McHenry County Blog

As Huntley School District 158’s Strategic Plan is criticized for its teachers’ lack of acceptance, Carpentersville District 300 is unveiling its $80,000 survey results for various stakeholders.

I haven’t had time to look at it, but Thursday’s Elgin Courier-News article by Rebecca O’Halloran delivers a doozy of a lead:

”More than half of the 10,458 community members who responded to a strategic planning surveygraded Community Unit School District 300 a “D” or “F” in financial management.”

Guess that might help explain why John Ryan and Monica Clark won election to the board in April.

"The community has not felt that the board, up until this time, and the administration have conducted their financial affairs as transparently as both could and should," O’Halloran quotes Ryan.

And the responding public fears that population growth will lead to higher taxes.

They’ve got that right.

And the developers will finance tax hike committees like Advance 300 so they can enormously outspend taxpayers and even heavy-hitters like Jack Roeser’s Family Taxpayers Network.

Here’s Northwest Herald reporter David Fitzgerald’s take of Tuesday night’s meeting.

“Perception is reality,” Fitzgerald quotes District 300 Superintendent Ken Arndt.

The article continues,

And if that is true, then District 300 students are proud to be products of the school system, yet are unchallenged, felt unprepared for college, do not have adequate technology instruction and perceive their high schools to tolerate drug use, according to the results of the strategic plan.

And, here’s Jeff Gaunt’s, for the Daily Herald.

Gaunt characterizes it as “a snapshot of what many in the community feel about the district.”

He points out that more than one-third of high school graduates do not feel prepared for life, but 90% of teachers say they teach to state standards.

And true to almost every consultant’s report, it comes down on the side of the people paying the money:

“Overall, the district is doing better than people perceive,” consultant ECRA Group is quoted by the Daily Herald.

I would note that presidents and governors are criticized for deciding what to do based on the most recent poll results.

I don’t know if a similar criticism would be relevant here or not

Labels: Advance 300, Developers, District 300, ECRA Group, Family Taxpayers Network, FTN, John Ryan, Ken Arndt, Strategic Plan

A new form of local government—a water authority--is being proposed to counterbalance the forces of rampant growth in McHenry County.

Or as Woodstock resident John Kunzie, a leader of the “Stop the Stacks” movement, put it, some folks object seriously to

the county board’s seeming desire to blacktop the entire county…

The real issue is the protection of our water, which is our most precious resource. And, that’s all that needs to be said.

Kunzie became attuned to water usage when he discovered that a gas-fired electric generating plant would take enough water out of the ground to supply a 6,000-person city water for a year.

Rob Perbohner put it more lawyer-like, but that's probably because he is one:

The threat is what may be coming. The county study has confirmed that there are (water) shortages and there will be more significant shortages in 2020 with some of the eastern townships and, then, in 2030, there will be additional townships projected to have similar shortages.

The "solution" would be called the Kishwaukee Valley Water Authority and would include much of rural McHenry, and all of rural Boone and DeKalb Counties.

Spearheading the effort is a group called the Alliance for Land, Agriculture and Water.

“A-LAW,” for short

The group has issued a press release with a Woodstock byline, which you can read here.

The press release says a water authority has

"the power to regulate the permitting of any new wells for high capacity residential, municipal, industrial and commercial users.

"The authority can monitor and conserve ground water and protect important ground water recharge areas within the authority.

"Existing wells at current usage levels are not affected. Also, wells serving agricultural uses along with residential wells that serve less than four single-family homes are exempt from regulation."

What’s the impetus for A-LAW?

"Members of A-LAW first came together to fight against adoption of a staff-drawn, development friendly, 2020 Comprehensive Plan being considered by the McHenry County Board earlier this year.

"During the County Board meetings, it was observed that farmers and residents in the rural areas of the County did not have fair representation before the Board.

"A major issue to residents of the rural areas of the County was how more development would affect their most important resource in the county – ground water.

"Due to the concern that development would continue to dominate control over future zoning and planning in the county, A-LAW members searched for a vehicle to provide the local community with the ability to monitor, protect and control usage of their ground water."

What’s the cost?

Petitions will be passed asking for a 3-cent per $100 of assessed valuation tax rate.

J. Dale Berry, rural Marengo resident, estimated the cost at $25 a year on a $250,000 home.

It is noted that it costs $75 a foot to drill a well deeper.

And, as villages like Huntley and Lake in the Hills suck the aquifers dry, more and more people will be facing those charges.

When Will the Vote Be?

The April municipal and school elections. Since only 500 signatures are needed, this is pretty much a given.

Who Will Be in Favor and Opposed?

The McHenry County Farm Bureau has endorsed the proposal.

You can bet the developers won’t.

But, taxpayers and motorists should.

Regardless of where they live in the area.

Anyone with a brain in his or her own head who has lived in McHenry County over, say, six years, should know that growth doesn’t pay its own way.

Massive new subdivisions bring the need for new schools. The new subdivisions in no way pay the full cost of the new schools and teachers and other infrastructure, such as roads.

Growth brings nothing but more traffic, lower quality of life and higher taxes. Ask anyone who has lived in McHenry County for any period of time that does not benefit financially from growth.

Who Will Run the Water Authority, If It Wins Voter Approval?

The first board will be appointed by the three county boards. Members must live in the part of the county that is in the authority.

Given the pro-development slant of the current McHenry County Board, I asked Rob Perbohner how A-LAW planned to keep the developers from taking control.

He said that, if 10% of the registered voters could be mustered on a subsequent petition, which, at the earliest could be voted upon at 2008 primary election, the board could be turned into one elected at a non-partisan election.

Who's In and Who's Out of the Proposed Authority?

Increasing the chances of passage is the exclusion of the major municipalities within the watershed.

Those with no vote on the matter, who live in at least some part of the Kishwaukee watershed are

McHenry County:

Crystal Lake, Harvard, Lakewood, Marengo, Wonder Lake and Woodstock, but including Bull Valley

Boone County:

Belvidere

DeKalb County:

DeKalb and Sycamore

And, not even all of the watershed’s unincorporated area is included.

Grafton Township, for example is not included in the proposed district, even though branches of the Kishwaukee run through Crystal Lake, Lakewood and Huntley.

Kane, Ogle and Winnebago Counties parts of the watershed are also not included.

Included McHenry County townships are Alden, Chemung, Coral, Dorr, Dunham, Greenwood, Hartland, Hebron, Marengo, Riley and Seneca.

And all of Boone and DeKalb County’s rural area is included, regardless of whether or not it is in the Kishwaukee River watershed.

Who's Behind the Idea?

Listed as organizers of the not-for-profit organization are

J. Dale Berry, Michael Walkup, Jane L. Collins, Patricia Kennedy, Thomas W. McGrath, Robert M. Perbohner, Emily Berendt, John Kunzie, Linnea Kooistra, Rob Cisneros, and Nancy Jung.

There are others, but they are playing more behind the scenes roles.

The maps may be enlarged by clicking on them.

For more McHenry County Blog, click here.

Labels: A-LAW, Alliance for Land Agriculture and Water, Developers, Emily Berendt, Growth, J. Dale Berry, John Kunzie, Linnea Looistra, McHenry County Board, Rob Perbohner, Stop the Stacks

Who would have thunk it?

Northwest Herald columnist Jennifer Martikean writes

Election year politics makes for strange bedfellows.
Such is the case with school districts and developers.

In the area's biggest school district, District 300, pro-referendum groups have been soliciting donations from developers to promote the passage of tax-rate increases or bond issue measures. The very companies that are contributing to over burdening the school districts now are in bed with the districts and pro-referendum groups to try to pass higher taxes. (emphasis added)

Martikean calls for “tap-on” fees large enough to cover the cost of new schools required when the fields of corn turn into fields of school age children. (My analogy, not hers.)

I have often asked how cities and villages can manage how to figure out how to force developers to pay for sewer, water and streets, but not the most expensive requirement—new schools. (Although cities like Crystal Lake regularly force the new residents to pay for the streets in front of their homes through the creation of a tax collecting special service area.)

The answer, of course, is that councilmen and trustees don’t run the schools.

Just more evidence of local government that does not work as well as it could if there were fewer tax districts.

Instead of being forced to pay the $15,000 per house that Martikean suggests might be enough to build new schools, a big developer like Kirk pays $15,000--less than the profit on selling one home--to the Woodstock school tax hike committee, which, in turn, tries to convince local voters to continue subsidizing his development.

A pretty straight income transfer from taxpayers to the homebuilder and its new home purchasers.

The “tap-on fee” pretty much eliminates any “affordable housing” for those who are poor, however. But, who said that public policy was easy?

(I have written so many stories on how developers are financing school district tax hike committees that, instead of listing them all, I’ll just give you an index.)

Labels: developer impact fees, Developers, District 300, Jennifer Martikean, KIrk Homes, Northwest Herald, Tap-on Fees