HINSDALE
Trustees vote to hike utility taxes
Hinsdale residents will pay higher utility taxes starting in February as part of a five-year plan to improve village roads.
The four trustees attending Tuesday night’s Village Board meeting unanimously approved increasing the village’s gas and electric taxes to 5 percent from 3.5 percent, and its telecommunications tax to 6 percent from 4.5 percent.
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Finance Director Doug Cooper said that the gas and electric tax increases would take effect after 60 days, but that the telecommunications tax would not take effect until July. Trustees Mike Smith and Jean Follett did not attend the meeting.
Trustee Bob Schultz said that the village’s Finance Commission recommended increasing utility taxes to their statutory maximums in part because trustees voted last month to cancel a February 2008 referendum seeking a 1-percentage point increase in the sales tax.
Trustee Vic Orler said the utility tax increase would generate about $750,000 per year.
In other news, trustees appointed Deputy Fire Chief Michael Kelly to succeed outgoing Fire Chief Patrick Kenny, whose last day on the job is Jan. 4.
— Christine Martin
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OSWEGO
New YMCA wins village approval
The Oswego Village Board this week unanimously backed plans to turn farmland near town into a 64,464-square-foot YMCA.
In their final meeting of 2007, trustees voted 5-0 on Monday to back the Heritage YMCA Group’s plan to build a two-story facility on the south side of Wolf’s Crossing Road and west of Douglas Road.
Plans for what would be called the Oswego Family YMCA include an indoor pool, two gyms, a wellness center, and aerobics and other multipurpose rooms.
Construction timetables have not been announced. Heritage now has a storefront facility in Oswego.
Plans for another development were delayed when Village President Brian LeClercq postponed consideration of Streets of Oswego, a proposed 60-acre retail center on U.S. Highway 34. Plans for the site include high-end restaurants, retail shops and a movie theater.
The proposed center abuts a residential neighborhood, and several residents expressed concerns about excessive noise and traffic.
Also Monday, Police Chief Dwight Baird said his department would adopt a zero-tolerance policy toward smokers after Jan. 1, when a new state law takes effect banning smoking in indoor public places.
He said violators would face a $100 fine and businesses would be fined $250 for first offenses.
— Jack McCarthy
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MELROSE PARK
’08 budget will help police staff
The Melrose Park Village Board this week unanimously approved a $44 million budget that includes money for more police staffing and equipment and additional administrative costs.
Officials project rising sales taxes will add another $1.9 million to village coffers. Sales taxes are expected to jump to almost $7.9 million from $6 million this year, according to the budget approved Monday.
The amount of property taxes collected in 2008 will be slightly less than the $5.4 million collected in 2007, according to the budget document.
Corporate fund expenditures are estimated to rise to $25.9 million from $24.3 million in 2007, based on budget numbers. Expenses in the corporate fund, which covers the general operation of village government, are projected to outpace revenues by about $1.4 million.
Village Comptroller John Gregor said revenue in the water and sewer fund could be used to offset a projected deficit in the corporate fund.
For the Administration Department, the 2008 spending plan provides two new line items: $100,000 in worker’s compensation insurance and $480,000 in long-term debt. The administrative budget is $4.2 million, up roughly $600,000 from 2007. Police funding is slated to increase to $7.7 million from $7.2 million.
In November, the board passed a $10.8 million levy request, which is 6.8 percent above 2006.
The 2006 tax rate for village services rose 11.7 percent over the previous year, according to the Cook County clerk’s office. Tax rates for 2007 will be released after the county determines actual levy amounts.
— Steve Brosinski
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BATAVIA
City official foresees ‘a very lean year’
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A $3.5 million shortfall in Batavia’s capital improvement budget for 2008 does not mean the city is financially unstable, Finance Director Peggy Colby said this week. But a slight dip in sales tax revenues in 2007 does have officials concerned, she added.
She said the deficit is in the enterprise capital projects budget, which includes water, sewer and electrical system improvements, as well as some funding for the reconstruction of the Wilson Street bridge. “Our operations budget is still showing a surplus,” she said.
Even after spending more than $83.6 million next year, the city should end up with a $21.2 million reserve fund, she added.
Sales tax revenues came in about half a percent lower than 2006’s sales tax gleanings, even though officials had expected a half-percent increase, Colby said. She included another half-percent drop in the 2008 budget predictions.
“This will be a very lean year,” Colby predicted. “We did do a lot of cutting for this budget. The operations fund has a $1,600 anticipated surplus — you can’t budget much more closely than that.”
The City Council approved the budget Dec. 3.
— Denise Linke
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BERWYN
Council annuls veto of legal counsel law
Berwyn Mayor Michael O’Connor’s attempt to veto a controversial ordinance to provide taxpayer-funded legal counsel for officials failed at Tuesday’s City Council meeting.
Aldermen voted 5-1 to override the mayor’s veto of the ordinance submitted by Ald. Michael Phelan.
Some officials believe that Phelan drafted the ordinance for his own legal reasons. Phelan is named in a $5 million defamation of character lawsuit filed against him by Scott Waguespack, a former city administrator and town spokesman.
The suit accuses Phelan of spreading false statements while Waguespack successfully ran for an aldermanic seat in Chicago’s 32nd Ward last spring.
Officials against the ordinance have said aldermen are already entitled to free legal counsel under Illinois law. However, the mayor said this particular incident doesn’t merit free legal services because he said it was “purely political” and “separate from the town.” The new ordinance will give aldermen and town employees more protection and coverage than the state law, officials said.
O’Connor also told aldermen that the ordinance may be illegal because he doesn’t know who drafted it. “My fear is that someone who is not a certified attorney wrote this,” said O’Connor to the board. “If Alderman Phelan wrote it, he is certainly not an attorney.”
Phelan would not tell the mayor who wrote it.
Ald. Nona Chapman, who voted to override the veto, said aldermen would conduct a thorough investigation before approving the expenditures. Chapman said that “nobody is giving [Phelan] an empty check.”
Phelan declined to comment.
— Joseph Ruzich