McHenry County Blog

According to the Chicago Tribune, Woodstock North High School teacher James B. Guttridge has been arrested at his home in Rockford for

• one count of Sexual Assault and
• three counts of Aggravated Criminal Sexual Abuse.

The arrest was made by Woodstock Police officers, according to Special Services Coordinator Sergeant Charles “Chip” Amati.

Guttridge teaches physical education at the District 200 school and is a wrestling coach.

The girl was 14 at the time of the relationship, the same age as the girl who had an affair in Crystal Lake with William Saturday.

Unlike Saturday, who met the student while teaching at North Middle School in the mid-1990′s and waiting until she went on to high school to consummate the affair, Guttridge’s student was apparently in the school where he taught.

According to the Feburary 26, 2910, edition of The Catholic Observer, Guttridge joined St. James church in Belvidere.

Got information?

Call the Woodstock Police at 815-338-2131.

May 3, 2011, the Chicago Tribune had a short story about metropolitan area gasoline prices being higher than ever before.

$4.35 during last week.

It was $4.30 a gallon during July 7, 2006.

As things would have it, I again drove to Belvidere on Monday.

The price at the Citgo station where the little McDonald’s is located at the northwest corner of Route 14 and Route 176 bore a price of $4.45 per gallon for regular gas.

In Belvidere, the price was 30 cents a gallon cheaper at the Road Ranger station.

As one reader noted last week, Crystal Lake’s gasoline may now be have the EPA-required summer formula to burn cleaner, while Rockford’s does not.

Also a factor is the one percent

• Crystal Lake now-1% Home Rule sales tax,
• McHenry County’s four cent a gallon Motor Fuel Tax and
• the now-0.75% RTA gas tax.

Boone County taxpayers are not stuck with paying those.

I wouldn’t have filled up my tank in Crystal Lake yesterday had I known I was driving to Belvidere today.

Look at the price per gallon.

Less that $4.00.

$3.949.

Of course, Belvidere does not have the RTA Sales Tax and the plethora of Home Rule Sales Taxes that we have in Algonquin, Crystal Lake, Lake in the Hills and McHenry.

The Northwest Herald’s Brett Rowland wrote a thought-provoking article published Sunday about how Crystal Lake Grade School District 47 has had fewer and fewer students after 2007.

Down from 9,124 to 8,359. Down 765 students.

So, there seems to be excess capacity. Looks like at least one school too much from the grade school sizes listed below this article. They run from 438 students at South to 714 at Glacier Ridge.

Cary faced a similar situation and has closed one school already. District 26 is also considering closing a second.

Let’s think about what school might be closed in Crystal Lake.

We’re talking elementary schools here.

Without comparing capacity with enrollment, I’ve been thinking about what school might be the most advantageous to be closed.

Age has to be one factor considered.

The oldest is Husmann Elementary School.

That’s the school across from the library.

The second oldest is South Elementary School. It was built it the 1950′s.

As I thought about how the schools could be re-used, the best senior citizen project I have ever seen came to mind.

It’s Parkside Manor in Belvidere. I found it in 1972 when I was going door-to-door for state representative. The units were efficiencies and each one faced on green space.

South School wouldn’t match the bucolic setting, but Cress Creek, which goes through pipes under the playgrounds of South Grade and Lundahl Middle School could be uncovered and naturalized, as was a stream flowing through the farm where Sun City was constructed.

Taking it out of the pipe might help the periodic flooding problem, too.

And, part of the school overlooks the Dole Mansion grounds.

As an added bonus, the Crystal Lake Park District’s Main Beach is within easy walking distance.

In short, the building could be renovated for efficiency apartments. A number of the rooms already have running water.

South also is the least parent pick-up friendly. It is the only grade school were parents picking up or dropping off kids must do so on the street. Undoubtedly, a apartment developer would figure out a way to put a circular driveway, complete with parking, in front of the school similar to West School’s.

Historic Husmann, the original high school which is named after grade school principal John Husmann who refused promotion to superintendent because he wanted to stay with the children, should be saved for historic reasons.

It has had major additions constructed, has adequate parking possibilities (including the lot across the street where the old, architecturally unique pump house was leveled to provide more spaces).

The front entrance also has a sloping sidewalk, where it was accessible only up steps before.

Because there are numerous people my age in town who grew up here, this location’s walking distance proximity to Downtown Crystal Lake might prove appealing.

It might even prove appealing to younger folks, given the entertainment district that has taken root downtown.

There is another possibility for part or all of the building.

Its basement was the first Crystal Lake Library.

Could some or all of the other floors be strong enough to hold books?

Could parts of the library occupy Husmann?

The other grade schools are not located where immediate adaptive re-use comes to mind.

Maybe readers will have some thoughts.
= = = = =
The population of each of District 47′s schools follow:

• Canterberry – 500
• Coventry- 519
• Glacier Ridge – 714
• Husmann- 641
• Indian Prairie – 606
• North – 679
• South – 438
• West – 697
• Woods Creek – 634
• Hannah Beardsley Middle School – 980
• Lundahl Middle School – 1001
• Richard Bernotas Middle School – 1012

Today we have a variation on a “Buy America” theme in the form of a window sticker.

My Truck Is Built
With Wrenches
Not Chopsticks

is the message.

Presumably, the truck being driven was built in an
American auto plant.

Not this one being enlarged in Belvidere though.

While Chrysler was shutting down its plant in Kenosha, it is adding over 1,000 jobs in Belvidere in Congressman Don Manzullo’s district. His press release follows:

Rep. Manzullo Hails Chrysler’s $600 Million
Investment in its Belvidere Assembly Plant

Decision to upgrade plant preserves 1,950 jobs, could spark 3rd shift

(BELVIDERE) Congressman Don Manzullo (R-IL) today congratulated the workers at Chrysler’s Belvidere Assembly plant for their hard work that convinced the automaker to invest heavily in the plant to build Chrysler’s next line of vehicles.

Chrysler announced today it is investing more than $600 million in upgrades to the building, tooling and equipment at the Belvidere plant, including constructing a new 638,000-square-foot body shop as well as upgrades to the body sealer lines, paint facilities and the trim/chassis/final assembly operations. Work has already begun and is expected to be completed next year. The first new vehicles will roll off the production lines in 2012.

Chrysler has not yet announced the new lineup of vehicles that will be assembled in Belvidere.

The upgrades will preserve the jobs of 1,950 workers at the plant and could lead to a third shift and an extra 1,000 jobs at the plant if sales of the new vehicles warrant increased production. The project will also retain another 500 contractor positions on site.

“This tremendous announcement by Chrysler expresses confidence in the fine workers at the Belvidere Assembly Plant. Without their commitment, training, and flexibility, we might not be here today,” Manzullo said.

“In the past, this plant has received high reviews from industry experts, so I am greatly pleased that Chrysler confirmed this assessment by ensuring this job engine for the Rock River Valley is going to be modernized and utilized for many years to come.”

Manzullo has continually fought back efforts in Congress to raise taxes on foreign direct investment in America that would have hurt Chrysler – owned by Italy’s Fiat – and many other companies in northern Illinois.

Manzullo, who has worked to open overseas markets to U.S. exports, added that the Belvidere Assembly plant in 2009 exported a whopping 56 percent of total production to markets all around the world, including 13,500 vehicles to Mexico alone.

A Daily Herald article by Marni Pyke Sunday about the failure of the re-modeled Tollway Oases, prompts me to share some evidence I gathered on the way to the Old Capitol Art Fair in Springfield a couple of weeks ago.

I think it was the summer of 2003 I wrote of the contributions that Rod Blagojevich was taking in from folks having connections with Illinois Toll Highway Authority oases.

$50,000 in a personal check from the head of Wilton Partners, for instance.

Wilton got the lease from the George Ryan administration, but Wilton was coughing up big money to Blagojevich. I wondered why at the time.

Now I figure the huge contribution was about lease modifications and looking the other way when Wilton didn’t do what it said it would do when it promised.

After the renovation of the Belvidere Oasis, we found a New York pizza place. It served good pizza, but now it is closed.

I went around taking pictures. A manager type asked me why I was doing so.

I gave the cryptic answer,

“Gathering evidence,”

he asked me not to take his photo and walked away.

Made me wonder at the time what he knew.

The Daily Herald said the new administration is creating an oversight committee.

My guess is that there was something similar, but not with that name that told Tollway employees to ignore oversight when Blagojevich was in office.

The reporter uses the word “leniency” to describe past Tollway oversight.

And, what’s wrong with this sentence in the story:

“The tollway tried numerous times to get a look at Wilton’s books, but the company denied access.”

Wilton blamed Tollway construction projects with hurting foot traffic and damaging its buildings.

Both are probably accurate, but with a 25-year lease, Wilton can’t have been surprised that highway improvements would be necessary.

With regard to the reported business damage, when the Village of Lakewood reconstructed Lake Avenue, the compactor was shaking our house like a Richter Scale 4 earthquake. We had to rebuild our chimney as a result. And, of course, no one could be held responsible. Not Lakewood. Not the paving company. Nobody.

We now see our red oak tree dying and are convinced it is because of all the tiny root hairs have been damaged during construction.

What did Tollway officials do when payments fell far behind?

“…negotiated(d) a settlement in which the agency forgave the debt and let Wilton defer unpaid rent.”

Does that sound like the arrangement in Springfield that Bill Cellini cut for his investment group that built and operated the Renaissance Hotel or what?

One possible change of approach would be “to offer specialty services to truckers – large trucks comprise 37 percent of tollway users.”

Excuse me if my conspiratorial mind remembers a bill that would allow video slot machines in every truck stop in Illinois.

They were all over the Dixie Truckers Stop south of Bloomington on Interstate 55 two summers ago.

The machines must not have made money without paying off, because the halls were they were located are now empty.

But, I would not be surprised if enactment of the bill to which I refer would change the oases’ current family-friendly atmosphere drastically if that were perceived to be the only way to make the rest stops pay off.

Yesterday I drove a friend to Belvidere for medical treatment. I had about an hour to wait, so I went exploring in the city I represented in the Illinois House of Representatives for eight years in the 1970′s. Since I knew that the Amtrak route selected by Governor Pat Quinn when through the town, I wondered where the station would be.

I stopped on Business Route 20 (State Street) and took the picture above. I wondered if the little white building across the tracks might turn into a train station.

The train would be coming in from the east. The empty spaces you see on the left and right on the other side of the street to the east are parking lots. I drove down to see if Pat Mattison, the publisher of the Belvidere Daily Republican I knew, who was running Belrock Printing after he sold the paper, was still in there.

He wasn’t.  His old office and plant was now the new Belvidere City Hall. I figured someone inside would know where the new train station would be located. I hit the jackpot.

Alderman Andrew Racz was walking in the building as the woman at the City Clerk’s office was telling me that a display was inside the locked door. He recognized me and, while I couldn’t pull his name out of my ancient memory vault, I did remember his face.

He ushered me into to see the mayor, Frederic Brereton, who was outside in his reception area. I thanked him for his council’s having endorsed an Amtrak station in McHenry County before the McHenry County Board did. He told me there was a good working partnership.

Brereton showed me the display outside his office, telling me the train station was going to be across the street from City Hall.

“Go out the front door, stand in the middle of the street and look to your left. That’s where the station is going to be.” He told me that State Senator Brad Burzynski had gotten some state aid and that by eliminating a grad crossing by putting the station across Whitney Boulevard, he hoped that Amtrak might kick in some money as well, since the fewer grade crossing the better, as far as Amtrak was concerned.

So, I went outside, stood in the middle of the street and took the photo you see above. What will the station look like?

Here’s another drawing I found outside the Mayor’s office.

The Rockford Register-Star reported Emerald Ash Borers in Boone County, just to the west of Marengo and Harvard.

The paper points out that the little green bugs leave a D-shaped hole when it bores out of the tree.

Infected trees have to be cut down and Paul Deizman from the Illinois Department of Agriculture is assuming that all ash trees in Boone, not just the ones found infected in Belvidere have their devastating presence.

“Plan for the death of your tree,” he advises.

The Boone County strategy, as I read what County Board member
Marshall Newhouse is saying, is to identify the ash trees on public rights-of-way and prepare to cut them down. There are no plans to try to save any ash trees in Boone County.

Such pessimism.

Elsewhere, Cedarburg, Wisconsin, for instance, every tree is being treated. That’s what Wayne White, seen above next to his yard sign with its toll-free number (877-SAVE ASH).   I expect Cedarburg will advertise itself as one of the few towns in the Midwest where people can see ash trees.  Maybe it will change its name to “Ashville.”

The Ag Dept employee talks of possible treatment, but is ever so pessimistic.

“It’s like chemotherapy,” he said. “There’s a risk that the treatment will fail.”

Well, duh.

Sometimes it succeeds.

Certified Master Arborist Wayne White’s experience is that five years of treatment will save a tree.  That’s how long he had treated the ash trees you see at the Detroit area airport entrance road.  The ash trees that are dead are across the street.  They were not treated.

The Illinois ash borer experts says the treatment is costly. You can find pricing in this article.

And, there’s the possibility that the treatment might succeed, as has the treatment by itinerant Certified Arborist Wayne White on the ash tree towering above our home in McHenry County. Here’s his email address:  Save the Ash.

I had this great idea for a follow-up story to my Saturday article about Amtrak’s coming to southern McHenry County.

What if the Illinois Railroad Museum offered its station to serve Amtrak passengers on the line that Governor Pat Quinn just designated to run through Belvidere?

So, I called the Museum’s Executive Director Nick Kallas, who was in California, to ask him,

“What if…?”

“Our station is actually ADA,” he told me, but he wasn’t as enthusiastic about the idea as I was. “But, it’s wooden.”

“Our station is in Union,” he said. “That’s not exactly the population center of McHenry County.”

He talked of the time rail service connected Galena to Chicago:

“When they used to run the Galena train, it was into Chicago in the morning and back to Galena in the evening.”

Kallas pointed out that today, “Once you get to Galena, you don’t have a car. That’s fine for a day trip”

The “but” was what do you do after you walk around Downtown Galena.

I didn’t mention the shuttle that Eagle Ridge Resort runs to town. Now it takes people who arrive by car, but it could just as well take train passengers to the resort. Amtrak passengers wouldn’t be limited to a day trip.

Kallas looked at the bigger picture:

“Once Amtrak starts running the route, that might stimulate Metra to come out. It might accelerate Metra service to Huntley and Marengo.

“Huntley has already sited a station,” he observed.

The Illinois Railway Museum was part of the coalition that helped convince Governor Quinn to select the McHenry County route.

“We’re actually a part of that Blackhawk initiative. We actually gathered 35 pages of petition signatures (for the Belvidere route.)

When Amtrak dropped the funding of the track, it became strictly a state initiation.

The Metra track and Union Pacific track to Belvidere is all welded track. The old route (through DeKalb County’s Genoa) is not. (I don’t see that difference in this DeKalb Chronicle article, which has lots of negative comments about Quinn’s decision.)

“The real thing is that there’s more population,” Kallas said.

“And the North side of Union Station is underutilized compared to the South side (from which the DeKalb County route would have run).

“So, it has many advantages,” he continued.

“This route makes more sense from the standpoint of the population served and we’re hoping that it will help to accelerate the efforts to bring Metra to Huntley and Marengo.”