Mike Wagner: Candidate Profile

Back to Volo Village Board

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: VoloWebsite: coming soonOffice sought: Volo Village Board Age: 44Family: Kim Jeremy Nathan ZachOccupation: FireMedic Wauconda Fire DistrictEducation: Some CollegeCivic involvement: Candidate did not respond.Elected offices held: Trustee for Volo since 2000Questions Answers What makes you the best candidate for the job?Life long resident Experience with the Village, property owners, and business owners. Have built relationships with other communities and state officials Have been meeting with developers, retailers, franchizee, and others to build in Volo.What is your opinion of your community's present level of local sales and property taxes? Is the tax just right, too low or too high? Explain.Right now our tax is just right. We have been planning for the future by cutting cost but still improving our infastructure to prepare for new development. Lake Michigan water will raise our taxes, but we know its important to take advantage of the opportunity now so that Volo will have all of our improvements done prior to developers coming in and will provide Volo a secure and safe drinking water for many years to come.Rate the efficiency of your town's police and fire coverage. Are the departments well prepared for the next decade? What, if anything, should be changed? Do you have specific public safety concerns?Right now Volo contracts with Lake County Sheriffs department for our police service. As we grow we will be able to improve our service and add more police presents in our Village. We dont have the resources to have our own police force and by contracting through the County instead of a neighboring community allows us to have a dedicated presence in Volo and we are able to take advantage of all the resources that the county has available. We are part of the Wauconda and Fox Lake Fire Districts and as the public safety chairman I was able to work with both agencies to update our fire codes and have added that any new subdivision has to offer new construction the option of adding residential sprinklers when purchasing a new houseWhere, if anywhere, could the current budget be trimmed, and conversely, are there areas the budget does not give enough money to?Over the last year we have made several adjustments to our budget. We have hired a Village Administrator with the plan of cutting staff, trimming unnecessary spending, setting aside funds for future capital projects, and coming up with a plan to bring Lake Michigan Water to Volo with the least amount of impact on our residence. In the near future as we are able to add to our tax base we will be able to increase the budget for parks. We have a parks study completed, but have never moved forward with the next phase.What's one good idea you have to better the community that no one is talking about yet?Finish our park plan. Years ago a study was done to find the needs of the community for our parks. Unfortunately due to low staffing and lack of a committee structure for parks, nothing has been done with the parks besides routine maintenance. I have been pushing to make parks a priority and have a capitol development plan completed especially for the Municipal park. I have met with sport organization and area businesses that will help raise funds and develop our parks with us.What other issues, if any, are important to you as a candidate for this office?Attracting businesses to provide sales tax revenue. As part of the Economic Development Committee we have been selling Volo to every major retailer and developer in the US. We are getting closer to attracting business, but have been held back by the economy, retailers currently are filling in vacant buildings before starting and new development, and lack the demographics that the retailers are looking for. Volo has the traffic counts retailers are looking for, but we need to increase the populations and day time population in order for Volo to become even more attractive for retailers. Once we have are able to bring in sales tax dollars we can increase parks and offer other services to our residence.Please name one current leader who most inspires you.Candidate did not respond.What's the biggest lesson you learned at home growing up?Friends come and go, but family will always be there.If life gave you one do-over, what would you spend it on?College. My high school never stressed the importance of collegeWhat was your favorite subject in school and how did it help you in later life?History.If you could give your children only one piece of advice, what would it be?Take advantage of opportunities when they appearFalse32642448Mike Wagner, running for <a href="/news/politics/election/race/Volo-Village-Board/">Volo Village Board</a> False