Round Lake District 116

After months of deliberation on whether or not to retain their current Hainesville Police Department or utilize another provider the Hainesville Village Board voted 5-1 Tuesday evening in favor of hiring the Grayslake Police Department.

Even though Hainesville’s home-grown local police department was only two years old, it had made great strides in hiring a professional team of officers to protect and serve the residents. With growing pains and the need for a larger facility, Mayor Linda Soto began to question the decision made by her predecessor on forming the villages own department. This lead to a Board approval that allowed her to seek and negotiate bids from other providers which eventually led to Tuesday’s decision to hire Grayslake’s Police Department.

According to the Mayor, Grayslake will add another patrol beat as well as add additional decals or lettering on their squads indicating Hainesville as well as Grayslake. The expected savings to Grayslake will be approximately $300,000 the first year with that figure taking into consideration the need to either build or lease a larger facility if they had kept their current force.

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The Avon Township Food Garden, officially known as the Community Garden and Food Pantry Production Farm, keeps showing improvements with each and every visit. Since the Community area was planted, many additional plots have been planted as you can see from the slide show below. Besides the older white picnic table that was available, it looks like someone has treated the ‘farm” to a brand new shiny one to use.

Several plots remain available and have already been staked out so don’t delay if you are thinking of leasing one for the season. Rates are $35 per season or only $20 if you donate your excess harvest to the food pantry. Several local residents have rented plots and plan to donate their entire harvest to the pantry. This might be something that you would like to do as well, along with getting some sun, exercise, and meeting new friends with similar gardening interest.

If you would like to reserve a plot or volunteer please call Wendy Warden at 847-401-1135

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To answer a lot of visitors inquiries the Round Lake Area Schools will have their
first day of school on Wednesday, August 18th.

Winter Break will be from Monday December 20th through Friday, December 31st

Spring Break will be from Monday, March 28th through Friday, April 1st

The last day of school will be Friday, May 27th, providing there are no make-up days. 

For a more detailed schedule CLICK HERE

Now, go back and enjoy the summer and quit worrying about when school starts.  :-)

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With well over 100 visitors yesterday looking for information on tornado’s in Round Lake, we thought we would once again post WHAT the various tornado siren warning sounds stand for. We are not aware of any actual tornado touching down Thursday night but as we all know, the sirens wailed for a very long time. They were one LONG warning sound which is meant to WARN you of a possible tornado.

Here is what the sirens mean since we are due for similar weather tonight (Friday)

Long Steady Siren = If the warning lasts 3 to 5 minutes it means the National Weather Service has issued a warning that the Round lake Area is in the path of a tornado and all residents should prepare to take cover.

Up and Down (Oscillating) Siren = If you hear these lasting 3-5 minutes it means that a tornado has been spotted. This requires IMMEDIATE action on your part and it is VERY important that you take cover IMMEDIATELY. You should go to a basement or a small interior room. If you are outside when you hear this warning, you should take cover in a low ditch or ravine.

NOTE: There is NO ’All Clear’ siren since tornadoes are unpredictable. Residents are advised to tune in a weather channel for updates but NOT to call 911 just because of stormy weather. The dispatchers have enough to do during turbulent weather so it’s best to tune in your radio for updates.

Did you get a chance to visit this years Round Lake BeachFest? There were games, rides, food, crafts galore, pony rides, a petting zoo, and great entertainment! I was there twice and both times had to wait for a parking spot (even before the musical entertainment started). You can get an idea of what you may have missed by viewing the following slide show. We couldn’t fit all the photos in that we took but did use close to 70 of them. We apologize to those participants and vendors that we had to leave out.There is a link below it that will open up a new browser and show it full size if you want to see larger photos. ENJOY!  

CLICK HERE to view this slide show Full Size but allow it to load since it is a large file.

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While local District 46 discusses updating their website to improve its search-ability, the Avon Township Board approved funds for a new vendor to design, host, implement, and train personnel for a brand new website. The Township already has a new logo to go with their new site. The approved cost was approximately $2,400 with the Trustees tabling, until they have a chance to see the new site, whether to pay a monthly or hourly maintenance agreement.  This cost was more than offset as they also voted to switch cleaning services at a savings of $3,600 per year, accepting the lowest bid received.

In additional business they voted to retain the current legal firm on a month-to-month basis for the next six months after the new annual fee more than doubled. The monthly fee will be based on the new annual figure while they obtain other service provider bids. Supervisor Sam Yingling stated that even at the increased amount, it was still low and doesn’t expect others to be any lower. The attorney was allowed to state the reason for the cost increase but the trustees felt more comfortable seeking other bidders based on the platform that they campaigned on.

A motion to approve bills already paid failed since it included payment for health insurance for employees that two Board members claimed to be totally unaware of it being provided. This led to several attempts to do a line item removal of the one particular bill but that effort failed for lack of votes. The main sticking point was that the bill was already paid and that raised the question of how do you go about getting the money back. The legal council appeared to lack the advice that the Board needed to overcome this stumbling block and thus the entire motion to approve was tabled. Supervisor Sam Yingling was visibly upset and even stated that he was not willing to go out on a limb in the future by paying bills if the Board was unwilling to approve them. That led to one Trustee saying something to the effect of “You can’t just be a one-man show” implying that several trustees had no previous knowledge of this health care payment decision.

$1,500 was approved by majority vote to have a retirement party for a 25 year veteran of the highway department.

Avon Township Assessor, Bryce Carus, took up a lot of time during the meeting to explain how an individual had come into the assessor’s office with a strong gasoline smell on his clothes due to a spill while filling his tank. This concerned Carus who asked if the current security system was designed to alert employees or if it was capable of being added for safety issues. Supervisor Yingling indicated that he would follow up on the request and report back to the Board.

We already mentioned that Yingling showed a power point presentation about the new Avon Township Food Pantry garden project being handled by volunteers along with several organizations offering their time and expertise.

Next scheduled Avon Township meeting is Monday, July 12th, 6:30 PM at the Avon Township office building, 433 East Washington, Round Lake Park

With a short break in the rainy weather, Landscape Concepts was finally able to get their equipment on site and till the Community Garden and Food Pantry Production Farm located behind the Avon Township Center. It appears as though the process that was used to stunt the sod and turn it into nothing more than dead grass allowed it to simply be turned under rather than having to remove it altogether. With the deeper soil still being considerably wet, it kept the tiller from ‘pulverizing’ the soil so it looks more like what you would find on a farm field, rather lumpy. That just means wherever they plant the veggies may have to be broken up a bit with a garden fork once the soil gets a little drier. The ruts will actually create good drainage if left as is on the unplanted areas. If you would like to reserve a plot or volunteer please call Wendy Warden at 847-401-1135

Community Garden and Food Pantry Production Farm

UPDATE 6-20-10: Wendy emailed me that there had been a lot of activity at the ‘farm” so I did a drive-by on Sunday and sure enough all the plants that had been waiting to get planted were now in the ground, thanks to the volunteers. They were looking a little on the weak side before being planted due to the long wait and still look as though many will struggle to survive. They all looked like they could use a healthy drink from the pond but the weatherman is predicting rain tonight. Wendy also mentioned that two more plots were rented over the weekend so don’t delay if you want to do some gardening. It’s only $20 per season if you donate your excess crop. You can see that one of the residential areas looks like it got some more tilling or raking since it now looks much smoother on the surface.

Volunteers finished planting three rows of vegetables 6-19-10

Residential plots get additional tilling

While we are on the topic of gardening we want to mention that residents of Round Lake Beach can get all the mulch they want at no charge. After purchasing a couple bags at Thornton’s and realizing that they really don’t cover much, especially if you want a 2″ bed, I decided to investigate what the Village had to offer.  To my surprise it’s pretty decent mulch!

Round Lake Beach “FREE” mulch for residents only

After scoping out the pile of mulch at the Public Works building on Lotus, I took a rake, shovel, 3 lawn and leaf bags, and two large plastic storage containers to fill up. The containers fit on the back seat and the three bags sat upright snugly in my open trunk without any bungee cords. I wound up making TWO trips to get the amount of mulch required to cover a new row of Blue Holly shrubs 60′ long by 1.5 feet wide by 2″ deep.

How the free mulch looks once rain & watering rinses it off

Imagine what this amount of mulch would have cost if purchased.
Thank you, RLB!

Those little plants you see between the shrubs are 14 tomato plants for supplying the Avon Township Food Pantry with some fresh vegetables in addition to what they grow and obtain from other sources. The mulch, placed over black perforated landscape plastic, will cut down on the need to water so often as well as eliminate the need for any pesticides to keep weeds under control.  :-)

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