We are very pleased to announce that we have two outstanding recipients of the 2016 Shining Star Award – Trustee Brian Cecola and Village Treasurer Margaret “Peggy” Hirsch. Each of them, in their own way, has been a force for positive change in our village government.
As many of our readers know, Brian Cecola was elected as a Trustee in 2015 after another brutal campaign season. Voters hoped that Cecola, having been a fireman and with real-world job experience in paving and snowplowing, would be an asset on the village board. Recognizing this strong resume, Village President Martin McLaughlin assigned Cecola the chairmanship of the Roads and Bridges Committee as well as Public Safety.
Brian took to both roles easily, but he has definitely had the biggest impact when dealing with infrastructure issues. The village has made great strides in catching up on the backlog of road resurfacing projects which accumulated under the past administration. And Cecola repeatedly has gone to bat for residents to stretch their tax dollars farther. For example, the Village Engineer suggested prioritizing resurfacing the Village Hall parking lots when a surplus in the Roads and Bridges Budget emerged this year. Instead, Cecola instructed the engineer to move forward to this year other future road projects which would be more beneficial to residents, after confirming with the engineer that delaying the parking lot project would not lead to dangerous deterioration in the short term. And, in 2015, Brian requested a new bid proposal for restriping the village hall lots after determining the original bidder was much too high, again saving taxpayers money.
During the process of the reconstruction of the Cuba Road Bridge (now named Veteran’s Crossing Bridge), when it was discovered that numerous utilities had been relocated incorrectly, Cecola took a pro-active role in meeting with Com Ed to discuss the problems their crews had caused by their newly installed, but misplaced, utility poles. Corrective action was expedited by ComEd, and a potentially significant delay in the completion of the bridge project was averted due to Brian’s intervention.
Brian has also pushed for Village membership into the Northwest Municipal Conference, which was approved by the Board of Trustees via an Intergovernmental Agreement with Cook County. As a result, the schedule for the direly needed rehabilitation of Brinker Road should be accelerated, and Federal funds should be available to help with the costs, without any need for bike lanes to be integrated into the project.
In addition to his service on the Barrington Hills Village Board, Brian is also very active in the community – he is immediate Past-President of the Barrington Lions Club and is instrumental in the annual Fourth of July Brat Tent and Barrington Fourth of July activities, along with his wife Stephanie.
Our second 2016 Shining Star is Margaret “Peggy” Hirsch. Peggy took on the part-time role of Village Treasurer in March 2016, and has impressed us with her high level of skill and competence. She has brought an impressive resume to the office, having earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Accounting from Notre Dame and an MBA from the University of Chicago. She has held numerous high-ranking financial positions at top firms in the Chicago area, and has also served as Treasurer for the Village of Lake Barrington since 2013, bringing much needed municipal experience to her new position in our village.
Hirsch makes it a point to attend Board of Trustee meetings where she capably and easily fields questions from the trustees on a myriad of complex monthly financial reports. Her thoroughness and professionalism are apparent and the village should consider itself lucky to have an individual of her caliber on its staff.
Peggy and her husband David are also Barrington Hills residents, and they both dedicate their talents to TeamDad, LLC, created by David in 1998 to support the efforts of Illinois Fatherhood Initiative and other non-profit fatherhood organizations across the United States.
We should be proud as a village to have Brian Cecola and Peggy Hirsch volunteer their talents to serve their hometown community. These 2016 Shining Star award recipients are to be commended for the time and energy they devote on a daily basis to making Barrington Hills a better place for us to live. Thank you from your neighbors and from all of us at the Observer!