A number of very significant Village issues have been discussed and decided upon during the last few months, but, judging from the complete lack of information coming out of Village Hall, you would think that nothing important has been going on in our quiet Village. So many different modes of communications to residents are available to our Board of Trustees (BOT), yet there has been no announcement of the important decision by President Bob Abboud not to impose fines in the Oakwood Farms case (see Nixon Had Tapes Too), or any mention of the direction that the BOT & Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA) are looking to take concerning commercial horse boarding operations within the village (see Horse boarding continues to draw controversy in Barrington Hills).
Monkeying around with Village communications
October 15, 2011 by Barrington Hills Observer
The primary Village website www.barringtonhills-il.gov contains only the most basic information concerning commission and committee meeting schedules and agendas, but has posted virtually no minutes from any meetings, with the exception of the BOT. Residents still have to submit official FOIA requests to read transcripts of ZBA meetings, and those transcripts are usually not made available for weeks after the meetings. Some committees – like the Equestrian Commission and Beautification Committee have never had any of their minutes posted since they were created in 2005! Residents are being left completely in the dark about what goes on during these meetings.
In June, The Observer was encouraged when the BOT approved a resolution to record their monthly meetings and make the audio recordings available to the public. But, our enthusiasm soon waned when the recordings did not appear on the website in a timely fashion. And, it’s no surprise that the link to listen to the recordings was not posted to the web until a newspaper article about residents taping meetings ran in the TribLocal. Even now, the uploading of the links has been intermittent at best, with the August BOT meeting still not available. The July ZBA meeting was uploaded, but no further postings for August or September ZBA meetings has been done. And then, there is the poor quality of the recordings themselves, which makes listening to them nearly impossible.
In terms of written communications, there’s the Village newsletter, which hasn’t been published in many months. For most residents, this is the only opportunity for them to learn what their elected representatives are up to. Invariably, it features a rambling opinion piece by the Village President which is long on promises and rhetoric, but lacking in specifics. The majority of the Trustee articles contain only the most basic description of village meetings, which rarely give any insight into upcoming ordinances or initiatives.
The Communications Committee would seem to be an important conduit of resident information, especially since three Trustees –Meroni, Selman and Ramesh—are listed as committee liaisons. Yet, the Committee barely met for first half of the year, and the Committee-run website, www.vbhcomm.info, has not been updated since July. The mysterious “Website Integration Project” seems to have ground to a halt. Last, but not least, the Village’s Twitter page http://twitter.com/#!/BarrHills_IL went dormant in August.
All of this has to make us wonder just what sort of monkey business is going on over at the Village Hall and what they’re trying to hide. Maybe they’re not trying to hide anything. But why have they made it so hard to learn what is really going on in Barrington Hills?
– The Observer
I agree about the lack of transparency – also little or no comment is mentioned regarding the Village’s long overdue vote to adopt the Lake County Stormwater Mgmt ordinance at the Sept BOT meeting …… for years Abboud opposed any stormwater management leaving residents to fend for themselves regarding many of the flooding issues ignored by this administration – what prompted the 180? Do tell………