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2026 Budget with Ald. Dan Beebe
Happy Cyber Monday! Buy local please!
Ward 1 Alderman Dan Beebe describes the 2026 budget proposal that will receive a vote tonight, December 1, 2025. We catch up on what is happening to the grocery tax (!!), explain sewer and water rate increases and why West Chicago treats its own water, and hear the story of how Dan got onto the city council (he wasn’t appointed!).
We also discussed a couple of things I’m still grappling with:
* Why is the council so… quiet? We joke often about how long the meetings are now, but it’s because they used to be 10 minutes, with very little public comment. Now we see lots of public comments, but still less conversation among council members than I would expect. Is it possible that the council before April 1 was borderline rubber-stampy? Which leads into my next question:
* Do we rely more than necessary on consultants? I’ve been thinking about this a lot in the last few months, both in the context of the City and the Library (where I am a board member).
On the one hand, consultants provide institutional knowledge that you just don’t get from a group of 15 ever-changing volunteers. At the state and federal levels this is provided by staff and (gulp) lobbyists, who have been around for decades and may have deeper knowledge and time on an issue than either staff or electeds. Dan Beebe also explains to us in this episode that staff simply just don’t have time to do some of the tasks that we need done, like modernizing city code.
HOWEVER: Dan also told us that in his time with the city (on commissions and on the council), he has watched the city pay consultants to develop at least 3 plans to revitalize the downtown. Then there’s the 20 year old Strategic Vision that basically went untouched. In April, we overwhelmingly heard a direction from voters to work on our downtown—but here we are budgeting even more money for consultants to advise us how to do that.
As a resident, I’d love to not pour more money into consultants when we haven’t tried ideas from the last ones yet. And I’m not talking about real estate deals with bad timing. How about basic recommendations for improving downtown? How about trying out the idea in one of our consulting plans to allow residents to build separate mother-in-law suites in town? This would address our housing shortage while giving residents more chances to make ends meet in our challenging economy.
What do you think? Am I off base here? If you’re a member of the council or city staff, would you be willing to come on the show to explain to me why we need even more consultants? 💙
P.S. We sponsored a soccer team! Eusebian is a longstanding outreach program at New Life Bilingual Church in West Chicago.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit 60185.substack.com
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By Laura Finch & Liuan HuskaHappy Cyber Monday! Buy local please!
Ward 1 Alderman Dan Beebe describes the 2026 budget proposal that will receive a vote tonight, December 1, 2025. We catch up on what is happening to the grocery tax (!!), explain sewer and water rate increases and why West Chicago treats its own water, and hear the story of how Dan got onto the city council (he wasn’t appointed!).
We also discussed a couple of things I’m still grappling with:
* Why is the council so… quiet? We joke often about how long the meetings are now, but it’s because they used to be 10 minutes, with very little public comment. Now we see lots of public comments, but still less conversation among council members than I would expect. Is it possible that the council before April 1 was borderline rubber-stampy? Which leads into my next question:
* Do we rely more than necessary on consultants? I’ve been thinking about this a lot in the last few months, both in the context of the City and the Library (where I am a board member).
On the one hand, consultants provide institutional knowledge that you just don’t get from a group of 15 ever-changing volunteers. At the state and federal levels this is provided by staff and (gulp) lobbyists, who have been around for decades and may have deeper knowledge and time on an issue than either staff or electeds. Dan Beebe also explains to us in this episode that staff simply just don’t have time to do some of the tasks that we need done, like modernizing city code.
HOWEVER: Dan also told us that in his time with the city (on commissions and on the council), he has watched the city pay consultants to develop at least 3 plans to revitalize the downtown. Then there’s the 20 year old Strategic Vision that basically went untouched. In April, we overwhelmingly heard a direction from voters to work on our downtown—but here we are budgeting even more money for consultants to advise us how to do that.
As a resident, I’d love to not pour more money into consultants when we haven’t tried ideas from the last ones yet. And I’m not talking about real estate deals with bad timing. How about basic recommendations for improving downtown? How about trying out the idea in one of our consulting plans to allow residents to build separate mother-in-law suites in town? This would address our housing shortage while giving residents more chances to make ends meet in our challenging economy.
What do you think? Am I off base here? If you’re a member of the council or city staff, would you be willing to come on the show to explain to me why we need even more consultants? 💙
P.S. We sponsored a soccer team! Eusebian is a longstanding outreach program at New Life Bilingual Church in West Chicago.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit 60185.substack.com