According to his campaign website, www.mikeverbicformayor.com, mayoral candidate Mike Verbic was elected president of the CUSD #428 school board in 2007, and he served on the Governing Board for the DeKalb County Special Education Association. Verbic attained his bachelor’s of science degree in marketing from NIU.

Verbic said the biggest change he wants to make in DeKalb is to focus on collaboration efforts in the community.

“More than anything, it’s collaboration among partner governing bodies,” Verbic said. “We need public discourse regarding efforts by the city, NIU, Kishwaukee College, the school district, and the park district.”

Verbic said he’d like to introduce a new council to enhance collaboration.

“My proposal, once elected, is to create a DeKalb leadership council that will involve leaders from each entity with meetings once or twice per year to make sure we understand each others goals and how we can align efforts and share resources to govern more efficiently,” he said.

Verbic also said he thinks it’s important to have community involvement in city government.

“[My main goal is] building consensus among the council, citizens, and city department heads to make sure we’re all heading in the same direction,” Verbic said. “We need to do a much better job engaging the community to establish priorities according to our citizens.”

Verbic said his recent experience in leadership as the school board president from 2007 to 2011 would be an asset to him as mayor.

“I’m the only candidate that offers results of leadership including significant growth in a partnership between NIU and the school district,” Verbic said. “During my leadership as president, I balanced budgets of $60 million and above annually and raised the credit rating for our school district.”