Danville mayor Rickey Williams, Jr says Danville’s possible casino not being on the Illinois Gaming Board’s agenda for their final meeting of the year, Wednesday Dec 8, is not the end of hope for the proposal at 204 Eastgate Drive. He told us after Tuesday night’s City Council meeting that with the new Gaming Board rule that allows a casino to be given a preliminary license and then a tryout, something could still, if things fall into place soon, be up and running by the end of 2022.
AUDIO: I don’t think it’s necessarily bad news. I mean we’ve kind of been indicated it would be this month or next. So my guess is that next month we’ll have good news for ourselves. Within nine months to a year, they’re ready to hit the ground running in terms of construction. So, whenever we get it, within nine months to a year later, we should be able to be up and running with our phase one operations.
Another thing Mayor Williams says will get done in the new year is the sewer bill issues will stabilize. The City of Danville recently took that over, and the transition has had some bumps. But the mayor says, they’re getting there, and that the simple fact is, there are some rate changes, because things need to be fixed.
AUDIO: We’re going to be just fine. Unfortunately, in the data conversion, there were some exemptions that didn’t carry over. We’re getting those fixed every day. So as soon as we get those things fixed, I think we should be on track. No one is excited about paying more, including me. However because things weren’t managed well in the past, we are all paying with flooded homes, flooded neighborhoods, sewage in our houses, we need to get that fixed for everyone.
Some residents with difficulties on this did speak during the public comment portion of Tuesday night’s Council meeting.
