County Voters To Decide: $50 Million For Preservation?

    Lake County voters will get to decide the future of the county’s land preservation program, after the Lake County Commission on Tuesday voted to place the question on this fall’s ballot and directed staff to develop language for a $50 million bond issue.
   "This is a critical time in Lake County," said commissioner Leslie Campione, voicing support for the public's ability to decide if the county should take out a twenty-year bond for the purpose of continuing the acquisition of land for the purpose of preserving it from development.
   The current bond program, approved in 2004 for $36 million, will expire this year. That initiative was brought to life with a 71% voter approval.
   On Tuesday, the county was provided an outline of a new program that if approved by voters would add 1.2 mils to property tax bills for the next twenty years, an average of $21 per household. The money would be used to conserve water and land areas throughout the county.
   The proposal received broad support on Tuesday, with nearly a dozen citizen speakers voicing support for the issue, and the commission voted unanimously to place the question on this fall’s ballot.
   “This is an issue that is very unifying,” said commissioner Sean Parks, who said his public discussions on the issue in recent months have returned much support for the idea of preserving Lake County land as growth pressure continues to rise. “This is a pretty big day for us.”
   How to best manage the program should it be approved by voters was a topic, with both Parks and Campione raising the hope that a broad coalition of interests could be brought together to maximize the effectiveness of the program, with Campione specifically voicing the belief that the money might be best spent focusing on preserving land around the county’s cities, where growth pressure has been the largest.
   “We all want to protect… but how do we make this work in the most impactful way,” she questioned.
   All members agreed that it was appropriate to place the issue on the ballot so that the county’s residents could decide its fate.
   However, commissioner Josh Blake voiced his belief that preservation would be better done with the private sector, to reduce the loss of land on the tax rolls.
   "Thirty-four percent of Lake County land is already in permanent conservation," Blake said.