Winfield riverwalk opponent rips ‘pet project’
A political group in Winfield has come under renewed attack from a resident who says a riverwalk project in town is nothing more than village leaders using tax dollars to push a pet project.
But Winfield United President Steve Romanelli says the charge is baseless and that while he has urged the group’s members to support the Riverwalk, it is no different from his group’s recent support of other projects such as an outdoor classroom at Winfield Primary School.
Resident Randy Voss said last week that the Riverwalk project “stinks” and he will round up opposition and let village leaders know a large segment of the population opposes it.
“Most people (I have reached) are pretty upset about it,” he said. “I feel pretty emboldened. I want the money to be accounted for. I want to know the end game.”
The end game is an estimated $3.7 million project that will install a riverwalk and a new urban center on the northwest corner of Winfield and High Lake roads, officials say.
Village leaders who favor the project say most of price tag will be covered by grants and private donations. The village would have to come up with $208,000, a number officials hope to reach through $80,000 in donations, a Central DuPage Hospital matching grant and tax increment finance money.
But Voss says even the $48,000 in TIF money recently approved for engineering on the project is too much.
“I don’t care if it’s $1,000, this is not helping the village,” he said.
This is not the first time Winfield United has come under fire.
Voss raised eyebrows at a village board meeting early this year by saying the group has made the village “dysfunctional” and is a “plague” on the village.
Trustees Tony Reyes and Tim Allen both ran largely on a platform that urged removing Winfield United from power.
Cliff Mortensen and Glenn VadeBonCoeur, candidates backed by the political arm of the group, were booted out of office in the April election. The loss marked the first time any Winfield United-backed candidate had lost an election since its inception in 2004.
Romanelli said opposition from Voss and subsequent comments from Reyes and Allen have turned a worthwhile project into a political football.
“They don’t want (Village President) Deb (Birutis) to get credit and they will do anything they can to tear it down,” he said.
Both Reyes and Allen have supported the project in public meetings but have stopped short of supporting public funding for it.
Romanelli said that only he and Sue Hughes, the wife of Trustee Jim Hughes, a staunch Riverwalk advocate, are Winfield United members who serve on the village’s Riverwalk Committee. But he also says Hughes has never attended a Winfield United meeting.
Romanelli said the Advocates of the Riverwalk, a nonprofit group raising money for the project, ultimately hopes to pay all of the village’s portion of the tab.
“That’s our goal as advocates,” he said. “We are just saying we have not met our job yet.”
Voss, however, is not convinced and says he remains suspicious of the group because of its active support of the campaigns of several trustees and Birutis.
“Is this the dream of a political action committee or of village hall?” he said. “This is getting rammed through and I wonder if we’re being fairly represented.”