McLEANSBORO, Ill.—The McLeansboro city council took action in a regularly-scheduled meeting last night to rescind the city zoning ordinance that was impacting those outside of city limits.
Passed last November to much opposition, the zoning ordinance has grown even MORE unpopular since that time, creating a backlash by nearly 400 out-of-city-limits families who stood up three weeks ago and voiced their opinions in a tense public hearing at the union hall in McLeansboro.
“They crossed that bridge, and found hundreds of people standing on the other side with pitchforks,” was the assessment of the situation by one gentleman last night who was a vocal opponent of the ordinance and pleased—to a degree—with the outcome.
The “to a degree” is on account of the ten points that were kind of codicils to the rescindment: in other words, the rescindment is on a ‘trial basis’ of sorts and will come up for review in the future. One of the ten was point number 3, which states that the decision can be “left open for progress,” or growth, of the city of McLeansboro. This appears to be a lofty goal; census stats show that there has been no growth, only a decline; unfortunately, government types believe that legislation is the key to “growth,” and erroneously believe that such a thing will somehow magically attract people to the area.
Unfortunately, the city doesn’t appear to be enforcing the zoning ordinance WITHIN the city limits, as pointed out in the April 21 article here, and the expanded coverage of it at the e-Edition/print version here. Further, the ordinance appears to have declared war on mobile homes, leaving little room for people to pull in NEW mobile homes, manufactured homes and even putting up duplexes or apartments.
Further, the amount of money the city’s already spent on this ridiculous ordinance is still up in the air, as we learned last night that the totals for the attorney consulted for the matter (this even after hiring a consultant at $75 an hour and other expenses), as well as a ‘zoning administrator’ hired for that specific purpose, have not yet been tallied up. We’re working on that, and will bring it to you in upcoming articles.
In the meantime…check your vendors for this issue, where you can learn more about the whole matter; deliveries will be made within the city of McLeansboro later this afternoon….or click the link to read the story at the e-Edition if you have an online membership. If you don’t, click this link to get started! There’s a lot you’re not being told, and we’re here to tell it. Be watching.
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