What's Next for Yorkville

In these tough economic times many municipalities are forced to make adjustments as needed. And that's just what the village board was trying to do by abolishing the police department. Over six hundred people voted in yesterday's referendum and the majority wanted to keep the police department. And now the Village of Yorkville has to adjust that plan. "We have to move our police department in the opposite direction we wanted it to move into, which is going to be more costly which everybody knew. And we just have to move forward because the people have spoken." Now that the people have spoken the village board will have to reevaluate the budget that could lead to potential cuts. "It's going to be a tough budget year obviously because we have to spend a little bit more money in the police department now and I'm just concerned about the 2% property tax cap and concerned about cutting services in other areas, I don't know where were going to get the money from." Yorkville isn't the only small municipality facing difficult economic times; the property tax cap will present problems all over. Will other local governments implement a similar plan? "If it passed I think it would have snowballed if it was successful then we would have realized that the people realize that we need to cut expenses and still provide the same services and that was the whole intent of this and I think it might have snowballed from there but the fact that it didn't go through I doubt any other local community will try it." Mayor Leone did say that the board could have abolished the police department without the public vote but they felt it was necessary to include the people in that very important decision.