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:
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.
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
Observer,
Thanks again for your diligent and timely reporting to Village residents.
Please send this postt again in March, so the residents can be reminded that the Abboud cronies (those who served with or were picked by him or supported him) AND WERE SILENT about the excessive legal spending have to be defeated in the April election.
These are the obstructionists on the current Board who fight every effort made by the current president.
These are the disingenuous current board members who recommended the Kelly firm, who admitted that the $600,000 paid to him in Duda II (disannexation fight) COULD NOT BE WON!. And how much was paid to the other firm on that Duda fight? And Trustee Meroni, after Kelly’s presentation, stated publicly “you have no conflict” OUTRAGEOUS!. Equally; outrageous is the BOT who let Abboud run rampant with legal fees, spending hundreds of thousands of our tax dollars to “send a message to developers”!
Listen to the BOT meeting tapes. That is what Kelly said, and that is what Trustee Meroni said Remember that when you hit a pothole or cringe at the sight of your new tax bill
And the second firm, TheZukowski, Rogers, Flood & McArdle, firm was invited to present their firm for consdieration as Village attorney. Did the Board not know that the McArdle firm was retained by the Riding Club, and advised the Riding Club Horse Boarding by ANYONE was at risk?t Trustee Messer must have known about that conflict. That advise is clearly against what the Appellate Court and the Current Village administration position on boarding under Home Occupation. Don’t get me wrong; The Zukowski firm is a good firm, with experienced lawyers; but they are conflicted by theri current representative of the Riding Club (as recent as one week prior to the BOT meeting. Conflicted to the Village, but obviously not conflicted to the special interests of some of the CONFLICTED BOTs. .
Many have suspecte/said the Riding Club biased ZBA was promoting the Elder and LeCompte text amendments to change Commercial Horse Boarding was a ruse to “make LeCompte legal”. Of course they denied it, but then Mr. Yeterian, a recent past president of the Riding Club openly made the statement at the most recent ZBA public hearing that the amendment that the RCBH supported was to “Make LeCompte Legal”. At a ZBA meeting this summer, LeComptes’ attorney presented an argument to the ZBA that their changing the HOO would “MAKE LECOMPTE LEGAL”. – no longer a suspicion; now we have an ADMISSION of the MOTIVE.
Even the lawyers that the Riding Club Biased BOT invited to interview for Village Attorney were cautioned against passing an ordinance that favors a party in litigation. It is clearly against what other lawyers have stated – don’t interfere with current litigation involving private parties, and don’t pass an ordinance that favors one of the parties
Dangerous practices? Puts the Village at Risk. – now their intent is public – will these CONFLICTED ZBA and BOT members back off from messing with the HOME OCCUPATION ORDINANCE that protects the rights of all the residents instead of MAKING LECOMPTE LEGAL? Only time will tell.
I’ve asked the current administration to research if liability and responsibility can be placed on these conflicted officials PERSONALLY, so that they are responsible for the legal fees and damages risk to the Village if one of the parties successfully sues the Village for their interference. THEY HAVE CERTAINLY HAVE BEEN PUT ON NOTICE NUMEROUS TIMES OF THEIR PLACING THE VILLAGE AT RISK.
And lets not forget, the Riding Club membership is about 1/3 non-residents, so if you consider that the Residents that belong to the Riding club number ~ 200 to 400 people, how is it that the remaining 4,000 residents are suffering from these runaway legal fees (now stopped) and rushing(trying to) an ordinance change (commercial boarding), taking away the rights of an overwhelming majority of Village (at least 10 to 1). That’s got to stop!
So, anyone reading this post, please spread the word to Residents who don’t read the Observer and don’t attend BOT and ZBA. The conflicted elected and appointed people are destructive to our Village, and they have to go!
Thanks Observer, look even further and we’ll find that Meroni voted for these legal expenditures. She knows that by not investing in the roads when they needed it, cost of the “failed” roads is now even more expensive to fix. She will shout not knowing (like with Longmeadow Parkway), then why is she in office and in charge of Roads?
To make matters worse, total expenditures increased from $4 million to nearly $9 million under the Abboud administration and our cash position nearly drained away. Messer, Meroni, Selman, Ramesh, Gohl, Harrington and the save 5 acre team were so busy helping LeCompte that they forgot to pay any attention to fiscal responsibility. Why was Selman appointed in charge of finances by Abboud? No experience. Yet, Harrington now wants to keep qualified people out of the ZBA before he can inspect their credentials. Such corruption and political manipulation.
By the way, the Pension fund issues fed by Gohl and Abboud are another horrendous problem yet to be exposed. Hold on taxpayers, we are about to understand the cost of apathy and corruption. Messer and Freeman, you are taking the Village down a rat hole with the issues to save Oakwood when we need to be taking care of the horrible mistakes of the past administration. Oh, forgot that the two of you are leaders of the Abboud drama.
Why wait until the election? Enough of incompetence and illegal manipulation of meetings and process has been exposed to warrant demanding resignations of Freeman, Rosene, Anderson and Benkendorf on the ZBA and Messer, Meroni, Selman and Gohl from the Board of Trustees. Further obstruction by these people and forcing an agenda to work Oakwood Farms only prevents the Village from tackling important issues and building positive agenda for the Village.
This is serious and the Village doesn’t have time to continue with their cover ups and conflicted juvenile agendas. Demand resignations or find a way for the right agency to conduct legal proceedings to expose and indict any offenses uncovered. Time for adults to fix our Village.
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.
^ Reason alone to dismiss/demand the resignation of Meroni, Kosin and Strahan…
At the very least – why are Kosin and Strahan still collecting a salary based upon our taxes? Both need to be fired ASAP.
Wait. If legal expenses increased $1/2 million per year and roads were below budget, what happened to the additional money spent if expenditures increased from $4 to $8.5 million? Pension funds? 911? Something smells.
Aren’t there fines to collect from Oakwood?
I am assuming P. Merroni authorized the pathetic attempt at patching and filling in potholes at the North End of Ridge and East end of Plum Tree Roads. It is the worst, uneven, bumpy, messy job of road repair I’ve ever seen. A kindergartner could have done a better job. Vote her out!!!!!
Thank you BHO on a fine blog. Citizens for Stieper and PBH first brought this information to the public’s attention in 2011. Now, again, we have Trustee Meroni asking for more money, this time an additional $600,000 of taxpayer funds above last year’s allocation for road improvements (which should have been completed) for the year 2015.
Trustee Meroni does this without any shame or attempt at being accountable to VBH taxpayers via an accounting or production of a final report on the 10 year capital road improvement plan passed by the Board in 2004. This 10 year plan ends on December 31, 2014 and was suppose to make all VBH owned roads the best in the NW suburbs. According to a recent study by Gewalt-Hamilton, VBH roads are abysmal. The Gewalt-Hamilton findings are a testament to the mishandling of our roads and road funds by Trustee, Meroni who for many years sat quietly under Abboud knowing money budgeting for roads and bridges was being used elsewhere. Do not let Meroni fool you, the condition of VBH roads is not a funding issue, but a mismanagement issue.
During his first 3 years as VBH President, Abboud increased the levy by 23% promising these additional tax funds would go to repair/replace every VBH owned road. Instead of requring these additional tax funds be “earmarked” and deposited into a “special fund” for VBH roads, the Board permitted Abboud to treat these funds as part of the “general fund” where it could be used as the Board pleased. They did, just not on the roads!
But the financial picture is worse from here, the once “cash rich” VBH having liquid reserves on hand (when Pres. Kempe left office) of @$3.8 Million Dollars dwindled under the “stewardship” of Abboud and compliant “Save 5 Acre” Boards to less than @$1 Million Dollars.
In reality, the above is “petty cash” compared to the infinite financial drain of tax revenue resulting from the misguided decision of changing the VBH Police pension plan from the IL State managed IMRF fund (90% funded) to be managed locally by VBH (55% funded). Since this decision was made, annual contributions to the police pension fund have sky rocketed from @$150,000 to @$450,00. More troublig, these increased contributions have occurred during record increases in the stock market.
VBH pension fund has been underperforming the market for pension funds by about 3-4% per year which is why VBH taxpayers are annually coughing up the maximum required contribution. When we hit a protracted bear market, these annual contributions could exceed $750,000 and in time, unless VBH is not proactive, will grow to a One Million Dollar budget item per year.
To put this in some perspective, One Million Dollars was the total expenditures for VBH government in 1982. This increased financial burden on a tax base whose growth is stagnant will lead to further increases in real estate taxes resulting in further decline in property values and greater pressure by internal and external forces to break VBH 5-acre zoning.
By my calculation, using discounted present value analysis, I have estimated for the remainder of my expected life (27 years), the decision to shift the police pension from IMRF to VBH will cost VBH taxpayers conservatively about 12 Million more Dollars. When Gohl told voters managing the pension locally would not cost VBH taxpayers a “dime more” he was correct, it has and will cost VBH taxpayers “billions of dimes more.”
It is not developers who pose the greates threat to VBH 5 acre zoning but the spendthrift monolithic Boards who have been elected in recent past. There was some departure from this practice in the last election, lets hope this trend continues in April. independence and qualifications of candidates should be voter primary focus and not team politics.
The current band of “Save 5 Acre” cronies have not only successfully frittered away the Village treasure, but as a “swan song” before the election, want to “wreak havoc” on the Village Code for the sake of one property owner by passing legislation which will permit commercial businesses to coexist adjacent to residental estate living anywhere in VBH without any customary homeowner protections.
Come election season, demand more from your candidates than “hit and run” slogans via mailings from ghostwriters and special interest cronies like John Rosene who has proven to be more adept at dressing opposition candidates in “hoodies” than offering any intelligent discourse on the many important issues affecting the future of the Village.
It is time VBH electorate insist all candidates appear together in public to debate and articulate view points on issues which are of most concern. Take the time to listen to all candidates, especially those you might think you are not otherwise drawn too. Never before has a VBH election been so critical to the future financial fortunes of this Village.
David Stieper
Actually I first brought this to everyone’s attention 7 years ago David – the corruption that is – but then at that time I was not to be taken seriously. The ‘good old boys’ resented the newbee female.
Agreed there is a great deal at stake during the upcoming local election and it is never too early to get the correct information to the residents. To further this informative blog – per my foia request (only now do I get some semblance of truthfulness) the cost to repair Ridge and Plum Tree Road a little over a week ago cost us taxpayers $1,010,010.00. And it is adjacent to a corner that is in danger of collapse as I indicated in the Observer some time ago.
So how is this proper management?
Additionally I would like all residents to give second thought to the role of Gewalt Hamilton and not put credence in any reports as they have always been a willful participant in many of these ‘questionable’ practices. I can document several residents who resided near public works projects that were ‘spec-ed’ out at one cost then downsized with regards to materials. This ‘downsizing’ in materials/product resulted in increased flooding for several residents. Complaints were ignored or the resident was told to file a suit against their neighbor. Had any of these projects been done correctly none of this would have occurred. Was it not the job of Gewalt Hamilton to oversee these public projects?
Remember the not so long ago bot meeting where Mr. Hamilton of Gewalt Hamilton attended to say ‘good-bye’ as he was retiring? What if he was asked to retire as a result of several investigatory agencies reports?
The art of negotiation is long over – now it is time for accountability – for everyone. I have long held that view – accountability for everyone.
Like Burke Warren, it’s time for Gewalt Hamilton to go. Unfortunately, the issue for their problems really belongs in the management style of Abboud, Messer, Meroni, etc. – they want yes people to bow to their opinion and are forced to do so to protect fee relationships, GW is afraid to speak out against Attilla the Meroni. Burke Warren, after $7.5 million in fees, became so addicted feeding at the Barrington Hills trough of money, that they forgot to do what was right. Dan S is a nice guy, likely competent, but seems to do whatever Patti tells him.
Remember when the ZBA attorney, Joe VonMeier disagreed with Abbud and Messer, he was fired. We need qualified professionals to help our elected officials! Like Bond Dickson!
Dan Strahan refused to enforce code violations as well as acknowledge their existence on many many occasions. Sweet he is NOT.
Again all who colluded should be held accountable. We all make choices in life. When your choice revolves around you wallet at the expense of others – well you have serious moral and ethical issues.
Strahan may be cooperating now for fear of losing his license. Another casualty of several investigations. Accountability!
Please understand……..if this corrupt measure isn’t passed, Barry will loose his tail on his “home” business. If you think Barry and Bobby are going to just go away, I have some ocean front land to sell you in Iowa!
They will do anything to pass this measure………there is so very much at stake for them in this situation.
We must turn out at any and all meetings and stand up for what is right. If we don’t we will get just what we deserve!
Reading these comments and the reports from the Barrington Hills Observer one thing becomes clear….our sleepy village has been robbed by inept Trustees, a corrupt past Village President, a dishonest Administrator and greedy contract services. Is it any wonder that “For Sale” signs are everywhere and future home owners shy away? A full house cleaning is needed in April 2015!