Bensenville business owners protest water bill surcharge

Outraged Bensenville business owners Monday protested a surprise surcharge on their water bills that increases their typical monthly payments up to eight times.

What started with roughly 50 people outside village hall turned into a group of about 100 traveling through the building while holding signs and demanding answers outside the third-floor administrative offices.

Veronica Strope, a rally organizer, said her average water bill used to be $25, but this month it jumped to $235 with the surcharge.

"We're asking the village to come out and answer some questions," she said. "We didn't get an opportunity to understand what (the charge) was for."

Village officials met separately with the media and three rally organizers.

Village Manager James Johnson said the new charges will fund a $13 million project that includes construction of a water tower, water and sewer mains, and any street repairs that are necessary as a result.

The village board approved the project and funding methods in July during a regular village board meeting in open session. Leaders decided the surcharge will remain on the monthly bills for all industrial park businesses for the next 20 years, he said, and officials are coming close to finalizing the engineering plans.

For more than three years, he said, the village has been trying to make major improvements in the industrial park, bound by Irving Park Road on the south, York Road on the east, Route 83 on the west and Devon Avenue on the north.

In 2005, leaders wanted to pursue a $27 million project through a special assessment that would include reconstruction of streets, stormwater management, new water and sewer lines and a new water tower. At the time, the village said it would pay between 5 percent and 15 percent of the project, Johnson said.

In 2006, however, business owners in the industrial park opposed the proposal and took the idea to court. Since then, the work has been on hold.

"Those costs keep going up and we sought other alternative options of payment," Johnson said. "We'll increase the water rate and sell $13 million of bonds to pay for the water portions of that project."

No notices were sent to business owners.

"At the advice of counsel, we were unable to inform them in advance because it's a subject of litigation," he said. "We needed to move ahead with it."

Johnson said business owners have two options: They can either make the current payments for improvements, or they can discuss the original special assessment plan with attorneys and go back to square one.

"There's nothing unusual, nothing we hadn't planned on doing," he said. "We wanted to take care of it once and for all."

The work is expected to begin in late winter or early spring.

The project will take about two years, assistant manager of public works Paul Quinn said.

Johnson doesn't think any of the charges are so onerous businesses won't be able to afford them.

"These are expensive projects," he said, "and everyone wants others to pay the bill."

Surcharge: Business owners say they received no notice of changes