Minutes with Mayor Hofeld: Questions from Homewood Residents

Help us prioritize Patch submitted questions from Patch readers for Homewood's Village President Richard Hofeld.

Minutes with Mayor Hofeld: Questions from Homewood Residents

Help us prioritize Patch submitted questions from Patch readers for Homewood's Village President Richard Hofeld—or add your own!

What Do You Want to Ask Homewood's Mayor?

Help us prioritize Patch submitted questions from Patch readers for Homewood's Village President Richard Hofeld—or add your own!.

Minutes with Mayor Hofeld: Questions from Homewood Residents

Help us prioritize Patch submitted questions from Patch readers for Homewood's Village President Richard Hofeld.

We asked our H-F Patch Facebook friends for questions for Homewood Village President Richard Hofeld. Now, we need your help to prioritize them.  While we'd love to ask Hofeld every question, he's got things to do, including a village to run. All are invited to vote in our poll below to help us decide which questions are the most pressing. Here's what we've got so far. Please offer additional suggestions in the comment section. Which questions would you like Hofeld to answer?

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Will Flossmoor Ever Offer Leaf Pickup?: Minutes With the Mayor

In this installment of Minutes With the Mayor, Flossmoor Mayor Paul Braun answers questions from local residents about the potential for Flossmoor leaf pickup service.

Patch gathered questions from readers, for Flossmoor Mayor Paul Braun. Now, Patch will regularly air a series of video responses to the questions readers voted as most pressing. In this edition, Braun discusses the possibility of leaf pickup for Flossmoor residents. Transcript: I’d love to see leaf pickup in Flossmoor. It’s a cost issue. The last time the board looked at that, Public Works reported that we would need to purchase … another vehicle with a leaf vacuum and we just weren’t able to afford that additional service at this time. So, it’s certainly something I’d like to see if financial conditions improve. It’s a great program but, at this point, while we’re trying to maintain costs and not reduce existing services, it was not …

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Tony Dauginas

10:15 am on Saturday, January 5, 2013

I once saw someone drive a truckload of yard waste bags packed full of leaves to a friends house in Homewood.   more ›

On Flossmoor's Tree Removal Program: Minutes With the Mayor

In this installment of Minutes With the Mayor, Flossmoor Mayor Paul Braun answers questions from local residents about Flossmoor's tree removal program.

Patch gathered questions from readers, for Flossmoor Mayor Paul Braun. Now, Patch will regularly air a series of video responses to the questions readers voted as most pressing. In this edition, Braun tells us about Flossmoor's tree removal program. Transcript: The current village policy, which is primarily based on the Emerald Ash Borer situation … is that, if the tree is 50 percent or more dead, the village will take the tree down. Now, that’s for parkway trees. We do, by policy, notify homeowners prior to the tree coming down … except in situations where there is a storm and the tree is likely to fall. We may take the tree down without being able to notify residents by letter. But, generally speaking, with tagged trees that need to come…

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Flossmoor Property Tax Relief Efforts: Minutes with the Mayor

In this installment of Minutes with the Mayor, Paul Braun answers what the village is doing in an effort to reduce the burden of property taxes on homeowners.

Patch gathered questions from readers, for Flossmoor Mayor Paul Braun. Now, Patch will regularly air a series of video responses to the questions readers voted as most pressing. In this edition, Braun responds to the question: What is the village doing to help reduce the burden of property taxes on homeowners? Transcript: That’s a really important question. That affects all of us here in Flossmoor. We are concerned about the burden our residents have with property taxes. To put it in some perspective, the village’s share of the property tax bill is 15.2 percent. So, what that means is about 80 percent of the property tax bill—that’s paid for local schools and the township and Cook County—the village has no control over. So, to answer the …

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Tony Dauginas

1:17 pm on Wednesday, September 12, 2012

The discussion about property taxes should start with the taxing bodies that get the largest percentages, but the lack of non-residential tax base is a planning issue under the control of the village   more ›

When Will Flossmoor Develop a New Comprehensive Plan?: Minutes With the Mayor

In this installment of "Minutes with the Mayor," Flossmoor Mayor Paul Braun explains the village's comprehensive plan.

Patch gathered questions from readers, for Flossmoor Mayor Paul Braun. Now, Patch will regularly air a series of video responses to the questions readers voted as most pressing. In this edition, Braun responds to the question: When Will Flossmoor Develop a New Comprehensive Plan? Transcript: The comprehensive plan, when I talk to planners, including our planning director, Patrick Finn, normally should have a shelf life of 20 to 25 years. The comprehensive plan in Flossmoor was originally adopted in 1986 and was reviewed in the early 90s when there was some consideration in terms of development on the west side of town. Now as you can probably appreciate, Flossmoor is pretty much a built-out residential community, so the current …

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Has Flossmoor Ever Considered a K9 Unit?: Minutes With the Mayor

In this installment of "Minutes with the Mayor," Flossmoor Mayor Paul Braun explains the village's prior research into a K9 Unit and the current availability of one.

Patch gathered questions from readers, for Flossmoor Mayor Paul Braun. Now, Patch will regularly air a series of video responses to the questions readers voted as most pressing. In this edition, Braun responds to the question: Has Flossmoor Police ever considered the addition of a K9 unit? His answer? Yep, but they're costly. Transcript: We did look at that issue a few years back and at that time the police chief reported that the cost to institute the K9 program would be about $69,000 plus it would require the addition of a full-time police officer to handle the K9 unit. So, at that time, it was determined … we couldn’t quite afford to put a K9 unit in. Now, having said that, we do have access to K9 units through our multiple aid programs…

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Does Flossmoor Require Dogs Be Leashed?: Minutes With the Mayor

In this installment of "Minutes with the Mayor," Flossmoor Mayor Paul Braun explains the village's dog ordinances and what residents should do if they see a dog in violation of them.