Meet the Village Trustee Candidates: Richard Wilkie

What do you need to know about this spring's village board trustee candidates? We will be running one candidate profile each day this week (in alphabetical order for fairness's sake) at 11 a.m.

Have questions? Keep these profiles for reference prior to the Mar. 23 , sponsored by the Lisle Area Chamber of Commerce, where the dialogue will be driven by resident questions.

Looking for a specific candidate's profile? Here's when to find them.

Monday: Mark Boyle

Tuesday: Cathy Cawiezel

Wednesday: Gary Ledvora

Friday: Ed Young

Richard Wilkie

Richard Wilkie is running for a village trustee position on the platform of fiscal responsibility and governmental transparency.

Wilkie, a self-employed marketing and sales consultant, said he got involved with local issues during the Navistar $20 million TIF district decision because he was worried about local and state spending.

Most Lisle residents Wilkie said he has talked with are greatly concerned with Lisle’s spending, which he hopes to rein in. He said a shortfall of about $1 million between revenues and expenditures this year coupled with decreasing reserves the last eight years (from $35 million to $15 million) requires a line-by-line review to cut excess spending.

“I’m becoming concerned that the easy answer is 'Let’s go back to the taxpayers and find a way to make more money',” Wilkie said. “I haven’t seen a lot of fiscal concerns to cut costs and live responsibly within the budgets that they already have.”

Since 2001, Wilkie said Lisle’s expenditures have increased 9 percent but its revenues have fallen 9 percent, according to Lisle’s 10-Year Financial Plan from 2000-10. Also from the plan, sales tax revenue has declined 41 percent while property tax levies (42 percent) and debt (40 percent) have increased.

“There is a spending gap,” Wilkie said. “Our expenditures have been more than revenues for eight years, so we have been in the deficit spending mode.” 

For the master plan, Wilkie said Lisle has spent about $20 million between street improvements, fixing building facades and a retention pond. However, he hasn’t seen a corresponding plan on what the village wants a finished downtown to be.

“You need to have a vision on what you want it to be,” Wilkie said. “We are not going to be Naperville and see Eddie Bauer, Barnes & Noble or those other stores. We have a master plan. However, it doesn’t include how to attract those businesses and what businesses to attract. Do you want it to be a restaurant downtown, a destination-type of place or a museum campus? There has been really little thought of that.”

Wilkie said Lisle should ask questions as to why businesses such as Starbucks refuse to open downtown. Having statistics such as the number of people who visit the downtown area, how much money they spend and which businesses they patronize would help attract businesses. And, attracting businesses would help increase sales tax revenue, he said.

“Private business isn’t willing to make investments to the downtown because the economy isn’t good,” Wilkie said. “They don’t see it as a viable return on their investment.”

Besides fiscal conservatism, Wilkie said he wants government transparency. Wilkie agrees with Navistar coming to Lisle for economic growth. However, he said Navistar’s zoned area was made into a $20 million TIF district that will increase property taxes. The Village Board and DuPage County used the code name Project Jane for the TIF deal with Navistar and had non-disclosure meetings and a non-disclosure document.

Wilkie, who received a bachelor’s degree from Northern Illinois University, is married to his wife, Mary, and has two children, Kristen and Michael.

He was a key community member who worked with the governor and attorney general’s offices to successfully negotiate Navistar’s relocation of their corporate headquarters to Lisle, without diesel engine testing. He is president of the Exeter Townhome Association, was a vice chairman of the Lisle Technology Commission and was treasurer and president of the Arboretum Woods Homeowners Association.