John Perry: The Good Life in Woodridge

On Wednesday, we presented an excerpt from former Woodridge Village Administrator John Perry's book that detailed the challenges Woodridge faced in the 1980s, when Perry took on the job. In this final excerpt from Blueprint For Building Community, Perry describes what changed during his tenure:

Fiscally responsible

The community has made dramatic progress financially. The village's property tax rate has declined for 23 years. An average homeowner pays the same amount of property tax each year, about $220, that (he or she) paid 15 years ago. The tax based (EAV) has increased six times over the last 20 years. Two developments, Seven Bridges and Pro Logis Business Park, contribute 22 percent of the tax base. Twenty years ago, these developments contributed virtually nothing to the tax base. Bond rating agencies have raised the rating of the village.

Quality of Life

The CNS provides the best measure for how the village has performed on "subjective" measures. Here is a brief recap of results for 2008:

- Overall quality of life received its highest score ever for the top rating.

- Residents likewise gave the highest score ever to the top rating for overall satisfaction with the police department. Overall satisfaction with the police department has topped 90 percent since 2000.

- Overall quality of life gets a "satisfied" or "very satisfied" rating from 97.5 percent of the residents.

- More than 90 percent of residents since 2000 have indicated that they felt safe and secure in their neighborhoods.

Superior Services

High ratings and continuing improvement characterize the service ratings as well in 2008. Here is a recap:

- The mean rating for dispatcher service, overall agency performance, patrol officer service, response time, police attitude and behavior and overall satisfaction with the department all (were) "Excellent." This is the eighth consecutive year that the police department has achieved excellence on the mean rated score in all areas of service.

- Highest ever ratings were given to public works for snow plowing, street lighting, streetscape, fewest sewer back-ups.

- Bikeways received a positive rating exceeding 95 percent and the highest ever rating for child bike and adult walking use.

- Village hall customer service received its highest ever excellent rating.

- Commercial area maintenance categories tracking building and zoning performance, including lighting, parking lots, signs and overall were the highest ever for the top score. Residential maintenance ratings in the last ten years have improved across the board by a minimum of 20 percent.

- Planning and development by department scores got highest ever scores for the top rating in traffic, parking, signage, access and building design.

- Communications activities led by the administration department obtained highest ever ratings for web site use, quality of web site information, promoting village positives and residents feeling informed. 

- Attendees at the town meetings gave the highest ever rating for the combined score of satisfied and very satisfied.