Mar 29 2008
“The Village’s Position is Self-Serving…”
Campton Hills
Reporter Josh Stockinger, with the Daily Herald, expands on Judge Colwell’s Campton Hills ruling [read full article here]:
After months of legal wrangling between the village and several landowners, Colwell issued judgments last week characterizing the village’s defense against disconnection attempts as “self-serving” and built on a political promise to avoid local property taxes.
Since the village incorporated after a controversial referendum last spring, trustees have waged fierce legal battles against more than a dozen neighborhoods that want out. While the village’s central argument has been that dismantling the new municipality will cripple its finances, Colwell pointed out in his rulings that officials have the ability to levy property taxes and institute municipal fees to offset any decrease to the revenue stream.
“The court is not persuaded that it may simply disregard such alternate sources of funding simply because the village has not yet attempted to utilize those sources (or, more accurately, because its elected officials fear it may be politically inexpedient to do so),” he wrote in one opinion.
“(T)he village’s position is self-serving. … The village is opposed to the disconnection because it does not want to raise taxes,” Colwell wrote in another. “If the citizens of Campton Hills refuse to pass a referendum to impose a property tax in order to have municipal services provided to them, then they will have to either live with fewer municipal services or dissolve the municipality.”
(5 subdivisions to split from Campton Hills by Josh Stockinger, Daily Herald 3/25/08)
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