Mayors, farm bureau objecting to proposal
Protesters against plan to reduce size of Will County Board
Several south and southwest suburban mayors, residents and the Will County Farm Bureau raised objections Monday to Will County Executive Jennifer Bertino-Tarrant’s plan to reduce the number of representatives to the Will County Board.
The majority of speakers at the in-person public hearing opposed the plan to divides the county into 11 districts with two representatives per district, thereby eliminating four county board seats. Several emails were read into the record reflecting both support and opposition to the smaller county government.
Board members are expected to vote Oct. 21 whether to remap the county’s existing 13 districts or divide the county into the 11 districts. Both plans call for two representatives per district.
A bipartisan, ad hoc committee of board members has worked on the 13-district plan. Bertino-Tarrant presented her proposal last month.
Every 10 years, the county map must be reexamined to reflect population shifts based on the latest census data. One of the most important factors is an equal population in each district so that one vote does not have more
impact than another, said Will County Assistant State’s Attorney Mary Tatroe.
Mayors in Crete, Monee, Frankfort and Mokena were among those to object to the reduced board size.
Crete Mayor Michael Einhorn said if his town is grouped in with the larger municipality of Frankfort, it will dilute eastern Will County’s representation on the board.
“It’s kind of a standing joke on the eastern side like we are the forgotten people,” Einhorn said.
He said the 11-district map would dilute Crete’s representation in favor of people who “don’t even have any concept of where we’re at in regards to the general geography of Will County.” Einhorn agreed.
“It’s not broke,” he said of the existing 13-district map. “We don’t need to fix it.”
Monee Mayor Therese Bogs said her community of about 5,000 residents would be overshadowed by larger communities in the district proposed by the county executive. That would not be in Monee’s best interest, she said.
“None of this redistricting makes any sense except for the obvious political gains of others,”
on the Blue Island police Facebook post reporting the Oct. 1 crash, saying too many drivers speed despite school zones, park signage and lack of consistent enforcement.
“Get speed cameras up already to slow traffic from Sacramento to Highland at the least,” Eric Shaggy wrote. “How many incidents of road rage, accidents, hit and runs, and deaths need to happen before this option is at least tried? Nothing else is working or really being attempted that I’ve seen.”
After the April fatality, Maria Castaneda, an Illinois Department of Transportation spokesperson, said the state would revisit the issue but declined to offer any specifics at that time. She delivered a brief statement Monday saying the state will look into the issue but gave no further details.
“As a result of the fatality at 127th Street and Highland Avenue in April, the department inspected the area for signage and pavement marking condition,” Castaneda said. “We are working to see if any work orders were fulfilled to see exactly what was done and should have that information by the end of the week. The department has reached out to the Blue Island Police Department to obtain reports of the most recent crashes.”