120 Public Forum Today in Hainesville

Today is one of the public forums for the 120 bypass. Its at Hainesville's Village Hall which is at 100 N. Hainesville Rd. Which is just north of the intersection of Hainesville Road and 120.

Please please do come! The 120 bypass is critical to Round Lake and its future. Not to mention critical to the county and it's 1,000's of commuters as a vital East-West corridor.

For more information on the project the web page is at www.120now.com.

Memorial Day Pictures

It was a nice parade yesterday with the usual huge crowds along the route. The ceremonies were touching. They were also quick since the Veterans did not even wait for the elected officials to show up when they did the flag presentation at our memorial. We were walking up from our spots in the parade when they started and finished! Oh well.

Opening Day-- Sail Boat Racing on Long Lake

Yesterday was the first race of the season on Long Lake. We finished 5th out of 10 boats. Considering we lagged around in last place for the first quarter of the race, but we finished well, gaining a place at every mark. For those of you who may recall Bill Schmidt and I won the Friday Night Series last year. We won a few races last year in the 19 boat fleet as well as breaking quite a long streak of losses. It was good fun to compete again!
I spent the afternoon walking a few neighborhood's talking to people and seeing what's on their minds. Heard some interesting stories and answered quite a few questions about village issues. I then spent the rest of the afternoon with Bish and Fran Krywko eating franks and burgers and enjoying the air conditioning.

High School Graduation

I went to the Round Lake High School graduation yesterday morning. It was enjoyable as always, although hot in the gym. Limited amount of elected officials attended however which surprised me. Round Lake had Trustee Sherry Perkowitz, Jerry Shaw, Patty Blauvelt and yours truly, Mayor Jean McCue of the Park and Trustee Jack Germann of the Heights were the only others. The school board was missing 3 of the 7 board members as well. I suspect the graduation being held on Memorial Day weekend was the reason.
There were roughly 380 graduates, and the students who got to speak, were quite impressive as always! You could also see the wonderful rapport the students had with Principal Jeff Brierton and his genuine excitement at being their principal. I saw way to many kids that I knew and thier parents to mention them here!

Graduation Weekend

Last night I attended the Round Lake Middle School Graduation. It was fun as always, I saw lots of kids and teachers I have known for years in my visits to school. Sat next to Mayor Jean McCue of Round Lake Park. The highlight was seeing Christine Multerer graduate. Today I am going to the Round Lake High School Graduation, where I am sure I will see many more people. I enjoy attending these graduations it's a fun mayoral attendance event.

Things attached to my House?

My house sits at an angle to the prevailing wind that creates a powerful wind effect across the front of the house. I have had 4 flag poles ripped off the house in 6 years. Mayor Ted Mueller of Hainesville an engineer helped me with my last attempt to put one up. He assured me it would never come out. Well it did not but the bracket did snapping in half! I do have a bracket currently installed but if a small breeze comes up I scurry out to take the flag down, which leads to it being up infrequently.

Why is this of interest, well because the dish to get my internet was ripped off my house in the storm two nights ago! Talk about having internet withdrawals!

Internet Problems

Huge connection issues at the Mayoral Mansion!

Beware of Buzzing Bees!

Regular reader Kristin A. sent me this picture of a "A Cool Phenomena of Nature" (her words) of a giant swarm of bees in her back yard. Kristin lives in South Valley Lakes. The beekeeper she contacted for information about what to do about the swarm, came out to look at it for himself, in person. The beekeeper estimated the swarm to weigh in at over 20 pounds (the swarm had doubled in size between the time she snapped this picture and the beekeeper arrived), and contained an estimated 10,000 or more honey bees.

Davis Clark our Director of Public Works told us that he had only seen one other swarm like this ever and it was on Spring Valley Way on the North side of Valley Lakes a few years ago.

Comments Part Deux

Well after 48 hours of moderating comments, I have decided that's it to much work. By and large I read the comments once in the evening or in the morning, otherwise I ignore the blog. Today was just plain annoying having to check comments and then moderate them, so I am not doing it anymore.

I do have a few observations from the comments about comments. The blog is created and maintained off the village website, by blogger.com and I use a haloscan for commenting. The design of the site was by a Valley Lakes Resident who graciously and genorously redesigned it for me (Thanks Ali). The site is actually a pointer from eroundlake.com.

However when I decided to start the blog I had two ways of doing it. The first was as the Mayor off the eroundlake.com website the second was to host it via blogger or some other blogging software as mayor.blogger.com for example and not be writing it as your formal Mayor.

My thinking was two-fold. Those who know me well, know that I can be somewhat blunt. When I looked at blogs hosted offsite my thinking was what a great way to express what I really think, however I decided that I could not do that type of blog publicly. So I decided to blog publicly via the village site, and be hosted by the village, I have to be "good" becuase of its percived attachment to the village. I have tried, successfully, in my opinion to not mention people in a negative fashion. I also have not commented on many issues that could portray the village in an extraordinary negative light, not that I might not at some future date. I get enormous enjoyment from this public blog and decided about 6 months ago to get rid of the prior private blog (Tim, John, Michael, Al and Brian, it's deleted and purged so no use looking for it, you all know I am clever enough to do that as well).

So it's distressing to read personal attacks on the comments about other people who comment, however, becuase I try not to do that, while some comments are funny some are caustic others are mean spirited, please try to stick to the issues. I am going to allow comments to return to an un-moderated status. I am going to find a commenting software that has some more controls on it however.

For those of you wondering what the picture has do with this post, it was mentioned in one of the comments that I should have been gloating over winning the Round Lake Spartan Golf Outing on Saturday, but I can't, that would be vain! However when the hole looks that big to you, golf is an easy game! The hole looked that big, quite a bit, on Saturday for my foursome.

120 Public Forum is This Wednesday in Hainesville

On Wednesday, May 31st, the Route 120 Corridor Planning Council (CPC) will be hosting a Public Open House from 4 to 7 pm at the Hainesville Village Hall (100 N. Hainesville Rd., Hainesville, IL).

Come find out more about the Route 120 CPC, the study area, and why the council was founded. You will also have an opportunity to review the environmental, transportation, and land use constraints and opportunities mapped to date and speak with Route 120 CPC members regarding the presented information.

Please stop by walk through, and above all, give your comments, this is what it's all about!

In addtion there is the new website at www.120now.com check it out and bookmark it. Since it will be ever evolving!

Comments

Over the last few weeks there has been quite a bit of give and take on the comments part of the blog. My views on the comments has always been as long as you don't use profanity, and abuse my family, you can comment to your hearts content. However over time I have seen the comments drift towards the negative with personal comments becoming the norm rather then the exception. I can monitor the IP address of who is making the comment and I see the same people trying to create controversy by using different screen names.

So for awhile I am going to turn off the open comments and use a moderated system, while I investigate a new way of commenting that requires emails and or verification of who you are.

You can still comment but they will not be appearing immediately and may not appear if I think they are personal rather the constructive.

Award from NICASA

A few weeks ago I ran in the first annual NICASA 5K and fun walk at Independence Grove (recording a personal best in the 5k I would note). The village sponsored a couple of kids to participate and I volunteered to be beaten by most of them. On Thursday I was invited to the District 116 to get a very nice plaque that looked like Nanci Radford who presented it to me had made with a stamp kit. It is the single coolest plaque I have recieved as Mayor!

Round Lake and Island Lake

Mayor Tom Hyde of Island Lake stopped by for a visit on Wednesday and spent most of the day with me. He is serving his first term as Mayor and just finished his first year as Mayor. I went to Island Lake the week before last and had a good time learning about the challenges facing Island Lake and its interesting to see village government from a mayors perspective and from the outside as well. I met Mayor Hyde last year at the Mayor's Caucus last fall. Posts are here, here and here.

Police Nail Sexual Predator

The Round Lake Police Department has arrested an Army recruiter from Harvard, Illinois for internet solicitation of a child. Police investigators have charged Scott E. Cook, 23 years of age in Harvard, Illinois with one count of Indecent Solicitation of a Child, a class 1 felony.

The investigation began approximately two weeks ago when a police department undercover investigator, posing as a 16 year old girl, met Cook on the internet. On-line conversations with Cook turned to the subject of sex. Though many discussions with Cook took place over the last two weeks, arrangements to meet with Cook were made within the last 24 hours. The investigator, posing as the young girl, agreed to meet with Cook today in the downtown area of Round Lake. At approximately 12 noon yesterday, Cook arrived at the arranged location intending to meet a 16 year old girl for the purposes of engaging in sex. Cook was identified and taken into custody by police investigators.

Following Cook'’s arrest, police investigators executed a consented search of his home in Harvard, Illinois. A computer and related equipment were recovered and are currently being held for further forensic investigation. Cook is an Army recruiter stationed at the State of Illinois Military Affairs Department, in Woodstock, IL.

MY COMMENTS: I am very proud of our Police department they have come a very long way in the last year under the leadership of Chief Metaxa. What we are seeing is an emerging professional proactive organization. This arrest highlights the changes the department has undergone in the last year.

Hydrant Flushing

The Public Works Deptartment will be doing its annual fire hydrant flushing during the next couple weeks. Signs will be posted at the entrance of the subdivisions when the work will be done in that area. The purpose of fire hydrant flushing is to physically verify that every hydrant works properly. Flushing large amounts of water through the water mains can also stir up sediment which has accumulated on the bottom of the pipes.

• We are asking the residents to run their water for a couple minutes before using to be sure there is no "rusty" looking water.
• We also ask the residents to avoid washing whites while the flushing is in your area as this could lead to stained clothes.

Round Lake's History Come Alive

Richard Herrmann a long time ACE Hardware employee and a Round Lake Park resident, is one of the keenest history buffs around on the Round Lake Area. I run into him at ACE (he knows more about screws, bolts and Ace in general then anyone) and at the Round Lake Area Health Club. He knows I am a history buff, so he is always teaching me about Round Lake's history. Well today he taken the cake so to speak when he told me about a collection of online photographs via the Lake County Discovery Museum on Round Lake. With our centential coming up in 2008 I found this quite fascinating. Many many thanks to Rich for pointing this out to me, I have been playing with this site all morning!

Girls Track and Field-- Grant and Round Lake Style

For the first time in 11 years Lake Forest High School is not the IHSA sectional champion! Grant High School is! Grant completed a remarkable double by beating Lake Forest in the conference and then in the sectionals. Last year Grant finished 7th overall in State and we are hoping for higher this year. Why do I follow girls track? I love track and field as many loyal readers know, but even better my daughter Denise is on the Grant team! Although she is not going downstate, nor was she able to compete at sectionals. However I am very proud of her.

But just as exciting is Round Lake High School's Sandrea Smith who also qualified for state in the 400 meters. I have known her since she and my daughter were girls scouts together when we both lived in Treehouse in the Woods. Sandrea has broken 60 seconds for the 400, and let me tell you that's blazing fast!

BREAKING-- Missing Child Alert -- UPDATED

The Round Lake Police Department is investigating the disappearance of a 15-year old resident, Corina Sveica. Corina was last seen at her home on Friday, May 5, 2006. Corina lives in the Valley Lakes Subdivision of Round Lake and attends Big Hollow School in Fox Lake, Illinois. No foul play is suspected. The Round Lake Police Department is seeking individuals who know the whereabouts of Corina or information leading to her return. Persons with information should call Detective Gerard Hendricks at (847) 270-9111.
Corina Sveica
Female
15 years old
5’-0” tall, 130 lbs
Brown eyes / Brown Hair
Light brown complexion
tomorrowow there will be a canvas of the area passing out flyers. We are looking for volunteers interested in helping pass out fliers. Anyone interested should meet at the Round Lake Police Department (741 W. Town Line Road) around 10:00 am.

UPDATE on SUNDAY -- On Saturday we had about 40 people attend and canvass the neighborhoods surrounding where she lives along with passing out flyers at stores and shops along Rollins and along Route 12. There was quite a bit of media coverage which is a good thing, another way of getting the word out is crucial.

Many many thanks to all the volunteers who got up early and walked the streets in the rain yesterday passing out flyers! I know the police appreciate it and the family does as well.

Earth Day Flag Presentation at Village School

I was able to present an Earth Day flag to Village School yesterday, on behalf of SWALCO. Chris Geiselhart a HIGHLY committed employee for SWALCO coordinated the whole thing. There was a full house of kids and you would be amazed to know that the kids led by teacher coordinator and bundle of recycling energy Monica Dobre collected 50 sports shoes (sneakers, etc) for the Reuse-a-Shoe program. These are processed into sports surfaces such as track, basketball courts, football and soccer fields, keeping them out of landfills and making something new.
They also collected 4,603 pounds of paper, over two tons. Which is about the weight of 6 cows! Or 13 mayors? Not sure which. As always with Village School I had a wonderful time seeing the kids and interacting with them.
I can say without a shadow of a doubt that the kids instantly forgot about me when the next act came on...authentic Chinese Acrobats who were spinning about 40 plates on 3 sticks when I left.

Cluster Maps

I have gotten a variety of questions about the new map that I have place on the right hand navigation bar. Its a cluster map by the company called Clustrmaps. What they do is track where your visitors come from geographically and map it on a world map. They update your site traffic every day (or nearly so) with the hits they can determine a geographic location from. I was amazed by where some of my traffic comes from. The traffic numbers however seem to be off by a factor of 10 for some reason, I am not sure why, it might be just people who click on the link, or it might be just the visitors that Clustrmaps can determine with accuracy. Regardless its quite interesting. Its a welcome addtion to my blog.

The Round Lake Spartans Annual Golf Outing is coming up!

They are in need of golfers and donations are always accepted as well.
Reserve your spot now!

Saturday, May 20, 2006
12pm start
Chapel Hill Country Club
2500 North Chapel Hill Road
McHenry, IL 60050
815-385-3337
www.chapelhillgolf.com

Contact Jennie Bubloni 847-878-7596 or Maureen Girimonte at 847-740-0633 or 224-381-0014 for reserving a spot or to discuss advertising and sponsorship opportunities.

Round Lake Spartan website is www.rlspartans.org The website not only discusses the golf outing but also includes future events. To sign up for the golf outing, you can print a copy of the flyer by clicking on the downloads button at the top of the web page. Please come show your support and of course have a great time while golfing. Dinner is included and we will be giving away raffle prizes and prizes for a variety of contests. See you all there!!

Mayors for a Day (Leadership Day Fun and Games)

The two young mayors that accompanied me all day yesterday were Kaylah Miller and Rachel Perkowitz (left to right) we had an excellent time! Both Kaylah and Rachel asked very intelligent questions, and were very poised and impressive middle schoolers. They fit into the Mayoral mold quite easily, since the first thing we did after leaving the Round Lake Middle School was stop at the 7-11 for supplies where Slurpies and Big-Gulps were purchased. We then drove on the big circle trip around Round Lake (Wilson to 60 to Cedar Lake to Amarias) where we looked for people who had not cut their grass, and diligently wrote down street numbers of the offenders.

We then met a few other groups of kids at the police and public works department for a tour. After that we headed to the village hall where I gave them a tour of the village and looked at overhead satellite photography of the area from 2 years ago and 14 years ago as well. After all that hard work we decided to go to lunch where we had some burgers and talked about what we wanted to do when we grew up, Rachel said marine biologist, Kaylah said actress, I said Governor. We met a few people in the restaurant including County Board member Bob Powers who I immediately introduced to them as being the second most interesting person they met that day (me being first of course) a good laugh was had by all over that comment.

We then took red tags (rendering a home inhabitable) to both Kaylahs and Rachels houses with both girls signing the decree's hopefully the parents will take it in good fun! In all candor I think I had more fun then the girls did.

Leadership Day Today

Most of the Round Lake Area Mayors and area elected officials have agreed to host Round Lake middle schoolers as "Mayors for a Day" for a Leadership day. So today I will have 2-3 kids tagging along with me today as mayor. I am going to give them a tour of the village and then a tour of our facilities, then more then likely take them to lunch.

Round Lake Trustee Sherry Perkowitz organized this extensively and recruited the elected officials to participate. I love the idea, getting people involved in seeing what elected officials do on a daily basis can only give a positive perspective on the what one person can accomplish in his or her community.

Running, Washing and Relaxing

Yesterday I was up early to participate in the NICASA 5K run which is part of the 40th anniversary celebrations they are having. The race started at 8:15 at Independence Grove in Libertyville. For those of you who have never been there, do, because its spectacular. I am embarrassed to say I had driven by it hundreds of times and never once gone in, and I am the poorer because of it.

Back to the race, I saw quite a few people NICASA Executive Director, Judy Fried, Bruce Johnson, Nancy Radford, Dr Jeff Brierton and countless kids from Round Lake. In fact I sponsored a few of them to be there. The race had about 40 competitors so a top 50 finish looked likely! Plus I have been upping my mileage recently and doing quite a bit of speed work, so my goal was to run under 28 minutes. I did! 26:17 which was so suprising that I actually checked to see if the race was 5k long at the information center on my way out. It was.

On my home I was able to pick up a big gulp and got the Round Lake Area Queens to wash my car at their carwash at the same time! Now that's convenience! I then lay on the couch most of the afternoon and read until the Kentucky Derby came on which I enjoyed right up until the part where the horse I liked started going backwards!

NOTE: I just read the Daily Herald article and it said I walked, wrong I ran! Must be the anti runner media bias!

Had an Active Mayoral Day on Thursday

I had a variety of missions yesterday, I had a meeting with the Hospital Task force which is progressing quite well currently. More to come would be the operative phrase here. Ask me about it if you see me.

The second meeting was a committee meeting of all the 120 Corridor Planning Council at the College of Lake Counties University Center. Well attended (see picture) all the committees reported with maps and details on the progress to date. What we need now is the funding from the Illinois tomorrow grant which Senator Link and Representative Osmond have procured for us. Arrival date is next month or so. Then we can hire a consulting firm to do the actual pre phase one feasibility study.

The next thing I did was attend the monthly meeting of the Storm Water Management Commission where I am a board member representing 12 communities including Round Lake on the SMC issues. All I can say is I heard the word's "nutrient farming" and nutrient management bank" and was still quite interested in the presentation.

In addition the board was presented with a mason jar full of sludge that apparently either A. Satan B. Antioch C. SMC or D. Corporate Evildoers were spreading out on this gentleman's property either intentionally or intentionally. At one point the sludge was being waved around directly over my head, which made me yearn for the comfort of the village halls dais and not the cramped board room at SMC.

Grand Opening of Something Brewing-- A Coffee Shop

Looking for the best cup of coffee in Round Lake? Well its good, its tasty, it's got comfy sofa's, donuts, bagels, newspapers, and a drive through for those of us on the go! Its called "Look What's Brewin" So stop by the Southwest corner of 134 and Fairfield south of the CVS and stop in, say hi, and welcome entrepreneur Mary Circelli to the village.

The hours are
Monday thru Friday 4am to 8pm
Saturday 7am to 8pm
Sunday 7am to 6pm

Route 60 and Petersen Intersection Improvements in 2008

I got an excellent email from a Round Lake resident named Sandy Albers about the intersection of Route 60 and Petersen Road. She asked a variety of questions about some other things, but the question about Route 60 and Petersen comes up a lot so I thought it would be an excellent topic for the blog.

Traffic and lane improvements are coming to the intersection with lane improvements with left turn lanes!

To good to be true? So what's the catch? Not until 2008. Route 60 is a state highway and Petersen is a county road so the two entities are co-managing the project which will cost roughly $6.1 million dollars.

Lake County has a very comprehensive plan to improve highways throughout the county. However it boils down to money as always. I can't say it enough that the failure of the transportation referendum last year stretched out so many needed highway improvements was a huge setback for commuters and businesses throughout the county.

Lake County has a very informative website here covering all sorts of projects and timelines with maps for its 5 year 2005-2010 plan. There are all sorts of maps and information which are well worth your time.

To see a complete 102 page PDF of all highway projects in the county use this link. (60 and Peterson is on page 65 and 66)

2.5 Million Gallons of Water Will Go Here! -- An Update

A few weeks ago we saw the land being prepared and through the magic of photography we can now see the framework being set up.

Severe Weather Warning Sirens

Some quick reminders on the siren warning system in Round Lake.

Severe Weather Sirens are tested on the first Tuesday of every month at 10:00 A.M. Outdoor warning sirens are used to alert residents of danger from approaching severe weather, hazardous materials incidents or other emergencies where wide spread notification is required. The new warning sirens transmit numerous audible warning sounds and have the capability to broadcast voice instructions. Sirens are battery powered and will work even if a power failure occurs in the area.

There are two main types of sirens used to alert citizens of severe weather.

LONG STEADY SIREN
lasting 3 to 5 minutes indicates conditions are correct for a tornado and that severe weather is approaching the area. Residents should prepare to take cover.

OSCILLATING (UP and DOWN) SIREN
lasting 3 to 5 minutes indicates that a tornado has been spotted. TAKE COVER IMMEDIATELY. The best place to take cover is in a basement, or small interior room under a heavy table, or a low ditch or ravine if caught outside. NO “ALL CLEAR SIGNAL WILL BE GIVEN. Residents should monitor local news and weather to determine if the threat has expired.