Delaying New Elmhurst Police Station Suggested
ELMHURST, IL – To make a new police station a reality, Elmhurst must find a way to come up with $3.5 million a year for a couple of decades, officials said Monday.
The money would pay back the $48 million in debt for tearing down the current station and replacing it with a bigger one .
On Monday, the City Council's finance committee reviewed options for tax increases for the station. Committee members had already ruled out ending the local bans on video gambling or marijuana dispensaries, which are businesses that the city could tax.
At the meeting, members reviewed proposals to increase real estate transfer taxes and vehicle sticker fees. Those ideas attracted little interest.
On the other hand, members seemed to favor some type of mix of increases in property, sales and hotel taxes.
Alderman Chris Jensen suggested holding off on building a new police station for a few years. That would be while interest rates likely dropped and existing debt rolled off the city's books, he said.
"It's something to consider," he said.
Alderwoman Noel Talluto, who heads the committee, was open to the idea. But she said the city, in the meantime, should make some money available to the police department for the building's most pressing problems.
"We've been talking about a new police station for five or six years. Our police department has been soldiering on," she said.
Money to address key issues, Talluto said, would help the police department "in a way that is balanced for the pocketbooks of the community."
On the fastest timetable, the city would break ground on the police station in 2026, with debt payments starting the following year, officials said.
Talluto said the committee had no definite deadline to complete its discussion. The committee plans to continue it next month.
