Q & A with Northbrook Village president candidate Gene Marks

Editor's note: While our Q&A with village president candidate Kathryn Ciesla, which ran in the March 4 edition, said Marks didn't respond to our request for an endorsement interview, he actually did - there was just a misunderstanding about the format.

Eugene "Gene" Marks, a Rogers Park native who has lived in Northbrook since 1984, is the United4Northbrook candidate running for Northbrook Village president in the general consolidated election on April 6.

He is joined on the United4Northbrook slate by trustees candidates Robert Burns, Christopher Lay and Ana Mendes McGuinnes.

Marks, who served one term as village president from 2005-09, is currently self-employed in sales for security equipment manufacturers.

The Herald reached Marks by phone for a question-and-answer session concerning his thoughts and themes of his candidacy. The following has been edited for clarity and continuity.

DH: What is the emphasis of United4Northbrook?

GM: We want to see transparency ... We formed because we don't like the direction that the (current) board is going in. We have experienced leadership, as I was a former village president. We want to show transparency, fiscal responsibility. A lot of these things haven't been followed by this current board.

It's transparency, fiscal responsibility, making sure our residents are safe and that taxes, we hope they stay the same or go down, and property values go up. A big thing we want to take care of is our seniors and special-needs people.

DH: Tell us about the United4Northbrook trustees candidates.

GM: One of them does mergers and acquisitions, two of them are attorneys. It's a very sharp group with a lot of community experience.

They're excellent candidates, they've been in the community for a lot of years ... They're all very caring individuals that really care for this village. Ana's husband is a with the police department. Our group of candidates, we bring experience, we want to have financial responsibility and our major goal also is safety. We want to make sure our residents are completely safe.

DH: How was your term as Northbrook Village president?

GM: It was a lot of work. We accomplished an awful lot, though.

DH: Can you describe some of those accomplishments?

GM: There was no drive-through restaurant or outdoor dining. We got that passed.

We did a lot with sustainability. We changed all the stop lights to LED. We had a proposal that came to us for a private recycle center on which they started doing 95% recycling on teardowns. We also purchased credit for wind power to power our water plant, and we were the largest user of, technically, wind power in the state of Illinois. We received awards for it.

We worked with the fathers at Techny. The previous mayor wanted to see offices in there, but I wanted retail, and so did the Techny fathers. They liked that idea. Willow Festival became one of the most successful shopping centers in the Chicago area. It still is.

We had a lot of traction in the village. When I left office, our CFO (chief financial officer Jeff Rowitz) stated we were in the best financial shape we'd ever been in.

We bought some new fire equipment, we bought a new sidewalk plow, we got Tasers when they came out, the best nonlethal weapons. We also made a tactical unit in the village to keep the crime down.

We turned a $1.5 million deficit into a $2.5 million surplus. We rebuilt many of the roads, sewers, replaced broken equipment and focused on fixing infrastructure. We also upgraded the water facilities and sold water down to Riverwoods, and tied an emergency feed into Deerfield and Glenview. We also purchased land and started to build a water tower on the west side of town. That was completed after I left.

We also enacted a life safety, zero-tolerance sprinkler ordinance for all new construction. I believe that was for houses of more than 5,000 feet. We were also a platinum member of Clean Air Counts, an environmental agency.

We also placed in the top 15 of the country by the U.S. Conference of Mayors' blind taste test for best water.

We had a lot of accomplishments.

DH: As village president, what would be your first priority?

GM: My first priority is to work on expanding affordable housing for our seniors and the disabled. There's a lot of property in town that can be filled. This board bought (the) Grainger (property) for $8.3 million with no idea what they were going to do with it. We could do it possibly on that land or somewhere else. That (Grainger) would be great because you could walk right to downtown.

We need to save Northbrook Court. ... We need to work to get some anchor stores in there and help rebuild Northbrook Court. It's a crown jewel of Northbrook, it gets a lot of tax dollars in. Right now it's virtually a ghost town.

DH: What's your take on the Green Acres site?

GM: I actually spoke to the owner (GA Northbrook) of Green Acres. The property is very expensive and we have a lot of concerns from the homeowners in the area, but we don't want to overwhelm the schools, we have to be very conscious of that, and the services - police and fire, public works. We have to be very cognizant of not overwhelming the current system, especially the schools

I believe it's 128 acres there (127). I've talked to the owners and said, what about 100 one-acre home sites, leaving that with 28 acres of open land for parks and stuff. If they left the clubhouse there, the pool, the tennis courts it could be country club living, and 100 homes would produce very few students into the system, so it wouldn't affect the schools. That would bring many tax dollars into the village, and very little services by the village. And it would also keep the neighbors very happy with a development like that - and produce very little traffic.

DH: Is there a United4Northbrook game plan concerning recovery from COVID-19?

GM: COVID hurt many, many, many businesses. ... We need to see how we can help the businesses that have been hurt and how we can revive them and bring in new businesses while keeping our residents safe.

We have to have a meeting with our affected businesses and (discuss) between us how we can help each other. Then we have to look at how we can bring in new business to stabilize the tax base or increase it. Many of the villages around us sat down with their businesses and asked how they could help, and they worked out their problems. The main thing we have to do is support and take care of our residents and our businesses and make sure we have a safe and very viable community.

DH: Finally, why should people vote for you?

GM: I'm experienced. I was voted president before with numerous accomplishments. I left the village in better financial shape than it's ever been in, per our CFO. And we did a lot of upgrades to our infrastructure - police, fire, public works.