Party for a long time. We're all party guys, and most of us went to see the (then-Illinois Republican) party chairman. We went in to see Andy McKenna and said, “Hey, we're going to run for governor and we just wanted to talk to you about it.” Andy McKenna sort of encouraged us to run and asked us what our plans were and things like that. And then, surprisingly, he jumps into the race.

So instead of having a party chairman who's sitting there trying to determine what's best for the Republican Party and how we put together the best team to win, we got a guy who is trying to determine, based on what everybody tells him, how he could become governor. So the focus was completely off.

Q. Up until fiscal 2006, the county had lowered its property tax levy for a decade. It didn't have to do that. In light of all the budgeting issues you have faced since, was lowering the levy that many times the right thing to do?

A. It absolutely was. Look at the unhappiness people in this country have with all levels of government because they're overtaxed. Whenever you can lower taxes and give money back to your constituents, you should do it. And every single year you should look for a way to give more services to your taxpayers at less cost. And that's one of the things that we have done a good job of. We have shown that you can do more with less.

Q. Is it realistic to expect a western access road to O'Hare International Airport can be completed by 2016?

A. I do think it's realistic. I think we can do it. It's like anything. You have to be committed to getting it done. With a gigantic project like that, there's always going to be barriers that are going to be put up. We have to be prepared to address those and continue to move forward.

Q. Can you talk about the technology park near the DuPage Airport in West Chicago?

A. I don't think the tech park is going to get built. I think the project is probably not going to go forward, and it's a disappointment to me. But you always have a few disappointments. I don't think anybody has a 100 percent success rate. That's one of those things that I didn't succeed at.

Q. What went wrong?

A. Probably the biggest thing was the economy. We knew this was really going to be a long-term project. We knew it would take 10, 20, 25 years to get it built. Just about the time that we were hoping that we could move forward with some substantial progress, the economy tanked. Then after the economy tanked, the coalition that we put together to support it lost faith in the project. Some of the people who we had counted on to be advocates for it lost their zeal for the project.

Q. Some people say the issue of home rule for the county is dead in the water. Do you agree with that?

A. I think it's dead in the water now. It shouldn't be. Because if you just look at it from a common sense point of view, we have shown that if we're not the most responsible government in the state of Illinois, we are one of the most responsible governments. And we should have all the tools possible to be able to do our job to be able to govern.

But we only have about half of the tools. That's a problem. I think we could do even a better job if we had home rule and every time we needed something, we didn't have to run it down to Springfield and make some deal or stand on the side while somebody else made some deal. It's very frustrating.

I always figured that someday common sense and clear thinking are going to win out. So someday we're going to be home rule, but I don't see that happening now.

Q. Any advice for Dan Cronin now that he's about to become chairman?

A. I would tell Dan this is a great job. And this county is a great county. There are tremendous opportunities to do good things for the people of this county. And probably the best advice I could give him is that there's a lot of government in this county and you've got to work with everybody. You've got to work with the municipalities. You've got to work with the county board and the other elected officials. If he does those things, he's going to find the job to be as great a job as I found it to be.

Q. Any particular issue that you would like to see him pursue?

A. My advice would be to continue to run a fiscally responsible government. I think he's a fiscally responsible guy.

You have to continue to create an environment where people want to invest with their companies and create jobs. In these difficult times, the most important issue is jobs. You can talk to people about what's important to them and what government can and cannot do. But nothing matters if they can't put bread on the table for their families.