The local headline caught my eye...
I took notice because Illinois is one of the few states in the country having financial difficulties. So, I went to check it out. It turns out to be my very own local library managing to pick up this little windfall. And as this just annoys the hell out of me, I decided to blog about it.
A little history is in order to put this in proper perspective. Lake County in Illinois (the county just North of the City of Chicago) has basically had the same road grid in place since 1958. A few major streets have been widened, but considering the growth of the area, the roads are severely inadequate to carry the current traffic. Thus Chicago and vicinity have a well deserved reputation for having extremely bad traffic problems.
For about the last 30 years (yes YEARS) there has been an effort to try and upgrade the road grid - widening Route 22 - a MAJOR east-west road from 2 lanes to 5 has been one of the big projects that has caused some fierce fighting. Also, for many years now, there has been a plan (once the roadwork commenced) for Route 22 to bypass the middle of our town. With only minor variations this has been in place and the placement of the road being pretty much a done deal - no surprises pulled out of a hat or anything of that nature for at least 10 years.
About 5 years ago, it was decided that the library of that time was not large enough nor was there enough space to upgrade that facility. So, land was bought and a new library built. When the new facility was built, the bypass plans were ALREADY IN PLACE!!! So, where do they place the building? Oh naturally they put it so that the back of the building is extremely close to the easement for the proposed road!!! And to top it off, they also build a "children's patio" back there. THEN they refuse to cooperate with the bypass project...
The library board had refused to sell a 1.7-acre strip to the state for its bypass project through Lake Zurich until the screening issue was resolved. Officials were concerned about the potential safety hazard with trucks passing so closely to the patio and subjecting children to noise pollution.
What WANKERS!!! The library and it's parking area are on a HUGE hunk of ground. It's not as if they couldn't have positioned the building differently. This is complete and total incompetence from the planners and the city (because they approved the final plan). So, what's next... well obviously more and more extortion...
The children's patio gets first priority, but there are two other patios on the north side of the library building used by teens and employees that may be affected by highway noise.
Yeah, why should you stop with one pay off when you can keep on getting money?
Johnson is also concerned about a future bike path that will run parallel to the bypass, and a library parking lot where deliveries are received and patrons can drop off books at a drive-through area. She thinks a fence may be required.
Once the gravy train is flowing, just keep right on lapping up all that good ol' cash. And as long as you moan about how the lack of money will affect "THE CHILDREN" you can get politicians to give you anything you want.
There you go - your Illinois tax dollars at work. Sadly I've lived in this state long enough to believe that they not only knew about this problem before approving the plans, but they actually COUNTED on this problem being a way to get extra money from the state and extra landscaping for the back of the library. That is what makes me so very angry. We won't even start on what I think about the inside of the new library...
I guess I'm lucky. When the library in my home town of Fort Atkinson (WI) needed some upgrades, they raised over $300,000 privately and made the place fairly swanky, with some good technological upgrades.
I wish more places would do that.
Posted by: Harvey | July 08, 2004 at 10:12 AM