Accomplishments
Fiscally Responsible Government
During her term as Mayor, Ann Taylor:
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Passed four balanced budgets without any increase in property taxes.
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These balanced budgets were accomplished without taking out any additional debt, as done in the past.
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The budgets paid down $40 million in inherited debts from previous administrations.
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The budgets increased the City’s cash reserves.
This amazing fiscal success has put the City in better fiscal shape than it has been for years. During the last two years, the Government Finance Officers Association has awarded Waukegan the Distinguished Budget Presentation Award, the highest form of recognition in governmental budgeting.
Putting Public Safety First
Mayor Taylor has focused on the safety of Waukeganites during her term as Mayor. As Mayor, she worked with police leadership to restructure the Waukegan Police Department to ensure that more police worked in the community and less in administrative positions. During her term, the Waukegan Police Department increased its size by over 14% and brought back the Neighborhood Policing program to give each of Waukegan’s nine wards a more local and direct connection to law enforcement.
Investing in Infrastructure
Waukegan is a historic City incorporated before the American Civil War. Because of the City’s age, infrastructure improvements are always challenging and often very expensive. During the last 3.5 years, Mayor Taylor and the City Council have led Waukegan through nearly $90 million of upgrades to the City’s infrastructure, including, but not limited to, roads, bridges, culverts, sewer systems, and essential City buildings that house our first responders. This required improving government efficiency to free up money for a capital budget. All this has been paid for in cash rather than borrowing. In addition, the City, which did not have a lead pipe service line replacement program until 2021, has now replaced lead service water lines throughout the City, with more to be completed in the coming years at no expense to the homeowners, unlike many Cities that charge the homeowners.
Working Together
During the last term, the Mayor has focused on collaborative leadership in our community. That means, for the first time, the City of Waukegan hosts our community’s non-profit leaders, faith leaders, and other leaders from neighboring and overlapping units of government to City Hall on a regular basis. This collaboration has allowed the City to enter into fruitful partnerships within the community to increase public safety, get our City’s young people working during the summer, and discover meaningful intergovernmental agreements to benefit taxpayers.
Fighting for Residents
During Mayor Taylor’s term, she led the fight against the abhorrent conditions at Lakeside Towers, also known in the community as 200 Julian. The City successfully sued the slumlord owners of the building and, in an unprecedented case for Waukegan, forced them to sell the building. Mayor Taylor advocated for the residents because no one should live in inhumane conditions. The new owners of the building announced they would invest $20 million into the building, and in the summer of 2024, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced a $9 million grant to improve the apartment complex.
Taking Care of Animals
Mayor Taylor is an animal lover and dedicated dog owner. She spearheaded the building of a new Waukegan Animal Control facility. This new state-of-the-art no-kill shelter has 20 kennels and is a vast improvement over the older and much smaller previous building. This project, like other infrastructure projects during Mayor Taylor’s term, was paid for in cash. The new facility allows the animal control department to better fulfill its mission of providing compassionate care for unwanted, stray, abused and abandoned animals in the City.
