Richton Park Herald

Just the other board meeting I tried to save the village about $2,000 a year and was shot down in a ball of flames. Wouldn't you like to have $2,000 you could just burn? The IML (Illinois Municipal League) conference comes to Chicago once a year in the fall and I tried to get the village to stop paying hotel lodging for village board members and staff.

The IML conference includes lots of after hours parties that include open bars. Driving back to Richton Park would not be recommended if you partaked, so staying downtown at a hotel ($150 a night) is the thing to do. Some don't drink and stay downtown for convenience. Its just too bad that the tax payers of Richton Park have to foot the bill, especially when we're raising village fees by 100% with our 5 year plan. But apparently this is the only "perk" left for the board so "hands off". It doesn't matter that our board members get paid to the tune of some $16,000 (if you don't take the health insurance option) a year. I say if you want to drink yourself silly, stay downtown at your own expense. If you don't drink, and want to stay downtown at taxpayer expense  just for convienence, shame on you. What do you think our taxpayers are made of? Pay for it yourself!

Now, I am not a saint. I stayed downtown the first two years I was in office, but when the economy nose dived and we were raising village fees, I started to feel guilty. So I decided to save the village some money and not stay downtown this year. I asked the board to also do this, but apparently the plea fell on deaf ears. I use to work for companies that threw lavish Christmas parties downtown, but if you wanted to stay downtown for the night to avoid driving home inebriated or for the convenience, you got a hotel room at your own expense. I think we should do the same for our personnel.

We're just 30 miles from downtown Chicago and I think its an expense we could do without, especially in these rough economic times. Other villages in the area, like affluent Olympia Fields, don't allow their elected officials or staff to stay overnight in Chicago for any Chicago area conference, good economy or bad economy. I went to the seminars at the IML conference, went to a dinner party hosted by one of our vendors, then drove home at 10pm. It only took me 35 minutes to get home! Yet there were others that took a cab from this very same restaurant to the hotel and stayed overnight at $150 a pop! Even if you didn't drink, and you talk about getting up early the next day to go to seminars, its something millions of people do every day, and that's called going to work! When your home is in Carbondale, Champaign or Springfield, etc., stay downtown at a hotel and let your village pay for it. But when you live just 30 miles away, drive back and forth or pay to stay downtown yourself.

In total there was over $1,800 in hotel bills, plus cab rides and other expenses for members of the board and staff that were just 30 miles away from their homes. That's a lot of money to me, but apparently not to my fellow board members. I know we're dealing with a budget of over $20,000,000, so $2,000 is just a blip on the radar screen. But I don't think our revenues are going to be $20,000,000! We're going to wish we had that $2,000 back. Every $2,000 saved is $2,000 in the bank and it all adds up!

No pay raises for village employees, capital budgets reduced, hiring freezes, maintenance not being performed on vital village infrasturcture, when is the board going to wake up and smell the coffee?