Waukegan Talk

Hold on to your wallets, here come the new taxes. I think the forest preserve maybe better custodian for the beach front, but I will never pay to use a beach with PCB's,diapers and asbestos.


'We are in a bind'
Council mulls idea of selling Municipal Beach

September 9, 2010


Saying that municipal revenues continue to decline and more funding deficits are possible, Mayor Robert Sabonjian led a brainstorming session at Tuesday's City Council meeting that mulled such possibilities of taxing rental property and/or selling Municipal Beach.

"The latest (revenue report) was disheartening to say the least," Sabonjian said. "We are getting hammered out there, and it doesn't seem to be abating. It seems to be getting worse."

The idea of taxing both residential and commercial rental property was detailed by corporation counsel Newton Finn, who said home-rule communities like Waukegan are authorized to tax lease receipts.

"Virtually every municipality in the state of Arizona taxes rental property," said Finn, adding that Mesa, Ariz., collects $18 million annually through a 2.2 percent tax on commercial rentals and 1.75 percent on residential.

"It's one of their largest sources of revenue," Finn said. "No one likes to raise taxes, (but) this would not raise taxes for owner-occupied, single-family homes. This would tax landlords."

Ninth Ward Ald. Rafael Rivera questioned the concept, saying "the bottom line is the renter is going to be affected by this, because the landlord's going to raise the rent, and those (renters) are people that are struggling."

The lease-receipts tax, like all of the proposals aired Tuesday, are slated to be analyzed by the city's finance department before any concrete proposals move before the council. Among the ideas suggested by Sabonjian as "a few areas where we can leverage assets or make changes in order to raise significant revenues":


• Selling Municipal Beach -- which Sabonjian described as a "valuable asset that the city has held onto for many years but always struggled to turn into a profitable operation" -- to either the Waukegan Park District or the Lake County Forest Preserve District.

Acknowledging that the idea might be considered "a highly controversial suggestion," Sabonjian said such a deal could bring in "millions of dollars (and) could include provisions to provide Waukegan residents access" at a discounted rate.


• A 3- to 5-percent tax on all packaged or poured alcoholic beverages.


• Increased parking rates at municipal lots, possibly including monthly passes with discounted rates for residents.


• Increased rates at the lakefront Metra lot, and searching for what Sabonjian described as "a more profitable food and beverage vendor" at the station.


• Improving and leasing the two city-owned retail spaces in the parking garage along Clayton Street for commercial use. Citing the "hundreds" of people who visit the nearby County Building each day, Sabonjian said "that is a market we should be capturing."

Sabonjian also suggested that a deal to privatize or sell the Genesee Theatre could be constructed to include "an upfront payment into the price to cover some of our past costs, and then require the buyer to pay our yearly debt-service costs for the remainder of the life of the bonds that were used to build it."

Some aldermen offered revenue concepts, with Rivera calling for a review of fines and fees, and 8th Ward Ald. Rick Larsen suggesting a public/private lakefront campground to offer an alternative to sold-out sites at Illinois Beach State Park.

While it remains to be seen what if anything will be considered by the council, Sabonjian asked members of the council to keep ideas coming.

"We are in a bind, and it's going to take a whole lot of things to get out of it," he said. "We haven't gone through the worst yet. It's still coming."

Selling the lakefront to the Waukegan Park District will only move the tax burden from one pocket to the other. The Park District will finance the 'purchase' by selling...you guessed it: bonds, paid for by taxes. If you sell it to the Lake County Forest Preserve District, you still will have the taxpayers footing the bill. Just that it'll be all of Lake County paying for it and not just Waukegan citizens.

A more profitable vendor in the train station will require some changes to the Metra station. Its operating hours prevent a vendor from taking advantage of all incoming and outgoing travelers. Either the operating hours will need to be expanded (and Metra would not be willing to do this.) or perform some remodeling to the station so that a vendor could have direct outside access. (I'd rather implode the ugly thing and put up a decent looking building; but the city would have to work 'outside the box' to get it designed, built and paid for.)

Privatizing the theatre: They should have sold it years ago instead of keeping it as a city-owned and maintained property. There may be buyers, but it's a buyers market (for those with the money to buy) and the City better beware about who they sell it too. Do they want another 'Fiesta Palace'? If they sell it, sell it to a nationally or regionally recognized organization; not some unknown outfit. Remember 'Revolution Partners'? They were unknown but got their pick of downtown properties which have basically gone nowhere. They got a writeoff and the City got empty space. We still don't know who is behind this outfit and how they managed to get these properties without competitive bidding.

Raising liquor taxes,.. why stop there? Why not have a city tax on food? Oh yeah, those people who need their booze are a fairly reliable source of cash. Tax something that a majority of voters need and you'll be out of office in no time.

Improving and leasing the garage retail space. Well goodness gracious...how long did that take to figure out? Five years? But like with the theatre proposal, they can't be overly picky. There are fast food companies that still want to franchise. The courthouse and CLC both have the ability to provide a customer base to make this location profitable. Tell the Business Development Czars to stop sitting and collecting a city paycheck and aggressively work with franchisors and potential franchisees.

Go ahead, raise a tax on package liquor and tavern drinks, I'll just buy my bourbon outside Waukegan. It's funny to me that these incompetents never take a pay cut themselves. Yea, the Mayor is taking 12 furlough days, but that is meaningless in the overall economic picture. An across the board pay cut and benefit cut for the Mayor and Aldermen would be the rational thing to do. Why are Aldermen included in the pension program? Do they also receive healthcare benefits for themselves and perhaps even for their spouses? Remember a few months back in the news regarding the city's wish list for construction projects? Why are we still talking about these wasteful lakefront projects? Moving tracks? Lakefront bike paths? City-owned property renovation? Well, that whole theater thing didn't work, let's plow on with lakefront development, maybe that will work. Look at all the grading work they did at the old diamond scrap yard property and south. That developer was asking for 3.8 million dollars at a recent council meeting.
We're B-R-O-K-E and deeply in debt. Thanks to gmg77 for the items listed below. The comments in red are mine

$1 million toward rehabilitation of city-owned buildings in the downtown or lakefront areas. One candidate mentioned by the city for “redevelopment or demolition” is the former News-Sun building on Sheridan Road. Wasn't that whole block purchased by a developer?

* $1 million toward acquisition of downtown and/or lakefront property. Possible projects mentioned include buying land for the modernization of Pershing Road, relocation of rail lines, and extension of the Belvidere Road bridge across the Amstutz Expressway to the lakefront. Are these people crazy?
* $1.1 million for improvements to slip No. 3 in Waukegan Harbor, which is currently a containment cell for 1991 PCB dredging material and is proposed to be used for boat storage. Is this city getting into the boat storage business?

* $740,000 for engineering on two proposed bridge projects — the Belvidere Road extension, and rehabilitation of the Genesee Street bridge over the Waukegan River. City officials report the Genesee bridge, last renovated in 1984, has deteriorated to the point where it could be closed to traffic. Fix the genesee street bridge and forget about extending the Belvidere Road bridge, we're in a DEPRESSION!
* $550,000 for improvements to the police station on West Street, including upgrading the heating and cooling system. Another $300,000 is proposed for repairs at fire stations 1 and 4, both of which are reported to need new roofs.

* Transportation improvements include $1.5 million toward repaving of about five miles of streets that have yet to be designated; $200,000 toward a Lake County project to widen Delany Road north of Sunset Avenue; and $130,000 toward construction of a proposed $2 million lakefront bike path from the Waukegan Metra station to Gate 4 at Naval Station Great Lakes. 2 million dollar bike path? I just don't think these people understand what their mission is as aldermen.

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Only projects which are needed to maintain safety should be considered. Others need to be eliminated, redesigned or scaled back. Also, the bidding process will need to be open to not just the 'usual suspects', but to any company which has the resources and expertise to do it.

Don't put any stock in 'talk of developers'. This was part of the old Hyde Administration process which they would make grand claims of 'big developers', which turned out to be nothing but smoke and mirrors. Of course, these plans would always be trotted out near election time, or when the heat was being turned on the City Council.

As for boat storage, who can afford a boat, or even consider moving their boat to a Waukegan facility which they have no way of knowing will ever exist or how much it will cost them?

$2 million bike path...yeah we have deteriorating fire department buildings. Thanks Hyde and Co for wanting your multi-million dollar palace built, knowing that city buildings which have a vital purpose were going to need work.

Go back to the drawing board and cut out the 'big plans'. The "Riviera on the Lake - Part Deux" will have to wait until the city manages to get its act together. We need halfway decent roads, sewers and city services more than a bike path.

Quote:The mayor says:• Improving and leasing the two city-owned retail spaces in the parking garage along Clayton Street for commercial use. Citing the "hundreds" of people who visit the nearby County Building each day, Sabonjian said "that is a market we should be capturing."

The mayor's ignorance of commercial real estate development really shows here. The idea of the empty shell is that a potential lessee can build it out to suit their particular business' needs. One size fits no one in the end. Anyone leasing the space would then have to wreck out everything the city had done so they could install their own interior. That space sits vacant because there is no demand for it. Many years ago, when the city began talk of downtown redevelopment, I suggested that Greenbay Road was our most heavily traveled thoroughfare and it might be a better idea to look at possible redevelopment there. Of course my drawback was(is) that I don't hold a college degree like the rest of our brilliant city elected officials over the years have and why should they listen to a carpenter with only a high school education? Two words comes to mind, COMMON SENSE. You know they always say that we have to offer higher wages and benefits for our local elected officials so we can continue to attract the best and the brightest. I wasn't going to drink today but...

Good luck to the city in trying to sell it. :lol:

As it is now, if I want to go to the lakefront, I prefer going up to IL State Beach Park or heading up to Kenosha Harbor. Not to mention the few public beaches in Lake Bluff and Lake Forest make us look pretty bad too.

Other than people who don't know better options exist not too far away, who likes going there? It's got a big asbestos pit being dug up nearby, not much of a boardwalk or park. The part that does have a park isn't maintained all that well. Nobody does much to clean it up. (Compared to Kenosha, where some park landscapers come every other day along with what appears to be volunteer groups). Other than the sand, the Waukegan beach is mostly weeds and garbage. There's a complete lack of pedestrian access along Seahorse drive (I hate to put it this way but it that road also looks like a** for the most part), it really needs a sidewalk with some separation from the road. That would probably involve tearing out the entire road and rerouting it to one side to get the necessary easement. (Already too close to a couple buildings as it is.) Make the beach accessible from the train station at least. And the one area hidden behind the bandshell thing that has a nice sidewalk is hidden and cutoff from the other side of the harbor. It doesn't go anywhere. It's doubtful that they could afford to put in a pedestrian bridge that would clear the barges and connect to the marina side, such that the path could actually go somewhere. Should also do something with that mostly dead strip of land north of the Navy base. (I don't think North Chicago owns it, do they?) It probably had as much thought put in as the Amstutz did when it got started. :roll:

Whoever buys it would have to spend at least 4x as much as they paid for it in order to make it half-decent. And that's if the surroundings properties can be improved to make it accessible and not scare off people before they even reach the beach. (Not that it doesn't ever have potential, but honestly, the city is too broke and borked to do anything.)