By Igor Studenkov | For the Bugle
Incumbent Niles Mayor Andrew Przybylo is facing his first re-election this spring.
On April 4, village voters have a choice between keeping him or electing newcomer Steven Yasell.
Pryzbylo told the Bugle that he aims to build on what he already accomplished and continue pursuing projects he has been advocating for months, if not years. His major priorities would be to improve government efficiency, put together a 5-year infrastructure capital project plan, attract more retail to the Milwaukee Avenue commercial corridor and other areas, figuring out ways to pay off the village’s pension obligations and helping residents remodel their homes to make them more modern and desirable.
While Przybylo has only been a mayor for four years, his history in Niles politics goes further back. He served as a village trustee in 1989-2013, and he worked as a secretary at the Cook County Zoning Board of Appeals in 2003-2015. The White Eagle restaurant, which he and his family owned until April 2015, is a long-time Niles institution.
When asked about his priorities, the first thing Przybylo mentioned was implementing performance management software. He said that he has seen it in action in the Cook County government, and he was impressed.
“It’s all about [being] productive,” Pryzybylo explained. “If [for example] you have tree replacement programs, and you evaluate how you’re meeting those goals, and what’s it is costing. You go froward and try to reduce those costs, and you hold managers responsible.”
While he said he was determined to make it happen, he noted that there were two major obstacles to getting this in place.
“The software isn’t easy to come buy, and you need other municipalities involved to measure [yourself] against your peers,” Przybylo said.
Even before the election started, the mayor said on multiple occasions that he had concerns about whether the village would be able to maintain its tax revenue.
“In this day and age, when more shopping is being done through the Internet, we have to be very innovative, in terms of shopping centers, work with them to reinvent themselves,’ he told the Bugle.
He explained that the Niles Economic Development and Neighborhood Renewal Commission’s South Milwaukee Avenue Revitalization Sub-Committee is working on improving businesses in the village’s main thoroughfare, focusing on the section between Albion Avenue and Main Street. One idea that the village is already looking to implement, Przybylo said, was to create a Home Design Remodel District. The idea came from Mike Shields, a member of the commission’s Executive Committee.
“You got different plumbing stores, cabinet places [on Milwaukee Avenue], there are so many – there’s probably 10-12,” Przybylo said. “So [Shields] said, ‘Why don’t we promote that experience, shopping for home remodeling [experience], through an association.’”
The association would work with the village and the Niles Chamber of Commerce and Industry to advertise itself and attract shoppers from Niles and beyond.
His ultimate economic development goal, Przybylo said, is to make sure the village continues to get most of its revenue through property taxes.
“If I can manage to maintain 60 percent sales tax for my budget, then I’m fine,” he said. “Its all about sales tax. I don’t want to raise property tax. Homeowners, they’re already paying enough for schools.”
However, that doesn’t mean the village isn’t interested in keeping and attracting industrial businesses, which don’t necessarily generate sales taxes in the village.
“It helps our economy in that we have jobs available,” Przybylo said. “[Workers] don’t live in Niles, but they come to Niles. They may go to restaurants, because they’re working here. They can go shopping. And, hopefully, we’ll do more manufacturing in the United States, and that’s where it will be done.”
Yasell criticized the village for relying too much on Tax Increment Financing districts and property tax classification-based incentives. Przybylo argued that it was a matter of economic necessity.
“The fact is–if everybody stops giving incentives for businesses, then we would stop,” he said. “But this is a competitive world. And if they can build and move a business in Niles, [but] they can do it cheaper in Morton Grove, they can move to Morton Grove. So long as you have convenience, it doesn’t matter [where you’re located]. Fact is, I would love to stop economic incentives, but I have to wait for everyone to stop it.”
At the same time, Przybylo called opponents of such incentives “short-sighted.”
“They want to make it sound like its corporate welfare,” he said. “This isn’t corporate welfare. If not for those properties, homeowners would have to pay more. And they’d have to have less service.”
Yasell told the Bugle that addressing flooding in the village was his biggest priority. Przybylo said that it’s important to him as well. He touted the success of Tier I stormwater mitigation projects, saying that they saved about 600 homes from flooding. If he’s elected, Przybylo said, the village would continue to pursue Tier II projects, with a new water detention vault on a land the village recently acquired near Golf Mill Shopping Center, by the intersection of Greenwood Avenue and Church Street. Above it, the village will build what Przybylo described as a “destination park,” using Chicago’s Millennium Park and Maggie Daley Park, both built on the site of the former Illinois Central Railroad freight yard, as examples of what he was looking for.
“The destination park will be [a place where] we can have car shows and farmers’ markets and places people can congregate for different activities,” he said.
When asked to elaborate on how he intends to address the village’s pension shortfalls, he said that he doesn’t have anything too elaborate beyond trying to pay them off as best the village can.
“We just have to continue to include it in the budget, hefty [payments] of our pension obligations,” he said. “We pay more then we have to, by law, every year.”
Przybylo noted that pension obligations are partially driven by facts the village could not control.
“In 2008, pension values were higher because the economy was better,” he said. “Lets say Donald Trump rebuilds our economy to level of 2005, that will help our pensions. Until that happens, we have to add more and more money to it.”
One thing both Yasell and Przybylo agreed on is that turning the area around the Leaning Tower of Niles into an arts and culture destination would help the village. However, the way they each envisioned it was somewhat different. While Yasell’s vision focused on cultural amenities such as a movie theater, Przybylo said that retail component would be a big part of it, too.
“I want to see a very strong retail center, based on arts and culture,’” the mayor said. “Ethnic restaurants supporting a great big park that’s fronted by the Leaning Tower. You can devote part of facilities to artist studios and residences for artists. They do it in San Francisco, Los Angeles, they used to do it in in Chicago. We would promote concerts and different artistic initiatives.”
Przybylo was quick to add that having apartments for artists is a challenge.
“Artists typically can’t pay a lot, so there have to be subsidies,” he said. “But the devil is in the details.”
The mayor also said that he hopes that the nearby Leaning Tower YMCA will build a new facility that will serve as something Niles currently doesn’t have: a community center where members could have activities and performances.
In his interview with the Bugle, Yasell argued that the Village of Niles should be more transparent. Przybylo argued that this is disingenuous.
“Transparency–it’s very eas to say,” he said. “It sounds very hip, very modern. It makes your opponents sounds like Neanderthals.”
While he did not mention long-time Niles mayor Nicholas Blase by name, he said that “previous mayors” didn’t have committees and commissions, which are largely made up of residents, and that he deserves credit for putting many of them in place. Przybylo also argued that he deserved credit for establishing a village inspector general position.
“Ask [Yasell] how many municipalities have an interdependent Inspector General with the Ethics Board,” he said. “He won’t know how to answer that.”