Post by momof3 on Mar 4, 2007 21:12:25 GMT -6
Roger Brown, author of the following op-ed, is running for the Naperville Park Board. Regardless of how you feel about the rec center, his views about our district are probably also important to consider when voting for any elected official.
He is holding a joint fund raiser with H. Tom O'Hale (also running for a PD Board seat) at Quigley's on March 7, so I can only assume they share common views on things.
Just something to consider when voting on April 17.
Local governments drowning their taxpayers
Naperville Sun, The (IL)
November 14, 2006
Author: By C. Roger Brown
Estimated printed pages: 2
As a Naperville taxpayer of 26 years, I'm growing weary of the profligate spending of local taxing bodies. In recent months the drip, drip, drip of reports on new public spending is forming a tsunami that's sweeping away the local taxpayer.
Last spring the Naperville Park District unveiled plans to build a $35 million dollar recreation center to house an Olympic-size pool that a select few will use. They didn't have the guts to put it to a sure-to-fail referendum measure, instead paying tens of thousands to a couple of research groups to come up with studies validating their whopper project.
The Riverwalk is evidently falling apart (a surprise, since I walk it every week and it looks fine to me). Taxpayers are going to spend $4 million to reconfigure parts of it.
Indian Prairie School District 204 is planning to spend $110 million on a new high school (maybe we could call it that old indigenous people name "Wespendhi"). Just a few years ago they spent $68 million on that monument to poor planning called "Neuqua."
Recently, a majority of the City Council felt it had to throw the Calamos family a $7.5 million bone to defray the costs of a luxury hotel to be built on the other side of the tollway. It seems the council members felt a need to add to the family's billions to make sure the hotel that was likely to be built anyway was constructed.
While we're on the City Council, it did exercise a modicum of judgment in putting a hold on supporting the grandiose plans of the Heritage Society in building a "mall of 19th century Naperville" on the Settlement grounds and a little restraint on the Library Board plans for a huge new addition to Nichols.
But before we confer Taxpayer Friend kudos on the council, let us remember the multimillion-dollar bail-out of the carillon. My guess is that put to a referendum, a clear majority would vote to disassemble it. It's atonal, nonmelodic and blots out the sky.
Additionally, where is it written that millions of public funds must be spent on new and redesigned parking decks to benefit a private college and downtown retailers?
Then there's the report of the City Council doling out hundreds of thousands of dollars of public funds to various and sundry charitable and "do-gooder" groups in the area, largely based on city bureaucrat recommendations. I strongly resent pols deciding where these funds will go after filtering requests through their belief systems and prisms of political correctness. Keep your mitts out of my wallet!
Well, here's the news, folks: Despite wide opinion to the contrary, the streets around here are not paved with gold. Somebody has to pay the piper. Based on the people I talk to, anecdotal evidence suggests that anyone interested in running for public office next year on a platform of taxpayer relief could well be swept into office on another tsunami.
He is holding a joint fund raiser with H. Tom O'Hale (also running for a PD Board seat) at Quigley's on March 7, so I can only assume they share common views on things.
Just something to consider when voting on April 17.
Local governments drowning their taxpayers
Naperville Sun, The (IL)
November 14, 2006
Author: By C. Roger Brown
Estimated printed pages: 2
As a Naperville taxpayer of 26 years, I'm growing weary of the profligate spending of local taxing bodies. In recent months the drip, drip, drip of reports on new public spending is forming a tsunami that's sweeping away the local taxpayer.
Last spring the Naperville Park District unveiled plans to build a $35 million dollar recreation center to house an Olympic-size pool that a select few will use. They didn't have the guts to put it to a sure-to-fail referendum measure, instead paying tens of thousands to a couple of research groups to come up with studies validating their whopper project.
The Riverwalk is evidently falling apart (a surprise, since I walk it every week and it looks fine to me). Taxpayers are going to spend $4 million to reconfigure parts of it.
Indian Prairie School District 204 is planning to spend $110 million on a new high school (maybe we could call it that old indigenous people name "Wespendhi"). Just a few years ago they spent $68 million on that monument to poor planning called "Neuqua."
Recently, a majority of the City Council felt it had to throw the Calamos family a $7.5 million bone to defray the costs of a luxury hotel to be built on the other side of the tollway. It seems the council members felt a need to add to the family's billions to make sure the hotel that was likely to be built anyway was constructed.
While we're on the City Council, it did exercise a modicum of judgment in putting a hold on supporting the grandiose plans of the Heritage Society in building a "mall of 19th century Naperville" on the Settlement grounds and a little restraint on the Library Board plans for a huge new addition to Nichols.
But before we confer Taxpayer Friend kudos on the council, let us remember the multimillion-dollar bail-out of the carillon. My guess is that put to a referendum, a clear majority would vote to disassemble it. It's atonal, nonmelodic and blots out the sky.
Additionally, where is it written that millions of public funds must be spent on new and redesigned parking decks to benefit a private college and downtown retailers?
Then there's the report of the City Council doling out hundreds of thousands of dollars of public funds to various and sundry charitable and "do-gooder" groups in the area, largely based on city bureaucrat recommendations. I strongly resent pols deciding where these funds will go after filtering requests through their belief systems and prisms of political correctness. Keep your mitts out of my wallet!
Well, here's the news, folks: Despite wide opinion to the contrary, the streets around here are not paved with gold. Somebody has to pay the piper. Based on the people I talk to, anecdotal evidence suggests that anyone interested in running for public office next year on a platform of taxpayer relief could well be swept into office on another tsunami.
