Lake Villa Projects

This post will serve as a repository of all the substantial projects I have completed and participated in during my time at the Village of Lake Villa. Each project will have a brief description with major projects having links to their own page for more information.

In Progress

New Municipal Website:

• A major task I was highered for the designing of and releasing of a new municipal website.
• I have spent significant time developing an understanding of ADA accessibility guidelines and requirements.
• So far, work on the as-of-yet unreleased website has focused on the homepage layout and navigation, board pages, economic development opportunity/news page and backlog of agendas and minutes.
• Considerable work still must be completed to remove old pages and documentation, update still relevent pages, create HTML pages for unnecessary PDF documents and other basic modernization and maintenance tasks.
• As lead on this project, it is my responsibility to design internal processes and documentation as well as train all relevent staff in the new systems.

CMAP NEXT:

• Lake Villa has been engaged with CMAP on strategy and policy implimentation goals for 2026
• I have helped shape community survey, which is currently live, which will help identify the goals and direction desired by residents based off ambitious goals set out by the Lake Villa Comprehensive Plan.
• I will imminently conduct basic descriptive analysis of the survey data (with over 150 responses as of 1/11/2026)
• We are set to have a meeting of the BoT dedicated towards prioritization of the same policies/goals to better understand the direction desired by the BoT.

Facade Improvement Program:

• TIF moneys to aid blighted businesses complete needed structural and asthetic issues.
• My primary contribution so far has been a census of Lake County municipalities and how they manage their FIPs.
• Currently on hold for project details to be sorted out by TIF attorney.

Imminent Projects

Departmental Budget Meetings

Lake County Municipal Fee Survey

Mandatory Website Posts

Permit Records Disposal

Completed Projects

Utility Billing:

• Temporarily took over as the Utility Billing Clerk during a bills due period.
• Sent over one hundred communiciations including phone calls and emails to inform residents of out standing balance, pass through ammount and shutoff date; worked with residents to design payment plans; and completed several payment transactions.

Municipal Fireworks Survey:

• Lake Villa had been using the same provider for over two decades and decided it was time for a full review.
• I conducted a survey of Lake County municipalities creating a dataset of municipality, year, contracted company, bid amount, show length and show date.
• To cover our bases I collected data on drone show providers as well.
• I shared my findings with leadership to determine the next course of action.

Police Union Pay and Benefits Analysis:

• I completed a survey of Lake County municipalities, their police union, budget and pay/benefits.
• Presented findings to Michael Strong (Village Administrator) who used information in negotiations.

Tobacco Regulation

• I completed a survey of Lake County municipality's fees on tobacco permits.
• Created memo summarizing the results of data analysis.

Farmers Market Outreach

• I completed a survey on nearby and popular farmers markets, compiling a list of grocery vendors.
• Reached out to farmers with farmers market registration information.

Public Works Pay and Benefits Analysis:

• I completed a survey of Lake County municipalities, their public works teams and unions, PW size and positions as well as pay and health benefits.
• I completed an extensive Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) analysis between Lake Villa and various samples of my dataset.
• This data and analysis has yet to be used directly but has helped shape internal discussions regarding COLA.

Postal Distribution Unit Survey

• One of my first tasks at the Village of Lake Villa was the analysis of a survey of downtown residents and businesses regarding the potential installation of PDUs.

Backyard Chickens:

• The research on and presentation of multiple potential policy frameworks to allow backyard chickens to the Village Board of Trustees.
• Conducted a census of Lake County municipal backyard chicken policies and presented my results to the Village BoT on 12/15 before the project ultimately being put on perminant hold