Put this 2002 campaign flyer in support of a Home Rule referendum in Bridgeview:

The Chicago Tribune found this campaign brochure from the 2002 Bridgeview Home Rule campaign.

Look at the Home Rule promises:

• No property tax increases for eight years.
• No new utility taxes.
• No real estate transfer taxes.
• Other sources of village revenue besides real estate taxes.
• Financial future of village “stable and secure.”

There is huge amount of research on the Village of Bridgeview’s building of a soccer field named Toyota Park.

As we were heading down Harlem Avenue to Tinley Park’s 2012 Illinois Republican State Convention, I asked what the Toyota Park signs were all about.

Anyone who reads the articles by Joseph Ryan and Joe Mahr:

• Soccer Ball and Chain
• Public, private interests intersect
• Some firms faced little competition on contracts
• Broken [Home Rule] Promise

might figure out why I opposed Home Rule for Lakewood after being stuck with a similar tax hi8ke problem when my village board voted to buy a failing golf course a bit over twenty years ago.

Looking at this disaster in public finance might also give readers an idea why I opposed the minor league baseball stadium proposed by the McHenry County College board.

The debt debacle in Bridgeview.

The shifty bond salesman convinced the board that it would be cheaper to put the taxpayers on the hook than to let the golf course pay off the purchase price, plus lots of interest, with what are called revenue bonds.  With revenue bonds, if the enterprise does not bring in enough money to pay off the bonds, the bondholders, not the taxpayers get hurt.