Glencoe voters authorize $10M bond issuance for village improvements

With voter approval, the Village of Glencoe is now authorized to issue $10 million in general obligation bonds to fund the next three years of community improvements.

The majority of Glencoe voters approved the bond sale via referendum in the consolidated election, Tuesday, April 6. Unofficial results showed 82 percent of voters checked “yes” to the referendum question on the 806 ballots cast. 

As a non-home-rule community, The Record previously reported Glencoe requires voter approval to issue debt of this nature, thus the necessity for a ballot referendum, Village Manager Phil Kiraly said.

Kiraly told The Record on Tuesday night that the success of the referendum was great news.

“I am so pleased that Glencoe’s residents supported it,” he said in a statement to The Record. “Critically important infrastructure improvements will be possible and will benefit our community for years to come thanks to these new resources. We look forward to getting to work.”

The Village proposed to spread the $10 million across four project areas: $4.1 million is storm sewer improvements, $3.9 million in street resurfacing and lighting, $1.2 million in sanitary sewer upgrades, and $800,000 in sidewalk improvements. 

The projects have “a long useful life and are necessary to maintain the Village’s critical infrastructure,” the Village’s website says. Further details on each project can be found here. 

For Glencoe taxpayers, the $10 million bond issue is expected to raise property taxes by $90 per $10,000 of total property tax paid. 

The bonds will be repaid over 20 years, the Village site says, “spreading the debt load over the useful life of the improvements.”

Township voters favor national carbon fee

New Trier Township voters have weighed in on a national political issue. 

With 41 of 41 precincts reporting results, more than 66 percent of voters (4,624) checked “yes” to a nonbinding referendum question that asked if the United States Congress should pass legislation implementing a carbon fee on fossil fuel producers. 

Just over 33 percent of voters (2,316) checked “no” on the referendum question.

As a nonbinding referendum, the results will not directly lead to change but will instead be used as a way to assess public opinion.

As previously reported by The Record, New Trier Township plans to utilize voters’ opinions on the matter to measure local desire for government involvement related to addressing climate change.

“The language of the referendum itself is directed toward the U.S. Congress and obviously a lot of the larger policies that will actually impact climate change will need to be done and the federal and international level — that said, I assume that we will use this information as a litmus on how much the community wants government to be addressing these issues,” Gail Eisenberg, who was elected Township supervisor on April 6, previously told The Record. 

“There’s certainly more that we can do as a local government to do our part to reduce climate disrupting emissions and I’m hoping we can do that especially if the people give us that mandate.” 

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