Forest Park is broke.
Has been for years. And while it operates within the very real strictures of being a non-Home Rule community, it has done precious little to find new revenue sources or to make fundamental changes that might lower costs.
This predicament was in sharp relief at the most recent village council meeting where the mayor and commissioners received the latest financial audit. The village and its hard-working finance staff did fine in the minutia of such an audit. All the columns added up. All the necessary documents were produced for the auditors.
But the underlying story is that Forest Park is sinking financially.
Credit to Commissioner Maria Maxham who keeps coming back to the reality that the village council has to take action. Now.
She put back on the table the obvious and overdue idea to impose a so-called “places of eating” tax. We’ll call it a restaurant tax. Estimates are that it will raise $1 million annually. Most towns have such a tax. It is one of the limited taxes allowed to non-Home Rule towns. And it raises money from the many people in surrounding burgs who choose to eat out in Forest Park.
Do this. Now.
Mayor Rory Hoskins noted that the new state budget will reimburse Forest Park approximately $1 million a year for its police and ambulance calls to the Blue Line CTA terminus on Desplaines. Hoskins gets credit for pushing this provision into the massive state public transit overhaul.
At the same meeting the council OK’d a plan to borrow $1.5 million from Forest Park Bank to effectively make a deposit on a new fire truck. In our experience, it is not normal to borrow money for a new piece of fire equipment. This is why towns plan and save and scrimp to have cash in reserve for these major capital investments. Not a working option right now for cash-strapped Forest Park.
Which brings us to our always unpopular question of why does Forest Park need its own fire department? It comes with its own decrepit fire station, costly equipment which might be duplicated by other local departments, and it carries its own administrative structure and the costs connected to that staffing.
Why can’t Forest Park sit with officials from North Riverside, River Forest, Maywood, and Oak Park and sincerely discuss the pros and cons of a regional fire protection district? There is pride that stops it. There are certainly logistical complications that would need to be approached with an open mind. But it is not an impossible leap from mutual aid to a regional department.
We are not hopeful this will happen. But something real has to happen to bring down fixed costs in Forest Park. It will bring pain to effect genuine change. But that’s what we elect officials to do.
