Arlington Hts. village board candidates differ on No. 1 issue in town
What's the No. 1 issue facing the village of Arlington Heights?
The six candidates for four available seats on the village board all had a different opinion during Saturday's forum hosted by the League of Women Voters.
Running are Trustees Carol Blackwood, Robin LaBedz, John Scaletta and Michael Sidor and challengers D. Court Harris and Thomas Schwingbeck Jr.
The most pressing issue is Gov. Bruce Rauner's proposed cuts to what municipalities receive from state income tax revenue, Sidor, LaBedz and Blackwood say.
Under Rauner's plan to solve the state's financial woes, Illinois towns would lose half of their tax share.
In Arlington Heights, that would mean a $3.7 million blow to the village's budget.
Blackwood said the village could financially sustain itself for a year, but past that, the board could be forced to eliminate jobs in police, fire and public works departments.
"Those are all key elements to the essential services that we rely on in a village, and that's what we're responsible for as trustees," Blackwood said.
To put the state's cuts in perspective, Sidor said, making up the $3.7 million would equate to raising the village's portion of the property tax by more than 11 percent. LaBedz also sounded the alarm about Rauner's push for towns to freeze property taxes.
"Can we get our roads plowed as quickly when the snow falls? Can we get the water main breaks fixed as quickly?" LaBedz said. "Because we have all these other problems, but if we don't have the money, and we can't raise it from any other source - with a potential freeze on property tax - or anything else, then we're really in trouble."
Schwingbeck, one of two challengers, sees the village's aging infrastructure as the top issue before the board, which is awaiting the results of flooding studies.
"That's going to be costly to maintain, and we've got to do a good job at that because again, that's another reason why people come to our village," said Schwingbeck, an engineer.
Ask the other newcomer, Harris, and the answer is building a new police station. Harris, who sits on the village's fire and police commission, said officers have outgrown the current, 1970s-era building next to village hall.
"Having said that, this new police station doesn't need to be extravagant or exorbitant," Harris said. "We have a great police staff, and they deserve a new structure and footprint. However, we don't need to have the best police station ever built."
Scaletta said if the question were posed to residents, the No. 1 issue is property taxes, but he stopped short of saying whether they were too high. He touted the board's move to a new fiscal year starting Jan. 1 instead of May 1, which allows the village to budget expenses before setting the property tax levy.
"We need to make sure we know how much we're going to spend before we ask taxpayers for their dollars, and that's being responsible," he said.