At its last meeting, the Lakewood Village Board voted to proceed with the new RedTail club house, voting to put taxpayers on the hook to pay for any shortfalls, and using $450,000 in Impact Fees as a down payment on the new facility.

The Village Impact Fee ordinance says in black and white that any fees not expended with thirteen years of collection must be refunded to the parties that paid the fees, arguably the developers or the owners of the houses that were charged the impact fees. 

And the Village Manager has stated that the impact fees were collected at least twenty years ago.

So, instead of giving the money to the Park District, or refunding the money, the Village Board has decided to spend it on a club house.

Is this legal? 

Ignoring what their own ordinance says?

One might think they’d want an answer to that question.

But their attorney also represents the Park District, so he can’t advise them without an obvious conflict of interest. 

So instead they decided ignorance was better than an answer they didn’t want to hear, and proceeded without benefit of legal advice.

Of course, if they’re wrong, the Village could find itself subject to a lawsuit and having to repay all that money from the Village’s General Fund, which is, of course, funded with property taxes.

The new club house is 25% bigger than the old club house and includes “general purpose space”, formerly called “banquet hall” space, a term that drew a lot of negative attention. 

It’s the same space, but the name has been changed to protect the guilty.

The club house also includes lower level storage for the golf cart fleet. 

The golf carts have been sitting outside for the last 30 years, apparently without problem, and there was no consideration of any other, possibly cheaper alternative, like a pole barn.