By Ted Schnell • BocaJump | Jan. 26, 2012
For months, arguments over the issue have ebbed and flowed as a special interest group pressed the Elgin City Council to repeal the 2-year-old business license.
Wednesday night the debate ended as the City Council authorized the administration to begin taking enforcement action against the 400 or so businesses that so far have ignored the city's letters urging them to obtain the license and pay its associated fee, which is based on square footage and ranges from $35 for small businesses to $595 for the largest ones. The council vote in support of enforcement was 6-0, with Councilman Robert Gilliam unable to attend.
Assistant City Manager Rick Kozal told the City Council that 87 percent of the 2,356 businesses the city has identified have complied with the licensing ordinance. The rest will be pressured to comply, he said later, after the council authorized enforcement actions to begin.
Enforcement could mean the threat of penalties such as daily fines of as much as $750 for scofflaws, as noted in prior letters the city has sent to area businesses that have not yet complied with the law. Until this point, the administration had been reluctant to push harder for compliance because of the ongoing controversy surrounding the group Elgin OCTAVE and its attempts to have the measure repealed. OCTAVE's efforts opened the door to doubt about council support for the continued viability of the license.
The council erased that doubt Wednesday, although members were clearly sympathetic to local businesses in regard to the city's "layers of licensing" and the cost burden that could create for some businesses.
City Manager Sean Stegall advised the council that the city already has begun an analysis of its fee structures to ensure the city is recovering its costs for the fees it collects. The council directed that the study include looking at how businesses might be affected by requirements for various licenses and fees.
Mayor David Kaptain took it further, noting that the council will hold a strategic planning session in late February. He said during that session he will ask the council to:
Form an economic development task force to put together a variety of programs offering high school students opportunities to intern at some of the city's small businesses
Consider an ordinance giving local businesses preference if their bids on city purchases or work is within 2 percent or 3 percent of the low bid;
Establishing a city ombudsman to help new businesses navigate Elgin's rules for establishing businesses here, including the licenses and fees needed.
Also during Wednesday night's meeting, Kozal spent several minutes dispelling the myths its critics have attached to the business license. He laid out some of the reasons for having the business license in the first place — one of which includes creating a database of demographic information about Elgin's business community that can be used for an array of purposes, including economic development.
Kozal also noted pointedly that the business license was discussed publicly by the City Council no less than four times in 2009 leading to its adoption. Some critics have suggested it somehow was passed without public attention, even though those discussions were covered by area media.
