Village Manager's Message

I hope this message finds you well. Last week, I attended the International City/County Management Association from October 25-29. The conference was an amazing experience and afforded me the opportunity to connect with other local officials, learn, and share best practices. I took full advantage of attending insightful sessions hosted by industry experts, listening in on innovative discussions from experienced panels, and also allowed me to explore new technologies.

I am a people person, and being at a place with over 5,270 other attendees who are in local government allowed me to do what I think I do best and that is “work the room”. Or in this case, work the conference. Everyone I ran into was engaging and more than willing to share their experiences, good, bad, and indifferent. What I was able to reason in hearing the shared experiences is that we have a great staff of professionals and leaders who just get after it. Village Staff is always looking for how to find the latest technology, looking at ways to simplify processes and be more responsive to village requests in a timely, empathetic way. Village staff receive an enormous amount of requests for service across all Departments. These requests and responding to the requester keep us all quite busy. The satisfaction I personally get in these interactions is when staff are able to solve an ongoing issue that has literally taken days, weeks, or years to solve. I am also excited for residents when we are able to begin projects that directly affect their quality of life. Street or sewer improvements are at the top of that list, with sidewalk improvements and the removal or planting of trees being a close second.

Ah, but I digress, some of the courses I attended at ICMA in no particular order were: 

“Building Trust & Enhancing Citizen Engagement in Smaller Communities with Citizen Academies” – A lot of good ideas and I would like to see us produce an eight (8) week academy for citizens that cover things the populous would be interested. I have been a part of several Citizen Police Academies and the response from the public was always positive.

“Tips for Effective Governing Body Meetings" – The Manager’s Role is bigger than you think”-Some of our agendas are quite large and our discussions are sometimes lengthy. I gained some valuable insight on somethings we can do to make our meetings more focused on the Village business.

“Making the Most of Tax Increment Financing” – This was an excellent panel discussion on a complicated topic. The discussion sparked some ideas we can present to the Village Board and the general public.

I attended several other courses and listened to several keynote speakers. The most poignant and relevant, I felt, was “Love Your Enemies” by Arthur Brooks. We could all learn to love more. I promise to do my part.

View the full weekly report here. All weekly and monthly reports can be found in our Document Center under Village Manager.

Mike Rivas

Village Manager

NEDSRA Fall Family Resource Fair

Join NEDSRA for the Fall Family Resource Fair! Discover local resources and services for individuals with disabilities of all ages. Enjoy free on-site childcare while you explore a variety of supportive agencies. For more info and to pre-register, visit NEDSRA's website.