Cronin: Consolidation, fairgrounds among top issues in 2015

Pursuing more opportunities for consolidation, finding the best use for the county fairgrounds and fighting mosquitoes on a countywide level are some of the top issues DuPage County Board Chairman Dan Cronin wants to address in the new year.

Cronin sat down with the Daily Herald to talk about his plans for 2015, which will be the fifth year of his administration.

The Elmhurst Republican, who won a second 4-year term in November, says he remains focused on his DuPage ACT (Accountability, Consolidation and Transparency) Initiative.

“The accountability, consolidation and transparency (policy) has sort of become our brand name,” Cronin said. “We try to look at everything within that framework.”

The initiative, launched in 2012, initially called on 24 local governmental entities to make structural and operational reforms. Thanks to a change in state law in 2013, the ACT initiative could result in the elimination of as many as 13 of those agencies, including fire protection, sanitary and mosquito abatement districts.

In 2014, the county disbanded the Fairview Fire Protection District, which was an on-paper district that covered an unincorporated area near Downers Grove.

The next targets for consolidation could be the Highland Hills and Salt Creek sanitary districts.

Christopher B. Burke Engineering was hired by the county to do an assessment of the two sanitary districts, which serve residents in Lombard and Villa Park. The findings are expected to be released by the end of February.

Cronin said the report will help county officials determine if the sanitary districts should continue operating as stand-alone entities.

He already knows Highland Hills and Salt Creek have aging infrastructure, Cronin said. In addition, Salt Creek has some debt.

Still, if consolidation is the route officials decide to take, Cronin said it could be possible to structure a deal where the county would take control of Highland Hills, and Salt Creek would be absorbed by Villa Park.

That, however, would involve selling Villa Park on the idea.

“When I was in the legislature, they (Villa Park officials) used to talk about how it's unfair that we have a separate entity,” he said. “Now when we ask if they're interested in taking it on ... they're not as enthusiastic about it because the preliminary indication is that there's some debt there.”

Despite the success in disbanding the Fairview Fire Protection District, Cronin said there are obstacles preventing more firefighting agencies from consolidating.

Fire departments and fire protection districts have talked about the possibility of coordinating services. But consolidation could save taxpayers money because merging agencies would reduce their equipment and administrative costs.

The problem is that it's not easy to sell fire chiefs on the idea of merging their department or protection district with another agency. So Cronin is planning to reach out to mayors for help.

“You can only ask a fire chief to go so far,” he said. “I believe the DuPage Mayors and Managers Conference is very interested in this. I want to work with them.”

Cronin said consolidation involves a lot of “detailed” work that is time consuming, but there's no other way to do it.

“It's going to become more and more difficult as we go down the road,” he said. “But it's more and more important as we go down the road.

“So taking it to this next level is really something I am committed to,” Cronin said. “But I also recognize that it will probably be one of the hardest things I've ever done in this business.”

Cronin also hopes to implement a countywide strategy to battle mosquitoes.

Right now, DuPage has dozens of municipalities, townships and service districts targeting the insects.

A mosquito abatement task force has advised officials to explore whether DuPage's nine townships should oversee all of the county's abatement efforts. But that idea would require the forest preserve district to become involved.

The forest preserve district, which owns about 12 percent of all the land in DuPage, doesn't spray insecticides to kill adult mosquitoes because those products could kill other insects and have a detrimental effect on ecosystems.

However, federal guidelines for public safety and public health call for mosquito abatement to be done over a wide area, Cronin said.

“Having multiple different standards in a patchwork of communities is not the best way to abate mosquitoes,” Cronin said. “It's not in the best interest of public health.

“If the CDC and the public health experts recommend a certain approach to abatement,” he said, “I think we should embrace that approach.”

Therefore, he said, the county will work with the forest preserve to try to implement “corner-to-corner coverage.”

“There's a lot of people who have opinions about this, but there is no doubt there is a standard,” he said. “We're working toward that. It is my hope and my expectation that the forest preserve will work toward that as well.”

In the coming months, DuPage officials also hope to answer questions about the future of the county fairgrounds in Wheaton.

A real estate task force was given the job of trying to determine if the DuPage County Fair is the best use for the 42-acre site along Manchester Road.

The advisory panel's recommendations are expected to be released during the first part of the year. “It will be a menu of different options and observations for us to consider,” Cronin said.

One issue county board members are expected to decide is whether DuPage, which owns the fairgrounds site next to the government complex, should continue leasing the fairgrounds to the DuPage County Fair Association, the nonprofit entity that organizes and runs the annual fair.

The fairgrounds site is being leased to the fair association at a rate of $1,375 annually as part of a deal that expires in 2020.

Cronin said he would like to know if there's a more compelling need for that land. He said officials aren't looking to develop it “just for the sake of developing it.”

“I'm interested in recommendations that advance the mission of the county,” he said. “How can this asset be utilized more effectively to help us serve the community?”