Maryville Approves Cameras That Read License Plates

By Charlie Feldman

Cfeldman@timestribunenews.com

The Maryville Police Department will purchase two license plate reader cameras from Utilitra for $19,837.45 minus a $5,000 contribution in drug forfeiture funds from the Madison County State’s Attorney’s office. The village board approved this and other actions at its Wednesday, May 19 meeting.

These will be installed at the intersection of Illinois Route 159 and Fireman’s Park. All upkeep and future costs to maintain the cameras will be covered by the Drug Enforcement Administration.

“The license plate reader cameras are a part of a whole system,” Mayor Craig Short explained later, “ and they are trying to strategically put them. The poles in front of Fireman’s Park already have the signals for the fire department trucks coming out. So the village owns the poles and there’s already electricity there and they can put two cameras there to capture traffic on 159 in all of the lanes. To put them at an intersection like 159 and 162, we would have to double the number of cameras to be able to read that.

“So we’re starting small and then hope to move up,” he said. “And again, this becomes part of the whole big system in the Metro East and the whole St. Louis area. The DEA is partnering with all the law enforcement agencies.”

In other developments, the village of Maryville won this year’s Mayors’ Fitness Challenge Award. Short was presented with a certificate, a traveling trophy and a T-shirt by Cheryl Riley, superintendent of recreation for the city of Collinsville and Trina Vetter, special events and marketing coordinator for the city of Edwardsville.

The mayor and his family and some board members and their families were among those participating against their counterparts in Edwardsville, Glen Carbon and Collinsville. Riley said that Maryville had a total of 55,604 minutes of exercise, almost double that of each of the other communities.

Each winner in Maryville that participated will receive a T-shirt with the names of the sponsors on the back, she said.

“Our plan is to continue this,” Riley said, “and add more communities.”

A professional engineering consultant services contract with Juneau Associates Inc., P.C. for the 2021-22 fiscal year was approved.

There were no new names on the list of this year’s volunteer committee appointments. Everybody was reappointed. There are still vacancies on the Community Improvement Board and Park Improvement Committee.

Trustee Ed Kostyshock announced that the museum will be open on Saturday, June 5 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

In other action, the village approved:

• annexing property at 208 Hillcreek Road, 3047 Keebler Road and 508 Old Camp Graham Road, all in Collinsville, and a water service and pre-annexation agreement for 160 Hillcrest Drive in Glen Carbon.

• declaring a 1995 International dump truck as surplus property.

• awarding the bid for class SI concrete and load charge to Concrete Supply of Illinois at a cost of $97.50 per concrete cubic yard and $75 per load charge for the 2022 Illinois Department of Transportation Motor Fuel Tax program.

The next village board meeting will be on Wednesday, June 2 at 6:30 p.m. at Village Hall.