THE JOURNAL & TOPICS NEWSPAPERS | FRIDAY, MAY 2, 2008
Letter To Our Editor
Editor, Journal:
Don't let them do it to us again.
Once again residents of Des Plaines are faced with a decision some of our elected leaders are going to make against our wishes, which will take more money out of our pockets.
If you remember, during the referendum concerning the creation of the 5-Corners TIF at Rand and River roads, members of our city stated several times that the TIF will be developer driven. They assured us that the city will not buy land using our tax dollars as they did in other TIFs. They stated that this TIF will be driven by developers who are interested in developing in this area. The referendum was held on Nov. 7 2007 and 78% of the residents told our elected leaders that they did not want, nor did they support this TIF. The city ignored us and passed this TIF the night before the vote was in.
We have now learned that since July of 2007 the city has been making plans to spend taxpayer's money to purchase land in the TIF they claimed would be developer driven, again braking promises made to the citizens of Des Plaines. Why are they doing this? There is no developer interested in this parcel of land. The parcel in question apparently had an appraisal done on August of 2007 when the real estate market, especially for commercial property, was still in fairly good shape. However, in the last six months commercial real estate has bottomed out. The city apparently is still planning to purchase this property based on values from almost one year ago and not today's values.
The city has attempted to garnish the funding on several occasions, through the budget process, the appropriations vote, and through closed door executive session meetings. Each time the money was voted down. So why are some of our elected leaders trying so hard to complete this purchase? Your guess is as good as mine.
What is upsetting to me and many others is that this comes at a time when we have seen record budgets passed at the state, county and even local levels of government. This is not the first time our leaders have made statements claiming what their intentions are on an issue only for us to learn later they had planned to do the opposite all along. They do it because we let them. When a local government has residents who do not get involved, they can do as they please. Only if our residents get involved will our elected leaders start to represent the will of the people they serve. The aldermen from the 2d, 5th and 6th ward have been against this purchase. This new purchase will cost us an additional $1 million. Contact your aldermen and let them know that enough is enough.
Brian Burkross, Des Plaines