Gary Fasules: 2025 candidate for Glen Ellyn village president

Bio

Office Sought: Glen Ellyn village president

City: Glen Ellyn

Age: 67

Occupation: Retired

Previous offices held: Current village trustee

Why are you running for this office? Is there a particular issue that motivates you? Also, what makes you the best candidate for the position?

With 12 years of elected public service, including five months as acting president of the village of Glen Ellyn, I have a unique understanding of how the village operates and collaborates with other government entities. My service includes:

• Three-term trustee of the village of Glen Ellyn (including two present and a term in the ’90s)

• Village board member to DuPage Mayors and Managers Legislative Committee

• Trustee liaison to the fire department, police pension board, and fire/police commission

• Past village board member of the DuPage Mayors and Managers Regulator Committee

• Past committee member of Glen Ellyn’s plan commission and zoning board of appeals

• Member of various District 41, District 87, and library task force committees

• Vice president of marketing — Glen Ellyn Chamber of Commerce

• Current member of the League of Women Voters

This community service has deepened my understanding of what’s needed to advocate for residents and businesses and how to secure funding beyond burdening the residents taxes. For example, during the village’s Streetscape project, I proposed a business grant to help businesses impacted by lost revenue. The proposal passed unanimously.

What is the most serious issue your community will face in coming years and how should leaders respond to it?

The most serious issue facing the village is the approximate $100 million of unfunded projects in the various planning stages of the village with one of the largest being forced upon us by the U.S. government — that being the removal of lead water pipes in the village.

Because of these unfunded projects, we will need to look at all the capital projects as a whole and prioritize/rank in terms of importance to the village. Afterward put the priorities into a timeline for completion, then determine funding needed, and then model all different funding sources on how to possibly accomplish these improvements. Community-wide discussion and involvement is of utmost importance when establishing the priorities of these projects.

How would you describe the state of your community's finances? What should be the top priorities for spending during the next few years? Are there areas of spending that need to be curtailed?

The village finances remain strong with strong reserves in all funds. This was accomplished by greatly reducing budgets during the pandemic to only essential services allowing the village to maintain a strong finance position during the economic downturn. The goal and top priority of our village must be to maintain our financial security to leave a prosperous Glen Ellyn for future generations.

I bring to the board the experience of having to make budgetary decisions that balance all aspects of village government. Maintaining the financial health of the village requires investing in essential services, providing business incentives to promote economic growth within the village, funding infrastructure improvements, and meeting the needs of our law enforcement to keep resident safe while minimizing the property tax levy

What do you see as the most important infrastructure project you 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?

The most urgent infrastructure project that we must address is our Life Safety Infrastructure while at the same time keeping our roads on a 20-year replacement cycle. The fire safety projects include both equipment and the remodel/building of our fire stations along with building a joint Glen Ellyn/Lombard Fire Training tower. We will need to look at using portions of the capital improvement and fire reserves while continuing to work with our state and federal representatives for possible grants.

Understanding that federal monies may not be relied on at this time, we will look to evaluate the possibility of securing bonds which can be paid off over 30 years using cash flow from the current fire & EMS funds gathered by the village can cover this and future fire safety needs.

In uncertain times, besides public safety, we always focus on the basic core functions of the village — maintain our roads, sewer, and water systems. We must always remember to keep focusing on the 4 Ps of public service- public safety, pavement, piping (water & sewer), and permitting.

Describe your leadership style and explain how you think it will be effective in producing effective actions and decisions with your village board.

Glen Ellyn is governed under the strong manager model with board oversight. Therefore the role of the president is to facilitate the board to reach a majority decision on all issues. I believe that I’m in the best position to accomplish this by creating an environment that brings back efficient village government under this form of government.

I believe my experience and background working with the current trustees, village staff, state representatives, local government entities and the community will assist the board to a majority consensus and get them to agree to move on from the issue.

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

I believe local government must always strive to improve transparency with its residents. To increase transparency, we should look at taping the village workshop meeting and adding these recordings to the village website. We should also look at discussing agenda items, possibly at workshops, prior to the village board meetings.

Why? So questions by the board and the community do not have to be asked and answered in real time. Transparency does not stop there, it needs to be all encompassing, from e-blast newsletter, to quarterly newsletter, to our website. An example, for our website, we need to make sure residents can easily understand services offered, make payments using the website, apply for permits online, and in the future, have a chat function for quick communication.

But, most important, we must strive to create a Glen Ellyn that is accepting, prosperous, sustainable, and resilient for the benefit of future generations, the first step in accomplishing this is to govern using the traditional vision of Glen Ellyn — one of respect, dignity, volunteerism, teamwork and most of all helping others/neighbors while taking pride in being a multi-generation village.