Following are some of the articles published by The Observer for the month of June in recent years. These articles, gathered from various publications and editorials, are noteworthy for residents in that they remind us of where we’ve been as a community.
Extensive storm damage hits McHenry County – 2011
A signal light outage along a stretch of Algonquin Road through Barrington Hills and parts of Algonquin and South Barrington caused major traffic delays during the morning and evening rush hours Wednesday.
The lights were up and running on before 7 p.m., the Barrington Hills Police Department said. Drivers were advised to avoid Route 62 at the intersections of Brinker Road, Route 59, and Route 59 and Bartlett Road.
Read the Northwest Herald story here.
Barrington Hills residents address horse boarding – 2012
About 200 concerned Barrington Hills residents packed the multipurpose room of Countryside Elementary School Monday night for a hearing on a proposed change to the village code regarding commercial horse boarding.
With only a few exceptions, people who spoke generally looked with disfavor on the amendment that would allow commercial horse boarding as a home occupation business if machinery were operated and nonresidents were on site only between the hours of 6 a.m. and 8 p.m.
Read the Daily Herald account from three years ago here.
After defeat, Barrington Hills changes labor attorney – 2013
Just weeks after suffering an appellate court defeat in its legal fight with the village’s police union, Barrington Hills officials have changed their special counsel in charge of labor relations with officers.
Village President Martin McLaughlin hopes the change of attorney could potentially repair the adversarial relationship the village and police union have known during the past few years. Both sides will have to sit down in a year to negotiate a new contract, he said.
Former Village President Robert Abboud’s arguments that the raises were rescinded as a result of other unexpected costs and financial uncertainties were rejected by both the labor board and appellate court.
Read more from the Daily Herald here.
May 28 Village Board meeting recordings released – 2014
The Village has released edited audio recordings from the May 28 Village Board meeting. To access the menu of the meeting’s topical audio recording segments, click here.
The full public portion of the meeting lasted a somewhat grueling 3 hours and 56 minutes, so we’ll try to cut to the chase of the significant points of the meeting.
Twenty-five residents and non-residents spoke before the board during the public comment session, most voicing concern about the status of all horse boarding in the Village.
Read more from The Observer here.
Attorney General’s office determines April 2013 Village appointments violated OMA – 2014
Nearly a year to the day after a concerned resident filed an Open Meetings Act (OMA) violation complaint against the Village, the Illinois Attorney General’s office recently concurred that appointments made by the outgoing village president during his last official Village Board meeting in 2013 violated the terms of the Act.
Read the full original Observer article here.
Thank you again Mr. Jack Reich for challenging the legality of those 11th hour 34 appointments by former VBH Pres. by filing a complaint with the AG’s office. Remaining VBH BOT at the time, VBH Administrator and VBH attorney Burke-Warren were willing to turn a “blind eye” to this illegal maneuver but not you Jack!
This is an example of what one person who is willing to spend the necessary time can do to make a wrong, a right when rules are being broken by a petty-power hungry local government official.
It is because of actions from people like Jack, that necessary change has taken hold in VBH government not only by sweeping change in the identitiy of VBH BOT members save 2 and other board members but the appointment of a new VBH attorney, Bond-Dickson who specializes in Illinois municipal law.
VBH residents remain vigilent and continue to make VBH government accountable to you, the VBH taxpayers!
It all begins by cleaning our own corner of the world. While there is still a little more work to do, for the most part, it is clean.
I have been vigilant in my quest to cease the contamination and flooding of my property for years – yet even this board does nothing unless forced. To paraphrase a statement by one elected official – I suppose I should just let everyone sue the village. My interpretation is that nothing will be done if there is any liability on the village’s part. One must ask our officials when elected – is your allegiance to the citizenry that elected you (individually and collectively) or is your loyalty to the village wallet? Still hiding/falsifying records is not the transparency we expected.
Pauline Boyle