Beginning this year, Kane County could buy “a farm or two a year” using funds from its $9 million annual allocation of gambling boat revenues under a new program that County Board Chairman Mike McCoy (R-Aurora) said should be brought forward soon.
Although the proposed protection plan would involve the purchase of development rights from some Kane County farmers, McCoy said he expects the county to move quickly to begin to buy, preserve and lease farmland.
The main funding source will be the millions of dollars that are allocated to the county each year from the Elgin-based Grand Victoria gambling boat.
Since the county began receiving funds from the floating casino in 1997, it has collected about $40 million.
All but $10 million has been distributed by the Kane County Board, going to a plethora of capital projects for area local governments and non-profit organizations.
An estimated $10 million more is expected in April, McCoy said.
The county has earmarked the riverboat money for educational, environmental and economic development projects.
In a report to the County Board’s Executive Committee, which oversees distribution of the riverboat funds, it was noted that Kane County collected $9.1 million last year from the Grand Victoria and earned an additional $264,162 in interest on its fund balance through May 31.
The county authorized more than 40 grants last year, ranging from $1.4 million to the county for storm-water management planning and $1 million toward purchase of land adjacent to the Braeburn Marsh in Batavia to $85,000 for a veterans memorial in Carpentersville and $30,000 for Dundee Township fire training.
“My hope is to buy a farm or two a year out of those funds,” said McCoy, adding that the ownership effort will be modeled after the county’s lucrative landfill program, in which royalties are generated from the lease of the landfill.
In addition to preserving open space and protecting the farm economy, the county would be generating revenue from its leased farms, said McCoy, who heads the Executive Committee.
“The stuff we buy will be the most productive land,” he said.
Five requests for riverboat money totaling more than $1 million were recommended for approval by the committee, including $250,000 to Geneva to help pay for landscape and streetscape enhancements along historic 3rd Street.
The county grant is expected to cover the last of the shortfall in the $3.6 million reconstruction project.
And $400,000 was recommended for Suicide Prevention Services of Kane County to be used toward the purchase of the Stone Manor Building on Illinois Highway 31, south of Batavia.
The organization hopes to restore and reuse the historic limestone residence, which was converted to office use, to operate its intervention programs. Recent county Health Department statistics show there were more than 30 suicides in the county last year.
According to Stephanie Weber, executive director of Suicide Prevention Services, the non-profit group is working with at least two other charitable foundations to secure the rest of the funding needed to acquire the building.
A $300,000 grant also was recommended for Joseph Corp., a non-profit neighborhood revitalization group based in Aurora that wants to buy homes targeted for rehabilitation on that city’s East Side.
As each home is rehabbed and sold, the original purchase amount is to be returned to the fund for use on another home, under the request proposed by officials of Joseph.
Two smaller grants, totaling more than $100,000, also were authorized for the YWCA of Aurora to buy equipment for its grand Boulevard Youth Center and to the Fox Valley Land Foundation for a student stewardship program.
The program is an environmental education venture aimed at 6th graders in School District 46 and Community Unit School District 300 in northern Kane County.
