The Marion County Board Tuesday night officially set aside $700,000 in county funding to match $ 3.1 million in federal and state matching money for improvements to the Green Street and Odin Roads.
County Highway Engineer Mike McCormick says with the funding resolutions in place they are now ready for the work to be put out to bid in January. He anticipates work beginning in spring and being completed by fall.
He explains the work to be done on Green Street Road.
“They are going to widen the shoulder on the curves, they will be putting up guardrail, they will be putting up some additional signage, they will be putting in rumble strips on the shoulder and centerline, and there will also be some drainage improvements.”
The Odin Road will be improved just north of the Green Street Road intersection.
“What we did was tie this into Green Street to where we are going to widen the bridge and we are going to correct the curve so that way if you happen to be going too fast or not paying attention you can safely get over the bridge.”
McCormick hopes the work will reduce the number of accidents on the two roads.
The county board also gave final approval to reappoint McCormick as Marion County Highway Engineer for another six years.
The board was told the county’s auditor will now begin moving forward on overdue audits for the past few years now that past problems with county payroll funds have been corrected. A meeting is set for Friday to set up a schedule to get the audits completed. The lack of audits is causing some county offices to have problems accessing state grant funds.
Finance Committee Chair Christopher Krupp reported the initial $500,000 deficit in the budget for the fiscal year beginning December 1st has been cut to just $50,000. He’s hoping they can get to a balanced budget following a finance committee meeting next week. The proposed budget will then go to the full county board for consideration.
The board extended an earlier resolution to allow the Emergency Services and Disaster Agency to complete Halloween Patrols from this Friday through November 1st at the direction of the sheriff.
After hearing another presentation by Ameresco, the county board unanimously agreed to pay a $523,483 bill they put on hold last month awaiting some punch list items to be completed.
The board heard a request from James Baker for the county to ask the Illinois Department of Transportation to install rumble strips near the Route 37 and Route 161 intersection to call attention to the four-way stop. Baker was involved in a near crash at the intersection.
