McHenry County Blog

When I saw that Scott Summers had been picked by the Public Health & Human Services Committee, it struck me that the committee had picked a Democrat. (And, before that, a Green Party candidate for State Treasurer and Congress.)

Not only a Democrat, but one who had run unsuccessfully for County Board in District 6.

“Would District 6 Republicans want to give prominence to a potential future opponent?” I thought.

Then I learned that the runner-up was also a Democrat.

She is Lake in the Hills Village Trustee Denise Barreto.

She is the Democratic Party Precinct Committeeman in Grafton Township Precinct 18.

I don’t follow Lake in the Hills politics, so I can’t comment on Berreto’s oversight abilities.

From watching Scott Summers service on the McHenry County College Board, I know he can recognize a boondoggle when he sees one.

Not right away in the case of the minor league baseball stadium, but in time to stop the project dead in its tracks before local taxpayers were stuck with ultimate responsibility for repaying $25 million in borrowed money after the baseball team went belly up.

The MCC Board Establishment was so enraged at the switch in position in front of the Crystal Lake City Council by Summers, who was Board President, and Donna Kurtz that they voted to censure the two. Summers subsequently resigned as Board President and, a while later, from as a College Trustee.

Supporting Summers at the committee level were

• John Hammerand
• Donna Kurtz
• Sandy Salgado
• Mike Walkup

Opposed to Summers were

• Mary McCann
• Anna May Miller
• Paula Yensen

The four behind Summers have been most outspoken in their desire to see major reform of the 708 Board.

There is talk that the supporters of Barreto may try to defeat Summers’ nomination on the Board floor Tuesday night.

“Top Secret, Hush, Hush.”

That’s the message from $50,000 health club consultant Power Wellness to a request from a citizen for details on the work that McHenry County Taxpayers are financing.

It sounds oh so much like the deal with Mark Houser on the $25 million minor league baseball stadium borrowing arrangement.

As I understand the concept of the McHenry County SportsPlex planned for Lakewood, Illinois, it is to be a regional facility drawing teams from throughout the country.

Sure, it will aim to find players in the immediate vicinity of McHenry County, but its developers also hope to draw teams that travel nationally. They would fly into O’Hare or Midway Airports.

Now comes Oak Lawn’s Denise and Mike Stillman, baseball fans with friends with enough money to buy the “Field of Dreams” movie farm in Iowa.

And, what do you think they plan for the part of the 193-acre farm that was not used in the movie?

A regional baseball and softball complex.

Indoor training domes.

Opening in 2014.

Not quite the same as the proposed Lakewood facility, which would include soccer and other sports, but close.

And, competition, it seems to me.

Even if the developers are billing it as “a very affordable family tourist destination.”

The McHenry County SportsPlex has about three more months to come up with money to proceed under the extension granted by the Lakewood Village Board this summer.

On a related matter, as I was briefly looking at Northwest Heralds saved for me by my mother-in-law this summer before tossing them into re-cycling, I noticed that Woodstock minor league baseball stadium developer Mark Houser hasn’t found investors to build his vision either.

In Sunday’s Chicago Sun-Times, the City of Zion took a big hit for all the screw-ups from its minor league baseball team.

McHenry County College managed to avoid such a fiasco, but its Board majority censured the two members who led the fight to kill President Walt Packard’s proposal.

Those two were

current McHenry County Board member Donna Kurtz and

former MCC Board President Scott Summer.

The McHenry County Board’s Finance Committee decided to award millions of dollars of Federal Stimulus Bond authority on a “first come, first served” basis.

The first two private entities in line were sports related.

One was Mark Houser’s EquityOne’s baseball stadium, to be located in Woodstock after the McHenry County College Board’s efforts to provide taxpayer-backed bonds failed.

The second was a new proposal for a McHenry County SportsPlex located in Lakewood.

Both received support from the municipalities in question.

But, in taking a “first come, first served” approach, along with the attendant publicity, the county board was telling other potential job creators they need not apply.

Last Friday Lakewood Village President Erin Smith issued a press release announcing that the financing could not be obtained in time to meet the December 31st deadline imposed by Federal law.

And, so, McHenry County lost the opportunity to see the money used for job creation.

While the SportsPlex did not drop out early enough to allow the subsidized interest loans to be re-directed, the baseball stadium did.

Sage Products, a provide job creator, got money to put on a addition.

One can only wonder if there were other successful manufacturers in McHenry County who were deterred from applying by the “First come, first served” loan allocation approach.

I continue to be amazed at how McHenry County Blog is used by people as a research tool. Sometimes comments are left on articles that were written a long time ago. Here’s a commentary from someone who lives on McConnell Road that was found today below this article from a year and a half ago.

It’s about the proposed baseball stadium, the land for which is to be donated after gravel mining is completed on the rest of the property.

It states on the Woodstock City website that, “Woodstock is the kind of city that people fall in love with.”

This can’t be the furtherest from the truth due to the gravel pit (aka baseball stadium, NOT) on Lily Pond Rd.

The noise starting at 7:00 a.m. is horrible and the dust is so bad that you can’t open your windows year round anymore.

We don’t live on Lily Pond but do live on the west side of McConnell Rd. I can’t even imagine what the people on Lily Pond Rd. or closer are going through!!!

I have talked to many people and many can’t wait to leave Woodstock, IL and definitely would not recommend living here.

The local governments lack of support for it’s people and the well being of Woodstock was made clear when they allow this gravel pit to exist.

This brings to question, Can the government here be bought or are they just plain ignorant?

I think we all know the answer to this question!!!!!

My ex-wife Robin Geist and I used to live on Lily Pond Road, so I know the area well.

There was a gravel pit then (the late 1970′s) between Lily Pond Road and the railroad track, but it wasn’t very active.

Algonquin’s Joe Stefani, president and majority owner of the Rockford Foresters, is interested in bringing a amateur college baseball players who would not be paid. The NCAA won’t let college players be paid.

Stefani started a team in Rockford this year called the Rockford Foresters. It plays in a park district-owned stadium on the south side of town.

The JackHammers are not the only minor league team in the Chicago area in financial trouble. So are the Schaumburg Flyers.

“It doesn’t make money. (Teams) almost always lose money,” Stefani told the Chicago Tribune.

Stefani was elected to the Algonquin Library Board and serves as an elected Algonquin Township Republican Precinct Committeeman.

= = = = =

In view of the Joliet and Schaumburg minor league baseball teams being in trouble financially, it is even more curious that the Northwest Herald decided not to endorse Donna Kurtz for McHenry County Board. After all, she and Scott Summers, the Green Party candidate for State Treasurer and, then, the McHenry County College Board President, who deserve a lot of the credit for derailing the MCC baseball stadium. (It would have been financed with 25-year bonds for which the taxpayers would have been responsible, while minor league baseball teams last about five years on the average.)

The Alliance for Land, Agriculture and Water has made votes by McHenry County Board members up for election available to the public.

So, if the local newspapers didn’t ask the question you think is important, you might find some direction from actual votes the board members cast in Woodstock.

The weakness, obviously, is that challengers aren’t in the matrix.

Yesterday, land use votes were published on McHenry County Blog.

Today the votes on how the Federal Stimulus Bonds should be allocated.

Three projects are tracked,

• Lakewood’s SportsPlex
• the K-Nines Woodstock minor league baseball stadium and
• dredging Wonder Lake

Strangely, the county board members could not find any manufacturing firms who wanted to borrow money with Federal taxpayers subsidzing 25% of the interest.

Previously on the McHenry County Board, Nick Provenzano and John Jung were not serving when these votes were taken.

A couple of people have told me that the Northwest Herald has refused to endorse Donna Kurtz for the McHenry County Board.

Not any bigger a deal than the NWH’s not endorsing her during the primary election.

She ran first.

As one person emailed me:

“Payback for standing up against MMC stadium for private baseball team?”

Of course.

Wouldn’t you like to know the reason the folks at the NWH have such a long-standing interest in the rejection of the minor league baseball stadium?

I can think of resentment for the foregone advertising revenue, but could there be something else for the obvious grudge?

In two senses.

If they were an animal, their necks on on the chopping block.

In economic terms, there are for sale.

That’s what the Chicago Tribune reported Tuesday.

Why do I keep bringing up a Will County minor league baseball team?

Just to remind you that most of the current McHenry County College Board members were avid supporters of putting us district taxpayers in debt for 25 years to build a minor league baseball stadium.

There is an election next spring when one of them are up for re-election: George Lowe of Cary.

Appointed to fill out the term of Harvard’s Scott Summers was Bob DeWitt of Crystal Lake.

Both have six-year terms.

Only 50 signatures are needed to get on the ballot. I’d advise getting 100.

Any folks out there willing to run for the board?