Letters to the Editor: Vote yes on tax referendum to bolster Kane public safety; sheriff's wrong about why jail population's growing

Chicago Tribune

21-02-2025

Vote yes on tax referendum to bolster Kane public safety
Over half a million people call Kane County home. We live here because we know that Kane is a safe, healthy and prosperous place to reside. We want to have a sense of safety and security in our daily lives. Public safety is a top priority, making life better for us and our families right here where we live, work, and play.
Public safety in Kane County includes our sheriff, the courts and the offices of the state's attorney, coroner, circuit clerk, 911 and emergency management. It takes a lot of hard-working people to keep us and our children safe. Because of this, 71% of our expenditures from our general fund are for public safety.
Kane County has been on a belt-tightening budget for many years. Since 2013, the county has sought almost no property tax levy increases, leaving the current levy far behind the cost-of-living increases. Some dips in general fund spending around 2020 were due to money provided for COVID relief, which covered a good portion of our general fund expenses, giving a false appearance of big jumps in spending over the last four years. But don't be fooled, Kane is lean and mean when it comes to saving the taxpayers money.
Kane County has a referendum on the April 1 election ballot asking you, the voter, to approve a 0.75% sales tax for public safety. This means you would pay an additional 75 cents on a $100 purchase of tangible personal property bought at a retail store. This tax would not apply to daily necessities like food and prescription medicine. It would not apply to big ticket items like cars or trucks. This is not a property tax increase because we know our homeowners are already paying their fair share.
Another benefit to this sales tax is both residents and nonresidents who shop, visit or work in Kane County are contributing to funding public safety.
Kane needs to maintain public safety funding to ensure effective operation of our public safety offices. We need our specialty courts to continue providing mental health services and prevention initiatives. We need to protect our children from abuse and exploitation, including child pornography.
My family and friends will be voting 'Yes' on this important referendum. If you would like more information about the sales tax referendum, please visit our website at www.kanesafe.org or call me at 630-605-9244.
Mavis Bates, Aurora
Kane County Board Member, District 4
Sheriff's wrong about why jail population's growing
In an article published in The Courier-News last week, Kane County Sheriff Ron Hain claimed that the Pretrial Fairness Act is responsible for Kane County's rising jail population and more arrest warrants being issued. Hain's claims are misleading and ignore the key factors truly driving the increase: prosecutorial and judicial choice.
The law was designed to eliminate wealth-based detention, ensuring that people are incarcerated pretrial only based on safety and risk of flight, not on how much money is in their bank account. If Kane County's jail population is rising, it's because prosecutors are aggressively seeking detention and judges are granting these requests at higher rates — not because of the Pretrial Fairness Act itself.
As Loyola University Chicago's Center for Criminal Justice Research has found, the law has reduced unnecessary pretrial detention and lowered failure to appear rates across Illinois.
Sheriff Hain fails to account for the broader systemic issues contributing to rearrest. If he's concerned with a 'revolving door' in the criminal legal system, the solution is not more incarceration, but in investing in programs that have been proven to address the root causes of crime and stabilize vulnerable people. Increased funding for mental health programs, substance use treatment, housing and job training would be far more effective at making communities safer.
Blaming the Pretrial Fairness Act because more people are in Kane County jail is overly simplistic and just wrong. It ignores the fact that in many other counties, the number of people in jail has gone down. It also distracts from the systemic issues that have kept certain communities in bondage for generations.
Rather than reverting to the old unjust pretrial system that did so much damage in our communities, policymakers should focus on evidence-based solutions that prevent crime and support our residents who deeply need our help.
David Cannon, Aurora
Medicaid cut will be devastating for society's most vulnerable
In Washington, the new U.S. House budget framework directs the Energy and Commerce Committee to cut at least $880 billion in spending. Details have not been released, but these reductions will result in deep cuts to Medicaid funding.
This will have devastating consequences for some of the most vulnerable people in our communities — individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
Among those who will be hurt is my adult son David. Because of a pre-birth brain injury, he is illiterate, cannot understand significant choices and needs 24/7 supervision. David lives in a Medicaid-funded group home and receives Medicaid-funded day training, both in Elgin. The federal government pays 51% of his service costs, while Illinois pays 49%. Any level of cuts in federal Medicaid funding would strip away access to vital services people like David need to live full lives in the community. And it's not just David. In Illinois thousands of adults with disabilities are waiting for Medicaid services. And that's right now, before any cuts!
'The care of human life and happiness,' Thomas Jefferson said, 'is the first and only legitimate object of good government.' The goodness of a society is judged by how it cares for its most vulnerable people. That's why budgets are moral documents that either ensure justice for all or treat individuals with disrespect. You don't have to be a genius to know that it's just plain wrong to shred safety net programs in order to provide massive tax cuts for billionaires and wealthy corporations.
Please tell your senators and representative to reject harmful cuts to Medicaid. Legislators will be in their home offices this week. Please call, send an email or pay a personal visit.
David is not just a number. He is a real person whose well-being is at stake. Please help protect people like him from reduced access to critical supports, longer waitlists and higher rates of institutionalization.
James B. Gould, Carpentersville