No public support for Brainerd fantasy

It’s time to quit chasing the Brainerd dream.

Scott Adams, Mike Kollman, Walt Oakley and their associates with the Brainerd Community Center Inc. are to be commended for their untiring efforts over the past seven years to generate the multimillion-dollar community support to rebuild the Brainerd Building.

They accepted the daunting task of raising $250,000 in private donations over five years. They were not successful, receiving only $2,100 in donations during all of last year — the seventh year of fundraising.

The organization, which now owes the village more than $250,000 in back due rent, has been unable to make even one year’s rent payment. After failing to raise anywhere near the money needed from private sources, as initially promised, the organization now turns to the taxpayers of Libertyville — and Libertyville only — to vote for a 24 percent increase in the property tax rate so the village can borrow $11.5 million to rebuild a 98-year-old building!

The message is clear: Quit pursuing this expensive, taxpayer-financed dream. The community simply does not support it. Nor does the community need it. To rebuild the Brainerd Building, for whatever purposes have been, are or might be proposed, is contrary to fiscal responsibility and common sense.

It’s time for the voters to speak up: Vote no on the Brainerd referendum.

Joe Bean

Libertyville