Minus Gavin, Mudron 4 Can't Approve Several Tax, Fee Hikes

JOLIET, IL — On Tuesday night, Joliet City Councilwoman Jan Quillman repeatedly criticized the 2020 city operating budget presented by interim city manager Steve Jones. The budget calls for fuel tax increases, fee increases, property hikes and hotel/motel tax increases.

"It's a complete and utter mess," Quillman complained.

Joliet's budget did not pass Tuesday night. At least for the time being, anyway.

The vote ended in a 4-4 deadlock. Four council members in the Pat Mudron 5 coalition supported the tax and fee increases: Pat Mudron, Sherri Reardon, Don "Duck" Dickinson and Mike Turk.

Four members of the city's Fiscal 4: Quillman, Larry Hug, Mayor Bob O'Dekirk and Terry Morris voted against the city budget.

The ninth council member, Bettye Gavin, was absent. The city of Joliet needs a majority of five votes to adopt the 2020 budget.

In wake of Tuesday's deadlock, the remaining Mudron 4 agreed to hold a special council meeting at 5:30 p.m. Dec. 26 to adopt the budget.

Jones is optimistic Gavin will join forces with the rest of the Mudron coalition to deliver the fifth vote necessary before his tenure as city manager ends in early March.

By spring, Jones may become a double dipper. Steve Jones would retire from Joliet to start collecting his pension only to return to the city as an economic development consultant making more than $100,000 a year in that role. The agreement, approved by the Mudron 5 several months back, calls for Jones to work "approximately 1,865 hours within a calendar year."

Besides increasing the fuel taxes on the citizens of Joliet, the 2020 budget calls for increasing taxes on residents to shoulder most of the costs for the downtown Joliet Public Library's controversial $10.5 million interior remodeling project.

Two prominent Joliet businessmen, First Midwest Bank president Jim Roolf and Rialto board chairman Bob Filotto, spoke at Monday's pre-council discussion session to urge the council to adopt the tax increases to pay for the downtown library's $10.5 million renovations.

The project, however, has garnered little public support in the community.

Library director Megan Millen is not supportive of putting the renovation project to a vote of the people of Joliet, Councilwoman Quillman suggested.

For the past several months, Bob Hernandez, a well-known community activist, has been less active in city politics. On Tuesday night, Hernandez resurfaced at City Hall.

He gave a powerful speech, saying how the people of Joliet, the silent majority, are getting fed up with all the tax and fee increases that keep getting dumped on them.

Several people affiliated with Joliet's hotel and lodging industry implored the council not to raise the lodging taxes on their guests who stay in Joliet. Jones, however, said that raising the city's hotel and motel tax would be a good thing for Joliet in the long run.

"I had hoped not to be back here for quite some time," Hernandez told Tuesday's audience. "But last night for the first time in several weeks, I looked at the pre-council meeting on YouTube. And I first want to say that Jim Roolf and Bob Filotto are two outstanding citizens in our community and I respect them, immensely. Having said that, their comments last night represented those that have, not those that have not. They are wealthy enough to afford, very wealthy, to be able to afford the tax increases that they supported.

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"But the majority of people, and I hear from many, many people," Hernandez said, raising his voice, "particularly, our senior citizens that are struggling, our middle-class families that are struggling with their children in school that say they can't afford more taxation, with the state's increases, the county's proposed increases and now the city of Joliet. And no matter how you try to make it look to staff, it's still a property tax increase. These are tax increases. And people are upset. Those that I'm talking about are the have-nots. Those are the people that actually vote for you in your district or your at-large race.

"They don't come to your fund-raisers, they don't come to these events, they might see you marching in the parade ... those are the people that really matter. Because those are the backbone of our city. Those are the have-nots, those in our middle-class and those in our lower middle class that are suffering today. Ten million dollars for a library? Come on!

Hernandez said he visited the downtown library seven times in the past two weeks "and I have not seen a city staff member there, a city council member there, and I've gone at all hours of the day. Last night, there was a guy sprawled out on the table. There were five people using the computers and three of them that were homeless. There were homeless all over the back walls ... they go there to use the WiFi. You're going to allow the library to invest $10 million into a facility that had very few people there ... to spend $10 million to make it look beautiful for that? That's ridiculous!"

Several audience members clapped after Hernandez finished his off-the-cuff remarks.

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After Tuesday's meeting, Mayor O'Dekirk told Joliet Patch he remains optimistic that Councilwoman Gavin will do the right thing and vote against the litany of tax increases at the Dec. 26 meeting. Quillman said she won't show up because she's already supposed to be on vacation next week. Besides, Quillman said, Steve Jones already has his five votes lined up.

"I have not talked to Councilwoman Gavin," O'Dekirk said. "Personally, I would be surprised if she voted for this budget. She represents some of the poorer areas of the city ... where they are seeing the state raise their taxes, the county raise their taxes and now maybe the city doing the same thing. For the city to pile on and raise these taxes, is something that I won't support."

Moreover, just last month, the city council voted 7-1, with only Quillman against, to follow Jones' recommendation to raise all the downtown parking fees effective Jan. 1. That measure alone aims to raise about $3 million in new revenue for Joliet.

People who have a monthly downtown parking pass will have their parking rates climb from $40 to $60 per month, which translates into a $240 annual increase.

The city's other downtown lots will also experience a hourly rate increase.

O'Dekirk said the projections from Jones and city finance director Jim Ghedotte of a multi-million deficit in the current operating budget are premature and won't happen.

Similar predictions were made in recent years and the city often ended up with a multi-million dollar surplus, not a deficit, the mayor noted.

"Until we are actually realizing these deficits, there's no reason to do this," he said. "The city's actually added to the reserve fund over the last five years I've been mayor. It's hard to put faith in the projections because they're wrong every year, but it's unfair to the taxpayers of Joliet to throw this at them, and it flies in the face of the reality of what's actually gone on in Joliet over the last five years."