Posted in EJ&E/Canadian National, Road construction, The Other Half on August 21, 2020| Leave a Comment »
The Canadian National Railroad will be closing the track crossing on Main Street (Lake-Cook Road) just west of Lageschulte Street from 9:00 AM Monday August 24th through Friday August 28th to complete necessary crossing repairs. This closure will impact both pedestrian and vehicular traffic. A signed detour route will be in place during this closure.
In recent months, this crossing has been the cause of many flat tires and likely some bent rims, so this will be a welcome, minor inconvenience.
Posted in Agendas, Audio Recordings, Village Code, Zoning Board on August 20, 2020| Leave a Comment »
Audio recordings from the August 17th Zoning Board of Appeals meeting have been released. A link to the recordings can be found here.
Posted in Topics Of Interest on August 19, 2020| Leave a Comment »
Lake County sheriff’s police investigate new damage that appears, on the right, on the new cover of the bridge on Robert Parker Coffin Road in Long Grove after the top of a truck collided with it Wednesday. (Courtesy of ABC 7 Chicago)
Yep — it happened again.
For the second time since its grand reopening on Friday, the Long Grove covered bridge was damaged on Wednesday by a passing box truck that was too tall to safely clear the wooden facade atop the opening.
Sgt. Chris Covelli of the Lake County sheriff’s office said the damage was not severe and that traffic never stopped. Repairs, however, will need to be made … again.
“It’s been a tough couple of years for the bridge,” Covelli said.
Wednesday’s collision — coming on the heels of Saturday’s damage caused by a school bus — occurred at about 1:20 p.m. when a truck from a medical supply company traveling west on Robert Parker Coffin Road clipped the bridge’s facade.
Read more here, and you might should wanna stay away from that bridge for a while.
Related: “Think you’ve had a bad day? Think again.”
Posted in 2020 Elections, Politics on August 19, 2020| Leave a Comment »
With concerns rising over the U.S. Postal Service’s ability to handle a crush of mail ballots this fall, suburban counties are installing dozens of secure drop boxes across the region. This one is outside the McHenry County administration building in Woodstock. (John Starks | Staff Photographer)
With concerns about U.S. mail service and election tampering growing, Lake County officials this week said people will be able to deposit vote-by-mail ballots in more than a dozen secure boxes throughout the county ahead of the Nov. 3 presidential election.
They aren’t alone in trying to boost confidence in the voting process.
More than 50 drop boxes for mail-in ballots will be installed throughout suburban Cook County. Sites will include the village halls in Arlington Heights, Barrington Hills, Elk Grove Village, Glenview, Hoffman Estates, Mount Prospect, Northbrook and Streamwood, as well as libraries in Des Plaines and Wheeling.
Two drop boxes will be securely installed at the DuPage County complex in Wheaton — one in the parking lot and one inside, Chief Deputy Clerk Adam Johnson said. Additionally, nearly 300 drop boxes will be placed at all early voting locations and Election Day polling places in the county, Johnson said.
Read more here.
Posted in 220, 300, Property Taxes, School Districts on August 18, 2020| Leave a Comment »
Westminster Christian School in Elgin
Parochial schools across the suburbs are resuming classes either fully in-person or with hybrid instructional models even as most Illinois public schools begin the school year with remote learning.
They’re making the transition with temperature checks, face masks, social distancing, an abundance of hand sanitizers and other safety measures required by state education and health authorities, coupled with smaller class sizes, virtual learning platforms and one-to-one technology.
“What we are able to do that the public schools can’t do is meet our community and our students where they are,” said Erik Schwartz, high school principal of Westminster Christian School in Elgin which started classes Thursday. “The public school (system) is too expansive. They’ve got to make policies that fit the entire state or entire district, whereas we get to make policies that are for our school and for our community.”
Under a flexible hybrid model, a majority of Westminster Christian’s 260 students in preschool through 12th grade attend classes in person while roughly 20 students synchronously learn from home. Class sizes are between 15 and 20 students, and students can switch between in-person and remote instruction for health reasons or due to other circumstances. In school, students must wear masks regardless of distancing except when eating or excused with a doctor’s note.
Read more here.
Posted in 220, 300, Pritzker’s Rules of Order, Property Taxes, School Districts, The New Normal, Topics Of Interest on August 17, 2020| Leave a Comment »
Hundreds of thousands of suburban children are resuming schoolwork within the next few weeks, but this year fewer than 6,200 of them will go back to their classrooms full time.
Only 9 of 105 suburban districts are offering “in-person” learning, the Illinois State Board of Education reports.
Another 30 of the suburban school districts will open with a “blended” model, where students are split into two groups and alternate between remote learning and in-class sessions.
The remaining 66 suburban school districts will have full-time remote learning, with kids having classes exclusively online.
Those opening for in-person learning are:
Read more from the Daily Herald here,
Posted in Agendas, ePacket agendas, Village Code, Zoning Board on August 17, 2020| 3 Comments »
The Zoning Board of Appeals will hold their monthly meeting this evening at 6:30 PM. Matters to be discussed and/or voted on this evening include:
Tonight’s meeting will be held at Countryside Elementary located at 205 W. County Line Rd. A copy of the agenda can be viewed and downloaded here.
Social distancing guidelines will be observed and masks are required for those attending. To listen to the meeting remotely, dial (508) 924-1464.
Posted in Topics Of Interest on August 15, 2020| Leave a Comment »
A school bus became stuck Saturday in the newly opened Long Grove bridge on Robert Parker Coffin Road. The bridge was damaged both entry points. (SUBMITTED photo)
Less than 24 hours after its grand reopening, the Long Grove covered bridge has been damaged again.
A school bus traveling west to east across the bridge on Robert Parker Coffin Road left the bridge damaged at both ends.
It happened about 12:20 p.m. Saturday. The bridge, constructed in 1906, reopened with a ceremony at 1:30 p.m. Friday after 26 months of rebuilding. A box truck smashed into the bridge and caused major damage on June 27, 2018, soon after it was added to the National Register of Historic Places.
June Neumann, who owns Viking Treasures near the bridge, ran outside her store when she heard the crash.
“This afternoon I was at the shop and heard a noise I hadn’t heard for 26 months,” she said, “and said, ‘Oh, no, it couldn’t be.’ And I ran outside my door. Grabbed my phone and ran outside my door, and there was a yellow bus coming through the bridge.”
Neumann noted there are signs forbidding trucks and buses from using the bridge.
Read more from the Daily Herald here.
Posted in County, Lake, Road construction, Traffic on August 15, 2020| Leave a Comment »
This week, all driveways throughout the project were completed, all traffic signals and traffic signal electrical work was completed and sections of curb and gutter and sidewalk were placed on Hart Road and US Route 14.
On Monday, August 17, 2020, the traffic signals at US Route 14 and Hart Road will be activated at 10:00 am. Please be prepared for traffic delays between 9:00 am and noon, as the traffic signals are being tested and activated. Also on Monday August 17, 2020, the detour for South Hart Road will be removed. It should be noted that the existing detour for North Hart Road will remain in place.
Next week work will begin on the retaining wall at the NE corner of Hart and US Route 14, landscaping will be occurring throughout the project and relocation of the sanitary force main on the North side of US Route 14 will begin.
Posted in Commodius Maximus, Cook, County, Politics, Pritzker’s Rules of Order, Taxes, The New Normal on August 14, 2020| Leave a Comment »
(From left) Mayor Lori Lightfoot, Gov. J.B. Pritzker and U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Illinois, touring the $65.9 million emergency coronavirus hospital at McCormick Place on April 17 — the day Pritzker announced the first five patients had been transferred there. Only 33 more would follow. Tyler LaRiviere / Sun-Times
Taxpayers spent nearly $66 million fashioning McCormick Place into an emergency coronavirus hospital with 2,750 beds this past spring amid fears that COVID-19 patients would overwhelm hospitals in the Chicago area.
Those fears turned out to be unfounded. Just 38 patients were transferred to the sprawling convention center — meaning taxpayers’ cost for the makeshift hospital turned out to be more than $1.7 million per patient, on average.
But top aides to Mayor Lori Lightfoot say her decision to initiate the project with the federal government and the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority was an important “insurance policy” at a time of “immense emergency.”
“It’s something I’m incredibly proud of,” says Samir Mayekar, Lightfoot’s deputy mayor for economic and neighborhood development who says the money was “not spent in vain.”
He also notes that the medical equipment is being stored and can be redeployed if needed.
To complete the McCormick Place project, the authority — a city-state governmental body known as McPier that runs the convention center and owns Navy Pier — tapped Walsh Construction, a politically connected Chicago company that’s built everything from highways to high-rises.
Read the full Sun*Times Watchdog report here.
 | Peter W. Kocsis on New residential development fl… |
 | Major24 on Hoffman Estates plan commissio… |
| keensweets0d45ddb8ba on South Barrington Mayor Paula M… |
| Bridget Jordan on Hoffman Estates plan commissio… |
 | Karen Trzaska on Hoffman Estates plan commissio… |
 | Meeting Tonight on Hoffman Estates Plum Farm June… |
 | Marvin L Husby III on Hoffman Estates Plum Farm June… |