McHenry County Blog

No only did the the Illinois Department of Natural Resources not send an envelope in which to send the $45 renewal fee, but its bill did not even have a return address.

What you see is what I got:

The Illinois DNR seems to be intent on eliminating mail payment of boat license fees.

Our boat sticker expires in 2013.

Give us a call.

Or pay online.

“We don’t want to process checks” seems to be the message.

There is an irony.

Take a look at the sticker on our pontoon boat.

It expires in 2013.

That’s next year.

So what is really going on at the Department of Natural Resources?

Is this an attempt to get people who don’t owe money to pay anyway?

So many questions.

After looking at the notice again, I see that it is for a boat we have not had for three years.

We junked it.

I filed a Freedom of Information request with Illinois’ Downstate Teachers Retirement Fund.

I came up dry and got a reply through an email.

This letter with $5.75 postage did not need to be sent since the reply to McHenry County Blog's Freedom of Information request was answered by email.

But, TRS also sent me a letter by Certified Mail

I talked to them about it, telling the Freedom of Information Office that the letter was unnecessary.

I told them if I wasn’t home I would not bother to go the Post Office to sign for it.

Nevertheless, TRS sent a certified letter.

It cost $5.75.

The same day, I received a reply from the City of Crystal Lake.

It came by regular mail.

Not that Crystal Lake didn’t used to be swimming in enough money to send replies by certified mail. I got four one day in 2009 when postage was $5.32 a letter.

Most governments comply with my requests via email.

Good enough for me and less work and cost to the government.

Not the Teachers Retirement System of the State of Illinois.

It uses money it doesn’t have enough of to reply at the highest cost possible.

No, I guess hand delivery would be more expensive.

This past week, State Rep. candidate David McSweeney was promoting his candidacy in mailboxes throughout the 52nd District.  He is running against St. Rep. Kent Gaffney and Danielle Rowe.

I have to admit not getting the imagery on the address side of the big post card until I looked at it a third time.

At first I thought it was a night sky.

But, it turns it was water, dark blue water.

And the stars I thought I saw were bubbles.

I guess there was a clue in the headline, “Illinois; Homeowners are Sinking Fast.  Why are Property Taxes on the Rise.”

With that message, it’s a shame that the election is not after property tax bills are mailed, because they certainly will go up, because pretty much every McHenry County tax district has decided to “tax to the max.”

In any event, here’s the address side.

This is what is on the address side of the Dave McSweeney mailing this week.

The back of Dave McSweeney's real estate mailer says he "will work to cut bureaucracy and force local governments to consolidate and shrink their budgets." Click to enlarge.

The snow being plowed off Lake Avenue packed a real punch.

As the snow storm was starting I got a call that a mailing had arrived from State Senate candidate Karen McConnaughay.

Since my southern precinct line is the bottom boundary of the legislative district in which State Senator Pam Althoff and State Rep. candidate Barb Wheeler are running unopposed, my mailbox is empty.

No contest exists in my party of Crystal Lake, except the District 2 County Board race and the Presidential primary election (beauty contest and the real thing, the election for delegates).

No political mail.

(And, if any came Friday, my motorized postman didn’t get out to stuff it into my mailbox, which had been thrust into the snow by the heavy wet snow being thrown from Lake Avenue in Lakewood.

(Just finished lugging concrete blocks through the snow from the far end of our back yard in order to make it stand up again.)

In any event, I urged my source to bring it over before the storm began and it is because of that kindness that you see the post card below:

On the address side of Karen McConnaghay's post card is an endorsement from Congressman Peter Roskam. Roskam represents no part of the district currently, but will be be elected, pending an upset greater than Joe Walsh's beating Melissa Bean, this fall.

The back of McConnaughay's mailing stresses the theme "Dedicated to Sering Others." Click to enlarge.

Running against McConnaughay for the State Senate seat is Cliff Surges.

The theme of the mailing from State Senate candidate Karen McConnaughay is “Dedicated to serving others.”

It’s 11 1/2 by 12 inches folded vertically.

McConnaughay is sitting on playground equipment with a group of children on the front page.

“A record of positive results…a vision for our future” is below the photo, along with her name, office sought and party.

The front page of Karen McConnaughay's Dedicated to Service mailing.

The inside repeats the themes at the top and fleshes it out below under the headings

• Creating Jobs
• Fiscal Responsibility
• Reducing Taxes
• Ethics Reform and Transparency

The address side has a pitch for early voting.

The pitch for early voting is on the address side of the Karen McConnaughay mailing. Click to enlarge.

Candidate for State Senator in southern Crystal Lake and points south to the St. Charles area Karen McConnaughay has sent out her first mailer.  About the same time the first mailing from opponent Cliff Surges was put in the post office.

This is the address side of her biographical piece. Click to enlarge.

The theme of photos with explanatory notes is continued on the inside of the mailing.

Click to enlarge the photos and explanations.

Another issue Joe Walsh touched ignited media coverage.

Not living in the 8th Congressional District, I can’t tell you whether Congressman Joe Walsh sends out a lot of newsletters with postage paid by the U.S. government.

But, reading the Chicago Sun-Times this morning, I did see the article I have posted here.

Walsh criticizes the Congressional postage monitors for issuing rules saying that congressmen can wish their constitutes a Merry Christmas or Happy Hannukah.

When I heard the story on the radio last night it struck me a bit strange.

Walsh obviously saw the possibility of headlines when he learned of the move by the censures.

He sent out a letter to colleagues on Monday and got a big response.

Congressmen are not allowed to send out mass mailings closer than 90 days before an election.

Fellow Illinois Republican Aaron Shock chairs the group making the rules.

52nd District State Representative candidate Dave McSweeney attacks those who refused to support legislation that would prevent tax districts from hike taxes in years when assessed values are falling.

Here is what the mail piece looks like on its address side:

You can read the details below:

Click to enlarge.

The smiling Melissa Bean voter in Gurnee. She asked a question about saving public jobs in the Post System, where she works. She did not get an endorsement for forcing taxpayers to finance the continuation of jobs no longer needed.

With a smiling postal worker asking Congressman Joe Walsh if he will protect her job in the Gurnee video that went viral, it’s time to remind  you how politicians would win if Saturday mail delivery disappeared.

And this comes from someone who remembered the days when the Postman came twice a day to his childhood Easton, Maryland, home.

This article first ran in March of 2010:

You might expect that McHenry County Blog would look at things from a political viewpoint.

Politicians love to have third class mail delivered on the Monday before the election.  Anna May Miller must have thought she won the lottery when that happened to her county board mailing in Algonquin.

Why?

Eric Zorn's research of Chicago Tribune archives found that ending Saturday deliver was brought up previously in 1962, 1975, 1977, 1981, 1987, 1992, 2001 and 2009.

It results in their getting the message to constituents as close as to the election as possible…unless one has people standing in front of polling places.

If a campaign could take its last mailing to the post office on the Saturday before the election, Monday delivery could be expected.  That’s because for the last two or so weeks of a campaign, political mail, properly red tagged, is treated like first class mail.

The woman holding this sign hid her head behind it both times I took a photo. She was playing off the YouTube confrontation between Congressman Joe Walsh and the Schaumburg Postal worker who came to his "Joe with Joe" in early November. Her sign says, "Joe says I do not care about the loss of public sector jobs. Police...Firefighters...Teachers...Postal workers. Veterans say No to Joe." Of course, the only public workers on the woman's list who are paid by the Federal government are postal workers.

Call it a citizenship subsidy.

Or you could think of a more pejorative description, I guess.

The problem is that virtually all bulk mail specialists work from Monday through Friday.  It’s one of the perks of the job.

Now, the post office is talking about no deliveries on Saturday.

That means campaign mail posted on Friday will be delivered on Monday in most instances, instead of Saturday.

This past year the only way to make sure your message got delivered on Monday was to put an insert in the Northwest Herald.  (Any of you remember when Mark Sweetwood went ballistic when a political insert was delivered in the Cary area under his reign?  He vowed it would never be done again.  Current management seems to have reversed that revenue-deriving practice.)

If the post office ends Saturday delivery, there will be competition for the NW Herald. 

I suspect it will be more expensive than the price to insert, but mail certainly would reach more of the target audience.
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In Eric Zorn’s column above, he notes that twice a day delivery ended in 1950.  I’m old enough to remember the postman coming twice a day to our home at 212 South Aurora Street in Easton, Maryland.  I’m not old enough to remember when the seven-day delivery schedule ended in 1912.

State Rep. candidate Dave McSweeney is taking on “Big Brother” in his latest direct mail piece.

This is number six.

Appointed State Rep. Kent Gaffney has not sent out at campaign-financed mailing.  Neither has challenger Danielle Rowe.

The content is below (click to enlarge):

McSweeney pledges to follow State Senator Dan Duffy’s lead in fighting red light cameras. Duffy did not support the appointment of Gaffney to fill State Rep. Mark Beaubien’s seat.