Sangamon Sun

Village of Spaulding Village Board met April 1.

Here is the minutes provided by the board:

Call to order board meeting at 7pm by Mayor Brian Cuffle. Roll call: Bill Hinkle, Mike Foster, Dusty Brown, Mary Ann Burge, Amy Cunningham, Kathy Tega.

Treasurer’s Report (Lisa)

Motion to approve treasurer’s report made by Amy Cunningham seconded by Mike Foster. All in favor passes 5-0.

Police Report: Chief Hillyer

Traffic Safety Fair update, has been moving along quite well. As you know, we have always had other school districts try to self-invite or request to come out and bring their student body out. I’ve met with Mark Oller, the Sheriff of Menard County. As we always invited Athens in years past, he’s persistent that Greenview and Petersburg attend. I told him that I would make contact with those schools. He’s been in contact with them already. They are very interested and they want to come out. They have their high school driver’s ed. I would rather go that way. It is something that we have to weigh if we will bring out the entire student body because that is a lot of kids to have between 8 and 2. I’m going to talk with some of the other participants and see if we can handle it or not. It would be for the entire high school, not just Driver’s Education students.

Bill Hinkle: How many students would they send? Did they tell you?

Chief Hillyer: Greenview is a small school. Well, Petersburg is a small school compared to what we typically have.

Mayor Cuffle: Greenview is usually about 20 or so kids per class. So, if you’ve got the high school, you’re talking about 100 kids. Just average.

Chief Hiller: Usually we see about 500-800 kids with districts we have. It wouldn’t be a huge influx.

Mayor Cuffle: If you add Petersburg, that’s another 100 and some kids per class.

Chief Hillyer: Otherwise it is going pretty well. We did get all of our handheld radar units in and installed in all 3 squads. We are using those and that has been fantastic. As you know, we brought Officer Collins in. We’ve got him qualified with everything and got his uniforms. I am going to have him ride with me for a couple of shifts. Per our policy. Then we will turn him out on his own. I don’t know if we want to get into this, tonight or wait. But a lot of the municipalities are going to ordinance violations foregoing state citations. Several of the Chiefs around town are going to schedule a meeting and go over what we can or can’t do. We have to have someone in good standing with the BAR. We don’t have to have a judge. They are trying to work out a deal to get their attorney to be our judge and our attorney be their judge. In a year and a half, we have had 1 person request a hearing. But they cancelled it. But that is something that we can work out. Other municipalities like Southern View, Grand View, Jerome all want to pitch in and hire a judge. We aren’t required to have a judge, but we would just need someone in good standing with the BAR.

Just a few things that we have had: Overdose and we used Narcan and brought him back. Another accident on 54 and main and an overweight ticket for $926 and reckless driving stuff.

As far as the Assassin Game, we’ve had some issues with the kids with the traffic. Brian and I talked over the phone over 1 of the incidents. It was cancelled and closed down. But now it has started back up again. We will deal with that as it comes along.

Mayor Cuffle: Any questions for Jimmy?

Chief Hillyer: OK then I just have 1 more thing. We would like to present Brian with this plaque from the Spaulding Police Department. For all the support he’s given us over the last 12 years as mayor.

Mayor Cuffle: Thanks Jimmy. Very Much. Just need to entertain the motion to approve the police report: Bill approves, Mike seconds. All in favor: Passes 5-0

Engineers Report:

Adam: A few things on the list tonight. First thing wrote a letter to the resident on N Allen in regards to the erosion control. He’s building a new home. We’ve had a complaint from Sangamon County. I heard from him a few days after in a letter. He’s put a silt fence in to north side of his property and protect the neighbor’s pond and protect the road on the opposite side. I think we are ok there. I Just wanted to report that to the board. I’ve been in touch a couple different times through last month with Jay in regards to the variety of work that the village hired him to do. I think he has had some sickness in the family that he has been dealing with. The last I heard; he was trying to get up to Schneider St to get a fence rehung. The last time I heard, it’s supposed to be done last week, but I’m not sure if it’s done. There are still some outstanding items on that list as far as Schneider St job goes. He did get the grate finished by the culverts and on the sidewalk. But there’s just still items on the list, so I’ll continue to follow up on those items.

I checked in with IDOT about the intersection out here at 54. Jimmy just reported that you had another accident in the last month. It’s still out there on a list somewhere but there’s no funding, no programing and there’s nothing that been planned in the future. It is still on a committee list and it’s still on the IDOT list but they aren’t actively searching for a program for that work.

We have the outstanding bill, which was 10% of the value of completed work which was $7,140, which makes this bill $714 to S&W for their work on the sidewalk at the park. This is the retainer we held. I received a bill from him last week and I printed it. I didn’t bring it with me but I think it’s for $69; where he finished those 2 areas where he finished over the culverts. I haven’t been out here to look at the work. But, like I said, I just got the bill late Friday afternoon. I don’t know if anyone would like to act on these bills or if you want to approve this or wait until the next meeting.

Mayor Cuffle: I would just wait until the next meeting, after you’ve look at it.

Adam: After I’ve looked at it, we can act on these bills.

Mike Foster: Question for you. Didn’t we have rock back there then he used our rock to put on the walkway?

Adam: It was millings.

Mayor Cuffle: Not originally the rock. It was the millings underneath the rock that he put down. I don’t know if he used some of our rock. He probably did. He brought in a little bit of rock too. I know he needed more rock than what he brought in because we had some back there.

Adam: I wasn’t aware that he used all the C6. But I knew that he used all the millings we had in the pile

Chief Hillyer: We had had 2 tandems back there with some C6 back there from Ameren when they were doing some digging and locating. We let them dump there in a holding spot if they would use what they wanted and then leave the rest for us for the sidewalk and the trail.

Mike Foster: I would like for you to go back and look through the bills and see if he billed us for our own gravel.

Adam: I know his bill was substantially less than his original quote. But I can bring all those numbers next time.

Chief Hillyer: Then real quick Adam. I don’t know if you want to maybe call IDOT and see if maybe they can put another flashing red light on the north side of 54. Maybe that’s something you can talk to them about.

Adam: To let them know there’s a stop sign?

Chief Hillyer: Even though there’s a stop sign, but, that’s where our crashes are coming from is that north side coming south.

Mayor Cuffle: Adam, after they are over the railroad tracks.

Chief Hillyer: Right. I don’t know. It’s just an idea. I know we can’t fix everything.

Adam: I’ll ask. White St. We talked a little bit last time about erosion off the field to the south on the dead end section of White St. Bryan and I looked at it when we drove the roads a couple weeks ago and we had an idea where we thought we could get a swale in there and re-direct the water to the ditch line to the west of White St and kind of avert it from underneath the driveway culverts. The bottom line is we know there is work to be done and it’s going to take sort of a silt fence or something there but it’s going to have to be maintained. It’s not going to be permanent. We may still need straw bails in the fall and winter months. I think I reported last month we’ve had issues with this in this subdivision there was work down in a subdivision down in Chatham this winter and saw in another place on 2nd street near woodside road where they’ve had issues. I think this winter we had a couple of large rain events where we still had frost on the ground and that 3” of loose material just ran off into the ditches and exaggerated the problem even more so this year than in the past years. I know you’ve reported that it’s continued to be an issue down there on White St. If that’s something that the board is interested in, we can try to find a contractor that could cut some sort of a swale through there and recede it to redirect that water so that we can avoid it from our neighbor’s yard and keep it off the road at least. But it would take some sort of maintenance from somebody whether it be the village or subcontractor over time to at least keep that silt off. Or establish some sort of silt barrier there. Particularly when crops are in the field.

Mayor Cuffle: What’s better is that the silt goes into the ditch rather than in the road. But the corn field itself is 2 or 3 foot higher than the road. That’s where the old waterway used to be back before they created the subdivision. And then what happens is it come right to that deal and it goes to the low part of everything, which is the road right now. Until it can go and overflow over that. Right now, it’s just been sitting there in a bunch of mud. And then the rain comes up that way. To get that road built up a little bit. So that way it actually gets the water off the road and into the ditches. Instead it just sits there like a lake. It’s a lake for about 75 feet.

Adam: Yes. Part of it sits on the road. Just sitting there and blocks the road. Part of it is the road, over time has widened through there with the mailman turning around and moving the gravel into the mailboxes and there wasn’t a road base there so it sunk and it holds water. There’s a variety of issues down there. We need to at least stop the soil from getting into the road and then I think and in our resident’s front yard; I think that would be advantageous. I think that time is of the essence here if we want to get a ditch cut and get grass to grow in the next few months before we get into the summer season so; I don’t know if the board wants to go with that, or if you want to try to call a contractor and I can get some prices and bring it back next month.

Mayor Cuffle: I think we need to do that.

Bill Hinkle: Shouldn’t we notify the property owner’s?

Mayor Cuffle: Our road is wide enough there plus the end of the road butts up to the corn field so we can do something on our side of the easement to do that.

Adam: Draining issues in the ditches so you have the rights to work there.

Mayor Cuffle: I Just think we need to at least get an estimate to see what something like that would be and we can decide, or you guys can decide, and then decide at that point what to do.

Adam: Ok I’ll get an estimate for the next board meeting. Another issue we talked about last month is drain the area in the back of radio station and getting some sort of temporary swale or rights from Bill Herman across his property and create some path to get the water from the radio station property that is outside the village over through the other side of Schneider St. I have a copy here that I used for Schneider St of the generic temporary easement that I was going to share with the attorney tonight to see if he thinks that this is good enough to go onto a resident’s property and deal with the drainage. I want to talk a little bit about what I think it looks like from the Board. Brian and I took a look at it again that night that we looked at the roads. If you see there on the south of the fence line. There is a low point. The low point doesn’t actually fall in the corner of Bill Herman’s yard. So, in order to get this thing to drain, we really need to come over to the middle of the back yard and create some sort of path or swale or drainage way through his yard or we would have to go outside the limits of the village in the pasture, south of this fence, and create some sort of path for the water to get to the corner of his yard or along the lot line. Dusty you called me and said that you had some sort of conversation with Bill Herman. I didn’t know if Bill understand that we may have to be through his yard or along the edge of his yard or if he cares 1 way or another but I think it’s worth discussing so at least everybody understands it.

Dusty Brown: That’s the low point now. It does look like there was dirt added there on that side where the swale is there now. I mean if we cut all the way over there and back around what’s the chances of keeping it where it’s at originally?

Adam: You’d have to cut all that dirt out of there and get around his shed. If I look back at a little bit older imagery from like 3 years ago. That shed used to sit on the back of his garage; and just in the last 2 or 3 years that shed has moved to the back corner of his yard. There’s also a pile of dirt that you can see at the end of that gravel. If you look at the gravel drive that comes down the east side of the garage towards the back yard, there’s a high spot in the middle of that that blocks all the water from even getting through his back yard.

Mayor Cuffle: It has to be high enough before it can go over that to get to the drain to the east of his actually garage there.

Adam: Brian and I was out there walking around not only was there water standing out there in the pasture but this resident’s back yard was so soft you could hardly walk around in it. I mean you walked and left 2-inch foot prints in the yard.

Bill Hinkle: Are you talking about the house east of Bill’s

Mayor Cuffle: No, we were actually in Bill Herman’s back yard. We were making footprints at least 2 inches deep.

Adam: The homeowner to the east of this came out and said that he had 3 inches of water in his shed this winter. Ideally if we had a drainage swale, or something through there, or if we were creating a new subdivision, it would be on a lot line. But, you know, if the path that the water always took was across the corner of his back yard, like I’m showing, by law you can’t block a natural drainage way or natural path of flowing water. That may be more realistic than scrape out the high points of the soil and rock and ashes that is blocking the water from getting there.

Mayor Cuffle: the 1 thing that I can see is in addition to the hump between the shed and his garage in that swale that’s actually there, there’s a hump there, but there’s a low point of it is out there in the middle of that pasture and we would have to go out there into that pasture to actually make it low enough to get to the fence now, because it’s been built up enough, or it seems its gotten built up

enough somehow over years, which has created kind of a berm where it wouldn’t let that water come that way past the fence anyway. So, the only thing that’s using the swale is the stuff from each one of those 2 peoples’ yards. Herman and the people to the east of it. It’s just from the rain in the yards that are getting in the way of that swale. It’s nothing that’s coming from the pasture, unless it rains a gully wash. It might come over enough to go that way. It’s just soaking so much up and I don’t think it can get over that hump at the fence line.

Adam: the other thing that I wondered was you could put a tile through there. I do think you’re going to give some sort of relief. I do believe that the shed is sitting a little higher and is blocking some of the water from going there. Bill probably added some dirt over there to build it up because he didn’t want 3 inches of water sitting in his shed. So, he built the land up which is exaggerating the issue. I just need some direction from the board to see if we still want to call Jay and see if he can get in there and clean this out. I think it’s worth at least having another conversation with Bill about what path to take.

Dusty Brown: Whenever I was talking to him, I was talking about east of the shed and opening that up. I don’t know if he’d let us go in the middle and go right in front of the shed in order to cut it.

Adam: I’m afraid if you do that it’s going to get a lot larger because you’re going to have a lot more dirt in that corner.

Mayor Cuffle: Trying to do that, you’d almost have to move that shed. Just go look at it Dusty. You’ll see what we’re talking about.

Adam: It’s about 12-15 feet, where I paced it off, between the shed and the fence line. So, there is enough room to work in there.

Mayor Cuffle: I just don’t know that the water will get to there. That’s the issue.

Dusty Brown: If the shed is what’s keeping it from getting it there to begin with, if it was getting there before. If we open that up, where he put that dirt at, we should be able to get it there again. Without going in the middle of the yard.

Adam: But that shed didn’t sit there 3 years ago. If that whole area of the corner is what’s been built up, that is what we need to take out of the way. That may get pinched in the room for the area between the shed and the fence. Bill, when did the problem really get bad?

Bill Hinkle: Early October I’ve been here since 1991 and there’s always been water there, but then it was gone. But, this time the water’s there and it’s stayed.

Mayor Cuffle: We had 3 inches of rain this weekend.

Adam: The only cause and effect that I can draw up between that is he put a bunch of dirt around his foundation. Ameren delivered a bunch of dirt to Herman’s house and piled it up to the East side of the garage. That’s the only cause and effect that I can think that we would have that would’ve exaggerated the problem.

Dusty Brown: I moved it all to the front yard.

Mayor Cuffle: The question to ask is whether or not this is a village issue.

Mike Foster: Once we do something there, we are liable for it forever.

Mayor Cuffle: That’s why I wanted to bring it up. We don’t want to create a liability for the village. We don’t want to do that. We can still go get a price from the contractor and all that and then you guys can decide if you want to do something in the next couple months. I won’t be here, but just be aware, that when you do something like this, it creates a liability for the village. And at this time, its nothing that the village has done to create it. Get a price and then discuss again.

Bill Hinkle: Go back to Herman and make sure he’s still on board though.

Dusty Brown: He’s on board, but as long as we keep it along the fence. I can’t see him coming off the low point in front of the shed off the low point.

Adam: If someone did it and made it nice, it wouldn’t be a ditch. Kids could still play there. You’re talking about a 25-foot swash big enough for the water to get through so it doesn’t look like ditch in the middle of his yard.

Dusty Brown: the shed is going to be gone.

Adam: do you know when it will be gone.

Mayor Cuffle: Have Jay quote it without the shed.

Amy Cunningham: I have some questions. What is the actual problem that we, as the board, need to put drainage tile in his back yard? What concern is it of ours that his back yard is 2 inches of mush?

Adam: I don’t think the concern is his back yard. It’s the pasture to the south of this are that is standing with water in it.

Amy Cunningham: And the pasture isn’t ours either.

Amy Cunningham: Correct; Its outside the village limits.

Amy Cunningham: So what is the concern of the village?

Mayor Cuffle: It’s a concern of 1 of the board members and that is why we are talking about it.

Bill Hinkle: The concern was that with the road, if that water standing there, is there anything that the homeowner could come back to the village from the water being there.

Amy Cunningham: So, you think there would be a possibility that the field would flood?

Bill Hinkle: Is that something that would come back on us because of the field flooding.

Adam: The village of Spaulding doesn’t have an easement or even a right to go in there and maintain to get the water over to our ditch. It would be between the field owners and the homeowners.

Amy Cunningham: I could see it being a concern of the village going the back way through this, as a health concern, stench, mosquitos breeding. You could put a letter together stating that if it’s not corrected on your property, we are giving you an amount of time to correct the problem because the problem is on your property. But it also concerns the village through the back doorway. That then the village would issue a fine. I don’t know how the laws are written, but you would be assessed a fine per day.

Adam: You can’t fine the village of Riverton for the flooding issues. The issue is coming from behind the field behind Bill Herman. The question is if Bill Herman did something to his yard that prevented the water from going to the ditch. Another thing is the village of Riverton is under a mine. Something could’ve happened last year and caused a mine to cave in which created a sink hole in the field; preventing the water to go to the ditch.

Mayor Cuffle: I don’t think that this has any liability for the Village of Spaulding.

Amy Cunningham: Has anyone contacted the owner of the land to notify them that their property could be the cause of our back yards to flood there?

Adam: I haven’t done anything other than look at it because the board asked me to. There could be a broken tile in the field. Last thing on the agenda, Brian and I drove the roads. Here’s a list of items that needs to be done around the village. Patches and holes that need to be repaired. Prioritize the repairs for 2019 road work.

Mayor Cuffle: North Allen, where the new house went in. so thin. White St has been broken up and almost gone. White St south toward E Raylots. Add an inch or 2 of c6. Some oil. Make a road mix of oil and chip.

Attorney Report (Pat)

Attorney: Expense ordinance - expense reimbursement form. Employer must reimburse the employee for work related expenses.

Motion to Approve Expense Ordinance-Kathy approves and MaryAnn seconds-passes 6-0

Attorney: Raises for village officials –

BC: I’m walking out the door. I would rather this be tabled. Wait for the new people to be seated then discuss it.

Attorney: There was an ordinance in 2014 that increased it. That was the last increase.

BC: I would rather we wait until the new board and mayor is seated.

Attorney: Sterling working on the ordinance project is just returning from illness. 2 weeks behind on the contract. Due soon. Will be persistent.

Communications:

Brian (Resident): Put in for a building permit. There is currently a shed on my property that is on the property line. I would like to build a garage. Variance on the building permit. Have Adam look it over first. Side is 5 feet 111 N Allen St. Adam will look at it and give the board a recommendation.

Resident of Northwest corner of Main & Schneider: we just moved in 1/28/19. We’ve spent $7k on water repairs on the house. Had water in the basement. Dug a trench around the foundation. 3-inch drain tile. Someone put concrete in the tile and silicone. 100-150 gallons per minute into the basement. Rented a machine to dig up the yard. Our concern is that the front yard is just mud. The pipe was 6.5 or 7 feet down in the ground and went directly into the house. Ditches are full of debris, rocks, sticks, etc.

Mayor Cuffle: I will not be in attendance for my last meeting. Mike will be heading the meeting and will seat the new members. We’ve done a lot of things since I have been on the board and as Mayor. We enacted an agenda. We didn’t go through the Adam’s Rule of order. May 2011 took over as Mayor. Cell tower has been installed which is a great revenue for the village. The Veterans’ Memorial. Schneider St Project. We weren’t spending much of our MFT funds. We get $17 to $18k per year.

Bill Hinkle: What’s going on with the parking lot lights?

Mayor Cuffle: They will be installing a new one which will be $250 to update but the other new post will be free. It will cost an additional amount on the monthly bill, but the light and post itself will not cost the village anything; other than the $250 to update the light we already have.

Motion to adjourn made by Dusty Brown seconded by Amy Cunningham. Passes 6-0

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