Budget Director Sean Stegall presented the 2008 Elgin city budget. It looked pretty good.

Highlights of 2008 budget:

• no public works employees added in 2008 (3 were already added in 2007)
• $7.7M generated in downtown TIF funds ($5.1 expended)
• $500K for green initiatives — maybe this can be tapped for a community garden?
• $2.75M for mandatory deconversion
• $3M for entry corridor improvements
• $2.8M for neighborhood street improvements
• $3.5M for sports complex improvements — yao!
• zero budget proposed for the Neighborhood Improvement Grant program (in order to work down existing backlog)
• $1M in South Grove TIF to do some kind of Phase 3 for Festival Park
• no new events at Festival Park

Council members discussed the public works issue at length. The conclusion seemed to be that previous problems were not on account of lack of personnel, and hence it was not necessary to increase headcount at this point. Councilman Kaptain suggested the city look into banning street parking during snow storms.

They also completed some kind of propaganda video on TIF programs, which will air on the public access channel and be distributed to neighborhood groups. Stegall said the downtown (Central Business District) TIF will generate as much as the casino. He said if he could make the whole city a TIF, he would. I’m sure U-46 would love that (and developers of course).

The budget was discussed in what I call the pre-meeting (Committee of the Whole). The actual city council meeting went pretty fast, because a number of items were tabled. The only major thing was the approval of the JC Penney’s, which will be a part of the Sam’s Club/Wal-Mart on Randall and Bowes. Don’t expect construction anytime soon though. They won’t begin until road improvements are done. It looks like they are planning to break ground in fall 2009.

Three people spoke in the Persons Present section, which is the part where anybody can address the council:

• Elgin Latino Political Action Team (ELPAT) Director George Irizarry spoke against the petition and recommendations of the Association for Legal Americans (AFLA). AFLA has a blog and it looks like Doug Heaton is posting to it. Apparently, AFLA presented a 1,000-signature petition to the city, but I don’t know anything about it.
• Arturo Zamudio of CasaBlanca Realtors seconded Irizarry’s comments. He mentioned how housing demand in Carpentersville has fallen in recent years. He said this was a result of C-Ville’s failed effort to enact anti-illegal immigration legislation. Though the effort failed he said, it tarnished the city’s reputation.
• Betsy Couture announced that the Homes for the Holiday Tour is this Saturday.

Mayor Schock was absent.

Filed under: citycouncil.
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