First published in the Northwest Herald, this letter to the editor by McHenry’s Elizabeth Kirk is re-published with her permission:
Supporting Citizens for Consolidation
The part of supporting Citizens for Consolidation I feel the best about is knowing that I as a citizen and the entire group of us are supporting other citizens who are the over burdened taxpayers in McHenry County, we are not members of the bureaucracy trying to hold on to power for self-serving purposes.
Our property taxes are incredibly high.
Are we getting our monies worth?
The state of Illinois is billions of dollars in debt with no way out but bankruptcy, pension reform and reorganization.
We all need to support each other as taxpayers and vote to consolidate and eliminate overlapping units of government locally and throughout the state every chance we get.
Have you ever shoveled snow; run the snow blower; cut grass; driven a tractor or a truck?
Have you ever purchased a home, vehicle or selected a utility or maintenance contractor?
Have you managed to raise a family, coach a team, lead a group, manage a work unit?
Do you pay your bills and maintain a household budget? Do you have your vehicle serviced?
The Road Commissioner position requires the same skill set on a slightly larger scale along with pot hole maintenance.
Is this part time position paying $106,000 plus retirement and health care benefits simply too much tax payer burden for the skill set required?
There are 1,391 Road Commissioners in Illinois.
More than half of them earn less than $30,000 and far less take benefits according to the salary information published by Township Officials of Illinois.
There are townships in Illinois that have been completely eliminated and the responsibilities taken over by other forms of municipal government; there have been consolidations between townships where neighboring townships combine functional areas, there are several multi-township assessors, out sourcing is also utilized.
We could easily consolidate the McHenry Township Road District into the General Township, transferring all employees, equipment, responsibilities and liabilities and get the job done.
Vote Yes to consolidate the McHenry Township Road District into the General Township.
Talk to your friends and neighbors.
Visit Citizens for Consolidation on Facebook.
Go Green!
She’s right, but the biggest reason to abolish the useless Road Dist (an entirely separate taxing body on your sky-high tax property tax bill) is the oversight 5 people will now have (Township Board) instead of the little dictator Road Dist. Commissioner.
There will be no more glaring Bobby Millers to spend tax money on themselves and Disneyland vacations!
Another excellent reason is that after the Road Dist. and Commissioner’s job is axed, there won’t be any more new fat pensions going forward for the abolished position!
Sorry township losers, gravy train ended!
Townships cost us big time. It’s way past time to curtail their utter waste.
Excerpt–
“Now, in the 21st century, the township form of government is also useless.
If Gov. Quinn, Speaker Madigan and Rep. Franks want to show real leadership they should work to introduce a Constitutional amendment to abolish obsolete township government in Illinois.
Illinois has 1,433 township governments in addition to 1,395 road districts that are outmoded, duplicative, inefficient, and most of all, costly.
Township government is an outdated vestige of a once useful government established in the 1800s to help farmers and settlers when 98 percent of the population lived in rural areas.”
https://www.dailyherald.com/article/20100909/discuss/309099994/
To me the point is not whether or not this will save money.
That’s something that really can’t be determined except in retrospect.
What consolidation does do is allow for the township board to pass personnel rules, including rules prohibiting nepotism, that can be enforced.
As it currently stands, only the Road Commissioner himself can do that.
Although I know of no nepotism with the current Road Commissioner in McHenry Township, we have recent and flagrant examples in both Algonquin and Nunda which should serve as object lessons.
It just so happens that only the McHenry Township Board is currently composed of members who are willing to take this step, but it should serve as a shot across the bow for the other townships where this has definitely been a problem.
For that reason alone it should be supported.
People seem to be waking up in Indiana.
Anita Sherwood, the late Supervisor of Nunda Township told me personally that a ‘chimpanzee’ could do her job, which amounted to cashing checks and figuring out how big her pension would be.
http://www.wthitv.com/content/news/Lawmakers-seek-to-consolidate-about-300-Indiana-townships-469131473.html
http://www.nwherald.com/2018/09/24/letter-enough-of-the-lies-vote-no/axl12t3/
http://www.nwherald.com/2018/09/27/letter-vote-no-on-mchenry-township-referendum/aa7jnhk/
“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.”
https://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20140930/OPINION/140929799/illinois-has-1-431-townships-it-s-time-to-get-rid-of-all-of-them
Townships … Dens of Thieves!
Here’s more proof —
EAST ST. LOUIS
For more than a year, East St. Louis Township paid Kelvin Ellis as a consultant, even though a federal judge had prohibited him from working for any government agency supported by public funds.
In detailed, written monthly reports to his parole officer, Ellis admitted he was working at the township, according to court records. There, he would occasionally come into contact with other felons — a potential parole violation.
But for more than a year, the Office of Probation at the U.S. District Court in East St. Louis apparently never noticed the order forbidding public employment by Ellis, 68.
The former East St. Louis head of regulatory affairs was paroled in 2014 for tax evasion, obstruction and trying to have a witness killed. In a 2005 order, U.S. District Court judge and now chief judge Michael Reagan sentenced him to 10 years in prison and banned him from government employment during three years of supervised release or parole after his release.
Read more here: https://www.bnd.com/news/local/article201754539.html#storylink=cpy