--- Stan Zoller
Meet the candidate: Carolyn Pinta
Running for: Village Trustee
How long have you lived in Buffalo Grove: I have lived in BG for 5
years.
Please provide brief
background information
I am a native of unincorporated Deerfield, where I attended Buffalo Grove schools
in District 102 and Stevenson High School. I am 41 years old
and a teacher at Twin Groves
Middle School. I have taught Spanish at Twin Groves
for 19 years, since I
graduated from college.
I have a degree in Spanish
from the University of Illinois
and a master’s degree in Curriculum and Instruction from National Louis University.
My husband, Bob, is
a Math teacher at Stevenson and has taught there for 18 years. My daughter, Molly, is a 7th
grader at Twin Groves, where I
teach. My family is very involved in the community through
the Community Arts Center where both Molly and I perform in the
Big Deal Production musicals
and Bob designs and builds sets and
special props. This year, our family started a nonprofit, The Pinta
Pride Project Inc., to bring
Buffalo Grove an annual Pride
Parade starting this June 2.
Excitingly, this has
gained Buffalo Grove national and even international attention through
many media sources, and we are
quite proud of the way
the project has connected so many
people in our community. What began
as a project to throw
an annual parade has expanded to include
monthly events, supports
groups and more.
Bob and I always planned to raise our family in
Buffalo Grove but were finally
really able to afford this privilege
five years ago when we moved on to Thompson Boulevard. My entire life has
revolved around Buffalo Grove and
I would love to continue
to serve the community!
Have you served
on a village committee or commission before?
If yes, which one and how long did
you serve?
I have not
served on a village committee or
commission before but have served
the community in various ways from teaching
in our schools for 19 years
to starting two organizations for residents.
What other civic
activities, if any, have you been involved with?
I am an avid participant in our democracy through many different organizations, two of which,
I lead. As a co-lead for Moms Demand Action of Buffalo Grove, I work
closely with legislators to lobby for safety legislation and am proud to report that during the past year, my
group was instrumental in the passage of at least three of them. As the founder of The Pinta
Pride Project, I am
connecting members of the LGBTQ community
and allies to resources they need and to others in their position on a daily basis. Over the past year, my
family's nonprofit has thrown
five events to educate,
highlight and uplift this community. I not only
engage in constant civic
activity- I am
a leader who gets others to participate.
Why are you running for a Village Board position?
I am running for Trustee because I believe myself to be a person who can help to engage our community in interacting more with our Village
Board and being a part of local government themselves. I see
myself as a great organizer and a person who is especially
good at connecting people to others
in the community and to
causes. Also, having been a teacher here for
so many years, I know thousands and thousands of community members, and feel that with
this personal relationship, I could
bring their voices to the table. I see
the role of Village Trustee
as someone who works closely with the president and the Village
to keep a community safe and
sound in many different ways such as fixing any problems in the infrastructures of our roads to
developing the economy to raise the funds to fix any issues we may encounter. My
vision of a trustee is of someone
who is well known in the community and makes an effort to be visible and to reach out to truly
live and breathe amongst its citizens.
In general, what do you see as the most pressing issues
facing Buffalo Grove?
I see two
very important issues facing our community at the moment.
One is the large number of empty retail space and blighted areas in our beautiful village. This is
a very prosperous, educated and
caring community. There has
to be a way to develop our economy more successfully to raise
revenue and to afford our
residents more retail options.
The second area that I would
like to work on is community outreach. I do not feel that our residents are involved in our local government and would like to see
a diverse group of people become
interested and activated. As a
local teacher, I get to see
firsthand how our demographics have
changed and want to see our government reach out to engage this diverse group. The way to
work on both of these issues
is to get out in the community to have
conversations, and lots of them. I do
believe that our current board wants these things for our
community as well. Perhaps fresh faces and voices are needed to make these changes a reality. Social engagement and interaction is a
strength of mine.
There has been considerable discussion for years about
economic development in the village. What kind of economic
development (retail, commercial, industrial) do you think should
be a priority and why?
I am very much in favor of BG having a downtown if this plan comes to the table. I have
a young family that wants
to be out and about on the weekends, enjoying things in our own village. I would like to be able to shop and
dine and spend my dollars in our own village rather than taking my business
elsewhere. I am open to hearing
where the best spot would
be to build this incredible venture, but I know that there are two golf courses
in town and that the Buffalo Grove Course could offer a wonderful site if developed correctly. As for a timeline, this is not something that happens
overnight and I would like to see it done right, so I would
love to see at least the planning
and the finances come through over the
next four years.
I believe that the current board has provided wonderful
statistics that show that the industrial areas of
BG are thriving and while I would love to see
that continue, I would
be focused more on retail and commerce.
Which business development plan do you think should
be a priority? Lake-Cook Road corridor, Dundee
Road, Milwaukee Avenue or the Prairie
View concept?
I believe that all of these areas are priorities and that
they can all be worked on
piece by piece. I also believe that the development of one
of these areas will help spark the development of others. I suppose that I would
most like to see the Lake-Cook
Road corridor develop first because it is
the highest area of traffic, but Dundee
is a close second and I think that the new Prairie View concept is wonderful and seems to be well
on its way to fruition.
How do you think the village should
encourage redevelopment of existing retail
areas that are struggling?
I believe that exciting new retail in a new area could spark the redevelopment of struggling areas. If we are able to bring
in some higher end retail and
dining, that would be a real game changer for the village. I also
hope that by bringing new voices to the table, that eventually, the
Town Center project could be looked at again, as the vision was epic! It is impossible to deal with
an owner who won't sell, so incentives and also continuing to have conversations are key. Overall, we need to do everything we can
to encourage businesses to be in BG
by being as kind and accommodating as
possible. We need to support
and not nit-pick on small details.
Should the village
limit development to preserve green
space?
I absolutely think that green space is important, so any project should incorporate a
vision for how it will be accessible
to the community. I know
that that last plan for a downtown on the golf course
that turned out to be the
wrong deal for this village did at least boast many acres that would have been used for outdoor
green space that could be
enjoyed by all, where now, we
have a fenced in golf course.
Some of our volunteer groups
(commissions, committees) have seen shrinking membership. What would you do to engage the community on a broader
scale? What would
you do to encourage broader demographic participation?
Community outreach
and engagement are my
specialty, as I have encouraged
and actively sought the participation of thousands of members
of this community between pride and Moms Demand Action.
I have a wide network of people
to reach out to. I have found that when I am actively involved in making change, that I can
get others to do the same.
I am excellent at working with community members
through social media and would use
the same approach to engage others to participate as I do
to get them to participate in a wide range of events that I
run monthly in the village.
There is a proposal to add a "Community Engagement Director" to the village staff. Do you think it
is needed? Explain
why or why not.
When I first heard about this position, I was
very excited about it and
thought it was an excellent idea. The village board has identified community outreach as an area
that they wish to improve upon
and hiring someone to work on this sounded key. I did, however, witness some debate about the position, its cost and the
software that might
need to be purchased to go along with this position. The members of the board were not yet convinced
that the position was
necessary and I do understand their point of view. I believe that one of my roles on
the village board could be community engagement and honestly, this is
a big reason that I am running! I hope to work
personally on this issue myself.
Do you think
the Village communicates well with residents? If not, how can it be improved?
I do believe that the Village
tries to communicate, but that the communication needs to
continue to be updated for modern
times. The board has already worked on this with the village by creating a wonderful new web site. I was at
the board meeting where it
was introduced and have
enjoyed playing around on it and
familiarizing myself. It is
now much more modern, user friendly and appealing. Here is one area for improvement- we must
watch the trends
in our village and learn how people are communicating and then
follow along accordingly. The
Everything Buffalo Grove Facebook
page is filled with folks talking
about the issues in our community. It seems that the generation that we
are engaging in our local politics enjoys
the use of Facebook. We should, therefore, be finding ways to engage
in social media with the village. This is just
the wave of the future.
Final thoughts -- Add any information or comments about
your candidacy.
Thank you so much for this opportunity! I have
thoroughly enjoyed the process of filing for and learning
to campaign for a position in village government and
have met some very passionate fellow candidates along the way. I believe that BG is extremely lucky to
have nine people who are willing to put in the
time and effort to help it
grow and continue to thrive
and there are many excellent choices!
I think it comes
down to what the citizens of our
village want. Do we want a new, fresh,
upbeat perspective to move
in to modernizing a little bit, or
do we like where we are at?
