Kankakee Times

City of Watseka Code Enforcement Committee met Oct. 12.

Here are the minutes provided by the committee:

PRESENT: Aldermen Garfield, Miller, Cahoe, Barragree, Marcier, Rushbrook, Alderwomen Ulfers and Musk, Mayor Allhands

GUESTS: Building Inspector Eric Brandt and Code Enforcement Officer Bill Stanley

Alderman Garfield opened the meeting at 7:44 pm. There was no public comment. Building Inspector Eric Brandt reported on the following:

DNR Grant: Another $162,000 has been submitted for reimbursement, Still waiting on the last $320,000 that was submitted, 2 more closings scheduled for October 18th (109 W Sheridan St & 209 W Maple St), October 27th closings will be 805 N Virginia and 132 W Herron Ct., there are still some gas meters on a couple of other properties that need to be removed before they can go out to bid. 438 N 3rd has been demolished and the previous owner’s daughter is asking if she can plant a tree there in the lot in memory of her dad? The committee is ok with this. 544 E Locust St.: home is demolished and grass seed has been planted 100 W Walnut St & 1121 N Jefferson St: the inspector was here from Elgin Illinois and stated both buildings are in bad shape.

100 W Walnut is a big fire load with all the mattresses being stored. Both owners were at the inspection for the properties and they have the same finds that the city has. It was stated Lee Excavating gave a rough estimate of about $75,000 to demolish the 100 W Walnut St building. There was a lengthy discussion about both buildings. It was stated 100 W Walnut is a danger to the citizens of Watseka but 1121 N Jefferson is not. Many questions were asked such as: how to pay for if the city does the demolition, does the city give both owners a time frame to fix the problems, should the city condemn both buildings? The committee instructed Eric to talk to Attorney Cainkar and possibly get condemnation proceedings started if they don’t correct in the problems in 90 days.

Façade Grant: no new applications have been turned in

Hazard Mitigation Plan Maintenance: Eric stated November 2 is the anniversary and the plan just needs to be updated some and will need input from Unit 9 and IMH. This can all be done via emails.

Dumpster for Electronic Waste @ Public Works facility: Alderman Garfield stated the dumpster cost is $600 each time and $0.25 per pound and $0.10 per pound depending on the contents. The cost for the last electronic waste was $8803.00 and the county will pay half. 34,080# was collected which was down from last year. The committee told Alderman Garfield to continue to look into this.

Eric stated he has been asked to look into businesses that close up and leave their signage and leave signs that are in danger of falling.

Mayor Allhands stated he has given the committee some information regarding beatification of the downtown area to look at.

Code Enforcement Bill Stanley spoke next. He reported on the following:

Collections: $537.50 was collected last month

Intent to Tow: more notices have been sent out, people have been complying, this is a complicated process so Bill only does 2 at a time. He wrote 6 more junk vehicle tickets and if they don’t comply he will send notices of intent to tow.

208 N 2nd St: the landlord has been issued a citation and they called and stated they have a dumpster coming to clean up the property.

Mayor Allhands stated the committee has some paperwork from Teska Consultant Group to help with the extension of TIF 3. He asks the committee to look this over and have any questions for Attorney Cainkar at full council in 2 weeks.

http://www.watsekacity.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/code-enforcement-10-12-21.pdf