The Crest Hill City Council has still not balanced the current budget, however that has not stopped them from committing to spending money out of future budgets. They apparently feel that it is better to try to bust future budgets instead of fixing the current one.
This is topped off by the fact that the expenditure was for landscaping the medians at the intersection of Weber and Renwick roads at at cost of $20,000 - 30,000. Both of these are county roads, but the county has the sense not to pay such a high cost for landscaping in the middle of a roadway. Romeoville is paying a similar amount to landscape their half of the intersection though and a number of Crest Hill officials did not want our half to not match theirs. So the taxpayers will be stuck paying to keep up with our neighboring community and rejecting the county's offer to pave the median like they have elsewhere around the county.
The only council member to question this expenditure was Alderman Sternisha, who was quickly shot down by another alderman who saw no problem spending future year's money since it did not impact the budget they were currently looking at. Alderman Convery also brought up the need to beautify this gateway to the city. However, if we are looking to beautify I can think of many other places to do work at a lower cost. For example, a number of commercial property owners in this city have decided that mowing is unnecessary. It would cost the city far less to enforce its weed ordinance and would go a long way to make our commercial properties attractive to developers and businesses.
If we really want to make this an attractive community; lets balance our budget, have property owners along our main thoroughfares clean up their properties, look for less expensive ways to enhance all of our entrances, and not commit future funds unless future revenue sources have been identified.
I am all for planning for tomorrow, but those plans should not be how to create future deficits to add to the one we are currently facing.
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