Politics & Government
'No-Teeth Bill Would Let Group Suggest Government Units to Cut
A similar bill -- one that would allow a committee to determine governments to be eliminated -- failed this month; township Supervisor John Argoudelis lauded its demise.
At this week's Board meeting, Supervisor John Argoudelis made a case for the fall of , which went up in smoke by a wide margin early this month.
The bill would have created a eight-member commission to decide which 250 taxing bodies would be eliminated on an annual basis. The goal was to start trimming some of Illinois' nearly 7,000 government units -- the only state that comes close to that number is Pennsylvania, which has about 4,900.
Argoudelis labeled the measure “a broad brush to take away local control.”
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“Allowing a small group in Springfield or Chicago to decide if the oldest form of government should be allowed to exist is not going to happen,” he said. "That's a good thing."
When he walks down the street, people know him, Argoudelis said. If somebody doesn’t like the way he’s handling things, they’re going to let him know about it. Centralizing government services would strip local voters of that kind of face time, he said.
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While fiercely against SB 173, it does not oppose House Bill 268, a toothless version of the one that failed this month. It, too, forms a commission on local government consolidation, but would be only advisory in nature.
Under the defeated bill, a taxing body could end up on the chopping block by a majority vote of the commission. Then it would move straight to vote with no avenue for attaching items. If lawmakers failed to vote on a purge item, it would pass without a vote.
HB 268 is a softer, gentler government reduction plan, requiring representatives of different types of governing bodies – including townships – to sit on the 17-member commission. HB 268 passed the House with a unanimous vote and is now pending in the Senate Committee on Assignments, according to information on the Illinois Municipal League Web site.
ARGOUDELIS WATCH: 192 days since Election Day 2010 and still no statement from Plainfield Township Supervisor John Argoudelis on whether he intends to be both township supervisor and a Will County Board member.
