LaSalle Insider

My favorite movie of all time is “Its a Wonderful Life” with Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed. There’s a line in the movie when George Bailey confronts Uncle Billie about the missing deposit for the savings and loan and says ” Well one of us is going to jail…and its not going to be me!”

We haven’t reached that point yet here in LaSalle  but I am getting very nervous about our financial situation…let me  explain…

During our last council meeting on April 19th we made some line item adjustments  to the appropriation ordinance prior to the end of our fiscal year which ends 4/30.  Its a common occurrence to do a bit of financial housekeeping to balance these individual accounts.  The problem this year is the LARGE adjustment made regarding Tif 1.  We underestimated the payment to a developer which had to be made this year to the tune of over $229,000!  We thought it was going to be around $45,000.

I’m not blaming the Mayor , past or present, or the comptroller or the developer, or our TIF attorney Tom Jacobs because frankly I don’t know who missed the boat on this estimate and since the check has been written and paid, that “boat” has sailed!

My point and concern is that we need to find $229,000 that we thought we would have, much like Uncle Billie when he went to make his deposit and accidentally “lost ” it to Mr Potter.  The clock is ticking for us because we owe the State of Illinois for our portion of the interchange work being done at Rt 80 and Rt 178.  Our bill, I’m told, will be $227,000.  It hasn’t been presented yet but its only a matter of time till it is.

We don’t have many options when it does get presented. Either we cut back on current spending and/or borrow more money to pay it.   We cannot continue to spend the way we do on unnecessary advertising, public events paid by tax dollars and extending positions that don’t make fiscal sense in these financial times! Let’s not forget we have employee contracts that are getting negotiated and will most certainly bring added expenses to the city as well.

At the end of “It’s a Wonderful Life” the locals and friends of George financially bale him out….in our case if it gets bad enough the citizens may be forced to bale us out in the form of higher taxes…and nobody wants that!

Well Monday marks almost two weeks since I brought up the mess on  Grant Street and about six weeks since I first mentioned it on the council floor.  I was assured at our last meeting on April 6th that the city would  get on that issue the following day.  Our Police Chief pointed out how they had caught some individuals who bear responsibility for some of the damaged windows and entering the building illegally.  I only wish the Mayor would work as fast.

Well I should cut him some slack after all he is busy planning the new” LaSalle fest”…..stay tune to hear what our end of this event will cost.

I have heard a large number mentioned as  the city’s investment in this event.  Those of us who live near Hegeler Park are not amused by the resurrection of this beer party…what do you think?

As most of you know the council in our last meeting agreed to extend our economic director position for three more years.  Only Alderman Green and myself voted against the extension.  My reasons were lack of money and no real results after one year in the position.  When I asked for some criteria that we could use to measure the success or failure of the position I was met with…”he’s a nice guy”  and “he has answered all my questions when asked”

I guess for some that’s enough…I mean after all its a government position and we all have come to expect little in return for our tax dollars.  Is it any wonder why the government jobs unemployment rate is 3% while the private sector is in double digits!  As our ex governor would say..” this job is golden!”

Spring Valley has seen growth recently thanks to their part-time Director and Oglesby has used an hourly person (not to exceed 20 hours a week) while Peru just hired a volunteer to be their economic director.  Somehow our Mayor and the majority of the council still feel we know better and have a full time director in this economy. If you add up all the moneys spent on this position we are looking at an annual payout of almost $80,000.00

No other city our size is doing that!  We have never received a report stating number of new businesses or vacant buildings now occupied versus businesses lost or new empty sites from our director. Gee I wonder why?

Maybe its not going as well as we thought…

Well we are all paying for it, so next time you wonder why we can’t fill your pothole or why your street will just have to wait, remember we are spending 80K on economic growth….so I guess you will just have to call our Mayor and ask him if the trade off is worth it…you tell me.

Oh, by the way, Don still lives in Peru, he has a business in Peru and his wife works in Peru….and his job is to sell LaSalle….anybody else find this a little funny?

Our fine Congresswoman, Debbie Halvorson, fully supports the health care bill and voted for it.  It was just another example of a congressperson who doesn’t represent her district’s desires.  The big fist of Speaker Pelosi far outweighs any fear Debbie might have of her voting public.  She fell in line with the rest of the Pelosi sheep and did what she was told.  I’m sure she was far to busy to read the bill or talk with her constituents before she cast her vote.  Why waste time talking to us hayseeds when Queen Nancy wants to have you over for tea!

But I can’t be too hard on Debbie, after all she did improve health care for some….herself.  Thanks to being elected once she has the best health care for herself for the rest of her life.  Lets hope the voting public doesn’t repeat this mistake again in November.

I will admit that we need some changes in health care insurance coverage, but we  have the best HEALTHCARE in the world now.  I implore you to watch the youtube video currently posted here on my website. It truly gives you a clear picture on what we can expect and why we can’t allow this change to last.

Oh and one last thing, lets not leave Senator Dick Durbin out of this mess.  He stops by at the Veterans home in LaSalle to talk about money coming to the home but forgot to bring the check!  I think I’ve heard this song before…and he talks briefly about all the good in the healthcare bill (read freebies to all) and doesn’t really talk about the costs.  I think we are all in for a case of buyers remorse very shortly……

Our Mayor and staff have been preaching about cleaning up the city since the last election.  Our building inspector along with our fire and police chiefs have been working on ways to correct many of the buildings which are in sad shape throughout our city. I applaud and agree with these measures.  I welcome anything that helps the overall appearance of our city.

However……over a month ago I brought up on the council floor the need to correct the broken windows at the Matthiessen School building. At that time there were two which were obviously broken by vandals and in need of repair.

More recently as I checked out the site I found that in addition to not correcting the previously noted windows more than 6 others were now added to the list in need of repair.  This building is referred to as an “attractive nuisance” in insurance lingo because if left in its present state it draws certain elements who would vandalize further or enter and do internal damage as well.  God forbid someone gets hurt in the building because we would certainly bear  a portion of the responsibility for  not correcting these problems as they were made known to us.  For those of you who don’t know or have forgotten the City owns this building.

How hypocritical is it that we preach to the private sector to correct their eyesores while we ignore ours?  We should be ashamed and take immediate actions to fix this taxpayer owned deteriorating building.

I certainly hope the Mayor doesn’t subscibe to the old saying of  “Do as I say, not as I do”…