Public Building Commission Looking for Secrecy

No referendum was held to approve financing for the McHenry County Jail.

The McHenry County Public Building Commission is an under the radar group of people who have been known to issue non-referendum bonds.

That’s the way part of the present courthouse was financed.

In fact, avoiding the voters using this method led to the most serious policy dispute I ever had with my father.

He was on the county board and, as you might guess, my mother, he and I discussed politics and government when we ate together.

Dad told me the county board had decided to use the Public Building Commission to get the money to add on to the courthouse.

I pretty much went ballistic.

Not loud, but I probably did raise my voice when I said something like,
“You did what?”

You see, Dad had staunchly opposed building the new courthouse without a referendum. County board members has been unlawfully accumulating money for years to build it.

In 1967, the first year I was McHenry County Treasurer, I went to the budget meeting and pointed out that the zero balance the Finance Committee under Cary’s G. Watson Lowe leadership wasn’t what I thought would be in the bank on December 1st.

The committee members didn’t care, of course. So what if 10% of the taxpayers eventually got refunds of their county general fund taxes through tax protests of their planned unlawful action.

They had done it for years and just wanted to accumulate enough money to build a new courthouse.

As a private citizen,Dad had fought against building a new courthouse without a referendum.

I could not understand why he had decided that going around the voters was OK this time, but not then.

Let’s get back to the next McHenry County Public Building Commission meeting.

It’s on September 2nd at 3 PM in Room 210 of the Administration Building, also constructed without voter approval.

Among the items of new business is a “resolution to provide for closed (executive) meetings.”

Now, why would they be needing such authority?

To buy land on which to build a new edifice where politicians could have their names appear in bronze?

If so, which politicians have an edifice complex?


Comments

Public Building Commission Looking for Secrecy — 1 Comment

  1. Ooooo! This IS interesting!

    As we have come to expect over the past few years, our elected politicians want to exclude US, the folks who pay their salaries and benefits and pensions for full participation in the processes that determine where and how OUR money – not theirs – is spent.

    There might want to buy be a mighty big table under which they can continue to make their deals at our expense… I can only imagine what “new” top secret deal will be cut in order to build another monument to one of our “public” servants”.

    I wonder why we never see these things on a ballot or referendum.

    Cal – I love the ‘edifice complex” line.

    I would like to suggest we return to the old days, when public money spent on public projects were named for dead politicians who made some impact on the community of country.

    I can, sadly, only imagine that we will soon have to pay through the nose (because there is little left in my pockets) for a new

    “Keith Nygren Law Enforcement Center”.

    That, frankly, would only suit me if it were because Nygren’s political career is deceased… We HAVE to change the players here.

    Is McHenry County the next Bell, California?

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