School board official shines light on impact-fee questions

As usual, Tony Quagliano, vice president of the Huntley Unit District 158 school board, has helped clear up some confusion surrounding the district.

I wrote last week about impact fees the district may or may not have expected to receive from Neumann Homes, before District 158 passed the budget and before Neumann filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

The question was simple: Did the district expect Neumann Homes to build any homes in the district this year?

If so, this expectation should be reflected in the budgeted impact and transition fees, which sources tell me the district receives when a homebuilder obtains building permits.

The answer I got from Chief Operations Officer Glen Stewart was that Neumann Homes told the district it wasn't going to build any homes in the district in 2008.

But the district budgeted $200,000 in impact fees from Gilberts, suggesting that officials expected a few dozen homes and a handful of students.

Quagliano, who was nice enough to e-mail me from his while on vacation with his family, told me the $200,000 in impact fees was mistakenly left in the district's budget.

In addition, impact fees from Hampshire were underbudgeted by $200,000. So, as Quagliano points out, the mistake should result in no net change in the district's revenue expectations.

Quagliano impressed me by taking responsibility for the mistake. It's heartening to hear that at least one school official is willing to accept the blame when inaccurate or confusing information goes out to the public.

Bond battle drags on: I wrote last week about the Village of Huntley rejecting Horizon Group Properties' offer to pay off $16.4 million in bonds. As part of the deal, Horizon would write Huntley a check for $200,000.

Since I turned in my last column, Horizon's President Gary Skoien weighed in on the dispute -- seemingly for the first time since April, when he first made the offer to Huntley.

Skoien's letter dated Nov. 1 accuses Huntley's officials of being motivated by "personal animosity or vendettas" and says they are "irresponsible" for rejecting a deal that could benefit Huntley taxpayers.

The letter also includes a stern warning that Horizon will remind Huntley residents of the village's alleged "disdain … for (their) hard-earned tax dollars" every week.

Finally, Skoien invites the village to offer justification for why its bond counsel has advised against the deal.

It sounds like both parties need to sit down and get on the same page. After eight years of litigation between the two, whether that will even happen is uncertain.

But until it does, it seems Horizon is willing to argue its case in the court of public opinion.