Batavia puts rec center funding on ballot
A referendum about borrowing money for a Batavia recreation center will go on the Nov. 2 ballot.
The park board unanimously certified the question presented by petitioners and directed the secretary to deliver the question to the Kane County clerk.
Residents petitioned the board in May to get to vote on whether the district should borrow $20 million to finance the center, which would be built at Houston Street and Island Avenue. The center would be part of a three-story complex between Wilson Street and Houston that would also house stores and a parking garage.
No formal plans have been submitted to the city. Concept drawings of the recreation center are posted on the district's website, bataviaparks.org.
The district has also announced that should the rec center come to fruition, an operator of a private downtown Batavia gym has agreed to manage the fitness center.
Chris Hylton, who owns River West Family Fitness Center at 108 S. First St., and the park district have an oral agreement. Hylton has owned River West since 2004; the gym opened in the early 1990s as Westbank, then was sold to Provena Mercy Medical Center.
Patrick Callahan, park board president, said he and district Executive Director Mike Clark had talked about approaching Hylton.
If the rec center opens, its fitness operation would absorb River West's clientele, and the park district would be able to immediately staff it with people experienced in running a fitness center, according to a prepared statement from the district.
Some Batavia residents, critical of the proposed development, have questioned whether a public body should open a facility that competes with private businesses. Others note that none of the gyms in town offer an indoor swimming pool or track.
Under state law, governments are allowed to borrow, without asking voters' permission, an amount equal to what they levied for bond and interest payments the year the property tax cap was enacted, now adjusted for inflation. The district levies about $600,000 a year for that, at a rate of 5.4 cents per $100 equalized assessed valuation. It would use that money to pay off the rec center loan.
But the type of debt it would have issued, alternate-revenue bonds, gives voters the ability to force a referendum on the issue. A resident, upset that the district wasn't asking voters for permission to borrow the money or whether they wanted a recreation center, organized a signature-collecting drive to force the district to obtain voters' approval. She turned in 2,368 signatures; 1,466 are needed to get on the ballot.
The development is being proposed by PDI of Chicago. City officials are discussing whether to put up $6 million in money from a downtown tax-increment financing district toward the retail and garage parts of the project.
The district intends to borrow the money using the federal Build America bond program, in which 35 percent of the interest costs would be rebated to the district by the federal government. District officials say the bonds could be paid off within 20 years without raising taxes.