Somewhere Winston Churchill and Mark Twain are
laughing.
Or rolling their eyes.
Or both.
Both knew, and pontificated, about the spread
of information – or let’s make that misinformation.
And this was before – long before –social
media. They were, actually eluding to
the spread if information as the result of the printing press.
In speaking about the printing press, Twain
noted that “It found truth astir on earth and gave it wings; but untruth was
also abroad, and it was supplied with a double pair of wings.”
Churchill, years later, noted that “A lie gets halfway around the world before
the truth has a chance to put its pants on.”
Had they attended the
Dec. 5 Village Board meeting, they would have seen a bunch of naked wings.
But it is an annual
rite of passage.
Budget hearings.
And much as the
swallows return to Capistrano and the buzzards to Hinckley, do the faultfinders
flock to Village Hall. On one hand, it’s encouraging to see residents show some
interest in civic matters. On the other
hand, it’s disheartening to see an attempt at civic engagement mired in a web
of inaccurate accusations – or naked wings.
There’s no hiding
the fact that village tax bills will increase.
And while there is plenty of room for debate about some expenditures,
there is more than enough room for things to be accurately presented.
It seems, however,
that some folks would rather take the opportunity to grandstand rather than, as
a mayor covered decades ago would say, “do their homework.”
 |
Faucet in hand, Craig Horowitz addresses the Village Board
during its Dec. 5 meeting. |
Take for example
resident Craig Horowitz. Who arrives on
the scene each November to begin his assault on the budget preparation work
done by the village.
This year was no
different with the exception that the word got around via incessant postings on
social media that the village was raising taxes beyond belief.
Ah, yes, the joys of
social media. Realizing that there are some folks in the village who may not live
and die by what they see on Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, and other
outlets, they took to putting flyers on mailboxes. No problem, except when you do it at
midnight, you raise suspicions of residents who, according to police reports,
called the police.
And while civic
engagement is an admirable thing, it generally works better when the engagement
is based on fact, rather than emotion.
You would think that
Horowitz would know that. The keyword here is would.
But that did not
appear to be the case. Horowitz began his 10 minutes of Board fame by
sophomorically displaying a faucet with dollar bills taped to it in an effort
to claim that the village thinks it can just turn on a faucet to get money from
taxpayers.
And the show went
from there. Facts? It seemed as though
they only got in the way of the evening’s dog and pony. Horowitz tried to prove
his point by making a number of assertions which missed the mark.
For example:
- The increase in the tax bill is all due to the
village. Fortunately, Trustee Joanne
Johnson pointed out that in actuality, the village accounts for less than 10
percent of the tax bill. She was close. Very close. The village portion of the
tax bill is 9 percent. The park
district, school districts and other taxing bodies account for the other 91 percent.
- Horowitz said he was appalled by a huge increase in
salaries for the Community Development Department. At face value he would be right. But a quick email or phone call to the village
finance czars would have yielded some important information. According to village officials, “the position of Village Planner was moved
out of the Office of Village Manager to Community Development. Just a
reclassification of salary, no additional dollars.” Details, details, details.
- In what may have seemed like a tribute to the late
Al Piemonte, Horowitz challenged plans for replacement of some village vehicles
based on how many miles they had over what appeared to be a relatively short
amount of time. Again, he forgot some details.
Unlike vehicles used by consumers,
municipal vehicles may run nonstop for hours each day, so a vehicle with 25,000
miles on it may have a service stress of 50,000 or more miles. According to
village sources, “The fleet
manager assigns a service life to all equipment. The life is based on expected
mileage and/or clock hours on the equipment. The service life sets the reserve
funding targets so that when a vehicle reaches the end of its service life the
replacement funds are available. That does not mean that the equipment is
automatically replaced when those years have lapsed. The decision to replace a
vehicle is based on safety, reliability, expected maintenance costs,
obsolescence and resale/salvage value.”
Horowitz said he checked with other municipalities and their vehicle
replacement program is not as aggressive as Buffalo Grove’s. That information was, however, based on what
Horowitz told them.
The
budget was posted on the village's web site (VBG Budget
Information) for a month so
residents could review it. As of Dec. 8
the budget had 152 hits, which is not a lot for a municipality the size of
Buffalo Grove. And remember, those are the number of hits, not the number of people
accessing it. So one person could access
the site multiple times, which would skew the perceived interest in the budget.
Is the budget perfect? No budget or tax
bill is perfect. But with a little time
and effort, it can be explained.
Residents, such as Horowitz, don’t have to accept the explanation, but
hopefully they’ll understand it.
Which
is important because statistics can be squirrely things. Without full details, information becomes misinformation. As we saw Dec. 5.
Churchill
and Twain may still be laughing.
