Issues

"Democracy requires being given a choice!"

We are no longer a rural population instead our area has become a suburban community faced with many new difficult challenges including...

Lack of Choice in Elected Officials

For far too long a single party has dominated the McHenry County Board. This one-party system has created an environment where the County Board is not responsive to community demands, because there is no fear by those in office of competitive multi-party elections. If we continue the single-party system in McHenry County we are guaranteeing that a portion, and eventually the entire population is alienated from its local government.

Skyrocketing Property Taxes

Individual property taxes have increased exponentially every year and in spite of this fact the County Board continuously claims that it does not have adequate funding for basic services. This single form of community income unfairly burdens families and ensures that first responders, schools, road construction, and other community necessities are ill-suited to meet their public mandates. Read more...

Unregulated Sprawl

It has been said many times here in McHenry County that “the Board has never met a developer they did not like.” The county board over rules its own guidelines approximately seventy-eight percent of the time; whenever a developer makes a proposal that is designed to increase the developer’s profits and burdens the public service delivery resources and infrastructure of the county at the citizenry’s expense. The County’s behavior dealing with the Duda I and II development, opposed by Robert Abboud candidate for U.S. Congressional District 16, in Barrington Hills is a more recent example of this poor governing. They rejected the McHenry 2020 plan only to begin a 2030 plan do we need further proof of the Board’s waste, development runs essentially unregulated.

Road Congestion

The Board has studied the infrastructure issue of transportation in this county almost every year since the 1940s without any substantial progress to speak of with the exception of spending the tax payers dollars on these studies. The Northeastern Illinois Planning Commission forecasted the population in McHenry County to grow from 260,077 (2000 census) and approach 450,000 to 600,000 in 2010; the southeastern portion of the county, of which District 1 is a part, has absorbed a greater amount, up towards three-fourths, of that growth. While our roads and transportation issues continue to be studied but not changed. All of the major routes need to be improved to handle the increased demand along with bypasses to insure that towns do not suffer from the current and future excessive traffic. Read more...

Shrinking Groundwater

The McHenry county Groundwater Resource Management Plan indicates that the water use verses yield ratio (or how much water we have, in District 1, versus how much we use) we use way more than we have; and with the current and projected growth this problem will only get worse. We need a practical development plan, implemented in a timely fashion, with proper regulation- we do not need contamination issues like the current cancer threat for the McCullom Lake residents.

...Each one of these issues represents a portion of the larger systemic problem of a County Board that continuously fails to plan, act, and respond to growth and the basic demands of our community. We need a new voice on the County Board who listen to the community and respond to its demands!