Winfield trustee scolds board in 17-minute monologue
Tony Reyes has his own theory about why Winfield doesn’t have enough money to fix its streets, build a riverwalk or fully fund police pensions.
On Thursday night, the village trustee devoted 17 minutes of the board meeting to making sure everyone knew his opinion.
“We have all kinds of plans for how to develop a town center, but we’re not,” Reyes said. “We have all kinds of ideas and plans for how to create a better business-friendly community, but we don’t.”
He added, “We’re running it (the village) like a club.”
The monologue started when Reyes butted heads with another trustee who last month released documents summarizing closed-door discussions the board had about the possibility of disbanding the Winfield Police Department to raise money for roadwork.
Erik Spande cited multiple legal sources who said he didn’t break the law when he revealed that trustees had been talking behind closed doors since June 2011 about contracting with the DuPage County sheriff’s office for police service.
Spande said he was “bemused” by a recent email Reyes wrote criticizing him because the claims “are so easy to disprove.”
Reyes was unrepentant about his criticism of Spande’s actions.
“Look at the chaos you’ve created,” Reyes said to Spande. “You’ve created a terrible problem. They (the public) don’t know what we’re really trying to do.”
Reyes, a first-term trustee said the board is trying to address issues caused by anti-growth policies. He blamed those who have resisted efforts over the last decade to develop parts of town.
“You can’t have a riverwalk if you can’t pay for it,” said Reyes, adding that project has an estimated price tag of about $1 million. “We can’t even find enough money to fix some curbs and sidewalks.”
Reyes insists that raising taxes isn’t the answer. Instead, he said Winfield should lure more businesses to town and allow more development, especially along Roosevelt Road, to generate new sources of sustainable revenue.
“If you go around pretending like nothing is going to change in Winfield and we’re going to protect everything we have and we’re just going to keep raising everybody’s taxes, we’re not going to be the coolest little community in DuPage County anymore,” Reyes said. “Nobody will want to live here.”