With the Federal government ordering electric car manufacturers to make their cars noisier, don’t you think this sticker I found on a car in the man Algonquin Library parking lot is appropriate?
“Loud Pipes…Save Lives!!” says this sticker on a car window.
It will probably come as no surprise to most that McHenry County taxpayers have more money extracted from their checking accounts than is returned.
But here comes news from county government that we got some back. When one adds up all the local governments that got money, it totals $1,579,862.50.
McHenry County Receives FEMA Funds for February 2, 2011 Blizzard
Someone in county government thought to take some photos of the response to the February 2011blizzard.
WOODSTOCK, IL – As a result of the one of the worst winter storms in recent memory, McHenry County received a Presidential Disaster Declaration for the February 2, 2011 Blizzard.
The Presidential Disaster Declaration provided the County with public assistance funds to reimburse the extraordinary labor/personnel costs, equipment costs, and consumable materials and supplies available through the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
While many businesses were closed and residents were snowed in, McHenry County employees worked around the clock to coordinate County snow removal efforts and assist those stranded due to the storm.
Three McHenry County Departments were reimbursed for their expenses for this winter event.
Monies were afforded to the
McHenry County received a total of $206,977.21. County-wide, local entities received $1,579,862 through the Presidential Disaster Declaration.
[But, there is much more, as you can see at the bottom of this press release.]
While the dedicated effort of employees allowed the County to get back up and running after the blizzard subsided, it was also an opportunity for McHenry County to test and rethink its Hazards Mitigation Plan.
The Democrats 67% income tax hike isn't the only reason to think about moving to Florida.
The McHenry County Hazards Mitigation Plan was the result of a partnership between County, Municipal, Townships, and public safety entities within the County (serving as the McHenry County Hazard Mitigation Committee) to identify the best storm and hazard management practices to mitigate disasters.
McHenry County Emergency Management Agency will host its first annual review of the McHenry County Natural Hazards Mitigation Plan on Thursday, November 10 at 9:00 a.m. in the McHenry County Administration Building – Conference Room B in Woodstock, IL.
The Committee will determine if other mitigation issues or efforts, based on any natural hazard occurrences (such as the winter storm) or input from communities or the public, should be added to the Plan. Information from this meeting will form the basis of the annual report to be submitted to the County Board by the Chairman of this Committee.
Further, McHenry County Emergency Management Coordinating Council will utilize the Hazards Mitigation Plan as a framework for coordinating efforts and County resources, pooling the collective knowledge of all entities within the County to support the ongoing preparation and mitigation for disasters/hazards.
McHenry County Emergency Management Agency Director David Christensen expanded upon the role the Coordinating Council and Hazards Mitigation Plan will have addressing future disasters. “By utilizing the Hazard Mitigation Plan, the Coordinating Council will work to assist those jurisdictions who are lacking resources to do a preliminary damage assessment. As a follow-up to the disasters, we will also review lessons learned here in McHenry County as to what worked well, what didn’t and how to mitigate future damages.”
The McHenry County Emergency Management Coordinating Council meets the fourth Thursday of each month in the McHenry County Administration Building in Woodstock, IL.
For more information on the McHenry County Emergency Management Coordinating Council or Hazards Mitigation Plan, please contact David Christensen at 815-338-6400.
Below is what other McHenry County governments have received:
From Fox News:
“So a new GS-15 would have started this year at about $124,000. After a year on the job, that government worker’s step-pay increase would lift that salary to about $128,000, even with the President’s pay freeze. And that’s before bonuses and overtime pay. “
Nice to have others verify my Monday story.
Today, USA Today wrote an article verifying the information published on McHenry County Blog Monday.
Here’s the start of the article:
Many federal workers would still get pay raises the next two years despite the limited salary freeze President Obama proposed this week for 2.2 million government employees.The president’s proposal, if approved by Congress, would stop across-the-board pay hikes set for January 2011 and January 2012.
But many federal workers will receive other pay hikes — longevity increases (called steps), promotions in grade, bonuses, overtime and other cash payments.
Most federal employees are ranked at a General Schedule (GS) grade from 1 to 15, and each grade has 10 steps within it.
How much more do Federal employees earn than those in the private sector?
USA Today reports,
Full-time federal employees earned an average of $81,258 in pay last year and $41,791 in benefits, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) reports.
By comparison, the private worker earned $50,462 in pay and $10,589 in benefits, meaning that federal workers earn about half more in pay but four times as much in benefits, the BEA says…
The big advantage for federal workers over private-sector workers comes in time off, pensions and lesser-known benefits.
You will be reading about President Obama freezing federal workers pay for two years.
It is mostly a P.R. gimmick.
Why?
Because it isn’t a real pay freeze.
The White House said it will not impact pay increases from either step increases or bonuses for federal workers.
Did you expect anything real from an Illinois Democrat?
Liberal Democrats use words to their P.R. advantage, not to what they really mean.
Get used to two more years of liberal Obamaisms.
If you work in the private sector, a pay freeze means you aren’t getting an increase in pay.
No wonder Democrats have little clue how to rev up the private sector economy.
They likely think business owners are easily fooled by pay freezes that don’t freeze pay.
The Chicago Sun-Times article on the Barack Obama Administration's suit against Arizona.
I’m not much into writing about national politics. I’ve only touched upon immigration enforcement by local officials when McHenry County Sheriff Keith Nygren joined other suburban sheriffs in agreeing to do so.
(See April 14, 2010 article entitled,
“Nygren to Join Other Sheriffs in Arresting Aliens.”
Strangely, I didn’t see anything about that in the local Heralds or the edition of the Chicago Tribune delivered locally.)
A friend of McHenry County Blog send me this insightful column from the Boston Herald by Michael Graham:
Bad posture on amnesty
Funny how feds lean on Ariz., not R.I.
As you can see from the beginning of his piece, Graham comes at the subject from the point of view of enforcing immigration law:
“Attorney General Eric Holder finally filed that long-rumored lawsuit challenging Arizona’s new immigration law. In his opinion, only the federal government has the legal authority to ‘enforce’ (read ‘completely ignore’) border security. If the Obama administration were convinced that Arizona would treat illegal immigration the same way the feds do, they wouldn’t have bothered to sue.”
But what is interesting is not his viewpoint or extremely clever use of the English language. It’s his sharing what the State of Rhode Island police do that is, oh, so similar to what critics of the Arizona law fear.
Micheal Graham wrote this colum for the Boston Herald the day after the Feds announced their suit against Arizona's immigrant enforcement law.
In looking for just the right sentences to quote, I am reading through pungent criticism of President Barack Obama. I encourage you to read the whole column.
Later, he asks the trenchant question:
“Why pick on Arizona?…why isn’t he suing Providence instead of Phoenix? They’ve been doing local immigration enforcement for years now.”
Columnist Graham next cites rival paper Boston Globe and Democrat in explaining how the situation in Rhode Island resembles that feared in Arizona:
“As The Boston Globe-Democrat reported yesterday,
This is where Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainees spend their time in the McHenry Jail when they are not in their cells.
‘From Woonsocket to Westerly, the troopers patrolling the nation’s smallest state are reporting all illegal immigrants they encounter, even on routine stops such as speeding, to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.’
“Even liberal Providence, where politicians long opposed any local enforcement efforts, changed its policy in 2008 after the infamous Marco Riz case.
“Riz was the illegal immigrant arrested by Providence cops twice while under a federal deportation order but released both times. He was then charged with carjacking a woman in Warwick and raping her in Providence.
“Rhode Island cops now routinely contact ICE when they suspect they’ve come across an illegal immigrant. Since 2006, the number of contacts they’ve made to ICE’s Law Enforcement Support Center in Vermont has nearly doubled, the Globe reported. How is this significantly different than Arizona’s proposed law?”
Good question, wouldn’t you agree?
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