Tim Howe: 2025 candidate for Wauconda village board

Bio

Office Sought: Wauconda village board (Vote for 3)

City: Wauconda

Age: 64

Occupation: Private practice attorney

Previous offices held: Village trustee since 2015

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

Continuing to meet the needs of the community with limited resources. Essentially, there are only four sources of revenue: property tax (limited by PTELL), sales tax (reduced by the state's elimination of the grocery tax), MFT funds (restricted to roads) and the Local Government Distributive Fund — LGDF (which has been reduced to 6.47% of income tax paid by residents, from the originally intended 10%).

This is why we continue to work to expand EAV (to broaden the property tax base) and attract retail development (to increase sales tax revenues). We also aggressively pursue county, state and federal grants to supplement those sources.

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 has received the Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in Financial Reporting from the Government Finance Officers Association award for more than 10 years and regularly receives a clean audit report from an independent accounting firm. We currently have reserves at or above target levels, but inflationary pressures — particularly for road improvements — continue to have negative budgetary impacts.

Our priorities are and will remain providing core services: police protection, snow plowing, water and sewer services, economic development and road improvements.

We already are reducing or deferring some road improvements in order to avoid depleting reserves, but our budget is pretty lean as it is, and finding meaningful areas of saving (rather than nibbling around the edges) is challenging.

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?

The most important infrastructure project is the massive overhaul of our wastewater treatment plant, which is not only reaching the end of its useful life span, but also the subject of an unfunded mandate from state and federal regulators, imposing much stricter limits on the treatment and dispersal of both liquid and solid residuals after treatment.

We have already identified low-interest IEPA loans and grants to pay for a portion of the mandated improvements, but there's no question it will impact water/sewer fees.

As noted above, we are already deferring or reducing road improvement projects, but there are long-term downfalls to that practice as well, since deferred maintenance generally makes necessary future improvements more expensive.

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

I have been part of several strategic planning focus groups, which the village organizes on a regular basis in order to make sure we remain focused on the important issues. Our strategic plan is our blueprint, and the thing which should inform every decision we make. I'm a believer in the philosophy expressed by a former colleague — “does this advance our strategic plan” — when confronted with decisions.

I think I and my colleagues do a fairly good job of being collaborative (while understanding that we won't always agree 100%) in addressing the needs of the village. We also regularly solicit feedback from stakeholders — whether its via village-wide or neighborhood-specific residential surveys, outreach to the business community or from potential developers.

What makes you the best candidate for the job?

I have been involved in village government in one way or another for more than 10 years, starting with serving as chair of the community-based committee advocating for our Lake Michigan Water referendum. Following the successful passage of that referendum (by a 2-1 margin), I volunteered as a citizen-member of the village license and administrative committee tasked with updating and condensing the village code (using my decades of law practice), ultimately reducing it by nearly 50% by eliminating conflicting and/or redundant provisions.

I’ve been on the board for 10 years and currently chair the Economic Development Commission. I'm also an active volunteer on the local Lions Club and Moose Lodge, as well as lending my time to the chamber of commerce on a variety of projects.

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

As a current board member, I've never been shy about putting forth and advancing ideas — whether mine or someone else's — to make Wauconda a better place to live, work and play. So it's hard to identify an idea that “no one is talking about,” since we're always talking about ideas.