Kadner: If voters get what they want, they may not want it

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Einhorn

Updated: March 4, 2012 8:16AM

Most people want lower taxes. They want new businesses that will provide jobs.

And from the number of telephone calls and emails I’ve received over the past few years, I would say the majority of Americans want illegal aliens deported.

That’s why I find the controversy in Crete over a proposal to build a detention center for illegal immigrants intriguing.

Residents of Crete believe they weren’t provided enough information about the village’s plan for the detention center. But when Mayor Michael Einhorn finally got around to explaining it, I doubt many minds were changed.

The center, which likely would house 750 detainees, would be a private-public partnership.

That’s another popular idea. People say the government doesn’t know how to run things, so it should team up with businessmen who do.

The Corrections Corporation of America has been in the business of running correctional facilities for 30 years.

It’s a billion-dollar enterprise that has contracted with the federal government, states and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to run jails and prisons.

CCA contends that it has saved taxpayers millions of dollars because it can run these facilities at a lower cost than the government.

That should make people happy. But this concept doesn’t seem to comfort people in Crete.

The mayor contends that if the center were built, at a cost of $60 million to $70 million, the village would tax the property. He estimates the property tax revenue for Crete-Monee School District 201U alone at $1 million.

Everyone complains about property tax bills increasing. Well, if you want to hold them down, you need to attract businesses that will generate tax revenue.

ICE would contract with the village to hire a contractor/operator (CCA) for the detention center and would pay the village a fee (a per diem rate is one possibility) to house detainees there. Crete would split that fee with CCA, bringing in more revenue for the village.

CCA estimates that it would hire about 200 people to work at the detention center, creating permanent jobs. In addition, there would be construction jobs created to build it.

So you have all these things that people want, but many of the people in Crete sure don’t want a detention center.

On Thursday, U.S. Reps. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-2nd) and Luis Gutierrez (D-4th) met with ICE officials to “voice their strong opposition” to the detention center in Crete.

“I don’t want the south suburbs to become famous for building prisons and breaking up families,” Jackson said in a statement. “Crete is a vibrant and charming small town. That image would change drastically with a prison.”

The irony of those words has to seem like a slap in the face to Einhorn, who has spent the past decade opposing Jackson’s plan to build a third major airport near Crete.

But Jackson has supported the airport for the same reasons that Einhorn supports the detention center — economic development and jobs.

The federal government is in sorry financial shape. The situation in the state of Illinois is even worse, with the government facing about $8 billion in unpaid bills this year, a figure likely to grow geometrically in the future.

That means the federal and state governments are going to be sending less money to local government, and that means trouble for any mayor trying to pay his police department, maintain streets and water systems and keep snow off the streets.

There are some projects, of course, that always are going to cause an uproar in a community. Nuclear power plants, industries involved in hazardous waste and landfills come to mind.

And in the suburbs of Chicago, I think a prison or detention facility usually would encounter opposition as well.

However, people want jobs. They want their taxes to be kept low. They want government to bend to the needs of private industry to create a better business climate.

And they want those illegal immigrants sent packing.

Well, that’s what they say.

In Crete, this stuff is neither theory nor election-year rhetoric. It is reality.

So what do people really want? What are they really willing to sacrifice?

There is no perfect solution to the problems that confront this country, this state or the suburb you live in.

There are just hard choices.

That’s why politicians often just tell voters what they want to hear.