Like comedian Rodney Dangerfield, no matter how hard it tries, the City of Waukegan just can’t seem to get any respect.
But city officials say they’ll no longer be content to simply whine to each other, and anyone else who’ll listen, about Waukegan’s bad image.
Some City Council aldermen are threatening to withhold building permits from housing developers who advertise that their new subdivisions are in such upscale towns as Libertyville and Wadsworth, when in fact the new homes are located in Waukegan.
“The City of Waukegan is the one that issues the building permits,” Ald. Ray Vukovich, chairman of the City Council’s Finance Committee, said. “If it comes to that, I would make a motion to hold up building permits until they have more favorable advertising.”
His views are echoed by other officials.
“It’s really a slap in our face,” said Ald. John Rickerd, who also supports a moratorium on building permits if it’s determined to be legal.
“Apparently, (the home builders) don’t want people to think they’re in Waukegan, but they definitely are. We need to set the record straight,” he said.
What is so aggravating, officials say, is that the home builders don’t give Waukegan any credit for the vigorous attempts it has made to change its image.
The city has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in recent years to revitalize a downtown area that fronts Lake Michigan and to promote its cultural and recreational amenities.
And the city has enjoyed a multimillion-dollar housing boom that has seen its population rise to nearly 82,000 residents from 69,000 just seven years ago.
Last month alone, the city’s Building Department issued 227 permits for new construction totaling $15 million, echoing a three-year trend that has resulted in nearly $300 million in new construction.
But to many Lake County residents, Waukegan is still viewed as an area with the same kind of nagging problems that most rust bucket cities face–high crime and unemployment rates and troubled schools.
That view, city officials say, is cruelly unfair.
“It seems like people are almost anxious to claim we’re a rugged area,” said David Motley, the city’s director of public relations and special events. “But it’s a bad rap.”
Before taking any official action, however, the aldermen say they’d like to sit down with the home builders to try to straighten out the situation.
They admit it won’t be easy.
The problem partially stems from the fact that although many of the new homes technically are in Waukegan, their mailing addresses are in Libertyville and Wadsworth.
The same holds true for the schools attended by the children of the new Waukegan homeowners. Many of the children attend schools in Libertyville, Wadsworth and other neighboring suburbs.
The reason is that like the post office, the school districts’ boundary lines were set up before Waukegan annexed those areas. But the same boundary lines for the schools and mail distribution remain in existence today.
So in some cases, a new Waukegan homeowner will get services from agencies in as many as three different municipalities.
In many cases, the home builders simply use the official mailing address for the new home when marketing the property.
“We’ve been advertising like this for over a year, and we aren’t the only ones doing it,” said Barbara Morelli, a sales manager for Scarsdale Homes.
“To us, it’s Wadsworth,” she said, referring to the new homes near Midlane Country Club.
But Waukegan city officials claim it is a misnomer to call a home that receives services from its fire and police departments a residence of any other town.
“When our police and paramedics go out on calls, they’ve had people who think they’re living in Libertyville say, `How nice of you to help out,’ ” said Vukovich. “I think it’s unfair to the buyer. They should know what community they’re buying in.
“Plus, we’re having record development in Waukegan. But you’d never know it by looking at the ads because they’re always camouflaged by the names of other communities.”
The aldermen believe one of the reasons home builders say their homes are located in places such as Libertyville and Wadsworth–and not Waukegan–is so they can charge more.
If that’s the contention, however, Morelli had some advice for the Waukegan officials.
“Maybe they ought to look to themselves” for the reason, she said.
It’s just that attitude, however, that has the city officials steamed.
It’s also led to some nasty innuendoes that some of the home builders fear their potential clients would not want to buy into an area that has a racially diverse population such as Waukegan.
“Whites are a minority in Waukegan now, so it could be racially motivated,” said Ald. Larry TenPas.
Rather than declare an all-out war with developers, however, city officials hope some kind of compromise can be reached. Changing the post office boundary lines could be one way.
“What we’re most interested in is getting quality development in Waukegan,” said Russ Tomlin, director of planning and zoning.
“I think eventually as we work hard to turn things around people will be proud to say they live in Waukegan. Hopefully, people in Gurnee and Wadsworth will even be advertising they’re a part of Waukegan.”
