Leon Van Every
Former McHenry High School Board member Ned Neumann lives on an unincorporated road on the Fox River.
To put it quite mildly, he is dissatisfied with the level of cooperation of McHenry Township Road Commissioner Leon Van Every.
Here’s is Neumann’s opinion, published with his permission:
The McHenry Township Board’s obsession with running the township government like it was their private club is about to draw some more attention to their pattern of resignations and appointments to vacancies.
For many years a group of citizens have had a legitimate beef with the McHenry Township Road District.
We heard that the current Highway Commissioner [Leon Van Every] was going to quit early and that the Township Board had already selected one of their own, Jim Condon, a fellow trustee, as his replacement.
Trustee Condon was appointed to his trustee position when the previous trustee was appointed to the vacant township clerk position because of an early resignation.
McHenry County Township Officials in the Johnsburg Parade.
Months ago, when we first got wind of them playing their same old games with this resignation/appointment charade, our group confronted the principals involved and expressed our concerns.
Steve Koerber and Ned Neumann sign reapportionment constitutional convention petitions at State Senator Pam Althoff’s fundraiser. Koerber is running for McHenry Township Road Commissioner.
Each of them, including Township Supervisor Craig Adams, who was appointed Supervisor because of a resignation, denied that it had all been worked out and that it was going to happen.
It would be illegal if they had worked that all out in secret ahead of time.
Recently the Highway Commissioner announced his early retirement with over a year left in his term.
Will they be arrogant enough to go through with their plan with so many of us having called them out on it ahead of time?
If they do, they’ll have a new activist on their hands.
My goal will be to make Bob Anderson look like an amateur.
Nepotism, patronage, and crony capitalism has infested townships in McHenry County and the practice is alive and well…
Oh and county government too.
It happens on schoolboards too.
I don’t see the great conspiracy of appointing to fill vacancies.
That is what you do when you have a vacancy.
A notice of vacancy should be given so all interested parties can apply.
Then they will appoint their choice
Crony capitalism?
Such as the distribution of Grant money by the County Board?
Complain all you want about nepotism.
Until legislation is passed to stop it, nepotism will continue unabated.
If you do not like the nepotism practices of an elected official, vote him / her out of office.
BTW is it true that the County Clerk has now hired her daughter in addition to her husband?
If a County, Municpal, School or Township Board member has a relative who works for a company who does business with that unit of government is that nepotism?
How many teachers have relatives who serve as School Board members?
There is a minimum of crony capitalism at the Township level when compared to the County.
A few Townships transfer tax dollars to Senior Services, food pantries and a limited number of other social service outlets.
The County however, doles out the money collected via the 708 Board tax, the Senior Tax, Federal CDBG and HOME tax dollars. Insofar as the impact of doling out those CDBG and HOME tax dollars, McHenry residents need to study up on the impact of Affirmatively Affirming Fair Housing and how it will impact their neighborhood.
The County works closely with (and taxpayer dollars support) the McHenry County Economic Development Foundation.
What is the primary function of that group?
To attract private sector business to the County?
What is their primary tool to attract business?
Is it tax breaks given by local units of government?
Is it a TIF? Is it the newly created Enterprise zone with its associated tax breaks / subsidies?
Is it tax payer subsidized training for future employees? Are these all forms of crony capitalism?
If you want to conduct an interesting exercise, compare political contributions to elected officials to who does business with the office relative to that elected official.
You can start with the company that does ‘right of way’ acquisition negotiations for some local units of government.
Andrew have you personally put forth legislation or even a request to meet with all the local state reps and senators at a county legislative committee meeting to discuss any of those problems you listed?
Your whining should be backed up with action, not more whining with no action.
Just saying, WHERE’S THE BEEF?
Is this a situation where someone bought a cheap house on a non-township road and is demanding the rest of the township taxpayers spend millions of dollars to upgrade his road to county standards so he can sell at a quick profit and get out of town?
McHenry County wanted Rauner well you are paying for Chiraq now.
He is all talk and little action.
http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/chi-raq-spike-lee-illinois-tax-credit/Content?oid=20511450
Don’t trust either party.
Bernie for President.
Chiraq has been run by the Democrats since 1930.
It is the logical implementation of everything Karma believes in.
Too bad that Karma chooses not to live near her black Democrat constituents.
Then she wouldn’t be a Hippocrit.
Karma needs gun-owning Republicans to live near her so she can be safe enough to be a Democrat.
Didn’t Craig “el Chupoptero” Adams run Pioneer Center into the ground when he took up space there as ‘Director of Business Development at Pioneer Center for Human Services DBA: Pioneer Industries’?
Now this human parasite has fixed his blood-sucking mouth apparatus onto another victim!
photo of Adams: http://cdn.isciencetimes.com/data/images/full/2013/01/29/3273-teen-covered-leeches-mathew-allen-australia-missing-found.jpg