Joe Messer: 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: Barrington HillsWebsite: http://www.save5acres.comOffice sought: Barrington Hills Village boardAge: Candidate did not respond.Family: Candidate did not respond.Occupation: Joseph Messer Messer Stilp, Ltd. a Professional Corporation 166 W. Washington, Suite 300 Chicago, IL 60602-2390 (312) 334-3440 Direct (312) 334-3434 FAXEducation: BA from Lake Forest College and JD from Chicago-Kent College of Law. Early in his career Joe worked for the Chicago law firm McBride Baker Coles (now Holland Knight). He and a partner subsequently formed their own firm, Messer Stilp, Ltd.Civic involvement: Joe is a current member of the Village Board of Trustees, appointed to replace the late Peter Wessel. Before that, he served on the Zoning Board of Appeals and previously on the Plan Commission. Joe is an active member of our equestrian community. He has served on the Board of the Riding Club of Barrington Hills. Joe is also a board member of the Barrington Hills Polo Club. He is a practicing attorney and a name partner in his own law firm located in downtown Chicago.Elected offices held: Candidate did not respond.Have you ever been arrested for or convicted of a crime? If yes, please explain: Candidate did not respond.Candidate's Key Issues Key Issue 1 Preserving five acre zoning takes precedent over any and every other concern in the village. Without our minimum five acre zoning, we lose our open spaces, put our water supplies at risk, strain our public safety resources, increase traffic congestion and jeopardize our property values. Unfortunately, our zoning is under attack. Our vast open spaces and high property values make us very attractive to developers, and residents who#146;d like to sell to developers. We are the last open space community in the area. I don#146;t want us to go the way of South Barrington, itself a former minimum five acre community.Key Issue 2 Conserving water resources and managing waste in an ecologically sound manner. Most people don#146;t realize that Barrington Hills sits atop the main aquifers serving the entire BACOG area and is the primary aquifer recharging area. This ties directly into my first campaign issue, five acre zoning. If Barrington Hills, with its well and septic system approach to serving a low density residential population, loses its low density profile, BACOG communities will begin running out of water in the next 20 to 30 years. This is fact. Less than five acre zoning cannot be sustained if we#146;re to have adequate water in years to come. Also, higher density development can#146;t be sustained with our ecologically sound septic system approach. That means subdivisions based on smaller lots will turn to privately operated sewage treatment systems. These systems ultimately fail, and the burden of waste management falls onto taxpayers. The failure of Wynstone#146;s sewage disposal system is a prime example.Key Issue 3 I#146;m disturbed and saddened that some candidates for election to our Village Board want to re-define Barrington Hills as a #147;residential#148; rather than as an #147;equestrian community.#148; I don#146;t understand what they hope to accomplish other than to weaken our property values. I#146;m a lawyer who does a lot of work in the real estate field. Municipalities who can identify themselves in a distinctive and desirable way increase their property values. What could be more distinctive and desirable than our #147;niche#148; as an equestrian community with open spaces and a semi-rural style of living? Of course, there are more homes in Barrington Hills without horses than with horses. But you don#146;t have to own horses to be part of an equestrian community. I hope (and believe) that most village residents enjoy living near the equestrian estates and small horse farms that exist in virtually every neighborhood. The entire village is linked together by a riding trail system that allows residents all over town to visit each other by horseback. I think most residents enjoy horses being ridden past or across their property. Personally, I don#146;t want Barrington Hills to be just another #147;residential#148; community, only with bigger lawns to mow.Questions Answers Describe your personal position on the outdoor lighting ordinance.First, I believed that we needed to bring our lighting regulations into sync with our village Comprehensive Plan. If our ordinances don#146;t support our Comprehensive Plan, then the Comprehensive Plan will be less than effective in helping us defend our unique five acre zoning. Having said that, I#146;ve always felt that new lighting regulations should not impinge on residents who have already invested in outdoor lighting in good faith before new regulations were in place. I have been a Village Trustee all during the time the proposed lighting amendment was a controversial subject, and I helped craft the resulting ordinance so that it did not apply to any existing structures. Thus, no village resident has been affected by the new amended regulations.Generally speaking, do you see the village of Barrington Hills as the product of strong regulation or as a bastion of individual property rights? Should the practices of the past be changed or maintained?Compare the ordinances of Barrington Hills to any community, large or small, in the Chicago area, and I promise you we have the smallest rule book on record. Anyone who says we#146;re a #147;big government, micro-managed#148; community is blowing smoke! Yes, we have rules to protect our lifestyle, our character and our property values. We call this zoning. Zoning exists for one reason only: to protect property values. Without zoning, we#146;d lose our unique real estate niche. Otherwise, we pretty much stay out of our residents#146; hair. I#146;m a strong believer in individual property rights. That#146;s why I made sure our new lighting regulations don#146;t affect anybody now living in the village. Regarding #147;practices of the past,#148; I#146;m a #147;don#146;t fix what ain#146;t broke#148; kind of guy. But I want to make sure we are vigilant and stay ahead of potential problems in a prudent and thoughtful manner.Should the village's requirement of minimum 5-acre lot sizes be maintained or should land owners have the right to divide their property as they see fit?I#146;m absolutely and aggressively in favor of maintaining our minimum five acre lot sizes. There#146;s a myth being promulgated by a group of candidates for village trustee that the best way to protect five acre zoning is to give in to developers on our borders and let them build on less than five acre lots and ease into five acres toward the interior of the village. This is the Neville Chamberlain approach. What they#146;re talking about is called #147;feathering,#148; a ploy first proposed when Fritz Duda tried to foist a high density development on us 10 or 12 years ago. I was a founding member of a grass roots movement to stop him. Barrington Hills has borders around our outside and borders deep inside the village around a whole bunch of unincorporated parcels. If we permitted feathering, our five acre zoning would be eaten away from inside and outside. This is great for developers and for landowners wishing to cash in at the expense of property values for the rest of us.Would the village benefit from a modest amount of commercial development? Where, if anywhere, should a commercial area of the village be established?The village already has some small areas designated #147;commercial#148; including the parcels along our border with Barrington owned by Dede Wamberg. I have no problem with the village enjoying some modest tax income from what#146;s already on our books as commercially zoned, and I#146;m open to exploring one or two small border parcels that might be better zoned commercial than residential, but I won#146;t go further than that. I#146;m very comfortable with the type of business activities currently allowed on residential properties as outlined in our home occupation ordinance.Should equestrian uses of land within the village be further regulated?I#146;m in favor of discussing how the village manages horse boarding. Other than that, few communities in Illinois, or anywhere else in the United States, have a better record for horse management than Barrington Hills. Once again, I don#146;t want to fix what is not broke.