McHenry County Blog

The next the last parade this year in McHenry County was in the Saufen und Spiel one in Johnsburg on Sunday, 9-11.

As usual police and fire vehicles were in front.

Next were Johnsburg Police Chief and I’m assuming an official of the McHenry Township Fire Protection District.

A squad car from the McHenry County Sheriff’s Department followed the Johnsburg Police squad car.

Unlike in Crystal Lake, Sheriff Keith Nygren was not driving it.  Just as in Lake in the Hills, the Sheriff was not in the parade.

The Color Guard came next.

The Johnsburg Rescue Squad–oldest in McHenry County and founded in 1952–had what I’m guessing was its original vehicle.

Equipment from the McHenry Township Fire Protection District came next.

Parade Marshal Ron Rich and his wife Mary Ann were in the first car behind the fire trucks.

Rich served the Boy Scouts for 25 years as the Kishwaukee District Boy Scout Commissioner and local Boy Scout leader.

He chaired the Saufen und Spiel and parade for three years. An active member of the Knights of Columbus #9167, he worked fund raisers, among other activities.

Rich was also on the board that was responsible for Johnsburg becoming a village.

Besides being associated with the Johnsburg Boys Baseball League, he served fifteen years on the chain gang for Johnsburg High School’s football teams.

Rich was also chairman for the Johnsburg Club’s Building and Grounds Committee and cut the grass.

A trailer of Veterans came next.

Village President Ed Hetterman followed the Veterans. I talked with his driver, whom I assume is his wife.

She told me that he had the opportunity to ride in a Bentley, but didn’t want to upstage the Police and Fire personnel, whom he though should be being honored on the anniversary of 9-11.

There were intervening entries of politicians, Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts.  Then I spotted this Gary Lang vehicle pulling a decorated boat.

Gymnasts, the Johnsburg State Bank, Girl Scouts, some commercial floats came before the next entry referencing the significance of the day.

It was the St. John the Baptist Catholic School float.  Young students not alive when the World Trade Center and the Pentagon  were hit waved below the sign.

Right behind was a van from the Johnsburg Library.  The announcer said Sunday library hours were to resume soon.

Advertising a September 17 and 18 Stade’s Farm Market exhibit of antique tractors, truck and construction equipment was a billboard and lots of tractors.

A 1941 Farmall tractor had a flag with a 9-11 theme.

The message on the flag was

In Remembrance of

The Fallen

9/11/01-9/11/11

Ten Years Gone.

Never Forgotten

The flag had a bald eagle’s head superimposed on a field of stars in the upper left hand corner. To the right was the New York City skyline.

The text was superimposed on the white stripes.

And that was all I saw concerning the evil 9-11 attacks in the parade.

While chatting with folks in the food and entertainment tent area, I noticed Wonder Lake Fire Protection District Trustee Cheryl Hammerand was wearing a distinctive 9-11 tee shirt.

You see it below:

That’s what the press release says:

McHenry, Illinois… Gary Lang Auto Group was the #1 car dealer in McHenry County for the 2010 calendar year, per Per R. L. Polk, a recognized expert for automotive intelligence.

By selling more new and used vehicles to McHenry County residents in 2010 than any other dealer, Gary Lang has been designated the #1 car dealer for McHenry County.

McHenry County includes the city of McHenry, Crystal Lake, Woodstock, Wonder Lake, Richmond, Spring Grove, Cary and many other local municipalities.

“We want to thank all of customers for their vote of confidence in choosing the Gary Lang Auto Group for their purchase,” said Dixie Gilmore, VP/GM. “Our goal is to provide our customers with the best selection, service and value in McHenry County, Illinois.”

Gary Lang Auto Group is on Highway 31, between Crystal Lake and McHenry and has been serving McHenry County for over 28 years. The dealership group carries several makes, including Chevrolet, Buick, GMC, Cadillac, Kia, Mitsubishi and Subaru.

Sadly, Operation Click has outgrown the Crystal Lake Holiday Inn.

40,000 high school students from Harvard to Champaign were involved this year.

I so enjoyed the award ceremony two years ago when Cary-Grove High School’s Kate McNamee won.

Happily, the reason is that it has expanded so far beyond Crystal Lake to get a bigger venue with more publicity possibilities.

Above you see what may well me the best photograph you will ever see on McHenry County Blog.

That’s probably because it was taken by Graham Hill, sports photographer for the Chicago Slaughter, the arena football team that plays at the Sears Centre in Hoffman Estates.

Its taken of a winner at an Operation Click awards ceremony – Johnsburg High School’s Jeremy Cable.

He won a won a Chevrolet HHR donated by Gary Lang Auto Group.

Other car contributors are

Crystal Lake Pontiac/GMC (Crystal Lake Chapter)

Libertyville Chevrolet (Wauconda Chapter)

Marquardt Pontiac/Buick/GMC in Barrington (Barrington Chapter).

Worden-Martin Pontiac/Buick/GMC in Champaign is donating two cars (Champaign Chapter in memory of Caleb M. Roche and the Champaign County Chapter).

Black Diamond Plumbing and Electrical (Woodstock Chapter).

My thanks to Crystal Lake Police Officer Sean McGrath for providing the photo and the information. McGrath is seen above on a YouTube presentation of the program produced by Dobbe Marketing and Afterglow Creative Services.

More articles on Operation Click coming up.

McHenry’s Steve Stanek is really disturbed about his city council’s having given a huge tax break to Gary Lang Auto Group. I could re-write his missives, but I’ve decided to let you read them as I did.

Stanek is a Research Fellow at Chicago’s Heartland Institute and Managing Editor of Budget & Tax News, He says he can’t believe how “gullible” city council members were.

First, his note to me:

Cal,

McHenry on Monday night committed a huge outrage.

They granted hundreds of thousands of dollars of sales tax “rebates” annually for 20 years to Gary Lang Auto Group.

This will total millions of dollars and could conceivably cover the entire cost of his expansion.

Meanwhile, just a little north of Lang on Route 31 is Buss Ford, which expanded to its new location less than 10 years ago and recently expanded again by adding Lincoln-Mercury, all with no sales tax subsidies.

Here’s a letter I sent to the mayor and city council (have received no response) and to the NW Herald, which has not published the letter but probably will, as they called to confirm it with me. Here’s a link to the NW Herald article. Last I checked there were four comments, all slamming the city’s move. 

Steve

Stanek’s letter to his council follows:

Dear Mayor Low and City Council Members:

I have just learned the city council is about to consider tax breaks potentially totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars a year for Gary Lang Auto Group.

I cannot state strongly enough my objections to this proposal.

Why not also do this for Buss Ford and Sunnyside Dodge and Extreme Jeep and all the used car dealers? If you do it for them, why not also for every business in the city?

It puts the city council in the position of having a direct interest in seeing the success of Gary Lang, possibly over the success of other car dealers, if for no other reason than to keep the city’s “investment” in Lang looking good.

It will force other businesses and individuals to pay more taxes than they otherwise should pay to subsidize Lang, shifting tax burdens onto the shoulders of smaller businesses and homeowners.

I read the comments from Steve Murgatroyd saying Lang might take his new dealerships elsewhere. What a joke. The expense of opening entirely new facilities elsewhere would be far greater than keeping them where Lang already has land, buildings, equipment, and trained staff. It’s a threat repeated thousands of times around the country by businesspeople none too proud to beg for tax dollars to make them wealthier. It’s almost always an empty threat intended to give cover to the elected officials who give away the money.

If the owner of a small business were to ask for this treatment, the person would be laughed out of city hall. Yet the owner of a big business can beg for tax dollars and be rewarded.

You are elected to represent all the people and businesses in this community equally and fairly. Instead, we have local government playing favorites, saying we will squeeze every nickel we can get from some people and give special breaks to others. This is not good government. If anything it is a reason for cynicism toward government.

It is patently unfair and conflates business decisions with political decisions, making decisions in both realms suspect.

Sincerely,

Steve Stanek
McHenry, IL

And, here is Stanek’s letter to the Northwest Herald:

To the editor:
 

McHenry may do the impossible. City officials are considering hundreds of thousands of dollars of sales tax rebates annually for 20 years to Lang Auto Group, which never has and never will pay sales tax.
 
No retailer pays sales tax. Customers pay it. Retailers collect it and send it to the state, which keeps some and sends the rest to local governments.
 
At no time does sales tax money belong to Lang. It is impossible to rebate money to someone who never owned it.
 
A “rebate” to Lang would be a pure gift of the public’s money. This would be unfair to Lang’s competitors and to the public who paid the tax and would have to pay higher taxes to cover the give-away.
 
If McHenry wants to rebate sales tax collected by Lang, the city should send the money to people who pay it – Lang’s customers.
 
Steve Stanek
McHenry, IL 60050

McHenry’s Steve Stanek is really disturbed about his city council’s having given a huge tax break to Gary Lang Auto Group. I could re-write his missives, but I’ve decided to let you read them as I did.

Stanek is a Research Fellow at Chicago’s Heartland Institute and Managing Editor of Budget & Tax News, He says he can’t believe how “gullible” city council members were.

First, his note to me:

Cal,

McHenry on Monday night committed a huge outrage.

They granted hundreds of thousands of dollars of sales tax “rebates” annually for 20 years to Gary Lang Auto Group.

This will total millions of dollars and could conceivably cover the entire cost of his expansion.

Meanwhile, just a little north of Lang on Route 31 is Buss Ford, which expanded to its new location less than 10 years ago and recently expanded again by adding Lincoln-Mercury, all with no sales tax subsidies.

Here’s a letter I sent to the mayor and city council (have received no response) and to the NW Herald, which has not published the letter but probably will, as they called to confirm it with me. Here’s a link to the NW Herald article. Last I checked there were four comments, all slamming the city’s move. 

Steve

Stanek’s letter to his council follows:

Dear Mayor Low and City Council Members:

I have just learned the city council is about to consider tax breaks potentially totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars a year for Gary Lang Auto Group.

I cannot state strongly enough my objections to this proposal.

Why not also do this for Buss Ford and Sunnyside Dodge and Extreme Jeep and all the used car dealers? If you do it for them, why not also for every business in the city?

It puts the city council in the position of having a direct interest in seeing the success of Gary Lang, possibly over the success of other car dealers, if for no other reason than to keep the city’s “investment” in Lang looking good.

It will force other businesses and individuals to pay more taxes than they otherwise should pay to subsidize Lang, shifting tax burdens onto the shoulders of smaller businesses and homeowners.

I read the comments from Steve Murgatroyd saying Lang might take his new dealerships elsewhere. What a joke. The expense of opening entirely new facilities elsewhere would be far greater than keeping them where Lang already has land, buildings, equipment, and trained staff. It’s a threat repeated thousands of times around the country by businesspeople none too proud to beg for tax dollars to make them wealthier. It’s almost always an empty threat intended to give cover to the elected officials who give away the money.

If the owner of a small business were to ask for this treatment, the person would be laughed out of city hall. Yet the owner of a big business can beg for tax dollars and be rewarded.

You are elected to represent all the people and businesses in this community equally and fairly. Instead, we have local government playing favorites, saying we will squeeze every nickel we can get from some people and give special breaks to others. This is not good government. If anything it is a reason for cynicism toward government.

It is patently unfair and conflates business decisions with political decisions, making decisions in both realms suspect.

Sincerely,

Steve Stanek
McHenry, IL

And, here is Stanek’s letter to the Northwest Herald:

To the editor:
 

McHenry may do the impossible. City officials are considering hundreds of thousands of dollars of sales tax rebates annually for 20 years to Lang Auto Group, which never has and never will pay sales tax.
 
No retailer pays sales tax. Customers pay it. Retailers collect it and send it to the state, which keeps some and sends the rest to local governments.
 
At no time does sales tax money belong to Lang. It is impossible to rebate money to someone who never owned it.
 
A “rebate” to Lang would be a pure gift of the public’s money. This would be unfair to Lang’s competitors and to the public who paid the tax and would have to pay higher taxes to cover the give-away.
 
If McHenry wants to rebate sales tax collected by Lang, the city should send the money to people who pay it – Lang’s customers.
 
Steve Stanek
McHenry, IL 60050