Pro, con groups form on Batavia rec center vote
Two opposing groups have formed in hopes of swaying Batavia Park District voters on the recreation center referendum issue Nov. 2.
Building a Better Batavia registered with the State Board of Elections Sept. 9. Its co-chairmen are Jim Purcell and Lisa Thurston.
Batavians Against Debt registered with the state Sept. 17.
Building a Better Batavia has sent out two mail pieces and posted signs on the property in question, at Wilson Street, Island Avenue and Houston Street.
It also has a website, buildingabetterbatavia.com. The registrant of the site is masked by a privacy service. The opposing group's website is bataviansagainstdebt.com.
Voters are being asked Nov. 2 to allow the park district to borrow $20 million to buy land and build a recreation center. The district intends to repay the principal and interest with revenues from the center and, if need be, from its operations budget.
Neither group had filed an A1 form as of Tuesday afternoon. That form details receipts and expenditures made within 30 days of an election. The election is Nov. 2.
Preferred Development Inc., the developers for the project, are listed as the “sponsoring entity of the committee. Representatives from the Chicago firm said Tuesday they have pledged a donation of up to $20,000 to Building a Better Batavia.
Black Heron LLC is listed as the sponsoring entity for Batavians Against Debt. The company has the same mailing address as the chairman of the committee, Peoria attorney Jack Teplitz, and Teplitz is its registered agent. He could not be reached for comment Tuesday about why a person from Peoria is interested in a Batavia referendum.
The website for his law firm indicates he is an expert in tax-increment financing district law. The proposed recreation center-parking garage-shopping center is in Batavia's downtown TIF district, and the city has proposed spending $6 million in TIF revenue on the parking deck and stores.
Yvonne Dinwiddie, the woman who led the petition drive to get the matter on a ballot so voters could have a say on the project, said she does not belong to Batavians Against Debt, but that she had spoken to some members. She was not sure who its leaders are.
However, “the more the merrier, she said of protesters of the rec center.
Dinwiddie, who was making rec center protest yard signs Tuesday afternoon, said another protester has made a website called recreality.wordpress.com. It contains several news articles about the referendum and the ordinance the park board adopted this spring about the bond issue.
“We are not a group, Dinwiddie said of the people she has been working with. “We are simply citizens. We are not collecting any money. Everybody is paying for their own stuff.
Then there's the Batavia Park District.
Although the park district is not allowed, by law, to spend money advocating voters take a position one way or the other, it has hired a marketing firm to develop “educational materials, including advertisements, and run the public forums it has had about the recreation center.
Crest Communications was originally hired in March to work on a project related to Harold Hall Quarry Beach. In September, the district expanded its duties to include the recreation center referendum.
The district is paying $40,000 for the rec center work, according to a contract it signed in June.