A group of Riverside residents hoping to get an advisory referendum regarding the parks and recreation board on the November ballot have enough signatures to do so, they say.
Joe Ballerine, a member of the recreation board, the existence of which is threatened by a consensus of the village board to dissolve it and replace it with an advisory commission, said that a weekend effort gathered 500 signatures among local voters.
The group, led by Ballerine and Village Trustee Ben Sells, needs between 250 and 300 signatures to get the question on the ballot, based on recent election turnout.
Ballerine added that by the end of this week, the group hoped to have 1,000 signatures to present to the village clerk by Friday.
The petition asks that the following question be put on the ballot: “Shall the village of Riverside retain its parks and recreation board?”
On July 19, a majority of the village board indicated they would favor changing the recreation board to an advisory commission in order for elected officials to control taxes levied for recreation purposes.
The recreation board was created in 1937 after a village-wide referendum asking voters to support levying taxes to fund a recreation system. The
ordinance creating the recreation board at that time gave that board the authority to control how that money is spent, although the village board retains broad oversight over the recreation board, including appointing its members and chairman.
Sells and Ballerine, who oppose that change believe that it will erode recreation in Riverside and that tax money will go to fund other village services, such as general greenspace maintenance.
“People are incensed about this,” said Sells, one of three village trustees who have indicated opposition to the proposed change in the village’s recreation system. “[A referendum] seems to me to be the obvious next step.”
Village President Michael Gorman called the petition drive politically motivated and pinned the effort directly on the Riverside Community Caucus, whose candidates he and his colleagues in the Riverside Community Alliance defeated at the polls in 2009.
Gorman charged that caucus’ president, Jennifer White, authored a widely circulated e-mail asking people to sign and circulate petitions, and singled out Sells, a caucus-endorsed candidate in 2007, and two caucus-endorsed candidates who lost in 2009 as the ones behind the push.
“The actions of this group is (sic) motivated by politics and their own self interest,” Gorman said in an e-mail response to an inquiry from the Landmark last week.
“You understand the motivation behind these actions. It has nothing to do with the facts. The Riverside Caucus has never accepted that it is time to move forward. The propaganda being circulated is riddled with misstatements, personal attacks and downright lies.”
Gorman said that the change would not impact how recreation services are delivered in Riverside. Rather, he said, “the financial benefit is to allow the village board to allocate all taxpayer monies in the best interests of all residents. … The board needs to be able to allocate taxpayer funds in order to continue the municipal services we all need and deserve.”
White said that the Riverside Community Caucus has no opinion regarding the proposed advisory referendum and denied authoring the e-mail attributed to her by Gorman.
“I didn’t write it at all,” White said. “I received it like many other people to distribute to friends and neighbors. The caucus really has nothing to do with it. We have no opinion on the matter whatsoever. We don’t dictate to our members what to support or not support.”
Ballerine said he is not a member of the Riverside Community Caucus, a group of residents who gather prior to elections to select and nominate candidates for office. He is a longtime member of the parks and recreation board.
“I’m not a member of the caucus, nor will I be,” said Ballerine. “Are their people involved? Yes, but the crux of this is coming from residents of Riverside.”
Sells rejected Gorman’s charge that the petition drive was politically motivated.
“Everything is political to these guys,” Sells said of the RCA majority on the board. “It’s beyond their comprehension that anyone can disagree with them without it being politicized. They’re trying to deflect the opposition to this plan by raising this total red herring.”
If the question does make its way to the ballot for the Nov. 2 election, any result would be advisory, not binding. The deadline for submitting petitions for advisory referendum questions is Aug. 2.