Paul Schore looks back on 28-year career as Bourbonnais trustee, mayor

BOURBONNAIS – Paul Schore had his first brush with politics as a 10-year-old.

He helped his father, Bernard, put up election posters in the village.

Back in the 1960s, Schore’s father was the part-time police chief for the village, which was far from its population growth in the late 1980s and forward.

His father and mother, Marie, built a home on West River Street.

Little did Schore know the impact he would have on the former sleepy, little village for the past 28 years.

In May, Schore’s 17-year run as mayor concludes, when he hands over the gavel to fellow Bourbonnais Citizens Party member Jeff Keast.

Keast defeated Schore in the February primary followed by dispatching David Zinnani in the April 1 general municipal election.

From the get go, Schore said it was never about him.

Back in 1997 then-Mayor Grover Brooks asked Schore to run for trustee.

“I foolishly did. I knew what I was kind of getting into,” Schore said earlier this week during an interview in the mayor’s office.

All but the village zoning map hung on the walls. All that was left in a bookcase were the books and binders he felt necessary for the new mayor.

It has always been about the residents of Bourbonnais for Schore.

“I was just planning on giving back,” he said.

“I still don’t look at this as politics, to be honest with you. I don’t like politics. I’m probably the least political person you’re probably ever going to meet,” Schore said. “I kind of look at it more as a job. There are things that need to get done, and you just go about your job and try to get things done. That’s really the simplest way to do it.”

Schore had some help.

The late Vera Amiano ran for trustee as well in 1997. Schore knew of her through her job at the Bank of Bourbonnais.

After they were elected, Schore said the two made a pact.

“We kind of made a pact between the two of us that we weren’t cutting any deals. We weren’t going to play any politics,” Schore said. “We were just going to do whatever it took for the village. That was all we were going to do. And we did. I was fortunate enough to serve with her for 20 years. She was a great lady.”

Schore said he will miss meeting and working with the staff. He is proud of all they accomplished.

“That was one of the reasons I ran again, to be honest with you, for the staff. I wanted to see this group collectively stay together,” Schore said. “I kind of felt like we caught lightning in a bottle getting the group of people we’ve got together now.”

Schore and his wife, Mary, will be kept busy by their five grandchildren who live here. The couple has three children – Beth, Mark and Matt.

Schore said he will keep busy with the village’s sesquicentennial, as well as helping with the annual Friendship Festival.

Here are observations from Schore about the past 28 years:

Last election

“Well, it was somewhat disappointing [being defeated]. I thought we ran a very clean campaign. I’m not one that likes to get into mudslinging and all those kinds of things. Some of the other people, that’s how they want to do things,” Schore said.

“I think the low voter turnout was substantially an issue. It was what it was. I never looked at this thing as something that I planned on necessarily doing as long as I did, to be perfectly honest with you.

“We just kind of kept going and kept doing things. One thing led to another. My world’s not coming to an end,” he said. “Hopefully, the next person will have the ethics and the wherewithal and the honesty to keep things going, I hope.”

Sewer system sale

In 2021, the village sold its wastewater system to Aqua Illinois for $32.1 million.

Owners of homes paid a set rate at the time. Aqua already supplied the village water.

Aqua instituted a usage system to tabulate monthly bills.

It has not gone unnoticed by the village residents.

“It was a three-year process, I would say, from when Aqua approached about doing it. I was very much [against] it at first,” Schore said.

“I kept telling them they didn’t have enough money. We started diving into the nuts and bolts of the sewer system and what the real costs were, what the costs were going to escalate to, and what the ongoing repairs and replacements were going to be. We got estimates on what it was going to take and projected out over a lot of years as far as what the expenses were going to be.

“It got to the point where you just started looking at that and what Aqua eventually was offering to buy that. The fact that too, like many, many cities throughout the United States, they’re getting out of the utility business. Government isn’t exactly the best person to run utilities.

“One of the reasons is that the elected officials have a tendency not to want to raise rates and costs to the taxpayers. They try to keep it unbelievably inexpensive and whatever, which sounds very good. Meanwhile, your system suffers.”

Bourbonnais Parkway interchange

“Talk about that. That was a project. That was 18 years. I started on that. I was a trustee, it was a journey,” Schore said.

The Bourbonnais Parkway/6000N Road and Interstate 57 interchange project had a contract cost of $63 million. It opened in 2018.

It gave Bourbonnais and Kankakee County another point where business and industry could build on.

“We’ve already got the million dollars back and what we have gotten off it are property tax and sales tax and gaming tax off entities in that area,” Schore said.

The $65-million PSI, Inc., warehouse project is tentatively set to begin construction in August south of the Road Ranger Travel Center located on the southwest side of the exit.

The interchange and parkway are on land annexed into the village.

Land owners and developers work the deals with the village there to provide the business tax increment funds for building infrastructure, which they pay back over a matter of time.

“It’s local people that own the property up there. It’s going to be up to what they want to do,” Schore said.

“I mean, this is the private sector doing this. They’re the ones that drive that. You know, people think the government just tells different people, ‘OK, you come build here, and you go build there,’ and that’s not how it works.”

The Grove

The $18.2 million project turned Robert Goselin Memorial Park into a huge drawing card in the village since last June when a majority of it opened to the public.

The project was financed by municipal bonds and money from the village’s three business taxing districts, and interest earned from the $32.1 million the village received selling its wastewater treatment system to Aqua Illinois.

The idea began five years ago with administrator Mike Van Mill and assistant administrator Laurie Cyr and other members of the staff kicking around ideas.

“It just kind of started to snowball from there,” Schore said.

“It was very time consuming, but it was very fruitful. We found out what people wanted.” he said. “I think it’s evident from the use that we’re getting out of that facility. It’s what people were looking for.”