McHenry County Board members don’t like listening to people complain about intrusive neighborhood zoning requests.

The Northwest Herald’s Kevin Craver touches on it in this article.

Recently, there was the end run that Fritz Duda dis-annexed from the Village of Barrington Hills. It was the old Alexander MacArthur farm. Alex, who was a leader in the incorporation of Barrington Hills, would not have been pleased at the higher density being proposed under McHenry County zoning laws.

Barrington Hills folks are quite vociferous and effective when they get up in arms about something. Just ask the supporters of the Fox Valley Freeway, more honestly know as the Fox Valley Tollway.

Two other fights are going on that take the time of McHenry County Board members.

One proposes a gravel pit southwest of Woodstock in the Franklinville Road area. Driving through last weekend allowed me to see all sorts of signs.

The other is a threatened trucking operation on Route 176 near Burton’s Bridge. The Northwest Herald story by Craver that I linked to in the previous sentence says the Burton’s Bridge folks convincingly won the first round, but, since the signs are still up, it is obvious they do not think the zoning fight is over.

I also drove by it recently.

What I noticed in both cases is that local residents have their own professionally printed signs and a web site.

Zoning change opponents in Burton’s Bridge may have the public relation advantage because the proposed truck depot will dump more traffic on a road a lot more people take than the rural roads near the proposed gravel pit.

The biggest route 176 sign is a banner that says “NO ZONING CHANGE” in bright red letters on top. The bottom gives an internet site called WWW.NUNDA-NEIBHBORS.COM. It’s at least 12 feet long and probably 4 feet high.

Next to it is what looks like a 4 foot by 4 foot sign with an arrow pointing across the road to the property that the opponents obviously believe will affect their subdivision of homes adversely.

Above the red arrow are these words: “NO ZONING CHANGE.” The “NO” is also in red.

And, there are five small flags flying on top of the smaller sign—in different colors. So besides the motion of the flags attracting commuters’ attention, there is enough color so that even most colorblind guys can see something.

But, that’s not all signs put up by the Nunda Neighbors.

There’s another sign with six flags waving in the wind.

It says,

I didn’t get the top of another sign in the frame, but I think it was on the other side of one of the flag waving signs mentioned above. The message is

Then, in a rectilinear box,

Red arrows point up next to the “Traffic Up, Accidents Up” message and across Route 176 to the proposed truck depot under “No Zoning Change.”

There are some professionally printed yard signs, too.

In yellow letters surrounded by blank ink one can see the words,

above black letters on a yellow background saying.

I didn’t look closely, but I think on the other side is this message:

in black letters on yellow and I didn’t get a good view of what’s underneath (perhaps someone can fill in the blanks in a comment from its picture from this mystery side of the two-sided sign)

And, I saw one final sign. It relates to the Congregational Church that replaced Burton’s Bridge School, with that elementary school district went belly-up and was absorbed by Crystal Lake’s District 47.

It says,

In the future, what I saw west of Woodstock.