While NorthPoint and Sing decide which roads to close, McDonough’s gets protection

Village of Manhattan actively working with NorthPoint to appease Trustee McDonough’s demands

As you may remember, back on January 21, 2020, Trustee McDonough, during her outburst at the Village meeting, was screaming:

“I live a quarter-mile from Cherry Hill and I’m not ok with Joliet steam-rolling our town… at all. I live a quarter-mile; this affects ME more than half of you in this room. So don’t sit here and presume to know how we feel about it, because this is a quarter-mile from my house. I back up to Sweedler, and you know what, I will fully admit three years ago after the informational meeting, I walked into Kevin and Jaime’s offices and I said we’re closing Sweedler, because there is supposed to be an employee entrance with the Elwood development. That was my first thing after that meeting; we’re closing Sweedler. [crowd yelling] because I’m not going to have a thousand cars… I’m not going to have a thousand cars at shift-change driving behind MY house.”

video courtesy of Just Say No to NorthPoint

Apparently, Trustee McDonough gets her wish. Revealed via FOIA in a letter from Village Administrator Kevin Sing to NorthPoint’s Tom George on July 31, 2020…

Traffic from this development is not desired along Sweedler Road as it serves several residential areas. Therefore the Village requests that the Cherry Hill Road and Brown Road access point be relocated to Ridge Road and Hoff Road.

Download and read the letter here

Additionally, this FOIA reveals that the Village of Manhattan has been scheduling numerous face-to-face and WebEx meetings with NorthPoint in recent weeks…

• May 19, 2020 from 9:30 AM to 11:30 AM, Subject: Zoning language discussion
• June 29, 2020 from 9:30 AM to 11:30 AM, Subject: Development Meeting
• July 21, 2020 from 2:00 PM to 3:00 PM, Subject: NorthPoint Negotiations
• July 23, 2020 from 2:30 PM to 3:30 PM, Subject: Zoning Discussion
• August 10, 2020 from 2:00 PM to 3:30 PM, Subject: NorthPoint Development

Download the FOIA document here

Since when does Kevin Sing and Trustee McDonough get to decide everything for the rest of the Village? At what point will this be on the public agenda? How long will this secrecy last? That’s the real issue.