Community Gas Tax Forum

Last Monday, Oct 22 an open meeting was held in Bolingbrook to hear about the proposed gas tax. I was surprised at how few people attended from Bolingbrook. Several of the most vocal were from southern Will County. They drove a long way to make sure we knew that $12 was too much to pay per year for a faster commute time, but I suspect they had another agenda as a few of them were running for office in the county. That is the approximate cost if you drive 10k miles per year and for that you will get safer roads and faster commute times.

I really believe in giving local voters a say in tax policy, at the end of the day I know it is my job to decide, but hearing from the people I represent is VERY IMPORTANT to me. I know I was very disappointed in how our garbage tax was implemented. To add that large amount in new costs to every homeowner without much in the way of public input was disappointing. That was a new tax of $260 to each homeowner without any new service and no real explanation of why we can't cover essential services with current revenues.

We have roads that are 50-70 years old. They are crumbling at a time when we are seeing more and more truck traffic throughout the county. We are the largest inland port in the US, maybe the world. We see 3.2% of the GDP come through our County every year. Much of which ends up on our local county roads. Roads that for each year we delay add more than $400K in increased costs to do the work.

Frankly for me its about saving money, each trip I make that I am stuck in traffic costs money because time is money, and its something we can't make more of.