Tie vote means no Fox River Grove sales tax increase

Fox River Grove will not get a sales tax increase to help fund its planned downtown economic redevelopment after all.

After provisional and late absentee ballots were counted in McHenry and Lake counties, the results of the March 20 referendum showed 460 votes both in favor and against the proposed quarter-percent sales tax increase.

McHenry County Clerk Katherine Schultz said that referendums questions are approved only with a majority of votes.

“That was a big question,” she said. “I called the attorney at the state board of elections; between two of us we researched it and that’s what we came up with.”

The unofficial vote tally after the March 20 election showed 460 votes in favor and 458 against.

Fox River Grove recently approved a tax increment financing district in its downtown area. If voters had approved the ballot measure, the village’s sales tax would have increased from its current 7 percent to 7.25 percent. That would have yielded about $100,000 to pay for infrastructure improvements downtown, from sidewalks to water mains, village officials said.

Village board members said they were disappointed at the proposition’s failure.

“This is a big setback for our efforts to clean up and beautify the downtown area,” Village President Robert Nunamaker said. “The government can’t get ahead of the taxpayers. The taxpayers are saying, ‘This is not something we are in favor of,’ so then we have to accept this.”

The sales tax increase would have been a way to break away from relying on property taxes, Trustee Suzanne Blohm said. “This would have been an opportunity to fund our downtown redevelopment using money that’s obtained from anyone who shops in the village, not solely the Fox River Grove residents,” she said.

Both Blohm and Nunamaker said they thought village officials did all they could to let residents know about the referendum.

“I’m not sure how to interpret it (the results). Is it that people don’t want to redevelop downtown? Or is it that people don’t want their taxes increased?” Blohm said. “We’ll have to talk about that.”

Nunamaker said it’s too early to say whether the village will give the referendum question a second go at the November election. “It remains to be seen, (...) I doubt we will try again.”