THURSDAY
July 24, 2014 • $1.00
ALL SMILES Dental team has serious fun with its Founders’ Days floats / Planit, 10 NWHerald.com
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District 46 to oppose power plant School board raises concerns over effects on water, air quality, emergencies By EMILY K. COLEMAN ecoleman@shawmedia.com PRAIRIE GROVE – The proximity of a proposed natural gas power plant to District 46’s elementary and junior high schools raised a slew of concerns at a specially called school board meeting Wednesday evening. The three-hour meeting started with a presentation by representatives of the two companies proposing to build the $450 million power plant
Report: Emails prompt questions
on the northwestern edge of Oakwood Hills, just off Valley View Road behind the Oakwood Village Hall. It concluded with the District 46 School Board directing its new superintendent to attend the Oakwood Hills Zoning Board of Appeals meeting Thursday evening and voice the unanimous opposition of the board to the project. The zoning board is set to discuss and potentially vote on conditional approval of the project at the meeting. The
But for many residents as Oakwood Hills Village Board also will need to give its OK, well as school officials the first time they had and various heard about state and fedthe project was eral agencies this month. would be re“ T h e y quired to sign didn’t take off on different into any conpermits. sideration that Representhe school extatives from Tara Margaret ists,” school the two com- Rand Ponga board Vice panies, Enventure Partners and North- President Rick Salvo said. “To land Power, also held an open them, we didn’t even exist.” Board members and reshouse on the project Tuesday.
idents raised a series of concerns over the project, including effects on groundwater, noise emissions, air quality, property values and what happens in the event of an emergency. “A school district and a power plant cannot coexist,” school board member Tara Rand said. “One of them has to go and the power plant isn’t going anywhere.” Rand worried that the plant’s proximity to the district’s two buildings and the
land it owns across Valley View Road from the proposed site would cause parents to move out of the district. School board President Margaret Ponga also raised health and safety concerns, asking the companies’ representatives if there is a plant of this kind anywhere in the world within 200 feet of school property. While Scott Stevens, the executive director of business
See D-46, page A6
MORE McHENRY COUNTY AND STATE RESIDENTS LEARNING BEEKEEPING
Officials look at role of politics in 2010 program The ASSOCIATED PRESS CHICAGO – Emails turned over to a legislative panel have raised questions about the role of politics in Gov. Pat Quinn’s defunct anti-violence program that’s under federal investigation, according to a published report Wednesday. Exchanges between former Quinn aides appear to show a suburban Chicago mayoral race factored into determining which service providers got money through the 2010 NeighGov. Pat borhood ReQuinn covery Initiative, the Chicago Sun-Times reported. Quinn started the nearly $55 million program to help curb neighborhood violence. Earlier this year, state auditors detailed problems with mismanagement and misspending, and top Republicans claimed it was a political slush fund to help Quinn ahead of a close November 2010 election. Quinn has dismissed that claim, saying he spearheaded the program during a violent time when several Chicago police officers died. He’s also said he addressed problems with the initiative, including abolishing the agency that ran it. The program currently is the subject of investigations by the U.S. Department of Justice and the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office. The Legislative Audit Commission that must sign off on the audit has said the report didn’t answer questions and also has been investigating on its own, though it suspended its probe at the request of federal officials. The Quinn administration turned over to the panel more than 2,000 emails, which the newspaper highlighted in
Photos by Sarah Nader – snader@shawmedia.com
Beekeeper Don Burda demonstrates how to add another level to his beehive July 17 at Homestead Orchard in Woodstock. By SHAWN SHINNEMAN
Easy as
sshinneman@shawmedia.com
A-Bee-Sting Bees fly in and out of their beehive July 17 at Homestead Orchard in Woodstock collecting pollen.
D
on Burda doesn’t go to meetings of the Northern Illinois Beekeepers Association anymore. Too crowded. The Woodstock-based, veteran beekeeper preferred the more intimate feel of meetings held in the middle of the last decade, when 15-or-so people would sit around a table and talk strategy. Now, the meetings draw crowds of more than 100, he said. The days when beekeeping was a secret trade reserved for a brave few are – in McHenry County as in much of Illinois – quickly disappearing. “With all the media coverage on Colony Collapse Disorder, people are much more aware nowadays of the bee’s importance to humankind,” said Steve Chard, supervisor of the apiary inspection program at the Illinois Department of Agriculture. Only one case of Colony Collapse Disorder – which, as the name suggests, wipes out entire colonies of bees – was ever confirmed in Illinois. But
See BEEKEEPING, page A6
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People are just darn intrigued with bees.” Steve Chard, with the Illinois Department of Agriculture
See EMAILS, page A4
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New sport taking hold at golf course in Carpentersville / C1
Illinois patients are asking their doctors, ‘What about marijuana?’ / B2
Proposed budget for McHenry library saves for future repairs / A3
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