Northwest Herald headline.
No big surprise here.
State law exempts solar and battery farms from local zoning control.
Undoubtedly this decision will be used at the 9 AM Thursday meeting of the McHenry County Board ‘s Committee of the Whole to argue that a Home Rule referendum should be placed on the November ballot.
The NWH’s last article on the push for Home Rule did not mention the reason most municipalities (no other county has passed a Home Rule referendum) push Home Rule:
To make it easier to raise taxes.
No voter approval is required for the County Board to raise or impose new taxes, if a Home Rule Referendum passes.
Pardon me if my conspiratorial mind believes the real reason county officials are pushing for Home Rule power is to raise taxes without voter approval.
Those who vote for it will be open to the charge of being tax hikers.
At least that is the way I would frame a campaign against them.
Or to borrow two sentences from the Chicago Tribune article on the Brars staduiummoving to Indians:
“With sports facilities, few lawmakers ever ask what’s behind the curtain.”
“They are so in love with what they see that they ignore what they can’t see.”
That is a comment from public finance analyst Geoffrey Propheter of the University of Colorado Denver.
The same logic can be used for those members of the Count Board who vote to put a Home Rule Referendum on the fall bsllot.
