Schaumburg hopefuls fight over flier

A Schaumburg village board candidate is accusing his incumbent rivals of hypocrisy in their campaign literature.

Village trustee candidate Ralph Roller said that in their new campaign flier, incumbents George Dunham, Henry “Hank” Curcio and Mark Madej claim eliminating the new property tax as an ultimate goal.

But in village staff’s presentation on adopting a property tax back in December 2009, it was given a positive spin as a more reliable income source to use as a way of diversifying the village’s revenue streams, Roller said.

“One of the reasons I decided to run is because I don’t feel they’re open and honest,” said Roller, who’s running on a slate with fellow challenger Robert Garrett. “You say one thing and tell people another at election time.”

Roller also disputes the flier’s claim that the incumbents have helped save taxpayers money by eliminating a $20 vehicle sticker fee and an average of $180 per year in garbage pickup fees when the new property tax causes them to pay more than these amounts.

“How do you say you lowered taxes when you imposed the first-ever property tax?” Roller asked.

“It should be obvious to everyone that putting in this property tax was the last thing we wanted to do,” Dunham responded. “Yes, it was a positive thing for revenue at the time, and yes, we would prefer not to have it.”

Dunham said Schaumburg’s historical reluctance to imposing a property tax is a proven fact. It became necessary in late 2009 when the recession caused other consumer taxes the village had relied on like the sales tax to diminish, he said.

Dunham added that one of the reactions he finds curious is some critics’ stated intention to move out of Schaumburg to Lake County. He said he wonders why people would try to escape a reluctantly imposed property tax by moving to communities that have had larger property taxes for longer.

Dunham conceded that the property tax is higher than the garbage and vehicle sticker fees which were eliminated. But that move was made to offset the property tax to some degree, whereas it needn’t have been made at all if the village were truly interested in taxing residents to the highest degree possible as the challengers claim, he said.

But Garrett said the incumbents are trying to let themselves off the hook too easily for creating such a giant infrastructure that it required a property tax rather than being able to be cut back when revenues fell.

“How can you be the anti-tax crusader when you passed it?” Garrett asked. “For them to bill themselves as the tax relievers is unbelievable!”

Curcio said that the village has already successfully lowered the property tax levy in its second year, but that the economy is still not in a state where it can be eliminated. The levy for what will be collected this year was set 4.4 percent lower than last year.

Over the years, the village board has based its decisions on the size of its infrastructure on the best information available at the time, Curcio said.

Peter Dombrowski, an independent challenger for the village board, said his biggest criticism of the new property tax is the village’s tying garbage pickup costs to it. The property tax can never be fully eliminated that way, he said.

Outside of that, he saw both the claims and criticisms of the incumbents’ flier as just campaign rhetoric.

“I know everybody’s trying to appeal to as many voters as possible,” he said.

Madej could not be reached for comment Friday.