DuPage Co. chairman candidates weigh in on water costs

Invoices related to the DuPage Water Commission's financial crisis didn't come only to the agency's headquarters in Elmhurst.

Some municipal taxpayers also helped foot a $100,000 lobbying tab that several municipalities incurred fighting a legislative bill sponsored by state Sen. Dan Cronin that would have folded operations of the commission into the county.

That lobbying invoice was split among most of the more than two dozen municipalities and agencies that receive Lake Michigan water through the commission.

The effort was for naught; instead, Gov Pat Quinn recently signed a compromise bill calling for all commissioners to resign by the end of the year and elimination by 2016 of a quarter-cent water commission sales tax.

Cronin, who is running as the Republican nominee for DuPage County Board Chairman, remains leery of the efforts of the commissioners to get the agency's finances in order.

"Honestly, I don't think they're moving in the right direction," Cronin said. "From the get-go they seem to be in denial of their responsibility. They lack the ability to be objective of their job performance."

Cronin is still pushing for the agency to become a county utility.

"I believe consolidation with the county is a big part of the solution," he said. "A lot of these problems wouldn't have occurred if we had the strength of the resources and breadth of county government behind it."

Cronin's Democratic opponent in the Nov. 2 election, Carole Cheney, said the water commission's shortcomings highlights the need for technology and computer software upgrades at the county that are currently under consideration. She doesn't believe the county's resources would have stopped the financial mistakes that plagued the water commission.

"At the county level there is the opportunity to prevent that same sort of disaster through the replacement of information technology systems," she said. "It can prevent this sort of waste in the future."