Guilty plea in Joey T's fire

PRESS RELEASE

NOVEMBER 20, 2009

KASIMER SOWA PLEADS GUILTY TO SETTING FIRE TO JOEY T’S RESTAURANT

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Louis A. Bianchi, McHenry County State’s Attorney is pleased to announce that
Kasimer Sowa pled guilty today to the Class 2 offense of Arson and was sentenced to four and one-half years in the Illinois Department of Corrections. Pursuant to a negotiated plea, prosecutors dismissed the remaining charges of theft and burglary. Sowa was charged with setting fire to Joey T’s restaurant which was located on Riverside Drive in McHenry. As a result of the fire, the restaurant closed and the
Eighty-year old building was demolished. The McHenry Police Department, with the assistance of the Illinois State Fire Marshall’s Office and the McHenry Fire Department, investigated the fire. Assistant State’s Attorney, Phil Hiscock, of the recently formed Arson Prosecutions Unit, prosecuted the matter.

Seatbelt checks - important or irritant?

Do seatbelt checks along a state highway in town help lower fatalities, or are they just a major pain in the rear and irritant to drivers?

This morning Woodstock PD had three police cars and five officers assigned to a seatbelt detail on Route 47, north of McConnell Road.

The stated purpose of this "initiative" is driver education.

Wouldn't an electronic sign on the roadway shoulder reading, "Fasten your seatbelt NOW" have much the same driver educational value? And it would be a whole lot cheaper for the police department and for the drivers.

How much is a seatbelt ticket these days? $50? $75?

What do you think? Should seatbelt violations be a Primary Enforcement law?

Traffic light malfunctions, state roads

It used to be that IDOT would accept requests for traffic light maintenance on state-maintained roads from citizens. Now? Now you must call your local law enforcement agency and hope they will send an officer out to watch the light and confirm the malfunction, and that he will then report it and request repair.

What a waste, just because somebody at IDOT decided he can't trust citizens to report problems!

So, when you notice a malfunction like the traffic light on IL 47 (Seminary) at Russel Court that shows a very long red for Seminary Avenue traffic when there is NO traffic on Russel Court (e.g., Thursday, 6:19PM), then notify the Woodstock Police Department.

Their procedure is to dispatch an officer to observe the malfunction. Then he will either report it to his supervisor (probably) or report it directly (hopefully) to IDOT's Central Communications hotline.

Or maybe he won't consider it a malfunction and won't report it at all. It's probably a "smart" light there, meaning that traffic on Russel Court is supposed to trigger the light to change and give Russel Court traffic a chance to turn left. These "smart" lights have a built-in activator, though, in case the roadway sensor is not working; that activator will cause the light to change, whether or not a car is waiting at a red light.

Would a "smarter" light be a flashing yellow on Seminary and a flashing red on Russel Court, when the government center is closed?

Jackpot! FBI letterhead, too!

The spammers and the phishers are getting braver and braver, or dumber and dumber.

"Official Mail" showed up in my inbox this morning from the FBI. That's right; the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Nice to know that they are emailing me that I have won US$800,000.00. And all I have to do is fork over $300.00. Yippee!

Now where is that penny jar? I should have enough pennies. I've been saving up for this day!

A modest increase

I don't get much mail, and I like every letter that comes my way, especially the ones with the juicy tidbits for me to chase, investigate and write about. So keep 'em coming.

And then there are the letters like the one today from the Northwest Herald. I had sort of hoped they were writing to invite me to participate in the upcoming elections voter guides, as did the Chicago Tribune and The Woodstock Independent.

Or maybe writing to explain why the Monday paper has gotten so skinny. Or why the Jewel-Osco ads are no longer delivered to me.

But, no. It was just a letter to let me know that my privilege of a paper delivered to me every day is going to cost me more. The reasons were there - rising costs of printing and distribution. I hope the paperboy gets a share; somehow, I'm afraid he may not. Anyway, paperboys are a thing of the past. Paper-man must be today's word.

But, back to the reason for the letter. The monthly rate on the EZ Pay auto-debit plan is going up. I was delighted to read that there will be only a "very modest" rate increase.

Very modest? The monthly rate of $11.27 will increase to $13.39. That's modest? It's an 18.8% increase!

They must use a different dictionary than I do!

It's probably still a good deal, because I do get the paper on time, at my door, almost never late or missing. And the women in the customer service department are friendly and do answer the phones quickly, if I call for a missing paper or vacation hold. And I pretty much break even by clipping the coupons that come with the Sunday edition.

But I'd rather they hadn't termed an 18.8% increase as "very modest". Egads! What would a small or moderate increase have been???

TWI calls sale "essential"

"Sale of chamber building essential"

That's the headline of the editorial on Page 4 of this week's The Woodstock Independent.

The weekly editorial is the consensus of the editorial staff of the paper. That's why it's not signed.

Do I agree? What do you think?

No. Definitely not. Absolutely not. ABSOLUTELY NOT!

Now is the time to string up the members of past Boards of Directors for being so derelict in their duty that they permitted the Chamber's finances to head so far south into Disaster Land. Instead of paying off a large percentage of the chamber's headquarters over the past 20 years, they borrowed six times and added $100,000 to the mortgage to fund operations.

Did it not occur to them to solve the operational problem instead of borrowing time after time? Apparently not. It wasn't "their" money; it was someone else's money, so just borrow...

In a small town, people want to be nice. They want to "talk nice." They want to smile at their buddies, particularly the ones they see at the country club or the golf club or the service clubs' weekly breakfasts and lunches.

No one wants to point a finger and shout, "You rat. How could you be so blind?"

I know that the Board struggled over the past 4-5 years with the finances. Everyone kept his mouth shut (or almost), but they knew how bad it was. Did they communicate to members?

Why do I think not? I certainly didn't hear anything about the terrible shape of finances during the year I was a member. And I knew another member couldn't get financial statements of the Chamber and so could not learn how bad the finances were.

What should be done now?

The first thing would be to survey the members and the business community and ask, should a business community the size of Woodstock have a chamber of commerce?

The answer should be "Yes" but might not be, because many answers might be "Yes, if..." or "Yes, but..."

Why can Crystal Lake, McHenry and Huntley have great chambers of commerce, but Woodstock cannot?

The answer is easy and short. "Commitment."

Can the remaining few members on the Board rescue the Chamber?

Sir Winston Churchill said, "Never, never, never give up."

Has the Woodstock business community given up?

The Woodstock Tax Man Cometh

Here's the news that you all have been awaiting! Will your taxes go up in Woodstock?

That black-bordered notice of doom appears this week in The Woodstock Independent. You know the one. "Notice of Proposed Property Tax Increase". That one.

If you want to get your two-cents' worth in, you'll want to keep Monday night, December 1st, free. "Free" is probably not the right word to use, but you know what I mean.

The standard, passion-less, annual, fill-in-the-blank, boiler-plate announcement can be read on Page 14 of the November 18, 2009, Independent. The public hearing will be December 1st at 7:00PM in City Council Chambers.

Read how innocuous and bland the second paragraph is... "Any person desiring to appear at the public hearing and present testimony to the taxing district may contact Finance Director, (sic) Roscoe Stelford between 8:30 a.m. and 5:00 p.m., weekdays at 815/338-4300."

If I were writing notices for the City, I'd invite "Any person wishing to raise hell about a property tax increase during a depression and vent his anger at the City Council for even considering such a move should notify Finance Director Roscoe Stelford that he'll show up and tell it like it is."

The City is proposing to increase the amount of corporate and special purpose property taxes to be extended or abated by 10.8%.

What does "extend or abate" really mean? Does this mean it goes on the books as property taxes unpaid that will be collected in the future? Or does "abate" mean forgiven? If it is to be collected in the future, when will that magical future date be? And what will the economy be at that time?

Isn't this a time to freeze tax levels or even lower them?

The problem with that is the City has all of its expenses locked in and its employees want raises. Well, so do the rest of the folks. And they aren't getting raises. Some of them aren't even getting to keep their jobs!

Will anyone show up on Monday, December 1? I'll bet there won't be five residents there to complain!