A letter to the Northwest Herald published with permission of it writers Laura Lewis of McHenry
Vote yes to consolidate in McHenry Township
People need to get educated about the township road district referendum that will be on their ballot in November in McHenry Township.
There will be a big turnout.
Teens carried a “Vote Yes” banner in front of the Fiesta Days Parade marchers in support of abolishing the McHenry Township Road District as a government virtually separate from McHenry Township. Will there be contingents of supporters and opponents of consolidation at today’s Johnsburg Saufen und Spiel Parade at noon?
In the City of McHenry, there is a money referendum on the ballot and that always generates a big turnout.
There will also be what looks like a nasty gubernatorial race which also stimulates turnout.
People who are there for those reasons in McHenry Township will also be presented with a township referendum asking if the township road district should be combined with the already existing five-person township board.
Everybody is in a township.
Even if you live in a city, town or village, you also live in a township.
If that happens to be McHenry Township, understand that you have for the first time ever an opportunity to vote to eliminate a unit of government by transferring its functions to the township board.
Many of the people who staff all of these different layers of government all around us are our family, friends and neighbors.
But it is their benefits and salaries and pensions that have grown the size of government that we apparently can’t afford.
We simply have to reduce the size of government without reducing services.
In order to get that done, you first have to get control of the operation.
The Highway Commissioner alone now has that control.
Changing that control from an individual to the already existing five-member town board is what this referendum is about.
When the referendum passes, it will be two and a half years before the transfer takes place and then the township board that is elected at that time, not the current board, will set the policies and provide for the operation of the township roads.
That board will hire the director of road service operations.
They could hire the current Highway Commissioner and continue everything as it is but also direct the exploring of different avenues to provide for those services more efficiently.
We must reduce the size of government without reducing the services. Vote YES in November.
Townships suck out property taxes for bigger and bigger pensions.
I’m sick of it! Vote Yes, your wallet will thanks you, but the fats will scream.
http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20140930/OPINION/140929799/illinois-has-1-431-townships-it-s-time-to-get-rid-of-all-of-them
“A quick quiz about government spending:
Should the purchase of a $329 Levenger purse be regarded as a legitimate government expense?
What about bills for dinner and drinks at Hooters, or tickets to Disneyland?
Or $349 for cashmere and cardigan sweaters, and a wool coat?
The answer is no way, underlined and in bold.
Yet these were expenses charged to township credit cards at the Algonquin Township highway commissioner’s office, when it was led by Robert Miller, the Tribune’s Robert McCoppin reports.”
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-edit-township-government-abolition-20180313-story.html
Got a problem? Government’s got a solution.
Never mind that yesterday’s solutions caused today’s problems.
It’s different this time