The Daily Herald pointed out a problem when it comes to local governing bodies wanting to use alternative energy, such as wind power, to provide electricity. Local and State laws prevent being able to use the turbines that can provide enough electricity to power everything in schools. District 300 in Illinois estimates it could save $2.75 million in electric costs per year. The savings would pay off in ten years the estimated $30 million cost of erecting an array of six turbines the school district would need to provide power to all it’s schools.

Current law allows for the school to deduct the savings from its electric bill. But any extra electricity created that could be put back into the grid; Commonwealth Edison doesn’t have to give a one-to-one credit for. Even a law being considered (HB6660) doesn’t directly address the issue. It would allow Commonwealth Edison to negotiate contracts that set the price, terms and conditions (according to the paper) http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=229318 . The proposed law also says an electricity provider shall provide net metering to eligible customers until the load of its net metering customers equals 1% of the total peak demand supplied by that electricity  provider during the previous year. Electricity providers are authorized to offer net metering beyond the 1% level if they so choose. The number of new eligible customers with generators that have a nameplate rating of 40 kilowatts and below will be limited to 200 total new billing accounts for the utilities (Ameren Companies, ComEd, and MidAmerican) for the period of April 1, 2008 through March 31, 2009.

As I see it, once Con Ed reaches the lowly figure of 1%, you don’t need to apply because they don’t have to add any more. It’s going to be a big race to see who can get to first base the quickest. The law needs to read that net metering is 1:1 to all, be it residential or business. The cost of transmission needs to be considered, but per kwh has to be 1:1. This would encourage producing electricity using wind or solar at any location, be it a school or a townhome. I see this as pretty much being a no brainer. But I’m sure Con Ed is going to come out full force against it. So be prepared for a tough fight at the state and local government level. While HB6660 is a start, there is much that needs to be changed within it. I believe many of us see the benefits; we just need to make sure all the Representatives and Senators in Springfield are aware, too.

Island Lake Trustee Rich Garling, whose village is in both Lake and McHenry counties, urged the formation of a two county municipal and township purchasing organization to make large scale purchases that will lower the costs of local government and save money for taxpayers.

He suggested starting with the purchase of salt for de-icing frozen streets where the individual price for a local government has soared to $145 a ton, some three to four times the cost of last year.

Garling said the state has purchased massive amounts of salt in the past, the salt then was acquired through the state by the municipalities at a price lower than individual communities could buy the product. But he said there appears to be no help from the state this year. He suggested that products other than salt also could be purchased through this two county purchasing plan.

The Island Lake trustee said an overall purchasing organization could be formed or perhaps purchasing could be added to the responsibilities of the Lake County Municipal League or the Northwest Municipal Conference.

Garling had asked for an emergency meeting of Island Lake trustees that was held August 21 to discuss what the village was going to do to provide safe streets during the coming winter.  The unanimous trustee response was to approve spending $165,000 for salt. This is more than three times what was allocated by the village for the 2007-2008 winter season.

Transportation is one of the major short and long term problems of this region. The success or failure of the solutions will reflect on the quality of our education, health care, taxes, car maintenance, jobs and even in many cases the happiness of our lifestyle including family life. Transportation efficiency also figures into how much you pay for a product. I try always to look at the broad picture and ramifications of proposed solutions. Most answers are far more complicated than what our political leaders tell us during their campaigns for office.

Here are fun questions:

1.      Name six of the ten busiest airports in the world in 2007 by the number of passengers in 2007. You should name the top three in order.

a. What are the three largest airfreight airports?

2.      How many miles are there of rail track in the United States? Is there present freight car congestion?

3.       If one or more of the key locks break on the waterway freight system that serves Wabash, Ohio, Illinois and Mississippi rivers, how many more trucks can we expect on the roads to carry this normal waterway freight? Please note that the locks on these rivers already have outlived their expected life. I believe it is necessary in working with other waterway states to get the locks replaced and enlarged before they break. Building modern and larger locks is essential.

Click here for the answers

Rich Garling Friday urged the management of Canadian National Railroad to put their plans for the acquisition of the Elgin, Joliet & Eastern Railroad on a side track.

Garling, Democratic candidate for state representative in the 52^nd District, said the CN management will benefit by meeting with the public rather than demanding at the speed of an express train that the acquisition be approved quickly by the Surface Transportation Board. The railroad management recently filed a lawsuit asking the STB for an open track green light decision by the end of this year.

The Democratic candidate noted that CN wants to add at least 15 miles of fast moving freight trains a day on the EJ&E tracks in towns surprised by the CN plans and not prepared to deal with this huge volume of perhaps thousands of daily freight cars rumbling through their towns.

Garling suggested a two tier plan to examine the issues and concerns of residents.  These issues include blocking streets with the long trains, environmental and noise concerns along with considering the ability of homes and buildings to withstand the shaking that may come from the moving freight.

He asked CN to meet with elected community officials, labor, transportation experts and the Illinois Chamber of Commerce to determine if satisfactory compromises and arrangements can be made.  “This kind of a meeting makes sense,” said the candidate known in his present and past elected positions for working through difficult problems.

Secondly, he suggested that these meetings initiate a long range study of economic and environmentally sound freight and passenger train transportation in the Chicago region that would accommodate the least amount of disruption to the lives of residents.

Garling noted that rail transportation in the Chicago area is very congested.  There are 140,000 miles of track in the United States with 40 percent of all the freight traffic in the country going through the Chicago region.

He concluded that “It is important to the Chicago area to bring our railroad system into the 21^st century.”

Garling is a trustee in Island Lake.  The community is located in Lake and McHenry counties.  Garling is chair of the village economic development committee and formerly headed its police and safety committee.  He is known as a candidate long interested in protecting the environment and as a knowledgeable hard worker who understands the broad implication of issues.

While in Ohio recently I stopped at a roadside rest area and noticed in the distance four windmills churning away. There was a plaque at the rest stop that explained those four windmills were producing enough electricity to support a small town of 1000 nearby.

I just located a story on the internet: Harvest Wind farm

in which 15,000 homes were getting thier electricity from 32 windmills located in Harvest Wind Farm near Elkton, MI. It costs $90 million to erect this array of windmills and each windmill provides electricity and $3,000 to the farmer who owns the land.

I will support these types of programs for Illinois because we need to get away from using a fuel that not only drains our pocket books but also pollutes our air and makes us sick. The alternatives are available, we just need to institute them.

Test your knowledge. Tell your friends about this contest and see how you do.

Question One: What is the smallest snake in the world? What is its size and where does it live?

Question Two: In order, what are the five largest cities in Illinois by population? What has the third largest one been known for in the industrial world until about 20 years ago?

Question Three: According to the constitution, the vice president of the United States is the chief officer or person who runs the meetings of the Senate. When the vice president is being impeached by the Senate, who runs the impeachment hearing?

Answers are on our web site.

http://www.garling4rep.com/view.php?idnum=13&category=news

Click here to watch Rich on youtube.

I wanted to say thank you to all who came to our fund raiser last week. Because of you we can continue to deliver our message to change state government so it works for all of us. Over 40 people attended and we still have donations coming in on a daily basis from many supporters who could not make it.

Much remains to be done as we steadily work towards November. Your help is needed to canvass neighborhoods, put up yard signs, make phone calls, host a coffee or two and to develop other means in which to deliver our message. So give us a call, e-mail us, sign up using the form on this web site, or help by donating so we can continue to work towards the type of government we all believe in.

We took a trip to Philadelphia this last weekend. Visited Gettysburg, Lancaster, and Constitution Hall and saw where the Declaration of Independence was signed. You could imagine how heady a moment that must have been to know that you were putting your life and everything you had worked for on the line by signing that document. These were very brave men who were willing to do what was right in spite of the possible adversity they may face. They were honestly living the change they wished to see at that moment. While I will not compare myself to those great people, I do believe, as they did, that we all should live the change we wish to see in the world. Otherwise it is nothing but mere talk. I firmly believe in doing what I can to keep our air, water and land clean. As such I recycle all that I can, I use very little water since we’re dependent on well water, and I drive a hybrid car. We drove that car to Philadelphia and back. We averaged 41 mpg. If we had used my girlfriend’s car we would have gotten around 28 mpg on the highway. While locally I average 46 mpg, we only took a hit of 5 mpg using the hybrid. The State, the nation, needs to encourage more usage of these types of vehicles and each level of government needs to use these for their non-emergency vehicles. The money we could save because we cut back on the amount of gas being consumed would be an excellent start to becoming oil free and saving this planet. The money saved could be used to help with funding education, our infrastructure and other important services we expect from our government. 

We’re ready to hold our first fund raising reception this Tuesday from 5-7:30 PM at Docks Bar & Grill in Wauconda. Check out the main web site for specific information.

I’m honored that my first fund raiser is being hosted by former US Senator Adlai Stevenson III, former LC Clerk Linda Hess, Round Lake Mayor and district 26 state senate candidate Bill Gentes, State Senator Terry Link, State Representatives Kathy Ryg and Karen May, McHenry County Democratic Party Chair Kathy Bergan Schmidt and State Central Committee Woman & EDDI Chair Nancy Shepherdson. I hope many of you can join me. I’m really excited about the opportunity to represent the people of the 52nd house district.

I have read that all politics is local–I know that less than good government in Springfield hurts us all. Just like a bad road or a broken lock on the Illinois river, in the form of higher prices, less efficiency, more stress…and higher taxes to fix something when a little simple maintenance could have prevented the problem and saved tax dollars.

I want to help clear the air in Springfield so that we can all work together. I want to provide more jobs in Illinois…to build our infrastructure because when it’s working properly there are jobs…and money for education, for social services, health care and state parks. All the things that state government is supposed to provide.

Smart economic development is essential to our well being. Anytime a business leaves our state, or does not expand here, everyone should consider it a personal failure. We must be alert to opportunity and to potential failure in the business arena.

The people of Illinois own the state government. Therefore I want to help create the atmosphere where people receive fair, courteous, fast and conveniently located service. I will encourage that we bring in business consulting companies to assure us that all of the state services, from police to the state fair, to economic development, are being run cost effectively. This could be a new way to lower taxes.

I can you tell this…I will listen to you, I will study the issues and I will work hard to become the kind of elected official you can respect.