Opponents of a plan to extend water and sewer mains into Bensenville’s Crestbrook subdivision vowed to keep fighting, even though the Village Board has decided it would not stop the project.
“I’d like to see if this couldn’t be resolved short of a courtroom, but we will use all the options we have,” said Pat Bond, an attorney for the opponents. “More than 50 percent of the homeowners have signed our petitions. Over 50 percent of the homeowners don’t want this. Why would the village build it?”
The $680,000 project has been controversial for many homeowners, even though the village will pay for 70 percent of it.
The problem, opponents say, is with the financing.
The village plans to create a special service area that would levy property taxes to pay for construction bonds for the project for the next 15 years.
Many homeowners in the subdivision have said they would like to replace their private wells and septic tanks with village water and sewer service, but not if it means adding $500 or more to their property tax bills each year until 2016.
Trustees already had accepted bids for the plan when opponents began gathering signatures in their effort to defeat it.
The trustees agreed they would rescind the plan if homeowners could prove they met requirements for a so-called back door referendum, which meant they needed signatures from 51 percent of registered voters and homeowners in the affected area to block the extensions.
Homeowners have submitted signatures from 33 registered voters and from owners of 28 of the 50 properties in the proposed special service area.
The protesters’ hopes were dashed, however, when they learned that the DuPage County Board of Election Commissioners lists 88 registered voters in Crestbrook, giving them only 37.5 percent on their petition.
A closer look at the county voter list revealed 13 voters who no longer live in Crestbrook, homeowners on both sides of the issue agreed.
So village trustees said they would consider rescinding the special service area based on the smaller number of voters, if opponents could get to 51 percent. They were unable to do that.
Bond told trustees that he and his clients are still perusing registered voter lists looking for outdated entries. He also said nine signatures filed after the original June 19 deadline should be included.
Those signatures would boost the percentage of anti-project signatures above the 51 percent of registered voters needed to block the project.
John Geils, village president, said he was unsure what effect that might have.
“We don’t know what a court would decide,” Geils said. “We have to abide by the statute.”
Opponents say the village should extend the water and sewer mains for free, as it did for lower-income neighborhoods.
Failing that, they say they should be able to pay their full share up front instead of having bond payments that include interest added to their property tax bills.
Foes also insist that each property owner in the subdivision pay an equal share of the project cost, rather than splitting the cost among the 50 properties according to their equalized assessed valuations.
