Stephen F. Schmid: 2023 candidate for Elk Grove Village Board

Bio

Town: Elk Grove Village

Age on Election Day: 70

Occupation: Retired, current village trustee, part-time adjunct instructor at Harper College

Employer: Elk Grove Village, Harper College

Previous offices held: Elk Grove Village trustee

Q&A

Q: What is the most serious issue your community will face in the coming years and how should the city council or village board respond to it?

A: What I believe is a serious issue is the lack of qualified candidates to fill job vacancies in the public sector. As an example, most local law enforcement agencies, including Elk Grove Village, are struggling to find qualified candidates to fill vacancies. This is also true in other departments in the village. We need to recruit better, as there is competition amongst other communities. We also need to develop a plan to retain employees once they are hired. The success of local government to provide the services needed in their communities depend a lot on the quality of municipal employees. We must seek the best qualified and have a good, effective retention plan.

Q: How would you describe the state of your community's finances?

A: Elk Grove Village is currently in a very good financial position. We are very fortunate to have the largest business park in North America, which survived COVID and continues to thrive. The current vacancy rate is less that 2%. Our financial success is due to the diversity of businesses in our community, and the village's commitment to attract new businesses and help current businesses that want to expand. We also have a national marketing program to attract businesses that may want to start or relocate to the Chicagoland area. An example of this is our recently developed technology park which is currently fully occupied, with some foreign companies locating in the park.

Q: What should be the three top priorities for spending in your community during the next four years?

A: The maintenance of our infrastructure is very important, such as streets, water drainage, and sewers. Another priority is to develop a successful village employee recruitment and retention plan. A third priority is to keep our business park vital through our marketing initiative and also to assist our business with their employee recruitment and retention. The Village has hosted 2 previous job fairs for our businesses which resulted in some businesses finding qualified candidates.

Q: Are there areas of spending that need to be curtailed? If so, what are they?

A: Due to the very good financial position the village currently enjoys, the village board has carefully and responsibly reviewed the finances which resulted in the rebate of funds to village residents in the form of two $200 water bill credits and a $200 gift card to each residential unit. We continue to watch our financial situation very closely and plan our future projects in relation to projected revenues. We have addressed the revitalization of our oldest shopping center in the Village and we will be looking at other areas in the village that may need revitalization. If our financial situation takes a downturn, these revitalization plans may need to be delayed.

Q: What do you see as the most important infrastructure project the community must address? Why and how should it be paid for? Conversely, during these uncertain economic times, what project(s) can be put on the back burner?

A: The village has a very good preventive maintenance program for street maintenance, sewer maintenance and yard drainage issues, and most recently a sidewalk maintenance program. These are important as these programs directly affect the citizens and businesses, and visitors to our community. If our economic situation makes a turn for the worse, some hard decisions will have to be made. each infrastructure program would have to be evaluated to determine the effects if they were suspended. The Board would than have to make the decision which infrastructure program(s) could be curtailed with the least amount of negative impact to the community and falls within available funds.

Q: Describe your experience working in a group setting to determine policy. What is your style in such a setting to reach agreement and manage local government? Explain how you think that will be effective in producing effective actions and decisions with your village board or city council.

A: I served with the Elk Grove Village Police Department for 41½ years, with ⅔ of my career serving in a leadership role as a deputy police chief and police chief. My leadership style can be described as participatory. I always included staff in major policy development and implementation. I always felt it was important to include staff in these decisions so all aspects of policy could be discussed openly and views of others considered. This is important at the village board level as the views of all the board members should be considered when deciding policy. This is how local government should work. All sides of an issue should be investigated and discussed and then the best solution should be considered and voted upon.

Q: What makes you the best candidate for the job?

A: I have served Elk Grove Village for 45 ½ years, the last four as a village trustee. During my tenure as deputy police chief and police chief I worked with the existing village boards and I was always impressed with the fact that these Boards made decisions based on what was the best for the village, and not on personal wants or needs. After my retirement I wanted to continue to serve the residents and businesses of the village so I ran for and was elected to the village board. I have great respect for this village and its leaders and I am grateful to be part of the leadership team. Elk Grove Village is a great community in which to live and have a business and I wish to continue to serve all and work to make Elk Grove Village an even better community.

Q: What's one good idea you have to better the community that no one is talking about yet?

A: We have to prepare for the future. Technology is moving forward and in some aspects faster than we would like. One issue we should prepare for is the future of driverless vehicles. There is already talk of driverless trucks, which will have a huge impact on our business part due to our high volume of truck traffic. Discussions need to start to better understand this technology and how it will impact our community and the region. How will driverless vehicles integrate with vehicles with drivers. How will this work in bad weather situations? There could be the assumption that some or most of these vehicles will be electric, rather that gas. This raises the issue of our available electric sources. We have to ensure that this community is prepared for these and other advances in technology that could become a reality within the next 10-20 years.