In the absence of any other options everything should be considered, however, I have to wonder - has the village really considered all the options, and what exactly are they? For example, Knoxvile TN, is well-prepared to take advantage of Federal Stimulus money...The energy department alone has $6.3bln to distribute to state and local governments...what does our village spend per annum on energy-related costs, has an energy study been performed, and what are our plans to tap these funds?

From what I gather the Board has not really looked into anything besides raising the sales tax. They seem to be opposed to reducing head count or salaries so that leaves them with the only option of raising taxes.

amazing - no wonder we're running into an escalating shortfall (GE not US.) Look at the forecast expense assumptions contained here here

4% YoY salary increase???
unreliable property growth forecasts..
2% YoY fee increases for business
DOUBLING OF PENSION BENEFITS

ridiculous!

I'm confused. Those estimates show no differences in expenditures. Wouldn't it make sense to show those options as well?

DTM, exactly. He's provided multiple revenue scenarios but no expense options.
where I come from, revenue modeling is accompanied by expense modeling...that's to say, sahreholders would have my head without it.

I would like to know why the village isn't considering an across the board paycut to compensate - and - indexing reinstatement of that paycut to on-par performance with goals. I.e. increasing tax revenues and population growth and so on...metrics which are transparent and which directly correlate to the health of the community.

net/net all expense line items show complete lack of financial vision. Why is he assuming a 3% annual increase in legal expenses, for example?

The only good news here is that just because something is budgeted doesn't mean that the dollars must be spent exactly as shown.

Come May we will have a new village president and several new trustees. I'm sure Mark, who (unlike our current president and a majority of the present board) has the brains he was born with and will adjust expenditures accordingly. With luck, he will also be a better influence and mentor for our village manager.

Remember, people... we're a jerkwater little village of only 27,000. Our village government isn't even responsible for schools, parks, public transportation, a fire department, a library, or even cleaning snow off downtown sidewalks. This isn't the sort of burg that is ever going to attract competent, top-of-their-class, professional municipal administrators.

You will have a new Village President and Three new Village Trustees. All more than likely from the CBP. In short same song different tune.

From the CBP website:

What is the Civic Betterment Party?


CBP is a political party without a platform. It is the entire community, represented by a nominating committee of residents from all areas of the Village. CBP is focused on one issue only - providing the Village with good leadership for both the Village and Library. CBP recruits, interviews candidates, sends qualified candidates to the Town Meeting for the Village to vote on who will then represent the Party on the Spring general election ballot.

What is the CBP’s political agenda?

See above
_____

I hate to be the one to break this to you, but you are a member of the Civic Betterment Party, taxpayer. If you don't know anything about the process that occurred this past Fall where several highly qualified residents were nominated and then final candidates selected in the Town meeting, there is only one reason:

You were not paying attention.

Don't be too hard on the Civic Betterment Party. If you live in Glen Ellyn, you are a member. Any resident can choose to be active in it, or ignore it.

As Pogo once said, "We have met the enemy and he is us."

Pendulums swing. Based on the disaster of the past four years I believe the CBP, whose active members now include lots of new blood, has seen the error of its ways. The candidates they recruited last fall were all great choices and, in general, represent a younger generation.

I know exactly how the CBP process works.

Lets see they hold their initial Q and A behind closed doors. They both run the primary election and endorse the candidates. They hold the election in one building usually after a general election to keep turnout low so that their guys will get in.

Somewhere Daley and Lenin must be smiling.

Can anyone point me to a summary of the village's finances for FY 06,07 & 08? I would very much like to see how the current projections line up against prior year's actuals.

I actually went to the CBP meeting late last year - shame on me for never bothering before. Taxpayer, have you ever thought of running for any civic office - village, school board, whatever? It can only help any process when you can get people of diverse views actively involved.

quote:

Originally posted by taxpayer:
I know exactly how the CBP process works.

Clearly you do not.

quote:

Lets see they hold their initial Q and A behind closed doors.

Right. Candidates are interviewed by a large group of citizens from all across the village. (Which is "us," not "they.") How many residents gather to vet the independent candidates who choose to avoid a CBP interrogation and run outside of the process? And note, if you have a problem with the secrecy of the behind-closed-doors interview process, you can choose to bypass it and be nominated from the floor instead (as Mark Pfefferman did this year).

quote:

They both run the primary election and endorse the candidates.

Exactly. And again -- us, not they. Remember, you are a member of the CBP. (Although not a very good one.)

And geeze -- selecting and endorsing candidates is the whole point of a primary.

quote:

They hold the election in one building usually after a general election to keep turnout low so that their guys will get in.

They don't hold an election, they hold a primary. And of course their guys get in, whether they were nominated by the closed-door interviewers or from the floor. What do you think a primary is?

quote:

Somewhere Daley and Lenin must be smiling.

Again: You clearly don't understand the process. Out of curiosity, what would you suggest as an alternative? Remember...

First, by definition everyone is a member of the CBP. Those who don't participate have (in my opinion) given up their right to complain about it.

Second, a candidate can be nominated and go on to win the CBP primary with or without CBP selection and closed-door vetting.

Third, if they wish, anyone can run in the general election without participating at all in the CPB process. What other options or alternatives would you add?

Yes, our electorate made some pretty poor choices in recent years. But the CBP process didn't fail us. The voters did.

Get rid of the CBP entirely. Anyone who gets say 50 or so petitions gets to run. If no one gets more than 50 percent of the vote then the top two or three will run in the general election. Primary and General elections will take place on the same date as other General and or Primary elections. This will insure more people get to vote.

So how many people are in the CBP Central Committe. I'm going to guess that the overwhelming majority live near or in the downtown area. How many trustees etc live say South of Roosevelt.

To say that I have no right to criticize the CBP and its fraudulent/rigged election process because I have not run for office would mean that no one hear should say criticize the President , members of Congress, Governor etc. Unless of course you have actually run for those offices.

Just curious how this off-topic CBP discussion relates to the Sales Tax issue?

quote:

Get rid of the CBP entirely.

Yeah, your friend Lenin would like that. "What? Citizens want to gather together to recruit friends and neighbors to run for elected office? Kill them!"

You miss what may well be the most important service of the CBP. It has been said that anyone who wants to be president probably shouldn't be allowed to be president. The same is likely true of most any elected office.

Glen Ellyn is blessed with educated, informed and talented citizens, any number of whom would make good elected officials. But most are too busy in the real world to even think of running for local office.

One of the most worthwhile things the CBP does is to identify residents who have the background and experience to represent the interests of the community, and then to convince them to run and, if elected, serve.

It's a throwback to the early days of our country when a bunch of citizens agreed that they wanted so-and-so to represent them in Washington or the state capitol or wherever. The chosen one would plead that no, he had a farm to run and too many other things to do, but his supporters would finally convince him so that he would, reluctantly, take his turn in the barrel.

Many of our best village presidents and trustees in the past did not seek the office, but were cajoled into serving by the CBP.

On occasion the CBP has failed us, most recently when they saw the election as simply a way to "honor" a resident for past service to the community, and lost track of the fiscal credentials and thinking skills necessary to properly fulfill the responsibilities of the office. Fortunately, this did not happen this year.

quote:

...the CBP and its fraudulent/rigged election process

With that incredibly uneducated, uninformed and just plain stupid crack you have eliminated yourself from any further serious consideration on this or any other subject.

No I'm sure actually Lenin would have approved of the CBP.

The main focus of the CBP seems to be recruiting the "right" kind of people to run for election. Which you seem to indicate that is one of its goals. In short to get people who are very much like the Current CPB members themselves.

If you read anything about the Communist Party that was to a certain extent how people were recruited and admitted to the Party. Yes Lenin would heartily approve of the CPB.

So the CPB finds people it thinks are fit to run. Has them go through a closed door interview process. And surprise they are endorsed by the CBP.

An election kinda, sorta is held in Downtown and surprise again 99% of the time the people recruited by the CBP and passing through their rigorous screening process win.

If the CBP wants to be a political party fine let it be one. If it wants to be a kind of League of Women Voters it can be that to. But it shouldn't be both.

Since everyone here keeps reminding me that we're all members of the CBP. Why aren't we allowed to watch their little interview process.

Or is this like Animal Farm we're all equal but some are more equal than others.

By the Way I try to refrain from making personal attacks on anyone or their opinions maybe you should do the same.

quote:

Originally posted by taxpayer:
Get rid of the CBP entirely. Anyone who gets say 50 or so petitions gets to run.

Hi taxpayer,

Please know before you read the rest of this post that I am not trying to change your mind regarding the CBP. Gabriel’s words eloquently capture a majority of my views.

That being said, one ought to respect the Town Meeting process. To participate in this process is actually much more open than you suggest above. It only takes one signature, the candidate’s own, to run in this de-facto village primary. Once on the ballot, the candidate presents her/himself to the residents both formally, via speeches, and informally, by being available to answer individual voters’ questions for at least eight hours. (This opportunity, btw, is provided without cost to taxpayers, unlike other municipal primaries.)

I value the Town Meeting process because it attracts more residents to meet the candidates and educate themselves on the issues than any other venue available at this time. I will be honored to participate in many public forums and meetings over the next five weeks for the upcoming general election. The attendance at all of these upcoming events COMBINED will not equal half the number of people who showed up to meet and vet the candidates at the Town Meeting.

And guess what? If one is successful and wins the Town Meeting/primary election, he or she must still gather the 50 or more signatures you suggest above to get a place on the general election ballot in April! (My wife and I were out with pen in hand the following week!)

The election is about Glen Ellyn, not any individual candidate. The more chances the residents have to meet and learn about the candidates, the better. The Town Meeting goes a long way in providing this opportunity. I hope you agree.

Mark

quote:

Originally posted by Mark Pfefferman:
The attendance at all of these upcoming events COMBINED will not equal half the number of people who showed up to meet and vet the candidates at the Town Meeting.

Mark,

Unlike you, I didn't grow up here and don't have as long a history with Glen Ellyn's electoral traditions. While I think taxpayer's argumentation goes overboard, I am still uncomfortable after living here for 10 years with an arrangement in which the general election is essentially a rubber stamp of one party's "firehouse primary". One thing that really grates on me is the fact that fans of the CBP so often trot out the Town Meeting as being an excellent example of openness. For several years, I volunteered at a scholastic chess tournament held every year at Hadley on the Saturday before Thanksgiving. On a number of occasions, the Town Meeting was held that same day. I was usually able to find enough time to sneak out of the tournament to run over to the Civic Center to vote, but I never had enough time to hear from any of the candidates there. There was little opportunity other than the Town Meeting to learn about the candidates. In my opinion, that wasn't a very open process. The CBP did a bit better job this year by publishing some candidate statements and posting candidate videos. However, none of those were particularly revealing. I learned a lot more from statements here on the GEBB from the candidates who posted here, and from one candidate who responded to email. So, while I don't think I'm in taxpayer's camp, I have a hard time buying your implication that Glen Ellyn's Town Meeting is a model of openness. It's nice, but don't oversell it.

quote:

Originally posted by Gabriel:
It's a throwback to the early days of our country when a bunch of citizens agreed that they wanted so-and-so to represent them in Washington or the state capitol or wherever. The chosen one would plead that no, he had a farm to run and too many other things to do, but his supporters would finally convince him so that he would, reluctantly, take his turn in the barrel.

Many of our best village presidents and trustees in the past did not seek the office, but were cajoled into serving by the CBP.

Gabriel,

Your anecdote may well have been true at some point in Glen Ellyn's history. However, I sure hope our current Village President is not an example of someone who was cajoled into serving by the CBP. You weren't specific in your post when you talk about a case in the recent past in which the CBP used an election to "honor" a long-serving resident, but maybe you were referring to our current President or some of the current Board members. As a group overall, they don't represent a very good advertisement for the ability of the CBP's nomination process and Town Meeting to vet candidates. Maybe this year's process was significantly different and better, but I can't see fundamental differences as an outsider.

quote:

Originally posted by Paul:
... I am still uncomfortable after living here for 10 years with an arrangement in which the general election is essentially a rubber stamp of one party's "firehouse primary"...

Paul,

Thank you for taking the time to educate yourself about the candidates - through email, the videos, webpages, statements, here on the GEBB, etc. You obviously care about Glen Ellyn and making a careful choice to lead our village.

As I said to taxpaper, I am not trying to change your mind about the CBP. I can say, however, at least in my case, that winning the Town Meeting primary election has been anything but a rubber stamp for me in the general election either time I participated.

When running for village trustee, I finished a close third out of seven candidates who ran at the Town Meeting, only to be challenged by two more candidates in the general election. (Five people for three spots.)

Now, in this election, as you know, there is also an opponent in the general election for village president. I take that very seriously.

As much as I think a longer transition time could have benefitted Glen Ellyn, especially at this time in the village's history, when I selflessly analyse the situation, the challenge may be a good thing. It gives our residents even more choice. On April 8th, Glen Ellynites will have had four qualified candidates from which to choose their village president in any forum (Town Meeting, General Election or both) in which they wished to participate. Looking at the big picture, that is probably a positive for the town.

Please let me know if you need more information to make your decision. I'll be happy to help if I can.

Thanks,

Mark