The “Your Barrington Hills” (YBH) Riding Club slate of candidates — Louis Iacovelli, Paula Jacobsen and Robert Zubak — recently rolled out their campaign website. Surprisingly, the site is a departure from the designs we’ve seen from the likes of the “Save 5 Acres” and “Save Open Space” slates — both visually and content-wise.
Their site design is rather bare bones, lacking pretty photography, and open space and equestrian themes that we’ve come to expect. Although, they do utilize a nifty leaf logo.
And the website features very brief biographical sketches of the three candidates, while strangely and completely omitting the equestrian ties of Jacobsen and Zubak. Both are very active members of the Riding Club of Barrington Hills, and both of their spouses currently serve as Directors of the organization, along with Iacovelli who is also a club Director (and at least lists himself as an RCBH member).
Also interesting is the list of “issues” that the “team” vows to focus upon.
- Property rights
- Fiscal responsibility
- Public safety
- Transparency
If memory serves, these are nearly the identical issues that incumbent Village President Martin McLaughlin and Trustee Colleen Konicek ran on four years ago. And they are the areas in which Marty and Colleen have successfully achieved nearly every one of those 2013 campaign goals. The YBH team fails to elaborate on specific problems with the way the village is currently being run, although they do refer to protecting the village’s “character and value” and there is mention of “harmful development” nearby. So we might assume that the “phantom developer” might rear its head again in this election cycle.
We’ll be keeping an eye out for any new website content that may arise in the weeks before the April 4th election and we will keep our readers informed.
Transparency, property rights, etc…. ‘If memory serves, these are nearly the identical issues that incumbent Village President Martin McLaughlin and Trustee Colleen Konicek ran on four years ago. And they are the areas in which Marty and Colleen have successfully achieved nearly every one of those 2013 campaign goals.’
Yeah right – Bwahahahahaha Time for real transparency in this village. and it would not be coming from Marty and Colleen.
While we are on the subject of transparency dear unbiased Observer – is it true that our village spent over $35,000 on ‘rebranding’ our village?
Is it also true that our village ‘engineer’ is paid both by the village and Gewalt Hamilton?
Dear Contaminated,
It seems as though you have an axe to grind with everyone. At a certain point, shouldn’t you reflect inward to see if that’s where the real problem lies?
Not sure about your allegation on the cost of rebranding, but didn’t the BOT vote to approve the website upgrade in open session?
And where do you see any payment by the village to any individual employed by Gewalt?
Have a blessed day!
David Steiper – you just can’t ‘contain’ yourself can you? Always berating someone when they speak the truth. Did you really attempt to serve papers on a resident for speaking the truth? Ah yes – the truth does seem to rile you….lol.
There you go with the wild accusations again. I’m not Steiper.
Have a blessed day!
$35,000? Not even close. Website upgrade was budgeted for in 2016. $7500 spent in 2016, $7500 spent in 2017. And the upgrade was sooo overdue. Or maybe you liked the archaic old site? BTW it was easy to find this information on the village website. You should try it instead posting garbage here.
And now we’ve got a site which makes BH a more desirable place to live and maybe people can actually sell their homes in less than 18 months.
At some point duffer you just may realize that what is written is not necessarily true – falsifying information is an art form in Barrington Hills. If we ever meet I’ve got some real ‘garbage’ for you duffer. Hope you sell your house.
And where do each of them stand on Stopping LongMeadow Tollway’s incursion into our Village?
In the last election cycle this was the issue that put 3 of the candidates over the top – a large number of residents voted specifically for candidates who promised to work to stop this. Although it hasn’t been stopped – YET – some of the BOT have been at least receptive to the discussion of how and why to stop it vs. previous BOT group who promoted the Project and kept as much of The DEAL they arranged hidden from our residents
Will these candidates please respond with your position – for or against – and what specifically will YOU DO to stop this and the potential widening of route 62/Algonquin Road? Are you even aware that the State is currently surveying and marking up the measurements/painting the references on the tarmac for this project as well?
We long to hear your thoughts and position made public.
VBH Albert,
It sounds like you’re attributing false positions onto officials and candidates for village office.
The President’s and Trustee Konicek’s positions are clear and defined on the Long Meadow Parkway project. McLaughlin and Konicek were the ONLY ONES against it in the 2013 election along with candidate Dave Steiper. Candidates Mazeski, Gohl and Harrington were silent on the issue. The former village boards under Abboud, which included Gohl, could care less about LMP accept to the manner in which their support of it could serve as a political tool relative to desired positioning with McHenry County Council of Government. Their leader Bobby Almighty and company Messer, Meroni, Gohl and Selman misled the public about the projects probability and timeline in 2012-13. In 2016 at a public meeting Gohl admitted a deal was struck with Algonquin by Abboud and John Schmidt. Do you, VBH Albert, actually think the multiple meetings set up in 2013-14 occurred because of the former board under Abboud? Don’t forget who told residents the project was “never going to happen”and “if it did it wouldn’t happen until 2040” – that was former Trustee Meroni, then Road and Bridges chair in 2013-14.
McLaughlin and Konicek and the new board members Croll, Maison and Cecola are all on the same side of this issue. It’s on the record. Resolutions, discussions and votes against the project. Further McLaughlin and Konicek have been the only dissenting vote each and every year at the McHenry County of Governments Transportation Plan AGAINST LMP. Finally, with an eminent domain quick take bill before the state legislature the village has requested support of or representative and state senators to assist. This has been discussed at recent board of trustee meetings and anyone caring to attend would know that. Keep politicizing and accusing these volunteers that have turned our village government around We know Marty and Colleen will keep supporting our residents and reject developments like the LMP, whether you want to give them the credit they deserve or not.
Contaminated is right. I have a tax bill which goes up every year, expenses for my children and my own health issues to pay for. I am looking for candidates who will stand up and be vocal about frivolous spending. I guess the question is, is it truly necessary?
If residents knew how much this re-branding cost on their individual dollar, they wouldn’t support it. Maybe those who are so thrilled with it, should be the ones who pay for it out of their pocket books. Seems fair to me. I can’t afford to pay for those types of pet projects on my dime. Sorry.
Newt – Have you looked at where the money on your tax bill goes? Here are some links to the Cook and Kane county assessors on understanding your tax bill: http://www.cookcountytreasurer.com/pdfs/understandingyourtaxbill/2016firstinstallment.pdf
Click to access propertytaxfaq.pdf
My suspicion is that your bill has gone up due to the actions of other taxing bodies, such as the school district, the county, the township, the library… You’ll note in the link to the Kane County Assessor site that of the 30 municipalities in Kane County, Barrington Hills was one of only 3 that actually reduced its levy and the other two only reduced it by -0.9% compared to Barrington Hills’ reduction of -4.2%. This was the third year in a row that Barrington Hills lowered the levy, while at the same time adding more miles of roadway improvement than was accomplished in the 8 years prior to McLaughlin and Konicek entering office. Lower taxes and increased services. Sounds pretty good to me.
When they refuse to support certain residents for political reasons their credibility is gone. We are a constitutional republic not a democracy. They rule to the tune of their contributors for votes – not what is right or wrong. Decisions are based upon the benefit to the greatest number of residents and ignores the rights of the individual. I predict a very close election.
I too would like to hear the canidates’ stand on LMP. Is anyone talking about it? I hope it gets some air time. I want to know where the candidates stand!
This is bordering on comical. “They rule to the tune of their contributors for votes – not what is right or wrong.” Have you looked at campaign financing, ‘Just’? See where the money comes from and who makes the contributions: Bryan Cressey $10,800.00 to Save Open Spaces (SOS), JR Davis $10,800 to SOS, Lori Elder two $5,000 contributions to SOS + $10,000,Paul Loeber $5,000 to SOS, Richard Pepper $5,000 to SOS, Margerite Lyons $5,000 to SOS, A Robert Abboud $2,500 to SOS, Barcroft Consulting $2,500 to SOS, various persons in the Abboud family over $15,000 over the last several campaign cycles to various candidates of SOS and S5A… Think this is doctored up too? You can search all you want on the State Board of Elections website
https://www.elections.il.gov/CampaignDisclosure/CommitteeDetail.aspx?id=SH0lGCZvukjW4x9bpzd3yQ%3d%3d
* Lori Elder two $5,000 contributions to SOS = $10,000