McHenry County Blog

Monday the Northwest Herald added some additional information to Aaron Shepley’s massive flip-flop on the use of condemnation in Tax Increment Financing districts.

As McHenry County Blog pointed out previously, November 2, 2005, the night of the TIF hearings for the Main Street and Vulcan Lakes projects, Shepley said:

"I can say this. At no time has this city council considered…using our condemnation authority in any TIF we have contemplated. If property owners have that concern, they are false."

Here are Shepley's words on October 10, 2006, at the City Council Vulcan Lakes TIF workshop meeting:

"We already promised we would not use condemnation in this project."

Seems pretty clear to me.

Monday, the NW Herald ran a Karen Long article on the subject in which Shepley says,

"I stand by what I said before.

"The answer then, and is now, no…. People on Route 14 should not be concerned. It was not our plan in creating the [tax increment financing] district necessarily to go on some sort of condemnation binge. Nothing about that has changed."

The cut line under Shepley's picture in the NW Herald says,

Aaron Shepley, Crystal Lake Mayor said the city would not condemn private property.

(A friend of the blog scanned Shepley's picture and it came out a bit crooked. I cannot figure out how to straighten it. Sorry about that.)

What did John Kerry say about voting for the Iraqi war?

“I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it,” according to CBS.