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May 2, 2015 • $ 1.0 0
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Board reaches rules compromise County aims to strike balance of power between board, chairman By KEVIN P. CRAVER kcraver@shawmedia.com WOODSTOCK – McHenry County Board members compromised Friday morning to adopt new rules that try to strike a balance of power between the board and a popularly elected chairman. Board members approved the changes after almost three hours of debate, much
of it centered around altering proposed changes by the Management Services Committee to adjust for the fact that voters will choose the chairman starting with the 2016 election. While critics alleged the committee’s proposed changes gave the chairman too much power, they were countered by board members warning that giving the chair-
6 officers charged in man’s death
man little or no authority would be an affront to voters who decided that the power to choose the chairman should rest with them. Voters last year approved a referendum to elect the chairman themselves, rather than continue to let the 24-member board do so. Under the most significant change, the chairman will have a voting seat on the
seven-member Committee on Committees convened after every November election to decide committee assignments. However, the power to asKen Koehler sign people to that selection committee will go to the mem-
bers of the individual board districts themselves. And in a related change, the power to nominate the board vice chairman reverts back to the board itself rather than the chairman as Management Services had recommended. The compromise measure, which dominated much of the almost three-hour meeting, came from Ken Koehler, R-Crystal Lake. Koehler, who
served eight years as chairman, made the proposal to bring back the Committee on Committees – the Management Services Committee had recommended scrapping it and giving the chairman the power to appoint members to the committees, with the County Board having the final vote. But after member
See COUNTY BOARD, page A4
BARRINGTON MOTHER AIMS TO PUT FOSTER CHILDREN INTO LOVING HOMES
Baltimore state’s attorney details roles each played By JULIET LINDERMAN and AMANDA LEE MYERS The Associated Press BALTIMORE – Rage turned to relief in Baltimore on Friday when the city’s top prosecutor charged six police officers with felonies ranging from assault to murder in the death of Freddie Gray. State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby said Gray’s arrest was illegal and unjustified, and that his neck was broken because he was handcuffed, shackled and placed head-first into Marilyn a police van, Mosby where his pleas for medical attention were repeatedly ignored as he bounced around inside the small metal box. The swiftness of her announcement, less than a day after receiving the police department’s criminal investigation and official autopsy results, took the city by surprise. So too did her detailed description, based in part on her office’s independent investigation, of the evidence supporting probable cause to charge all six officers with felonies. The police had no reason to stop or chase after Gray, Mosby said. They falsely accused him of having an illegal
Sarah Nader – snader@shawmedia.com
Carolyne Osterhues (left) and her family, Emily, 9, Lamar, 5, Colby, 14, Kyle, 16, and her husband, Mark, walk to a park near their Tower Lakes home Wednesday. The Osterhueses fostered each of their children before eventually adopting them. By KATIE DAHLSTROM kdahlstrom@shawmedia.com
A lifelong
GIFT Nonprofit connects adoptive parents with foster children
TOWER LAKES – When a stranger asks which country Carolyne Osterhues adopted any of her four children from, she laughs. That’s because her children were born and raised in Illinois. In a move that to some seems like more of a foreign concept than international adoption, Osterhues, 44, built her family by adopting through the state’s foster care system. She’s done building, but the Tower Lakes mother would like to see more would-be adoptive parents follow her lead in finding children within their own state. “People get afraid of these children, but if they are in a stable environment, they just flourish,” Osterhues said. “They want stability, and they want to know you’re
going to be there for them.” Osterhues is part of a growing local movement to place children in foster care with families. Barrington mother Susan McConnell recently launched a nonprofit called Let It Be Us that is aimed at bridging the gap between parents who want to adopt and the thousands of children available in Illinois’ foster care system. About 3,300 Illinois children in foster care are waiting to be adopted, McConnell said. According to the state, 1,800 children in foster care were adopted in the fiscal year that spanned from July 2013 to June 2014. Children could be in the state’s care, in homes or in private agencies. The problem with the system as it currently exists, McConnell said, is the lack of a connection
See ADOPTIONS, page A4
See BALTIMORE, page A6
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Presidential library Gov. Bruce Rauner signs bill changing state law to let Chicago build museums on park or ‘formerly submerged’ land / A5
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