American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA)

During public comment at the board meeting last Thursday, a resident, Nancy Wendling, stood up and offered her help to the village with finding funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). Nancy explained that she has experience in this area and is working with other municipalities as well as the Fortune 100 company she works for in locating funding.

What kind of funding do we need right now?

As we know from the budget and the village newsletter, our road maintenance program was significantly reduced. An already under-funded program is now reduced to road patching. Many of our roads are in poor shape. A presentation to the board by the PW Director last year showed that many roads at that time were in dire need of repair or replacement. Perhaps Ms. Wendling will be able to assist the village in finding the funds we desperately need for road repair and/or replacement.

A new police building is needed. When Island Lake population reaches 10,000, by law, we will be required to update our jail to meet certain criteria that it currently does not have. The most logical answer is to build a new police station. If we don't find the funding, the only answer may be in a tax increase.

The village hall building is crumbling and is sorely outdated. We need to update our village hall to match the growth of our village and allow us to offer more and improved services. Funding for this is also lacking and any grants our resident expert, Ms. Wendling or the Board members/employees can find will be a tremendous help to us all. If you remember, the board spent $20,000 on an architectural firm last year to get the much needed advice and plans for both the police building and village hall projects. Due to the economy, a plan to put a referendum on the ballot for a bond was put on hold. However, eventually, we will have to bring these projects to fruition.

Then there's parks that need to be finished, sidewalks installed, safety programs, and more. Currently, Converse Park is not paved. We need to pave that parking lot to adhere to our own ordinances. We should also look at other uses for the park; perhaps as resident, Joe Ptak suggested, a band shell. This is a viable option for making Island Lake a "destination" for outsiders. If the right option for utilizing this park is chosen and proper planning and roll out, we may have a diamond in the rough. We may not have the rooftops needed to bring big business or restaurants in, but we certainly can bring the people in to visit and leave their money behind in way of sales.

Our Public Works department is understaffed and lacks the funds for new or replacement equipment and tools needed to provide the top notch service we have come accustomed to.

Our police department is understaffed. We need more police, and in my opinion, we need more full-time officers, not more part-time officers. Our police department is overwhelmed and many officers work many hours of overtime. We need to reduce the overtime and ensure our officers are well rested between shifts. We want the best and brightest to wear our uniforms and in order to do that, we need to engage our employees (officers) with full-time jobs and excellent benefits, working conditions, and training.

Our village needs an administrator to help run the day to day business needs of the village which will result in a more efficiently run village and provide the much needed liaison to the board. Much of the existing board has already publicly supported the creation of this position. Many villages smaller in population than Island Lake have managers or administrators. This position would be key to our continued growth and success.

Our village has invested over $250,000 for a water tower and well project that has not moved forward. A lawsuit which has been much publicized has stopped the village from drilling a well near the Pig Farmer, Wauconda Township resident, Bob Wargaski.

Mosquito Spraying Planned for July 2-3

At last Thursday's meeting, it was announced by the PW Director that Mosquito spraying will take place the night of July 2nd into the early morning hours of July 3rd. This spraying will happen as long as there is no rain or a major drop in temperature (55 or lower). I doubt

Image via Wikipedia

the temps will go down that low but I'm not sure we can count rain out. Let's hope for a dry week so the spraying can be performed and everyone can enjoy their July 4 celebrations with less mosquitoes.

This will be the first of four spray applications budgeted for the season.