As Buffalo Grove Village President Beverly Sussman prepares to leave office this spring after two terms, she is reflecting on what she considers a host of accomplishments that she, the Village Board and the village administration have implemented during her time in leadership — including numerous new developments, increased transparency, a modernized infrastructure and holding the line on taxes.
“We have made wonderful accomplishments in the eight years that I’ve been president, and not just me, but me, the board and our village manager,” she told Pioneer Press. “We’re all part of everything that takes place and happens. No one works alone, we all work together. That’s very important.”
So why step down? Sussman said in 29 years of service to the village, she has missed meetings three times: Twice when she was hospitalized and once during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I won’t go anywhere if it means missing a meeting. So, I won’t go on trips … if they interfere with meetings,” she said. “And my husband and I have reached a point where we’d like to be able to say, ‘Let’s go to such-and-such place,’ and get in the car and go, or to be able to make reservations and go, which I haven’t been able to do in all these years. It’s time to get back to normal life and do what we want to do when we want to do it.”
A Buffalo Grove resident since 1971, Sussman grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y. From a young age, she was a leader, she recalls. She ran for mayor in eighth grade — and won. Later, during her career as an elementary school science teacher, she was the leader of her group of teachers. She has also served as president of a private company, AIM Business Printers, since 1992.
Sussman began her involvement in village government 29 years ago, when she served on the Buffalo Grove commission for residents with disabilities and also on the village’s 50th anniversary committee. After 15 years on the disabilities commission, she successfully ran for village trustee in 2009 and for reelection in 2013.
In 2015, two years into her second term as trustee, Sussman decided to run for village president against incumbent Jeffrey Braiman. It was the year after a controversial, 65-acre downtown project on Lake-Cook Road — which Sussman had vocally opposed — was withdrawn by a developer and village leaders had made it clear they wouldn’t provide the kind of financial assistance that the developer had been seeking.
Despite Sussman’s objections to that project, some of which related to its likely impact on nearby homes and some of which stemmed from the land being in a flood plain, she has championed other developments in town as president.
She pointed to the new, 242,000-square-foot Woodman’s grocery store at Milwaukee Avenue and Deerfield Parkway plus two gas stations, along with the new 43,000-square-foot-plus Shops of Buffalo Grove retail project across the street.
Sussman also noted The Clove development, on the 22-acre site of the old Town Center, which the Village Board approved in June 2022.
“It’s going to be an entertainment and residential district with stores, with shopping and a 43,000-square-foot grocery [store] and lots of places to eat out, plus a contemporary building design,” she said. “It’s amazing. It’s taken a very, very long time to get there.”
The project will also have park space for civic events and concerts, along with a seven-story apartment building.
Sussman said she is proud that Northwest Community Healthcare is building a four-story medical office building at 125 E. Lake-Cook Road, along with a small retail component at the northwest part of the site.
“We also have the new WJ Golf (indoor golf facility) and the Vin90 restaurant (in the Arboretum Club) on Half Day Road,” she said. “The list goes on and on.”
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Sussman’s time as president hasn’t solely involved private sector development, however. She touted plans for the village’s new Public Works Department facility, saying “we outgrew our building years ago.” And she said Buffalo Grove’s infrastructure modernization program, which involves revitalizing streets, water and sanitary sewers, has been “coming along very well.”
The out-going village leader highlighted a transparent communications philosophy that includes streaming village meetings live on Facebook and regularly posting a village newsletter.
Sussman also noted that over the past four years, Buffalo Grove residents have not seen a tax increase.
“I like saving our residents money and I like bringing economic activity to the village,” Sussman said. “I like helping residents very much. I always say Buffalo Grove is a great place to live, work and raise a family.”
She said some of the remaining projects she’d like to see on track before she leaves office include the redevelopment of the former Bob Rohrman car dealership properties on Dundee Road, and fixing up the former Chase Plaza mall at the northeast corner of Lake-Cook and Arlington Heights roads.
“Hopefully they will be done if not before I leave, then the next president will get them done,” she said.
A longer-term goal involves either expanding or building a new Village Hall, Sussman said.
“We’re outgrowing things there, and we’ve been there a long time,” she said.
Current Village Trustee Eric Smith is running unopposed for village president in the April 4 election.
Sussman acknowledged that walking away from a job she loves will be difficult.
“I will miss it greatly when I leave that last meeting and get up from that seat. It will be a very, very hard thing to do,” she said. “I really don’t want to leave. At the same time, I thought it through very carefully, and if I don’t do it now, four more years will go by if I were to be re-elected and I still wouldn’t be going anywhere. It was time for my husband and me to enjoy ourselves and to go do what we want to do.”
Goldsborough is a freelancer.