Public Works Minutes 2009 03-17-09
APPROVED W/ CORRECTIONS
10/20/09
UNITED CITY OF YORKVILLE
800 Game Farm Road
Yorkville, IL 60560
PUBLIC WORKS COMMITTEE MEETING
City Hall, Conference Room
Tuesday, March 17, 2009 – 6:00 P.M.
PRESENT:
Chairman Joe Besco Alderman Joe Plocher
Public Works Director Eric Dhuse Alderman Robyn Sutcliff
City Engineer Joe Wywrot Alderman Bob Allen
Doug Haig (Sunset Motel) Bob Mays (Resident)
Tony Scott (Kendall Record) Jay Labelle (Resident)
PRESENTATIONS: NONE
The meeting was called to order @ 6:01p.m.
MINUTES FOR CORRECTION/APPROVAL:
The minutes for January 20, 2009 and
February 17, 2009 were reviewed and approved as presented.
Items Recommended for Consent Agenda:
1.PW 2009-31 Water Department Report for January 2009
2.PW 2009-32 Water Department Report for February 2009
3.PW 2009-33 Raintree Village (Rt. 126 Improvements) – Bond Release
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4.PW 2009-34 Menards Commercial Commons 5 Addition - LOC Expiration
All the items recommended for Consent Agenda will move on to City Council on
Consent Agenda.
NEW BUSINESS:
1.PW 2009-35 Fox Hill/Sunflower Estates SSA Area Maintenance RFP Results
Annual proposals for contractors – The winning bid is awarded to Waldschmidts
& Associates from Wheaton.
Last year’s bid was $84 an acre. This year’s bid was $20.50 an acre. There was a
feeling of optimism that the bid presented was too low.
It was noted that there were two other bids also in the $20’s. References were
checked and verified. Qualifications are acceptable.
This item was moved forward to consent agenda.
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2.PW 2009-36 Rt. 47 Widening - Update
Joe Wywrot discusses final design.
Trail – Location of the trail has changed. Best we can do without going back to
phase 1 engineering.
Sections of Rt. 47 will have no trails, because there is simply not enough room.
Looking for alternative off route trails, but we don’t have to make these decisions
right now. The city can discuss this at a much later time when they decide build
this trail.
Looking at city wide trail planning as well as looking at what we want to have
downtown. An adhoc committee formed of businessmen and residents will be
coming up with recommendations about the downtown area to send to city
council that talks about what type of sidewalk treatment, lighting, etc. etc.
An interesting problem that IDOT is running to downtown has to do with all the
store fronts. As you walk down the streets you see steps leading up to the
doorway on many of the businesses. With the amount of money that is going to be
allocated towards this project, have to comply with the Federal American with
Disabilities Act Requirement; there can be no steps. So that mean the sidewalk
would need to be raised up. What IDOT is looking at right now is having what
they call a special zone with an immediate backed up curb.
IDOT is obligated to replace the parking for 20 stalls near the downtown area.
The City is the lead agency as far as finding the property, preparing the plan and
building the parking area, but IDOT will pay within reason.
A question was brought up, if there is a residence in the downtown area that the
city could acquire, what would be the appropriate way to handle this?
Ultimate goal is to acquire an area for parking as close to Rt. 47 as possible.
Proper steps would be to have discussions with IDOT and the property owner.
Any final agreement would have to be approved by City Council.
Utilities:
A lot of situations where we have utilities crossing the road or parallel to the road,
and now underneath the pavement. We should not be in a position of to have
hundreds and hundreds of feet of 40 year old water main under a new concrete
highway. We recommend we replace that water main with new stuff prior to
widening Rt. 47.
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Miscellaneous –
Street lighting system that exist that was put in by IDOT back in the 70’s.
IDOT doesn’t pay for street lighting. They will remove, but not replace it.
Joe Wywrot’s recommendation is to not replace the lighting. It will cost several
hundred thousand dollars to put that in. With the development in that area, there
will be enough ambient lighting from the surrounding property.
If it’s ok, Joe would like to give that direction to IDOT to eliminate the stand
alone section. Public Works committee concurs to eliminate this lighting.
Guardrail -
Provide guardrail at the top of the embankment on Jefferson Street. There’s going
to be a 3 to 1 slope going down. Jefferson Street doesn’t have any curb. If a car by
chance would slide off for some reason, it would slide off onto Rt. 47. IDOT’s
original position is that was something that the city would need to pay for, but
they may be softening their position. They may provide a barrier, but he doesn’t
know exactly what that may be; curbing, guardrail or something else.
This item is now an informational item.
Resident Jay Labell asked if the city is going to notify the residents about the
parking? Joe Wywrot replied yes; the city will notify the residents.
Douglas Haig from the Sunset Motel he just finished working with Smith
Engineering on a program. The engineer put together what it would cost to put the
sewer and the water on Rt. 47 from the west side going under to Walnut St. The
reason he asked Smith Engineering to put that together, because one day that
property will be available for someone else. He was in the process of purchasing
that property, but the whole thing fell apart because of K&K Wells wanted their
share of the money and the owners said NO.
Doug is requesting to put a traffic signal at Walnut to come through Horton’s
property and the Sunset Motel then the property can be developed. Then the
income can be given to the city.
Joe Wywrot said regarding K&K Well drilling, K&K would like to get a
landmark traffic signal themselves, but are unable to do so because of private
driveway. Joe talked to IDOT about putting a traffic signal at Walnut and there is
not enough traffic to warrant a signal. The way to go with this is for your property
to access by way of landmark.
Informational Item Only.
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3.PW 2009-37 Resolution Authorizing Support for the Illinois Vacant and
Abandoned Properties Act
This is in support with other metro west council governors encouraging support
from municipalities on this particular resolution. The committee agrees this is a
good thing. This item moves to City Council for discussion.
4.PW 2009-38 Weed Abatement Procedures
The committee had asked a few months ago to start looking at this to see what we
can come up with. Brendan McLaughlin reviewed Aurora’s and Naperville’s
Procedures to get different ideas to help make ours a little less congestion. Eric
Dhuse mentioned that our biggest problem last year was trying to find the owner
of the property. Other municipalities put notices in the paper or directly on the
property. A comment was made about the condition of the current market and that
the city could be looking at a lot of empty lots. Developers are sitting on hundreds
of empty lots which will continue to grow weeds. We can take action about giving
notice and cutting down the weeds, but recouping the costs could take years. We
also need to take a look at the budgetary constraints.
Raintree subdivision approach has been to mow around the scattered limited
number of units for a buffer around them, but they’re not going to mow around all
of the empty lots. The same thing with Grande Reserve, they have acres and acres
of lots.
An idea was talked about at the staff level, of taking care of a lot across the street
if it touches your lot and it’s a vacant lot that’s when you can file a complaint. But
if it’s down the street in a phase and you have nothing but vacant land, how can
complaints be feasible this year. Even the ones that just touch a corner of your lot,
what do you do. The ones that touch the whole back or side of your yard, they can
be seen as violations. At some point we need to determine what a nuisance is.
Joe Wywrot mentioned that they handle these on a complaint basis. If someone
was living in Raintree unit 2 complains about Raintree unit 6 a ½ mile away, do
we actually go out and enforce the weed ordinance. The ordinance doesn’t make
any distinction a lot next door or way out yonder.
We need to add an addendum or a revision to the ordinance to get some clarity of
what is a nuisance and what isn’t. Ideas will be discussed and decided upon.
This item will be brought back to the committee with proposed changes to the
ordinance.
ADDITIONAL BUSINESS:
1.A couple of concerns from the residents of Windett Ridge were shared with Joe
Wywrot about drainage issues and the catch basin. Joe Wywrot to address.
2.The end of Warren St. is another concern. Eric Dhuse said if we get our
miscellaneous patching that we’re asking for in the budget for the various
patching all over town, we’re going to try and direct the drainage into the storm
sewer.
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3.Bob Mays inquired about the patching of Morgan & Washington. Eric Dhuse
replied that it on their list.
4.Bob also thanked the Public Works Department for picking up chunks of blacktop
in Mrs. Olsen’s yard.
ADJOURNMENT OF THE PUBLIC WORKS COMMITTEE MEETING:
With no further business to discuss, the meeting adjourned.
Minutes respectfully submitted by Tim Dlugopolski
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