Dupage Policy Journal

Burr Ridge Mayor Gary Grasso was told to “sit down and shut up” at a meeting of village residents in opposition to a home rule question on next week’s ballot.

Jim Tobin, founder of Taxpayers United of America (TUA), admonished Grasso, who supports home rule, after he was asked numerous times to be quiet and stop interrupting.

Tobin led the meeting at Barbara’s Bookstore with Burr Ridge Trustee and local business owner Zach Mottl, who opposes home rule.

“I would say 45-50 in a room meant for about 30 with more listening from the hallways,” Mottl told the DuPage Policy Journal when asked how many attended. “I’m not seeing much support for it anywhere in the village.”

The village board put the home rule question on the March 17 primary with a 4-2 vote in late December. The “no” votes were Mottl and Trustee Anita Mittal.

Grasso argues that home rule status would give the village more flexibility in spending revenue raised from the hotel-motel tax. Non home-rule communities are now required by state law to spend the revenue raised from the tax on tourism promotion. Grasso says that under home rule the village could direct some of the revenue to the police pension fund, and other village costs.

Mottl has warned residents that a home rule designation would lift all state-impose caps on local taxes, including property, sales and gasoline taxes. Property taxes, for example, for non-home rule governments are capped at 5 percent, or the rate of inflation, whichever is lower. Mottl also said that village residents would be stripped on any standing in zoning disputes with the village, under home rule.

In January, the board approved a policy that would restrict future tax increases; it voted to require that if the village moves to a home rule government, property owners will receive written notices of any proposed tax increases above the caps now imposed by state law. In addition, the board would be required to hold a series of public hearings on why it’s considering the increase.

But Ellen Raymond, a Burr Ridge attorney, who organized a grass roots fight to defeat home rule, said that the board’s new policy was “unenforceable.”

“There are no restrictions [a local government places on itself] that the courts will uphold,” Raymond said for an earlier story.

Raymond cited a 1988 Illinois State Supreme Court ruling, Landmarks Pres. Council v. City of Chicago, that a home rule municipality cannot be overruled even when it fails "to follow requirements imposed by that body itself."

In a statement released today, Jim Tobin of TUA said that Grasso's behavior at the meeting "was typical of tax thieves. 

"Just last week, I had a school board member of Glenview SD 34 lash out at us for daring to oppose a $119,000,000 property tax increase on Glenview taxpayers," Tobin said. "These people think taxpayers will just sit down and take any tax increase thrown their way, and are shocked when taxpayers stick up for themselves.”