With April elections still months away, President Abboud isn’t wasting any time by throwing himself (and our Village) into another well publicized and controversial political spotlight.
This time, the issue centers around Insurance Auto Auctions (IAA) plan to build a thirty-four acre facility bordering Barrington Hills in East Dundee. The proposed facility would temporarily store used and “totaled” vehicles outdoors on acreage reclaimed from a former gravel mine.
Residents in the neighboring Pond Gate subdivision are justifiably concerned about the possibility of contamination of groundwater and their wells as a result of fluids possibly leaking from the damaged vehicles to be stored by IAA. Much to their credit, these residents organized and mobilized quickly alerting Barrington Hills officials of the situation in 2012.
As a result, many agencies have weighed in on IAA’s intended use for the property including:
In addition to these and other external efforts to influence East Dundee in their decision process, Allen Skillicorn, an East Dundee trustee, recently distributed a survey among his constituents that resulted in the opinion that “Most of (the survey) respondents don’t want an auto auction business in town.”
Based on all stakeholders’ inclusions in the decision process, one might assume odds are in favor of East Dundee thoughtfully reconsidering approval IAA’s proposed use of the land. Ordinarily that would be the case, but that wasn’t good enough for Bob Abboud who continued to charge, using the press for his “belligerent pulpit” earlier this month.
Abboud’s first press salvo was launched two weeks ago in a Daily Herald article titled, “Barrington Hills may host meeting on auto auction site,” in which he stated his “consideration” of steering a town-hall public hearing regarding the matter here in our Village. Two weeks hence, our Village calendar lists no such meeting.
His second barrage came a week ago via another Daily Herald titled, “Barrington Hills mayor ratchets up tiff with East Dundee over auto site,” in which he clearly attempted to exhibit his determination to defeat the land use plan with pictures and a nine-second video published with the article from an IAA facility in Wheeling. While some residents might view this as admirable, the fact is a Pond Gate resident had taken photographs of the Wheeling location months before and submitted the photos to East Dundee, but clearly Abboud felt it necessary that he repeat the act.
We’ve all learned the hard way during the course of Abboud’s administration that his argumentative heavy handed tactics do not work. Our Village has lost hundreds of acres of land to deannexation, and we’ve lost millions of our tax dollars to legal fees in the process.
And now in this critical period with IAA, when sensitivity and diplomacy should be paramount, Abboud has alienated East Dundee’s President to the point where he said “Barrington Hills has no right to tell East Dundee what to do.”
The Observer implores our Village trustees to have a rational discussion with President Abboud Monday evening during executive session to persuade him to cease any further escalation of the antagonistic relationship he’s now created with East Dundee’s leaders. There is too much at stake here for not only Pond Gate residents, but our entire Village to allow this type of behavior to continue.
– The Observer
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