McHenry County Blog

Erin Smith

This in a continuation of the the winter newsletter from Lakewood Village President Erin Smith.

Bicycle Path for Lakewood Road and Lake Avenue

Our residents have consistently identified the construction of bicycle paths along major arterial streets as a priority for our community.

This is a significant financial challenge, because the cost to retrofit an existing roadway with bicycle paths is much higher than to build them simultaneously.

Staff was successful in obtaining a nearly $425,000 grant to build the path along Huntley Road, and it has been very well received by residents.

Lakewood Road runs north-south through the village.

After having three grant requests for a Lakewood Road bicycle path rejected by several agencies, I am very pleased to report that staff has successfully secured a grant in an amount of approximately $1.4M that will pay for the repaving of Lakewood Road from Haligus Road to Ackman Road, along with the installation of bicycle paths (similar to those installed along Huntley Road) along the roadway.

Bike paths like this are on both sides of Huntley Road.  In the future, similar paths will be built on Lake Avenue from Huntley Road to the Crystal Lake-Lakewood Village limits, plus on both sides of Lakewood Road.

In addition, staff secured an additional grant in an amount of approximately $400,000 to pay for repaving of Lake Avenue from Huntley Road to our western boundary at Village Hall, along with the installation of bicycle paths.

This new path will connect to the recently completed Huntley Road bicycle path.

In total, staff obtained approximately in $1.8M in grant funds that will both repave existing roads and install bicycle paths along major arterial streets. Construction cannot begin until 2016, but the engineering work will be budgeted in the upcoming fiscal year. This is a significant achievement for a small community with an annual roadway budget of approximately $250,000.

More tomorrow.

The first state highway roundabout in McHenry County is being planned by the Illinois Department of Transportation where Mt. Tabor Road and Haligus Road join Route 176 in a dangerous, dangerous dogleg intersection.

What the roundabout on Route 14 at Mt. Tabor and Haligus Roads will look like. Click to enlarge.

Unlike the improvement at less badly aligned intersection of Briarwood Road and Route 176, wholly in Crystal Lake and initiated by Crystal Lake, the improvement farther west on the state route has been initiated by IDOT, apparently without local knowledge.

The entire highway improvement roundabout at Route 176 and Haligus and Mt. Tabor Roads can be seen here. Click to enlarge.

At least I would assume that Crystal Lake had no knowledge because when I filed a Freedom of Information request for “documents pertaining to efforts to improve the intersection of Mt. Thabor Road, Haligus Road and Route 176,” I received a response indicated that no such documents had been found.

Driving west on Route 176 toward the dogleg intersection of Halligus and Mt. Thabor Roads.

Likewise the Village of Lakewood had no knowledge until the most recent IDOT highway plan was released.

The Grafton Township Board wasn’t unanimous in its decisions Thursday night, but there was enough cooperation to pass two motions concerning the potential sale of the Haligus Road property purchased by the previous Board where a new township hall was planned.

The Grafton Township Board spent most of its just over a half an hour meeting behind closed doors.

After a closed door meeting which at time reached quite high decibels discussing subjects other than the sale of the real estate and the hiring of “special counsel (hence, the asterisk in the headline above),” the Board actually passed motions with Supervisor Linda Moore and Trustee Robert LaPorta on the same side.

Although the purchase offer was not revealed, it had to be less than the counteroffer of $120,000, plus expenses.  A motion to that effect was passed 4-1, with only Trustee Betty Zirk voting in the negative

One would assume the expenses would be the cost of hiring real estate attorney Michael Torchalski. plus an appraisal and maybe even the For Sale sign.  On that motion, Jerry McMahon and Betty Zirk voted, “No,” while Township Supervisor Linda Moore and Trustees Rob LaPorta and Barb Murphy voted in favor.

No shouting was heard in the open meeting Thursday night at the Grafton Township meeting.

When asked after the meeting by the Northwest Herald reporter if the prospective purchaser was the American Muslim Community Organization, none of the Board members would say.

The amount proposed to be paid by the interested party was not revealed either.

I filed a Freedom of Information request for both

• the offer, which was discussed by the Supervisor and Trustees, and
• the resolution hiring the attorney.

I am confident that the two documents were put in the public domain by the actions that the Board took in open session.

Several Board members said they would have to ask their attorney.

I pointed out they did not have one, except for real estate.

LaPorta said he had one who would provide free advice.

The Huntley Park District Building.

The agenda for Thursday’s meeting of the Grafton Township Board sent out by Township Supervisor Linda Moore indicates that there will be a closed session to discuss “the setting of a price for the sale or lease of property owned” by the township.

The Grafton Township property for sale is on east side of Haligus Road in Lake in the Hills.

The agenda sent out by Township Clerk Harriet Ford indicates there will be an Executive (secret) session, “if required,” and “discussion and potential action of items discussed at [the] Executive Session” Thursday night.

The only piece of property for sale is the one on Haligus Road, which was bought by the previous Township Board.

It is across the street and slightly to the north from Marlowe Middle School and about a mile to the north of the Haligus and Algonquin Road Centegra Health Bridge and medical office complex, where Centegra seeks to build a new hospital.

The Township meeting starts at 7:30 and will be held at the Huntley Park District Building.

The Village of Lake in the Hills was offered the opportunity to re-purchase the land that it sold to Grafton Township.

Members of the Board of Trustees were not interested.

The Friday before Labor Day our 80-foot hickory tree blew down in a hard wind. It was fungus-infected, probably weaken when lightning took down the close-by oak.

The week before Thanksgiving, the Village of Lakewood arrived with a twenty-foot replacement.

The Public Works guys were ready to dig the hole for the new tree.

Not a hickory, because their tap roots for a tree that size are too deep to transplant, but an oak.

New grass has been sown where the hickory had been.

A red oak, the crew leader said.

Lakewood is a “Tree City.”

Some municipalities just put up the signs, I imagine.

Transplanting this oak was “walking the walk.”

Three oaks were saved from Commonwealth Edison tree trimming crews on Haligus Road in Lakewood.

It and two others were found under a Commonwealth Edison power line on Haligus Road.

These look like locations where the three oaks were removed.

One was planted at my neighbors before the crew came to our house.

My neighbor's little oak was transplanted first.

The hole was dug. Time to drop the burlap balled and wired roots of the tree into the hole.

After removing one of the lateral hickory roots that was too deep for the stump removing machine, the balled tree roots were ready to drop in the hole.

The next step was straightening the little oak.

The MDC disposal man was almost finished picking up the dozens of leaf bags as the leafless little tree was being planted.

Once the tree trunk was straighted, the hole was filled in and the root ball watered for twenty minutes.

The job was almost finished.

And, next year, there will be more leaves.

The Huntley-centric Grafton Township Board reached out to the northeast corner of the township to select a Lakewood woman as township clerk.

Grafton Township Supervisor Linda Moore swears in newly-appointed Grafton Township Clerk Harriet Ford.

On a 5-0 vote, the board voted for Harriet Ford.

Grafton Township Clerk applicants Joan Citro, Harriet Ford and Kristy Borchart raise hands when asked by a board member to identify themselves.

Ford edged out Kristy Borchart and Joan Citro, both of Huntley. Citro was disqualified because she had not voted in a Republican primary election.

The appointee had to be a Republican because Dina Frigo had been elected running as a Republican.

Ford was sworn in immediately after the meeting adjourned by Township Supervisor Linda Moore.

After being appointed Township Clerk, Harriet Ford thanked the trustees and stopped briefly to confer with Rob LaPorta.

Ford has served six years on the Glendale Heights-Bloomingdale Grade School Board, was Bloomingdale Village Clerk for eight years, is President of the NISRA Foundation and is on the Grafton Township Food Pantry Foundation Board.

She used to handle public relations for Del Webb and previously did similar work for Grafton Township.

In other business the trustees voted 4-0 after a secret meeting with their attorney (with Linda Moore abstaining)

“to direct the attorney to act as directed in closed session relating to the Moore vs. Grafton Township litigation,”

which turned out to be Linda Moore’s separation of powers suit against the four trustees.

Township Assessor Bill Ottley gained approval to purchase a new computer software program from Elgin’s Cirone Computer Consulting, which also serves McHenry, Nunda, Dorr, Marengo, Richmond and Coral Townships.

The cost was $58,800 spread over two years with a 15% a year maintenance fee (just under $9,000, as Trustee Betty Zirk pointed out) starting in the second year.

In other things computer, Township Administrator Pam Fender recommended the hiring of Leading IT Solutions, which she said was a member of “our Chamber of Commerce,” as well as Woodstock’s.

The board agreed, with Trustee Rob LaPorta saying, “This should be the only authorized person to work on township computers.”

Gerry McMahon

“Except for my office at home,” Supervisor Moore interjected.

“If you incur a bill, don’t expect us to pay it without prior approval,” Trustee Gerry McMahon said.

To obtain read only access to township financial records, Fender reported would cost $2,446 for the hardware and $1,200 for installation. She said that if the township signed an annual contract with Leading IT Solutions for $3,656, the $1,200 would be included.

The firm charges $75 per hour.

Discussion of using the township bus to bring seniors and the disabled to the April 13th Annual Town Meeting was a bit contentious with Township Attorney Keri-Lyn Krafthefer suggesting applications that would indicate the time a request for a ride was made.

Reading the agenda item, which talked of serving “regular” riders, Moore asked, “How can we discriminate against irregular riders?”

Various suggestions were made.

“One thing we shouldn’t be doing is picking this to death,” McMahon said.

Grafton Township bus loads up after the 2009 Annual Town Meeting.

Attorney Krafthefer observed,

“We don’t want to end up with any political discrimination suit?”

“If it’s impossible to create an audit trail, maybe we shouldn’t do it,” Trustee Rob LaPorta said.

Trustee Barb Murphy pointed out that the bus was used two years ago.

“But not last year,” LaPorta said.

Moore suggested perhaps Senior Service Associates and Faith in Action might provide rides for people who wanted them.

After a bit more discussion, LaPort said,

“This appears to be creating more trouble than it’s worth,”

and the meeting moved on.

Township Attorney Keri-Lyn Krafthefer with Township Administrator to her left.

The reason I went to the meeting was that preparing the agenda for the Annual Town Meeting was on the agenda.

But, it was a non-started.

The township attorney said she wasn’t prepared because no one had asked her to do anything on the agenda.

That strikes me as a bit odd, considering the effort that was made to make certain the order entered concerning the taxpayer suit filed by Dan Ziller, Jr., et al, would not preclude moving ahead on things like buying the Haligus Road property and having the Township Road District buy the Grafton Township Hall.

Indeed, McMahon expressed the desire to word questions put to the Township Electors in a format in which they could ratify past actions found illegal by Judge Michael Caldwell and the 2nd Appellate Court.

Talking about the Haligus Road property, which Krafthefer said she had just received new information on from Lake in the Hills the afternoon of the meeting, McMahon said, “Ratify and sell it on the open market.”

“I didn’t have any information about Haligus Road until this afternoon,” she said.

Krafthefer did not reveal what new information she had learned, despite being repeatedly asked by Moore, but it was Lake in the Hills Attorney Richard Flood.

Krafthefer did, however, allowed as how she “could provide an educational statement.”

“We need to legally fix things,” she added.

“Couldn’t we ask to have acceptance, Yes or No?” McMahon asked.

“Those are the two choices,” the attorney replied.

“We don’t need to think that everything has to be undone,

” McMahon continued. “Get a second set of electors to approve it.

“That’s what I want.”

The end of January Northwest Herald Editor Dan McCaleb got Lakewood Village President Erin Smith to say that “in the future” Lakewood might be willing to discuss returning its fire protection to the Crystal Lake Fire Department. (The link provided is is not a link to the story; it’s a link to a page that will allow you buy the story for $2.95, if you so desire.)

For as long as I can remember (back to 1958 in McHenry County), Lakewood’s fire protection was provided by Crystal Lake.

But a couple of years ago Crystal Lake proposed a pricing structure that would have eventually eaten up Lakewood’s entire budget,.

While fire protection is important, Lakewood residents also value snow removal, road repair and police protection. Some even want a bicycle path and algae removal.

So the village staff and board did some hard-nosed cost-benefit analysis and concluded that it could start its own fire department, run by a private firm, American Emergency Service Corporation, and save money after the second year.

Lakewood now has begun the fourth year of a five-year contract for privatized service. Twenty-two months are left.

The Lakewood Village Board before it went into Executive Session Tuesday night. From left to right, you see Village Trustees Carl Davis, John Pfeuffer and Gene Furey,Village Clerk Janice Hansen and Village President Erin Smith.

But “the future” mentioned in McCaleb’s column is now.

The rest of the Lakewood Village Board before closing doors on the public to discuss litigation and personnel. From left to right are Village Manager Catherine Peterson, Village Attorney Richard Flood and Village Trustees Kenneth Santowsk, Dorothy Pfeuffer and John Burton.

At the Tuesday before last’s closed session to discuss litigation, the Lakewood Village Board talked about settling the suit with Crystal Lake over disputed non-payment for fire protection service and returning to the fire protection umbrella of Crystal Lake.

Crystal Lake has lost about $750,000 in revenue each year because of Lakewood’s pull-out.

On a 6-1 vote (Jeff Thorsen voting “No”), it has raised its city sales tax rate by 75% at Mayor Aaron Shepley’s behest.

Crystal Lake First Station nearest to Lakewood

Empty stores are everywhere.

Clearly Crystal Lake would love to have Lakewood return to its fire protection foal.

But, unlike the headline on McCaleb’s column, it’s more about the money than the good government goal of shared services.

Bryn Mawr subdivision sign on Route 176 near Route 47

(Logic would say that the Lakewood fire station should serve the subdivision in Crystal Lake that is closer to Route 47 than Route 14.

(Likewise, the Crystal Lake Fire station on Bard Road should be protecting Country Club Additions, Turnberry and other nearby Lakewood subdivisions.

(But, logic doesn’t always work in local governmental relations.)

Lakewood Fire Department on Haligus Road near Route 176

Before Crystal Lake wanted to charge Lakewood residents the same tax rate that Crystal Lake residents and businesses paid. Just as Lakewood residents would pay for Crystal Lake library services.

The city would not recognize that the mix of buildings in Lakewood is markedly different from that in Crystal Lake.

Lakewood does not have much business property. No high rise hotels.

Lakewood does not need all of the equipment that Crystal Lake needs to protect its large corporate structures.

In the past, Crystal Lake officials have failed to understand the concepts of marginal costs and marginal revenue.

The marginal cost of providing fire protection to Lakewood is low.

Any extra revenue is almost pure gravy.

Now, it may not seem fair to some city council folks that homeowners in Lakewood would pay less than those in Crystal Lake.

I can tell you it doesn’t seem fair to me that Crystal Lake gets to keep all my sales tax.

So, where one lives has advantages and disadvantages.

But getting “less” than one wants for something may be worth thinking about.

And maybe Crystal Lake is having such thoughts now that it thinks it has a stretched thin budget.

Main Crystal Lake Fire Station

Right not the city budget is getting less than “less,” that is, nothing.

That resulted from a misconception of its bargaining position, of thinking Crystal Lake thought it had all the fire protection marbles in town.

Obviously, Lakewood came up with a satisfactory solution.

But, now the two sides are back at the bargaining table again.

And, it appears serious discussions are taking place.

I can’t imagine more isn’t on the table that fire protection. After all, what Lakewood has in place seems to be working well.

There has to be a third leg to the negotiations. Maybe even a fourth leg.

From left to right, Council members Ellen Brady Mueller, Ralph Dawson, Cathy Ferguson, Attorney John Cowlin, City Manager Gary Mayerhofer, Mayor Aaron Shepley, City Clerk Nick Kachiroubas, and Council members Brett Hopkins, Carolyn Schofield and Jeff Thorsen.

I would observe that if Crystal Lake wants to settle the suit, maybe Crystal Lake is not so sure it can win its collection case against Lakewood.

Likewise, if Lakewood wants to settle the suit, maybe Lakewood is not so sure it can emerge victorious.

It’s been my experience when one side of a lawsuit wants to settle, they are nervous about the outcome of their case.

What will the resolution be?

It certainly will be discussed in public if the contract with American Emergency Service Corporation (Lakewood’s fire protection firm) is to be amended.  I am not aware that contract changes can be kept out of an open meeting.

And, any lawsuit settlement will have to be at least voted upon in public, while it may be discussed in private by both ruling bodies.

A fight has been between Republicans who want to borrow about $5 million to build and finance a new Grafton Township Hall on Haligus Road in Lake in the Hills and those who don’t.

On the one side was insurgent Grafton Township Supervisor candidate Linda Moore versus incumbent Township Supervisor John Rossi.

Moore won the Republican primary by 30 votes, using the argument that taxpayers should be allowed to vote on whether to put themselves in debt for a new township building.

In July, after pretty much all the fireworks were over, the Northwest Herald editorialized against a new town hall. (Lots of links to what happened during the fight–the township meeting with its tie vote, the court case, etc.–in the link in the preceding sentence.)

February 26th citizens including Dan Ziller, Jr., filed a petition with Grafton Township Clerk Dina Frigo requesting a referendum on the township hall issue.

The question was

“Shall Grafton Township borrow in excess of Three Millions ($3,000,000.00) dollars to build a township hall and issue bonds for the building?”

The cost is probably $3.5 million to construct the building, plus another $1.5 million or so for financing, but you and voters will get the idea.

Finally, Frigo has filed the petitions with McHenry County Clerk Kathie Schultz.

The referendum will be on the ballot November 2, 2010.

Assuming that township building proponents (all the township board, except Moore) are willing to wait for the results of the citizen vote and abide by those results, healing can begin within the Republican Party and citizenry in Grafton Township.

Those who passed the petition can be seen above. From left to right, they are Frank Kearns, Dan Ziller, Jr., Tom Halat, Tammy Lueth and Rick Lueth

= = = = =
The top photo is of Grafton Township Supervisor candidate Linda Moore at the Huntley Home and Business Expo.

The bottom photo shows the Grafton Township Trustees voting at the annual township meeting to approve the construction of a new township hall.

Today’s “Message of the Day” tells of the today’s Lakewood Fire Department’s Open House. It’s from 10-2 PM.

The fire house is located on Haligus Road. Go west on the street that runs in front of West Grade School and turn left on Haligus.

If you don’t have time to drive over, take a look at this story, entitled,

Today’s “Message of the Day” tells of the today’s Lakewood Fire Department’s Open House. It’s from 10-2 PM.

The fire house is located on Haligus Road. Go west on the street that runs in front of West Grade School and turn left on Haligus.

If you don’t have time to drive over, take a look at this story, entitled,