Casimir Kwiatkowski: Candidate profile

Bio

Name: Casimir Kwiatkowski

City: Volo

Website: www.friendsofcaseyk.com/

Twitter: @K4Lake

Facebook: www.facebook.com/CaseyK4LakeCounty/

Office sought: Lake County Board District 5

Age: 64

Family: Wife of 45 years, JoAnn. Three daughters and five grandchildren, ranging from 4 to 25 years old.

Occupation: Union painter

Education: Washburn Trade, graduated 1976; Harper College, 1 year of business courses;

Civic involvement: I attend environmental forums and believe in recycling, composting and waste reduction. I make it a point to get involved in elections by guiding people to register to vote.

Elected offices held: (None listed.)

Questions & Answers

If you are an incumbent, describe your main contributions.

I would bring a fresh new insight as a Lake County Board member. My priority would be to scrutinize discretionary spending, along with fiscal expenditures, and to instill more transparency in the tax assessment process.

What is the single biggest need in your district?

The single biggest need in my district is to lower taxes. The common opinion of all the people I talked to while canvassing the district is they can't keep up with the raises in their real estate taxes every year. The residents of Lake County want to live here, but the high taxes will eventually become too much of a burden. They will have to move out of Lake County.

Should the county government eliminate procurement cards, or p-cards, for county board members? Should county board members even have expense accounts? Should employees' p-cards be eliminated, too?

The question is what is a p-card and for what purpose are they given to employees? Why are so many of them given out? In my inquiries on what the p-card is for, I got no definitive answer. If the taxpayers are paying for it they have a right to know. The use of these cards are vague, so no one really knows what their purpose is and why so many employees have access to them. But if the cards did serve a purpose to the taxpayers and are transparent about their spending they should keep them.

Is the county doing enough to control expenses? What additional, specific steps do you recommend?

No, because if they did control expenses they wouldn't be investigated by the board of inquiries or an audit on the p-card expenses. I would clarify spending guidelines on discretionary spending and more stringent oversight.

Historically, county board meetings have been free of partisanship and political antics — but party-line fighting has become more noticeable in recent years. How do you feel about that?

I believe it has to do with expenditures. The board has a tough time forming consensus on what the priority is with spending taxpayers' money. Instead of looking for ways to save taxpayers money they just raise taxes to fill voids in the budget.