Chadwick Village Board Notes

By Mick Parsons For The Prairie Advocate News

CHADWICK – Budget and infrastructure issues dominated this month’s Village Board Meeting. After all the deliberation in committee last month, the board finally considered proposals from MSA and Skoog Landscaping relating to the water main looping project under Second Street between Main and Marion Streets and under Fourth Street between Plummer and Wilson.

Jim Bibler of Chadwick made a brief presentation to the board in which he claimed that the tax rate is one of the reasons that businesses don’t invest in Chadwick. He also referenced the village’s Capital Investments Project projection, which he claimed cost a lot of money but accomplished nothing. He said the study cost the Village of Chadwick $40,000.

MSA representative Steve Haring said that while he was not with MSA at the time, there was no way the study cost that much. “You’re off by tens of thousands of dollars.”

The CIP will need to be updated after November 2011. Bibler admitted that while he voted for the CIP when he was on the Village Board, he only did so in order to give the future board “something to work from.” Bibler claimed that not only does Chadwick’s CIP lack vision, but that the money spent in hiring MSA to complete the CIP study could have been put to better use being “put in the ground.”

“The moral of my conversation,” Bibler said, “is that a lot of things are listed here and none of them are done.”

As part of MSA’s proposal for the water main looping project under Second Street between Main and Marion, Alan Skoog of Skoog Landscaping proposed to do some of the base finish work. The board, in considering what the budget can handle and what money is available this year and what will be available in next year’s budget, definitely wanted to go with Second Street as a priority. Skoog pressed them to go ahead with the entire project, in spite of the board’s concerns, going as far as offering to wait until the next fiscal year to receive payment. In the end, the board voted to accept Skoog’s proposal. Skoog Landscaping will be paid $49, 300 for their part of the Second Street project; and because the motion won by a super majority, or 2/3 vote, they were able to get around having to bid the project out.

As discussed during the committee meetings last month, in order to cut costs the village will use the Fairhaven work crew – which is going to be contracted to care for Chadwick’s streets and village equipment to complete the finish work. However, there was some question about the Fairhaven contract – in particular a clause relating to insurance and whether the Village of Chadwick or Fairhaven Township would be responsible for workers in the event of an injury or in the event of equipment failure or break down.

MSA will be paid $3000 to oversee the project, of which $1,500 will come from a grant awarded by Blackhawk Hills Resource Conservation and Development. Although Village President Zelma McNeal was criticized two weeks ago during the Water, Sewer, and Garbage Committee meeting for stepping out of bounds by putting Chadwick in line for the grant, it netted a savings for the Village, which is suffering under the same budget contstraints as the communities surrounding it.

Olson Wells also made a presentation in an attempt to get in on the bid to replace Well 2 and the pump, which Tom Clark of Olson Wells claimed was a mistake from the start. But since the Olson Wells presentation was not on the agenda the board was not prepared to discuss the bid, and this issue was tabled and sent back to committee for further consideration.

In other Village Board news, Chadwick received a letter from the Community of DePue asking the Village for a letter of support in it’s continuing suit against the EPA to clean up the environmental disaster that has been in litigation for the past 15 years. Lake DePue has asked for letters of support from other Illinois communities – among them Mount Carroll, which responded with a letter of support, since the city wouldn’t be out anything. Village Attorney Ed Mitchell said he knew “nothing about the merits” and the topic was tabled until the next board meeting. While not being inclined to draft a letter – some members of the board expressed concerns about “what they were getting into” – they agreed to consider it for next month’s meeting.

The Chadwick Village Board is also beginning to discuss the possible impacts of the International Building Codes, which according to state mandate must be adopted by July of this year, and voted unanimously in support of spending $100 because according to the state mandate, the Village needs to own it’s own set of Code Books.