Foes face off in Riverside

150 crowd town hall to hear candidates’ views at Landmark forum

Candidates at the March 4 forum in Riverside batted around topics from finances to preserving the village’s historic landscape and gave insights into their positions not previously discussed publicly.

The forum, sponsored by the Landmark and moderated by the LaGrange Area League of Women Voters, drew a standing room crowd of between 140 and 150 to the auditorium of the Riverside Township Hall. Divided into two parts, the audience got to hear first from presidential candidates Kevin Smith and Michael Gorman and later from all seven candidates for trustee.

While the broad campaign themes of the Riverside Community Alliance and The Riverside Party were familiar, there were moments of insight into ways candidates would approach confronting tough decisions posed by economic conditions.

First, neither Gorman nor Smith views a property tax increase as a realistic solution to Riverside’s financial situation, which according to the latest numbers from the finance department shows the village eating well into its general fund financial reserves and falling below a reserve of 25 percent of expenditures by the end of 2011.

Gorman said the village’s cash reserves are sufficient and that they could be used “without spending down the reserves to put the village in any jeopardy.”

One specific area where Gorman said the line might be held is within the police department. The village has budgeted for 19 sworn officers, but has within the past several years operated at less than full strength.

Gorman stated that the department has worked with an average of 17.85 officers over the past seven years with outstanding results.

“We’ve had 18 for the past six years,” said Gorman, who indicated he would seek input from residents on what the optimum number of officers should be. “I don’t know how many officers we need. We’ll decide what’s best for the village. We’ll ask what you need.”

Smith, meanwhile, said the department was not fully funded and that an understaffed police department was not feasible in the long run. He said the village’s one detective was not sufficient to handle a case load that in 2008 saw the number of property crimes skyrocket.

Rather than cutting staffing, Smith said he would advocate lobbying state legislators to change rules for police pension funding, which suck funds from operations.

“We can work with the state to take the burden off communities and take the money we have and use it for the public safety we need,” Smith said.

Asked how they would approach balancing the village budget in coming years, the candidates stayed close to previous messages. Gorman reiterated that there was a way to make budget cuts and find “new ways of doing things,” but offered no specifics beyond cutting down on the use of consultants, reining in no-bid contracts and not using village funds for purposes he doesn’t believe are needed, such as the purchase of two homes on Burlington Street to provide additional parking for the downtown business district.

Smith said he had a proven record on Riverside’s budget, saying he was responsible for crafting $400,000 in cuts from the 2009 budget to bring it into balance.

“I led the drive to cut $400,000 from the village’s budget,” said Smith, who added that he had asked Gorman many times for specific input on areas to trim, to no avail.

“It was a lonely battle.”

One clear difference in the ways candidates approached the forum was evident particularly in the trustees’ portion of the event. Riverside Community Alliance candidates James Reynolds, Lonnie Sacchi and Mark Shevitz worked as a team, reading scripted statements and complementing each other’s answers.

The Riverside Party candidates of Kelly Navarro, David Lesniak and Anthony Miezio, as well as independent Alex Gallegos, relied more on extemporaneous statements and spoke as individuals rather than as a cohesive political party.

A new idea coming from the RCA camp, echoed by both Shevitz and Sacchi, was the notion of creating an autonomous forestry department reporting directly to the village manager instead of to public works. No one suggested a method of funding that change or what the financial implications might be.

Miezio said any changes in strategy for maintaining green spaces should not come without input from the Frederick Law Olmsted Society and Landscape Advisory Commission and had to look at the potential impact of an emerald ash borer or gypsy moth infestation.

That threat was cited specifically by Navarro as a reason why the village could not afford to tap into its cash reserves to balance future budgets.

All of the candidates found common ground regarding the importance of saving the Arcade Building and facilitating a private sale of the property. Similarly all of them felt the village should explore consolidating village services whenever possible.

With respect to downtown business development, the boldest proposal came from Gallegos, who works at a Burlington Street bank and emphasized the need to generate foot traffic for businesses.

Gallegos advocated the recreation department organizing and finding sponsorship dollars for an outdoor arts venue in Guthrie Park, which he envisioned as a smaller version of the North Shore’s Ravinia.

RCA’s trustee candidates stressed that they would hire a business development specialist to market the downtown business district, while Navarro said she favored “reasonable incentives” to promote economic development. She also said the village needed “to work with existing businesses to enhance what’s there.”

Reynolds suggested talking to current successful business owners for information on how businesses can thrive in Riverside and advocated attracting niche retailers that serve residents’ needs.

Lesniak said it was important for Riverside residents to determine the kind of downtown they’d like to see to give the village an idea of who to reach out to in their economic development efforts.

“We have to reach out and ask, ‘What do you want? What will you support?’” Lesniak said.

Riverside Landmark 3/10
BOB UPHUES
Editor