March Board Packet and Announcements

We all have seen the news regarding the upcoming vacancy in the office of U.S. Representative in the 18th District of Illinois.  In consultation with Chairman Zimmerman and County Clerk Christie Webb, we drafted a "letter to the editor" to make sure the public knew of the costs of the two special elections we may likely see (the primary and special election), and related issues.  To read the letter, click here.

This blog post is also to advise that this afternoon I received the board packet for the March 25, 2015, meeting of the Tazewell County Board.  Please click the "Board Packets" tab to review the information (including Accounts Payable).  

In addition, I recently received the following information that I wanted to share with you:

1) The 2014 Annual Report of the Fulton-Mason-Peoria-Tazewell Unit of the University of Illinois Extension (found here);

2) As reported by various sources, on March 11, 2015, the United States Environmental Protection Agency announced a decision to designate a portion of the Mahomet Aquifer system as a "sole source aquifer."  This designation means that the EPA believes contamination of the aquifer would create a "significant hard to public health and there are no physically available or economically feasible alternative sources of drinking water..."  This designation further authorizes the EPA to review projects which receive federal financial assistance and determine if it contaminates the aquifer.

The EPA has prepared a Responsiveness Summary which further addresses comments and answers questions.  This summary and other relevant documents will be available to the public at:

• EPA’s regional office, 77 W. Jackson Blvd., Chicago
• Champaign Public Library, 200 W. Green St., Champaign
• Bloomington Public Library, 205 E. Olive St., Bloomington
• Pekin Public Library, 301 S. Fourth St., Pekin
• Havana Public Library, 201 W. Adams St., Havana
• Watseka Public Library, 201 S. 4th St., Watseka

For more information, please see the USEPA's website.

For a detailed map to see how big of an impact the Mahomet Aquifer is on Tazewell County, please click here. 

Board Meeting of February 25, 2015

The Tazewell County Board held its regular February meeting last Wednesday.  Among other matters, the Board:

1) approved the appointment of Gary Sciortino to the Board to fill the unexpired term from District 1;

2) approved intergovernmental agreements with numerous municipalities throughout the county to upgrade digital orthophotography for GIS (geographic information system) mapping;

3) approved the purchase of a tandem axle truck for the Tazewell County Highway Department; and

4) authorized a budget line transfer request to fund a storm warning siren previously approved by the County Board.

In other news, I was proud to accept the appointment of Chairman Zimmerman to chair an ad hoc committee to review the Board's rules of procedures and the Tazewell County Code. The goal of this "Recodification" committee is to further modernize, streamline, and/or eliminate any unintentional inconsistencies that may have developed over the years.  This goal does not include any substantial, substantive changes to the Code, which is best left for our standing committees.

Once we set a regular meeting date and have a final list of names of committee members, I will post them to this site for your information.