Commenter Susan has compiled some facts about McHenry County Conservation District over the last ten years.
She originally posted them under State Senator Pam Althoff’s defense of her and State Rep. Mike Tryon’s Senate Bill 3341 to allow MCCD to borrow more money without voter approval. See Althoff’s commentary here.
McHenry County Conservation District land as of March, 2014.
Here are acreage owned by MCCD past decade:
2005-19,728
2006-19,991
2007-20,701
2008-22,121
2009-23,226
2010-23,878
2011-24,783
2012-24,910
2013-25,022
2014-25,189
2015-?
16,033 acres comprise the sites open to the public seen on the accompanying map. That does not count the trails listed, which have no amount of acres shown.
My calculations show that about 36% of the land purchased is not in recreational sites.
Total Assessed Value of our taxable property (assessed value is 1/3 of actual value. Multiply by 3 to get actual value of properties in this county taxing district).
2004-$7,705,547,977
2005-$8,564,661,998
2006-$9,423,490,174
2007-$10,155,920,376
2008-$10,526,644,418
2009-$10,435,583,432
2010-$9,727,481,075
2011-$8,842,348,966
2012-$7,907,055,158
2013-$7,189,697,681
General property tax revenues collected by McHenry County Conservation District:
2005-$12,154,306
2006-$12,146,911
2007-$12,743,793
2008-$13,351,739
2009-$17,536,668
2010-$18,115,161
2011-$18,427,173
2012-$18,920,946
2013-$19,286,175
2014-$19,519,137
= = = = =
If you would like to contact Governor Pat Quinn about Senate Bill 3341, his email contact is below:
Of the roughly 5400 acres acquired since the downturn in 2008, how many were purchased and how many were donated?
Steve R., I am having difficulty accessing data on prices paid for parcels purchased by MCCD.
(SEE comment on recent blog topic:
On 19 June 2014 MCCD voted to acquire a parcel of land. The vote was 5 “Aye’ and 2 “Nay’. The “Copy of Real Estate Sale Contract” was NOT attached as stated in the Ordinance. Without knowing terms of the deal we cannot evaluate it. However we would like to hear from the ‘Nay’ voters.
http://www.mccdistrict.org/rccms/index.php/board-of-trustees-ordinances/
(CLICK ON:)
“Ordinance 14-883
Authorizing the acquisition by purchase and execution of contracts for real property commonly known as Breckenridge Parcel”
Submit a FOIA request for a copy of the document containing the purchase price.
You could also submit a FOIA request for the date purchased, purchase price, acreage, address(s), and description of the parcel purchased, for all properties over say a 10 year period, preferably in an electronic spreadsheet.
Presumably the Conservation District knows the amount, purchase date, and location for the property they purchased.
Actually I would think that Althoff and Tryon and McConnaughay, who are paid salaries and health benefits and pensions, and are reimbursed for phone, travel and computer expenses, and have paid staff and intern assistants at their disposal, would have researched this data before throwing their full weight of power behind swift passage of this bill.
I’m a private citizen doing all this on my own time and own dime.
How about it, paid public servants, would you like to disclose the public information on which you based your decision to back this bill?