Special Meeting Called for Tuesday.
McHenry Township Board will be given a second opportunity to vote on whether to put road district consolidation referendum question on the ballot this November after a special meeting was called.
McHenry County Republican Chairwoman Sandra Salgado spoke in favor of putting the referendum on the ballot.
You can read the Northwest Herald article here.
Wait for the township fatcats, like Joe Condon, squeal about their feeding trough being removed.
Consolidate, consolidate, consolidate!
We have to reduce the size and profligacy of Illinois misgovernment.
What went on in the 60s, 70s & 80s cannot be tolerated now!
The fratcats’ gold-plated pensions for 45 miles of road must be eliminated!
Typical township oaf: http://www.publiusforum.com/images/mark_rosenthal/mark_rosenthal_01.jpg
Yes, boot these ‘fatcats’ like Miller and Condon.
https://www.indystar.com/story/opinion/2014/01/26/lets-reorganize-local-government-to-save-more-money/4847533/
“Illinois is home to the most units of local government in the nation by far, with nearly 7,000. Reducing that number is a key step toward increasing transparency and reducing the growth in Illinoisans’ property tax bills, which are among the highest in the nation and grew six times faster than the median household income from 2008-2015.”
https://www.illinoispolicy.org/illinois-overrun-with-local-governments-but-consolidation-still-proving-difficult/
The better comments regarding the MTRD are on this link
http://www.nwherald.com/2018/02/08/mchenry-township-officials-call-special-meeting-to-vote-on-referendum-to-eliminate-road-district/a2lgea6/
Like this comment:
Unbelievable. A special meeting? Anderson and Rakestraw are pulling a backdoor, screw the citizens and employees, action to try to make sure very few people call them on it.
They just proved themselves the worse possible political cowards and by their actions also proved they can NOT back this decision as actually saving the taxpayers anything. They are a disgrace to the title “public representative” and need to be loudly and vocally called out in the press and social media for their cowardly actions and inability to even show one shred of financial evidence that their “plan” will help the people and/or save them tax money.
Yo Ricky,
New Jersey has just 1344 units of gov, yet the residents there pay a higher property tax than we do in IL
Care to explain that?
I found a picture of the equipment barber Bob will use to plow snow to ‘Save money’
https://media.memurlar.net/album/4242/4f996d0d-345b-e311-b6da-14feb5cc1801.jpg
Paul Revere: you are obviously a township employee, despite whatever you say.
Go get a job in the private sector and quit sucking my blood!
https://www.illinoispolicy.org/reports/too-much-government-illinois-thousands-of-local-governments/
You are wrong Rickey. I am a private sector tax payer that beleives in facts, and barber Bob and his band of grumps is FOS on this issue.
If you and your ilk think you will save on property taxes by eliminating the MTRD you are as dumb as tree stumps.
Bob Anderson and Bill Cunningham are right!
We have been robbed blind by township leeches, so interested in feathering their own nests!
The late Albie Adams, former Supervisor of McHenry Township, told me and my late husband at a dinner once “If people really knew what little townships do, I’d be out of a good job.’
That was a long time ago.
I’m looking to move now at the age of 78!
Why? Because I can’t afford the property taxes, even with the senior exemption and tax freeze.
I’m disgusted by the live stream videos of township meetings where Mr. Anderson and Cunningham are screamed at by Joseph Condon’s hirelings at the Road Dist.
Condon and his thugs should be ashamed of themselves not just for picking our pockets, but the disgraceful way they try and derail township meetings.
Here’s a newspaper (from downstate) that tells like it really is about rotten townships—
Shipley is the former Metro East Sanitary District chief, and the guy accused of padding the payroll with softball buddies to the point that there were no funds to fix pumps and save Pontoon Beach from spring floods. He and his predecessors have turned Granite City Township into a $1.11 million property taxpayer burden.
All the townships receive shares of other taxes, too.
None of these townships should exist. Their only statutory mandate is to hand out some aid to the poor, a job that municipal clerks could take on at a fraction of the cost. In Madison County they also assess property, a government function that could cheaply be absorbed by the county.
Belleville Township was absorbed by the city, no one is crying and taxpayers are about $140,000 better off for it. East St. Louis Township is a hotbed of corruption with no real value to residents that should be absorbed by the city.
Illinois’ tax burden is near the highest in the nation, in large part because we support nearly 7,000 layers of government. Townships within cities are the obvious place to start saving ourselves.
Read more here: http://www.bnd.com/opinion/editorials/article174693176.html#storylink=cpy
Revere, you’ve been outed. Only somebody with something to lose would bother to defend the indefensible.
Plus your ad hominem attacks on Anderson show how little a person you are.
http://lessgovernment.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/danger-big-government.jpg
Mr. fake-Paul Revere, the real Paul Revere would regard you as a traitor. I say that as a history buff and what Paul Revere said and wrote about the Crown overtaxing him.
You must be Joe Condon himself, the logic-challenged and indolent Chief of McHenry Township.
I never really considered townships much since I live in Johnsburg and don’t use township roads much.
Now, I see they are pretty useless and a drain on the taxpayer.
I find this whole debate about the utility of townships fascinating.
I’m from Woodberry Co., Iowa. Iowa never had any townships. So when I moved here in the 70s to take a job as young pilot with American Airways, I asked my neighbor what the heck townships were and what did they do. He said, ‘Not much. They just tax ya for patronage job.”
And that seems to be truth.
Just read this Revere: http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20140930/OPINION/140929799/illinois-has-1-431-townships-its-time-to-get-rid-of-all-of-them
Illinois’ 1848 Constitution gave voters in each county the right to organize townships for the “management of the fiscal concerns of the county.” The framers’ decision for our then-30-year-old, largely agrarian state was a no-brainer: As the most local of local governments, townships would be directly accountable to residents of unincorporated rural areas whose interests might not be considered in distant county seats, let alone the state or federal capital.
Despite radical shifts in demographics and advances in technology, today’s township supervisors defend hyperlocal government, arguing that public services always should be administered by elected officials closest to the people. Fiscal federalism, they argue, serves the state’s residents democratically, efficiently and effectively.
But Illinois’ townships, now numbering a staggering 1,431, aren’t delivering on their promise to the 8 million people they serve and tax. Townships should be abolished, with their functions assumed by cities and counties that can get the job done better, cheaper and more fairly.
State law gives townships only three obligations: to assess property for tax purposes, to maintain roads in unincorporated areas and to provide general assistance to the poor.
BLOAT AND PATRONAGE — SOUND FAMILIAR?
Tax assessments often are made by untrained township assessors who set their own policies, make their own rules and treat taxpayers unequally and inequitably.
While townships maintain residential roads only in unincorporated areas, they tax all township property even if it’s within an overlapping municipality, in which case the property owner ends up paying to maintain unincorporated roads along with his or her own city’s or village’s. And in providing aid to the needy, township supervisors arbitrarily can set their own eligibility criteria and benefit levels, doling out taxpayer money for food, rent and other assistance as they alone deem fair.
Just as troubling, townships often maintain bloated bureaucracies, favor patronage payrollers and hoard cash that rightfully should be rebated to taxpayers.
Last month Gov. Pat Quinn signed into law two bills acknowledging that grass-roots democracy doesn’t always serve the public interest. One lets certain local government units merge with others or shift their duties to a city or county and then go out of business. The other lets voters in adjacent fire protection districts merge them.
Now it’s time to empower voters to get rid of unnecessary and wasteful townships.
Township governments were created by voters in countywide ballot referendums and can be abolished the same way. But state law requires that all the townships in a county be dissolved simultaneously or not at all. Let’s urge the General Assembly to allow any and all of Illinois’ townships to dissolve by referendum
Here is a link to the video of the meeting this past Thursday where they were discussing this resolution. Watch the professionalism of one of the trustees. At this point in the meeting, it was time for public comment and one of the trustees was repeatedly talking over and arguing with the public. He then offers a suggestion for what the Supervisor can do with his gavel for calling him out of order.
https://youtu.be/WLzV-InoSmQ?t=2h6m1s
Mary Ixoh Mahady, the township assessor for McHenry Township, now running for state senator, wants to load up illegals so they can vote her in. What about this Mahady?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4lMLSddedE
https://www.afa.net/media/231291/walgreens_policy.pdf
Township Queen Bee Mahady supports above, just ask her!
E L I M I N A T E T O W N S H I P S
American Airways?
Never existed.
Liar.
I apologise, there was once American Airways.
“Small Government” does not mean “government that is small”.
It means government that is able to be as efficient as possible in delivering services which are strictly necessary for the lowest possible cost.
Sometimes a larger government body can do things more efficiently and for less money than a bunch of small operations.
A 2004 study of Cook County townships showed that having township functions performed by municipalities and the county would result in a 50% tax savings.
“Closer to the people” also doesn’t mean that you can get to a particular building faster.
With the internet, phones, and cars, the distance to the building in which the government offices happen to be located is largely irrelevant.
Also, townships were established in an age when patronage, favoritism and corruption were accepted.
Over the years the laws on townships have not been adjusted to reflect modern concerns about transparency and openness.
Any attempt to do so meets with the stiff opposition of the state township lobby, Township Officials of Illinois, of which Bob Miller was the most recent past President.
Abolishing the Road District will at least bring more control to an elected board which can provide better oversight. Then they can just set up a Transportation Department and hire a Supervisor who serves at the pleasure of the board.
This it the way it is done at the County.
No one is complaining about that.
Illinois taxes are some of the highest in the nation because of overly generous teacher and other pensions. This is a power grab and nothing more. What we don’t need are supervisors. So these dipshits will hand pick their guy, micromanage every detail and you won’t save one cent. Glad I am not in McHenry Township. Those who depend on it had better show up to this meeting. PS eat a bag of }^#%$ Sandy
Oh for sure let’s all incorporate into mchenry and pay for libraries park districts, etc. that will save money. NOT
I think people are OK with consolidation but with a plan. Once you eliminate the Township, many of us want to know who inherits the parks, roads and other services? Without a plan, it seems illogical. You can’t just say the County will take care of it. That’s not the answer.
Seems like the most vehement comments come from residents in unincorporated areas who benefit from municipalities paying for the lion’s share of township services. Everyone likes something for nothing. Reicke is in the pocket of the Township Officials of Illinois and knows that changing the law to require a study will delay, delay, delay any change in township government.
Yes let’s not know if this will save any money. IL voters have passed a lot of dumb ideas and this is another one of them. All this does is give the road district to the trustees. A barber in charge of the roads. If anyone thinks nepotism and patronage are bad now, just wait. You can’t outsource this work for less. IDOT can’t find enough snowbirds to plow state highways, who’s gonna volunteer to plow on Christmas Day, Bob Anderson? Y’all are followers of a giant goofball
@nob Every State in the Union has less government entities than Illinois! With Illinois leading the charge as far as government entities Illinois could stand to lose some of those.
Well, I’m sick and tired of supporting the Condon Family.
I’ll get my friends to vote to consolidate, too!
Gofigure, form a plan, I’m listening.
Hit some of the website’s and type in total tax burden.
Type in total gov agencies and compare both.
New Jersey had higher burden less gov.
No correlation, it’s what we expect and what it costs to pay for our fun.
Again I’m listening.
Does anyone actually care if “the nob” is listening???
Actually the vehement comments with no proof come from those living in the municipalities.
I can’t help that New Jersey just like many forms of government are corrupt! Type in Flordia or Texas or Iowa. Why is it that other states can manage better with funds unlike good ole Illinois! Doesn’t MCDOT have a Road Commissioner? There is a board committee out there. It is the job of the elected officials to figure out how to save money! If they don’t vote them out! Unfortunately the few fiscally responsible ones either on County, Township, Municipalities, State, Federal are all in the minority! Doesn’t matter if you are a Republican or Democrat! Fiscal responsibility has gone by the wayside and Bob Anderson is one of the few that is a fiscal responsible person. Put it under his jurisdiction and lets find out. He can be the litmus test for accountability. If it doesn’t work guess what no one will follow that direction.
More oversight, as long as the board learns a tad about roads and they don’t play poltical games with maintenance themself.
No savings as someone will have to be hired with now specific abilities.
A slight up tick on costs if the person hired stays on a while.
Elimination of townships and road districts way more complicated where real proof is needed.
Bigger gov costs more, a proven fact.
I vote to eliminate it. I don’t care about keeping useless drones in clover.
My township road wasn’t plowed till Sunday because the township plows were contracted out for municipalities!
What township?