Lombard invests more into downtown

Lombard is poised to spend $15,000 to learn what members of the community want in the village's downtown.

Trustees have given the village manager permission to hire consultants to facilitate meetings aimed at finding out what business leaders, property owners and residents would like to see at the former DuPage Theatre site and at other downtown properties.

Not everyone sold on the idea. Trustee Jack O'Brien voted against the expenditure.

"We've spent too much money on this already," O'Brien said. "This is not working. All we do is throw money at it. It's like giving an A just for coming to class. You want the downtown to succeed, but you can't just give money away."

The village already has given away thousands of dollars in grants to individual businesses and the Lombard Towne Centre business group.

While Trustee Richard Tross voted for the plan to hire the consultants, he voiced reservations.

"The free-market enterprise should determine it," Tross said, referring to downtown business. "Government can't control it."

Elected officials plan have the consultants hired by November. The firm would facilitate stakeholder meetings in January, first with adjoining property owners, then downtown business and property owners. The final two meetings would be with the community at large.

Results would be compiled for the village in February. A board discussion on the downtown vision would happen during a public meeting in March.

"We want to prepare ourselves as a community for when the economy turns around... this is what we want to do," Village President William Mueller said. "This is a community project. We want to involve as many people as we can."

The board still must vote on the consultants' actual contract once a firm is selected.