IL House To Implement New Tax On McLean County Property Owners –

Springfield, Ill. (ECWd) –

As we reported in February on a previous version of this Bill which was apparently abandoned, the Bloomington-Normal Airport Authority in McLean County is wanting more tax money, so they lobbied State Senator David Koehler to sponsor Senate Bill 684, which amends the Airport Authorities Act effectively taking away the decades-old power of the voters to determine if they want to support the Airport. Representative Jay Hoffman is the House Sponsor.

Senator Koehler represents the Peoria area, and Bloomington-Normal areas in McLean County, but not the rest of the county. Representative Hoffman (Belleville, IL) represents no areas within McLean County – he would simply vote for any tax increase whenever it is presented.

Rest assured; this is simply the first of these airport authorities who will eventually greatly expand their taxing base through legislative action rather than through the voters who have already spoken.

The Bloomington-Normal Airport Authority operates the Central Illinois Regional Airport (“CIRA”).

When it was first established, a referendum was presented to each township. Townships who passed the referendum were included within the airport authority boundaries and were responsible for supporting it with their tax dollars. Townships who voted NOT to support an airport authority were left alone, not included within its boundaries, and not taxed.

Why not leave it up to the voters and have the airport authority put a new referendum on the ballot? Because they know it would fail…

Now the entire county will be taxed if this passes the House of Representatives.