Island Lake may seek $5 million for new police station, village hall work

Island Lake village officials are considering asking taxpayers for roughly $5 million, or half of their original estimate, to build a new police station and upgrade village hall.

A three-member village board committee has recommended scaling back the project because of the depressed economy, and borrowing $4.9 million over 20 years.

"We had thought about other obligations that our village is going to have over the next number of years, and considered that we should downsize the project somewhat," Trustee John Ponio said at a meeting last week.

The full village board must sign off on two separate ballot questions by month end to make a Feb. 2 deadline for the April 7 primary. If both projects are approved by voters, it would cost the owner of a $100,000 home roughly $47 more yearly, officials said.

An original proposal, by design architects Burnidge Cassell Associates, to revamp the existing village hall and build a new police facility and gymnasium, came with a more than $12 million price tag.

That included $4.3 million for a free-standing police station, $5.3 million to expand and remodel the existing village hall, and $2.5 million for a new regulation-size gym.

Officials later decided to drop the gym idea because two schools in the village have large-enough gymnasiums that could be used.

The Burnidge Cassell proposal was too grandiose for Island Lake, Trustee Debbie Herrmann said.

"It was pretty much a Taj Mahal proposal and that's not what we need here in the village of Island Lake," she said.

Trustee Rich Garling agreed the village needs only a basic police department, and to patch up village hall.

The more than 50-year-old building at 3720 Greenleaf Ave. used to be a grade school that is now also home to the police department.

Mayor Tom Hyde said parts of the village hall building are falling apart, its drainage system is failing, and much of the infrastructure is giving away.

Herrmann said though the village could take out a bank loan for $4.9 million, it is too big a sum for the village to borrow without taxpayers' approval.

"We have other issues within the village that we may have to take out loans for, (such as) the road projects and various other infrastructure (improvements)," she said.

The committee also discussed possibly building the new police station at the corner of Greenleaf and Route 176 so it would be more centrally located. It will meet today at 7 p.m. at village hall to determine the cost of each project and finalize the ballot questions.

The village board will vote on whether the two questions make the April ballot at its Jan. 29 meeting.