Hammerand

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John D. Hammerand District 4 Age: 49 Phone: 815-728-0700/815-653-9610 e-mail: hammerand@msn.com 1.) Everybody says transportation is one of the top issues facing McHenry County. How exactly would you improve it? Build new roads and bypasses? Improve and widen current roads? Expressways? Better regional planning and coordination? And where will the money come from? McHenry County is experiencing explosive growth. Many people are commuting outside the county. The traffic could be lessened appreciably if we had a good public transportation system. It has been proven by the Environmental Law and Policy Center that a more effective approach to alleviating traffic congestion is to improve local roads and public transportation. The people are presently paying for this transportation, by tax. We are not getting our fair share of taxes returned, and are subsidizing the RTA for their operations in other counties. PACE is currently suing the RTA to recover our fair share of revenues. Bus routes that connect to the train could significantly decrease drive times and pollution. But this would happen only if operated on a usable scheduled service, which at this point does not occur. McHenry County needs to be proactive in implementing a public transportation system all citizens of McHenry County can rely on. When a municipality expands and property is annexed, the county loses 1% of sales tax dollars, a portion of the motor fuel tax, and responsibility for the roads. These tax dollars go to the municipalities for improvements and roads. The municipalities that are annexing land and encouraging commercial development are not always able to foresee the problems that are inherent with this growth. This is where the trust between the county and the municipality can work to our mutual advantage - if we work together . Any new development should be designed to accommodate the high flow of traffic. 2.) Growth is also a top issue, and everyone says better planning is needed. But the county already has long-range land-use plans, and the vast majority of growth takes place inside city or village limits - outside county control. How would you better plan for and control growth? By law, we have no authority to control development in a municipality. The fact of the matter is, we have the ability to encourage development by providing low cost loans, allowing a Special Service Area (SSA), or withholding dense residential and commercial zoning in areas where it is demanded outside the municipality, encouraging developers to ask for annexation to a municipality. Our only hope of controlling development is to arbitrate boundary agreements between municipalities. This requires the confidence and trust of the mayors and the boards of the municipalities. Our recent decision to arbitrarily withdraw from the Randall Road agreement, our decision to sell the Highway Department and Fairground property (open space park), and sue the City of Woodstock did not strengthen the county

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