Peru to host special meeting on pool referendum

A special Peru City Council meeting has been scheduled at 6 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 26, to discuss the upcoming swimming pool referendum in the council chambers.

A non-binding question on the Nov. 5 ballot will ask Peru voters: “Shall the city of Peru construct and operate a municipal swimming pool funded by the use of the hotel/motel tax?”

Former Alderwoman Sherry Mayszak successfully collected more than enough signatures to get the referendum on the ballot. On Aug. 12, Alderman Tom Payton requested a town hall or Facebook Live session to bring the plans for the pool project to the forefront before the election.

For the meeting to be held, the council needed three aldermen to agree – Alderman Bob Tieman and Jason Edgcomb agreed to hold a meeting. Alderman Mike Sapienza thanked Payton for his persistence in obtaining the special meeting.

“I feel it would be unethical for us to allow voters to go to the polls without hearing the city’s concerns and justifications for their position,” he said. “It’s our obligation to the voters to be transparent with the facts.”

Mayszak, La Salle County Board member Jill Bernal and Eric Soderholm spoke Aug. 26 to the Peru City Council meeting to voice their displeasure with those who questioned the referendum. Mayszak said she disagreed with what was presented during the Aug. 12 meeting and she said on Aug. 26 the pool referendum was “wholly and totally her idea alone.”

“I got to thinking about how to give the voters in Peru a voice,” Mayszak said. “I did not want the decision to build a pool to be left to seven people when I felt the majority of Peru voters, like me, would want a pool.”

Mayor Ken Kolowski floated an idea in March 2022 that would have increased hotel/motel taxes in Peru to pay off the loan for a new pool at Washington Park, but the idea was met with skepticism and questions that went unresolved. The idea was dropped.

Peru, however, did increase the tax collected for hotel and motel that stays within city limits from 5.64% to 7.5% in May 2022.

The Sept. 26 meeting will be held as a City Council meeting with the mayor opening, and public comment will be allowed at the beginning and end of the meeting. Mayszak said she would be in attendance.