I Told You So

For some reason I was at the Crystal Lake City Council meeting when the Villages was being considered.

I think it was because I knew it would cost me higher taxes to build more District 47 grade schools.

That’s my usual reason for attending Crystal Lake City Council meetings. Propose to do something that is going to cost me money and expect me to show up. (Think TIF tax hikes, Mayor Aaron Shepley’s strong, strong support of a McHenry County College baseball stadium and Mayor Shepley’s 75% city sales tax hike. All brought me to city council.)

After presenting my figures, which showed that a new grade school would be needed for about every 325 homes, I commented on allowing Village Road to come out onto Randall Road.

My mother Eleanor Skinner was killed on Route 14 in 1987 when a trucker going 60-some miles an hour plowed into her at Dean Street in Woodstock. He was barreling down the hill from Woodstock and couldn’t stop in time. There was no traffic light there then. Not enough accidents yet.

Strangely, my mother was tested for alcohol and drugs, but the trucker was not, but that’s another story.

I knew that the configuration of Randall Road where Village Road would enter the highway without a traffic light was similar to the way Route 14 intersects Dean Street. Traffic would be coming south on Randall over a hill at a pretty good clip. The chance of an accident similar to my mother’s seemed obvious.

There was absolutely no reason that all of the traffic from the Villages could not have entered Randall Road at Miller Road.

I told the council the danger of such accidents. It was like talking to a brick wall.

The result is a left turn from the subdivision that just cannot be made safely onto Randall Road.

That seems to happen a lot when this Lakewood resident dares invade the sucker upper of most of his sales tax dollars.

Saturday, I was driving north on Randall Road. Crossing Miller Road, I saw a Crystal Lake police car, blue light flashing.

“Ah ha,” I thought. Evidence of a speed trap.

But it wasn’t a speed trap.

It was an accident right where I predicted it would.

At least there was no fatality here.

Cassandra ‘s role again.

I guess I should be used to it by now.

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The backed up traffic is south of Miller Road and of the accident, which can be seen on top.


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