The Danville City Council has passed the item forwarded last month by the Public Services Committee; where Kirchner Building Services will be relocating from their current 508 West Williams spot, and moving to the northwest corner of Gilbert and Fairchild, using the old Goodwill building; as well as eventually a significant portion of that entire corner, including some surrounding properties the city plans to acquire and then transfer to Kirchner. Vice-President of Operations Torey Ryan says this will all take a few years, but his team is thrilled to be able to make this move.
AUDIO: Beautiful location. We’re excited to get that whole area built up, and have another place to shop, and build the community up. We’re cramped right now. We’ve outgrown our facility that we’re at right now. We’re very excited to build, from the development side of sides, how many roofs and all that, things we’re going to be going through. So we’re pretty excited about that.
Meanwhile, Mayor Rickey Williams, Jr passed out an updated estimate of annual expenses for the planned new Garfield Pool. The annual cost is now estimated at $211,000; with $50,000 being set aside for major maintenance as needed, with those specific expenses likely coming from the city’s Capital Fund. Maintenance items like pumps and liners were two examples mentioned, with the mayor saying major expenses like that must be planned for, and that was one problem the old Garfield Park Pool had.
Also, the issue of parking campers and RVs came up again when Alderman Mike Puhr said he’s getting complaints of pontoon boats being parked on streets for months at a time, but that they’re allowed to be if they’re hooked up to the vehicle that was towing them. Puhr says he sees something like that as much more of a visual hazard than someone parking a camper in their own driveway, and this is one reason he voted against the recent update to the old ordinance.
AUDIO: I think there might be some amendments. I’ve turned this same issue in about three years in a row. The way the ordinance is written, as long as it’s hooked up to a vehicle and parked in the street it’s perfectly legal. But you can’t let a motor home sit on the street hooked up to a vehicle; there’s a time limit. So I think that’s something we need to address.
Finally, Community Relations Administrator Ashton Greer reminded everyone that Danville’s 47th Annual Vermilion River Fall Festival in Ellsworth Park is set for a little over a week from now; Friday the 16th through Sunday the 18th.
