Elgin council candidate profiles

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Updated: August 4, 2011 4:20PM

This April, 10 people are running to fill three spots on the Elgin City Council. Today, The Courier-News publishes profiles of five of those candidates, listed alphabetically. The remaining candidates will be featured on another day.

Each candidate was asked to provide his or her own information and to touch on the one issue each felt would make them a unique voice on the council. Here is what each had to say.

Michael Curtin

Age: 28

Family status/children: Married with one child (3 years old)

Education: B.S. St. Cloud State University (Biology); ABT M.S. St. Cloud State University (Ecology and Natural Resources); 2005 Hanna Fellow at the California Academy of Sciences

Community involvement: Vice president of South West Area Neighbors; board member of Elgin Community Network

Job: I am currently staying home to watch my son. I intend to pursue a career in software engineering or computational biology when my son is school aged.

Campaign website: www.curtinforcouncil.com

Last book read: “Hyperspace: A Scientific Odyssey Through Parallel Universes, Time Warps, and the 10th Dimension,” by Michio Kaku

Issue: I am the only candidate with a background in science and research. The city spends millions of dollars on studies, but there is no oversight or quality control on the research being funded. The result is a waste of tax dollars and inadequate allocation of resources.

I am also one of the few candidates that wants the city to take a more “hands off” approach. The current council believes that micro-managing our business communities and neighborhoods will eventually lead to prosperity. I favor an approach that reduces spending and bureaucracy. By eliminating business incentives, business permits and fees, and neighborhood grants, the city can substantially reduce its budget and lower property tax. This will create a level playing field for all businesses and neighborhoods. Any attempts to micro-manage this city will only lead to more divisiveness. A “hands off” approach will create a fairer, more efficient, and transparent municipal government.

Manfred W. Czymmek

Age: Not given

Family status/children: married

Education: B.A. Northern Illinois University

Job: Professionally, I was the manager of production and testing of a small electronics company, increasing productivity 75 percent; then as a electromechanical assembler; and was with a company that designed, developed, and manufactured a series of acoustic microscopy and acoustic micro imaging devices, sometimes referred to as acoustic imaging microscopes.

Community involvement: Personally, I am a naturalized citizen, coming legally into this country in 1953, and a U.S. Army veteran, actively serving from 1970 to 1973, married, and have lived in Elgin for the past 15 years. I coached a Catholic grammar school soccer team to its first winning season; was a Webelos leader in Cub Scout Pack 3647, and was a member of the Knights of Columbus from the parish of St. Nicholas of Tolentine in Chicago. I played soccer until the age of 42, enjoy a good game of chess, play racquetball twice a week, and am an avid reader.

Campaign website: None listed

Last book read: No answer given

Issue: Elginites are facing are an interwoven triple threat of the lack of jobs for Elginites, illegal immigration, and taxes — specifically, property taxes.

With issues like jobs, taxes, overcrowding, parking, poor education, high drop-out rate, property damage, loud bass-driven music, draining money from social services and hospitals, crimes like drug dealing, prostitution, assault, uninsured auto accidents, and felony fraud are all issues that illegal immigrants affect. And the mayor and select members of city council tell you it is a federal problem, basically saying, “It’s not my job.” But it is their job, and they choose to ignore it.

I am the only candidate raising the illegal immigration issue, and I come with a good first-step solution. First, declare Elgin not a sanctuary city. Second, go after landlords renting to illegal immigrants. It is a felony to aid and abet an illegal immigrant. There are fines and jail time associated with this crime. If they choose not to use E-verify or any other means of verification, it will not excuse the crime. Second, aggressively go after multiple families living in single-family homes. Thirdly, businesses that hire illegal immigrants should suffer the same fines punishments landlords receive.

Electing candidates with the same qualifications and indoctrinations as the ones you wish to replace and expect different results is insanity. I am an outside-of-the-box thinker with a proven track record of success in my endeavors.

Tom McCarthy

Age: 51

Family status: Not provided

Education: BA, Political Science, Western Illinois University, serving an internship with Gov. James Thompson’s re-election campaign in 1983. I worked on other political campaigns statewide throughout the years and have called Elgin home since 1996.

Job: Limousine driver

Community involvement: No information provided

Campaign website: drivertom4elgin.com

Last book read: None listed

Issue: I believe the issues that should be dealt with in the upcoming years at the city council level are these: cut the wasteful spending, no more taxes, promote the city and businesses, better response to the needs of our citizens.

Elgin spends too much money on foolish items: $75,000 on a new city slogan, $700,000 on a women’s softball team, and so on. This has to stop if we are to maintain a balanced budget without a tax increase.

I feel we pay too much as it is. As an elected official, I will not vote for an increase until I see a reduction in spending.

With 150,000 cars driving along I-90, Randall Road and U.S. 20 a day, we need to get the word out that the city is open for business and please stop in to see the new downtown area. Placing marquees along these busy routes like the one we have in front of The Centre would be a great idea to inform the public what is going on in Elgin.

Hoffman Estate has them. Businesses along Randall road all promote themselves on the Sears Centre marquee which is owned by Hoffman Estates. We need to get our message out to the people through outside signs and the Internet. In the times we live in, everything is instant, and we as a city need to step up to get the message out.

Talking to people throughout Elgin, one problem they continue to bring up is the service they get from city hall is downright rude. We can and will do better. I won’t forget that the citizens are the ones who pay me. I work for them. I will treat each one as they expect to be treated and want to see firsthand their concerns they have for us to deal with.

Anna Moeller

Age: 39

Family status/children: Married, two children

Education: Bachelor of Arts in History, Northern Illinois University, 1995; Master of Public Administration, NIU, 1999.

Community involvement: Member of the Elgin Plan Commission since 2004; vice president of the Northeast Neighborhood Association of Elgin since 2005; PTO treasurer for Channing Memorial Elementary School; member of First Congregational Church of Elgin; former member of the Elgin Human Relations Commission; former English as a Second Language tutor for Literacy Connection, 1999-2004.

Job: Executive director of the McHenry County Council of Governments

Campaign website: www.annamoeller.com

Last book read: “A Short History of Nearly Everything,” by Bill Bryson

Issue: We are still in the midst of the national economic downturn, and our strained financial resources require tough decisions. We need to prioritize our spending while holding the line on taxes and fees.

For example, the 2011 budget includes a line item in the Riverboat Fund for upgrades to the citywide Wi-Fi system at an annual projected cost of $500,000 starting in 2012. While this project may be worthy of funding in better economic times, I believe this kind of program can be deferred.

Our limited tax dollars need to be targeted, in large part, toward helping our neighborhoods improve. Our limited resources need to be allocated where they can provide the most good for the community. And, thus, funding for neighborhood and housing grants, infrastructure improvements and programs that increase public safety must be a priority.

We also need to work to attract more businesses and jobs (especially in the downtown) and ensure that there is community input and involvement at all levels of decision-making. While I support previous downtown improvements, we need to do more to assist our existing businesses and to attract new businesses to the downtown. For example, I support bringing more residential development and mixed-use development to the downtown in order to help businesses attract more customers. The ArtSpace project and the townhome and condo developments were a step in the right direction, but we will need to do more before the downtown is fully revitalized.

Shane Walter Nowak

Age: 30

Family status/children: Single

Education: Associate’s degree from Elgin Community College, bachelor’s degree from Northern Illinois University and pursuing a master’s in political science.

Community involvement: A member of the Elgin Chamber of Commerce

Job: I work at Alexian Brothers Medical Center emergency room and as an insurance agent for AFLAC.

Last book you have read: “Dismantling America,” by Thomas Sowell

Campaign website: None listed

Issue: The main issue with me is bringing more businesses and jobs to the city of Elgin. Elgin has an over 11 percent unemployment rate, and my father was laid off in October. Businesses are the lifeblood of any city. If you bring more businesses to Elgin, then jobs will follow. A strong, job rich community has always brought with it a sound tax base to offset the burden on residents to fund city government and services.

The way to bring in more business is by having less red tape, less regulations and less burdens faced by potential businesses. We can start this by eliminating the need for as many permits as possible to better suit effective and swift business start-ups in Elgin. The first thing to do is to repeal the business license fee. This just makes our city less likely to bring in more businesses. I want Elgin to be known as the best place in the western suburbs to start-up or move a business.

The other way to help businesses is to lower taxes so that way they will have more capital to hire people. This in turn will help our unemployment rate and put money back into the pockets of Elgin citizens. The citizens will have the money to help pay that mortgage payment which Elgin currently has over 1,100 foreclosed homes. The lower taxes won’t just help the businesses — it will also help every resident of Elgin because in this economy people need every dollar they can get their hands on. If the residents have more in their pocket, then they will spend more, which in turn will help the struggling businesses in Elgin. This is the key issue that faces the city of Elgin.