This year, Elizabeth Davies was elected as Grayslake’s new mayor. Davies has been a part of the community for a long time. She started her journey of helping and growing Grayslake by becoming a Trustee. She was inspired by her parents’ concern for their own community and their willingness to speak up for help. After ten years, the opportunity to become Grayslake mayor was presented, and she took that opportunity. Now she is spending her time helping to better the community. Rampage sat down with the mayor and asked: how is she helping Grayslake grow?

The community was the main topic of concern when it came to Mayor Davies. A main motivator for her desire to help her own came from her parents. Her parents, who were living in a different town, had concerns about their lake and the storm drains. So, they had to go to their local governments to express their concerns. Their experience made Davies come to a realization. Davies said, “[I] realized at the time that it was really important to have people who were on those boards who would listen to the residents and would do the research.” Her motivation has translated into how she understands the people’s voice and how she hears the community’s issues. When asked how the community can voice their concerns to the mayor, Davies said, “I’m available for meetings. I’m available for, you know, emails and conversations. And I also have a quarter, like three times a year, Mayor’s coffee.” The Mayor’s coffee is an event held at the local coffee shop in downtown Grayslake, Somethings Brewing. There, Davies sits down with her constituents over coffee. For those who can’t make these meetings or conversations, they can go to the Grayslake Villages website to see the monthly newsletter that the mayor sends out. This newsletter gives updated information about upcoming events and new changes coming to Grayslake.

Beyond community concerns, Mayor Davies and her administration has identified some problems in Grayslake. A concern Davies raised was about improving the quality of life. One problem she brought up was road infrastructure. Davies said, “We have 83 and 120, and I would love to see improvements for traffic flow as well as the Cedex, but that relies on us working with the state to do that.” Along with working with the state government of Illinois to fix our roads, she wants to help people’s needs beyond just travel.

A goal of Mayor Davies is to have Grayslake citizens have access to good schooling, and public building works, but it can be hard on the people paying for these amenities. Davies said, “I think, to improve the village, is to really have property tax diversification. And it’s very expensive to exist in today’s world. [It’s] expensive to live in Lake County.” Mayor Davies wants our county and village to have good schools, good government, and good park districts. Davies said, “[She wants] to create opportunities to have revenue that comes to those districts that’s not from the homeowners.”

Not all the mayoral duties and upkeep of the Village has to do with people’s concerns. Some things the mayor looks forward to are the exciting events going on in Grayslake. Davies tries to see how Grayslake can improve to build an even bigger and better community. Davies said, “I think moving our downtown forward and continuing to add the vibrancy of our downtown, I think it’s one of the things I would like to see.” The ‘vibrancy’ of Grayslake Davies is referring to are the annual events and celebrations Grayslake puts on, and other activities that happen downtown. “Those are the things that kind of are those intangibles, I think that make Grayslake so special. And we have the tree lighting coming up, [and] those types of things really bring pride for people in our community and also give them a reason to connect.”

When one becomes Mayor, there is a spectrum of responsibilities – some good, some more difficult. Some concerns were promptly voiced this summer when the mayor sent out the August newsletter. In this newsletter, the Village Administration discussed its Village Mosquito Abatement Program. The program was implemented to help control the mosquito population in Grayslake. The Village said in the newsletter, “the adult mosquito spray treatment should not affect beneficial, pollinating insects, like bees and butterflies, and helps reduce the risk of exposure to the West Nile Virus. Spray residue within a treatment area is non-toxic.” However, people had concerns about the chemicals that were being sprayed in and around the village. Some were concerned about the effects the treatment would have on the environment and how it would effect their own yards. When asked about her constituents’ concerns, Mayor Davies said, “When it comes to things like mosquito spraying, we currently use what they call the gold standard on that. And so [we] can be a standard for, using those types of things that we definitely employ that are [we are] very careful about when it’s sprayed.”

The company that was used to implement this gold standard of care was Clarke Environmental Mosquito Management. The reasoning behind this executive decision was the rising concern of the West Nile Virus. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the West Nile Virus is a virus that is carried by mosquitoes and can get humans sick through their bite. Typically, the number of cases peaks in mid-August to early September. With this in mind, Mayor Davies wanted to do as much as possible to prevent the risk for Grayslake. When asked about whether the West Nile Virus was the main motivator behind the spraying, Davies said, “I think when that is one of the triggers that they would use to see, yes, that is one of the reasons for a spray would be the deter, to be to deter for a public health reason. So to deter, like the transmission of West Nile virus.”

Another concern that was brought up to the mayor during a village board meeting was about the new Data Center being built. Kathleen Dungan is a Grayslake resident who came to the board meeting to voice her concerns. When she had asked the mayor about the new Data Center, the mayor acknowledged and thanked her for voicing her concern. Although she did not directly comment, her questions and concerns were answered after the meeting had concluded. When asked why she voiced her thoughts to the mayor, Dungan said, “It scares me,” and that she “didn’t know if she would get answers.” After speaking with the Mayor, Dugan said, “[Her] concerns rest,” but is still a little unsure.

Rampage talked with the mayor about the Data Center. Rampage presented existing statistics about the average data centers water usage to the mayor. When asked about how the building will compare to these, Davies said, “So that would be something like those older [data centers] that we would say no to, because we just would need to protect our environment on a different level.” A concern that many people have when it comes to data centers is their impact on the environment and their water usage. When asked to comment on the data centers’ water usage, Davies said, “So we’re estimating these 18 buildings in total to use about 50,000 gallons a day, which is the point at which we pump about two million or more a day. So it’s very little compared to our whole piece. And it’s not the same monster consumers that these old ones were.” Rampage was unable to independently verify this claim. According to Culligan Quench, a water filtration company, “A mid-size building with 100 employees would use 1,500 to 2,000 gallons per day — or 45,000 to 60,000 per month,” and “a corporate building with 300 employees would use 4,500 to 6,000 gallons per day — or 135,000 to 180,000 per month.”

Being a mayor can be a full-time job, in and out of the office. Between leading the community and helping with citizens’ concerns, it can be incredibly demanding. When Davies isn’t serving in the role of Mayor, she works as a high-school math teacher and is also a mom of three kids. When asked about why she was happy to be the mayor, Davies said, “There are a lot of wonderful people in town, and the fact that people put trust in me to take on this role really was a lot, you know, so excited, honored, but you know feeling the weight of the responsibility as well.”