The Village Roads & Bridges Committee meets this afternoon at 4 PM to discuss, “Road Program 2024 Recommendation.” A copy of the agenda can be viewed here.
Archive for the ‘Trotter & Associates’ Category
Roads & Bridges Committee meets today
Posted in Agenda, Appointments, Audio Recordings, Barrington Hills Country Club, Clown Car, Deception, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), Dumb and Dumber, Ethics, Fundraisers, Mac's Property Management, One Barrington Hills, Politics, Property Taxes, Real Estate, Resident Spotlights, Road construction, Roads & Bridges Committee, TMI, Topics Of Interest, Traffic, Transparency, Trotter & Associates, Village Director of Administration, Village Engineer, Village President on March 7, 2024| 1 Comment »
The Village Roads & Bridges Committee meets this afternoon at 4 PM. Some of the topics on the agenda include:
- Road Program 2024
- Road Posting 2024
- Little Bend Culvert Replacement, and
- Donlea Road (Lacy Lake) Drainage Investigation Final Findings (Again)
A copy of the agenda can be viewed here.
Editorial note: We feel your pain, Steve.
Village Board of Trustees meet tonight
Posted in Agendas, Audio Recordings, BACOG, Big Red, Building Department, Clown Car, Dumb and Dumber, Entertainment, ePacket Agendas, Ethics, Finance Committee, Financial Reports, Insurance Committee, Intergovernmental agreements (IGA), Legal Expenses, Minutes, One Barrington Hills, Pension Funding, Police Pension Board, Police Reports, Politics, Property Taxes, Public Safety, Real Estate, Roads & Bridges Committee, Topics Of Interest, Transparency, Trotter & Associates, Unions, VBHPD, Village Attorney, Village Board, Village Clerk, Village Code, Village Director of Administration, Village Engineer, Village Government, Village President, Village Treasurer, Zoning Board on November 16, 2023| Leave a Comment »
Our Village Board of Trustees will be conducting their regular monthly meeting this evening beginning at 6:30 PM. Topics on their agenda include:
- ENGINEERING PRESENTATION – Trotter and Associates, Inc.
- Levy and Assessment of Taxes for the Fiscal Year Beginning January 1, 2023 and Ending December 31, 2023 – Draft
- [Vote] A Resolution Adopting a Regular Meeting Calendar for 2024 Resolution 2 23 –, and
- [Vote] An Ordinance Regarding the Illinois Paid Leave For All Workers Act Ordinance 23 –
A copy of their agenda can be viewed and downloaded here.
Special Roads & Bridges Committee meeting today
Posted in Agenda, Audio Recordings, Big Red, Conflict of interest, Cuba Township Road District, Ethics, Goat Rodeo, Mac's Property Management, New Normal?, One Barrington Hills, Politics, Property Taxes, Real Estate, Roads & Bridges Committee, TMI, Traffic, Transparency, Trotter & Associates, Unions, Village Director of Administration, Village Engineer, Village President on November 13, 2023| 1 Comment »
The Village Roads & Bridges Committee meets this afternoon at 3 PM. The topics on the agenda include:
- [Vote] Minutes – September 20, 2023 Special Meeting
- [Vote] Minutes – November 8, 2022 Special Meeting (tabled from May 9, 2023 Special Meeting)
- Road Program: 2024 Planning
A copy of the agenda can be viewed here.
The Committee did not meet in October. Perhaps this was intentional to allow a cooling off period after the Chair seemingly lost her composure during the September meeting. The recording of that meeting can be found here.
Village Board of Trustees meets tonight
Posted in Agendas, Animal Welfare, BACOG, Barrington Hills Farm, Barrington Hills Park District, Big Red, Clown Car, County, ePacket Agendas, Ethics, Financial Reports, Goat Rodeo, Heritage Fest, Intergovernmental agreements (IGA), Lake, Minutes, One Barrington Hills, Police Pension Board, Police Reports, Politics, Property Taxes, Public Safety, Road construction, Roads & Bridges Committee, Taxes, Topics Of Interest, Trotter & Associates, Unions, VBHPD, Village Attorney, Village Board, Village Clerk, Village Code, Village Director of Administration, Village Engineer, Village President, Village Treasurer, Zoning Board on August 28, 2023| Leave a Comment »
The Board will be discussing the repair of damage possibly caused by burrowing rodents on Chapel Road among other things tonight.
Our Village Board of Trustees will be conducting their regular monthly meeting beginning at 6:30 PM. Tonight’s 685-page agenda includes:
- [Vote] Conduct Village Banking with Barrington Bank and Trust – A Wintrust Community Bank
- [Vote] A Resolution Authorizing the Acceptance of Quotes for Repair of a Section of Chapel Road in the Village of Barrington Hills Resolution 23 –
- Notice of Lake County Watershed Development Ordinance Amendments – July
- [Vote] Resolution Adopting the 2022 Lake County All Natural Hazards Mitigation Plan by the Village of Barrington Hills Resolution 23 –
- The Hills Are Alive Fall Heritage Fest – Sunday, September 17th
A copy of their agenda can be viewed and downloaded here.
Parting is not always sweet sorrow
Posted in Barrington Hills Farm, Commercial Horse Boarding, Conflict of interest, Ethics, Gewalt Hamilton, HARPS, Horse Boarding, Land Disconnection, Land Use, Organizations, Roads and Bridges, Topics Of Interest, Trotter & Associates, Uncategorized, Village Board, Village Engineer, Village Government on January 22, 2018| 3 Comments »
Tonight’s Board of Trustees meeting will be the first official meeting for the village’s new engineering firm, Trotter & Associates. We look forward to seeing their approach to municipal engineering and we hope that taxpayers will benefit from lowered costs and fresh ideas.
While researching future content for the Observer, we stumbled across some interesting correspondence regarding Barrington Hills Farm (BHFW LLC) and our village’s former engineering firm, Gewalt Hamilton. What we found is shocking, but it certainly makes the Village’s decision last year to change engineering companies very wise indeed.
According to documents found on McHenry County’s website, in December 2015, BHFW’s Chairman J. R. Davis was applying to McHenry County to convert part of an existing wetland on the property into a recreational pond. As a result, some mitigation of the wetlands was necessary. The specifics of the mitigation and request for credits from the Wetland Restoration Fund are not important.
What is important is the engineering firm that BHFW had hired to create their Wetland Mitigation Plan was Gewalt Hamilton. And not just Gewalt Hamilton, but Dan Strahan himself , who was Barrington Hills’ Village Engineer at the time, was personally involved in the project.
Strahan is cc’ed on the Gewalt Hamilton letter to McHenry County on behalf of BHFW and Strahan’s signature even appears with Davis’ signature on the Wetland Restoration Fund application as the Design Engineer.
To be clear, this was a project undertaken by a private property owner in unincorporated McHenry County immediately adjacent to the Village, and Strahan and Gewalt Hamilton were hired by that individual. All at the same time when Strahan and Gewalt Hamilton were also employed by the Village of Barrington Hills.
We find it shocking that Gewalt Hamilton and Dan Strahan did not decline employment by BHFW & Mr. Davis in 2015, seeing as the firm had been serving Barrington Hills for decades. Gewalt Hamilton & Strahan were well aware of the history of the Davis property, and in all likelihood would be called up by the Village to consult on the property in the future. It would be bad enough for any engineer employed by Gewalt Hamilton to have taken this job, let alone Dan Strahan.
Not surprisingly, Strahan indeed did end up personally involved in discussions on behalf of the Village regarding new driveways and dedicated easements and right-of ways for the proposed HARPS facility on BHFW property in 2016 & 2017. It certainly gives us pause to wonder about the quality of the service the village and taxpayers received on that assignment.
Did Strahan and Gewalt ever divulge to the Village of Barrington Hills that they had been previously employed by Davis?
How could Strahan and Gewalt maintain any impartiality when they had been paid by both the Village and Davis?
Are there other projects that Gewalt has worked on for Davis and BHFW?
Did Strahan and Gewalt ever divulge this conflict of interest while they were applying for retention as the Village’s engineering firm?
Right now, we have more questions than answers. We’ll leave it to our readers to draw their own conclusions. We think the documents speak for themselves.
Click on the following links to view the complete PDFs of the documents BHFarm_Gewalt_Wetland_1 and BHFarm_Gewalt_Wetland_2.
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