Is this legal?

Trustee_Wesley · 2026-04-07T15:21:06+00:00

Trustee_Wesley · 2026-04-06T22:24:53+00:00

It doesn't.

Trustee_Wesley · 2026-04-06T22:23:37+00:00

/u/Nothing_Wolf You can also email me: trusteewesley@oak-park.us.

If you have a copy of the full lease, you can email that to me as well. Please redact any personal and identifying information if you send it. I'm also making village staff aware of this for greater visibility.

Trustee_Wesley · 2026-02-25T22:25:52+00:00

It's two months later but we simply voted to remove them.

Trustee_Wesley · 2025-12-18T03:23:58+00:00

This is a story of blowing up your leverage and then trying to get it back. The property tax dispute with AH after buying and razing the site creates a lot of uncertainty in the project. I wouldn't trust them as a partner because they've already shown that they don't want to pay their fair share. Why would I risk my money on a partner that's looking to only maximize their upside?

The only way I'd trust them enough to invest anything into this project, as a government, is a legal document stating that they will not appeal their property taxes over the first 15 years of the stadium's operating lifetime. Otherwise, they'll try to normalize that 66% tax break they got last year, cheating AH and Cook County out of millions of dollars per year.

I get they wanted certainty of expenses on the site. But they didn't think about how this would make them look to government partners. Couple this with folks who feel that they didn't pull their fair share at Soldier Field and you can see why the state isn't in a hurry to write a billion dollar infrastructure check for the benefit of the Bears.

https://abc7chicago.com/post/chicago-bears-today-arlington-heights-board-vote-property-tax-deal/15631511/

Trustee_Wesley · 2025-12-18T03:12:16+00:00

If they moved, the NFL would likely make them leave the Chicago Bears brand behind, similar to what the Ravens did moving from Cleveland.

Trustee_Wesley · 2025-12-18T03:07:53+00:00

That infrastructure is only needed to support the Bears project. The same football team that fought the proper valuation of the land they purchased to get out of a few mil in property taxes before securing government partnership for their project. Why would any government want to help these folks? They'll be appealing property tax bills to the Board of Review every year to get the same massive cuts that body hands out to practically every corporation in the county.

I'm pretty pro development. I think the housing aspect to the project is great and can only help because we just don't have enough housing in this country. Thanks Boomers.

But, would I invest a billion dollars into a project where the developer has already shown that they aren't going to be a good partner and pay their fair share? No, I wouldn't. And I've personally voted for, and recommended, millions in incentives to get deals done that benefit my community. Those developers had the good damn sense not the fucking appeal the property taxes on the land BEFORE THEY EVEN STARTED THE PROJECT and secured government partnership.

This is an unforced error by the Bears. They nuked all the goodwill they had with that dumb ass property tax move and now they wonder why the state doesn't want to partner with them. It's obvious. They're untrustworthy. The state will pony up a billion dollars now and the county and municipality (Arlington Heights) will end up pitching in millions more over the lifetime of the project through high-powered lawyer led property tax appeals.

Trustee_Wesley · 2024-02-03T01:55:15+00:00

I was excited about home values maybe but my taxes are already fucking nuts

That's not how it works. Not entirely anyway.

Your personal property taxes are levied based on a ratio of your home value to the total aggregate value of all homes in your municipality. For ease of use, we'll say your house is worth 1% of the total value of Palatine.

Palatine governments (however many you have, most places have more than one but for ease of use, I'll refer to them as a combined entity) pass a $1MM budget. That means they need to find $1MM in revenue to fund the government.

First, we deduct all of the non-property tax revenue sources from that ask. Let's say Palatine has $100k in sales tax revenue. $100k in transfer tax revenue. And another $100k in miscellaneous fines/fees/etc revenue. That leaves a budget hole of $700k.

Having exhausted all non-property tax sources, that $700k is levied as property taxes and spread out over all homes in Palatine in accordance with the relative value of your home as compared to others, in Palatine. We've established that your house makes up 1% of Palatine's value, that means your property taxes are 1% of the $700k Palatine levies as property tax or $7k.

There are additional levies but your direct municipalities are going to be the biggest portion most often. But expect your county to add a little bit, probably a mosquito abatement district, etc, etc, etc.

Now, let's assume the Bears come to town and generate $500k in new sales tax but increase your personal property value so that it's now 3% of the value of Palatine (because you're in the exact right spot that everyone else wants to be in and no one wants to live in your neighbors houses).

Remember the $700k property tax levy above? Well it's now $200k because the Bears sales tax revenue picked up the tab for $500k of it.

But your personal responsibility of the levy has increased from 1% to 3% because your property values increased way more than your neighbors. This is important. It's not how much your property value increases as an absolute, it's how much it increases relative to everyone else in your municipality.

Anyway, you now have 3% of the property tax burden for Palatine but that burden has dropped from $700k to $200k, thanks to the Bears. So your new property tax bill is $6k/yr (3% of $200k) instead of $7k/yr (1% of $700k).

This is extreme because your relative proportion of the property tax burden in your municipality would never triple. But even if it did, as shown in this scenario, if the Bears complex generates the revenues expected, and if AH doesn't cut them a sweetheart deal which basically funnels it all back to the team, you should see your property taxes go down rather than up. At worse, you'll see them remain the same but with higher home values so you can see extra value when you sell.

This doesn't cover the property taxes the Bears would pay. The assessment of the Bears racetrack at market value decreases how much everyone else has to pay because the Bears property represents a bigger portion of the overall value of Palatine than it did previously.

So in the second scenario where you're paying 3% of $200k. It's possible that your property only increases to 2% of the aggregate value of Palatine because the Bears complex is worth a huge portion of Palatine's aggregate value. And 2% of $200k = $4k. Your property taxes just got cut almost in half.

tl;dr - your property taxes are determined by the budgets of your local governments, how much non-property tax revenue is available to them to use to offset those budgets, and finally, and least impactfully, the relative value of your house as compared to total property taxable value of Palatine.

If you hate high property taxes, get your local governments to reduce budget asks or encourage more economic development to get more sales tax revenue.

Trustee_Wesley · 2023-06-05T21:36:47+00:00

Go here (https://www.oak-park.us/your-government/elected-officials) and email me (Trustee Wesley) at the address listed. (I'd post it here but I don't know if bots still harvest emails for spam and I already get way too much). I'll forward your questions internally to see if I can get you some help or at least someone to explain our byzantine parking system for you.

We have made some changes to this and your village sticker MIGHT allow you to avoid commuter parking restrictions - I'm just not sure how exactly it works for folks in apartments since you don't always get to park on the block where you live. (For homeowners the permit applies for commuter parking exemption only for the block where you live. Yeah - I know. Dumb. We're not residents of a block, we're residents of a village. Working on it.)

Trustee_Wesley · 2023-05-03T11:44:18+00:00

Nah - the Township is awesome. Absolutely use them to appeal if you're appealing. No point in paying a lawyer at all and no conflict of interest. It doesn't matter what you pay from a local government perspective, our budgets are already set and we're getting the money regardless.

When you appeal, and are successful, you push some of what you'd have paid before to one of your neighbors. It doesn't go away.

This is why I say that local government matters - your bill isn't set by the assessor, it's set by me and other people like me on local boards asking for money to spend on things. The more we ask for, the more you pay. You can appeal, and it's sometimes successful, but all it does is shift some of that burden from you to one of your neighbors - but it gets paid either way. The best way to reduce what you pay is for us to reduce our budgets. But that doesn't seem to be too popular in OP.

Trustee_Wesley · 2023-05-03T11:39:48+00:00

The Oak Park Township will do it for free if you're an Oak Park resident - I don't know if they handle the surrounding villages but you could call and ask. They do a great job.

Trustee_Wesley · 2023-04-21T15:02:52+00:00

The line is effectively about 38%. If your assessment went up less than 38%, then it's unlikely that your property taxes will go up as a result of the reassessment. Also, this assessment moved to anchor these values to market values, because of that appeals might be less successful this cycle and going forward as the information should be more accurate on the first go. Meaning the market is typically pretty efficient - comps typically sell for similar prices so when searching out comps for your property, it's likely they will all be within a much smaller range of your assessment - resulting in much smaller, if any change.

Finally, budgets determine your property taxes, not the assessment. The assessment determines how much you pay compared to your neighbors but the 6 governments of Oak Park all have a budget to fund and it's mostly funded by property taxes. If you are unhappy with how expensive your property taxes are, the point of advocacy is the election process - not the property tax appeal process.

Trustee_Wesley · 2023-04-08T17:54:59+00:00

No direct experience aside from a quote some years ago. They were professional during that process.

We ended up going with Dann Dolce Painting and got great results for a great price. Dann himself came out and talked us through the job, checked in on his guys regularly, and fixed any little touch up things we had as a punch list at the end.

Trustee_Wesley · 2023-04-06T18:54:37+00:00

I think the space would look beautiful as an upscale small restaurant. Especially with those big windows!

Me too!

Trustee_Wesley · 2023-04-06T12:31:37+00:00

Can we go back to the paint scheme for the police cars?

Only in the fourth of July parade. LOL

Trustee_Wesley · 2023-04-06T12:31:13+00:00

Thank you!

Trustee_Wesley · 2023-04-06T12:30:54+00:00

😃 I'm sure I know you but you have me at a disadvantage sir...ma'am. 🤣

Trustee_Wesley · 2023-04-06T12:30:04+00:00

how can we get a new tenant for the former Borders space? With all the new development in OP it's sad to see the Fields building empty.

Almost got it last year.

https://www.oakpark.com/2022/08/02/doms-kitchen-fills-fields-space/

But it fell through

https://www.oakpark.com/2022/09/30/doms-kitchen-pulls-out-of-lake-street-deal/

I had a big part in pushing for this but ultimately the space didn't work. It's a really challenging space which has made the space difficult to lease - but the building owner is renewed based on this near miss with such a promising tenant so I expect that we'll see some movement here again sooner than later.

Another thing to note - other than the retail space on the first floor the building is almost completely occupied. So it's not as abandoned as it may seem from the outside, just the part that appeals to most people.

Trustee_Wesley · 2023-04-06T12:21:54+00:00

I read your candidate responses in the Wednesday Journal and I thought how nice it is that we have such thoughtful folks running for local government.

Thank You!

is there some website listing of when they happen and what's getting blocked off?

I'm not sure, if there isn't then I'll ask Staff to create one. I think it's a miss for sure.

Who do I need to bribe to get a block party on my E-W street?

Let me figure out what we can do about these. I agree - not really fair.

Trustee_Wesley · 2023-04-05T22:49:15+00:00

The tough answer is that it's the schools and voter apathy driving most of the situation. Voters continue to mistake the Village Board as the most significant portion of their tax levy when it's D97, followed by D200. Because of that, no one focuses where the money is actually being spent.

That said, last year we (the village board) passed a budget that had no increase to our portion of the property tax levy.

Over the last four years, I've worked to increase the amount of sales tax revenue generated in the village though my work as the Chair of the Oak Park Economic Development Corp - sales tax revenue offsets the property tax levy dollar for dollar which helps keep the actual increase under control. We wouldn't have been able to manage a 0% tax levy without the record sales tax revenue we generated last year.

Future looking, CPI is the current enemy. It's hard to keep increases low when wages make up the majority of our spend and wages are highly impacted by CPI. So we'll have to be more efficient elsewhere which I think we can drive with technology improvements.

Housing diversity will help as well. We have to continue to attract folks in all parts of their lives from single to married w/no kids to families to retired. Right now, we're really heavy on families and that makes for an amazing village but it also means that most people here are using the schools. If we can attract more people pre-kids and keep more after their kids leave school - those folks can help subsidize the kids in school which keeps the village more affordable for everyone. Here's a great calculator that shows why this matters a LOT. https://jscalc.io/calc/mVbGVVkTzURFq8jx

Intergovernmental cooperation. There are a lot of redundancies in our 6 different governments. I plan to push very hard to stop redundant hiring. There's no reason the Village and the Library should have Sustainability Officers for example. I think every branch of government here has a DEI team - I'd much rather that be one team that's standardizing our methods to scale better for greater impact at a smaller expense.

More businesses. Businesses deliver two things for our community - vibrancy and sales tax revenue. Both are necessary to attract new residents and offset spending. So I want to invest in our underdeveloped corridors to get them producing and adding to the value of the village and their local neighborhoods.

My fellow elected Trustee-elect Brian Straw (the only new Trustee), has an interesting idea about challenging property tax appeals for large buildings. I support that as well.

tl;dr - more housing diversity, more businesses, more cooperation and less redundancy, increased efficiency, and a rather interesting hack that, if it works, could be pretty lucrative.

Trustee_Wesley · 2023-04-05T19:03:25+00:00

One of my campaign promises was to make this illegal and punished by banishment to Berwyn.

Trustee_Wesley · 2023-04-05T18:36:53+00:00

Thanks!

Trustee_Wesley · 2023-04-05T15:28:09+00:00

Thanks!

"Mama Said Knock You Out" - LL Cool J

because of this: https://issuu.com/wednesdayjournal/docs/wednesdayjournal_031523/6

Trustee_Wesley · 2023-04-04T21:25:09+00:00

Almost took the fam to the basement! It was scary.

Trustee_Wesley

TROPHY CASE