In anticipation of the economic goodtimes just around the corner, Lake County is in a big hurry to build itself some new shopping malls. As readers of this blog are maladroitly aware ...A Mall of SilenceA top-secret mega-mall in the works for more than a year was recently just announced at a public meeting in Lake Zurich. The meeting, described by onlookers as something akin to a slow-motion riot, was conducted by the Lake County Regional Planning Commission. According to the Daily Herald ...
Attorney J. William Braithwaite requested the meeting be postponed and rescheduled when a larger venue can be found. Marvin Raymond, the chairman of the commission, resisted, telling Braithwaite "My response is 'no.'" Hawthorn Woods special counsel Dan Shapiro repeated the objection, and after a discussion the commission members voted to end the session. The decision was applauded by the audience members, many of whom were concerned about the future of the 108-acre parcel and its possible conversion into commercial property. As the audience filtered out, Raymond said he suspected the crowd would be too big for the room. "I wish we had picked a larger venue," he said.For those operatives wondering: Just who is the Lake Counnty Regional Planning Commission? -- The short answer is: nobody knows. Your LakeCountyEye can only report the Commission appears to be as top-secret as the top-secret mall development it is obliged to chaperone. It is unknown who the members of the Lake County Regional Planning Commission are, if they are paid, where or when they meet, and if they meet what they meet about. The mighty Google yields scant little. In fact your LakeCountyEye was able to identify the members only from the minutes of a recent Lake County Board meeting -- where those same members were reappointed ...
Talk about proposed land plan near Hawthorn Woods cut short due to legal concerns
Lake County Illinois - Meeting of Lake County Board on 1/17/2012 at 9:00 AMOne Commission member is Mettawa Trustee, Lawrence Falbe. Falbe no doubt recalls a similar nimby controversy, when an unpopular Costco was built, a few years back, in Mettawa. The Daily Herald observed that ...
The project generated two lawsuits, divided the community and led to a raucous election last April - the first in decades in the rural village.Falbe, of course, is better know to ops as TA and captains the political blog TeamAmerica10th.
Neighborly gesture soothes Mettawa Costco foes
Your LakeCountyEye observes that nary a peep is evident from Falbe's blog about the year long back-room negotiations over the Lake Zurich Mall. Does this mean the Lake County Regional Planning Commission is what it appears to be: a rubber-stamp commission? Can operatives expect to see a brand new million square-foot mall spring up on Route 12 in Lake Zurich? Will the mall be known as the Mall of TeamAmerica?
Time will only tell!
5 comments:
Hi BB - Since the Dimucci project got your attention recently, I wondered how long it would take you to figure out that I am on the RPC. But, as you might expect, I'm not going to be commenting on the proposal on my Team America Blog, and certainly won't be making up my mind until we complete the meeting process and hear all the facts.
I will note for the record, though, that I was the first commissioner at the meeting to question whether the meeting should proceed due to the fact that many members of the public who wished to participate could not get in the room and could not hear the proceedings (though it was more like 30 to 40 such people, max, certainly not hundreds), and voted to end and reschedule the meeting for that reason.
To suggest that the RPC is veiled behind secrecy, however, is a mite silly. A simple Google search turns up the county page for the RPC with all of the commissioners' names on it.
Per the website:
The commission holds its regular monthly meeting on the third Tuesday of each month from 4:00 - 6:00. The meeting will be held at the Lake County Center Permit Facility, 500 W. Winchester Road, Libertyville, Illinois. All meetings of the Commission are open to the public. Please call 847.377.2600 to confirm meetings.
If you are really interested in the monthly workings of the RPC on occasions where it's not making the headlines (which is 99% of the time), I would invite you to stop by and introduce yourself, finally.
hi TA,
Try Googling this ...
"lake county regional planning commission" falbe
Also, thanks for the invitation, I will need to check my calender. I usually just send an op to your meetings.
-BB-
Lake County Government planning and promoting economic development in Lake County is bad? And this from a blog site which criticized Lake County Government for not planning and promoting economic development in Lake County as being bad?
Some bad blogger needs to do a lot of bad explaining over these badly contradictory positions. Which bad is badder? Or are these contradictory positions badly in need of rewrites?
Just returned from Carmel, Indiana where I navigated through 11 (yes, count 'em) of those bad roundabouts. No traffic tie ups. No idling at red lights.
Could somethings bad be really somethings good? :-)
Louis G. Atsaves
hi Louis,
Howdies back, to your own bad self.
-BB-
Barney don't be antagonistic. The guy is telling it how it is.
Mr. Falbe I was at the meeting and appreciated your efforts. I live near the site. I hope you continue to be diligent in your efforts.
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