Edward Bender: 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: Fox LakeWebsite: http://focusonfoxlake.comOffice sought: Fox Lake Mayor (4-year Term)Age: 75Family: Married, five children, nine grandchildrenOccupation: Retured, Vice PresidentEducation: Bachelor Business DePaul University 1980 Certificat Stanford University School of BusinessCivic involvement: Candidate did not respond.Elected offices held: 8 Years Village of Fox Lake Trustee 2001-1009 4 Years Village of Fox Lake Mayor 2009-2013Have you ever been arrested for or convicted of a crime? If yes, please explain: NoCandidate's Key Issues Key Issue 1 KEY CAMPAIGN ISSUES What is your number one campaign issue? The number one campaign issue for me will be to continue marketing Fox Lake as a destination point. Thousands of cars travel through Fox Lake every weekend , particularly in the summer on their way to Wisconsin. My goal is to attract some of them to stay in Fox Lake. In June 2011, Fox Lake was invited to speak at a conference downtown Chicago with other towns on the subject of "MUNICIPAL DEVELOPEMENT OPPORTUNITIES". The audience was made up of over 90 investors, business owners and developers. Village staff and I brought forward a power-point presentation. My opening line was "ladies and gentlemen, you are sitting less than an hour away from a small town called Fox Lake. It is a diamond in the rough, waiting to be re-discovered". The result was interest from 4 hotel developers and 2 restaurant groups. Last week we received a letter of preliminary intent to build a restaurant and banquet hall on the Village's lakefront property on Nippersink Lake. Discussion has been ongoing with our staff and me with the hotel developers. As of Saturday morning we've had verbal indication that we will receive a similar letter from them within a couple of days. While both are independent projects, both groups indicate they each want the other to make the project work. I personally spend half of my time working with Village staff and the potential developers and businesses. The reasons I'm passionate about the marketing effort are that 1) as I stated above, I want to see Fox Lake become a destination point all year round. 2) according to the last US census Fox Lake has over 10% unemployment. We need jobs! This should provide some needed jobs and stimulate our economy. 3) visitors staying at the hotel will stimulate business to our current downtown base. 4) I believe it will also attract new businesses. 5) generate added revenue in these difficult times. Working with staff and our Planning Commission we updated our "Comprehensive Development Plan and Policies" book. An important part of this update was to coordinate 3 two hour public meetings at the Fox Lake Library. These meetings were conducted by our Planning Commission and an outside consultant. Around 50 residents and local business owners provided their input on what they consider key issues that needed updating. This booklet was approved by the Village Board Feb. 2012 . In addition to hard copies available at the Village Hall it can be viewed on our Village website. A couple of other points worth mentioning are, we published an attractive 6 page marketing brochure describing our town . We also, reviewed our planning and zoning process with the thought of streamlining it and making it more business friendly. At a recent board meeting I suggested we reconsider a Facade Program,encouraging our current business owners to maintain and in some cases update their facades. This could attract more customers and potential new businesses to our town. Finally, if re-elected, I would like to pursue with the board approval of a professional Economic Development individual. I would like to have considered this in my first term but we simply could not afford it.Key Issue 2 My number two campaign issue is working with Village Staff and the Village Board continue to monitor and keep tight control of our finances. This was actually my number one issue in my last campaign. At the end of 2010 we had a fund balance of $175,000. As of Dec. 31, 2012 we had increased it to 3.9 million or roughly 2 1/2 months of payroll and operating costs . This was accomplished several ways. First we hired an acting conservative Treasurer/Consultant who had bailed out a local school district from a major deficit. He has worked with the Village Staff and our Village Board. Once we understood in detail what our costs were we did the following: A) accomplished a $300,000 insurance savings, helped by employee low claims. B) outsourced payroll and accounting. C) outsourced areas of the Village snowplowing. D) with a warm winter last year saved thousands in overtime. E) consolidated purchasing among the departments . F) did not give any raises for two years to non-union employees. G) refinanced outstanding loans to lower interest rates saving over $110,000. H) aggressively pursued grants and had received over $1.2 million. I) we have new 911 customers from villages who outsourced to our facility and operation provided added revenue of $220,000 per year. I am happy to say this resulted in a new rating from Moody rating of A1. This also saves dollars in insurance. In addition to the above actions we had a balanced budget for the past 2 years and will have one for the next budget cycle. Future actions will include, but not be limited to continue aggressively pursue grants to reduce out of pocket costs to the Village department budgets. Next we will continue to pursue other clients interested in outsourcing their 911 dispatch centers and vehicle maintenance.Key Issue 3 An important function in any government agency is open communication and transparency of their activities and decisions. As mentioned above, we've had 3 public meetings at the Fox Lake Library inviting residents and business owners seeking their comments and input for our Village Comprehensive Plan. We have had 2 other similar public meetings and at least one more scheduled for early February to discuss how to effectively use the RTA and CMAP Grants we've received. The focus will be our downtown area and in particular the surrounding area around the Metra train station. Also under consideration is extension of the Lake County bike/walking path throughout our town to the Village Lakefront Park. We have greatly expanded our website in the last 4 years. To include notice of all Village planned activities, minutes of Village Board and Planning Commission Meetings, career opportunities, the Village Ordinances and Comprehensive Plan, and ability for residents to pay their utility bills online. We will continue to expand our Village Newsletter . One of the suggestions we received was to write short articles on 2 or 3 businesses in our town giving some of their background and describe some of their products and services. I spend hours a day working with staff on their projects. This will probably increase when we work together as a group on the proposed hotel and restaurant/banquet hall project. This truly has to be a team effort along with working with our board and residents. Along with being in the office everyday and available to meet with our residents and business owners, I maintain a high profile within the Village visiting the local business owners informally at least 2 or 3 times a week. In addition I meet on a regular basis with Mayors and Trustees in surrounding towns. I expect to continue these connections.Questions Answers What makes you the best candidate for the job?I have a solid corporate business background, education and service in local government. This I feel makes me the best overall candidate for re-election as Mayor. In 1959, I was hired by WW Grainger as an assistant purchasing agent. At the time, the company was relatively small, about 25 million in annual sales. As the company grew to over $7 billion I continued to progress in my career to the position of Corporate VP of which I retired from 36 years later. In this time I developed solid business principles of which many also apply in government. While working full time, I attended DePaul University in Chicago at night graduating with a major in business. Eight years later Grainger offered to send me to Stanford University Graduate School of Business in California of which I graduated from their Executive Program. The company paid all expenses, including my salary and while there provided me either the opportunity to come home or my family to come there every other weekend. I also attended Harvard University in Boston involving courses in Business and Computer Technology. After I retired from Grainger my family moved to Fox Lake. I have been coming here all my life and knew the town from a weekender prospective. In 2000 a group of Fox Lake business people approached me and suggested I run for a political office as a Village Board Trustee. I did, and won that that election and was re-elected 4 years later. In summary after 8 years as Trustee I ran and won for Mayor and am currently running for re-election. Along with my business background, my education and my commitment to our Village government my desire is to see the Village continue to be a great place place to live for others and build a strong business community.Given 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.Given the delicate balance between the need for revenue and overtaxing local businesses what is your opinion of your communities present level of local sales taxes? Is the tax just right, too low or too high? The Village of Fox Lake is not home rule and does not have a local sales tax. We depend on our portion of the state sales tax. In spite of a weak national economy the Village had over a 5% increase in that revenue.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.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? At this time one of our biggest potential public safety issues is the number of foreclosures of property and people just walking away from them. When the house becomes vacant, in too many cases it is broken into and stripped of copper piping, air conditioners, furnaces, faucets and about anything that can be carried out. We provide the Police Dept. a list of these on a regular basis but with over 200 of them it is difficult to protect them all. Tied with the thefts the overall concern for public safety becomes the opportunity for drugs and gang activity. We work daily with the various banks on each situation. When the lending banks are out of state the solving of these issues becomes even more difficult. As this is not just a local problem, but a state and national epidemic , I'm not aware of any single set of solutions. We continue to meet with the Police Dept. , work with lending institutions and discuss on a regular basis with other town Mayors seeking possible solutions.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?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? As discussed in my number 2 campaign issue above our village staff , village board and our acting treasurer/consultant has aggressively over the last 4 years examined all facets of our budget items. As mentioned above, we were pleased because of our efforts we received the Moody A1 ranking. We have greatly improved our fund balances and have had 2 balanced budgets and are expecting to balance the current one. We will remain vigilant in keeping tight control of our costs and expenses. One of these areas the board would like to see more money given to are our village roads. We have just completed a full road study , listing each road we are responsible for, with its age , measurements and graded in overall safety and condition. It is estimated to cost about $300,000 for each mile to be brought up to standards . With 55 miles of roads we're going to need at least $15 million over the next few years. The Village Board with staff is looking for ways to fund this project. Obviously it's going to be an ongoing long term project.What's one good idea you have to better the community that no one is talking about yet?What's one good idea do have to better the community that no one is talking about yet? Having come up here most of my life as a visitor and now as a full time resident I would like to see a public beach which allows access to the water or a public swimming pool. While the village does have a sandy area , called a beach on the lakefront park property, it really is not a desirable or safe place for public swimming . It is located on the channel connecting Pistakee Lake and Nippersink Lake by the bridge going over Rte. 12. Because of its high volume of boat traffic close to our park shore, along with a fast current flowing through the narrow channel, it's very unsafe for swimming. Even though Fox Lake is in the middle of 3 lakes most of the lakefront property is occupied by private home owners, marinas and other businesses. I'm not aware of any piece of property suitable for a swimming beach.