Prospect Heights candidates support home rule, but for one there's a catch

Under what conditions Prospect Heights should seek home rule authority is one of the key differences between incumbent Alderman Michelle Cameron and former alderman Richard Hamen as they vie for the 1st Ward seat on the city council.

Cameron believes home rule is a better way for Prospect Heights to control its destiny, but Hamen said he would support it only if the size of the council grows to 10 aldermen from its current five.

Theirs is the only contested election on the council in the April 4 election. Cameron is seeking a second consecutive term. Hamen previously served on the council from 2007 to 2011.

At a League of Women Voters candidates forum last month at the Prospect Heights Public Library, both emphasized their support for efforts to reduce flooding and curb gang activity in their ward. The area lies along the easternmost part of Prospect Heights, along the Des Plaines River, and is the only ward that extends east of Milwaukee Avenue.

The candidates, however, expressed different levels of support for the controversial topic of home rule, which the city has sought unsuccessfully in four referendums since 2004. Under state law, voters in towns of less than 25,000 residents - Prospect Heights has about 15,700 - must approve home rule through referendum.

In the most recent failed bid in 2018, then-Mayor Nick Helmer said the city was seeking home rule so it could redirect about $750,000 in hotel tax and video gambling revenue toward flooding and drainage projects.

The city council pledged strict property-tax limitations if the measure succeeded, but voters denied the request anyway.

Hamen said he would support home rule if the size of the council were doubled, so as to spread authority among more residents.

"Currently, we have five aldermen in the city of Prospect Heights, which means we have three people that basically determine the outcome of any issue of their own political or personal agendas," Hamen said. "Personally, I would like to see that if we're going to go the home rule way, I'd like to see the city council raised back up to 10, which is where it started in the first place."

Cameron said she believes that the city council is the right size. Home rule, she added, would give the city more money to invest back in the community.

"There's a lot of people that are against the home rule because they think that the city council is going to raise their property taxes and all these other taxes," she said. "But the thing is that the state, being non-home rule, kind of directs us to where we spend our money. So it would definitely benefit us if we could have our council make some of the decisions, since we know our area better than the state necessarily does."

To watch the entire candidates forum, visit youtube.com/watch?v=-n2Os6ATMD0.