Timeline of Events

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A period of 12 months begins in which the Township claims they have the right to sell any Township real property based upon an action taken at a “Special” Town Meeting that occurred on October 22, 2021. 

You can watch the Special Meeting Here:

https://rumble.com/vo6dq7-10-22-2021-homer-township-special-town-meeting.html

Members of the public are allowed to vote on issues at such meetings (the electorate). There were only slightly more than 15 residents that could vote present at the meeting. The purpose for calling the “Special” meeting was to transfer the deeds of the Homer Township parks to the Village of Homer Glen and to give the Homer Township Board the ability to sell any “UNUSED” township land for a period of twelve months.

We would argue that the Township Open Space Program Farms lands are not “unused” township land. They are used as “Open Space” according to the uses allowed by Illinois State Statute and that to claim they are “unused” to justify their sale is a manipulation of the term “unused” and a way to try to sell the land without proper justification or authority. Would anyone point to a Forest Preserve and say the land is “unused”? No, they would not. This is the same situation when pointing to a parcel of Open Space Land whose use complies with the State Statute. Most residents would not think that the township officials would consider Open Space lands “unused” and possibly sell them. It is misleading for the township to hide their intent to sell Open Space lands totaling over 180 acres that the tax payers of Homer Township voted to purchase for and Open Space Program. It is an outrage that less than 20 people at a meeting could undo the what voters made possible via a referendum in voting to create an Open Space Program and to vote to fund it with an $8 million dollar bond.

At the 6:23 mark on the video recording of the meeting: Statement from Town Board requesting a Special Town Meeting from the Board meeting that occurred on September 13, 2021

Motion to approve a Homer Township Special Town Meeting for the following

i. To transfer the deed to Homer Township Parks to the Village of Homer Glen 

ii. To give the Homer Township Board authority to sell unused township land

Agenda: https://homertownship.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/2021-09-13-Agenda-Homer-Township.pdf

The actual agenda for the Special Meeting removed the term “unused” and just created a broad generalization to sell any property. 

“Approval of resolution to delegate authority to the township board to purchase, sell and lease township property.”

Agenda: https://homertownship.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/2021-10-22-Special-Meeting-Agenda-Revised-2.pdf

Monday, 9/12/22 

Morning: FOIA request was submitted on the morning on the day of their meeting.

Monday, 9/12/22 

During the day resident Gail Snyder spoke with the Township Clerk Vicki Bozen and asked what properties they were considering for sale. She refused to say and said to come to the meeting to find out.

Monday, 9/12/22 7pm

The Homer Township Board Meeting was held and the board passed the resolution that included “the solicitation of bids for purchase of one or more of the properties referenced in Exhibit A”. They only discussed selling a portion of the Paul Farm, and the whole Purdy Farm and the whole Paul Farm. They did not mention their intent to sell the Welter Farm. It was only discovered by a FOIA of the resolution.

Board passes resolution to sell Open Space Lands

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFec_rjrzOQ

You can see a copy of the Resolution Authorizing the Sale of Open Space on our "Print & Docs" page. 

Wednesday, 9/14/22 7pm

The Village of Homer Glen (a separate government from the Township) held its Board meeting. Township Supervisor Balich speaks at Village meeting
https://youtu.be/spVAP4lpBUk

Friday, 9/16/22

Received the FOIA requested of the resolution. It was incomplete and key pages were missing that would allow anyone to determine exactly which properties they were going to be able to sell. 

Monday, 9/19/22

(A week after the board meeting and the first business day after receiving the requested FOIA of the resolution.) Gail Snyder called and spoke with Clerk Bozen and asked if the Welter farm is part of Exhibit A referenced on one page of the incomplete FOIA of the resolution.. Clerk Bozen confirmed that it was. Snyder told Clerk Bozen "what you sent me does not include any description of what Exhibit A is, there are no (PIN) numbers," Bozen replied, “Oh didn’t I send you that and said she missed some pages because the resolution was two sided and she only copied the one side when she made a copy for my FOIA request." Clerk Bozen sent a new copy of the resolution with all the pages included. Once able to review the full text of the resolution it could be determine which properties they intended to be able to sell and they include the following Open Space Program properties which in total are *181.43 acres as they have it listed. It took seven days to learn that they also included the Welter Farm in the resolution to sell Open Space Properties because they never told the public at their meeting that they included it.

*The Welter Farm, 40.13 acres, (I disagree with total acreage they list for this property and can show that it is 50 a minimum of 50 acres as required by Open Space Statute.)

The Paul Farm, 55.551 acres

The Purdy Farm, 84.19 acres and 1.56 acres (85.75 acres)

* The Welter Farm is actually 50 acres, the Township says it is 40 acres. We disagree on this point.

So in total the acres they can sell if the sell of the whole Welter Farm, is 191.43 acres, We are referring to it as 190 acres.)

Monday, 9/19/22 or 9/20/22

The Township listed the Purdy Farm and Paul Farm as being open to bid for sale with a date of Monday, October 17, 2022, at 7:00 P.M.

https://homertownship.com/bids/

From the passing of the resolution on 9/12/22 to the next township meeting 10/17/22 no opportunity for public comment or discourse will occur other than three minutes per person at the start of the meeting the same day that the township may possibly be opening the bids and making a deciding who to sell the property to.

 Monday, October 17, 2022 7:00 PM

The next township board meeting, this is also when the deadline is for bids for the Purdy and Paul farms. This is when the township can open the bids and select which one they want. They are not choosing by highest bidder. They are selecting based upon what criteria we do not know.

The public will have to wait until this meeting in October which is when Supervisor Balich said, “people are going to find out about it.”

This will be the only time prior to the content of the meeting that people will have an opportunity to speak against the sale of the properties.

October 21, 2022

The period of 12 months ends in which the Township claims they have the right to sell any Township real property based upon an action taken at a “Special” Town Meeting that occurred a year prior on October 22, 2021. (Scroll back in this timeline to 2021 October to see a link to the video of that meeting and comments about it.)

At some time in November the Township claims they will have a workshop on the Open Space but that will be after a bid for sale could be accepted and the property sold. (October 17, 2022).

Election Day is November 8th and we expect the workshop will occur after that date as Supervisor Balich is up for election to the Will County Board. (He holds two elected positions Homer Township Supervisor and Will County Board Member.)