This is Part 1 of a series of stories about the mayoral election in Normal. The election is April 1. Coming Tuesday: You’ll get a closer look at what the three candidates think about the community’s housing shortage.
If you’re looking for differences between the three candidates running for Normal mayor, their opinions about taxes and fees are a good place to start.
Incumbent Chris Koos and town council member Chemberly Harris have similar voting records – generally willing to raise taxes and fees, or keep them flat, to sustain public services. The third candidate, council member Kathleen Lorenz, has repeatedly voted against tax and fee increases and thinks the corresponding budget impact can be absorbed without too much disruption.
Lorenz, for example, voted against the creation of a 1% town grocery sales tax to make up for the elimination of the state’s grocery tax on Jan. 1, 2026. That would’ve cost the town around $2.3 million in revenue (about 2.4% of the budget), while saving shoppers $1 on a $100 cart of groceries. Lorenz was outvoted, and the council approved the town grocery tax with support from Koos and Harris.
Lorenz said businesses, nonprofits and households make these sort of difficult “what can we afford” decisions all the time. She’s promising tax relief.
“We are not leading by example. And we need to lead by example in this time where individual households are struggling with making ends meet,” Lorenz said. “We really haven’t even sat down and decided what we can and cannot live without.”
WGLT asked Lorenz how she’d offset the loss of that $2.3 million in revenue and for examples of how she’d achieve her vision of a “leaner government.” She declined to do so, saying she’d want to hear ideas from the rest of the council and from the “subject matter experts” on the town’s staff.
Koos said cutting taxes is the same as cutting town services – things like road maintenance, public safety and parks.
“Too many times people say, ‘You need to cut taxes, and we can do it.’ But they don’t identify what public safety or what service they’re willing to give up to do that,” Koos said.
Water rate increases
Lorenz has also repeatedly voted against the town’s recent 2% annual water rate increases, aimed at maintaining the town’s water infrastructure.
Lorenz said she evaluates the need for an increase each time it comes up. In some years, she said, there was a clear business case for an increase. In other years, there wasn’t.
“When you hear, ‘Well, we’ve always done it that way,’ that’s a red flag for me,” she said.
Harris said she’s supported rate increases like that after considering the long-term impact on residents – “not just now, in the moment.” Bloomington residents, for example, are currently facing 33% annual increases after forgoing water rate hikes for over a decade, coinciding with significant smell and odor issues that have annoyed many residents.
“At times we do increase the fee now so that it’s small and minimal, so you don’t have a 50% or 75% increase later,” Harris said. “That’s something I look at strategically.”
Koos said this measured, long-term approach paid off in that Normal has few remaining lead or galvanized water service lines that need to be replaced to meet environmental-health requirements. Bloomington, by contrast, has thousands.
Harris said water rate increases are periodically reviewed, though she doesn’t think the 2% annual bumps will be going away anytime soon.
“One thing I love about us in the Town of Normal is, and collectively we’ve done this, we always take a look at this again and again. We don’t just do it … just because we’ve done it before,” Harris said.
Tax and fee votes
Lorenz’s positions, in part, helped her earn the endorsement of the McLean County Chamber of Commerce’s political action committee. She’s also been dubbed the “best choice for mayor” by the McLean County Republicans, although the race is technically nonpartisan.
One critic is Marc Tiritilli, who ran unsuccessfully against Koos in 2021 and 2017. He endorsed Koos in a Feb. 21 Facebook post, criticizing Lorenz for an inconsistent voting record on taxes and fees. One example was Lorenz’s vote on the property tax levy in 2019. She initially supported cutting the levy an additional $96,000, then a month later voted to restore that money.
“I cannot vote for someone who does not strongly advocate for any particular constituency,” Tiritilli wrote.
Lorenz said she and Tiritilli don’t get along, but that she’s aware of that perception of her. She said she switched her 2019 tax vote in part because Koos asked her to. Koos did not dispute that.
Lorenz said some of that inconsistency is simply the learning curve of joining the council and finding your voice and convictions.
“I’ve grown. I’ve learned, and I’m running for mayor in 2025 and not a moment sooner because I feel ready now, confident now, clear-eyed now in who I am and what I stand for and what I think this community and the residents and businesses need,” she said. “The longer you practice your craft, the better you become.”
Tiritilli called the 2019 vote a flip-flop. Koos stops short of that.
“She does change her mind on decisions. I would say sometimes her decisions are political, instead of governmental,” Koos said. “You still listen to your constituents, but three or four people upset with a decision doesn’t change the decision.”
Mental health tax dollars
Lorenz has also raised concerns about the 1% sales tax shared between the town, city and county that’s designed to fund local behavioral health and public safety initiatives.
It’s a big pot of money – with a balance of around $19 million at the end of 2024. Much of that money is already spoken for, through debt payments to pay off the new county jail and the county’s public-safety information system. The actual fund balance is closer to $4 million, county officials said.
Lorenz said she wants more accountability and transparency for how that money is spent, including public annual updates for the town council from county officials. Lorenz said she’s open to a potential cap on how much money the tax can bring in.
“I lay that at the feet of the current mayor. As your next mayor, I will not allow such lack of transparency and lack of accountability on this topic,” Lorenz said.
Lorenz is not the first to question what the community is getting for that money – besides a new jail. County officials recently reorganized how these mental and behavioral health spending decisions are made, in part over frustrations with the efficacy of the former structure.
Koos said he shares some of those frustrations. He said he’s encouraged by the recent changes at the county and wants a new mental health action plan altogether, and he’s actively working on the issue.
“I have not been happy about how that program is run. It’s been frustrating. I thought the plan was overreaching … with too many directions to go to without any ways to measure the outcome of those directions. I’ve been pushing on that for a year or two,” Koos said.
