The Village has released edited audio recordings from the Village Board meetings that took place on September 22 and 29. Readers are forewarned that the recordings from the first meeting held at Countryside School are of mediocre quality due to the acoustics of the room, and at times it is difficult to understand some of the speakers are saying.
At the September 22 meeting, thirty people spoke during public comment. Most spoke of their objections to the Anderson/LeCompte horse boarding text amendment to be discussed later in the evening. A few voiced support for the boarding amendment, though citing no specifics.
Several speakers’ comments deserve special attention. A former village trustee warned of the unintended consequences of potentially altering the zoning of any residential lot (click here). Another resident who owns twenty horses not kept on her property expressed her concerns about the impact of a commercial operation on residential neighbors (click here). And yet another resident spoke passionately about the misclassification of horse boarding as agriculture (click here).
One of the last speakers opened many eyes and ears when he revealed what he’d discovered by researching historic legal spending by the Village. A direct link to his comments can be found here, and we’ll have much more to say about his findings in an upcoming editorial.
The menu for the full September 22 meeting recordings, including discussion of the Anderson/LeCompte boarding amendment proposal lasting over an hour, can be accessed here.
The Village Board reconvened a week later at Village Hall on September 29 to continue their business from the unfinished agenda, and two matters were resolved that we believe residents should be aware of.
The Board ultimately voted on the process of selecting new Village legal counsel and it will follow guidelines set forth in our Village Code.
There was also discussion of the posting of monthly Roads and Bridges committee meetings on the Village Google calendar so that residents can attend, just as the protocol is for all other village committees. A direct link to Trustee Meroni’s reaction to publicizing her regular monthly Roads and Bridges meetings to residents can be heard here.
The menu for the complete recordings for the September 29 Village Board meeting can be accessed here.
On Horse Boarding, BOT member Fritz Gohl in the year 2011 and most recently during public comment (May 2014) before the ZBA stated any propery which boards “10 horses or more” should be subject to “special use”. During the September 22, 2014 Board meeting, Trustee Gohl did a 180 degree “change of heart” intimating he now favored placing horse boarding under VBH code “agriculture” definition. My question to you Trustee Gohl, is who got to you?
Congratulations to President McLaughlin for settling [no help from Burke-Warren or BOT] that “dog” of litigation called the Sears lawsuit. During McLaughlin’s statement on the Sears lawsuit he said VBH’s shouldered most of the financial burden of this litigation resulting in VBH incurring 1.5 Million Dollars vs. South Barrington paying less that 500K in legal fees even though VBH claims and defenses were the same as South Barrington.
My question to the BOT is who entered into this arrangement whereby VBH taxpayers would subsidize South Barrington taxpayers and under what legal authority did you do this? This was never discussed at public meeting.
BOT needs to become accountable to VBH taxpayers on this misplaced litigation and quit insulting our intelligence by using phrases like Sears was “recalcitrant” [Messer] or a “bad neighbor” [Meroni] resulting in the need to expend these funds. “Bad neighbor”, “recalcitrant”, really!
VBH BOT quit hiding behind “public comment rules” shielding you from the public questions and explain to the public this most obscene disparity in legal fees between our Villages. This VBH taxpayer is fed up with the “financial waste” wrought upon us by these amateurs and requests an immediate investigation.
David Stieper