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Name: James (Jim) Fahrenbach
What office are you seeking? Batavia Alderman - Ward 5
What is your political party? Independent
What is your current age? 50
Occupation and employer: Senior Data and AI Specialist - Microsoft
What offices, if any, have you previously held? None
City: Batavia
Campaign Website: https://www.facebook.com/share/g/12JfRcCjG4q/
Education: University of Iowa: Bachelor of Arts - English
University of Iowa: Bachelor of Science - Psychology
Illinois State University: Graduate Work - Computer Information Systems
Community Involvement: From a volunteer perspective I’ve created, maintained, and have written content for a bipartisan local social media group with nearly 1500 local voters covering local topics and politics. Prior to this, back in 2018, I established, funded, and organized the successful opposition to the referendum attempting to revoke home rule in Batavia.
Marital status/Immediate family: My wife Marilee and I have been married for nearly twenty years and have two children, both of whom attend Batavia public schools.
Questions:
How can pedestrian safety be improved?
This topic has been discussed at length in Batavia and few options risen to the surface.
1.) Build more sidewalks, especially those that are along established routes to school.
2.) Better traffic control or redesign at Batavia’s problem intersections or crosswalks.
3.) Lowering the speed limit to 25 MPH for residential streets.
Is keeping the dam important to you? Why?
The dam in Batavia is obviously crumbling and needs to be replaced. In its current state, it’s a danger to both the public and bridges downstream from it. If elected, I’d vote for a solution which would maintain the Depot Pond along with the area’s charm and atmosphere.
Are there any businesses you would not accept campaign donations from?
I’m not accepting money from any individuals or businesses. My run for office is self funded as it helps maintain independence.
Should local law enforcement cooperate with ICE to identify and deport immigrants who do not have legal status to be in the United States?
Current policy in Batavia is the local police and ICE maintain separate duties and responsibilities. This policy has been successful and there’s no need to change it.
What are your top three priorities for our city, and how do you plan to address them?
1.) Property taxes have been rising too fast due to the dramatic rise in home values over the past five years. To solve this, for real, involves better coordination between local governing bodies in how much they raise or lower their share of property taxes in relation to each other.
If elected, acknowledging the “total tax bill” would be a planned agenda item in City Council with coordination conversations then happening with the school board and park district.
Simply because, it’s incredibly difficult to “think big” if people are having a hard time affording their homes.
2.) Fostering development in the central business district and filling in large swaths of empty space with desperately needed development. Also, attracting new businesses to Batavia to fill in years empty storefronts downtown. To do this, we’ll reach out to more developers than we’ve traditionally engaged with and advertise our town more out of market to attract new businesses (while promoting Main Street).
Batavia has great fundamentals and there’s definitely a chance to better promote the town to the larger external business community.
3.) Batavia has several long outstanding infrastructure projects that are simultaneously coming to a head, these include the required dam replacement, the more obvious need for a second bridge across the Fox River, and resolving problem traffic intersections and pedestrian crossings. If elected, we’ll itemize and prioritize the infrastructure topics and make sure we’re resolving them on a one by one basis before moving on to other items.
Doing so will make sure we no longer have items which “hang out” unresolved for decades and steadily get more expensive to resolve with greater public impact.
How do you intend to balance economic development with environmental sustainability in the community?
Batavia has traditionally incorporated environmental sustainability in any economic development asks. This has included open space set asides for new development, the Parkway Tree program, having a robust Environmental Commission which does weight in on new initiatives, and promoting green building approaches and water conversation technology in our building code.
If elected, I’ll continue to support Batavia’s existing environmental initiatives and approaches.
What are your plans for enhancing public transportation and infrastructure in the city?
There’s currently a larger metro area discussion going on regarding public transportation. I support keeping RTA independent from the CTA to preserve the economic viability of public transportation in the area. As someone who rides Metra regularly, I’m aware of the value and importance of public transportation.
Regarding traffic related infrastructure, fully support projects like the road diet on 31 and resolving problem intersections, especially the intersection of Fabyan and 31 (which the county is currently working on).
Additionally, I’d support lowering the speed limit on residential streets to 25 MPH.
What role should the city council play in supporting local businesses and economic growth?
Batavia’s city council has several established low cost loan programs and grants to promote small businesses, this includes the facade grant program and low cost loans which can be made directly to small businesses and have been in the past. If elected, raising awareness of these programs, while making sure there’s sufficient set aside to fund them, would be a priority.
Additionally, ensuring Batavia’s existing Mainstreet program has as much money from the city as it needs. This organization does a tremendous job promoting local businesses and has been since the early 2000’s ([https://downtownbatavia.com/about/]
(https://downtownbatavia.com/about/)).
Finally, better promoting our town out of the area to attract other businesses would be of value.
What are your top public safety concerns for our community and how would you propose addressing them?
Traffic is becoming more of an issue locally and working with my peers to make it more of a priority will be something I’d champion. Additionally, continuing to support the Batavia police department in their community engagement efforts and more focus on mental health would go a long way towards maintaining a safe community.
How will you ensure that city policies promote inclusion for all residents?
Additional housing and residential rental governance are the two biggest things we can do in ward 5 of Batavia to promote equity, inclusion, and economic fairness. Batavia is unique as being traditionally welcoming to most everyone with a unique mixture of government dependent, elderly, middle class, and upper class housing and populations.
I’ll work to provide equitable and respectful housing which is reflective of our existing mix and continue to engage residents directly.
Do you support requiring government officials to publicly disclose potential conflicts of interest, and how would you enforce this?
Transparency and declaring potential conflicts of interest are vital to maintaining a vibrant government that’s trusted by the public. I fully support anything involving these efforts.
To enforce this, we’d have to have people sign legally binding documents stating potential conflicts of interest and ask for supporting documentation where conflicts are stated.
How will you make sure you are accessible to your constituents?
Having previously funded and ran the opposition to the attempt to revoke Home Rule in Batavia back in 2018, I became immediately aware of the importance and value of transparency, accountability, and engaging with residents.
After successfully defeating the referendum we pivoted and created a Facebook group with over a thousand local voters where fact based information regarding local government are posted weekly in a non-partisan manner ([https://www.facebook.com/share/15WbNpGQDa/](https://www.facebook.com/share/15WbNpGQDa/)).
In addition to continuing to engage residents over social media, and responding to every resident request in a timely fashion, creating a publishing monthly “office hours” with residents will be a thing.