The candidates, from left: Niko Kanakaris, Nick Hanson, Rosa DeMaertelaere, Jay Kadakia, Harry Leopold, J.R. Westberg.
HUNTLEY – As the candidates for Huntley Village Trustees turn that last leg in the long mile to the April 11 elections, Sun Day reporter Mason Souza caught up with each and had the opportunity for a Q&A session in which he discussed their roles as trustees or future trustees and their personal perspectives on Sun City.
Harry Leopold, Incumbent
What do you think is the biggest issue Huntley faces?
“I think for the most part, our residents are pretty satisfied with village government, both from the staff level that provides services and from the official level that governs us. I think some of the things that we are keenly interested in is seeing the state agency—the review board—to approve the requests for the Centegra Hospital. That’s a big issue, not necessarily one that there’s any controversy about as far as the village government’s concerned. It’s something that would really boost the economic engine of our community and provide needed services closer than the alternatives. That’s the biggest issue.
The second thing that concerns me is that with the terrible recession that hit the residential housing market, I want to see the five developers that are still offering homes—including Highland, Lenar, Town and Country, Richmond and Del Webb—I want to see them stay economically sound and that they can weather the crisis and get back to profitability and selling homes again. We don’t have any reason to think that any of them are in such financial trouble that they would cease operating, but that’s always a possibility in this market, and we are very concerned, and we certainly will help them in any way we can to get through it.”
What do you think is the biggest issue facing Sun City?
“I think that most of the Sun City residents would say that they support having a full-service hospital closer to them, but that’s one thing that I think they’re concerned about. I think they’re fully in support of the assisted-living facility that we have, especially the care facility that’s on the planning board right now for Regency Square, and there’s another company that’s anticipating building an assisted-living facility right in Huntley.”
What can Sun City residents expect from you as a board member?
“Continued service that they’ve been getting for eight years. I get many, many compliments about going to serve and in support of my decisions from my residents and neighbors. Of course the overriding, prevailing feeling is in these economic times that they would like to hold the line on all taxes, and certainly that’s my first priority. I live here too, and I don’t want to pay more property taxes and so forth and so on.”
What is your experience working with Sun City?
“I appreciate the support that I’ve had from my Sun City neighbors in the past, and I look forward to enjoying it in the future.”
Leopold is a member of the Sun City Board of Directors, and he and his wife were the third family to move into the community in 1999. Leopold said he is an active member of Sun City’s social community. He founded the bridge club, co-founded the model railroad club, and has served as president of a golf league.
Nick Hanson
What do you think is the biggest issue Huntley faces?
“The first would probably be the village approaching home rule, which has some residents concerned based on the fact that in other communities, when they became home rule, the lawmakers or decision makers have abused it with increased sales tax and transfer taxes on real estate and things of that sort. So that has been a big part of the discussion. I would not be necessarily for a special census that we have done in the past unless it was through a referendum and the residents chose to do so, because the last special census we did, I think it cost approximately $165,000. So if we were to go for a special census prior to the next official census in 2020, I would think that would have to be up to the residents of the village.”
What do you think is the biggest issue facing Sun City?
“I get a lot of questions regarding taxes on property and the District 158 Board of Education, which the Village Trustees really have nothing to do with. We have no input on property taxes, especially with District 158. That’s been the question I’ve received the most. What I do think is important to Sun City, which I think is important to myself as well, is life safety: the removal of the snow during the big snowstorm, emergency medical service and fire protection I think are very important because you want to have a certain level of care for all residents. In any situation, whether it’s a natural disaster like the snowstorm or the blizzard or even just day-to-day, I just try to make sure that all the residents, including the Sun City residents, have the same level of responsiveness and care by the Public Works Department as well as EMS.”
What can Sun City residents expect from you as a board member?
“I would think that they would expect me to be fiscally responsible [and] to promote Del Webb Sun City as I would the rest of the village. We’re all residents of the Village of Huntley. I don’t like to think that there’s any sort of segregation there between Sun City residents and the residents of the other subdivisions or the downtown area, and I would treat them equally as they all deserve the same voice.”
What is your experience working with Sun City?
“With all of those organizations that I participate in [Hanson is a member of the Huntley Lions, Jaycees, the Historical Society, and Chamber of Commerce], a good portion of the members are Sun City residents, so I’ve done a lot of interaction [and] been able to get a lot of feedback from Sun City residents that are in these same organizations.”
Jay Kadakia, Incumbent
What do you think is the biggest issue Huntley faces?
“The biggest issue still continues to be the water situation in Huntley, both in adequacy and the source of supplies; that will be the biggest issue. The other one will be the increasing population. We will have some increasing crimes [and] theft, so we have to monitor that and provide protection for that and deal with it on an as-needed basis.”
What do you think is the biggest issue facing Sun City?
“The whole idea for the village, including Sun City, is to provide smoother transportation, open spaces, adequate drinking water, more infrastructure improvements, and Sun City easily benefits from all that.”
What can Sun City residents expect from you as a board member?
“They have to look at the broader aspect of the village; I’m not only for Sun City, I’m for the village. They can expect pollution-prevention education, and when I say pollution prevention, it is the groundwater pollution and also the supply of water.
As far as the taxes are concerned, we haven’t raised the taxes for the last two years, and we are not planning to raise the taxes in the future either. Reduction in taxes, how far we can go, depends on business development in the village. The more we can collect from businesses and developments, the less likely we are to raise the taxes; on the contrary, we could reduce the taxes.”
What is your experience working with Sun City?
“They ask me various questions on what has been happening around in the village itself. So whatever happens in the village will be affecting Sun City in a broader sense, so they would like to know what is happening here.”
Jay Kadakia regularly attends Current Events meetings in Sun City. He added that his work on the Village Board has indirectly benefited Sun City, such as working to keep Wildflower Lake free of algae and maintaining Grafton Township bus service.
J.R. Westberg
What do you think is the biggest issue Huntley faces?
“As I see it now, the Centegra Hospital coming in has been a pretty big topic for Huntley. Obviously the road construction—I’ve talked to some neighboring residents [and] the difficulty to get through Huntley right now is unbearable, to say the least, because when you have several projects going on at one time, it’s a struggle. But I see that clearing up once all that construction is complete. And the Centegra Hospital [is] certainly tops—on I would assume every candidate’s list right now—because not having to travel so [far] to get to a hospital along with the potential of bringing about 1,800 new jobs to Huntley would be phenomenal.”
What do you think is the biggest issue facing Sun City?
“Everything I’ve ever heard from the Sun City residents has been the school taxes, but again that has no bearing on the village trustees. Other issues I’ve heard are snow removal in some instances; obviously with the blizzard that happened last month that became a little more prevalent. But overall, I think the village did an outstanding job in getting that removed in a timely fashion.”
What can Sun City residents expect from you as a board member?
“Something that has just become personal to me—because I live in Wing Pointe near those ponds with the wetlands and stuff—it’s just been unbearable with the mosquitoes. From my understanding, the village invests about $60,000 a year for the mosquito-abatement program. I’m actually doing some additional research, and I found some other things that we can do naturally. I know that Del Webb residents, in speaking with some of the other trustees, [that] they’ve come up quite a bit with three-season screened-in porches and what not just because of the difficulties of being outside with the mosquitoes. I’m just scratching the surface on this right now. I’d like to see-there’s mosquito larvae-eating fish that we can put in the pond, as well as some other residential corrective measures that we could take, just through an educational program.”
What is your experience working with Sun City?
“Having only lived here in Huntley for the last six years, my relationship at Del Webb is minimal at best. If elected as trustee, certainly I would give them plenty more attention when needed. It’s a whole community effort; it’s not just about everyone outside of Del Webb. It’s everything about them too. It’s the whole village, so I’d give everyone equal attention.”
Rosa DeMaertelaere
What do you think is the biggest issue Huntley faces?
“The biggest topic for this election is economic development. The goal of economic development is to enable the community with greater ability to affect its own economic destiny, irrespective of the surrounding economic environment. It is used to stimulate economic activity and job growth.
Although Huntley has an economic development policy that was created in 2009, which targets the Interstate 90 business park corridor, the downtown business district, the Route 47 commercial corridor, and provides case-by-case financial incentives such as property tax abatements, sales tax rebates, sales tax sharing, and job training grants, more economic development incentive policies have to be created.
The purpose of these incentives would be to deal effectively with the increase in both the personal income tax and the corporate tax rate, which are making our business attraction efforts challenging. Huntley has a lot of assets available to businesses: low sales tax rate, sound financial position, an educated population (95% have a high school diploma or higher education according to U.S. Census Bureau: American Community Survey 2006-2008*), a tax increment financing district, open land for development, educational facilities for higher learning, and other regional assets, as well as major road improvement projects in the pipeline. All these attractive qualities of our village plus new added incentives will further our business attraction packages to retailers and developers alike, thereby increasing our economic tax base and providing needed employment.”
What do you think is the biggest issue facing Sun City?
“More available transportation methods like Pace buses running at different times during the day, and transporting the public around Huntley and surrounding areas, as well as the Metra service for those commuting to work in Chicago or toward Rockford.”
What can Sun City residents expect from you as a board member?
“As a board member, the residents of Sun City can expect from me to participate actively and fiscally responsibly in the governance and development of Huntley. Due to its rapid and steady growth, Huntley needs to focus on increasing its economic tax base through diverse economic incentive policies, provide for local employment opportunities, improving its transportation infrastructure, and ensuring that its downtown redevelops while preserving its historical character. I believe my education in urban planning and economic development concepts will serve me well in participating on the Board to address these important issues.”
What is your experience working with Sun City?
“I do not have any experience working with Sun City or working with its residents. I do, however, have friends that live in Sun City and have convinced some of my friends into moving to the Sun City area because of its active community.”
*figure provided by DeMaertelaere
Niko Kanakaris, Incumbent
What do you think is the biggest issue Huntley faces?
“I wouldn’t say it’s in Huntley. The economy is turned around, and our building slowed down a lot. But meanwhile, while we’re on the downside of the economy, we continue, as a village, to continue to ready for the growth again. We did all the sewer and water infrastructure throughout town to get ready for the development. For example, we ran the sewer and water lines south of the tollway. So when the interchange comes, we’re going to be ready for development. We’re not going to be behind schedule at all. Anybody that wants to build when the interchange happens, they’ll be ready to go.”
What do you think is the biggest issue facing Sun City?
“I don’t think anyone is facing any issues in town [Huntley]. If they were, they would be coming forward to the village board. And for the last four years, we haven’t had any really big issues at all. So, I think we’ve done a great job and accommodated everybody’s requests. The only request I’ve seen come forward out of Sun City is a lot of homes are putting up those three-season rooms … and we’ve granted every single one. There aren’t any issues that I’ve heard of in the last four years.”
What can Sun City residents expect from you as a board member?
“I’ve worked hard in the last four years for the community. We’re doing the right things. We’re trying to attract more businesses and commercial development to keep the residents’ taxes down. The more sales tax we get from the community, the less we need to try to go pass any kind of referendums to raise any money. But we’re financially strong. We haven’t had to do any special tax on any of our residents. I think they even know we’re doing a good job.”
What is your experience working with Sun City?
“As a local business owner in the same town, I’ve been in town over twenty years, I’m really involved. If there are any special needs or any special fundraisers, I’m always there. I’m always donating to any cause that would help any resident in town or in Sun City. And I would stand behind any one of our residents at any time or for any special need that they would have.”
