It has been both an honor and a pleasure serving the residents of Wayne for the past 29 years as Village Trustee.  I have lived in Wayne for the past 34 years.  All those years in our home on Army Trail Road across from what is now a 400 acre Forest Preserve.  My wonderful wife Mary and I have raised our four children here and enjoy every day we get to continue living in this wonderful town with its beautiful open space, the historic buildings, the unique equestrian heritage, and lack of commercial development.  
My wife Mary grew up in Wayne and loves the fact that she can continue to call it home and that Wayne’s leaders have fought hard to preserve Wayne as a place that values open space, historic buildings, continues to foster the equestrian heritage and has kept commercial development out of Wayne. Mary and I, like many residents, also value the fact that Wayne always has been and continues to be a place where residents volunteer their time and talents to help preserve, improve, and make Wayne an even better place to live.

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Personal/Family background:

I went to college at the University of Virginia and received a bachelor’s degree in Economics.  After that I went to law school at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. I then came to Chicago began practicing law, met my wonderful wife Mary and after living in Chicago for a time we moved to Wayne to have and raise our four children. One of the best decisions I have made in my life. As an aside, our children will all tell you that living and growing up in Wayne was a unique and wonderful experience made even better since it was so close to a big city such as Chicago.

My Guiding Principles and work as a Village of Wayne Trustee
The 29 years I have been on the Village Board have been very busy and consequential years for Wayne.  The work of a Village Trustee is not limited to regularly scheduled meetings.  That is a very small part of the job and the commitment. A trustee spends countless hours working—outside of meeting times-- on the many issues that have faced and continue to threaten Wayne.
Over the years I have seen—and fought against, alongside my fellow Village Trustees and our Village President—many attempts to widen Army Trail Road to four lanes, widen other roads in the Village to allow more traffic, put a four-lane bridge at the end of Army Trail Road (think Stearns Road type bridge), expand the airport, and develop large tracts of property with very dense housing developments or commercial development.  Every time I have come down on the side of preserving Wayne and keeping it the wonderful Village, we all know and love.   
As long as I serve as a Village Trustee, I will continue to work and support preserving and improving the Wayne we all love.  I will do that while helping improve Village government and especially the communication between residents and the Village and make sure that all our tax dollars are spent both wisely and in furtherance of preserving the wonderful things about Wayne while also improving it.

As technology has developed, we now have many new ways available to us to improve communication as well as make village information available and more accessible to residents.  I have been and will continue to work on modernizing the Village website and finalizing the development of a Village of Wayne App that all residents can download and use.  I have been working on a Village of Wayne App for the past several months and hope to have it in final usable form in the next month or two. 

What I bring and will continue to bring to Wayne and its residents:

I believe that the Village and its residents will benefit from having me continue to provide my experience, knowledge, and in particular my fact based and collaborative reasoned approach to Village matters.  I am a listener first and foremost.  I do that because I want to make sure I obtain all the facts and talk with as many residents as possible on whatever the issues might be. I promise to continue to do that if I am re-elected.  In that vein I intend to push for and make sure we have more in person town hall meetings (with Zoom attendance options) as I think that format allows for more interaction between residents and those of us who have the privilege to both serve the residents and as well as help protect Wayne.

How and why I became involved in Village government

Not long after Mary and I moved to Wayne, 30+ years ago, I experienced first-hand what a special place Wayne is.  I had visited many times as Mary’s parents and a brother all lived in Wayne but living here on a daily basis gave me an even greater appreciation for what a special place Wayne is.  I wanted to help however I could.  Accordingly, I attended and participated in all meetings on the various issues facing Wayne at that time.
As it so happened, after one of those meetings I was approached by two long-time residents to run for the Village Board.  They told me that Wayne is a place where people volunteered their time and talents to help the Village and that the residents felt the number one responsibility of the town’s elected officials was to “Preserve and Protect Wayne”.  After having lived here for a while I was already hooked on the desire to Preserve and Protect Wayne.  I grabbed the chance to dive in and help on a more formal basis.  It is one of the best decisions I have made in my life. 

My years as a Trustee on the Wayne Village Board
I have had the privilege of serving over the years with a lot of dedicated Trustees and other Village government volunteers.  I can confidently say that preserving and protecting our rural environment, heritage and open space has always been a top priority. Many of the specific steps taken over the years to accomplish this goal and the results of the many battles we fought (and continue to fight) against airports, road wideners, developers and others are listed elsewhere on this site as joint accomplishments rather than detailed here.
As the Trustee in charge of Development/Historic and Rural Preservation I have been involved in and focused on preserving open space, historic preservation, keeping our roads two lanes and residential, working with the many generous and kind individuals that have donated so much open space to the Village for the enjoyment and benefit of all our residents, negotiated/finalized those donation agreements,  established relationships with and worked with the DuPage and Kane Forest Preserves to facilitate the establishment of open space forest preserves in Wayne, worked with the current owner of the castle on many of the issues related to the castle and its preservation,  and always worked alongside my fellow trustees to preserve and protect Wayne.  In 2013 I was selected and named Wayne’s Citizen of the Year.  It is one of my greatest honors.
 

Firm and Constant Supporter of an Independent Wayne Police Department:

As importantly, I have always been an unwavering supporter of an independent and professional Wayne Police Department.  I along with my fellow trustees have always worked to make sure our residents had their own police department and that the police department was as professional as possible.  We have made sure the police have all the equipment and resources they need and that they are laser focused on preserving our resident’s personal and home protection as well as traffic related safety.  
Wayne is first and foremost a residential Village and all our streets are residential streets.  I have always been and will continue to be focused on making sure Wayne remains a safe Village and that our Police officers patrol all our streets throughout the day and night and that the Department continues to provide home vacation watches and remains focused on and interacts with all village residents.

The Selection of Wayne’s new Police Chief

As most residents know, in 2021 the police department was hit with an unusual number of early retirements (mostly due to age and changes in life). This very unusual convergence of age and change of life related retirements contributed to the already ongoing difficulty all police departments, including Wayne, were having hiring part-time officers. The Daily Herald, at the time, wrote a well-researched article about those difficulties. The retirements and the difficulties hiring part time officers also caused difficulties for the police department to provide the type of coverage we all want and had grown used to. However, despite the challenges this presented the Village Board remained committed to preserving the Wayne Police Department and made a strong commitment to hire the most qualified Chief of Police we could find and to re-build the department.

I participated in the professional search process during which we saw many very qualified candidates.  The search process culminated in a day’s long series of interviews, role playing sessions and discussions with the three police chiefs that conducted the interview and role-playing sessions. I and our Village President Eileen Phipps were present for all of this long day of interviews and role-playing sessions at the Q-Center on route 25.  One of the most informative parts of that day was listening to the discussions of the three very capable police chiefs (from East Dundee, Elgin, and Crystal Lake) as they discussed each candidate, each interview session, and each role-playing exercise.

 

As a result of this search process, we hired Wayne resident Tim Roberts. His first-hand knowledge of Wayne coupled with the necessary skills honed by 26 years of progressive policing experience made Tim the perfect choice. Tim jumped in with both feet and got to work right away. As Tim approaches his one-year anniversary he has already exceeded our high expectations.

As part of our continued commitment to an independent, professional Wayne Police Department the Village Board also approved a significant increase in police payroll—without any increase in taxes for Wayne residents.

This increase enabled Tim to hire full-time officers and increase the hours back to historic levels. This has resulted in 24-hour coverage along with increased traffic enforcement all of which has been met with overwhelming positive feedback from our residents.

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Ed Hull as Village Trustee Improving Public Works Services for Residents

After long time Village Public Works stalwart Tom Reed left, the Village has been working to improve the Public Works services to Wayne residents. The Board recently hired Tommy King as our head of Public Works. Tommy is a very accomplished Public Works professional, with 30+ years of experience in the field and he has made a significant positive difference even in the short time he's been here. This includes hiring an experienced staff, installing sign upgrades (including breakaway posts to increase safety), regular garbage clean-up, shoulder work, pot hole repairs, plowing, street light work (installing timers), orange flashing lights, and addressing the curve on Powis Rd with the to be placed road edge markers, and warning lights. These are just a few of the improvements Tommy and his Public Works staff have been able to make so far—with more to come.