Endorsement: For Buffalo Grove village president, Sussman

Buffalo Grove voters will decide April 2 whether to give the community's top elected official a second term or to replace her with a former village board member who contends he can better help the village navigate financial challenges that could lie ahead.

We recommend they stick with Beverly Sussman.

We did not endorse her four years ago, and frankly, we must concede that there still are some gaps in her leadership skills. If she's re-elected, we encourage her to strengthen communication efforts and to work to build relationships, with leaders both in and outside of Buffalo Grove.

That said, aided by a strong board and an able village staff, she has overseen a period of controlled expenses, balanced budgets, creative financing and recruitment of new businesses that will provide needed resources for infrastructure repairs and other village needs.

Perhaps one of the most memorable examples of the village's creative energy involves the process undertaken to court Woodman's Food Market. In that effort, village officials conducted an unusual meeting in which they rented busses and welcomed citizens to come along as administrators and elected officials traveled to Kenosha to meet with top Woodman's executives.

Woodman's eventually opened a store in Buffalo Grove. Other businesses and industries also have moved to the village during Sussman's term, including Business IT Source and ThermFlo/Zonatherm. Sussman knows the village will need more to provide sales tax and other revenues.

Her challenger, former one-term trustee Mike Terson, correctly sees the challenges on the horizon, but his insistence that the village has not focused sufficiently on attracting more sales tax-producing businesses seems, at the very least, exaggerated.

Don't get us wrong. In many ways, we like Terson. He's run a constructive, positive campaign and offers both energy and vision, but the vision he embraced during his earlier term was roundly rejected by the voters and we're at least slightly concerned that his employment with the park district could present conflicts in intergovernmental relationships were he to be elected village president.

It's a close call. Terson is a qualified candidate.

But ultimately his one term of village board experience does not hold up against Sussman's decade of service as both a trustee and village president.

In addition to her public service, Sussman also brings the experience of a successful business woman and longtime schoolteacher. She is a 47-year Buffalo Grove resident who has shown she can manage village government successfully. We recommend voters return her for a second term.