Village to Host Town Hall on Referendums, March 5

Libertyville residents with questions about the upcoming referendums will be able to have them answered during a Town Hall meeting at 7 p.m. March 5 at Libertyville Civic Center, 135 W. Church St.

Two referendums will be on the March 20 ballot.

Road Referendum

One of them is the road referendum, which asks voters if they would support issuing $20 million in bonds to maintain Libertyville roadways before they need complete reconstruction, which could increase costs.

For more information read, Guide to Libertyville's Road Referendum

The village recently published a preliminary list of roads that would be rehabilitated, with an allocation of about $4 million to maintain the roads over five years if the road referendum passes.

“It’s a preliminary list, we didn’t want to go out and rate the pavements because it could cost $200,000 and the referendum may not pass,” said Libertyville Public Works Director John Heinz.

Some of the roads listed in the list include East Ellis Avenue, which was constructed between 1978 and 1979. The avenue has not been rehabilitated before and work is estimated to cost some $200,000. Furlong Drive and East Sunnyside Avenue are among the roads scheduled for rehabilitation. For the full list, visit: www.Libertyville.com.

Heinz says the list will serve as a reference so if the referendum passes, the village would have an idea where it would start work during the first year, which likely will take place in March 2013.

“If the referendum passes, we will relook at the pavement selection and select road programs. It won’t be whole neighborhoods at a time but specific roads, so pavements don’t fall into disrepair,” Heinz said.

The list was compiled from an evaluation of roads the village conducted in 1997 with input from village staff.

“Every other year we have gone out to see if they have gotten worse and then we ranked them from worst to better than worse,” Heinz said.

If the referendum does not pass, the village will continue to maintain the roads with its annual road repair budget of about $1 million.

Village officials have said before that if the roads are not maintained soon, the cost could balloon to $35 million or $40 million in the near future.

Electric Aggregation 

The electric aggregation referendum asks residents to give the village authority to negotiate electricity prices for the community.

The village can solicit bids only for the power generation portion of the electric bill; ComEd still would distribute power and handle monthly bills for Libertyville residents. Residents still would call ComEd if services were interrupted.

• If a referendum passes, the village still could choose to purchase power from ComEd. Residents or small businesses also could choose to keep their original power supplier even if the village is working with another supplier.
• If the referendum does not pass, the village would not have the authority to solicit bids and find out who has the cheapest electricity price and would have to work with ComEd.

For more information, read Guide to Libertyville's Electricity Aggregation Referendum.

Related Articles:

• Guide to Libertyville's Electricity Aggregation Referendum
• Guide to Libertyville's Road Referendum
• Important Information About the Libertyville Road Referendum
• 2012-13 Village Board Goals

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