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Health & Fitness

Village Trustees are proactively Wasting Money and potentially Inflicting Long Term Damage to the Village of Winnetka

I am a resident of Winnetka with a family that likes to swim in Lake Michigan.

A few weeks ago, a friend asked me to Vote No on the Winnetka Tunnel. With all the conflicting communications, I decided to investigate on my own, asking questions in emails to Steve Saunders (the Village Public Works Manager) to discover what is really happening. 

My conclusion is that the current Village Trustees cannot be trusted and are in the process of acting unilaterally in a way that will either waste money or waste money and do long term damage.

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Waste

1.    Guaranteed amounts… The Trustees issued $16.5 million in bonds in 2013, paying 4+ % on interest, while having $40 million in reserve earning near 0% in CDs. At 4% spread, this costs the Village $660,000 per year. At the last Village meeting, one of the Trustees suggested that the Village could self-finance these bonds from its $40 million reserve to save on interest costs and was immediately hushed up by another Trustee who reminded him that the bonds were already issued. Guaranteed waste is $1.32 million, as money is not needed until Jan 2016. Further waste is $660,000 per year thereafter for the term of the bond.

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2.    Optional amounts… If the Village chooses to spend $45 million ($34.4 for construction estimated by Village + financing) on a Tunnel and gets the permits to do this (definitely not a cake walk), it will entail two types of liability risks. First lawsuits against the Village for polluting Lake Michigan. And Second the distinct possibility that the Village will have to stop using the Tunnel before its 30-year bonds are paid. Currently, there are no federal or state regulations on the carcinogens and neurotoxins in stormwater pollution. The EPA does have rules on e-coli (also in stormwater). However the regulations being advocated by the respectable environmentalists (including the one that Steve Saunders pointed me to to understand Winnetka’s current Lake Michigan beach pollution levels) are all advocating regulations that would make discarding any stormwater into the Lake illegal. For context, pre-Tunnel Winnetka already has some of the most polluted beaches in Illinois (and Illinois ranks 24th of 30 measured States in beach pollution: not quite the worst but competitive).

In Summary, the Village Trustees unilaterally (without a Village vote) guaranteed wasting $1.32 million on unnecessary pre-construction money and an additional $660,000 per year for the term of the bond by not self-financing. If the Tunnel gets built, the Trustees will significantly increase the pollution levels to our already over polluted beaches. Let’s call that damage. If the Tunnel gets shut down after its construction starts, the Village will have wasted more money: the value of the bonds and/or reserve in addition to their interest, as we (the Village and hence the taxpayers) will not be getting our money back. Then more money will likely have to be spent to solve the problem that the Tunnel claims to solve, except by using environmentally sound techniques instead. So, either we get Waste ($1.32 million guaranteed; now it is a question of how much) or Damage and Waste (yet to be seen).

Cannot be trusted

The Village Trustees just circulated a brochure that is broadly deceptive and in one specific case actually makes a statement that is factually not true.

First, the fact problem: The brochure states and I quote "MWH has demonstrated ... superior environmental expertise”. The actual fact is that MWH has hired a company called Baetis as a subcontractor to do the environmental evaluation work. This is documented in MWH’s bid for the work and confirmed in my email dialogue by Steve Saunders. Tell me, why is MWH hiring environmental expertise if they have demonstrated superior ability before?

Second, the deception problem: I asked Steve Saunders to tell me the pollution analysis that was completed before deciding on the Tunnel. He confirms in writing that no such analysis has been done yet. Steve tells me that the pollution analysis is being done by Baetis under the management contract of MWH. He tells me that it is one of the steps in the MWH work plan. I asked for the decision criteria that will be used to evaluate acceptable pollution levels. He tells me that he cannot answer policy questions. I asked him why money was already raised to build the Tunnel if the decision to build had not been decided? Again he tells that he cannot answer policy questions. I inform him that MWH will make more money on their work plan, which entails confirming engineering designs (MWH’s genuine expertise) for the Tunnel, if the pollution levels are reported to be “acceptable”. And as a consequence, Baetis (the environmentalist) working for MWH (the engineer) is actually a conflict of interest. Again he tells me that he cannot answer policy questions. … So I conclude that the idea that the Village Trustees actually care about pollution is a deception. All the evidence (pollution not evaluated yet, evaluation controlled by a company who has a financial conflict of interest, decision criteria has not been made public, decision criteria has not been given to the manager of public works, money has already been raised to start building the Tunnel) indicates that the Village Trustees already decided independent of understanding the pollution consequence and hence do not care. Or maybe they care emotionally, but are simply too incompetent to care through action. Certainly their stewardship of wasting a guaranteed $1.32 million with the potential of more for no benefit suggests a competence issue. Maybe it is a little bit of everything.

Believe what you like, but whatever you do, please VOTE on March 18th. 

Personally, I like Lake Michigan and do not want to help finance polluting it further for no obvious reason (as there are alternative ways to address the flooding in Winnetka). But what REALLY BURNS me up is the dishonesty and deception percolating from this group of Village Trustees. Or if you prefer to be polite, let’s just call it gross incompetence. And they want YOU and ME to pay for it now and for the next 30 years. My apologies if I am offending anyone.

Please vote.

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