As Winnetka Village President Gene Greable looks ahead to 2017, he sees the completion or progression of ongoing village projects – fighting flooding, increasing the health of Winnetka’s downtown business areas and shepherding the One Winnetka project toward the finish line – as the biggest items on his to-do list.
Not only must those projects be completed, Greable said this month they must be done with Winnetkans’ full input and knowledge.
Greable, whose second term as president ends following the April municipal election, said he’ll have time later to look back on his terms. Right now, he’s focused on the coming year, he said.
“The highest priority is to resolve our stormwater problem, there’s no doubt about it. We have to mitigate it to the furthest degree possible,” Greable said.
Key to that will be successful relationship building between the village and governments whose properties the village needs access to in order to manage stormwater, he said: Winnetka School District 36 and New Trier High School, the Winnetka Park District, and the Cook County Forest Preserve.
Greable said he believes the village council’s communication with residents in 2016 helped it make decisions about stormwater planning that had broad support. He said the council and village staff are now working to get equally broad approval from those other governments: “We’re very comfortable with getting a consensus in the first quarter of the year, and I absolutely see a start on solutions before the end of 2017.”
Greable said his second priority, the One Winnetka project, helmed by village resident and developer David Trandel, could be officially ready to start by late spring. The council unanimously gave the project preliminary approval on Jan. 17.
“Mr. Trandel has to submit his final plans for final approval, but I think that can be done quickly. I can see that within 18 months we could see the results of this work,” he said. “And it is so important to the economic health of our community.”
Greable said the village’s economy is a big part of why he is also looking forward to the progression of the Downtown Master Plan that council members adopted Nov. 3. The plan, developed with the help of an 11-person citizens’ committee, more than 70 people in six working groups, and a team of consultants, focused on the Elm Street, Hubbard Woods, and Indian Hill business districts.
It is now part of the village’s comprehensive plan, and the village allocated $470,000 of its 2017 budget to master plan projects, he said.
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“It’s taken a lot of work, and a lot of time,” Greable said. “We’re behind on economic development, so discussing zoning issues and goals will be an expectation” for the smaller task force drawn from the original committee and now charged with helping review zoning and land use regulations, streetscape improvements and other items tackled in the master plan.
One of the keys to having a healthy economic outlook is hiring a full-time economic coordinator, he said, which the village did earlier in January.
Greable said he is proud of the budget, which he called balanced and fully transparent. He also touted not only the village’s Aaa bond rating, but what he said was the equally important delivery by Moody’s Investment Service that Winnetka has a stable economic outlook.
“Eventually, perhaps sometime later this year, we may have to sell bonds, and that rating and assessment will save us a lot of money,” he said.
Greable said he is also excited about non-fiscal issues, including the 2017 Winnetka Music Festival planned for June.
Until he passes the baton to Chris Rintz, who is unopposed in his run to become the next village president, Greable said he will continue to see stewardship as his byword for the coming year.
Twitter: @pioneer_kathy