No, it’s not a divorce.

It’s a mother-
daughter dispute.

Donna Kurtz, just re-elected to the McHenry County College Board, was its president when the MCC board decided to ask for 45% of its Crystal Lake watershed property to be covered with impermeable surfaces over the next 30-year period.

Part of the covering will be a minor league baseball stadium, which the board and administration asserts, but refuses to show how, will pay off 2/3 of $35 million in debt to finance the stadium, a fitness center, offices, etc.

I saw Rosemary Kurtz, Donna’s mother and the woman who beat me in the 2000 Republican primary election at the last McHenry County College board meeting I attended. I arrived too late to hear if she said anything during the public comment period.

However, her daughter was particularly aggressive in her questioning about things environmental after Nancy Williamson and others made presentations concerning the potential impact of the baseball stadium.

Never let it be said that family dinnertime conversations can’t have an impact on public policy.

In Northwest Herald correspondent Tim Kane’s Wednesday Northwest Herald article are included the following two paragraphs:

Rosemary Kurtz, a retired former state representative, attended the meeting with concerns about McHenry County College’s plan to build a minor-league baseball stadium and a health and wellness facility in the watershed, not far from some of the drainage tiles. The college plans to break ground on the baseball stadium this fall if it can get city approval.

“All of sudden this popped up,” Kurtz said of the baseball stadium proposal. “I’m concerned about development in the watershed. I want to see the watershed ordinance enforced.”

The watershed ordinance allows only 20% of a property within its boundaries to be covered by buildings and parking lots through which rain and snow cannot enter the ground.

The Crystal Lake Planning and Zoning Commission will hold a public hearing at city hall at 7:30 PM on Wednesday, July 18th.