Collinsville recognizes March as Severe Weather Awareness Month
By Devese “Dee” Ursery
COLLINSVILLE — During the brief but insightful bi-monthly regular Collinsville City Council meeting ordinances for the appropriation of funds and the replacement of a fence at the Street Department were approved while recognizing March as Severe Weather Awareness Month.
As the seasons change from winter to spring severe thunderstorms and tornadoes follow especially in the Southern Illinois region. Council members approved the designation of March 2024 as Severe Weather Awareness Month in the City of Collinsville.
According to the NWS, the Metro-East area produces an exorbitant number of highly destructive and potentially deadly severe weather events, including tornadoes, severe storms, flash flooding, flooding, and lightning. These events can strike quickly and violently at any time, requiring residents to be aware of weather warnings and updates.
The Severe Weather Awareness designation allows the opportunity to raise awareness on the importance of damaging/severe thunderstorms preparedness. It also encourages all citizens to prepare their homes and businesses for the upcoming storm season.
During the regular city council meeting, Collinsville Fire Chief John Bailot gave a quick update on the automatic outdoor warning siren system. He said the new system will be tied in with the National Weather Service with a triangulation. Bailot emphasizes that the outdoor warning system – although reported heard inside by some – is meant to be heard outside and encourages people to have a NOAA radio.
“On our Tornado Siren Replacement Program, two new poles were put in on Mar. 13, so now we’re looking to finish by April. 7,” Bailot said. “It will be a two week process to change out all those sirens.”
All council members were in compliance with the authorization of Mayor John Stehman signing a loan agreement in the amount of $11 million with the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency. The loan agreement and application are valid for five years should the project not
receive funding in the 2025 fiscal year, starting in July 2024.
The loan will be used to finance the development and implementation of an Advanced Metering Infrastructure system, also referred to as a smart water meter reading system. Public Works Director Dennis Kress explained the parameters of the loan.
“The estimated cost of the project is $10,652,542 which includes: the costs of preliminary engineering; preparation of bid documents; contract administration; purchase and installation of approximately 12,660 water meters,” Kress said. “It also included the purchase and installation of communication equipment to transmit data to and from the water meters and City Hall; software licensing and support and construction observation.”
Kress. expressed that when applying for loans under the EPA, they encourage you to authorize more funds than needed. Because if funds fall short, you will have to go through the whole application process over again.
“The AMI system will automate the water meter process and remotely track the water consumption of each of the water accounts and provide notifications of leaks to the City and to residents,” Kress said. “It will let us know when there is a vacancy on properties and if there’s meter tampering going on.”
Kress said the system also allows for remote turn-offs and/or turn-ons of select water systems services. They will not put remote turn-offs/turn-ons on all of the services, only on services that have a history of frequent turn-ons and turn-offs.
“It doesn’t make sense to put them on because they’re costly to install the turn-off valves,” Kress said. “The important features of this project is that it will improve customer service.”
The smart water meter system provides for real-time monitoring of the watering meters, which leads to a quick response time. The system will notify the City and residents of leaks and continuous water usage. Early notifications of any leaks will reduce the amount of lost water.
“We anticipate increased revenue through meter accuracy when we replace all the meters,” Kress said. “The meters are getting older, they do slow down over time.“
Kress said the system will lead to operational efficiency by eliminating the need for Water Department staff to manually collect water meter readings, allowing the city to reallocate staff.
The availability of real time water account data will aid the Finance Department in opening and closing water accounts without the need of field staff traveling to the address to collect the data. The smart water meter system will also reduce operational and maintenance cost of vehicles used in the manual meter readings.
“It would be my recommendation that after we get this system implemented and get all of the bugs worked out of it I would evaluate the staffing of the department and reallocate the resources where we need to,” Kress said. “There’s a lot of work that still needs to be done in that department and the EPA is constantly coming with strong recommendations of things we should be doing.”
The AMI system will also provide a customer portal where the customers can login and view their water usage and it will help them to manage it. Customers can set up notifications to where they can get high-usage alerts and manage other account affairs.
“The State Revolving Loan Program is half of the interest rate of the General Obligation Bonds that we can issue, so this is inexpensive money to borrow, Kress said. We have a deadline of March 31 to get the application in,” Kress said.
“If we don’t get chosen for financing this year there will be an opportunity in what they call ‘By-Pass’ money that becomes available in January. The loan application is good for five years and if we don’t get immediate funding we will stay in the queue for that long.”
During the regular council meeting, members approved an ordinance appropriating extra funding for various things that happened during the 2023 fiscal year that City staff didn’t do before.
Finance Director Dustin Ziebold said the total appropriation is for $4.5 million.
“The biggest chunk of that is a $3 million appropriation for transfer property tax money,” Ziebold said. “This was an accounting preference that was found by our auditors where they would like the revenues sent to the General Fund instead of directly to the pensions.”
Staff would have to report revenue and do an expenditure and then transfer it out, Ziebold continued.
An ordinance was also approved for a contract with Chesley Fence and Rail for the amount of $48,300, to replace the privacy fence for the Street Department along Morrison Avenue.
According to Kress the project will replace approximately 300 ft of eight-foot tall chain linked fence with 380 ft of eight-foot almond colored solid vinyl fence and we will be adding an access gate on to that. The new fence will screen the entire storage area and operation area behind the Street Department Garage all the way to the southern property corner. The project was included in the 2024 Capital Budget for $60,000.
Lastly, Council took care of City business approving ordinances for the recording of minutes, the payment of bills and payroll. Council members approved motions for the payment of bills for the period ending Mar. 1, in the amount of $1,665,868 and payroll for the period ending Feb. 16, in the amount of $836,630. Council also approved minutes of the Feb. 27, City Council meeting as prepared by City Clerk Kimberly Wasser.
Collinsville will hold its next city council meeting at 6:30 p.m. on Mar. 26 at City Hall,125 South Center Street.
