Lake Zurich might spend $1.25 million for emergency sewer work

Lake Zurich has committed up to $1.25 million toward emergency repairs of a sanitary sewer line that runs under other towns to a treatment plant near Buffalo Grove.

While the section of sewer line in question starts off Cuba Road just west of Old McHenry Road in Long Grove, it is owned by Lake Zurich.

"It's our pipe," Mayor Thomas Poynton said. "If it's broke, we pay for it."

Lake Zurich Community Services Director Michael Earl said the problem started when a 14-foot section of the sanitary sewer line collapsed Sept. 19. Now, he said, repairs to an additional 910 feet of line - not an originally estimated 600 feet - have been deemed necessary.

Village trustees Monday night voted 4-0 in favor of authorizing a maximum expenditure of $1.25 million on the emergency sewer pipe repair, up from $611,230. Earl said Berger Excavating Contractors Inc. is expected to begin the project this week and likely work into late November or early December.

"It's a big deal," Trustee Jim Beaudoin said of the expense, "because we've got a lot of financial obligations that we have no control over."

Using the line, Lake Zurich's sewage works its way from the village, under Kildeer and Long Grove, before reaching a Lake County-operated treatment plant near Buffalo Grove.

Poynton issued a response to some questions about the emergency sanitary sewer repair on his Facebook page. He said a lack of money to deal with crumbling infrastructure is not a problem unique to Lake Zurich.

"Infrastructure investment across the Chicago region and the entire nation has been underfunded for decades," Poynton said. "If you are paying attention to the 2016 presidential campaigns, the candidates are talking about the crumbling infrastructure of the United States. This national problem has a very local impact on Lake Zurich that we will have to deal with as a community."

Poynton said that as a community without home rule, Lake Zurich's options for financial flexibility are "virtually nonexistent."

Home rule is automatic for towns with more than 25,000 population - a threshold Lake Zurich does not meet. Voters soundly rejected a ballot measure that sought home rule status for Lake Zurich in 2014.

Under home rule, towns may impose new taxes and fees ranging from liquor sales to video gambling licenses. Home rule communities are not subject to the state's property tax cap, which limits tax increases to the rate of inflation or 5 percent, whichever is less.