City faces semi’s breaking down streets
- Details
- Category: Local
- Published on Friday, 27 January 2012 14:00
- Written by Steve Bart
During the early remarks of Monday night’s City Council meeting, a growing number of complaints by local citizens were brought forward by individual aldermen targeting semi-tractors that were parking on side streets. These were truck-tractors – that is, tractors without trailers. The tractors were quickly breaking up the edges of the asphalt. The aldermen wondered if anything could be done. Several other aldermen concurred, even the mayor who had seen a problem arising.
Discussion followed at length about what laws might already be in place versus what was needed to handle the problem. There were some IDOT regulations governing similar problems, but these seemed aimed more at trucks following ‘truck routes’. It was finally concluded that the matter should be handled first by the Judicial Committee. That committee through Alderperson Cantwell, was already considering the problem, as it turned out, and was in contact with the city attorney to look into it.
Mayor Childers then took the opportunity to introduce Rachel Parker who was in the gallery, to the council as a whole. She is the new Economic Development Director. Her smile was bright, showing a bit of her enthusiasm for her new position.
Next was an introduction from the gallery of Courtney Bickerman and Ausra Rowell, both representing the Chillicothe Independent newspaper. They were there to speak about a contest presently being backed by the CI and being touted by the Reader’s Digest, called the WE HEAR YOU AMERICA. It is a contest that would be won by voters of favorite cities in the country with top prizes going to those cities based on the number of votes, on-line, that can be achieved. Prizes amounted to any amount from $50,000 to $5000, for the city to do as it pleases toward some special project. The contest ends March 1, 2012. Anyone can vote any amount of times.
Currently, Chillicothe has over 18,850. Top towns are in the range of 2,663,000 (Lake City, IA), but El Paso, IL has 794,620 and are 5th on the list and Taylorville, IL, about the same size as Chilli, has 224,000, 19th on the list. Even at that, Chillicothe is #60!
The CI representatives were at the council meeting specifically to let the councilmen know about the contest and hope for their blessing while soliciting ideas as to a wish list of what could be done with the money if they would win any. Already, citizens were leaning toward something to do with the Eagle’s View part of River Park such as a pavilion.
Go to mycinews.com/readersdigest and enter 61523 when prompted.
Along the same lines was the next agenda item, and Mayor Childers introduced a proclamation that February 11, 2012 be “Bald Eagle Day” in the City of Chillicothe to support the growth of the national bird countrywide and locally. Since the banning of DDT in 1972, the bird has made a comeback from almost extinct to more than 3,000 birds in Illinois alone and has brought a lot of attention to the Chillicothe area as well as the state. The proclamation was approved.
In regular business, there was the approval of $3,575 final payment to AA & L Roofing for repairs to the building at 227 Cedar St. and finally, a resolution of appropriating $88,000, the amount of the Motor Fuel Tax (MFT) Funds paid by IDOT to the city for the purpose of maintaining streets and highways from January 1, 2012 to December 31, 2012. The resolution (No. 12-01-01) was approved.
