Phone
6305615467
Campaign Phone
6305615467
The biggest challenge facing Roselle right now continues to be how to fund the necessary infrastructure improvements for roads, water, and sewer treatment while remaining fiscally responsible.
Roselle is required to pay over $80 million dollars in water treatment plant upgrades that are required due to unfunded mandates. Also, Roselle is a mature village that has a lot of roads that continue to get older.
We must plan for more money every year to replace some of the roads and repair others that are not yet due for replacement. We educated the residents for over a year to explain the need for home rule to give us additional tools to help pay for these expenses. The residents agreed with us and passed the home rule referendum.
Roselle’s finances are healthy. However, we are always cognizant of the fact that both federal and state funding can continue to be reduced. That is why we maintain over 45% of our annual operating budget in reserves and have operated with a balanced budget for over a decade. The village board is fiscally responsible and appreciates the trust that our residents placed in us when they passed the home rule referendum.
The power to make local decisions is something that was definitely needed and helps us develop new revenue streams rather than increase real estate taxes. However, with greater power comes greater responsibility and I keep that in mind with every decision I make.
I absolutely support the development and enhancement of public spaces where community members can gather and engage. This is the type of thing that made the Daily Herald name Roselle a top place to live.
The redevelopment of the municipal campus with the new Petal Porch, Petal Plaza, and Petal Promenade is evidence of the Village putting words into actions. These new gathering spaces allow even more people to come to our downtown area to gather, shop in our stores, and enjoy our restaurants. We will be hosting and helping sponsor events this summer on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday nights. There will be a Farmer’s Market, additional outdoor concerts hosted with the Roselle Park District, and Roselle Cruise Nights.
Roselle is definitely a place that businesses want to be in. That is evidenced by our over 90% occupancy rate for both commercial and retail spaces. While we are extremely happy about that, it does present some problem with not having any land to build new buildings or having retail space available that a potential business may be interested in.
Therefore, we look very carefully at ways to develop areas that are currently under utilized or in need of an upgrade. The land swap with the library is an example of this. The land where the current library sits will give the village a large footprint of land that can be developed in our downtown area. There will be a lot of opportunities for residents to talk with the board to hear their ideas.
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Candidate has not yet responded.
Phone
6306355053
Campaign Phone
6306355053
I believe we need continued focus on keeping Roselle a thriving community, with low taxes and great constituent services. We need more family oriented robust business investments and better public infrastructure for residents and businesses.
The most significant challenge to our budget is the lack of transparency coming out of Springfield. Unfortunately, Springfield continues to push more mandates down to the local government level impacting Roselle. Therefore, the village has less ability for local control. With these types of mandates, we must be innovative to keep our budget balanced without raising taxes on our working families.
Yes, definitely, but only with neighborhood input first. I believe my role is to listen to folks who are in the area now, understand what improvements can be made and how. We all want to grow Roselle, but we need to respect residents opinions in the process.
We need to make Roselle a destination for people and business by slashing red tape, start promoting our TIF districts to attract better development, ensuring we make Roselle a place where businesses want to move to and employ people from within and around our town.
The most pressing issue is funding necessary infrastructure improvements, particularly IEPA-mandated upgrades to our water treatment facilities and expanding capacity at our sewage treatment plants for future development in town. The passage of the home rule referendum in March 2024 has provided us with better financial tools to address these challenges. However, we are still in the early stages of implementation, and significant work remains to ensure these projects move forward efficiently and with steady leadership that is aware of the history of these important projects.
Our community’s financial position is strong. We have a healthy reserve and have consistently had balanced budgets for the past decade. Additionally, home rule status has diversified our revenue streams, easing the tax burden and, effective this summer, it is allowing us to phase out vehicle stickers. While fiscal responsibility remains critical, infrastructure investment, especially the water treatment facilities and deferred road maintenance, must be prioritized to avoid additional long-term costs. A stitch in time saves nine, so utilizing the diversity and efficiency of these new revenue streams will allow us to address these infrastructure needs before they become critical.
This has been a major priority of ours over the last few years. Coming out of the pandemic, we viewed the return of community events as an important aspect of things returning to normal. A major part of this was remodeling our municipal campus so that it now can serve as a community center and meeting place, and we were extremely fortunate to have received grants to fund these updates. With this newly updated community area in the heart of the town, we have expanded the number of community events that will be held this upcoming summer. Residents, as well as those from neighboring communities, will be able to enjoy more concert nights, cruise nights, as well as a regular French market.
Roselle has had strong business development over the last few years. The occupancy rate for commercial and industrial spaces in town is over 90% and new businesses have been opening at a steady rate. One important change we have made is that we streamlined the permitting process by creating an online portal that makes it easier for business owners, and residents, to navigate the process. Additionally, we have increased efficiency through a reorganization of departments.
The only major issue that we face in terms of business development is the lack of available land. We are addressing this by looking at underutilized areas that can be redeveloped, such as in the case of the land swap agreement currently being executed with the library.
