Nothing more clearly illustrates the utter irresponsibility of Deborah Birutis and Glen VadeBonCoeur than their advocacy of a non-revenue generating parking garage. They know how to use words that will sound wonderful to people who do not bother to stop and think.
Rejected $450K/Year from CDH
Multi-level parking structures may be feasible in Naperville, Wheaton, or Geneva, where the population density is much higher than in Winfield. But, without enough people packed into a given space, there will never be enough parkers to repay the high cost of building and maintaining the massive structure.
Building a parking garage in Winfield may sound great to people who don’t give it any serious thought. But you have to ask yourself what were Birutis and VadeBonCoeur thinking when they told Central DuPage Hospital to take their Proton Cancer Center out of town. The state of the art Proton Cancer Treatment Center would have generated conservatively $450 thousand dollars a year in revenue for our cash strapped town. Instead Birutis and VadeBonCoeur are moving to bring a non-revenue generating eyesore to our Town Center which will only harm the tax base.
However little Birutis and VadeBonCoeur know or care about economics, they know a lot about politics– and especially political rhetoric. “Parking Garage” is simply another set of lofty words to make the residents think the village board is actually accomplishing something. So are words like “investment in our future” or “investment” in any number of other things, which serves the same political purpose.
Who cares what the realities are behind these nice-sounding words? Their point is to win the votes of people who know little or nothing about economics, history or statistics.
To talk glibly about spending money on a “parking garage” when our village is struggling to repair our crumbling roads, fully fund our pension obligations, provide a full complement of police officers on the street, and rebuild our dangerously low fund balances is pure insanity.
If fancy words and lofty visions are enough to get the voters to go along with more “investment,” then expect to hear a lot of fancy words and lofty visions from this duo.
One of the most successful political ploys is to promise people things without having the money to pay for them. Then, when others want to cut back on the things that have been promised, blame them for lacking the compassion of those who wrote the checks without enough money in the bank to cover them.
If all else fails, Birutis and VadeBonCoeur can always say that we can pay for the things they promised us by raising taxes.
But history is so yesterday. What is far more exciting is to think of 4-story parking garage in the future, even if it is parking us toward insolvency.
8 Responses to Winfield’s Parking Garage to Nowhere
Anthology on March 8, 2011 7:32 am at 7:32 am (Edit)
The parking garage is completely illogical. Why would Birutis and Vadeboncoeur who campaigned and PROMISED they would NEVER support any building taller than 3 stories in the downtown support a 4 story concrete block? I have their campaign literature, they went on to torpedoed the Shelburne Farm condo buildings 50 feet tall a 1/2 mile off Highlake Road but a 4 story, 45 foot tall behemoth 8 feet off Jewell Road is OK?
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Esox Lucius on March 8, 2011 8:11 am at 8:11 am (Edit)
I understand where Birutis is coming from but in the laundry list of things that this town needs, a parking garage is low on the list. If we actually had the money for a parking garage, we should be spending it on the roads instead.
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upnext on March 8, 2011 10:10 am at 10:10 am (Edit)
Tim I don’t understand where Birutis is coming from on this unless she’s planning to bungee jump off the top of it. It just doesn’t make any sense and the location is a huge mistake. I agree with the author it’s political to get votes for the upcoming election. The timing of the whole thing is very suspicious. Furthermore if people were paying attention they would realized this is a bad idea from every standpoint and tell Birutis she’s out of her mind. I really do not understand where Birutis is coming from but I guess when it’s not your money — It doesn’t matter!
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Decker on March 8, 2011 1:01 pm at 1:01 pm (Edit)
Maybe the parking garage will be revenue generator, I’ll pay to watch Birutis “bungee” off it!!
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Down South on March 8, 2011 1:26 pm at 1:26 pm (Edit)
Here’s what I can’t get my head around. They reject the Proton Cancer Center which would have brought in close to half million dollars into the village but they want to build a non-revenue producing parking garage. How does any of this make sense??
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Ken Fuchs on March 8, 2011 2:39 pm at 2:39 pm (Edit)
The proton center did not fit with their “town center” plan. As for the garage, my guess is that they think building the garage will attract more business to downtown. Of course that thinking is quite backwards.
-Ken
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G Beck on March 8, 2011 4:04 pm at 4:04 pm (Edit)
I couldn’t agree with you more Ken. Given their logic or lack of logic, they should be building as many parking garages as they can. After all, we would need $45 million dollars in business ( Town Center Business) just to equal the $450 thousand they rejected for CDH’s Cancer Proton Center.
What a screwed up deal!!
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EB on March 8, 2011 3:05 pm at 3:05 pm (Edit)
Where’s Romanelli on this? He complained about 3 houses going up across the street from his house. I wonder how he would feel if it were a 4 story parking garage built there instead?
I feel real sorry for residents who are going to end up close to this parking garage. The residents on Jewell are going to see traffic double or even triple on their residential street.