At the July 12th City Council work session the location for the new Crest Hill branch of the Des Plaines Valley Public Library was announced. The library board is preparing to buy a parcel of land just north of the Menards along Kubinski Dr. several hundred feet east of Weber Rd. The library is looking to buy this land as soon as zoning issues can be resolved and then hope to begin construction so that the new library opens in May or June of 2012.
This proposed location has a number of weaknesses and does not appear to be the best site for the new library. At a minimum a number of issues need to be addressed before the land is rezoned by the city and purchased by the taxpayers of the library district.
The City of Crest Hill zoning code currently allows for libraries only in areas zoned as residential, there is no provision for a library to be built in the middle of a commercial development. This may simply be a relic of the good old days when no one conceived of a library anywhere besides a residential area. Or it may be based on some good principles of having a community facility such as a library easily accessible to our citizens and for it to be possible for school children to get to the library without needing to take a car ride.
The library is also looking at a location that is currently planned for commercial development within a major commercial corridor. This is a property that is meant to generate both property and sales taxes for the city in amounts greater than most other areas of the city. The library however will generate zero tax dollars for Crest Hill and will cost the city the opportunity to get a revenue generating business into the location.
The third problem is that the library has no plans for the building that it is vacating on Theodore Street. The City does not need another vacant building along Theodore. And the library will be a very difficult building to reuse due to the fact that it is not handicap accessible with many steps to the entrance, has not been well maintained, and has very limited parking.
I think all of these issues need to be addressed and can be addressed before the library project moves forward. The Plan Commission and City Council need to make sure an eager to build library and a cash starved developer do not steam-roll them into ignoring what is best for Crest Hill.
The biggest drawback to being placed in the middle of a commercial development is the lack of non-vehicular accessibility. Weber Rd. and Caton Farm Rd. have no sidewalks near this development and there are no sidewalks within the development. Before the zoning code is changed to allow the library to be built here this accessibility issue must be solved. While I think a library belongs near a residential area, the next best thing is to at least create access to residential areas. The city needs to require the developer or the library to extend sidewalks or walking/bike paths from the library site to the nearest residential developments in each direction.
The loss of tax revenue from this prime commercial property can be addressed through a Payment in Lieu of Taxes being made by the library. The lost property taxes at a minimum should be recovered for all of the taxing entities losing out due to the loss of the ability to attract a taxpaying entity to this prime development. The sales tax loss can probably be assumed to be covered by the library being an attraction that makes people somewhat more likely to shop at nearby stores. This affect may not even cover the sales tax loss, but it could be a compromise gesture to take sales tax off the table of the library or developer will cover the property tax loss or at least a portion of it due to this being higher than usual value property.
The library can address the Theodore St. property by making some guarantees as to its future status. They could possibly guarantee that it will be sold to a user who will occupy it within 12-24 months of the closing of the old library. And that if this is not able to be done because the property is no marketable with the current building, the library will remove the building and regrade the lot to make it more marketable at its own cost and deed it to the city at that time.
All of these options taken together represent a large cost that would be imposed upon the library, however they have brought most of these costs upon themselves by selecting an unconventional site. We should not let them either impose these costs solely upon Crest Hill either directly or indirectly through the loss of an accessible library, tax revenues, and the addition of a vacant hard to utilize building. There is nothing wrong with negotiating to share these costs between the City, the Library, and the developer. A solution that shares the benefits and the costs is appropriate. It is now up to the Crest Hill Plan Commission and City Council to do the right thing and protect the best interests of their citizens.
Monday, July 19, 2010
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Higher Taxes Coming to Crest Hill
At the last work session concerning the City budget at the end of June, the budget as it stood after all the adjustments made during the weeks of hearings was presented. Mayor Soliman then followed with questions of the council members regarding their opinions on various budget issues. The final budget was approximately $300,000 in deficit even after every fix was made.
The Mayor kicked off the questions by asking each Council member individually if they would support increasing the utility tax on electricity and natural gas or the sales tax. The City Administrator and the Mayor discussed the rates in surrounding communities to justify that Crest Hill is below average in taxes and should catch up. The majority of Council members supported doubling the utility tax to bring in a little of $100,000 of additional revenue annually. This will be enacted in the near future since the Mayor got the support he needed to raise it. The Council was also open to raising the sales tax, but recognized that it would be years before any additional revenue would be seen, since the tax would need to be approved by the voters and they would need to do a long educational campaign before there would be any chance of getting it passed at referendum.
The Mayor then asked each member if they were comfortable with the budget being in deficit as it stood. A number were comfortable with it either because they felt that it was the best that could be done under the current circumstances, felt that a great effort had been made and it was much better than it could have been, or recognized that a large part of the deficit is due to one time costs due to switching insurance. Others were uncomfortable with it, but were challenged by the Mayor and council members who pointed out that there had already been weeks of discussion and that a budget had to get passed. There seemed to be an attitude of this is the best that we could come up with so everyone should be comfortable with it.
The final question each alderman was asked was if they had any ideas to fix the budget. A number of members advocated tightening on small expenses such as costs of conferences, the purchasing coffee and disposable cups for City Hall, and the Mayor's gas and petty cash expenditures. These items would not make a huge dent in the budget, but were looked at as every penny counts and making sure the Council was feeling some of the pain as well as the city staff. Alderman Sternisha spoke on some of the suggestions he has made to the Council early on in the hearings regarding freezing salaries and not hiring more employees, but he did not have the whole list because the Council had not been expecting this line of questioning at this particular budget hearing. Alderman Convery for some reason decided to attack Sternihsa's suggestion of not hiring more employees and kept asking him to be specific as to who not to hire. Convery did not seem to grasp the idea that not hiring any additional employees did not mean to firing recently hired employees, but instead meant that from that point forward not hiring any more. The Treasurer also spoke on some of his ideas for furlough days for city employees and creating an annual business license as opposed to the current license that is good forever. He was pointing out that Menard's paid $25 for a business license that is good forever, while many households pay more than that each year just to get city vehicle stickers. The City Clerk got quite upset at this since her office would have to issue the permits and she had not been consulted.
The Mayor gave everyone an insight into his thinking just in the order of the questions and how he presented them. His first thought was to raise taxes, then to gauge comfort with being in deficit, and lastly to looking for other solutions. This city needs leadership who put finding solutions and alternatives first and put raising taxes as last resort. Unfortunately, Mayor Soliman looks to our pocketbooks first and makes it clear that higher taxes come before all else.
The Mayor kicked off the questions by asking each Council member individually if they would support increasing the utility tax on electricity and natural gas or the sales tax. The City Administrator and the Mayor discussed the rates in surrounding communities to justify that Crest Hill is below average in taxes and should catch up. The majority of Council members supported doubling the utility tax to bring in a little of $100,000 of additional revenue annually. This will be enacted in the near future since the Mayor got the support he needed to raise it. The Council was also open to raising the sales tax, but recognized that it would be years before any additional revenue would be seen, since the tax would need to be approved by the voters and they would need to do a long educational campaign before there would be any chance of getting it passed at referendum.
The Mayor then asked each member if they were comfortable with the budget being in deficit as it stood. A number were comfortable with it either because they felt that it was the best that could be done under the current circumstances, felt that a great effort had been made and it was much better than it could have been, or recognized that a large part of the deficit is due to one time costs due to switching insurance. Others were uncomfortable with it, but were challenged by the Mayor and council members who pointed out that there had already been weeks of discussion and that a budget had to get passed. There seemed to be an attitude of this is the best that we could come up with so everyone should be comfortable with it.
The final question each alderman was asked was if they had any ideas to fix the budget. A number of members advocated tightening on small expenses such as costs of conferences, the purchasing coffee and disposable cups for City Hall, and the Mayor's gas and petty cash expenditures. These items would not make a huge dent in the budget, but were looked at as every penny counts and making sure the Council was feeling some of the pain as well as the city staff. Alderman Sternisha spoke on some of the suggestions he has made to the Council early on in the hearings regarding freezing salaries and not hiring more employees, but he did not have the whole list because the Council had not been expecting this line of questioning at this particular budget hearing. Alderman Convery for some reason decided to attack Sternihsa's suggestion of not hiring more employees and kept asking him to be specific as to who not to hire. Convery did not seem to grasp the idea that not hiring any additional employees did not mean to firing recently hired employees, but instead meant that from that point forward not hiring any more. The Treasurer also spoke on some of his ideas for furlough days for city employees and creating an annual business license as opposed to the current license that is good forever. He was pointing out that Menard's paid $25 for a business license that is good forever, while many households pay more than that each year just to get city vehicle stickers. The City Clerk got quite upset at this since her office would have to issue the permits and she had not been consulted.
The Mayor gave everyone an insight into his thinking just in the order of the questions and how he presented them. His first thought was to raise taxes, then to gauge comfort with being in deficit, and lastly to looking for other solutions. This city needs leadership who put finding solutions and alternatives first and put raising taxes as last resort. Unfortunately, Mayor Soliman looks to our pocketbooks first and makes it clear that higher taxes come before all else.
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