Road Deadline Changes Among Actions By Village
The Glen Carbon Village Board Carbon Village Board took action on several items during a 90-minute board meeting, including changing Keller Construction’s completion date for the Old Troy Road project and approving agreements and requests relating to this year’s Homecoming and other Public Events.
The deadline for the Old Troy Road project has been moved from December 31, 2019 to June 7, weather permitting.
“This date change was approved due to delays caused by utility relocation, additional work scope increases which included the Bouse Road improvement and requested project phasing changes to accommodate residents in the area,” explained Village Administrator Jamie Bowden in an announcement on social media.
“Substantial completion means the road will open to traffic,” he continued. “Items such as landscaping and sidewalks may be completed after the date.”
Charter Communications relocated the last of its utilities from the section two months after the deadline date. Now the project is underway again. There is no change to the contract price.
The board discussed participating in Southern Illinois University Edwardsville’s Successful Communities Collaborative, in which students and teachers in several departments help area communities with challenging sustainability projects. Highland, Edwardsville, Alton and Godfrey have already taken part in the program, which started three years ago.
Connie Spurlock, Ph.D, associate professor of sociology who is the program’s director, gave a slide presentation at the meeting. She said the model for the program was based on a simple question.
“What if we could connect existing courses to a single city over an academic year to work on critical and vexing projects identified by that city staff and do so at a scale that magnifies value for all?” she asked. “So it’s a bit different from service learning or internships in that we are wrapping multiple courses from multiple disciplines around a particular issue or project.
“We’ve been in Godfrey looking at recycling,” she continued. “We’ve been into Highland working with the nursing students on opioid use. Last year we were up in Alton working on all kinds of projects involving civil engineering, redesigning curb cut-outs, doing neat things like redesigning unsafe intersections and proposing stormwater management plans for Alton, Illinois.
“We also worked on some questions regarding start-ups – how Alton could attract start-ups to the community, what kinds of start-ups they could attract.”
Spurlock said that students from different departments were working with Edwardsville on its parking problem and the impact that a parking garage might have.
Three areas in which Glen Carbon would like assistance are developing a marketing plan and strategy including a review of the current village brand and assistance in developing a comprehensive communications plan to attract new businesses and residents to live and work in the village; developing a comprehensive park plan; and updating its greenhouse gas program and developing recommendations from the inventory for village operations in the community.
Because this was a discussion item, no action was taken. The next step will be to approve a formal memo of understanding sometime in March.
The board gave the go-ahead to an agreement between the Great Rivers & Routes Tourism Bureau and the village of Glen Carbon for $25,000 for their services and to be the village’s tourism bureau.
Police Chief Todd Link gave a State of the Glen Carbon Police Department address before business began. He said that while the number of incidents have gone up each year – from around 23,000 in 2014 to 39,424 in 2019 – property crimes and violent crimes have gone down “pretty consistently.”
“We’re at the lowest now since 2015,” he said.
“We have roughly 700 misdemeanor arrests each year,” he said. “We’ve increased our felony arrests and I think that that is an indication to me that our detectives and our officers are doing a great job of being effective in clearing these cases.”
Business of the Month for February 2020 was the La Petite Academy located at 2 Auerbach Place.
The village also approved:
• a financial advisory agreement with PMA Securities LLC to provide services as a municipal advisor in connection with the March 2020 street improvements bonds referendum and the potential related bond issue.
• a material storage lease agreement with Ameren in the amount of $16,215. They will not be storing chemicals, fuel or transformers, but equipment and poles instead.
• the use of Schon Park for the Junior Service Club Family Olympics on Saturday, April 18 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. This event is free and open to the public.
• the use of Schon Park by Willie Ray Productions for a 1k Walk for Bladder Cancer on Saturday, June 6. This event to raise awareness is also free and open to the public.
• a contract with GRP/Wegman Electric for a little more than $96,000 for LED lighting improvements for Village Hall. This project will go over three years and will include all of the public buildings including the museum.
• a liquor vendor application fee of $300 for non-contracted liquor vendors at community events.
Looking ahead to this year’s Homecoming the board approved agreements with:
• Central States Fireworks in the amount of $6,000.
• Party Roamer in the amount of $500.
• St. Peter’s Hardware and Rental in the amount of $1,836 for tables, chairs and a tent.
• Republic Services in the amount of $2,078.96 for portable restroom facilities.
• Sunbelt Rentals in the amount of $960 for four light towers.
• American Banner Amusements for rides and concessions.
The next board meeting will be held on Tuesday, March 10 at 7 p.m. at Village Hall. The public is welcome to attend or to watch the action as it happens live on the Village of Glen Carbon Facebook page.
