Oswego Fire District Board votes to make third referendum try

OSWEGO – The Oswego Fire Protection District will find out if the third time’s the charm when it places a tax referendum before the voters on the Nov. 8 general election ballot.

The district’s 0.10% property tax increase referendum failed by 298 votes in April 2021, and by only one vote in the June 28 primary election.

After conducting a discovery recount of ballots in selected precincts Aug. 1, no errors or irregularities were found, and fire district officials decided that seeking a full recount would be useless.

The fire protection district’s five-member board of trustees voted unanimously to make the third attempt at a meeting Aug. 8 at Station 1 on Woolley Road in Oswego.

“There’s nothing else we can do but try this again,” fire district President Richard Kuhn told fellow trustees Ken Holmstrom, Robert Tripp, Rodger Long and Jason Bragg.

“We don’t have a choice,” Kuhn said.

Currently, the owner of a home valued at $300,000 pays about $600 in property taxes to the fire district. If the referendum were approved, that same homeowner would see a increase of about $99 to the annual tax bill.

Fire district officials said they need additional revenue to maintain emergency response times and keep equipment up to date.

If approved, the tax increase would increase the district’s revenue by about $1.7 million a year.

On June 28, voters cast 4,149 ballots in favor of the tax-increase referendum and 4,150 against it, according to unofficial vote totals.

The Kendall County Clerk conducted the Aug. 1 discovery recount, which allowed representatives from the fire district to observe employees of the clerk’s elections office count the paper ballots from nine of the district’s 40 precincts by hand.

Under the rules of a discovery recount, the fire district was allowed to seek an examination of up to 25% of the district’s voting precincts.

Had the discovery recount produced any irregularities, the fire district could have taken the information before a judge to ask for a recount of all the ballots.

The sprawling fire protection district covers a 53-square-mile area of northeast Kendall County and northwestern Will County.

The district includes all of the village of Oswego and unincorporated Boulder Hill, along with portions of Montgomery, Yorkville and Plainfield.

On election night, the referendum appeared to have failed by 10 votes, although it was ahead by three votes in the Kendall County portion of the district.

However, a tiny portion of the district extends into Will County. There, 17 voters cast ballots against the referendum and four voted yes, resulting in what appeared to be a 10-vote defeat.

A subsequent count of provisional mail-in ballots July 12 narrowed the gap to one vote.