Dorr Township
Dorr Township Republican Central Committee Chairwoman Tina Hill has recently informed me of her organization’s intention to conduct a primary election in February to select candidates for
Mike Tryon
Just as those seeking to call a special meeting of the McHenry County Republican Central Committee were hitting deadline time to gain permission for 25% of the membership, new appointments arrived at the McHenry County Clerk’s Office.
They are not yet on the public website, but the information will be in the near future.
Dorr Township filled a number of slots, but three of them are from the same family, McHenry County Board member and Precinct Committeeman Tina Hill’s. A second is from County Board member and Precinct Committeeman John Jung’s household.
Here are the Dorr Township appointments:
The McHenry Township additions follows:
In Nunda Township the following were appointed:
According to law, appointments to fill vacancies are made by the Chairman of the Central Committee, Mike Tryon.
Tina Hill
John Jung
McHenry County Board members Tina Hill and John Jung have been elected Chairman and Vice Chairman, respectively, of the Dorr Township Republican Central Committee.
The offices of Secretary and Treasurer are still open.
Fifty percent of the fourteen precincts in the Woodstock-dominated township are vacant, so if you are inclined to join the door-to-door crew this fall, you might want to give one of the leaders a call.
Dorr Township precincts.
Below you can see the elected precinct committeemen and the number of GOP votes in each precinct:
This map shows the locations of McHenry County's townships and municipalities.
As I start formatting this information from the McHenry County Clerk’s Office about who filed for Republican Precinct Committeeman in what parts of the county, my first impression is that “No candidate filed” will control the GOP Central Committee after the March 20, 2012, primary election.
After doing the count, I see that I was correct…barely.
108 of 212 precincts have no GOP candidate. 51% empty.
Only 49% of the county’s precincts have enough people wanting to serve as precinct committeemen that they passed a petition and presumably got the required ten signatures. Nothing must be at stake, since no petitions were challenge. With no challenges, people could have filed a petition with just their own signature and made the ballot and, hence, membership on the Republican Central Committee.
Here’s a summary of the percentages of precincts in which Committeeman candidates filed in each Township:
McHenry County Board Districts 5 and 6. Click to enlarge.
Alden – 100% (1 of 1)
Dunham – 100% (1 of 1)
Hartland – 100% (2 of 2)
Hebron – 100% (2 of 2)
Riley – 100% (1 of 1)
Seneca – 100% (2 of 2)
Richmond – 75% (3 of 4)
Greenwood – 71% (5 of 7)
McHenry – 57% (20 of 35)
Dorr – 50% (7 of 14)
Algonquin – 43% (29 of 68)
Nunda – 41% (12 of 29)
Chemung – 40% (2 of 5)
Grafton – 34% (11 of 31)
Burton – 33% (1 of 3)
Coral – 33% (1 of 3)
Marengo – 25% (1 of 4)
There exceptions in Marengo, Coral and Chemung Townships, but the numbers are so small in each of those townships that one more candidate would have put them above the county average of 49%.
You may note that the most sparely populated townships, those in County Board District 6 generally have the highest interest in the Republican Party’s Central Committee infrastructure.
Of the four largest townships, Algonquin, McHenry, Grafton and Nunda, only McHenry Township has more than half of the precincts filled with those willing to be on the ballot.
A couple of weeks ago news media unloaded the latest attack on township government.
They were working from a Better Government Association report.
Most of the attention was aimed at Cook County townships. That’s where most of the land is incorporated. Only about 2% of the population lives in unincorporated areas.
McHenry County was mentioned in the Chicago Sun-Times article in the last paragraph of its November 9, 2010, article.
It concentrated on the road district part of township government and based its figures on 2010 expenditures reported in an IDOT report.
It was in a cost per mile comparison for the six Chicago-area counties:
I found the Illinois Department of Transportation 2009 study and extracted the following information about McHenry County Townships:
Doing the math yields the following cost per mile figures:
Townships in McHenry County with incorporated areas shown.
Alden – $7,240
Obviously there are great variances with more urbanized townships spending more to maintain roads than more rural townships.
Today let’s look at the cost of maintaining township roads.
As you can see, the cost varies a lot,.
So do the number of miles of roads for which the various township road commissioners are responsible for maintaining.
The townships with the most miles of streets and roads are the largest three, Nunda, McHenry and Algonquin.
The reason is the large number of unincorporated subdivisions in McHenry County.
A ranking of the road miles follows:
McHenry County with townships and muncipalities.
The amount each township road commissioner spends per mile of road maintained follows:
Dorr Township Garage
This chart shows the cost of township government in McHenry County. Click to enlarge.
Today McHenry County Blog looks at the cost of township government in McHenry County.
The cost per person is the column that I find most interesting. Below you will see them listed from lowest cost to highest cost for the non-road commissioner part of the bill:
The Dorr Township Hall in Woodstock.
Grafton Township Hall
With the exception of Chemung, Burton and Coral Townships, the low cost townships tend to be those with the largest populations.
Conversely, those townships with the highest cost per person tend to be the smallest townships.
Townships, of course, can be minimalist in nature or take on tasks which are clearly optional.
The cost of township roads on Monday.
Chemung and Dunham Townships.
Yesterday we looked at Alden and Algonquin Townships. Algonquin Township has 13 precincts with no Republican Precinct Committeeman. (I’d do Democrats, too, but the McHenry County Democratic Party web site doesn’t have a handy listing.)
Burton Township
Today, we’ll look at the Burton Township (Spring Grove + Fox Lake), Chemung (Harvard), Coral (Union), Dorr (Bull Valley + Woodstock), Dunham (southern Harvard) and Grafton (Lakewood, Crystal Lake, Lake in the Hills + Huntley) Townships.
There are eleven empty precincts in these six townships.
Want to take over Republican politics in Spring Grove. Easy enough. Get two of your friends and ask Mike Tryon, the Chairman of the McHenry County Republican Party, to appoint you.
Right now, the GOP has no troops on the ground in that small, northeastern-most township.
Half of Chemung Township’s four precincts are vacant. Also in the southern part of the Harvard area, Dunham Township has no precinct committeeman.
In Grafton Township, where township politics is a blood sport, six out of 31 precincts are vacant.
If you are interested in being appointed in any of these precincts, just drop me an email and I’ll be happy to forward it to Chairman Tryon. Or you can contact him directly.
Dorr Township has no vacancies, but for future reference the precincts are shown here.
Grafton Township’s precinct map is below:
Grafton Township precinct map.
The 2010 assessed valuation has been totaled for McHenry County and it’s down almost 10%.
That’s what a comparison of raw figures from the McHenry County Supervisor of Assessments Office indicate.
McHenry County real estate taxes this year will be based on assessed value of $10,132,926,407 unless the State Department of Revenue decides that figure does not reflect one-third of a three-year average of assessed value to market value.
$10.1 billion reflects a significant drop from last year’s total of $11,210,739,442.
Grafton, Chemung (Harvard) and Marengo Townships led the devaluation race. Grafton property decreased in value over 17%, Chemung over 13% and Marengo over 3%.
Because tax districts overlap the Grafton-Algonquin Township lines, it is conceivable there ill be significant shifts of tax burden in such tax districts as Lake in the Hills, the Huntley School District and the Village of Lakewood. Those on the Grafton Township side of the line may end up paying much less taxes to the overlapping districts than those on the Algonquin Township side of the line. 
With assessed values down throughout McHenry County, one might think that tax bills will decrease.
My prediction is the same as the first year home prices started sinking.
Your tax bill will most likely increase.
McHenry County Townships.
That’s because virtually every tax district (include schools here) asked for the maximum amount they could get under the Tax Cap law.
That maximum is the amount the Consumer Price Index increased. This year that means +2.7%, as I read this Illinois Revenue Department chart.
As long as assessed valuation was growing rapidly, tax district officials bragged about how their tax rates were less than the year before.
What complete dribble!
The way the Tax Cap (PRELL are the initials of the law’s title) works, if a district’s tax assessment base increases more than the increase in the cost of living, the tax rate must be cut so the district’s tax take will not exceed the increase in the cost of living.
Conversely, if last year’s tax rate multiplied times the new assessed value does not bring in last year’s property tax revenue, plus the increase in the CPI almost universally requested by tax district board members, the tax rate goes up.
That’s what happened last year.
It’s what I predicted over three years ago.
So, don’t think that a lower assessment figure will necessarily mean you will get a lower tax bill.
It could have meant that if tax district officials had not been greedy enough to request the maximum they could receive this year.
I have written about two districts where one board member tried to ratchet back the tax request for this year.
Grafton Township Supervisor Linda Moore made the suggestion, but lost the vote. A second vote was taken. This article has Rob LaPorta’s explanation. LaPorta notes that it will cost “11 cents per $100,000 home value.”
LaPorta is correct that township government takes relatively little of the total real estate taxes people pay.
But when every (or virtually every) tax district takes the 2.7% maximum amount allowed by state law, don’t be surprised if your tax bill is 2.7% higher than last year.
A similar request was made by John O’Neill at the levy meeting of the McHenry Grade School Board. I wrote about the unsuccessful effort in this article:
The Primal Urge of Government: Take As Much As It Can Get
A comment under that article leads me to believe that Aileen Seedorf made a similar unsuccessful suggestion to the Huntley School District 158 Board with similar results.
Quinn Keefe, just apppointed Dorr Township Clerk.
As expected Woodstock resident Quinn Keefe was appointed Dorr Township Clerk as Tuesday night’s meeting.
Keefe was appointed Deputy Clerk after Kathleen J. Schlap resigned from the office.
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