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Bull Valley Annexes Loyola’s Retreat and Ecology Campus

September 12, 2011

A group of residents of a formerly unincorporated area of Bull Valley and Loyola University Chicago recently entered into an agreement with the village of Bull Valley. The resulting order annexes what now is known as the Loyola University Chicago Retreat and Ecology Campus into the village.

The residents had filed a petition in the Circuit Court of McHenry County in 2009 before Loyola bought the 98-acre property in 2010. The village approached Loyola outside the courtroom and suggested entering into the voluntary annexation agreement. The pact ended the litigation and allowed the residents who initially filed the petition to become residents of Bull Valley as well.

Zukowski, Rogers, Flood & McArdle partner Michael J. Smoron is corporate counsel to the village of Bull Valley. His practice focuses primarily on land use and local government law.

Aside from the property’s use as a retreat, the campus boasts prairie, woodlands, oak savannah and wetlands that serve the university’s ecology and biology curricula. The school held summer sessions at the campus after reaching the agreement.

Bull Valley has publicly expressed its appreciation toward Loyola for its commitment to preserving the village’s environment. Loyola pledged to help neighbors maintain ecologically sensitive lands and to assist McHenry County and various agencies in similar efforts.

Smoron also is corporate counsel to the McHenry County villages of Hebron and Johnsburg. He has served as special counsel to the village of West Dundee in Kane County and to other units of local government in Cook, Lake, Warren and Henry counties. Zukowski, Rogers, Flood & McArdle, the largest law firm in McHenry County, Illinois, has an extensive practice in local government law. For more of Smoron’s professional credentials, please link to Michael Smoron’s biography.