Mark Kownick: Candidate Profile

Back to Cary Village President

Note: Answers provided have not been edited for grammar, misspellings or typos. In some instances, candidate claims that could not be immediately verified have been omitted. Jump to:BioQA Bio City: CaryWebsite: Candidate did not respond.Twitter: Candidate did not respond.Facebook: Candidate did not respond.Office sought: Cary Village President Age: 57Family: I have been married to Shannon for 29 years. She is an elementary school teacher in Arlington Heights. We have three children, Matthew (25) is a mechanical engineer, Kaitlin (23) is an elementary school teacher, and Christopher (19) is a mechanical engineering student. All our children attended Cary schools and graduated from Cary Grove High School. We enjoy a number of activities with family and friends, including boating and water sports on local waterways, snow skiing, and cheering on local sports teams.Occupation: President and CEO of Action Building Maintenance CorporationEducation: I attended Harper College before earning a Bachelor's Degree in Business, Marketing, Advertising, Journalism from Southern Illinois University.Civic involvement: In addition to 4 years as Mayor, I previously served two years as village trustee. I serve as Ex-Officio Member of the Board of Directors for the Cary-Grove Chamber of Commerce, where I have been a member since 2008, and sit on the Steering Committee for the Cary Main Street Fest, a celebration of the Cary community I initiated in 2014. I also serve as Vice President of the McHenry County Council of Governments, member of the Board of Directors of the Northwest Municipal Conference, and member of the Committee for Housing and Community Development at the Metropolitan Mayors Caucus.Elected offices held: Cary Mayor since 2013; Cary Village Trustee 2011-2013Questions Answers What makes you the best candidate for the job?I refuse to focus on politics over making progress. I do not care who gets the credit for our successes, I only care that we are moving Cary forward. In contrast, my opponent has been attacking me constantly for years and dragging down our wonderful village.The truth is we are making excellent strides in Cary. I am so proud of the progress we have made. If honored with a second term, I promise to do a better job championing the many positives that make Cary such a wonderful place. In addition, I will build on our economic development successes to do what I can to lower our out-of-control property taxes. I will also continue to be a responsible steward of our residents' hard-earned tax dollars, because I know I am accountable to them for every dollar.Cary is consistently ranked as one of the best places in Illinois and even the nation for raising a family, and I refuse to let us get dragged down by people who gin up opposition and outrage to try to gain political power. While I have invested everything I have into doing the job, including attending 100% of the meetings, my opponent hasn't shown up for over 20% of our meetings since he was elected 2 years ago. While we have more work to do here in Cary, we won't get there through negativity and a lack of dedication. We can, and will, achieve our full potential by working together positively.How would you describe the condition of your community's budget, and what are the most important specific actions the town should take to assure providing the level of services that people want?Our budget is balanced and stable, but with property taxes out-of-control in Illinois we must continue to do everything we can to reduce taxes on our over-burdened residents, even if the village only makes up 5% of Cary residents' property tax bills.That is why I have prioritized economic development, which provides good-paying jobs for our residents and increases revenue for the village to offset property taxes, including sales tax revenue from the 6,000 people who commute into Cary for work every day. Since I took office in 2013, we have attracted approximately 74 new businesses to Cary while helping 8 of our existing businesses expand. In fact, Sage Products recently announced its expansion over the next few years, adding over 800,000 square feet and creating up to 450 new jobs.To accomplish this, we took a number of growth-oriented steps. We reduced fees, re-instituted a façade improvement program, resurrected a low-interest loan program, helped small businesses utilize grant programs, and began working to improve the streetscape of our downtown.Our economic development successes allowed us to keep our portion of property tax bills flat my first two years in office and reduce those taxes the past two years.Over the next four years, I want to work to annex several vacant properties on our borders that we can utilize for commercial development, develop the property around Meyer Material, attract more commercial development along Route 31, and find the right strategic opportunities for our remaining vacant properties.Where, if anywhere, could the current budget be trimmed, and conversely, are there areas the budget does not give enough money to?I will continue to be a responsible steward of the public's tax dollars, as I understand we are working with their hard-earned tax dollars and we absolutely must continue to find ways to be more efficient and cut spending.At the village, we have reduced our employee headcount to 58, down from 65 when I took office (and as high as 90 when I started as Trustee). This is a necessity because our annual state pension obligation for our police department continues to grow, from $485,000 when I took office to over $1 million next year. While we continue to lobby Springfield to get their act together and enact pension reforms, we are taking steps to continue to reduce expenses elsewhere and generate additional revenues through economic development to keep our budget flat and lower property taxes.A unique avenue for saving tax dollars is through municipal partnering. Since becoming mayor, the village has taken the lead on intergovernmental cooperation to develop efficiencies within village operations. We work with other communities to bid projects to get lower costs, which has saved taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars. In fact, we've become trailblazers in this area, leading other municipalities in our region to follow our lead. Moving forward, I want to continue to expand our municipal partnering, looking at every dollar we spend to try to identify additional savings through economies of scale.Describe your leadership style and explain how you think that will be effective in producing effective actions and decisions with your village board or city council.I have approached the honor of serving my neighbors in Cary with humility and integrity, focusing on the job rather than touting the successes we have achieved in my first term as Mayor. That is my personality: put my head down and get the job done that I was hired to do.I'm a huge fan of Ronald Reagan and have visited the Reagan Presidential Museum multiple times. I have a bust of him in my office that contains a plaque with these words: #8220;There is no limit to what a man can do or where he can go if he doesn't mind who gets the credit.#8221; That is my mantra. I just want to get things done.To ensure we continue to move our community forward, I led the effort to develop a comprehensive plan for Cary. This vision for our future was compiled by experts with input from over a thousand of our residents, our village leaders, many of our businesses and organizations, and every government entity that represents our community. We worked diligently to solicit this input and develop a collaborative plan that charted a course for our village for years to come. This plan will help guide us as we move into the future.What is one good idea you have to better the community that no one is talking about yet?Prior to my taking over as Mayor, we didn't get involved much in regional efforts. But I have made it a priority to build relationships with our legislators and get involved in regional organizations, including currently serving as Vice President of the McHenry County Council of Governments as well as with the Northwest Municipal Conference and Metropolitan Mayor's Caucus.This involvement has helped secure much-needed funds for infrastructure improvements. We sought out and were recently awarded a $2 million federal grant as well as over $300,000 from the state to build a new Metra station on the inbound side of the tracks as well as another fully enclosed shelter. The new station and shelter will be much safer and accommodating so our more than 800 daily commuting residents don't have to stand out in bad weather waiting for their trains. We also worked to bring in nearly $1 million in federal funding to fix a horrible 20-year flooding disaster that continually invaded numerous homes during heavy rains at the corner of Sunset and Crest Drive. In addition, we have secured over $1.5 million in grants to rebuild Three Oaks Road from Silver Lake to Rawson Bridge Road.I will continue to use my leadership positions in those organizations to ensure Cary's infrastructure needs are met, including identifying regional transportation projects that can reduce congestion while supporting our employers.What other issues, if any, are important to you as a candidate for this office?Through all the negativity of our politics, it's time we focused on what makes Cary such a wonderful place to live, work, play, and raise a family. There is a reason why NerdWallet ranked Cary the 3rd best city in the nation for young families, while Wallet Hub named us the 7th best Illinois city to raise a family.There is so much that makes our community great. We are a compassionate, family-oriented community with a hometown feel that relates back to our roots and history. We have incredible schools, great parks, and an award-winning trail system. We are centrally located and easily accessible. We have a strong community spirit, with our residents coming together to volunteer their time and talent to provide activities for our children and families. We have a strong business core, including manufacturing and businesses both small and large. And we have the lowest crime rate in McHenry County, leading Value Penguin to name us the 5th safest mid-sized city in Illinois.To celebrate our community and the people who make it great, three years ago I initiated the annual #8220;Cary Main Street Fest.#8221; In partnership with the Cary Chamber of Commerce, this community-wide festival takes over our downtown for 2 days in September highlighting the best that Cary has to offer, bringing our community together and attracting people from all throughout the region. The event drew approximately 6,000 people when we launched it in 2014, and this past year it grew to over 8,000 people.Please name one current leader who most inspires you.Candidate did not respond.What is the biggest lesson you learned at home growing up?Candidate did not respond.If life gave you one do-over, what would you spend it on?Candidate did not respond.What was your favorite subject in school and how did it help you in later life?Candidate did not respond.If you could give your children only one piece of advice, what would it be?Candidate did not respond.