Joliet narrowly approves local grocery tax

The Joliet City Council voted 5-4 to keep in place a 1% grocery tax now being imposed by the state.

Instead, Joliet will impose the tax starting Jan. 1 when the state repeals it.

Joliet already gets the money imposed by the state grocery tax so by keeping it in place locally the city keeps the revenue source.

Joliet and other municipalities have been making the decision whether to keep the tax in place to keep the revenue coming in as the state abandons it.

For Joliet, the tax amounts to $3.7 million a year.

“I know that $3.7 million is not a large part of our budget,” Mayor Terry D’Arcy said.

But D’Arcy joined four council members to provide the fifth vote needed to create the local grocery tax.

Councilman Larry Hug, who voted against it, said that the state created “a whole list” of other taxes, including a service tax, that “far outweigh” the revenue collected from the grocery tax.

The state in repealing the grocery tax gave local municipalities the option of keeping it in place.

The Lockport City Council votes Wednesday on whether to impose its own local 1% grocery tax. Other communities, including Plainfield and Shorewood, have already decided to impose the local tax to keep the revenue.

No one showed up at council meetings on Monday and Tuesday to object to the local grocery tax.

One resident, Larry Crawford, spoke in favor of it on Tuesday.

“I just think it’s a valuable resource for us to maintain,” Crawford told the council.

While the local grocery tax did not generate any outcry at the council meetings, Councilwoman Jan Quillman said she had been “inundated by phone calls” on the issue.

“Every penny counts when you don’t have a lot of money coming in,” Quillman said.

Councilwoman Suzanna Ibarra, who voted for the local tax, criticized the the way in which it was handed off to municipalities.

“I am unhappy with our state legislators and our governor putting us in this position,” Ibarra said.

In addition to Ibarra and D’Arcy, council members Cesar Cardenas Pat Mudron and Sherri Reardon voted for the tax.

Voting against it in addition to Hug and Quillman were council members Joe Clement and Juan Moreno.