First Step To Biggest Debt Borrowing Ever

Update:

Mark:

Thanks for the inquiry, it has always been our intention to place a
podcast/MP3 file of this meeting on the Village website.

If you have any other questions, please let me know.

Cara Pavlicek
Village Manager

Despite a light agenda for this Tuesday’s meeting, staff scheduled the village council to meet this Monday at 6pm in the Committee Room:

Tree Update

Interim Director of Public Works Robin Weaver broke the sobering news to council tonight: the Emerald Ash Borer (EAB) is on the way, it’s closer than anyone thinks, and nothing anyone has done stops the 100% lethality of this pest. Evanston is getting hammered right now; hundreds of trees need removal, and their Public Works crews are swamped.

It’s all very sad. Ash trees had their foibles, but some, especially purple Ash, really are beautiful shade trees. Hardy, tolerant, robust, and completely vulnerable to a small bug from China. Probably the best way to know the EAB has arrived will be the tiny sideways ‘D’ holes in the tree, and the woodpeckers pecking away eating everyone they can find. Sorry, the woodpeckers don’t stop them either.

Public Works will be taking out 400-450 trees this year, trying to get ahead of the problem like everyone else did not. Replacing all those trees is going to cost money, and it is my intention to see what we residents might do to help lower the cost to the village. I’ll report in on this if/as things happen.

2008 CIP - Scope and Design Open House

The Village has more projects than stormwater projects this year. On a Tuesday when the council did not meet, members of Public Works showed residents what else is coming for the 2008 construction season.

The weather turned pretty lousy by 7pm, but there was pretty good attendance anyway.

I hoped DG’s newest news man RonBurgandy would be there, or even say, a columnist from the Sun, but there was no press at all. I took these pictures on my phone, so the light is suspect and makes everyone look shiny.

I didn’t think to take down names, so this amiable guy in the dark shirt is Bike Path Guy. He talked about the first two phases of signage and stripage for designated bikeways, so he’s also Sign Guy.
It’s tough adding in bikeways in DG because our streets typically don’t have the width in the older parts of town, and there isn’t much off-street path opportunity. Signage is important to alert drivers that bikers are around. Most pathways will be marked with signs every 220 feet or so. The two guys in the sign department will be very busy this year.

As usual, there were several staffers on hand to answer any questions. Deputy Village Manager Dave Fieldman was in good spirits. Usually he’s the guy who answers a lot of questions at council meetings (although Tom Dabareiner, Director of Community Development, is giving him a run for his money lately).

There were several PW guys there handling questions, so he had a light load for a change.

Like I said, my phone cam makes everyone look shiney, although the focus is always perfect. Yeah, Dave looked a little, I don’t know, blurry.

I talked briefly with Ms. Weaver to continue lobbying for saving our mature, non-ash, non-invasive parkway trees from straight line sidewalks (seeTrees Winning New Friends at Public Works ), and the Sidewalk Guys have the message to save every tree possible from now moving forward. Just in a three block run we saved 18 trees. Have to say, if she keeps to her plan we’ll save several hundred trees before we finish sidewalks in DG and get back up to speed on infrastructure. That matters.

L-to-R Village Manager Cara Pavlicek, Plan Commissioner Greg Beggs, and Public Works Director Robin Weaver.

Like I said, I didn’t think to write down names of people, so I only know the well-known names, so I don’t know who this guy is . Said his name was Ron something…

I’m kidding. Mayor Sandack was all smiles too, and took time to talk with residents and thank them for coming out in such bad weather.