There’s been a lot of commotion in our Village lately surrounding bike lanes, a traffic island, and about the cyclists who use (and sometimes abuse) our Village roads.
The catalyst for this upheaval was an April Plan Commission agenda item stating the Village Engineer was providing a “Bicycle Path Planning Report.” Residents along Haegers Bend, Plum Tree and Spring Creek Roads attended the meeting and were clearly upset with what they learned.
It was at that meeting it was revealed that an application requesting road repair funding from the McHenry County Council of Mayors had been submitted by our Village back in 2012 to reconstruct Haegers Bend Road. That funding request had been turned down. But the Village decided to reapply for funding early this year, and was looking to add dedicated paved bicycle lanes to the reconstruction project in an attempt to improve their chances for success.
No one on the Plan Commission could immediately address the numerous questions that the concerned residents had that evening since this was the first they’d learned of it, as the planning for Haegers Bend was under the purview of the Roads and Bridges Committee, not Planning.
Over the next few months, the Plan Commission members attempted to gather more background through painstaking questioning of the Village Engineer, Dan Strahan and the Village Administrator, Bob Kosin. Often these gentlemen are not very forthcoming with information, so the process was grueling, but gradually each meeting revealed more history, and with every new discovery, residents became more and more incensed.
During a subsequent meeting, residents learned that Spring Creek Road had been reclassified as a “FAU” route at the request of the Roads and Bridges Committee chaired by Trustee Patty Meroni. Also, Trustee Meroni had extended an offer to McHenry County to remove the traffic island at Haegers Bend and Spring Creek Roads in return for the FAU designation, which could again improve the Village’s chances for possible outside funding.
Starting in April, Trustee Meroni regularly attended Plan Commission meetings. If she was absent, Trustee Selman attended in her stead.
Since most of what was discussed during these meetings came as a result of actions by the Roads and Bridges Committee, we find it curious that Meroni had so much interest in attending, yet failed to participate or add any clarity during the meetings based on audio recordings from those meetings.
Over time some residents became increasingly frustrated and angry, so they took matters into their own hands. With the lack of forthright disclosure of information from those involved in the apparent political parlaying of their roads for outside funding, who could blame them?
Signs such as the one pictured at left began sprouting up in many areas in the Village that bicycle clubs frequent. Shortly after that, a website was launched by the leaders of those opposing bike lanes titled Don’t Change Barrington Hills.
The Observer noticed this website shortly after it launched and found it inexplicable how the group was blaming President McLaughlin for the bike lane initiative when we now see what Trustee Meroni and the former Village administration had been doing to our Village roads. After all, McLaughlin wasn’t even in office with the purported “land grab” that the website refers to was first hatched.
Perplexed by this absurdity, we asked our technology consultant to look into the phantom host behind this website. The following URL address was revealed:
Need convincing? Click here and look at the URL address in your browser before someone changes it.
For those who don’t know, RGA Labs is a company run by former Barrington Hills Village President Robert G. Abboud who lost his two-term seat to McLaughlin in the 2013 election. Since Abboud’s company website is hosting the anti-bike lane campaign, this clearly makes one question how much of a contribution the former president has made to the inflammatory and often misinformed content published on this website.
The Observer will be providing more in-depth coverage of this topic, including links to documents explaining what has actually transpired regarding our roads, in part two of this editorial.
In the meantime, we advise our readers to carefully consider the source of any information they receive on this matter.
– The Observer
Abboud has a solid track record of blaming others for his political shenanigans. No surprises here. The cheesy website gave him away.
Thank Observor,
Seems like our defeated Village President can’t give up his divisive and inflammatory habits and is still up to his antics of lying and trying to manipulate the public, and continuing as puppetmaster with Meroini and Selman danglng and dancing on his strings.
Jim O’Donnell (not the former Plan Commissioner)
You guys need to give it a rest. Really? Don’t you have better things to do with your time? You come very close to slander with this. You always have lots innuendo but no facts against Abboud. He’s gone just stop!
Never!
When is Bobby going to get a life and stop his petty manipulations?
Great find Observer!
No to bike lanes, and no to Bobby & Patty!
Bwahahahahahahs. Little Bobby got busted.
Another example of Robt. G. Abboud’s prevarications in furtherance of his ongoing agenda of minimizing current Village leadership and dividing BH into “us” (“equestrians”) versus “them” (“nonequestrians”) mentality is found in Abboud’s comments on FaceBook wherein Abboud said:
“It is disappointing but not unexpected to hear of the predicament that Oakwood is in. This is all about Village leadership – or the lack thereof. The Village government should be providing unwavering support to horse owners and operations in the Village, and protecting the rural nature of BH. It is unfortunate that their focus these days seems to be on widening and striping roads for professional bikers and increased traffic, and commercial and industrial development in and around the Village. I hope that you and the Oakwood facility prevail on the long run.”
Former Village President Abboud further recently said on FaceBook:
“I hope your supporters understand that this is more than the actions of a couple of hateful and ill-mannered neighbors. These individuals are merely proxies for a poltical party and the village leadership with an agenda to suburbanize the Village for profit. They attacked Oakwood because it is a symbol of our rural and equestrian heritage directly across from the facility used by the Riding Club.”
The problem with Abboud’s FaceBook comments is history; specifically, his own. How does Abboud reconcile these FaceBook comments with the “fact” that as Village President, Abboud authorized expenditures in excess of $180,000 of taxpayer money to former Village attorney Burke-Warren for purposes of shutting down commercial horse boarding activities on Oakwood Farm?
After Abboud succeeded in this 4 year endeavor at both the trial and Appellate Court level, Abboud did an “about face” concocting the “Schuman Letter” 34 days after an illegal campaign donation of $5,000.00 each to the “Save 5 Acre” trio of Messer, Meroni and Selman. This is not to say the Schuman Letter and three campaign donations are in any way connected; but only to make mention of the timeline of these events.
On June 21, 2010, Abboud in an e-mail to a resident said:
“The term “commercial boarding” gets thrown around quite a bit. There really are no truly commercial operations in the Village. All of the barns in the Village operate on residential class (R1) zoning. They are expected to meet the requirements of the Home Occupation Ordinance (HOO) in which the Village has a large number of business operating”
In the Village of Barrington Hills Newsletter dated February 2008, Abboud said:
“However, several properties have attempted to operate commercial scale equestrian operations on properties not zoned for this activity. The Village has enforced this area of zoning code in the past and will continue to do so in the future. The effort ensures the protection of surrounding properties, protects health and safety, and prevents traffic congestion”.
BHO mistakenly provided publicity to Abboud’s on-going prevarications by introducing residents to his poorly scripted bicycle website which prior to this BHO posting nobody knew or cared about. . . . . . And still don’t!
David Stieper
Some Thoughts:
Aint noth’in wrong with the VBH staff and the prior administration investigating ways to get help from funding sources to offset some of our property tax burden for road re-construction. I would think these efforts should be praised not condemned.
Not-withstanding the above, if the requirements to get additional outside funding require conditions that are not acceptable to very large majority of our residents, then perhaps we should turn down the outside money.
Where is the fuss?
A public meeting was held to explain and get input. The meeting was necessary in order for our residents to be well informed and for VBH officials to gage public sentiment.
What is truly sad is that public trust in our officials is so low, that every action taken is a source for a new spewing of venom.
Temperance is needed by all, including the Barrington Hills Observer. However, in this particular case, I think it is quite fair to say past president Bob Abboud is not helping! BHO has done a service in revealing Mr. Abboud’s role in fanning the flames of controversy. A gracious ex president of our Board of Trustees would honorably defend his administration while reaching out to find common ground wherever he could. I have seen enough now to conclude that Bob Abboud is not as gracious as I would hope.
Jan C Goss
The fuss is spending $40,000 “investigating”, or is that “chump change”? $40,000 here, $80,000 there! Before you know it, you might have something to really fuss about.
I’m not surprised. This garbage has been around since “dark sky” and is just recycling the same old crap. What is new this time around, however, is the residents who see this bike controversy for what it really is: a straw man to keep our focus from the REAL issue. Changing the zoning laws for the detriment of the collective good of ALL residents is not going to happen. We didn’t buy it before, and we aren’t buying it now. Slander? How is it slander when the origin on the URL link is right there on your screen? I tried it myself. No slander, just facts.
Sorry but the “Don’t Change” site is one of the most pathetic typo ridden sites I’ve ever witnessed. Hell, the RGA site even misspells William Shatner’s name incorrectly as “Shaftner.” Plus there’s no backup documentation of any kind to support any allegations on the “Don’t Change” website.
This should have been the first clue to who’s behind it. Reminds me of some of the campaign mailers I joyfully shredded in the last campaign from RGA and Save 5.
HILLARIOUS! Now the RGA site has the correct spelling of “Shatner.” You’re welcome Phantom!
There’s demonstration of RGA’s involvement in the Don’t Change website. He is the only person I’ve ever known who refers to website as a “WEB site”. No one else ever does, but it’s right there in crayon like coloured news page on the website.
He’d refer to the web in that way in village newsletters all the time and it drove me insane!