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Editorials
Courtroom history; Boulder Hill water rates : Editorials : Oswego Ledger-Sentinel : Hometown Newspaper for Oswego and Montgomery, IllinoisCourtroom history; Boulder Hill water rates
| 2/28/2013
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Ledger-Sentinel reporter Matt Schury made a small bit of Kendall County judicial history last Wednesday at the county courthouse in Yorkville when he became the first journalist to record and photograph a court hearing.
Schury was able to bring a camera and recording device into a courtroom for the first time under a pilot program for accredited media approved by the Illinois Supreme Court last year. Until now, cameras and recording devices were prohibited from county courtrooms.
What the program means for our readers is that you will be seeing occasional photos from county courtrooms appearing with news articles on court cases in the Ledger-Sentinel.
For Schury and our other reporters, the ability to bring recording devices into the courtroom for selected cases will enable them to capture and report exactly what was said in the court room.
nIt was encouraging to see more than 60 residents of the unincorporated Boulder Hill Subdivision turn out for an open house held last Thursday night at Boulder Hill Elementary School. The Village of Montgomery, which provides water service to Boulder Hill, scheduled the open house to provide subdivision residents an opportunity to view and questions plans for the replacement of approximately 18,000 square feet of water mains in the subdivision. To pay for the $8 million project, village officials have said they will have to raise the monthly water bill charge for Boulder Hill residents by $15.
A question we heard residents ask village officials over and over was: If we've been paying double water rates all these years, where did all that extra money go? Village officials responded by acknowledging that Boulder Hill residents have indeed been paying more for their water than village residents over the years, but the era of double rates for Boulder Hill ended about a decade ago. Currently, Boulder Hill residents pay about 20 percent more than village residents each month. Why the difference? Village officials said it is due to the increased cost the village incurs for maintaining the Boulder Hill system.
Since 1958 the Montgomery Village Board has determined Boulder Hill's water rates. Some subdivision residents lamented they are not able to vote in village elections and have a direct say in how much they pay for water. Still other residents said they have no interest in seeing the village annexed to either Montgomery or Oswego. They reason it's better to pay more for water than be subject to additional municipal taxes and stricter zoning regulations. We suspect that viewpoint has not changed since the first houses were built in the subdivision nearly 60 years ago and probably never will.
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