The Long Grove Village Board has killed its own attempt at bringing a municipal water supply to its downtown businesses — in hopes of getting better water rates down the road.
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The use of Lake Michigan water in Long Grove’s downtown hinges, in part, on how expensive the supply will be in the near future. The process that the trustees began earlier this fall had to be concluded by Dec. 13, and involved per-thousand-gallon rates that the president of the downtown merchants’ group said they believed was too high.
By terminating the first proposal, the trustees gave themselves a fresh clock to work with, which they will be able to start after finding more favorable numbers.
“We want to continue with the process, but the time doesn’t allow it,” said Ryan Messner, president of the Long Grove Business and Community Partners.
Much of the village uses water drawn from local wells, but several business leaders and elected officials have spoken in recent years about connecting to Lake Michigan through a neighboring suburb’s existing system. Village and business leaders see it as a key to economic growth. To that end, the Village Board in September proposed the establishment of a special-service area that would have covered the downtown and funded the digging and maintenance for pipes to each building.
That proposal came to life on Oct. 13, Messner said, when the trustees began a state-mandated 60-day public examination period for the proposal. It included the rate the village currently charges to users of the Illinois Route 83 deep well — $14 per 1,000 gallons. After the meeting, Messner said his merchants expected to face additional fees that would bring their bottom line up to $22.80 per 1,000 gallons.
“It’s cost-prohibitive at that price,” said trustee Lori Lyman at the board’s Tuesday meeting.
The village of Buffalo Grove pays $4.38 per 1,000 gallons, and the city of Chicago pays $3.81. Village Manager Dave Lothspeich said that buying power, and the expense of new connections, factored into the huge price.
“The challenge with the downtown in particular is the additional expenses for installing a new water main into the downtown vs. the relatively low projected water use for the downtown,” Lothspeich said in an email. “The rates are being reviewed by the auditors but at this point it looks like the best way to increase revenues is to have customers connect to the existing system to drive up the user revenues while not increasing costs by having to expand the existing system.”
The trustees spoke of bringing in the village’s auditor to study what water rates will become in the immediate future — a move that Messner welcomed. Eventually, the board could propose a new SSA with a lower water rate, both he and Lyman said.
“That is the most significant thing right now,” Lyman said during the meeting.
But Lothspeich cautioned the board that a new proposal could be quite a ways off.
“It’s much more complicated than what I had anticipated,” Lothspeich said. “There’s so many moving parts to it. The village is looking, along with the property owners, at a significant investment.”
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