Carol Stream plans formal 'shop local' program

Carol Stream Trustee Greg Schwarze often encourages residents to “Shop Carol Stream” to help bolster local sales tax revenues — in one of the few suburban towns that doesn't have a property tax.

Now Schwarze and village leaders are working on developing a formal village-led program that would encourage support of local businesses.

“We want to try to take this to the next step, instead of just telling people to do it,” Schwarze said.

Under the proposed program, the village's website would contain a section where residents could register their email addresses to receive discount coupons from businesses. The village would recruit businesses for the effort by offering promotional support through free window signage, fliers, and mentions in newsletters and online.

At a village board meeting Monday, village trustees appeared to endorse a program modeled off of one used by Lake in the Hills that is operated by village staff, and not in conjunction with the local chamber of commerce.

In contrast, the shop local program in Woodridge is run by the village and chamber.

Schwarze said Carol Stream officials were leaning toward a village-run program since the Carol Stream Chamber of Commerce not only includes businesses from Carol Stream, but also nearby towns.

That could put the chamber in a difficult position, since it would have to exclude benefits to some of its chamber members, added Chris Oakley, the assistant to the village manager.

“It kind of puts them in a precarious situation and we didn't necessarily want to do that,” said Oakley, who would likely coordinate the program. “It doesn't mean they're not fully supportive.”

Oakley and Schwarze said chamber officials were enthusiastic about the effort and promised to promote it.

They cited statistics from the 3/50 Project, a national retail business advocacy group, that found for every $100 spent locally, $68 is returned to the community through taxes, payroll and other local economic support.

“You can see the benefits of keeping the money here in town,” Schwarze said.

Village staff will be putting together a final program design and logo, and creating literature to send to local businesses. Pending final approvals from the village board, the program is scheduled to launch by November.