Ersel Schuster Reveals Answers to Northwest Herald County Board Candidate Questionnaire

District 6 McHenry County Board candidate Ersel Schuster has sent McHenry County Blog her replies to the Northwest Herald’s candidate questionnaire. Here they are. (Anyone else is welcome to email me their replies and they will be published. )

Northwest Herald Questionnaire

Please respond to each of the following questions.

Answers are strictly limited to 100 words.

1) What are your top priorities if elected?

We need county offices/departments that put more emphasis on enforcing the rules, regulations and laws they were intended to enforce rather than spending our tax dollars building empires. A priority of my term in office would be to do internal audits of several county departments to ensure the work that should be done is actually being accomplished. Citizens should not have to ask why their questions are not being addressed and why the laws, they believe should be protecting them, are not being enforced.

2) What past decision made by this elected body did you most disagree with and why?

Discarding the long standing county policy that road work is done as the funds are available, I believe, is irresponsible and I strongly disagree with the decision to do so. The rush to build new and wider roads is generated by those who believe in development at any cost. The unintended consequences of this decision, has far reaching implications to every taxpayer in the county.

3) What are the county’s top transportation needs and what can be done to address them?

Rapid development occurring in McHenry County is causing the existing road system to be stressed to a point where greater attention needs to be placed on an upscale maintenance and restructuring program of these existing roadways.

4) Has the county been a good steward of tax dollars? Why or why not?

Purchasing an expensive piece of Crystal Lake real estate for the county’s animal control facility does not exactly show good stewardship of our tax dollars. Further, it does not make sense to take a perfectly good commercial building off the tax rolls.

I believe in the centralization of county services making them accessible to all residents. The county board has already set aside land for this type of use and at a far greater savings to the taxpayers.

5) Should the county pursue a regional conference and event center project?

No. Leave it to the private sector.

If the private sector is convinced that local government is sincerely working to make the business climate the best possible, they will be asking what they can do for us rather than asking for “incentives.”

When government and/or promoters of such projects need to seek out those developers who build and promote such projects; the incentives necessary to bring them in simply creates another burden on the taxpayers… a la, Motorola!


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