The Huntley Farmside

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The Himtlev Farmside
Thursday, December 9,1999
A Press Publications newspaper a/ serving the Huntley community
Volume 29, Issue 49
Sliding into Sun City
Library Board President IVIike Fleck dances the Electric Slide at the grand-opening reception of the Prairie Lodge in Del Webb's Sun City. The reception was held Dec. 1.
Board OKs naming road after Dhamer
By Christopher Petersen
Press Publications
He may be gone, but the Village Board has made sure that former Village President James Dhamer is never for¬ gotten.
The board voted to pass a measure on Dec. 2 changing the name of west Freeman Road to Jim Dhamer Drive.
Dhamer, the village's leader for the last 14 years and ar¬ chitect of the its current boom, passed away two weeks ago at 69, leaving the village
with the difficult decision of how to manage without him.
Under Illinois law, Huntley's Village Board has 60 days to appoint a replacement for Dhamer to serve out the re¬ maining 17 months of his term. While the issue did come up for discussion, the board indicated that the deci¬ sion would not be an easy one, and that it was still too soon to consider replacing Dhamer.
Village   Trustee   Charlie
Becker was named president
pro tempore before Dhamer's
death, and so far he will con-
¦   DHAMER, Page 2
Fire Dist, to proceed with plans for station
By Christopher Petersen
Press Publications
Despite a lack of funding for the project, the Fire District is still advancing with plans to build a new fire station.
A new fire station at Reed and Haligus was approved by the Village Board recently, but a referendum to pay for the station and another station planned for the west side of Route 47 near Sun City was defeated earlier this year, leaving the two projects with¬ out funding.
The district decided to con¬ tinue with the Reed and Haligus station despite the lack of funding because it said it felt that a new station was necessary in order for the Fire District to keep up with new growth in the village.
Without tax money to sup¬ port the project, the Fire Dis¬ trict will apply for state and federal grants in order to pay for the new building.
A conventional bank loan is also a possibility at this stage.
The district's decision to proceed with the new station comes on the heels of the dis¬ trict's busiest month ever.
Village Board rules against voting districts
By Christopher Petersen
Press Publications
Despite concems about future elec¬ tions where one part of the village could become more dominant than the rest, the Village Board has decided not to establish voting districts in the vil¬ lage, although the possibility remains.
Village attorney Michael Coppedge presented the findings of a study of
what would be required for the village to set up such districts.
Coppedge told the board that dis¬ tricts would need to be placed on the ballot for the spring elections, and that would require over 300 signatures from villager residents by Jan. 3.
If it were placed on the ballot, resi¬ dents would determine the fate of the proposal.
The desire for voting districts arose from concerns that with the village's
growth, certain areas of the village could become more populous and therefore more powerful at the voting booth than others. For instance, Sun City or another future development could end up electing a majority of the board members, and would essentially have more power in the village than other areas.
At the present time, candidates are elected based on who receives the most votes.  Establishing voting dis¬
tricts would make the elections based on percentages. If the change were made, all seats on the Village Board would come up for reelection by spring 2001.
However, the board decided that doing so now would be too upsetting to the current structure. Trustees ex¬ pressed concerns that breaking the village down into precincts would cause trustees to work for individual, rather than collective, goals.