RIVERSIDE-BROOKFIELD Also serving North Riverside $1.00
Vol. 32, No. 29
July 19, 2017
It’s war!
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Truck driver injured in crash PAGE 4
Long lines as gas stations drop prices below $1
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RBHS unveils deficit budget PAGE 10
PAGE 6
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State budget claws back some local revenues
Fee imposed on local sales tax; income tax revenue share reduced By BOB UPHUES Editor
Elected officials in towns all over Illinois have worried for years that state government might seek to help balance its budget with money ordinarily earmarked for Illinois municipalities. And with the override of the governor’s veto on July 6, the budget passed by the Illinois General Assembly is doing just that. Written into the budget bill is a provision that calls for the state to collect what amounts to a handling charge of 2 percent from sales taxes imposed by local governments, including Brookfield, North Riverside and Riverside. In addition, the local share of state income tax revenues is cut by 10 percent in the state’s 2017-18 budget, a move local officials have long feared might happen. That has local leaders miffed. In Brookfield, North Riverside and Riverside, who have struggled to keep budgets balanced or close to it in recent years, officials see the state’s attempts to get their hands on municipal revenues as balancing the state’s budget on their backs. “I know there was a lot of pressure for state lawmakers to [pass a budget],” said Brookfield Village President Kit Ketchmark. “But I wonder what they really accomplished. They forget that the towns are where people live. This has a direct impact on people.” See BUDGET on page 13
BOB UPHUES/Editor
OVER AND OUT: Brookfield Fire Capt. Ed Bermann will retire after more than 40 years as a Brookfield firefighter at the end of July. The department’s unofficial historian, radio expert and firefighter mentor, Bermann will take a whole lot of institutional memory with him when he leaves at the age of 65.
Brookfield’s Bermann rolls up the hose Fire department captain retiring after 42 years
By BOB UPHUES Editor
Ed Bermann was always going to be a firefighter, and since 1975 he’s been just that. But at the end of this month,
Bermann will be walking away from the job he loves. State statute requires firefighters to retire at age 65, and on Bermann’s next birthday in August, he’ll hit that milestone. A lifelong Brookfielder with deep
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family ties to not just the village but its fire department, Bermann’s last shift at the firehouse on Shields Avenue is July 26. After that, he’ll put See BERMANN on page 11
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