McHenry County Blog

The McHenry County Republican Central Committee has moved.

Right into my father’s and my old office space in the tip of the “V” at the Crystal Lake Plaza.

In the early 1970′s, Dad has his Barley and Malt Institute office there before he moved it across from the train station at the corner of Woodstock and Brink Streets.

That’s where he and his allies brought forth the slate of 8 “Responsible Republicans” to challenge the candidates put up by the local GOP Establishment in District 1 after a Federal court decision required that county board districts be re-apportioned on a one-man, one-vote basis.

No longer would every township supervisor be automatically on the county board, with larger townships having extra representation, but not in proportion to population.

The days of the Alden, Burton, Coral, Dunham, Hartland, Seneca and other small townships automatically having representation on the county board were over.

The Algonquin-Grafton Township slate of “(John) Bick to (Brad) Burns” slate lost, with Dad coming in 9th. He got more votes than any candidate in Districts 2 or 3, however, and was elected two years later.

After that special 1972 primary election was over in late January, No. 8 in the Plaza was headquarters for my first campaign for state representative.

Perhaps noteworthy was that this office was the headquarters for the kNOw RTA campaign in the spring of 1974. Dad’s hobby was printing and he had two offset machines in the back.

Working as much as 24-hours a day, people like my father and Forrest Hare ran presses to print the anti-RTA pamphlets that were distributed all of the six-county area.

During that campaign, I picked up the phone once and heard my father’s name. I apologized for interrupting the conversation and went into his office to do so in person.

To my surprise he was not and had not been on the phone.

I concluded that someone had tapped the phone line.

That led to our realizing how important that little back room was to someone other than ourselves.

There was a lot of money at stake in this referendum.

The Crystal Lake Police Department was kind enough to send a car past the back door once an hour.

The paper ballot referendum officially to bail out the Chicago Transit Authority passed by less that 13,000 votes. That night about nine I heard the first Mayor Daley being asked about his side of the referendum not winning.

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” he replied. “We have stopped casting the ballots.”

Now, Mayor Daley was known for his malopropisms, but, in this case, I think Daley was telling what was happening in Chicago precincts as “No” votes were being turned into spoiled ballots by having judges put X’s into the “Yes” boxes so two votes were cast.

And, if you think I am kidding, let me tell you about one precinct that State Representative and Schaumburg Township Republican Chairman Don Totten’s people discovered while color coding the results of every precinct in Chicago.

There was one precinct that went 100% for the Regional Transportation Authority referendum.

There were about 80 “Yes” votes, no “No” votes and 60 spoiled ballots.

The ward was going about 60% for the referendum.

No recount was allowed by the newly-created Illinois State Board of Elections—not exactly a profile in courage, but, considering the Establishment in both the Republican and Democratic Parties favored creation of the RTA, not much of a surprise.

So, the new location of the McHenry County Republican Party is one from which large projects can be run.

Instead of having a friendly hairdresser between the office and H.C. Stamp and Coin Company (probably the oldest tenant in the Plaza) the GOP will have the friendly owner of Moseley Plumbing. I served with his daughter Vickie Moseley in the Illinois General Assembly in the 1990′s until Raymond (“Think Poe”) Poe beat her.

Hours at the new GOP office will initially be Tuesday and Thursday, 11AM – 5PM, and Saturday from 10-2.

= = = = =
The kNOw RTA pamphlet was used by opponents of the 1974 referendum to create the Regional Transportation Authority. If there were ever a grass roots campaign, this was it. Opposition snowballed as election day approached. Most active opponents were freshmen state representatives elected after the 1970 re-apportionment.

The “kNOw” combination was resurrected by Chicago Sun-Times graphic artist and long-time reporter Tom Frisbie for the Iraq election.

The lapel button was given me by former State Rep. Gene Hoffman. He found as he was cleaning out his stuff after he retired. Hoffman is the one who put House Republican Leader Lee Daniels in office.

The McHenry County Republican Central Committee has moved.

Right into my father’s and my old office space in the tip of the “V” at the Crystal Lake Plaza.

In the early 1970′s, Dad has his Barley and Malt Institute office there before he moved it across from the train station at the corner of Woodstock and Brink Streets.

That’s where he and his allies brought forth the slate of 8 “Responsible Republicans” to challenge the candidates put up by the local GOP Establishment in District 1 after a Federal court decision required that county board districts be re-apportioned on a one-man, one-vote basis.

No longer would every township supervisor be automatically on the county board, with larger townships having extra representation, but not in proportion to population.

The days of the Alden, Burton, Coral, Dunham, Hartland, Seneca and other small townships automatically having representation on the county board were over.

The Algonquin-Grafton Township slate of “(John) Bick to (Brad) Burns” slate lost, with Dad coming in 9th. He got more votes than any candidate in Districts 2 or 3, however, and was elected two years later.

After that special 1972 primary election was over in late January, No. 8 in the Plaza was headquarters for my first campaign for state representative.

Perhaps noteworthy was that this office was the headquarters for the kNOw RTA campaign in the spring of 1974. Dad’s hobby was printing and he had two offset machines in the back.

Working as much as 24-hours a day, people like my father and Forrest Hare ran presses to print the anti-RTA pamphlets that were distributed all of the six-county area.

During that campaign, I picked up the phone once and heard my father’s name. I apologized for interrupting the conversation and went into his office to do so in person.

To my surprise he was not and had not been on the phone.

I concluded that someone had tapped the phone line.

That led to our realizing how important that little back room was to someone other than ourselves.

There was a lot of money at stake in this referendum.

The Crystal Lake Police Department was kind enough to send a car past the back door once an hour.

The paper ballot referendum officially to bail out the Chicago Transit Authority passed by less that 13,000 votes. That night about nine I heard the first Mayor Daley being asked about his side of the referendum not winning.

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” he replied. “We have stopped casting the ballots.”

Now, Mayor Daley was known for his malopropisms, but, in this case, I think Daley was telling what was happening in Chicago precincts as “No” votes were being turned into spoiled ballots by having judges put X’s into the “Yes” boxes so two votes were cast.

And, if you think I am kidding, let me tell you about one precinct that State Representative and Schaumburg Township Republican Chairman Don Totten’s people discovered while color coding the results of every precinct in Chicago.

There was one precinct that went 100% for the Regional Transportation Authority referendum.

There were about 80 “Yes” votes, no “No” votes and 60 spoiled ballots.

The ward was going about 60% for the referendum.

No recount was allowed by the newly-created Illinois State Board of Elections—not exactly a profile in courage, but, considering the Establishment in both the Republican and Democratic Parties favored creation of the RTA, not much of a surprise.

So, the new location of the McHenry County Republican Party is one from which large projects can be run.

Instead of having a friendly hairdresser between the office and H.C. Stamp and Coin Company (probably the oldest tenant in the Plaza) the GOP will have the friendly owner of Moseley Plumbing. I served with his daughter Vickie Moseley in the Illinois General Assembly in the 1990′s until Raymond (“Think Poe”) Poe beat her.

Hours at the new GOP office will initially be Tuesday and Thursday, 11AM – 5PM, and Saturday from 10-2.

= = = = =
The kNOw RTA pamphlet was used by opponents of the 1974 referendum to create the Regional Transportation Authority. If there were ever a grass roots campaign, this was it. Opposition snowballed as election day approached. Most active opponents were freshmen state representatives elected after the 1970 re-apportionment.

The “kNOw” combination was resurrected by Chicago Sun-Times graphic artist and long-time reporter Tom Frisbie for the Iraq election.

The lapel button was given me by former State Rep. Gene Hoffman. He found as he was cleaning out his stuff after he retired. Hoffman is the one who put House Republican Leader Lee Daniels in office.

McHenry County residents taking Rout 14 or Lake-Cook Road through Barrington—which my commuting wife strongly recommends against—or Cuba Road through Lake Zurich, get ready to wait for a lot more trains.

The Chicago Tribune reported Thursday that the Canadian National Railway Company has purchased the Elgin, Joliet & Eastern Railroad Company.

It runs from Waukegan southwest through Lake County, then down the Fox River Valley through Barrington, West Chicago, Aurora to Joliet, where it continues east through Frankfort, Matteson and Chicago Heights to Gary, Indiana.

This is the track that Metra Chairman Jeff Ladd wanted to run passenger trains on .

The Canadian Northern has a splendid play for its own business.

That’s because Chicago is a national railroad bottleneck.

Quoting CN President Hunter Harrison, the Tribune reports, ”it now takes longer to go from North to South Chicago than it does to go from Winnipeg to Chicago.”

I remember South Side Democratic Party legislators tried to create a governmental entity to improve the railroad track mess down there—under the urging of Congressman Bill Lipinski, if I remember it correctly.

House Republicans went ballistic, but, since improving the system made sense to me, I voted for it. Something not on the surface must have been at stake because Lee Daniels’ assistants surely tried to get me to change my vote.

I’m sure that even with passage of that bill the problem would not be solved to Canadian National’s satisfaction.

So, it’s time for grade crossings where there are none and local residents can dream of over or under passes as they wait in long lines to get to and from work.

The article says the deal won’t close until mid-2008.

I’m pretty sure that part of this line was going to be used to run passenger trains from Crystal Lake to Gary, Indiana.

No, really.

In the mid-1970’s RTA chairman Milton Pikarsky stood near the current location of Nick’s Pizzera, which was right next to the offices of the then Crystal Lake Herald, and announced such service was in our future. I’m sure he got a front page story, but I wasn’t invited to the press conference.

The plan was to use the railroad right-of-way now occupied by the Prairie Path. The tracks ran through old East Dundee, downtown Elgin and points south.

I always had a hard time figuring out why anyone would want to go from Crystal Lake to Gary, but I guess some would take the train to Elgin and Aurora.

When the RTA didn’t try to keep the McHenry County Conservation District from buying the right-of-way, it was obvious that Pikarsky was blowing smoke.

The images can be enlarged by clicking on them. The map is from the Elgin, Joliet and Eastern Railroad web site.

McHenry County residents taking Rout 14 or Lake-Cook Road through Barrington—which my commuting wife strongly recommends against—or Cuba Road through Lake Zurich, get ready to wait for a lot more trains.

The Chicago Tribune reported Thursday that the Canadian National Railway Company has purchased the Elgin, Joliet & Eastern Railroad Company.

It runs from Waukegan southwest through Lake County, then down the Fox River Valley through Barrington, West Chicago, Aurora to Joliet, where it continues east through Frankfort, Matteson and Chicago Heights to Gary, Indiana.

This is the track that Metra Chairman Jeff Ladd wanted to run passenger trains on .

The Canadian Northern has a splendid play for its own business.

That’s because Chicago is a national railroad bottleneck.

Quoting CN President Hunter Harrison, the Tribune reports, ”it now takes longer to go from North to South Chicago than it does to go from Winnipeg to Chicago.”

I remember South Side Democratic Party legislators tried to create a governmental entity to improve the railroad track mess down there—under the urging of Congressman Bill Lipinski, if I remember it correctly.

House Republicans went ballistic, but, since improving the system made sense to me, I voted for it. Something not on the surface must have been at stake because Lee Daniels’ assistants surely tried to get me to change my vote.

I’m sure that even with passage of that bill the problem would not be solved to Canadian National’s satisfaction.

So, it’s time for grade crossings where there are none and local residents can dream of over or under passes as they wait in long lines to get to and from work.

The article says the deal won’t close until mid-2008.

I’m pretty sure that part of this line was going to be used to run passenger trains from Crystal Lake to Gary, Indiana.

No, really.

In the mid-1970’s RTA chairman Milton Pikarsky stood near the current location of Nick’s Pizzera, which was right next to the offices of the then Crystal Lake Herald, and announced such service was in our future. I’m sure he got a front page story, but I wasn’t invited to the press conference.

The plan was to use the railroad right-of-way now occupied by the Prairie Path. The tracks ran through old East Dundee, downtown Elgin and points south.

I always had a hard time figuring out why anyone would want to go from Crystal Lake to Gary, but I guess some would take the train to Elgin and Aurora.

When the RTA didn’t try to keep the McHenry County Conservation District from buying the right-of-way, it was obvious that Pikarsky was blowing smoke.

The images can be enlarged by clicking on them. The map is from the Elgin, Joliet and Eastern Railroad web site.

I absolutely could not pass up this tee shirt from the 1,500 person Ron Paul presidential rally in Chicago last Saturday.

What other presidential candidates have managed to put together a crowd like that?

Maybe Barack Obama.

If any others have, please let share who, when and where.

This tee shirt uses the same play on words that we used in 1974 during the RTA referendum campaign-a combination of the homonyms “No” and “Know.”

We had supporters of public subsidy for mass transit and opponents.

The opponents wanted to emphasize the word “NO.”

The supporters thought the more that one knew about the 1974 RTA bill, the more likely they would be to vote against the proposal.

So, we combined the words “No” and “Know.”

The result was “kNOw.”

As in “kNOw RTA.”

Or in “Honestly, I don’t kNOw.“

Congressman Ron Paul is known as “Dr. No,” because he probably votes against more bills than any other congressman. He has this peculiar notion that congress should not approve legislation that is not authorized by the United States Constitution.

(I wonder if I voted “No” more than anyone else who served in the Illinois General Assembly from 1993-1981.) [A commenter points out the obvious typo, which I shall leave as was.]

So, with that background, take a look at what the tee shirt says:

The “now” is underlined in red and the “K” is made to look like it was a last minute, hand written addition.

I absolutely could not pass up this tee shirt from the 1,500 person Ron Paul presidential rally in Chicago last Saturday.

What other presidential candidates have managed to put together a crowd like that?

Maybe Barack Obama.

If any others have, please let share who, when and where.

This tee shirt uses the same play on words that we used in 1974 during the RTA referendum campaign-a combination of the homonyms “No” and “Know.”

We had supporters of public subsidy for mass transit and opponents.

The opponents wanted to emphasize the word “NO.”

The supporters thought the more that one knew about the 1974 RTA bill, the more likely they would be to vote against the proposal.

So, we combined the words “No” and “Know.”

The result was “kNOw.”

As in “kNOw RTA.”

Or in “Honestly, I don’t kNOw.“

Congressman Ron Paul is known as “Dr. No,” because he probably votes against more bills than any other congressman. He has this peculiar notion that congress should not approve legislation that is not authorized by the United States Constitution.

(I wonder if I voted “No” more than anyone else who served in the Illinois General Assembly from 1993-1981.) [A commenter points out the obvious typo, which I shall leave as was.]

So, with that background, take a look at what the tee shirt says:

The “now” is underlined in red and the “K” is made to look like it was a last minute, hand written addition.

Any suburban legislator able to compare costs and benefits ought to be able to figure out that the Regional Transportation Authority’s proposal is cock-eyed.

Reading 200 page amendments is not on my “gee, I just can’t wait to do” list, but this graphic shows what the Chicago Tribune says the RTA says State Rep. Julie Hamos’ House Bill 572 will do.

Let me tell you what I see.

The collar counties pay 28% because of a doubling of their RTA sales tax rate.

I costed it out for McHenry County and it comes to about $200 a year for every family.

No reason to think it would be less anywhere else.

Metra will get 18%; PACE another 6%.

28% versus 24%.

Hmmm.

Not a very good deal.

But, of course, it is much worse, because I have ignored suburban Cook County’s costs in the 28% figure, but included most of its residents’ benefits in the 24%.

Yes, I know about the CTA’s running to Oak Park and Skokie.

But that shouldn’t result in much more than 2-3 suburban votes, just like it did in 1974 when the RTA was rammed down our throats.

I’m trying to remember any Republican state representative besides Will County’s House Speaker Bob Blair (defeated the next fall) who was unwise enough to vote for the RTA. The northeastern Lake County GOP state senator who sponsored the RTA bill also got defeated by a Democrat.

I don’t know how to allocate the paratransit share of 23%. It certainly does show that a different system is needed, however. RTA killed taxi service all over the suburbs. It’s probably time to hire taxis to take most people who can use them where they want to go.

This bill sticks it to the suburbs.

That much is clear.

Any suburban legislator able to compare costs and benefits ought to be able to figure out that the Regional Transportation Authority’s proposal is cock-eyed.

Reading 200 page amendments is not on my “gee, I just can’t wait to do” list, but this graphic shows what the Chicago Tribune says the RTA says State Rep. Julie Hamos’ House Bill 572 will do.

Let me tell you what I see.

The collar counties pay 28% because of a doubling of their RTA sales tax rate.

I costed it out for McHenry County and it comes to about $200 a year for every family.

No reason to think it would be less anywhere else.

Metra will get 18%; PACE another 6%.

28% versus 24%.

Hmmm.

Not a very good deal.

But, of course, it is much worse, because I have ignored suburban Cook County’s costs in the 28% figure, but included most of its residents’ benefits in the 24%.

Yes, I know about the CTA’s running to Oak Park and Skokie.

But that shouldn’t result in much more than 2-3 suburban votes, just like it did in 1974 when the RTA was rammed down our throats.

I’m trying to remember any Republican state representative besides Will County’s House Speaker Bob Blair (defeated the next fall) who was unwise enough to vote for the RTA. The northeastern Lake County GOP state senator who sponsored the RTA bill also got defeated by a Democrat.

I don’t know how to allocate the paratransit share of 23%. It certainly does show that a different system is needed, however. RTA killed taxi service all over the suburbs. It’s probably time to hire taxis to take most people who can use them where they want to go.

This bill sticks it to the suburbs.

That much is clear.