Kane board prepares to grill state lawmakers on video gambling

Kane County Board members will meet a gathering of local state lawmakers Friday for a face-to-face reckoning of the board's recent decision to ban video gambling. The meeting may be the first step in Kane County reversing the ban and becoming one of the first taxing bodies in the area to give video gambling the green light.

The county board's Legislative Committee gathered Monday to discuss the game plan for the meeting. The general premise of the gathering is to discuss the issues the county wants its state lawmakers to pursue in 2010.

However, the committee has been preoccupied with the fallout of the county board's vote to ban video gambling ever since it occurred. Committee Chairman Hollie Lindgren said her main goal of the meeting is to have state lawmakers answer all questions of board members who voted to ban video gambling in preparation for the county board reconsidering the ban in February.

Lindgren herself has unanswered questions, having been one of the county board members who voted to ban video gambling. The ban only passed by one vote. "My concerns were that everything wasn't in place," Lindgren said. "When the riverboat went in in Elgin, everything was set in place. We knew Kane County was going to get a certain percentage. I'm not hearing that with this. I'm thinking all this money might head somewhere else. That's the only reason I voted against it."

Lindgren said she received a flood of calls and e-mails from people supporting video gambling after the vote to ban it, especially from local union members who said they need video gambling because of the jobs it may create.

"I realized this is actually going to affect people who need to get back to work, who are trying to save their homes," Lindgren said. "If this is what's going to give these people their jobs, then we need to do it."

That approach may be countered by county board members who still support the ban.

Board member Drew Frasz said he opposes video gambling on moral grounds and the pressure to fund the state's capital bill is on state lawmakers - not the county board.

"This thing was thrown together so quick with so little forethought and so little foundation that I really think our state legislators should be the ones trying to come up with a better idea than (video gambling)," Frasz said.

Board member Tom Van Cleave said there already is one alternative that he'd support.

"I'd give another couple hundred dollars of income tax to help balance the budget," Van Cleave said. "But the politics of it, if (state lawmakers) talk about an income tax increase they all think they're going to be booted out of office. I don't understand their paranoia. I think they should have a lot more guts. They know the ideas. They need the courage to do it.