Independence Grove Address Fight: Waukegan Or Libertyville?

LIBERTYVILLE, IL -- One Waukegan man's dream to have the address for the popular Independence Grove Forest Preserve switched from Libertyville to Waukegan has received some support. In the past month, Dan Traynoff of Waukegan started a petition on Change.org that Independence Grove belonged more so to his town than Libertyville.

"The fact is that none of the forest preserve is located within the municipal boundaries of Libertyville," Traynoff writes. He goes on to state that 171.4 acres of Independence Grove is located within the municipal boundaries of the city of Waukegan. And the rest of the preserve is in unincorporated Lake County.

"Therefore the preserve should be advertised as being located in Waukegan," according to Traynoff's reasoning. The petitioner is looking to garner 500 signatures but as of Monday night, has only 282. The signed petition is meant to be presented to the Lake County Forest Preserve District.

Meanwhile, in the past week, a second petition has surfaced that appears to be more popular. Started by Ana Draa and requesting that Independence Grove retain its address of 16400 West Buckley Road in Libertyville, the Change.org petition has 1,072 signatures as of Monday night.

Draa writes, "while we appreciate Mr. Traynoff's position, we agree with Lake County Forest Preserves spokeswoman Susan Hawkins and Board Of Commissioners President Ann Maine..."

The points Maine made, according to Draa, include:

• addressing Independence Grove per the county assessor's mapping follows precedent of other forest preserve properties falling within unincorporated areas
• reduces confusion not only for visitors but emergency responders
• an address change would incur costly edits of signage and marketing materials, the burden of which would likely fall on taxpayers
• would establish precedent for other costly and confusing address change requests.

PHOTO VIA GOOGLEMAPS

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