The IAA battle: Why it was over before it began

Last Monday evening, East Dundee trustees voted unanimously to approve the controversial proposed development of a 35-acre auto auction facility by Insurance Auto Auctions (IAA), bordering Barrington Hills.

The residents of the adjacent Pond Gate subdivision are to be commended for mounting a valiant and coordinated effort to stop the approval of the IAA development.  They attended countless meetings, performed extensive research into complaints against IAA, and mounted multiple social campaigns, including a petition drive that garnered nearly four hundred signatures.

There will undoubtedly be some second-guessing as to why our Village could not stop this from happening, but The Observer has collected some of the reasons pointing out why our Village was at a disadvantage from the start.

Lack of an Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA):  On the heels of the failed attempt to keep the Duda property within Barrington Hills, most candidates in the 2009 campaign agreed that IGA’s needed to be either strengthened or established with neighboring communities.  Fritz Gohl actually had as one of his top four priorities during that campaign (see Re-Elect Fritz Gohl).

Unfortunately, this never came to fruition.  Barrington Hills has IGA’s with a number of surrounding communities, but never bothered to create one with East Dundee.

“Dark Sky” and other unnecessary detours:  In the last four years, our Village government and residents have wasted an inordinate amount of time and money on “issues” such as the Exterior Lighting Ordinance, Horse Boarding regulations that would never be realistically enacted by the administration, and last but not least, justifying providing office space for BACOG within our Village Hall.

Coincidentally, East Dundee had their first meeting with IAA about a year before our Village Board was finalizing the terms of the BACOG lease (May, 2011) .

Heavy handed “diplomacy”:  Once the plans for the IAA development were discovered about a year ago, it took little time for this controversial plan to be used as a political haymaker.  Despite the fact that our Village was in no position of strength, there was no discernible diplomacy coming from our Village leadership.

Instead, there was heated banter between the respective village presidents.  Photos and videos were recorded of puddles being drained from an IAA facility in a nearby suburb.  The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency was notified of that situation and they were also asked to intervene in the local proposed auction site, but this activity only seemed to aggravate an already tense situation rather than move toward resolution.

Eleventh hour strategy backfire: Last week, we learned that the IAA proposal was stalled for months when our former Village president attempted to persuade ComEd to block access to the site (see “Ex-Barrington Hills mayor admits to talking to ComEd about auto auction plan”).

Presumably our former President thought IAA’s only option for accessing the proposed development was to obtain a right-of-way using the utility’s easement. But this strategy neglected to notice that another less desirable, but workable, route existed via Healy Road.

Sadly, our Village has learned too many lessons the hard way for a number of years now.  The IAA development approval by the East Dundee board is now the latest, although the battle may not be over yet.

The Observer sincerely hopes that new Village Board members can successfully overcome issues left behind by the previous administration quickly and foster a spirit of cooperation among themselves and with neighboring villages.  Only then can our Village begin to move forward.

–     The Observer