W. CHICAGO PONDERS NEW LIBRARY, PARK COPS

CHICAGO TRIBUNE

In these anti-tax times, West Chicago voters will be asked Nov. 5 to approve two measures that would increase property taxes for what officials are calling much-needed services and facilities.

In the more expensive of the two referendum proposals, the West Chicago Public Library District is seeking permission from voters to issue $3.8 million in bonds to build and equip a new and larger library.

The West Chicago Park District is asking voters whether they are willing to pay 2.5 cents per $100 of assessed property value to establish a park police force. The tax increase would generate about $84,000 annually, enough to pay the salaries of two officers.

''People have sensed a need for greater security in our parks,'' said district Director Dave Thomas. Vandalism and theft are on the rise in West Chicago parks, and because of an increased visibility of youth street gangs, residents no longer feel safe, he said.

The precedent of park police in Du Page County was set about 15 years ago when the Naperville Park District created an armed security force.

In the library referendum issue, the district is putting forth its third bond question in two years. Voters rejected bond requests for $5 million and $4.6 million in November 1989 and March 1990, respectively.

Undaunted by those failures, the library board appointed a citizens task force this summer to study the matter. The task force, composed of residents who voted for and against the previous referendum proposals, recommended scrapping the original architectural designs and scaling back the cost.

''This time the (library) board has listened to what was said earlier,''

said Amy Kaylor, a member of Citizens for a New Library, a support group that grew out of the task force. ''The majority of people in town agree there`s a need for a new library.''

The 20-year bond issue, if approved, would increase the district`s tax rate by 11.75 cents per $100 of assessed valuation. The current tax rate is 16.25 cents. The owner of a home valued at $100,000 would pay an extra $40 in annual library taxes.

In exchange, West Chicago residents would get a centrally located library of about 23,000 square feet, more than four times the size of the existing building.

''Our space problems aren`t going to get any better by waiting,'' said Library Board President T.J. Vaughn. ''For every book we buy, we have to get rid of one because there just isn`t any more room.''

When the library was built in 1953, it served 4,500 residents. Now the population is 21,000. The library has had to install movable shelves over the last few years to keep enough books available.

''We have 58,000 volumes and we ought to have 98,000,'' said librarian Charlene Sanders. ''We don`t have a computer data base because this building is not wired to do that kind of thing. We`d have to spend almost as much money just to rewire this building.''

The district`s 1989 referendum issue, which lost by 40 votes, got caught up in the political fallout of a bitter mayoral election that took place seven months earlier.

Supporters of former three-term Mayor Eugene Rennels campaigned heavily against the library issue because it had the support of then newly elected Mayor Paul Netzel.

But in a city known for fractious politics, that element is missing in the 1991 library question.

''We`ve tried very hard to keep this from becoming a political thing,''

Kaylor said. The citizens group, which is waging a vigorous door-to-door campaign, includes some people who fought the earlier library plans, she said. ''We`re hopeful people will support or oppose the proposal based on its merits,'' Vaughn said.

Copyright © 2019, Chicago Tribune
37°
https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1991-10-24-9104050971-story.html
www.chicagotribune.com
crawl=CC-MAIN-2019-13
133296
application/http; msgtype=response
sha1:3DVZXG3XBFHRLS4EKOMOE6D46IM6Z4QY
<urn:uuid:3ddd682a-3ce1-4c05-a559-bf1cd4059c08>
2019-03-27T03:40:52Z
104.118.177.70
text/html
sha1:APUCELND63GNAOJRIBZ2A52G3EOIA4YQ
<urn:uuid:99a24bf4-7435-460a-ba63-a2ccf4b41fae>
https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1991-10-24-9104050971-story.html
response
<urn:uuid:61fcb566-fa17-4fce-8c76-aca7c56bf80c>
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2019-13
publisher: Common Crawl
description: Wide crawl of the web for March 2019
operator: Common Crawl Admin (info@commoncrawl.org)
hostname: ip-10-30-226-49.ec2.internal
software: Apache Nutch 1.15 (modified, https://github.com/commoncrawl/nutch/)
robots: checked via crawler-commons 0.11-SNAPSHOT (https://github.com/crawler-commons/crawler-commons)
format: WARC File Format 1.1
conformsTo: http://iipc.github.io/warc-specifications/specifications/warc-format/warc-1.1/