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By: Jeff Helfrich - Updated: 7 hours ago
HILLCREST — At its monthly meeting Wednesday night, the Hillcrest Village Board voted 5-1 to table a gaming fee increase for businesses in the village for further consideration.
The only business in the village with gaming machines is Fat Cat Slots. The ordinance resolution in question would increase the fee the village gets per machine on an annual basis. The fee is currently $25 per machine. The 2023 annual fee would be $150 per gaming machine. In 2024 it would be $200 per machine and in 2025 and the years after that it would be $250 per machine unless amended.
A recent change to state law allowed municipalities like the Village of Hillcrest to increase gaming fees per machine to $250.
“Other communities have done gaming fees on a percentile,” Village President Randy Salsbury said. “We may look at that. We'll consult with our legal counsel about what we can do.”
Fat Cat Slots Owners Michael Stewart and Grant Manning spoke at the meeting on their business’s behalf.
“We saw recently that you're looking to increase the gaming fees 10 times what they currently are,” Stewart said. “It seems like we aren't getting support from the village. We feel that with all we've done for the Hillcrest community, we're not getting equal value in return. Instead you look to get more money from us despite the hundreds of thousands of dollars that we've put into the community.”
The ownership group also owns the site of the former bowling alley and antique store off Illinois Route 251.
Manning and Stewart raised other concerns with trustees including their desire to get sewer access for their properties, which isn’t available in different areas of the village, and issues with drainage, other infrastructure and permitting.
“We feel like we should be partners together in this,” Manning said. “Everyone should be working together to make the community better.”
As far as adding sewer access in the parts of the village that don’t have it, Salisbury said that potential cost has been looked at by engineers and the expenses would be too high at this time.
“The treatment plant is on the south side of Rochelle,” Salisbury said. “It's tens of millions of dollars to do something like that. It tears up the streets and they have to run down the middle of the road. The math is not there.”
The board unanimously approved a $5,778 expenditure for the purchase, installation and testing of a new flow meter for the sewage it does send to the City of Rochelle to be treated.
“It's a necessary item,” Village Trustee Dan Potter said. “As soon as it gets here, we'll get it put in and tested to make sure it's working right. We should be good for another few years after that. It's been offline for a couple of years. We're supposed to pay Rochelle for how much sewage we put through. They've been estimating the bill every month.”
During his monthly health & welfare report, Village Trustee Tim Ball raised concerns about littering and feral cats in the village.
“People keep tossing their trash out their car windows,” Ball said. “We have to do something about that. We have a lot of feral cats in the village. I'm pretty sure there's an ordinance that says you can't feed feral cats. We should think about a fine for feeding them. I think there's an organization that will come and trap them and neuter them. I've just noticed they're everywhere. It's something we should look at.”
Village Trustee Rick Rhoads said during the meeting that sealcoating in Hillcrest has recently been completed and the contractor should be coming back soon to sweep up excess gravel. The village sealcoats one fifth of the streets in Hillcrest each year.
The board voted unanimously to approve an amended budget for 2022. The new budget will be voted on at next month's meeting.
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