Illinois State Senator Releases Press Release on House Bill 4637

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                                               November 27, 2018

Contact: Ellie Leonard (217) 558-488
Sen. Wilcox reacts to passage of McHenry County consolidation bill

Springfield, IL… State Senator Craig Wilcox (R-McHenry) releases the below statement following the passage of House Bill 4637 in the Senate, which allows for the abolishment of townships in McHenry County:

“As a proponent for consolidation in an effort to save the taxpayers’ money, I have significant concerns with this legislation.

“House Bill 4637 does not specifically address the multiple issues that have been raised, and we have no guarantee they will be addressed in a trailer bill. Residents should understand the implications to Motor Fuel Tax, General Assistance, and assessment reviews before enacting this bill.  What concerns me most is the fact that if a township decides to dissolve itself, its contractual obligations, including its debt, might be thrust onto the people of the entire county. That means, the voters in a particular township can decide to dissolve their township and hand over all its debt to the rest of the county.

“With that being said, I appreciate the underlying concept—allowing voters the ability to choose the level of government they are comfortable with and how much of it they can afford. However, this bill leaves too many issues unaddressed.

“Moving forward, I am eager to work with my colleagues on additional consolidation measures.”

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Comments

Illinois State Senator Releases Press Release on House Bill 4637 — 20 Comments

  1. Reick’s response explaining his opposition is far more in-depth.

    https://steve463.com/2018/11/21/mcsweeneys-franksenstein/

    As of the 27th, the bill had passed both chambers, however, *should* Rauner veto it, the Senate likely won’t have the votes to override the veto.

    Some people believe that Rauner will veto this because of his opposition a few months ago to a bill singling out Lake County’s selection/election of the Assessor. Part of Rauner’s reason for that veto was that he didn’t want to micromanage county government. The bill concerning McHenry County is quite different — dealing with the elimination of townships — compared to Lake County’s, which sought to give voters direct election of the Assessor, but based on Rauner’s past rhetoric, some are expecting a veto.

    Reick’s attacks on Franks, McSweeney, and Gasser are interesting, but nowhere near the level of Stephanie Kifowit telling Peter Breen she’d like to make some legionella broth, pump it into his water system, and watch his family die…
    https://capitolfax.com/2018/11/28/tone-it-down-please-9/

  2. If this a good idea for two counties in our state why not the rest of them.just more useless male bovine excremet to come out of the totally inept legislature we have to endure.

  3. I HATE to agree with the nob on this but this bill was not thought through.

    It also only applies to McHenry County.

    There is no logical reason for that.

    The corrections should be made and it should be applied to the entire state.

    Townships, SHOULD be abolished, btw.

    They no longer serve any useful function.

    This bill, however, will simply create a mess.

    Go back to the drawing board and do it right.

  4. Call the governor and request he veto it!!

    It is McSweeney / Franks garbage!!

  5. The 1970 Constitution of the State Of Illinois already provides electors with the power to consolidate,merge,dissolve or divide townships when approved by referendum (Article VII Local Government,Section 5.Townships).

    HB4637 attempts to initiate changes to the Constitutional provision specifically for McHenry County by amending the Election Code, Township Code and Illinois Highway Code rather than amending the governing Constitutional provision itself which opens it up to any number of court challenges.

  6. For sure, the picture in the NW Herald says a lot.

    Franks will have more power!!

    If Jack Franks wants to “save the taxpayers money” how about he stops taking his excessive pension and health care?

    In simple terms, prove to the people that you are doing the peoples work and fighting to cut taxes.

    It won’t happen, obviously.

  7. I’m a fan of the Col. however he is letting implementation interfere with policy. Any of the questions or problems can be addressed by the legislature.

  8. When I was told Wilcox was a conservative, small government type … I voted for him.

    I did not vote for him to uphold Big Government.

    Did he get a lobotomy in Novemeber?

  9. Have we all been deceived by yet another RINO?

    Townships are useless. (Unless you’re a Township Supervisor or Assessor. If you are it’s a great gig. Taxpayers be damned!)

    BLOAT AND PATRONAGE — SOUND FAMILIAR?

    Tax assessments often are made by untrained township assessors who set their own policies, make their own rules and treat taxpayers unequally and inequitably.

    While townships maintain residential roads only in unincorporated areas, they tax all township property even if it’s within an overlapping municipality, in which case the property owner ends up paying to maintain unincorporated roads along with his or her own city’s or village’s. And in providing aid to the needy, township supervisors arbitrarily can set their own eligibility criteria and benefit levels, doling out taxpayer money for food, rent and other assistance as they alone deem fair.

    Just as troubling, townships often maintain bloated bureaucracies, favor patronage payrollers and hoard cash that rightfully should be rebated to taxpayers.

    https://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20140930/OPINION/140929799/illinois-has-1-431-townships-it-s-time-to-get-rid-of-all-of-them

  10. How quick Wilcox learned the Althoff “speak.” Throw up a lot of reasons to do nothing. She used it during her whole time in office. McHenry County is representative poor in Althoff, Reick and now Wilcox. And now we will continue with her “vast expertise” on the County Board. Why does nothing ever change? Because of representation like this. Until this county learns that we need to show some bipartisanship we will continue to chase our tails and pay through the nose. Nothing will change except the population.

  11. Anyone who supposedly disagrees with the Wilcox / Reick position is a political neophyte.

    It is these neophytes that are responsible for the Constitutionally guaranteed public sector pensions and the current McHenry County Board Chair. Due to the pension guarantee this State will see an increase in taxes to fund those pensions. Not because of Township pensions – IMRF is quite well funded – but because of underfunded teacher, firemen and police pensions.

    Remember how the majority voted for a Highway Fund Lock Box? Did not take long for the government bodies to get around that one did it? https://www.pjstar.com/news/20180325/benefits-of-illinois-transportation-lockbox-amendment-hard-to-assess

    Just like the lottery scam – for every dollar generated by the lottery, one less dollar of general fund is used for education.

    Without proper implementation of a ‘plan’ to move away from Township government or eliminate Road Districts, the same thing will happen – higher taxes in Illinois.

    Current legislation passed to reduce the size of government will have one guaranteed result: Higher taxes.

  12. Shame on Wicox!

    A big misstep.

    Wake up Craig.

    Do something like you said you would.

  13. I believe that Wilcox and Reich are on the right with this one. This bill is poorly written and will ultimately give Franks or anyone else in that position more power with less oversite. Lets try and look at this logically. Lets say Algonquin Township dissolves next year. The County mostly will take over its roads. Now the County will now have to plow, maintain, or redo those roads. County Roads have different standards then Township Roads. They deal with drainage, easements etc. Township Roads in General are cheaper to redo and maintain. If roads need to be redone now by the County they must go out to bid and pay prevailing wage unlike the townships doing the roads themselves. You also have to take into consideration the MFT. How does it get distributed? Supervisor duties now could become another headache but feel that these could be taken care of by local governing bodies if the designated monies that went to the townships would go to the County or local governing bodies. You are still going to need someone as Assessor in Algonquin because Woodstock is to far away for people to deal with property tax issues there. Now the County has to mostly take over the services. Do they use the Algonquin Township building to store plow trucks or is it over at DOT and they have to drive to Algonquin Township to take care of roads which is a lot of time and money. Now 2 yrs go by and McHenry Township dissolves. Now the County and other entities must come up with a plan for them. Doing hodpodge elimination will become a huge burden over time and will end up costing taxpayers more. I am for consolidation but this is the wrong way to go about it. And if anyone really read what happened about this bill the leaders did not allow any amendments to this bill to be discussed and voted on! Wilcox was right for not voting for this when they say we can put tail amendments later! That is a bunch of crap and can bet it wont happen until McHenry Taxpayers fork out tons of extra money for this. But Jacko gets to say McHenry County consolidated government! Jacko the sound bite!

  14. Also for people playing at home.

    Wilcox voted against Althoff’s lobbying rental car bill that she put forward that included more regulations and more taxes!

  15. Wilcox did that???!!! He better wake up, or he’s done! We don’t another RINO pig, Pammy Althoff was enough for 100 years.

  16. Who’s Wilcox?

    Who’s Althoff?

    Who’s Rauner?

    Little people blowing our $$$$ that’s who!

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