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February 9, 2015 • $1.00
PEAKING AT THE RIGHT TIME Prairie Ridge boys basketball has taken over the lead in the Fox Division / B1 NWHerald.com
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STATE FUNDING FOR McHENRY COUNTY CONTRACTS
Projects left in the cold?
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Review of 2030 Plan is delayed Lack of growth postpones analysis By KEVIN P. CRAVER kcraver@shawmedia.com
AP file photos
Gov. Bruce Rauner speaks to reporters on Jan. 15 in the governor’s office at the state Capitol in Springfield. Illinois Rep. Jack Franks (right), D-Marengo, looks on behind Rauner. One of Rauner’s first actions when he took office was to freeze state contracts.
Some will go forward, some waiting with Gov. Rauner’s spending freeze By JOSEPH BUSTOS jbustos@shawmedia.com Before Gov. Pat Quinn left office last month, he awarded $400,000 to the Crystal Lake Park District to help pay for an estimated $1 million renovation of Main Beach. The money would help the park district carry out the project, which it hopes to complete by 2021, a little quicker, Park District Executive Director Jason Herbster said. Otherwise, the district would have to carry out the project using its normal operating and capital fund money. Now that $400,000 Open Space Lands Acquisition and Development grant, along with many other state contracts, is on hold. When Gov. Bruce Rauner took office, one of his first actions was to freeze state contracts. State agencies were ordered to halt awarding, entering or changing contracts or awarding grants until July. Contracts that were awarded or entered into after Nov. 1 also are un-
Rauner was not a surprise. “We’ll go through the process and see what happens,” Herbster added. Herbster said the OSLAD program is important for park districts and forest preserves to help them get projects carried out that wouldn’t happen under normal circumstances. “It’s a major funding source for park districts,” Herbster said. “We have some work ahead of us to do some convincing,” Herbster said. Chris Young, spokesman for the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, said there is no timeline on when Rauner’s office will make Rauner speaks to reporters Jan. 15 in the governor’s office at the state Capitol in a decision on whether to release the money. Springfield. The governor’s office is reviewing windows and air conditioning, con- contracts and grants from all agender review. Herbster said the park district is struction of a deck on the lake side cies. looking to start work on the project in of the building, playground replaceProjects slated to receive money ment, boat rental facility and marina from the Illinois of Department of the fall of 2016. Work on the Main Beach proj- replacement, and an enlarged beach Transportation were on hold for a ect is planned over four phases and with children’s sand and water play couple weeks. would include interior renovations of area. Herbster said the funding hold by the pavilion including new flooring, See PROJECTS, page A6
WOODSTOCK – The McHenry County Board has delayed a scheduled review of the 2030 Comprehensive Plan’s effect on growth for two good reasons. One, it allows county staff to focus its energies instead on a strategy to boost the county’s economic development. And two, there hasn’t been much growth. The 2030 Plan approved by the County Board in 2010 contained language in its adopting a resolution that required the board to appoint an advisory committee in five years to recommend possible changes to the plan based on land use and population trends. But the crash of the housing market that fueled the county’s growth and a significant component of its economic engine, plus the fact that the county’s population has dipped for the first time in recent memory, has made this review unnecessary. “McHenry County is estimated to have lost population. Thus, there is no urgency to update the 2030 Comprehensive Plan to accommodate faster-than-forecasted population growth,” a staff report stated. The 2030 Plan, approved after three years of work, is meant to be a nonbinding template to guide the county’s development during the next two decades, balancing growth with conservation and sustainability. It aims for the most part to avoid sprawl and keep future development compact and contiguous to municipalities. Creating a five-member ad-hoc review committee five years into the plan was a compromise measure between people who wanted the county to plan for a faster population increase and those who wanted to plan for slower growth. It would have consisted of Planning and Development Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Schofield, R-Crystal Lake, two members of the Zoning Board of Appeals, and
See PLAN, page A6
ANALYSIS
What happens if Homeland Security shuts down? By ERICA WERNER and ALICIA A. CALDWELL The Associated Press WASHINGTON – Spending for the Department of Homeland Security hangs in the balance as Congress fights over immigration matters in the agency’s annual funding bill. Without action by Feb. 27, the department’s budget will shut off. To hear Democrats and many Republicans tell it, the result would be unacceptable risks to U.S. security at a time of grave threats worldwide. In reality, though, most people will see little change if the department’s money flow is halted, and some of the warnings of doom are as exaggerated as they are striking.
“There are ghoulish, grim predators out there who would love to kill us or do us harm,” said Sen. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland, top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee. “We should not be dillydallying and playing parliamentary pingpong with national security.” In the view of some House conservatives, however, shutting off the agency’s $40 billion budget for a time “is obviously not the end of the world,” as Rep. Matt Salmon, R-Ariz., put it, because many agency employees would stay at work through a shutdown. Who’s right, and what would the effect be if Congress were to let money for the department lapse? Salmon and a few other conser-
vatives are the only ones saying it publicly so far, but the reality is that a department shutdown would have a very limited effect on national security. That’s because most department employees fall into exempted categories of workers who stay on the job in a shutdown because they perform work considered necessary to protect human life and property. Even in a shutdown, most workers across agencies, including the Secret Service, Transportation Security Administration, Federal Emergency Management Agency and Customs and Border Protection, would continue to report to work.
See HOMELAND SECURITY, page A5
AP file photo
A TSA agent checks a bag Nov. 21 at a security checkpoint area at Midway International Airport in Chicago. Spending for the Homeland Security Department hangs in the balance as Congress fights over unrelated immigration provisions attached by Republicans to the agency’s annual spending bill.
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Prairie Ridge sophomore writes, plays own music / A3
Richmond-Burton grad excelling in the pentathlon at Aurora University / B1
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