Yankee or Reb

This will REALLY test your American English!!! This is one of the most interesting things I have run across, enjoy it! Enter your % in the subject line before passing this on!!! This is fun, give it a try! Click on link below:
The Yankee or Dixie quiz

Lasik – Fail-safe?

There was an interesting program on NPR this week about problems with Lasik surgery – the highly-advertised cure for vision problems. The ads on the radio and TV will have you believe there is absolutely no risk and there are no failures.

About ten years ago I met a young woman in Atlanta who had had Lasik on both eyes. She had not only one failure, but failure in both eyes. At age 28 she was nearly blind, had given up her teaching career and was in pain every day. Real pain. Her parents and she told me that they believed the failure rate at that time was about 15%, but you never would have known it from the advertising.

Problems can be reported on the FDA website. Go to http://www.fda.gov/ You can read about Lasik Eye Surgery and get the pros and the cons.

Do you have a problem yourself (or know someone with a problem)? Look on the right side for “Report a Problem.” You’ll have to be rocket scientist to figure out where to go from there!

© 2008 GUS PHILPOTT

Garage Sale Season Is Here

How can you tell it's spring in Woodstock?

All the tacky (and illegal) garage sale signs are starting to spring up faster than May flowers. This sign -at Route 47 and Country Club Road - is more than three miles away from the site of the sale. (Click on the photo to enlarge it.)

What's the rule on garage sale signs in Woodstock? Try - at the end of the block where the sale is. Not blocks away; not miles away. One block!

And it's tough as nails to enforce. The existence of a sign on a telephone pole more than a block away should be prima facie evidence of a violation, but it seems not to be.

And don't even think about taking down an illegal sign from a tree or utility pole in the right-of-way that is off your own property. That would seem to be something that would help out the City; right? You know - save sending a $30.00/hour City worker (maybe two) in a City truck to take down the signs. But no! You risk getting charged with a crime for removing someone else's sign from someone else's property.

Tired of looking at signs a few weeks after a sale? Send an email to CodeEnforcement@woodstockil.gov and ask for the signs to be removed.

Planning to have a garage sale? Be sure to get your Garage Sale Kit at City Hall.

© 2008 GUS PHILPOTT

Hellooooo, Carpentersville...

Remember the woman Carpentersville who yelled at her neighbor's kids while they were shinnying up a little tree. Seems that she yelled at them to stop acting like monkeys, or something like that.

The neighbor took offense, whether any was intended or not, and had the woman charged with Disorder Conduct under a local ordinance of the Village of Carpentersville. Not the State law, mind you; "just" a Village ordinance with a $75.00 fine. In fact, when releasing information, the police department said she "was fined $75.00"; but that was not the case. The charge carried a $75.00 fine.

Today I called Carpentersville to find out when the woman's court date is. You'd think I was trying to get the combination to the lock on the front door at Fort Knox! Somebody ought to know; right? Like, maybe, the police department? Or the Village administrator's office? Or the Clerk of the Village, who also is connected with the local court of the Village?

Ha! It must be the one of the best-kept secrets in town. I left two messages for a police commander who, I was told, would be the contact person. And the Village Clerk forwarded my request to him. How long would it take him to call me back? Sixty seconds?

What's the big deal? The big deal is that the woman charged with Disorderly Conduct is a Village Trustee which, by the way, probably never should have made it into the paper. She didn't yell at the kids because she was Trustee; she allegedly yelled at them because they risked injury if they fell or because they might damage the slight tree they were climbing.

So much for "it takes a village to raise a kid"; right? Maybe she should have just kept her mouth shut, turned her back and, when she heard a thud and screams of pain, just turned up the TV volume a little. But, no; instead, she yelled at the kids. The problem? The kids are black. You'd better not call black kids "monkeys", even if they are acting like monkeys.

I grew up reading Little Black Sambo. Never for a minute did I think of race. It was a story about a little black boy who ate pancakes. Lots of pancakes. Now? You can hardly find a copy of that book. And, if you can, you'd better hide it.

The court date will be revealed. (Or maybe the Village was smart enough to drop the charges.) Court dates are public record. What a waste of everybody's time to have to file a FOIA Request for a court date! But, if they want to play the game that way, I'm in.

© 2008 GUS PHILPOTT

Vehicle Sales Events

Today I went by Bull Valley Ford to meet the owner and introduce myself. My intention, formed as I drove toward the dealership, was to gather information to write an article suggesting that the car dealerships in Woodstock ought to band together and approach the City Council for a special-use ordinance allowing them to conduct large sales events like the one held at the Farm & Fleet lot last Saturday.

The owner was out; the co-owner was out; the sales manager was working a deal, and I had no desire to interrupt him. Deals (sales) are what keep dealerships alive and in business.

While I was waiting, I chatted with a salesman and explained why I was there. I heard the same question that I heard last week-end. How can Gary Lang have a sales event at the Fairgrounds? The answer is that the Fairgrounds are located in McHenry County, not in Woodstock. Sure, surrounded by Woodstock, but the property is not in Woodstock. (How'd that happen???)

As luck would have it, I had to leave before the sales manager was available, but I'll stop back. Towns need car dealerships. Towns need successful car dealerships - ones that trade fairly and that stay in business. You'd think that a town/city would take an interest in the success of a car dealership, because they benefit - big time! - from the presence of car dealerships - in the form of large annual sales tax income.

One idea would be for the Woodstock City Council to allow each dealership to host an off-premises sales event each year. Maybe even two. We've got space around here - the Farm & Fleet lot, the empty lot on the southwest corner of U.S. 14 and Route 47. The empty lot next to the old Jewel (now Aldi's and Office Depot, in addition to the DMV and other businesses).

Why not utilize that space and allow the dealerships to generate sales and income, and income for Woodstock?

I did have to laugh while I was there, though. One of my pet peeves is cars parked in front of handicapped parking signs without handicap placards. Parked right in front of the front door, right in front of the handicap parking sign, was a car for sale. Let's hope someone passes along the word that that's a $250 parking space. That space is there for a handicapped driver.

© 2008 GUS PHILPOTT

Update on House Raffle

Is the Realtor who is raffling off her soon-to-be-foreclosed-upon spec house violating State raffle laws? An initial telephone call to the Secretary of State's office resulted in erroneous information that only lotteries and bingo games are controlled by the State of Illinois. In spite of direct and repeated questions about raffles, I was assured that Illinois had no state law related to raffles.

Later I learned from a very helpful person at the McHenry County Government Center that Illinois does, indeed, have a State law related to raffles. If you are interested in reading it, visit the Illinois government website at www.illinois.gov; click on Government on the left side; find Illinois Compiled Statutes under Services & Information and click on that. Scroll down to Chapter 230 Gaming, and then click on 230 ILCS 15/ for Raffles. It’s all there.

Raffles can be conducted by specific types of organizations (individuals are not "organizations"), including charities. It would be a great stretch of the imagination to see how an individual could raffle off a house to pay off construction costs. The real estate broker's website, www.advantage-realty.com, early on Friday morning displayed an ad for the raffle and included wording that the "net proceeds" would be distributed to a school. At mid-day the ad was gone from its website. At 5:10PM it’s back.

The website ad states that the raffle is for the benefit of Harrison School Parent Teacher Oganization. The seller hopes that the net proceeds will be sufficient to build a track at the school. From reading the ad, one would believe that the “net proceeds” from the sale of a $245,000 house (October 2007 appraisal value) would certainly pay for a track.

The state law defines "net proceeds" as “the gross receipts … less reasonable sums expended for prizes, local license fees and other reasonable operating expenses incurred as a result of operating a raffle.” It does not state that construction costs of a home or mortgage loans would be a “reasonable sum”.

Far down in the fine print is a very brief reference that the Grand Prize Winner gets the house "subject only to the claims, if any, relating to the state of title to the parcel". And how much are the "claims"? A bundle. That's why the house is almost in foreclosure.

At the McHenry County level, the request for a permit was turned down, because a charity was not involved. The raffle is being deemed held in McHenry, because the City of McHenry does not control raffles. However, McHenry does expect any raffle to comply with State laws.

Is this really a raffle for the benefit of a school? Or is it a raffle to bail out the owners and, if anything is left over, the school gets it. Creativity is certainly involved and, if it’s legal, it’s commendable.

But – is it legal?

© 2008 GUS PHILPOTT

House Raffle - Legal?

Did you read this week that $100 raffle ticket might get you a $230,000 house? Pretty good deal; right?

It might not be as good a deal as it seems, in spite of front-page promotion in Wednesday's Northwest Herald. It seems to me that no one questioned whether this raffle is legal under Illinois law.

Raffles are generally limited to promotions by only certain categories of sponsors. These categories might include
1. Business (a voluntary organization composed of individuals and businesses who have joined together to advance the commercial, financial, industrial and civil interests of a community);
2. Charitable;
3. Educational;
4. Fraternal; and
5. Labor.

But a raffle by an individual (or couple) trying to unload a house? I think I read of a lawful raffle in another state - possibly, Oregon. But is a raffle of a house legal in Illinois?

Now, maybe it is. If it is, I wish the couple well. And the real estate company which is promoting the raffle on its website.

On the real estate company's website it states "...Tammie (the owner) is hoping the net proceeds will be enough to build a track for the school; if not, the PTO will use the money in any area they see fit." The kicker here is "net proceeds." If she sells 3,000 tickets at $100, that's $300,000. After she pays off her debt on the house, which the newspaper article reported is near foreclosure, a local school might get $25,000.

Therein lies the problem. The purpose of the raffle is to bail out the owner of the property. Maybe the school gets some money, if there is anything left over. This is not how raffles are supposed to work. I can't find the state law on raffles, but I'll bet that it does more than "imply" that raffles should provide a public betterment. Raffles can be run only under certain rules designed to safeguard the public.

If it's not legal, then the sheriff's department needs to act as quickly as it did when it suspected a woman of running an illegal raffle to aid a non-profit organization in McHenry County.

© 2008 GUS PHILPOTT