Aldermen avoid critical vote on the financial fate of Peru. Or did they?

There was no support for any sales tax increase at last nights council meeting. Only those in opposition gave their respective thoughts on why they would not support a sales tax. Dave Potthoff stated an increase in sales tax would "discourage people from shopping locally and encourage them to do their shopping on-line". Bob Ankiewicz said "it will not matter if proceeds from a sales tax increase are ear-marked for street improvements because if an increase was approved the citizens could not afford to own cars and they would have to walk anyway". I'm not making this up. It will be in the minutes. Mikyska and O'Beirne are in favor of an increase, but only because they think they could use it to fund a pool. Good luck with that fellas. Mertel was rather perplexed after Treasurer Hylla detailed once again for them the extent of the deficits in the General Fund, the Water and Sewer Fund, and the enormous amount of debt service we are paying on. Mertel apparently still cannot quite rationalize that we are essentially "broke". Ferrari said nothing. No motion was made or seconded for a vote on the matter. Mayor Harl reminded the council that they had recently approved purchase of new diesel generators (I think about 2.5 million) and the Electric Light Fund reserves are going to be running thin and may not be able to support the rest of the funds as well as the day to day operations of the city. Hylla told them they have only two choices. #1 - Raise revenue or #2 - Cut spending. Makes sense to me. But, none of the alderman responded. I am quite sure that most of the aldermen think they did well last night and the city will go on just fine without any additional revenue. I'm also pretty sure they think they have no other responsibility or accountability in working to correct the financial mess they helped create. That's where they are dead wrong. Now more than ever before they are going to have to not only cut future costs and eliminate future improvements on streets, curb and sidewalk, sewer and now even electric system programs and improvements. They will also have to make huge cuts in existing programs and departments that will certainly include lay-offs in every office and department and that means there will also be a reduction in many if not all city services. These cuts need to add up to more than $1,000,000 according to Treasurer Hylla. Yes, that's six zeros. I think this could end up being the best thing to happen to this city in a long time. Or possibly the worst if the aldermen do not respond properly. It's kind of like a "Tough Love" program. These aldermen, specifically the committee chairmen, will now be required to make the toughest choices of their political careers. Because, if they fail to make massive cuts in existing costs and expenditures and the Electric Light Fund eventually becomes unable to subsidize the rest of the funds, this city will be financially bankrupt within one year. It's that serious folks. So if any of the aldermen are thinking they might have dodged another bullet last night, and they can go back to sitting on their hands again while somebody else cleans up the mess. Oh no! They are in for a very rude awakening. If they fail to do their duty to make drastic spending cuts very, very soon. Well, we all know the story about the state called "Illinois".