2019 Elections Guide: Brian Godlewski, Tinley Park Trustee

TINLEY PARK, IL — Patch asked all candidates running for elected office in the April 2, 2019 municipal elections to participate in our voters guide. All submissions are voluntary. Those whose names are not listed chose not to respond or did not respond to requests for information. Responses are edited for style or space only.

Get to know your candidates:

Name: Brian Godlewski

Age: 43

Position sought: Village of Tinley Park Trustee

Party affiliation: Independent

Family: Wife, Dawn, two boys and two dogs

Education: I have a Bachelor's Degree in Political Science from Loyola University of Chicago and a Master's Degree in Urban Planning and Public Policy from the University of Illinois at Chicago

Occupation: Real Estate Broker

Previous or Current Elected or Appointed Offices: I have nearly two decades experience in the real estate industry working in commercial and government real estate as well brokerage. I have a background in urban planning and economic development.

Campaign Website: https://www.facebook.com/bgtinley

Names and offices of all family members who work in politics or government: None

The most pressing issue facing our (board, district, etc.) is _______, and what I intend to do about it: Redevelopment of the Mental Health Center. The plan proposed by the developer is boring and uninspiring in my opinion. I have big concerns about the financing strategy as well as the environmental remediation and developer selection. With the right vision, this can be the premier development in the southwest suburbs. I proposed my own plan which you can see the video on my Facebook page.

The main themes of my plan are: think regional, recreational/ entertainment use, and use 365 days/year. There’s an opportunity for new housing but not as much as 800 homes proposed by the Village and developer. We should also think about: what is missing in the southwest suburbs that we can bring to Tinley Park? I proposed an atrium connected to two residential buildings. We have large and small music venues but what about something in between like Bub City in Rosemont which is a restaurant with music stage. No doubt this would be a hit in Tinley Park and we can leverage our relationship with LiveNation, who manages the amphitheater, to bring in musical acts to this venue. I received many positive comments favoring an indoor turf field and ice arena. I would love to see a bike path that connects the site to downtown and 80th Avenue. All these developments would promote wellness, enhance community engagement and increase our tax base substantially

What are the key differences between you and the other candidates seeking this post? The other candidates have no significant relevant experience and have very vague and a lack of well defined campaign ideas. I am serious about this position and spent many hours preparing – reading through agreements, ordinances, meeting and exchanging emails with the Village Finance staff and Economic Development Manager. I have a Master’s Degree in Urban Planning and Policy from the University of Illinois at Chicago and spent many years in analytical roles in the real industry so I believe my background is well suited for this position. I created a detailed platform which you can read about on my Facebook page. As you consider who to vote for, think about where the candidates spent their time this election season: hosting fundraisers, begging donors for money, designing t-shirts and logos….or seriously preparing to be a Trustee.

Explain your attitudes toward fiscal policy, government spending and how taxpayer dollars should be handled by your office (or board): I will answer the question by talking about what happened at the Convention Center and Oak Park Avenue TIF last year. The TIF expired releasing a lot of property tax revenue from the TIF account back the Village’s general fund. Guess what? The money was already spent before we could get our hands on it. Was there ever any talk about giving it back to the taxpayers? The new owner of the hotel and manager of the convention center got a huge tax abatement from the Village and the schools. Where’s the tax abatement for the citizens of Tinley Park? The revenue from the Oak Park Avenue TIF was being used to pay the debt service on the general obligation bonds but with the TIF expiring Tinley Park needed a new revenue source. The solution was to increase the hotel tax to help pay for the $4.9 million of bonds outstanding at the expiration of the TIF. So, what looks to be a positive event – closing out one of the most successful TIFs in Illinois, getting a new hotel and convention center manager – actually turns out to be higher taxes, big subsidies for businesses and the taxpayers on the hook for paying off bonds. There is so much wrong with this scenario, many bad fiscal decisions that I want to reverse. Does anyone in the Village ever think about how to lower taxes instead of always raising them? We need someone who understands these complex financial issues, can connect the dots and expose bad decisions by our Village. Most importantly we need someone with the skills and background to make good fiscal decisions. I think that person is me.

In what way have current officeholders of the position you're running for failed the community? How would you do better? They make so many bad public policy decisions that cost us millions of $$. We need more knowledgeable people running our local government to make decisions that benefit us in the short term as well as the long term. We are off to a bad start on the redevelopment of the mental health center, ballooning marketing budget with no major increase in sales tax revenue, hundreds of new apartments coming online with no focus on home ownership, not leveraging the economic power of our regional assets – Convention Center and Amphitheater and the list goes on. I recommended ways on how to address many of these problems.

Describe the other issues that define your campaign platform: GOVERNMENT TRANSPARENCY – I want to see regular reporting on the activities of the Marketing and Economic Development Departments as well as the performance of the convention center to hold our government accountable. MORE EFFECTIVE MARKETING - We need to redirect our marketing dollars from sort of passive marketing to more active marketing to directly help our businesses. LARGER SOCIAL MEDIA PRESENCE - We need a much bigger and more effective social media presence – part of our marketing budget includes social media and the results (no. of page LIKES and video views) is poor. HOUSING – we need to focus more on home ownership both on the supply side with more construction and demand side by partnering with the lending community to promote down payment assistance programs available to first-time home buyers, veterans and repeat buyers.

If you win this position, how would you define your term in office as a success? Success would be: 1) making good public policy decisions, 2) having citizens believe their local government is doing a good job, and 3) informing citizens. We just have to get back on track and make decisions that benefit us in the short term as well as the long term. If you go to a Board meeting you see many residents express their frustrations and disappointment with our Village government and I want people to feel confident about the direction our government is taking us. We also need to keep citizens better informed about meetings, proposed development projects and helping citizens better understand these complex topics like TIF, the annual budget and environmental remediation so they can be empowered.

Please share with voters a story about wisdom gained from a mistake you made in your life or career. A mistake I made was underestimating the nastiness and viciousness of politics. The One Tinley Park group tried to kick all the independent candidates off the ballot. They failed miserably in the end but it created a lot of extra work and stress for the independent candidates. The bashing and cyber bullying of political candidates on social media is unbelievable and out of control. I have sure gained a lot of wisdom in the last 60 days about politics and running a campaign.

Why should voters trust you? I am spending my own time and money to get elected simply because I think our government needs more qualified individuals to help guide decisions and move Tinley Park in the right direction. I am not in this to return favors to campaign donors because I don’t have any. As a member of the community group challenging the Residence of Brookside Glen apartment development, I put in over 100 hours of my own personal time helping the group. Although I didn’t live right by the development site and my home wasn’t immediately impacted, I wanted to help the community. For some of the same reasons, I want to be a Trustee because I feel I can help our Village work better for the people.

Which accomplishments do you cite as evidence you can handle this job? I have worked previously in State government working on a single-family rehab program. I then managed another program, including creating the policies and procedures and then implemented the program. It was successful and what I really focused on was finding a good balance between meeting all regulatory requirements and making the program easy for the participants so it could be a success for everyone. In the government sector, a program might look good on paper but fails miserably because of all the red tape making it difficult to execute. My goal with that project and as a Trustee if elected would be to make our government work effectively for citizens and businesses.

What else would you like voters to know about yourself and your positions? I live in Tinley Park with my wife, two boys and two dogs. I am an independent candidate and my direct link is to the people of Tinley Park. I don’t have to check in with a political party boss before voting. I feel that political parties have too much control over our local government and trading one slate of candidates for another gets you the same bad result. Political parties always frame the issue as My Party vs. Your Party. We all know this type of fighting gets us nowhere. I look at it differently: It’s me vs. bad public policy. I don’t care what party you are from, if the decision is good for Tinley Park then I am on your side. If it’s a bad decision then I will be against you.