DuPage Jobs!

From day one I will take two immediate steps to help our local businesses and our residents. I will open up the DuPage County Job Board to allow all units of government in DuPage County to post employment opportunities in one centralized spot. This will make it easier for people to apply for government openings while also increasing the pool of quality applicants. I will also work to engage the 118 major corporations that call DuPage County their home in a yearly Job Fair sponsored by the County. I will get companies from Ace Hardware to Office Max to BP to Navistar to work with the County to help our residents get good paying local jobs.

I will make it a staple of our next four years to poach business from Cook County. I was talking with a friend of mine, she owns a trucking and warehousing company in Cook County, and she would love nothing more then to move her company and those 100 jobs to a county where taxes are lower and the quality of the work force is better. I say ‘Let’s go get those companies and bring them to DuPage!’

I looked at a poll a few weeks ago and this poll asked ‘Do lower taxes help grow the economy?’ Almost 80% of the people who responded said YES! Many in DuPage County tout the ‘Choose DuPage’ program, which is directed at attracting businesses to DuPage County. I think this is a good first step, but I want to up the ante.

Buy Local, Buy DuPage

Did you know that in 2008 there was $17.2 billion in total retail sales in DuPage County? I want to institute a buy local campaign, asking every resident to spend $2 per day in DuPage that they would have normally spent in another county. This is not much, this is a bagel and orange juice in the morning and this is less then a gallon of milk you grab on the way home from work. Those two dollars per person add up. If every resident would commit to buying local, we will see a total net increase in 728 million dollars a year come into our local economy; an almost 5% increase. When business owners know that residents are committed to supporting local businesses, they will move to DuPage, bringing with them new jobs and new jobs means more income, so we can constantly improve our “Jewel” of a county to make it the “Shining Jewel” of Illinois.