Villa Park lobbies for tax hike

If there's a ground zero for Villa Park's road woes, it's either Kenilworth or Michigan avenues.

A fed-up Michigan Avenue resident once brought a bucket filled with pieces of the deteriorating pavement to village hall. And Tuesday night, village officials led residents on a field trip down bumpy Kenilworth during an information session on a referendum proposal to raise the village's sales tax.

Villa Park is asking voters Nov. 2 to approve a .5 percentage point increase in the sales tax to pay to fix some of the village's worst streets.

The increase from 7.75 percent to 8.25 percent would generate an estimated $1.3 million a year to repair local streets that aren't eligible for state or federal money.

Without a dedicated funding source like this, I don't see these getting done any time soon, interim Village Manager Eric Dubrowski said.

“They need to be done; they're in terrible condition. That is what this money is going to go for not for St. Charles Road or South Villa, but for local infrastructure improvements, he said.

While 43 percent of Villa Park's streets are in excellent shape, more than 20 percent are in fair-to-poor condition, officials said. Some streets need to be completely rebuilt.

If voters approve the increase, the village would have the funds to tackle high-priority projects, such as Kenilworth Avenue between Ardmore and Harvard and Michigan Avenue from St. Charles to Division.

The village also would be able to catch up with its backlog of resurfacing projects in about two years, officials said.

Last April, voters turned down a much more ambitious plan to borrow $27.5 million to reconstruct, resurface or patch 54 streets throughout the village and complete sewer repairs. The bond sale would have cost the owner of a $250,000 house an extra $199 in annual property taxes for 20 years.

The village also asked for a sales tax increase on the same ballot to pay for ongoing road maintenance. That failed also, but by a slightly smaller margin.

Village officials are hoping voters will be more likely to approve the sales tax if it's the only question on the ballot.

This time around, village officials also are stressing that only about 40 percent of the money raised from the sales tax increase would be coming out of Villa Park residents' pockets. The majority would come from out-of-town shoppers.

The proposed increase would put Villa Park on par with neighboring Lombard, where the sales tax is 8.25 percent except for a section of the village near Yorktown Shopping Center, where it's 9.25 percent. In other nearby towns, sales tax rates are 8.25 percent in Oakbrook Terrace (except for its business district, which also has a 9.25 percent rate); 8 percent in Elmhurst and 7.75 percent in Oak Brook.

Other public meetings on the road repair proposal are set for Oct 13 at Willowbrook High School; Oct. 19 and Oct. 27 at Sugar Creek Golf Course, and Oct. 20 at Villa Park village hall. All meetings are at 7 p.m.