The Village has released edited recordings from the Roads & Bridges Committee meeting held on January 20th. This is the first time such a meeting has been announced in advance on the Village calendar as well as recorded for residents to review.
Three public comments were made at the beginning of the meeting. The second was not complimentary, however, and the speaker expressed her lack of trust in the committee and advocated for the termination of Gewalt Hamilton. Those comments can be heard here.
The menu of topical audio recordings, including updates on the progress (or lack thereof) of removing FAU designations of Village roads as well as the status of the significant backlog of road resurfacing, can be accessed here.
Amazing! Meroni conducts roads and bridges meeting in mid-afternnon during work week where Meroni alone votes on approval of minutes of prior meeting. Meroni then acknowledges the minutes of the December 2014 “Roads and Bridges” meeting containing comments by SOS candidate Neumann intended to help bail Meroni from the mess Meroni made of VBH road designations is not real but rather a “dry-run” . . . . it just so happened these comments in the dummy minutes serve to aid Meroni during her darkest political hour. ONLY IN BARRINGTON HILLS could this be achieved.
As her final coup de grace at the meeting, Meroni with the aid of Dan Strahan of G-H propose to initiate a new multi-year, multi-million dollar road pavement and resurfacing program without providing VBH taxpayers with a report/accounting of the prior 10 year road pavement and resurfacing project which expired on 12-31-14.
In Meroni’s eyes, this expired 10 year road program never existed even though Millions of VBH taxpayer dollars were allocated in order to make VBH roads the “gold standard” of Northern Illinois. It appears, Meroni wants to take a “mulligan” on the prior 10 year plan swinging from her heels once again in tee box without taking a penalty stroke. To this, I shout to VBH taxpayers, “Fore”!
The roads which Meroni identifies on the new proposed mult-year program were supposed to have aleady been repaired/replaced per the prior 10 year plan. Where did VBH tax money go ? The tax levy was increased by 22% by Save 5 Acres majorty board of trustees between 2005 and 2007 to help absorb the anticipated costs for these improvements. At least, this is what we were told. Hmmm!
Meroni (as head of road and bridges), Selman (as head of finance) and Dan Strahan (VBH road engineer) need to account to VBH taxpayers through detailed report of the results of the prior 10 year plan before BOT approve any future long-term captial road improvement plan. Trustee Harrington is on the record saying BOT should not look to the past when it comes to the failed road project. I say if BOT do not, for VBH taxpayers it will be deja vu all over again with Meroni poised in the tee box taking yet another mulligan at taxpayer expense.
Given this financial debacle, no wonder when McLaughlin was successfully elected, Meroni scrambled for Federal road subsidies even if it meant changeing VBH road classifications and introduction of bicycle lanes. It is time management of VBH roads be taken away from Meroni and be given to a BOT member who pledges to be accountable to VBH taxpayers. Sorry Harrington, you’re out.
With a contentious election ahead, residents should be storming the Village Hall demanding the release of the previous 10 yr Capital program details. Produce the report! It appears that Trustee Meroni has several other accomplices working overtime to facilitate her creative accounting scheme. Sadly, her FAU subsidy coin hunt via the County failed to produce the desired results.
Now, Trustee Harrington arrogantly tells our residents to forget about it, and look forward. What? Explanations are overdue. Who received this money, and why wasn’t it consistently applied to our year to year road paving of 3.4miles? Meantime, our residents paid into the repair plan with real tax dollars. Where’s that money now to pave our supposed golden highways which thanks to our ever devoted public servants are tarnished because of the wheeling and dealing!
So while you drive over our swiss- cheese roadways remember then those responsible for the deplorable condition and hold them accountable for their failures come April.
After reading the first post, I have an obvious question; Why are there no check and balances on these committees? R&B expenditures are the largest of any given department within our budget. And despite public requests they are not required to produce a report detailing critical information on our road expenses.
This then begs the logical question why then are heads of committees such as R&B are given independent latitude to approve or disapprove their own meeting minutes? If this is so, it must be changed so that no one individual can make those determinations any longer. This should apply to all committees who are chaired by one person. No wonder that the heads of these departments are not compelled to account to the taxpayers, no one has forced them to!
Jarvis, the entire Village governance process is sick and the lingering result of the control freak lunacy of the Abboud administration. Our Village Manager is supposed to manage the Village. Instead, Bob Kosin is weak and follows the strict direction of Abboud and his lackey Board or lose his job. Abboud decided everything. He installed weak Trustees into positions where their capabilities were no match for our needs. Our Village President is supposed to provide oversight. Instead, Abboud used it as his only job in life to run the Village as a platform for bigger political ambitions. He spent too much time in government and wanted weak people around him to manipulate. Our Village manager does not run the administration and only hopes for Abboud’s return to protect his job.
Karen Selman has no financial training, yet is in charge of Finance. Reporting from that group is archaic and any form of analysis is completely absent. Patti Meroni under Abboud’s direction misspent Roads and Bridges budget and we now have a horrible state of roads. She is either unable to answer the questions or is manipulating facts in order to hide the problems of the past in order to protect her political interests while running again for Trustee this April. Gehwalt Hamilton protects their gravy relationship by not standing up to Patti. Fritz Gohl fulfills his own fantasy of self worth by cuddling up to the police and staff, doing pension deals that are so out of whack that it will cost tax payers millions. Don’t blame the police, it’s a deal anyone would want to get handed to them.
Abboud continues his manipulation through the majority Board and illegally appointed ZBA. Messer and Harrington carry out his dirty work and completely stall anything President McLaughlin wanted to accomplish.
Burke Warren had to go $7.5 million in fees later. They RESIGNED under pressure of accountability to questionable counsel in matters such as ignoring the Attorney General’s recommendations when the Village was found in violation of the Open Meetings Act. Yet, Trustee Harrington refuses to pay our new law firm until they can get a firm in they can control that provides the answers they want to hear for their own agenda. Trustee Messer bullies every decision and has now stripped the President of his power to appoint special counsel. Watching his condescending treatment of Trustee Konicek sickens those who have any memory of the chauvinistic extremes that suppress women’s rights in the workplace. Listen to Konicek speak with legal and logical accuracy while Messer uses bully tactics to force his ways. The audio tapes don’t lie.
Too late, McLaughlin is appointing a special counsel to investigate the allegations of “improprieties” involved in the Anderson/LeCompte Horse Boarding Text Amendment manipulated by another co-conspirator, Judy Freeman. Changing a law to effect one landowner, Oakwood Farms, with an 8 year retroactive provision is absurd and it does not take a rocket scientist to see through that corruption.
Despite the Board’s stranglehold on our new President casting vote after vote with the Abboud majority block, he settled the Sears litigation, cut legal expenses, demanded more accountability and opened our eyes to the manipulation by extremes of the Riding Club to change the very character of Barrington Hills. John Rosene’s white paper is a testament to that master plan and changes to our own sacred Village Plan is now corrupted. Mr. McLaughlin has shown a lot of guts vetoing the Text Amendment, but Messer has already promised to override that veto in February. He must protect Oakwood at all costs to the rest of us, what could be the motivation?
Bob Abboud, Joe Messer, Judy Freeman and others need to be investigated and punished if allegations of wrongdoing in the Text Amendment process are proven. The very nature of Trustee Messer’s push to change a law of the Village that stood since our inception to repeal the right of the Village President to appoint special counsel demonstrates a fear of the truth coming to light. Messer and his cohorts passed this repeal in one meeting without due process in front of the public. The public should be outraged that laws in our Village can be changed with 48 hour notice that are clearly for self interests of a special few at the expense of the community. The hypocrisy is so apparent when Abboud hired James Kelly to be his own special counsel with over $600,000 in legal fees. By the way, Kelly was also hired by Abboud and Messer to investigate 2011 allegations of tampering in the Oakwood Farms matter. Anyone with a shred of ethical understanding or Board experience knows the accused does not hire and manage the investigator. Kelly was recommended by Messer to be a candidate to be our Village attorney replacing Burke Warren. No wonder he votes not to pay Bond Dickson. Maybe Bond will resign and sue our Village. Great reputation for any vendor to the Village and another black eye for our community.
We have serious issues in our Village. Those of you who are coming late to the party may not understand the full nature of the terrible abuses that have taken place for a decade. The more we learn, the more disgusted we are with the stop at nothing politics to gain favors for one special interest voting block. The equestrian community is an essential part of our Village heritage and future. However, the lunatic fringe will destroy this Village if decency and good ethics aren’t restored.
Jarvis, welcome to the discussion. The more you learn, the more outraged you will become and hopefully an added loud voice to demand justice and prosecution of any offenses that are proven. We can all debate issues, but none of us should in any way tolerate special interest favoritism, corruption or low ethical standards in our once special Village.
excellent summary Richard