The Revoke Home Rule movement began earlier, but I am finding as I talk to well-informed neighbors that there is nearly if not just as much support for a referendum on abandoning the Council-Manager form of city government. Some believe the manager position should be abolished to make it clearer where the buck stops, but…
Category: City Watch
City Watcher Thought #2 on Friday the 13th: Rental Inspection Program
In reading the first of two ordinances critical to the proposed Rental Inspection program, I see nothing in the proposed “Chronic Nuisance Property Abatement” ordinance (start on p. 10) that limits it to rental properties. No property owner would be safe from being called a chronic nuisance and summoned to a legal proceeding at City…
City Spending has been Growing at Twice the Rate of Inflation
Mac has made the Financial Advisory Committee’s recommendations available at his site. Spoiler alert! This post contains the money quote (heh), from FAC member Tom Teresinski. Tom Teresinski Overview – A Perspective I. Spending – Per City Report: (000) General Fund – Spending (1998): $14,535.8; (2009) $28,167.0 % Growth: 93.8 Avg % Increase 0ver 11…
Mac’s Budget Recommendations
Click here for one Financial Advisory Committee member’s recommendations for DeKalb’s FY2009 budget. Then comment, here and/or at Mac’s.
Note from Ivan on the Cop Shop
Update: The meeting dates for the Police Facility Advisory Committee are Wednesday, June 11; Thursday, June 19; and Thursday, June 26; all at 6 p.m. in Council Chambers. [Once again, Ivan Krpan brings us one of his “comments”–this time on the city’s advisory committee for the new police station–that should have been a post in…
The Absurdity of the Airport, & Other Budget Tales
Tonight at the budget workshop I remarked that it was kind of nonsensical and backwards (exact words) to continue to carry this albatross of an airport (paraphrase) when the police department does not have adequate facilities. Later in the evening, I was rebutted with a pretty picture presented by Public Works Director Rick Monas of…
Skating Rink Tearing Me Apart
On the one hand, the city’s shelling out $75,000 for a skating rink (p. 9) seems frivolous and inappropriate in view of the recent two tax increases, an impending big rise in water rates Monday, and a few more tax hikes coming down the pike shortly. (Not even a kiss first!) So, maybe I should…
The Fatal Flaw in Home Rule Law
[This is the 2nd part of a series examining home rule in Illinois. The first one is here.] Municipal home rule powers are granted by the Illinois Constitution. Except as limited by this Section, a home rule unit may exercise any power and perform any function pertaining to its government and affairs including, but not…
Wogen, Neighbors & the Women’s Center
This is to update the post of October 29 concerning Victor Wogen, the Neighbors Helping Neighbors group (NHN) and the DeKalb Area Women’s Center (DAWC). Victor Wogen did indeed obtain use of a lift for the DAWC paint job after all. (We had a chuckle over the lift belonging to Irving Construction. Made us wonder…
Wogen & the Women’s Center
Last spring, Victor Wogen showed up to the DeKalb Area Women’s Center (DAWC) while university students and others were painting the place. The DAWC building is an old church, and parts of it reach to a third-floor level that the volunteers simply couldn’t reach. Wogen told the DAWC director, Anna Marie Coveny, that he knew…