During Tuesday night’s Danville City Council meeting, City Engineer Sam Cole asked for patience and understanding on a couple of things. One is all the railroad crossing work that’s being done this fall. Cole says the city is keeping up the best it can with announcements from Norfolk Southern and the Illinois Department of Transportation. But simply put: allow extra time and be ready for anything at any crossing until winter.
AUDIO: Right now they are in the process of putting in new rails. They’ve been cutting those in, and those are kind of laying in place as a temporary measure; and they will be coming back to do the permanent install yet this fall. I think they’re hopeful that they get this done before the snow flies. They definitely don’t want to leave the rails in the rock, and things in that kind of condition, when we’re plowing snow.
Meanwhile, there are frequent complaints on why no work is being done during beautiful days on Denmark Road across Lake Vermilion. The answer is, before certain work is done on things like phone and internet lines, guardrail work needs to be done. So, it’s a matter of getting the materials needed; and getting everything coordinated together.
AUDIO: We have a handful of things left; and most of those items depend on us placing guardrail. And right now we have a conflict with the guardrail and two utilities that we’re resolving. So until that’s done, it’s going to be hard for us to proceed with the next step.
Also Tuesday evening, Danville mayor Rickey Williams, Jr presented a special certificate of appreciation to Jessica Custer from Cleaning by Jai. When the council and committees started meeting in person again after all the pandemic ZOOM meetings, Custer’s company did free cleaning in the Council Chamber the night before the meetings for many months. Custer explained one important piece of equipment they used.
AUDIO: The electro-static sprayer. It’s a machine that itemizes the droplets so that they have sort of a charge, so that they attract to each surface that we’re spraying at; which saves time so that we’re not wiping. We’re not using many other tools; we’re just spraying. After three minutes it has disinfected and sanitized, and it’s ready to go.
Mayor Rickey Williams, Jr presents a certificate of appreciation to Jessica Custer from Cleaning by Jai.
Finally, the Council approved the fire department’s attempt to apply for the Illinois State Fire Marshall Small Equipment Grant for Auto Extrication Lifting Airbags and Stabilization Struts. Chief Don McMasters says the department very much needs new equipment for rescuing victims trapped under vehicles or heavy machinery. McMasters says if the department is not successful in this grant attempt, they will need to ask to city to make the purchase.
We should also mention the following appointments from Tuesday night’s Danville City Council meeting: Rose Butler and Felix Velazquez to the Human Relations Commission; DHS boys basketball coach Durrell Robinson to the David S Palmer Arena Board, and former Neuhoff Media News Director Bill Pickett to the Historic Preservation Commission.
Also, the local NAACP announced a health equity grant for upcoming kidney and diabetes screening sessions.
