A proposal to improve and expand 911 emergency telephone service in McHenry County that appeared headed to easy victory in next Tuesday`s elections has hit a snag with a dispute among law enforcement officials.
Officials of some communities fear that the proposed system would slow response time to unincorporated areas by routing 911 calls through another agency first. The ballot measure remains popular with many residents and law enforcement officials, however, who predict it would make emergency service more efficient countywide.
Many of the other referendum proposals in McHenry County involve school tax increases.
Emergency 911 service is now lacking in some areas of the semirural county northwest of Chicago. In others, a call sometimes is routed to the wrong police, fire or rescue squad.
With the proposed $1 million system, emergency dispatchers would automatically see on a television display the number, location and owner of the telephone from which the 911 call is placed. The system is designed to get help more quickly to frantic callers, or those unable to give their address.
But Crystal Lake officials, for example, fear that the system may not be as speedy as hoped. The city provides fire and ambulance service to some nearby unincorporated areas. But if calls from those areas go to the sheriff`s office and are then routed back to Crystal Lake, valuable response time could be lost.
The city has taken no official position on the ballot measure, according to City Manager Joe Misurelli. He said it is advocating that, if the measure passes, local officials be allowed to choose whether 911 calls from their area be routed through another agency before reaching them.
Routing questions would be decided by an Emergency Telephone System Board, which will be created if the ballot proposal is successful.
If voters approve the surcharge of 50 cents a month on residential telephone lines, the service is expected to take 18 months to 2 years to install.
The four ballot proposals to raise school taxes face stiffer opposition. Although school officials say suburban growth has left them desperately short of space, only one of five tax proposals passed in the county last April.
Now, the four school districts that lost last spring are trying again with the following proposals:
– Crystal Lake Elementary School District 47 is asking authorization to sell $9.9 million in bonds to build a school, add classrooms to existing buildings and buy land for another school.
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– Harvard Unit District 50 is seeking to sell $5.6 million in bonds to upgrade the junior high school and high school.
The district also is asking voters to raise the operations, building and maintenance fund tax rate to 75 cents per $100 assessed valuation, from 62.5 cents. The current rate yields $449,434 a year. The new rate would yield $599,325.
– Lotus Elementary School District 10, in a rural area that includes both McHenry and Lake County voters, wants to raise the education fund tax rate to $2.33 from $1.73 per $100 valuation. That would yield $470,188 a year instead of the current $349,057.
The district also is asking voters to boost its operations, building and maintenance fund tax rate to 35 cents from 25 cents per $100 assessed valuation. The current rate yields $50,411 and the new one would yield $70,618.
– Alden-Hebron District 19 is seeking to boost the education fund tax rate to $3.29 per $100 valuation, from $2.40. The current rate produces $585,820. The new one would yield $803,061.