Consolidating the Round Lake's? Part One

One of the questions I always get asked is "when will the Round Lake's ever consolidate"? I am sure the mayors of the Beach, Park and Heights get the same question all the time as well. To tell the truth I get people who think I am the mayor of all the Round Lake's anyway, simply because they don't understand the 4 communities are actually separate.

So what's the answer to the question? Well I have one that's humorous and one that's more factual. Lets stick to the factual one here however. Yes I do think its a good idea, in fact I would like to see it happen. The positives would and could be enormous in my opinion.

• Savings-- based on economies of scale for operations, the ability to have more departments that can serve specific needs such as housing, healthcare.
• Political Muscle-- the new community would be the second largest in Lake County. It would also be on of the top 30 populations in the state of Illinois. (ESTIMATED from the US Census) The consolidation would put a merged community somewhere around 56,000 to 60,000 people.
  
• Round Lake (15,000)
• Round Lake Beach (30,000)
• Round Lake Heights (4,000)
• Round Lake Park (7,000)

There are many more potential benefits that I will talk about in a later post but I think this is a concept whose time is getting closer.