Queenly visitors at this weeks village board

Thie week we got to meet the new Round Lake Area Queens, I am always so impressed by how dedicated and involved they are! I would guess they attend over 200 events a year, since they cover a multitude of villages! This years group was quite vivacious and excited! It was fun to see them, I am sure I will get to see much more of them throughout the year!

It's so impressive to see how they grow throughout there year as queen, they become more poised and articulate. I think its probably one of the best things you can do as a young kid!

GIS Update

Last week at the village board meeting we got a presentation by the GIS team on our GIS implementation project which has been taking place for the last half year or so.

A Geographic Information System (GIS) is a system for capturing, storing, analyzing and managing data and associated attributes which are spatially referenced to the earth. In the strictest sense, it is a computer system capable of integrating, storing, editing, analyzing, sharing, and displaying geographically-referenced information. In a more generic sense, GIS is a tool that allows users to create interactive queries (user created searches), analyze the spatial information, edit data, maps, and present the results of all these operations.

Some of the highlights were when I asked how many street lights we had, how many miles of road we had (1,079 and 411,840 feet --over 78 miles-- worth of road). Since this was a live demo, they were able to answer the questions instantly!

The pictures show the streetlights and how they are connected and to where, with both satellite photography and with a plat map as well.

COMMENTARY-- New Ordinances Being Enacted

The village board has been working quite diligently to create a more modern ordinance structure, that allows the village to run more efficiently. We have passed a variety of beatification ordinances that have been quite successful, removing signage and making the downtown cleaner and more attractive is one example. Over time the board has slowly realized that to streamline and make the village run more efficiently that there needs to be a more centralized control over village operations.

To this end tomorrow at our regular board meeting we will be discussing the following ordinance-- Item 8.3 that will grant the Mayor the ability to appoint his successor. This is quite revolutionary only 6 communities have done this before in the state of Illinois, the community you know the best is Rosemont.

In addition as the current trustees leave office the Mayor will be granted the privilege of appointing trustees as opposed to having them elected. This will save the village approximately $107,000 every two years, which is how much the trustee and mayoral elections cost the taxpayers.

There is also a salary adjustment for the Mayor to a more manageable and fair wage which will change as our population changes, the formula is $10 per resident for the annual wage of the Mayor. I plan on donating some of this to charity by the way.

While I realize that these ordinances radically change the way this village does business I think they will allow us to move in a more progressive and aggressive direction. While I think this ordinance will pass I would like to promise the residents that as long as I remain Mayor I will use these powers granted to me wisely and keep moving this village forward. Please come to tomorrows village board meeting to express your support of these progressive and modern ordinances.

Tomorrow I am going to write a post about how I will create a variety of task forces that will improve the process of running village government. I hope that getting citizen involvement in these vital committees will allow me to move this village into the 21st century.

Hospital Foresight from Crains Chicago Business

NOTE: This article appeared in Crain's Chicago Business in late September of 2006, and as I reread it last night and thought it might be an excellent post with some good background. Again, recall this was before the Round Lake/Advocate announcement.

Hospitals racing for edge in Lake

Rival systems map plans for growing western area

Lake County has emerged as the latest battleground for health systems vying to build a hospital in the suburbs.

Advocate Health Care executives have met with officials from Round Lake to discuss constructing a hospital in the western Lake County community, about 14 miles west of Waukegan, according to a person close to the talks. The village expects to buy a 57-acre tract on its southwest border for nearly $6 million, which it would then annex and lease to Advocate, the source says.

About eight miles to the northeast, in Lindenhurst, Vista Health of Waukegan wants to build a 150-bed hospital with an infusion of new cash from Tennessee-based Community Health Systems Inc., a for-profit hospital operator that acquired Vista Health in July for $103 million. Vista, which runs two Waukegan hospitals, already owns land in Lindenhurst. Officials expect to submit plans to the state this year for a new hospital.

A spokeswoman for Oak Brook-based Advocate won't confirm the Round Lake discussions, but says, "We're always evaluating opportunities (in Lake County) because it is an area of high-growth potential and there is a need there."

EXPANDING, AFFLUENT AREAS

Meanwhile, Condell Health Network in Libertyville got state approval in July for a $104-million expansion that will add 90 beds to its medical center, giving it a total of 214. It's also expanding its emergency department to become Lake County's only Level One trauma center, which will enable it to accept the most severely injured patients.

The health systems are competing to accommodate the region's growth. Lake County's population surged 36% from 1990 through last year, to more than 700,000 residents. And the target communities are more affluent than other parts of the county: The median household incomes for Round Lake and Lindenhurst in 2000 were $58,051 and $74,841 respectively, vs. $42,335 for Waukegan.

But it's uncertain whether the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board would okay two new hospitals in such close proximity. Major investments in medical facilities must get approval from the board, which is charged with controlling health care costs by preventing overlapping services.

In the last 30 years, the board has approved just one new hospital in a location where one did not already exist: a 138-bed facility in southwest suburban Bolingbrook, now being built by Hinsdale's Adventist Midwest Health. In June, the board denied a proposal by Edward Hospital for a new facility eight miles from the Bolingbrook location, citing the proximity.

WATCHING FOR OVERLAP

"If one project is approved, the board would have to assess the need for a second project and determine if there would be any unnecessary duplication of services," says Mark Silberman, a Chicago health care attorney and former Planning Board general counsel.

Representatives for both Vista and Condell decline to comment on Advocate's interest, saying the Planning Board ultimately would determine the need for more hospital services in the area.

Lindenhurst Mayor Jim Betustak knows a nearby Advocate project would represent direct competition for Vista's plans, which he has backed for years. But he believes Vista has the inside track.

"They own the land and they're sitting there ready to go," he says. "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, if you ask me."

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!

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!

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!

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.

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.

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)

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.

3 New Officers Sworn in at Last Monday's Board Meeting

These three gentlemen will be graduating 1, 2 and 3 at the Police Training Institute they have assured me and here is why! After an extensive search process by our Police Commission (President Dale Multerer, Don Luby and Dave Pugh) we established a list of 10 names ranked in order. Candidates had to pass a physical fitness test, then take a standardized test, be interviewed by the board and finally pass a background check before the final list is ranked. The three new officers will be attending the University of Illinois-Police Training Institute in Champaign, Illinois starting Sunday, October 22, 2006.

Kraig Kapusinski lives in Algonquin, Illinois with his wife Alisa. Kraig has worked for the Motorola Corporation since 1997 most recently as a financial analyst. Kraig has a bachelors degree from the University of Illinois and a master of business administration from Roosevelt University in Chicago. Kraig's brother is a Libertyville police officer.

David Cheney lives in Kenosha, Wisconsin with his wife Karrie and their daughter Camren. David comes to us from the Lake County Sheriff's Office where he was a Correctional Officer since 2001. David was a member of the Sheriff's elite Correctional Response Team. David has an associates degree in criminal justice from the College of Lake County.

Brandon Zeman lives in Oakbrook Terrace, Illinois. Brandon comes to us from the City of Elmhurst where he worked in the public works department. Brandon has a bachelors degree in education from Monmouth College and is a certified history teacher.

Last Monday we had a nice ceremony at the village board meeting where we swore them in and gave them their badges. Each officer had their family attend as well.

HOA's-- Another Voice Heard From

NOTE: This post is a first, the first not written by me. John Gutknecht wrote this on my comment section on yesterdays post, he is the first commenter to ever reach the limit to how much text could be commented on not once but three times! John and I have not been on the same page on some issues (I was right) over the years and we have agreed on others, but I can tell you that he is one of the most organized people I know and the Valley Lakes HOA runs very smoothly becuase of him. John serves the village as a board member on the Round Lake Management Commission for our lake. Our community is that much better becuase people like John live here!

Why all this hostility to HOA's?

Like it or not, mandatory homeowners associations are the result of responsible development and are the result of the evolution of residential property development and ownership. Associations are the only way to deal with the realities of commonly held property which is the result of communities demanding more "open space" and "less density" in their developments.
By purchasing into a community association, the homeowner agrees to abide by the community's pre-established guidelines. In our modern developments, homeowners live very close to each other (often on less than 1/6th of an acre) and share common facilities and property and this requires that they sacrifice certain freedoms for the cause of protecting communal property values and reducing nuisances. Reasonable restrictions, consistently enforced over time, will preserve the net value of the community and maintain a high quality of life for residents. The purpose and functions of an HOA are outside of those for municipal government which is in place to serve the ENTIRE municipality.

Even if a municipal government were to take over an HOA, they would still be required to enforce the declaration. In some cases (Valley Lakes) even if the HOA is abolished, the restrictions in the declaration "shall continue only until the expiration of twenty (20) years after the death of the last surviving child born in Lake County, Illinois, in the year 1998." which in most estimates is sometime in the year 2100!

So even if you abolish your HOA, most of the "issues" that people have with HOA's would still exist, but instead of local homeowners calling the shots, a bunch of elected politicians would be deciding the fate of your neighborhood. And who's to say that the money you pay in taxes (instead of assessments) isn't put into some general fund with only a small portion of that money actually being spent to maintain the value of your community. Do you want some guy who's more interested in being re-elected so he can protect his "good old boy" buddies deciding how much money is being spent on the upkeep of your community, or would you rather have one of your neighbors calling the shots?

Each community has a distinct and unique character that was present from the beginning. It's the HOA's responsibility to maintain that character which includes such things as architectural control and common area maintenance. Some communities are more burdened than others.
For example, Lakewood has the added amenity of having a swimming pool for it's members to use. I think it's a safe bet to say that less than half of the people buying a home there actually gave any thought as to who was going to pay for the upkeep of that pool. If you knew you were going to end up paying $300-$400 a year for the upkeep of a community pool, would you have bought a home there?? Maybe, maybe not, but just because you didn't take the time to find out you were responsible for that expense before you moved in, doesn't give you the right to abandon that responsibility.

Instead of b!~@&!%# about the your HOA, why not get involved and make a difference. I think you'll find that like most people who get involved in HOA's they quickly realize that they are bound by what the declaration allows them to do. Most HOA's are not as "all powerful" as most people think they are. But if you get involved in a constructive manner, you'll have a chance to actually have a hand in the direction of your community. You have a much better chance of affecting the direction of your community through your HOA than you do through the Village Board. But I think what's really going on here is the same problem we have in general in this country - apathy. People whine and complain about stuff - especially on the internet - but when it comes time to actually DO anything about it or voice their opinion in person, they just stay locked up in their nice suburban homes peering out through closed windows and spewing hate on the keyboard. I witnessed this first hand last year when the Valley Lakes Board increased assessments by 15% (after not having an increase for 7 years) With all of the comments and complaints we received, we were prepared for the worst. With 1172 homeowners, we expected 10-15% would show up to voice their concerns. So we were prepared for 200 or more people. When 5 (yes FIVE) people showed up, I knew we had reached a new level in apathy.

I completely disagree with the argument that HOA's are another layer of government and an additional tax on the homeowner. This is simply not true. HOA's are limited by their charter as written in the declaration. So you ALWAYS know what you're getting yourself into. A municipal government on the other hand, can write law after law anytime they want all in the interest of "public health and welfare". Your assessment money goes directly to support your community and YOUR property (you hold title in common to your community property, so it IS your property) Your tax money on the other hand goes to support the welfare of your entire community which can grown and expand at anytime. Your tax burden can increase at anytime to accommodate the growing needs of your larger community, your assessments on the other hand can only be spent for your association and that's not likely to grow once the development is finished.

If you want to live in a community that has open common space and one that maintains the architectural integrity of the community, then live in an HOA and sacrifice some of your freedoms for the assurance that you'll live in a community where everyone in the community has a stake in protecting your common property value and share in the high quality of life that comes as a result.

If you don't want those things or you just can't bear to give up your God given right as a citizen of the United States of America to paint your house purple and cover your lawn with miniature replicas of icons from around the world and silhouette cutouts of kids in cute poses then DON'T buy a home in an association, there are plenty of those homes in the area.

Nobody's forcing you to live in an HOA, you did READ the declaration before you bought your home - didn't you?

FINAL NOTE: The picture is of Valley Lakes looking South. This was about a year and a half ago.

Homeowners Association 101

When you buy a house in a new subdivision or planned unit development, you may be subject to a host of rules and regulations! Are you shocked yet? I know many of you are, because I get more complaints about the dreaded words "Homeowners Association" or the HOA! I have noticed that there is a typical pattern that HOA's tend to follow over the years.

It starts with the village stepping in to beat up the developer, because of homeowner complaints. The developer runs the HOA until a certain percentage of occupancy is met. Then usually because the village forced the developer to turn over the HOA to the residents the problems and complaints shift to the new "resident board". Usually the first thing that happens is the new HOA board decides the old management company (usually a creature of the developer) needs to take a long walk off a short pier. Then the board goes through a shake out and some energetic resident leadership takes over and things tend to smooth out and normalcy returns.

Some of the things you will look for from your HOA are:

• Maintenance: Once a developer'’s responsibility has expired, the owners have to pay for repairs when things start to break down. Having an adequate reserve and a planned maintenance program is essential to preserving the community and your property'’s value.
• Fees and Assessments: Generally, homeowners associations levy mandatory monthly fees to maintain common property, such as lawns, swimming pools, hiking trails, golf courses, or tennis courts Fees may increase as expenses rise and special assessments may also be imposed for major costs such as a new roof for a community sports center or private street repair.
• Liens and foreclosures: If you fail to pay your association dues, or run afoul of its regulations, you can be charged a fine. A lien can even be imposed on your property resulting in potential foreclosure, sometimes over trivial amounts. If you dispute the charges in court and lose, you may also have to pay the association'’s legal fees.
• Governance: Most homeowners association board members are volunteers elected by the property owners. Sometimes inexperience can cause mistakes, resulting in additional expenses. Often, more than 50 percent of the dues collected by an association are used to pay for the management companies and attorneys it employs.
• Regulations: Together with their management partners, homeowners associations function very much as private governments. Once property owners sign a contract agreeing to comply with an association'’s laws, that often supersedes their individual property rights. It'’s not easy to change community regulations imposed by a homeowners association. To do so generally requires the approval of the majority of members.

My mayoral radar tells me this will be a lively debate on the comment section of my blog so I promise to blog further on the subject since I am sure I will get some ideas from the feedback. A couple of interesting facts on HOA's are that they are:

• The fastest growing form of government in the US in the last 15 years.
• 1 in 6 Americans live in a HOA environment.
• There are at least 20 HOA's in Round Lake.
• The Village has taken over one HOA, Bright Meadows! By the way the residents requested it.

New Village Administrator Named

Today is the first day on the job for Marc Huber the village's new administrator. Marc comes to Round Lake from the village of Highwood where he had been the village administrator there for over 5 years. He has an interesting background with an undergraduate degree in Nuclear Engineering from Iowa State, and a Masters Degree in Public Administration. After our last administrators retirement, we went through a hiring process and Marc just blew us all away in the interview process. We are hosting a short reception for Marc this evening from 6 to 7 if you want to drop by and meet him. So for those of you interested in getting ahold of Marc his email is mhuber@eroundlake.com and you can reach him at the village at 847-546-5400.

Marine Week in Round Lake is Proclaimed

The village board passed ordinance 06-P-04 a few weeks ago honoring the United States Marines and naming the week of November 5-11 as Marine Week in Round Lake. We had a retired marine and a serving marine stop by the village board meeting on Monday night to receive a plaque. I read the plaque out loud before presenting the plaque to our representative marine, there was quite a bit of applause and of course the obligatory "semper fi" was shouted out.

WHEREAS, The United States Marine Corps has protected citizens and guarded their freedom for the past 231 years; and

WHEREAS, Our country has established a position of world leadership, the Marines have proven themselves as dedicated professionals willing to defend lives and protect the rights valued by Americans; and

WHEREAS, A Marine is trained to hold his ground against any odds and to always be faithful to God, Country and Corps, standing ready to fight anytime, anywhere, the President or Congress may designate; and

WHEREAS, The term "Marine" has been associated with courage and military efficiency, since its creation on November 10, 1775 in Philadelphia; and

WHEREAS, The people of Round Lake are proud of its rich contribution to the Marine tradition and salute the Marines serving around the globe;

THEREFORE, I, Mayor William Gentes, proclaim November 5-11, 2006, as MARINE WEEK in the Village of Round Lake.

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Great Seal of the Village of Round Lake to be affixed. Approved at the Village of Round Lake on September 18, 2006.

Route 60 Commercial Development

A long time reader Graham Little emailed me and asked about what's going on at 60 and Arden. So since I needed a post, I thought this was an excellent topic for the blog.

When the Lakewood homes development was on the drawing board, we were faced with a few choices. The major choice was the boards insistence that there be a significant investment in 60 and the new Cedar Lake Road. The second choice was our insistence on 30 acres in commercial set asides. At that time the village had a grand total of 43 acres (Fairfield and 134, Madrona, Bright Meadows and Wilson Road) of available commercial acreage so this was a substantial gain.

We could have demanded more commercial, but at a trade off for the Route 60 and Cedar Lake road project. In addition we originally wanted 40 acres together, but logistically this was not possible, so we settled for the the split site that currently exists, with 11 acres at the corner of 60 and Cedar Lake called Cedar Commons and the 20 acres on the South side of 60.

The project called Cedar Commons had a checkered history with the original developer being sued in every county in the area for all sorts of things it seemed like, and of course us having nothing happening until Lakewood could extricate themselves from the contract to market what is today Cedar Commons.

In the last few months we have made some excellent progress on the 26 acres and in fact are very close to getting final approvals for 26 acres of some very attractive stores and offices! This proposal has 192,000 sq ft of retail and office, along with a new signalized interesection. I am very excited by this project. The graphic above is of one of the proposed buildings as of a few weeks ago.

If anyone wants me to email the two PDF files of the development plans please email me and I will send you a copy.

The Nippersink Forest Preserve

NOTE: This is a post that I ran last October about the Nippersink Forest Preserve Project, I have gotton a couple of questions about the project recently so I decided to repost it here. I would add that the proposed Synnesvedt project has a connection from the Millenium Trail to this park. One of my long range goals is to then get a crossing for 120 so we connect via a path to the homes on the south side of 120.

A couple of years ago I got frustrated with a series of developers who kept insisting that they need to build homes on Nippersink Road across from Village School. In a partnership with County Board Member Larry Leafblad we were able to chase off Neumann Homes and secure the 219 acre marsh to be added to the Lake County Forest Preserve. Now granted I did not do much other then frown and express dismay with the project and the Forest Preserve did the buying of the land. I do have issues with the Forest Preserve buying land and then not letting any one use the land that they buy, if you doubt me drive around and see all the land in the Forest Preserve, but this purchase made long term sense for the village and the area. Then about 2 years ago Toll Brothers wanted to bring 300 senior oreinted houses to the Country Lakes Resort on 120 across from Bacon Road. I had some conversations with the owners and the desire of the familly who owned the resort to sell the property. I then thought about it and referred to our comprehensive plan which led me to invite Bonnie Thompson Carter who is the President of the Lake County Forest Preserve and one of Round Lake's county board members. I drove her around the property which she knew well since her family owned portions of it way back when! I told her that I could prevent the development from happening if the Forest Preserve put up their money and bought the land for active recreation purposes. Kudos to her and the rest of the Forrest Preserve for carrying through. Last week I attended the sneak preview of whats coming and the graphic above is a representation of what is coming. The result of all of this is the Nippersink Forrest Preserve area in Round Lake. The Millenium Trail will also be coming through the area as well which is a wonderful addtion to the area.

2006 CDBG/Linden Drive and Sycamore Drive Infrastructure Improvements

This is Round Lake’s 2006 CDBG (Community Development Block Grant) project. The Village received $77,500 in a grant from the federal government, administered by Lake County Community Development. It's a storm sewer/drainage project which includes approximately 1700 linear feet of road reconstruction, (curb and gutter and new pavement) taking place on Linden Drive and Sycamore Drive and some patching on Midland Drive between Linden and Sycamore and storm sewer throughout the project.
The project was bid with two options: Option 1 was to do both roads this year, option 2 was to do one road this year and maybe, (if the funding was there) do the second road next year. The Board decided on which option to award after the project was bid. Option 1 was selected by the Board and the contract was awarded to Alliance Contractors in the amount of $811,786.