And I learned about it from an email from Lakewood Village Trustee Paul Serwatka:
Carrying out my first daily chore, this morning, I walked down my driveway to fetch the newspaper, while my children deliberated over the distribution of the Starburst fruit candies that I bought for them last night.
I returned with the Northwest Herald, still in the plastic bag, tossed it on the counter and joined the deliberations to try and negotiate a strawberry Starburst candy for myself.
Finding my efforts at this to be futile, I walked to the counter and began working my way through the Herald to find, on Page 8, an article about our Property Tax Referendum Initiative.
Below, is the link to the online article, but, the actual newspaper includes a one-inch color photo of me, which I like to think will be worth something some day!
Let’s hear the plan to honor contractual obligation to pay Woodstock D200 $9000 each for all the students in Lakewood TIF District (all the TIF revenues go to Lakewood, but all the students and expenses become Woodstock taxpayers’ obligation).
Since Lakewood has one of the lowest Illinois Affordable Housing Act compliance rates of any Illinois suburb, and in 2015 passed a resolution to site low-income housing in the TIF District, it sounds like this referendum cannot pass without willfully breaking that contract ( if referendum passes, it appears money cannot be collected from Lakewood taxpayers to fund the education costs of Lakewood TIF students).
What is Lakewood’s plan to pay its own way for its lucrative TIF District which it placed into annexed golf courses and cornfields within the Woodstock D200 school district?
(Dissolving the TIF would be an acceptable answer.
Detachment/Annexation of the Lakewood TIF District into the Crystal Lake school districts which all Lakewood children attend and which receive all Lakewood property tax dollars would also be an acceptable answer).
Lakewood residents would like nothing better than to dissolve the TIF District and disconnect from the affected lands.
The current Board is out of touch with the residents.
The April, 2017 election will be interesting.
The Honorable Paul Serwatka is leading the way.
I agree with Jim that the April election will be something to see.
Keep up the great work…
The current board is on the way out!!
Village manager resigns before more dirt surfaces!!
Yes, and you will see chaos reign.