A year and a half ago in November of 2011, Crystal Lake city officials gathered in McCormick Park to dedicate the improvements along Virginia Street financed by that street’s Tax Increment Financing District.

Virginia Street TIF District money paid for ornamental street lights on Route 14. They replaced the utilitarian ones that previously lit the state highway.

Among the improvements were low and high street lights that matched.

During the week of rain, I was stopped at the light at McHenry Avenue and looked at the lights.

They were not the ornamental ones put there with TIF money.

The ornamental street lights have disappeared. It appears one at the corner of Route 14 and McHenry Avenue has been replaced with the type that were there originally or there is not light at all.