Charles Wachs: Candidate Profile

Note: Answers provided have not been edited for grammar, misspellings or typos. In some instances, candidate claims that could not be immediately verified have been omitted. Jump to:BioKey IssuesQA Bio City: Long GroveWebsite: Candidate did not respond.Office sought: Long Grove Village boardAge: 68Family: Married to Ela, daughter Michelle who is a Junior at Stevenson, son Chad who is a fireman in Golden, CO and son Chris who is a student in Santa Monica, CAOccupation: Own a service company that operates nationally assisting municipal water departments manage their aging infrastructureEducation: B.A. from Cornell University in Ithaca, NYCivic involvement: Served on Long Grove Park District, currently serving on Village Board of Trustees.Several Corporate Boards of DirectorsCondominium Board, Snowmass Village, COElected offices held: Village Trustee, Long Grove, ILHave you ever been arrested for or convicted of a crime? If yes, please explain: NoCandidate's Key Issues Key Issue 1 Spend less than we take inKey Issue 2 Keep and attract more small businesses to our VillageKey Issue 3 manage, protect and improve our Villages infrastructureQuestions Answers What makes you the best candidate for the job?High level of interest in our village, long experience living in Long Grove, wide and varied group of friends living in Long Grove, ability to listen and relate to the concerns of broad range of constituentsGiven the delicate balance between the need for revenue and over-taxing local businesses, what is your opinion of your community's present level of local sales taxes? Is the tax just right, too low or too high? Explain.Just right. We need more revenue as we do not tax our residents and sales tax revenue has been going down but we cannot afford to increase sales taxes especially in this type of economic climate.Talking with your friends and neighbors, what seems to be their biggest public safety concern? Explain the concern as you see it, and discuss how you think it should be addressed.Deteriorating roads and associated drainage.Long Grove has a mixture of public (Village maintained) and private (homeowner association maintained)roads and we have not had either the motor fuel tax revenue or the sales tax revenue to maintain the public roads. Neither have we addressed the imbalance caused by this public (tend to be the older subdivisions) and private (newer subdivisions). This should be addressed by conducting a poll of all residents to determine what the priorities of our residents are and what they expect of their Village government and then put together plans on how to accomplish what is most important to most of our residents.In these tight economic times, municipal budgets have to be prioritized. Where, if anywhere, could the current budget be trimmed, and conversely, are there areas the budget does not give enough money to?First we need to manage to our budget and that means considering the economic impact of every ordinance we pass. Then we need to look at all planned TIF expenses and verify that the TIF income will cover in the near term, the expense.We also need to carefully monitor our outside engineering expense to make sure that it is providing the value we intended.What#146;s one good idea you have to better the community that no one is talking about yet?polling our constituency to determine the priority of their expectations.