State Of Village Presentation A Highlight Of Glen Meeting

By Charles Feldman, Reporter

Traffic safety signs for the Huntington Place subdivision and amending the sign and zoning regulations in the municipal code were among the actions taken by the Glen Carbon village board at its Tuesday, May 28 meeting.

But first came Mayor Rob Jackstadt’s State of the Village presentation as required by state law. Given at least once a year every year by mayors across Illinois, these speeches must include two things – information concerning the affairs of the village and recommendations for the board’s consideration that the village president believes to be expedient.

Jackstadt said that over the past year residential and commercial growth has remained consistent with more than 412 building permits issued for various types of construction with an overall construction value of $24,562,586. He said the total Equalized Assessed Valuation (EAV) has grown 19.4 percent  while the village’s property tax rate has decreased 8.8 percent during the past 10 years. Tax bills are calculated by multiplying the tax rate with the EAV.

“The village should be able to maintain a steady tax rate in the future,” he said.

He went on to say that sales tax collections have grown 70.7 percent over the past ten years, that the Moody’s Corporation financial service agency had described Glen Carbon’s credit strength as having a “very healthy fund balance” and that the village has also been ranked as the 42nd safest community in the state of Illinois by the Safewise online home security and safety group.

Citing the village government’s accomplishments over the past year, he mentioned the construction on Old Troy Road, Phase II Schon Park improvements, the elimination of two taxing districts and the hiring of department heads Jennifer Doody, public works director, and Stacy Jose, building and zoning administrator, He thanked the board for working through the “challenges” involved with the controversial cell tower “to arrive at a decision that benefits the vast majority of Glen Carbon residents, not to mention our police department.”

“As you look at this nonexhaustive list,” he said, “the perennial challenge Glen Carbon faces is to not rest on our laurels but to continue to be energized and to move forward  to keep Glen Carbon a great place to live, work and raise a family,” Jackstadt said.

“It is very difficult to capture all measures that I consider expedient,” he said, moving on to the second part of his presentation.

“And that’s not unique to Glen Carbon. I believe it’s difficult for any municipality,” he said.

Expedient matters included  maintaining Glen Carbon’s excellence, a safe community and property values. “These all remain important,” he said, “and I urge that we keep these and other ideas like this at the forefront.

“We also need to analyze our communication with the residents,” he said. “I believe we need to tweak and update our Glen Carbon website within the next year.”

“The state of the village of Glen Carbon is certainly very good,” he said .

In other action, the placement of traffic safety signage in the Huntington Place Subdivision got the green light from the village board. “Caution – Children At Play” signs facing east will be placed at the corners where Old Troy Road intersects with Huntington Drive and with Jason Drive.

A stop sign facing north will be placed at the corner of Jason and Huntington Drives on the west side of Jason Drive. Another stop sign will be placed at the corner of Jennifer and Huntington Drives facing south on the east side of Jennifer Drive.

A section of the village municipal code regarding the parking of business vehicles with permitted signs had been inadvertently removed during the last amendment to the sign ordinance. The board voted to put it back in.

The village now has the authority to enforce parking lot standards. Due to an approved change in the development, design and improvement standards section of the zoning  regulations in the village code, the board of trustees can close a lot that is not maintained after 15 days’ written notice until the problems with the lot, sidewalk safety and/or landscaping are repaired or dealt with.

An ordinance approving prevailing wages rates in the village of Glen Carbon for construction workers on public works projects as per the state of Illinois’ “Prevailing Wages Act” was approved. The act requires that laborers, workers and mechanics be paid the same amount of hourly wages plus fringe benefits that they would get if they were doing similar work for other contractors in the area. For Glen Carbon, the rate would be the same as those in the Madison County area.

Honored as Business of the Month for May at the meeting was Great Beginnings, Inc., an early childhood learning center that serves children from six weeks through  seven years old.

The next village board meeting will be held on Tuesday, June 11 at 7 p.m. at Village Hall.