Free throws help D-C boys rally past Prairie Ridge
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Towns find new ways to talk
Pension reform back to square 1 2 last-ditch bills fail as lame-duck session ends Related
By KeVin P. cRaVeR
kcraver@shawmedia.com
Joe Cyganowski – For the Northwest Herald
anna Paul, planning and zoning information specialist for the village of Barrington hills, updates the village’s twitter account. Barrington hills is one of six mchenry county communities with a twitter account, and despite having less than 5,000 residents, it has more than 400 followers.
Facebook, Twitter link residents to their communities By emiLY K. coLeman
ecoleman@shawmedia.com
W
hen a water main broke in Hebron and water to the entire village was turned off, one village trustee turned to his cellphone and Facebook. Trustee Mark Mogan joined Facebook when his children asked whether they could have accounts. He figured he’d sign up to keep tabs. He later came up with the idea of a municipal page and created Hebron’s account in late March 2011. For the most part, he mainly had been posting weather alerts and the occasional event reminder. With a population of just more than 1,200, Hebron’s page hadn’t been getting a lot of traction. But with the news of the water main break in November, the number of “likes” on the page shot up to 73 from eight. “Word got out pretty quickly,” Mogan said. The water shutoff proved the page’s worth in a town where a significant portion of the population isn’t comfortable with the Internet, let alone Facebook, he said. “When I saw how many people viewed it, in the town the size of Hebron, that’s 73 people who may not have heard about [the water main break],” said Mogan, adding that the village had gone door to door putting notices on people’s doors.
“Some of these people weren’t home. ... They were out and about and getting the notifications on their phones.” Hebron isn’t the only McHenry County community to add social media to reach residents. Of McHenry County’s 30 village and city governments, at least 12 have signed up for accounts on Facebook or Twitter. Six are on both. Barrington Hills gravitated toward Twitter. Located at the point where Cook, Kane, Lake and McHenry counties meet, the village would need to monitor a lot of Facebook pages to keep up on the entities that affect them, said Robert Kosin, the village’s director of administration. Unlike Facebook, which tends to be user-centered, Twitter is built around topics. Lake County had been pushing Twitter, Kosin said, and when he saw instances where it served a tangible public good – such as reaching drivers stranded on Lake Shore Drive during a blizzard who were not sure whether to leave their cars – he decided to pursue it. Anna Paul, the village’s planning and zoning information specialist, set up a schedule to make sure the account stays active with timely and relevant news. It sent out its 1,000th tweet on New Year’s Eve.
see sociaL media, page a4
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BY THE NuMBERS
Local municipalities
With Facebook
Algonquin
With Twitter
Flu picking up steam in Illinois
632 429 5
Crystal Lake
501
105
492*
Harvard Hebron 83 Huntley Johnsburg
347
55
LITH 67 Lakemoor 7 McHenry
see Pensions, page a4
252
Barrington Hills
24
Twitter followers Facebook likes
95 143
740
200
Flu deaths
the associated PRess
224
32
Port Barrington 2 – Facebook likes Woodstock 18 0
The House voted, 65-46, in favor of a plan to allow illegal immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses. It now goes to Gov. Pat Quinn, who has said he will sign the measure. Page a3
An 11th-hour attempt at a pension reform bill in the last days of a lame-duck General Assembly became 12th-hour desperation by Gov. Pat Quinn, and then became nothing. With a bill stalled to rein in the state’s $96 billion unfunded pension liability, Quinn and the bill’s author pitched a plan Tuesday afternoon to put the political hot potato of pension reform into the hands of an eight-member commission whose recommendations would become law unless both the House and Senate objected. But that proposal shared the same fate as the previous bill – both passed the House Personnel and Pensions Committee, but never came to a vote in the full House. With the swearingin of the new General Assembly at noon today, any attempt at pension reform will have to start over.
400
600
800
1,000
* The city of Harvard does not have its own account, but its event committee does.
Voice your opinion Do you follow your local governmental units on social media? Vote online at nWherald.com.
CHICAGO – The risk of flu infection has been climbing rapidly in Illinois and in most of the rest of the nation. Illinois Department of Public Health spokeswoman Melaney Arnold said Tuesday that almost 150 people in the state have been admitted to hospital intensive care units with the flu this season and six have died. Eight Chicago-area hospitals turned away ambulances Monday night as they dealt
Statewide, the six flurelated deaths have come in Cook, Will and Coles counties, according to the Illinois health department.
see fLu, page a4
LOCALLY SPEAKING maddie maraseo and shelby Lively
CARY
PResident WiLL not Run foR Re-eLection
Village President Tom Kierna will not run for re-election because he wants to pursue other professional opportunities. Kierna said he would not be able to devote the time he would want to the job because of career opportunities. His term ends May 7. Kierna has been a part of village government for nearly 17 years. For more, see page B1.
Josh Peckler – jpeckler@shawmedia.com
HOLIDAY HILLS
moBiLe gRoomeRs see high demand
Suzanne and Bob Church of Holiday Hills bought a 2010 camper and converted it into a mobile grooming salon to reduce stress from the experience on pets and owners. Clipper Mobile Grooming opened for business in November. Since then, business has been steady. “There’s a big demand for it,” Bob Church said. For more, see page E1.
McHENRY: Parkland middle-schoolers craft items in campaign to help those in need. Local&Region, B1
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