Issues

Promote a sustainable environment:

Linda believes in maintaining and enhancing our natural resources while protecting clean air and clean water for the health of our citizens.  This challenge was never going to be easy, but with wetter and stronger storms our county needs to plan for the future with climate change and make changes now to prepare ourselves.  Our natural environment in Lake County includes 170 lakes and rivers, some 400 miles of streams, thousands of acres of wetlands, and is located along Lake Michigan.  These important natural resources are not only a benefit to the physical and mental health of our inhabitants, but also provide economic and development opportunities for our businesses.  The adverse effects of climate change are a threat to our way of life as they impact our economy, our homes, our balance of nature, our future development, and our infrastructure.  The county needs to be working on these varied and complex issues now.

This issue includes Linda’s strong support for the Lake County Forest Preserves which need to be widely shared and located in all of our county areas.

Linda’s background with 41 years in Environment, Health, and Safety, and her fact-based and community-based approach to decision making will be very helpful in dealing with these issues.

Support development of more efficient transportation:

Linda also supports the efforts to find a solution to the congestion of our roads.  Continuing to expand our roads at great costs and pave over more of our land is counter-productive to promoting a sustainable environment.  That solution is not sustainable and is not healthy for people or the environment.  The county needs to evaluate some light rail or tram services that could connect Metra stations, towns east to west, shopping areas and local colleges to try to discourage so many personal cars on the road.  Other countries and other areas have found methods that work that we can study.  Even the expansion of the bike paths has encouraged more people to travel by bicycle and walking.  If we look at transportation when new residential areas are planned instead of when they start-up their travel, that would be helpful.

More cost-effective and efficient government services:

Lake County has been working to invest in technologies to deliver government services in a more efficient, cost-effective, transparent, and secure manner.  Some new improvements have recently been implemented on these concerns, but more can be done to improve the communications between citizens and their government.  Many of our citizens are not sure what the Lake County government does for them, and are unaware of where to go with concerns.  Better communication of what Lake County offices do, and are doing, would be a great improvement.  Hard data must be used to drive decision-making on financial and policy decisions coming before the Lake County Board.  Operational excellence should be the goal of all departments and thus, a method to track the status and improvement of basic services must be available.  Linda will work hard to make sure that our government is a leader in communications, cost-efficiency, collaboration, transparency, reliability and effectiveness.

Improve the quality of life for Lake County Residents:

Linda will continue to support the critical elements required to make communities environmentally sustainable, safe, healthy, affordable, inclusive, and vibrant.  Linda supports the Lake County Public Health Department and work to promote improvement in health outcomes, expand physical and mental health services, and study to fill any gaps.  In the last 3 years our public health system has worked incredibly hard to keep our community safe and healthy – they have done a great job!  Linda supports what they are doing to keep us safe and will help continue and improve these services for all of our citizens wherever possible.

Linda also supports efforts to make our communities safer by shifting resources from enforcement to prevention, including community policing.  We all need to support our law enforcement personnel who embrace community policing to build public trust and other programs designed to reduce crime, family violence, and substance abuse.