This is from the McHenry County Department of Transportation:
MAY 13, 2014. At the direction of the McHenry County Board, the design team continues to meet with businesses and other project stakeholders to solicit feedback for use in the re-analysis of the project design at the Randall Road/Algonquin Road intersection.
Following this re-analysis, the County will evaluate all viable alternatives to address the concerns at this important intersection.
Once that evaluation process is complete, the updated information will be posted to the website to keep everyone informed of the alternatives being considered.
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This is on the County web site for Randall Road.
Yesterday a critique of the project was released. You can read it here.
I guess this is why CAPA is important.
I hope the county can come up with a more cost effective solution to save businesses and jobs, ( and not spend $135 million ) until all questions and concerns are answered.
Is this project predicated on population growth?
We cannot afford any population growth.
$6000 per year is the break-even property tax needed for any new home built in McHenry County, just to cover education costs, or am I missing something?
Every new home constructed will create a new tax burden to McHenry County of +/- $6000 per year for education alone, not including costs of government, roads, fire protection, Conservation District, etc., so per-household tax below $6000 per year will create a deficit need to be borne by current taxpayers.
Assumptions:
$10,700 annual per student cost.***
Each home has 0.56 students in household.
Model assumption bases:
2.8 persons per household. *
Percentage of population assumed school-aged: 20%.
+/- 109,000 households in county. *
Population +/-308,000.*
Persons under 18: 26%. Persons under 5: 5.9%. *
Cost Per Student Per Year: **
Nippersink School District 2: $8946. (1336 enrollment).
Fox River Grove Schools 3: $11,063. (503 enrollment).
Johnsburg Community Schools 12: $11,794. (2247 enrollment).
McHenry Comm. Cons. Schools 15: $10,456. (4717 enrollment).
Riley Comm. Cons. School 18: $10,512. (308 enrollment).
Alden-Hebron Comm. Cons. 19: $11,327. (444 enrollment).
Cary Comm. Cons. School Dist. 26: $9543. (2655 enrollment).
Harrison Elementary School Dist. 36: $12,271. (442 enrollment).
Prairie Grove Cons. School Dist. 46: $11,666. (888 enrollment).
Crystal Lake Comm. Cons. 47: $9479. (8092 enrollment).
Harvard Comm. School Dist. 50: $9601. (2413 enrollment).
Marengo Comm. High School 154: $13,549. (772 enrollment).
Comm. High School Dist. 155: $13,086. (6914 enrollment).
McHenry High School Dist. 156: $11,352. (2464 enrollment).
Richmond-Burton Comm. High School 157: $15,138. (766 enrollment).
Cons. School District 158: $8450. (9305 enrollment).
Marengo-Union Elem. CSD 165: $8297. (1121 enrollment).
Woodstock Comm. Unit. School Dist. 200: $12,160 (6512 enrollment).
Special Education District(SEDOM): $?. (? enrollment).
Total enrollment listed above: 51397.
Total 2012 school enrollment according to annual report of regional superintendent of schools: 52,875.
*Source: US Census
** Source: IllinoisReportCard.com
***While some percentage of cost per student may be borne by State or Federal ‘contributions'(YOUR tax dollars from a different pocket of YOURS), trends have been for increasing shift of burden to property tax payers.
The cost per student per year cited above are MINIMUM, as they are NOT INCLUDING summer school, adult education, capital expenditures, and long-term debt payments. Possibly also NOT INCLUDING certain pension obligations.
On that basis, the actual costs cited above, which are borne by local taxpayers but not included in publicly reported (annual)’cost per student’, are assumed to cancel out with payments received from non-local tax sources.
Finally, given current conditions of staggering property tax rates (mine are 3.67% of assessed home value), plummeting property values (inversely correlated to rising tax rates), and the ability of businesses to obtain tax concessions from the county, there is no commercial tax revenue increase supposition.
Wow, Susan, are there any more like you at home?
McHenry County needs people like you who ask the right questions and dig into the numbers.
We’ve got too many governments telling half-truths and omitting anything that contradicts the line they’re pushing to build big new projects.
We need people like you who are skeptical and get the facts for yourself.
Are you an elected official?
If not, I can think of any of a half dozen places where someone like you would make a real difference.
The local governments, especially the special purpose governments, tend to be run by cheerleaders.
Who runs for the park board?
People who hate parks?
No, people who LOVE parks!
Now, I don’t want people who hate parks on the park board, but I do want some people who are a little bit skeptical and don’t just automatically think more government is better government.
So, what do you think?
Will you consider running for a local office?
It’s not as big a commitment as a lot of people think.
It’s usually two or three meetings a month, so six or eight hours of volunteer time, and if you control the bureaucracy instead of letting the staff set the agenda and run the meetings, it takes even less time.
McHenry County NEEDS people like you.
Steve, Thank you.
Actually YOU are the articulate writer, and comprehensive analyst, and I had already planned on writing you in on next ballot (and another commenter who is named ‘Mark’).
Have just read your circumspect replies to ad hominem remarks on another post (isn’t that known as ‘trolling’? I’ve read there are paid trolls who try to divert away from important topics on thoughtful blogs. It is a sign the blog is a success!).
What about this idea: let’s ask Rick Santelli to found a new political party, ‘Activist Shareholder Party’, with one agenda: maximize value for all citizens (shareholders) of a region, while eliminating special insider favoritism.
There can be objective, systematic decision-making processes which scrub out emotion and human temptation as persuasive factors.
Dear Happy Trails. Good post.
I see you on here a lot and I know you are one of the people who is paying attention to local government.
I hope you look at some of the County’s stuff on Randall Road, in particular what is NOT their web sites but should be, and then I hope you look skeptically at the CAPA report. I meant that, too, when I say skeptically.
In other words, I want you to make an informed decision. We’re not talking hours of time here, maybe half an hour or so.
But if you do that and you decide $135 million is an awful lot of money to pay for a fix right now for a problem that may or may not happen in ten years, then, please, PLEASE get in touch with your County Board members and let them know what you think and that you have a very long memory come election time.
We can stop this boondoggle, but only if we put pressure on the County Board members to let them know their actions ARE being monitored.
Let’s wait and see if the western bypass to the Route 31/62 intersection provides the promised “relief” later this year when it is fully-completed.
I for one say no because north/south traffic congestion isn’t the problem; but rather east/west congestion is because there’s only one way across the river for that traffic.
I’m also very skeptical of the McHenry County Board Transportation Committee and anything it recommends because of Vice-Chair Paula Yensen.
She constantly ignored input and information from her constituents when she was a Lake In The Hills Trustee, why would she be any different now that she is a County board member?
So, Susan, will you give me the chance to talk to you about running for local office?
I’d love to get you together for a cup of coffee with a couple of other people from around here who are like minded and involved.
You tell me when and where, and I will be there with as many other people as I can round up to answer your questions.
As I said, it’s really not as big a commitment as many people think, and if things work out, you can be assured of having support in running a campaign.
We got 50 people to volunteer to get Tom Wilbeck and Chris Jenner elected to the MCC board, and that killed the $42 million expansion project, so change CAN occur, and there ARE a lot of people in McHenry County willing to walk precincts to educate voters.
But what we need the most is good candidates.
What do you say?
I work at home, so my schedule is pretty flexible.
Steve, I am willing to put my time and resources behind a project I believe in, if somebody else is front man.
To set up a meet -and- talk, perhaps Mr. Skinner would be kind enough to pass my email address to you privately?
You Email a suggested time and place?
Done.
Cal, will you please shoot me and email with Susan’s email so I can write to her and set up a meeting?
The pitch for the Western Bypass was that it would take north-south traffic away from the intersection.
Going south on Route 31, traffic that would be turning left will be forced (as I understand the plan) to take the bypass and get onto Algonquin Road going east.
The time for north-south through traffic will be decreased significantly, allowing much more time for the east-west traffic to get through the intersection.
Unfortunately, write-in votes in Illinois are no longer counted unless the candidate declares a write-in candidacy.