Wants voter control over park project

An open letter to South Barrington Village President Frank Munao: Please help the real estate taxpayers of South Barrington regain the right to vote on major expansion projects within our village that will most definitely raise our real estate taxes substantially.

Whether intentional or not, our elected officials enable and allow our taxing bodies, i.e. the South Barrington Park District, to gain village approval before it is put to us — the voters and taxpayers — for our approval. This is taxation without representation.

Please tell our South Barrington Park District officials when they obtain voter approval on this expansion, only then will the village and its planners spend the time deciding where to place parking lots, soccer fields, ice rinks, roads, etc.

You have the power and the responsibility to us, the taxpayers who will have to pay for all of this expansion. Our park board continues to show its irresponsibility and disdain for us the taxpayers by circumventing the voting approval procedure.

Has our park district paid for the land that they purchased without voter approval yet? If I am correct, $4 million is still owed on the land. The park district came to us the taxpayers a year or so ago to tell us they were raising our taxes because they were in trouble with paying for the land.

We do not accept that our village and its elected officials have no control over our park district. If the park district wanted to erect a 250-foot-high billboard, you surely would tell them no.

We are fed up with our high taxes (12th in the state). We want the right to vote on this expansion issue restored.

Gerald and Sandra Hoffstetter

South Barrington