Will shift on Johnsburg Village Board end legal fight with Pistakee Yacht Club? ‘A lot of animosity’

Josh Hagen, reelected to the Johnsburg Village Board on Tuesday, hopes he and the two other winning candidates on his slate can bring the village and the Pistakee Yacht Club back to the negotiating table and out of a courtroom.

“I think it was a very serious issue that came up a number of times in the campaign,” Hagen said.

Both he and Keith Von Allmen, the former police chief who is also ahead in the polling in unofficial results, are members of the yacht club that sued Johnsburg in October 2023. The legal fight is over property the club has used for boat storage – and had a McHenry County zoning variance for – since at least 1970. The village countersued and last year, the village board removed that variance when it approved a new zoning map.

The lawsuit between the 128-year-old boating club and the village is just one of the reasons the slate – including Hagen, Von Allmen and businessman J.D. Sylvanus – attracted voter attention, Von Allmen said.

“We ran a no-negative campaign” that focused a vision for Johnsburg, he said. “Let’s come up with a plan on how we get there and bring new ideas to the village.”

Unofficial totals from Tuesday’s election show Hagen and Sylvanus both received nearly 20% of the vote, and Von Allmen 18%. Incumbents Greg Klemstein and Mary “Beth” Foreman were at 13% and 14%, respectively. Newcomer Steve Dixon took 15%.

Because Hagen and Von Allmen are yacht club members, they will continue to abstain from votes regarding the club, Hagen said. “My hope is ... we are able to bring the two parties together again. There is a lot of animosity between the two.”

Arguments in the case are set for May 1 in a McHenry County courtroom. Von Allmen said he believes a solution can be found before May 6, when the newly elected trustees are sworn in. A third-party mediator or court reporter to take notes could be brought in, if necessary, he said.

“It is my belief that the village wants the Pistakee Yacht Club to be successful,” Von Allmen said.

Other than that issue, slate members say they want to promote communication and transparency between the village and its residents. When the three candidates determined their priorities for the village, “it was based on our interactions with people in Johnsburg,” he said. “Communication and transparency quickly rose to the top.”

For example, Von Allmen wants to make available to the public the supporting documents that are given to the Village Board members before public meetings, which the slate would also like to see live-streamed.

“The perception is a lot of things are done behind closed doors or without full board approval, with just one or two people leading the way and everyone else left in the dark,” Sylvanus said. He pointed to the recent Kelley’s Market proposal, denied by the Johnsburg Village Board in February, as an example.

“People were caught off guard by it and it was presented like ‘This is happening,‘” Sylvanus said.

He contrasted that with the Hidden Harbor project proposed for the Paradise Cove. Developer Mike Oliver “is going house-to-house saying ‘Here is my plan,‘” to those homes adjacent to it, Sylvanus said.

The three newly elected board members said they are in favor of that project, which would bring drive-up boat storage, car condos and an expanded marina to the southwest corner of Chapel Hill Road at the Fox River, along with public park space. That proposal is expected to get a second hearing from the Planning and Zoning Commission on May 14. A date for it to go to the Village Board has not been set.

“I think that property is probably the single most important property in the village for commercial development that is not large-scale retail. Johnsburg has the most waterfront footage but very little commercial” land on that riverfront, Hagen said. “It is a nice-looking development.”

He likened that and other development proposals nearby to the McHenry Riverwalk, with its mix of commercial, residential and public space.

“There is not a lot of opportunity for public space and [Oliver] made the best out of that with the mixed use,” Hagen said.