McHenry County Blog

We are apparently back to the days when word of mouth was the way you figured out that something interesting might be going on at a city council meeting in Crystal Lake.

I went to the Crystal Lake city web site this morning to see what was on the agenda Tuesday night.

As you can see below, the agenda was unavailable.

This is so, so like McHenry County College in times past.

Wait until the last minute to put up the agenda.

But, it is really worse, because MCC posts not only the agenda, but the board packet. That way people can take a look and see if there is anything interesting.

Crystal Lake has a newly-designed web site about which the council members waxed enthusiastically.

Perhaps because they get a hard copy of the council packet, none of the council folks seem to have noticed that the public could be better served by the new web site.  The board packet could be posted, as not only MCC has proven, but so have School District 158 and 300.

In any event, after Crystal Lake Kiwanis last Wednesday noon at Colonial Cafe, I ran into Mary Ann and Jack Schaffer. Mary Ann had to go, but Jack had time to talk.

After I finished what I wanted to talk about, he wanted to talk about the Ridgefield station.

He didn’t give me the early “party line” that the station had to be on the east side of the tracks so morning commuters wouldn’t get killed so that’s why the property half-owned by McHenry County Board Chairman Ken Koehler had to be selected.  (Schaffer was appointed to the Metra Board by Koehler.  He did not vote to purchase the land.)

He told me that a map with dots of current commuters addresses in the area had been shown at Metra’s presentation to the Crystal Lake Planning and Zoning Commission. He said the same presentation would be made to the city council on Tuesday.

The map was so interesting I filed a Freedom of Information request after I got home for the slides.

Thursday morning I got a reply to my request saying they needed to take another two weeks to send the data because ot the undue burden of the request.

I rolled my eyes when I read that and called Jack. He got the slides to me the next day…except for the map showing where current Metra commuters live in Bull Valley and north of Hillside Road.

The statistics below were included, but they consisted only of percentages. No numbers.

So, I’ll be off to city council to see if the map I think might be relevant to the decision shows up there.

I just checked back on the Crystal Lake city web site. The agenda for the November 3rd city council meeting is still not posted as I post this article.

But the agenda for the November 4th Planning and Zoning Commission is available for the public to view.

Maybe the city council agenda is posted on the front door of city hall the way it used to be when the station was on Main Street and the councilin second floor chambers.

I went Freedom of Information fishing at Crystal Lake’s City Hall recently looking for any paper trail for Metra’s Ridgefield Train Station.

Let me lay out chronologically what I found:

• March 31, 2009 – a soil borings report from Geo Services, Inc., a graphic of which you see above.
• April 15, 2009 – a geotechnical investigation report from Geo Services, Inc.
• April 21, 2009 – an engineer’s drainage report from SEC Group, Inc., of McHenry (which I assume is the new name of Smith Engineering)

• April 23, 2009 – Concept Plan IIA, Preliminary Grading
• June 10, 2009 – legal description of the property
• July 1, 2009 – memo from Darren Olsen, City Water Resources Section Head, and Scott Griffin, Water Resources Engineer, to Eric Morinmoto, Assistant City Engineer, and Steve Carruthers, Civil Engineer. (All are professional engineers.)

August 5th was the date us mere mortals found out about the plan.

That’s when McHenry County College found about it as well, even though during the Metra Board discussion MCC’s lack of a station was noted in the context that it was the only community college without a train station.

The July 1st report, if I read it correctly, indicates there are drainage problems with the parcel.

“…It appears that portions of the entrance drive and southern parking lot areas do not access first flush treatment prior to discharging to the wetland treatment basins…The treatment train methodology in the Crystal Lake Watershed Design Manual should be followed…

“…The proposed infiltration method utilizes dry wells and stone infiltration trenches.  This in not in accordance with the Crystal Lake Watershed Design Manual.  The infiltration method should be revised to include an infiltration basin that maximizes water quality and does not rely on dry wells. An infiltration basin with native vegetation and an engineered soil media will meet this requirement…

“There are offsite areas that are planned to be routed through the onsight BMPs.  The onsite BMPs need to be upsized in accordance with the Crystal Lake Design Manual…”

No follow-up information has been received from Metra.

When I discovered that the Metra board had approved the purchase of a $1.5 million 17 acre piece of land on the wrong side of the tracks and/or the little early settlement of Ridgefield, I filed a Freedom of Information request with McHenry County College asking for

“any communications or records…between Metra and the College concerning the Ridgefield train stop since January 1,2009.”

Perhaps you will not be surprised at the answer:

“With regard to your request, the College asserts that it is not in possession of any document responsive to your request.”

I’m not surprised.

Are you?

As reported last week, Metra officials are going to meeting with college officials.

That’s appropriate since in the discussion at the Metra board, it was pointed out that MCC is the only community college not served by Metra service.

What is still a surprise is that Metra made no attempt to communicate with MCC between January 5, 2009, when the preliminary concept plan, seen above, was completed.

The purchase document states,

although former McHenry County College President Walt Packard told the MCC Board on the night it paid $67,000 per acre for 57 acres across the road from the railroad tracks that

“the property was perfectly sited to take advantage of a future Ridgefield Metra station maybe 20 years away.”

So many questions.

So few answers.