McHenry County Blog

Article announcing Govenor Pat Quinn plans to propose taking away 30% of the amount of income tax revenue sharing now provided cities and villages.

When city leaders read this Tribune article saying that Pat Quinn expects them to “share the pain,” there will be gnashing of teeth.

Apparently Quinn has decided to cut the $1 billion a year income tax revenue sharing by 30%. That will save $300 million, of course.

The cities got a cut of the income tax when the deal was put together by Republican Governor Richard Ogilvie way back in 1969.

It never made sense to me.

Why should local officials get a pot of money without taking any heat for hiking taxes?

10% of the total amount collected?

Better to take any heat little that comes with raising taxes, e.g., the 75% Crystal Lake city sales tax hike that Mayor Aaron Shepley and six of his city council members (all but Jeff Throsen) supported.

I didn't have a picture of a black hole in space, so this dark funnel my son spotted one morning in a Springfield hotel's hot tub will have to do for an illustration.

Naturally the black hole that wishes to eat a couple thousand dollars of my income originates in Chicago.

Consider he Chicago Sun-Times today.

Look at the cover.  Abraham Lincoln is crying because taxes aren’t higher.

He isn’t crying because people are unemployed.  He’s crying because governments, state and local, haven’t picked enough money out of our pockets.

I figure when the tax rate is hiked by two-thirds from 3% to 5%, the suggestion from years past of Pied Piper Ralph Matire and, more recently, Chicago’s Civic Federation, it will cost me 750 crying Lincoln $5 bills more than the year before.

That’s when my state pension, for which I repeatedly thank taxpayers, drops by 5%.

It won’t just be me, though.

Everyone with retirement income will see a cut in tax home pay, so to speak, of 5%.

I wonder how many people in Sun City will welcome that day, probably sometime during this July.

Wage earners would see their pay checks get cut by “only” 2%.

Don’t worry.

Government won’t waste any of your lost income.

Surely, Crystal Lake Mayor Aaron Shepley and the five city council members who voted with him to hike Crystal Lake’s city sales tax 75% haven’t wasted any, have they?

Candidates for the McHenry County Board are starting to send out mailings.

I received nothing from District 2 candidates yesterday…or from any statewide candidate, but others got some mail. (Here is the first round of District 1 mail. It’s from the week early voting started.)

But I did get a piece from Ellen Brady Mueller late last week.

Notice the stamp and the address. Someone had to affix the first class stamp. That's more personal than having a mail house use a permit, as is the return address label. And, when was the last time you received mail from a candidate that someone had hand addressed? All three elements show Brady Mueller has volunteers willing to do stuff that most candidates now relegate to a mail house.

On the address side in pretty small print is Brady Mueller’s biography, including her being “well prepared for any issue that comes before her” and that she is “a proven team player.”

She does not mention that she voted for Mayor Aaron Shepley’s 75% city sales tax increase. (I would not either, were I writing the copy.)

She lays out her goals:

• Make rational roadway improvements her #1 priority
• Maintain core services without additional cost to the taxpayers
• Bring new techniques and programs to attract business to the county
• Work collaboratively with all interest parties to implement a ground water protection and conservation program
• Persuade the county to recognize and adopt the Crystal Lake Watershed ordinance. (See critique of county board 2030 Plan for not recognizing the Crystal Lake Watershed Oridinance.)
• Broaden the communications between communities and the entire county board.
• Maintain a good solid working relationship with all the municipalities of the county.

"Ellen is the right person, at the right time, for the right reasons," is the message. The description is catchy and the photo of the candidate in Downtown Crystal Lake really catches her identity with the town. She loves to tell people her family has lived here over 100 years. That seems more than appropriate because she is a long-time city councilwoman.

Because of severe computer problems with my new Hewlett-Packard computer, I missed the 525th day anniversary of Mayor Aaron Shepley’s and his city council’s (sans Jeff Thorsen) 75% hike of the Crystal Lake city sales tax’s having taken effect.

It was July 1st a year and a half ago, that the cost of shopping in Crystal Lake went up.

But, you know how government is.

If there’s not enough money, don’t act like a family or a business.

Just raise taxes.

And that’s what the Crystal Lake City Council did.

The Cook County sales tax hike went into effect the same day and the Chicago Tribune has been kind enough to keep reminding its readers of that fact.

The same time that paper has been running a campaign to eliminate the Cook County sales tax hike.

And, the Tribune has a half-off stamp on its editorial page reminder. It has had some success in rolling back the tax.

Not so, the paper of record in McHenry County. Apparently a 75% sales tax hike in Crystal Lake, where the Northwest Herald is located, is A-OK.

It’s so OK, in fact, that the NW Herald never ran a story about the tax’s going up that July 1st.

Oh, well. That’s why it’s good to have more than one source of news.

July 1st, a year and almost a half ago, Crystal Lake Mayor Aaron Shepley and all of his city council but Jeff Thorsen enacted at 75% city sales tax increase.

It went into effect the same day as the Todd Stroeger’s Cook County Board’s sales tax hike.

What’s the difference?

One is about to be repealed in whole or part.

And it took legislative action.

The Chicago Tribune’s editorial board has made repeal its number one reform issue since mid-summer 2008.

The Chicago Sun-Times follows along, but thinks only half of the sales tax hike should be repealed.

In Crystal Lake, on the other hand, the Northwest Herald did not even run a mid-summer article informing readers that the tax had or was about to increase.

Shows the difference editorial policy can make.

Just in case you’re interested.

In Chicago the media and taxpayers are interested in the Cook County sales tax hike that went into effect the same day as Crystal Lake’s.

Neither anyone on Crystal Lake’s city council nor any Crystal Lake citizen seems interested.

Today’s the 400th day since Crystal Lake Mayor Aaron Shepley and all the city council but Jeff Thorsen voted to raise the sales tax in Crystal Lake by 75%.

Just in case you are sentimental.

The Cook County Board voted to cut the Cook County sales tax by 50%.

The suggestion in this article in today’s Chicago Sun-Times proved correct.

The Cook County sales tax hike took effect the same day that Crystal Lake Mayor Aaron Shepley’s 75% city sales tax was imposed.

July 1, 2008.

Both tax hikes have been in effect just over a year.

No one on the Crystal Lake city council has proposed cutting back on the local version, to the best of my knowledge.

Jeff Thorsen was the only council member to vote against the tax hike.

Crystal Lake shoppers apparently don’t care.

While I’m in Woodstock tomorrow, I’ll stop in the Super Walmart and save myself some sales tax.

July 1st came and went and McHenry County Blog didn’t mention that Mayor Aaron Shepley’s and his city council’s 75% city sales tax hike was one year old.

I can blame being at Mesa Verde and more worried that Illinois Democrats had hiked my income tax 50% the day before than the Crystal Lake sales tax I was avoiding while on vacation.

Newspaper junkie that I am, I have been reading two weeks of accumulated dead trees at McHenry Marlin swim meets.

I finally ran across the Chicago Tribune for July 1st.

What did I find but the graphic above.

And a scathing editorial about Todd Stroeger’s sales tax that took effect the same day as Shepley’s.

Recognition is better late than never, I guess.

The city council hiked the city sales tax 75% after giving the public only one week’s notice.

It was right before the Democratic Party RTA sales tax hike took effect. The bill was passed with the help of three DuPage County Republicans seeking statewide office.

Somehow it seems appropriate that this license plate,

should be seen driving around Crystal Lake.

This is, of course, an appropriate day to post it, since it has been one year since Mayor Aaron Shepley’s 75% city sales tax went into effect.

It was passed to benefit developers and to do the same thing that the Vulcan Lakes TIF project was supposed to do–turn Vulcan Lakes into a recreational area.

If the owner would like to pass a petition to abolish Home Rule government in Crystal Lake, which is what allowed the city council (with only Jeff Thorsen dissenting) to raise sales taxes 75%, email me. The address is way down at the bottom of the page on the right.