Last month, the Daily Herald published two articles featuring twenty-one northwest suburban village presidents and mayors, including Barrington Hills President Bob Abboud. The first article published December 22, 2012, was titled, “Mayors, village presidents name best activities, projects,” and it asked participants to answer the question, “What was the most important or biggest or best thing to happen in your community last year?”
President Abboud cited a flat tax levy for 2013, modernization of operations and the physical relocation of BACOG to Village Hall among other things. The Observer has already weighed in on BACOG moving into Village Hall (see Barrington Hills taxpayers to pick up the tab for BACOG). But what really caught the eye of The Observer, though, was his declaration that:
“We have instituted an electric rate signup program which provides residents with an alternative electric energy supplier at a substantially reduced cost.”
This came as news to us in light of Barrington Hills voters’ rejection of the electrical aggregation referendum in March and the fact that our Village Board later voted not to negotiate an “Opt-In” aggregation agreement with a single supplier. We performed a search of the Village website, and indeed there is a listing of a few energy suppliers and a link to “Plug In Illinois”. But these resources have been available to all Illinois residents for many years, so this can hardly be considered something Barrington Hills government “instituted.” To have a village president tout this as an important achievement is very feeble.
Then, in a December 31, 2012, article titled “Northwest suburban mayors look ahead to coming year” the Daily Herald staff posed the question, “What’s your biggest expectation/hope for your town in the coming year?” Most village leaders chose their words wisely, using positive statements, and sentences including words and phrases such as, “financial security,” “vitality,” “opportunity,” ”community,” and even, “looking forward to….”
This time President Abboud used his opportunity to drone about pension reform, the East Dundee/IAA project, union arbitration, etc., and went on to state:
“Continued cost containment — particularly with things such as the very high costs of malicious FOIAs….” and “efforts to mitigate the impacts of dilapidated properties on surrounding property values.”
A quick examination of the online FOIA request form revealed no check box for “Malicious” or even “Friendly,” so undoubtedly this must be his opinion and besides, there are laws to address excessive FOIA requests. Clearly, however, President Abboud feels that FOIA requests are enough of a nuisance to increase the budget allowance for FOIA records management to $80,000 for 2013. Last year, the monthly legal expense of FOIA management totaled a staggering $89,294 through November of 2012.
His other goal of mitigating “the impacts of dilapidated properties” will prove to be an interesting story as it unfolds, because as residents have learned from the varying application of the “Home Occupation Ordinance” in the past, the definition of “dilapidated” will likely be subjective, not objective.
Both articles were inexcusably missed opportunities to attempt to repair our Village’s image among other communities. Sadly, as anyone who has cringed after reading a quote from President Abboud in newspaper articles during the last eight years already has learned, this was just another case of “Bob being Bob” again.
The question is, how much longer can we as a community continue to dismiss these public missteps and finally return to a path of positive forward progress? Not much longer in our opinion.
– The Observer
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