The past 12 months have been a period of transition for Brookfield village government. In that time, village hall has been pretty well transformed with a new village manager, fire chief, public works director, recreation director (the entire department, really) and planner.
Despite all of that change, village government appears to have landed on its feet, with experienced leadership and a renewed focus on sound fiscal management and the village’s future.
Are there areas village government can improve? Certainly, but there is no dire need for a radical change of direction. What experience has taught us is that in small towns like Brookfield, change happens incrementally.
Especially with respect to economic development, while residents express frustration with what they see as a lack of action or over the kinds of development that actually occurs, such development is highly dependent on private property owners, entrepreneurs and developers who approach such risks differently.
There’s no magic bullet, but there is preparation and planning that can help attract that kind of investment. By and large, Brookfield’s village government has laid that groundwork. Now it’s time to implement a vision.
The three candidates running for village trustee who we believe can best help in that implementation are Brian Conroy, Kathryn Kaluzny and Mark Rogers.
All three bring valuable experience to the board, either from prior government experience as school board members – in the cases of Conroy and Rogers – or as an appointed official, like Kaluzny, who was also a member of the Brookfield Comprehensive Plan steering committee and launched the grassroots Go Green Brookfield group that caught the attention of PEP Party officials in the first place.
It’s really not a mystery why PEP’s candidates, this also includes David LeClere who we are not endorsing but recognize for his past experience as a trustee and commission member, have won election to every post since 2005.
They tend to be the people who go out of their way to make themselves part of the village’s fabric – the volunteers, commission members, to doers – who are visible at events and in local organizations and do the hard, unglamorous work of helping make Brookfield the place it is.
