WEDNESDAY
A pri l 2 2, 2015 • $1 . 0 0
SWEET SPRUCE-UP
NORTHWEST
Takeout favorite sweetand-sour chicken gets a healthier makeover / D1
HERALD RALD
HIGH
LOW
51 32 Complete forecast on page A8
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Red light camera bill up for vote Proposal to ban cameras in some communities advances to full House By KATIE DAHLSTROM kdahlstrom@shawmedia.com A bill that would stop red light cameras in some communities is headed to the full Illinois House floor. The Illinois House of Representatives Cities and Village Committee on Monday voted, 4-3, to approve a bill sponsored
State Rep. David McSweeney, R-Barrington Hills
by state Rep. David McSweeney, R-Barrington Hills, that would eliminate red light cameras in non-home rule communities. McSweeney said the bill he sponsored will move to the house floor Wednesday or Thursday. “I think in my area and everywhere I go, people are sick and tired of the cameras,” McSweeney said. “In my view, they’re
Voice your opinion Do you support the bill to ban red light cameras in non-home-rule communities? Vote online at NWHerald.com. increasing revenue and not improving safety.” Illinois law now allows cameras in Cook, DuPage, Kane, Lake, Madison, McHenry, St. Clair and
Will counties. In McHenry County, Lake in the Hills, Lakemoor and Fox River Grove each have one red light camera, while Algonquin has three.
Under McSweeney’s bill, Fox River Grove and Lakemoor would lose their cameras, but Algonquin and Lake in the Hills would be able to keep them. Altogether the $100 fines from the cameras generated $2.67 million in revenue in 2014 alone, according to data obtained through
See CAMERAS, page A4
1 vote decides race for council
MENTAL HEALTH RESOURCE LEAGUE RAISES MONEY FOR LOCAL AGENCIES
Glab re-elected in McHenry Ward 2 By EMILY K. COLEMAN ecoleman@shawmedia.com
Photos by Matthew Apgar – mapgar@shawmedia.com
McHenry County Adult Program classroom assistant Kate Goodman reads to Alex Toberman on April 15 at the McHenry County Mental Health Board in Crystal Lake. The McHenry County Adult Program nonprofit offers programming to adults with developmental disabilities and is the most recent recipient of the new immediate grants fund program from the Mental Health Resource League for McHenry County.
Meeting immediate needs By EMILY K. COLEMAN
“That additional money really allowed us to go and get the furnace that we needed. ... It might have taken us longer [otherwise.] We would have had to seek the money elsewhere because it wasn’t in the budget.”
ecoleman@shawmedia.com
C
RYSTAL LAKE – Like many of the participants in the McHenry County Adult Program, Scot Maier spends most of his time in a wheelchair. The 23-year-old Crystal Lake resident has a developmental disability that severely restricts his mobility and limited his cognitive development, but he still enjoys getting out of the chair and socializing. But the carpet caused rug burn and couldn’t be deep cleaned as regularly as the staff would have liked, said Jim Maier, Scot Maier’s father and the president of the small Crystal Lake-based nonprofit. The solution seemed so simple: floor mats. “We do have funds available for things like this, but our budget is very, very tight, and we’re certainly very cautious about our expenses,” Jim Maier said. “We really try to prioritize what we need.” And floor mats were not a need. A grant through the Mental
Debbie DeGraw Home of the Sparrow’s vice president for marketing and public relations McHenry County Adult Program classroom assistant Mike Preston (second from right) helps Dustin Prestley (left), Nicole Toft (center) and Toberman (right) back into the classroom after a tornado drill on April 15 at the McHenry County Mental Health Board facility in Crystal Lake. Health Resource League for McHenry County, a nonprofit that has raised funds for local agencies and other groups since 1967, though, will make the mats happen. The league rolled out the new grant program last year in an effort to help more local agencies while not cutting the funding it
currently provides to 19 agencies, including Woodstock-based Adult and Child Therapy Services, Richmond’s Main Stay Therapeutic Farm and the McHenry-based Pioneer Center for Human Services, said Kristy Isonhart, the group’s president. The grants – which are distributed in a shorter application
cycle than most grant programs and capped at $500 – also were designed to help agencies meet immediate needs in the wake of state funding cuts, Isonhart said, adding that much of the money goes toward things that cannot be funded with state grants. The first recipient was the Home of the Sparrow, which was awarded $500 to make an emergency repair to the furnace at
See GRANTS, page A2
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Windy victory
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Huntley softball beats McHenry for first time in four seasons / C1
Measure would amend LITH regulations on massage parlors / A3
Neighbors’ lawsuit to go before state Supreme Court on May 20 / A3
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McHENRY – One final vote has been tallied in the tied race for one of McHenry’s wards, giving incumbent Alderman Andy Glab another four years on the council, the McHenry County clerk said. Tuesday marked the last day late arriving mail-in and provisional ballots could be counted, and the votes are now official in all of the races, McHenry County Clerk Mary McClellan said. Glab won the race for the 2nd Ward with 137 votes to the 136 garnered by his challenger James Walsh, who had criticized Glab’s frequent disagreements with other Andy Glab council members. The final vote cast came in a late arriving mail-in ballot, McClellan said. “It just goes to show how important your individual vote can be,” Glab said, adding that a single vote can make a huge difference in the election of an alderman and a single alderman can make a big difference in the city. The election was a good race, especially in light of Glab’s 18 years in office, Walsh said, adding that he does think many in the ward are looking for change. Moving forward, Glab said he’s interested to see a lot more discussion at the council level with the election of Scott Curry, who defeated incumbent Alderman Geoffrey Blake in Ward 4 and who Glab described as someone “who does his research and is willing to speak out.” Glab listed his priorities as getting the city’s economic development commission resurrected, getting the city to address more of the bank-owned vacant houses and encouraging more development on all sides of McHenry, especially the south and west ends. “We need more concrete plans for what we liked to see and have the commission go out and get them,” he said. Walsh said that while he doesn’t have any official plans at this time, he would be open to pursuing other opportunities with the city.
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