Taking a “pause” is how city officials have described the interruption in their ambitious plan to upgrade the condition of virtually every street in Woodstock over the next few years. Before calling a timeout for up to a year because of the uncertainties involved with the coronavirus pandemic, the City Council had certainly been aggressive […]
As of last Friday, the Illinois Department of Public Health had recorded more than half a million cases of COVID-19 since spring, including more than 10,500 deaths statewide. Of more than 5,362 people in Illinois who were reported to be hospitalized with the disease at the end of last week, nearly 1,000 patients were in […]
McHenry County, being a reliably Republican suburb in a decidedly Democratic state, exposed its red roots last week when Democrats had little success locally in the Nov. 3 election – but not just because of the county’s political history. True, the county gave a majority of its votes to Republican candidates for president and U.S. […]
Taxpayers must have been encouraged by recent discussions that did not include a property tax increase as part of a plan to address the $160 million bond debt of Woodstock School District 200. But don’t make the mistake of thinking that we’re somehow going to get out of this more-than-decade-old school construction debt without a […]
If have not yet been motivated to vote in next week’s election, you might not be able to be persuaded. Of course, thousands of you already have voted. More of you have not, but we hope you have plans to cast your ballot by mail, at an early voting site, or on Election Day, Tuesday, […]
That second shoe has dropped. The postman always rings twice, you know. And now we have the second wave of COVID-19. It came crashing down last week, and it might just be getting started. The number of new infections nationwide reported Friday was the most for any one day since July, and the illness by […]
Last week The Independentpublished its Voters Guide, which contains information we hope will help people to make decisions about which candidates to vote for in the Nov. 3 election. That wasn’t unusual. We publish a guide of candidate information before every election. What was out of the ordinary this fall was that we published it four […]
Because this is 2020, and next to nothing has been normal this year, it makes perfect sense that Woodstock School District 200 has adopted a plan that will finally return students to classrooms 12 days before Halloween. These are, indeed, scary times that are made all the more frightening by people who don’t take our […]
Woodstock’s Plan Commission never did like Founder’s Crossing. From the first presentation in February 2019, commissioners picked apart the single-family housing proposal – less for what it was than for what it wasn’t. And it wasn’t what the city’s January 2019 Downtown Development Plan envisioned for the former Die Cast factory site north of the […]
How do you feel about the Fair Tax Amendment to the Illinois Constitution that will be on your ballot Nov. 3. And what about the Tax Increase Amendment that, not coincidentally, will also be on the fall ballot? They are, of course, the same thing. When you vote, you won’t see the terms “fair tax” […]
Larry Lough is editor of The Independent and reports local news.
Janet Dovidio has been a freelance correspondent for The Independent for eight years.
Susan W. Murray wrote for The Independent, covering various beats, from 2005 to 2008.
Tricia Carzoli is a freelance writer and photographer that on community news.
