February 18, 2025 • 49 mins
Frankfort Township Assessor Joe Kral is running unopposed in the April 1, 2025, consolidated election. In this episode, we get to know Joe, explore the role of the Assessor, and break down the property tax process—from how your home is valued to paying your tax bill. We also discuss how this important position impacts homeowners and the steps you can take if you disagree with your property assessment.
Learn more about the Frankfort Township Assessor’s Office at www.frankfortassessor.com. For all things Mokena Elections, including candidate interviews, election updates, and local event coverage, visit our website.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, well, Joe, thank you for sitting down with
me, Assessor Joe Krall, and sowe're going to talk.
You don't have a challengerthis election, so the idea.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Nobody wants my job, nobody does.
I mean really to talk.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
You don't have a challenger this election, so the
idea we had was instead is kindof talk about use this to talk
about the process of assessingproperties and how it goes from
your job to the property taxbill that people get in their
mail.
So first, why don't you justtell us a little bit about
yourself?
Where'd you grow up?
Siblings, parents, things likethat.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
I'm an only child.
I grew up in South Holland,actually started in Markham to
South Holland, lived there, wentto Thornwood High School,
graduated in 86.
Long story short, I went toschool for journalism, political
science.
I wanted to be Mike Royko, whowas a writer for the Chicago
(01:06):
Tribune and Sun Times.
The reality was, while I was incollege, one of my professors
was a good friend of mine andhe's like well, why are you
doing this?
Because the media itself is inits downward spiral and, as it
planned out, we don't reallyhave newspapers anymore.
(01:26):
There's, uh, it's all you know.
The fourth estate is not whatit used to be.
So, uh, I, when I was incollege, I was putting myself
through school doing heating andair conditioning for Sears,
okay, and when I got out, Icould get a job at the times, or
the Hammond times at the time,and it was nine dollars an hour,
(01:49):
or I could continue working atSears for seventeen dollars an
hour doing he an airconditioning, and I did that for
about 15 years I worked.
My area was 79th Street in thecity, south from the lakefront
to Halst, and, uh, I pretty muchspent every day of you know, 15
(02:09):
years driving around fixingrefrigerators, getting furnaces,
air conditioners going and allthat stuff are you a generally
handy person still today?
yes, yeah I, I, I, I prefer totinker on things now I mean,
it's now computers and so forthand a lot of it you don't give
you the option to repair things,and I'm a big right-to-repair
(02:31):
person.
I think that people should havethe right to fix the stuff they
own, but now you've got so manycompanies that are denying you
that ability and won't sell youparts and do all of those things
.
That's a whole other aspect oflife.
So I bought a business when Iwas in college called Roto Spray
, and I ran it with my uncle,which is Debbie's father, my
(02:52):
father and myself.
Well, debbie, debbie Blank, I'msorry your cousin, right Cousin,
yes, and they were operatingout of South Holland when they
moved out here.
Both of them moved out here inabout 1999, 2000, and moved
rotospray out here.
I bought a second businesscalled XL Addenda that I operate
(03:15):
out of my parents' basement.
It gave me the ability to quitbeing a refrigerator repairman
because after a while thosepeople tend to wear out their
knees.
You're on your knees all thetime what was that second
business?
excel addenda.
I modified switches.
So a gentleman I used to readthe chicago tribune on tuesdays
(03:38):
and sundays specifically forbusiness opportunities and a
gentleman in Darien was sellinghis switch modification business
, c&k, went through the.
We did a lot of work for themand then they moved their whole
company in 2004 to Costa Rica,which they offered me to go down
(04:03):
there and do my business downthere.
But the reality was I wasn't meto go down there and bring my
business down there.
But the reality was is I wasn'tready to go down there and
possibly lose your business.
And then you're just sitting inCosta Rica with nothing.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
So that kind of end that business then.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
It put a damper on it .
I mean, I still ran it for afew years afterwards doing lead
tinning and trimming and soforth.
But I went and got my appraisallicense and I wanted to be an
appraiser.
Because I mean back times, 2003, 2004,.
Everybody's selling houses,every housewife is becoming a
real estate agent, they'reputting out their signs and
(04:39):
everybody sells houses and youneed appraisals to sell said
houses and the appraisalbusiness was booming.
One of my father's friends now.
At the time to get an appraisallicense you had to intern with
an actual appraiser for a year.
It wasn't now.
You have to get a college.
There's a college degree in it.
(04:59):
But at the time you had tointern and one of my father's
friends happened to be theassessor here and offered to
take me on as an apprentice.
Actually, never did theapprentice work.
I started working for theassessor's office and it was an
(05:20):
interesting beginning in seeingthe way that it was run.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Who was the assessor at that time?
Paul Ruff.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
I eventually defeated him in an election.
Going forward First day callsme into the office and he points
up to three monkeys and he saysthis is you.
I don't want you to hearnothing.
And it was a hear nothing, seenothing, say nothing.
And he looks at me.
He goes that's you, you don'thear nothing, you don't see
nothing, and you don't saynothing.
(05:48):
And I'm sitting back and I'mlike this is a job.
This is not something you know.
Whatever the mafia, whatever I,he ended up getting sick.
I took over the residentialaspect.
I worked on a whole project totake every single house in this
township, take photographs of it, put it on to the website.
(06:10):
And when he came back, peoplewere like oh, this guy, joe,
he's really helpful and nice.
And I got fired and I think itwas because he thought I was a
threat and I said all right,well, maybe I'll think of
running.
I didn't really think aboutrunning in politics for that
point.
I did in 2009.
I had acquired my credentials,got the signatures in 20 degree
(06:36):
weather or 20 degrees belowweather, two weeks, the high
temperature was minus six and Igot all of my signatures, which,
of course, got thrown outbecause my father rest in peace,
great guy.
And on our petition sheets Iwould go out with 15 names or 15
(06:56):
blank spaces and at the end ofthe night I'd come home and
there's only like seven and Iwould just go out the next day
with a blank one rather thantrying to screw around.
And in his infinite helping outhe took them to St Mary's for
his and had all the nuns signand unfortunately I signed it as
(07:17):
being the witness to thosesignatures.
And so out of three of 56petitions I was said I was the
witness that I wasn't, so theythrew them all out for a pattern
of fraud and so I had to run asa write-in.
It was a hard battle but I got6,000 write-in votes to his
(07:41):
3,000 not write-in votes and forthe first time in Illinois
history a city incumbent wasbeaten by not write-in votes.
And for the first time inIllinois history a city
incumbent was beaten by awrite-in.
I don't have the most write-invotes.
There was a guy in Peoria whowas on the school board who got
sick and didn't get hispetitions in.
I don't care, none of thatmatters, but 6,000 people wrote
(08:01):
my name down and it's extremelymotivating to do the best job
possible.
I mean, they didn't just go inand circle in an oval, they
actually wrote the name down.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
And what was the?
How did you get to that point?
How did you get 6,000 people towrite your name in?
What were you doing thatelection?
Speaker 2 (08:23):
I grabbed every one of my friends that I'd ever met,
that sort of believed in me,and we manned every polling
place.
I didn't stop when they kickedme off the ballot.
I just changed all of my signsto write in Joe Craw.
I explained my situation.
I had 20 coffees that I walkedinto neighborhoods and talked
(08:46):
about how property taxes workand how when you elect somebody,
they should be responsible toyou, not above you, and that's
you know most of government tostate.
We elect people and likethey're above us.
No, no, they're just.
They were just decided to dothe service job that was needed,
yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
It was a.
Was the process different then?
Because?
Was there a primary?
Did you go through a primary?
Is that how?
Speaker 2 (09:20):
Consolidated elections differ than general
elections because there's nonormally a set primary.
In this case I ran as anindependent.
I didn't run as a Republican.
I didn't run as a Democrat, Iran as an independent.
He ran as a Republican, so hedidn't get signatures, he just
had a caucus to put him in.
I collected signatures, notprimary, but actually for the
(09:44):
election.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
Tell us how you ended up in Mokina, or maybe you
touched on that a little bit In2003,.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
My mother passed away .
She had a battle of cancer andmy father a pretty strong, stoic
kind of a guy I didn't thinkwas handling it so well you know
, come home dishes in the sink,been there for a day, you know,
can't do this and he needed thatpush.
(10:19):
I was living in the city.
I think I needed to start togrow up a little bit.
Instead of having fun in thecity and doing that, I moved
back home and was working at theassessor's office full time and
it was seven months later thatI got fired.
But I mean, sort of like, youget into this grind of you're
(10:40):
helping out and you're feelingmotivated to accomplish
something in government orsomething in any business and
you don't want to leave everyday, to drive an hour, to come
back an hour in the day, Uh.
So I moved home.
Um, it was, uh, a change.
I hadn't lived at home for, youknow, 15 years and then you're
(11:03):
home for a while and while andthat's how I moved to Mokina.
I mean, I've had ties herebefore, Even when I worked for
Sears.
I used to come back here in the80s and the 90s and to see
where Mokina has grown is insane.
I know most of the people thatare running for offices now
(11:24):
worked on their campaigns evenbefore I got involved in
politics.
I originally got involved inpolitics.
They were trying to change thename of Mokina Junior High and I
didn't understand it because Imean, he hadn't been
superintendent for all that longand they were going to change
it for his name and it was goingto cost ungodly amounts of
money, which didn't really makesense, because I like Mokina
(11:47):
Junior High who were they goingto name it?
after.
I can't think of his name.
He was the superintendent atthe time, but I don't want to
say what it was without knowingit didn't pass, which was great,
because the cost that we incurfor the services that we pay for
(12:07):
keep going up.
And if you keep inflating themeven more than that, then they
go up even higher quicker andthat occurs, but that's how I
made it.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
That's how I got here .
Okay, and you're married andhave a son.
You want to talk about yourfamily a little bit.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
I'm married to Theodora Cross.
She's the best decision I'veever made in my life.
She keeps me grounded and tellsme when I dress funny and don't
look right and don't wear thatjacket if you go on this show.
She did not like the sweaterchoice, but you know it is what
(12:48):
it is.
My son, joey, is 10.
He goes through MokinaElementary Schools.
He tends to be older than hisage acts.
Older causes me more problemsgetting a little wise cracky.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
So what do you guys do for fun?
What's fun for you guys?
Speaker 2 (13:15):
We as a family my cousin Debbie and myself we own
a house in northern Wisconsin inAqua oh wonderful.
I love to fish.
I like to golf.
We're not as much anymore withthe kid because it's now
function with the child.
Get the child out to do youknow the things that he has to
do and that tends to assert myability to go out and golf for
(13:38):
four hours.
I wish golf took less time.
If golf took two hours I couldget away with it, but it's not.
It's four to five hours and yougot your family to deal with
and the wife.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
Well, something we did, we put our son in.
I'm nowhere near a great golferbut, I, picked it up when I was
younger and I can go a coupletimes a year.
But we did one of the golfclass this past summer with
hopes maybe in the next coupleof years we'll get there
together, cause it is nicegetting out on a course and, uh,
I would love to go out with myboy.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
You know, we, we, we put them in the park district
program a couple of times withgolf, um, we tried golf lessons
early, but it just didn't click.
He he's gotten into Taekwondo,oh great.
(14:32):
So he's now a second degreeblack belt at 10.
He's a member of theirleadership team, which means
that he actually teachestaekwondo at the dojo.
He's a member of theirdemonstration team, so he goes
out and does all the tumbles andso forth.
Very cool.
He's gotten now into mug tai,which is kickboxing kind of a
deal, so it gives him theconfidence he can do the splits.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
I don't even know it didn't come out of my DNA.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
There's just no way.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
How funny.
That's great.
Well, as we said when we gotstarted, you don't have a
challenger this election.
Have you ever had a challenger,since you ran I did the first
four years.
George Peros Okay, yes, but onething that we always hear when
(15:14):
tax bills come out and thecomplaint you get is Joe, why
are you raising our taxes?
Nope, and that's not the case,and that's kind of what we want
to talk about tonight.
We'll talk about the process,how it goes from your office to
the tax bill that we get and whoall's involved in that.
Let me start with kind of giveeverybody a general overview of
a couple of the offices being.
(15:36):
Start with the assessor.
The job of the assessor toplace a value, so everything is
based upon assessments.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
Now what an assessment is is one third of
your market value, or 33.33% ofwhat your market value would be.
What is market value?
Market value is what a typicalbuyer would pay for your
property in an arm's lengthtransaction unencumbered by a
foreclosure.
Or it's your two relativesselling at each other.
(16:07):
What would a typical buyer pay?
Now there's a second step downon that, in that I am limited by
the Department of Revenue ofthe state of Illinois, and that
number is telling me that I haveto assess as of the first of
the year, but utilizing datafrom not now, but three years
(16:31):
before the three preceding years.
So assessments generally arelagged behind.
So the assessor is going toplace the value like you said,
the value on the property, yes,lag behind.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
so the assessor is going to place the value like
you said.
Yes, next it would go to the.
You submit your books to thesupervisor of assessments.
Is that right?
Speaker 2 (16:51):
the county- in december I get the book it's
called and I have up until june.
Actually it started out july4th, but now it's been moved up
to like june 3rd orth.
Okay that I have to turn mybook in, which is all the values
of the township as of the firstof the year.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
And you give that to the supervisor of assessments,
the supervisor of assessments.
Who is in the county is overall of kind of, over all of the
townships?
Speaker 2 (17:19):
All the townships, the whole county yes, and then.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
So, from that, the supervisor of assessments.
What do they do next?
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Well, they're going to total up the value of all of
the property, all of thecommercial, all of the
industrial, all of theresidential, and that becomes
one number called the TAV ortotal assessed valuation.
Your assessment is a percentagethereof and when you look at
the other side of the tax bill,when you look at tax levy, each
(17:50):
of those taxing bodies has abudget that they come up with or
they adjust according to PTAL.
And then, about three weeksbefore actually probably not yet
right after the elections, bythe way, actually probably not
yet Right after the elections,by the way is when the tax bills
come out May 1st, about twoweeks before they take the levy
(18:10):
and they compare it to what thetotal valuation is.
And what number do I have tomultiply the total valuation to
equal the levy?
That's called the tax rate.
Everybody gets upset about taxrates.
Tax rates are the number thatmakes it equal.
It's not the tax rate, it's thelevy from the taxing bodies
(18:33):
that causes the pain ofincreased taxes.
If I, as the assessor, raiseeverybody's assessment, let's
say, as the market has occurred,10% this last year, 10%.
Everybody's value of theirhouse is 10% higher.
That will actually cause thetax rate to drop when they go to
calculate it out to satisfywhat the levy is.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
Tell us the next step .
So we have the tax rate iscalculated.
Does it go to the treasurer'soffice now to issue the tax
bills?
Speaker 2 (19:05):
Yes, the treasurer issues the tax bills, the
clerk's office is the one thatthen doles out the money as the
tax.
The treasurer collects themoney and then the clerk's
office, through their tax,distributes those to the
individual taxing bodies.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
Great.
So, as I said, to give us alittle bit of an overview of the
general tax structure, talk alittle bit about your office
uses something called massappraisal right For most homes.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
It's a CAMA system, so talk about the data.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
You're looking at sales, as you said from the
previous three years.
Yes, and that's largely forresidential.
And talk a little bit, youhandle commercial property
differently.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
Commercial is generally based upon an income
approach, so you're looking athow much income they're pulling
in.
If you go tofrankfurtassessorcom, you can
put that up there and you're abusiness.
I was just actually in abusiness recently and the guy
said well, what do I do aboutthis?
Actually the Clancy's guy I'mlike well, you can go to our
website and you can submit arent roll to me that'll says
(20:15):
what you're pulling in at rent.
Then I can look at what atypical investor would expect
from that kind of investment anduse that to figure out what the
price is.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
It's fun Sure Talk about the process if a property
owner disagrees with the values.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
When I first came into office in 2010,.
We did not the way the appeals.
So, like I get the assessmentsat the beginning of the year
till June, I turn them in onAugust 1st.
The supervisor of assessmentssends out notices if there's
(20:58):
been a change or, in aquadrennial, sends out notices
to everybody.
So once every four years youalways get a notice which
happened two years ago and in uh, otherwise you don't hear
anything.
You don't get that noticemailed If I haven't made any
changes.
Well, when you receive thatchange in August, that a 30-day
(21:20):
window for you to file an appeal.
If you disagree with what I say, you can go to the Supervisor
of Assessments website.
You file an appeal.
Now, in 2010, when I was elected, I got a lot of appeals where
people really didn't get whatthey were supposed to do.
They would just turn in thingsthat didn't make sense.
Sometimes, even when they had acase, they wouldn't submit the
(21:43):
information that they did and Ifound that odd that I wouldn't
be speaking to somebody in thefirst six months that I was here
.
Why not sit down with you and Istarted what I call a soft
appeal.
You can go to the website.
I think our soft appeal opensup later this month, you would
(22:10):
be able to provide me anyinformation you want, and either
you can just give it to me orsend it in or email, or you can
come in.
And since 2010, I've met with2,700 people face-to-face,
hour-long meetings talking abouttaxes and what causes them.
The face-to-face meeting isgreat because I can pull up all
(22:31):
of the data that I've got in myCanvas system and I can show
people where they're assessed,where they're assessed in
relation to their neighbors.
When they tell me, oh, myneighbor's paying this, and I
can just pull up the thing Well,no, he's not.
This is what he's paying righthere.
Or sometimes, if he is, wecould say, well, why is that?
And it's all about creating thefair burden, because the
(22:56):
disconnect always comes whenpeople say, well, you're just
trying to protect money from thegovernment.
No, if I lower you, thatdoesn't mean that you know that
the fire department gets adollar less.
It means that all of yourneighbors make up for a higher
tax rate.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
One of the I think, best analogies I ever heard to
get that idea is there's thewhole pie and all those
government taxing bodies aregoing to get their whole pie and
that tax rate just changes todetermine how much of your pie,
how much pie you're contributingcompared to the rest.
(23:35):
So yeah, if somebody changes,the pie is the same.
It's just shifting theresponsibility.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
And that goes both ways.
Like, if you know, we're in atime where properties are
selling incredibly high.
When 2007 hit and propertyvalues started to drop, your tax
bill didn't go down, the taxrate just shoots up and that's
absolutely horrible for a largesegment of our population that
(24:05):
are on the senior freeze.
I mean, I was here in 12, 13,and 14 when I'm cutting
everybody's value by 5% to 7% ayear, and all that did is they
enjoyed the benefit of that atleast decrease, even though the
tax bills went up.
But what it really slammed andhurt were seniors that were on
(24:27):
the free.
So, like a senior let's saythey're 65 years and at the time
it was $50,000 a year they'reassessed at a much lower level.
So when the overall value dropsand that tax rate jumped
through the roof, I had seniorswho literally stated that they
make less than $50,000 a yearand their tax bill went up
(24:49):
$2,400.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
Well, and that's a big misconception too is people
think the senior freeze isfreezing your tax bill?
No, but it's not.
It's freezing your assessment.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
Freezing your assessment, yes not it's
freezing your assessment, yes,and it it it when it's very
beneficial as property valuesincrease.
But it is exceedingly painfulwhen the market turns, and I
can't I mean the market today, Idon't, I can't explain it.
(25:18):
I mean I understand people havemortgages that are low and they
don't want to sell.
But some of the amount I meanwe were doing every neighborhood
had its highest house sale.
I mean Grassmere house sellsfor $625,000.
What I mean it didn't.
There's 325, you know fiveyears ago, what, what preceded
(25:43):
that, but then two years, youknow, a year later, you got 425
or 450.
So I mean it's all over theboard and so let's talk.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
we're talking about the appeal process, so correct
me if I'm off in a step of this,but, as you said, soft appeals
is the first step.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
I would advise everybody to do a soft appeal.
Okay, it's, uh, it, I meaneverybody that wants to do an
appeal.
First off, frankfurtassessorcom, um, I think, is one of the
best websites that of anyassessor.
You get so much informationabout your house, exactly.
You need to pull that up.
The first thing you want tolook at is the sketch that's on
there, the photograph of thehouse, which they're old but I
(26:26):
don't want to like I'm notpaying for new photographs and
make sure that that's correct.
Look at it, you know, say, oh,that's that looks relatively.
You know the way that it shouldbe.
If you have an area that's opento above like, let's say,
there's a two-story dwelling andyou've got a large living room
that doesn't show it on there,that would be something to talk
to us about Then get as muchinformation as you can find.
(26:51):
If you go to the search feature, you can just put the name in
of your street and it'll pull upevery house on your street and
you can go through and look atwhat they're assessed at, and
it'll pull up every house onyour street and you can go
through and look at what they'reassessed at.
Now, I don't it's hard tocompare tax bills.
But you can go to thetreasurer's office too and pull
up their actual tax bill.
But some people have exemptions, some people have this Well
(27:12):
again.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
Yeah, assessments are the way to go.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
And what we're mainly looking at is a price per
square foot.
So if you look at what yourassessment is and you divide the
number of square feet, it'llgive you a price per square foot
and you want that to becommensurate with your neighbors
that have the same house.
It's my goal to say that.
You know if I'm valuing thatthree-step ranch that's 2,400
(27:35):
square feet.
Looks like that three-step ranchbecause, barring Butternut or
Prestwick, most of the placesthat are built here are built by
one or two builders in asubdivision.
They build every house outpretty much the same as the
whole neighborhood and theyshould all be assessed.
(27:57):
And that's one of the goodthings about changing canvas
systems at this late date is mypredecessor was very big at
really small neighborhoods so,like you know, defining this
area as a neighborhood andpeople weren't allowed to look
at sales elsewhere, but I wasn'tallowed to look at sales
elsewhere.
Now I can expand neighborhoodsnot just by name but by house
(28:21):
type and what the same type ofhouse is, so that I get a bigger
pool of data for sales.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
So if again soft appeals, the next process would
be a formal appeal with youroffice.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
Well, formal appeal, that would be the board review.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
Board review.
Okay, yeah, you'd with thesupervisor the board review.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
Okay, yeah, that would be.
You'd have to file through them.
I would suggest going throughme first.
It would avoid a lot of hassleand trouble and you would
understand a lot more.
And then the last avenue afterthat is either the property tax
appeal board or a circuit court,if you lose at the board of
review you go to, you can file aPTAB and then circuit court,
(29:06):
but that never really happens.
Ptab is a state.
We go to Springfield and gostand in front of lawyers.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
More of an administrative hearing process.
What should somebody that'sconsidering buying or selling
their home consider as far asproperty taxes go?
Look?
Speaker 2 (29:25):
at the general neighborhood.
You could go to our website.
You could put in the streetname that you're moving on.
You could get a listing of PINnumbers in your area.
You could look on thetreasurer's website.
I've actually reached out tothe treasurer, tried to link
those things up, but that justdoesn't seem like it's going to
happen.
(29:45):
And look at what tax.
One of the big problems or oneof the situations that I run
into is people come in and theysay well, my real estate person
said it was going to be this.
Your real estate person istrying to sell you a house.
I mean so I mean house.
It would be best, if you'rebuying a house, to at least
(30:05):
investigate what tax bills are,what they have been and what in
the future.
Have we passed a referendumthat says we're going to add 10%
?
You'd want to know that, and ifyou call my office, we'll look
at it.
You'd want to know that?
Yeah, so, and if you call myoffice, we do the same.
We'll, we'll look at it.
Give you at least a ballparkestimate of what it was, or
(30:28):
we'll tell you what it was and aballpark to what it will be.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
So talk a little bit.
You mentioned it, but the, thetaxing bodies, are what
determine the overall tax amount.
So how should we look at that?
Or how do we view that theschools are a large portion
villages and that so on?
Speaker 2 (30:50):
Governmental bodies are services.
We pay for services.
We pay for a police departmentthat does our laws, a fire
department that puts out ourfires, a school that educates
our children, a park districtthat runs our laws, a fire
department that puts out ourfires, a school that educates
our children, a park districtthat runs our parks.
We elect in April electionscoming up the individuals that
(31:12):
decide the budgets, the way thatthings, you know, the way the
money is spent.
Every year, a taxing body isposed a question, generally
around October, november,december, at their budgetary
hearings and they say we canlower the levy, we can keep it
the same or we can raise it.
(31:34):
Now, historically, in 1991, theypassed a law called PETA,
property Tax ExtensionLimitation Law, and a problem
occurred that property taxeswere jumping 15, 20% a year as
the new school board comes inand says we've got to build this
school, or the park districtsays we've got to build this
(31:55):
park, and they said we're goingto have to figure out a way to
limit this.
So instead of them having anopen checkbook to raise the
value whatever they could, theywanted to tie it to a defined
inflation point.
It's called the Consumer PriceIndex.
That means that every year thatyour park district or your fire
(32:19):
department went in to do thebudgetary.
They could lower their budgetto keep it the same or they
could raise it, limited by PITO.
Whoever that guy that wrotePITO was actually put a limiter.
It's either the inflation rateor 5%, which is ever lower, and
thank God.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
I mean, you know it just Because otherwise they have
to go and ask for it to thevoters If they want more money,
they have to file a referendum.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
And that's why, whenever you see the word
referendum, generally it workswith an increase to your levy,
your budget, and that's whereyou get the breakdown between,
say, 159 and 161.
They have had seven referendumsand we've had four.
(33:12):
We only passed one, they passedall seven.
Now what does that mean?
That means that the same houseon Everett, where Mr Benny's is
that street, the exact samevalued house on either side of
the street, their tax bill onthe east side of the street is a
thousand dollars higher.
Wow, and that's just.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
And that's I mean, it's a yeah, I mean, that's a
really good highlight of youknow the same value, yeah, so
again, it's extremely determinedby where you are.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
You know that's right across the street how many of
the service providers that youhave and what they're charging
you to give you.
That service Taxing bodiesoperate in the same way that
your IRA is such a great benefitfor you to save money.
The reason that an IRA is agreat benefit is it's
compounding interest.
(34:01):
So every year you compound onnot only the principal but the
interest.
Governmental budgets are theexact same way.
You take last year's budget andyou increase it by a percentage
.
It just keeps getting biggerand then the percentages get
bigger.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
Even that 1% increase from 15 years ago is now about
a 7% increase just because ofthe way that you pass the
referendum and it doesn't stopand that is one of the key
reasons, you know, I wanted todo this, and with us as well as
the whole thing, is those peoplethat were voting on those
school boards, and you know allthe things that we make up our
(34:41):
tax bill, and so it is importantto know who those people are,
because that has a significantdirect impact on each of us as
residents, just comment Firstoff.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
There's the other way , which is absolutely just as
bad, of coming in and cuttingeverything.
The reason people move here isbecause of our school system.
You need to fund them Now.
You know, electing people topark district boards and school
boards and fire protectionboards that think about the tax
(35:19):
ramifications is probably animportant thing too.
And, you know, can you get thebest for the dollar as opposed
to just spending more, and itdoesn't.
More money doesn'tautomatically mean better
service.
It just means that you'repaying more money and in some
cases, you know, the outcome isless when you're paying more.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
I want to do a little .
We've covered a lot of these,but do a little quick like vocab
of some of the terminologywe've gone over.
So first assessed value.
Speaker 2 (35:56):
One third of market value, market value being what
somebody would pay for in anarm's length transaction.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
Okay, next one is market value.
So we got that one taken careof.
What is the equalization factor?
Speaker 2 (36:08):
The Board of Revenue, department of Revenue, has a
valuation.
They look at every single saleand compare it to where I am.
They look at every single saleand compare it to where I am,
and that gives them an idea ofwhere I am in relation to value.
And so they will say, joe,you're, you know, 6% low and you
(36:32):
could make changes, and I gomake changes.
And then they will apply 6% toeverybody to bring the value up
to that level.
And it's actually, if you havea fairly assessed system, the
equalization factor all thatdoes, and it doesn't change the
tax bills, it just changes valueup and down.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
Talk about what is the quadrennial reassessment.
Speaker 2 (36:54):
So every four years I'm required to look at property
throughout the township, everyproperty, to make sure that we
have particulars.
The quadrennial is the yearthat you get sent out all of the
notices that say what yourvalue is and what changes it
(37:17):
actually occurs every year.
We make adjustments every year.
The quadrennial is just theyear that statutorily they have
to send out letters.
Speaker 1 (37:25):
And then again just explain what the levy is.
Speaker 2 (37:29):
The levy is the taxing bodies, the services that
you are receiving from taxingbodies.
It's their bill to say this iswhat we want you to pay.
Okay, it's about assessmentsand I was going to say anything
to the people out there.
If you wanted to talk aboutassessments or look at your
(37:50):
assessment, set up a soft appeal, Bring in as much information
or as little information as youwant.
I generally book theappointments for about an hour
and we go through and we talkabout your house, your
neighbor's houses, anybody'shouse.
You want to bring up whatthey're paying.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
And if you provide us , we'll put the website on.
And if the soft appeal dates,if you want to give us that,
I'll make sure to share that aswell, so people can reach out to
your office, but I think it'sthe 20th.
Okay, yeah, whenever that comesout.
If it's, uh, even after thevideo, we'll be sure to share
those dates for people so theycan come out and talk to you.
All right, so I just want toend with kind of a quick round
(38:28):
of some lighter questions foryou.
I'll let you off the hook onthe easier way out.
Um, so the theme of our podcastis history and community.
Speaker 2 (38:38):
If you were talking to a new resident, new person
coming into town, what advicewould you offer them to get
involved and feel connectedwithin our community?
Join a group, you know, I meanwhether it's the Cub Scouts, or
(38:59):
maybe you have kids with CubScouts.
I'm actually trying.
There's the Toastmasters inFrankfurt that.
Speaker 1 (39:02):
I think I might want to get involved with.
Speaker 2 (39:03):
Yeah, they're great, but I mean to learn to speak
better.
Like you, get involved, show upto events, show up to board
meetings, and I mean just listento what goes on, ask questions,
be nice, be you know, and youwould, you'll, you'll get a
feeling of the way that thecommunity operates.
(39:24):
And it's all about community.
It's all about your neighbors.
Whether they're Republican orDemocrat or anything else, it
doesn't matter.
It's being present in yourcommunity and supporting the
people around you.
Speaker 1 (39:39):
Speaking of meetings, when does the township have
their board meeting?
The?
Speaker 2 (39:44):
second Monday of the month, nobody shows up to
township meetings.
Speaker 1 (39:48):
Well, that's why we'll put it out there and if
anybody wants to come check itout.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
As you saw in the previous one, that food pantry.
Mike Hilton was a guy that wasworking for the and he worked
for, I believe, juul and when hecame to work for the food
pantry he set up all theseabsolutely incredible.
You know, stop by Juul orBurkard's and pick up, you know,
(40:18):
meat and produce and that thinghas grown and grown and grown
and I think it's like the bestfood pantry in the Southland and
people talk about it and itactually say, I mean, you know
like well, I'll sit and haveconversations with seniors that
come in that like I can't affordto live here anymore, joe, and
I'll be like listen, I know it'snot what you want to do, and
(40:41):
they get really, you know thisis not the charity I want, but
let's go down to the food pantryand I take them down there and
introduce them to Steve and say,hey, this person, can you
imagine what it'd be if youdidn't have to pay for two bags
of food a week?
Yeah, you know what I mean.
It's the difference betweenpeople living here and not
living here.
Speaker 1 (41:00):
You know I learned so much by going around with
Supervisor Nick George and justwhat the township offers.
It's really insightful becauseit really does help a lot of the
people especially that needhelp with the senior housing and
all that.
Speaker 2 (41:15):
Oh, and it's the government for the areas that
don't have a villager.
Speaker 1 (41:19):
Yeah, I mean, what is your favorite area restaurant?
Speaker 2 (41:24):
I had something Saturday.
It was probably one of the bestthings that I've eaten in a
couple years and that was acrepe at that crepe place really
okay, it was amazing yeah, I,it was a chicken alfredo with
broccoli spinach.
Wow, and this guy.
(41:46):
We went in there.
My wife had gone to Governor'sState with my son to see a
shadow performance, wherethey're doing shadow something.
Whatever.
America's Got Talent, they werethe winners.
Whatever she's like, well,we'll meet here and everybody
was supposed to meet there andit was just us and the family.
And I sat down and talked tothis guy.
He actually had an assessmentquestion.
(42:06):
So when I was at the officetoday, I picked out some papers.
I dropped them off there.
Great people.
Anytime you open up arestaurant, it's a hard business
to open up, but it was great.
It was fantastic.
Other than that, what's the momand pop place here on
Peppermill?
Speaker 1 (42:25):
Peppermill yeah, you're the second person that's
given Peppermill as an answer.
Speaker 2 (42:29):
I love Peppermill.
Peppermill's great.
I mean Peppermill's the kind ofplace you can go and be.
You know, I'm not the fancyfood my kid is the fancy food.
My wife likes to go out.
I love a good breakfast.
We went to some Greek place inOak Brook and you spend you know
$200 on food and you're stuffed.
(42:53):
But you go to Peppermill and ifyou're just as stuffed then you
get home in 15 minutes.
Sure it's nice.
Speaker 1 (43:03):
If you could master one skill, what would it be
Public?
Speaker 2 (43:06):
speaking.
Huh Toastmasters.
I know I literally haveSometime I think it was in
November and I was like I shouldgo there and just to sit down
and just to learn, you know,some of the things that I never
picked up in public speaking andI I've always, I mean, and I'm
thrust in this job to speakpublicly.
I just do it Socraticallybecause I don't really know any
other way and I'm not going todevelop speeches on this and
(43:28):
maybe I should but to convey theinformation that, overall, the
assessments are percentage ofthe total valuation and it's the
levy that's cut.
Speaker 1 (43:43):
Yeah, If you could only watch one TV show for the
rest of your life, what would itbe?
I love Parks and Recreation.
That's a good one.
Speaker 2 (43:54):
Especially from a government perspective.
In fact, I was just watching itwith my child.
Speaker 1 (43:56):
That's a good one, it's from a government
standpoint, especially from agovernment perspective.
Speaker 2 (43:58):
Yeah, I mean, I watched, in fact I was just
watching it with, you know, mychild.
We were having some discussionsand he's like you're Ron
Swanson, and I'm like, well, youknow, I do follow a lot of what
he says, you know, but I mean Ialways loved the Office, but I,
because I worked for CookCounty for a long time.
Speaker 1 (44:17):
And when at the?
But I worked for Cook Countyfor a long time and the Board of
Review Did you really?
Yeah, and watching Parks andRec after having that experience
was like this is amazing.
So you worked for the Board ofReview, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So if you came with a warninglabel, what would it be?
Speaker 2 (44:37):
Don't talk to me during Bears games.
Speaker 1 (44:40):
That's a good one.
Speaker 2 (44:41):
I mean, you know, we're just having the discussion
with the wife and she was for aSuper Bowl and she's like I
don't want to talk to you around.
You know games because you getso upset and I'm like the last
time that this occurred was shewalked downstairs just as the
Bears had the hail mary thrownagainst them.
Literally 30 seconds latershe's like how's your game?
(45:03):
I'm like it sucks you're veryupset.
She's like I don't want to talkto you when you're.
Speaker 1 (45:10):
I'm like I was so upset, but I mean you know the
start of the downfall sure, ifsomebody came to mokina for the
first time to visit, where wouldyou take them Front?
Speaker 2 (45:20):
Street.
I think, as far as a communitygoes and this is, I don't, you
know, the whole mayoral race,and I'm not talking about any of
that that is such anunderutilized strip of land that
I think that if I broughtsomebody in, I would be like,
(45:41):
hey, you know what would go goodhere, what would be the
business on this street.
I mean, you have a captiveaudience getting off the train
every day and getting on thetrain every day, and you could,
you know?
I mean that's why Annie'sCasino, when it didn't, when it
failed, I mean I just I couldn'tfigure that out, because I mean
that was like the perfect getoff the train, buy your meatball
(46:03):
sandwich and go home.
You know, it didn't make sense,that it didn't survive.
Speaker 1 (46:08):
What is your favorite Molkina community event?
Speaker 2 (46:13):
I really have grown to like the food trucks.
I think that is a it's a greatcommunity event.
I really have grown to like thefood trucks.
I think that is a it's a greatcommunity event.
So I mean we talk aboutcommunity and bringing people
together and it's not about, youknow, you're this or you're
that.
It's that we're all members ofthis community.
That's a great place.
I go there, you sit and youtalk to people around, you wave,
(46:37):
you know I mean that's a goodcommunity event.
Yeah, and it's well attendedand you know, melissa does a
great job.
It just, you know, good job.
Speaker 1 (46:48):
It's inspiring to see Like it really shows that
people want to have something todo in downtown Mokena.
Speaker 2 (46:53):
Well, and I mean, and that, once again, downtown
Front Street, and it just, youknow, for years Dave's Auto was
Tribes and I'd get my car fixedthere and talk to Dave and Char,
and now it was Tribes and thenthey didn't sell food and it was
part of the TIF district and Idon't think he understood what
TIF district meant because hethought he was going to make a
(47:14):
lot.
No, that's just not the way aTIF district works.
Because he thought he was goingto make a lot.
No, that's just not the way TIFdistrict works.
And you need to raise the valueup.
But I'm like, no, no, it has tobe commensurate with the other
properties around.
This is prime real estate forcommercial.
That brings people in, thatgets, and you can't beat the
parking there, it's you know,slide in and out, joe, anything
(47:37):
else that you want to sharebefore we wrap it up.
April elections are important.
You're going to be able to meetyour school board candidates,
your mayoral candidates, yourtrustee candidates.
Get out and meet them, justtalk to them.
Uh, you know they're they'll befighting each other, but you,
(47:57):
as a voter, need to look pastthat and look to who you want to
support, because you trust themto do it, and then, when you do
vote for them, continue to makesure that they're doing what
they said they were going to doNot anything specific to the
mayoral candidates, but anyelected official and make sure
that they're providing you theservice that you are electing
(48:20):
them to do.
When it comes down to it, yourfire is put out and your
criminal is arrested and yourlaw is being followed and
permits not being exceedinglyexpensive.
I wish government would be moreactive doing what they're
(48:41):
supposed to do.
Okay.
Speaker 1 (48:44):
Well, thank you very much.
We'll share your website aswell as the dates of the soft
appeals when you share that withus, and then make sure to check
out all of our candidateinterviews on our website.
And early voting starts onMarch 17th and election day is
April 1st.
Thanks, joe.
All right, thank you.
All right, well, Joe, thank you for sitting down with
me, Assessor Joe Krall, and sowe're going to talk.
You don't have a challengerthis election, so the idea.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Nobody wants my job, nobody does.
I mean really to talk.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
You don't have a challenger this election, so the
idea we had was instead is kindof talk about use this to talk
about the process of assessingproperties and how it goes from
your job to the property taxbill that people get in their
mail.
So first, why don't you justtell us a little bit about
yourself?
Where'd you grow up?
Siblings, parents, things likethat.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
I'm an only child.
I grew up in South Holland,actually started in Markham to
South Holland, lived there, wentto Thornwood High School,
graduated in 86.
Long story short, I went toschool for journalism, political
science.
I wanted to be Mike Royko, whowas a writer for the Chicago
(01:06):
Tribune and Sun Times.
The reality was, while I was incollege, one of my professors
was a good friend of mine andhe's like well, why are you
doing this?
Because the media itself is inits downward spiral and, as it
planned out, we don't reallyhave newspapers anymore.
(01:26):
There's, uh, it's all you know.
The fourth estate is not whatit used to be.
So, uh, I, when I was incollege, I was putting myself
through school doing heating andair conditioning for Sears,
okay, and when I got out, Icould get a job at the times, or
the Hammond times at the time,and it was nine dollars an hour,
(01:49):
or I could continue working atSears for seventeen dollars an
hour doing he an airconditioning, and I did that for
about 15 years I worked.
My area was 79th Street in thecity, south from the lakefront
to Halst, and, uh, I pretty muchspent every day of you know, 15
(02:09):
years driving around fixingrefrigerators, getting furnaces,
air conditioners going and allthat stuff are you a generally
handy person still today?
yes, yeah I, I, I, I prefer totinker on things now I mean,
it's now computers and so forthand a lot of it you don't give
you the option to repair things,and I'm a big right-to-repair
(02:31):
person.
I think that people should havethe right to fix the stuff they
own, but now you've got so manycompanies that are denying you
that ability and won't sell youparts and do all of those things
.
That's a whole other aspect oflife.
So I bought a business when Iwas in college called Roto Spray
, and I ran it with my uncle,which is Debbie's father, my
(02:52):
father and myself.
Well, debbie, debbie Blank, I'msorry your cousin, right Cousin,
yes, and they were operatingout of South Holland when they
moved out here.
Both of them moved out here inabout 1999, 2000, and moved
rotospray out here.
I bought a second businesscalled XL Addenda that I operate
(03:15):
out of my parents' basement.
It gave me the ability to quitbeing a refrigerator repairman
because after a while thosepeople tend to wear out their
knees.
You're on your knees all thetime what was that second
business?
excel addenda.
I modified switches.
So a gentleman I used to readthe chicago tribune on tuesdays
(03:38):
and sundays specifically forbusiness opportunities and a
gentleman in Darien was sellinghis switch modification business
, c&k, went through the.
We did a lot of work for themand then they moved their whole
company in 2004 to Costa Rica,which they offered me to go down
(04:03):
there and do my business downthere.
But the reality was I wasn't meto go down there and bring my
business down there.
But the reality was is I wasn'tready to go down there and
possibly lose your business.
And then you're just sitting inCosta Rica with nothing.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
So that kind of end that business then.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
It put a damper on it .
I mean, I still ran it for afew years afterwards doing lead
tinning and trimming and soforth.
But I went and got my appraisallicense and I wanted to be an
appraiser.
Because I mean back times, 2003, 2004,.
Everybody's selling houses,every housewife is becoming a
real estate agent, they'reputting out their signs and
(04:39):
everybody sells houses and youneed appraisals to sell said
houses and the appraisalbusiness was booming.
One of my father's friends now.
At the time to get an appraisallicense you had to intern with
an actual appraiser for a year.
It wasn't now.
You have to get a college.
There's a college degree in it.
(04:59):
But at the time you had tointern and one of my father's
friends happened to be theassessor here and offered to
take me on as an apprentice.
Actually, never did theapprentice work.
I started working for theassessor's office and it was an
(05:20):
interesting beginning in seeingthe way that it was run.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Who was the assessor at that time?
Paul Ruff.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
I eventually defeated him in an election.
Going forward First day callsme into the office and he points
up to three monkeys and he saysthis is you.
I don't want you to hearnothing.
And it was a hear nothing, seenothing, say nothing.
And he looks at me.
He goes that's you, you don'thear nothing, you don't see
nothing, and you don't saynothing.
(05:48):
And I'm sitting back and I'mlike this is a job.
This is not something you know.
Whatever the mafia, whatever I,he ended up getting sick.
I took over the residentialaspect.
I worked on a whole project totake every single house in this
township, take photographs of it, put it on to the website.
(06:10):
And when he came back, peoplewere like oh, this guy, joe,
he's really helpful and nice.
And I got fired and I think itwas because he thought I was a
threat and I said all right,well, maybe I'll think of
running.
I didn't really think aboutrunning in politics for that
point.
I did in 2009.
I had acquired my credentials,got the signatures in 20 degree
(06:36):
weather or 20 degrees belowweather, two weeks, the high
temperature was minus six and Igot all of my signatures, which,
of course, got thrown outbecause my father rest in peace,
great guy.
And on our petition sheets Iwould go out with 15 names or 15
(06:56):
blank spaces and at the end ofthe night I'd come home and
there's only like seven and Iwould just go out the next day
with a blank one rather thantrying to screw around.
And in his infinite helping outhe took them to St Mary's for
his and had all the nuns signand unfortunately I signed it as
(07:17):
being the witness to thosesignatures.
And so out of three of 56petitions I was said I was the
witness that I wasn't, so theythrew them all out for a pattern
of fraud and so I had to run asa write-in.
It was a hard battle but I got6,000 write-in votes to his
(07:41):
3,000 not write-in votes and forthe first time in Illinois
history a city incumbent wasbeaten by not write-in votes.
And for the first time inIllinois history a city
incumbent was beaten by awrite-in.
I don't have the most write-invotes.
There was a guy in Peoria whowas on the school board who got
sick and didn't get hispetitions in.
I don't care, none of thatmatters, but 6,000 people wrote
(08:01):
my name down and it's extremelymotivating to do the best job
possible.
I mean, they didn't just go inand circle in an oval, they
actually wrote the name down.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
And what was the?
How did you get to that point?
How did you get 6,000 people towrite your name in?
What were you doing thatelection?
Speaker 2 (08:23):
I grabbed every one of my friends that I'd ever met,
that sort of believed in me,and we manned every polling
place.
I didn't stop when they kickedme off the ballot.
I just changed all of my signsto write in Joe Craw.
I explained my situation.
I had 20 coffees that I walkedinto neighborhoods and talked
(08:46):
about how property taxes workand how when you elect somebody,
they should be responsible toyou, not above you, and that's
you know most of government tostate.
We elect people and likethey're above us.
No, no, they're just.
They were just decided to dothe service job that was needed,
yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
It was a.
Was the process different then?
Because?
Was there a primary?
Did you go through a primary?
Is that how?
Speaker 2 (09:20):
Consolidated elections differ than general
elections because there's nonormally a set primary.
In this case I ran as anindependent.
I didn't run as a Republican.
I didn't run as a Democrat, Iran as an independent.
He ran as a Republican, so hedidn't get signatures, he just
had a caucus to put him in.
I collected signatures, notprimary, but actually for the
(09:44):
election.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
Tell us how you ended up in Mokina, or maybe you
touched on that a little bit In2003,.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
My mother passed away .
She had a battle of cancer andmy father a pretty strong, stoic
kind of a guy I didn't thinkwas handling it so well you know
, come home dishes in the sink,been there for a day, you know,
can't do this and he needed thatpush.
(10:19):
I was living in the city.
I think I needed to start togrow up a little bit.
Instead of having fun in thecity and doing that, I moved
back home and was working at theassessor's office full time and
it was seven months later thatI got fired.
But I mean, sort of like, youget into this grind of you're
(10:40):
helping out and you're feelingmotivated to accomplish
something in government orsomething in any business and
you don't want to leave everyday, to drive an hour, to come
back an hour in the day, Uh.
So I moved home.
Um, it was, uh, a change.
I hadn't lived at home for, youknow, 15 years and then you're
(11:03):
home for a while and while andthat's how I moved to Mokina.
I mean, I've had ties herebefore, Even when I worked for
Sears.
I used to come back here in the80s and the 90s and to see
where Mokina has grown is insane.
I know most of the people thatare running for offices now
(11:24):
worked on their campaigns evenbefore I got involved in
politics.
I originally got involved inpolitics.
They were trying to change thename of Mokina Junior High and I
didn't understand it because Imean, he hadn't been
superintendent for all that longand they were going to change
it for his name and it was goingto cost ungodly amounts of
money, which didn't really makesense, because I like Mokina
(11:47):
Junior High who were they goingto name it?
after.
I can't think of his name.
He was the superintendent atthe time, but I don't want to
say what it was without knowingit didn't pass, which was great,
because the cost that we incurfor the services that we pay for
(12:07):
keep going up.
And if you keep inflating themeven more than that, then they
go up even higher quicker andthat occurs, but that's how I
made it.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
That's how I got here .
Okay, and you're married andhave a son.
You want to talk about yourfamily a little bit.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
I'm married to Theodora Cross.
She's the best decision I'veever made in my life.
She keeps me grounded and tellsme when I dress funny and don't
look right and don't wear thatjacket if you go on this show.
She did not like the sweaterchoice, but you know it is what
(12:48):
it is.
My son, joey, is 10.
He goes through MokinaElementary Schools.
He tends to be older than hisage acts.
Older causes me more problemsgetting a little wise cracky.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
So what do you guys do for fun?
What's fun for you guys?
Speaker 2 (13:15):
We as a family my cousin Debbie and myself we own
a house in northern Wisconsin inAqua oh wonderful.
I love to fish.
I like to golf.
We're not as much anymore withthe kid because it's now
function with the child.
Get the child out to do youknow the things that he has to
do and that tends to assert myability to go out and golf for
(13:38):
four hours.
I wish golf took less time.
If golf took two hours I couldget away with it, but it's not.
It's four to five hours and yougot your family to deal with
and the wife.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
Well, something we did, we put our son in.
I'm nowhere near a great golferbut, I, picked it up when I was
younger and I can go a coupletimes a year.
But we did one of the golfclass this past summer with
hopes maybe in the next coupleof years we'll get there
together, cause it is nicegetting out on a course and, uh,
I would love to go out with myboy.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
You know, we, we, we put them in the park district
program a couple of times withgolf, um, we tried golf lessons
early, but it just didn't click.
He he's gotten into Taekwondo,oh great.
(14:32):
So he's now a second degreeblack belt at 10.
He's a member of theirleadership team, which means
that he actually teachestaekwondo at the dojo.
He's a member of theirdemonstration team, so he goes
out and does all the tumbles andso forth.
Very cool.
He's gotten now into mug tai,which is kickboxing kind of a
deal, so it gives him theconfidence he can do the splits.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
I don't even know it didn't come out of my DNA.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
There's just no way.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
How funny.
That's great.
Well, as we said when we gotstarted, you don't have a
challenger this election.
Have you ever had a challenger,since you ran I did the first
four years.
George Peros Okay, yes, but onething that we always hear when
(15:14):
tax bills come out and thecomplaint you get is Joe, why
are you raising our taxes?
Nope, and that's not the case,and that's kind of what we want
to talk about tonight.
We'll talk about the process,how it goes from your office to
the tax bill that we get and whoall's involved in that.
Let me start with kind of giveeverybody a general overview of
a couple of the offices being.
(15:36):
Start with the assessor.
The job of the assessor toplace a value, so everything is
based upon assessments.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
Now what an assessment is is one third of
your market value, or 33.33% ofwhat your market value would be.
What is market value?
Market value is what a typicalbuyer would pay for your
property in an arm's lengthtransaction unencumbered by a
foreclosure.
Or it's your two relativesselling at each other.
(16:07):
What would a typical buyer pay?
Now there's a second step downon that, in that I am limited by
the Department of Revenue ofthe state of Illinois, and that
number is telling me that I haveto assess as of the first of
the year, but utilizing datafrom not now, but three years
(16:31):
before the three preceding years.
So assessments generally arelagged behind.
So the assessor is going toplace the value like you said,
the value on the property, yes,lag behind.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
so the assessor is going to place the value like
you said.
Yes, next it would go to the.
You submit your books to thesupervisor of assessments.
Is that right?
Speaker 2 (16:51):
the county- in december I get the book it's
called and I have up until june.
Actually it started out july4th, but now it's been moved up
to like june 3rd orth.
Okay that I have to turn mybook in, which is all the values
of the township as of the firstof the year.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
And you give that to the supervisor of assessments,
the supervisor of assessments.
Who is in the county is overall of kind of, over all of the
townships?
Speaker 2 (17:19):
All the townships, the whole county yes, and then.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
So, from that, the supervisor of assessments.
What do they do next?
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Well, they're going to total up the value of all of
the property, all of thecommercial, all of the
industrial, all of theresidential, and that becomes
one number called the TAV ortotal assessed valuation.
Your assessment is a percentagethereof and when you look at
the other side of the tax bill,when you look at tax levy, each
(17:50):
of those taxing bodies has abudget that they come up with or
they adjust according to PTAL.
And then, about three weeksbefore actually probably not yet
right after the elections, bythe way, actually probably not
yet Right after the elections,by the way is when the tax bills
come out May 1st, about twoweeks before they take the levy
(18:10):
and they compare it to what thetotal valuation is.
And what number do I have tomultiply the total valuation to
equal the levy?
That's called the tax rate.
Everybody gets upset about taxrates.
Tax rates are the number thatmakes it equal.
It's not the tax rate, it's thelevy from the taxing bodies
(18:33):
that causes the pain ofincreased taxes.
If I, as the assessor, raiseeverybody's assessment, let's
say, as the market has occurred,10% this last year, 10%.
Everybody's value of theirhouse is 10% higher.
That will actually cause thetax rate to drop when they go to
calculate it out to satisfywhat the levy is.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
Tell us the next step .
So we have the tax rate iscalculated.
Does it go to the treasurer'soffice now to issue the tax
bills?
Speaker 2 (19:05):
Yes, the treasurer issues the tax bills, the
clerk's office is the one thatthen doles out the money as the
tax.
The treasurer collects themoney and then the clerk's
office, through their tax,distributes those to the
individual taxing bodies.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
Great.
So, as I said, to give us alittle bit of an overview of the
general tax structure, talk alittle bit about your office
uses something called massappraisal right For most homes.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
It's a CAMA system, so talk about the data.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
You're looking at sales, as you said from the
previous three years.
Yes, and that's largely forresidential.
And talk a little bit, youhandle commercial property
differently.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
Commercial is generally based upon an income
approach, so you're looking athow much income they're pulling
in.
If you go tofrankfurtassessorcom, you can
put that up there and you're abusiness.
I was just actually in abusiness recently and the guy
said well, what do I do aboutthis?
Actually the Clancy's guy I'mlike well, you can go to our
website and you can submit arent roll to me that'll says
(20:15):
what you're pulling in at rent.
Then I can look at what atypical investor would expect
from that kind of investment anduse that to figure out what the
price is.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
It's fun Sure Talk about the process if a property
owner disagrees with the values.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
When I first came into office in 2010,.
We did not the way the appeals.
So, like I get the assessmentsat the beginning of the year
till June, I turn them in onAugust 1st.
The supervisor of assessmentssends out notices if there's
(20:58):
been a change or, in aquadrennial, sends out notices
to everybody.
So once every four years youalways get a notice which
happened two years ago and in uh, otherwise you don't hear
anything.
You don't get that noticemailed If I haven't made any
changes.
Well, when you receive thatchange in August, that a 30-day
(21:20):
window for you to file an appeal.
If you disagree with what I say, you can go to the Supervisor
of Assessments website.
You file an appeal.
Now, in 2010, when I was elected, I got a lot of appeals where
people really didn't get whatthey were supposed to do.
They would just turn in thingsthat didn't make sense.
Sometimes, even when they had acase, they wouldn't submit the
(21:43):
information that they did and Ifound that odd that I wouldn't
be speaking to somebody in thefirst six months that I was here
.
Why not sit down with you and Istarted what I call a soft
appeal.
You can go to the website.
I think our soft appeal opensup later this month, you would
(22:10):
be able to provide me anyinformation you want, and either
you can just give it to me orsend it in or email, or you can
come in.
And since 2010, I've met with2,700 people face-to-face,
hour-long meetings talking abouttaxes and what causes them.
The face-to-face meeting isgreat because I can pull up all
(22:31):
of the data that I've got in myCanvas system and I can show
people where they're assessed,where they're assessed in
relation to their neighbors.
When they tell me, oh, myneighbor's paying this, and I
can just pull up the thing Well,no, he's not.
This is what he's paying righthere.
Or sometimes, if he is, wecould say, well, why is that?
And it's all about creating thefair burden, because the
(22:56):
disconnect always comes whenpeople say, well, you're just
trying to protect money from thegovernment.
No, if I lower you, thatdoesn't mean that you know that
the fire department gets adollar less.
It means that all of yourneighbors make up for a higher
tax rate.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
One of the I think, best analogies I ever heard to
get that idea is there's thewhole pie and all those
government taxing bodies aregoing to get their whole pie and
that tax rate just changes todetermine how much of your pie,
how much pie you're contributingcompared to the rest.
(23:35):
So yeah, if somebody changes,the pie is the same.
It's just shifting theresponsibility.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
And that goes both ways.
Like, if you know, we're in atime where properties are
selling incredibly high.
When 2007 hit and propertyvalues started to drop, your tax
bill didn't go down, the taxrate just shoots up and that's
absolutely horrible for a largesegment of our population that
(24:05):
are on the senior freeze.
I mean, I was here in 12, 13,and 14 when I'm cutting
everybody's value by 5% to 7% ayear, and all that did is they
enjoyed the benefit of that atleast decrease, even though the
tax bills went up.
But what it really slammed andhurt were seniors that were on
(24:27):
the free.
So, like a senior let's saythey're 65 years and at the time
it was $50,000 a year they'reassessed at a much lower level.
So when the overall value dropsand that tax rate jumped
through the roof, I had seniorswho literally stated that they
make less than $50,000 a yearand their tax bill went up
(24:49):
$2,400.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
Well, and that's a big misconception too is people
think the senior freeze isfreezing your tax bill?
No, but it's not.
It's freezing your assessment.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
Freezing your assessment, yes not it's
freezing your assessment, yes,and it it it when it's very
beneficial as property valuesincrease.
But it is exceedingly painfulwhen the market turns, and I
can't I mean the market today, Idon't, I can't explain it.
(25:18):
I mean I understand people havemortgages that are low and they
don't want to sell.
But some of the amount I meanwe were doing every neighborhood
had its highest house sale.
I mean Grassmere house sellsfor $625,000.
What I mean it didn't.
There's 325, you know fiveyears ago, what, what preceded
(25:43):
that, but then two years, youknow, a year later, you got 425
or 450.
So I mean it's all over theboard and so let's talk.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
we're talking about the appeal process, so correct
me if I'm off in a step of this,but, as you said, soft appeals
is the first step.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
I would advise everybody to do a soft appeal.
Okay, it's, uh, it, I meaneverybody that wants to do an
appeal.
First off, frankfurtassessorcom, um, I think, is one of the
best websites that of anyassessor.
You get so much informationabout your house, exactly.
You need to pull that up.
The first thing you want tolook at is the sketch that's on
there, the photograph of thehouse, which they're old but I
(26:26):
don't want to like I'm notpaying for new photographs and
make sure that that's correct.
Look at it, you know, say, oh,that's that looks relatively.
You know the way that it shouldbe.
If you have an area that's opento above like, let's say,
there's a two-story dwelling andyou've got a large living room
that doesn't show it on there,that would be something to talk
to us about Then get as muchinformation as you can find.
(26:51):
If you go to the search feature, you can just put the name in
of your street and it'll pull upevery house on your street and
you can go through and look atwhat they're assessed at, and
it'll pull up every house onyour street and you can go
through and look at what they'reassessed at.
Now, I don't it's hard tocompare tax bills.
But you can go to thetreasurer's office too and pull
up their actual tax bill.
But some people have exemptions, some people have this Well
(27:12):
again.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
Yeah, assessments are the way to go.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
And what we're mainly looking at is a price per
square foot.
So if you look at what yourassessment is and you divide the
number of square feet, it'llgive you a price per square foot
and you want that to becommensurate with your neighbors
that have the same house.
It's my goal to say that.
You know if I'm valuing thatthree-step ranch that's 2,400
(27:35):
square feet.
Looks like that three-step ranchbecause, barring Butternut or
Prestwick, most of the placesthat are built here are built by
one or two builders in asubdivision.
They build every house outpretty much the same as the
whole neighborhood and theyshould all be assessed.
(27:57):
And that's one of the goodthings about changing canvas
systems at this late date is mypredecessor was very big at
really small neighborhoods so,like you know, defining this
area as a neighborhood andpeople weren't allowed to look
at sales elsewhere, but I wasn'tallowed to look at sales
elsewhere.
Now I can expand neighborhoodsnot just by name but by house
(28:21):
type and what the same type ofhouse is, so that I get a bigger
pool of data for sales.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
So if again soft appeals, the next process would
be a formal appeal with youroffice.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
Well, formal appeal, that would be the board review.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
Board review.
Okay, yeah, you'd with thesupervisor the board review.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
Okay, yeah, that would be.
You'd have to file through them.
I would suggest going throughme first.
It would avoid a lot of hassleand trouble and you would
understand a lot more.
And then the last avenue afterthat is either the property tax
appeal board or a circuit court,if you lose at the board of
review you go to, you can file aPTAB and then circuit court,
(29:06):
but that never really happens.
Ptab is a state.
We go to Springfield and gostand in front of lawyers.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
More of an administrative hearing process.
What should somebody that'sconsidering buying or selling
their home consider as far asproperty taxes go?
Look?
Speaker 2 (29:25):
at the general neighborhood.
You could go to our website.
You could put in the streetname that you're moving on.
You could get a listing of PINnumbers in your area.
You could look on thetreasurer's website.
I've actually reached out tothe treasurer, tried to link
those things up, but that justdoesn't seem like it's going to
happen.
(29:45):
And look at what tax.
One of the big problems or oneof the situations that I run
into is people come in and theysay well, my real estate person
said it was going to be this.
Your real estate person istrying to sell you a house.
I mean so I mean house.
It would be best, if you'rebuying a house, to at least
(30:05):
investigate what tax bills are,what they have been and what in
the future.
Have we passed a referendumthat says we're going to add 10%
?
You'd want to know that, and ifyou call my office, we'll look
at it.
You'd want to know that?
Yeah, so, and if you call myoffice, we do the same.
We'll, we'll look at it.
Give you at least a ballparkestimate of what it was, or
(30:28):
we'll tell you what it was and aballpark to what it will be.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
So talk a little bit.
You mentioned it, but the, thetaxing bodies, are what
determine the overall tax amount.
So how should we look at that?
Or how do we view that theschools are a large portion
villages and that so on?
Speaker 2 (30:50):
Governmental bodies are services.
We pay for services.
We pay for a police departmentthat does our laws, a fire
department that puts out ourfires, a school that educates
our children, a park districtthat runs our laws, a fire
department that puts out ourfires, a school that educates
our children, a park districtthat runs our parks.
We elect in April electionscoming up the individuals that
(31:12):
decide the budgets, the way thatthings, you know, the way the
money is spent.
Every year, a taxing body isposed a question, generally
around October, november,december, at their budgetary
hearings and they say we canlower the levy, we can keep it
the same or we can raise it.
(31:34):
Now, historically, in 1991, theypassed a law called PETA,
property Tax ExtensionLimitation Law, and a problem
occurred that property taxeswere jumping 15, 20% a year as
the new school board comes inand says we've got to build this
school, or the park districtsays we've got to build this
(31:55):
park, and they said we're goingto have to figure out a way to
limit this.
So instead of them having anopen checkbook to raise the
value whatever they could, theywanted to tie it to a defined
inflation point.
It's called the Consumer PriceIndex.
That means that every year thatyour park district or your fire
(32:19):
department went in to do thebudgetary.
They could lower their budgetto keep it the same or they
could raise it, limited by PITO.
Whoever that guy that wrotePITO was actually put a limiter.
It's either the inflation rateor 5%, which is ever lower, and
thank God.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
I mean, you know it just Because otherwise they have
to go and ask for it to thevoters If they want more money,
they have to file a referendum.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
And that's why, whenever you see the word
referendum, generally it workswith an increase to your levy,
your budget, and that's whereyou get the breakdown between,
say, 159 and 161.
They have had seven referendumsand we've had four.
(33:12):
We only passed one, they passedall seven.
Now what does that mean?
That means that the same houseon Everett, where Mr Benny's is
that street, the exact samevalued house on either side of
the street, their tax bill onthe east side of the street is a
thousand dollars higher.
Wow, and that's just.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
And that's I mean, it's a yeah, I mean, that's a
really good highlight of youknow the same value, yeah, so
again, it's extremely determinedby where you are.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
You know that's right across the street how many of
the service providers that youhave and what they're charging
you to give you.
That service Taxing bodiesoperate in the same way that
your IRA is such a great benefitfor you to save money.
The reason that an IRA is agreat benefit is it's
compounding interest.
(34:01):
So every year you compound onnot only the principal but the
interest.
Governmental budgets are theexact same way.
You take last year's budget andyou increase it by a percentage
.
It just keeps getting biggerand then the percentages get
bigger.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
Even that 1% increase from 15 years ago is now about
a 7% increase just because ofthe way that you pass the
referendum and it doesn't stopand that is one of the key
reasons, you know, I wanted todo this, and with us as well as
the whole thing, is those peoplethat were voting on those
school boards, and you know allthe things that we make up our
(34:41):
tax bill, and so it is importantto know who those people are,
because that has a significantdirect impact on each of us as
residents, just comment Firstoff.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
There's the other way , which is absolutely just as
bad, of coming in and cuttingeverything.
The reason people move here isbecause of our school system.
You need to fund them Now.
You know, electing people topark district boards and school
boards and fire protectionboards that think about the tax
(35:19):
ramifications is probably animportant thing too.
And, you know, can you get thebest for the dollar as opposed
to just spending more, and itdoesn't.
More money doesn'tautomatically mean better
service.
It just means that you'repaying more money and in some
cases, you know, the outcome isless when you're paying more.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
I want to do a little .
We've covered a lot of these,but do a little quick like vocab
of some of the terminologywe've gone over.
So first assessed value.
Speaker 2 (35:56):
One third of market value, market value being what
somebody would pay for in anarm's length transaction.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
Okay, next one is market value.
So we got that one taken careof.
What is the equalization factor?
Speaker 2 (36:08):
The Board of Revenue, department of Revenue, has a
valuation.
They look at every single saleand compare it to where I am.
They look at every single saleand compare it to where I am,
and that gives them an idea ofwhere I am in relation to value.
And so they will say, joe,you're, you know, 6% low and you
(36:32):
could make changes, and I gomake changes.
And then they will apply 6% toeverybody to bring the value up
to that level.
And it's actually, if you havea fairly assessed system, the
equalization factor all thatdoes, and it doesn't change the
tax bills, it just changes valueup and down.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
Talk about what is the quadrennial reassessment.
Speaker 2 (36:54):
So every four years I'm required to look at property
throughout the township, everyproperty, to make sure that we
have particulars.
The quadrennial is the yearthat you get sent out all of the
notices that say what yourvalue is and what changes it
(37:17):
actually occurs every year.
We make adjustments every year.
The quadrennial is just theyear that statutorily they have
to send out letters.
Speaker 1 (37:25):
And then again just explain what the levy is.
Speaker 2 (37:29):
The levy is the taxing bodies, the services that
you are receiving from taxingbodies.
It's their bill to say this iswhat we want you to pay.
Okay, it's about assessmentsand I was going to say anything
to the people out there.
If you wanted to talk aboutassessments or look at your
(37:50):
assessment, set up a soft appeal, Bring in as much information
or as little information as youwant.
I generally book theappointments for about an hour
and we go through and we talkabout your house, your
neighbor's houses, anybody'shouse.
You want to bring up whatthey're paying.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
And if you provide us , we'll put the website on.
And if the soft appeal dates,if you want to give us that,
I'll make sure to share that aswell, so people can reach out to
your office, but I think it'sthe 20th.
Okay, yeah, whenever that comesout.
If it's, uh, even after thevideo, we'll be sure to share
those dates for people so theycan come out and talk to you.
All right, so I just want toend with kind of a quick round
(38:28):
of some lighter questions foryou.
I'll let you off the hook onthe easier way out.
Um, so the theme of our podcastis history and community.
Speaker 2 (38:38):
If you were talking to a new resident, new person
coming into town, what advicewould you offer them to get
involved and feel connectedwithin our community?
Join a group, you know, I meanwhether it's the Cub Scouts, or
(38:59):
maybe you have kids with CubScouts.
I'm actually trying.
There's the Toastmasters inFrankfurt that.
Speaker 1 (39:02):
I think I might want to get involved with.
Speaker 2 (39:03):
Yeah, they're great, but I mean to learn to speak
better.
Like you, get involved, show upto events, show up to board
meetings, and I mean just listento what goes on, ask questions,
be nice, be you know, and youwould, you'll, you'll get a
feeling of the way that thecommunity operates.
(39:24):
And it's all about community.
It's all about your neighbors.
Whether they're Republican orDemocrat or anything else, it
doesn't matter.
It's being present in yourcommunity and supporting the
people around you.
Speaker 1 (39:39):
Speaking of meetings, when does the township have
their board meeting?
The?
Speaker 2 (39:44):
second Monday of the month, nobody shows up to
township meetings.
Speaker 1 (39:48):
Well, that's why we'll put it out there and if
anybody wants to come check itout.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
As you saw in the previous one, that food pantry.
Mike Hilton was a guy that wasworking for the and he worked
for, I believe, juul and when hecame to work for the food
pantry he set up all theseabsolutely incredible.
You know, stop by Juul orBurkard's and pick up, you know,
(40:18):
meat and produce and that thinghas grown and grown and grown
and I think it's like the bestfood pantry in the Southland and
people talk about it and itactually say, I mean, you know
like well, I'll sit and haveconversations with seniors that
come in that like I can't affordto live here anymore, joe, and
I'll be like listen, I know it'snot what you want to do, and
(40:41):
they get really, you know thisis not the charity I want, but
let's go down to the food pantryand I take them down there and
introduce them to Steve and say,hey, this person, can you
imagine what it'd be if youdidn't have to pay for two bags
of food a week?
Yeah, you know what I mean.
It's the difference betweenpeople living here and not
living here.
Speaker 1 (41:00):
You know I learned so much by going around with
Supervisor Nick George and justwhat the township offers.
It's really insightful becauseit really does help a lot of the
people especially that needhelp with the senior housing and
all that.
Speaker 2 (41:15):
Oh, and it's the government for the areas that
don't have a villager.
Speaker 1 (41:19):
Yeah, I mean, what is your favorite area restaurant?
Speaker 2 (41:24):
I had something Saturday.
It was probably one of the bestthings that I've eaten in a
couple years and that was acrepe at that crepe place really
okay, it was amazing yeah, I,it was a chicken alfredo with
broccoli spinach.
Wow, and this guy.
(41:46):
We went in there.
My wife had gone to Governor'sState with my son to see a
shadow performance, wherethey're doing shadow something.
Whatever.
America's Got Talent, they werethe winners.
Whatever she's like, well,we'll meet here and everybody
was supposed to meet there andit was just us and the family.
And I sat down and talked tothis guy.
He actually had an assessmentquestion.
(42:06):
So when I was at the officetoday, I picked out some papers.
I dropped them off there.
Great people.
Anytime you open up arestaurant, it's a hard business
to open up, but it was great.
It was fantastic.
Other than that, what's the momand pop place here on
Peppermill?
Speaker 1 (42:25):
Peppermill yeah, you're the second person that's
given Peppermill as an answer.
Speaker 2 (42:29):
I love Peppermill.
Peppermill's great.
I mean Peppermill's the kind ofplace you can go and be.
You know, I'm not the fancyfood my kid is the fancy food.
My wife likes to go out.
I love a good breakfast.
We went to some Greek place inOak Brook and you spend you know
$200 on food and you're stuffed.
(42:53):
But you go to Peppermill and ifyou're just as stuffed then you
get home in 15 minutes.
Sure it's nice.
Speaker 1 (43:03):
If you could master one skill, what would it be
Public?
Speaker 2 (43:06):
speaking.
Huh Toastmasters.
I know I literally haveSometime I think it was in
November and I was like I shouldgo there and just to sit down
and just to learn, you know,some of the things that I never
picked up in public speaking andI I've always, I mean, and I'm
thrust in this job to speakpublicly.
I just do it Socraticallybecause I don't really know any
other way and I'm not going todevelop speeches on this and
(43:28):
maybe I should but to convey theinformation that, overall, the
assessments are percentage ofthe total valuation and it's the
levy that's cut.
Speaker 1 (43:43):
Yeah, If you could only watch one TV show for the
rest of your life, what would itbe?
I love Parks and Recreation.
That's a good one.
Speaker 2 (43:54):
Especially from a government perspective.
In fact, I was just watching itwith my child.
Speaker 1 (43:56):
That's a good one, it's from a government
standpoint, especially from agovernment perspective.
Speaker 2 (43:58):
Yeah, I mean, I watched, in fact I was just
watching it with, you know, mychild.
We were having some discussionsand he's like you're Ron
Swanson, and I'm like, well, youknow, I do follow a lot of what
he says, you know, but I mean Ialways loved the Office, but I,
because I worked for CookCounty for a long time.
Speaker 1 (44:17):
And when at the?
But I worked for Cook Countyfor a long time and the Board of
Review Did you really?
Yeah, and watching Parks andRec after having that experience
was like this is amazing.
So you worked for the Board ofReview, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So if you came with a warninglabel, what would it be?
Speaker 2 (44:37):
Don't talk to me during Bears games.
Speaker 1 (44:40):
That's a good one.
Speaker 2 (44:41):
I mean, you know, we're just having the discussion
with the wife and she was for aSuper Bowl and she's like I
don't want to talk to you around.
You know games because you getso upset and I'm like the last
time that this occurred was shewalked downstairs just as the
Bears had the hail mary thrownagainst them.
Literally 30 seconds latershe's like how's your game?
(45:03):
I'm like it sucks you're veryupset.
She's like I don't want to talkto you when you're.
Speaker 1 (45:10):
I'm like I was so upset, but I mean you know the
start of the downfall sure, ifsomebody came to mokina for the
first time to visit, where wouldyou take them Front?
Speaker 2 (45:20):
Street.
I think, as far as a communitygoes and this is, I don't, you
know, the whole mayoral race,and I'm not talking about any of
that that is such anunderutilized strip of land that
I think that if I broughtsomebody in, I would be like,
(45:41):
hey, you know what would go goodhere, what would be the
business on this street.
I mean, you have a captiveaudience getting off the train
every day and getting on thetrain every day, and you could,
you know?
I mean that's why Annie'sCasino, when it didn't, when it
failed, I mean I just I couldn'tfigure that out, because I mean
that was like the perfect getoff the train, buy your meatball
(46:03):
sandwich and go home.
You know, it didn't make sense,that it didn't survive.
Speaker 1 (46:08):
What is your favorite Molkina community event?
Speaker 2 (46:13):
I really have grown to like the food trucks.
I think that is a it's a greatcommunity event.
I really have grown to like thefood trucks.
I think that is a it's a greatcommunity event.
So I mean we talk aboutcommunity and bringing people
together and it's not about, youknow, you're this or you're
that.
It's that we're all members ofthis community.
That's a great place.
I go there, you sit and youtalk to people around, you wave,
(46:37):
you know I mean that's a goodcommunity event.
Yeah, and it's well attendedand you know, melissa does a
great job.
It just, you know, good job.
Speaker 1 (46:48):
It's inspiring to see Like it really shows that
people want to have something todo in downtown Mokena.
Speaker 2 (46:53):
Well, and I mean, and that, once again, downtown
Front Street, and it just, youknow, for years Dave's Auto was
Tribes and I'd get my car fixedthere and talk to Dave and Char,
and now it was Tribes and thenthey didn't sell food and it was
part of the TIF district and Idon't think he understood what
TIF district meant because hethought he was going to make a
(47:14):
lot.
No, that's just not the way aTIF district works.
Because he thought he was goingto make a lot.
No, that's just not the way TIFdistrict works.
And you need to raise the valueup.
But I'm like, no, no, it has tobe commensurate with the other
properties around.
This is prime real estate forcommercial.
That brings people in, thatgets, and you can't beat the
parking there, it's you know,slide in and out, joe, anything
(47:37):
else that you want to sharebefore we wrap it up.
April elections are important.
You're going to be able to meetyour school board candidates,
your mayoral candidates, yourtrustee candidates.
Get out and meet them, justtalk to them.
Uh, you know they're they'll befighting each other, but you,
(47:57):
as a voter, need to look pastthat and look to who you want to
support, because you trust themto do it, and then, when you do
vote for them, continue to makesure that they're doing what
they said they were going to doNot anything specific to the
mayoral candidates, but anyelected official and make sure
that they're providing you theservice that you are electing
(48:20):
them to do.
When it comes down to it, yourfire is put out and your
criminal is arrested and yourlaw is being followed and
permits not being exceedinglyexpensive.
I wish government would be moreactive doing what they're
(48:41):
supposed to do.
Okay.
Speaker 1 (48:44):
Well, thank you very much.
We'll share your website aswell as the dates of the soft
appeals when you share that withus, and then make sure to check
out all of our candidateinterviews on our website.
And early voting starts onMarch 17th and election day is
April 1st.
Thanks, joe.
All right, thank you.
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