Bill should help with assessments

On Sunday at the Byron Colby Barn in Grayslake, we made history. Average citizens co-wrote an Illinois General Assembly bill that will make home assessments more transparent -- Senate Bill 2820.

First, we want to thank Sen. Michael Bond for introducing the bill in the Senate on Friday. Sen. Bond immediately garnered the support of State Rep. Ed Sullivan, Jr., also the Fremont Township assessor. Both gentlemen presented details of the bill to widespread acclaim.

As the originator and principal author of the bill, the Citizens Action Project, a grassroots, bi-partisan non-profit group, sees this as the first step in opening up the black box of assessments not only in Lake County, but statewide. The act proposes to make assessors accountable, their methods transparent and their valuations fair. While it's far from perfect, it's a strong start and the only legislation to date to directly address these issues.

We wrote this bill with taxpayers' help from all over Lake County and the guidance of our landmark white paper (see www.citizensactionproject.org), which we published in July of last year and presented to the county board.

Despite its veracity and in-depth insights on the broken assessment process, the board has little to remedy the situation. Minor changes were made to the Lake County assessor's Web site, but the assessment and review process remains unchanged.

Since we wrote the white paper, we've seen assessments of our neighbors in the oldest part of Grayslake climb up to 200 percent. And people from all over the county have contacted us telling us that our finding that the assessment process is opaque and uneven is right on track.

We urge all property taxpayers to contact their state representatives to ensure passage of SB 2820. It's a more than a step in the right direction. It's good government and transparent democracy at work.

John F. Wasik

President,

Citizens Action Project