Chicago

By ED McMANUS

HE BECAME something of an expert on property taxes in 31 years working for the state, and when Eugene Maynard finally retired in 1965, he wasn't about to give up his interest in the subject. He kept up his contacts with people in the Department of Local Government Affairs, and he kept tabs on what the Illinois General Assembly was up to. When he learned that the legislators had passed a law in November 1978 granting a broad new tax exemption to homeowners, he made some inquiries.

The law, sponsored by then-Sen. Thomas C. Hynes (D., Chicago), provided that if the assessed valuation of a "homestead property" was increased by up to $1,500, the owner was exempt from taxation on the amount of the increase. It was a way of easing the tax burden on persons whose homes are rapidly escalating in value.

The law granted county assessors the authority to determine who was eligible for the exemption, "in accordance with guidelines established by the Department of Local Government Affairs." Subsequently, the department notified assessors that the exemption was only for owner-occupied homes.

Ironically, Hynes was elected Cook County assessor in the same month that the law he sponsored took effect. And one of his first decisions in the new job was to grant the exemption to all residential property — owner-occupied or rented. He said later that he made the decision because there was no information available on which homes were owner-occupied, and to obtain such information would have been difficult and costly.

No public announcement was made of the department's guidelines nor of Hynes' decision. There are a lot of things like that happening in government that go unnoticed.

Enter Gene Maynard.

"I began inquiring into how they were going to implement the legislation," Maynard said in an interview, in his modest way. "I got the impression they were just going to allow all Class II [residential] property. It seemed to me to be all wrong."

The rest of the story provides a classic example of what a single citizen can accomplish in seeing that justice is done.

Maynard contacted Hynes' office and the county clerk and the county collector in the spring and summer of 1979, but he got no satisfaction. At first, the assessor's office ignored him, then finally admitted to Maynard that the exemption was being granted to Class II property. And that was that.

Maynard called the Department of Local Government Affairs, but the state officials were not inclined to try to stop Hynes. "Unfortunately, it's been true all too often that one politician is loathe to step on another politician's toes," Maynard said.

Maynard went to the Cook County state's attorney and to the state attorney general's office, but nobody was interested. So, Maynard went to the press. In November 1979 a story was published revealing that Hynes had granted an estimated $12 million in illegal exemptions to companies and persons owning rental properties.

Hynes' reaction to the disclosure was to send his people to the legislature to get the law changed — to make legal what he was doing. The legislature happily amended the law early in 1980 to provide that all Class II property owners in Cook County were eligible for the break. But the legislature can only make something legal by statute; the legislature can't change the state Constitution by statute. The Constitution allows exemptions only for homesteads, and a rented home, Maynard argued, is not a homestead.

Maynard found a couple of Chicago lawyers, Stewart Diamond and John Hilbert, who agreed with him. But that's where stories like this usually end. Most lawyers don't file suits just because somebody wants them to; they expect to be paid. Many illegal and unconstitutional activities go unchallenged because there is no money available to pay lawyers to challenge them. But Maynard was determined in his cause. As a homeowner himself, he knew that granting the exemption to landlords resulted in larger tax bills on owner-occupied homes — because whenever an exemption is granted to one group of taxpayers, the burden automatically becomes heavier on all other taxpayers. But more importantly, it had cut the revenue of many school districts which were unable to raise their tax rates to pick up the slack.

Maynard started visiting school district offices. He talked to the people in New Trier and Niles and Proviso Townships, and to Paul Schilling, superintendent of schools in La-Grange, and to the Illinois Association of School Boards. It could mean a lot of revenue for you if the landlord exemption was thrown out, he told them. A meeting was arranged at the law office of Diamond and his partner, Louis Ancel, attended by about a dozen school officials rounded up by Schilling and Maynard. It was agreed that the school districts would finance a suit. Eventually, more than 30 districts joined in, pledging from $500 to $2,000 each toward the cost of the litigation.

The rest is history. The case was won in Cook County Circuit Court and the ruling was affirmed by the Illinois Supreme Court. The landlord exemption was thrown out.

Maynard is quietly proud of what was accomplished. "It makes me feel that if you're willing to stay with it long enough and you're able to get some people interested in it, sometimes you can correct some of these things," he said.

"It's not easy."□

42/ April 1981/ Illinois Issues