Tribune Gives Franks Attaboy

Maybe the Chicago Tribune has written an article on the Lake in the Hills Sanitary District situation, but I can’t find it.

In any event, on Tuesday, there was an editorial, complete with color photo of McHenry County Board Chairman Jack Franks in one of his offices.

The Tribune editorial praising Jack Franks.

The headline was

To protect its turf, this suburban Chicago fiefdom wants more truf.  Guess who pays.

You can read the piece here.


Comments

Tribune Gives Franks Attaboy — 40 Comments

  1. Is Jack Franks afraid to show a detailed analyses of how taxpayers will save money or is he just too lazy.

  2. Detailed analyses, ya right.

    Political grandstanding BO hope type dealy!

  3. If all three newspapers are congratulatory of the consolidation effort and Cal Skinner is the only party not in favor, what is really going on here?

  4. Did the Tribune have any coverage of the current issue of the chairman hiring two people to positions that are unnecessary?

    What about the waste of taxpayer money for these positions/jobs?

  5. “Consolidation” is the new “Protect our children” political speak.

    It must be good no matter what.

    Maybe we should skip consolidating the $50 million dollars in assets and cash from the District to the County and consolidate it to the even bigger wasteful government, the State.

    Then we can really be assured of streamlined efficient government.

    The voters will love it.

    Bah. Bah.

  6. The Lake in the Hills Sanitary District has tried tirelessly to have their side of the story portrayed in newspapers, and as we know from the Northwest Herald it can be a hard battle, as Jack Franks seems to have their “ear.”

    The Sanitary District has managed to stay out of the political storm all these years, until now, and have done a fine job for the residents.

    The Trustees and Manager are being attacked, and from what I can see – for doing a great job.

    If taxes are an issue remember they only account for 0.8% of the overall tax bill.

    I encourage everyone to do a comparison of the numbers – you will find the savings calculated by The Village of Lake in the Hills and Jack Franks to be erroneous.

    And, the Village of Lake in the Hills voted down this consolidation consideration earlier this year, but Jack Franks continues to push on and I have to believe there is some cost involved in this process to the taxpayers.

    Is he just going to push this down the Village of Lake in the Hills’ Board Member’s throats?

    I hope they are made of stronger stuff than the County Board.

  7. Sy Do Good hit the nail on the head.

    Consolidation will be the death of us all.

    It is their agenda to take away all of your power.

    Your best bet is local small government.

    They know that.

    That is why they are touting all of this fold everything into the bigger system.

    It’s all part of the huge agenda. T

    he “little” guys are doing their work for the major puppeteers.

    Don’t be fooled. None of this will be good for anyone but the puppeteers.

  8. Approximately 3/4 of our real estate tax bills in this County pertain to schools.

    Until solutions are found to lower the extremely high costs of running these schools, such as outrageously high salaries, benefits and pensions along with bloated school administration, then we taxpayers will continue to suffer.

    Who will be the people that step forward and have solutions to lower our tax bills or at least keep them relatively flat in the next 5-10 years?

  9. Ellen – When you say, “If taxes are an issue remember they only account for 0.8% of the overall tax bill” you are essentially saying that as long as our group isn’t wastefully spending/stealing a LARGE portion of your taxes, then why are you concerned?”

    It doesn’t matter what percentage of our over-all bill your levy makes up. If it’s wasteful, it’s wasteful.

    Now, your district may not be wasteful. I wouldn’t know. But, your argument above is an extremely poor one.

    And, I must say the hypocrisy from MCGOP supporters would otherwise be staggering, if it weren’t so typical.

    After the failure of the MCGOP crusade to consolidate townships (which was proven to be of no tax savings to some and a tax increase to others) and blaming the county board “RINO’s” for the initiatives failure, why don’t they support THIS consolidation effort?

    One answer and one answer only – Their objective is not better government and lower taxes. THeir only concern is Partisanship Nonsense!

  10. I trust you are sending those who want the other side of the LITH Sanitary District story to McHenry County Blog.

  11. None of the newspapers have noted that if Jack Franks gets control of the Board he will have three $6,000 patronage appointments.

  12. Funny, Cal – I don’t see any coverage of the ridiculous waste of money the lawsuits in Algonquin are costing tax payers- and even though this will save money- it is too small an amount to count according to Cindy- but if it was done by Gasser- she would wet her self with praise.
    You people are so single minded it is laughable.

  13. Inish? I never said anything like that.

    You suffer from reading comprehension deficit?

  14. Inish = Anna May Miller?

    The money used for a lawsuit is money well spent if it creates the flow of money taken illegally, back to the township from which it was taken. AND if it discourages any other nefarious behavior by elected officials, all the better!

  15. Lawsuit is money well spent if it creates the flow of money taken illegally, back to the Taxing Body from which it was taken. AND if it discourages any other nefarious behavior by elected officials, all the better!

  16. Actually at the last two meetings I have requested that the bills be posted on the Algonquin Township web site before the meetings, so such information could be readily found.

  17. Bred Winner – When the GOP promotes candidates like Kurtz (speaking of RINOS) as the best they have to offer to take on school boards, it’s easy to see why these boards are able to run amuck.

    And when legitimate fiscal conservatives with a spine do step up, the GOP works AGAINST them, deeming them as “loose cannons” and “too extreme”.

    NEWS FLASH – Extreme circumstances call for extreme measures! Extreme over-taxation calls for extreme individuals willing to go to extreme measures to rectify.

    MCGOP is not interested in rectifying anything. They only serve to maintain control as always.

    Then something like MCGOPAC comes along promising to be something more… Something better…

    And what do they do? They Fall In Line!

    They solicit contributions and send out mailers promoting every “RINO” (as they like to call them) running for office under the R banner and then excuse themselves for the horrible policies and reckless spending that their endorsed R candidates promote.

    Futility at it’s finest.

    And of course, none dare speak of MCGOP fighting to keep IMRF pensions for county board members. Worse yet, Gasser spoke publicly calling out the hypocrites for these IMRF pensions and the MCGOP railed against him for raining on their retirement parades.

    Without Jack Franks those pensions would still be in place today. But, let’s continue to march to the beat of the unaccomplished MCGOP for nothing other than being the GOP.

    In the meantime, I have never witnessed so much discussion and action from municipal governments and county level governments alike, regarding tangible efforts toward reduced spending and lower tax levies…

    This of course brought about by none other than non-GOP, Jack Franks.

    And of course, not because of efforts from GOP officials, but DESPITE them.

    Where would these tax cutting measures be under the county leadership of the GOP’s Hill, Walkup, Gottemoller, etc? I suspect they simply wouldn’t.

    You get the government you deserve!

    Sadly the rest of are stuck dealing with your garbage.

  18. Cal, if I’m not mistaken, any retirement pensions a county board member would have gotten would have been nearly bupkis.

  19. I wonder how long it took to stage that candid photo so that his open collar concealed his lower chins perfectly?

  20. What I was saying is there are much bigger fish to fry.

    County board pensions most would not have ever collected.

    The schools are the one’s taking 68% of our tax dollars.

    So why didn’t you run for one of the school boards, Federal Farmer?

  21. @Federal So Jack Franks is the savior for McHenry County Tax Payers?

    He did nothing at the State Level except fall in line on big issues with Madigan!

    How many unfunded mandates did Jack Franks vote for?

    Many! How about when he didn’t fund the Teachers Pension Plan back in the mid 2000s?!

    The best way to make things more solvent here in the County is make it a better State!

    He has done more harm to this State and local people by the stuff that happened in Springfield while he was there!

    Now he wants to say he is the savior for McHenry County by abating 10%.

    ABATING!!

  22. Sweded I don’t make a dime from Government. Nor am I looking to make a dime. Can you say the same for you and your family members?

    I also spent tens of thousands of personal dollars toward effecting better government in our County.
    Again, Can you say the same?

    As far as running for school boards I have fought other, arguably more substantial, fights within our County and have made great strides in doing so. And of course, the strides I have made were not only without any help from MCGOP, but we’re actually made despite their intentional refusal to get involved and even obstructing my efforts to do so.

    And to clear up my very generalized statements, I’m not referring to all, there are Few Good Apples.. a very few…

    But to the average Layman it’s hard to discern the good from the bad when organizations like MCGOPAC lump them all together as if they are all equal.

    @ anyanswers, I’m not saying Franks is the savior of anything.

    I’m simply pointing some very real truth:
    What has anyone from mcgop done that’s nearly as noteworthy as the efforts Franks has made?

    List some specifics.

    Set aside ridiculous partisanship for just a second. Let’s momentarily stop pretending that our Republican candidates/officials work for, or stand for, something more than Democrats do.

    For a moment let’s just judge each of our officials based on what they have done and what they are trying to do.

    That in mind, let’s compare Franks to our past County board chairmen .. who so happened to call themselves Republicans.

    Or for that matter, let’s compare the efforts of Frank’s to most of our other local elected officials who call themselves Republicans.

    What exactly have they done?
    What are they working to do?
    What do they stand for?
    What of any of the above, makes them any better than Franks? Conversely, what makes them even nearly as good as Franks?

    A board of entirely or nearly entirely Republicans accomplishes nothing and then blames it on Dems and “RINOS”.

    Then the same GOP promotes the same RINOS and then later faults them for our high taxes and bad policy.

    Hint: those promoting these R candidates are the problem.

  23. With all the back and forth here it might be well to remember that the vote to approve these appointments which Jack Franks brought forward was 21 -1 in favor.

    This as you are well aware coming from a County Board which is, if ballot labels are to be believed heavily Republican.

    On occasion things which are simple are not so simply seen.

  24. Now let’s go take a look at how many of those 21 were endorsed by MCGOPAC and touted by MCGOP as “REPUBLICAN STRONG”?

    All the doublespeak and all the talking out of both sides of their face aside, What exactly do these R officials or these organizations that support them really stand for?

    My best guess? Based solely on their records and their actions?

    They stand for NOTHING!

  25. @Farmer I know of 2 yrs ago they abated the valley hi levy which saved the taxpayers around 4% plus last year a handful of them tried to abate that same levy which failed.

    Would have saved around the same.

    Over the past handful of years they have cut the number of employees down I believe from over 1300 to around 1100 which is around 19% cut.

    They have kept there levy flat.

    However, you are right about one thing the people that want to make cuts are always in the minority it appears.

    Tough when you are in that predicament constantly.

    Hopefully this coming year there will be more fiscally responsible people winning.

  26. @anyanswers – if there are some legitimate, strong, fiscal conservative candidates who run for office how will voters know?

    How will anyone discern between them and the others?

    MCGOP, MCGOPPAC have zero credibility at this point.

    The best chance any legitimate candidates have is to stay clear of these two organizations and campaign independently.

    Perhaps even running as an independent would be their best bet.

  27. “Approximately 3/4 of our real estate tax bills in this County pertain to schools.

    Until solutions are found to lower the extremely high costs of running these schools, such as outrageously high salaries, benefits and pensions along with bloated school administration, then we taxpayers will continue to suffer.

    Who will be the people that step forward and have solutions to lower our tax bills or at least keep them relatively flat in the next 5-10 years?”

    Clearly pension reform will never happen while Madigan is in office.

    So urge the Board to invest in your infrastructure to grow commercial and industrial business.

    That additional sales tax revenue is one of the most significant tools to flatting property taxes.

  28. It is my belief that commercial development follows rooftops and new homes most certainly do not pay their own way.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *