McHenry County Blog

Into my inbox popped the following email undated message originating with Mayor Sue Low:

“Dear friends and family,

Sue Low

“Yesterday it was brought to our attention by several people that Alderman Andy Glab, out campaigning for my opponent, has been attempting to discredit me in several ways, both with incorrect information, but more important, by attempting to hurt my family and discredit me. So after a very stressful and sleepless night, we decided to address these issues with you so that you hear the correct information from us.

“The first issue we would like to address is in regard to the fact that we had to file personal bankruptcy last year. This is true. As you know, Tom is an Insurance Agent who insures primarily commercial contractors. Due to the poor economy, many of his customers have seen a drastic decrease in their businesses, consequently a drastic decrease in insurance premiums. We tried to save Tom’s business by using our personal credit, we probably tried too long, and eventually it became apparent that we would not be able to do so. We had over-extended our credit trying to make payroll, and pay the overhead of running a business. After consulting with our attorney and our accountant we were advised that the correct avenue for us to pursue was to file personal bankruptcy and sell the business. Tom’s business partner bought him out, and retained him as a commercial account executive, and for the past year we have worked very hard to re-establish our credit and our good name. This was an extremely painful time for us as it wasn’t something we ever thought we would have to do in our lifetime. I hope that many of you can understand the dilemma we faced during this difficult economic time. We are honest, hard-working people. Under my leadership the city has always maintained a balanced budget and is financially sound, so I don’t understand what one thing has to do with the other, but according to Alderman Glab ‘they are going to come out with something near the election that will get rid of me.’ This has been a very difficult year for us, and I would welcome the opportunity to answer any of your questions about this issue. If you can no longer support me because of this I will understand.

“The second issue has to do with the Riverwalk. Alderman Glab has stated that the day after I get elected I ‘intend to turn River Place into section 8 housing and there will be black people fishing from the pier’. His disgusting words, not mine. He also said that I have wasted 9 million dollars on downtown redevelopment. Whether you’re a fan of the Riverwalk or not, the fact is that the Fox River is one of the busiest waterways in the state of Illinois, and making our downtown accessible by water is one of our greatest opportunities for economic development. Our goal is to bring more residential opportunities close to town, not to turn it into section 8 housing. Again, I would welcome the opportunity to discuss this with you.

“This kind of hurtful, slanderous, negative campaigning doesn’t belong in McHenry. If Alderman Glab and the candidate he represents think that this is how to win an election, I think they’re wrong. I will run on my own 10 year record of serving as your Mayor. I will not stoop to these tactics, but I felt the need to explain our situation to you personally because I feel that Alderman Glab has questioned our integrity. Tom and I have spent our entire adult lives volunteering in our community and we intend to continue doing so.

“I love the City of McHenry. I seek to continue holding this office because I care about the future of our community. I work hard everyday and I will continue to do that.

“We hope that you know us well enough to know that we would never deliberately attempt to cheat anyone. We are victims of a tough economy and we hope you understand. Please don’t hesistate to contact us if you have any questions. If you would like your name removed from the ad of support that I am going to be placing in the Herald please let me know and I will remove it. We will completely understand.”

Sue and Tom

I contacted Alderman Andy Glab for his take and here’s what he told me:

Andy Glab

“There’s nobody other than the candidates for Mayor out there working harder than I am.

“Needless to say, I’m hurting her campaign, so the only thing she can do is try to discredit me.

“With sixteen years as an Alderman, I’ll put my record up against hers any day.”

He said he had worked several subdivisions and continued, saying,

“It’s amazing how many people say, ‘It’s time for a change.’

“After Thursday’s debate, lots of the Mayor’s signs started popping up in the right-of-ways.

Steve Cuda

“It looks like kind of desperation tactics to me.”She has also started to put ‘current’ stickers on her her signs. I guess people in McHenry don’t know who the Mayor is.

“Two weekends ago, I had stopped in a cul-de-sac just to flip through my papers and two hours later I had two squads show up at my house questioning what I was doing there.

“Today, Steve Cuda [Sue Low's challenger] was stopped by an officer while going door-to-door questioning what he was doing stopping at houses that had no solicitation [signs].”

Part of the audience at the McHenry mayoral candidates’ forum.

Thursday night Mayor Sue Low and former Mayor Steve Cuda spoke to a full house at the League of Women Voters/AAUW forum at the Shah Center in McHenry.

There was standing room only at the candidates’ debate in McHenry.  The empty seat was mine.

The turnout was astounding, compared to the anemic ones for McHenry County College Board, Crystal Lake City Council and Marengo Aldrermanic forums.

Mayor Sue Low had not hair. It took me a while to figure out that she had been sheared for the St. Baldrick’s fund raiser.

Makes me think of my father’s advice about selecting a room. He ran a lot of meetings in his trade association career.

His advice: “Better to pick a room too small than too large” and “better to bring chairs in than to have empty ones.”

From what the two candidates said, it is hard to figure out what brought out the crowd.

There was dissatisfaction expressed by Cuda about Walmart’s having jumped across the tollway right-of-way to Johnsburg.

Low mentioned that Cuda had been Mayor when the boundary agreement had been drawn up.

Cuda countered with a copy of the agreement and the statement that the land where Walmart built was already annexed into Johnsburg when the line was drawn between McHenry and Johnsburg.

Also on Walmart, Cuda said he would have said, “Whatever Johnsburg offers you, we’ll go you one better. We never should have let Walmart leave McHenry.”

“We offered to match any offer Johnsburg made,” Low rejoined. “They don’t want to remodel. They want to build new.”

Cuda also criticized Low on a planned new Metra train station having been moved from McHenry to Johnsburg.

It came up on a question of whether McHenry should have the same engineering firm as Johnsburg.

Former Mayor Steve Cuda explained that he would like to see a McHenry where he children would want to return, as he did after college.

“I think Johnsburg has certainly gotten the better of McHenry.

“I don’t know how the train station got moved to Johnsburg.

“[If I get elected, there will be a] good discussion with the city engineer. If loyalties don’t lie with the City of McHenry, we’ll have a serious discussion,” Cuda said.

That followed Low’s response to the question of whether it was good to share an engineering firm.

She pointed out that the two municipalities dealt with different engineers.

“I believe it’s a good think to collaborate with your neighbors.”

Cuda also criticized the Metra plan to run trains through Petersen Park. He even has a photo of the tracks in his campaign brochure, along with a photo of the Petersen Park sign.

The city’s public works garage came in for criticism from Cuda.

He called it a “boondoggle and a money pit.”

Toward the end of his two terms in the 1990′s, Cuda favored building a $6 million garage at the South Waste Water Plant. Instead, he pointed out, the city bought a 50-year old building that, with renovations, will cost $6 million.

Low countered that Cuda’s site was “so far out of the center of town.”

She outlined the expenditures for the current garage:

• $3.2 million purchase price with ten acres
• $1.2 million to make it “useful”
• $1.2 million for a new roof

That totaled $5.6 million for 9,800 square feet, large enough to park all vehicles inside and located “right in the center of town.”  She later called it “a state of the art building.”

In response to a question about whether campaigning was negative, Cuda replied, “I really don’t think so.”

He pointed to four campaign pieces, one of which was available on a table outside the room.

“I did refer to the Public Works Garage as a boondoggle,” he admitted.

“I do think some things have been said in a hurtful manner,” Low said.  “You have no control over [what your campaign supporters say] as I can’t control [mine].”

The corporation that owns the four story Riverwalk building contributed $1,000 to Sue Low’s campaign, according to a report her campaign committee filed with the State Board of Elections Thursday.

Asked how much their campaigns would cost, Cada got a laugh by saying, “As much as my wife will let me.”

He revealed he had spend $7,500 and thought he would spend $10,000–about what he spent 16 years ago.

No campaign receipts have been revealed on the State Board of Elections web site for Cuda, although the Committee to Re-Elect Steve Cuda Mayor was created on Feb. 14th.  Committees have to be formed when they raise or spend $3,000, but campaign contributions of under $1,000 don’t have to be revealed until after the election.

Low had $9,230 available at the end of last year and has reported one contribution of over $1,000 since then from 1110 Green, LLC, based in Chicago.

As I left I was still uncertain why so many people turned out, while attendance at other candidates’ forums has been so low.

One person suggested that it may just be that this is the first contested mayoral race since Sue Low’s husband Tom and a third candidate faced off 16 years ago.  That campaign, Cuda won.

McHenry County College’s Shah Center in McHenry is the spot to heard mayoral candidates Sue Low (incumbent) and Steve Cuda (former mayor) face off.

The time is seven o’clock.

This is another candidates’ night sponsored by the McHenry County League of Women Voters and the American Association of University Women.

The Woodstock Institute, based in Chicago, has analyzed mortgage foreclosures and foreclosure auctions in the metropolitan area and released the results.

The number of real estate auctions in McHenry County doubled.  Most–90%–were purchased by the lender.

Foreclosure auctions in Chicagoland.. “REO” means “Real Estate Owned” and indicates when the lender buys the property.

The Woodstock Institute’s Spencer Cowan explains the increase this way:

“We saw a precipitous drop in foreclosure auctions while the robosigning scandal was being investigated. Now that the case has been settled with new standards for foreclosure processes in place, servicers are working through the backlog. This will almost certainly lead to an influx of vacant properties on the market.”

Foreclosures in McHenry County increase by 8% to 3,024.

Foreclosure filings also increased, but nowhere close to as dramatically.

An eight percent hike was found.

There were breakouts for foreclosures in McHenry County’s largest towns

• Algonquin
• Crystal Lake
• Huntley
• Lake in the Hills
• McHenry
• Woodstock

You can see them below:

Foreclosure activity in Crystal Lake and Lake in the Hills seems to have stabilized.  The increases there are 2.4% and 5%, respectively.

The rates for the other big towns are as high as 45%.  Put in descending order of percentage increase the rates for the municipalities for which date are available follow:

• Woodstock – 45.1%
• Huntley – 43.9%
• McHenry – 31.5%
• Algonquin – 26.4%
• Lake in the Hills- 5%
• Crystal Lake – 2.4%

Just got this email from a Friend of McHenry County Blog. I asked if I could share it and received permission.

“I’ve followed your blog from time to time, and appreciate your bringing things to light. Somehow you always seem to have an inside track on things and present them publicly… and I am very thankful for that.

“Today I heard for the first time about a move being made to put a Thornton’s Gas Station at the NE corner of Pearl St & 31, across from St Mary’s. Apparently there had been a previous vote by the city council asking for a variance allowing this to happen.

An aerial view of the neighborhood where the McHenry City Council is considering putting a Thornton’s Gas Station.

“Although i was not at this meeting, I was told there had been a traffic study on some weekdays in November, studying traffic and that was presented.

“There was also some other data including an increase in city revenue of $300-350k. My two cents here, but wouldn’t that mostly come at the expense of other local gas stations?

“But I digress… when I first heard about this, I went and searched your blog, but did not find anything on it. I did find an article in the NW Herald.

“My position in asking you about this is a purely personal one.

“I actually live behind St Marys, on Grand Ave.

“It’s usually a nightmare to try and turn on 31 as things are, let alone impossible on the weekends.

“Of all the possible places for a gas station in McHenry, this seems the absolute worse.

“There are what, 5 other gas stations within 1 mile of that spot?

“And an increase in traffic that a 24 hour 12 pump station? ugh.

“Anyhow, if you’ve looked into this already, can you please provide a link to your findings? If not, can you please?

“Also, there will be a ‘Neighborhood Meeting’ at St. Mary’s on Wednesday, 6 Feb at 7:30pm. Any help or recommendations would be greatly appreciated.”

For the first time since the late 1990′s, if memory serves me correctly, McHenry voters will have a contest for Mayor.

Incumbent Sue Low is being challenged by former Mayor Steve Cuda.

Besides the Mayor, the following offices are up for grabs:

• City Clerk
• Ward 1 Alderman
• Ward 3 Alderman
• Ward 5 Alderman

McHenry Aldermen listen to a pitch from the man who wanted to buy the condo building next to the creek.

As of December 19th AM, the following persons have filed election petitions:

• Susan E. Low and Steven J. Cuda, Mayor
• Victor Santi, Ward 1 Alderman
• Jeffrey A. Schaefer, Ward 3 Alderman

= = = = =
A candidates’ night for Sue Low and Steve Cuda will be held at McHenry County College’s Shah Center on Thursday, March 21st, at 7 PM.

The Vulcan Lake TIF District will suck millions out of the property tax bills of homeowners and businessmen throughout McHenry County over the next twenty or so years. Until other tax districts reach their statutory maximum every tax district that includes part of the Three Oaks Recreation Area will be able to raise their tax rates to make up for the revenue lost in the Route 14 TIF District.

Included on the Tax Rate Calculation page of the McHenry County Clerk’s Office are totals for taxes levied on property within TIF Districts.

Tax Increment Financing Districts are mechanisms that allow municipalities to pry money out everyone in McHenry County who have property outside of the district in question.

This past year the following was taxed so that city councils and village boards could have what amount to unaccountable petty cash funds to distribute to those with property within the TIF districts.

Here’s who taxed the rest of us for how much:

• Cary – $115,681.46
• Cary 2 – $17,531.96
• Crystal Lake Virginia St. – $84,186.88
• Crystal Lake Main St. – $48,186.88
• Crystal Lake Vulcan Lakes – $25,112.22
• Fox River Grove – $501,280.62
• Harvard 2004 – $217,092,10
• Harvard 2005 – $203,854.06
• Harvard – $104,076.14
• Marengo Northside – -0-
• McHenry – $501,261.32
• Woodstock – $648,210.88

A press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office:

McHenry Women Sentenced to 60 Months in Federal Prison for “Secret Shopper” Fraud Scheme

A McHenry woman was sentenced today in Federal Court by U.S. District Judge Frederick J. Kapala for mail fraud.

Gloria Denise Ford, 45, was sentenced to sixty months in prison for her role in a “secret shopper scheme,” where victims applied to work-at-home advertisements on the Internet believing they were being hired to work as a “secret shopper” or payment processor.

Ford, who pled guilty to the charge on July 6, 2012, was also order to serve three years of supervised release, following imprisonment and to pay $68,922 in restitution to the victims.

In the written plea agreement, Ford admitted that after applying for work, the victims were asked to send an email to the address contained in the letter.

The victims also received the letter at least one counterfeit negotiable instrument, such as a counterfeit money order.

The victims were instructed to deposit the counterfeit negotiable instrument into their financial institution, withdraw a certain percentage, as payment for their services, go to the nearest Western Union and wire transfer the proceeds as instructed.

The victims were then instructed to report their experience, believing they were hired as secret shoppers to evaluate local businesses, and send their reports via email to the email address contained in the letter.

The participants in the scheme received the proceeds via the wire transfers before the victims learned the money orders were counterfeit.

During the course of the scheme, Ford received about ten packages from Nigeria, the United Kingdom, and France.

Each package contained counterfeit money orders ranging from $800 to $1,000 each, that appeared to be issued by the

• United Postal Service,
• Safeway,
• Navy Federal Credit Union,
• U.S. New Mexico Federal Credit Union, and
• TruWest Credit Union.

Ford received email instructions with attachments from her participants with a “secret shopper” letter and FedEx or Postal Express mailing labels, then placed a “secret shopper” letter in a FedEx or Postal Express mailing envelope along with at least one counterfeit money order, and affixed a label to the outside of the envelope.

Ford mailed over $1,000,000 in counterfeit money orders to victims throughout the United States, receiving at least $12,000 as payment for her role in the scheme.

Gary Shapiro

The sentencing was announced today by Gary S. Shapiro, Acting United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois; Thomas P. Brady, Inspector-in-Charge of the Chicago Division of the United States Postal Inspection Service; and Gary J. Hartwig, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago Office, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Immigration & Customs Enforcement, Homeland Security Investigations.

The government was represented by Assistant U.S. Attorney Scott R. Paccagnini.

What do you do when someone steals six Romney signs from your front yard?

I had mine knocked down six times, run over the first time, I think.

Then, it was stolen this weekend,

A fellow in McHenry is the one from whose front yard a Romney sign has been stolen six times.

He got disturbed enough to wait with a camera.

As the thief was pulling the sign out of the grass, he got the photo you see below:

If anyone knows this guy and wouldn’t mind his being the subject of a police report, please real his name in the comment section.

I guess the sign thieves don’t believe the poll numbers that say Obama will soundly defeat Romney in Illinois.

McHenry Aldermen

On April 11, 2011, voters in the City of McHenry were asked if the City Treasurer should continue to be an elective position.

The question that was on the ballot in McHenry.

The vote was 1,390 in favor and 2,761 opposed.

33.49% to 66.51%.

Two-thirds against.

Pretty impressive margin.

At the last meeting of the McHenry City Council, however, a vote was taken to stop electing the position.

The person holding the post after the current term expires will be appointed and paid $1 a year.

Home Rule cities like McHenry can do anything that is not prohibited by state law.

Don’t you wonder what the 2,761 McHenry residents whose wishes were overridden by their elected city officials would think if they found out?

Several of the alderman defended their move that the voters had no idea what they were voting for, were uneducated on the subject, and they are there to make that decision for them.

Next, will the city council deciding on what size soft drinks should be sold by McDonald’s, Burger King and other fast food outlets?

McHenry is not the only Home Rule city to end the election of a city treasurer.

After Crystal Lake City Treasurer Rosemary Kurtz was elected to the Illinois House of Representatives (replacing me), the City Council made the City Treasurer appointive.

Currently, Steven Murgatroyd serves as City Treasurer.  He was appointed City Treasurer to fill the vacancy as a result of the resignation of David Welter on March 1, 2010.