Politics & Government

Candidate Says Background as CPA Would Serve Him Well as Trustee

Don Ford said referendums and tax increases are not the answer, but reprioritizing capital projects is the answer to helping fund sewers.

Trustee candidate Don Ford said if he's elected to the Village Board next week, one of his priorities will be to help bring new families to Shorewood.

“It’s really very simple, I’m just passionate about the village,” Ford said.

Ford, 59, is one on the board.

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He is a member of the village's Community Development Authority and ran for trustee last year, receiving around 12 percent of the vote and losing to trustees Ellen Eckman and Patrick Linnane.

Ford is a CPA and said his financial and business background would be a great asset and complement to the existing board.

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Before starting his current job as the general manager and chief financial officer for the Illinois-based The Garvey Group, a collection of privately-owned companies in the printing industry, Ford worked for Johnson Controls Inc. doing financial analysis.

In addition to being a CPA, Ford has a bachelor’s degree in accounting and finance from the University of Alaska.

He is married with two children and three grandchildren. He and his family moved to Shorewood after spending around 20 years in Racine and his children completed school. Ford said after some research, he decided that Shorewood was the clear choice.

He said he likes the process the village is using to address sewer issues that became apparent after major flooding in July, but the village needs to look at reprioritizing some of its other capital projects.

“I think we can do that without tax levies or referendums just by reprioritizing some of the capital projects the village is already doing,” Ford said.

“We need to work together with the community to figure out what’s the priority, how we are going to pay for it,” Ford said. “We need to examine what’s most important to us.”

He said fixing the village's sewer issues need to be its focus, and that work needs to start as soon as possible and be coordinated with planned road construction.

“It would be inexcusable to tear up a road and repave it and then a year later come back and tear it up again for sewers,” Ford said.

Coordinating sewers and roadwork is something Village Manager Chris Swartz has said the village plans to do.

With the budget constraints the village would be under with Gov. Scott Walker’s 2011-2013 budget, Ford said the village needs to do the same thing he has done in business, going to department heads and challenge them to keep their budgets flat, prioritize without losing essential services and review existing contracts.

“We are good customers to a lot of vendors and consulting firms, and we need to go back to them and tell them this is the reality we are under,” Ford said. “There needs to be a collaborative discussion with them saying we need concessions.”

Ford said referendums and tax increases should be a last resort when addressing the village’s problems.

“That seems to be the easy solution, let’s just raise taxes,” Ford said. “How can we attract young families and raise taxes at the same time?”

The way the village is currently its business district is a huge way to draw new families to the area and address some issues the school district may have with its resident enrollment he said.

“I am really concerned about the schools,” Ford said. “We need to bring more young families to the area.”

He added bringing new developments to the village in effect decreases the tax burden on Shorewood residents.

“We need to make sure this commercial business district is this real, walking community sort of business district,” Ford said. “When you look at Oakland (Avenue) there are all these parking lots… you don’t get a lot of tax revenue out of a parking lot.”

Incumbent Michael Maher, and newcomers and Chris Piotrowski are also on the ballot.


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