We’ve all heard the expression “Robbing Peter to pay Paul”. It dates back to the fourteenth century and basically refers to paying one debt while incurring another. This is essentially what has happened in Barrington Hills for nearly a decade now, until recently.
Adequate budgeting and spending for a ten-year plan of Village road repair and resurfacing represent Peter, and exorbitant legal expenses play the role of Paul, despite repeated spins about balanced budgets and flat levy’s which we’ve all heard. Let’s address roads before looking at the legal fees which we cannot recoup.
During the August Village Board meeting, Dan Strahan, Village Engineer, presented a report showing that our Village is a year and a half behind schedule in maintaining our roads, based on a metric that was set years ago.
If you struck or swerved to avoid a pothole this winter (or still this spring or summer) you’ve seen this up close and in person. According to the report, our Village should historically have maintained (or resurfaced) 3.2 miles of roads, per year, since the plan inception, in order to adequately maintain Village owned roads.
Strahan’s report demonstrated the planned road maintenance schedule has suffered dramatically (due to other expenses) by a cumulative backlog now of 4.8 miles since 2006, as depicted below:
Click on image to enlarge
Readers should note the entire length of County Line Rd in Barrington Hills is less than half a mile shy of the total backlog Strahan reported two months ago, after he was finally asked to report the facts.
Since a simple calculation for valid budgetary purposes year after year should have kept our Village current with road maintenance for nearly a decade, we must ask how and why such an unreasonable backlog was allowed to aggregate. That’s where “Paul” factor enters into the equation – excessive legal spending for too many years.
Nearly two years ago, The Observer reported that Barrington Hills budgeted and spent more than Barrington and South Barrington combined in legal fees (see “Now that you mention it…”). Now, a longtime resident has taken the time to expose where our tax dollars have gone in lieu of road maintenance since 2005.
The following graphic is taken from a document presented to our Village Board last month as it relates to only one Village law firm. More detail based on documents uncovered via FOIA requests can also be viewed here.
Click on image to enlarge
The recent disclosure of this data confirms what many have suspected for some time. The years of irresponsible legal spending in the last administration has put our Village in a financial bind. We now have to find a way out.
Clearly, this was not news to some of our current and past Village Board members, since the shortfall in road maintenance was a long time in the making. Indeed, in 2009 only 1.55 miles of roadways were addressed.
At some point, around 2012, a quick fix for the situation was hatched, in the form of outside funding in return for the resurfacing and road widening of Haegers Bend Road. After being denied federal funding for the project from McHenry County in September 2012, the Roads & Bridges Chair, Trustee Patty Meroni, along with Village Administrator Bob Kosin & the Village Engineer had to dig still deeper to find some way to make up for the deficit.
In early 2013, they eventually developed a plan to add bike lanes to the Haegers Bend project to improve the Village’s chances of receiving a funding grant in the next application period. Tens of thousands of dollars were spent developing new engineering plans and paying for a bike plan study to justify the project.
However, that strategy fell apart when residents got wind of the impending project plans, which would have required, at the very minimum, temporary grants of construction easements by individual property owners along the road, or at worst, the use of eminent domain to obtain those easements. Sensing defeat in July 2014, Meroni backpedaled and withdrew the bike plan, but not before trying to place the responsibility on the McLaughlin administration.
So, here we sit today, with Haegers Bend continuing to deteriorate, requiring at least $1.2 million to reconstruct and the road maintenance schedule with a 4.79 mile backlog. Considering the snow plowing contract with Cuba Township represents only a fraction of the $1.3 million budgeted this year for Roads and Bridges, we have a serious problem. And why?
That’s a very good question, but neither Peter nor Paul can answer it. Perhaps Patty can.
– The Observer
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