Barrington Area Library board candidates weigh in on Lake Zurich Road realignment proposal
Two newcomers seeking election to the Barrington Area Library board differ from three incumbents on a controversial proposal to realign Lake Zurich Road through the facility's property.
Voters will select from the five candidates seeking three open trustee seats in the April 2 election. The available library board terms run for six years.
Incumbents Barbara Pintozzi, Carolyn Welch Clifford and Carrie Carr are competing with newcomers Daniel Goitein and Jan Miller. The candidates addressed some key issues during a meeting this week with representatives of the Daily Herald Editorial Board.
One of the topics was last year's board vote to end negotiations with the village of Barrington over the sale of land to accommodate the proposed Lake Zurich Road realignment. Village officials cited safety as a reason to shift Lake Zurich Road through the library's parking lot to a traffic signal where Berry Road begins at Northwest Highway at the facility's entrance.
A stop sign currently controls traffic for right and left turns from westbound Lake Zurich Road onto Northwest Highway.
Goitein, a 42-year-old sales consultant, said discussions about Lake Zurich Road should be reopened with the village, which would benefit the entire community.
Miller, 67, a retiree whose career included eight years at the Barrington library, said bringing the road through the library property would not diminish the facility.
Pintozzi, Welch Clifford and Carr stand by being part of a 4-2 vote, with one abstention, to end negotiations with the village for the 2.5-acre main lot. While the board majority agreed with safety concerns about where Lake Zurich Road meets Northwest Highway, they also expressed worry for about 1,000 daily visitors entering and exiting the library if the proposed shift brought the street through the parking lot.
Welch Clifford, 54, a municipal attorney whose work includes representing firefighter and police pension funds, said the Lake Zurich Road proposal likely has been the most difficult issue she's encountered since she was appointed to the library board in 2000.
She said there could be a need "10 or 20 years down the road" to look at selling the entire property and moving if a proposed Northwest Highway underpass at nearby Canadian National Railway tracks ever comes to fruition. She said while the thought of the library departing Barrington is "awful," it could be better to find a safer location than staying if a section of the wooded property had to be sold to accommodate construction projects.
"Remember, we're a 72-square-mile library district," Welch Clifford said. "We're one of the largest in the state of Illinois. We have some opportunities to think about putting our building somewhere else if, in the end, this spot on Northwest Highway is problematic from the underpass standpoint and a need to reroute that Lake Zurich Road is such that it provides a better situation for that (area) and the safety of the community."
Carr, a program manager for a large global consulting company who was elected to the board in 2013, said any expansion plans would be constrained if a portion of land were sold. She said creation of a four-lane entrance to the library under the Lake Zurich Road realignment proposal was a significant concern, which is why alternatives should be explored.
Pintozzi, 55, a board member since 2007 who previously worked as a 2nd District Appellate Court staff attorney, said a solution could involve a spine road going behind the facility and south to a traffic signal at Valencia Avenue and Northwest Highway,
Federal money was supposed to fund 50 percent of the $5.9 million Lake Zurich Road realignment, with the state and village chipping in 25 percent each. However, the library's decision led to the proposal being dropped from a list of projects in line for funding through the federal surface transportation program handled by the Northwest Council of Mayors' Technical Committee.