03/20/00

Information Gap - Kristine Cohn and the Winnebago County Board, relying on the County Engineer, are still flying blind where the costs and benefits related to Perryville Road are concerned. Taxpayers are still waiting to learn all of the facts.

If the Perryville Road Extension is so good for the taxpayers, why are they unable to prove it? Could it be that this is another case of business as usual? Taxpayers find out after the fact that they will have to subsidize the road costs and all that goes along with it. Lets look at history as an example. Has Perryville Road and the resulting development lowered anyone's taxes yet? NO! As a matter of fact, our tax rate just went up 5.5% this year.

In October of 1998, under Chairman Kris Cohn, the County Board passed the highest budget in county history (The Rock River Times, Oct. 7-13, page 1). According to the paper, Cohn said four areas of the budget account for the tax hike, "The major one is additional county highway projects". Steve Chapman, county administrator, was also quoted as saying, as for the tax increases, "A lot was fueled by the highway projects".

In that article, Perryville Road extension tops the list. $7.8 million was budgeted for all roadwork listed. Of that $7.8 million, $3.5 million was slated for Perryville Extension. It ended up costing about $6 million for less than 2 miles of road. This does not include the right of way purchases and the signal interconnect at $910,000, not to mention the bike path coming in at $800,000. How much more were the right-of- way purchase costs?

That meant that the entire budget, less 90 thousand dollars, was used for Perryville Road. Where did they get the money for the rest of the county funded entities like the Sheriffs Department and the River Bluff Nursing Home? They didn't...they asked them to make cuts amounting to 2.63%. Sheriffs Department positions went left unfilled; we are not sure what impacts the cuts made of the Nursing Home residents.

Average folks who pay for these projects are fed up with being told 'This is good for you' and 'Growth is good' and if you don't like the road extension, you 'Don't understand how to be progressive'. We will continue to be a voice for the taxpayer. We will continue to ask that our government act responsibly. Good government should equate with good stewardship of the counties resources, - land, money and otherwise. A cost benefit analysis provided to the taxpayers would be a good start. Charles Hollerith, Chairman of Publics Works on the County Board, could request that a panel be appointed to begin such a study. Lets look before we leap!