Laurie Taylor: Candidate profile

Bio

Name: Laurie Taylor

City: Arlington Heights

Office sought: Village Trustee (4-year term)

Age (on Election Day): 62

Family: Husband (Joe) Daughter (Kim) Son-in-law (Jesus) Grandson (Gabriel)

Occupation: IT Support Specialist

Education: Alumni of both College of DuPage (Glen Ellyn) and Harper (Palatine)

Civic involvement: President of the Northgate Civic Association, Hearts of Gold recipient (2014), Nomination for Chamber of Commerce Community Leadership award (2019), write a weekly email that I receive correspondence from the ARL Hts schools (elementary and D214) for publication, involved with the ARL Hts Park District (Northgate annual event and association), Chamber of Commerce, ARL Hts Police Dept (Community affairs), Arlington Hts Veterans commission (Memorial Day Parade and Honor Flight).

I have been told that this email finds itself going around Arlington Heights where other subdivision have removed the references to Northgate and replace it with their own. They then send it out to the residents within their subdivision.

I have been privileged to work with the Arlington Hts Forestry department (Dru Sabatello and Ashley Karr) along with four other subdivisions (Northgate 5 (Ed Michalski), Arlington Terrace (Peter Hynes). Surrey Ridge (Sam Moser) and Surrey Ridge West (Tom McDonnell)

Previous elected offices held: President of Northgate Civic Association

Incumbent? If yes, when were you first elected? No

Website: www.northgate60004.com

Issue questions

What are the most important issues facing your community and how do you intend to address them?

Communication. Social media sites such as Nextdoor continuously fill a need for communication. However, it works by sending "blasts" of information at anytime. I find that if we are more focused, consistent with our communication, people will be more receptive. We are constantly bombarded every day with texts and email and calls that we peek at what is coming to us, read the first couple of words and then forget about it.

The other reason communication is so important is because of the need for people to join forces regarding community projects and events and to avoid the resident of having to respond at that very moment. I learned a very valuable lesson with the EAB (Emerald Ash Borer) project. We posted information on news media, websites, email blasts, newspaper articles, flyers on doors, green dots on trees, meetings. One time the village showed up to take a tree down, the homeowner came running out and asked what they were doing. The person from the village asked if they heard about the Emerald Ash Borer and the resident said he heard nothing about it, this was the first time. This same situation occurred a couple more times.

What makes you the best candidate for the job?

I am so active in the community for quite a number of years. I am definitely a "people-person". I enjoy meeting people and working with people. It gives me great pleasure when I am able to help introduce people to one another where they both could help each other. I really enjoy working with people and coming up with ideas and then taking the next step; making the idea work!

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

I like to reach out to people and GT a consensus of how they feel about topics. At our monthly board meetings, we all try to bring new ideas to the table. We listened to one another, ask questions, discuss obstacles in the path and eventually come to a resolution; something that mimics a mini-project plan: what is the scope (goal), risks (takes in the pros and cons that were identified), costs if any and eventually an outcome.

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 people want?

Very diverse. With over 76,000 people in our village and the differences with all residents within our village, our budget needs to be extremely stable. One thing everyone agrees on is that they don't want higher taxes but they would like "XYZ". In order to accomplish that, you know from doing your own home budgets, you either need to cut an expense or you need to find a way to get more money (revenue).

We need to be able to provide equally to all residents for their needs. For example; we have over 100 miles of streets in Arlington Heights. Our street maintenance budget has to be able to address keeping all these streets in good working condition. I've taken a look at the line item for maintenance and we do a remarkable job with the money in our budget. Some people have mentioned to me that their street could use some more upkeep. It would be great if we could hold some informal meetings with residents, or maybe do a television program or you-tube on how decisions are made to determine what streets will have construction on them the next year. Who knows, this may actually give some advice on maybe another method to consider.

Never close doors, every open one is an opportunity.

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

Born out of the "communication" topic, I would really like to get an initiative going where all the subdivisions in Arlington Hts are identied. Then create an association, identifying people who would be the communicators for the subdivision. These people could meet with the village on occasion to discuss topics that the residents of the association are saying are important to them along with other topics currently happening within the village. We are a very long and diverse village. Our southern end is Golf Rd and our northern end is Lake Cook Rd. We all live in Arlington Heights and we have different issues and needs from one end to the other. However, we should all know what is going on within our entire village. Then we can hae more input in the kinds of decisions that impact our entire villages budget and our services. I would love to be able to promise everyone what is on their wish list but I know I cant. However, if we can communicate what we would like and bring it to a discussion, even if our idea doesn't get considered, I would feel proud to bring the idea up to a group and know my idea was listened to.