John M. Piwko: 2025 candidate for Huntley village president

Bio

Office Sought: Huntley village president

City: Huntley

Age: 64

Occupation: Retired

Previous offices held: Huntley village trustee (2007-21, 2023 to current); Huntley plan commissioner (2005-07); and Citizen Corp Council president (2009-21)

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?

Collectively, after 16 years of being on the village board as a trustee, I feel that I have enough knowledge to lead Huntley into the future. My ideas from the past have been ignored or scaled down too much to make a difference.

I also feel that over the past four years there have been projects that could have been put off a couple of years that would have saved money that could have been allocated to what I feel is our main project of widening and reconstruction of Kreutzer Road.

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

As I stated before, the Kreutzer Road project is a big deal. Now with the possibility of losing the federal dollars that we have allocated, we would need to come up with other ways to fund the project. With that of course there would probably be a delay in getting the project started.

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?

Our finances are in pretty good shape compared to other towns. We have a little debt that needs to be paid off. The top priorities for spending would be our normal operations of the village and to continue the redevelopment of other areas in town. I’m sure if we did a deep dive we could probably reduce some of the expenses we have had in the past.

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?

As mentioned, the most important infrastructure project is the widening and reconstruction of Kreutzer Road. We have received several grants over time as well as allocating money in our annual budget for the project. Kreutzer Road is a busy east-west thoroughfare in our town. It functions as a bypass of the downtown area in conjunction with Sass Parkway for both cars and trucks.

We have other projects that are included in our five-year plan that would probably be pushed to next five-year plan.

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

I feel that I have a democratic style of leadership. I would solicit input from not only staff but from the trustees on the board. With the buy in from the board, projects would be agreed upon perhaps quicker and executed as soon as possible. This would let everyone feel apart of the team that makes Huntley better than any other town or village around us.

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

One thing I’ve been pushing for is a destination venue. “You have to go to Huntley for it” type of place. Whether it would be a dinner theater or comedy club or something similar for adults. I would also like to see something young adults and even younger children.