Sussman looks ahead to next four years as Buffalo Grove village president

Fresh off victory in a tightly contested and at times heated mayoral campaign, Buffalo Grove Village President Beverly Sussman said generating more community involvement in local government is among the priorities she will push in the first 100 days of her second term.

Unofficial results from Cook and Lake counties show Sussman garnered 2,492 votes to challenger Mike Terson's 2,340 in Tuesday's election. Terson, a former village trustee, bested Sussman in Cook with a 773-702 tally, but she took Lake with 1,790 votes to his 1,567.

Terson called Sussman Wednesday morning to concede and congratulate her on the victory, she said.

One of the immediate tasks of her second term will be to continue seeking ways to generate more revenue for Buffalo Grove through economic development, Sussman said.

"Something else that I would like to work on is trying to improve our (advisory) committees and commissions, and update them and come up with a few new committees and commissions that I think would do well and have a lot of citizen engagement," she said. "So, I'd like to have a lot more people in the community being part of the commissions and committees."

During the campaign, Terson criticized Buffalo Grove's Lake-Cook Corridor Plan, arguing that it should focus more on redevelopment of the village-owned golf course near Raupp Boulevard and Lake-Cook Road for a mix of residential, retail and office uses.

Sussman, however, opposes redevelopment of the golf course, saying it could lead to flooding on neighboring properties. She noted a report from this week's village board meeting that showed Buffalo Grove Golf Course has recorded a five-year average of 35,364 rounds played, above the U.S. average of roughly 30,000 per course.

"The Buffalo Grove Golf Course is in the black and we are making money for the next seven years," Sussman said. "So I think that should make people feel a little better. We're not losing money. We're making money. And there's no reason to get rid of it at all."

Sussman, a retired science teacher who worked at Kildeer Countryside Elementary District 96, was a trustee when she defeated Village President Jeff Braiman in 2015. She was a village board trustee from 2009 to 2015.