ABOVE: Danville City Treasurer Chris Heeren addresses Danville City Council Tuesday night.
A positive and sometimes emotional speech was given to the Danville City Council Tuesday night by Treasurer Chris Heeren; with thanks all around coming from the Council for him, his department, and numerous city personnel. There were a lot of problems in the treasury department when Heeren took over in May of 2023, and the word “mess” has been used to describe what he came into time and time again. Heeren said to the Council Tuesday night that he was glad to report that the treasurer’s office is “current.” He told CIMG afterwards that that means more than just paying the bills. First and foremost, he says it means that city audits are taken care of in due time, with a report being given at the start of Tuesday’s Council meeting.
AUDIO: The reconciliation, without that being done on time; the audit, the city audit; could not be done on time. So now the city audit, as we heard today with Sandy Cook; this was done as early as, like the mayor said that he can even remember. Because things are caught up and current, then the audit can be current; which makes us in even better standing with the state.
Additional good news came from Community Development Administrator Logan Cronk. He reported that the Illinois Housing Development Authority has awarded Danville an additional $483,000 for home rehabilitation work. This means that over the last few years, a total of nearly $2.6 million, from three different funds; has come to Danville from the IHDA for either home demolition or rehabilitation projects. Cronk say it’s simply because Danville is reaching IHDA’s expectations for using the money and getting things done.
AUDIO: We keep meeting the timeline benchmarks they’re setting for us; and they keep writing us checks, essentially. And the list is already set from the lottery that was drawn about a year and a half ago. So, we’ll go down to where we ended on the last amount of money we had, and we’ll just keep going down the list.
Cronk says the new $483,000 will cover about ten home rehab projects, and those who qualify to participate will be informed within the next two weeks.
