Marseilles Mayor: ‘If you want to see your taxes go up, then we can sit still and not grow at all’

After lowering its previously requested increase on the 2020 tax levy, the Marseilles City Council on Wednesday unanimously approved the new request by a 5-0 vote.

That did not happen, however, until after a public hearing that saw Mayor Jim Hollenbeck and the city commissioners defend the city’s need to better fund its police pensions and its ongoing efforts to extend northward toward Interstate 80.

The initial tax levy request, which the City Council voted to put on file two weeks ago, would have resulted in a $39.69 increase on the property taxes of a $100,000 home, Commissioner Bobby Kaminski said after the Dec. 2 meeting.

“When we put it on file, we kind of went back a little bit with everything going on with COVID,” Kaminski said Wednesday. “Mike (Etscheid, the city’s engineer) and I sat down, crunched some more numbers, stripped out as much as we can that we thought it feasible to.”

The revised tax levy approved Wednesday will increase taxes by $21.50 on a $100,000 home.

“But we also want to make sure we’re planning for the future,” Kaminski said.

When asked about ever-increasing taxation both at the local and state levels and the city’s ongoing efforts to extend its business footprint to I-80, council members took turns responding, mentioning the need to replace century-old infrastructure, add new businesses to spread out the overall tax burden and continue applying for grants.

Specifically, the council suggested the decades-long efforts to annex land, extend water and sewer service and attract new businesses along Interstate 80 would ultimately be beneficial to the city and the taxpayer.

“If you want to see your taxes go up, then we can sit still and not grow at all,” Hollenbeck said. “Because our (equalized assessed value) has to go up in order for our taxes to go down. ...

“We have held the line on taxes for about 15 years – two or three dollars, four or five dollars here and there. It’s to the point we can’t continue to keep doing that. We’ve enjoyed the ride as long as we can.”

Available grants and businesses interested in building along I-80 create “an opportunity we just cannot pass up,” Commissioner Gary Lewey said. “This is what we’ve been looking forward to, actually more than 40 years.”

In other business, the council:

• Joined Police Chief Brian Faber in honoring Officer James Buckingham with a Life Safety Award for his actions in saving the life of a man with a 98% artery blockage.

• Conditionally approved the purchase of a $46,778 LED emergency sign that would be placed near the fire department and the park “if we get the funding,” the mayor said, adding it “would be a great asset for the park.”

• Approved an informational meeting set for 6 p.m. Jan. 6 to discuss the Commercial and Main streets realignment project.