That Voodoo That You Do So Well?

The village board approved the $6000 for their contribution to the Good Old Days festival on Thursday at the village board meeting.

Good Old Days has been in trouble for several years now as evidenced by the state of the declining revenues generated by event. I have already opined about how I believe the village board should take some degree of ownership of the event. Festivals are a data-point on a time-line in a community’s collective consciousness. The shared experience creates both a venue and the glue which binds the citizens of a town into a community. Winfield has very little community spirit compared to Naperville, St. Charles or even Wheaton. I lay the blame for this at the feet of the village board that does not recognize that they have a responsibility to encourage these events. If the charities can’t deliver these events then the village should step in and fill the gap in the name of creating community spirit and lifting morale. It is generally preferred charities and civic organizations such as the Chamber of Commerce, Knights of Columbus, Lions and Winfield Juniors organize these events themselves but the village should provide technical support, logistical support, labor, equipment, moral support and, if necessary, a shoulder to cry on if the need presents itself. The trustee’s should have a vested interest in these events being successful from the standpoint of how they reflect back on the administration and from the standpoint of how they reflect on the Village of Winfield.

Unfortunately the relationship between our current Village Administration and our community organizers is one of a low level general disdain. When Trustee Chuck Martschinke relates to the Winfield Chamber of Commerce’s executive board on the Tuesday before the Thursday village board vote that the straw poll of trustees is 60% against and 40% for, it shows the village has no personal stake in the event. It suggests the board feels that Good Old Days is an aggravation they tolerate like a parent who is annoyed by his own child. To take the Village-Board-As-Disinterested-Parent analogy further, I am looking at the declining revenues of the Winfield Chamber of Commerce and see a village board that is either so bored with their own child or so self consumed they can’t be bothered to step in and offer assistance, like a parent that is to consumed in watching “American Idol” to help out with their child’s science fair project for school. The message I get from our trustees is, “Let ‘em fail, the TV is not going to watch itself”.

I would be dishonest if I told you that I was not giving this a lot of thought.

… and then it came to me…

It came to me like a flash, like a vision!

If only we had the expertise available that could help restore Good Old Days to it’s formal glory. Expertise that only someone with the appropriate education could deliver. I’m thinking of someone who could act like a consultant and offer suggestion and guidance born from a wealth of business acumen. Maybe someone with an Masters in Business Administration that could show us scrubs down here in the gallery of the Chamber of Commerce how a real business is run. Maybe someone with an MBA from the prestigious Lake Erie College?

Wait, isn’t Village President Birutis an MBA? … and wasn’t her masters from Lake Erie College? Oh, Joy of Joys.

Village President Birutis an MBA from Lake Erie College?

Mrs. Birutis, meet your new baby. Among the many responsibilities of having your new baby you will need to feed it, clothe it, love it, nurture it and educate it. When your baby fails, you fail. When your baby wins, you win. It’s time to take an interest in your baby. This means when homework time comes around, you make sure it gets done and gets done correctly. This might require viewing a lot less “Oprah” but because your baby is a reflection of you and the quality of parenting you are doing, so it will be worth the sacrifice. The bar has been set at $3000 for last years Good Old Days. Clear that bar and show us your business Mojo, your Voodoo, so to speak. Because we have an objective starting point of $3K we will know how effective your input has been. I challenge you to take responsibility for the 2011 Good Old Days which gives you 13 months to plan and prepare.

The way I see it is, you are already asking the village to trust you that you know how to make a thriving town center, all I am asking you to do is make a thriving Good Old Days. I assure you, I will be the first to extrapolate out your success or failure in this venture as a foreshadowing of what will happen with our town center under your leadership.

UPDATE: Good Old Days

The six thousand dollars for Public Works and Police for Good Old Days was approved, 5 to 0 – With Trustee Martschinke abstaining due to his position as part of the Chamber and the potential for the appearance of a conflict of interest.

Good Old Days gets the Axe?

Tonight is the night when the village board votes on whether to front the $6000 estimated to cover the expenses of putting on Good Old Days. Word on the street is the future of Good Old Days is not so bright. In advance of this important vote it is worth while to reflect back on Good Old Days, what it means to the village, the citizens of Winfield and the charities that use the festival as one of their major funding sources.

Good Old Days is primarily a Winfield Chamber of Commerce production. It happens through a monumental effort of the chamber, local charities like the Knights of Columbus, Lions Club, Winfield Juniors and others. Everyone provides what they can in time, labor and equipment. The hope is everyone makes money on the event and through teamwork and cooperation they all have a few dollars to run their operations for the year. The Lions run the music and beer garden, the Knights provide food, the chamber organizes the whole event and picks a rides & games vendor and tells everyone where their operating space is in the layout of the fair. The village usually supplies support through public works by delivering and setting up the street barricades and providing police security. As we have already heard, the village’s portion of the costs for their part is $6000.

It is worth noting that through true entrepreneurial spirit the rest of the stakeholders in Good Old Days pony up cash in huge amounts to help make Good Old Days a success. The Knights pre-buy all the food that they serve. The Lions book bands, rent tents, buy beer and rent sound systems that cost very substantial amounts of money for the 3 day event. If the weather turns nasty or if people don’t show up, all the people that purchased supplies, rented equipment and contracted with musicians are out their money.

The chamber, who is almost a charity, has had historic revenues of:

Year           Profit
2000          $13,580
2001          $14,926
2002          $19,349
2003          $12,377
2004          $14,966
2005          $8,355
2006          $1833
2007          $5085
2008          $5816
2009          $2919

As you can see, there is not enough money to pay $6000 to the village and there hasn’t been for 4 years.

What is clear is everyone is coming to the table with something. If the village doesn’t pony up the $6000 then what exactly is their contribution to this? What is their contribution to ANYTHING that happens in this town. Towns like Lombard, Roselle, Wheaton and others all have events that create the ties-that-bind their residents into a community. Quality-of-Life events turn individuals that live in a town into a community with spirit. We have no fireworks on the 4th of July, we have no parades outside of Good Old Days, there is no “Taste of Winfield”, no Easter Egg Hunts…

It bothers me that they don’t take more ownership of Good Old Days. The way I see it is if Good Old Days should fail, even if the Chamber should get the $6000, then the failure should be owned by the trustees who lack of vision or leadership to create or champion their own events. Having been at the Chamber of Commerce planning meeting for Good Old Days, there was not a single village employee or politician to be seen.

If Good Old Days gets the axe tonight, our disinterested trustees should get the axe come election time.

Winfield’s Good Old Days Near an End?

At the June 17 Winfield village board meeting the topic of discussion was the road referendum that will be on the Nov. 2 ballot. The village board is asking the village residents increase our property taxes by 200 percent to fund $18 million in deferred road maintenance.

I understand that Winfield’s roads are in disrepair but I find it foolish to give my authority to the village board to increase my real estate taxes without them first composing a plan to create sustainable revenues for the future. This plan should probably include developing Winfield’s most promising retail corridor which is Roosevelt Road. In what can only be described as a rhetorical “red herring,” Village Manager Curt Barrett informed me that in order to address the needs of the village roads we would need sales taxes of “$100 million,” and it was not as easy as “flipping a switch” to find other funding sources in place of the referendum.

Twenty minutes earlier Rich Bysina from the Winfield Chamber of Commerce asked village board members if they could pick up the tab for police services for the annual Winfield Good Old Days. Based on the responses from the trustees there is about a 50 percent chance there will be no Good Old Days this year.

I find it hilarious that Mr. Barrett can compartmentalize my demand for sustainable revenues into “only” needing them for road maintenance. From time immemorial money has been made for villages through the careful cultivation of commerce. Winfield should have started 20 years ago but there is no time like the present to have a plan. It’s time for Winfield to make money the “old” fashion way, by earning it, or Winfield’s Good Old Days will truly be behind it.

At the Board Meeting with Mr. Allen

Village Board Meeting News, June 17, – 2010

1) A presentation was given on how Winfield & West Chicago’s jointly owned waste water treatment plant’s life could be extended until 2025 with only $17 Million in investment to retro fit it with the proper equipment and get the proper certification from the EPA.

2) The village board discussed taking a vote to put the two Road Referendum ballot questions on the ballot. (apparently this hasn’t happened yet) We heard a presentation from the bank in charge of floating the bond issue. The final price per home owner would be $233.99 in additional real estate taxes per year per home that has a value of $300K. The bank representatives talked about “Build America Bonds” which are part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment. During the public comments part of the meeting I had that exchange with Village Manager Curt Barrett that I wrote about here.

2) The Winfield Chamber of (not so much) Commerce asked the village board to pick up the cost of Police & Public Works for Good Ole Days. The cost is $6000 and there was some skepticism in their voices. It would not surprise me if Good Ole Days was canceled. The newest development is there will be no carnival rides this year because none of the carnival ride operators can make any money at the event. Bob Bersodi (sp?) made the public comment that Winfield should move the festival to a more prominent place to increase attendance and I completely agree. Winfield’s village board has relegated Good Ole Days to an afterthought and it has been dying for a longtime now. It would be nice if one or two of them would get some business sense and move it to a place where everyone can make money.

3) The New Sign Ordinance is closer to passing but still not voted on. The only thing worth reporting is how Joel Kunesh found it so amusing that the sign ordinance has been in the works for 3 years. Note to Joel; 3 years for a sign ordinance should be a clue that you are incompetent.

The only thing left to report is, during my running gun battle with Village Manager Curt Barrett, apparently Trustee Mrugaz took issue with my final public comments on the matter.

There is a bit of a story to report but first you need to understand the procedure. The village board meeting has a “committee of the whole” section. In Committee of the Whole there are bullet points that get discussed and after each bullet point, the public gets to comment on the bullet point that is being discussed. At the end of all of the bullet points, the public gets to comment again on anything (at all) they would like to talk about. After the general public comments, the village board gets to make general village board comments.

So I took the general public comments section to rebut some comments made by Village Manager Barrett. Then, I confess,  I walked out of the room. Some have characterized it as “Stomped” out of the room. Either way, I have not seen the video of what happened when I left but there was some additional discussion.  I guess Trustee Mrugaz felt like I should have waited around to hear him yell at me. The way I see it is, I routinely send the village board emails or stand before them and ask relevant questions about the subjects at hand and most often they ignore me. I see no reason why I should give them a courtesy that they so often deny me.

Are Winfield’s Good Ole Days Behind It?????

At the June 17th Winfield Village Board meeting the topic of discussion once again turned to the road referendum that will be on the November 2nd ballot. The village board is asking the village residents if we would like to have our property taxes increased by 200% to fund 18 Million dollars in road maintenance that should never have been deferred in the first place. As usual I rose to the podium during public comments to reiterate that I was actively working to educate the citizens about the road referendum. I understand Winfield’s roads are in disrepair and need to be fixed but I also understand our current administration is actively working to deny any vision or plan to create sustainable revenues such as developing our most promising retail corridor on Roosevelt Road. As such, I find it foolish to give my authority to the village board to increase my real estate taxes without first hearing some kind of plan that assures me I won’t have to be taxed again the next time some piece of Winfield’s infrastructure wears out.

When I finished speaking Winfield Village Manager Curt Barrett, in a display that would have given his high school rhetoric teacher apoplexy, trotted out not only a straw-man but also a dish of red-herring. He informed me that in order to address the needs of the village roads we would need sales taxes from “$100 Million in retail sales on Roosevelt Rd” and it was not as easy as “flipping a switch” to find other funding sources in place of the referendum.

Now hold that thought for a second.

Twenty minutes earlier Rich Bysina from the Winfield Chamber of Commerce rose to the podium to ask the village board if they could see their way clear to picking up the tab for police services for the annual Winfield end of summer event known as Good Ole Days. The cost is $6000, the same as it was last year. There was plenty of trepidation and from this observer’s point of view, there is about a 50% chance the village board will say “NO” and there will be no Good Ole Days this year.

Now contrast the fact Winfield cannot find a measly $6000 in it’s budget to fund a long standing Winfield institution against the chiding I took from Village Manager Barrett about not being able to “flip-a-switch” or the unlikeliness of finding “$100 Million in sales tax revenue” in developing Roosevelt Road.

Mr. Barrett, our politicians have not even laid the groundwork to have revenues of 6 flipping thousand dollars, to create a table-scrap of a “quality of life” Winfield wide event. How pathetic is that?

Village Manager Curt Barrett

I find it hilarious Mr. Barrett can compartmentalize my demand for sustainable revenues into “only” needing them for road maintenance. At the February 27th road referendum town hall meeting Mr. Barrett suggested to the gathered crowd that Roosevelt Road could create sustainable revenue but the political will was such that it was not an option that was available. So I guess I am to understand that either Mr. Barrett drank Village President Birutis’ Kool-aid or else the water-boarding she gave him for making such statements in public has adjusted his attitude. What is perplexing to me is that President Birutis is on vacation this week. The boss isn’t there to suck up to. Shouldn’t Mr. Barrett leave what was an obvious political defense to the politicians?

From time immemorial money has been made for villages through the careful cultivation of commerce. Both sales tax AND commercial real estate tax help to remove the burden of funding government from the shoulders of the citizens. It will take time, maybe ten years or more. Winfield should have started on this twenty years ago but there is no time like the present to have a plan and a vision for how we will make sure we never find ourselves in this position again. It’s time for Winfield to make money the “Ole” fashion way, by earning it, or Winfield’s Good Ole Days will truly be behind it