HAMILTON CO.—For as unpopular as zoning is in downstate municipalities, the councils of those towns and cities certainly enjoy making zoning ordinances effective.
Example: The City of McLeansboro.
As of November, a zoning ordinance was passed that, at the last minute, included language that brought in residences and businesses a mile and a half outside of the city limits, in a bizarre flower-petal design that appears as though it was constructed by placing a compass at certain points within the city and drawing concentric circles around a midpoint in McLeansboro.
Naturally, the city council has since that time sought to ensure that those NOT under city jurisdiction are in compliance…and naturally, those outside the city limits are fighting back, because their tax money doesn’t go to city coffers, and they are averse to the notion that a group that doesn’t represent them by election or appointment is attempting to tell them what to do with their property.
Zoning ordinances have been around literally since cities have been in existence (even in ancient times), and are utilized in an effort for cities to plan use and functionality of development in city growth. Zoning ordinances are used to direct buildings and 
structures, businesses, and land use. They can be highly specific, especially where there might be some historical or tourism value to a municipality, or can be broad and mostly used to drum up needed revenue in the forms of permits and fees for construction of new or renovation of existing properties.
However, their strict enforcement, and oftentimes merely their wording, is best suited in areas where there’s rapid growth or expansion and uniformity and appearance is crucial…and they are often abused by overbearing city councils in order to force demolition of run-down properties by owners who can’t afford either fix-up OR tear-down. Further, the basic idea behind zoning is for municipalities that might overlap, with the best example being Chicago or St. Louis: Any “city limit” beyond the ‘major’ city (such as Brentwood in the St. Louis area, or Oak Lawn in the Chicago area) often overlaps with other “city limits,” so zoning positively impacts those overlaps by restricting/regulating certain types of development so that uniformity exists between one city limit to the next.
And while that works in major metropolitan areas, rarely does it ever work in isolated little towns in a place like rural downstate Illinois, where the populations often don’t max out at 3,000, and just outside the existing city limits are acres upon acres of cornfields and grazing cows.
This is exactly why the residents outside the municipal boundaries of McLeansboro have staged vocal protestations against what the city has attempted to force many of them to do.
And that was the reason at least 200 of those residents filled the Laborer’s Local 1197 Union Hall in McLeansboro on the evening of Monday, April 21, 2014, in order to merely express their opinions to the “zoning board,” yet another unit of government that those in the affected area are now under the authority of.
The board, appointed by the city council only and placed into authority October 1, 2013 without input from those they would be exercising authority over (residents one and a half miles outside city limits in the strange floral layout of the new ‘zoning’ area) heard from nearly 30 speakers on that evening, each of them expressing their dismay at the obvious: taxation without representation, and an overbearing, overzealous government intent on stepping across the boundaries already in place, and try to legislate those who are not subject to such legislation.
One point brought out by Harry Sanders, owner of Sanders Rentals, is that the city seems to have an undeclared “war on mobile homes,” as well as the people who rent them.
Members of the city’s zoning board listen, but not too intently, as nearly 30 speakers took their turn at the podium on the evening of Monday, April 21 at the Union Hall in McLeansboro. Mayor Dick Dietz, in forefront at the left of the photo, is seated next to ‘zoning administrator’ Fred Vallowe, who was a last-minute appointee last fall (as was the entire board) and included on it the only realtor in town, Connie Warner, whose opinions of properties may or may not be in conflict with her job.
“I was told that the big coal mining coming into the county would bring those coal miners in to rent,” Sanders said. “I got a lot of to-rent places and I don’t have a coal miner in a one of em. They drive in and they drive out,” he said, indicating that miners who work at Hamilton County’s White Oak Mines come from neighboring cities where coal mining has been going on for decades and hire mostly experienced miners…a typical practice of a company that promises jobs, then doesn’t deliver.
Sanders was one of the last speakers of a list that included Sarah Mead, Sharon and Glen York, Frank Johnson, Karen Rapp, John Metcalf, John Naas, Charles Cox, Rueben Flanigan, Steve Webb, Jerome Webb, Adam Webb, Dennis McGill, Joe Glasper, David Pitts, Ron Hille, John Travis, Larry McEwan, Glen Miller, Carolyn Hemrich, Janelle Brown, Shane McNeil, Kathy Little, Josh Williams and others. Almost to a person, they pointed out that the city is overreaching by legislating what those in the county should be doing with their property, expressing that this will have a negative impact on the county’s most important industry—farming/agriculture—and the city, and county, can ill afford that.
Zoning will affect livestock by forcing landowners to “set back” their fencing, thus restricting grazing area for cattle; will affect other farming opportunities such as where baled hay will be ‘allowed’ to be placed, and how farm implements will be ‘allowed’ to be stored (or not, if the farmer should choose not to keep his implements under cover of a barn or structure). Overall, it’s set to cause hardship for those who contribute to the economy, and barely impact those who might not have such a level of contribution. An example of such would be those within city limits who won’t bother getting permits to put up structures such as a carport or fence, will be fined, then won’t pay the fine, and thus put the city on the hook for more financial duress.
More financial burden has been brought to the city in the form of actually paying a “consultant” to draw up this nightmare ordinance. Pursuant to a FOIA Disclosure submitted to the city, records show that the consultant, Frank X. Heiligenstein, of Illinois Codification in St. Clair County, was hired last October at the rate of $75 an hour, being paid ten cents per page plus costs for binders for pages of draft copies and review material, $13 per page for preparing and printing pages for the City Code Books, and fifty cents per mile to travel to and from the Metro-East St. Louis area to rural McLeansboro.
Given that the city can’t even bring its downtown structures up to code, the fact that Heiligenstein is spending their money preparing an ordinance that will impact people outside city limits is a slap in the face to all who reside in it.
Added to the payroll was not only the zoning board, but also Frank Vallowe, who is the newly-appointed Planning/Zoning Administrator…and is also the FOIA Officer.
The decision on whether to remove the zoning area from the mile and a half outside city limits was set to occur a day after deadline of this issue: May 13. County residents affected by this matter remain in hopes that if the city decides to continue it, potential litigation to lift the ordinance imposed upon them might convince the city council of McLeansboro to think otherwise.
