Elginites get answers at town-hall meeting

A year ago, Richard Dunne took the oath of office as one of three new members of the Elgin City Council.

Thursday night, Dunne - the leading vote-getter in the spring 2009 Elgin council election - held a town-hall meeting at the Elgin VFW in which 40 residents attending expressed their frustrations over a variety of topics, including the economy and city expenses.

Dunne didn't have answers to all their queries, but promised to evaluate each and every expenditure made by the city.

Dunne, who also is a firefighter, said the city needs to ensure it spends money on core services and basic needs, such as police, public works and fire protection.

"I'm not sure what the basic needs test is because were spending $3 million a year on golf, golf operations," he said, referring to the city's three golf courses.

Dunne noted the city has kept its property tax rate the same for the last 17 years and he would be opposed to raising it "because I believe there are still areas we can cut in the budget and we need to address those first."

Residents expressed anger that illegal aliens were a drain on government resources.

Dunne said the city can't be responsible for how the federal and state government spends money, but noted the city should make every effort to spend Elgin taxpayer dollars on companies that employ workers that are in the United States legally.

He noted the city council is going to have a priorities retreat at the end of May. This will be different from the retreat held last July that focused on the budget only.

Dunne also explained why he voted 'no' on a move in which the city traded 16 acres of vacant land to Elgin Community College in exchange for the college's downtown Fountain Square building and campus.

The city hopes to land a federal grant and work with ArtSpace, a Minneapolis-based nonprofit group, to convert the building into 55 lofts for artists.

Dunne said ECC officials have said it would take $40 million to bring it up to college standards; the total ArtSpace project will cost $14 million .

"It sounds to be like there's more issues with that building than we've been led to believe," he said.