The Barrington Hills board assured residents at a standing-room-only meeting Tuesday night that there are no plans to build bike lanes or widen any of the village’s roads.
In fact, Trustee Patty Meroni asked the village staff to help craft a resolution preventing future bike lane proposals.
“We will have a resolution on the September agenda on restricting the building or development of bike lanes, bike paths on village roads within the village,” Meroni said.
Read more here.
Editorial note: As chronicled in The Observer’s release of the July 28, 2014, Village Board meeting recordings, it was Trustee Meroni’s Roads and Bridges Committee that first sought outside funding from McHenry County in exchange for the widening of Haegers Bend Rd back in 2012.
Since her committee does not announce meetings or agendas via the Village website calendar, it wasn’t until the Plan Commission was asked to look into this matter earlier this year that residents became aware of the plan.
I listened to many residents plead with the Board against Bike Lanes, and wondered why someone on the Board wouldn’t relieve their concern and tell them that the Board had already voted against Bike Lanes in July of this year.
It was also interesting to see some residents take to task the Herald reporter who wrote the story about BH residents harrassing the bicyclists (a very one sided story). They criticized him for only interviewing a defeated past village president, and not the current President, Marty McLaughlin. I wonder if Mr. Abboud (I’ll use his name here because it is peppered throughout the article) told the reporter that he (Abboud) orchestrated the ‘no bike lane ‘ signs that now litter our roads. (Dont get me wrong, I too am against the “lanes”, not bicyclists)
It was interesting to hear the those residents comment about the pending sale of the Duda property and how surveyors were busy ‘plotting out 1 acre lots”,
Look in your history books. Our past defeated village president rejected the Duda proposals for 2 – 3 acre properties. He claims he won, spent hundreds of thousands of $$$, and now we have 1 acre properties on our western border. Sounds like he LOST. We lost too!
You know, I wish I had my video camera filming when the meeting opened last night and President McLaughlin announced the resignation of the Village Law Firm and the appointment of a temporary Village Attorney. Like an attack dog, Trustee Messer interrupted, claimed that the President had no authority to do so, and Messer and Harrington and Meroni started waving around “the municipal code: and citing chapter and verse against the President. Trustee Colleen Hannigan interrupted, noting” looks like a violation of the Open Meetings Act”, since several members of the Board were referring to the same document and( my opinion) discussed the attack in advance. Ironically, the Law firm’s failure to advise the Village of violations of the Open Meetings Act (Abboud wholesale appointments (35) to Village Boards, and Commissions after he lost the election, without necessary notice. The Illinois Attorney General ruled that his appointments were illegal. Recognizing that the meeting could not proceed without an Attorney present, the bickering stopped and
Messer stopped yelling, but finished his comments with a threat that he was not going to approve the lawyers fee for his presence at the meeting that night. Meroni echoed that threat as well. That will be interesting. It is clear that the President has the authority to appoint special Counsel, and he did so, and if Messer and Meroni fail to pay the bill, they will put the Village in financial jeopardy (just like the defeated past president did on an ongoing basis).
The ‘attack’ on President McLaughlin about his appointment of Special Counsel looked and sounded a lot like the same Trustees’ attack on him about a year ago, when he announced plans for the “Hills are Alive” village celebration. “How could you possibly do that without consulting and relying on the expertise of the Board….blah blah blah”. Since the “festival” was fully funded by donations,McLaughlin didn’t have to ask the Board to approve any $$$$, the Festival was held, and it was a HUGE success. After staff presented a report of this year’s festival(to be held in October 25), the there was no comment.Those loud hypercritical Trustees had no expertise to add to the fesival planning
A great deal of anger is obvious in Messer and Meroni, and a great deal of opposition by Harrington and Selman. It seems they want to block anything the Village President proposes, unless it is their idea first. Hasn’t anyone told them that the last village president was defeated and they don’t have to follow his bidding anymore?!
Good reason to have fully video recorded Village meetings and broadcast live. the residents could really get to know their elected officials and how they act. It probably won’t change their behavior, but a visual display will certainly help us – the residents – in our decision on who to elect in April 2015.
Now that the bike lane “controversy” has been beaten like a dead horse with blame pointed at everyone except him for underfunding road repairs, the next phase of the phantom’s “Don’t Change Barrington Hills” campaign will focus on the purported sale and planned development of the “Duda” property. As Jim pointed out, this land was lost from our village as a result of our former president, so he’ll once again flog another issue he created.
When I was appointed by former Village President Jim Kempe to the BH plan commission in 2003 no one ever asked me if I owned a “horse” or was I “pro horse”. Nor was my appointment on the Board part of a “horse trade”. There was no litmus test but rather Board members reviewed my resume, a few called me and I was approved for no other reason than I was “qualified”.
It was a given then that all of us who volunteered to serve were donating time and skills for the betterment of BH. Given my experience in land use, zoning and Village Code I wondered why these two Board members would not approve of my nomination to the ZBA.
Last night I learned why. It had nothng to do with my qualifications but because I do not own a horse (“Messer”) making me “one of them” versus “one of us”. Because Messer-Harrington perceived me as “one of them”, then a Messer-Harrington vote for me would only occur as part of a horse trade (“Harrington”) with some other appointment(s) who was “one of us” .
The psychology of Harrington-Messer in the way they view resident appointment was quite revealing last night. I hope residents take the time to carefully listen.
David Stieper
If anyone should be angry, it should be the tax payers of BH, because these are “our” representatives. I didn’t vote for these stooges and I certainly hope the majority see through their facade next election. I’ve attended these slug fests and quite frankly, it’s beyond the pale. The phantom boogeymen that they prop out when they have an agenda, (Horse boarding, bike paths and now Duda again) is so typical, disgusting and completely without merit. The people have spoken.Get over yourselves.
I left the meeting early, so I didn’t observe the ‘horse-trading” them and us discourse.
At the ZBA Public Hearing, a resident commented that the ZBA board was ;representative of the Village.” Since the lines of division was defined last night by Harrington (“do you or do you not own a horse”), may I remind the residents and the Board that only about 10% of the Village residents own a horse (based on resident member numbers in the Riding Club), which means that 4,000 residents do not.
Notwithstanding the fact that I am a member of the RCBH (a social member), I encourage the other 4,000 members of this Village to bury, dump, throw out such a muscling minority who think that they can run this Village in whatever way they want (like seeking an amendment to the Home Occupation allowing 10 boarded horses and an unrestricted # of horses on a 5 acre plot.
Maybe the last admnnistration put up with this nonsense (or some horse trading took place, to use Harrington’s terms), but it is apparent that the current President will not, and a growing number of residents are saying NO!
For example, I estimate that the # of residents against the LeCompte / RCBH text amendments at the Public Hearing outnumbered those in favor by at least 2 to 1, and if you examine the written comments, the opposition is even greater. It is clear that ‘the other side” is against it. We’ll see what the horse traders will do, (BOT and ZBA)how they will vote, in favor of the peace and tranquility of the village, or to pay off some horse trading that preceded this mess. (remember, Messer, Meroini, and Selman were found to have violated election laws by not reporting campaign contributions by LeCompte. Was that horse trading? What can you do for me? A short time later, the Village issued the Shuman letter classifying LeComptes big barn as Home Occupation, a 180 degree reversal of pursuing LeCompte for zoning violatioins. Was that horse trading?
What’s with you Jim? I’m asked all the time why I’m so adamant about this. CAN YOU IMAGINE LIVING NEXT DOOR TO ONE OR MORE PROPERTIES WITH 20 HORSES ON 5 ACRES? I can, and it is not a pretty site. Since the Equestrian Commission recently affirmed these restrictions (or lack thereof), it certainly could happen. Why else would they want it written into the code. AND THE PROBLEM IS, I NO LONGER Could COMPLAIN TO THE VILLAGE, BECAUSE IT IS NO LONGER COVERED BY THE HOME OCCUPATION “INVISIBLE RULE”.
So think about what it will be like when it is in your backyard. Think about the junkyard property on Steeplechase that the Village has been chasing for ~ 15 years.
Forget your horse trading and drop this unsafe, ugly, noisy, smelly 20 horse property allowance. I’ll bet a majority of the Village’s horse owners think this is too much.
After I sent a similar note to other Riding Club members (only BH residents), Jason Elder called me, and he agreed with me! His primary concern was the demise of the Big Barns.
There are 2 new proposed text amendments that address big barns. We don’t have to sell out the Village and allow ridiculous horse density on 5 acres to protect big barns. That is a separate issue. Let us keep our residential neighborhoods RESIDENTIAL. They won’t be if either the Elder or the LeCompte amendment is passed.