Peotone Village Board to ‘make some noise’

In a relatively mundane, usual business, village board meeting, something struck a chord at the end.

Trustee Gary Hudson brought up the number of accidents that occur at Rt. 50 and County Line Road, at the intersections of the Will County and Kankakee County Lines. He suggested something needs to be done.

A discussion enveloped around the idea of writing county officials, state police, and state officials, along with passing a resolution of some sort identifying the tragedy the intersection has caused the community.

That particular intersection has seen a voluminous amount of accidents in the past couple years and, sadly, even some fatalities. The Vedette contacted the Kankakee County Sheriff’s Office for data on accidents reported at the intersection during the last three years, and the data was startling. While the Sheriff’s Office did not narrow it down to specifically accidents, more than 340 calls were made to that exact location in the past three years.

With Rt. 50 being a state road and the State Police redistricting lumping the edge of Will County into the Chicagoland State Police District and the east-west road being a dividing line between counties, the jurisdiction, or responsibility for what happens at the intersection always has been a question.

The situation recently was exacerbated when a Peotone school district administrator was involved in a serious car accident at that very intersection; he was severely injured and another man lost his life.

Mayor Chris Vieaux called for prayers for a quick recovery for 207-U Supt. Brandon Owens.

Peotone Village Administrator Nick Palmer said, “I think letters from all of you (trustees) and sent to everyone – the governor, legislators, the secretary of IDOT, the County Executive, the County Engineer – and to your point, we’re on record.”

Hudson agreed, “People have been killed. It’s our community, it’s our residents who we represent. We need to make some noise.”

Palmer volunteered to make the list of officials to contact and share.

Just 48 hours after that meeting, Manteno Fire Chief Rick Petersen shared a press release calling for immediate action at that very intersection. In the release, Petersen said the Manteno Fire Department had responded to seven accidents at that location in two months. The release goes on to state the intersection is dangerous due to heavy highway speed traffic, geometric and visibility hazards, no turn lanes or advance warnings, jurisdictional confusion, and proven ineffectiveness of current measures.

In that statement, the Manteno Fire Department calls on IDOT to act quickly and immediately begin the process of adding a full traffic signal, turn lanes in all directions, intersection lighting, curbs and drainage improvements, adjustments to intersection approach angles, and advance warning systems for drivers.

”Every delay means more accidents, more injuries, and more families forever changed. We cannot accept a timeline that stretches over the next decade. This needs a top-tier safety priority – now,” said Petersen.

State Rep. Thaddeus Jones’ office was contacted for comments and none was received by The Vedette’s deadline.

Board Bits

A new business registration for Hope Homeschool Pod, on Main Street in downtown Peotone, unanimously was approved. A Chamber of Commerce ribbon cutting occurred on August 13.

Additional MFT funding was needed and approved for the Crawford Street resurfacing project in the amount of $35,000.

The initial payment to Iroquois Paving for the Conrad Storm Sewer project also was approved for $453,031.38.

Payout VI, and the second to last payment to D Construction for the 88th Avenue and Wilmington Road/I-57 ramp improvement project for $65,328.08 also was approved.

The village ordinance was updated to reflect that residents could not opt out of Homewood Disposal as their refuse collection service. Recently, the contract was negotiated on rooftops and signed for five years. Residents will have to use Homewood for all waste collection.

Also, a discussion around electing a new finance system and upgrading to an ERP (enterprise resource planning) was shared. An ERP platform would allow the village to manage finance, Human Resources, and supply chain management into a single system. Palmer shared that the annual fee for the current finance system has been paid for the fiscal year, but there would be no penalty for canceling. The discussion was held at the Administrative Oversight Committee meeting on August 18, at 2 p.m.