There is a question on your ballot this November about township roads. It is worded in a way that is hard to follow. Here is what it means, in plain English.
A voicemail meant for “Steve” landed on Highway Commissioner Jason Diaz’s phone 13 days before this vote. The caller, who identifies himself as Township Assessor Doug Anderson, says “we’re going to cut this little guy’s balls off and stuff them down his throat,” then doesn’t hang up. Hear the full recording and read every word. Warning: a threat of violence and profanity, unedited.
Bourbonnais Township and the Bourbonnais Township Road District are two different governments, even though they share a name.
The Township has a Supervisor, four Trustees, a Clerk and an Assessor. The Road District has one elected official, the Highway Commissioner. He takes care of the township roads outside the villages: plowing, patching, ditches, paving. He has his own budget and his own piece of your tax bill.
In April 2025 you elected Jason Diaz to that job. It was the only township race on the ballot with more than one candidate.
A yes vote gets rid of that office. The roads, the equipment, the money and the taxing power all move to the Township Board.
BOURBONNAIS TOWNSHIP PROPOSITION TO ABOLISH ROAD DISTRICT
“Shall the Road District of the Township of Bourbonnais be abolished, with all rights, powers, duties, assets, property, liabilities, obligations, and responsibilities being assumed by the Township of Bourbonnais?” Yes / No
Source: the Kankakee County Clerk’s master specimen ballot for November 3, 2026, page 4.
In plain words: should we shut down the road district and hand everything it has to the township board?
This is the part most people are surprised by.
Illinois law says the change takes effect at the end of the current Highway Commissioner’s term. Diaz was elected in 2025 to a four year term. That term runs to May 2029.
So a yes vote does not put anyone new in charge of your roads this winter, or next winter, or the one after that. It keeps the same person in the job for about two and a half more years, with no election left for him to run in.
The township’s own information sheet says the office would “eventually” be eliminated. It does not give the date.
The biggest piece of the road tax is something called the Permanent Road Tax. It is $1,294,000 of the $1,660,300 road levy, roughly 78 cents of every dollar.
Voters created that tax in a separate election years ago, and only another separate election can repeal it. This November’s vote does not touch it. What moves is the power to decide how much of it to levy each year: from the commissioner to the township board. That is how the board says it would cut $500,000 to $600,000, and it cannot start before the commissioner’s term ends in 2029.
The same crew. The township’s information sheet says road district workers would become township employees automatically, and plowing, patching and drainage would continue with no change in service. The township could hire a Highway Director to run it.
Once the money moves, there is no rule in the law keeping it separate from the township’s other spending. It becomes the board’s to budget.
The board’s resolution says the township could sign agreements with other local governments to help maintain the roads. We asked the county and the Village of Bourbonnais, in writing, for any record of being approached. The county answered that it has no such records. The village answered that nobody asked.
The copy of the resolution the township posted on its website carries an extra page: a proposed amendment to the state law on abolishing road districts. As the law is written today, a section that strips a departing commissioner of his powers applies only to referendums passed in 2018. The proposal would extend it to this November.
If lawmakers passed it, the township board would take over the road budget, the road levy, contracts and hiring right away instead of in 2029, and the commissioner could not sue the township over the dispute. The page does not say who wrote it or whether any lawmaker has agreed to carry it. As of September 28 the law posted by the General Assembly still limits that section to 2018. It is a proposal, not law.
The township’s official information sheet, approved September 21 and posted on its website, says: “the current tax levy for road services that was increased this year by the current Highway Commissioner can be substantially decreased by $500,000 to $600,000, without any change to the level of Township road services.”
At that same September 21 meeting, a neighbor stood up and asked where that number came from and whether anyone could show the math.
He asked whether the numbers were written down anywhere. The answer was:
“They’re not on paper somewhere. No.”
Said by a member of the township board, answering for the board, at the meeting on September 21, 2026. The meeting was recorded and the recording is public.
To be fair about it: not written down does not mean wrong. The figure could turn out to be close. But it is being printed under the township board’s name, and when someone asked to see how it was worked out, there was nothing to show. We have filed a public records request for any worksheet behind it, and we will print whatever comes back, including nothing.
The commissioner does set the road levy. But the township board adopted the current one, $1,660,300, on December 15, 2025, by a 3 to 2 roll call. Supervisor Jeff Umphrey and Trustees Matt Alexander and Frank Cianci voted yes; Trustees Don Pallissard and Terry Pepin voted no. The Truth in Taxation certificate filed with it says the increase over the prior year was under 5 percent, small enough that no public hearing was required.
This did not come out of nowhere. The township board and the highway commissioner have been fighting for most of a year, mostly about bills. Both sides have a case. Here they are.
Some of this may end up going against the commissioner. Bidding rules are real, and whether six invoices are six jobs or one job is a fair question. Our point is narrower: none of it is settled, and none of it is what this ballot question decides.
Everything above this line is reporting, and you can check all of it. This part is our opinion, and we are telling you plainly that it is.
What you lose is an official you pick yourself. What you are offered in return is a savings figure the board says is not written down.
If those bills are wrong, they are still wrong on November 4. Lawyers, auditors or a judge sort that out either way. Shutting down the office does not resolve a single invoice.
The only sure saving is one salary, and not until 2029. The bigger cut depends on a future board choosing to levy less, the same crew still has to be paid, and nobody can show the arithmetic.
If you do not like the job he is doing, there is an election for that. Getting rid of the office takes your vote off the table for good.
Putting the roads, the money and the spending decisions all under one board leaves you one fewer official who answers to you directly. Bringing the office back would take another referendum.
If you believe the commissioner has overspent and gotten around bidding rules, then putting the roads under a board that votes in public on every bill is a reasonable way to stop it, and four trustees watching each other may be better than one person acting alone. That is a real argument. We just do not think it holds up once you know the office does not actually go away until 2029, and that nobody can show you the savings.
The road district question is on the same ballot as everything else, for every voter in Bourbonnais Township. It is a binding vote, which means the result becomes law. It is not a survey.
Early voting is open now at the Kankakee County Clerk’s office, 189 E. Court St., Kankakee, weekdays 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. through November 2, with extra evening and weekend hours at the end of October.
In Bourbonnais: the Municipal Center, 700 Main St. NW, October 26 to 30, noon to 6 p.m., and Saturday, October 31, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
For your polling place or a mail ballot, go to kankakeecountyclerk.gov or call the County Clerk at (815) 937-2990. That office runs the election and is separate from the township.
The quotes come from recordings of the September 21 and August 17, 2026 township board meetings, posted publicly by the road district itself. We transcribed them in full. The recordings use automatic captions that do not label who is speaking, which is why we say “a member of the township board” instead of naming a person. We will not put a name on that quote until we confirm it on video.
The ballot wording comes from the County Clerk’s master specimen ballot. The information sheet, the signed resolution and the road levy ordinance are posted on the township’s website. The law enforcement referral and the $128,000 figure come from the Daily Journal’s May 24 and 25, 2026 reporting.
Dollar figures come from the township’s own investment report handed out at a public meeting, from the budget the board adopted, and from county records. The $521,000 paving figure is what the commissioner reported at a public meeting and we have not yet matched it against the county’s own paperwork. The laws referred to are 605 ILCS 5/6-134 and 605 ILCS 5/6-601.
If you think something here is wrong, tell us. We will check it and correct it in public.
Settled since we first published: the question was certified and is on the ballot, with the wording shown above.
Whether the $500,000 to $600,000 figure is accurate. We are saying it is not written down, which is a different thing from saying it is wrong.
Whether the township is mailing its information sheet to households, and what that costs. It is posted on the township website; we have asked about a mailing.
Who wrote the proposed change to state law posted with the resolution, and whether a lawmaker will carry it.
Where the state investigation of the fuel tank project stands.