After referendum defeat, Northfield Park District isn’t giving up

Following the narrow defeat of the Northfield Park District’s April funding referendum, which would have allowed for park improvements and expansion throughout the Village, park officials say they want to try again soon.

In the April election, a limiting tax rate increase, which the Northfield Park Board placed on the ballot just months earlier, failed by just 32 votes, with 572 voting against and 540 in support, or 51.44% to 48.56%.

The referendum proposed a permanent property tax increase that officials estimated as an approximate $30 annual increase per $100,000 of property value.

Background

The Northfield Park District pursued the increase after completing its 2023 master plan, according to Executive Director Bill Byron, who said the current master plan differs from previous incarnations in multiple ways.

“The past updates to the master plan were just improvements to existing assets,” he said. “And the difference in this master plan was looking outside of our current footprint.”

The major focus of the updated master plan, he added, was expansion, including “expanding our community center to accommodate more youth programming, expanding our maintenance facility at Willow Park to add outdoor restrooms,” and more.

Park Board President Nate Pave added that the expansion would also include growing the park district’s properties.

“We have very limited amounts of land available and usable as a park district,” he said. “But (the referendum) will give us the ability to acquire more in the future and give more parks to the people in the areas closer to Northbrook where there really aren’t any. We wouldn’t be able to do it otherwise.”

The park district ultimately decided to pursue a referendum — reportedly the first referendum the Northfield Park District has ever taken to voters — because it realized current funds wouldn’t pay for the proposed improvements.

According to Byron, the park district brings in a little less than $1.5 million a year in property tax revenue (district financial documents can be found here), which he said isn’t enough to cover a $3 million outdoor restroom and maintenance facility or land acquisition.

And while he praised the Northfield Parks Foundation for its fundraising contributions, Byron said officials felt this was too big of an ask for them.

“The master plan was calling for $10 to $20 million in new projects, and that’s a lot to ask out of a parks foundation,” he said.

In January, the Park Board voted to put the referendum on the April ballot.

Byron said it was decided to pursue a limiting rate increase referendum as opposed to a bond referendum because officials believed it will be better for the park district in the long run.

“In a bond referendum, you’re picking out specific projects and their costs and funding it overtime,” he said. “But it’s not going to help with the sustainability, the operating costs, the replacement of those assets over time. And for a district our size, that just didn’t seem to make sense to look at this as a bond referendum.

“We’d hate to see these new parks or facilities fail 15 years from now when we don’t have the funds to continue to operate them.”

The Northfield Park District’s ask was similar to that of the Kenilworth Park District, another small-sized agency, in November 2024. Kenilworth’s referendum also failed.

The result

Both Byron and Pave said they believe multiple factors contributed to the referendum’s narrow defeat, agreeing that the quick turnaround from January to April didn’t give them enough time to reach all the voters.

“We really didn’t have much time between when we decided that we were going to do it and the election,” Pave said. “We had 60 days to get the word out, and that didn’t seem to be enough.”

But while the referendum didn’t pass, both Byron and Pave said they will likely try again in the future.

“We were as encouraged as we were disappointed in how close it was,” Byron said, adding, “We were that close. It’s something we certainly wouldn’t rule out trying again.”

Pave went further, saying they will try again.

“I think it will not be in the November (election) cycle, but potentially again in the next April election,” he said. “We’re still figuring that out, but I think it’ll give us a lot more time to go out there and educate the community better.”

Byron said that’s what the park district plans on doing this summer, specifically mentioning the town’s Market and Music concert series as a place where community outreach will happen.

Highlighting discussions the Park Board had at its April 28 regular meeting, Byron added that everyone seemed to agree to keep trying to pursue a tax increase.

“The wind was taken out of the sails a little bit, but it’s because it was so close,” he said. “If it had gotten defeated 60-40, I think that would have given us clearer direction of, ‘OK, our taxpayers don’t want this.’ But it was minor percentage points here.”

In the meantime, Byron said the Northfield Parks Foundation will continue fundraising to support projects in the master plan. The first one on the park district’s agenda is a planned pocket park near Temple Jeremiah, which the park district entered into an agreement with the Village of Northfield to develop.

“We’re ready to break ground on this,” he said. “It’s shovel-ready. We just need the funds to do it.”

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