Quin O’Brien: 2025 candidate for Gurnee mayor

Bio

Office Sought: Gurnee mayor

City: Gurnee

Age: 62

Occupation: Realtor

Previous offices held: Gurnee Village Board 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?

Gurnee is a unique town. I believe Gurnee will benefit from a leader who has been an visionary entrepreneur for the last 25-plus years. I am a dynamic speaker, a creative thinker, a marketer, and a problem solver. I understand the balance between the property owners, the small business owners, the major national chains, and the millions of annual visitors. In a town which pays its bills primarily via visitors and fun, having a marketer/PR person as mayor would be a good fit.

As for the initial “Why,” I was asked by several “Old Gurnee” people who saw my love for Gurnee and my creative way of promoting it to run for mayor. They thought, and I agree, Gurnee will benefit from a person who exudes the excitement that Gurnee is. They were initially impressed when I invented “Toms Tours” which was a social media program designed to help Mayor Hood get elected 4 years ago. The name was based on alliteration.

The idea was to visit local businesses and then report back to the residents on social media. For 3 years I was the one who took the pictures, created the content, and posted it to social media. The residents as well as the businesses loved it.

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

The village’s water distribution system.

Roughly 46% of the village’s water mains were installed between 1987 and 1997 and thusly will need to be replaced between 2064 and 2074. Currently we are setting aside $2 million a year to prepare for replacement, we need to be saving double that or $4 million a year. It is 30 years in the future but planning needs to be done now or there will be an almost insurmountable task; not just a financial one but also a logistical one.

We need to start a replacement schedule ahead of time addressing mains before they are actually at the fail-point. There is no way we can do them all in one decade. The most pressing step is to replace any cast iron mains as they are the oldest, most brittle, and most prone to failure presently. Then we can move on to the older PVC pipe installed at the beginning of the boon.

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?

Currently, the village is in fantastic financial shape. Less one low-interest IEPA loan of $3 million for a water tower, the village is debt free. We pay extra on principal annually so that it will be paid off in 2030 instead of 2040. However, I'd like to accelerate that schedule to have Gurnee fully debt free in 3 years or less.

Our pensions are well-funded and we have savings in the general fund plus a contingency plan in case the economy turns bad so clearing up that only debt will give us more cushion in case of another downturn.

However, we are about to lose roughly $2 million in grocery tax and while Gurnee has the ability to replace that tax with a new grocery tax, I would prefer to not add it and “save” the residents the 1%.

If necessary, I would limit the Small Business Capital Grant (SBCG). That was a program created to help those most hurt by COVID but now those businesses have rebounded and a savings in groceries, no matter how small, will help the most vulnerable citizens. The SBCG is only $250,000 but there are other operational savings available.

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?

Road resurfacing should be brought back to a historical level and the same (or more) money should be spent on the water mains.

Gurnee has subsidized water rates for the last 3 years by not raising rates to match inflation and also implemented a senior water exemption. They were great ideas and programs especially after COVID but now Gurnee has the lowest water rate of all of the Central Lake County Joint Action Water Agency customers and we need to get our rates back to historical levels so as to fend off the looming water infrastructure cliff.

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

I am collaborative and inclusive. Everyone has a seat at the table and everyone who both serves on the board and is employed by the village has good intentions for Gurnee. Their ideas matter. I already encourage open communication through my curious and open communication style.

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

My idea: A free trolley bus similar to the one by Woodfield that runs on a constant loop between Gurnee Mills, the restaurants, the hotels, Great Wolf Lodge, and Six Flags Great America/Hurricane Harbor along Grand Avenue on either side of the tollway.

Then, advertise to the U.S. Navy telling the families of graduates that Gurnee has it all and it’s all connected.

Benefits: Boost hotel revenue, sales tax revenue, amusement park revenue, food and beverage revenue, and provide safe passage across the tollway and Grand Avenue. Plus, parents of kids working at Great America could pick up their worker-bees at the mall instead of adding to the traffic on Grand or having to have the kids walk to Burger King.

The goal is to increase nonresident revenue so that the residents of Gurnee can continue to enjoy all that Gurnee has to offer and yet the village won’t have to levy a property tax (something it has not had to do for almost a quarter a century). It will also help to make life easier for visitors, small businesses, and national chains in one relatively easy move.