A Kane County Board meeting that started with a packed room ended with applause from the audience as board members voted nearly unanimously against building a new public health center in the county.
The meeting on Wednesday was called specifically to discuss the building, which was proposed by staff as a way to get the Kane County Health Department out of its aging headquarters in Aurora that officials have said is too small to support its activities.
All but two board members voted against the proposal, with Myrna Molina from District 1 voting for the proposal and District 17’s Deborah Allan abstaining. County Board Chair Corinne Pierog typically only votes to break a tie.
“We look forward to continuing to work with the county board to find options to improve how we service the community,” Michael Isaacson, executive director of the Kane County Health Department, said after the meeting. “The new construction was voted down, but we’re looking forward to other options that may present themselves.”
The new building would have cost the county around $30 million, the majority of which would have come from federal pandemic relief funds, and would not have raised taxes or caused the county to take on any debt, according to officials.
The plan faced criticism from board members and members of the public, who have often spoken against the construction of a new facility at meetings about the proposed building, primarily because of its planned federal funding and its location in St. Charles.
Kane County Board member Michelle Gumz, from District 8, previously called the building’s funding a “gamble” since it would use some of the money the county received from the federal government under the American Rescue Plan Act, or APRA.
Those funds have strict guidelines on what they can and cannot be used for, and Gumz previously said she was not convinced that the proposed public health center fit those requirements.
A report by the consulting firm Ernst & Young that was developed for the county said a public health building was not included in the federal government’s specific list of projects allowed to be funded through ARPA, but it may have been allowed if the county was able to prove the building was meeting a need caused by the pandemic and met other requirements.
Other local governments in the United States are using ARPA funds to build public health buildings, the report from Ernst & Young also found.
County officials said they would be able to meet ARPA requirements to use the funds on the proposed building, but board members like Gumz and members of the public who spoke at various meetings said the risk was too great.
If the federal government decided that the project did not meet ARPA guidelines, or if the county changed the building’s use or sold it, the county would be required to pay back up to the $18 million it proposed to use from ARPA funds for the project.
Time was also running out to use the ARPA funds, which was a concern for board members, members of the public and county staff alike. The funds must be committed by contract by the end of this year and must be completely spent by the end of 2026.
If some of the funds were not committed or spent by those dates, any leftover funds would need to be returned to the federal government.
The new building’s proposed location in St. Charles drew criticism from board members and members of the public because it would entail moving the Kane County Health Department’s main building out of Aurora, where many who use the department’s services live. The department’s current building is across North Highland Avenue from Ascension Mercy medical center.
Officials said the move to St. Charles would have made the location more centralized within the county, helping to keep costs down and more effectively use staff’s time. The proposed new building would have been located on the same site as the Kane County Judicial Center, which is at Lincoln Highway and Peck Road in St. Charles.
Before the vote, Kane County Executive Director of IT and Buildings Management Roger Fahnestock presented a number of different proposals to improve the health department’s facilities, which he said is a priority because of the current building’s poor condition and lack of adequate space.
Those proposals included the new building which ended up being voted down, but also included other options, such as the renovation of the existing building in Aurora, the purchase and renovation of a different building in Aurora or the renovation of the satellite location that the county currently leases for the health department in Elgin.
rsmith@chicagotribune.com
