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PR LEADS GOING INTO GYMNASTICS FINALS RACHAEL UNDERWOOD TIES FOR SECOND IN ALL-AROUND PAGE C1 • Four local wrestlers advance to finals PAGE C4
PLUS • Cary-Grove girls basketball team tops CL South for regional title PAGE C1 SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2013
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Aim: New faces in mental health Panel’s recommendation is to dismiss board president By KEVIN P. CRAVER kcraver@shawmedia.com WOODSTOCK – The president of the McHenry County Mental Health Board was not nominated for reappointment by the McHenry County Board committee in charge of filling vacant seats. After two days and 12 candidate interviews, the Public Health and
Human Services Committee voted, 6-0, Friday to recommend newcomers for three vacant four-year seats on the Mental Health Board, and not President Lee Ellis, who reapplied for his expired term. But committee members deadlocked, 3-3, on whether to give an unexpired one-year term to the other incumbent or the County Board’s former liaison to the Mental Health
Board. So that decision will be made when the committee’s seventh member, John Hammerand, comes back from his annual winter vacation to cast the tie-breaking vote. Critics over the years have accused the Mental Health Board of becoming a bloated bureaucracy that spends millions in property-tax revenue on overhead and administration instead of the money going directly to agen-
FILL ’ER UP
cies that serve the mentally disabled, as the board was created by voters to do. Those voices have gotten louder over the past year with a top leadership vacuum and issues such as $1.8 million the Mental Health Board spent to unsuccessfully prevent the collapse of Family Service and Community Mental Health Center.
What’s next The County Board will vote on the committee’s recommendations at its next meeting, which starts at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the county Administration Building, 667 Ware Road, Woodstock.
See PANEL, page A9
Retail vacancy rates falling in county, albeit slowly
Jackson, wife plea to misuse of funds By PETE YOST The Associated Press
Monica Maschak – mmaschak@shawmedia.com
Lead technician Scott Kosic returns an air hose after checking the air pressure in the tires of a customer’s car at the new Meineke Car Care Shop in Cary. The store used to be a Blockbuster and was empty for a year before Jeff Vogt made the purchase and opened last month. By JOSEPH BUSTOS jbustos@shawmedia.com While preparing his Meineke Car Care shop to open in January, Jeff Vogt had workers tear out fixtures so all that was left of the former Blockbuster store in Cary were four walls and the roof.
He gutted the building and put in new overhead doors, new drainage and car repair equipment for his franchise. The 6,600-square-foot building had stood empty for a year. Many businesses are concentrating on
See RETAIL, page A9
Vacancy rates Assorted retail space vacancy rates: n Cary: 9 percent n Crystal Lake: 8 percent n Algonquin: 7.5 percent n Lake in the Hills: 6
percent n Woodstock: 7 percent n McHenry County: 9 percent
Source: Village of Cary and city of Woodstock
WASHINGTON – In a spectacular fall from political prominence, former U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. and his wife agreed Friday to plead guilty to federal charges growing out of what prosecutors said was a scheme to use $750,000 in campaign funds for lavish personal expenses, including a $43,000 gold watch and furs. Federal prosecutors filed one charge of conspiracy against the former Chicago congressman and charged his ex-alderman wife, Sandra, with one count of filing false joint federal income tax returns for the Jesse years 2006 through Jackson Jr. 2011 that knowingly understated the income the couple received. Both agreed to plead guilty in deals with federal prosecutors. Both face maxi- Sandi mum penalties of Jackson several years in prison; he also faces hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines and forfeitures. But the government did not immediately release the text of its plea agreements. Such agreements almost invariably call for prosecutors to recommend sentences below the maximum.
See JACKSONS, page A9
LOCALLY SPEAKING
McheNry coUNty
SCOUT LEADER MUM ON GAY BAN As the Boy Scouts of America debate whether to allow gay members and leaders, the man in charge of the 12-county Boy Scout council that includes McHenry County says local troops are in a listening phase. The national board will take up the issue in May, when 1,400 volunteer voting members will have a chance to weigh in. For more, ;ee page B1.
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VOLO: Volo Auto Museum’s showroom is undergoing an extreme makeover to expand exhibition space. Business, D1 Vol. 28, Issue 47
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