Central Lake County mayors talk flood relief, pension reform
They all remarked on a sense of uncertainty over what state legislators will do from year to year, particularly after portions of the municipal income tax was taken away and a sales tax handling fee was created last year.
Lentz called for state legislation that would allow municipalities to enroll new employees in 401K retirement plans instead of traditional pensions, while saying the idea would prevent more tax hikes and eventually redirect current spending toward more services.
"I'm talking to anyone who will listen, because
Lentz said issues with underwriting and unpredictable life expectancies make the funding model unstable, and he said poor pension investments are expected to result in another 20 percent hike in the near future.
"You have to have an element there as such the tax payers are not on the hook for future investment returns," Lentz said. "One would be so bold as to say there is no solution available or possible without a 401K element."
Lentz cited other decisions that he believed to be fiscally responsible, such as a decision to pay
"Those are about
An attempt to consolidate
Lentz said the effort was not a total waste.
"We may not be able to fully consolidate the two plants, but certainly we're looking at ways that we can work together, and so we can expect some sort of announcement coming out in the next couple months," Lentz said.
Flooding was referenced in multiple mayoral presentations. Lentz talked about
"We're working at about as fast a pace as government can work in solving a problem like this," Lentz said. "I wanted to make that clear to everyone since it was in the news so much, and it does impact the business climate and economic development."
Flooding was an issue in
"As everyone knows, a 100-year flood now comes every two years, and so we're working on that," Weppler said.
But
"Because of the extensiveness of this, as we're an older community, we probably will have to go out to referendum and ask our residents for some (funding) sources to pay for what we're going to need on storm water," Weppler said.
In addition to that storm water study, Weppler said
A new downtown
"It is going to be done this year . . . We will be adding washrooms to it, too," Weppler said. "That, we're hoping will arrive in the summer."
Wysocki also talked about shared services that allow the village to not levy a property tax. He explained recent deals for police protection from the sheriff's office, fire coverage from
"It saves us money because we don't need to keep a large salt mound or buy a bunch of equipment. They already have all that," Wysocki said.
Wysocki described updates in Green Oak's tax increment finance (TIF) districts, which freeze property taxes for a period of time and levies the increased value to repay village investments on blighted property.
CIT Trucks plans to build a depot along
A retail plaza is expected to neighbor the truck terminal and take the TIF district's remaining land facing
New storm water sewers are also scheduled for installation in that
"Some of the industries and business along there have wanted (this) for a long time, and now we have the means to sponsor those improvements," Wysocki said.
Byrne didn't have a prepared presentation, but instead talked about long-term projects that are either completed or making progress.
"We opened our Menards, I don't know if anyone's been there yet, but it's kind of a big store and a store I think people will really like, especially people who do home improvements," Byrne said.
Byrne said Menards will generate new sales tax revenue, which allows
"That was an arduous epic because we got sued by some homeowners on that one, even though it was zoned for retail since 1988 when we annexed it into
About a half-mile south of Menards, construction of a 128-house subdivision also began. Byrne said that development and a new subdivision at
The 128 houses are being built next to the
Byrne said the mansion is important to
"Restoring it to its old grandeur is an expensive proposition, and if they left that would be our building," Byrne said. "That's why it took a while to get
The
Prominent stores at
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