McHenry County Blog

Let’s go through the townships in alphabetical order to see how the Real Estate Tax cap affects how much money they can collect.

This information, as with previous articles about the Tax Cap, comes from the McHenry County Clerk’s web site, Tax Rate page.

Alden Township

The township has a maximum tax rate of 24 cents per $100 of assessed valuation in the Town Fund.

While 3% increase is allowed in the Tax Cap allowed next year, Alden Township will only be able to get about half that amount because it is so close to the 25 cent limit right now–24.639.

In fact, when taking into account that overall assessments will be down 9%, as ordered by the Illinois Department of Revenue, Alden may be getting much less than expect.

There is no maximum limit for Public Assistance, so it remains not subject to the Tax Cap.

The Road District, which is a separate taxing entity, can get 3% more because its rates are so far under the statutory maximum.

Algonquin Township

The Town Fund is well below the maximum rate of 25 cents per hundred.

The Public Assistance Fund is not capped.

As in Alden Township, the Road District in Algonquin Township is well under its maximum tax rates on Tax Capped funds.

For a story about what happened when the levies were passed, click here.

Burton Township

McHenry County’s smallest township in area is no where near its maximum rate in the Town Fund.

The Road District is so far under the statutory limits that taxpayers cannot expect the Tax Cap to give less than a 3% increase, if it is requested by the Road Commissioner.

Chemung Township

The township that covers most of Harvard, Chemung Township, also does not have tax rates that are close to the statutory maximum.

The same goes for the Road District’s Road and Bridge Fund.

The Permanent Road Fund is different, however. It is so close to its 25 cents per hundred dollars of assessed valuation, that the Road Commissioner will be able to get less than 1.5% increase, instead of the full 3% that the Tax Cap law would allow.

Coral Township

The township which contains the Village of Union, Coral, is also well under its maximum limit for the Town Fund.

The Road Commissioner’s funds are, too.

Dorr Township

Most of Woodstock is in Dorr Township.

Dorr is well below the maximum rates in all funds under the control of both the Supervisor and the Road Commissioner.

Dunham Township

The southern part of Harvard is in Dunham Township.

The Town Fund is at 22.9 cents per hundred–close to the 25 cent maximum, but not close enough to limit a 3% increase, if requested by the Town Board.

However, once the 9% lower assessed valuation for the county as a whole works its way through the tax rate setting system, the Town Fund may well bump up against the limit set by law, resulting in next year’s tax take to being about the same as this year’s.

Of the three funds overseen by the Road Commissioner, only the 16.5 cent Road and Bridge Fund is at its maximum.  Again the “9% factor” may come into play.

The Permanent Road Fund and the Equipment & Building Fund are not.

3% Tax Cap allowed increases will be the least of the worries for Dunham Township taxpayers, however.

Last fall a bond referendum to finance road building passed 63-37, so taxes will go up.

Grafton Township

Grafton Township is also well below the maximum rates set by State Statute in the funds administered by the Supervisor.

The same is not true of the Township Road Commissioner’s Road and Bridge Fund. It cannot be increase by 3% next year.  About as much will be collected next year as was this year.

The Permanent Road Fund, on the other hand, has room for a lot of upside movement.

Greenwood Township

The township that runs from northern Woodstock on the South to Wonder Lake on the Northeast, is in no danger of reaching the 25 cent Town Fund maximum rate.

The capped funds in the Road District aren’t either.

Hartland Township

Northwest of Woodstock running up toward Harvard is Hartland Township.

The Town Fund is about 4 cents short of the maximum set by law and will be able to get an extra 3%, if the Township Board levies it, even if assessments go down 9%.

In the Road District, the Road and Bridge Fund is at its maximum, but the Permanent Road and Building & Equipments Funds are not.

Hebron Township

North of Greenwood Township is Hebron Township.

Its Town Fund is in pretty much the same shape as Hartland’s–almost four cents of growth left before State law steps in and stops it.  The year after next might be considered a problem from the Road Commissioner’s point of view.

The Road and Bridge Fund is very close to its limit, but, again, the Permanent Road and Building & Equipments Funds are not.

Marengo Township

Not even close to the maximum Town Fund tax rate is Marengo Township.

With two 3% cost-of-living increases, the Marengo Township Road and Bridge Fund will top out and taxpayers will see some relief.

The Permanent Road Fund is well under its 25 cents per $100 of AV limit

McHenry Township

The second largest township in McHenry County–McHenry Township–is at about half it maximum tax rate in the Town Fund.

The concentration of commercial and industrial assessed valuation allows the Road District funds to operate well under their maximums as well.

Nunda Township

Running from Crystal Lake Avenue north to southern McHenry, Nunda Township’s Town Fund rate is just over one-third of what it could be under State law.

The same goes for the funds under the Road Commissioner.

Richmond Township

To the west of tiny Burton Township lies Richmond Township.

The Town Fund tax rate is well under the minimum, as are the Road District rates.

Riley Township

In the southwestern corner of McHenry County is Riley Township. That part of McHenry County through which the Illinois Tollway goes is all in Riley Township.

Rural, except for the southern part of the City of Marengo, but poised for explosive growth if there is ever a Tollway interchange built at Route 23.

The Town Fund in Riley is in similar shape to those in Hartland and Hebron Townships.

The funds in the Road District are well under their maximums.

Seneca Township

The western part of Woodstock is in Seneca Township.

It’s where one of my ancestors settled in the 1830′s before deciding to more east to Ypsilanti, Michigan.

Its Town Fund is at a rate that will take a long time to reach the 25 cent maximum.

Its Road District funds are well below their maximums, too.

The Chicago Tribune reportedon the work produce of Lt. Gov. Shiela Simon’s tour of all the community colleges in the state.

The story emphasized the low percentage of junior college students who complete two-year degrees or career certificates in three years.

While I can’t find the report, the Tribune found a source at the U.S. Department of Education that revealed such graduation rates at six Chicagoland institutions.

And, guess what?

McHenry County College was Number 1 at 24%.

The state average was 20%.

The College of Lake County was 17% and the College of DuPage 14%.

On the low end of the scale were three Chicago colleges:

• 4% – Harold Washington College
• 6% – Richard J. Daley College
• 11% – Malcolm X College

I remember the fight my father waged and lost when he served on MCC’s first board.

He wanted most emphasis to be on career education.

The majority of the board wanted a traditional junior college.

There’s still a little award in the basement from the auto mechanic training program.

Care to chime in on whether MCC would be a better or worse place, if his vision had prevailed?

I got into a conversation at the First United Methodist Church about Harriet Tubman, the Underground Railroad heroine from the Eastern Shore of Maryland, from when my family and I come.

It bought back all sorts of memories of walking to the three-story brick Easton Elementary School 3-4 blocks from our home at 212 S. Aurora Street.  No kindergarten there.  No Velcro either. (Guess who didn’t learn to tie his shoe laces until the day before the first day of first grade.)

There were several routes to school.

The one I took most was straight north on Aurora Street for four blocks, then left for a block and, where the Talbot County Health Department parking lot is now, was the asphalt playground of Easton Elementary School.

That route took me past the edge of a black neighborhood (to the right on the map.)

I wondered why those who lived closer to the school than I didn’t go to school there.

We moved to lily white Salt Lake City as I was entering sixth grade.  Before leaving I attended a couple of days of class with my old classmates at the old high school, which was converted for lower grades.

The only black (I guess it was “colored” then) child I knew was the daughter of our cleaning lady.

We used to play on the concrete-anchored, two-inch pipe swing set my father constructed.  Most of the “colored” section of town was west of the courthouse and library.  And the only time I visited it was when the carnival came.

“20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” was a movie I saw in Easton.

It wasn’t showing at the Avalon Theatre where I usually went to the movies.  It was at the Easton Theater a couple of blocks away.

When we went to the Avalon we liked to sit in the balcony.  I remember being bored by some tap dancer and a magician entertaining on the stage, probably the last gasp of vaudeville.

So, imagine my surprise when I was told only blacks could sit in the balcony.  What a disappointment.

“Weren’t they lucky?” I thought.

That building is gone, but in its place I think there is a museum about local history.  I didn’t see any reference to the predecessor theater and how blacks had not been allowed to sit on the main floor.

Although there were not blacks at Easton Elementary, there was a Chinese boy whose family ran the dry cleaners.  I went over to his family’s apartment one day after school.

One other race-related experience made an impression.  My parents took me to a minstrel show held in the armory.  White guys dressed up in black face.  It was sponsored by some civil organization as a fundraiser.  I remember lots of physical comedy, but nothing specific.

After we moved to Salt Lake City, I was reading Life Magazine one afternoon and saw a picture of the front of my old grade school.  Besides the cut line, it was easily recognizable from the two granite banisters beside the front entrance.

And the reporting was about how someone had blown up a little bomb at the back entrance of the school.

Why?

The Talbot County Board (or Board of Education if there was a sub-board) had decided to implement Brown v. Board of Education by integrating one grade at a time, starting with the first grade.

Some resident obviously did not approve and took extreme action.

More tomorrow.

When I worked at the United States Budget Bureau in 1965-66 right after grad school in public administration at the University of Michigan, there was a period just before the budget went to the printer that employees worked very long hours.

Apparently my successors still do.

Fox News reports that over half now want to join a union. I guess they want to be paid overtime.

I wonder if they will be willing to be paid undertime for the days right after the budget goes to bed when they have nothing to do.

My senior budget examiner Roger Adkins told me to go through the files.

Now, that was interesting.

No, I mean it.

I found a memo that recommended the 1964 Democratic Party’s Small Business Platform.

Apparently, a Civil Service employee had done Democratic Party work.

That stuck me as improper.

In an orientation session, new employees were told that President Lyndon Johnson was the first President who had used the Budget Bureau throughout the year.

That, of course, made sense because of the budget examiners’ connections with their agencies. Mine was the Small Business Administration.

And, when this 23-year old called his contacts at the SBA, they never knew whether if was the new guy asking a question or whether he (that is, his boss) had been asked to inquire on behalf of a White House staffer.

Very heady stuff.

There was also the perk of having an office next to the White House.

When I went to visit in 1972, I walked up the steps of the Old War Department Building and found the budget folks had been displaced by an expanding White House staff.

 

They were then located a block away n a high rise behind Blair House. Security was by rent-a-cop, rather that Federal employees.

There was one other perks..

One day, President Johnson needed a Greek chorus for some visiting dignitary.
So we got to spend part of our lunch hour in the Rose Garden.

Sometimes I wonder what my life’s course would have been had I not come back to run for McHenry County Treasurer when my father, who had almost beaten the McHenry County Board Chairman for the GOP nomination for the newly-created post of County Auditor, told me he wasn’t going to run for County Treasurer and I might be interested. (I flew home, met the announced candidates, Harvard Police Chief Gene Brewer and Hartland Township Supervisor Ray Murphy, who also served on the McHenry County Board by virtual of being a township supervisor, and decided I was as competent as they.)

Mr. Lawrence, the man who interviewed me, knew that I was a Republican. He asked Roger if he could work with a Goldwater Republican and Roger, being quite a jovial fellow whom I believe could have worked with anyone, said he could..

I’m pretty sure that I was the only out-in-the-open Republican in the building. Every once in a while another staffer would approach me in the hall and confess that he or she was a Republican, too. One. A girl a bit older than I, took me to a party attended by economist John Kenneth Galbraith. Standing by the sink, he looked perfectly ordinary.. I’m pretty sure that was the one next to the Russia Embassy.

Then there was the SBA Budget Officer Hoadley. (Probably spelling his name wrong.) After he heard that I was going to run for McHenry County Treasurer, he pulled open his bottom drawer one day and showed me a six-pack of Goldwater, a drink marketed by some company during the 1964 election.

When Nixon came into office in 1968, I figure there would have been some upward mobility.

But, back to the reason for this article.

The Budget Bureau is now called the Office of Management and Budget. (So much for tradition.)

And over half of its members no longer consider themselves professionals.

They want union protection from onerous working conditions, it seems. This “a highly educated and professional group,” as union spokesman Peter Winch describes them want more appreciation.

Doesn’t everyone?

Most could probably get an agency job paying more money, as I was offered by the SBA, but I guess they love their workaholic jobs too much to leave.

Think the employees of the Illinois Office of Management and Budget will follow suit?

I finally opened a Lowney’s Fruit & Nut Chocolates box that contained Valentines and Christmas Cards that I thought my grandmother Addie Watling-Skinner had saved.

Upon closer inspection, I discovered my mother, Eleanor Stevens Skinner, had save the contents.

I knew there were Valentines in there, but I also found Christmas cards, her acceptance letter from Washington College, cards and letters from boys from West Point, Trinity College in Connecticut and Catonsville, Maryland.  Courting by letter is a lot different from doing so by phone or texting, I would imagine.  The letters showed fear of rejection, that’s for sure.

None were from my father.  My guess he was too busy working his way through college, holding jobs of egg candling in a market in Southwest Washington that still has a commercial use and a warehouse in the same area on a main highway.  He did have a car though and attended the University of Maryland, so maybe his courting was in person after Mother took a job teaching on the Western Shore.

It appears my mother was on more than one college boy’s mind.

Her one-time farm neighbor, Calvin LeRoy Skinner, was the winner in the marriage stakes.

But, not until I was driving him around Queen Anne’s County, Maryland, while he was being treated for lung cancer (from cigarettes, of course) did I even learn that.  Roy, his tenant-farmer father had rented the land next to the Stevens’ family farm near Barclay for a while when they were both in the same class at Sudlersville High School.

I can’t be certain that this Valentine is from my father to my mother.  It is “To Eleanor…From Guess Who…Calvin W.”

My Dad’s middle initial was “L.”  So, what’s with the “W?”

Did she know two “Calvins?”

Election petitions for

• school board
• junior college
• city and village
• park board
• fire protection district
• you name it

are available for circulation.

It doesn’t take many signatures.

Two bits of advice from my father.

He would ask people coming in for advice…

“Are you ready to serve?”

The answer was usually a hearty, “Yes.”

The second question was tougher:

“Are you ready to lose?”

I’m pretty sure a number of people reflected on the latter question and decided not to risk the blow to their egos that an election defeat brings.

As something of an expert in losing (my record is 18-4), I can tell you that it has taken me about six months to recovery each time I lost (for Congress in 1980, State Comptroller in 1982, state rep. ten years ago and Governor in 1982). Well, maybe less than six months when I ran for Governor as a Libertarian against Rod Blagojevich.

But, as Dad use to say,

“You know who will be in office if you don’t run.”

Reflecting on that often spurred people to risk the downside of losing.

Having been in the arena, I hope people understand that I admire anyone brave enough to put his or her name on the ballot. That’s why I am willing to publish press releases from any local candidate.

You compose them, I’ll give them the light of Google and Bing.

What you see below is an email Hartland Township Supervisor Ev Evertsen sent out to encourage people to run for local office.  It stimulated this post.

All politics are local.

How many people are following the local elections scheduled for next year?

Most local offices are up for election next year. Know any good candidates?

How about you?

Do not know how to go about it?

Contact me or go to this web site.

Some offices up for election next year: School Boards, Park Districts, Town / Village / City governments, Library Boards, Community College Trustees, Fire Protection Districts.

Fire Districts tend to spend your tax dollar without much scrutiny. Ever read the budget for a Fire District?

It’s time for those who are dissatisfied with the way things are being run locally to think about stepping up to the plate.

What do you pay most of your property tax and a large portion of your state sales and income tax for?

That’s right, the schools!!

I hope we get some people running for school boards who are not teachers or close relatives of teachers who will tend to vote in favor of wage increases for teachers!

It would be very refreshing if those who complain about our political landscape would step up to the plate and run for office!!!

Ev

They’re back.

The rabid bats, I mean.

I first got interested with rabid bats when the McHenry County Health Department used them as an excuse to try to impose what I came to call the McHenry County Republican Cat Tax.

The pitch was that all cats had to be immunized against rabies in order to protect them.

Oh, yes.

Each cat had to be licensed so the county health department could make sure they had had their rabies shot.

As our Keely Cat knows, some cats are not allowed to go outside, even though that mean man in the smelling office has stuck a needle in him.

Anyway, Keely Cat would welcome the opportunity to chase a fellow mammal. Being limited to the occasional insect hardly satisfies his hunting instinct.

And, he still wonders why the county board ordinance exempted cats that live in barns. Wouldn’t they be the most likely to run into bats?

The county’s press release follows:

McHenry County Department of Health (MCDH) confirms its 2nd and 3rd rabid bat – both in Woodstock – with one resident undergoing rabies preventative treatment. It is strongly recommended that residents not release a bat but contain it in a room, under a bucket or blanket and keep people away from it.

In order to test bats for rabies, it is important they be in good condition – either alive or recently deceased. Specimens that are in good condition and test negative for rabies eliminates the need for rabies treatment.

McHenry County Animal Control should be contacted immediately. – call (815-459-6222).

The State Health Department has reported 16 rabid bats state-wide. Lake, Kane, Cook and Will County are among those reporting rabid bats in 2010 in addition to central and southern counties.

The best way to avoid rabies is to avoid exposure.

Rabies is a deadly disease caused by a virus that attacks the central nervous system and can only be confirmed in a laboratory.

Residents are encouraged to take a “hands off” approach to wild animals to reduce their risk of exposure. Parents also need to educate their children of the dangers.

Keeping pets up to date with vaccinations will not only keep them from getting rabies but also provide a barrier of protection for you if your animal is bitten by a rabid animal. Most bats leave in the fall or winter to hibernate so these are the best times to “bat-proof” your home.

A bat that is active by day, found in a place where bats are not usually seen (such as in your home, in a swimming pool or on the lawn) or is unable to fly, is more likely than others to be rabid. A rabies fact sheet is available at the Illinois Dept of Public Health.

Questions about exposure should be directed to MCDH’s Communicable Disease Program at 815-334-4500.

The Badmitten may look like he’s in hunting mode above, but a guy can always be vigilant, right?

At the McHenry County Board’s Management Services Committee this morning, the members received a January 8th memo from the State’s Attorney’s Office on the Alliance for Land, Agriculture and Water’s proposal to require county officials to reveal

Here’s what Assistant State’s Attorney wrote about ALAW’s proposal:

“…there is a paragraph discussing the “Violation of this Ordinance”, both (a) and (b) cannot be implemented by the County Board.

(a) Any person who knowingly violates any provision of this Act commit~ a Class A misdemeanor, provided that such person has not been convicted of any prior offense under the terms of this Act and shall be ineligible for, or shall forfeit, his or her office or position of employment as the case may be.

(b) Any person who violates any provision of this Act after having been previously convicted of an offense under this Section, commits a Class 4 felony and shall be ineligible for, or shall forfeit, his or her office or position of employment as the case may be.

The County Board is not the legislature and can only exercise those powers granted to it by the legislature. The County Board cannot make an ordinance violation subject to a misdemeanor or a felony. It can only be an ordinance violation.

There are a couple of administrative questions raised:

Section 6(b) – It would require the Public Official to file a revised disclosure statement within thirty days following any event that would require a change in any information or disclaimers contained in the statement or disclaimer on file with the County Clerk. This is currently required once a year. If the proposed ordinance was adopted, this could cause a lot of additional work for the County Clerk

This one seems well worth the added burden on the County Clerk’s Office.

If the public and fellow board members would not be interested in the purchase of property by a board member potentially just prior to re-zoning, when would they want to know?

After a potential conflict of interest had occurred?

Another workload problem is also brought up:

Currently, the state already mandates a “Disclosure of Economic Interests”. By enacting this proposed “McHenry County Economic Interests and Conflicts of Interest Disclosure Ordinance”, it would seem as though both the state and county forms would have to be completed and filed with the County Clerk. Again, this increases the workload of the County Clerk. It would cause a duplicative workload, and fail to adhere to the “green” effort the County is attempting to institute.

The information requested, of course, is not duplicative.

The current form is known by those who file it as the “None, None, None” form. It reveals virtually nothing, as a review of the forms filed by county board members has demonstrated to me.

During World War II, my father was Executive Secretary of the Tri-State (Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey) Canners and Packers Association. In that capacity, he was often on Capitol Hill, bringing members to testify before Congressional Committees. He told me of talking to the high priced lawyer the national association had retained.

“Cal, there are two kinds of lawyers in the world. Those who tell you why you can’t do what you want to do and those who tell you how to do it.”

If the McHenry County Board wants to improve its collective reputation, the message could be sent to the State’s Attorney’s Office to figure out a way to implement the guts of this conflict of interest proposal.

If the penalty for violation is too strict, then lower the penalty.

Transparency is the goal and a determined effort ought to be made to identify and reveal potential conflicts of interest before they become an actual conflict.

Of course, for that to happen, a majority of the members would have to want to change the current way of doing business.

My guess continues to be that current county board members will be insulted that anyone would question their integrity.

Even if they should be, they should realize McHenry County residents live in the Chicago media market and are bombarded weekly with tales of corruption in Chicago, Cook County and State government.

That leads to a suspicious electorate, as I suspect the TEA Party movement, the formation of Patriots United, which is sponsoring a county board candidates’ forum Friday night at MCC. Candidates will be there at 6:30. The event starts at 7.

Maybe someone will ask each candidate if he or she has voluntarily filled out ALAW’s conflict of interest questionnaire, and, if not, why not?

It’s been a couple of weeks since the McHenry County Board bucked Chairman Ken Koehler, State Senator Pam Althoff, State Rep. Mike Tryon and those who stand to gain financially from placement of video poker machines in local taverns and restaurants.

It’s time to tell the tale of how McHenry County Establishment got narrowly beaten in that fight.

The vote was close (13-10-1) and my guess is that video poker proponents will try to reverse that vote after new county board members are sworn in, if the people they back defeat anti-gambling incumbents like District 2′s Barbara Wheeler.

Video gambling was the first local issue taken on by Patriots United, the folks who coordinated the Independence Day TEA Party, picketed State Rep. Jack Franks’ office on a cold spring day about his sponsorship of a bill considered pro-abortion and gun control, held a well-attended forum on the Democrats’ health care reform, and co-sponsored with the McHenry County Young Republicans a candidates’ night for 8th congressional district GOP aspirants.

Members attended John Hammerand’s License and Liquor Committee meetings and sponsored a debate between proponents and opponents.

Then, Patriots United had a forum in Woodstock during which video poker machine salesmen debated three social conservatives:

• Tom Grey, the nationally- known Methodist minister who started out in Galena during the time the county board decided to site a riverboat in Jo Davies County and now Field Coordinator and National Spokesman for Stop Predatory Gambling
• Jim Blue, representing Illinois Church Action on Alcoholism and Addiction Problems
• David Smith, Executive Director of the Illinois Family Institute

They urged their members to contact county board members, but that was not what did the trick.

They used this robo call technique I first saw tobacco companies us in lobbying against cigarette tax hikes maybe ten years ago.

Call people, explain the issue and ask if they would like to speak to their county board member.

Since there are four county board members per district, how would that work?

The Illinois Family Institute selected six county board members considered to be approachable on the issue.

They were

• Yvonne Barnes in District 1
• Jim Heisler in District 2
• Ed Dvorak in District 3
• Sue Draffkorn in District 4
• Jim Kennedy in District 5
• Dan Ryan in District 6

From 1,334 to 1,453 calls were made in each district.

From to 649 to 774 of the calls were answered by voters. After the recorded pitch, voters were asked to push a phone button if they wished to be transferred to their county board member.

There were over fifty transfers for all but one district.

From the time my father served on the county board, I can tell you that he never got that many calls on any subject. On some zoning matters, especially the landfill ones, he might have gotten fifty letters. One phone call on a subject was a big number back in the 1980′s.

Getting dozens of calls must have sounded like a tidal wave.

And it was. You can’t find an issue where that many constituents have contacted county board members by phone. Undoubtedly, some of them were friends and supporters of each member.

A little over half of the calls were answered in person; the rest went to answering machines.

Of the six county board members receiving calls, only Huntley’s Ryan, a Sun City resident, voted in favor of allowing video slot machines in establishments serving liquor in unincorporated McHenry County.

Barnes, Kennedy and Ryan are up for election this year. District 6′s Ryan is the only one with GOP primary opposition.

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Check out possible targets for the pro-gambling forces in this post.

When Vernon Kays retired from being County Clerk, Dad ran for the office against Vernon’s Chief Deputy Rosemary Azzaro. Rosemary won, even winning at least one Crystal Lake Coventry precinct in which she knocked on doors. Dad didn’t do any door-to-door campaigning.

Two years later he was back on the county board.

In the 1980′s, the county board was bold enough to announce potential sites for ten or so county airports. What a way to engender opposition.

Tom Smrt, the owner of Fox Valley Systems in Cary took offense. He raised English Shires sought of Marengo on Route 20 next to the Tollway. He created the McHenry County Chronicle, which was mailed to at least all who voted Republican regularly. Every month. Smrt’s attacks on the county board led to Dad’s allies winning all four seats that were up that year.

In the fall of 1987, his wife Eleanor was killed in a truck-car accident at Route 14 and Dean Street Road. It took over ten years after that for a traffic signal to be installed.

Dad and Mom had been scheduled to go up to Mayo the next April. Dad didn’t go.

The night the summer drought was broken by a severe thunderstorm Dad had a county board meeting.

On Country Club Road almost to Crystal Springs Road, he ran into a tree branch. He hit his chest on the steering wheel. That might not have been so bad, but when he plowed into the big tree branch there was a young man trying to move it from the highway. Dad’s bumper crushed the Good Samaritan’s leg between his bumper and that of the young man.

About a year later he developed lung cancer where his chest was bruised. He had smoked cigarettes, then, a pipe, but had stopped maybe eight years before the cancer showed up.

It would have been caught early had Dad kept the appointment at Mayo, but, after Mother’s death he skipped it.

He ended up being treated at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, D.C. He and I lived with my sister Jan in a zip code in search of a town between Annapolis and Washington. The zip code was called Severn.

In December, Dr. Stevens would not release him when he had to leave in order to get back to McHenry County to vote for Ann Hughes for county board chairman. He didn’t think her opponent would be independent enough.

He signed himself out.

You see the photo of my wheeling him in for the crucial vote. Somehow he managed to retain his position as vice chairman, even though a deal had been cut to elect another man.

After Dad died in the summer of 1989, I executed his estate.

To do that I had to get his birth certificate.

To my surprise, I found that his middle name of “LeRoy” read “Leroy” on the birth certificate. Apparently he decided to capitalize the “R” at some point in his life. So, I’m not really a “junior” because my birth certificate reads “LeRoy.” I guess being a regular “Leroy” wasn’t fancy enough for him.

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Earlier articles in this ten-part series can be found in the links below:

Biography of Calvin L Skinner – Part 1 – Second Son, School Years

Biography of Calvin L. Skinner – Part 2 – College, Marriage, First Jobs

Biography of Cal Skinner, Sr. – Part 3 – First House, Elected President of the Easton, Maryland, Town Council

Biography of Cal Skinner, Sr. – Part 4 – Storm Sewer Grates, Miles River Yacht Club, Slot Machines, Chesapeake Bay Bridge

Biography of Cal Skinner, Sr. – Part 5 – Switching Parties, Moving to Salt Lake City, Middletown and Crystal Lake

Biography of Cal L Skinner – Part 6 – The Early Crystal Lake Days, Dipping Feet Slowly into Political Arena

Biography of Cal Skinner, Sr. – Part 7 – Running for County Auditor, Precinct Committeeman, Calling the Meeting that Led to McHenry County College

Biography of Cal Skinner – Part 8 – The Star Reporter, Daughter Ellen Bored in High School, Prohibited from Attending MCC Classes

Biography of Cal L Skinner – Part 9 – Responsible Republicans’ Slate, County Board Reapportionment

Biography of Cal Skinner, Sr. – Part 10 – Unsuccessful County Clerk Try, County Airport Fight, Wife’s Death