EVENTS

• Collaborated with the Chicago Southland Chamber of Commerce since 2021 to host Chamber Night, which highlights our local businesses and community to a regional audience.
• Helped sponsor the largest Juneteenth festival in the Chicago Southland beginning in 2021 and the Juneteenth parades in 2022 and 2023.
• Expanded our cultural celebrations by starting Flossmoor’s Lunar New Year celebration in collaboration with our Community Relations Commission, the Flossmoor Public Library, and students and staff from the Mandarin Chinese courses at HF High School.
• Worked with the Village of Homewood and intergovernmental partners to celebrate Pride starting in 2022.
• Celebrated our Zip Code with a festival that attracted tourists and highlighted local businesses on 06-04-22.
• Continued to support the Hidden Gem Half Marathon, which was selected as the Chicago Area Runner’s Association (CARA) Race of the Year in 2022 and 2023.

SPECIAL PROJECTS

• Built a kinara to allow us to begin annual community celebrations of Kwanzaa in 2021.
• Hosted an annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Classical Music Concert since 2021, which has brought in over $7,000 for local charities. Please join me on Sunday, January, 19, 2025 at 4 pm at Flossmoor Community Church for the 5th Annual Concert.
• Helped fundraise to create the Flossmoor Veterans Wall of Honor to recognize the contributions of Flossmoor servicemen and women.
• Gathered local religious leaders annually to recognize their contributions to community-building and caring for those in need.
• Helped bring back the beloved annual Thanksgiving Gathering service starting in 2022.
• Co-created the Foundation for the Preservation of Flossmoor History in 2022 to celebrate our impressive history and inspire our promising future. We are raising funds to create a physical space that displays our history and supports civic programming.
• Identified and celebrated 100-year-old structures throughout the village with the help of the Foundation for the Preservation of Flossmoor History to highlight local real estate.
• Built an Adirondack chair for the 2024 Flossmoor Public Art Commission art auction to raise funds for the care and growth of our sculpture collection.

HISTORY & ARTS

• Collaborated with the Foundation for the Preservation of Flossmoor History, National Trust for Historic Preservation, and Edith Farnsworth House in 2023 to host the Mid-Century Modern Tour, which highlighted local homes and attracted international, national, and regional visitors.
• Hosted a variety of events to celebrate our 100th birthday that were centered around inclusion, service, sustainability, education, and families.
• Supported the growth of our public art collection to include sculpture at each school. Through donations and volunteer efforts, we added seven permanent and five rotational pieces that allowed the village to create tours that are used to promote tourism throughout the region.

We look forward to creating additional opportunities to celebrate residents who were titans in fields such as business and industry, science, athletics, engineering, medicine, teaching, and music.

STAFFING

• Supported the Finance Department’s efforts to be awarded the Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA) Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in Financial Reporting for the 46th consecutive year in 2024.
• Combined staff positions, added key personnel, and partnered with outside organizations to broaden volunteerism and cultural celebrations, which served as marketing for the village.
• Increased donations to village events by $29,000 to create a variety of meaningful opportunities for residents to connect and reduce our expenditures.
• Restructured staff positions to allow us to add a part-time communications manager who has increased communications by adding a community calendar to updated websites and published a bi-monthly e-news with Village Board meeting information to increase engagement. We have also expanded our social media reach by XX, visits by XX, and followers by XX.
• Co-hosted a staff appreciation luncheon starting in 2023 to boost morale and thank our village workers for their daily efforts to improve service to residents.

WATER

• Transferred our water supply system from Harvey, Illinois to Hammond, Indiana by working with the Village of Homewood, saving Flossmoor approximately $13 million in infrastructure costs.
• Secured long-term predictable rates for residents which are tied to CPI, with a 3% cap annually, as part of the water supply transfer project.
• Updated water meters throughout the village using American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds. New meter technology allows us to track water usage more efficiently and reduce system-wide water loss.

SAFETY

• Obtained grants and donations totaling over $100,000 for additional ambulance and fire truck equipment, a state-of-the-art emergency medical services training mannequin, and a new search and rescue drone program equipment and training.
• Secured $85,000 from the Illinois Attorney General’s Organized Retail Crime Grant program to help install the Flock camera system at key roads leading in and out of the village which helps direct law enforcement resources in real-time.
• Added a school zone and rebuilt sidewalk along Governors Highway.
• Lobbying for funds to create a regional mental health co-responder program.
• Reinstituted the Citizens Police Academy.

GRANT FUNDING

• Contracted with a federal lobbyist to advocate for federal grants to return your hard-earned tax dollars to the village to help with major infrastructure projects.
• Lobbied state and federal sources to obtain a record amount of grant funding totaling $6.1 million to assist with the long-awaited Flossmoor Road Viaduct and Berry Lane flood mitigation projects.

Additional grant awards enable us to improve services and safety!

FUTURE PROJECTS

• Secured a $1.2 million Illinois Transportation Enhancement Program grant to improve safety and beautify downtown Flossmoor. This landmark project will be completed in 2025.
• Successfully lobbied Springfield to increase the amount of income tax revenue that is returned to the village, though there is more work to be done.
• Applying for funding to replace lead service lines and the Dartmouth Road pedestrian bridge, and complete additional flood mitigation projects.

COMPLETED PROJECTS

• Reconstructed the Brookwood Bridge and the Butterfield Road culvert to improve vehicular access and reduce flooding.
• Reconstructed the worst street in Flossmoor, Brumley Drive, to mitigate residential property damage caused by overland flooding.
• Reconstructed Berry Lane using permeable pavers to mitigate flooding. The village was awarded our first American Public Works Association (APWA) Chicago Metro Chapter Project of the Year Award for the use of green infrastructure and best management practices in 2023.
• Completed the construction of the Heather Hill detention basin to capture stormwater from Berry Lane and the Flossmoor Road Viaduct. The final phases of connecting these areas to the basin are scheduled to be completed in 2025/2026.
• Implemented a pavement crack-sealing program that extends the useful life of pavement systems by an average of seven years for a fraction of the cost of resurfacing.

PROMOTION

In addition to events that serve dual functions to bring residents together and promote the village, we have enjoyed the following recent highlights:

• Chicago Magazine featured the village as the best place to raise a family in the South Suburbs in the June/July 2024 edition.
• Hidden Gem Half Marathon co-founder, Tom Dobrez, featured the Shops on Sterling, the Sculpture Park, H-F High School campus, and Flossmoor Station Restaurant and Brewery in the September 2024 edition of Chicago Magazine.

BEAUTIFICATION

• Combined staff positions to create a full-time code enforcement/property maintenance position to help grow the beauty of our neighborhoods and protect home values.
• Partnered with our Green Commission, residents, volunteers throughout Chicagoland, and the Chicago Region Tree Initiative to plant 600 parkway trees throughout the village since 2021.
• Added pollinator gardens and native planting areas in public spaces with assistance from our local Jack & Jill of America, Inc., Monarch Chapter.

MARKET DATA

• Flossmoor continues to have a low housing inventory.
• Median home sales have outpaced the Chicago region by 14%, neighboring communities by >7%, and comparable northern suburbs by 16%-37% since 2021.

We will continue to create and support events that highlight diverse housing stock and an inclusive and welcoming community.