McHenry County Blog

Land on both sides of Swanson Road will be annexed. Swanson Road dead ends into the north leg of Route 176 and is west of Route 47. The SportsPlex will be west of Swanson Road.

Owners of a couple of hundred acres of land are asking to be annexed to the Village of Lakewood on Tuesday.

The annexation is connected with the SportsPlex, which McHenry County’s Board has allocated millions of dollars in loan authority under the Federal Stimulus Program.

The zoning meeting starts at 6 at Red Tail Golf Course’s club house.

After the public hearing, a regular board meeting will be held.

This summary of the inducements to annex was provided by Village Administrator Catherine Peterson:

• Waiver of annexation fees
• Cash payment of $5,000 per parcel
• An abatement of the municipal portion of the property tax bill for a period of five or ten years

She said that the waiver is void when the property is sold, except for the homesteads on Ballard Road.

The $5,000 per property owner payments are “to help defray legal and other expenses they might have incurred,” Peterson wrote.

“The money will be borrowed from the Impact Fee Fund and repaid with the additional sales tax revenues from the new businesses that will be brought into the community:

• Crystal Woods Golf Course
• Craig Woods Golf Course
• The Gardens of Woodstock and
• Kolze’s Garden Center

Just in case you are riding past the McHenry County Government Center and have forgotten that property taxes are due, here's a reminder sign in front of the Treasurer's new office.

When are real estate taxes due?

Today, June 7th.

Monday is when the first installment must be postmarked or have interest added.

An earlier message told of the office’s having an ATM machine…just in case you have $5,000 to $10,000 in your account and want to take it out for a cash payment

In case you don't have the cash on hand, but want to get it from your bank, the sign, at one point, said an ATM was available.

Huntley Village President Charles Sass

That’s the biggest news I picked up while taking a look at the Village of Huntley’s Committee of the Whole meeting Thursday night.

The meeting was over in 35 minutes..

The most lengthy item was a 10-year liquor store owner pleading not to allow a Walgreens to sell beer and liquor nearby at 9950 Route 47.

The 540 acres that the Village of Lakewood plans to annex. (Click to enlarge.)

The Village of Lakewood asked permission to annex 540 acres running up to Dean Street Road and Route 176, where mail boxes have a Woodstock address.

This southwest intersection of Route 176 and Route 47 will be in Lakewood once annexation is completed.

They got permission to proceed from McHenry County Circuit Court Judge Michael Caldwell.

Kolze's Corner Gardens on the southeast corner of Route 176 and Dean Street Road will be the northwest corner of Lakewood once the proposed annexation is complete.

The area includes the proposed SportsPlex, plus two sales tax generating nurseries.

McHenry County Sheriff's Squad Car was the second one I saw heading toward the Route 47 accident.

As I was heading to the McHenry County Courthouse complex for the Republican Party-sponsored Chicago Food Pantry food giveaway, a Woodstock Police car came screaming down Business 14 and turned onto Route 47.

It was easy to tell that this was not a routine call and, given the time of night, something before six P.M., I guessed it was an auto accident.

The traffic light override was engaged at Judd Street and Route 47.

Stopping for gas at the Citgo to avoid Mayor Aaron Shepley’s 75% sales tax increase, a Sheriff’s squad car was accelerating down 47.

Woodstock Fire Engine Number 01 headed south on Route 47.

We got to the light at Judd Street, on which the main Fire Station is located. I noticed the little light next to the traffic light was white.

Sure enough, what has to be one of Woodstock’s biggest engine, number “01,” rolled around the corner onto Route 47 going south.

While at the courthouse parking lot another engine, siren blasting, came down Ware Road, turning south on Route 47.

Woodstock Fire Truck E35 also responded to the accident. The back of the sign you see says "McHenry County Republican Headquaters." The local GOP were sponsoring a Northern Illinois Food Bank free food pick-up in the Courthouse parking lot.

I decided to take Route 47 home. Before reaching Bypass 14, I noticed a helicopter heading in a northerly direction. I thought it might be a Flight for Life, but I couldn’t figure out what hospital it might be heading for. Rockford is west and the helicopter seemed to be heading more northwest.

Continuing down 47, we reached a roadblock at Lucas Road.

Route 47 was blocked at Lucas Road by a Woodstock Police car.

East or west were our choices.  I went west  a bit and parked.

It appears to be a head-on crash between two cars. It is unclear if the truck with the blue trailer was involved or is just blocking the road to prevent others from piling into the wreck. (Click to enlarge this or any other image.)

You can see what my long lens caught of this major accident. Two cars seemed to have been involved. There is a red truck with a blue trailer which might have been part of the accident, too. Maybe it is just blocking the road to prevent other cars from hitting the wrecked ones. Another white semi probably stopped to help.

The fire engines had left, but two Sheriff’s Department squad cars were there. The deputies were examining the car on the road, which appeared to have been hit head-on.

Below you can see a close-up of the demolished car in the middle of the road.

Here's a close-up of the demolished car sitting astride Route 47.

The white car which ended up in the western ditch is seen next.

Route 47's western ditch is where the white car ended up.

We drove west on Lucas and down Dean Street Road to Route 176. It took a long time to get out onto the main road.

Route 47 was blocked at its northern intersection with Route 176. This is at the northern edge of the over 400 acres the Village of Lakewood seeks to annex.

At the intersection of Routes 176 and 47, a Sheriff’s Deputy told northbound cars to head west to Dean Street and it would take them to Woodstock.

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Gus Philpott’s Woodstock Advocate has a story on the crash here. Included is an earlier photo.

$92 million is earmarked for the Algonquin Bypass. When first proposed it would have cost half that much.

IDOT visualization of the four-lane highway that will be built from Lily Pond Road to Route 176.

$63 million will be spent to make Route 14 four lanes all the way from Crystal Lake to Woodstock, where it will link up with the bypass constructed by Governor William Stratton while he was in office fifty-some years ago.

$16.6 million will go toward reconstructing the interchange at Route 47 and I-90 in Huntley, presumably to allow traffic to get on the Interstate going west to Rockford and to allow eastbound traffic to get off at Huntley.

This is part of a $12.8 billion highway program unveiled by Governor Pat Quinn yesterday.

Pete Gonigam’s First Electric Newspaper reported it first, but he didn’t have the map you see below.

What you see in orange is the new area within McHenry County designated by the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Development as “Targeted Employment Area under the Alien Entrepreneur Visa Program.”

Part of McHenry County eligible for EB-5 "Buy a Visa" investment program.

The yellow sections on the map are already so designated.

So, what does it mean?

Under the irreverently coined “buy a visa” program, foreigners with $1 million to invest in an approved job creation enterprise may obtain entry to the United States of America.

However, if the economic development occurs within a “Targeted Employment Area,” the required investment decreases to $500,000.

As you can see two townships—Riley and Chemung—previously were eligible for the smaller “entry fee.”

With the expansion of the Woodstock Greenwood Township section, whose northern edge is Ware Road (the street between the McHenry County Jail and the Administrative Building), to include the rural part of Dorr Township, Lakewood gains a potential source of investment for its part of the intersection of Routes 47 and 176. So does Woodstock as it expands southward toward Route 176.

The rural Dorr Township area was eligible because the census tract had an unemployment rate of 14.2% is 153% of the national average of 9.3%. (An area must be at least at the 150% level.)

Note that the connection is at a point. Only the edges of the census tracts touch. (See black mark on map.)

A January 6th letter from Lakewood Village President to Warren Ribley, Executive Director of the DCCA, states that “the proposed project” will employee “800 temporary and 400 permanent individuals.”

It references a January 7th letter to Village Manager Catherine Peterson from New York City attorney Stephen Yale-Loehr.

He delivers an affirmative answer as to whether the census tract can be designated a “Targeted Employment Area for EB-5 (the name of the “buy a visa” program) purposes.”

He points out his co-authorship of “Immigration Law and Procedure, the leading 20-volume immigration law treatise,” plus his teaching immigration law at Cornell Law School.

He has been a member or in a leadership position in the American Immigration Lawyers Association EB-5 Investors Committee since 1996.

And he says why this particular census tract, which contains the area proposed for the SportsPlex is eligible for a Targeted Employment Area designation.

DCCA apparently agreed with Yale-Loehr’s logic. That’s what DCCA Research Manager Edwin R. Taft’s February 16th letter indicates.

Headed by Lake in the Hills’ Louis Tenore, Jr., a group of investors is seeking permission to obtain $18 million in Federally-subsidized stimulus money, according to a document posted on the McHenry County Board’s web site.

The proposed McHenry County Sportsplex will be mainly on the west side of Route 47 where it joins with Route 176. That area is within the planning jurisdiction of the Village of Lakewood. Background on the project can be found here.

While discussions have been going on for a considerable length of time, the application says that the Village of Lakewood will not act on annexation and approval of the project until next March.

Issuance of the $18 million in bonds, if approved by the county board, is scheduled for April 15^th. Construction would begin January 1, 2010, with completion six months later.

If approved, unless more Federal stimulus money is found, the current $27.5 million allocation of Federal Stimulus Bonds would not seem to have enough remaining to also provide the $15 million in financing that the Woodstock minor league baseball stadium promoters are seeking.

Concept Plan for the McHenry County Sportplex on Routes 47 and 176.

SportsThe time table listed seems a bit optimistic, given the stated March approval by the Lakewood Village Board.

The name of the limited liability corporation which will own 30% of the project is MCSMG LLC. It was formed on May 12, 2009.

The Illinois Secretary of State’s Office lists it as “McHenry County Sportsplex, LLC.”

McHenry Sportsplex E-5 Fund LLC, established August 21^st of this year and located at 111 E. Wacker Drive in Chicago, will own the other 70%. According to the Illinois Secretary of State’s Office, it is related to McHenry Real Estate and Property Investments, LLC. The fund proposes to invest $27 million in the project.

The application says that $13 million in equity will be put up by the investors.

This is how the document says the $40 million will be spent:

• $6 million – land acquisition
• $6 million – site development
• $24,100,000 – new construction
• $500,000 – furniture and fixtures
• $2.9 million – professional fees

Getting the project off the ground will produce 524 temporary jobs, the application says. 420 permanent jobs will be created. Annual payroll after the first year is estimated to be $14.1 million or almost $36,000 per person per year.

The investment banking firm is identified as Stern Brothers. The bonds will be privately placed.

Kitak, Rock, LLC, will be the bond counsel.

Legal counsel is Mike Moody of O’Rouke and Moody at 55 W. Wacker Drive, Chicago.

The application is dated December 16^th.

An attachment showing local labor, supplies and materials to be used is not posted on the county’s web site. Another attachment explaining the project is also not attached.

On the northwest side of the intersection of Routes 72, 47 and 20 just south of Stark’s Corner, which I guess is now in Pingree Grove, a man and a woman were sitting on chairs on June 9th. I guess they were counting traffic.

My clue as to which village had annexed the busy corner was given by the Cambridge Lakes condo subdivision sign across Route 72.

OK work, if the sun is not blazing down.

Of course, neither State Senator Pam Althoff nor State Rep. Mike Tryon think the social cost of putting slot machines at every place that sells liquor outweighs the highway benefits.

I thought that picture on State Senator Pam Althoff’s web site looked familiar.

Here’s where I posted it.

Well, turnabout is fair play.

Here’s what Althoff says about the slots for roads bill:

“SPRINGFIELD, IL – It took more than six years of negotiations, but State Sen. Pamela Althoff (R-McHenry) says lawmakers are nearing agreement on a statewide capital construction plan.

The bipartisan agreement would channel about $30 billion into Illinois roads, bridges and infrastructure, when federal assistance is factored in.

“Getting here has been a long, tough process, but I’m very hopeful we are seeing the light and the end of the tunnel,” Althoff said. “There is wide and bipartisan consensus that the time to pass a capital plan is now, and that delaying it for another year just isn’t an option.”

Althoff said McHenry County lawmakers were working to get two key priorities included in any final proposal – construction work on Route 47 in Huntley, including a widening of the road through Woodstock and a tollway interchange, as well as funding for the Algonquin bypass project.

While the Senator said the capital plan would provide a solid boost to the Illinois economy, including the creation of tens of thousands of jobs, she noted it comes with a cost, including higher taxes on liquor and increased fees on license plates and drivers’ licenses.

“In a situation like this, you have to weigh the good with the bad,” Althoff said.

“If there was a way to pass a capital plan without raising fees and taxes, you would see lawmakers stampeding toward that solution. However, given Illinois’ fiscal crisis, that’s simply not possible.

“While I am not happy to see some liquor taxes and automobile fees increase, at least McHenry County residents will be spared the massive income and gas tax hikes contained in other versions of the capital plan.”