Hinsdale Leader's Mind Unchanged On Brick Street

HINSDALE, IL – Hinsdale Village President Tom Cauley said Tuesday the supporters of keeping a four-block section of Sixth Street brick wouldn't alter his opposition to spending the money.

At Tuesday's Village Board meeting, Cauley said the rebuilding of the street was estimated to cost $4.5 million. That includes $800,000 for keeping the intersections brick.

But Cauley said he and the trustees were unwilling to spend another $2 million to keep the entire four blocks brick.

"The idea that brick streets are less expensive is only when you think they're going to last a very long time. If you use that logic, we should do every street in brick," Cauley said. "Someone mentioned that if we're going to do an all-brick street for the benefit of the community, why not do the central business district?"

"The logic eludes me," he said. "We can continue to have the conversation on that, but you're not going to change my mind."

The village originally planned to do the project this year, but given the conflict, the village has delayed it until 2025.

Officials are giving Sixth Street residents until July 1 to choose one of three alternatives for paying the extra $2 million:

• Go to a village-wide referendum to determine if residents want to cover the costs.
• Go to a referendum for the entire Robbins Park Historic District, of which Sixth Street is a part. If such a measure passed, the residents could cover the costs of $2 million for Sixth and $1 million for the all-brick part of First Street.
• Form a special tax district on Sixth Street to pay the $2 million. That is expected to cost residents $10,000 annually for a decade.

For the last couple of months, Sixth Street has been an issue at Village Board meetings, with Sixth residents saying the historic nature of their brick street benefits the entire town.

At Tuesday's meeting, Cauley was responding to Sixth Street resident Jennifer Reenan. She said she remained "somewhat disappointed" that the village hasn't assigned a value to Sixth.

"The financial analysis that has been done is too short-term in my opinion," she said. "While we are hopeful that the bids end up being lower than expected, we also hope that over the next few months to make a stronger case to our elected trustees as to why brick streets are financially manageable, ecologically responsible and important to the entire community of Hinsdale."

She also thanked village officials for listening to residents about the brick street.

Cauley said the village wanted to do Sixth Street now because it received a federal grant and is obligated to separate the storm and sanitary sewers under a settlement.