Richton Park Herald

Richton Park had a ground breaking ceremony on Saturday, October 31st for their new Community Center. Scheduled completion will be around the same time next year. Community advocates have  wanted a community center in the village for a long time. However, a couple of village wide referendums were defeated years ago that would have increased taxes on residents to build and operate a community center. It just so happens that one of the more successful TIF (Tax Increment Financing) districts in the village has accumulated tax funds over the years. These funds were sitting there until someone reviewing the original TIF documentation discovered a clause that allowed these funds to be used to build a community center! These funds accumulated over many years, so no increases in taxes were required to build the community center.

From left to right is Village Clerk Mary Pierce, Trustee Cynthia Butler, Trustee Valerie Babka, Village President Rick Reinbold, Trustee Julian Alexander, Trustee Sharon Kriha, Trustee Jennifer Artis and Trustee Harry Olson.

Above are the Community Stakeholders plus everyone else that showed up! A good time was had by all! Let's start construction!

Its got nothing to do with State Farm Insurance. Here are some of the things I look for from a good neighbor:

If you're going to have a loud party that goes well into the night, invite your neighbors to the party! See what I'm saying?

When its fall and leaves are all over the place, at least make an effort on one day to rake up the leaves on your lawn. Don't wait for them to blow away onto my lawn. You know what I'm saying?

If you have a dog, don't just leave it out unattended to come over and do its thing and leave its stuff on my property. Dogs are to be leashed at all times (village law). So, if you walk your dog and it does its thing on my property, pick it up and take it away with you(village law)! Don't just leave it there for me to worry about. Its your dog! Why do people do these things?

Keep your house and property looking good and well maintained. That's just a good general idea since a home is one of the biggest investments you'll ever make. So why not keep it in good condition? You may want to sell it one day. So, if your home's in bad condition and all your neighbor's homes look like they are in bad condition, it'll bring your home's value down. You don't have to be a braniac to figure out that's bad!

Keeping your house in good condition includes taking care of your lawn. Dandelions are BAD! They take over your lawn, kill the grass and spread to your neighbor's lawn (that would be me!). Stop it.

Another way to keep your house in good condition is to make you home maintenance free. I use to paint the exterior of my house every 3 or 4 years. I now have vinly siding and aluminum soffets! No more painting and the place looks great! No more work and no more expense!

Here's another little detail... If there's broken glass on your sidewalks, sweep it up! That should be a no brainer for most people. Don't wait for it to go away in the shoes of unsuspecting people, including children, that are walking by!

Just the other board meeting I tried to save the village about $2,000 a year and was shot down in a ball of flames. Wouldn't you like to have $2,000 you could just burn? The IML (Illinois Municipal League) conference comes to Chicago once a year in the fall and I tried to get the village to stop paying hotel lodging for village board members and staff.

The IML conference includes lots of after hours parties that include open bars. Driving back to Richton Park would not be recommended if you partaked, so staying downtown at a hotel ($150 a night) is the thing to do. Some don't drink and stay downtown for convenience. Its just too bad that the tax payers of Richton Park have to foot the bill, especially when we're raising village fees by 100% with our 5 year plan. But apparently this is the only "perk" left for the board so "hands off". It doesn't matter that our board members get paid to the tune of some $16,000 (if you don't take the health insurance option) a year. I say if you want to drink yourself silly, stay downtown at your own expense. If you don't drink, and want to stay downtown at taxpayer expense  just for convienence, shame on you. What do you think our taxpayers are made of? Pay for it yourself!

Now, I am not a saint. I stayed downtown the first two years I was in office, but when the economy nose dived and we were raising village fees, I started to feel guilty. So I decided to save the village some money and not stay downtown this year. I asked the board to also do this, but apparently the plea fell on deaf ears. I use to work for companies that threw lavish Christmas parties downtown, but if you wanted to stay downtown for the night to avoid driving home inebriated or for the convenience, you got a hotel room at your own expense. I think we should do the same for our personnel.

We're just 30 miles from downtown Chicago and I think its an expense we could do without, especially in these rough economic times. Other villages in the area, like affluent Olympia Fields, don't allow their elected officials or staff to stay overnight in Chicago for any Chicago area conference, good economy or bad economy. I went to the seminars at the IML conference, went to a dinner party hosted by one of our vendors, then drove home at 10pm. It only took me 35 minutes to get home! Yet there were others that took a cab from this very same restaurant to the hotel and stayed overnight at $150 a pop! Even if you didn't drink, and you talk about getting up early the next day to go to seminars, its something millions of people do every day, and that's called going to work! When your home is in Carbondale, Champaign or Springfield, etc., stay downtown at a hotel and let your village pay for it. But when you live just 30 miles away, drive back and forth or pay to stay downtown yourself.

In total there was over $1,800 in hotel bills, plus cab rides and other expenses for members of the board and staff that were just 30 miles away from their homes. That's a lot of money to me, but apparently not to my fellow board members. I know we're dealing with a budget of over $20,000,000, so $2,000 is just a blip on the radar screen. But I don't think our revenues are going to be $20,000,000! We're going to wish we had that $2,000 back. Every $2,000 saved is $2,000 in the bank and it all adds up!

No pay raises for village employees, capital budgets reduced, hiring freezes, maintenance not being performed on vital village infrasturcture, when is the board going to wake up and smell the coffee?