Like him or not, Bob Anderson is fighting to lower your taxes

Townships have been a part of Illinois since an 1848 amendment to the Illinois Constitution gave voters in each county the right adopt township governance via elections.

Of the 102 counties in the state, 84 of them have townships.

For nearly 30 years, Bob Anderson, 85, a retired barber from Wonder Lake, has fought what has sometimes been a one-man battle encouraging modern voters to undo those elections. He is a regular letter writer on the topic on the Northwest Herald’s Opinion page.

Last year, he changed his focus from promoting township consolidation referenda to the state-mandated township general assistance programs.

Anderson said he began putting a “spotlight on the general assistance program” last summer, calling it an “outdated, township-funded program of fraud and abuse” that can instead be provided by churches and other social programs.

Anderson has not just petitioned for changes, he has served on some of the same boards he wants to see eliminated.

In the past 40-plus years, he has served on two school boards and was a McHenry Township trustee – all while continuing to push for smaller budgets, lower taxes and outright elimination of those public bodies.

Anderson was on the McHenry High School District 156 board from 1980 to 1989. While serving on the township board from 2017 to 2021, he was also a board member for Harrison School District 36 in Wonder Lake.

He ran for school consolidation when he served on the Harrison board from 2015 to 2021, and was the lone voice for consolidation in the tiny school district, Anderson said.

His advocacy has frustrated officials such as Jerry Crabtree, executive director of the Township Officials of Illinois.

“He focuses on the negative” of township governance, Crabtree said of Anderson. Neither have voters agreed with Anderson’s take on townships.

When the issue of township elimination or consolidation has gone to a vote, in some but not all cases, voters have preserved those boards.

“In the 20 years I have been here, the three times [a township] has been challenged in the rural areas it has been defeated,” Crabtree said.

“The reports from McHenry County is that townships are more beneficial to them than to eliminate it,” Crabtree said.

In urban areas over the past 20 years, townships or road districts have been eliminated, Crabtree said. The Naperville Township took over its road district, and townships were absorbed by the municipality in Evanston, Naperville and Belleville.

Milam Township merged with Mount Zion Township, near Decatur, in 2009.

An April 4 non-binding advisory referendum in the city of Springfield asked voters there if they wanted to dissolve their townships. It passed on a 76% to 24% margin.

“On a personal basis, my wins were people coming into the barbershop with encouragement to keep going. Political wins? No. I would say the win would be getting elected to the township board. But at the ballot box? No.”

—  Bob Anderson of Wonder Lake

Anderson’s more public anti-township fights started in 1994, when he backed a petition drive to get a referendum on ballots “to get rid of all of the townships in McHenry County.”

The issue made it on the ballot that year. According to news reports at the time, it lost by a 3-to-1 margin. Successive ballot measures to eliminate individual McHenry County townships have also failed, including a non-binding referendum in March 2020.

There were other battles, too.

When elected to the McHenry Township board, he and two other board members eliminated its emergency assistance funding and the senior busing program.

“We got rid of (emergency assistance) and the bus service” as it is not mandated by the state, which does mandate general assistance programs. “We knocked out the emergency system and not one person complained about it,” Anderson said.

There were complaints when the township bus system was eliminated, including protests at his barber shop and special meetings called by township voters. On the March 2020 ballot, 85% of township residents voted to keep the senior bus service running.

At the first board meeting after new trustees were sworn in, in April 2021, both of those programs were reinstated, board minutes show.

Anderson and board allies Mike Rakestraw and Steve Verr did not run for another term in 2021.

In an interview, Verr called Anderson ”the best thing that ever happened to McHenry County. He is a determined tax fighter.”

When asked if he’s had wins in his township fights over the years, Anderson was reflective.

“On a personal basis, my wins were people coming into the barbershop with encouragement to keep going. Political wins? No. I would say the win would be getting elected to the township board. But at the ballot box? No,” Anderson said.

“I didn’t know what I was up against until I got started, ... that I was such a threat to the political system” by lobbying for a change, he said.

He’s proud that he hasn’t given up, even in the face what Anderson calls “all of the resistance of the political system to protect townships.”

Coming Thursday: General assistance is one of three mandates enshrined in the Illinois Township Code, along with maintaining township roads and assessing property. Bob Anderson of Wonder Lake has used the Freedom of Information Act to find some townships have taxed to raised thousands for its general assistance programs with few requests. Other programs serve hundreds of residents.