Home Rule issue set to come before council
</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[The Harrisburg City Council is expected to approve a measure some time in the next month to officially ask Harrisburg voters whether or not the city should adopt Home Rule status as Aug. 20 is the last day the city can act to place a referendum on the November general election ballot.
Both Mayor Eric Gregg and City Commissioner John McPeek have spoken out in favor of the move at various meetings this spring and summer.
"My goal with home rule is to move the city forward," Gregg said after Tuesday's special council meeting. "The time is now. We don't want to be passed by every town in the region. This would move the city forward by leaps and bounds."
Gregg has specifically referenced home rule as one of the lessons he's learned from Marion Mayor Bob Butler who described the flexibility provided to his city as a "godsend."
"It's given us great flexibility," Butler explained last week. "You see cities and villages only have the authority given to them by the legislature. With home rule it's just the opposite. The city has the authority to do everything that the legislature has not prohibited. So, you have a great deal of flexibility you simply cannot have without home rule."
Butler pointed to both the Illinois Centre Mall and Rent One Park as two major projects that probably would not have happened without the city's greater financing flexibility as a home rule community.
"I don't know why any community wouldn't have home rule because it opens so many avenues," he said.
"I would recommend every town to have home rule," urged Butler based on his 49 years of experience as Marion's mayor and his role as delegate at the state's last constitutional convention in 1970 that included it in the state constitution.
The document automatically grants home rule status on municipalities with more than 25,000 residents.
For smaller communities it can only be granted after local voters approve it which Marion voters did years ago in the decade following their deadly tornado in 1982.
Most of the larger county seats in the region have already voted for home rule as has some smaller communities such as Johnston City.
It's not just for cities. Voters at the county level can also approve home rule status.
Last year state Sen. Gary Forby, D-Benton, recommended the Hardin County Board of Commissioners take the issue to their voters which would give them the flexibility to deal with some of the larger events at Hogrock that can temporarily more than double the county's population and put a drain on the county finances.
The board rejected the advice and pursued special legislation through the General Assembly which ended up stuck in the House Rules Committee this spring. Last month one of the organizers of the group backing the special legislation said she would be taking another look at home rule.
In addition to the city councils or county boards placing the referendum on the ballot, it can also be placed there by citizen initiative. Those petitions would have be filed with the county clerk by Aug. 6 and the organizers would have to collect signatures of at least eight percent of those who voted in the last gubernatorial election. In Hardin County where nearly 2,100 voted two years ago, that would mean around 170 registered voters.
Harrisburg City Council meets 6 p.m. Thursday for its regular meeting.