JoEllen Ridder: 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: BensenvilleWebsite: Candidate did not respond.Office sought: Bensenville Village boardAge: 52Family: Married, 2 daughtersOccupation: Village Clerk, Benenville Executive Director, Illinois Lincoln SeriesEducation: Associates Degree in Education, Triton College, 1978Finance and Accounting Courses, Triton COllege, 1980-1982Civic involvement: Member, O'Hare Noise Compatiblity CommissionScheduling Coordinator for Minister Volunteers, St. Charles BorromeoExtra Ordinary Minister of Communion, St. Charles BorromeoElected offices held: Village Clerk, Village of BensenvilleHave you ever been arrested for or convicted of a crime? If yes, please explain: NoCandidate's Key Issues Key Issue 1 Open Government and Customer Service - Over the last two years as Village Clerk I have worked with our current elected officals, administration, and staff help to make our village government more accessible and user friendly. The following are some of what we have done to accomplish this.A new and improved web-site, on-line bill payment and a hot line for residents and businesses to use to ask questions and have their issues addressed. I would like to continue to work on enhancing these areas so that our residents and businesses are happy with our Village operations and if not they feel comfortable calling or coming in to voice their concerns and issues.Key Issue 2 Continued open communications with our schools, library, and park district - I belive our job is to serve our residents and our businesses and one of the best ways to do that is have an open line of communication with the other taxing bodies such as our schools, library, and park district. We all need to continue to work toether as a team to build a healthy and WHOLE community.Key Issue 3 As Bensenville continues to become more attractive to businesses and as the business district continues to grow I think it is important to have an equal focus on our residents and their needs. I beleive we need to continue to work on addressing our flooding issues, support our schools in having the best quality edcuation available for our children, as well as building on our cultural and recrational programs to serve every aspect of our community..children, adults, and seniors.Questions Answers Now that the village has settled with the city of Chicago over expansion of O'Hare Airport, what more can leaders do to facilitate its comeback from all the adversity the O'Hare fight entailed?The long drawn out battle with regards to O'hare has isolated our community over many years. In the short time since the settlement with the City of Chicago we have worked very hard on establishing partnerships with our neighboring communites, the county, and the state and we need to continue these efforts. By establishing and continuing our invovlement with associations such as the Dupage Mayors and Managers and the Municipal Clerks of DuPage we can increase our communcations to uncover grant options and find other untapped resources to help move Bensenville forward.Is the $11 million that will be used to improve the industrial park the best use of borrowed funds? What should be a priority?Yes, the Northern Industrial Park has been long neglected and is in much neeed of investment to help revitalize the businesses there. There is currently a 25% vacancy rate in this area, by improving the infrastructure we can reduce the vacancy rate which will in turn reduce some the tax burden on our residents.How do you propose keeping Bensenville a viable residential community with all the industrial growth and expansion of O'Hare airport happening near the village?I think that the industrial growth will create an influx of new jobs into the regions and this will only make Bensenville a more desirable location for our exiting residents as well attract more families to move into our Village. The recent announcement of upcoming renovations by Bensenville School District 2 is a prime example of how we are a viable residential community and will be long into the future.Once the $64 million project begins to fix the bottleneck of Irving Park and York roads and the Canadian Pacific Railroad tracks, what is the best way to alleviate the effect construction will have on local businesses?It is my understanding that at least one lane of Irving Park Road will remain open during the construction process. There is no doubt that some or our businesses will go through some short term pain and I know that the Village is looking at offering incentives for promotions that would be helpful to the businesses during this time and this is a program that I am in complete support of. Bensenville teamed up with Wood Dale and Elmhurst to create Liberty Fest last year for Fourth of July. What else could the village do to maintain the quality of life in this tough economy while also cutting costs?Liberty Fest was a great example of sharing resources with our neighboring communities in order to offer a quality program in this tough economy and it is somthing I belive we should continue and grow in the future. I think we can continue to expand on this type of resource sharing by looking across the board at purchasing and service delivery. Streamling our operations and increasing efficincies are a must. Involvement with associations such as the DuPage Mayors and Managers and the Municipal Clerks of DuPage as well as continuing to maintain open lines of communications with our neighboring communities will give us the tools we need to do this.