Politics & Government

City Attorney Set to Retire in June

Dave Wiltse said his 18 years with Des Plaines saw many big changes for the city, including the new Rivers Casino.

Dave Wiltse, Des Plaines’ city attorney, announced he would retire in June at a staff meeting on Tuesday. Wiltse said a number of considerations went into his decision, including Sen. Mark Kirk’s recent stroke, Wiltse’s desire to spread the Gospel and complete a book based on family letters from the Civil War era.

In an interview with Patch, Wiltse said during his 18 years with Des Plaines, he was proud to have tried several dozen cases and lost less than five. He said while he is retiring, he hopes to do some part-time trial work, possibly for Des Plaines. Trial work was really what he enjoyed, Wiltse added.

In one notable instance, several years ago, Wiltse said he represented the city alongside attorneys from Skokie and Palatine in a case brought against the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District.

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He said the MWRD had put together an ordinance that said a Tax Increment Financing Fund, or TIF, could not freeze the MWRD’s property tax revenue, and they wouldn’t grant hook-up permits to homeowners and businesses that were trying to build. They established the ordinance was unconstitutional and the court struck it, he said.

“In most attorney’s careers you litigate for one side or the other,” Wiltse said. “It’s rare that you knock out an ordinance as unconstitutional.”

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Earlier: Know the differences between the two types of flooding insurance.

Wiltse, who began work for the city in fall of 1993, said there had been a lot of things city staff had worked on to make Des Plaines the number one community in the North and Northwest suburbs, but when Kirk, someone he knows, had a stroke, it caused him to reevaluate.

“My faith is really important to me, and when Kirk had a stroke, it just showed me how fragile life is,” Wiltse said.

Wiltse said he reached out to pastors at his church, Harvest Bible Chapel in Palatine, to let them know he would be available.

“I want to make a difference in helping explain Jesus Christ’s sacrifice for each of us, and the free gift that sacrifice provides for eternal life for all who believe in him,” Wiltse said.

“I firmly believe God has a plan for each of us, and I just want to see what plan he has for me,” he added.

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