Island Lake trustee proposes ads on car stickers

The stickers Island Lake residents affix to their cars’ windshields each year would bear advertisements for local businesses under a plan proposed by a trustee Wednesday night.

Trustee Laurie Rabattini, head of the village board’s finance committee, unveiled the proposal during a scheduled budget discussion. It would be a way to raise revenue for the village and generate customers for local businesses, Rabattini said.

Island Lake residents pay $25 a year for vehicle stickers and other fees for boat, motorcycle, scooter and truck stickers.

The proposal piqued the interest of some of the village officials at the meeting, but they also expressed concerns that residents wouldn’t like the plan.

“Residents are going to pitch quite a fit to have to pay to advertise someone on their car,” Trustee Shannon Fox said. Fox called Rabattini’s proposal “a really neat idea” but said she’d only support it if the revenue generated by the ads meant people got the stickers free.

‘If you’d give it to me for free, then maybe I’d consider it,” Fox said.

Trustee Chuck Cermak flatly opposed the idea. Residents might object to advertising businesses they don’t frequent, he said.

Mayor Debbie Herrmann said the board should consider the concept. The finance committee took no action on the matter Wednesday.

Rabattini shared other ideas about how to use the vehicle stickers to generate more money for the village, too. She suggested increasing the fines for people who don’t purchase vehicle stickers on time and having police officers perform door-to-door checks to see if cars are equipped with up-do-date stickers.

Rabattini also said the village could place liens on the homes of people who don’t buy stickers. She described that concept as “a worst-case scenario” for scofflaws.

Another proposal would create an amnesty day that would allow people to buy stickers for the regular price after the deadline has passed. The prices increase after the annual Feb. 14 deadline.

An additional budget meeting scheduled for Thursday has been canceled. The full board could approve the estimated $8.1 million spending plan for the 2012 fiscal year, which began June 1, at its July 14 meeting.