Winfield’s Infrastructure Woes

This is an archived article from February 2010

Chances are you don’t spend a lot of time thinking about the intricate system of underground pipes that bring us drinking water, carry away sewage and ensure rainstorms don’t leave us waterlogged. That is, of course, unless you’ve found your home flooded or your commute blocked by thousands of gallons of water gushing into the streets.

Winfield officials have been warned for years their system is in need of repairs, many pipes are close to 60 years old and worn down by ground water and acidic soil. Over the last five years Winfield Village President Deborah Birutis has failed to even marginally address a solution to mend Winfield’s crumbling infrastructure and miles of deteriorating roads throughout town. Now she’s in panic mode scrambling to get support from a taxed-out public for a referendum to fix the massive problems caused by her leadership mismanagement.

A few years back the village had a long cold snap with about a month and a half of below-freezing temperatures. Then, abruptly, the mercury rose and over the course of the next several months, 54 water mains broke, causing all sorts of havoc. The pipes were old. Some were ancient. And they were laid shallow without much protection. So with any radical changes in temperature, they were susceptible to breaking. The village is currently operating at about a 20 percent loss in their system of finished water out of the system through leaks and failures. How long could a business stay viable if they have a 20 percent shrinkage walking out the door?

The question that is now on everyone’s mind is: What has Village President Birutis and the village board done to stop the hemorrhaging of Winfield’s infrastructure?

The answer, absolutely nothing.

Trustee Jack Bajor has been the Public Works Committee Chairman for the past five years. Maybe Mr. Bajor can explain why over the last five years under his leadership he turned away from our screaming infrastructure needs and let the deterioration continue. It has been Mr. Bajor’s responsibility as public works chair to ensure the village’s infrastructure needs are met and the community is safeguarded. Public Works Chair Bajor talks a good game but that’s all it is, talk. Sadly, Mr. Bajor needs to be informed that ignoring these problems imperils public safety, diminishes our economic competitiveness, is penny-wise and pound-foolish, and results in tremendous missed opportunities for the village.

Winfield is near the top in DuPage County for the number of structurally deficient and functionally obsolete infrastructure. Why is Winfield in this predicament? The answer lies with Village President Birutis and her board. Ms. Birutis along with her village board blindly follow the anti-growth philosophy of Winfield United. Ms. Birutis espouse Winfield United’s self-serving and highly flawed position that Roosevelt Road should remain residential. This is a thoroughfare which is commercialized from the Lake Michigan to DeKalb and affords Winfield the best opportunity for revenue growth. The past five years of  Ms. Birutis’ economic plan has produced not one single dollar in new revenue. Revenues badly needed to repair and maintain the decaying infrastructure in town.

At the start of every year Ms. Birutis throws around the terms economic development – downtown redevelopment and this years was no different. But these are merely buzz words to try and hide the failed policies of her administration and mislead the voting public. In the last 6 years Winfield has not seen one new development, downtown or anywhere else.

How did Ms. Birutis think she was going to be able to fund the needed infrastructure improvements? Obviously she had no idea. So the village board pushed aside infrastructure initiatives, including basic maintenance and repair. If you think this is an exaggeration consider a little known fact, the village owns the fire hydrants in town, the village is responsible for their maintenance yet the village has not tested the fire hydrants in over 5 years. Hydrants must be tested on a regular basis to ensure they are capable of delivering water at a pressure and a rate of flow for public health and effective firefighting operations. If this isn’t a cause for concern, I don’t know what is?

Now throw in the board’s wasteful spending of $8 million in taxpayer’s monies earmarked for water, sewer and road improvements on projects to make themselves look good. Think $2 million for remote meters, $1.5 million for new water and sewer lines to an empty lot and $1.5 million for a new public works building. Try finding out where the remaining $3 million went, you’ll need a full scale forensic audit. While the village board boast about these projects they mean nothing if the village they are operating in has its vital organs fail on them.

What this board never understood is infrastructure spending is a crucial investment in the village’s future. Delaying infrastructure maintenance, repairs and replacement never pays off in the long run. Who can say what breach of public health and safety it might result in next time? Addressing Winfield’s infrastructure shortcomings should be of the highest priority for the community.

It is clear, maybe not to this board that getting Winfield’s infrastructure act together is critical to the town’s future. If Winfield doesn’t, it would be worse than foolish. It would be tragic.

Would Chuck?

I had a conversation with Winfield Village Trustee Chuck Martschinke last night. We shared a beer at John’s Buffet and talked about Winfield. I was very interested to talk to Chuck to see how he fit into the village board. I enjoyed the conversation very much. I think Chuck is a straight shooter and while he may have been hand picked by Deborah Birutis, I believe he does his own thinking. When Village President Deborah Birutis torpedoed the Union Pacific Railroad underpass the first time it was up for a vote, Chuck Martschinke resigned from his involvement with the village. Former Winfield Village President RudyCzech, who hasd a habit of blind cc’ing people on emails, cc’d me on Chuck’s resignation letter. I thought that his commitment to something he believed in was admirable and I think he is an admirable guy.

That being said, I think he recognizes what I am trying to accomplish by shooting down the road referendum but he made abundantly clear he disagrees. I see the crumbling infrastructure as a symptom and I see the disease as being a lack of sustainable revenues. My purpose in working to kill the road referendum is to force attention to the lack of revenues so we cure the disease, then we can work on addressing the symptom. Its like having a boat with a hole in it. Do you bail the water out as it is rushing in? Or, do you fix the hole, and then bail the water out? To fix this hole in our budget we have to address the issue of Roosevelt Road in our comprehensive plan. From what I understand, the comprehensive plan for Winfield is up for review this summer and will be in front of the planning commission. I will be at those meetings and I think any concerned citizen should make an appearance too. Unfortunately it will probably be December before the village board votes to approve the comprehensive plan, so it is probably already too late for the November election and the vote on the road referendum.

Would Chuck support changing the comprehensive plan to allow commercial development on Roosevelt Rd? I think if anyone would give it honest consideration, Chuck would.

Winfield’s $3.3 Million Dollar Bailout

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSsPanB6Ga8

As I am sure you all know by now, I have been very critical of Winfield’s current crop of politicians, especially where the $3.3 Million Dollar Road Referendum is concerned. In my opinion, any village president that was also the chair of the finance committee should have seen and budgeted for what became a $3.3 million dollar fiasco. Using the Freedom of Information Act, I received documentation stating the village board knew about the need for the referendum at the end of March 2008.

Politically, it would have made the existing village board (at that time) of Rudy Czech, Deborah Birutis, Jack Bajor, Joel Kunesh, and Glen VadeBonCoeur look completely inept in an election year had they told the public that they had deferred maintenance causing this issue. So they did the politically expedient thing and pushed the problem off two more years. The roads are now two years older and in worse condition and nobody has accepted responsibility for this issue.

There was an official town hall meeting on February 27th, that was poorly attended and poorly put together. The village did not take out advertisements in either of the town’s two papers (The Winfield Post, or Winfield STUFF). They didn’t spend a dime on running the Xerox machine to make handouts explaining the issues to the people. Curt Barrett laser printed a few graphs that were too small to see from the first row of the gallery at that meeting. They couldn’t even be bothered to offer coffee, water or a scrap of a cookie to their guests.

It strikes me as someone that works in sales, that it was possibly the worst sales presentation I have ever attended. Aside from not advertising, not having handouts, not preparing graphs and charts which could be read from the back row, Village President Birutis said nothing, except for a few sentences to back up Trustee VadeBonCouer’s comments. While the meeting was attended by all the trustees, essentially no politician had anything to say except Glen VadeBonCouer.

Winfield’s infrastructure is deteriorating to an alarming degree. (See Winfield’s Infrastructure Woes http://winfield411.com/blog/?p=686 ) In November, you are going to have the opportunity to vote on a referendum to raise $3.3 million for road repair and replacement. This referendum will also include another tax to raise $705 thousand per year for additional maintenance. These tax increases alone represent a +200% increase in the portion of your real estate taxes that go to Winfield and will last for the next 20 years. In addition, your taxes are being increased on water consumption, sewer usage, Metra parking, business permits, liquor licenses, and real estate. The politicians have also discussed vehicle permit stickers and the potential of disbanding our police force as well as adding red light cameras as a revenue generator.

So in an effort to do the town hall right, I am holding my own town hall. As my civic duty to my town, I have taken out advertising in both of our local papers, and I have sent out a massive email blast this week announcing the town hall meeting. As well as notifying the press. I respectfully request your presence.

Winfield Village President Deborah Birutis and Village Manager Curt Barrett have been invited to present again. The meeting is Tuesday 7:00 pm, April 20th at John’s Buffet in the meeting room. I have another meeting set up for Wednesday April 21 at the Winfield Park District at 7:00 pm in the meeting room. I have many people that have RSVP’d because space is limited.

I have FOIA’d all of the PDF’s from the original town hall meeting and reprinted them on paper large enough to be seen from the back row. I will have handouts for the people to take home. I plan to have coffee, water, and even a cookie or two.

I plan to cover the topics of how we got to this point in our town’s history and what we can do about it. Unlike our politicians, I have not only a plan B, but a C, D and E. I plan to show that our town has a 20 year history of essentially squashing growth, business and anything related to sustainable revenues, especially when the area in question is Roosevelt Road.

I would appreciate if you would consider attending, I believe that this meeting, unlike the last, will actually be productive.

Thank you,

Tim Allen

For Reservation: Email Tim @ TimAllen57@Gmail.com or Call 630.344.9354 to reserve your seat.

Bleeding to Death in a Room Full of Doctors

Deborah Birutis:

Bachelors of Science in Finance – John Carroll University

Masters of Business Administration – Lake Erie College

Vice President of Finance – Consumer & Industrial Companies

Glen VadeBonCouer:

Finance – University of Illinois

Jack Bajor:

B.S. in Civil Engineering

Masters Degree of Public Administration

23 Years of Municipal Experience

12 Years Engineering Consulting

So we find ourselves and our village without money in our budget for roads. As a citizen and a taxpayer I have to ask how this happened. From what I understand, each of the three trustees listed above are either on the finance committee currently or have been on the finance committee in the past 5 years. Deborah Birutis was the chairwoman of the finance committee for the better part of the past 4 years.

The purpose of a budget is to make sure that an organization like a company or a town does not get hit with very large expenses that can not be serviced out of revenues in any given year. Roads would fall into that category. In a properly done budget, a fraction of the service life of an asset would be set aside each year for the replacement of that asset as it wears out. So if a road lasts 15 years, you set aside 1/15^th of the value of the road so that in year 15 you have all the money you need to replace the road.

Winfield is currently going to referendum on $3.3 Million for road repairs. Winfield’s revenues were $8.2 Million last year. So we have an expense that is 40% of our operating revenues. This is exactly what a budget was designed to prevent.

I am searching for a way to understand how this happened. It would be unfortunate but understandable if between last years budget and this year’s budget something unforeseen happened to the roads that caused us to have to complete $3.3 million dollars in repairs. Say for instance a comet strike, nuclear war, renegade bulldozer… Barring these unforeseen events, the roads could only have deteriorated naturally which would have been accounted for in a properly constructed budget.

As a citizen, I want to know how a village board with two finance majors, one with an MBA and experience as a Vice President of Finance together with an engineer whose job it is to council other towns on the state of their infrastructure couldn’t or wouldn’t account properly for the state of Winfield’s infrastructure.

To me, this is exactly like bleeding to death in front of 3 doctors while the doctors stand around and scratch their heads.

A November No Vote

“We could say they spend money like drunken sailors, but that would not be fair — to drunken sailors. It would be unfair, because the sailors are spending their own money.”

– Ronald Reagan on Congress

If past is prologue, the Winfield Village board will continue to put short-term interests ahead of long-term interests until pressure is put on them to change their actions. Fiscal responsibility will be accomplished only when the village board does what is best in the long-term and sacrifice parochial interests in favor of community priorities.

Village President Deborah Birutis and her village board outdid themselves the last three years, wasting taxpayer money in ways and amounts once thought unimaginable in Winfield — all without blushing. So outrageous was the spending, an outside observer would be forced to think not only do the residents love to pay taxes, but the Winfield budget was in a state of perpetual surplus.

This article is an attempt to pull back the curtain on 4 examples of wasteful spending (there are many more) by the village board which cost the taxpayers of Winfield close to $5 million dollars, and by doing so, show why the November 2010, $3.3 million dollar referendum is a cover up for the board’s fiscal mismanagement and why, the resident cannot trust this board with any new taxpayer dollars.

Village President Birutis and her village board are on their knees begging the residents to pass the $3.3 million dollar referendum. A massive tax hike they are attempting to sell to the residents as the only alternative to repair the crumbling roads in town. If you drive around or just walk around town, at own risk, you will undoubtedly see the need is real. The problem is, the village board has spent millions of dollars on low-priority and questionable projects, ignoring the most pressing needs of the community. The current village board had the money to repair the roads but instead chose to ignore the roads and carelessly spent  millions of taxpayer dollars on unjustifiable projects.

1. $1.5 million dollars for remote read water meters – Which did nothing to correct a system operating at about a 20% loss of finished water due to leaks and failures.
2. $1.1 million dollars to run water infrastructure to an empty lot on the corner of County Farm and St. Charles Roads. -  A cost which should have been born by the developer – 2 years later still no development in sight.
3. $2.0 million dollars for a new public works facility. – An unneeded and very expensive expenditure.
4. $300K to study the Town Center for a 3th time in less than 5 years.

Wasting taxpayer dollars is unacceptable, but to the extent to which it occurred over the last three years was a clear demonstration of how Birutis and her village board often put low-priority items ahead of the more important needs of road and infrastructure repairs.

While this can be discouraging – and even frustrating – to the residents of Winfield who work hard for their pay and do not appreciate seeing taxes squander by the village board. A NO VOTE on the November referendum  will send a very clear message to this village board to rein in their wasteful spending, give the community an opportunity to elect fiscally responsible officials and make sure Deborah Birutis and the village board will not be able to spend any additional taxpayer money in unwise ways.

As a community we must demand measurable results before even considering handing over any additional tax dollars to the village board. Furthermore, the Deborah Birutis lead village board needs to ensure efficient use of our own resources before turning to the taxpayers and asking for more. Ignoring the Roosevelt Road corridor as a sustainable revenue source is a fatally flawed position.

The examples of waste in this article total almost $5 million dollars, and do not represent the entire amount of taxpayer money wasted in the last three years. If the wasteful spending habits of the Winfield Village board are going to change, it will only happen because members of the village board are held accountable by the voters. When the residents demand change, they will get it–but not until then.

Breaking Tax News…..

$3.3 Million Tax Increase?

Winfield Property

Tax Hike +200%?

You are about to get taxed because Winfield

politicians did not properly budget for road

maintenance. If that makes you a little cranky

then we need to talk….

Winfield Town Hall Meeting

April 20 & 21 @ 7:00 PM

Space is limited. For reservations;

Email: TimAllen57@Gmail.com

or Call: 630.344.9354

(Sponsored by: Winfield Debate Club)

Poor Leadership Continues To Plague Winfield

Winfield Village President Deborah Birutis is following closely in the foot steps of her failed predecessor, former Village President Rudy Czech. In a very short time, Winfield has had its’ share of poor and out-of-touch village presidents, each one shared one strong common trait– they were  abandoned, chewed up and spit out. Mr. Czech unwisely detoured around the exit ramp and ran for a second-term – Only to be shoved into oncoming traffic by his former supporters, Winfield United.

Deborah Birutis is failing, and not just here or there, she’s failing everywhere, downtown redevelopment, new revenue sources, road and infrastructure improvements, rebuilding fund balances, maintaining a working partnership with critical stakeholders in the village, and most importantly, in forging connections within the community. Birutis is failing because fundamentally she is neither smart nor articulate; her intellectual dishonesty is evident by its audacity and lack of shame.

She has a self-narrative, much of it fabricated, cleverly disguised and written by Winfield United. She doesn’t have the personality which draws upon the rest of us or resonates in a positive endearing way with the majority of the residents.

It’s not so much she’s untaught in the field of economics, is politically challenged and woefully small minded for the task at hand–all contributory of course. Ms. Birutis’ profile is fuzzy and devoid of content. Moreover, she doesn’t command the respect of the residents and is firmly entrenched with Winfield United’s damaging ideology. Her notion of what direction the community should follow is illogical and just doesn’t add up. Her descriptions of Winfield do not make sense and do not correspond with the realities the town is facing.

In the meantime, a much different picture of Ms. Birutis has emerged from the one Winfield United passed around prior to the 2009 election. She’s indifferent and hostile to the development community, alienated the police department, she has offended DuPage County, deceived the residents about the financial state of the village and ignored entire groups of residents all to serve Winfield United, which is acting on its’ own for its’ own power.

Ms. Birutis’ lack of financial competence was predicted and it now has put the community into a deep hole.  Ms. Birutis’ agenda undermines the very confidences that will be essential to restoring economic growth in Winfield. We are hostage to Ms. Birutis’ ideologue that wants to push the Winfield United agenda instead of being committed to protecting the vested interests of the residents.