By Ted Schnell • BocaJump
One of the leaders of Elgin OCTAVE was undaunted Monday by the likelihood that plummeting city revenues could sink the group’s efforts to pressure the Elgin City Council to repeal the city’s business license, which brought $268,000 into city coffers last year.
“We’re being reasonably optimistic,” said Chuck Keysor, one of the founders of Elgin OCTAVE.
The group sent out invitations over the weekend, trying to get as many people as possible to attend Wednesday night’s Elgin City Council meeting and implore the council to end the business license, which they claim is unfair.
“The bad thing is there is no way of really knowing how many people will show up,” Keysor said. “People are fired up about this …” But he said that while many businesses oppose the business license, they are afraid to take a stand against it, fearing repercussions.
Keysor acknowledged Monday evening that OCTAVE might face an uphill battle given the city’s financial crisis. A structural budget deficit for 2012 that once was estimated at $4.5 million has ballooned to between $10 million and $13 million. That was due largely to a 20 percent drop in property values for the Kane County portion of Elgin; roughly 80 percent of the city lies in Kane County. But Mayor David Kaptain told BocaJump last week another revenue stream may take a hit because the state wants to divert $1 million of city revenue to schools.
“We will demand to get rid of business license,” Keysor said. “It’s unjust and enforced unfairly … that’s what the city is going to have to look at it and decide what’s in their best judgment.”
However, Wednesday night’s push by OCTAVE will not be an all-or-nothing effort, Keysor said. “If we lose, we’ll regroup on Thursday morning and figure out Plan B.”
He said that despite the city’s worsening budget situation, there are still plenty of options for trimming, pointing to nearly $6 million in overtime expenses the city had last year, as well as what he described as the bloated payroll, with salaries of more than $100,000 among the city’s administrative staff and some of its union staff.
“When we started, we believed we could” get the business license rescinded, Keysor said. Now, however, “there is no way of knowing, so we can only plow ahead. You have to try.”
