The Community Development District 4 Board of Supervisors has scheduled a special meeting to contemplate the next steps to be taken with regard to two sinkhole-damaged homes.
Anxiety and agony have permeated the McLawren Terrace neighborhood in the Village of Calumet Grove since the sinkholes brought the unthinkable nightmare in the wee hours of the morning of Feb. 15, 2018.
The CDD 4 Board on Friday agreed to schedule a special meeting for 4:30 p.m. Monday, May 20 at Savannah Center. The meeting will follow a CDD 4 budget planning meeting in which the board will take a hard look at the finances for the 2019-2020 fiscal year.
Barbara Gaines, who lives 11 houses down from the sinkhole-damaged homes, told supervisors she would like to see a larger group of neighbors included in discussions about what is taking place at the site.
“The entire neighborhood is involved, not just a few homeowners,” Gaines said.
Some felt left out of a recent meeting of residents with Hayden Wrobel of I Buy Sick Homes. I Buy Sick Homes has purchased the damaged homes and is trying to resurrect them. One resident said he stumbled upon the meeting when he was walking to the postal station.
District Manager Richard Baier, who was driving in the area, spotted the meeting and walked up to it, said it was “Mr. Wrobel’s meeting.” Baier said he did not have prior knowledge of it.
CDD 4 Chairman Jim Murphy said there have been numerous open meetings where the sinkhole-damaged homes have been discussed. He reminded Gaines the suffering has not been limited to a single neighborhood.
“The entire CDD 4 has been financially involved in this process,” Murphy said. “Everybody has suffered financially.”
He reminded Gaines of last year’s “difficult decision” to raise the maintenance assessment rate by 20 percent.
