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Beecher Village Trustees, much talk, little action  Share
At Monday's three-and-a-half hour board meeting, Beecher Trustees had much to say, but little to act on. An ordinance, pertaining to responsible bidding, was tabled after much discussion. Trustees could not reach an agreement about whether to include, as part of the ordinance, whether a specific business was in tune with an apprenticeship program or not. The trustees could not decide if a private businessperson, in a one-man operation, should be involved in an apprenticeship program, even if he did not have any other people working for him. This ordinance was tabled for a later date. The trustees did approve three separate resolutions approving the names of the signatories for the signing of checks for the village account, the July 4th commission account and the beautification commission account. Some of the trustees had many question about the accuracy of the status of Church Road, east of Beecher Junior High School. Questions were raised about the amount of money and village employees, amounts of material needed to maintain the road, traffic counts of traffic on the road conducted by the police department and whether the road was within the village.
The trustees, after much discussion, agreed to put out bids for the resurfacing of Church Road east of the Junior High School to South Park Avenue and for Church Road from Beatty Lumber west to the village limits. As for the status of the Dixie Road/ Chestnut Street traffic signal, there was not much to say. According to Village Administrator Bob Barber, ''the village has not seen one penny of the stimulus money promised by President Barak Obama.'' The state has already spent the federal funds available for this project; Beecher may not see any movement on this project until the Spring of 2010. The problem of replacing the deteriorating water mains in Beecher, after a lengthy discussion, and the questions about the status of Beecher's application for funds, was finally resolved by the trustees consenting to continue the application process and see where the village would come out in the end. It was pointed out by Village President Paul Lohmann and Barber that the village would not be able to support two projects. Either the water main problem would have to be resolved or the expansion of the sewer plant would have to be considered. According to reports received, the IEPA (Illinois Environmental Protection Agency) has received 10 times the number of requests for improvements than it has stimulus money available. On June 3, a groundbreaking ceremony was held for the new Public Works Facility. The facility will be located just south of the Washington Township Building and will expand the facilities near the water treatment plant. Mass grading for the building has begun. The board of trustees selected Trustee Scott Wehling, chairman of the Public Works and Properties Commission, to serve as the person to approve all change orders to construction valued between $5,000 and $20,000. This was felt necessary to avoid having the board meet every week to approve changes. It will allow construction to continue without additional meetings. President Lohmann will create a special committee to explore how the $50,000 Ehlers bequest should be used for public improvements. The trustees approved such a committee. Terry Gatlin is a reporter for Russell Publications.
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