McHenry County Blog

Melissa Bean

The Northwest Herald is running a story today about a meeting that 8th District Congresswoman Melissa Bean held at McHenry County College.

The public was not invited…again.

Just “local leaders.”

A dozen of them.

No ordinary taxpaying citizens.

No advance notice so the uninvited might express their feelings outside.

Terry Counley and Mark Eisenberg, the village presidents of McCullom Lake and Spring Grove, respectively, are quoted.

McHenry County Board member Marc Munaretto’s name is included in the article, even though he does not live in Bean’s district.

Holiday Hills Police Chief Larry Mason also gets a mention.

“She regularly conducts such forums,” the article reads.

Just not where the public can attend, I guess.

No Town Hall meetings on health care.

Not for Melissa Bean.

No debates with opponents for Melissa Bean.

Not since before Labor Day four years ago. (Political campaigns traditionally start on Labor Day.)

Just controlled appearances with known guest lists.

That’s the Melissa Bean Way.

Alice in Wonderland

Read this article on The First Electric Newspaper about the unsavory background of one of the McHenry County SportsPlex’ consultants.

The publication reports SportsPlex supporters introduced “Terry Gaouette, Vice President of Administration and Business Consulting Services for H&K Sports Fields, Egg Harbor, WI, as a consultant.”

Further, that he was “Chief Financial Officer of the Milwaukee Public Museum and indicted on four felony counts in 2007 for draining money from the museum’s endowment funds to cover its declining operations and hiding it.”

The museum had to be bailed out by county government to keep it from going under.

Marc Munaretto

Also of interest was McHenry County Board Finance and Audit Committee Chairman Marc Munaretto:

“I understood him to represent himself as the consultant for (McHenry County Sportsplex’s) business plan. I thought he was a paid consultant that helped develop the application.”

Munaretto told reporter Pete Gonigam it wasn’t his committee’s job to “drill down that far.”

The committee has also not “drilled down” far enough to even reveal to fellow county board members and the public who owns how much of the project.

Read the whole story.

It’s getting curiouser and curiouser.

Yesterday, McHenry County Blog showed you the letter from the Chicagoland Foreign Investment Group saying that it would raise $27 million “for construction and operation of the (McHenry County SportsPlex” sports facility complex to be constructed in McHenry County.”

That was dated December 1st, but just given to county officials on January 28th.

Today, take a look at a February 5th letter from Stern Brothers & Company.

Click to enlarge.

It says the firm will find “sophisticated investors…in tandem with a sophistical investment letter…”

Then, there are two “if’s.”

• The operating LLC raises $8 million in equity, and
• The project is located in a Targeted Employment Area and CFIG (Chicagoland Foreign Investment Group) commits $27 million in long-term take out financing.

Miyun Cho, Managing Director, signs the letter.

The December 1, 2009, letter you see below was given to McHenry County officials on January 29, 2010, according to the date stamped on it.

Click to enlarge.

The Chicagoland Foreign Investment Group, known for short as the EB-5 company, pledges to provide funding up to $27 million to McHenry County SportsPlex ”for construction and operation of the sports facility complex to be constructed in McHenry County.”

“The funding is contingent,” the letter from Taher Karneli says, “ upon the $8 million in equity to be raised by the equity group as well as several factors relating the the EB-5 Program and the requirements of various Federal laws that govern the program.”

The letter goes on to point out that the money supplied is intended to repay the financing provided by bonds issued through McHenry County.

One of the factors alluded to might be a necessity to broaden the investment mission of the EB-5 entity. This was discovered by Pete Gonigam of the First Electric Newspaper.

McHenry County Republican Party Chairman (and State Rep.) Mike Tryon formed a political action committee separate from the Central Committee.

I thought you might find the contributors and expenditures of interest. They are included in the PAC’s campaign disclosure filing this month.

The price to join the group of inside advisors seems to be $500, although more seems to be welcome.

Here are the contributors:

• Algonquin Township Highway Commisisoner Bob Miller’s PAC – $500
• State Rep. Mark Beaubien’s PAC – $500
• Alliance Contractors Inc – $1,000
• Robert Boncosky – $500
• Randy Donley – $395.20
• Blake Hobson – a $500
• Howard Green Company, Cedar Rapids, IA (John Smith’s Smith Engineering was acquired by HR Green) – $500
• Human Resource Techniques Inc, Algonquin Karla Dobbeck is its president) – $500
• Innovative Component Sales Inc, Huntley (Mike Skala is its president) – $2,500
• Kathleen Kuchta – $500
• Donald Lewis – $500
• Madsen Sugden and Gottemoller – $500
• Marc Munaretto – $500
• Gary Overbay – $500
• Tom Zanck – $500

About $3,500 of the money raised has been spent on “Roundtable Breakfast Meetings” at Crystal Lake’s 1776 restaurant and Richard Walkers Pancake House. I’ve been told candidates were “vetted” at some such meetings.

Richard Walkers Pancake House

• 8/12/2009
• 8/12/2009
• 9/15/2009
• 10/23/2009

1776

• 8/30/2009
• 9/8/2009
• 9/14/2009
• 10/12/2009
• 10/23/2009
• 12/2/2009
• 12/9/2009

In addition utilities have been paid at the campaign office and a camcorder purchased for the Young Republicans.

The fund has $11,800 in the bank.

OK. I was wrong.

I predicted last night that the McHenry County Board would approved what proponents insist on calling video poker.

But, this morning social conservatives on the board pulled off a 13-10-1 victory.

That was with the help of all three Democrats on the county board. (Counting only Republicans, the vote would have been tied 10-10.)

Lake in the Hills member Paula Yensen has personal knowledge of how devastating gambling can be to a family.

Patriots United video slot machine debate panels, ban proponents on the right, opponents on the left.

Perhaps also influencing the vote was the leadership that Democratic Party State Rep. Jack Franks has taken on the issue. He attended a Patriots United debate on the subject after returning from one of this fall’s veto sessions.

All Republicans representing McHenry County in the Illinois General Assembly except State Senator Dan Duffy, that is, State Representatives Mike Tryon and Mark Beaubien, plus State Senator Pam Althoff, voted supported video slot machines.

Voting in favor of a ban of the video gambling machines in unincorporated areas were the following, who are grouped by county board district (those up for election this year are show in bold face type):

District 1

• Yvonne Barnes

District 2

• Jim Heisler

District 3

• Ed Dvorak (retiring)
• Kathy Bergan Schmidt
• Barbara Wheeler

District 4

• Sue Draffkorn
• John Hammerand
• Sandy Salgado

District 5

• Paula Yensen
• Jim Kennedy
• Virginia Peschke

District 6

• Mary McCann
• Ersel Schuster

Voting against the ban, thus in favor of expanding gambling were the following:

District 1

• Anna May Miller
• Bob Bless
• Marc Munaretto

District 2

• Scott Breeden
• Ken Koehler
• Lyn Orphal

District 3

• Mary Donner

District 4

• Pete Merkel

District 5

• Tina Hill

District 6

• Dan Ryan

Abstaining from the vote was District 6 Republican Randy Donley.

A month ago the board voted against holding an advisory referendum on the issue. The vote was 13-11-1.

The thirteen board members who voted against allowing their constituents to vote on the issue follow:

• Yvonne Barnes (R-Cary)

• Sue Draffkorn (R-Wonder Lake)

• Paula Yensen (D-Lake in the Hills)

• Ed Dvorak (R-Crystal Lake)

• Jim Heisler (R-Crystal Lake)

• Ken Koehler (R-Crystal Lake)

• Mary McCann (R-Woodstock)

• Pete Merkel (R-McHenry)

• Virginia Peschke (R-Bull Valley)

• Sandy Salgado (R-McHenry)

• Kathy Bergan Schmidt (D-Crystal Lake)

• Barb Wheeler (R-Crystal Lake)

Voting in favor of an advisory referendum were

• Bob Bless (R-Fox River Grove)

• Scott Breeden (R-Lakewood)

• Mary Donner (R-Crystal Lake)

• John Hammerand (R-Wonder Lake)

• Tina Hill (R-Woodstock)

• Jim Kennedy (D-Lake in the Hills)

• Anna May Miller (R-Cary)

• Marc Munaretto (R-Algonquin)

• Lyn Orphal (R-Crystal Lake)

• Dan Ryan (R-Huntley)

Members of the Operating Engineers Local 150 lobbied vigorously against the gambling ban, arguing for the jobs its proceeds would finance.

The McHenry County Board meeting debate Tuesday was extraordinary in its lack of focus on the gambling issue.

Algonquin’s Marc Munaretto put it best, asking why two resolutions, one to hold an advisory referendum on the issue and the other to ban video slot machines in unincorporated areas had gotten out of the License and Liquor Committee.

I wasn’t at the committee meeting when that happened, but someone who was told me that Barb Wheeler had made a motion to recommend a resolution banning video gambling and it almost failed for lack of a second.

The majority of the committee pretty obviously wanted a vote on the referendum resolution first, although Mary McCann may have changed her mind, because she voted against holding an advisory referendum.

The committee being a collegial group, however, both resolutions were forwarded to the county board.

A vote on the referendum question was scheduled for Tuesday; the one on the outright ban at a later meeting.

This did not please Wheeler, who tried to change the agenda so the ban could be voted upon Tuesday.

Clearly Wheeler is against this extension of gambling and was satisfied that her vote would represent her constituency.

It is much less clear how her colleagues would have voted today or will vote in a month.

If any of the opponents have taken the kind of tallies I used to take on the House floor in Springfield before one of my important bills, they have not shared that with me.

With many of the members up for re-election, going to a referendum could be considered a cop-out, that is, a way to avoid making a potentially dangerous political decision before the Feb. 2nd primary election.

Others believe with Mary Donner:

“I truly believe in my heart this belongs on a referendum first.

“I want to know what the voters in McHenry County feel about this.”

More tomorrow.

Pete Gonigam of the First Electric Newspaper got Marc Munaretto to talk to him about the $66,000 commission paid him by Grafton Township when Supervisor John Rossi and the trustees sold the Grafton Hall to the Grafton Township Road District.

Prior to publishing the list of who got what out of the aborted deal, McHenry County Blog left repeated phone and email messages Munaretto asking for an explanation.  There was no reply.

Gonigam refers to the deal as “a transaction so apparently simple it would almost amount to a bookkeeping entry.”

Munaretto said that he found a $1.1 million offer, but a higher offer came through.

The township board, however, sold the property to the road district for $611,000.

As Gonigam puts it,

“How $611,000 trumped a $1.1 million offer is part of what makes trying to unravel the Grafton Township controversy something like trying to sort out a plate of spaghetti.”

And, so far this information has not been published by either of the daily Heralds.

Very interesting.

Both the lack of coverage…

and the deal.

After the McHenry County Board’s Finance Committee meeting, Chairman Marc Munaretto answered some questions. One of them concerned how the allocation of Federal Stimulus Bonds for McHenry County was $27.5 million, but that there were about to be $33 million in requests.

Since the Woodstock baseball stadium request was for $15 million, that means the other potential request would be $18 million.  Unless multiple requests are in the pipeline.

I pointed out that manufacturing plants have a higher multiplier effect than retail. Or a baseball stadium. With the latter two, there is only so much money in a community to be spent on things and on recreation.

“We’re out beating the bushes right now (for other applicants),” Munaretto commented.

He listed and defended three loan potentials:

• Manufacturing
• Construction
• Tourism

Commenting on the $33 million in potential bond requests versus the $27.5 million in authorization, Munaretto observed, “We don’t have to fulfill the request,” meaning, I took it, that the entire request for any project would not have to be approved by the county board.

In any event, the mystery may be solved about a major part of the mystery $18 million.

Read this statement from the Erin Smith, Village President of Lakewood:

September 24, 2009

“Since there have recently been reports in the local media about potential development plans in the Village of Lakewood, I thought it would be appropriate and in the best interests of the residents of our community to provide accurate information regarding this development activity,” said President Erin Smith.

“We are currently working with a developer who is interested in building a mixed use project within the Village of Lakewood’s Planning Area, near the intersection of Illinois Route 47 and Illinois Route 176.

“This Planning Area is the result of signed Boundary Agreements with all of our neighboring communities,” she explained, “and has allowed for an orderly and purposeful attitude toward our planning and discussions with developers.”

This general area is designated for commercial development within the Village of Lakewood’s Comprehensive Plan and is an area of  “regional commercial significance” within McHenry County’s proposed 2030 Land Use Plan.

She further indicated that the first phase of the proposed development was a multi-use sports complex, including both indoor and outdoor facilities, with ancillary uses as a second phase.

President Smith explained that one of the most appealing aspects of the concept is the sustainable, green development strategy that the developer has outlined.

“We are both committed to the ideals of sustainable development,” said President Smith, “and believe that this concept provides the opportunity to create a strategic environmental plan that will incorporate best management practices and new technologies in all phases of the project and will solidify McHenry County’s reputation as a leader in environmental issues.”

President Smith also noted that this development has strong potential in terms of job creation and overall economic impact to McHenry County.

She finished by saying,

“All of our discussions until this time have been conceptual, and the more detailed analysis is just underway. Any further specifics regarding the project are purely speculative at this time.”

“We expect to have more details available regarding the project within the next few weeks and eagerly anticipate sharing them with the community.”

“The sports complex is Lakewood is targeted for youth.

“It is not targeting a minor league baseball team.

“It should be a nice complement to the proposed Woodstock stadium.”

New ballgame in town?

IL 47 – Why in Lakewood?

I filed a Freedom of Information request with Grafton Township for the checks paid so far for the new township hall. That doesn’t include interest to Harris Bank on the debt certificates.

That’s the $3.5 million ($5 million+, if interest is included) financial transaction on which the Grafton Township Board voted 5-0 to settle up with the Harris Bank last night.

I received the list of expenditures before I went on vacation and will share them with you in descending order.

• Lake in the Hills – $99,429
• MJ Munaretto and Co – $66,000
• Lamp Inc – $57,930.61
• Matuszewich, Kelly LLP – $19,240
• Chapman and Cutler – $15,000
• Heritage Title – $3,386
• O’Brien Law Office – $2,200
• Thomson Surveying Ltd. – $2,000
• Ancel, Glink, Diamond – $1,150

McHenry County Board member Marc Munaretto lists MJ Munaretto and Company’s number as his office number in the McHenry County Year Book. Several weeks ago I emailed him asking,

“I’ve just gotten the Grafton Township Hall expenditures and am curious what services were supplied for (I meant “by”) M.J. Munaretto & Co., Inc. to get $66,000.”

I have received no answer from that email or the telephone call messages I left several weeks ago.

I sent another email late last night and left a message at his office this morning. If I get a reply, I shall share it with you.

The Illinois Secretary of State’s Office reports the company president’s name and address as