Forest Preserves of Winnebago County — Attraction in Owen Township

I was at the Forest Preserve board meeting on 2/15/23. I went to that meeting because I had been hearing some rather strange things regarding what they are doing with Severson Dells. I do not work for Severson Dells in any capacity. I am simply a taxpayer and a voter who wants to know more about an issue in his town.

So imagine my surprise when just a few minutes into the meeting the board members decided to have a closed door session to discuss "personnel" for an hour. That act wasted an hour of my time, and everyone else's time who showed up. That was not only highly disrespectful, it was personally insulting. By the time it was over, I was angry, hungry, and thoroughly insulted.

When I went there, it was as someone who simply wanted to find out what was going on. My plan had been to listen. But in spite of the agenda saying that the closed door session to discuss personnel and land acquisition was going to be at the end, they decided to split it: personnel early, land acquisition later. They kicked everyone out twice.

Treating taxpayers and voters with such profound disdain is appalling. It's something that I would expect from an iron curtain state. But apparently it's par for the course: in the lobby someone said that they closed the doors for two hours in the last meeting. Before kicking everyone out, the director told everyone rather condescendingly to "not make a mess in the lobby". Hypocritical considering the disrespect coming...

Nice and quiet place to walk. Sometimes it feels like your own little world since rarely do I see many people out there. It’s just off the road enough that I don’t think it draws a ton of attention.

We chose to purchase a bench out here for my grandfather after he passed and recently I saw a board was broke. Probably just over time but I contacted the forest preserve office on site and Sue was on it right away. She contacted me back that very week and said they will be fixing it ASAP. Talk about impressed!! So kind of her!

There is a out building with a restroom, multiply benches to stop at, and a stand with dog bathroom disposal bags. There is quite the drop off around the top so be extra careful and make sure your...

We camped from Sat to Sun Memorial Day weekend. When we arrived at our site our picnic table was gone and a fire was burning in our fire ring. We discovered our neighbors were using our ring to roast their lamb and also were using our picnic table. They proceeded to party all day and into the night until 1:20 a.m. The attendant told us if they continued past 10 pm to contact the sheriffs dept which we did shortly after 10 and an additional time. The deputy finally drive through at 12:40 am after a few calls but did not stop. The only shower house was not fullly functioning, which was horrible for a holidays weekend. It was a zoo. No paper towels and...