The Daily Herald has an article about Hanover Park officials wanting to consolidate municipal areas covered by fire districts.
Hanover Park officials are in the early stages of negotiations with the neighboring Bloomingdale Fire Protection District to transfer a largely industrial area — and the tax revenue it generates — into the village’s fire jurisdiction. Both sides are determining the potential boundaries and the impact on their bottom lines.
“You just can’t come in and take a bunch of tax dollars from another taxing body because they’ve made decisions based on that revenue,” Hanover Park Fire Chief Craig Haigh said.
The exact amount of revenue at stake was not known Monday, but if both sides agree, officials could phase out the tax dollars, so Bloomingdale isn’t hit with a loss all at once. Haigh expects no effect on manpower or apparatus for either agency.
Bloomingdale Fire Chief Jeff Janus said the overriding goal is to ensure that residents are protected.
… Haigh said Hanover Park only is interested in a voluntary exchange and has no plans to launch legal proceedings, in which the village would have to prove in court that its fire department could serve the properties better than Bloomingdale.
In 2000, the village formed its own fire department and assumed operations of the defunct Hanover Park Fire Protection District. Since then, officials have reached deals to disconnect land from other fire protection districts that also fall within the municipal boundaries.
The coveted areas surround two intersections: Gary Avenue and Lake Street, and County Farm and Schick roads. The land has long been incorporated into the village of Hanover Park. The move would boost efficiencies, Haigh said. Hanover Park police and Bloomingdale cover the areas in question — using different radio frequencies.
While the volume of emergency calls to the department routinely breaks records — the number is expected to hit nearly 4,000 this year, the chief said — fire losses in dollars have dropped significantly. Haigh attributes the decline to the reorganization.
Folding the areas into Hanover Park’s department also would eliminate a “dual inspection process,” Haigh said. In 2011, Hanover Park fire took over building inspections previously run out of the village’s community development department. The department’s inspectors check businesses for village code compliance and review permit requests for new reconstruction, among other jobs. But business in the areas involved in the negotiations are visited by both Hanover Park and Bloomingdale inspectors, who evaluate them against fire and life safety standards.
Officials hope to reach a decision by the fall, before the district and the village set their property tax levies.
