WESTERN SPRINGS
Trustees OK bonds for building work
Trustees on Monday night unanimously approved issuing $1.6 million in non-referendum bonds to pay for building improvements and vehicles and equipment during the next four years.
Finance Director Grace Turi said the 20-year bond issue was scaled back from $2 million because county assessments of property values in the village were lower than expected.
Director of municipal services Bill Nelson said replacing a 1968 Village Hall boiler would be one of the building improvements slated for 2008.
In other news, trustees voted Monday night to sell a house that the village owns at 5000 Wolf Ave. The village bought the property in June as a possible site for a second fire station. In August, trustees decided to build the fire station at 5501 Grand Ave.
— Christine Martin
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ELMHURST
Council hopes for property tax boost
Increasing the property tax levy by 4.5 percent will help offset sagging sales-tax revenue, Elmhurst officials said Monday.
City Council members voted 12-2 to accept a committee report on the 2007 levy request. New money is needed mostly to make mandatory payments to police and fire pension funds, officials said.
Ald. Moira Moriarty, who opposed the measure with freshman Ald. Chris Nybo, said she would support a 3.5 percent higher levy.
Taxes on a house valued at $300,000 likely would increase $9 with a 4.5 percent boost in the levy, City Manager Thomas Borchert said. Ald. George Szczepaniak, chairman of the council’s Finance Committee, said a similar taxpayer would pay substantially more if the city did not abate $5.1 million in taxes on general obligation bonds.
Only one other community in DuPage County has a lower municipal tax rate, according to a survey of 34 towns. Elmhurst’s 2006 rate of 28 cents per $100 of assessed valuation is bested by Oak Brook, which doesn’t collect a municipal tax.
“Unless someone moves the Oakbrook shopping center to Elmhurst, we’re not going to get to zero,” Mayor Thomas Marcucci said.
At the start of the meeting, Marcucci led the council in a moment of silence to honor Sgt. Joe Vanek of the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division. A graduate of York Community High School, Vanek, 22, was killed Nov. 12 in Baghdad while on his third tour of duty in Iraq.
“Joe was indeed a patriot,” Marcucci said. “He went into harm’s way for all of us.”
Vanek’s mother, Janice, was a four-term alderman who was unseated in April.
— Steve Brosinski
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GENEVA
Expanded rides set to begin in ’08
The Ride in Kane Program, an expanded version of the Dial-a-Ride program for seniors and people with disabilities, is scheduled to begin at the end of January.
Services that have been available weekdays from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. will be available all day, every day under the new plan. One-way cash fares will be $3 for up to 10 miles plus $1.50 for each additional mile. Fares under Geneva’s existing program are $2.50 to St. Charles and $2.25 within Geneva. Grant funding will support the program.
The average cost per ride for the cities will be reduced from $21 to $18. The program is modeled after a DuPage County program that reports increased ridership with the expanded services.
— Barbara Kois
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MAPLE PARK
District’s expansion plan sees costs rise
Officials at Kaneland School District 302 are blaming an international building boom for a $12 million cost increase in the district’s expansion proposal. The Board of Education voted last week to put a $65 million referendum measure on next spring’s ballot, up from the $53.2 million referendum measure that voters turned down last April.
“We normally plan for a 5-percent cost increase per year due to inflation, but our architect came to us and said this year has been extraordinarily bad,” Assistant Supt. Tom Runty said. “The prices for steel, cement and copper are soaring because the housing construction downturn hasn’t hit commercial construction. China is soaking up all the cement and steel it can get, so there’s a lot of international pressure. Lumber is a bargain right now, but we use precious little lumber in school construction.”
District officials said they hope to build a new middle school on the north side of Sugar Grove that would open in August 2010, as well as an addition to the current Kaneland Middle School and an addition to Blackberry Creek Elementary School.
The Board of Education will hold a public forum on the referendum measure at 7 p.m. Dec. 3 in the Kaneland High School library.
— Denise Linke
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WHEATON
Leaking fuel tank will be replaced
The city has hired a Rosemont company to replace a leaking underground diesel fuel storage tank.
On Monday, the City Council awarded a $69,500 contract to Christopher B. Burke Engineering to replace the tank at the city’s water division at 615 Countryside Drive.
The city discovered the spill Oct. 10, when diesel fuel appeared in a basement sump pump at the site. Public Works Director Joseph Knippen said that perhaps 50 to 75 gallons were lost before the fuel was pumped from the 1,500-gallon underground tank into a temporary one.
The city alerted the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency and the state fire marshal to the spill. Houses near the facility are served by city water, not private wells, City Manager Don Rose said.
Burke Engineering will replace the steel tank with a 1,000-gallon fiberglass model and will remove any contaminated material.
“We’re not anticipating that much remediation,” Knippen said Tuesday. “What’s there is there, and we have to get it out.”
— Clifford Ward
