Lots of anti-water-authority testimony heard

SYCAMORE - Only one of 24 people who spoke at a public hearing Thursday was in favor of a proposed regional water authority. The statements from Paul Rasmussen, president of the DeKalb County Farm Bureau, were also the only testimony not objected to by John Countryman, the attorney representing the Woodstock-based Alliance for Land, Agriculture and Water, or A-LAW, the group petitioning for the creation of the authority. Countryman made a motion to strike each of the other speakers' testimonies from the record for reasons ranging from where the person lived to the content of their objection. The proposed authority would cover most of DeKalb, Boone and McHenry counties, and would have the power to regulate water consumption and manage the w