Chair, other leaders want to spend $240K
Kane County started experimenting with lobbying after the election of county board Chair Corinne Pierog. The result was millions of dollars in state funding for the Longmeadow Parkway project.
Perhaps spurred by recent success in wrangling enough state funds to wipe out the need for a toll on the Longmeadow Parkway, Kane County officials are contemplating their largest investment of taxpayer dollars toward lobbying at the state and federal levels.
Kane County Board Chair Corinne Pierog recently told county board members she believes a combination of state money, remaining COVID-19 relief money and cash contributions from neighboring counties will pay off the bond the county issued to pay for Longmeadow’s construction. But that’s only if $12.5 million for Longmeadow stays in the proposed state budget through the final vote.
“Fingers crossed,” Pierog told the board’s legislative committee. “I could not be happier.”
Getting that money into the state budget for Kane County is a result of lobbying efforts by Pierog, county board members and a private lobbying firm the county hired.
But the use of lobbyists by the county is a touchy subject with a history that goes back through at least the previous two county board chairs.
A previous board moved to eliminate lobbyists from the county budget in the waning tenure of former county board Chair Karen McConnaughay. Several board members didn’t like the political ties McConnaughay had with the lobbying firm the county used at the time.
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