Crystal Lake Park District Director Jason Herbster signaled that the Park District is no longer interested in purchasing Northwestern Medical’s HealthBridge.
I may be wrong, but this signal may have originated in the secret Executive Session of the Park Board after its last meeting. The new taxpayer-focused Board majority may have indicated a lack of interest in purchasing the abandoned health club.
Then I received an interesting non-response for a FOIA request to the City of Crystal Lake concerning documents, emails and texts concerning HealthBridge over the last year.
Now, I got an email saying that my FOIA request is too burdensome because it is “unlimited in scope” and “categorical in narture,” whatever that means.
There’s more to the message, but you get the picture.
While the City’s FOI Officer took two weeks to provide this non-answer, I get five days to reply.
When I sent a similar FOIA request to the Park District, it had no problem replying in a timely fashion.
There wasn’t much.
The conclusion I draw is that the City has the most interest in the taxpayers’ purchasing HealthBridge.
After all Mayor Haig urged the Park Board to buy the property…at least twice at meetings.
If that is the case, the City should purchase the property and assume its rehabilitation and presumably future financial subsidy.
