Hebron’s $439K police budget is too high, challengers in 4-way village president race contend

All three challengers to incumbent Hebron Village President Kimmy Martinez in the upcoming April 6 election said they would look to cut the Hebron Police Department budget if elected, arguing its budget of nearly $439,000 for the 2020-21 budget year is too much.

Josh K. Stevens, whose grandparents lived in Hebron when he was growing up, and Robert W. Shelton, who moved to Hebron from Huntley three years ago and is semiretired after a career in information technology, both said they would want to keep the local department but on a smaller scale.

“I will not defund the police department,” Shelton said, adding that he also thinks he could dedicate more time to president role as a retiree than the other candidates, who all work various fields. “But I would certainly make cuts and pare that down because I don’t think we need to be spending that amount that we are in that area.”

Candidate Steve Vole, a former trustee on the Village Board who resigned his seat several years ago, wants to disband the Hebron Police Department completely and contract the McHenry County Sheriff’s Office for law enforcement patrols, a move he thinks would save the village money.

“I am aware this would be a big step that may take time and information-sharing to gain the support needed to make this change,” Vole said.

Vole feels keeping a village police department, particularly the commercial vehicle enforcement practices, opens up local taxpayers to too many legal liabilities.

But Martinez said she thinks getting rid of the police department – which recently was expanded from a part-time agency to a full-time one during her tenure in 2017 – would be a step backward for Hebron.

Martinez also pushed back against Vole’s assertion that village police unfairly have targeted and pulled over semitruck drivers, a job he sometimes performs. She said there’s a reason trucks seem to have been pulled over more often: so their weight can be checked to see if they are over the capacity limits of certain roads in the village.

“By implementing a commercial vehicle enforcement division within our police department, we have been able to keep overweight trucks from ruining fragile and aged infrastructure,” Martinez said. “I am being challenged by three people, backed by a small group who is unhappy with everything.”

Martinez said she heard from residents who wanted a full-time police force in 2017, and she feels she delivered and has put the community in a good position to handle steady growth.

Both Shelton and Stevens said they would want to use the savings from cutting back the department so some of those dollars could go toward infrastructure projects.

“I don’t think we need that much spent when there are other aspects of our town falling by the wayside,” said Stevens, who works as a paraprofessional in a Wisconsin school district. “We’re spending all this money on the police department and more cars and more officers, and it’s not as necessary, in my opinion, as getting our town back to the beautification projects we need.”

Martinez, a real estate agent, said she thinks the village already is making progress in improving its utility situation, and pushed back against claims by challengers, including Shelton, that the water bills in the village are too high by saying a decrease in utility rates was approved during her tenure.

Martinez also pointed out that during her term, Hebron renegotiated the interest rate on a loan from the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency that financed village utility infrastructure needs from 2.5% to 1%, saving the village money on a deal that at one point it was only able to afford paying interest on and no principal.