How Engaged Are You? Home Rule Referendum Coming

Tutty's been looking over the City of Freeport's Strategic Vision and Goals 2020-2022.  This document  was approved a few months back by the Freeport City Council.  You can peruse what's often called the "strategic plan" by copying and pasting the web address that follows:
https://cityoffreeport.org/city-documents/documents/2019/StrategicPlan2020_2022.pdf

The page Tutty's looking at today is page five with the heading "Diverse and Engaged Citizens" partially pictured below.

Let's agree that Freeport is a fairly diverse community but much beyond that the rest of this paragraph seems to be little more than make believe.  The opening sentence, written in the first person,  purports that "We are an inclusive, diverse and growing community comprised of engaged citizens."

In the next two sentences the author switches to third person and states "Freeport is a community where everyone can participate.  Citizens are well informed of positive momentum and challenges facing the community, empowered as part of the solution."

Just those three sentences are too much for Tutty to take without stopping and elaborating.
While Freeport is diverse, and Tutty has always appreciated that attribute, we are not a "growing community" nor is city government "inclusive" by nearly any measure.  In Tutty's opinion there is little hope of finding a "strategic" solution when the foundation is being built on fiction.

Citizens of Freeport are engaged, but not in the happenings of local government and their taxes and municipal debt.  Freeporters are too engaged in trying to carve out a living or support their addictions.  All those gambling machines don't feed themselves. 

Some are trying to pay  all the fees on the water bills.  Tutty digresses but can any city council member explain why someone that does not have a car, lives on an undersized lot without off street parking, pay the same amount in the "Road Improvements" fee as someone that has four cars and a garage too large to fit on the first person's undersized lot?
Will any city council member, the mayor, or city manager explain how this is equitable?   

Where does the Freeport City Council get the idea that "Freeport is a community where everyone can participate"? 

For the past 30-years the city council has been using home rule powers to exclude the public from the decision making process every time they can.  There has not been one binding referendum on a tax or spend issue in the last 40-years despite a plethora of local taxes and a mountain of public debt in Freeport.  The Freeport City Council has even used home rule to get around formal notice (publishing) and public hearing requirements required of non-home rule units regarding taking on debt.  They borrow from us, and don't even tell us.  How is that engaging the public Freeport City Council?

If the Freeport City Council really wants public engagement they would want to eliminate the largest block to public engagement these past several decades

How do citizens become well informed in a town and county that has virtually no credible media, unless, of course, it's high school sports.  Who covers what the Stephenson County Board, the Freeport City Council and other units of local government are actually doing on our alleged behalf.  The Journal-Standard and local radio are little more than a bad joke foisted upon Freeporters by media businesses more interested in collecting advertising fees than increasing public enlightenment.

Five Freeport City Council members will be up for reelection one year from now.  However, prior to that, the home rule question will be on the November general election ballot.  Let's pay attention to which city council members really want a "community where everyone can participate" or remain a home rule city where only a handful of elected officials make all the tax and spend issues and while only leaving the public with the bills for their decisions/

As always, yours in honesty, Tutty Baker tutty.baker@gmail.com 

  

The Home Rule Referendum and City Ordinances

Earlier this year the City of Freeport received certified notice that the city's population had fallen below 25,000, triggering an Illinois Statute which requires the municipal clerk to place a referendum on the next general election ballot asking residents if they wish to remain a home rule unit.

Suddenly, now that home rule is a ballot issue subject to a forthcoming referendum, the Freeport City Council wants to "talk" about the vast and liberal powers home rule bestows upon the Freeport City Council.

Despite the fact the Freeport City Council has been using home rule powers very liberally for the past 30-years, they've never wished to discuss how home rule was being used until it became a referendum issue.  Tutty can only remember one time home rule was publicly discussed on the council floor in the past three decades.  That time was during the Jim Gitz administration when he, as Mayor, vetoed the budget brought forth by the council because it contained a home rule sales tax increase.  Mayor Gitz publicly proclaimed that he thought raising the sales tax without referendum approval was an improper use of home rule powers.

Now, suddenly the City Council is adamant amount discussing home rule authority, as a matter of fact, as part of the Strategic Plan being brought forward at the November 15, 2021 Council meeting using city resources for a "Home Rule Campaign" is part of the strategic plan.

What's more,  according to approved meeting minutes from the City Council's strategic planning sessions on September 10 and 11, "Protecting and promoting Home Rule....is important."

And then there are all the public utterances recorded during council meetings citing the importance of retaining home rule powers.

The Freeport City Council, and perhaps more importantly, their high-paid legal counsel from Rockford, do not seem to realize that it's very likely unlawful for the Freeport City Council to take a stand on a referendum issue. 

Did any member of the Freeport City Council or their attorney even consider these facts?  Has the attorney being paid by public dollars even bothered to review Freeport ordinances regarding the subject?  To Tutty, it appears not.  Here's why.

Chapter 218 of the Codified Ordinances of the City of Freeport is meant to keep the Freeport City Council from using their official duties and our tax dollars to play politics and is vividly clear. 

Chapter 218 defines "Prohibited political activity" as "Campaigning for any elective office or for or against any referendum question." as well as "Managing or working on a campaign for elective office or for or against any referendum question."  Among many other things.  Tutty would encourage, the Freeport City Council, the Mayor, the City Manager and their attorney to familiarize themselves with the City of Freeport's Codified Ordiances.

Tutty sure wants to know how the City Council plans on "Protecting and promoting"  home rule and not be in violation of local ordinance and state statute.  Will the Council also hold a vote to endorse congressional candidates?

Last Spring our state's attorney as well as our state senator and representative went crazy with public pronouncements at the mere complaint of electioneering.  How is this not a clear violation of Freeport City ordinances as a public body is blatantly using public resources to "protect and promote" a referendum issue.

Also of note,  Chapter 218 also states that "A person who intentionally violates any provision of Section 218.02 may be punished by a term of incarceration in a penal institution other than a penitentiary for  period of not more than 364 days, and may be fined in an amount not to exceed two thousand five hundred dollars ($2,500).

So perhaps the mayor and city council might want to think long and hard before officially approving any documents claiming to support a "Home Rule Campaign".  

As always, yours in honesty, Tutty Baker, tutty.baker@gmail.com