South suburban mayors say their municipalities they need revenue and resources
MARKHAM, Ill. (CBS) -- Municipal leaders in Chicago's south suburbs have issued a plea – saying they need help too, while all the attention about violence and tax relief has been centered on the city of Chicago.
CBS 2's Jermont Terry sat down to talk solutions with four mayors – Mayor Jada Curry of Lynwood, Mayor Robert Polk of Burnham, Mayor Terry Wells of Phoenix, and Mayor Roger Agpawa of Markham.
Those four municipalities are among numerous suburban cities and villages lying just south of Chicago. The area from Calumet Park all the way to University Park is considered the Southland.
Mayors Curry, Polk, Wells, and Agpawa are all members of the Southland Regional Mayoral Black Caucus. They sat down with CBS 2's Terry to talk about what is needed, and lacking, in the Southland communities.
"We definitely need funding," said Mayor Curry.
Curry is in the middle of her first term as mayor of Lynwood. She and some other Southland mayors recently met with Gov. JB Pritzker – on the topic of increasing the percentage of the local government distributive fund, or LGDF.
Through the fund, cities get money based on a percentage of total state income tax revenues.
"For a village like Lynwood, when our LGDF percentage was lowered over these past years, we've lost roughly $6 million in revenue," said Mayor Curry. "If you hand me $6 million today, I can do some transformative things in my village."
Taxes and economic development are key issues in the south suburbs, which is why there is huge support for a third airport in Peotone.
"There hasn't been a strong economic engine in Southland like that in 40, 50 years," said Mayor Wells.
"So with one business coming in with just the airport, that'll be some tax base," said Mayor Polk.
"We know if we're able to get that over in our region, it would fortify the tax base in our region and make it that much stronger - and perhaps build to maybe more facilities," said Mayor Agpawa.
"And the taxes will begin to go down for the individual homeowners," Mayor Polk continued.
While policing dominates any municipal budget, Mayor Wells says in Phoenix, the Illinois mandate to have all police agencies have body cameras by 2025 brings another burden.
"It's not just the cameras," Wells said. "It's the storing of all that information - which can get to be very expensive."
And with no full-time IT employee in Phoenix, Wells says the attempt to be transparent further drains the budget.
"And so that's the kind of thing a small community like mine struggles with - and then the other thing is funding for police officers," Wells said.
Police pay is low, and turnover is high.
"We have a bunch of part-time officers," Wells said.
And officers patrolling in the south suburbs are putting in extra work with crime spilling from Chicago.
"What happens in Chicago is not staying in Chicago," Wells said.
This includes the pop-up teen takeovers threatening communities.
"I think the town next to us, I believe, had one last week or the week before last, and we were called in to assist Cal City," said Mayor Polk.
Also a concern is crooks running into the south suburbs.
"We get the residual, or some of the things where the criminal may flee to the south," Mayor Agpawa said.
Agpawa remains vocal about Illinois State Police installing more license plate reading technology on expressways surrounding the Southland.
"In Markham, we want to further have dialogue about what happens on our borders, and how things trickle into the suburbs," Agpawa said.
As the need keeps growing, the mayors are determined to keep pushing for equity for those they represent.