From the Northwest Indiana Times:
The Lake County Council is delaying a public hearing on whether to ask voters for permission to borrow as much as $30 million to create a consolidated 911 emergency communications system.
Council members voted 4-3 Tuesday to defer until their July 10 meeting the first step in a months-long process required to put a question on the Nov. 6 ballot.
The question would ask voters to approve a loan — outside the state's property tax caps — to replace the current 18 isolated municipal and county police and fire dispatch facilities with two new central facilities.
The majority of council members said they are too unfamiliar with the details of what they would be asking the public to approve.
Lake County Attorney John Dull said Tuesday afternoon he believes the council's delay closes the door to any effort to get a referendum on the ballot.
In a memo to the council, Dull outlined 22 steps that must be taken under state law to get a referendum before voters that would authorize the expenditure of money outside of the state's property tax caps.
...
The system's total price tag has been in flux. Six days ago, council members were informed voters would be asked to approve a total of $13 million in loans.
That figure jumped to $30 million in Dull's Tuesday memo.
It includes an additional $16.5 million of "interoperability" hardware that would let every member of the current 18 municipal and county police departments talk to each other over the same communication gear in the most efficient way.
The proposed referendum would result in $3.7 million in additional property taxes during a 10-year period to repay the loan and would raise taxes on a $125,000 home by approximately $9.20 a year, according to Dull's memo.
Dull said if voters rejected the loan referendum, the county would be forced to either petition the Legislature for a larger share of the telephone user fees being charged statewide. He said the current formula robs Lake County of the full amount of fees its residents will be paying and distributes that money to other counties.
Dull said the county also could lobby the Legislature to permit Lake County to raise residential telephone fees.
He also said the county could pass a permanent local income tax, which officials have resisted for years because of its unpopularity with the electorate.
http://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/lake/lake-county-puts-e--referendum-proposal-on-hold/article_0f900507-70df-5f57-adea-ab4cc33f83fb.html
