For all the dissatisfaction being felt by local officials in the wake of the gut-wrenching conclusion to the just-completed 87th Illinois General Assembly, they were taking some solace in the fact that they had known a difficult session was coming.
Members of the Du Page Mayors and Managers Conference, for example, were advised in February by their state legislators to hope for the best but expect the worst.
At that time, state Sen. Judy Baar Topinka (R-Riverside) told Du Page municipal officials that the session would be akin to the childhood card game of ”Old Maid.”
”The only problem in this game of `Old Maid` is you`re the last stop,”
Topinka said.
When Villa Park Mayor Joyce Daly, chairman of the municipal conference`s Legislative Committee, heard that, she predicted that the outlook for municipalities to escape the year fiscally intact was ”probably more discouraging than most years.”
With the dust still settling Friday on a session that seemed to drone on interminably, Daly could find little to brighten her dour, mid-winter assessment of five months ago.
”It seemed to be a very rough session-an almost anti-municipal session,” said Daly, referring specifically to the cut in the local share of the state income tax surcharge proceeds and the much-hated imposition of a 5 percent cap on annual levy increases for all but the collar counties` home
–rule municipalities.
”This legislative session was a real struggle for municipalities the whole way through . . . even more than we expected,” Daly said. ”Aside from the big issues . . . there were a number of side issues that kept us really busy in trying to protect the powers that we currently have.”
For example, the Du Page mayors spent considerable time, including a personal, two-day visit to Springfield in late May, trying to head off a unilateral initiative by state Sen. Minority Leader James ”Pate” Philip (R- Wood Dale) to pre-empt local control over construction or redevelopment within 200 yards of any Du Page waterways.
In the end, Philip failed to press to retain the measure, a legislative amendment, in a bill being sent to Edgar.
Christine Martin, the conference`s legislative liaison, noted that Du Page also could find some solace in the fact that the tax cap affects only two-thirds of the county`s municipalities. Eleven of the 33 towns in the Du Page conference are exempt because they are home-rule municipalities, she said.
”We had a total of four bills go to the governor, but in the grand scheme of things they were pretty minor bills that had to do with municipal finances, appropriations practices and certain conflicts-of-interest provisions for local officials. They were small things, but we were happy to get those passed,” Martin sad.
Aside from the major revenue and budget issues, flooding, garbage, roads and airports captured the lion`s share of local attention.
There was fierce reaction and political posturing on both sides in an on- again, off-again and, finally, on-again effort to pre-empt any further expansion of two existing garbage dumps in Du Page and to prohibit the siting of any future dumps in forest preserves.
When it was finally resolved in late June, an amended, more clearly defined garbage dump bill was sent to Edgar that, on one hand, satisfied proponents of a ban on any future forest preserve-based landfills and, on the other, made it nearly impossible for a reluctant opposition to argue that the bill threatened Du Page`s short-term ability to dispose of its garbage at a reasonable cost.
The controversial landfill bill also marked the first major interdiction of Aldo Botti into the state legislative scene, where he went toe-to-toe with Philip, the county`s GOP chairman, with whom Botti has been unable to reach political accord since becoming board chairman in December.
”That bill, as originally written, would have really adversely affected Du Page County`s tax base, so we spent a lot of time on that,” Botti said.
Although he supported the landfill bill in its final, amended form, Botti and his supporters on the forest preserve commission lost out in their bid to keep open the option of transferring the cash-producing landfills from the forest preserve to the cash-strapped County Board.
Botti scored a minor victory within the last few weeks, however, when the Illinois House sent to Edgar a bill aimed at giving the cities of St. Charles and Geneva a greater say in the operations of the Du Page Airport Authority, an independent taxing body that was subject of some of Botti`s most vitriolic 1990 campaign rhetoric.
Botti`s rhetoric also spurred state Rep. Mary Lou Cowlishaw`s effort to help airport officials keep their pledge to stop collecting property taxes by 1996. But that move stalled in the Senate just before the General Assembly adjourned.
Cowlishaw`s bill, which had lingered on ”postponed consideration,”
would have bound the authority to its promise of being self-sufficient. Although the measure, which was attached to a controversial, unrelated bill, failed to get called Friday, Cowlishaw said sufficient groundwork was laid for adoption at the next session.
Philip incurred the wrath of a host of Du Page municipalities when he surprised them with a legislative amendment that would have prohibited any new construction within 200 yards of the center line of any Du Page waterway. The legislation was later amended to limit the construction ban to 150 yards and only along flood-prone Salt Creek. The mayors saw the measure as a potential erosion of their local zoning authority.
In the end, the construction ban, which Philip failed to call for a final vote, turned out to be a tenacious, time-consuming attention-getter for municipalities who were accused by Philip of being ineffective or lacking in their desire to restrain development near streams and rivers.
Residents of the Fox Valley who are taxed by the Du Page Airport Authority won some measure of relief from Springfield in the form of a bill that increases to two the area`s representation on the authority board.
The airport bill, sponsored by state Sen. John Cullerton (D-Chicago) went through several revisions before being sent to Edgar. In its final version, it allows the mayors of Geneva and St. Charles to appoint two members to the nine-member authority board with the advice and consent of their city councils. It also allows the Du Page County Board chairman to continue to make seven appointments, but only with the advice and consent of the County Board. The bill was half a victory for Botti, who campaigned on a pledge to provide greater Kane County representation. But the addition of the Du Page County Board`s ”advice and consent” provision dilutes his unilateral authority to make the appointments.
