Ray Bogdanowski: Candidate profile

Bio

Name: Ray Bogdanowski

City: Lake in the Hills

Office sought: Village Trustee

Age: 60

Family: Married, 3 Children, 9 Grandchildren

Occupation: COO

Education: CPIM Certified APICS- The Association of Operations Management

Civic involvement: Chairman- Summer Sunset Festival- Present, Police Commissioner Chair- 1991-2001, Citizens Police Academy I & II- First graduating class

Previous elected offices held: Village Trustee, Budget Officer

Incumbent: If yes, when were first elected? Yes 2001

Website:

Facebook: www.facebook.com/raybforLITHtrustee

Twitter:

Issue questions

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

We need to address empty storefronts and future commercial development. The village ultimately needs to grow its sales tax base. For the short term we need to fill up the empty storefronts. Long term we need more stores like "At Home" coming to the village. The village is very fortunate to have a mile and a half strip of land on Route 47 that can help us grow our sales tax base. While this area should be somewhat self-promoting, our obligation will be proper planning. We have the ability in our planning of future commercial development to utilize the positives as well as the negatives of the Randall Road corridor.

What makes you the best candidate for the job?

My commitment and dedication to the village and its residents makes me the best candidate. Based on my years of community service and my career in management I have gained expertise to provide leadership, transparency and fiscal responsibility. It's my pledge to work diligently to maintain the village's strengths while continuing to make improvements.

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 am as Visionary leader. I am optimistic about the future and believe that it's our responsibility as leaders to define, implement and maintain the vision of our residents and village staff. We should never settle, we need to be working on making tomorrow better than today. We must be willing to accept change.

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?

Lake in the Hills is in excellent fiscal health. Specific actions should include a budget that is developed based on a combination of essential services provided and input from residents regarding improvements and additional services requested. Requested services and programs can be communicated to the board via meeting participation, speaking directly to board members or completing surveys sent out by the village.

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

Once the Randall Road improvements are completed, I would like review options that would allow residents to safely walk across Randall Road. One option to consider is a pedestrian bridge. Another idea to consider is to improve the current public transportation system to allow residents to easily access the shopping areas in our local region. This would require collaboration with our surrounding municipalities. This could potentially decrease traffic congestion, improve public safety and be an environmentally friendly option for residents of McHenry County.