How Streamwood trustee candidates would grow village's economy

The post-pandemic economic strength of Streamwood and the role the village government can play in it are concerns for the five candidates vying for three trustee seats in the April 4 election.

Joining incumbents James Cecille and Mary Thon on the ballot are former Trustee Larry Rybicki, longtime community relations commission member Nazneen Hashmi and planning and zoning board member Harshadkumar Shah.

"With economic growth, I know our village is self-sufficient and we have a balanced budget," Hashmi said. "We have brought in a lot of large businesses, but I would like to see small businesses also thrive because they are the root for the success of our community."

Rybicki, who previously served on the board from 1999 to 2007, said he agrees that Streamwood is on great financial footing.

"However, the economy is something that we need to continuously keep our eye on and especially the economy here within our village," he added. "We - I don't know if the right word is 'suffer' - are experiencing the same thing with retail that we see throughout the entire area, where big-box stores are drawing away, being replaced by the Amazon.coms and all of those types of things."

Rybicki said the village promotes its small businesses but it's more important than ever to find them areas where they can thrive and grow.

"But with our limited space, our limited commercial areas, we have only so much we can do," he said. "But we have to make sure we focus on that."

Thon, who is seeking her fourth term on the board, said the village has taken steps to support its business community.

"One of the things in Streamwood that we have started doing over the past couple years, ever since COVID, is we have business grants available for our small and large businesses," she said. "It helps them provide for their parking lots, for their signs to help people know that they're there."

Shah, who was previously involved in his former hometown of Skokie, said he is trying to further his contributions to his new hometown.

"We have a self-sufficient budget and we are doing really good, but we need to support small businesses," he said. "And if we have more small businesses, that would create more prosperity - revenue and everything. During COVID it was slowing down, but now we need to move forward and we need to create more businesses."

Cecille has been on the board since 1987 and said he'll consider his contribution complete after one more term.

"One thing we did implement last year is that we did small business assistance to give them money to upgrade their business, their signage, some remodeling," he said. "We put about $100,000 into the budget, and you would be surprised at all the applications we got to enhance their businesses in Streamwood."

He pointed to specific examples such as Aldi's relocating to a subdivided furniture store building on Barrington Road.

Streamwood's stores are thriving and the village's sales tax revenues exceed projections each year, Cecille added.

"Yes, we have some empty stores, but I will say one thing: I've been through some other towns lately and I've seen some big, large shopping centers that are pretty much empty," he said. "So when I drive around Streamwood and look, I think that the businesses are doing OK. They're not closing. We're not having a large amount of businesses walking out of town."