ECC bond issue passes -- by just 29 votes

A nail biter to the very end. At 1:33 a.m. Wednesday, a mere 29 votes separated success from failure for Elgin Community College's $178 million bond request. With all 269 precincts reporting across a five-county area, 19,456 residents supported the plan, and 19,427 opposed it. The very last precinct to report - from Cook County - changed the request from losing by 13 votes to winning by 29, according to unofficial totals.

"We know the economy is not good and people are concerned about the tax rate, so we never took it for granted," ECC President David Sam said several hours earlier, when the numbers were too tight to call.

"It was up to them to decide what direction they should go."

The referendum question, approved by the college's board of trustees in January, seeks to fund the first portion of a $387 million master plan to update the college by 2030.

The request, according to college estimates, works out to about 31/2 cents per $100 of equalized assessed valuation.

For the owner of a $200,000 home, taxes will rise by approximately $23 in the first year; for the owner of a $350,000 home, about $40.

Bonds will be sold to build a $60 million health careers center, a plan Sam has called "shovel ready."

The college also will spend $26 million to expand and redesign its library and another $24 million to renovate its student resource center. A new training facility for police, firefighters and emergency management technicians will be added for $15 million.

Maintenance projects, including installing a sprinkler system and energy-efficient windows, which have been deferred in recent years due to a loss in state funding, also are built in.

Enrollment at the college has swelled by 1,000 or more students every year since 1999, and the district is projected to grow from more than 400,000 residents today to 600,000 residents in 2020. Health career programs, including nursing, are capped because of facility limits, Sam said.