By Ted Schnell • BocaJump | Nov, 25, 2011
A special interest group has shifted its focus more to Elgin’s budget since it was rebuffed by Mayor David Kaptain in October after Elgin OCTAVE and about 100 supporters showed up at a council meeting to demand the City Council repeal the city’s business license.
It was a last-ditch effort by the group to get the license repealed before the start of the City Council’s budget deliberations. But Kaptain told the group pointedly during the Oct. 26 meeting that the council would not revisit the issue until January. OCTAVE members said after the meeting that the council’s reconsideration of the license in January would be too late, because by then business license revenues would be structured into the city’s budget.
But on Nov. 19, OCTAVE members spoke several times, raising issues related to pay for city administrators to overtime costs. Also during the meeting, one of the group’s co-founders, attorney Jeff Meyer, public announced his candidacy for a Kane County Board seat.
“Evidently there’s been a shift in their direction now — they’re looking at the budget,” Elgin Mayor David Kaptain said Wednesday. “They raised some questions that staff will be looking into. They brought up issues about overtime …”
Kaptain said, however, that OCTAVE may not understand that eliminating overtime very well could entail the closing of fire stations and laying off firefighters.
“They need to know the facts, and I think that’s one of the issues here,” he continued. “They need to dig a little bit deeper and … do a little bit more research. It’s not as simple as what you think.”
Kaptain added there are ways to reduce overtime costs, and the city has been doing so for several years. OCTAVE also has called for reductions in city staff, but Kaptain noted the city began doing that in 2008 via early retirement incentives and layoffs, before other communities in the area even considered making such cuts.
City Manager Sean Stegall has pointed out a number of time that Elgin was the first area community to make cuts and has been the last to consider tax increases.
Elgin OCTAVE formed earlier in the spring with the primary purpose of getting rid of the city’s business license, although OCTAVE co-founders Chuck Keysor and Craig Mason said at the time that the group would oppose new city fees or taxes or increases, and oppose unnecessary spending.
