Mayor transition

Ray Rogina reflects on his experience as mayor of St. Charles since 2013; Lora Vitek prepares for new role

By Chris Walker

One of outgoing St. Charles Mayor Ray Rogina’s biggest successes also is one of Lora Vitek’s first challenges as the new mayor-elect of St. Charles. “One of the very important things that is happening is the hiring of a new city administrator, which is going to happen over the next couple of months,” Vitek said. “I’ll be working with a recruiter and I’ve asked to see all those applications. That’s a very important job; that person works hand-in-hand with the mayor. I know people are concerned because of the fact that there is so much transition happening, so I’ve made it a priority to get the house in order.” After Rogina was elected in 2013, the city hired Mark Koenen as city administrator. Koenen is retiring and his contract ends on May 15. “I got out of the gate pretty well in this respect as after three months the past city administrator (Brian Townsend) left the office for another job and I was faced with hiring a new city administrator,” Rogina said.“I think the hiring of Mark Koenen, a superior city administrator, brought everything else moving forward.” Meeting the demand for a new police station was another of Rogina’s most proud moments. “We saw the need for a new police station and the inadequacy of what existed on the river,” he said. “So we did a little urban renewal project in redoing a dead strip mall on 64 and put in a new police station, and at the same time it opened up opportunities now for development along the river.” It meant more to Rogina since his father was a police officer. “I’d put the police station right up there as an important accomplishment,” he said. “And I also say that in the light of the fact there’s as an emotional piece there because I’m from a police family. My dad was a police officer so it made it a little more special.” Other big accomplishments Rogina mentioned include the Shodeen Group’s Prairie Center development at the former St. Charles mall, and the continued development of downtown First Street. “The old St. Charles mall sat for 15 years so after sitting empty for so long, and at a key location, to now have new buildings going up is important to me,” he said. “The last one would be the whole development of First Street downtown, which is not complete yet, but perhaps in my retirement there will be an opportunity to at least be involved in a committee to see that it’s finished, at least between Main Street and Illinois Street.” Vitek’s early priorities are to get all the pieces put together. “What I’ve been doing so far is I have to work on getting commissions and appointments together and several commissions that need to be filled are by aldermen and some by external individuals so I’m working on that,” she said. “And because of the fact we’re going to have a new city administrator I have decided to schedule one on ones with all of the directors and there are seven of them. Because the city administrator will be their boss, I want to make sure I’m well aware of what skills and characteristics they want to see in the city administrator and to get a better feel for them and to discuss my work style and their work style, and to see if there is anything I can do for them to make their job as easy as possible.” She’s also heavily involved in the First Street project as the chair of the St. Charles Initiative, which is planning on have the hole over Main St. flattened so that it can be a safe environment for people to walk on. “I’ve been Chair of the St. Charles Initiative so I also need to turn that committee over (by May 3),” she said. “I’ll continue to still sit in on that and so will the current mayor. We have fundraising to do and ground to break so that’s been a bright spot during COVID for our city. ” Vitek (56.12%) was elected mayor in early April after defeating Maureen Lewis (42.22%) in the election (2,127 to 1,600 votes) with 16.25% voter turnout.

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