Wayne Floegel: 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: NapervilleWebsite: http://www.waynefloegel.comOffice sought: Naperville City councilAge: 39Family: Wayne and his wife, Elizabeth have been married for six years and have two beautiful, funny preschoolers, Noah and Rachel. We moved to Naperville to settle down after a few corporate relocations; top ranked schools and community feel led our decision.Occupation: Prior experience in sales and district management for national and regional photography and camera retail chains, as well as President and founder of and independent sales firm. Currently full time chief cook and bottle washer of the Floegel household.Education: BS in Mass Communications, Point Loma UniversityCivic involvement: Member of a steering Committee for separating a school district in Caledonia, WisconsinRegular attendance at City Council meetings and other local events. Former Boy Scout Leader.Elected offices held: This will be my firstHave you ever been arrested for or convicted of a crime? If yes, please explain: NoCandidate's Key Issues Key Issue 1 Balancing the city#146;s budget through value review and cost assessment; the economy is going to take some time to recover, and Naperville needs to capitalize on the enthusiasm of its citizens vs continued blanket spending on projects. We need to distinguish truly necessary capital investments - like infrastructure repairs #8211; from those that are just #147;nice to have#148; or pet projects right now. The Council needs to review the number of city issued vehicles, revisit the capital improvement roadmap and timelines and critically review the value versus spending levels on services like leaf pickup. We need to survey our citizens and let them help us prioritize; we should not be making these calls from an ivory tower on Eagle Street. From that assessment and input, we need to determine where we have lower cost options to maintain and even enhance services that are high value, eliminate those that are not and make tough choices about what is really critical to keeping our community great for the next few years.Key Issue 2 Naperville needs to maintain its status as a place families want to stay and where businesses can be successful. I admire Naperville#146;s ability to retain legacies of families and reinventing downtown into a destination. We have incredible office space in the northern part of town and a talent base of residents that most corporations would consider best in class. We are a hub for education, skill and culture. City Council needs to partner with large employers to ensure they continue to seek out Naperville as a headquarters and regional office location as they look for ways to reduce their costs and retain talented employees in Illinois. My role on City Council will be to work with those larger firms, as well as brainstorm with businesses, North Central College, COD and others on ways to encourage shoppers and tourists to visit Naperville. We should be investing in broader scale marketing campaigns, in concert with the Chamber of Commerce, for special events like Girl#146;s Weekends and holiday celebrations. Naperville should provide more frequent #145;hop on#146; trolleys and easy transportation around the downtown and business parks and from the Metra stations on weekends. We should have easier to discern directions for visitors on where to park. We should be creating a destination. We certainly have amenities within and surrounding our community to do so; Riverwalk, Centennial Beach, DCM, the Morton Arboretum, DuPage County Forest Preserves, Cosely Zoo, theaters, parks.. The list goes on and on. This work will result in increased revenue for our city, which has to be done in conjunction with spending reductions.Key Issue 3 It is truly discouraging that only about 12% of Naperville#146;s population voted in the last City Council election. If my candidacy increases that number to 25-50%, I will have succeeded. If it brings even one more voter to the polls on April 5, I#146;ve made a difference. Residents of Naperville and Illinois need to start speaking with their votes.Questions Answers The city has slashed dozens of jobs in the last year in an attempt to balance the budget. Do you see more of this in the future?We need to review the city#146;s business processes and look for ways to automate and streamline. I do see some positive moves in this direction already from the Council, but more can be done. My sales operations and business management background will prepare me to work with City departments to identify additional inefficiencies; sometimes jobs are eliminated in the short term as a result, but those efficiencies open up larger opportunities for everyone in our community through a more attractive business climate.Based on your experience as council member or mayor, are there any programs that you already know you would seek to eliminate if you were to be elected mayor?The newly elected council and Mayor need to work together to review the programs before cutting programs. We cannot continue to cut costs indefinitely, and we need to evaluate short and long term value of programs to the community. For example, one program I would seek to dismiss: the feasibility study for a bus depot in downtown.A bus depot is risky; we are considering the feasibility of adding a depot to a station that is congested only two or three hours of the day and embarking on this study just a year after Pace considered cutting half of Naperville#146;s bus lines. The capital improvement plan needs to be revisited, as this does not sound like a good investment right now. I am confident there are easy to implement, low or no cost ways to improve traffic flow at the station.I will look for opportunities to call on our residents to help out, through citizen volunteering or other mechanisms, before cuts to programs are considered. If programs are truly valued, Naperville residents will rise to the occasion with the support of the Council. Let#146;s measure value, not just cost, and listen to our constituents.What are your thoughts/concerns regarding the city creating a shuttle bus service to help seniors and others commute to and from the downtown and other popular locations?We should not be limiting this type of service to seniors. In order to leverage our quaint community and amenities, we should be attracting families, students, other suburban residents, tourists, as well as seniors and create an easy to use transportation system. Specifically, we should be partnering with Pace and our own Naperville trolley service to determine low cost and #145;easy entry#146; ways to bring visitors #8211; young and old #8211; to our shops and restaurants and other nearby attractions.The city recently purchased the site of the DuPage Children's Museum on the city's north side. Do you support leaving the museum in place or freeing up the potentially valuable real estate at the city's northern border for economic development?As a parent of two preschool children, a member and frequent visitor to DCM, I can say with authority it is a great place to visit. We need to have the museum in our downtown as another family attraction. However, that particular piece of real estate could be better leveraged with economic development. DCM should consider a location closer to the Riverwalk and Nichols Library to move DCM visitors through downtown, not just the museum, as a day out. The parking situation at DCM is not attractive with small children, and frankly it is a long walk with little ones to get to a kid friendly #145;next stop.#146; I would like to work with the Museum to measure visitor traffic patterns and outline a plan to improve the overall value of DCM to our community. We should model that information and come up with a more economically beneficial location in the city to help not only DCM increase membership and day use, but benefit the rest of the City.What can be learned from the furor over the city giving police officers 3 percent raises then enacting layoffs? How should the city deal with its unions? Should it agree to raises when it knows layoffs will be a result?The City Council needs to fully articulate the implications of decisions and concessions made during negotiation to all those involved in the process and downstream. I am not confident that each side of the table fully understood, or effectively communicated, the agreements and tradeoffs made in this scenario. My commitment is to leverage partnerships, social media, personal conversations, and traditional media sources to better articulate not only decisions made, but what IMPACT those decisions have on the City and on individuals. We should not be surprising those who risk their lives to keep us and our communities safe #8211; transparency and open dialogue is critically important to a well run City.