McHenry County Blog

A Barrington Hills friend of McHenry County Blog sent the following November 8th email from Village President Bob Abboud. The highlighting shown were done by the person who sent it to me.

The message prior to the email follows:

I have been enjoying your blog.  As to Bob Abboud and his slate of “Independents”, please note the following text from an email Bob sent around in November in answer to a question “will he have a slate”.

I have removed the email addresses of all but Abboud’s to protect the innocent (?).  The question and answer have been highlighted.  Abboud also complains about Halo’s consultant, but it is his consultant, Casey Justice, that is advising his slate.  State records show that she was paid $4,800 in the last few months of 2010, don’t know yet about 2011.

The email follows. Below it is Abboud’s response.

From: Robert G. Abboud [mailto:Bob@RGALabs.com]
Sent: Monday, November 08, 2010 12:00 PM
To:
Subject: RE: Slate

Thanks for asking.  Yes, I believe there will be a slate. Trustee Joe Messer, Clerk Karen Selman, and Patti Meroni are planning on running for the regular 4-year seats.  Dawn Davis is running for the 2-year seat.   She will compete against Walter Smithe.    Dave Stieper says he is running as an independent.   Please recognize that no one has yet completed their required petition signatures.

Bob Abboud

I support these 4 candidates – Messer, Selman, Meroni, and Davis.  I believe they have the energy, knowledge, objectivity, and judgment to help steward our Village forward.    Most importantly, they will have an independent perspective that the Board depends on.  The next few years will be challenging for the Village.  We will face issues with declining tax revenues, a variety of operational issues, and more land use and boundary challenges.   We need people with experience, vision, independence, and frankly a little toughness and moxie so as to repel those who seek to intimidate us with loud voices.

I am amused at the latest HALO/Non-sense Party mailing.  It is filled with outright lies of just unmitigated proportion.  I am amused at the claims of fiscal issues since Beth Mallen has voted for every expenditure and every budget and every tax levy.    You can see the current Village budget at:
http://www.barringtonhills-il.gov/foia/pdfs/OpBudgets/2010%20Operating%20Budget.pdf

I make no apologies for my belief that the HALO/Non-sense Party’s mission is to degrade zoning and land use in the Village, and our security.  HALO’s overly loud complaint about the

HALO is funded by the same folks who challenged us in past – developers, and those who will profit from converting our unique community into a suburban high density area.  A quick check of their state filing shows who the developers are.  Ms. Wamberg has already disconnected valuable land from the Village.  She is still mad at me for voting against her disconnection that cost our taxpayers valuable future revenues.

The candidate’s e-mails are the first 4 CCs of this mailing.  I hope you will come out in support of these individuals.  They will need your help and the help of all of our neighbors.  I expect the HALO/Non-sense Party to be loud, abrasive, well funded and bent on misrepresenting facts as they already are in their latest mailing.

The candidates will also need your assistance in funding for their campaign.  While it’s never pleasant to talk about campaign money, they need funds to get their message out.  This will be a very expensive election for our candidates.  The HALO/Non-Sense Party has already spent thousands of dollars and they are just getting started.  They have brought in outside professional campaign staff. I hope you will consider a contribution to support these four candidates so they get their message out.  Contact Patti Meroni for making a contribution.

You may pass this mailing around if you feel it is helpful.  Our fight is to Save 5 Acres and our incredibly unique community. Please let me know if I can be of any additional help to you or your neighbors.  Thank you again for all your support in the Village.

Best Regards.
Bob A.

Abboud’s response when I sent him the above email:

Cal:

Yes, this e-mail was written by me back in mid-November when the campaigns were are not as clear cut as they are now.  At the time I wrote this, no one had yet filed.

Note that the context of the word ‘slate’ was not meant in the party sense as in the Common Sense Party.  It was meant in sense posed to me by the questioner.  I was  indicating there was a complete  group of candidates for the open seats who are generally running together.    The candidates are still INDEPENDENT as they registered as INDEPENDANT after this e-mail was written and they will appear and INDEPENDENT on the ballot.  They are sharing resources but have somewhat differing views on certain subjects as I understand.

I hope this helps.

Best Regards.
Bob A.

Barrington Hills Village President Robert Abboud, not up for election this year, took exception to parts of the article run earlier. What follows is his email:

Cal:

I read your blog entailed “Hot Village Board Race in Barrington Hills “. There are several items that concern me about the accuracy of your reporting. I am somewhat surprised you did not do a better job of fact checking before posting your blog.

Barrington Hills Village Board President makes presentation to the McHenry County Democratic Party Central Committee about his 2008 congressional campaign against Republican Don Manzullo

First, the Save5acres group is not running as a party but rather as a loosely connected slate of independents. They are as independent as Mr. (David) Stieper. They are listed as INDEPENDENT on the ballot. This race is decidedly about whether developers will unwind the unique zoning in our community.

It is the so-called ‘Common Sense Party’ that is not independent and heavily financed by developers and outside interests. (See SBOE filings). Note that CSP has not registered any candidates per a loop hole for new Tea Parties but intended by the campaign finance law.

Second, Mr. Stieper’s literature falsely suggests that the Village approves budgets and spends money without the majority pre-approval of the Board of Trustees. The Village manages money strictly according to state statute. Please see the attached mailing I sent him on 2/22/2011 when I discovered he was fostering this non-sense. I have since noticed him a second time asking him to be ethical and accurate. To date he has refused to do so. I hope you will call him out on this.

Third, your anonymous commenter at the end of your article accuses my previous campaign, and by proxy the current Save5Acre campaign, as being “vicious”. I would challenge you to demonstrate any “vicious” activity or messaging by my campaign or that of Save5Acres in either of these elections. It is Ms. Wamberg and her party, fueled by developers, that has fostered the negative rant, false information, and disruption in our community.

The Lighting Ordinance issue was resolved some time ago with the Village Board approving an INCREASE in allowable lighting. Principally the allowance of lighting for play areas such as tennis courts, pools, and the like. Only the HALO / CSP people voted against this. One might ask, why would the HALO / CSP group vote against expanding the allowances of property owners – the very thing they polluted our Village with horse urine colored signs for. I suggest that their efforts had nothing to do with the ordinance and were entirely political. I see you failed to report on these aspects in your mention of the Ordinance.

Finally, I have included a bit of background information from a couple of years ago to address a number of frequently asked questions that may be helpful to you.

I enjoy reading your blog. But I am at the least troubled by your reporting of events in Barrington Hills. I expect you to report accurately and with attribution of your sources who make such wild claims. While you expect transparency from government, we in Barrington Hills expect the same transparency from you.

Please let me know if you have any further questions about our very unique Village. Please feel free to print my letter in your blog.

Best Regards.
Bob A.