“I’m going to be real blunt here: The public involvement with respect to trees is very much appreciated –I hope we get half that involvement when it comes to our budget..We’re talking about difficult, daunting topics like taxes, fees, revenues, the services we provide. And trees, while important, is a budgeted item and while it would be great to monitor every single tree in our town 24/7, that’s an expenditure of human capital and, of course, of money. And while I appreciate this heightened scrutiny and I think it’s entirely warranted, I’m hoping folks will also feel every bit as moved to look at our budget and what we do, how we provide what we do.”
– Mayor Ron Sandack at the Sept. 1 Village Council Meeting, at which some residents raised concerns about treatment of trees in road construction zones.
Atta boy Ron! Be blunt more often.
I agree with Ron.
Agreed on the being blunt issue. I enjoy the vocal minority’s theatrics (excepting of course the staff time it takes to respond to them). But difficult decisions are upon our Village leaders/Staff and I for one do not envy a single one of them.
Blunt away Mr Mayor… about time somebody put things in perspective. I agree that trees are an integral part of Downers Grove… but for God’s sake, peoples jobs are at stake here… get a grip on reality for crying out loud
Myself and residents aren’t talking about monitoring 24,000 trees 24/7. We’re talking about enforcing one Muni Code Section- 24.7. I appreciate that Sandack agrees it’s important, and that the concern is warranted. There are staff engineers specifically tasked with supervising an managing these projects, and not in addition to or instead of fixing the budget.
As far as asking for residents to pay attention to the budget, more than a dozen are attending the meetings, and dozens more are looking up the information on the village website. So far the possible scenarios include more cuts, and higher taxes and fees on property owners. Add on 58, 99, Library, PD, and what else, and it translates into everyone will pay more.
So far, Schnell is willing to talk about the senior taxi coupon program (2009 budget cost $203,000), Waldack is willing to talk about the shuttle (2009 budget cost $169,000), and Barnett is willing to talk about what fundamental core services a village provides should actually be. All that, and $4 million more in revenue gets the job done.
Sandack’s listening, so’s staff. Speak up. Be heard.
Durkin wants to cut the buses Mark and get back to basics. Why is our Village in the entertainment business. Anyone know why? I see that as a $500,000 plus savings a year.
Sandack is being a bit of a drama queen here – who was asking for huge sums spent on 24/7 monitoring? And that’s not what it requires. It just requires some attention to standards for a change. Hey, while we’re at it let’s abandon the few standards we do have and not enforce anything cause you know that will save a lot of money!. That way the rest of the town can look as beautiful as Ogden Ave. – most of it is getting there anyways.
I don’t see where anyone was implying that all trees be monitored 24/7 – just the people who are tasked with enforcing codes should enforce them and as citizens we are trying to help not hinder.