As I predicted last night, the Continuous Flow Intersection proposed by the McHenry County Transportation Committee and County Board has succumbed to political, business and village official pressure.
As Chairwoman Anna May Miller put it, “The CFI had significant push back.”
She cited specifically, the 200 people who attended a public hearing on the project, plus “stakeholder” meetings, none of which favored the CFI option.
There were also mass mailings.
Backed by her two Democratic Party Board allies–Nick Chirikos and Paula Yensen, both up for re-election–the Committee voted 3-2
- not to delay a vote for two weeks so the public could have an opportunity to absorb the information presented for the first time in public Wednesday and have a night time hearing, and
- to forward a resolution with blanks filled in to favor an expanded “conventional” intersection.
During the discussion on his amendment to delay a Committee vote for two weeks, Nick Provenzano repeated the length of time the project has been in the works–seven years (464 weeks or so), according to Miller–pointing out that another two weeks wouldn’t not mean much.
Commenting on a previous point of order by Provenzano that the meeting’s agenda was a violation of the Open Meetings Act because of the blanks in the resolution, Chirikos said,
“I see nothing that has been out of order or secretive in this matter.”
Costs for the two alternatives were virtually the same–$66 million plus. The “Conventional” option was selected. Not included was Right-of-Way acquisition for widening the road from four to six lanes from Ackmann to County Line Road. The previous estimate of $25 million has not been updated. Property disparagement, e.g., halving the size of the required drainage area for the Home State Bank in Lake in the Hills, is also not included.
There will be no cost estimate included in the resolution, an amendment by Nick Provenzano to cite a cost of $96 to $101 million having been rejected by the same three-vote majority.
Exhibit A, supposedly attached to the resolution was no where to be found in the room.
The Highway Department’s Wally Dietrick said it would be posted later in the day and will be a summary of the approximately two-hour slide presentation. It will be a summary of the presentation by TranSystems’ personnel.
Although held in the County Board room, a recording of the meeting will not appear on the County’s web site.
Surprise. Surprise.
The three democrats all voted for it while the two conservatives voted against it.
Its just a shame our new Republican County Chairman Sandy Salgado wasn’t there.
She could have stopped this.
Bruce: “Could have” but would she?
She supported the CFI.
Algonquin voters: Wake up!
The Millers cost you a lot of money!
Now you know why there was a Chirikos sign on the Miller truck~!!!
In the REAL WORLD where people are hired to act in the best interest of a company, these 3 would have been Unceremoniously Fired and Escorted off Corporate Grounds with their Crap in a Box!
Hey it’s not too late to make that happen…
REMEMBER THESE NAMES SO YOU CAN VOTE ‘EM OUT!!!
(Anna Mae Miller, Nick Chirikos, and Paula Yensen)
Tip of the hat to Provenzano and Evertsen for moving and seconding the amendment to postpone the vote for 2 weeks.
Aside from the argument that it has been ‘7 years in the making’, none of the three opposed to the delay could provide a reason for their actions.
It was ABUNDANTLY clear that they had as much public input as they wanted and if you weren’t there today, then you don’t count.
It’s too bad that the meeting wasn’t taped.
The parts where Chirikos and Yensen were trying to defend not delaying the vote were hilarious.
probably could have gone viral.
There was a presentation that was said to be made public at the website: http://www.randallroad.info/
It is not public yet but the numbers are amazing and people need to see them.
I hope the slides are presented soon so that the public can see what we were shown this morning.
The rate of growth in McHenry County was reduced to 1.7 percent annual growth.
I do not agree with this number.
McHenry County is growing at .1 percent.
Projections are dangerous things and there really is no rush to start this project.
If we have until 2040 to worry about McHenry County being the size of Kane County, surely we have a little more time to hash this out.
I also agree with County Board Member Nick Provezano that a two week pause should have happened to allow the real stakeholders, THE PUBLIC, to digest this information.
Sally Snowflake, Oliver Putsidewalkem, and Zola Zelda Zetupek had no chance of making this Wednesday Morning 8:15 meeting as they were all at work busing paying the salaries of the people voting on this.
The slide show says that the project will shave about two to four minutes minutes off the drive time in rush hour.
The slide show actually measured the time savings in seconds.
Do we really want to drop somewhere between $96 and $102 million for two to four minutes?
All of us know, who actually drive Randall & Algonquin, that during non-rush hour traffic its a very smooth ride north and south.
Yes there are bad hours to travel Randall Road but that’s why we call it “rush hour”.
I am looking forward to the brief being posted.
Warmest Regards,
Andrew Gasser
Candidate, County Board District 1
2 things were made abundantly clear at this committee meeting.
1. Nick Provenzano is tenacious, sharp as a tack, and isn’t afraid to call “BS” when he sees it…
2. Nick Chirikos and Paula Yensen are antonymous with Transparency!
Thank you, Nick Provenzano, for your valiant effort, today!
1. Today Miller repeatedly stated that all information was always there for taxpayers to see on the website.
I took a screenshot of website after meeting this morning, and there was no reference to cost of the project.
This afternoon ( after the no vote on Mr. Provenzano’s motion for a two week stay to examine details) there were revisions to the FAQ page of the website to add a Q&A related to costs.
2. Before today, the only reference on website to costs that I could find was this Q&A on FAQ page:
“Q: How will the improvements be funded and will they increase my property taxes?
A: Nearly all funding for roadway projects comes in the form of user fees such as sales tax and the Motor Fuel taxes. At this time, the County is proposing to utilize these existing funding streams for the desired improvements to the Randall Road corridor. In addition, it is anticipated that much of the project would utilize grants or other existing funding sources that would go through the County’s Transportation Program, which is updated on an annual basis.”
I thought motor fuel tax goes to the (insolvent) Highway Trust Fund, which has an apportionment formula, and caps and conditions on how much they will pay on any project, if they ever have money again to pay anything?
And isn’t sales tax revenue considered general fund money fungible with property tax revenue?
3. The amount of money not listed on cost projections for project is about 30% of stated budget ($30 mil out of $100 mil) for land acquisition.
In the period of time between the $30 million estimate to purchase land stated today versus the $25 million estimated a few years ago, my home property value has decreased 50% ( I don’t think I am the only homeowner experiencing recent shocking loss of property value) while the purchase price of this Randall road property is to be paid for at a 20% stated increased value.
Is anyone required to file conflict of interest statements or divulge relationships with those reaping profits from this land purchase ( $30 million for 34.7 acres)?
Enough of our hard-earned tax dollars have been wasted on this fiasco already.
It’s time to lick your wounds and fold up shop.
At what point does one or several of the county board members come to the conclusion that the single aspect of the project that has been consistent for the last 7? years has been the inept project coordination, thoughtless guidance, and planning only for the purposes of getting a plaque on the wall for the state’s first CFI by the MCDOT management team of Korpulski (Larry), Young (Moe) and Wally whatever his last name is (Curly)?
You’re right, Susan.
Unlike Miller kept saying, No information was available as to ‘the cost’ of this project on the website.
There again, we have transparency and honesty issues with Miller.
Barring the many questionable things that have come to mind over this project, like:
*Why would McHenry County have to pay almost 3x what other CFI’s go for?
*Why would McHenry County have to pay more for 3 1/2 miles of roadwork than others similar roads are going for?
Then There are questions of property costs for this project.
Yes all of OUR property values in this county and state have gone way down, yet Miller, Yensen, Chirikos think WE should pay A LOT more than the stakeholders’ properties are worth for these “right of ways”.
According to THEIR MATH, on page 34 of their presentation, TransSystems shows a difference of .2 acres between the two plans for ‘right of way.’
On the following page, they express the difference in cost as $500K.
Using their figures, it would cost approximately $87.5M to acquire the ‘right of way’ for roughly 35 acres of this project.
Add the $66.5 M for the intersection and that’s a WHOPPING $154M !!!
It’s worse than originally thought!!!!
That “TBD” figure is what they’re not being forthcoming about.
NOW I’m seeing why they didn’t want this information up for the public to absorb, and why they want to rush this thru before people can break their calculators arriving at what this is really going to cost!!!!
Hats off to Nick Provenzano.
I hope he makes his objections clear in the full board meeting.
Transparency?
I still can’t figure out what the Transportation Committee passed, and I will bet Chirikos and Yensen couldn’t tell you what they voted for.
Did they vote just for a fix at Randall and Algonquin, or was the bigger project hidden behind the Randall/Algonquin fix?
If the latter, the Board needs to vote this whole thing down and re-organize the Transportation Committee.
I am hoping we will see some leadership on this subject.
The ‘Right of Way’ acquisition with cost ‘To Be Determined” (slide 35) IS the BIGGER project behind the $66M + intersection.
Yes, I don’t think Yensen and Chirikos know or care what they voted on.
They deferred to Miller like little girls looking to their mother for approval.
If they didn’t know what they were voting for shame on them – utter ignorance is no excuse.
If they DID know, shame on them for passing this gluttonous project.
It’s a high priced solution to where there is no Real Problem.
They’re shoving this down our throats like Pelosi on Obamacare.
“We have to Pass it, to see what’s in it” !
You’re right, Susan.
Unlike Miller kept saying, No information was available as to ‘the cost’ of this project on the website.
There again, we have transparency and honesty issues with Miller.
Barring the many questionable things that have come to mind over these last months like:
*Why would WE have to pay almost 3x what other CFI’s go for?
*Why would WE have to pay more for 3 1/2 miles of roadwork than others similar roads are going for?
Then There are questions of property costs for this project.
Yes all of OUR property values in this county and state have gone way down, yet Miller, Yensen, Chirikos think WE should pay A LOT more than the stakeholders’ properties are worth for these “right of ways”.
According to THEIR MATH, on page 34 of their presentation, TransSystems shows a difference of .2 acres between the two plans for ‘right of way.’
On the following page, they express the difference in cost as $500K.
Using their figures, it would cost approximately $87.5M to acquire the ‘right of way’ for roughly 35 acres of this project.
Add the $66.5 M for the intersection and that’s a WHOPPING $154M !!!
It’s worse than originally thought!!!! That “TBD” figure is what they’re not being forthcoming about.
NOW I’m seeing why they DIDN’T want this information up for the public to absorb, and why they want to rush this thru before people can break their calculators arriving at the real cost.
I have said all along that the CFI was a red herring.
Yesterday’s actions confirm this.
As expected, the Transportation Committee voted to kill the CFI and add left turn lanes at Randall and Algonquin.
They also voted to advance a plan to make costly and unnecessary changes to Randall Road, a plan that has a price tag that is a multiple of the intersection cost.
With all the focus on the CFI, this part of the plan was passed with virtually no discussion.
Here are a few tidbits to consider.
1) The cost numbers are not what anyone has seen before, not the Transportation Committee and not the public. They do not correspond to numbers in the 2040 plan, in the Highway Division’s five year plan, or in other presentations to the board.
2) We have no idea what the total cost will be because the largest expenditure, the cost of right of way, is “to be determined” but, as noted by another writer, could balloon the cost of the project higher than even the highest prior estimates.
3) The statement was made that the plans are based on 1.7% annual growth. However, this does not match the growth rates in either CMAP’s original forecast or its revised forecast. Where did these numbers come from? And why should they be considered correct when the County has been losing population and the State as a whole has only grown 0.4% since 2010? Where are all these people going to come from?
4) The County’s own numbers show that traffic on this segment of Randall Road has not increased in ten years. If we didn’t need this expansion ten years ago, we don’t need it today.
5) If you use standard formulas for road capacity, as found in the Highway Capacity Manual published by the Transportation Research Board, you will find that section of Randall is at its capacity only a couple of hours each day, which is not enough to justify an expansion.
Let us hope that the Board as a whole not only kills this plan but makes changes to the composition of the Transportation Committee.
Joe: An audio recording of the meeting could be FOIA’d.
You could ‘rip’ out a portion and post it on YouTube with pictures of the three stooges.
As of today or late yesterday the last sentence was added to the cost FAQ on http://www.randallroad.info/faqs.html
“The Randall Road improvement will not increase your property taxes.”
“Q: How will the improvements be funded and will they increase my property taxes?
A: Nearly all funding for roadway projects comes in the form of user fees such as sales tax and the Motor Fuel taxes. At this time, the County is proposing to utilize these existing funding streams for the desired improvements to the Randall Road corridor. In addition, it is anticipated that much of the project would utilize grants or other existing funding sources that would go through the County’s Transportation Program, which is updated on an annual basis. The Randall Road improvement will not increase your property taxes.”
Seven commitee members five votes .
Absent members votes should be counted as NO to new spending.
ONLY the state can change this ! STOP the SPENDING!!!!
A posting on American Road &Transportation Builders Association
http://www.artba.org/about/transportation-faqs/#3.1
WILL THE HIGHWAY TRUST FUND RUN OUT OF MONEY, AND IF SO, WHEN?
In recent years, revenues into the Highway Trust Fund have not been sufficient to fully finance the level of federal highway and transit investment authorized by Congress.
During Fiscal Years 2008-10, Congress transferred money from the General Fund to fill a revenue gap resulting from the impact of the Great Recession on personal travel and truck traffic.
The FY 2008-10 transfers offset funds that had been removed or diverted from the HTF in previous years.
To finance MAP-21, Congress injected another $18.8 billion of General Fund revenues in FY 2013-14 and transferred $2.4 billion of gas tax revenues that had previously been credited to the Liquid Underground Storage Tax Trust Fund.
The revenue infusion was designed to assure that the HTF would be able to pay all of its bills through the end of FY 2014 and into the early part of FY 2015.
Unfortunately, the FY 2013 budget rescission, which cut all federal discretionary spending, reduced the amount transferred into the HTF by enough to move the time at which the HTF would not have enough money to pay all its bills into FY 2014.
According to the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), a shortfall is likely to occur in September 2014 and could happen as early as July.
To get the latest HTF outlook, visit the FHWA’s HTF Ticker site at http://www.dot.gov/highway-trust-fund-ticker.
A shortfall in HTF revenues does not mean the Highway Trust Fund is bankrupt, as some have characterized the situation.
Revenues will still flow into the Trust Fund from the gas tax and truck taxes.
The amount, however, will not be sufficient to pay all bills that state and local governments are expected submit for construction work performed on highway and transit improvement projects.
Once that happens, the FHWA will only be able to pay bills as new revenues come into the HTF.
The longer Congress allows a revenue shortfall to persist, the greater will be the delay in paying contractors for work performed.
Contractors without sufficient reserves to continue to pay workers and buy materials will have to shut down projects.
It is unlikely Congress would allow such a situation to happen, however, due to the impact on the federal government’s reputation for paying its bills and the potential impact on unemployment and the economy.
A $10.9 million CMAQ grant was discussed in the Randall presentation yesterday, presumed to be part of project funding.
Read about terms and conditions for CMAQ here:
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/environment/air_quality/cmaq/
CMAQ has to do with air quality as a function of vehicle emissions.
The new design of the Randall project is conventional; it has not been explained how that might mitigate stationary vehicle emissions and thus qualify for CMAQ money.
Estimated cost of Randall project as compared to cost for similar projects nationwide was not discussed at yesterday’s meeting.
American Road & Transportation Builders Association figures for what roadway projects cost can be seen at:
http://www.artba.org/about/transportation-faqs/#20
HOW MUCH DOES IT COST TO BUILD A MILE OF ROAD?
There is a subsection which gives greater detail:
Generic cost per mile (FL):
ftp://ftp.dot.state.fl.us/LTS/CO/Estimates/CPM/summary.pdf
The cost per mile spent on Randall does not seem to relate to any of these figures, using the R
Randall budget projections on info website;
$90 million for estimated cost plus the unknown additional costs of land acquisition and ‘other’ which are not included in the budget projection.
There are new document links on randallroad.info as of yesterday September 3, 2014.
Has anyone submitted a FOIA to obtain ALL the cost information and ALL the project planning information.
Not just powerpoints but the detailed stuff that is used to make the powerpoints.
Somewhere there is a spreadsheet with lots of numbers.
You can’t make big numbers without smaller numbers.
Well you could, but that would be really scary, although probably not unprecedented.
Numbers like hourly prevailing wages with all the benefits, number of hours estimated per project task, a list of all the project tasks, land acquisition costs, etc.
Every single document that was shown in a committee meeting or board meeting should also be on randallroad.info.
The $6 Million Dollar Man used to seem like a big number.
Now we have $66 Million Dollar Intersections, and even that number could ultimately grow.
Behind that $66 Million number is a slew of labor locals, district councils, regional councils, joint councils, health & welfare funds, pension funds, apprenticeship and training funds, the
Chicago Federation of Labor, etc.
There is nothing wrong with that as long as it’s competitively priced.
But try to reign in costs and what do you get?
“A race to the bottom” mantra.
The unions have a monopoly on the labor market.
The government has a monopoly on our tax dollars.
Monopoly employer and monopoly labor.
And we don’t even get to see the detailed costs.
It’s not only labor and unions.
Management, investors, and vendors get their cut too.
Lots of people make lots of money off the taxpayers.
And the taxpayers have little control over how the money is spent.
Steve, There wasn’t an opportunity for discussion on that Big Project behind the Intersection!
We only got the information on that red herring yesterday AFTER public comment so we couldn’t even address it. We the citizens had no way of knowing ‘what that was’.
The Transportation Committee passed it 5 min. after “revealing” it. (Miller/Yensen/Chirikos voting for it)
Susan, Yes late yesterday the info changed. (it wasn’t “there all the time” like Miller said) The site also changed.
It used to be listed chronologically now it’s alphabetically.
Mark, the ‘right of way” that is labeled ROW TBD is what’s going to be More than the additions to the intersection.
You can easily double the $66M figure to do this project.
That’s reminds me of my former Democratic colleague Tom Hanahan’s rule.
He thought committee meetings were pretty much a waste of time, an opinion that anyone who has served under Mike Madigan as Speaker would concur in, if he or she were honest.
At any rate, Tom got the House rules changed so that one had to get a majority of the committee members’ votes to get a bill out of committee.
That meant people had to lobby him to actually attend a meeting if his vote were needed.
No reason the County Board couldn’t change its rules, too.
IF it goes thru, there will be a lot LESS business happening on Randall Rd. as Retail/Restaurant/Onsite Service types of business cannot withstand heavy handed road construction.
Just ask those on Rt. 12 and 22.
The public comment speaker yesterday “Mr. I live in Crystal Lake and work in Elgin” shot himself in the foot by revealing he just takes other routes to get to work when he goes to work.
Sounds like ‘problem solved!’
Why on EARTH would he want a price tag of $150M+ to solve a problem that isn’t there?
Does he work in Road Construction? hmmm
I’m just going to say this for all of those who think money comes from other sources to pay for our convenience: Our state is broke.
There is fine print with any grants etc that says “If we don’t have it-or you don’t qualify for it, we don’t have to pay it”.
When that happens, and it will…who do you think pays.
The taxpayers.
Don’t believe for a minute what TransCom and Miller & minions are telling you.
We ALL pay motor tax and sales tax.
Those increases will effect your wallets!
Besides “getting money” to do this project, where do you think the money is going to come from to MAINTAIN these roads.
Somebody pays, there is no free lunch.
If you’ve ever contested your Real Estate taxes, you know they get you right back in the end.
They raised the multiplier this year so your R.E. Taxes have already gone up, while property values remain in the tank.
CAN McHENRY COUNTY CITIZENS REALLY AFFORD THIS ?
$9,000,000 for design engineering???
Seems like alot to me what is in here exactly????
Under Robert’s Rules of Order, a tie fails.
So a no vote from Salgado would have stopped this?
Why would anyone agree to be on a committee and not be there for an important vote?
So here’s the value proposition:
That’s $328 for every man, woman & child in the County.
For a family of five, $1,639 of your treasure will be used to shave off 5 minutes of your drive time (only if you venture down Randall Rd. otherwise it’s just a donation).
And I am really tired of donating.
Glad to see all the bridges are back up to snuff and now we can spend on the pet projects.
Or perhaps that’s a ploy on us taxpayers also.
Why is it that Sandy Salgado thinks it is okay to blow off her duties as a Member of the County Board?
Word is that she is using her position as Chairman of the McHenry County Republicans to run for higher office.
Why should we trust her to show up for votes in that role?
What a disappointment that she is supporting such a huge hike in taxes by not showing up to vote.
I thought the new GOP was more conservative than the RINOs they replaced?