Here's to a Wonderful 2006 and an Even Better 2007!

This is the last post of the year, I hope everyone has a very safe and happy New Years! Enjoy the fireworks in 2007, because there will be some!

2006 A Blogging Year in Review

Here is a look back at some popular posts from the last year.

January-- Where does your Tax Money go?
February-- My hospital task force takes shape!
March-- We lost a dear friend in Round Lake Park Mayor Ila Bauer.
April-- Played an excellent April Fools joke on my readers!
May-- I wrote a post about the history of Round Lake.
June-- My climb up the water tower on Hart Rd got lots of attention.
July-- Streets of Summer or Better known as Seanstock took place.
August-- Train Station Improvements!
September-- My wallet story was quite the hit!
October-- My first guest blogger wrote about HOA's and was quite the hit!
November--I announced my Wellness campaign!
December-- My waist made the front page of the Daily Herald.

However the single most lively post had to be this one.
The one that got my mother in law ticked off was this one.
The most commented post was this one with 211.

Save the Date-- the First Mayor's Run/Walk-- January 6th in Madrona

A friendly year end reminder for the first Mayor's Run/Walk on January the 6th. I have mapped the route out for those of us with the inclination to know what's going on beforehand. It will be in Madrona starting at the park. So here's the schedule of events:

• We start at 7:00am with a jog/run of 1.83 miles at about 11 minute mile pace. The intention is to take it easy so we all can keep up (mainly me, given my lack of exercise over the holidays).


• We return to the starting point where those who want to walk will be waiting, and those who want to walk and cool down after running can stroll with us.


• Roughly 7:30am we walk the same route which should get us done by 8:00am.


• At 8:05 am drag Mayor back to his car and attempt to revive him.

Couple of guidelines, if its raining or snowing, we are going to take a rain check, there is no need to be out in bad weather, and its also not safe either. The other thing since not everyone is as energetic as us, and may be still asleep at 7am on a Saturday morning, we should keep the noise down. We are not inviting any bulls, but lets hope the guy in the picture had some good foot speed.

Snow on Sidewalks!

I have gotten a ton of emails and comments on neighbors not cleaning the sidewalks off after a snow storm. So I decided to go to the village code and find exactly what it says. However the Valley Lake HOA already had an excellent flier and I asked John Gutknecht to send it to me.

Frequently Asked Questions and Reminders

Question: Who’s supposed to clear the sidewalks?
Answer: It is the responsibility of each property owner to remove the snow from ALL PUBLIC SIDEWALKS adjacent to their property.

Question: But can’t I be held liable if someone falls on a sidewalk that I cleared?
Answer: Individuals who shovel snow or ice from sidewalks are NOT liable for personal injuries allegedly caused by the snowy or icy condition of the sidewalk resulting from their shoveling unless their conduct is willful or wanton. (Willful or wanton conduct means with an actual intent to cause an injury or with a conscious disregard for the safety of others. Illinois Compiled Statutes, Chapter 745, Section 75/2.

The Village Code even weighs in on the subject as well.

12.04.070 Snow on Sidewalks.
The person occupying the ground floor of any building, the user of any lot without a structure thereon, and the owner of any vacant building or other premises shall remove the snow and ice accumulating on the abutting sidewalks within twenty-four (24) hours after any snowfall has ceased. If snow or ice cannot be removed the surface shall be sanded or otherwise treated to lessen the hazard for pedestrians until the climate permits removal.

If you see an address in which the owner is not removing the snow, please contact the Round Lake Police Dept. at 847-546-8112 and file a complaint. Our first priority however will always be the roads during a snow event.

Train Whistles

For some time I have been getting emails from some people who live at the SW corner of 134 and Fairfield about train whistles. I usually explain the history of train whistles in the RL area and what the board did about 5 years ago. So I will explain the story here.

There has been train tracks through Round Lake since the Round Lake was founded, in fact that's why we were founded in 1908 to be a train station. When I took office the ordinances that existed were that NO train whistles were to blow except in emergencies. The village board voted in 1994 to stop blowing the whistles.

In the time frame between 1998 and 2002 there were probably 3-4 fatalities (I think one was a suicide) at the 4 crossings in Round Lake. Then Trustee Danette Kohlmeyer advocated the revision of the ordinance, and when the ordinance came up for discussion it was an extraordinarily heated discussion. In fact if I had to rank it in terms of people "mad as hell" it would be in the top 3! There were people advocating both sides of the issue as well, which is always enjoyable! Safety and noise were the major talking points if I recall.

So when the board finally voted it passed narrowly (3-2) to blow whistles for safety. Since that time the whistles have blown. In addition there have been no fatalities that I know of or accidents that I recall. I have been aware for the last few years of a study done by Mundelien on directional crossing signals that direct the signal, I finally got a hold of the report and the study which I have created as a PDF here (report and evaluation). Having read the report and evaluation.

At the December 18th board meeting I brought the issue up again for the board to consider if we should direct our management team to look into what steps we need to take, if we want to pursue directional signals. The board agreed to research the process. So watch this space for more details!

Best Comment Overheard at the OTB

The six gentlemen sitting at the table next to us at the OTB, (the youngest was approximately 70 years old). One says completely out of the blue in the middle of a discussion about the merits of the upcoming race....

I need to change morticians!

Think about that for awhile. We laughed for about an hour about that one, amazing, what was the reason I wanted to ask. But didn't.

Fantasy Football Championship Decided the Result was not a Suprise!!

Congratulations to Tim Orris who swept almost everyone he played with the best regular season record of 10-2 (Bob Stone and Davis Clark were the only ones who beat him all year) and then last night he finished me off 123-86 in the championship game, it was never in doubt. We had 10 people playing all season and even the guys who finished out of the playoffs told me that they enjoyed it and will be back next year for season 2! I am going to buy a trophy that will allow the winner to have his name on it and keep it for year until relinquishing it next year or retaining it if they win again . Tim and I are going to the OTB today as well, so I am buying him lunch in my losing side bet on the game.

Some of the season highlights of the season were:

• Al Villasenor beating Paul Holingsworth 166-60 for the most points scored and biggest margin of victory.
• Michael Blum got the fewest points when I drubbed him 77-12
• Michael Blum beat Sean Gillette 115-111 giving Sean the dubious distinction of scoring the most points in a losing cause.
• Closest game of the year was a 70-70 tie between Brian Brubaker and Bob Stone.
• I am awarding myself the lucky award winning 3 games by 2 points or less including my playoff win over Michael Blum.
• The only person not mentioned before now was Terry Vandenboom, who played but did very little in the way of anything memorable. I am assuming my next trip for a haircut will now cost me!
  

Have a Sweet Christmas from the Mayor!

Happy Holidays

Happy Holidays to everyone! Santa came early in my house and brought me a head cold! I guess I have been naughty.

Round Lake vs Grayslake

Well as I predicted I would take out the eight Round Lake residents confident enough to take me on with my brilliant football mind in tmy fantasy football league, however I also allowed a good friend of mine who happens to live in Grayslake to participate as well. Not only did he win the league with the best record, relegating me to second, he is now the only person between me and glory. In other words its me against Tim Orris this weekend for all the fantasy football glory available. We have discussed some personal stakes, loser buying lunch and having to be the others chauffeur to the OTB on our horse racing foray's. He has LaDalian Tomlinson or someone like that on his team so its going to be an up-hill battle. I am still confident!

School District 116 Lauded for its Turn Around!

Dennis Stonewall the CEO of District 116, sent me this article from "Managing School Business" about the Districts turn around. When I took office the district (about 25% of Round Lake is in District 116) was bankrupt, staff morale was at all time low, and all anyone wanted to do was blame someone else.

When the state stepped in and imposed the over site committee I went along with the process more from a feeling of, it can't get worse then it already is then from one of optimism! The real reason I was supportive was the availability of special interest rates and funding options from the state that I felt could start the recovery. I was unsure of the level of commitment and or leadership we would get to manage the turn around. That over site committee eventually hired Wally Korpan as Chief Financial Officer and Dennis as Chief Executive Officer.

In a pleasant surprise we got leadership willing to make tough choices, and hiring and retaining quality leadership at the education level. Anyone who has seen Dr. Jeff Brierton Principal at the High School can attest to the fact that his brand of leadership and educational motivation work and in spades! The district has turned around completely and while this article does not talk about it, scores are up dramatically, which in the education world is the bottom line!

NOTE: I am unable to upload the PDF of the newsletter if you want a copy...so emails to me here!

GUEST COMMENTARY-- Trustee Thoughts on Dawn Marie

NOTE: In my magnaimous nature, and of course becuase he asked, Trustee Michael Blum is being allowed to adress the blogging public on his concerns and issues with Dawn Marie. He is also not my first guest blogger either! John Gutknecht was the first.

I would like to take a minute to address my recent vote on the Dawn Marie Sewer Reimbursement program. At the December 4th board meeting I voted "No" as I did not believe paying for the sewer hook-up was in the best interest of the village. I felt that the village should not be in the business of paying inconvenience fees to residents caused by village expansion. I said in the 12/4 meeting and reiterated in the 12/18 board meeting that Dawn Marie is a village street and the village has every right to run sewer down it. That does not entitle the home owners to free hook-up.

In the time between the 12/4 and the 12/18 meetings, I became aware of a letter sent out to the home owners on Dawn Marie by the prior Village Administrator (Bam Peterson) letting them know they would be connected to the sewer at no-cost and felt that this was a promise made to those homeowners. It may not have been approved by the board or been an appropriate letter to send, but it was a promise. At the time the letter was sent and the deal was made I was not a trustee. If I were, I would not have voted in favor of paying the difference in the connection cost nor would I have agreed with paying to extend the sewer in the loop. At the 12/18 meeting, I subsequently reversed my vote because of the "promise" that was made to the homeowners. It is unfair to penalize them for the the actions of our prior administrator. Again, I would like to reiterate that the village should not be paying for inconveniences and that the village needs to learn from this. I truly believe that with the new additions to the village staff (all village department heads have been changed in the last year and half) we will be more on the ball when it come to issues such as these.

COMMENTARY-- Dawn Marie Sewer and Water

Over the last few years its been a strategic goal of the village to get sewer and water down to our SW quadrant, to do many things, mainly to push economic development in the area. We are just now starting to see results. I think its crucial to the future of the village that we dictate what happens on the vacant land there rather then Volo. If we allow Volo to move in that area, we will have homes everywhere. I prefer a different scenario.

However one of the things that we had to do is actually run the sewer and the water to the area. To get to that area we had to disrupt the street of Dawn Marie. Its home to 19 residents, 15 of them directly affected by the construction. We forced Ryland homes to pony up $100,000 to a fund allowing the 15 residents to connect to our sewer and water at no charge. In fact this was my idea and I repeatedly insisted on it. We also as a village board reiterated it to them many times in public.

At one point in the discussion the 4 residents on the loop (not directly affected by the construction) challenged the board to bring sewer and water to them under the same program as well, even though they were not directly affected, the board agreed, the cost of that was approximately $100,000 to do the loop, money was to come from our sewer and water fund.
As we have worked through the process of hooking residents up we were repeatedly challenged and questioned as to our competence by two residents who live on the street. They were the only two residents against the proposal the village developed to connect the residents. We try to do the right thing so we paused and evaluated their concerns, ultimately deciding to move ahead with our proposed program. In the interim these two residents decided to be critical of our Public Works director, our Village Administrator and our Village Engineer, along with the village board.

If we had voted the issue four months ago (in my opinion), the program would have passed more then likely 4-2. However when I moved it for a vote on December 4th the motion failed with 5 No's (Newby, Shaw, Del Prato, Blum, Brubaker) 1 Yes (Perkowitz). I was extremely disappointed in the board's action. My opinion was that the two residents got the trustees irritated with them hence the vote.

By refusing the program we are making each resident on Dawn Marie pay a couple of thousand dollars because we could not agree on the program. The original estimates were low and and I would guess that this issue would cost the village or the residents if we don't reconsider about $42,000.

My immediate intention was to veto it, however I am unable to veto inaction, (I can only veto action). I decided to have the issue on the agenda at the next board meeting, and ask the board to reconsider the action.

ACT Two
On Monday night the village board was confronted by an angry group of Dawn Marie residents who were holding letters we sent them describing the program. Some even quoted my blog post of a few years ago to me. After public comment was over, we worked through the agenda until we reached the Dawn Marie reconsideration. Since the prior motion had been defeated it had to be motioned and seconded by two of the majority (i.e the No votes at the last meeting Newby, Shaw, Del Prato, Blum, or Brubaker). I asked the trustees to reconsider the motion based on three major issues.

1. It was and is the right thing to do, we told them we would do and we need to do it.


2. I asked them to set aside the feeling they had for the two gentlemen who while well-intentioned, had caused the program to bog down until it reached the negative vote at the last board meeting


3. Any funds dispersed by the village would eventually be returned to the village in the form of recapture from the users downstream of Dawn Marie in the SW Quadrant.

There was a lively discussion after that, with Trustee Brubaker advocating getting Ryland to pony up more money based on his reading of the annexation agreement, while I thought that was an excellent idea, I still felt that we should take care of the residents now, and go after Ryland ourselves afterwards. His contention was that by not passing the connection program, we give up some leverage on Ryland. He may be right.

After quite a bit of discussion the roll was called and all 5 trustees present (Newby, Shaw, Blum, Brubaker and Perkowitz) voted yes!

Comments on the Future of the Blog

There have been times over the last two years that I have wanted to comment on what's going on in the village, but since I am the Mayor, and political reality being what it is in Round Lake, I have been reluctant to comment on some of the major issues in the village. I have deliberately left my opinions of Village Board actions out of this blog. However as the blog changes I am not sure I should continue that policy.

I strongly believe that discussions should take place in public on our village's future direction, however its extraordinarily frustrating that the only time we have general public at our meetings is when its a NIMBY (not in my back yard) issue. Even then we have only a few people at that. So my feeling is that since you won't come to us, we need to come to you, hence a more opinionated blog, on the more crucial issues facing the village.

Obviously I am not going to comment on issues that we deal with in executive session (legal, personnel and land acquisition) but I am going to talk more directly to specific issues. A few issues that I am going to address in future posts are train horns, policing, SSA's, Dawn Marie issues, school funding, school district issues, downtown development and of course economic development. In many cases if we have voted on these issues I am going to link to the minutes so you can see where your elected officials stand on these issues. Hopefully this will give the average Round Lake resident a better understanding of what's going on the first and third Monday's of each month at 7:00pm in the village Hall.

My rule of thumb is and will be if I am willing to say it at a village board meeting I could write it here! This will, I know, make some people angry, uncomfortable, and it will embarrass some people, but it will help you become better informed, and ultimately transparent government is good for all of us.

Contest Winners

The winners of the Annual Mayoral Giveaway program from the the free stuff that I get for sponsoring stuff from the Round Lake Area Park District are as follows:

• Family Pool Pass (31 entries) was won by the Bukowski family! Oddly enough they were the last entry submitted yesterday no less.
• One Year Fitness Membership Pass (25 entries) was won by Kurt Rodwald, who should have also won for best email response to me entering the contest. I will not repeat what he said to protect the innocent.

I used my exclusive patented double blind system of selection, first I sorted emails by time stamp, then I went to a site that generates random numbers between 1 and 25 or 1 and 31, the site told me the number 7 and 31 in this case and I merely counted down!

Database's Gone Wild

This is the actual address a piece of mail had on it when it arrived at the Village Hall. A few questions come to mind? How did the database program know that a person with the first name "Round" was feminine? Let alone why would they remove the "ladies" middle name of Lake and make it an "L". Overall everything else was perfect address wise, sadly when I took the picture of the piece of mail I neglected to ask what was inside, that might have added to the story.

Lazy Saturday

I went and walked with Trustee Michael Blum in the older section of town early this morning for about an hour. I have a grand opening to attend later on this morning for a bit. Tonight is the village Christmas party at the Alpine Country Club.

I have been going to this Christmas party for over 10 years, and its always nice and pleasant. It's way of showing our appreciation to our staff and volunteers who serve the village on numerous committees and boards. There are a lot of new faces serving the village so its always nice to meet there better half!

Metropolitan Mayors Caucus Yesterday

I went to the Metropolitan Mayor Caucus annual meeting yesterday downtown in Chicago. There were about 40 of the area mayors present including Rich Daley of Chicago. There were reports by some of the task forces on the various issues affecting us in the 6 county Chicagoland area. The most interesting one was the Clean Air Counts Campaign. A variety of Mayors talked about things that did in their communities that saved money, saved trees and reduced emissions.

I asked the staff liaison for the Clean Air Counts to come visit our Village Administrator and Public Works Director to discuss how to move this forward.

The Mayor of Northbrook had the most interesting talk on this subject, when he talked about how his community was able to use lawn care buy back programs, gas can replacement events and diesel retrofits among many other things to do some amazing things.

There is a lot more that I will write on over the next few days, the 2016 Olympics, Education Reform, Local Housing Strategies and much more. Overall an excellent day out!

Metropolitan Mayors Annual Meeting

I am going to it today downtown! Will have a report later. Internet connection sucks! Will hear Mayor Daley talk about 2016 Olympics!

NOTE: Sorry about the 3 posts! Not my cleverest moment there! Frustration, since I am dead in the water internet connection and am connecting via a modem and MSN! I will type a nice Mayor like post tommorrow about what went on, and hopefully all will return to normal.

Round Lake Police and Public Works Facility to Win National Award?

That's a good question! Sente Rubel Bosman and Lee, the architect of the Police and Public Works facility has entered the building in the American Public Works Association annual contest for best designed building.

The building of course combines the Police department, the community rooms, and the Public Works department. It's an excellent use of resources and the building is designed for expansion and growth so in my humble opinion its a winner!

Entry is here as a 2MB PDF AwardSubmissionPDF.pdf

Round Lake High School hosts Great Lakes Sailors for Holiday Dinner

One of the really nice things the Round Lake High School does each year is host roughly 250 sailors from the Great Lakes Naval Training Base at the High School for a holiday dinner.
The event is run by the National Honor Society, they cook a meal and entertain the sailors. This marvelous opportunity to volunteer or just stop by and say thanks happens December 16th from 3:00 pm to 8:00 pm.

The Spirit of Giving...or Free Stuff from the Mayor!

Every year the village is a sponsor of the winter fireworks with the Park District at Holiday Fest. We have a long tradition of sponsoring fireworks in the village, both the Fourth of July Version and the Christmas version as well!
However sponsorship does have its privileges! I get free stuff from the Park District, and you know what free stuff means on this blog! Giveaways! So here we go with the free stuff I was sent this year.

• One year Fitness Center Membership at the Round Lake Area park District's Fitness Center. ($254 value)
• Family Pool Pass for the entire 2007 season at the Round Lake Area park District Pool. ($200 value)

The rules are simple, email me at mayor@eroundlake.com, entries will be open for a week (11:59pm on December 17th). YOU MUST TELL ME WHAT YOU WANT FITNESS OR POOL PASS. I will take all the entries and use some form of random number selection process that I will concoct on the spot and apply them by using the time stamps on your emails arrival in my in box.

You need to be a resident of Round Lake! You also better have kids if you expect the pool pass, the more the merrier! If you won earlier this year, you can't win the same prize!

Mayors Fantasy Playoffs Start Today

Tim Orris and myself both won byes into the semi finals. Tim will play the winner of the Bob Stone vs Davis Clark showdown and the honor of losing to me will go to the winner of Al Villasenor vs Michael Blum cage match.

UPDATE: Having huge connection problems at the White House! Much gnashing of teeth, hence the post from my phone! How is that for dedication

Illinois Legislative Caucus Foundation

I was invited to speak to the the Illinois Legislative Caucus Foundation yesterday by the Hispanic delegation of Senators and Representatives to Springfield. Unfortunately I was unable to attend the conference during the day, because of other commitments, but I enjoyed the part I was involved in. Six mayors were invited, myself, and the Mayors of Blue Island, Aurora, Berwyn, Palatine and Waukegan.

I talked about the need for representation of the Hispanic community of greater Round Lake in the elected process. My central point was around grass roots participation in government and to wit I mentioned that the Round Lake Area is roughly between 35% and 45% Hispanic. Yet at this time there are: (by the way this is off the top of my head the numbers, hopefully I am wrong and missed some people).

• 32 Municipal leadership positions (Mayors Clerks and Trustees) 1 is Hispanic! (Sylvia Valadez the Clerk in Round Lake Beach) and 2 speak Spanish fluently (me being the second).
• 19 other positions (Park Boards, Library Board, School Board) 3 are Hispanic!
• So there are 51 elected officials and 4 are Hispanic--- so that means 8% are Hispanic.

There was a question and answer session afterwards that was more like a group of people making statements rather then questions, which was educational. I was impressed that Mayor Dick Hyde of Waukegan brought his own hecklers/loonies with him. He pointed them out in the audience to me beforehand, and then basically paraphrased what they would say. Sure enough they said it almost verbatim. Over an issue the city solved a few years ago no less as well.

Valley Lakes Homeowners Association Meeting Last Night!

I was invited to speak at the Valley Lakes Homeowners Association last night. I spoke about a variety of thing to a nice cross section of the community. Had some good give and take about what we are doing in the village and , how we are doing. I think I spoke for well over an hour.

I have believed for some time, and even more so now that Valley Lakes is one of the best run HOA's around. They do excellent things and I am quite happy they are my HOA to be candid. I won't steal their thunder, but go check out the web page for Valley Lakes at www.valleylakes.org.

The picture by the way is of one of the ponds that have been restored with their Shoreline Restoration project, which is exceptional.

Long Time Finance Director Steps Down

At Mondays board meeting Maggie Molidor who had been the Villages Director of Finance and Treasurer for 17 years stepped down to a more part time position so she can spend time with her husband Jerry and her grandkids. She still is however working a few days a week for us.

Maggie stepped into the role of Finance Director when former Mayor Jim Lumber took office 17 years ago, she inherited a village with over $30 dollars in the check book. Today our operating budget is quite a few thousand percent greater then that! When I took office 5 and half years ago our EAV was $67 million today its $328 million.

Maggie specialty was accuracy, when the village had its first special census four years ago, I used a complex algorithm, keen insider knowledge, and my infinite wisdom to enter my number of 11,600 residents in the office pool. Maggie called the number within 20 of the actual number 10,100. She took home $60 bucks for her accuracy that time as well in the office pool. She used the oh so simple and quite fiendishly clever method of counting water meters and multiplying by 3.

She and I would go round and round the first few years over what our projected EAV (Equalized Assesed Value) was. If you were too low, you only got what you asked for, if you were too high you had to cut from the appropriations budget. So you wanted to be too high, but by as little as possible. Naturally I did not want to be the mayor who under collected on our rightful tax dollars so I was always higher, Maggie would do the following, pray over the numbers, think about them in the shower (she did her best thinking there, so she told me numerous times) then walk in and say "Mayor the number is $173 million not your $179 million" and like the smart Mayor I am, I agreed, and when the number was $171 and change I wisely kept my mouth shut. But when the official levy numbers came in, she always would casually reference her number in some way to let me know, that she knew, that I knew!

On Monday we appointed a new Director of Finance Steven Shields and I presented Maggie with 18 long stemmed roses in appreciation, one for each year of service which were red, and then the 18th rose which was white for the next year or so of service. I had to keep my remarks brief because Maggie was shaking like a leaf, and quite frankly I was choked up as well. I suspect she will smack me up side my head when she sees me next for this post! It was worth it however!

Tree Lighting Ceremony

We met as a board today and discussed the tree lighting, that we had to cancel because of foot of snow! We decided to donate the stuffed animals to shop with a cop, light the tree, donate the food and wait till next year.

Practically speaking we could not get Santa, the choir, tent, schedules and time to work, so we decided that we will do it next year!

One of My Favorite Blogs

I was reading one of my favorite blogs, written by the authors of the book Freakonmics, the blog is entitled Freakonmics yesterday. I thought it was an interesting post on strategic thinking and I did some more reading on this concept, its quite fascinating. I also started to apply some of the thought process to whats going on and has gone on in the village.

For awhile I have been toying with taking this blog in a slightly different direction, which would be talking about how and why decisions are made in the village. The article and research was quite though inspiring.

Breakfast with Santa this Morning

The annual Round Lake Area Chamber of Commerce Sponsored "Breakfast with Santa" is today from 6am-Noon with pancakes, sausage, eggs and of course Santa Claus. It's held at the Round Lake High School. Its a nice event with tons of people flowing through. I have been volunteering there for nearly 14 years and have slowly migrated up to the "elite" cooking positions from dishwasher, where I resided for 3 years. Today I am cooking pancakes! So be warned!

Round Lake Park District Holiday Festival is Today

From 2pm to 5pm today is the Round Lake Area Park District Holiday Festival at the Hart Road Location. The festival has got something for every age group. My age group is covered by fireworks at around 5pm. The Village is one of the sponsors of this program and has been for years.

I have been going for years! Years before I was Mayor as well, because I have a daughter who loved this stuff, hayrides, the Jesse White Tumblers, a moonwalk and much much more!

BREAKING NEWS-- Tree Lighting Canceled for Tonight

The weather report has more snow and high winds for tonight so unfortunately I feel its best for us to cancel the tree lighting! I just spoke to Santa and he is quite flexible for a quick drop in at a future date for the lighting, apparently the Elves have it all well in hand, so Santa can get away.

Wellness Plans Make the Paper!

Some coverage of the the Wellness program in today's Daily Herald. They took a picture of me as well, but I have not plowed out my driveway yet to discover it.

They were size 48 pants, and I wish they had not mentioned the 300 number so prominently!

NOTE: I slogged out to get the paper and found this picture, which I had to scan because the Daily Herald has fiendishly clever write protection on its pictures.

Gang Awareness Program-- Joint Meeting with the Other Round Lakes

There was a superb program coordinated with out local Police departments for our hispanic population talking about gang awareness and how the area police departments deal with gang issues in the area. There was a very extensive program with quite a bit of audience participation covering a wide range of ideas and concepts. I would guess that nearly 200 people attended. I commend the area police department and district 116 for grabbing the bull by the horn.

The highlight was the talk by a Round Lake Beach Police Sergeant who was excellent in both English and Spanish! I learned tons of things!

Round Lake Neighbors....a new website!

You know what? No post today...go check out this new site called www.roundlakeneighbors.com, its put together by some local residents and its a great idea!

Wellness-- Tenatative 5K dates and "Run with the Mayor"

I spent the morning trying to figure out a schedule that works for my life and 4 Saturday's for the Mayoral 5K series. I think I have come up with something that might be workable.

The Mayoral 5K series will be 4 races held in the 4 majors areas of the community. (Valley Lake's, Lakewood, Madrona, and Downtown.) The dates will be Sunday's February 11, May 13, July 22 and September 23. These race dates are up in the air still, if you have an event for your HOA that might partner up with me, I would love that.

If I can get sponsorship to cover it, I am going to try to make the race free to Round Lake residents and $15 to non-residents or something like that. I also would like to award trophy's to the winners and the overall champions in the various age groups.

I am setting aside the first Saturday of every month at 7am for the run/walk with the Mayor. My goal is to run 2 miles from 7:00am to 7:20am at a nice steady 10-12 minute mile pace (closer to jogging) that way I can talk (assuming anyone wants to talk) and run at the same time. The from 7:30 to 8:00 walk the same course. So if you compete in both you will get four miles in. I am going to move these around from neighborhood to neighborhood. I think its an excellent venue for people from other areas to learn about and meet there neighbors, plus I can listen to issues and hopefully solve some of them.

The first one will be January 6th at 7am and I will do it in Madrona, meeting at the park.

Make your Yard into a Nature Habitat-- One Lady Has!

One of our local residents Sue Krueger (her web page is here) has turned her yard into a National Wildlife Habitat! Here are the instructions on how she did it. She has quite the interesting yard, it has a web cam, pointing at it at all times. That's clever idea in itself, and as best I can tell is the only outdoors web cam in the Round Lake area.
Anyway back to Ms. Krueger's garden, it has its own web page with a listing of features, species sighted, and lots of pictures. What a very clever idea. I also scanned the steps to get certified as a Habitat and it seemed straight forward.

There is also a page to certify an entire community. Which is interesting and leads me to wonder if there would be some interest in doing it as a community. Comments or emails are welcome as always.

Interesting Occurance

First of all I must preface this story with a comment on hit counters for web pages. The one I use was set to count unique visitors, and counted hits, not visitors. So needless to say I did not realize that this meant that my traffic figures were off by like a factor of 5....so if I got what I thought were 1000 users I was really getting 200. Needless to say I fixed the counter.

So I was going to casually never speak of this to anyone ever again. However something came up that's kinda interesting, and of course is to good a story to bury in my Internet shame. Over the last year my traffic has been steadily climbing and my highs (not my old highs) were around 330. Then as we got to the middle of the month my traffic which has been edging higher over the last 4-5 weeks by about 10-15 visits a day, jumped by about 10% to a high of 388, 399, 424, 528, 848, 1,808 and then 2,289. You can see the giant spike in the accompanying graphic. One hour got me 249 users, which was equal to the entire amount of visitors last Friday

The numbers made me think I had screwed something up again and of course sent me looking for a new hit counter, however Sitemeter.com has a section where I can look at where my traffic is coming from, and 50% to 70% was coming from a search for a picture I used on Thanksgiving Day 2005. The picture is shown below.

Apparently this image is appearing on the first page for google images when you search for images of Thanksgiving. So the traffic is all going to the archive page for November 2005. Not for my brilliant witty observations on the state of Round Lake but rather for a turkey!

Early Morning Walk

Went for an early morning walk in the downtown area, with Trustee Michael Blum, sort of looked for garbage and stuff. I found a few things that I will have our department heads take care of on Monday. I did however find a sign at the train station that was quite humorous and we will be taking down, but I feel the urge to reproduce it here. Imagine that June 1999, I think most people know that by now!

Happy Thanksgiving (600th Post as well)!

Happy Thanksgiving! I hope everyone in Round Lake has a wonderful filling day with family and friends. I know I am going to. I am running in a 5k for a food bank in Crystal Lake that I actually ran in last year in the cold. NOTE: I have sore knees today from a run earlier this week when I pushed to hard and fast so I may not go, its a game time decision! NOTE NUMBER 2: I did not run, but rather walked the distance instead.

Today is the 600th post of this blog, I thought I had missed the actual date, because I actually have 624 posts, but I counted earlier this week and 24 of them are drafts. I have so many draft posts, because until the events are over, I will not reveal my thoughts. Its awful when you have a big mouth and you have to learn to keep it shut!

Huge blog traffic this last week, I will reveal its reason on Monday's post I think, although I may write something sooner.

SWALCO Dates for 2007

Here are the lists of dates the Round Lake Public Works department will be holding the Household Electronics collections for 2007. (The second Tuesday of every other month). The times will be from 8am to 5pm.

January 9th
March 13th
May 8th
July 10th
September 11th
November 13th

Further information may be found at www.swalco.org

Wellness Plans

I have been amazed at all the good ideas that I received about a wellness program in Round Lake. The feedback has been quite good with lots of ideas for how to move forward. Let me summarise the ideas for you.

• Running four 5k's in the neighborhood was well received, some residents suggested some enhancements like sponsorship, (I already have one offer from the founders of http://www.mapmyrun.com/ to sponsor some things in exchange for their logo on shirts. A points series open to RL residents (sort of like NASCAR for age groups) with trophies given out to the winners and over all champions!


• Making Round Lake smoke free, which seems to be a move sweeping the county and the state. I am not sure of all the ins and outs of this right now and am going to talk to the village board about there thoughts as well.


• Hosting monthly run/walks in the various neighborhoods of Round Lake. To encourage neighborliness and fitness amongst residents.


• There was a call for eating healthy as well, I am not sure how a challenge could do that but it bears scrutiny.


• Another idea was to challenge neighborhood vs neighborhood in a walk-a-thon, how many miles each neighborhood walks or runs in a given time period. Or we could all issue a challenge to another community in the county to walk.

Please feel free to send me any ideas or improvements, I am going to do my first run/walk with the Mayor on January 6th! I think I will start them at 8am and jog for 20 minutes with a group of runners and then walk 30 minutes with the walkers. As for where I am going to do it! Invite me, otherwise I will pick a location and rotate from there each month.

Also I am looking for volunteers to coordinate this for me, since I have zero budget, I am going to hustle up some local sponsors, for signs, shirts, trophies and timing devices, but anyone with some energy and who wants to help, would be more then welcome! Please email me if you are interested in helping.

Directory of Labels So far

Well I have been labeling away at a good pace, and have come up with quite a few categories, it seems like I come up with new ones all the time so I think the best way to handle this since I can't place them in the side columns or so it seems. I will occasionally update them here as a post.

NOTE: For some reason I messed up the links this morning so you merely have a list with a count until I can get some time to figure out who this is supposed to work.

• 120 Bypass (48)
• About this Blog (22)
• Avon Township (8)
• Being Mayor (187)
• Bonds (10)
• Bradford Place (3)
• Bright Meadows (8)
• Building Department (4)
• Community Events (37)
• Downtown Development District (23)
• Elections (6)
• Fish Tank (5)
• Football (21)
• Fremont Township (3)
• Grant Township (13)
• HOA's (6)
• Housing (7)
• Impact Fees (3)
• Lake County Issues (3)
• Lakewood Homes (15)
• Library Things (13)
• Madrona Homes (31)
• Park District (46)
• Police Department (46)
• Public Works (56) Racing (14)
• Round Lake History (4)
• Route 60 (25)
• Running (20)
• School Districts (28)
• Silly (3)
• Soccer (5)
• Special Census (2)
• Taxs (2)
• Transportation (47)
• Treehouse in the Woods (5)
• Valley Lakes (35)
• Village Board (80)
• Vital Safety Information (1)
• Water Issues (9)
• Wellness (2)
• WRLR Radio (16)

Fantasy Football Update

Standings
Tim Orris 8-2-0
Bill Gentes 7-3-0
Bob Stone 7-3-0
Michael Blum 6-4-0
Al Villasenor 5-5-0
Davis Clark 5-5-0
Sean Gilette 4-6-0
Terry Vandenboom 3-7-0
Paul Hollingsworth 2-8-0

Top six teams make the playoffs and there are three weeks left in the fantasy season. So everyone has a mathematical chance to get it done. Top two teams get first round byes so there is some competition at the top as well.

Thanksgiving Service this Sunday--Being Thankful!

Oliver Wendell Homes once said, "It is now the moment when by common consent we pause to become conscious of our national life and to rejoice in it, to recall what our country has done for each of us, and to ask ourselves what we can do for our country."

This year several pastors of the area have again planned a community thanksgiving service. With the conviction that Thanksgiving was created to be a national day of giving thanks and not a church day only for Christians, they are trying purposely to assist the residents of the area in coming together for this grand and noble purpose.

Therefore, we are have planned a Community Thanksgiving service, Sunday afternoon at 5:00 P.M., at Village Elementary School gymnasium (Nippersink Rd.), November 19th. At this point the following churches have agreed to help - Abundant Life Church, B’nai Ohr Messianic Jewish Fellowship, Calvary Presbyterian Church, Community Church of Round Lake, Grace Chapel, St. Joseph Catholic Church.

Metropolitan Mayors Forum on Housing

With the changing housing market there are quite a few "rules" that are changing as well. Are elderly residents afraid they might not be able to remain in the community once they sell the home they've lived in for years? Are local businesses starting to complain that their employees are having trouble finding homes close to work? I have had these questions directed at me more then once in the last year.

The Metropolitan Mayors Caucus is sponsoring a December Housing Forum "Supporting Workforce Housing Deals in Our Own Backyard: A Conversation with Mayors and Developers on the Give and Take in a Changing Environment." Co-Chairs of the Caucus' Housing Committee, Mayor Zenovia G. Evans of Riverdale and Mayor Rita L. Mullins of Palatine. I am planning on attending to see if there are answers to the questions!

This forum will be an opportunity for Mayors and Homebuilders to discuss the questions above, focusing on:

• The changing housing market and how it will affect housing production.
• Innovative local and regional housing issues and efforts, including: interjurisdictional initiatives; fee negotiations; community acceptance of housing policies and developments; school funding debates; and housing preservation.

I think this will be a great opportunity to meet some of the homebuilders in the region that are doing workforce housing. The forum will allow attendees to share their ideas regarding what can be done on the local and regional levels to encourage the creation or preservation of workforce housing. Last year I attended and over 100 municipal and development representatives offered their thoughts on how the state could help with this effort; this year, the committee is following up to explore what is being done "on the ground" in the Chicago area, and what else could be done, to create a balance of housing options across the region.

While I think our housing stock is moving in a differnt direction it was fascinating to hear about this issue that affects western Lake County in a big way.

The Power of Three- Special Census Numbers are in!

Yesterday we got the special census letter telling us what our new population numbers are. Just to refresh I wrote about this here when we started the process in August. Special census's are run by the United States Bureau of the Census.

This was the second census we have done in my five and half years as Mayor. First some facts about the special census and some information on the process.

• The reason so many municipalities do a special census is because MFT (Motor Fuel Tax) funds from the state of Illinois are based on population and the most recent census numbers are used.
• On the average we get between $100 and $120 per person per year from the state in MFT funds. Our recent money was based on the most recent census figures (2003 special census) of 10,100.
• The 2003 special census took us from 5,400 to 10,100, so the next fiscal year we got an additional $120 x 4,700 people or an additional $564,000 to the village starting in fiscal year 2004.
• The best part about this is we receive $564,000 more every single fiscal year until the 2010 census, which is an additional $3.38 million.

The actual new census number is 16,415 people, which is an increase of 6,315 people this will bring us, an additional $757,000 per year (assuming $120 per person). This means that the village's use of the special census has taken our MFT revenue from $650,000 to $1,970,000 in 6 years.

Some random thoughts about the numbers.

• From 2004 until today we gained 6,315 people, more then the village population in 2000. (62 percent growth in 2 years)
  
• From 2000 until 2006 we gained 10,815 people. (303% growth!)
  

Or in other words we have tripled in size.

Halloween Contest at Madrona

A few weeks ago I was the special judge at the Madrona HOA costume party, and this group of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs were the winners of the most creative costume award by a long long way! The names of the winners were Katie Smith, Audrey Rehm, Logan Smith, Morgan Monahan, Millicent Rehm, Michael Monahan, Madelyn Monahan, and Lanie Smith.

Is a Healthier Round Lake Possible?

For quite awhile I have been mulling around a Mayors Fitness Challenge series of events. I always am a fan of wellness programs for companies. I looked into some national programs for wellness and got some ideas. The central thing was fitness and exercise.

Which got me thinking about having a series of 5K Run/Walks. I spent a few minutes diagramming a couple on this marvelous google based software that I use called www.mapmyrun.com that measures runs using GPS. I designed three 5K routes and would propose a fourth, there are some logistical issues route design must take into account as I discovered when I worked on these.

• Tour de Lakewood & Prairie Walk (route here)
  
• Tour de Madrona (route here)
• Tour de Valley Lakes (route here)
• Tour of Old Town and Bright Meadows (not done yet)

Would you run or walk in a 5K in your Neighborhood?
	Yes
	No
Free polls from Pollhost.com

I also would love to have some feedback on other ideas for health based programs in the community. One excellent suggestion I got from local business man Doug Dortch of MVS Molding was to have a run/walk in the various neighborhoods with the Mayor on Saturday mornings or some predetermined date.

Would you join the Mayor for an informal run in your Neighborhood?
	Yes
	No
Free polls from Pollhost.com

If you have any other wellness ideas please forward them to me at bgentes@eroundlake.com

Potential Lakewood SSA Bond Refinancing?

Six years ago when I was the chairman of the Planning Commission Lakewood Homes presented a proposal for building 800 homes in the area where they currently exist. We insisted (I was not Mayor then) on a variety of things that I concurred with, the two commercial parcels, the extension of the Cedar Lake Road, park set asides, and the impact fee structures. I won't go into the tactical reasons why going ahead with Lakewood at that time was important to the village, (that's a whole other post). Eventually the decision was made that to achieve the major objectives with SSA financing. The SSA is basically an addition to your tax bill to pay off bonds that were floated for your specific neighborhood, village etc. I won't go into the way SSA's can potentially help buyers get more home for less etc here (also another blog post as well). By the way not one trustee who voted yes on Lakewood is still on the Village Board.

Now fast forward 5 years later, Lakewood is built out, Fremont Township's assessments are some of the highest around, and the SSA is tacked on. You get high tax bills.

I have been working with some Lakewood residents who have contacted me about some issues specific to their homes and purchases, so it has led me to doing some global thinking about how we can lighten the load for the Lakewood Homeowners with the SSA's currently in place.

Speaking with the company that handles our bonds, Speer Financial, they were of the opinion that currently there is the ability to "refinance" the existing bonds. While not going into the obscure technical details we can reduce the interest rate by almost two points. At the moment with some quick calculations this can reduce the SSA total by $3.6 million over the life of the SSA.

Obviously a potential saving to the residents of Lakewood of any amount on their tax bills would be a positive. I am not sure how much impact this would be on the tax bill but we are going to find out.

I directed the Village Board Finance Committee chaired by Trustee Sherry Perkowitz and with Vice Chair Trustee Brian Brubaker to look into this and report back to the board as quickly as they can to see if this is feasible and firm up the process so we can act to cut the total owed and the rate.

Challenging Test

Okay clearly I found this one on a late night insominac trip across the internet. I messed it up repeatedly becuase I am color blind. But it was clever and fun, and for that reason alone it deserves to be on this blog.

So to play...Click Here!

Blogger Issues

I converted to Blogger Beta today, and guess what archives are not working, the templates are messed up, and worst of all the comments won't load as well! So guess what this weekend will be a "new" blog weekend!

Blog Changes

At the bottom of this post and others will be something called a label. The label will indicate the topic I think this post should reside in. They are all hyperlinked to other articles in the same category (thats what the number next to each listing means). I spent an hour working on the 588 posts I have and came up with the ones below for now, I am slowly going to cateorgize them all, some can appear in multiple spots as well. So if you want to read about HOA's or 120 and the broader things I write about all the time it makes it easier to find! Below is a list of "Labels" that I did in the last hour or so. More to come as well.

• 120 Bypass (47)
• About this Blog (18)
• Bonds (1)
• Community Events (6)
• Elections (1)
• Football (19)
• HOA's (6)
• Lakewood Homes (15)
• Police Department (46)
• Public Works (47)
• Racing (12)
• Round Lake History (4)
• Route 60 (24)
• Silly (1)
• Taxs (1)
• Village Board (1)
• WRLR Radio (16)

120 Corridor Planning Council Last Night

Last night was a 120 corridor Planning Council Meeting, I am not going to write about the discussion of bylaw changes and discussions on how to get the Request for Proposal funding (RFP) moving, but I am going to include the copy of a letter that I wrote in my capacity as Chair of the 120 CPC to the Daily Herald and other area newspapers last week. This letter was published in the Daily Herald on Monday the 6th.

Get involved with Route 120 planning
The need for improved east-west corridors through Lake County becomes crystal clear as more than 500,000 motorists sit in traffic each day in a county that'’s one of the fastest growing in the state.
In particular, Route 120 from Green Bay Road in Waukegan in the east to the McHenry County line in the west, was identified as the number one priority at last year'’s Lake County Transportation Summit; part of a bipartisan effort to combine Lake County'’s 12 votes in Springfield to more effectively deal with transportation issues.
While the Lake County and Illinois Departments of Transportation pinpointed Route 120 as a critical traffic bottleneck, hundreds of residents also have expressed their concern by speaking at public forums and by posting Web site comments.
A state grant to begin feasibility planning for improving the corridor has recently been approved. The targeted area traverses Waukegan, Libertyville, Gurnee, Wauconda, Mundelein, Hainesville, Round Lake, Round Lake Park, Volo and Grayslake. In addition, we have obtained $2 million in federal funding for engineering.
While support for the Route 120 corridor has been overwhelming, some questions still exist that should be addressed.
First: the Route 120 corridor has no connection to plans for the extension of Route 53 --— an issue that has been shelved in Springfield for lack of a budget and has had a polarizing effect on residents. That said, highways can'’t be built in a vacuum. Existing Route 53 rights-of-way will be considered in the planning of Route 120 in order to save time and taxpayer dollars, and plans must incorporate north-south connections along Route 120, whether or not Route 53 is built. And while all sorts of options are being studied, the possibilities of roundabouts and other ways to speed traffic flow must be considered only in the context of future growth.
Second: although feasibility studies have not yet begun, residents have weighed in with assumptions and dire predictions about the effects of the corridor on area homeowners and visiting wildlife. While the exact location of Route 120 has not been determined, every effort will be made to ensure that the corridor is planned with care and an eye to protecting the quality of life as well as our precious natural resources.
To get the facts about the Route 120 planning and implementation process, we urge you to get involved. Meetings of the Route 120 Corridor Planning Council are open to the public; the dates are posted regularly in this newspaper and on the Web site, www.120now.com.
There, you''ll also find detailed information about the Route 120 corridor. Let's act now to ease traffic congestion and make Lake County a more enjoyable place to live and work.

Sincerely
Bill Gentes
Mayor of Round Lake
Chair, 120 Corridor Planning Council
Member, Executive Committee Lake County Transportation Alliance

Tune in to WRLR -- 98.3 FM-- For complete election coverage!

On election night I will be anchoring election night coverage on WRLR from 6pm to 11pm. Local radio! For you in other communities outside Lake county you can listen on the internet at www.wrlr.fm

POSTSCRIPT
I was on from 7 to 11 last night, and had a great time. Sean Gilette was there all evening with me, and was excellent! Chris Thelen was patient and prepared as always, and Bish and all his group of volunteers did a great job keeping us informed. The national races were interesting and I was able to talk about a lot of the house and senate races that were key in shaping the new House of Representatives and as of this moment the "sort of" shaping of the new Senate (still waiting on Virginia and Montana Senate races). The hardest part for me was keeping my rabid partisanship under control. Two democrats called me to tell me that I was syncophantic towards republicans so I must have done a good job.

There were some exciting local races to talk about, and I am going to blog about what they mean for us in a post later on this week.

New Trustee Named

Last night I appointed Michael Blum (looking very serious in the picture at the right) to the vacant trustee spot that was filled by Patty Blauvelt until her resignation two meetings ago. Michael was approved by a 5-0 vote. Michael is the President of the Madrona Homeowners Association, has lived in Round Lake for 3 years. He grew up in Lake Zurich and went to Western Illinois University he is also a member of the Round Lake Planning/Zoning Commission He is married to Jennifer and has two daughters Madison and Mikayla. Mike has worked for Hewitt Associates for 8 years as Customer Service Client Manager he manage 90 associates.

I have tried to recruit a new type of person to our village boards and commissions and I am very happy to have had the opportunity to bring Michael on to our board. He is the first trustee from Madrona and I am excited to finally have representation from this important area.

The Daily Herald weighs in on the appointment here.

I was just counting up how many people I appoint to boards and positions in the village and I came up with 33 positions, and you know what? I have appointed 32 of them. The exception is Ed Amman who has now served on the Round Lake Planning/Zoning Commission for 7 full terms and is a few years into his 8th. Just so you know what that means, each term is 7 years long so he is over 52 years of service to the village.