My first public meeting was a hearing at the Algonquin Township Garage while I was still in college.

For some reason, my father was interested in a Silver Lakes non-dedicated road hearing.

At the time, Silver Lakes, near Cary, had roads, but they were not in the township system because they were not up to the standards set by some agency unknown to me at the time.

The meeting was part of a process to initiate a special assessment program to raise money to improve the roads enough for Township Road Commissioner Julian Dvorak to take over their maintenance.

That was probably in 1963 or 1964.

After I took office as McHenry County Treasurer in 1966 it was my job to collect the special assessments.

Intervening was a court suit that declared the law authorizing the special assessments unconstitutional.

I can’t remember the details, but we kept collecting the money to pay off the bonds.

When the Constitutional Convention was held, one part specifically authorized such assessments for a specific purpose for a specific area.

It’s called a Special Service Area Assessment.

Developers now use the tool to stick homeowners with infrastructure costs that previously would have been part of homes’ purchase prices.

But the unincorporated road problem continues to exist in McHenry County, where dozens of subdivisions, especially along the Fox River, have roads that are not as wide or thick as Township Road Commissioners would like.

Trees are in the right-of-way.

Lots of problems from a Road Commissioner’s point-of-view.

Letter presented to McHenry County Board Transportation Committee Chairman Anna May Miller by the McHenry County Non-Dedicated Road Coalition.

The signers of the letter when McHenry County Blog received it were

• Reihansperger – Fair Oaks Subdivision
• Cosgrove – Bay View Lane, Pistakee Bay
• Anthony Kless – Wonder Woods
• Edward Wolff – North Shore POA
• Robert Beltran- East Pistakee Bay Rd. Assoc.
• Mark Galasso – Mineral Springs Assoc.

All are from McHenry Township.