A Rolling Meadows City Council member is questioning his colleagues`
decision to dip into water and sewer funds to finance a new garage, which he contends may not be needed.
”Latest census figures show we are not going to grow any more (as a city),” Ald. Thomas Menzel (2nd) said.
The plan calls for eventually withdrawing a total of $2 million from the two funds, which currently total $5.4 million.
Menzel, who called the city`s move ”shortsighted,” was the lone dissenter in a 5-1 council vote Tuesday night that approved taking $880,000 in reserves from the two funds to buy a site for the garage.
”It`s a questionable funding plan,” he said.
The public works building would be used to garage all city-owned vehicles, including garbage trucks, snow plows and construction equipment.
As an alternative to the garage, the city should consider turning over garbage collection, now free, to a private hauler and charging for the service, Menzel said.
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That way, the Public Works Department could cut its space requirements by an estimated 20 to 25 percent because the city wouldn`t have to house and maintain a fleet of trucks, he said.
Menzel also said he questioned the council`s action on ”philosophical”
grounds, contending it is ”wrong to fund one fund with another fund.”
The part of the plan approved Tuesday night calls for drawing $660,000 from the water fund and $220,000 from the sewer fund to buy 5.4 acres behind Amling`s Flowerland on Algonquin Road east of Illinois Highway 53.
Public Works Director Dennis York said the site was one of the last large pieces of vacant land in Rolling Meadows. The price was set by an out-of-court settlement with the owner after condemnation proceedings were begun.
Menzel said money for the project should come from general revenues or from a special bond issue. If there are surpluses in the water and sewer funds, he said, assessments should be lowered or the extra money should go toward replacement of the city`s 40-year-old utility infrastructure.
However, city Finance Director David Russek said Rolling Meadows does not plan to transfer the water and sewer funds to the general fund, but to put the funds directly into the public works project.
Russek said the city will have to issue bonds to finance the entire project, estimated to cost $6.9 million, including land. By using excess water and sewer funds, the bond issue can be reduced, which will reduce the taxes needed to pay off the bonds.
Russek also said that the city plans to use other fund revenues to build a second water tower and to pay for a city sump pump program.
He said the Joint Action Water Agency has been encouraging the city to add water storage capacity for its Lake Michigan water. Rolling Meadows had been delaying doing so until the money was available, he said.
Russek said the city planned to build a second tower next to an existing one off Industrial Avenue.