Message of the Day – Waste

New traffic lights, an old street light and a new street light on Route 14 at Virginia Street.

The Route 14 Tax Increment Financing District expenditures come from everyone in McHenry County.

That’s the way TIF projects work.

Cities like Crystal Lake borrow money to pay for marginal projects and everyone in the county gets to pay for them when overlapping tax districts raise their tax rates to make up for the loss in income from property taxes diverted for the city mothers’ and fathers’ desires.

Note that I do not use the word “need.”

This is the first example of TIF money being spent on a “desire,” rather than a “need.”

See those street lights in the photo?

The old one is the tall one.

It apparently is not pleasing enough to the eye for members of the Crystal Lake City Council.

It’s not decorative enough.

The streetscape isn’t quaint enough.

Or something.

In any event, the new, lower and black street lights are now being installed.

The “old” (but not very old) taller (presumably paid for) street lights will be taken down.

And we’ll be paying for them probably for twenty years.

The only possible benefit is esthetic.

Beauty over utilitarianism, I guess.

Even if we weren’t in the biggest recession in all but one of the City Council members’ lives, it strikes me as waste.


Comments

Message of the Day – Waste — 4 Comments

  1. What a waste of money. What are the names of the people that approved this expenditure.

  2. City Council members are quick to spend other peoples’ money!! Someone in the city council must know someone that puts up lights!

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