Business View Civil Municipal - Sept 2023

133 CIVIL AND MUNICIPAL VOLUME 4, ISSUE 9 For most of its history, Warrenville remained rural. In fact, when Mayor Dave Brummel’s father was born there in 1913, right up until 1967, when it was finally incorporated as a city, it was still just a small farming community out on the prairie. And because many of its residents preferred to keep its rustic character intact, six earlier attempts to incorporate had been turned down. “But my predecessor, Mayor Vivian Lund, determined that if we were going to survive and be sustainable and do well, we needed to become an incorporated community that was recognized by the state,” Brummel recounts. “So, that was a huge step in our history.” “She was mayor for 20 years and did an admirable job getting the basics in place,” he continues. “When she realized that she had brought us about as far as she could, she prevailed on me to take over. I saw my task as one to turn us into a professional, policy-driven WARRENVI LLE , I LL INOIS community, recognizing that while we needed to maintain our small-town heart and values and our rural sensibilities, we were now a suburban community surrounded by other suburban communities west of Chicago, and that entailed some necessary changes going forward for us to make sure that we were sustainable and that we prospered.” New mayor increases government’s role As Warrenville’s fifth mayor, having served since 2005, Brummel oversaw the city’s evolution, managing to recruit good elected officials and hire excellent staff people. “That combination has proven to be the key to our success over the last 20 years,” he states. “Staff would look at opportunities, bring the best ones forward to the elected officials, and they would determine whether those were worth moving forward on. Because of