Posted in Accidents, Algonquin Rd, Cook, County, Horizon Farm, IDOT, Intergovernmental agreements (IGA), Land Use, Longmeadow Parkway, Plan Commission, Public Safety, Real Estate, Roads & Bridges Committee, Taxes, Topics Of Interest, Traffic on October 2, 2023| Leave a Comment »
IDOT has posted its September 2023 newsletter. Topics covered include:
A copy of the newsletter can be viewed and downloaded here.
Posted in Agendas, Animal Welfare, Barrington Hills Park District, Barrington Hills Polo Club, Commercial Horse Boarding, Countryside Elementary School, Deception, Ethics, Fox River Valley Hunt, FPDCC, FRVPC, Horizon Farm, Horse Boarding, Intergovernmental agreements (IGA), Land Use, Mad Cow, Politics, Property Taxes, Public Safety, Real Estate, Riding Center Advisory Committee, Riding Club of Barrington Hills, Save 5 Acres, The Other Half, Topics Of Interest, Unions on September 13, 2023| Leave a Comment »
The Barrington Hills Park District Board will hold their monthly meeting this evening in person and via Zoom at 7:00 PM. Topics on their agenda include:
A copy of their agenda can be viewed here. Instructions for accessing the meeting remotely can be found here.
Posted in Agendas, Audio recordings, Barrington Hills Park District, Big Red, Conflict of interest, Deception, Entertainment, Equestrian Commission, Ethics, Fox River Valley Hunt, FPDCC, FRVPC, Horizon Farm, Horse Boarding, Land Use, Lighting Ordinance, Massbach Hounds, Organizations, Politics, Property Taxes, Real Estate, Riding Center Advisory Committee, Riding Club of Barrington Hills, Save 5 Acres, Topics Of Interest, Unions, Village Director of Administration on September 12, 2023| Leave a Comment »
The Equestrian Commission will hold a meeting this evening at 6:30 PM. Though scheduled to meet quarterly, this will be their first meeting in a year.
Topics on this evening’s agenda are:
A copy of the agenda can be viewed here.
Posted in Agendas, Algonquin Rd, Animal Welfare, Barrington Hills Park District, Barrington Hills Polo Club, Countryside Elementary School, Don't Change Barrington Hills, Ethics, Fox River Valley Hunt, FPDCC, FRVPC, Goat Rodeo, HARPS, Horizon Farm, Horse Boarding, Intergovernmental agreements (IGA), Land Use, Lighting Ordinance, Mad Cow, Massbach Hounds, Politics, Property Taxes, Public Safety, Real Estate, Riding Center Advisory Committee, Riding Club of Barrington Hills, Taxes, The Other Half, Transparency, Unions, Well Water Quality on September 4, 2023| Leave a Comment »
The Barrington Hills Park District Advisory Committee meets tomorrow evening at 7 PM. Some of the topics on their agenda include:
A copy of their agenda can be viewed here.
Posted in Algonquin Rd, Animal Welfare, Board of Health, Cook, County, FPDCC, Going green, Horizon Farm, Intergovernmental agreements (IGA), Kane, Land Use, Longmeadow Parkway, Politics, Press Release, Property Taxes, Public Safety, Real Estate, Road construction, South Barrington, Topics Of Interest, Transparency, Unions, Village President, Well Water Quality, Western Bypass on August 24, 2023| Leave a Comment »
Sarah Glees of West Dundee wins a $500 scholarship from the One Earth Young Filmmakers Contest for her film “The Long-Lived Effects of the Long Meadow Parkway.” Funds for the scholarship were provided by the Environmental Law and Policy Center. (Courtesy of One Earth Young Filmmakers Contest)
By Lisa Files
One Earth Film Festival
West Dundee resident Sarah Glees will be awarded an Environmental Action Award in the One Earth Young Filmmakers Contest for her film “The Long-Lived Effects of the Long Meadow Parkway.”
The award consists of a $500 scholarship from the Environmental Law and Policy Center. Glees plans to use the funds to help pay for Elmhurst University, where she is a senior.
The Long Meadow Parkway (under construction) has a four-lane Fox River bridge crossing, which is meant to alleviate traffic in Kane County, Illinois.
Glees begins her 7-minute film “The Long-Lived Effects of the Long Meadow Parkway” with an interview with Parkway opponent Sue Harney, a Dundee Township Trustee and former Dundee Township Supervisor from 2000-17.
Harney explains that trucking companies wanted the Parkway to serve logistics hubs where items are stored or manufactured and then trucked out. Her main concern is contamination of the Fox River from heavy metals such as arsenic and chromium released from tires, hydraulic fluid, gas leaks, and the fine particulate matter from exhaust.
“It’s so long-lived and so very fine that when it gets into the water and the river, the fish have the same problem we do,” Harney said “It gets into their bodies and their gills. It’s like a slow poison.”
Glees suggests possible solutions such as electric trucks, which have no emissions, and permeable pavement, which reduces runoff and the cost of water treatment. She writes in her contest submission: “It means so much to share this story and hopefully evoke change.”
Since its inception in 2013, the One Earth Young Filmmakers Contest has grown from a local, Oak Park, Illinois, project to a highly competitive international competition garnering 403 submissions.
Countries such as Brazil, Australia and Mexico and states such as California, Georgia and Indiana will be represented among this year’s winners at the Global Awards Celebration at 11:30 a.m. Sunday, Sept. 17, in person at the Gene Siskel Film Center, 164 N. State St., in Chicago, or online virtually anywhere in the world.
“The Long-Lived Effects of the Long Meadow Parkway” will premiere at this special event. Free tickets are available at tinyurl.com/yfc23awards.
“The secret ingredient to our success is youth. They have opinions, ideas and viewpoints about the climate emergency,” said contest Founding Director Sue Crothers. “It’s hard for people to deny what’s happening when they’re living through extreme floods, fires, and tornadoes. And the younger generations have something to say about the mess our generation has made.”
The Young Filmmakers Contest asks students from age 8 to 25 to create a 3- to 8-minute environmental film that inspires change or action. Animated or stop-motion films can be a minimum of 45 seconds long.
The deadline each year is June 25, which gives individuals and school groups the entire academic year to submit their film projects.
The call for entries for 2024 will open soon on Film Freeway at filmfreeway.com/OneEarthYoungFilmmakersContest.
Posted in Algonquin Rd, Animal Welfare, Audubon Society, BACT, Barrington Hills Polo Club, BH Polo Club, Citizens for Conservation, Commercial Horse Boarding, Cook, County, Crabtree Nature Center, Deception, Equestrian Commission, Ethics, FPDCC, Friends of Forest Preserves, FRVPC, Goat Rodeo, Going green, HARPS, Horizon Farm, Horse Boarding, Intergovernmental agreements (IGA), Land Use, Mad Cow, Massbach Hounds, Organizations, Politics, Property Taxes, Public Safety, Real Estate, Riding Club Commission, Riding Club of Barrington Hills, Taxes, The Other Half, Traffic, Unions on August 19, 2023| Leave a Comment »
Front to back: Robert McGinley, Dan Lobbes, Renae Frigo and David Holman head back after checking the status of a former dam on Goose Lake in Horizon Farm preserve on Aug. 18, 2023, in Barrington Hills. Members of the Barrington Area Conservation Trust and The Conservation Foundation were out surveying Horizon Farm as part of an annual effort to track changes on the property. (Stacey Wescott/Chicago Tribune)
On a group tour of Horizon Farm Forest Preserve and its rolling pastures, a visitor joked that it would make a great par 3 golf course. Nature lovers shuddered at the thought, though such a use is prohibited on the site.
But the comment illustrates the tension the Forest Preserve District of Cook County faces balancing preservation and recreation. The district’s main mission is to preserve open space, and provide “nature-compatible” recreation.
In the case of Horizon Farm in northwest suburban Barrington Hills, the issue boils down to whether to save a half-mile horse racing track. The nearly 400-acre preserve used to be a horse breeding and training ground. The track was used to train thoroughbreds for racing at the now-closed Arlington International Racecourse.
When the forest preserve district bought Horizon Farm out of foreclosure for $14.5 million in 2013, officials expressed openness to keeping equestrian uses of the site. But 10 years later, the racetrack sits filled with wild plants, unused, its railing falling apart. A big chunk of the preserve remains closed, and some trails are overgrown. Horse lovers and other preserve users are wondering whether the district will save the track.
“It’s really a prize,” Barrington Hills Park District President Dennis Kelly said. “There’s been a lot of interest in the equestrian community, but we have not gotten a response.”
Not everyone is married to the idea of a horse track. Friends of the Forest Preserves, an independent nonprofit, takes the general position that recreation in the forest preserves — from boating to fishing to camping — should facilitate enjoyment of nature.
“As soon as recreation becomes about the activity, that is not in line with what should be done with the forest preserves,” Friends President Benjamin Cox said.
The group supports horse trails since anyone can use them, but has not taken a position specifically on the horse track. Exclusive sites such as a golf course or baseball diamond are only for those uses, so Friends would prefer not to build those in the preserves.
Read more here.
Posted in Agendas, Agendas, Animal Welfare, Barrington Hills Park District, Countryside Elementary School, Fox River Valley Hunt, FPDCC, FRVPC, Goat Rodeo, Horizon Farm, Intergovernmental agreements (IGA), Land Use, LeCompte/Anderson Commercial Horse boarding amendment, Massbach Hounds, Politics, Property Taxes, Riding Center Advisory Committee, Transparency, Unions, Well Water Quality on August 9, 2023| Leave a Comment »
Posted in Agendas, Algonquin Rd, Animal Welfare, Barrington Hills Farm, Barrington Hills Park District, Barrington Hills Polo Club, Big Red, Cook, Countryside Elementary School, County, Deception, Equestrian Commission, Ethics, Fox River Valley Hunt, FPDCC, FRVPC, Goat Rodeo, HARPS, Horizon Farm, Horse Boarding, Intergovernmental agreements (IGA), Land Use, Massbach Hounds, Politics, Property Taxes, Public Safety, Real Estate, Riding Club of Barrington Hills, Transparency, Unions, Well Water Quality on July 12, 2023| Leave a Comment »
The Barrington Hills Park District Board will be meeting this evening in person and via webcast at 7:00 PM when the Board has two agendas to cover.
The first agenda is for the regular monthly District meeting, and a copy can be viewed and downloaded here.
The second is for the, “Decennial Committee Meeting,” and topics include:
A copy of that agenda can be viewed and downloaded here.
Instructions for accessing the meeting remotely can be found here.
Posted in Animal Welfare, Barrington Hills Park District, Barrington Hills Polo Club, Don't Change Barrington Hills, Entertainment, Equestrian Commission, Fox River Valley Hunt, FRVPC, Fundraisers, HARPS, Horizon Farm, Horse Boarding, Land Use, News Media, Nostalgia, Politics, Real Estate, Resident Spotlights, Riding Club of Barrington Hills, Save 5 Acres, Your Barrington Hills on July 8, 2023| 2 Comments »
John Rosene and the Barrington Hills Polo Club offers a nationally recognized polo school for newcomers to the sport helping generations of families play together on the field
When John Rosene was a boy of 9 years old, his mother signed him up for a horse-riding lesson at the Starlight Stable in Skokie. It was something to keep him busy, not a family tradition. He joined other children from his neighborhood on the bus ride over but didn’t make it to the trail ride. “When they put me on the horse, I was so scared that I got off and stayed at the barn while the other kids rode off,” Rosene said.
A few years later, the Rogers Park native attended a summer riding school at the Northwestern Stables in Morton Grove, now called Freedom Woods. Rosene started at the beginner’s level with the five-day-a-week program where each student learned how to saddle, ride, and hose down the horse, then letting their horse graze while holding its lead line. At 14, he took a job at the same barn where he learned to ride, having 21 horses in his daily care. Feeding, watering, and cleaning the tack and stalls was compensated with two dollars a day—and all the riding he could get in.
At 16, with his driver’s license and a car, Rosene took a job at the same barn for $200 a month and did that for a couple of years before college. “Very few boys stuck with horse riding by that age, so besides being able to ride as much as I could, all the girls were the attraction,” he said with his classic sense of humor.
Rosene bought his first horse during his college years during a gap year in Texas. Having returned to Northwestern University, he met his future wife, Karen, who he intended to impress with his horse-riding skills in a PE class. The two finished school in 1962, and married two years later. They each bought a horse and found an old dairy barn, through some friends, for boarding.
Read the full Quintessential Barrington feature story here.
Posted in Bicyclists, Big Brother, Building Department, Commercial Horse Boarding, Horizon Farm, Horse Boarding, Land Use, Lighting Ordinance, Public Safety, Real Estate, Riding Club of Barrington Hills, Roads and Bridges, Springfield, Topics Of Interest, Traffic, Transparency, VBHPD, Village Government on June 21, 2023| Leave a Comment »
Next time you attend a parade, there might be an eye in the sky.
A new law signed by Gov. JB Pritzker on Friday expands local police departments’ authority to use drones to surveil certain events, respond to certain 911 calls, inspect buildings and participate in public relations events.
House Bill 3902 passed 56-1 in the Senate and 84-7 in the House with three members voting “present,” The law drew some concerns from civil liberties groups which ultimately led to added privacy protections and disclosure requirements.
The push to expand when police drone authority originated after a 2019 mass shooting at the Henry Pratt Company in Aurora, according to the bill’s House sponsor, Rep. Barbara Hernandez, D-Aurora. She and others received renewed calls after a 2022 shooting at a July 4th parade in Highland Park last year.
“I hope people are safe and that this can prevent anything else from happening,” Hernandez said.
Kenny Winslow, executive director of the Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police, supported the measure and is already planning to offer training on the new law to police departments. He said drone technology could save lives and expects more departments to use them moving forward.
But he added that the protections contained in the bill – including requirements that police post notices if they are surveilling an event and keep a record of flight paths – were an important part of the final product.
“We’re trying to be as transparent with the public as we can,” Winslow said.
More here.
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