League of Women Voters of the Cincinnati Area Education Fund
Hamilton, Clermont, Warren Counties, OH November 5, 2013 Election
	Robert H "Rob" Weisgerber Answers Questions Candidate for Member Council at Large; City of Loveland

The questions were prepared by the League of Women Voters of the Cincinnati Area and asked of all candidates for this office.
Read the answers from all candidates (who have responded).

Questions & Answers

1. What are your qualifications for office?

I am the current Mayor of Loveland. I have been on City council for 16 years and I understand the processes and opportunities to improve. I am running for City council again to continue making Loveland the best city in Ohio. I work full time at GE as the Chief Consulting Engineer for the new and advanced derivative engines in support of our war fighters. As an engineer I am a numbers guy, trained and utilized in quality initiatives like Six Sigma and I am trained and an experienced organizational leader. In my position at GE, I drive innovation and creativity.

Bringing the private sector practices to the public sector and not doing things as usual is what has made Loveland great and so far ahead of other Ohio local communities. What you see in Historic downtown, and our balanced budget, are a result of my direct involvement along with council support. We have been chosen by Ohio Magazine as one of "Ohio's Best Hometowns" + issue out in November.

2. What services do you believe should be considered basic and essential for the City?

Basic services are those services the residents feel every day. These include safety services like police, fire, and EMS. Our public works department who maintain the facilities, streets, parks, and our water utility. City services like zoning which protects the residents property values, the Finance department who keeps the budget open and account for every hard earned tax dollar of the residents.

My philosophy is to run the City like a business and stress the basic services that drive property values up for our residents. So many items go into the value of living in Loveland and it the compilation of all these basic services that we focus on.

3. How would you balance the City Budget?

I have maintained our Moody's Aa2 bond rating. I have cut services, reduced headcount by over twice the state average, outsourced some operations, streamlined processes, reduced health care costs, and reduced benefits to maintain basic services and a balanced budget. Our general fund revenues projected for 2014 are going to provide over $900,000 less in buying power yet we have made enough tough reductions to provide the same service levels as in 2013.

I have introduced a margin analysis and a forecasting tool to help manage and maintain a balanced budget.

We use performance measures (a private sector benchmarking tool) to leverage the good practices of other communities and to show where we provide the best in class services.

Going forward I will continue to drive running the City as a business as I have in the past. I will continue to look to the private sector for best practices and leverage from good examples. I will keep the size of our government as small as possible, and provide the best services for the lowest costs. I will continue to use budget disciplines to maintain a balanced budget. I will drive economic development providing for real growth and growth in revenues. I will continue to put all our information on our web page to continue being the most transparent local government around.

4. Citizen engagement is important to the health of local government. In what ways do you support citizen engagement?

We are very open and transparent. Every memo and communication is posted on our web page. When we were looking at cuts in the budget we created an educational class for the residents to do two thinks, 1st review and understand how our budget is structures and what it is we pay for. the 2nd was to gather the resident's input on service priorities and suggested cuts. I am always open to resident input and hear it every day as I engage different residents and business owners.

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Responses to questions asked of each candidate are reproduced as submitted to the League.  Candidates' statements are presented as submitted. Word limits may apply. See individual questions for specific word limits. Direct references to opponents are not permitted. Please edit your work before submitting. We are unable to provide spell-check at this time.

Read the answers from all candidates (who have responded).

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Created from information supplied by the candidate: November 4, 2013 06:55
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