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IN THIS ISSUE

In Other News

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A Message from the Chairman

Not a week goes by that I'm not moved by some example of the sacrifice and generosity of our Kane County volunteers. We naturally tend to recognize and commend the most dramatic examples of that generosity, as the County Board did recently following the unselfish response of dozens of volunteers, as well as our county employees, to the February blizzard.

Sincerely,

Karen McConnaughay
Kane County Board Chair

ANIMAL CONTROL TASK FORCE MEETS

In addition to reviewing whether the county's Animal Control operation would best be administered by a full-time, professional manager, as it has been for several years or, in the alternative, by a full-time, licensed veterinarian, the task force also has been commissioned by McConnaughay to evaluate whether a citizens' Advisory Committee should be appointed to help guide the county's Animal Control policies in the future.

The idea of a citizens advisory committee "has been discussed from time to time over the past several years and, as a result of an internal review of Animal Control, has been recommended by the executive directors of the county's Public Health and Human Resource Management Departments," she said. The appointment of the special task force was prompted by a division among County Board members over whether the department's next administrator should also be a licensed veterinarian with full-time responsibility for its management.

Veterinary services currently are provided to Animal Control on a retainer basis. The County Board will have to decide whether it wants a manager or a veterinarian and how much it is willing to pay, said McConnaughay.

WETLANDS PLAN ADVANCES

The Kane County Board in May authorized funding to plan, design and construct wetlands at the 797-acre Muirhead Springs Forest Preserve in accordance with the County Stormwater Ordinance and under terms of an intergovernmental agreement with the Kane County Forest Preserve Distict. The preserve is located between Barr and Plato Roads just east of Illinois Route 47 in Plato Township. The County agreement with the District includes funding of up to $150,000 of the project costs.

The District already has completed various improvements at the preserve and is in the next phase of development, including creation and restoration of wetlands, according to Kenneth Anderson, Jr., manager of Kane County Subdivision and Special Projects Division.

"Wetlands are some of the most important ecological communities within Kane County and if we can restore and enhance these ecosystems we are making Kane County a better place," said Anderson. "Some of the major goals of restoring and enhancing these wetland areas is to protect water quality, provide wildlife habitat, and create ecological diversity in the County," he said. Muirhead Springs is located in the heart of the rapidly-developing critical growth band of townships in central Kane County. According to Anderson, the preserve is the fourth in which the county has worked with the District to preserve and restore wetlands. The others are the Aurora West, Johnson's Mound and Sauer Family Forest Preserves.

The County's share of the project costs is being paid entirely with funds that already have been collected from developers in the form of fee-in-lieu payments for wetland mitigation. The County Stormwater Ordinance allows for such payments to be made to County for wetland impacts. The Muirhead Springs project includes developing a plan to control water levels in the preserve by varying the trail elevation, abandoning field tiles and installing water control structures, according to Anderson.

PUSH ON TO RECYCLE ELECTRONICS

With less than seven months remaining before a new state law takes effect banning discarded electronic devices from Illinois landfills, Kane County recycling coordinator Gary Mielke is urging county residents to plan ahead for the change.

Detailed information about the statutory change and the countywide effort to recycle electronics is featured in the Kane County Division of Environmental Management's annual recycling newsletter. The newsletter was distributed in late May via the county's local newspapers.

According to Mielke, beginning Jan. 1, 2012, Illinois will join 22 other states in banning computers, televisions, and other electronic devices from its landfills. The aims of the ban are to reduce the amount of toxic material in the environment and to recycle the increasing volume of electronics devices. Under the new statute, which will be overseen by the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (IEPA), waste hauling companies will no longer be allowed to accept electronics at the curb and manufacturers of computers and televisions, for example, will be required to hire recycling companies to establish recycling opportunities for electronic items.

In addition to the Kane County Circuit Court facility at 540 S. Randall Rd., in St. Charles, other drop-off locations of for the banned electronics include: Habitat for Humanity ReStore, 800 North State St. (Route 31), Elgin; Batavia Public Works Garage, 200 North Raddant Rd., Batavia; Aurora - monthly drop-offs; Best Buy Stores in Algonquin, North Aurora, West Dundee, Naperville, Elgin, Oswego, Geneva and DeKalb; and Goodwill Industries in Carpentersville, South Elgin and Batavia.

For businesses and other organizations with large quantities of electronics, Mielke is recommending that they contact a recycling company that is registered with the IEPA

Detailed information about the dates and hours of operation for each location and a list of materials that will and WILL NOT be accepted for recycling is available in the recycling newsletter or by calling or writing to the Kane County Recycling Office, (630) 208-3841, recycle@co.kane.il.us.

RIDE IN KANE FUNDING APPROVED

A resolution approving a funding agreement Pace Suburban Bus and the Association for Individual Development to help continue the popular "Ride In Kane" program was adopted by the Kane County Board in May.

The $110,000 county allocations combined with the with financial commitments of roughly 20 other governmental units and agencies, totaling nearly $1.4 million in local matching funds, assures that transportation services will continue to be available to the county's elderly, disabled and low-income residents. The Pace-run program was started in February, 2008. It, now has about 5,000 registered users and makes more than 110,000 trips annually.

"We're hoping the program will continue to grow," said deputy director of transportation Tom Rickert. Kane County's allocation to the program is funded entirely with transportation sales tax funds and not general tax funds. The county's use of transportation tax funds is intended to offset a federal grant that expired after three years. County Board Chairman Karen McConnaughay commended the County Board for approving the allocation. "You're helping lots of people," she said.

Other partners supporting Ride In Kane include: Aurora Township, Batavia and Batavia Township, Blackberry Township, Campton Partners, Dundee Township Partners (Dundee Township Park District, Dundee Township, East Dundee, West Dundee and Sleepy Hollow), Elgin, Geneva and Geneva Township, INC Board, Kaneville Township, St. Charles and St. Charles Township, South Elgin, Association for individual Development, Hesed House, and Senior Services Associates. The sponsorship funding constitutes a 50 percent local match required for the federal operating grants provided to the program by the Regional Transportation Authority (RTA).

The program's day-to-day operations are managed by Pace's central call center, which dispatches taxis, vans, and lift-equipped buses for demand response, curb-to-curb transportation. The program provides collaboration opportunities, enhances service hours, improves destination flexibility, and offers rider subsidies to increase affordability. Registration through Kane County or one of the other participating partners is required In order to participate in the program. Information about the program, including eligibility is available by calling 888-480-8549.

BOARD VISITS NEW RANDALL RD FACILITY

The Kane County Board made its first official visit May 31 to the County's newest Circuit Court facility on Randall Road, in St. Charles. Meeting as a Committee of the Whole, the County Board convened in newly-constructed courtroom area on the south side of the 109,000-square-foot building, at 540 Randall Road. The north side of the former department store building houses the headquarters of the Kane County Circuit Clerk. Traffic and misdemeanor cases that had been heard at the nearby County Judicial Center on Illinois Route 38 were shifted to the Randall Road facility beginning May 2 following a $4 million renovation.

In addition to its primary use as a secure court location the facility is being reviewed for its potential as public meeting venue for the County Board. "Its way better for the general public," said County Board Chairman Karen McConaughay in outlining the benefits of the Randall Road building as a potential meeting place. The courtroom is structured as a flex-use area, she said.

"It was designed...to allow the county board, if nothing else, to accommodate public hearings," in particular those that attract the type and size of public participation that the County Board room in Geneva often cannot accommodate, she said. McConnaughay has suggested the County Board consider the benefits of relocating its regular monthly meetings and monthly committee of the whole meetings to the new facility. In addition to providing twice the amount meeting space compared to the County Government Center location, the Randall Road space is more user-friendly and more secure, said McConnaughay.

"I think the general public is really going to like this. It has better parking, better acoustics, a better sound system, and from a security standpoint, it's worth considering. The world as we knew it has changed. Meetings can be contentious," she said.

The Randall Road project is part of a roughly $5.4 million judicial space allocation plan that has involved changes at both the Judicial Center and the historic Third Street Courthouse, in downtown Geneva. It was designed to help alleviate a complicated space crunch in the county's court system as well as provide accommodations for additional circuit judges that were seated Dec. 1.

DOCUMENTARY FEATURES KANE FARM FAMILY

One of Kane County's oldest farm families figures prominently in a new documentary DVD that the Kane County Farm Bureau (KCFB) has highlighted in its May edition of the Kane County Farmer.

Entitled "Deep Roots: Legacies of 150-Year-Old Family Farms", the featured documentary is "a story woven of history, pride and distress," writes KCFB Foundation intern Katie Dahlstrom, while noting that it is "driven by the families living on sesquicentennial farms in Kane, Kendall and Boone counties and their tales of farm life, heritage and love for the land." It was produced between 2003 and 2008, and completed this year, according to Dahlstrom.

The film chronicles the history of the Flanders of Kane County, the Christians and Kelloggs of Kendall County, and the Lees of Boone County in their own words. Dahlstrom notes that "While the film documents rewarding and peaceful farm life, it also expresses the urgency and necessity to protect the farms in jeopardy of being swallowed by development. The compelling and honest interviews demonstrate that the worth of these farms extends far beyond their monetary values. The film explores the various issues with which modern farmers are confronted; from farms teetering on the edge of control to the Flanders' protected farm status, all the featured sesquicentennial farms instill pride and raise questions about the future of Northern Illinois' rich farmland."

She writes that one of the three members of Bamboo River Productions, the documentary's creator, is Janice Hill, a Kane County planner and administrator of the County's Farmland Protection Program, the only funded program of its type in Illinois."The question for some of these long-time family farms is, are they going to be the generation in which it ends," said Hill. Kane's program has protected the Flanders farm, ensuring it will always be in agriculture. "That's forever," said Hill. "Not much is forever."

The DVD is available at the Kane County Farm Bureau, 2N710 Randall Road, in St. Charles.

The Kane County Farmland Protection Program is the first and only funded farmland protection program in Illinois. Since it was created by ordinance in 2001 the groundbreaking program has permanently protected some of Illinois' most productive farmland at the metropolitan urban fringe. The Kane County Board has received honorable mention awards from the Trust for Public Land and the Illinois Chapter of the American Planning Association for the program which has protected more than 5,000 acres, according to Hill.

Roughly $20 million in riverboat grant funds have been invested by the county to leverage another $13 million in federal matching funds to underwrite the program. All of the farms are locally owned and operated and are located in Kane County's western tier Agricultural area.

OEM VOLUNTEERS MAKE YEAR-ROUND CONTRIBUTION

Often defined by the assistance they provide in major emergencies and, as in the case of February's blizzard, commended publically for it, the more numerous, mundane, day-to-day contributions by the more than 300 members of the Kane County Office of Emergency Management (OEM) volunteer program tend to go largely unnoticed and generally unheralded.

Within the OEM, however, expressions of appreciation are never in short supply, according to OEM director Don Bryant. "There are a lot of different ways internally that we recognize the efforts," said Bryant. "And we always say, 'thank you'" - with good reason.

"Our volunteers are the heart of our operation. They are our 'boots on the ground.' They are our representatives in the field. They do a lot of public education. They help our communities in ways ranging from traffic management to assisting with ongoing programs and activities within the communities," he said.