McHenry County Blog

The Virginia Street TIF District ends before Burger King. Will the Crystal Lake City Council decide to rip money away from all other local tax districts to "beautify" Route 14 east of Fifth Third Bank, where the monument you see has been built? Will black street lights be installed to replace the ones already there? Will sidewalks finally line Route 14 along the shopping centers where none now exist?

The new monuments marking the edges of the Virginia Street Tax Increment Financing District cost $16,000 each.

There are lots of questions, one set of which begins with “Why?”

Let me give you a sample:

“Why were they thought necessary or desirable?”

Other questions might start with “What?”

As in,

“What were City Council members thinking when they approved spending $64,000 on markers at what will appear to the motoring public as random locations?”

The "$64,000 Question" started with contestants answering a $1,000 question and then doubled until gthe $64,000 level was reached. Big money in the 1950's when Coventry homes sold for less than $20,000.

Those not watching TV in the late 1950′s don’t know about the “$64,000 Question.”

It was a game show that started in 1955 and was the precursor of the ones that followed. ‘

Only the amount of the maximum prize kept increasing as inflation took its toll.

An IBM card sorter made noise and provided visual movement. The questions weren’t random, but this was show biz.

The real question here is why the Crystal Lake City Council decided to spend $64,000 on this four pillars.

Something that looks as if it ought to be in a cemetery showed up on Route 14 in Crystal Lake this week.

Yesterday, I pointed out what can happen when a local government has money for which no one can be held accountable.

Tax Increment Financing District money.

TIF money.

Everyone in McHenry County will pay to make Route 14 look better.

That’s because TIF Districts allow city officials to take money that otherwise would go to schools, park districts, county government, etc.

You’ve been reading how beneficiaries of Chicago TIF money miraculously concluded that they should give large donations to Mayor Richard Daley’s wife’s after school charity.

Locally, I have no reason something like that is happening, but there is definitely a tax shift to homeowners and businesses outside the TIF districts.

So, enjoy the new, “improved” streetscape as you drive through town.

Yesterday, I pointed out that perfectly serviceable street lights on Route 14 were about to be replaced with ones that I guess someone (maybe all) on the Crystal Lake City Council thought looked prettier.

Road construction near Dole Avenue was in progress Thrusday night.

They match the expensive ones that the City Council is forcing private property owners to put on properties they improve within sight of Route 14.  But, not to worry.   The City Council subsidized the purchase of those lights on private parking lots.

Today we look at another wasteful expenditure by the City Council.

It’s a monument near Pizza Hut.

It’s not exactly a pyramid.

More like a cemetery monument.

You see it above.

And it’s for Crystal Lake.

Maybe there’s more than one.

I, as everyone else who can do so, avoid Route 14 as much as possible.

There’s still some 30th Anniversary cake at Andy’s Family Restaurant as I write this story at about 10 AM.

Angie Angelos holds up the cake decorated to celebrate her restaurant's 30th Anniversary.

My Emmaus Reunion Group meets there Saturday morning’s at 7:30 and Angie Angelos, the founder’s daughter who runs the place, had been reminding us for weeks that there would be free cake today.

It was good, firm white cake from Sam’s.

Turns out there was free coffee, too.

Andy's was decorated with balloons and other "30" things.

I never acquired a taste for that beverage, but I did get to consume many glasses of water…which was also free.

Andy's Family Restaurant

The Crystal Lake restaurant on Route 14 next to the intersection of Dole Avenue was crowded this morning.

There was a line to pay for breakfast.

There was a traffic jam at the check-out counter.

Angie was reminded customers that Thursday she would be serving “Andy’s famous corn beef and cabbage.”

The meat is especially good at Andy’s.  The side order of ham is about $2.50 and wonderful.  I sometimes order instead of oatmeal.

Parking is behind the establishment and in a newly-landscaped and lit lot across Dole Avenue.

$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.

"Let us give more the charities and less to government," the sign held by this teen says.

One of the signs I saw as I was leaving for the middle of the old Walmart parking lot was held by a  teen.

She agreed to hold it up so I could get a photo.

It says,

Let Us Give
More to Charities
and Less to
Government

I remember the chastisement I received in an email for showing a collapsed broadcast tower whose image had been projected on the McHenry County College Conference Center screen.

BMB Communications Management spokesman John Maguire said I should have used a picture of the “first to yield” collapse. That’s when the stoutly constructed bottom section does not collapse, but higher portions do.

Such design, his engineer said, does not result in a flat out failure where the tower would lay out its entire length.

Well, maybe.

But, that’s not what happened in Wichita, Kansas, with a KYQQ-FM 1,204 foot broadcast tower the end of last month in heavy icing and strong winds.

It looks like a failure of the complete structure to me. Doesn’t the complete tower seem to be snaking across the grass.

What do you think?

Two inches of ice is what the FM station spokesman told KFDI-TV, from whose video these pictures came.

If you want to see photos, here are some.

Video is here.

Route 14, Ridgefield Road and the Union Pacific railroad tracks are all within 1,500 feet of the BMB tower site.

= = = = =
I asked before I posted this whether this tower was held up with guy wires, but didn’t get an answer until after it went up.

The answer is that this is a guyed wire tower, not a free standing one as BMB proposes in Crystal Lake.