Prospect Heights council promises to make raising taxes harder

Trying to allay fears voters have about home rule and taxes, the Prospect Heights City Council promised this week that any future tax increase would need the vote of four of the city’s five aldermen.

It’s the latest action the council has taken to make home rule more attractive to the city’s voters. A referendum making Prospect Heights a home rule community is on the ballot March 20.

Mayor Nick Helmer said becoming home rule would allow the city to tap into $1.4 million accumulated in the reserve fund of the Prospect Heights Convention and Visitors Bureau, as well as the $250,000 excess that the 5 percent hotel/motel tax generates each year.

Home rule communities can use that money for general expenses, but other municipalities can only use it to promote certain types of tourism, officials say.

That money and steps the city could take to enhance economic development mean a general property tax would be unnecessary, said Helmer. In fact, a few weeks ago the council passed a resolution stating the property tax for police pensions — the only real estate tax currently imposed citywide — would be reduced 25 percent if home rule is approved. A property tax for street improvements that was approved by voters will go into effect 2013.

If home rule passes, the council also promised to freeze garbage and solid waste fees, eliminate pet licensing fees and reduce by $5 the cost of city vehicle stickers.

Gerald T. Anderson, former Fourth Ward Alderman who also served a stint as mayor, dropped into the council’s meeting Monday to hand out a sheet explaining why he opposes home rule.

Anderson’s objections say allowing the council to vote without bringing issues to residents would amount to “taxation without representation.” Supporters of home rule say voters could replace aldermen who take such an unpopular step as supporting a general property tax.

Anderson noted that of 1,300 Illinois municipalities only 206 are home rule, thus the others have rejected the status. Helmer, however, said 75 percent of communities in the Chicago area are home rule.

In Illinois, towns with more than 25,000 residents are automatically home rule unless residents reject it. Smaller communities must vote it in. Prospect Heights has 16,256 residents.

Informational meetings on the home rule question are scheduled at 1 p.m. Saturday, March 3, at the Rob Roy Country Club Villas clubhouse, 270 Country Club Drive, Prospect Heights (Not the golf course); and at 6 p.m. Wednesday, March 14, at the regularly scheduled Finance Committee meeting at City Hall, 8 N. Elmhurst Road.