Peoria’s Neighborhood Development Manager Leslie McKnight has sent an e-mail to all the neighborhood associations urging them to tell their Illinois legislators to vote “no” on House Bill 4130.  Here’s what City Manager Randy Oliver had to say about it:

HB 4130 Bill would require cities to pay for consolidated primary elections. Counties currently are required to pay. City tax payers pay the same taxes as County taxpayers. Consequently this bill is blatantly unfair and just another way to get into the City’s pocket. Please contact members of the House and encourage to just say “NO” to this unfair legislation. The language from the bill and background is as follows:
[…]
HB 4130 amends the Election Code requiring home rule municipalities within counties with a population less than 120,000 to reimburse the county for all of the costs and expenses of a consolidated primary election (now, counties required to pay). It also provides that if the county contains more than one home rule municipality, then those municipalities shall share the reimbursement proportionately based on population of the municipalities. In all, thirty-seven home rule municipalities are affected but all communities should be concerned with this type of legislation mandating that municipalities pay for what historically has been a county expense. IML [Illinois Municipal League] OPPOSES.

So, where did this “blatantly unfair” legislation come from?  Answer:  Macon County, home of the cities of Decatur and Forsyth.  According to the Decatur Herald & Review, Decatur held a primary election last February to “reduce the number of city council candidate[s] for the April election from seven to six.”  The cost to hold that primary was estimated to be between $80,000 and $100,000.  Who paid for it?  Macon County taxpayers. 

Rep. Bill Mitchell thought it was rather unfair for residents of the entire county, including his home town of Forsyth, to pony up the money for a primary election that only benefitted Decatur, so he introduced HB 4130, which would require a city like Decatur to reimburse the county for consolidated election expenses.

The bill was carefully crafted to try to exclude as many cities as possible, while still applying to Decatur.  For instance, it only applies to “home rule” municipalities (there are 167 of those, including Peoria).  But it doesn’t apply to counties that have a population over 120,000 — that means the law applies to Macon county (pop. 110,980 in 2004), but not Peoria county (pop. 182,418 in 2004).

Since it wouldn’t apply to Peoria, I wonder why neighborhood organizations here are being urged to take a stand on it.  Maybe they’re afraid once a bill like this gets through, all they need to do is fiddle with the numers a little and Peoria will be in the mix, too.

I have to agree that it sounds like a bad bill to me all the way around.  County residents don’t seem to mind taking tax money from city residents, but when it comes time to spend that money on a city election, they balk.  You can’t have it both ways, in my opinion.

It doesn’t look like it will matter to anyone now, since Rep. Bill Mitchell tabled his own bill in committee today.  It didn’t have much chance of passing with the Illinois Municipal League against it anyway.