Early in the planning for how Palatine could celebrate the year 2000, Mayor Rita Mullins thought it would be a hoot to invite the entire village over to the Park District gym for a giant New Year’s Eve sleepover.
But concerns that Y2K failures could plunge the village into darkness–stranding hundreds, maybe thousands, of pajama-clad partyers–quickly persuaded her to consider other ways to mark the holiday.
“Not that I’m worried about Y2K, but I want our staff to be able to respond,” Mullins said. “Now, I’m trying to encourage people to stay home on New Year’s Eve and ring in the millennium.”
Mullins said she hopes that as the clock strikes midnight on New Year’s Eve, hundreds of Palatine residents will step onto their front porches and raise a jingly din with specially made brass bells.
Emblazoned with the village’s logo and the words “2000 Ring in the Millennium,” and priced symbolically at $20.00, the bells will be sold to raise funds for a new village clock tower and plaza.
“We wanted to do something for the millennium, something special,” Mullins said.
The end of the 1900s is presenting towns with a choice of whether to celebrate it with their residents or hunker down with the canned goods and electrical generators.
Some communities are taking advantage of the event as an opportunity to raise money for pet projects and throw an extra party.
But others are worried about whether the computer bug known as Y2K will wreak havoc and are taking the more conservative approach by not holding village-sponsored New Year’s Eve parties.
In Wheeling, for instance, the New Year’s Eve celebration is to be nothing more than a few staff members spending the night in Village Hall to make sure the computers are still working when the year changes, said Jim Grabowski, assistant village manager.
“We are crossing our fingers and hoping everything goes all right,” Grabowski said. “There is nothing large planned–but I may sell T-shirts that say, `I survived the year 2000 in Wheeling, Illinois.’ “
Towns such as Elk Grove Village are planning a series of events throughout next year but nothing on New Year’s Eve.
“The feeling was that a lot of people have private plans, and anything the village does will be a low-attended event,” said Peter Vadapalas, assistant to the village manager.
Other towns are using the event as a way to make some money.
Inspired by Palatine’s bells, Arlington Heights is sponsoring a sale of a special, hybrid Arlington Heights Day lily, said Mayor Arlene Mulder. The village also is sponsoring the sale of hats, pins and shirts that feature an Arlington Heights millennium logo. For New Year’s Eve, the village will sell luminaria paper bags.
The funds will go toward a park that is to be constructed at the northeast corner of Arlington Heights Road and Northwest Highway.
“This is a real unique time in our history to be alive–during a millennium change,” Mulder said. “It is incumbent upon villages to commemorate that.”
Schaumburg is celebrating with both a party and a yearlong look at the village’s history in the 1900s.
The party will be a black-tie Millennium Ball at a hangar in the Schaumburg Regional Airport. Schaumburg has bought backup generators in case the power fails, said Betsy Armistead, director of the Prairie Center for the Arts.
The village’s look at the history of the time will involve interviewing about 15 longtime residents on their memories of Schaumburg. The videotaped interviews will be shown on cable TV access Channel 13 throughout the year, Armistead said.
“The oral histories are a way to celebrate the community’s history while looking forward to the new millennium,” Armistead said, adding, “This is certainly a once-in-a-lifetime occasion.”
