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Increase in Maple Park vehicle sticker cost to fund street repairs, improvements

MAPLE PARK – Maintaining the streets in Maple Park is costly so the price of vehicle stickers will be going up $5 per vehicle to help fund street improvements, repairs and overall maintenance.

An ordinance amending village code will allow for the first increase in vehicle registration fees in 15 years for vehicles registered in the village of Maple Park. It was approved during the monthly board meeting on March 3.

Maple Park trustees voted 4-2 in favor of the decision with Suzanne Fahnestock and Jen Ward electing to vote against it.

“I would like to take a step back and take a moment to wait,” Fahnestock said. “I’m just kind of worrying about the burden on the people. I think we need some more information before we raise the cost on the stickers.”

Ward explained her concern with making residents purchase stickers for vehicles that they aren’t allowed to keep in Maple Park

“I have a hard time making people buy a sticker for a vehicle they can’t keep here,” she said. “So I have a hard time for the RVs.”

According to Village of Maple Park Administrator Dawn Wucki-Rossbach, the village also will obtain a list of vehicles in Maple Park from the Secretary of State’s Office. The village will then reconcile the sticker list with that list in order to determine which vehicle owners have obtained stickers.

The annual fee to be paid for vehicle licenses will be $30 for passenger vehicles, motor homes, motor vehicles for hire (limit of seven passengers), class B through F trucks (0 to 16,000 pounds) and dealer plates (per plate). The fee will be $50 for class G through Z (over 16,000 pounds) trucks and semi tractors.

The anticipated revenue from vehicle stickers for FY2020 is $20,000. Increasing the vehicle rates for the first time since 2005 will generate an additional $4,000 in estimated annual revenue which will be used to accelerate fund replenishment that’s needed for street improvements, repairs and maintenance, specifically projects that haven’t been completed at this time due to the lack of funding.

Trustee Chris Higgins explained that the time is right for the rate increase.

“If we don’t change it now, it’ll be next year, and if we don’t pass this ordnance we won’t get the list from the state so we won’t be able to do enforcement,” he said. “If the vehicle stickers just maintained with the cost of inflation – currently they would be over $40 a vehicle sticker – so it’s definitely (overdue). The goal isn’t to raise fees on people just to raise fees, but we have crumbling roads and really need to take care of those so I would really hate to see this put off for a year.”

In other news, an ordinance passed that will adjust the village’s outdoor sound hours on Fridays and Saturday from 10 p.m. until 11 p.m.

Allen Gibson from Maple Park Pub had requested the adjustment, asking for the hours to be extended to 11:30 p.m., citing that bands stop playing at 10 p.m. In a letter, he wrote that many of the last ones singing and dancing are Maple Park residents who want to sing and dance a little longer. The 11 p.m. cutoff was chosen upon as an acceptable compromise.

Similarly, John Peloso of H.D. Rockers asked the board if they would consider extending the hours for bars to remain open an extra hour or two on the Sunday of Labor Day weekend.

“The bands are playing until 11:00 and we’d like to tell people to go inside (then) and let them come inside and finish out their tabs, have another beer or two and not be a disturbance to the neighborhood,” he said. “That’s mostly why I’d like to do this. This isn’t something you need to vote on now, but I would like you to consider it.”

Source: The Daily Chronicle

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