GENEVA — It took three votes — including one that went to a chairman’s tiebreaker — but a non-binding resolution in support of the Second Amendment won Kane County Board approval Tuesday.

The 19-4 vote, with one member voting present, didn’t come without some jousting by board members. Drawn up as a general recitation of the constitution’s guarantee of freedom to keep and bear arms, the resolution weathered one attempt to table it for more discussion and one member’s effort to strengthen its opposition to restrictive gun legislation…(read full)

A third candidate will appear on the April 7 ballot for the position of Carpentersville village board president.

Local business owner Jim Krenz this week announced his intention to run against Village President Bill Sarto and Trustee Ed Ritter, both of whom have declared their candidacies for village president.

Krenz, who has lived in the village for about three years and owns Amy Plumbing, Heating and Cooling, says he will bring local government back on track.

The vacillation and behavior of a few board members, Krenz said, has tarnished the village’s reputation and driven residents, as well as businesses, away.

“The focus of our village board and president must be to manage our tax dollars and the delivery of public services with diligence, honesty and prudent oversight,” Krenz said in a prepared statement. “Our current village board, president, village manager and management staff seem locked into a world of utter confusion and indecisiveness.”

That trend needs to cease, said Krenz, who was unsuccessful last year in his primary bid for the Republican nomination in the 49th Illinois House District… (read full)

CARPENTERSVILLE — Village President Bill Sarto has found himself another opponent. This time it’s for his position on the village board.

Trustee Ed Ritter announced last week he is throwing his hat into the ring for Carpentersville’s upcoming April 7 consolidated election.

“I’m excited,” Ritter said. “I do want to do this, and I really want to serve the village. So I’m taking my shot.”

The trustee’s position is one of the three trustee seats up for grabs in the election. Trustees Kay Teeter and Linda Ramirez-Sliwinski also are reaching the end of their four-year terms, as is Sarto.

An English teacher at Westfield Community School in Algonquin, Ritter has lived in Carpentersville 14 years and served on the village board more than three. As a trustee, he has been a member of both the audit and finance commission and the planning and zoning commission, which he chaired prior to his elected term on the board.

Ritter said he’s mulled a run for village president for “quite a while,” then was convinced to give it a shot after a “particularly contentious” village board meeting about a month ago. The trustee pointed to the way those meetings are run by the current village president as one source of that contention.

“Bill Sarto and I have some very different ideas of what leadership is,” Ritter said. “I want to offer the village another style of leadership.” . . .(read full)

Kane gets $1.4 million clean-energy grant

The Kane County Forest Preserve District’s largest land acquisition in history will be paid for in part by its largest grant in history, officials have announced.

The district recently received a $1.46 million grant from Illinois Clean Energy Community Foundation to help offset the costs of the October purchase of the Brunner Family Forest Preserve in Dundee Township. The 741-acre parcel, much of which fronts the Fox River, came with a $40 million price tag, so officials began looking early on for grant dollars to contribute to the cost, according to KCFPD Executive Director Monica Meyers.

“When we knew we were going to purchase the property, we went to (the) Clean Energy (Community Foundation),” Meyers said. “Really, this grant is linked to the protection of the portion of the property that’s on the riverfront. No (county) development can take place on that portion of the property.”

The Brunner deal — combined with money already set aside in an improvement fund — will use up most of the dollars remaining from a $85 million referendum passed by Kane County residents in April 2007.

District officials had coveted the Brunner property for the better part of 20 years, officials have said. Bordered by Illinois 31 to the west, the Fox River to the East, Buffalo Park Forest Preserve in Algonquin to the north, and two other district holdings in Carpentersville to the south, the purchase means 1,000-plus acres of contiguous district-held open space.

Several rare birds and other animals inhabit the land, officials said. [Original Article]