Rolling Meadows Mayoral Candidate Plans to Return Town to Golden Days

In the 1970’s and 80’s, Golf Road in Rolling Meadows was known as the “golden corridor” because of all the big businesses that called the area home and helped ensure a thriving community. Fast forward through the Great Recession to 2014, and Rolling Meadows was named the second most boring place in Illinois by the Movoto real estate website. Mayoral Candidate Len Prejna knows that while boring can mean peaceful, it can also mean that the city isn’t recovering from the economic downturn.

“In 2008, many local businesses closed and that meant that tax revenue in the city dried up,” said Prejna. “The economy is recovering, but we haven’t seen businesses returning to downtown Rolling Meadows.”

While the revenue may have dried up, the flood of infrastructure projects requiring attention have not, but Prejna says that putting that cost on the backs of citizens isn’t an option. Instead, he wants to make Rolling Meadows a destination location by encouraging new local business and connecting the community through events.

Prejna plans to turn Rolling Meadows into a business friendly city by making it easy for new business to get up and running and easy to expand.

“We need to start treating our businesses like customers,” said Prejna. “Right now, if a business is renovating a space and we find a development issue, we write them a ticket, which they have to petition to have overturned. This is earning us a bad reputation. We should be providing a reasonable amount of time to fix the issue.”

Prejna said that during his time canvassing, he spoke with many current local business owners who want to expand, but won’t because there are too many hoops to jump through. He believes that local businesses and the city should work as a team, and wants to partner with the Chamber of Commerce - something that hasn’t been done since 2008.

To dispel the ‘most boring city’ alias, Prejna is already working with many community groups to help breath life into the city. He helped support a local car show, sponsored by Meadows Christian Fellowship, and as president of Crimestoppers worked with the police force to display their squads along with car owners and aficionados. He also helped organize ‘Wine Down By the Creek’ and other concerts in the park where local businesses help underwrite the cost.

Prejna’s involvement in many civic organizations will help him make connections between groups to get things done in Rolling Meadows, but he’s not sitting back on his heels.

“I’m out talking with the community every day, discussing the issues that matter,” said Prejna. “I’m currently averaging an easy 15,000 steps a day on my Fitbit, but I hope to increase that to 20,000 as we near election day, and keep it there if I’m elected. It’s important for elected officials to stay engaged with the people they serve.”