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Uncovering the Township's Hidden Agenda to Sell Open Space
The Brief Explanation
Homer Township’s elected officials have taken steps, since October of last year, to obscure from the public their intentions and actions to sell over 190 acres of land that is in the Homer Township Open Space Program. The lands consist of three large parcels, each parcel is 50 acres or larger, as well as portions of one of those parcels of land to be sold to seven adjacent property owners. With plenty of opportunities and options over the past year to let the taxpayers, their constituency, in on their plans they instead never let the Homer Township residents know their plans. Now they have left one month for us, the residents of Homer to discover what is being done with no real recourse for residents to object. This one month period is also a very narrow window of time for any potential buyers to find out the land is for sale and bid on it. Many believe they have already had a potential buyer or buyers in mind as they stated they will sell it to the bidder of their choosing, not the highest bidder.
You can see a copy of the Resolution Authorizing the Sale of Open Space on our "Print & Docs" page.
We are unclear if what they have done rises to the level of a violation of the Open Meetings Act in the purest legal sense but it certainly is a lack of transparency and shows a lack of ethics as well as a violation of the trust voters give to elected officials to be straightforward and honest.
The Township’s actions will cause irreparable harm to the Homer Township Open Space Program cannibalizing it from over 200 acres of land down to once 50 acre parcel from the original purchases, of which half they want to develop into an event center with parking for 1,000-1,500 cars. The Open Space Program was created by voter referendum and funded by voters approving a bond for $8 million dollars to purchase these lands. The creation of a Township Open Space Program, how lands are acquired and what the land can be used for is all laid out in the Illinois State Statute.
The Illinois State Statute for Township Open Space Programs
(When reading this statute please realize that making an Open Space “Plan” is a required preliminary process. Once lands are purchase they are in the Open Space “Program”. Releasing lands from the “Plan” shows that they are no longer being considered for purchase and does not pertain to the sale of lands once they are in the “Program”.) This clarification is needed as the Clerk Vicki Bozen read a statement from the “Plan” section of the statute to justify the sale of the land which does not apply to lands in the “Program”. All Open Space Lands in Homer Township are in the Homer Township Open Space “Program”.
You can listen to the Clerk read the wrong section of the statute to justify the sale at the 8:33 mark here:
Video of Homer Township Board Meeting 9/12/22,
Board passes resolution to sell Open Space Lands
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFec_rjrzOQ
SCROLL DOWN FOR A MORE LENGTHY DETAILED EXPLANATION
Please Note
This website contains a lot of information about the Homer Township Open Space Program. This section "Stop the Sale!" was created to bring residents and other’s who are interested in this issue up to speed as to the current situation in September - November of 2022, as it relates to the pending sale of Open Space Lands. Please explore the website further for more on the history of the properties, the previous attempt by Township officials to develop a subdivision on Open Space that was stopped by resident’s objections to it and other details about Homer Township’s Open Space Program.
Table of Contents to the full story
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History of the Open Space Program
A very brief history of the Homer Township Open Space Program
Setting a Bad Precedent - Section 1
Township Officials negotiating the sale and price of 7 parcels of land to 7 separate property owners who are adjacent to The Paul Farm.
The 1 year & 190 acre Township Deception - Section 2
Township Officials making three parcels of land, 180 acres, available for sale. The Purdy Farm, The Paul Farm & The Welter Farm.
- LAND USE & ZONING
- THE TOWNSHIP'S HIDDEN INTENTIONS
Township obscures its intentions from the public to sell three farms
Homer Township Board Meeting/Resolution to Sell Open Space
Village of Homer Glen Board Meeting
The Trantina Farm, comments at Village’s Board Meeting
Supervisor Balich speaks at the Village’s Board Meeting
- DEVELOPMENT OF THE LAND
- PUBLIC SHOULD ATTEND the Upcoming October 17th Township Board Meeting, 7pm,
Opening the Bids and choosing a Buyer
- NO COMMITTEES = NO PUBLIC ACCESS & NO RECORDS
- MONEY FROM THE SALE
- A LACK OF TRANSPARENCY = BAD GOVERNMENT
We saveed it from their Development, Now they want to Sell it! Sour Grapes? - Section 3
The Welter Farm
History of the Open Space Program
How we created an Open Space Program and preserved over 200 acres of land in Homer Township
The Homer Township Open Space Program was started over 20 years ago. Its creation followed the State Statute which included voter approval via referendum. In a separate referendum, Homer Township voters approved an $8 million bond to purchase land for Open Space. That bond has been paid off over time by Homer Township taxpayers. The bond for the land was stated to be for the purchase of land for the Open Space Program. Over 200 acres of land were purchased as four separate parcels, known as the Purdy, Paul, Welter and Trantina Farms. Each parcel is a minimum of 50 acres per state statute.
Setting a Bad Precedent - Section 1
Township Officials negotiating the sale and price of 7 parcels of land to several separate property
On Monday, 9/12/22 the Township voted to sell a portion of Open Space Property, the Paul Farm, for a price negotiated by the Township Supervisor Steve Balich, Carmen Maurella, who is both the Township Assessor as well as the Village of Homer Glen’s Village Manager, Clerk Vicki Bozen and seven separate property owners whose properties back up to the Paul Farm. Some of the property owners have encroached onto the Open Space Property by building sheds or other structures that cross the property line. The land is a 60 ft. deep strip along the back of each of those seven properties. While some may think this is a relatively small piece of land in total this is the taxpayer’s land and selling any portion of it sets a precedent for other portions of Open Space land to be sold off in the future whenever someone accidently or intentionally builds past their property line onto Open Space.
This is not the same situation as an individual property owner giving a neighbor a break and rectifying it with an agreement to sell off part of the property to a neighbor say if they built a fence or shed a little over the property line. Because the property is owned by a governmental body selling to anyone who crosses the property line sets a precedent to then have to sell for anyone else who build crosses the property line on any of the Open Space Parcels. It is an unfortunate situation for those land owners but a precedent should not be set.
With Forest Preserve Districts when people build or put things over the property line onto Forest Preserve properties the Forest Preserve requires their removal rather than the sale of the public property. The same should happen in this case.
Additionally, even if the Township has the right to sell Open Space Land, which we are not sure that they actually do, selling in this manner is possibly a violation of state statute that usually requires public notice and competitive bidding.
Prior to the public comments section of the meeting where the Township took this action, Homer Township Supervisor Steve Balich, showing a complete disregard for what any member of the public had to add to inform their decision said, “I don’t care what anyone says here. That’s why I want to make it clear I am not going to talk about this issue going forward…I don’t care if you like it or you don’t like it if the board votes yes, we’re going to do it.” This sounds like a dictator, not a voice of the people. You can watch that portion of the meeting at the 5:54 minute mark at this link:
Video of Homer Township Board Meeting 9/12/22,
Board passes resolution to sell Open Space Lands
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFec_rjrzOQ
The Township Board and Supervisor voted to approve the sale of portions of the Paul Farm to the seven adjacent property owners at their agreed upon price.
The 1 year & 190 acre Township Deception - Section 2
Township Officials making three parcels of land, 190 acres, available for sale.
The 190 acres consists of three farms, The Purdy Farm, The Paul Farm & The Welter Farm.
LAND USE & ZONING
What determines how Open Space lands can be used is important to understanding why Township officials have hidden their intentions to sell Open Space lands from the taxpayers. The origin of their attempts to mislead the public go back to almost a year ago when they stated they wanted to sell “unused” lands then by the time they had a special meeting the resolution they passed was a general ability to sell any land. Certainly, Open Space is not unused land.
(See the “TIMELINE Stop the Sale!” under October of last year, 2021 for an explanation.)
The use of the Open Space lands is governed by the state statute the same way the use of Forest Preserve lands are. The zoning category does not dictate the use of the land. In the same way a piece of land may be zoned for a subdivision and then purchased by a Forest Preserve District they cannot then develop a subdivision because the state statute for Forest Preserves does not allow lands once purchased for the Forest Preserve to be developed into subdivisions. It is the same situation with Open Space Programs.
How Open Space land could be used became a point of contention when the current Township Supervisor and Board decided they wanted to develop the Open Space parcel known as the Welter Farm into a subdivision. Here is an article about that:
The land cannot be developed in such a way no matter its zoning because of the state statute. Once residents became aware of the township’s plans for the Welter Farm they made it clear that they were opposed to the development of Open Space land and public pressure stopped that project.
Supervisor Balich admitted at a Village Board meeting (see the following section, TOWNSHIP OBSCURES ITS INTENTIONS…) that because residents discovered the plans and stopped the project he did not want them to know about the plans he is making for other Open Space properties.
Supervisor Balich and Clerk Bozen continue to get stuck on this zoning point. It’s as if they think if they keep repeating what the property is zoned people will just believe that it somehow matters and they can get away with not complying with the state statute for Open Space. Clerk Bozen told resident Gail Snyder on the phone, that “there is no Open Space” then said all the zoning categories of three properties to try to prove her point. It is ridiculous at this point that they keep doing this. You can listen to Supervisor Balich do the same thing to confuse the public to try to justify their actions at the 9 minute mark here:
Video of Homer Township Board Meeting 9/12/22,
Board passes resolution to sell Open Space Lands
The Township's Hidden Intentions
Township obscures its intentions from the public to sell three farms
Agenda: https://homertownship.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/September.12-2022-Agenda_15351209092022.pdf
The meeting is recorded and can be watched at this link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFec_rjrzOQ
Homer Township Board Meeting/Resolution to Sell Open Space
(You can see a copy of the Resolution Authorizing the Sale of Open Space on our "Print & Docs" page.) On Monday 9/12/22 the Homer Township Board voted to allow the sale of three large Open Space Properties each being 50 acres or larger. (They also voted to sell a portion of the Paul farm to adjacent land owners, which is discussed previously in Section 1.)
The three Open Space Properties are the Purdy Farm, Paul Farm and Welter Farm. Combined they are 190 acres of land. These are your lands residents! Taxpayers voted to purchase these lands. These lands have been paid-off already by you! Selling them is wrong, especially with no input from you and without you even being able to know they were going to sell them! And taxpayers ARE NOT getting back any of the money the paid. It will be used to fund politicians pet projects (also decided without public input).
Currently only the Purdy Farm and Paul Farm have been put up for Bid/Sale. We do not know what will happen with the Welter Farm. (See the section below on the Welter Farm.)
Agenda Item: “6 a. Motion to approve Resolution No. HT2022-0912-RES1 authorizing the sale of real property.” From this agenda item there is no way the public would know that the intent of the resolution was to put the Open Space Farms up for sale. Supervisor Balich and Clerk, Vicki Bozen spoke before the public comments period about the sale of some small portion of the Paul Farm to adjacent land owners but did not mention the sale of the whole acreages of the farms. They did not talk about it before the public comments so that the public could comment on selling the farms. At the 5:55 minute mark, Supervisor Balich said, “I don’t care what anyone says here.” (meaning the public during public comments), “That’s why I want to make it clear, because I’m not going to talk about this issue going forward but I want everyone to know that when you speak it’s not going to happen, if this board votes for it, it will happen.” Supervisor Balich continued, “I don’t care if you like it or you don’t like it. If the board votes yes, we’re going to do it.” You can watch this section of the meeting here at the 5:55 mark:
Video of Homer Township Board Meeting 9/12/22,
Board passes resolution to sell Open Space Lands
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFec_rjrzOQ
Resident Gail Snyder spoke after the Supervisor and Clerk during the public comment period and had no indication from the agenda or what they said previously that they intended to put the Open Space farms up for sale or she would have commented on that specifically. Only when the discussion of the resolution came up on the agenda, at the 20:20 minute mark on the video, did they say they would be selling the Purdy Farm and Paul Farm, approximately 140 acres of land. Later when receiving a copy of the resolution via the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Gail Snyder discovered they resolution also included the Welter Farm, the farm they originally wanted to develop into a subdivision that residents objected to. The Supervisor and Trustees never mentioned the Welter Farm at any time during the meeting. The three farms that they authorized the sale of in their resolution total over 180 acres of land.
Village of Homer Glen's Board Meeting
Much revealed when Supervisor Balich spoke at the Village Meeting
The Township deliberately has kept from the public the fact that they were going to put the farms up for sale by not allowing anyone to know what they intended to do. Two days after the township meeting resident Gail Snyder attended the Village of Homer Glen’s Board Meeting, (they are a separate governmental body from Homer Township.) Snyder appealed to them to speak with the Township to not sell the Open Space Farms as the Village and Township share a constituency. At the time of their meeting Snyder only knew of two Farms for sale and later discovered it was three farms.
Trantina Farm
Comments at Village Board Meeting
At the public comments section of a Homer Glen Village Board meeting resident Gail Snyder said, that the development plans for (an Event Center on) the Trantina Farm, another Open Space Program Farm, have occurred in secret and behind closed doors and that their Village Manager, Carmen Maurella was in on those meetings. Snyder encouraged the Mayor and Village Board to insist that these planning meetings about the Trantina Farm occur in a way that the public can listen to what is going on and make comments before the plans are so far along that they are unchangeable.
Snyder raised the issue that the Township did not want to take care of their park lands that they have been taking care of for decades and gave them to the Village which the Village board accepted ownership of. “Now you have the burden of paying to maintain those parks. Will the same thing occur with the Trantina Farm Event Center?”, asked Snyder. Continuing, Snyder asked, “Will the ownership and/or operation of the Trantina Farm once developed and annexed into the Village then be given over to the Village? Would you accept the ownership of the Trantina Farm and how would you pay to maintain such an event center that will have parking for 1,000-1,500 vehicles?”
Note: The Township did vote on Monday 9/12/2022 to petition the Village of Homer Glen to annex the Trantina Farm into the Village of Homer Glen. The Village will at some point in the future vote on if they will allow the annexation of The Trantina Farm into the Village of Homer Glen.
Supervisor Balich speaks at the Village’s Board Meeting
Township Supervisor Steve Balich was also at the Village meeting and spoke during public comment.
Supervisor Balich said, “We don’t have a committee, so we don’t have any meetings. I’m meeting with people and sometimes I ask, Carmen Mirella, (Township Assessor and also Homer Glen’s Village Manager) to come with me, same thing as Brent Porfilio (Township Highway Commissioner) and Vicki Bozen (Township Clerk).” “We don’t have a committee for that because I don’t want everything leaked like it happened before.” He states, “I don’t want to see that now, so I’m holding back.” Supervisor Balich added that the public will have to wait until October “to find out about it and in November we are having a workshop”, conveniently scheduled after the election.
You can watch Supervisor Balich here, he speaks at the 14:54 mark:
Development of the Land
The two Open Space properties that would be sold will likely be developed in the future by the new owners with the most likely use eventually being dense residential or warehouses once sewer and water lines are available. All 140 acres of land are on the Lockport side of the boundary agreement Lockport has with Homer Glen. In order for those properties to eventually be developed with sewer and water lines the new owner will likely annex the properties into the City of Lockport. Lockport will then have the jurisdictional authority of planning and zoning those properties. Currently Lockport says that their sewer system is a maximum capacity and until multi-million dollar improvements are made they will not extend sewer and water to The Purdy and Paul Farms. Eventually the sewer lines will be available and whomever owns the land at that time will want to develop and will annex the land into Lockport to get the sewer and water lines. At that point the township will not have any authority over how the land is developed. Comments made by the township administration at the meeting that they would have control over what is developed on those properties are only true up until the land is annexed into Lockport. If we keep the land as Open Space we do not have to worry about it being developed even if sewer and water lines become available.
Bids for Sale will be opened at Next Board Meeting!
PUBLIC SHOULD ATTEND
COME TO THE NEXT TOWNSHIP BOARD MEETING, This will most likely be the public’s only chance to have any say at all in the sale of the Open Space properties. Bring others and before the meeting sign up to speak during the public comment section. Each person has 3 minutes to speak. Let them hear from the public!
The deadline for bids and accepting a bid for the sale of Open Space Lands is October 17th, the same day as their board meeting. No opportunity for public comment or discourse will occur other than three minutes per person at the start of the meeting.
At this meeting the Township Officials will open the bids they get and will likely take-action to pick who they will sell the land to. They said at their meeting they can pick whomever they want. They have not required that it go to the highest bidder. They may go into executive session at some point, it is unclear exactly how the process will go. If that is the case we may have to wait until they come out of executive session to learn more about who they will sell the properties to. They will likely try to keep as much information as possible secreted away in executive session if they can but the state statute may make the whole process and their deliberations public.
The workshop that Supervisor Balich says is happening in November will likely occur after November 8th. Supervisor Balich has two elected positions, Township Supervisor and Will County Board Member. He is on the ballot for Will County Board District 4 in November.
Next Township Board Meeting
Monday, October 17, 2022
Time: 7 p.m.
at the
Homer Township Administrative Office
(entrance on West side of building)
Address: 14350 W. 151st Street
Homer Glen, IL 60491
No Committees = No Public Access & No Records
Supervisor Balich and other elected township officials do not want residents to find out what they are doing with the Trantina Farm or that they are selling the Purdy and Paul Farms and possibly the Welter Farm because residents might get upset again and stop it from happening. Supervisor Balich publicly states he won’t form a committee and he has all meetings about it without the public being able to attend. Not forming official committees means that no minutes are kept of his private meetings, no public notification is made and he holds his meetings with his select group that are not trustees of the township.
A Lack of Transparency = Bad Government
"The liberties of a people never were nor ever will be, secure, when the transactions of their rulers are concealed from them." -Patrick Henry
Whenever and wherever the decision to sell off whole farms of Homer Township Open Space was discussed it was not public. No committee meetings, hearings or task forces where this decision to sell these lands exist so it was not open to the residents of Homer Township. The decision was made in private meetings and only brought to the public when the Trustees voted to sell the properties.
The agenda for the meeting where they took this action on Monday, Sept. 12th, obscured the specifics of their plans for these three large Open Space farms so as to not let residents know what they were really about to do. Nobody in the public knew what was about to happen and it was planned that way as you can see by comments Supervisor Balich made a couple days later at a Village of Homer Glen meeting. Such attempts by elected officials to hide what they are doing from the public deliberately so the public cannot raise objection is not ethical and makes for bad government.
The time from when Supervisor Balich and the Township Trustees made the public aware of the plans to the time they could accept a bid was strategically planned to make it as difficult as possible for the residents of Homer Glen to understand what is going on, ask questions or raise objection to the sale of lands voted on by taxpayers to be preserved as Open Space and
taxpayers ARE NOT getting back any of the money they paid. It will be used to fund politicians
pet projects (also decided without public input).
We saved it from their Development, Now they want to sell it
The Welter Farm
The Resolution passed by the Township on 9/12/22 included the ability to sell the Purdy, Paul and Welter Farms. As of this time only the Purdy and Paul farms have been put up for “Bid”/Sale. The opportunity to sell these farms ends either October 21st or 22nd, according to the resolution they passed last year in October. So, we are not sure what will happen with The Welter Farm. We do know that they would like to be able to sell The Welter Farm because they included it. It is possible that they could pass other resolutions in the future giving them the authority to sell The Welter Farm.
When Gail Snyder spoke with Clerk Vicki Bozen on the phone, Clerk Bozen said that the Welter Farm was not 50 acres and that it was only 40 acres. Open Space Lands have to be a minimum of 50 acres. Clerk Bozen said so that is why they included it in the sale, ‘that it wasn’t Open Space’. Clerk Bozen is wrong. The Welter Farm is Open Space and it is 50 acres and it was purchased with a portion of the $8 million Bond that was only for Open Space purchases.
The Welter Farm is kind of a carved up mess and that is why for anyone who wants to see it as 40 acres can overlook how it is actually 50 and meets the criteria of Open Space. This seems to be another misleading statement that they seem to want to repeat, like the issue of zoning. After review of the Plat of Survey with the person who was the Clerk at the time the land was divided we are confident that we can show in court if necessary, how the property is 50 acres.
A little history on The Welter Farm. The historic barn that was on the property was disassembled and reassembled on The Trantina Farm, where it sits today. The current township officials want to remove this historic structure to build an event center on that portion of The Trantina Farm.
