by Mac McIntyre
I track referrers to several sites I maintain. I noticed a “peak of interest” from a Villa Park discussion blog site. Eleven visitors a day have been reading about our repeal home rule efforts on DeKalb County Online (since May 1).
Villa Park rejected home rule by a 70%-30% margin.
One interesting post I thought I’d share:
If I were a DeKalb resident, I would be scared to lose home rule because of the university. Home rule allows the university area to be treated differently than the rest of the town. i.e. – A parking fine at NIU is much higher than a parking fine in the rest of the town. There are also other revenues that are generated in large part due to the school. The fees are necessary to provide the increased levels of services, enforcement, etc. created by the school. If you remove home rule, some of those rules will be repealed. Some of those revenue sources will be removed. The school isn’t going anywhere, so you will have to provide those services regardless.
In a certain sense, the community is subsidized by the university, although the school uses a large share of resources. Pull out home rule, they will still utilize the same resources without putting in the same subsidy.
lynnf08
Mac McIntyre
6 responses so far ↓
lynnf08 // May 14, 2008 at 5:46 am
Interesting assertion, but too vague to be of use. Numbers! Give me numbers!
Anonymous // May 16, 2008 at 3:08 am
Well this is the first I’ve heard anyone say something like that. It is usually the university that gets blamed any time there is a tax increase. Yes, the naughty students require more money for the police, a lot more. But I know of no fees the university pays to the city for anything.
What are those (if they exist) and how much money gets paid (if any)?
With or without home rule, the university would remain state property and the parking fines would not be changed.
Ivan Krpan // May 18, 2008 at 8:49 am
I would like to see how many actual dollars the city recoups from police assistance, how much the university pays the city for ambulance service, fire service. I personally feel that the demand and burden on our fire department is the result of the high costs within the department. The university should be paying more money for this service.
The university also pays NO water hook up fees. NO sanitary hook up fees. NO help on the roads surrounding the university area. NO additional monies to the public school system when NIU is at an all time high recruiting single moms to the university. NO real estate taxes are paid by the university has they continue to also take valuable real estate tax paying properties off of the tax role. The most recent being DeKalb Ag’s/Monsanto building on Sycamore Road. My understanding that the DeKalb school district alone lost over $500,000.00 per year of this purchase.
We do not need homerule to change how much we charge for ambulance and fire service to NIU. We just need to charge more. Home rule has been abused by many of the recent councils. Taxpayers need to take back control of ITS government.
Dana L. O'Rourke // May 20, 2008 at 6:43 am
Im surprised that NIU doesn’tpay anything fees to the city for water, sewer, police / fire. Why is that? The previous mayor (1980-2003) always gave NIU breaks. Why does the residents always have to pay for NIU?
Ivan Krpan // May 20, 2008 at 10:01 am
Dana, NIU pays for fire and ambulance service. DeKalb police do not have an agreement with NIU, I believe, that recoups them for any services.
There seems to be a intergovernment agreement that says that NIU is exempt from paying any hook up fees and/or impact fees, such as none were paid for the married student housing that was recently built.
The convocation center paid NO hook up fees or supplied the City of DeKalb with traffic studies that every developer in DeKalb must now provide.
All of the recent built buildings on campus whether it be the Barsema Hall, the convocation center, the Yordon Center, married student housing, The Alumni building, or the engineering school paid NO hook up fees to the city or sanitary department. That is what I call a FREE ride.
I’m not saying whether it is wrong or right. What I am trying to point out to the many who are not aware of this is that NIU does put a burden on the taxpayer in DeKalb.
Ivan Krpan // May 20, 2008 at 10:04 am
Dana, one last thing. I do fully believe that NIU can definitely pay more towards the fire and ambulance service that DeKalb provides for them. It is one way that we can charge them for a service and it needs to be reevaluated.
The downside if they don’t like the new pricing? I guess they can start their own fire department and run their own ambulances. They wouldn’t do that, it would be easier to pay the increased charges.