The Barrington Hills Park District will be hosting a special meeting tonight with the Cook County Forest Preserve District to discuss the Master Plan for the Horizon Farm property. The meeting begins at 7:00 PM at the Riding Center located at 361 Bateman Rd, and will also be available for participation via Webex remotely.
The meeting agenda for the Forest Preserve District portion of the discussion includes:
Open trails
Ongoing improvements
Then, the 2023 Horizon Farm master planning priorities follows including:
Track
Barn 11
Other amenities (parking lots, comfort stations, signage, etc.)
Maintenance of future Horizon trail system
Spring Creek trail system
Conspicuously absent from the agenda are topics such as hiking and walking, bicycling, cross-country skiing and birding.
After this portion of the meeting, Park District Commissioners will vote on the proposed (and clearly confidential), “Combined Budget & Appropriations Ordinance 2-08-2023-01.”
A copy of the agenda can be viewed here, and instructions for accessing the meeting remotely can be found here.
“TV families are a lot like real families. They always come together for Thanksgiving. For the ultimate TV Thanksgiving, look no further than the 1968 episode of The (Barrington) Hillbillies, “The Thanksgiving Spirit.”
The crossover episode not only features the Clampetts, it features the cast members of Green Acres and Petticoat Junction. The episode culminates with a shared dinner that includes characters from the three shows.” (Source)
Editorial note: Many preferred to use the phrase, “Barrington Hillbillies,” when referring to the political antics of some in our “oasis of another time” Village, but that subsided until recently when the Cecola Administration took office. Now the popularity of that phrase is experiencing a resurgence.
Schaumburg cyclist Neil Holdway summits the Col des Tentes in the Pyrenees in July. (Courtesy of Manuel Pizarro)
By Ralph Banasiak Along For the Ride
A dedicated Schaumburg cyclist lived my Tour de France fantasy, cycling five days in the Pyrenees, viewing a mountain stage finish and cheering racers along Paris’s Champs-Élysées on the final day.
Daily Herald Deputy Managing Editor Neil Holdway finally claimed his 50th birthday gift from his wife — a 2020 trip deferred twice by COVID-related issues. Besides compiling autumn biking guides, night editing and serving on the Herald’s editorial board, Holdway takes his cycling seriously.
In this edited exchange, Holdway recounts his TdF immersion in Lourdes and Paris, France, this past July.
Banasiak: Any Chicago area thigh-burner hills to prep for the Pyrenees?
Holdway: This was tough. It put me at a real disadvantage compared to most of my tour mates living near and training on U.S. mountains. I rode through Barrington Hills a lot — Ridge and Spring Creek Roads my favorites — otherwise in the Barrington area, good workouts over long rides.
I rode through Campton Hills some. Those rollers are no Pyrenees. Each year I bike in Wisconsin, this year purposely choosing hillier routes surrounding Madison. That helped some. I still wasn’t ready for Tourmalet’s relentless ascent, especially on only my second day. Its largely 8% grade over the final 11 km, follows 5 km at 7%.
The Barrington Hills Chronicle (a Riding Club of Barrington Hills splinter group), posted what follows on Wednesday:
“The Riding Club of Barrington Hills is inviting all volunteers this Saturday, May 14th, to a roadside clean-up campaign on Route 62 (Algonquin Road). A meeting at the the Riding Center on Bateman Road will start at 8:30am (this Saturday, May 14th), or feel free to join whenever it is convenient for you. Every Saturday in May is the clean-up plan.”
In addition, three additional events are taking place tomorrow:
These activities are occurring at the same time tomorrow morning, primarily along Bateman, Algonquin, Brinker, and County Line Roads.
Readers are encouraged to exercise extreme caution when driving in these areas. On any given day, the Village has two patrol people covering the entire Village, and even with additional resources allocated, they hopefully will not be overwhelmed.
Lately, there have been too many stories about bicycle-related accidents and deaths. These stories are often followed by comments from riders, drivers and pedestrians alike regarding who is really to blame. The reality is that it’s everyone. We have all seen far too many cyclists who ignore the rules of the road, far too many reckless drivers who are heedless of those around them, far too many careless pedestrians. And most of us have probably been one of them at some time.
Two years ago this week, my brother died from massive injuries after he was hit by a car on his nightly walk home from the train station. The driver committed no quantifiable errors. Was she distracted? Was he? We’ll never know. And I’m not sure how much it would matter to have someone to blame; he is still lost to those who loved him.
Our moving among each other in this busy, crowded world is serious business, requiring constant attention and respect for the rules of safety, as well as for ourselves and those with whom we share our space.
Without it, precious lives will continue to be lost or forever altered.
The Environmental Committee meets this afternoon after nearly a year of inactivity. This will only be the fourth meeting Trustee Paula Jacobsen has scheduled since she took office in 2017, and the first three were called to discuss a single topic of “Bee City USA.”
Since Jacobsen is running for reelection, she must think she needs to have another meeting about bees to put on her “qualifications” for running. She has, however, added the topic of the “Blue Star Memorial” to the agenda, but that is for obvious reasons.
You see, her property is adjacent to the Christ The Rock Church, which was granted a special use permit last night to operate a religious institution at 195 South Sutton Road, where the memorial is located. Not very subtle timing, is it?
And while we’re at it, aren’t there other topics that could be addressed by her committee? Apparently Jacobsen doesn’t see the need or is not inclined to put forth the effort.
A copy of her agenda can be viewedhere. To listen in on the meeting remotely, dial 508-924-1464.
A great way to see the fall colors is to ride your bike, which allows you to be outside and travel a good distance to catch a lot of scenery. So where should you go? Options abound in the suburbs.
Poplar Creek Trail link to Elgin: The Poplar Creek Trailbetween Hoffman Estates and Streamwood, and between Barrington Road and the west side of Route 59, will show some fall colors in spots, and now the trail links to Elginvia a new connectiondown forested Shoe Factory Road. That extends from Route 59 to the CN railroad tracks, at which point you could ride west through Elgin to the Fox River Trail (below).
Moraine Hills State Park:In this forested state park along River Roadjust east of the Fox River in McHenry and west of Island Lake, you’ll find a collection of trails, and the paved bike trail seen just off River Road is being extended to connect to Lily Lake Road. Ride this trail or the roads within the park surrounded by trees and their fall colors.
Barrington Hills: A tree and biking-road paradise. Check out Spring Creek Road. Getting there is wonderful, too, but residents ask that you stay single file, please.
New speed signs have been installed on Ridge Road and Dundee Lane
“You may have noticed our new radar speed signs on Ridge Road and Dundee Lane. If not, you might have been driving too fast. These signs, also known as driver feedback signs, are traffic calming devices designed to slow speeding vehicles by alerting drivers of their speed.
The signs were installed on Village roadways which have a significant volume of traffic and historical speeding issues. If they prove effective, additional signs may be purchased and installed on other Village roadways in the future.”
Once again, supporters of former Village President Bob Abboud have taken to the social media networks to begin creating a false controversy to stir the pot prior to the 2019 Village Board Elections.
Recently, some Facebook pages have started publishing information about the proposed Plum Farms Development in Hoffman Estates. One of these pages is purportedly run by the same individual who publicly cast aspersions upon the character of the Village President and members of the Board of Trustees in April of 2017 (but was unwilling and unable to provide any corroboration of her ridiculous accusations). See April 24th Board meeting recordings released.
Long-time readers of the Observer will recognize the same tired tactics of the Abboud-o-philes: create a false controversy, then stir up resident sentiment against current leadership and against those whom they may support in the upcoming elections. Save 5 Acres! Save Horse Boarding! Ban the Bikes! Save Open Space! Save Polo!
The Plum Farms Development in Hoffman Estates was used as a major 2017 campaign issue by Trustees Paula Jacobsen and Robert Zubak, but both have been eerily silent on the issue for well over a year. As candidates, Jacobsen and Zubak were so adamant about the Village having legal standing, authority and ability to impact this development, and they vowed to be the voices to vigorously “oppose harmful development”.
Today, as it was then, they chose to remain ignorant to the simple fact that this issue was over in 2004 when Bob Abboud and former administrator Bob Kosin botched the chance to work with the landowner to come to a development compromise that would have kept the property within the village, and would have protected our community from the dangers of deannexation of the parcel into an adjacent town with an insatiable hunger for more tax dollars.
But in fact, the current administration has been working in concert with South Barrington and District 220 to slow the progress of this development. Strange that this hasn’t been reported by any of the social media outlets managed by those folks who enjoy stirring the pot. Accusations of inaction and mismanagement by President McLaughlin and others on the Board will be aired, but nary a word of criticism of Jacobsen or Zubak.
And speaking of Jacobsen, the more vocal of the less-than-dynamic duo, what has she personally done with regard to Plum Farms as a Trustee? Nothing. She bemoaned the Longmeadow Parkway project as a candidate, but did she volunteer to be on the IDOT advisory board for Route 62? Nope.
Does anyone remember the laundry list of issues that she & Zubak used as their campaign platform? We do.
The only issue they are truly interested in is commercial horse boarding, which wasn’t in their campaign platform at all. Strange…
And back to that lengthy list of issues — what have they accomplished from that list? Nothing. And why? Because none of those “problems” actually existed.
Paula Jacobsen with former trustee Fritz Gohl
However, Jacobsen, who has been absent from more than 26% of the fifteen Board Meetings held since she was elected as trustee, has had the opportunity to advocate for some other interesting issues. As stated in our previous articles, May and June 2017 Board meeting recordings released and July Board Meeting recordings released , she has found time to question the meeting minutes which characterized her friend’s public comments at the April 24thboard meeting as slanderous. She has questioned why the Village couldn’t have employed a warmer and fuzzier process to inform a property owner of their violation of a cease and desist order with regard to illegal demolition of a residence and violation of the tree ordinance. It should be noted that the property owner in that case was a prominent donor to her trustee campaign.
Jacobsen has pondered the complexity of the Exterior Lighting Ordinance and wondered if it shouldn’t be revisited and revised, oblivious to the divisive history of the ordinance. Coincidentally, her interest in lighting ordinance enforcement occurred only when another friend of hers had filed a complaint against a neighbor.
Paula has also suggested giving landmark status to historical homes in the village. When asked to explain who would be the arbiter of this distinction and the mechanics of implementation or enforcement, she had no suggestion.
She also has given detailed reports of Arbor Day plans by the Heritage & Environs Committee at no fewer than three meetings. Let’s hear it for the oak sapling giveaway!!
And there has been advocacy for costly live video-streaming of Village Board meetings, which are only attended by a handful of the same residents each month.
It is not surprising that NONE of these issues were in the Jacobsen/Zubak campaign platform and that NONE of the issues in the platform have been pursued by the duo in any meaningful way in the past fifteen months.
And why is that? Because a quiet village operating harmoniously is not something the Abboud-o-philes can tolerate. They must have controversy and they will create controversy were none exists. And when faced with the reality that President McLaughlin & this Administration have delivered on each and every promise they have made to the community, they pivot back to the old worn-out talking points. The village is operating better than it ever has, spending has been slashed and services are more efficient. And that makes some embittered people very unhappy. Change is not easy for some. And they are desperate to regain control.
So the pot stirring will continue. With a little eye of newt and toe of frog mixed in for good measure. Here’s hoping that this bad spell will be broken soon.
Hundreds of cyclists are expected to join military veterans and first responders for the annual Barrington Honor Ride and Run, Sunday August 12.
The self-paced, noncompetitive bike ride on routes with lengths of 14, 33 and 47 miles benefits Project Hero, a nonprofit organization that helps veterans and first responders affected by physical injury, post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury. The event is highlighted by riders using hand cycles, recumbent cycles, custom tandems and traditional road bikes.
Check-in and day-of registration begins at 7 a.m. at the Barrington Hills Park District, 361 Bateman Road, followed by a ceremony at 8 a.m., ride at 8:15 a.m., cross-country trail run and fun walk at 9 a.m., and festival with food, music and family fun at 11 a.m. To register, visit projecthero.org.
To see the full article in the Daily Herald, click here.
Once again, supporters of former Village President Bob Abboud have taken to the social media networks to begin creating a false controversy to stir the pot prior to the 2019 Village Board Elections.
