5 subdivisions to split from Campton Hills

More than 200 property owners can secede from the village of Campton Hills after a judge ruled the municipality is capable of sustaining itself without them.

Kane County Civil Judge Michael J. Colwell has ruled in favor of allowing the detachment of five outlying subdivisions -- Campton Farms, Cheval de Selle, Hidden Oaks, Moraines and Prairie Lakes -- and several surrounding residential lots.

After months of legal wrangling between the village and several landowners, Colwell issued judgments last week characterizing the village's defense against disconnection attempts as "self-serving" and built on a political promise to avoid local property taxes.

Since the village incorporated after a controversial referendum last spring, trustees have waged fierce legal battles against more than a dozen neighborhoods that want out. While the village's central argument has been that dismantling the new municipality will cripple its finances, Colwell pointed out in his rulings that officials have the ability to levy property taxes and institute municipal fees to offset any decrease to the revenue stream.

"The court is not persuaded that it may simply disregard such alternate sources of funding simply because the village has not yet attempted to utilize those sources (or, more accurately, because its elected officials fear it may be politically inexpedient to do so)," he wrote in one opinion.

"(T)he village's position is self-serving. … The village is opposed to the disconnection because it does not want to raise taxes," Colwell wrote in another. "If the citizens of Campton Hills refuse to pass a referendum to impose a property tax in order to have municipal services provided to them, then they will have to either live with fewer municipal services or dissolve the municipality."

The village has 30 days to appeal or ask Colwell to reconsider, village attorney Bill Braithwaite said Monday.

"We felt the facts were unique because of it being a village of no real-estate tax revenue, but we haven't analyzed the decisions yet," he said. "Of course we're disappointed because of the impact on the village. What we do now and how we will react … is a matter we will discuss with (the village)."

Several disconnection cases still are pending before Colwell, but even attorneys fighting the village were reluctant to interpret his first five decisions as foreshadowing the remaining cases.

"Obviously, each of these cases has its own set of facts," said Patrick Griffin, a St. Charles attorney who represented Prairie Lakes and Hidden Oaks. "I don't think either side, win or lose, can take it as a message they'll all get out or won't get out."

But Wheaton attorney Tim Elliott, who represented Cheval de Selle and Moraines, pointed out that, so far, much of the village's defense has been similar in each case and, therefore, could be open to the same kind of criticism Colwell offered last week.

"Every case will rise and fall on its own merits," Elliott said Monday. "But the arguments the village has made so far clearly did not resonate with the judge."

All told, the five properties granted disconnection consist of roughly 210 single-family homes on more than 400 acres. The neighborhoods are on the far south and east sides of the village.