Dennis Crosby: Candidate Profile

Back to Antioch Village Board

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:BioQA Bio City: AntiochWebsite: Candidate did not respond.Office sought: Antioch Village Board Age: 69Family: Wife Patti Crosby Daughter Madison Crosby, and In Texas, 2 additional adult daughters, 1 adult son, and 3 grandchildren.Occupation: Global; logistics business ownerEducation: Some collegeCivic involvement: Member Antioch Lions Club Past Member Antioch Moose Lodge Past Member Rotary International in Dallas Texas and Los Angeles, CaliforniaElected offices held: Trustee, Village of Antioch 2007-2011 2011-2015 2014 Village EMS referendum committee member (serving as a private citizen) Village Liaison for Public Safety (6 years) Past Village Liaison for Finance (2 years) Past Parks Commissioner, Southlake TexasQuestions Answers What makes you the best candidate for the job?My experience with Antioch's opportunities, challenges and issues gained through 8 years of serving as a Trustee. In addition, I have over 40 years of business experience including 25 years at American Airlines where I ultimately became a corporate vice president and subsidiary president, vice president, senior vice president, and president of three other airlines, COO of companies in England and Russia, and have owned my own successful global logistics company since 2006. I think elected officials with strong business skills are a good part of the mix in government given that in most ways, competently helping to run a Village requires most of the same capabilities and experience needed in successfully running a business.What is your opinion of your community's present level of local sales and property taxes? Is the tax just right, too low or too high? Explain.Sales taxes are at a relatively acceptable level. Property taxes remain far too high, although it is worthwhile to mention that our Village receives only about 7 cents of each tax dollar you and I pay. The biggest impact on all of us is taxes paid for schools and other peripheral services, neither of which Villages such as ours have any control over. We don't set the rates, and we get only a fraction of the dollars collected. As discussed below, we do need to find other revenue sources of revenue for our ambulance services, and while I too do not like tax increases whatsoever, because we must look to a new referendum with the failure of the November 2014 proposal, my preference would have been for a referendum requesting approval to add a small sales tax increase rather than a property tax increase. Two of us on the Board felt that for the next referendum, a sales tax would have been a better way to spread the emergency services funding need across both residents and visitors to Antioch. However the majority of the Board voted for another property tax proposal. The bottom line is, we must find the revenue, and I hope that if the next referendum passes, we will find other revenue sources in the future and be in a position to roll back any property tax increase that might be approved. I will work toward that goal in the future.Rate the efficiency of your town's police and fire coverage. Are the departments well prepared for the next decade? What, if anything, should be changed? Do you have specific public safety concerns?Police and Fire are well managed and very effective with good planning and controls in place. Crime rates are down and our combined public safety units handle thousands of calls a year with professionalism and competence. Our biggest challenge is in finding adequate funding for ambulance (EMS) services. EMS was provided for many years by a now defunct organization who had many problems in its last two and a half years of operation and who could no longer continue to provide non taxpayer supported services. EMS services are not cheap to run, and there are few communities anywhere that can run them without dedicated funding.Where, if anywhere, could the current budget be trimmed, and conversely, are there areas the budget does not give enough money to?After 8 years of cutting, there are few places left for major reductions in Antioch's budget. We are the number one ranked town in the Northwest Municipal Conference in terms of workforce reductions since the recession began. According to a just published report, coverage reductions among cities in the region were 10.23%. Antioch ranks first with a 32% reduction, clearly indicating that we have been very serious about keeping costs in line and protecting taxpayers. Thankfully, we have motivated and capable employees and good management controls that have led to almost no reduction in services in spite of the large workforce reduction. There are few places we can go at this point except eliminating needed road work and other major capital projects, which in the long run is a very bad idea. Unfortunately we have been forced to cut even there to fund our ambulance service. We simply must find a new funding service for EMS - life safety has to be at the top of everyone's priority list.What's one good idea you have to better the community that no one is talking about yet?After a long recession, economic development is lagging in Antioch. Much of it started falling away as early as 2007 thanks to the "Great Recession". We have stuggled though by cutting costs to keep Antioch in the black, but it is time to get new income generated and projects moving, particularly in commercial and retail, including revitalizing a periodically down cycling downtown district. We have taken some steps, but there is much more to do on both a local, county, and state level. It is very difficult to compete for new business being so close to Wisconsin, a state that is far ahead of Illinois in forward thinking to keep and win revenue generating businesses through incentives that entice companies to move. In conjunction with other State and local entities, we need a comprehensive plan and solid execution to get the drain of businesses from Illinois stopped and growth started in a planned way that is complimentary to all of the wonderful natural assets and community spirit that makes Antioch so special.What other issues, if any, are important to you as a candidate for this office?We need to and must find more effective ways to enlist resident involvement in Antioch's governing and planning. We often see mostly the same two or three people at Board meetings in a community of 14,000 residents and as a result have little input unless there is some issue of personal concern to them. I understand that people have busy lives and expect elected officials to manage the affairs of the Village on their behalf, but it is also critical for residents to have a complete understanding of not only what is going on but WHY versus basing beliefs on often inaccurate or highly biased and slanted rumors and "word on the street". In the modern world we live in with electronic communications at our fingertips 24/7, we need to find better ways to keep our residents more fully informed and armed with FACTS, and more involved with SOLUTIONS to problems. Local government tends to impact our lives more than state or even the Federal government. Bad decisions locally or lack of understanding of resident priorities and expectations with no real dialogue hits home faster and can impact our lifestyles far faster than similar problems in Springfield and Washington.Please name one current leader who most inspires you.Our new governor - I expect to see him work on the issues of Illinois with both compassion and realism.What's the biggest lesson you learned at home growing up?To listen and be respectful of othersIf life gave you one do-over, what would you spend it on?I would spend more time with my children.What was your favorite subject in school and how did it help you in later life?History. Understanding the past helps with understanding of both the present and what may be in store in the future.If you could give your children only one piece of advice, what would it be?Spend more time with your children.