The Centralia city council approved a new comprehensive plan at its regular meeting on Monday. The comprehensive plan’s purpose is to guide development and planning for the city of Centralia and inform decisions about zoning, infrastructure investments, and other key policies. The last comprehensive plan was adopted in 2009. Luke Eastin of the South Central Illinois Regional Planning and Development Commission helped to facilitate the new plan. According to Eastin, a comprehensive plan should be updated regularly and immediately actionable.
“I would say most of the plan’s priorities can be addressed immediately and then budgeted for within a relatively short period of time,” Eastin said. “In theory, it should be updated regularly, and you should never have to really redo a plan from scratch. If it’s constantly updated every year and reviewed by city council and staff, it should be something that just lives forever and you update it as you accomplish things.”
The council also approved an ordinance raising connection fees for the water and sewerage system. The fee increase is a response to rising material costs making installing water meters and sewer services more expensive.
A resolution was approved for an agreement with Crawford, Murphy & Tilly, Inc. for engineering for rehabilitation of runways 18/36 at Centralia Municipal Airport. The cost of engineering services is not to exceed $2400. Federal funding for the runway project has been awarded and will cover 95% of the construction cost, which will be determined through bidding.
The council also approved waiving the bidding requirements for emergency storm and sewer repairs at Franklin and Rexford and at Rexford and Lincoln. An emergency repair was performed by Furlong Excavating, Inc. to restore collapsed sewer lines. This resolution allows the city to pay for that service.
