Boone County Watchdog

Saturday, September 10, 2011

Belvidere Township Meeting will again have the Eagle’s Club acquisition on the Agenda

UPDATED 10-10-2011

Town Hall Style Meeting at the Community Building on Tuesday, October 18, 2011—6:00PM.—regarding purchase of the Eagle Building.

Following Letter to Editor is from the October 7, 2011 Boone County Journal.

Front of building.

Eagle’s Parking lot. Rear of Eagle’s building is at far left.

Neighboring businesses use the parking lot.

The meeting is at 5:00 PM on Tuesday, September 13. This meeting may have approval of the Town Hall meeting minutes. If you attended that meeting you could raise questions if the minutes do not coincide with actions which occurred.

See Minutes of 7-30-2011 Meeting below the Agenda, page 2—Closed Session-- indicates that the authority to purchase the Eagle’s Club was granted to Mr. Murphy by the board on July 30.

AGENDA

BELVIDERE TOWNSHIP

MEETING OF THE TOWNSHIP BOARD

8200 Fairgrounds Road

September 13, 2011 – 5:00 P.M.

I. Call to Order / Roll Call

II. Pledge of Allegiance

III. Approval of Prior Meeting’s Minutes

IV. Transfers

V. Reports

a. Supervisor’s Report

b. Highway Commissioner’s Report

c. Assessor’s Report

d. Clerk’s Report

e. Trustee’s Report

VI. Unfinished Business

a. Acquisition of the Eagles Club

VII. Legal

VIII.New Business

a. Shaw Rd. Truck Traffic

b. Harvest Fest

c. Door Locks

IX. Treasurer’s Report and Approval of Bills

X. Public Input

XI. Closed Session

XII. Adjournment

* Please note in order to take final action on an item it must be specified on the posted agenda 48 hours in advance of the meeting.

Previously approved minutes, click on the photocopy to enlarge.

Thursday, September 8, 2011

9-30-2011 Updated Index of Concerned Catholics of Boone County

Click on the item to be connected:

▼ September (57)

▼ August (49)

► July (50)

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

RUSH LIMBAUGH is trying to cash in on Tea Parties

Palm Beach resident Rush Limbaugh obviously has a lot to say about the tea party, but now he's in the tea business.

He's launched the Two if by Tea brand, which sells a dozen 16-ounce bottles for $23.76. So far, the tea is just available online, not in stores. It comes in original, diet original, raspberry and diet raspberry

Click on the following for more details: http://www.bizjournals.com/southflorida/blog/2011/06/rush-limbaugh-launches-two-if-by-tea.html

Monday, September 5, 2011

Rockford Register Star’s View: Downtown location best for new Belvidere church

Based upon the sparse coverage which Rockford Register Star has given to this issue, I find it incredible that the editors now publish “their” opinion. I find it annoying that no real issue such as height, size and parking are mentioned. Is smart growth building a “cathedral style” colossus in a residential neighbor casting shadows upon its neighbors? Look at the words highlighted in green. Does the Register Star even know where the new church will be located?

It is interesting that perhaps for the first time, the Bishop through his Director of Communication speaks of his intention. I have highlighted that in yellow.

Mary Kaspar is the wife of Michael Kaspar, the paid bookkeeper of St. James Parish.

The following is taken from: http://www.rrstar.com/insight/x1413010381/Our-View-Downtown-location-best-for-new-Belvidere-church

When does a church issue become a community issue? We think Belvidere Mayor Fred Brereton answered the question for us.
Brereton last week wrote a position paper on whether St. James Catholic Church should stay in downtown Belvidere and expand or build a new church on the edge of town on Squaw Prairie Road. He says the church staying downtown is a matter of smart growth and would be the best thing for the community. We agree.
While we’re uneasy about telling a church what to do, staying downtown appears to be the best thing for parishioners, too. In Belvidere, as in many urban communities, the growth is on the outskirts of town.
But downtown is where the need is. Churches, more than any other organization, should be about responding to need.
People in Belvidere are conflicted about St. James. One thing everyone agrees on, though, is the parish has outgrown its current building, which holds only 300 to 350 people.
Six services have to be held on Sundays to accommodate the crowds. The Spanish-speaking Masses are particularly popular; at those services, you can often find parishioners standing outside.
To even use the bathroom, parishioners have to leave the church and walk outside to another part of the building. Obviously, the situation is far from ideal for senior citizens as well as families with small children.
The Rockford Diocese, to which St. James belongs, has proposed a new church a few blocks away across from St. James School. It would accommodate about 850 people. St. James is the only Catholic church in Boone County.
Building the new church downtown at the proposed site requires the City Council to sign off on a zoning change from residential to institutional. The council will vote Tuesday, but the decision shouldn’t be difficult from a civic perspective.
The mayor has offered a strong argument for the rezoning through his position paper. He thinks the principles of smart growth make a downtown location the best choice for St. James. Smart growth goals include preserving open space and farmland, encouraging development where it already exists, and creating places people can walk to and not have to drive.
The 22-acre site at the western edge of town was donated by a parish family in 1998. The diocese “does not now have the intention to relocate the focus of the parish to the other property,” according to Penny Wiegert, the diocese’s director of communications.
“That would create more problems for the parish than it would solve.”
The church has much to celebrate. While other churches watch their congregations dwindle, St. James has a vibrant, committed, growing parish.
The fact so many people care about its fate is good news, not bad.
Much of the growth at St. James is in its Spanish-speaking and Hispanic parishioners. Many of these parishioners don’t have cars. They say it would be tough, if not impossible, to get to the Squaw Prairie site for regular worship.
Transportation is a consideration any community must take into account, but especially a church. Churches should be more committed than most organizations to providing for people of meager means.
As St. James parishioner Mary Kaspar wrote in the Register Star Aug. 19, “The bottom line is that we need a church where we can all worship God together.”
Building downtown is best for the bottom line.

Sunday, September 4, 2011

The new “lower” height design of St. James church

Neither the parish nor its architect has posted the changes proposed to Belvidere City Council. Thus only parishioners who attended the August 15 city council meeting or have been given a special showing are aware of the new design.

Here are the changes proposed—basically the building is now seven feet lower* and now closer to the parish center.

* Seventy feet was described previously as the height; these photocopies speak of 72 feet as the original plans and 63 feet as the new height. Note both plans have a cross on the roof which is still higher than these heights.

OLD

NEW

However now look what happens when the trees are erased (after all the trees around the convent will have to be cut down.) And your view is only of the structures near the new church. The new church is twice the height of the gym at the parish center and because of distance from the school proper is nearly twice its height.

To see more, click on the following: http://boonecountycatholics.blogspot.com/2011/09/new-lower-height-design-of-st-james.html

Saturday, September 3, 2011

Illinois Disciplinary Actions for July 2011

The following are taken from: http://www.idfpr.com/Forms/DISCPLN/2011_07_dis.pdf

Click on the photocopy to enlarge:

Boone County Journal Devotes Pages to St. James Zoning

September 2, 2011’s Boone County Journal is out at retailers across the county. Seven Letters to the Editor, a half page advertisement and an editorial are all devoted to the St. James zoning request. This coverage again illustrates the divisiveness of the issue and how important it maybe to the future of not only St. James Parish but to the Boone County community.

Shown below are photocopies of the BCJ articles. In addition to being available at news outlets across the county, an electronic version will be available soon at: http://www.boonecountyjournal.com/ Please check these sources for many other interesting articles and support BCJ advertisers.

On the photocopies below click to enlarge: