Village News

The Village News section includes news and updates that are taking place throughout Barrington Hills. We will be updating this page from time to time as news changes and as old news becomes outdated. If you have a newsworthy event you would like the Communications Committee to know about and consider posting on VBHComm.info, please contact us. If you no longer see news, check the Archives, Photo Gallery or History Pages.

Information about Ordinances that have gone into effect in the past two years is mentioned below. All Ordinances can be found by going to the www.barringtonhills-il.gov site and clicking on Village Code.

Page Last Updated May 6, 2010

ZBA Proposed Exterior Lighting Ordinance

Next Public Meeting May 17, 2010
Countryside School
205 W County Line Road

On May 17, the Zoning Board of Appeals will have on their regular agenda, the continuation of discussion on the proposed Exterior Lighting Ordinance. The Government website provides full access to the proposal along with pertinent zoning documents. www.barringtonhills-il.gov/zoning.htm

On April 22, the proposed Exterior Lighting Ordinance Impact Study was presented by the Village Engineers. Seven residents volunteered to have their homes evaluated. In all, only one of the seven homes met the criteria as stated in the proposed ordinance. Each site was reviewed and the reasons for non compliance and suggested remediation to meet the proposal were discussed.

For the complete Lighting Impact Study, the PDF is available through the Village Government website. www.barringtonhills-il.gov/pdf/VBHLightingImpactRptPart1.pdf

The meeting lasted several hours with each person in the audience having an opportunity to ask questions of the study team representative. Members of the Planning Commission and the Village Administration were on hand to answer ancillary questions.

Members of the audience questioned the methods used by the study team. Each person in the audience was given time to ask questions.

The ZBA reserved the right to review the study in greater detail and come back to the next meeting on May 17 at Countryside School to ask their own questions and engage in further discussion on the Proposal. Chairman Knight reminded the audience of the choices and options before the ZBA. In general, the ZBA members can accept or reject the Proposal in its entirety, or substitute language within the Proposal based on text amendment criteria of the Zoning Ordinance. They can make changes in accordance with information learned during the Technical presentations, from what was learned in the Impact Study and from comments and questions from the residents.

At the April 23 Board of Trustees meeting, residents eager to be heard spoke at the Board Meeting to state their positions. The measure has not reached the Board for action and will not reach them until the ZBA has concluded its deliberations.

McHenry County Draft 2030 Comprehensive

Plan April 20th 2010 Meeting

McHenry County is about to ink the final version of their 2030 Comprehensive Plan. Tuesday night April 20 is a critical meeting in McHenry County at the Courthouse in Woodstock at 7:30 p.m. The plan describes how parcels of undeveloped property within the county should be developed, for the next thirty years. The draft 2030 plan document can be viewed at www.mchenrycounty2030plan.com.

Please review the draft immediately with the summary analysis in mind and take action. Contact the four McHenry County District 1 representatives for Barrington Hills. The Village News Home page carries their names and telephone reach numbers along with the most critical reasons to participate now. The following items are only a few of the reasons to do your own analysis and take action. The whole plan is available for review and comment online. So far, the voices of our Administrators and Trustees have gone unheeded in the draft document. Residents voices made a huge difference in past challenges with McHenry County. Step up and be heard again. You can make the difference!

• The plan may open the doors to new development proposals contrary to the interests of the village as a whole.
• The draft 2030 plan characterizes our land use pattern as an "estate" use, yet does not recognize that there are agricultural pursuits including raising livestock, organic gardening, and equestrian activities taking place in "estate" property.
• The plan also calls for only one way to create new subdivisions, referred to as "conservation design". This is in fact the same as what is also referred to as cluster housing.
• We believe that the Barrington Hills pattern of land use is also a form of conservation design, as it decreases impervious surfaces, has a greater percentage of treetops, and facilitates groundwater recharge more so than dense housing does. BACOG Water Initiative.

McHenry County Board Members
District 1 - Barrington Hills Included

Yvonnne M. Barnes - 847-516-2719
335 Claire Ln., Cary IL  60013 Term Exp. December 2010

Marc Munaretto-815-385-5590 (ofc) or 847-658-9309
662 W. Surrey Ln., Algonquin, IL 60102 Term Exp. December 2012

Anna May Miller-847-639-5112 (ofc) 847-639-2700
1415 E. Main St. Rd, Cary, IL 60013 Term Exp. December 2010

Robert Bless-847-516-1337
709 Hunters Way, Fox River Grove, IL 60021 Term Exp. December 2012

Fresh Look at Water

Robert Abboud
Village President

Most of us take drawing a glass of cool water from our faucet or stepping into a hot shower for granted. If you live in Barrington Hills, or any of the surrounding communities, you know that your water probably comes from a well. If you live in Barrington proper, your water comes from the village municipal system which also draws its water from wells drilled into the same local aquifers.

For the past 200 years we’ve used this underground aquifer reliably and with little thought to sustainability. That is, until recently. A number of recent studies show that we are stressing the ground water aquifers around the Chicago region. In fact, water supplies from all sources, including Lake Michigan and the Fox River, are under stress.

The most notable studies are:

• The 3-dimensional ground water mapping done by the Barrington Area
Council of Governments
• The Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning (CMAP) regional water
supply report
• The Metropolitan Planning Council water supply report.
All of these reports point to the same conclusion: As we grow population, we
are using water at a rate that is not sustainable. Thus, groundwater supplies
cannot be guaranteed beyond 2050.

Though 2050 sounds like a very long time from now, this is barely a blink of an eye in the utility and infrastructure building worlds. Water and electric utilities routinely plan for 50-year time frames. The roads, power, and water systems you use today were planned and built decades ago. These reports suggest we must begin to make changes to the way we use, recharge, and protect the aquifers that have supplied us all these years. Many people think the water we use is primordial and comes from deep underground reservoirs of ancient glacial water. This is not the case in the Barrington area. Our ground water is supplied from surface water seeping and filtering into the shallow aquifers, typically 150 feet deep. This water is anywhere from months to decades old.

Community leaders including mayors, members of industry, and specialists from government and academia have been meeting to discuss how we will address these issues. The focus is on water use and well management, waste water management, and aquifer protection and recharge through low density zoning and storm water management. We need to address the basic governance issue: Should we manage water issues locally, regionally, state wide, at the federal level, or not at all? Most of us prefer local management of resource and community issues to minimize the impact of “outside big government”. Yet problems like ground water will demand significant dollars and resources for research and management. The expense and expertise required are beyond the capacity of many local governments. Additionally, aquifers do not respect any boundaries. That means communities must work together. Therefore, we can expect that regional pacts will form made up of local jurisdictions. The model for this strategy is the council of government, such as the Barrington Area Council of Governments. Several councils might become allies to work on solutions specific to their own region.

The Barrington Area Council of Governments has been active on this issue for nearly a decade, including working with other COGs. Most recently, the council delivered a state-of-the-art ground water survey assessing some 100,000 lines of data from 27,000 well logs covering 600 square miles. The study analyzes the ground strata every five feet from surface to bedrock. This kind of effort could not have been accomplished by any one community. The most important aspect of this issue will be to refrain from overly politicizing it. There will most certainly be the temptation for turf battles, accusations of conspiracy, and political action committees, much as there was over the fluoridation of municipal water in the 1950s and 60s. While the science and technology will be daunting, the real challenge will be whether, and how, we choose to work together as communities with a common goal: plentiful clean fresh water today and long into the future.

Reprinted from Quintessential Barrington Magazine

Message from the Village President

Date:    Friday, January 22, 2010
To:      The Residents of Barrington Hills
Subject: The President’s Message for January 2010
Illuminating Lighting

Unless you have been living on Pluto during the last year, you have most likely been hearing a lot about lighting issues in the Village. Even the Wall Street Journal decided that lighting in our Village warranted a nationally published editorial. Apparently, we are more weighty a subject than the troubles in banking and the economy. Go to Hot Topics Lighting for full story.

SB 189 - FOIA and OMA News

Link from here to the Village News Committee Page.

Distracted Driving Laws Aim To Improve Traffic Safety

On January 1, 2010, several new laws went into effect in Illinois which limit the use of cell phones while driving. The laws were passed in response to growing evidence that driving while using a cell phone poses a serious distraction and reduces driver performance and can increase your chance of getting into an accident by 400 percent. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that driver distraction from all sources contributes to 25 percent of all police-reported traffic crashes.

• Drivers are now prohibited from using cell phones in school or construction zones unless using a hands-free device.
• Anyone operating a motor vehicle is also prohibited from using an electronic communication device, like such as a cellular telephone, Blackberry or computer, to compose, send or read electronic (text) messages. This law does not apply to global positioning systems (GPS), navigation systems, or devices that are physically or electronically integrated into the motor vehicle.

Details on both laws can be obtained from the Illinois Secretary of State's Office www.cyberdriveillinois.com and from the Illinois Department of Transportation website www.dot.state.il.us.

BACOG Hosts Groundwater Meeting in Barrington

For all BACOG Villages including Barrington Hills

The Barrington Area Council of Governments held a public meeting on November 30, 2009 at the Barrington Village Hall, 200 S. Hough Street, Barrington, from 7:00-9:00 pm to present important groundwater information to the communities of Barrington, Barrington Hills, Deer Park, Lake Barrington, North Barrington, South Barrington, Tower Lakes and unincorporated Barrington and Cuba Townships. 

Groundwater is the water supply that nearly all residents in this area rely on each day for many activities such as drinking, bathing, washing cloths and watering gardens. BACOG studies groundwater resources because of identified potential shortages in adjacent areas as early as 2020, increasing withdrawals from these shallow water resources, and groundwater dependent natural areas. 

The BACOG Groundwater Presentation will characterize water resources and answer questions about groundwater in the Barrington area.  Please call the BACOG office at (847) 381-7871 or send email to bacog@bacog.org if you have questions about the public meeting.  You can also visit the BACOG website at www.bacog.org.

Barrington Hills is Officially on Twitter

The Village Board of Trustees approved a Twitter site for official Village use. A brief article appeared in the Fall 2009 Newsletter. The official name: www.twitter.com/BarrHills_IL. Go online to sign up for messages that can be delivered to your computer, mobile phone or smart phone. Use this an another means to keep up with short announcements. Twitter does not replace the Village Blackboard CTY Police notification system for emergencies and will not be duplicating Police news.

Village Website Integration Project Team

The new overarching Portal for the Barrington Hills website was launched in November with the Fall images provided by Laura S. Ekstrom, the winning designer for the Portal Page. Each season, residents and visitors to the site can expect a change of images and improvements in the connecting pages.

Background: The Board of Trustees authorized a Website Integration Project (WIP) to commence on June 22, 2009. Efforts are underway to Integrate the Government, Police and this Community Website using a new Portal Page for access through any and all of the URL's currently in use to get mandatory and optional information to the public on demand. The Illinois Legislature passed SB 189 on May 28, 2009. Governor Quinn signed the bill. It goes into effect January 1, 2010.

The proposed bill makes sweeping changes in the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and the Open Meetings Act (OMA). A comprehensive review of the websites includes ensuring the Village of Barrington Hills is on target to meet the requirements of the legislation.

Board of Trustees Approves Animal Shelter Ordinance

See Ordinance Section Below on this Page.

Village Cellular Coverage News

The topic of Cellular Phone coverage and service levels has been a Hot Topic for several years within the Village. In 2009, a new technology was introduced to enhance service levels for customers of Cellular Carriers who use the technology, Digital Antenna System, DAS. The Village approved resolutions in 2009 for the construction of DAS equipment along Village Roads and at the Village Hall. Work is in progress as of Winter 2010. Cellular information and news can be found on the Hot Topics Page for Cellular Service Quality.

The 2010 Census is one of the most important events for the Village of Barrington Hills. A special page has been created for this Website to promote Census 2010 and explain the value of participation by each person in the Village.

Longmeadow Parkway Corridor

Project and Description

The Longmeadow Parkway Fox River Bridge Corridor is a proposed four-lane Fox River Bridge crossing and four-lane arterial roadway corridor with a median, approximately 5.6 miles in length, to alleviate traffic congestion in northern Kane County. The proposed road passes through portions of the Villages of Algonquin, Carpentersville and Barrington Hills, as well as unincorporated areas of Kane County.

Special Hot Topics Page will have added news as it becomes available.

CTY – Automatic Police Emergency Notification System

When Barrington Hills police learn of events in the village they quickly try to warn residents. If you didn’t receive a call or an e-mail from a recent event, it’s because you still need to sign up for this free notification service. It’s easy to do! Simply log onto the village web site at www.barringtonhills-il.gov. By clicking on the link called CTY in the upper right corner of the front page, residents will be directed to give their address, phone, e-mail and text message information. When a situation arises, the police chief submits messages to the CTY service, which then disseminates the news to the contact information on file. You can name someone else to receive your messages if you are not in town.

Typically, police actions, traffic accidents, road closures are sent via CTY notification. The contact information you submit is not used for ANY other purpose and, because it is managed by a private company, it is not accessible to village officials or anyone else making a Freedom of Information Act request. Additionally, you only need fill out the data pertinent to your preferred method of contact. Sign up today, so you don’t miss out on the next warning that could be a lifesaver.

Remember:
• If you change your phone(s) or email address(es), update CTY.
• CTY now can send SMS, i.e., Text Messages, so CTY MVBF 4 NUS

Look for this Icon on the www.barringtonhills-il.gov website. It will lead you to the update process!

 

Heritage Tree Preservation Ordinance

Spring is the busiest times for year for clean up and removal of trees that may have fallen or died due to storm activity. The Heritage Ordinance does not cover dead trees or small trees. Larger trees are critical to the environment and this Ordinance addresses the protected trees and the actions required by a resident before planning removal of trees on their property.

INTENT AND PURPOSE: The intent of this [ordinance] is to ensure the presence and continuation of Heritage Trees, a special resource throughout the Village of Barrington Hills by requiring sound forestry practices and preventing storm water runoff and topsoil erosion. It is also the intent of this section to promote and educate our residents as to the importance, protection and existence of Heritage Trees. Residents of the Village will then continue to enjoy all the benefits of living in the unique environment of Barrington Hills, because the Village strives to protect the health, safety and welfare of its residents from situations in which may substantially alter the environment. This will be accomplished by regulating how such trees may be removed and replaced, whether as a result of building construction or as a result of landscaping activity only.

To see the ordinance:
http://66.113.195.234/IL/Barrington%20Hills/index.htm (type "heritage tree" in search box). Residents are encouraged to check the Ordinance before authorizing or performing Tree removal. The following Table provides insight into the types of trees covered by this ordinance. In case a resident sees someone potentially violating the Ordinance, a call should be made to the Village Police Department non emergency number (847) 551 3006. You can also download the Heritage Tree Table document to learn more about tree preservation.

Target Shooting Ordinance

The Board of Trustees passed an amendment to the Target Shooting Ordinance at its November 19th, 2007 meeting. Go to www.barringtonhills-il.gov. Click on the Village Code and Search for the Weapons Code which includes the revised Target Shooting Range and use Ordinance.

Open Burning of Landscape Waste Ordinance Updates

In the Village of Barrington Hills, an outdoor fire is permitted for the disposal of landscape waste upon the premises where it is produced. No more than one bonfire may occur at any one time and it must be constantly attended.

Burning Order Amendments as of April 28, 2008


With summer coming to an end, residents will soon begin fall clean-up on their properties. For many of us, that also means burning of landscape debris, including leaves, grass, cuttings from shrubbery and trees only.

Homeowners who plan to burn are reminded that the Board of Trustees approved several amendments to the Villages long-standing Open Burning ordinance at their April 28th meeting. Below is a summary of the new ordinance.

• The location of the fire shall be no less than 100 feet from any structure.
• No more than one fire at one time shall be allowed on the premises.
• The fire must be constantly attended to by the resident with a shovel or rake
until the fire is extinguished.
• Appropriately rated fire extinguishers or garden hoses shall be available for immediate use.
• The fire cannot exceed 5 feet x 5 feet x 5 feet in dimension.
• Burning can only take place between the hours of 10 a.m. and 10 p.m.,
• Burning can be done for no more than 3 hours total in any 24 hour period.
• Appropriate precautions must be taken to control the blowing of ashes or
cinders from the burn site.

Most importantly, please exercise common sense – avoid burning on windy days, and be considerate of the neighbors! Go to Barrington Hills Government site to the Ordinances for Building Codes, Burning Section.

Good Neighbor Leaf Burning Tips

Landline Phone Requirement

Old Ordinance - Worth a Review

No matter how long we have been residents, it seems there is always something new to learn about our Village Code. There is an Ordinance that was established some time ago to enhance public safety.

" In order to provide optimal service to the public when calling 9-1-1 for emergency assistance, each household in the Village is required to maintain at a minimum one land based telephone line served by a Telecommunications Carrier who provides true land based 9-1-1 service which delivers both the call and the information regarding the callers address/location automatically to the Village Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP). AT&T and Comcast, because they use AT&T's 9-1-1 service, are the land based service providers who qualify to meet the Ordinance."

If in doubt, call the Police Department at (847) 551-3006, and ask if you can set up a 9-1-1 test call from your phone(s), cellular and land based, using your own Service Provider(s).

As you may know, having a phone that works even during a power outage is also essential to your service reliability.

The Village continues to be at the forefront of technology in the 9-1-1 PSAP Center, enhancing the capabilities as Cellular and VoIP Service Providers enter the Market. As many as 60% of the calls for 9-1-1 go to the Police Dispatchers from Cellular Phones.

Reference is taken from Section 4-2-2(E) of the Barrington Hills Village Code:
 
Fire Protection Systems/Supervision (Section 1020.0).
"1020.3 Emergency Number Telephone System. Notification of the need for emergency services shall be accomplished by a caller through dialing the digits  9-1-1 on a wired line in the public switched telephone network. The telephone connection will originate from the caller's location and terminate at the Barrington Hills police safety answering point, where the telecommunicator will receive a voice connection, call back number and service address of the location of the caller.(Ord. 03-17, 8-25-2003)"