The Winter of 2009 is beginning to look like a record breaker. At least, for me, the forecasts for more snow and more cold certainly sounds like a broken record.

Such weather gives me a reason to take a pause for the cause of The Petition Walkers. I’ve pointed out the efforts of John Anderson but there are quite a few folks braving the cold getting their required signatures to run for a local office in the April 2009 elections.

In DeKalb County potential candidates need to get more signatures than those in many other communities because for local elections in these parts we don’t practice the two-party system. There are no primaries to decide who the best Democrat or Republican is. Reportedly, that saves taxpayers money.

But non-partisan or Independent candidates must get substantially more signatures to qualify as candidates. Those are the rules. We surely don’t want to mess with those rules otherwise official Republicans and Democrats might be more easily challenged and, considering the shape this state and nation is in, we don’t want that to happen. (Sarcasm intended).

This election, in DeKalb, there is a citizen’s initiative in the works. There’s quite a few folks, including me, who want to evaluate Home Rule in DeKalb with full authority to revoke it should voters decide its been abused or just hasn’t worked as advertised some 30 years ago. Getting signatures for that petition takes longer than those of candidates. The first question almost always is, “What the heck is Home Rule?”

Now before critics scream that this post is nothing more than self aggrandizement I’ll point out that I haven’t been doing much petition walking myself. My meeting schedule has been too full lately. So this post is motivated more by guilt than anything else.

So my hat’s off to the local candidates braving the elements to run for office and to those for citizen initiatives. Thanks to the few who step up to serve the needs of the many.

At Wednesday’s (Jan. 14) workshop meeting between the consultants, committee and members of the City of DeKalb administrative staff we selected nearby cities for regional budget comparisons. The regional “likewise” cities selected were Downer’s Grove, Normal, Moline and Carbondale.

“Best practices” was also selected for budget comparison and analysis for potential improved cost/performance efficiencies. The Best Practices survey will not be tied to a specific region but instead will focus more on tried alternative approaches to providing quality services.

I have little more than superficial knowledge on Best Practices so I’m doing The Google on it. I’m sure y’all bloggers can fill us in. I do think there is more potential in Best Practices than regional comparisons even those of comparable college towns.

DeKalb is unique in a lot of ways.

Many city governments have parks and recreation as a department, for example. Many more handle sanitary and/or waste management as internal departments. DeKalb has a Park District and a Sanitary District as separate entities from the City of DeKalb so its overall and general fund budgets are always significantly less of likewise cities.

In all regional likewise city studies I’ve seen DeKalb always has substantially lower EAV than all other cities. I don’t know why.

From Wikipedia:

Best Practice is an idea that asserts that there is a technique, method, process, activity, incentive or reward that is more effective at delivering a particular outcome than any other technique, method, process, etc. The idea is that with proper processes, checks, and testing, a desired outcome can be delivered with fewer problems and unforeseen complications. Best practices can also be defined as the most efficient (least amount of effort) and effective (best results) way of accomplishing a task, based on repeatable procedures that have proven themselves over time for large numbers of people.

From Rich Miller’s Capitol Fax Blog:

About 58 percent of Illinoisans believe Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s alleged corrupt behavior is common among the state’s public officials, according to findings of a new statewide poll released Thursday by the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform. […]

According to the survey, 78 percent of residents say a ban on campaign contributions by corporations will make a difference, and 76 percent say a similar ban on labor union contributions would make a difference. Similar sentiment (74 percent) was expressed for setting limits on the amount of contributions that could be given by individuals.

I’m in the 58% that thinks corrupt behavior is common. Governor/Inmate Ryan still doesn’t really believe he did anything illegal. Everybody’s been doing what he did for years. He grew up in it. So, it’s common.

Guilt by ignorance is also common in Illinois. If 78% of its residents think corporate campaign contributions should be banned, 76% think Union contributions should be banned and 74% think individuals’ should be limited, well then, they should’ve voted for the Illinois Constitution Convention and they could’ve made it happen.

Preface:

If you were given permission to borrow and spend up to $110,000,000 how much would you spend? Caveat:  if you choose to spend it all and you live in the right location at the wrong time, in a $200,000 home, your monthly payments would only be around $280 per year. (first year)

The current economy sucks, don’t it. District 428 finally got a referendum approved after a decade of trying. That decade experienced the biggest boom in local new construction ever. As fate would have it, the school district must weigh the impact of borrowing money for building new schools with the inconvenient fact that, as of December 24, 2008, 54 homes within the district’s boundaries are scheduled to be sold via the DeKalb County Sheriff’s auction before the close of the current school year.

Thoughts on District 428 Facilities Planning Committee meeting Jan. 13, 2008

Several city administrative staff members were present at the beginning of the meeting but left before it ended. Long meeting.

Superintendent James (Jim) Briscoe presented the committee with a proposal to consider hiring the construction firm currently building the new grade school in Cortland as a Construction Manager for the proposed new high school. My initial reaction was to dismiss the idea because the committee already spent a lot of time debating the General Contractor versus Construction Manager arrangement and recommended the former over the latter.

But circumstances can change direction. Failure to adapt to changing circumstances can lead to disaster. Briscoe said he was making the recommendation based on on-the-field observations and felt such an arrangement might increase checks and balances on the high school construction. Briscoe was not the superintendent when the referendum was only a ballot measure. He is, for all intent and purposes, the CEO of the school district.

So I moved to hold another special meeting, sans the architects and the construction firm, this Thursday (Jan. 16) after the Citizen’s Finance Advisory Committee meeting. More questions can be asked of and answered by Briscoe.

Should the District purchase more land for the high school site? It currently owns 79.5 acres for the new high school site. They hold an option to purchase 25 more acres. The District has around $250,000 in impact fees collected from Cortland. No referendum money would be used to purchase the land. Ivan Krpan and I voted against recommending the District purchase the additional 25 acres but the motion to recommend the purchase passed.

Shodeen Development may purchase some of the land contained in the Iron Gate proposed residential project. Little details are known at this time but changes to the site plan for the high school are likely.

The land of Iron Gate, and the high school for that matter, are not yet annexed into the City of DeKalb. Because District 428 needs to annex before the development (if it does) there are some cart-before-the-horse issues. The main one is that Wildflower Street, or at least the portion of it needed to service the high school, will have to be built and paid for by the District.

For the Good of the Order

My bruised ego. I don’t really consider myself an important person, heck, aw shucks, I’ve never accepted a VIP pass to the Cornfest  tent at the beer garden. But, I think I’ve stepped up to help. Jeesh!!! Slap that ego down, Mac. Any citizen who writes a letter to a local elected official or appointed administrator should at least get an auto-response that says, “I received your letter and will contact you or have my people contact you as soon as possible.”

I guess Kris Povlsen could say that he had one of his people contact me, that being Mark Biernacki, who was the only one of four who received my email letter who responded. Mike Verbic and Jim Briscoe didn’t. Not even an acknowledgement and they were both in attendance at the meeting. Heck, I even signed Verbic’s petition to run for re-election to the school board. I’ll sign anyone’s petition willing to step up to an elected office. At least I’m courteous.

The FPC addressed “financial concerns” during the For the Good of the Order pre-adjournment session of the agenda. The city administrators in attendance had left by then. I think maybe they wanted to hear and perhaps provide input on any financial concerns regarding the $2-million in TIF funds the City could allocate them if the money is spent on Huntley Middle School or Cheseboro Elementary School by 2010. I’m sure they would have been interested in explaining their side of the coin on the TIF capture of debt-obligation-school-tax-levy that will be used for other purposes issue. But the meeting was long, and there are lots of meetings to attend… and besides, some of us have family issues that are pressing, too.

So we (Ivan and I) asked about the $2 million. The District would really like the City to extend the time period, beyond 2010 but they will use it regardless of deadline. Hopefully it will be used to reduce the amount of debt bond obligations from up to $110-million to up to $108-million. Tom Teresinski confirmed that $2-million not borrowed is really worth $4-million in taxpayer dollars.

Hypothetical arguments were presented to convince the two winers and naysayers, as Ron Naylor described Ivan and me, that the intergovernmental agreement between the school district and the City of DeKalb, plus combinations of numbers from TIF Districts 1, 2 and 3, made the District whole. That intergovernmental agreement says the District and the City will split the referendum debt bond tax increase levied on homes in the TIF District(s) on a 50-50 basis. Half of their tax increase will go to the City’s TIF projects and half will go to the School District. The half that goes to the school district is unencumbered, meaning the District could apply their share to debt reduction… or not.

I asked for hard numbers in a format most of us residents can understand so we don’t have to rely on hypothetical examples and speculation. I think that is a fair request. We’ll see if those facts and numbers are produced. After going round and round the hypothetical circle, Naylor asked what would make me happy and wanted a solution based answer.

My response was for the City of DeKalb to exercise their Home Rule Authority (and Illinois courts shall construe that authority liberally) to give 100% of the school district debt bond tax increase to the District for the sole purpose of debt reduction.

I tried to talk to the committee and the school board members in attendance (Mike Verbic, Holly Wallace, Michael Lord, Jim Mitchell) about adapting. Adapting to the economy in real time.

I passed around a sheet that had the names and addresses of the 54 homes scheduled for Sheriff’s auction foreclosure sale (as of December 24). I pointed out some were teachers, police officers, former NIU basketball standouts — a lot of good people.

I pointed out that student enrollment projections were reduced AFTER the referendum passed but no adaptation to downsize building sizes were made.

Krpan reinforced the new construction slow down that has occured since the referendum passed. The student enrollment figures, and the debt repayment amounts, are based on the District getting $60 million a year ($20 million EAV) in new construction each year for the next 24 years. The student projections used to justify the high school’s size are based on the District getting 600 new homes built in it for the next 24 consecutive years.

It was at that point that Naylor pointed out that the FPC had already discussed and voted to maintain pre-referendum high school size, using the speculation described above. He didn’t understand why the committee was wasting their time listening to the same old complaints from the two complainers.

I took that as my cue to shut up, so I did. Teresinski then told the committee perhaps they should have given Krpan and my concerns more consideration. No adaption was made.

Next meeting, Thursday Double Header… Citizen Finance Advisory Committee, FPC special meeting.

FPC members as identified in the October 8 FPC minutes: (School board members in italics)

Ronald Beldon
Don Biggs
Chris Brady
James Briscoe
Roger Chilton
Scott Cochrane
Andrea Gorla
Gary Gustafson
Kim Lyle
Becky McCabe
Mac McIntyre
Bill McGuire
Ron Naylor
Brian Schrader
Mike Verbic
Cohen Barnes
Brett Brown
Fred Davis
Russ Farnum
Russ Fletcher
Lindsey Hall
Dan Kenny
Ivan Krpan
Michael Lord
Roger Scott
Les Shaw
Tim Struthers
Tom Teresinski
Holly Wallace