Prospect Hts. residents protest paying for levee
More than 100 people attended a Prospect Heights hearing Monday to protest the planned formation of a special service area to pay for a levee to prevent flooding.
About 80 people were able to get inside the city council chambers, while others waited in a crowded hallway.
A total of 1,341 parcels would be taxed in an area south of Palatine Road, north of Seminole Lane, east of Bush Lane, west of Milwaukee Avenue and west of River Road on the south end of town.
The tax would pay for a bond of up to $500,000 to cover the city’s share of easements and maintenance for Cook County Forest Preserve’s Levee 37, City Attorney Mike Zimmerman said, though actual cost is expected to be less than $400,000. Up to $1 million could be levied each year to pay for levee maintenance, but that is expected to be about $20,000 per year, particularly during the first five years.
The federal government is paying $43 million to build the levee, Mayor Dolly Vole said. The part along Palatine Road is nearly finished, but the entire project will not be complete before 2014, said Vole, adding that the city and Mount Prospect have been working on trying to arrange for the levee since 1985.
Gus Pablecas, manager of Pal-Waukee Plaza at the southwest corner of Palatine Road and Milwaukee Avenue, said during the meeting that the entire city should pay for the project, not just those living in the flood plain — a sentiment endorsed by all the speakers and by audience applause.
Pablecas said the plaza has done well since his group purchased it in 1982, but now the levee construction is hurting business. For example. shopping center owners currently are negotiating with Denny’s Restaurant to try to keep it there.
Resident Michelle Cameron insisted on speaking after the hearing ended, and Vole said there had been a misunderstanding and she thought Cameron had filed a request to speak at the city council meeting that followed the hearing.
Cameron said the many condominium foreclosures force remaining owners in a community to pick up costs, and many residents have been laid off from their jobs.
“What if we can’t pay it? How are we supposed to provide? You also have to have a little compassion on our end,” said Cameron.
Opponents have 60 days to file objections from 51 percent of the voters and 51 percent of the landowners in the SSA. If that happens the council cannot pass an ordinance establishing the SSA.
Vole said after the meeting that she believes the whole city should pay for the levee, but the SSA can only include properties that directly benefit from a project. Prospect Heights voters recently passed a $15 million bond for road improvements, but before that turned down a tax for the police department.