Nothing is better than the unintended humor of reality. — Steve Allen
Whatever! I’ll do what I want. – Cartman, South Park
One of the more fascinating casualties of the ill-conceived COVID lockdowns is our collective capacity to color within the lines has been greatly diminished. And that phenomenon applies to school children right on up to the Elburn, Illinois village board. When you combine the temporary severing of social ties with an orange madman with no respect for the rules (or anything else), strange things can happen.
To make matters that much worse, those same folks are no longer capable of being embarrassed by their self-inflicted ignorance, either. They’ve actually developed a penchant for publicly displaying their failings with great pride. But it’s one thing when the rabble embraces this collective delusion, and another entirely when a city administration does it.
But before we continue, let me stipulate for the record that I’ve always enjoyed our neighbors to the west (of Geneva). I love Ream’s Elburn Market, I’ve been a regular participant in their library’s early spring Dewey Dash 5k, and before they moved to South Elgin, the Elburn Animal Hospital vets were wizards with senior dogs and acupuncture.
So, I’d ask you to keep in mind that, per Mr. Allen’s thought above, I’m generally enjoying the unintended humor involved in today’s topic, as opposed to last week’s columns where we tore our state’s attorney and Metra board member the new one they deserved.
What exactly did Elburn do?
After enduring a number of distracted driving tragedies, late last November the mayor and village board single-handedly decided to increase the fines for said offense well beyond the amounts the Illinois legislature set forth. Drivers caught with cellphone in hand would have to come up with $250, $500, and $750, instead of the State proscribed $75, $100, and $125 for the first through third offenses.
And everything was going along swimmingly until the village sought the Kane County circuit clerk’s advice to ascertain the best method of getting the higher fine word out to residents. That’s when those fine clerk folks explained that, just as it is with those distracted drivers, this Elburn maneuver had run afoul of the law.
The circuit clerk’s absurdly obvious point was, since Elburn is not nearly an Illinois home rule community, they cannot create law more onerous than what the State’s already provided. Put more simply, unless a city has 25,001 residents or they approve home rule via referendum, they can’t supersede state law, including the scope of misdemeanor, and all other criminal penalties.
To wit, a home rule community like Elgin can increase traffic fines, but a non-home rule entity like Elburn cannot.
A great part of the logic for implementing home rule was to allow the state’s larger municipalities the leeway to govern themselves more efficiently. And though it’s always been the case, that distinction made it quite clear that smaller municipalities couldn’t supersede state law on a whim.
Why? Because ironically, when we moved out here in the nineties, it was Elburn that took the Kane County spurious speeding ticket crown. Before the local populace outgrew Route 47, their officers would sit along those northern side streets lying in wait for unsuspecting motorists coming downhill on southbound Route 47.
When those gravity-assisted drivers couldn’t possibly adjust to the sudden 25 mph speed limit descent, the tickets started flying. Back then there was no traffic light or major development at Routes 47 and 38 to act as a natural buffer heading into town.
Given that village mien, imagine what would’ve happened if Elburn had the power to independently increase speeding fines? Actually, considering what they just did with distracted driving, we don’t have to imagine much of anything.
As more affluent suburbanites and Cook County escapees started moving to Elburn, they chafed under this speed trap mentality to the point where election results started to change things. And trust me. Those “old ways” didn’t go gently into that good night.
But here’s what really frosts my flakes. If a lowly unpaid journalist, who some folks say isn’t all that bright, understands the essentials of home versus non-home rule, then how is it that a village president, a six-person board, an entire city staff, and a village attorney did not? Wouldn’t you like to think that, if someone’s going to get involved in city government, they might want to bone up on the basics?
Because now that they know they’ve usurped the law, they have to return all of those excessive fines whether the “offender” requests a refund or not. As municipalities love to argue, ignorance of the law is never a legal defense.
But instead of being embarrassed by this inexcusable lapse, apologizing profusely, and promising to do better, trustee Chris Hansen had the cojones to kvetch to the press thusly, “I’m disappointed. Here we’re trying to make our community safer and we’re being told we can’t do it.”
No! Trustee Hansen! You were specifically “told” you couldn’t “do it” back on July 1, 1971, when the State of Illinois approved the home rule constitutional provision. No Illinois municipality has ever been able to “regulate” themselves without following those Springfield rules unless the legislature has provided the express written consent to do so. The home rule statute simply made it a whole lot clearer.
So, this ain’t exactly news, Chris, and you and your compatriots’ failure to grasp this eminently basic notion is more than a wee bit terrifying. And your seeming indifference to being embarrassed by this willful indiscretion is even worse.
Oh! And since we’re talking! The Elburn village board’s ban on migrant busses is similarly illegal. And that errant prohibition might just get the village sued by the ACLU, too. Let’s just say I wouldn’t be ticketing any of those vehicles anytime soon. Perhaps it’s time to hire a new village attorney because this one clearly isn’t working out.
C’mon guys (and Patricia)! You’ve got to do better than this. You might want to consider calling me before trying something silly like this in the future because I’d be happy to help. All I’d ask in return is a 12-pack of Guinness and a dozen jalapeno cheddar sticks. Though I’d avoid asking Shaw Media about anything because they didn’t get it right when they ran the original story in November, either.
We’ll conclude with the words of the great Yogi Berra, “You’ve got to be very careful if you don’t know where you’re going, because then you might not get there.” That’s great advice for any city council.
Yogi was a very wise man.
