A Letter to the Crystal Lake City Council about Tonight’s Meeting

Crystal Lake resident Paul Greenlee has shared his communication with the Crystal Lake City Council about a couple of items on tonight’s meeting agenda:

The sky was blue on Monday, May 14, 2012, but there was no electricity in one Four Colonies neighborhood.

Mayor Shepley and Members of the City Council:

It is not clear whether or not I will be able to attend the Council meeting on May 15, 2012, but it is important that I comment on and call to your attention the following:

1. Our portion of our neighborhood (South of Barlina/West of Golf Course) had a power outage May 13, 2012.

It lasted about 30-45 minutes.

Given that there was no adverse weather and no other known condition, this kind of out of the blue occurrence is of concern.

Especially in light of Com Ed’s performance when we had such a recent significant storm, their inability to provide reliable service in relatively serene condition is a concern.

The outage was reported to Com Ed and their automated system indicated that there was no outage.

When I called it in, the power had already been out a little while; it wasn’t like they were called 30 seconds after the power went off.

When I held to speak to a customer service representative they indicated that their automated system was in error, but then contradicted themselves and said there was no outage in Crystal Lake, and then said that power from said non-outage would be restored about 12:45 a.m.

It came on earlier than that, but their inability to answer simple questions correctly is of great concern.

They should know from their grid where power outages exist, one would think.

Presumably, this is the area where the new sign would be erected.

2. On the agenda for your consideration is a request from Bernotas Middle School for an electronic message center sign. The Plan Commission previously rejected this request.

I am not a Bernotas parent (I am a Lundahl parent), but I support the school’s request for you to override the Plan Commission recommendation.

First the kids in that school worked quite hard to raise the money for the sign.

If you want to engender apathy within young people or upset parents, then support the Plan Commission’s recommendation.

The kids need to know (as do the parents who supported them) that their efforts truly meant something.

It sounds like the Bernotas group tried to follow the rules from the beginning but received faulty guidance or some other misunderstanding that caused the Plan’s recommendation.

Also, I think Bernotas is the only school in the district without some kind of sign of that nature.

Finally, if I WERE a neighbor of that school, I cannot imagine a sign like that (even with lights, for goodness sake) would be a nuisance.

I urge you to reward the efforts of the families of Bernotas Middle School and approve their request for a sign.

3. I notice a request for a business for Lightning Lazer Tag.

If established, I am sure my nine year old son and his friends would make use of this facility.

I suppose if I were a neighbor to this facility, I would have concerns about it becoming a nuisance.

If you receive significant complaints and concerns about establishing this business by the neighbors, I support your not allowing it.

If the neighbors do not raise issues, I still would ask that you strictly enforce anti-loitering ordinances to keep a “bad element” from initiating a presence.

[The location near the 7-11 on Berkshire seems to be the same space previously occupied by a lazer tax facility.]

Thank you very much for your consideration.

Paul Greenlee


Comments

A Letter to the Crystal Lake City Council about Tonight’s Meeting — 1 Comment

  1. The power outage was a pain because it was TOTALLY unexpected.

    Thank goodness ComEd has all that extra money so we have a better product…yeah right (maybe if you are a shareholder)!

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