Meet Your Candidates: John Pietron, Running for Morton Grove Trustee

Following is the Patch.com candidate questionnaire from John Pietron, who is running for Morton Grove trustee in the April 9 election. Three candidates are running for three trustee slots; all are unopposed. 

Name: John Pietron 

Age: 64

How long have you lived in Morton Grove? 37 years

Family: Wife (of 40 years) Janice; Nieces, Nephews, and Godchildren; 2 Collies

Education: BS Finance, U of I Chicago and MBA, Keller Graduate School of Management

Occupation: Retired. Previously, Entrepreneur – Marketing Consultant 

Previous Elected or Appointed Offices (please include years of service):

• Appearance Commissioner – 8 years
•  Economic Development Chair – 6 years

Other community involvement:

Previous MORTON GROVE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY member

Previous MORTON GROVE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY Board Member

Campaign E-mail address (for publication):

N/A

Campaign committee (names and contact info):

Friends of Dan DiMaria & Action Party of Morton Grove

Campaign Website:

www.dimariaformg.com & www.actionparty.org

 Campaign Facebook:

N/A

Campaign Twitter:

N/A

1. Why are you running for this office?

a.     To continue my work as previous Economic Development Commission Chair in accelerating and enhancing EDC efforts to not only attract new businesses/developments but also making MG a shopping magnet for shoppers from surrounding communities.

b.     Protect property values based on my wife’s and my experience, which has significantly improved, with below market home value and reduced visual quality of life due to a next door run down/decaying property, despite the Village’s valiant efforts to rectify. Fortunately the old structure has been demolished and replaced by a beautiful new home.

I strongly believe in protecting where realistically possible property values and resulting quality of life. This will be one of my many goals in working/assisting the Village Board and Staff.

c.     To proactively work on making Morton Grove residents feel united, i.e., eliminating perceptions of East side, West side, North side, South side, etc.

d.     To establish and moderate over ongoing focus groups to listen to residents’ feedback regarding specific topics. Using this method of in-house marketing research so the Board and Village Staff have further input to address future planning and current situations.

e.     Working with the Board and Staff to keep & maintain Morton Grove’s presence to our County, Metropolitan, State, and Federal legislatures.

2. What is your assessment of Morton Grove's condition right now?

a.     Outstanding location, police, fire & EMT, Public Works, Village Staff, and parks.

b.     Great place to live, raise a family, and even retire in or to.

c.     Retail / sales tax dollar generation underachiever, i.e., need to enhance economic development.

d.     Need to define, i.e., branding, Morton Grove so it becomes a destination to visit and shop, instead of a place to drive through to another location.

e.     Need to capitalize on the great number of vehicles (potential shoppers) going through Morton Grove via Dempster, Oakton, and Waukegan roadways.

f.      Needs a major retail draw (strong name recognition) as a catalyst to attract additional business that would otherwise not consider locating in Morton Grove (based on my previous efforts as EDC Chair).

g.     Needs a stronger marketing, advertising, and sales/prospecting efforts to attract the attention and interest of revenue producing businesses/developers.

3. What does Morton Grove need to address? How should it address this issue or issues?

a.     This question has essentially been answered in Question 2 – points c. through g. because they drive revenue.

b.     Addressing the issues in Question 3. above is presented in my response to Question 4 below….it’s about economic development. 

4. Most of the candidates have said that if elected, they will focus on economic development for Morton Grove. What does this mean to you?

a.     My definition of Economic Development is that it is an ongoing strategic task to attempt to maximize:

1.     Retail / Commercial / Industrial occupancy

2.     The revenue generation manifested by 1. Above

b.     To also focus on and include the quality of life aspect when manifesting Economic Development Goals

c.     Proactively obtaining feedback from Village residents, property owners, business owners, etc to assist Morton Grove to not only formulate goals but also have the flexibility to enact mid course corrections / improvements to those goals.

d.     To establish a dialogue with relevant contacts that would eventually enhance Economic Development within Morton Grove.

5. Please give specifics about what you would do to bring more business into Morton Grove, and retain business already here, to strengthen the tax base.

a.     Bringing businesses to MG - Continue my efforts as previous EDC Chair to:

1.     Reestablish communications with commercial real estate agencies and developers; arranging introductions to EDC staff and Village Board

2.     Assist EDC staff by providing historical feedback from specific conversations with retail businesses and industries as another avenue to revisit previous prospects / to develop new prospecting methodology & prospects.

3.     Encourage / assist to develop a stronger and more effective / efficient

•     Marketing and sales function for prospecting
•     MG’s web site especially the EDC portion
•     Marketing and advertising functions
•     Retaining Business

1.     Starts with establishing an ongoing dialogue with business owners to gain their input.

2.     Using the established dialogue as a method to encourage businesses considering relocation to speak first with the Village instead of spontaneously relocating outside MG.

3.     I’d volunteer (with the Board’s and Staffs’ approval) to provide gratis cursory business strategic planning for those businesses who may be experiencing business challenges but not contemplating relocating.

6. What should the village's response be if Lakeshore Waste presents to the village an application to locate a recycling center on its property on Oakton?

I’ll treat this question in a generic approach accordingly, my position being:

a.     Protect (where possible) property values and quality of life, again based on my wife’s and my experience.

b.     Evaluate the impact (financial, environmental, affect on neighboring properties, affect on potential development of neighboring properties, etc.) to assure a win / win outcome for all involved and impacted.

c.     Treat consistently all prospectively incoming businesses in the fashion outlined in b. and c. above.

d.     To assure and elevate transparency as much as possible to encourage residents’ input.

I would avoid and discourage universally ignoring any business solely based on their industry definition, while encouraging a comprehensive quantifiable impact analysis to assure proper decisions.

7. In its efforts to attract business, should the village accept businesses such as the Tilted Kilt restaurant and bar (an idea which was proposed and later withdrawn)?

Again, as in question 6, each type of business within their respective industries and market focus, must be evaluated on a case by case basis using consistent evaluation methodology.

Every prospective business’s impact on MG should be quantified as outlined in my response to Question 6 (points a. through d.). 

8. Anything else you would like to add?

I consider it a privilege to eventually become part of the Board, look forward to working with them, and look forward to working with Staff.

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