Robert Williams: Candidate profile

Bio

Name: Robert Williams

City: Rolling Meadows

Office sought: 7th ward alderman

Age (on election day): 80

Family: 2 sons, 6 grandchildren, 1 grandchild

Occupation: retired

Education: college grad- Midland University, some grad work at Princeton

Civic involvement: 43 year resident, worked on home rule election

Previous elected offices held: President Rolling Meadows Chamber of Commerce, currently President Fairfax Village Association

Incumbent? If yes, when were you first elected? Appointed to fill the vacancy August 2018

Website:

Facebook:

Twitter:

Issue questions

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

Infrastructure maintenance and replacement and construction of 2 fire stations without doing damage to the City's credit rating and placing an unreasonable burden on the taxpayers. The City enjoys an excellent rating at present, and through service on the Capital Improvement Committee I intend to do my best to keep the City on track with it's borrowing and balancing of priorities to get the best "bang for the buck" it can get.

What makes you the best candidate for the job?

Not that there is a "best candidate", but my many years of experience in the financial field with Dun & Bradstreet and owning my own business should help me to be of value to the City in its efforts to take care of the taxpayers without breaking the bank.

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 try to be knowledgeable about issues that come up and do not hesitate to seek others knowledge and help so that I can make an informed decision. To make decisions I seek opinions both pro and con from within and without the community, and I try to keep personalities and prejudices (both mine and the information givers) out of it.

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?

Rolling Meadows has done a good job of watching how it spends its residents tax money, and is working on several projects right now that will make operations even more efficient and responsive to the residents needs. Taking a broad view on all issues and not letting the vocal minority overwhelm the facts and the larger picture needs to continue. The City has done a good job of helping with neighborhood problems while not forgetting the larger picture up until now and needs to continue that.

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