What to know about Roscoe Village President candidate Carol Gustafson

After serving as a Roscoe Village trustee for 12 years, Carol Gustafson has seen how local government works, and how it shouldn’t work. She has lived in Roscoe for 20 years.

Gustafson is ready to put her knowledge and experience to the test by seeking the office of board president, currently held by Mark Szula.

“For 12 years, I have worked to keep costs under control. I don’t like the direction the Board is taking.”

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“As Village President, I want to build a better team among employees and trustees.”

“I have spent the last two years observing. I became aware of the processes and need for change in how the Village is run. Since taking office four years ago, President Szula has increased the salary of president from $15,000 to $38,000.”

Gustafson grew up in Rockford, IL and attended Rockford University and Northern Illinois University. She taught government classes at Guilford High School in Rockford for 33 years.

She wants to put her knowledge of government to use.

Gustafson has several goals in mind:

She wants to push development of the I-90 Roscoe exit. “It’s a prime location. Camping World and All World are located in the area. There are three gas stations located right off I-90, on Rockton and Willowbrook Road, but nothing else. It is shovel-ready for development.”

Gustafson said she will encourage constituents to become more involved in their community and be more responsive to what is happening in the Village.

“The Board needs to do a better job of management, to live within its means, examine expenditures and control discretionary spending.”

Gustafson said it is important to find a way to fund basic services to the Village without tax increases. An example was the construction of a new police department three years ago.

Gustafson was very involved in securing funding for the structure by issuing $1.1 million in bonds to pay for half of the building over nine years. The rest of the cost came from dedicated building funds. The final cost for the 8,900 sq ft building was $2.3 million.

As Village President, Gustafson wants to initiate a five-year road plan and to extend sewer and water.

She has joined with candidates Michael Sima, William Babcock and Michael Wright in the challenge of making Roscoe a better place to live.

A previous version of this story stated that Gustafson has served on the Village of Roscoe Board for 20 years. Online records are incomplete, but she won election to the board in April 2011 and says she has been on the board for 11 ½ years, not 20. We regret the error.

Trustee Stacey Mallicoat gives his own account of some of these events: 

In 2008 I started the Village Hall rebuild program and as part of that, the police department was begun with the plan of finishing in 5-7 years after the village hall so that the village had time to build up funds as we the board did not want to impact the citizens for the cost.... Please post the facts so people can make their decisions about who is best for the job and not who just tells the best story.

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