Of flu, mittens and planners
When the idea was approved by the Hampshire and Burlington village boards last month, it sounded pretty alarmist. Because Burlington has no police force of its own, the villages agreed that Hampshire cops would be made available to provide an armed escort for delivery of H1N1 flu vaccine to Burlington destinations.
Did the village leaders imagine some hellish, post-apocalyptic world in which desperate people stormed vans to steal the life-saving preventative as the dead piled up all around, as in 1918? Hampshire Trustee George Brust, who's in charge of public safety, said only that such arrangements are recommended to village officials by the Centers for Disease Control.
Did the village leaders imagine some hellish, post-apocalyptic world in which desperate people stormed vans to steal the life-saving preventative as the dead piled up all around, as in 1918? Hampshire Trustee George Brust, who's in charge of public safety, said only that such arrangements are recommended to village officials by the Centers for Disease Control.
After people started showing up in four-block-long lines in Elgin, waiting three hours to get the shots, police escorts have started to sound a little less weird.
After people started showing up in four-block-long lines in Elgin, waiting three hours to get the shots, police escorts have started to sound a little less weird.
A tree of warmth
While Burlington prepares to celebrate Christmas with a house-decorating contest, a coloring contest and a community get-together at the park on Nov. 28, its most important way of celebrating may be the Mitten Tree Project. Everyone is invited to bring new hats, gloves, mittens and scarves to the Old Second Bank at 194 S. Main and hang them on a tree that was scheduled to be set up in the bank lobby this week. Volunteers at the Burlington-Hampshire Food Pantry will distribute this donated warmth to the growing number of needy families in the area.
The Mitten Tree Project continues through Dec. 19. Canned food for the pantry also can be dropped off at the bank.
'I know him!'
When the Burlington Village Board filled some openings on the plan commission and zoning board recently, the people chosen were very familiar to some village board members. Appointed to be chairman of both plan commission and zoning board was Rock Walsh, the brother of Village Trustee Bob Walsh. And named to fill vacant seats on both boards was William Reiser, the husband of Village Trustee Betty Reiser. Trustees Reiser and Walsh abstained from voting on their relatives' appointments.
That may sound pretty incestuous. But remember that, while it has the same size village board, plan commission and zoning board as villages 50 times its size, little Burlington has only about 450 residents to choose from.
Equal pay
Over in Hampshire meanwhile, for some reason lost in the mists of time, members of the zoning board have been getting paid $5 less per meeting than their counterparts on the plan commission, which does pretty much the same kind of work. So the village board recently raised the zoners' stipend to the plan commissioners' level — $30 per meeting for chairperson and secretary, $25 for others.
