McHenry County Blog

Yesterday Crystal Lake Elementary School Superintendent Donn Mendoza sent Crystal Lake Library Director Kathryn Martens the following email:

“Attached is the operational information you requested.

“As per our discussion, last night, our Board directed me to commence a study and an analysis from a cost and programmatic perspective relative to what a school closing might look like in District 47.

“The study would be initiated with the intent of providing them with a long range view of what this would look like.

“That is to say I would not expect the study to be completed and presented to the Board with any type of recommendation until sometime toward the end of next school year or the during the year after.

“Please call me if you have any questions.”

Below is the spreadsheet of building information for District 47:

Basic building and acreage information for District 47 real estate.

Also noted is that District 47 is 47.8 square miles.

Inside the Crystal Lake Library.

The Northwest Herald has a fascinating article about the possibility of the Crystal Lake Library District using a Crystal Lake Grade School District elementary school.

Wednesday night the Board held a meeting in which the following was on the agenda:

AGENDA ITEMS REQUIRING DISCUSSION AND/OR BOARD APPROVAL
5.1 Discussion on D47 Facility Use – Dr. Mendoza

Naturally, I am seeking more information.

But, let’s assume the Northwest Herald story is accurate and the Elementary School District is thinking about re-visiting the possibility of closing a grade school.

When I wrote my article about the possibility, I suggested either Husmann or South Schools could be converted to housing for seniors. Both have advantages. Husmann because it is within walking distance of Downtown and across from the library building and South because it one story with a basement.

See

Which Grade School to Close

for more details.

South Grade School

And enrollment continues to fall:

• 2007 – 9,124
• 2011 – 8,359
• 2012 – Down another 300 the NWH reports, although I cannot find enrollment figure on the DE47 web site

So down about a thousand since the recession started.

Now comes forth a new option.

Having the Crystal Lake Public Library use one of the grade schools.

Husmann Grade School is right across the street from the Library. It underwent at least extensive exterior renovation this past summer.

There are several problems with such a possibility.

Crystal Lake taxpayers might get stuck with paying for a grade school twice.

The library is a City library.   That means those living outside of Crystal Lake cannot use it without paying what they would have paid in property taxes had their homes been inside the City limits.

However, the school district boundaries are much larger.  Lakewood, part of Prairie Grove, part of Lake in the Hills and lots of unincorporated subdivisions surrounding Crystal Lake helped Crystal Lake residents pay for the schools.

The other consideration is that when Prairie Grove is developed, there will presumably still be the need to a new grade school building.

Perhaps the School Board would consider renting an elementary school to the Library Board, just in case the economy takes off again, providing the need for another grade school.

It would seem to me that we would not want to follow Huntley’s example in which the taxpayers were forced to pay for schools twice.

The Huntley School District sold its high school and either a nearby grade or middle school to the park district.

Now, the park district boundaries are closer to the school district boundaries in Huntley than are Crystal Lake’s limits to those of District 47, but most Huntley area taxpayers ended up paying for the schools twice.

That, of course, is an argument for consolidation of governments…unless one thinks paying for public buildings more than once is a good idea.

Take a look at this special notice for a Crystal Lake City Council meeting early Tuesday night:

The agenda for a special Crystal Lake City Council meeting on financing options for expanding the Crystal Lake Public Library.

“Presentation, Discussion and Feedback of the Draft Crystal Lake Public Library 2011 Needs Assessment including options for building and operations expansion.”

As some will know, the City Library was turned down for a building subsidy by the State Library officials under the control of Secretary of State Jesse White.

The Library Board, however, has some other options.

It can run another referendum giving voters in Crystal Lake the right to decide whether or not they want their property taxes to be raised.

Too late for that to occur during the November election, but it could appear on the Republican Township Primary ballot in late February or on the April local election ballot when school, municipal, park district and township officials are elected.

Or, the Crystal Lake City Council could decide just to approve the issuance of bonds to finance the expansion without voter approval.

That’s allowed for city councils and village boards with populations above 25,000 or in smaller municipalities if the voters approve a Home Rule referendum.

I shall be otherwise occupied Tuesday night, so if you attend the meeting, please send me your observations of what happens. Direct quotes from city council members are especially welcomed.

This note was by Steve Willson sent to the McHenry County Republican Party email address a month and a half ago:

I received a letter today from Jim Thompson thanking me for my letter to the editor concerning the Crystal Lake library expansion, and inviting me to visit the local party headquarters. I may stop by sometime, but for now I’d like to lay a couple more ideas on you.

I have 30+ years of experience as a financial analyst, primarily in the municipal bond business.

This means I know how to tear apart the budget or a capital proposal for a school district or a city.

I would be pleased to assist the local GOP in this capacity and show others there how to do the same. (It’s not really that complicated.)

With this kind of research, the GOP can distinguish itself at the local level,

• showing concretely how it is serving the taxpayers, and
• giving teams of office seekers powerful information on important issues.

Let’s consider two examples,

• the [Crystal Lake] library and
• MCC

Crystal Lake Library

In two weeks (from early May), the Northwest Herald will print a second letter that I wrote which shows the results of a little survey I conducted of library users.It took, quite literally, less than two hours.

But it shows conclusively that the “crowding” issue is nonexistent.

Specifically, 74% of patrons NEVER have a problem finding a parking space, and on average, patrons have problems finding a parking space only 1.5% of the time.

Further, 80% of patrons surveyed NEVER feel “crowded” at the library, and, on average, patrons feel “crowded” 4.3% of the time (mainly Moms during story hour).

It gets worse.

Last year the library budget was $4.4 million and they circulated 1.1 million items, about half of which were Hollywood movies.

In other words, the library spends $4.00 of taxpayer money to circulate a movie that Redbox circulates — at a profit — for $1.00! Look at it another way.

The library spends more than $1.5 million per year circulating movies, just movies.

An annual subscription to Netflix costs less than $100.

With 14,500 families in Crystal Lake, if the library got out of the movie business and bought every single family in Crystal Lake a subscription to Netflix, the would STILL be money ahead!

Am I suggesting the library get totally out of the business of lending movies?

No. (Although, frankly I am old fashioned enough to think that governments should only supply necessary services that the free market can’t provide, like roads and police. Why libraries have become taxpayer subsidized competitors for Blockbuster is beyond me.)

I would suggest, though, that these kind of numbers imply STRONGLY that no one is minding the store, that no one looks carefully at the budget and asks if the library is an efficient steward of the public’s money.

MCC 40-Year Plan

But MCC makes the library look like a bunch of pikers.

$280 million! For what?

3% annual growth?

Let’s be clear: Wight & Co. DID NOT come up with the 3% per year growth projection.

They were given that number by the college and told to build a plan based on that projection.

How likely is 3% growth.

Well, every single school district in McHenry County is now experiencing reductions in enrollment.

Even District 158 (Huntley) has seen reductions at the kindergarten level.

They expect their high school enrollment to increase by about 500 more students in the next several years and then begin to decline.

MCC itself saw enrollment decline 4% last fall.

But how can we be sure this will continue?

Because we can see ten years into the future.

That is, we know how many high school seniors there are in McHenry County and how many third graders there are.

Today’s third graders are MCC’s freshmen ten years from now.

And today there are 20% FEWER THIRD GRADERS THAN HIGH SCHOOL SENIORS!

So MCC is going to see their enrollment decline, not increase.

But it’s worse than that. If you put together a very simple Excel spreadsheet and trend out MCC’s projected enrollment at 3% per year, figure out how many new students that means they must capture each year as existing students quit or graduate, and trend out the number of high school seniors, you will see that the “capture” rate of high school seniors increases from 33% today to 50% in 2021, 75% in 2031, 101% in 2041 and 136% in 2051.

In other words, if you believe MCC’s 40 year projection, they will need to get every single high school senior to

1. foreswear a four year college,
2. foreswear work,
3. enroll full-time at MCC, and
4. bring along a friend from outside the County!

In short, there simply aren’t enough high school seniors to meet MCC’s projection.

The college wasted $156,000 of taxpayer money on a study based on a growth rate that is ludicrous on the face of it.

Except that no one asks the simple, common sense questions. No one on the board and no one in the public domain: no reporters, no members of the GOP.

But the GOP CAN ask these questions.

The questions really are simple common sense.

I figured all this out in less than two hours from credible online sources (The Interactive Illinois Report Card and MCC’s own site).

I can quickly teach others how to do this, thus leveraging my abilities and providing the local GOP with another issue where they can get out front,

• showing leadership in protecting taxpayers, and
• putting together a team of candidates for the next election based on this type of issue-oriented campaign.

If you’re interested, write back.

The Crystal Lake Library from the parking lot.

Crystal Lake Library card holder Stephen Willson is on a mission.

You can read his analysis of the Library’s expansion plans here. There have been ten comments so far, including one that started, “This is the most informative article I have read concerning the Library expansion…”

Now Willson reports on a survey he took of patrons at the Library.

Of 58 people he asked, 50 participated.

They, Library personnel “shooed” him away.

Here’s what he found:

“The Crystal Lake Library Board says the library is so crowded it needs to be twice as large as it is now and needs a parking garage, too.

“In 22 years, I’ve never felt crowded there, and I’ve never had a problem finding a parking space, either.

“But I believe public policy decisions should be based on hard evidence, so I decided to stand outside the library and conduct a survey.

“Eventually I was shooed away by the library staff, but not before I got 50 responses. Here are the results.

• “What percent of the time have you been UNABLE TO FIND A PARKING SPACE?
  74%, NEVER; weighted response rate, 1.5% of the time
• “What percent of the time have you had to WAIT TWO WEEKS or more for a book or movie you wanted?
  62%, NEVER; weighted response rate, 7.6% of the time
• What percent of the time do you FEEL CROWDED in the library?
  80%, NEVER; weighted response rated, 4.3% of the time

“As a professional researcher with more than 30 years experience, I followed good survey protocol.

“The subjects were randomly selected, not self-selected, as in online surveys.

“I was careful to ask every question exactly the same way.

“And I was careful not to identify whether I was with the library or for the library or against the library. The sample size is large enough for statistically significant results.

“The response rate was 86%, which is very good.

“I think the data speak for themselves.

“If the library wishes to confirm or dispute my data by conducting their own properly structured and executed survey, that would be great.

“Of course, they’ll have to stand on the sidewalk or get shooed away.”

Inside the Crystal Lake Library.

Tucked away in Northwest Herald reporter’s comprehensive story on the Crystal Lake Library Board’s plan for a $28.6 million (not counting interest) addition is the following quote from Mayor Aaron Shepley:

“whether or not there is going to be a referendum”

Some may remember that the Crystal Lake City Council voted to raise the Crystal Lake sales tax by 75% (from one percentage point to 1.75 percentage points) without a referendum.

While Cook County was relentlessly pressured by the dominant Chicago newspaper to roll back its increase, not a word has come from Crystal Lake’s counterpart publication to decrease the city’s sales tax.

The City Council has the power to sell the bonds without referendum approval.

Hiking taxes and fees is what Home Rule power is all about.

And here’s an irony.

No Crystal Lake resident made objection, but a library patron from Lakewood. Steve Willson, did. (Lakewood homes are not taxed for the library because it is a city library for Crystal Lake residents. Lakewood patrons and other outside the city limits are charged according the the property tax they would pay for library purposes, if they were inside the municipality.)

Willson thought a new location would be preferable.

The 75% sales tax increase apparently caused no concern among city residents…as evidenced by no contested city council or mayoral races last year.

A property tax hike would be more noticeable that the sales tax hike.  It has to be paid in two lumps, rather than nickle dimed every time someone buys something in Crystal Lake.

Of course, Home Rule power can be revoked by referendum.

Below you see literature designed by the Illinois Taxpayer Education Foundation, a not-for-profit arm of Jim Tobin’s anti-tax organization.  It was used to defeat a referendum to make Itasca a Home Rule community.

The piece that helped defeat Home Rule in Itasca last month.

In an interesting twist, salaries of city employees were listed on the back.

Click to enlarge this image of those paid over $49,000 in Itasca.

Home Rule can be repealed by petition and referendum.

Calling their environmental concerns listening sessions “Green Voice!” the Environmental Defenders of McHenry County are headed to Crystal Lake.

If you have something to say, plan to come to the Crystal Lake Public Library 7 PM on Thursday, June 3rd. The Defenders’ press release follows:

“GREEN VOICE!” MEETING GIVES VOICE TO LOCAL CONCERNS
Crystal Lake area residents invited to share ideas, concerns at environmental “chat session”

Flooding of Naoki Kamigima Park at the sourthwestern edge of Crystal Lake next to the Lakewood Village Hall on May 13, 2010.

Commercial growth, transportation, and water resources are among the issues to be discussed at the Environmental Defenders’ “Green Voice!” community meeting set for 7 p.m. Thursday, June 3 at the Crystal Lake Public Library, located at 126 Paddock Street in Crystal Lake, IL.

Area residents and local officials are invited to take part in this informal “brainstorming” session about environmental issues in their community.  The event is hosted by the Environmental Defenders of McHenry County (EDMC), a citizen-based not-for-profit organization.

Admission is free and refreshments will be served.

“Everywhere throughout the county, our natural resources are affected and sometimes threatened by the changes that are taking place,”

said EDMC board president Nancy Scheitzelt.  “By meeting with local residents, we can learn what the important issues are in their community, and how the Defenders may be able to help.”

At Green Voice! meetings, local residents are encouraged to participate by sharing their concerns about environmental issues in their community and suggesting ideas for improvement.   The meetings are free and open to the public.   For more details, contact the Defenders’ office at (815) 338-0393 or visit www.mcdef.org.

This is not a library-sponsored event.

The Environmental Defenders of McHenry County is a volunteer-based, 501c3 not-for-profit organization with headquarters in Woodstock, IL.  Since 1970, the group has worked to protect and preserve the natural environment, open space, soil and water resources in the McHenry County area.  To learn more about EDMC programs, membership, charitable giving and volunteer opportunities, visit www.mcdef.org or phone (815) 338-0838.

The Northwest Herald obviously is in a cost cutting mode.

Now, new competition has arrived for its weekend “Neighbors” section. That section is pretty much organization press releases and submitted photos.

TribLocal's Paula Dudley, Lawerence Synett and Katie Cousino at the McHenry Chamber of Commerce's Business Expo last Saturday.

The new competitor in town is something called “TribLocal.” It is a local content insert that the Chicago Tribune is rolling out throughout the suburbs. Like the NW Herald’s “Neighbors,” it also has press releases and photos organizations submit, but, in addition, there is a web site with more.  Local stories not covered in the NW Herald also appear.  Here’s the link to stories of interest to Crystal Lakers, for instance.

I met the TribLocal folks at the Business Expo in McHenry last Saturday, having missed their October 1st introduction party.

You can tell the NW Herald has noticed because it has begun putting its Sun City insert in the weekend Neighbors Section.

The Northwest Herald is now giving away part of its newspaper.

It has also begun giving it away separately on news stands, as you can see above.

The introduction out of the way here is a column about local libraries:

Community Corner: Libraries still a viable resource
By Lawerence Synett, TribLocal reporter

“What is more important in a library than anything else, than everything else, is the fact that it exists.”— Illinois poet Archibald MacLeish

Residents don’t see many positives in a struggling economy. From school budget cuts to the rising unemployed, the economic downtown has left many as cold and bitter as Old Man Winter.

It's hard to find a parking space in the Crystal Lake Library parking lot. The newsletter that arrived this week commented on how the snow had diminished the number of spaces. When I visited Thursday to file a Freedom of Information request, I got the last space.

But during tough times, residents are turning to what some may have considered passé and out of touch only a few years ago—the library, a true diamond in the rough. This tough stretch for residents has forced them to rediscover the tremendous value of their local library, and once again made true those words MacLeish wrote in June 1972.

“There is an old saying that libraries will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no libraries,” Huntley Public Library Executive Director Patrick McDonald said, “I think that’s as true today as it ever was.”

That’s right. People today have the opportunity to use their library for more than just checking out books, music and movies. They now have money training, and saving, opportunities—Internet access, professional assistance with job searches and programs training them in today’s latest technology.

In Huntley, the library’s top four categories have increased steadily since 2007—circulation is up almost 150,000, attendance by nearly 100,000, interlibrary loans by nearly 50,000 and requests for reference help by more than 20,000.

This isn’t just happenstance at the Huntley library, it is a trend at libraries across the country—a 2009 American Library Association report found that 76 percent of Americans had visited their library in the past year, up 65 percent from the prior year.

As is the case at our schools and even the workplace, staff is being asked to do more with less. They are being asked to continue to provide residents with the best possible services available with less money, and in most cases, they are being forced to make cuts.

McDonald said, “We do our best with what we have, but we can only do so much to reduce operating costs and continue to provide the level of service needed,” and with state funding to regional library systems in jeopardy, “that funding would be a big blow to some of the services and materials many libraries are able to provide.”

Is this fair? No. But I believe libraries are not part of the problem, they are part of the solution.

Libraries continue to be the pulse of the community, a part of the educational and social fabric pushing toward a solution to the economic downturn by providing the chance for people to gain the skills necessary for a new job or the training needed to start a successful new business.

Crystal Lake Library

Crystal Lake Public Library Director Kathryn Martens said that budget issues and possible cutbacks continue to hinder the increased amount of services patrons expect from libraries, but realizes libraries are here to serve the public.

That is why libraries are so valuable to our communities, because they have one goal, to serve their patrons the way they deem necessary.

Martens also recognized that library use has been on the rise not just during a struggling economy, but also over the last 20 years.

“We are always looking for what is current, what people are asking about, what they want, what is in their lives,” she said.

Libraries are here to stay, and a valuable resource. They are a part of the solution, and we all need to recognize what’s most important, that they are here, during the good and the bad, with staff working tirelessly to provide the services we need.

*Lawerence Synett is the TribLocal community manager for Algonquin, Lake in the Hills, Huntley, Crystal Lake, McHenry and Woodstock. If you would like to comment on this column, or have stories, photos or events you would like to share at triblocal.com, register online for free, e-mail Synett at lsynett@tribune.com or call 708-498-0458.

At the Crystal Lake Kiwanis luncheon today, I found this tee shirt.

It’s an advance copy of the Crystal Lake Public Library’s new logo.

Someone said the back was interesting, too.

It was.

A lion is reading a book.

Underneath appears

After yesterday’s taste of spring, it seemed to me that the South Wind that blew the warm air our way should be celebrated.

Here you can see from the way the flags at the Crystal Lake Library are blowing that it is coming from the south.

The sun, which, unfortunately, washes out the picture a bit, clearly shows that.

I never thought I would be celebrating that temperature.

Click to enlarge the photographs.