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HOFFMAN ESTATES NOTICE OF (PLUM FARMS) PUBLIC HEARING JULY 6

June 18, 2026 by Barrington Hills Observer

 

(Click on image to enlarge)

Notice is hereby given that the President and Board of Trustees of the Village of Hoffman Estates, Illinois, will hold a Public Hearing pursuant to 65 ILCS 5/11-15.1-3 of the Illinois Municipal Code to consider an Annexation Agreement Amendment by and between the Village of Hoffman Estates and H.E. Holdings, LLC (Owner) related to the property located on the north side of Higgins Road between Canadian National Railway on the west and Illinois Route 59 on the east, consisting of approximately 145 acres. P.I.Ns: Lot 1 (01-28-301-004, 01-33-100-003, 01-33-100-004)

The hearing will be held on Monday, July 6, 2026, at 6:55 p.m. in the Hoffman Estates Municipal Building, 1900 Hassell Road, Hoffman Estates, IL.

The proposed Annexation Agreement Amendment would be an agreement that would terminate the Annexation Agreement dated May 1, 2017, and recorded in Cook County, Illinois, as document number 1712813016.

William D. McLeod
Village President
Board of Trustees
Published in Daily Herald June 18, 2026

Related: “‘Wrong project, wrong place’: Critics push back on rezoning plan for potential Hoffman Estates data center,” “Change.org Petition: ‘Deny Rezoning of Plum Farms In Hoffman Estates’,” “South Barrington Mayor Paula McCombie shares an update on Hoffman Estates/Plum Farms Plan Commission meeting,” “Hoffman Estates plan commission rejects rezoning request for possible data center,” “Hoffman Estates Plan Commission rejects zoning change for new data center project,” “Hoffman Estates Plum Farm June 3rd Plan Commission Meeting Essentials,” “After being rejected in Naperville, company could build data center in Hoffman Estates,” “South Barrington Mayor Paula McCombie posts information regarding June 3 Hoffman Estates (Plum Farms) Plan Commission meeting,” “(Plum Farms) NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING JUNE 3,” “Hoffman Estates could see third data center campus with sale of Plum Farms property,” “Hoffman Estates approves sewer, water for development of 185 acres west of The Arboretum,” “Hoffman Estates approves tax incentive at routes 59, 72,” “District 220 lawsuit against Hoffman Estates, Plum Farms developers dismissed,” “South Barrington residents sue over Hoffman Estates development,” “Editorial: Listen to agencies that would feel consequences of Hoffman Estates development”

Posted in AI, Cook, County, Daily Herald, Data Center, EJ&E/Canadian National, FPDCC, Hoffman Estates, Intergovernmental agreements (IGA), Land Use, Plum Farm development, Politics, Privacy, Property Taxes, Public Safety, Real Estate, School Districts, South Barrington, Taxes, Topics Of Interest, Unions, Village Government | Leave a Comment »

Americans Are Sick of Paying the Democrat DEI Blood Price

June 18, 2026 by Barrington Hills Observer

By John Kass | John Kass News

Who brings a knife to a track meet, then stabs another athlete to death? Or who brings gasoline on public transit in Chicago, douses a young woman and burns her alive?

And who pays the blood price for this anti-white racism, most of it institutionalized by the left, and protected in Western Culture?

We do. The middle class. And we’re sick of it.

Nausea builds as we realize, finally, that the center does not hold and we’re about to be cast adrift into the left’s dystopian nightmare that they have planned for us for years. We refuse. Our anger builds and grows.

And as the culture descends into racial tribalism predictably promoted by so-called “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion,” programs baked into American politics and policy, our fingers defensively twitch for rocks, clubs, triggers to fend off the tribalism.  What does this signal? The end of civil society.

Somewhere, Marx and Lenin are laughing.

In his article in Spiked online, Brendan O’Neill addresses the recent atrocities in Ireland that reflect similar horrors here in America, where a man in Belfast was nearly beheaded by a Sudanese migrant who crept into the country with the aid of the left-wing government.

“People are sick of paying the blood price of bourgeois virtue. That is increasingly how it feels to working-class communities – that they are expected to absorb the risk of letting in tens of thousands of unvetted men, while their betters absorb the glow of righteousness that comes with crying ‘Refugees welcome’. The activist class in their leafy suburbs are shielded from the social consequences of their moral theatre. It is the lower orders who suffer the fallout. Working-class girls who suddenly have 800 men from f#### knows where in the hotel at the end of their road. “Women like Rhiannon Whyte, murdered by a Sudanese ‘asylum seeker’ from the very migrant hotel she worked in. This poor man in Belfast. It seems their suffering is a small price to pay for the moral gloating of our rulers.”

Americans are sick of it, too.

Article continues here.

Posted in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), John Kass News, OP/Ed, Politics, Pritzker’s Rules of Order, Public Safety | Leave a Comment »

Special Closed Session Meeting of the Barrington Hills Park District Board Monday, June 22nd

June 17, 2026 by Barrington Hills Observer

The Barrington Hills Park District Board/Riding Cult of Barrington Hills will hold a closed session meeting Monday at 6:00 PM. The sole topic on their agenda is:

  • To discuss the purchase or lease of real property for the use of the public body, including meetings held for the purpose of discussing whether a particular parcel should be acquired pursuant to 2(c)(5) of the Open Meetings Act; and to discuss the setting of a price for sale or lease of property owned by the public body pursuant to 2(c)(6) of the Open Meetings Act

A copy of the agenda can be viewed here.

Posted in Agendas, Algonquin Rd, Aunt Blabby, Barrington Hills Park District, Barrington Hills Polo Club, Big Brother, Big Red, Cellular Service, Countryside Elementary School, Deception, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), Financial Statements, FPDCC, FRVPC, Horizon Farm, Horse Boarding, Intergovernmental agreements (IGA), Land Disconnection, Massbach Hounds, Open Meetings Act, Organizations, Overhead, Politics, Property Taxes, Real Estate, Riding Center Advisory Committee, Riding Club of Barrington Hills, School Districts, Taxes, Transparency, Unions, WTF | Leave a Comment »

Male nurse arrested for allegedly sexually assaulting resident of assisted rehab facility in Barrington

June 17, 2026 by Barrington Hills Observer

Olufemi I. Olaifa, 40, of Schaumburg, (inset) was taken into custody after being charged with felony sexual assault of a woman who was a resident of Alden Estates of Barrington, located at 1420 South Barrington Road in Barrington, while he worked at the facility as a nurse. | Background Photo: Google Street View; Inset: Provided

By Sam Borcia | Lake & McHenry County Scanner

Police say they have arrested a male nurse accused of sexually assaulting a female resident while working at an assisted rehabilitation facility in Barrington.

The Barrington Police Department announced Tuesday that they had arrested Olufemi I. Olaifa, 40, of Schaumburg.

The police department received a report on February 22 of a sexual assault at Alden Estates of Barrington, located at 1420 South Barrington Road, according to Barrington Chief of Police David Daigle.

The report involved a 30-year-old female resident of the facility being the victim.

Detectives immediately initiated an investigation and learned that the victim was sexually assaulted by a male nurse who was employed at the facility, Daigle said.

DNA evidence was collected from the victim and submitted to the crime lab for forensic analysis.

Daigle said the results confirmed a DNA match to the suspect, identified as Olaifa.

Report continues here.

Posted in Crime, Lake & McHenry County Scanner | Leave a Comment »

Editorial: Has Chicago learned nothing from Jussie Smollett and his fake hate crime?

June 17, 2026 by Barrington Hills Observer

Jussie Smollett, the actor charged with lying to police about an alleged fabricated attack, is surrounded by media as he waits for a car at the Leighton Criminal Court Building in Chicago on March 26, 2019. | José M. Osorio/Chicago Tribune

By The Editorial Board | Chicago Tribune

We have some advice for Gov. JB Pritzker, Mayor Brandon Johnson, Cardinal Blase Cupich, Rev. Michael Pfleger and others who rushed out statements following images of a burning cross in Grant Park circulating online and, naturally, then being amplified by algorithms that feed like blood-thirsty vampires on controversy.

Take a breath and let the police investigate for a day or two before you trot out a statement destined to land in international media and feed someone’s need for publicity. Just tell reporters: We’re going to let the police ascertain the facts first.

Did we learn nothing as a city after the actor Jussie Smollett reported a fake hate crime that he had actually staged himself in downtown Chicago, embarrassing any number of knee-jerk politicians (few of whom later apologized), wasting police time and trashing the city’s reputation all at once? Did that not motivate our leaders to say to their eager spokespeople, “Hang on a minute and let’s find out exactly what happened here?”

Apparently not. In this case, Pritzker immediately opined that the incident “speaks to what happens when the seeds of racism and fascism grow unchecked in our country.”

Then on Monday, WMAQ-Ch. 5 interviewed a 21-year-old college student from Naperville who told the station that he had placed a MAGA hat on top of the burning cross and that he actually was protesting the policies of President Donald Trump and didn’t expect his actions to be viewed in the context in which they were reported. The police now also have a suspect in custody. In other words, the man who talked to NBC 5 said his motivation was the precise opposite of what the governor said this incident represented.

We’ve no idea if that motivation was an after-the-fact invention of the suspect, or his lawyer, or even with certainty that it was the same person (no charges had been filed at press time), but we also know that anytime you see the words “after the image circulated online” in a shocking news story — and there were many such stories about this incident in national and local media, replete with the recounting of historical American inhumanity to man — it is a cue to be suspicious that not everything is as it first might seem.

Also a cue: anything purportedly happening in Chicago involving nooses, burning crosses and the other hateful detritus of America’s shameful past, especially from the South.

Editorial continues here.

Posted in Chicago Tribune, Deception, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), Ethics, OP/Ed, Politics, Snowflake Effect | Leave a Comment »

New Bears bill introduced for Arlington Heights

June 17, 2026 by Barrington Hills Observer

The Arlington Park Metra stop adjacent to property owned by the Chicago Bears and the potential home to a new stadium in Arlington Heights, Illinois. | Jon Styf / The Center Square

By Jim Talamonti | The Center Square

A state representative has filed new legislation aimed at keeping the Chicago Bears in Illinois, but Gov. J.B. Pritzker says the Bears have to decide what they want first.

State Rep. Martin McLaughlin, R-Barrington Hills, filed the Taxpayer and Investment Protection Act on Monday.

House Bill 5797 applies to private developments with more than $2.5 billion of investments located in counties with more than one million people.

The proposal calls for the state to spend $1.2 billion on infrastructure for a Bears-owned stadium and surrounding development.

McLaughlin said the bill includes a negotiated property tax up front, based on the Bears’ $200 million land purchase in Arlington Heights.

“What that would be going forward, whether it’s three or four or $500 million, they set a 2.5% tax rate, and that goes up each and every year for 30 years,” McLaughlin told The Center Square.

McLaughlin said a third-party auditor would review the Bears, the state and local taxing bodies to prevent cost shifting.

Article continues here.

Posted in Politics, The Center Square | 2 Comments »

‘Wrong project, wrong place’: Critics push back on rezoning plan for potential Hoffman Estates data center

June 16, 2026 by Barrington Hills Observer

By Eric Peterson | Daily Herald

Hoffman Estates village board members Monday heard from critics of the proposed rezoning of the 186-acre Plum Farms property for a possible data center campus.

Although the issue wasn’t on the agenda, the board allowed half an hour for public comment.

Earlier this month, the village’s plan commission voted 4-2 against landowner Karis Critical of Florida’s request to rezone the site at Higgins Road and Route 59 to permit manufacturing. This classification could allow for a data center.

In January, Karis Critical’s proposal for a data center in Naperville was rejected by the city council there.

Monday’s opponents to the Hoffman Estates rezoning request included state representatives and candidates as well as the village presidents of neighboring South Barrington and Barrington Hills.

Critics from Hoffman Estates, South Barrington and Barrington Hills Monday voiced their opposition to rezoning of the 186-acre Plum Farms property at the northwest corner of routes 59 and 72 in Hoffman Estates that could allow a data campus there. Joe Lewnard/jlewnard@dailyherald.com, 2019

Republican state Rep. Martin McLaughlin of Barrington Hills spoke to infrastructure pressures like increased water and electricity demand, pointing out that even Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker had recently paused the state’s economic incentive for data centers.

“If you’ve opened up an electrical bill lately, you know increased electricity demand is one of the problems with AI centers,” McLaughlin said. “Unfortunately, this has not been planned for well by Springfield politicians. And now, with potential AI center draw, it’s a double-whammy for utility payers and I cannot support this.”

Article continues here.

Posted in AI, Cook, County, Daily Herald, Data Center, Elections, Hoffman Estates, Intergovernmental agreements (IGA), Land Use, Plum Farm development, Politics, Pritzker’s Rules of Order, Property Taxes, School Districts, South Barrington, Spring Creek Watershed, Springfield, Taxes | 1 Comment »

Now that Spring Hill Mall is gone, West Dundee revving up effort to redevelop site

June 16, 2026 by Barrington Hills Observer

By Susan Sarkauskas | Daily Herald

West Dundee is ramping up its efforts to redevelop the site of the former Spring Hill Mall, using a computer model of what it could look like with housing and stores.

But a consultant and village officials, including Village President Chris Nelson, stressed in a presentation Monday night that the interactive model is just a starting point for developers to envision what they would want to build on the site near routes 31 and 72.

On Monday, West Dundee trustees got a glimpse of what could go on the former Spring Hill Mall property. The concept design plans serve as a starting point for a redevelopment of the site. | Courtesy of Houseal Lavigne Associates

“It’s really just to service marketing material and to signal that the village is open to development of the site that sort of meets this character and intent,” said Devin Lavigne, co-founder of Houseal Lavigne Associates, a planning and design firm the village hired to come up with the model. “This is to court developers.”

The presentation contained two concepts: “Urban village” and “Mixed-use boulevard.” Drawings of both showed tree-lined, pedestrian-friendly streets and turning the current stormwater pond in to a park amenity.

The urban village concept suggests 778 housing units in buildings up to five stories tall, with 320,000 square feet of retail space.

The mixed-use boulevard suggests 1,326 housing units could be built, and 400,000 square feet of retail space.

Report continues here.

Posted in Daily Herald, Real Estate | Leave a Comment »

Illinois public school enrollment drop 4th-worst in U.S.


June 16, 2026 by Barrington Hills Observer

The state saw a drop of over 10% in the period from 2014 to 2024, five times the national rate.

By Rich Witzel | Illinois Policy Institute

Illinois public schools are losing students at a faster rate than in nearly every other state.

From fall 2014 to fall 2024, public elementary and secondary school enrollment dropped 10% in Illinois, according to a recently released report by the National Center for Education Statistics. The national decline was 2%.

Public school enrollment is falling across much of the country, but some states are losing students at a far faster rate than others.

Illinois ranked fourth-worst in the nation for enrollment loss percentage in the period, behind only West Virginia, Mississippi and New Hampshire.

The struggling system

At least some of the drop can almost certainly be attributed to Illinois’ ongoing outmigration problem. Still, it is not difficult to guess why fewer Illinois families are choosing public schools for their children.

Report continues here.

Posted in Education, Illinois Policy Institute, Pritzker’s Rules of Order, School Districts | 1 Comment »

Feds free to retry ex-ComEd CEO, lobbyist in scheme to influence Madigan, appeals court rules

June 16, 2026 by Barrington Hills Observer

Former ComEd CEO Anne Pramaggiore leaves the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse on July 21, 2025, after being sentenced to two years in prison. | Eileen T. Meslar/Chicago Tribune

By Jason Meisner | Chicago Tribune

A Chicago federal appeals court on Monday said there was “compelling” evidence against former ComEd CEO Anne Pramaggiore and lobbyist Michael McClain in the “ComEd Four” case and that prosecutors were free to retry it if they saw fit.

The highly anticipated 16-page opinion comes two months after the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the convictions of Pramaggiore and McClain in a scheme to influence then-House Speaker Michael Madigan and ordered them released immediately from federal prison.

As expected, the three-judge panel made it official Monday that the convictions for both could not stand given recent rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court curtailing the use of federal statutes involving bribery and making false statements.

But the opinion also was clear the government had presented “significant and compelling evidence” in the case, and rejected arguments from the petitioners that they should be acquitted outright.

“Do not misread our opinion,” the judges said at the conclusion of the ruling. “We are not suggesting that Pramaggiore and McClain are innocent, only that their convictions were flawed and that they have a right to see their sentences vacated.”

The opinion puts the ball squarely in the court of the U.S. attorney’s office, which will have a tough decision to make. A retrial is possible, though it would have to be under different legal theories, or potentially a new indictment that could vastly change the scope of the evidence, legal observers have said.

Article continues here.

Posted in Chicago Tribune, ComEd Four, Politics | Leave a Comment »

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