City of Chrisman to make repairs
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At the Chrisman City Council meeting, held on December 5th, Commissioner Thad Crispin provided an update on the Storm Drain Repair that was to take place on Jefferson Avenue.
“We sent the assigned papers to Feutz and we’re waiting to hear back,” Crispin said. “As far as the one on the Nazarene Church, I need to call someone else and get another bid.”
Commissioner Cory Chaney stated that he had been in touch with the company who would be taking care of the Nazarene Church, but the scheduled repairs keep getting pushed back.
“It’s always next week,” Chaney said.
Crispin said that he had been contacted by someone who offered to pay for the handrail in City Park. Crispin said he’s going to give the bid to said person to see if they are good with the price.
Mayor Danny Owen brought up the question of the exploratory excavation that was listed as the next item on the unfinished business. The excavation involves a contractor coming in to hydro vac around the water tower and the new water building to find the valve that needs shut off that runs over to Cleveland Street and Route One.
“We need to find out where another valve is and the valves that are above ground and visible do not shut off that line,” Chaney said. He stated there’s another line that’s not on the print and it can not be located.
Commissioner Bryan Haddix mentioned that the issue from the line to Cleveland to Malaise’s house needs to be addressed as well. The line currently has seven clamps on it to prevent leaking. “We need to replace that line,” Haddix said.
Chaney has been in talks with Jason Gore about this problem, his suggestion was to move it out of the ditch. “He (Gore) said that if folks driving by see water in the ditch and if it’s raining, you don’t know if it’s a leak or not,” Chaney said. “It needs to be relocated and the line between those two points needs to be replaced. He said to move it up on the west side of the ditch.”
Chaney also voiced that there was no reason to keep putting band-aids on these problems and replacements need to happen.
Commissioner Haddix told the council that he has someone who can put in a new coin mechanism or a few new choices to improve the water boy on Washington.
“He can put just a coin operation, ones that just take dollar bills and even one that uses debit cards,” Haddix said. “I’m assuming with a debit card, we would have to have a WiFi service. I think we would be better off sticking with just coins and dollar bills.”
In another matter, Commissioner Crispin has been getting questions about how to get names put on the Veteran’s Memorial in City Park. Crispin has been trying to get in touch with Spence Monument and was given a quote.
“To add twenty names to the memorial will be $700, but he can’t get to it until spring of 2023,” Crispin said. “We’ve only got $619 in our fund when the Legion gave it to us, so I could just take it out of my park budget.”
Commissioner Chaney offered that the City had money from the Sesquicentennial and he would give Crispin money to help with the cost of the added names. Crispin made a motion to approve the quote with Chaney seconding and the motion was carried.
Before the meeting proceeded, Mayor Owen brought up the issue of the replacement of the water meters. Commissioner Crispin had been in touch with Illinois Meter and IRWA. Crispin was given numbers from Illinois Meter, but they were disconnected.
“I’m going to try to find a number for another guy,” Crispin said.
Additionally, Chaney said they were having issues with the city meters.
“There’s meters needing replaced about every week,” Chaney said. “I don’t know if we have a bad batch of meters that we’re using for replacements or if we have bad installation practice or what it is. We need to get it solved because we’re spending a lot of time, energy and money on replacing meters.”
Haddix told the council that he had received information from city employee, Michael Burgess that when the meters were being installed, a lot of them had two holes drilled and the antennas were damaged in the process, causing some of the issues.
In the last month, six meters have been replaced at Lincolnshire Apartments after giving the same reading every month. “The meters are not that old,” said Mayor Owen. “The meters that were replaced have probably been there thirty years.”
The meters also need replaced at Pleasant Meadows Senior Living. Commissioner Haddix said that he told the nursing home that the water needed to be turned off for a time, just long enough, in order long to use the leak detector to which they refused.
“I told Michael to just let the nursing home pay a high water bill,” Haddix said.
Then, Commissioner Haddix gave the council a brief summary of the issues that has taken place with the sewer samples.
Haddix found out that the monthly over flow sample was being sent out instead of the weekly samples from the sewer plant.
“He sent the wrong box at one time or another,” Haddix said. “Now every time they send him a box back, they sent him the one from the over flow. So he’s got a pile of boxes for the wrong thing.”
In other news, Commissioner Chaney wanted to extend a thank you to the city of Paris for their assistance with hanging the Christmas lights on the street poles.
“They said to give them a call when we are ready to take them down and they are more than willing to come and help,” Chaney said.
He also wanted to thank Lindsey Franz for the artwork done on the windows on the city building and to Lewsader Electric for coming into town and starting assembly of the Christmas tree on the bandstand.
Chaney has sixteen boxes with four hundred feet of lights to finish the tree. Chaney also mentioned that the bandstand was in pretty bad shape.
“The border is cracking. We’re going to have to do something before long,” Chaney said. Crispin stated that he would work on a quote so it can be put into next years budget to be fixed.
