Costin, Larson spar over vision for Schaumburg

The candidates for Schaumburg mayor both say their primary goal is to get the village's finances back in order, but their favored approaches couldn't be much further apart philosophically.

Brian Costin, longtime Mayor Al Larson's first challenger in 16 years, describes himself as a fiscal conservative who believes the village's operations should be stripped down to core services.

Part of doing that, he said, includes selling off the village's minor-league baseball field, airport and convention center.

But Larson, who's held the mayor's office since 1987, believes the village long ago cracked the code of creating a community where businesses want to locate, and where their commerce can provide residents the benefit of high-quality services while sparing them most of the cost.

Both say eliminating the village's new property tax is a pressing goal. Costin said the village's overspending and dabbling in the private sector are what necessitated the tax in the first place. He said his approach of cutting spending will make the village run more efficiently and make Schaumburg less dependent on taxing residents, businesses and consumers.

Larson, however, said the village's financial model has been temporarily overwhelmed by the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, creating an unavoidable hiccup to a 54-year winning streak.

“We're not responsible for the economic downturn, but certainly we're going to do our best to mitigate it,” Larson said.

Costin, director of outreach for the Illinois Policy Institute, said he's a Republican with libertarian leanings when it comes to financial issues, but has no interest in libertarian philosophy on social issues.

He holds Larson accountable for 18 tax increases since he became mayor in 1987. Six entail the creation and amendments to the tax-increment finance district at Schaumburg and Roselle roads, while another stems from the creation of a second TIF district near the expected site of a STAR rail line commuter station at I-90 and Meacham Road.

Among the other increases are everything from a $1 per $1,000 real estate transfer tax in 1987 to 2009's first-ever village property tax. Along the way were increases to hotel and sales taxes, as well as the creation of telecommunications, entertainment and food and beverage taxes.

“Why raise taxes when it's government that's doing the irresponsible spending?” he asked.

But Larson argues that Costin will tear down all the things he once said he admired about Schaumburg while growing up in Elk Grove Village.

“If he envied Schaumburg, where did he think we got those services?” Larson asked. “Now he wants to move into town and take it apart. He's lived in town for three and a half years.”

All the taxes imposed before the property tax targeted visitors in order to protect residents from the tax burden of quality services which in turn attract businesses to locate in the village, Larson said.

Most municipalities have a real estate transfer tax, he added, and for many it's $2, $3 or even $5 per $1,000. And the TIF district at Schaumburg and Roselle roads created the high-quality Town Square development without asking taxpayers for a dollar more.

“If that isn't a logical project for a TIF district, I don't know what a logical project is for a TIF district,” Larson said.

Costin said the only factors that should be driving an increase in the village's spending are inflation and population growth not employee compensation out of sync with the private sector or massive capital projects like the Renaissance Hotel and convention center.

“It was a gigantic, gigantic mistake that is costing the taxpayers dearly,” Costin said of the convention center. “This is a monument to Mayor Larson.”

Though he argues that village operations need to be boiled down to basics, Costin said he has no plans to gut the police or fire departments.

Nevertheless, when it comes to employee pay, the village should use any and all means to find qualified people willing to do the job at a reasonable price whether that means working with a union or not, Costin said.

Larson said Costin is fooling himself, and perhaps others, if he doesn't believe paying good wages is the way to attract the best and brightest to working in Schaumburg. No one complains about the high level of expertise the village has attracted when paramedics and firefighters are called for, he added.