Peotone could be in for a $100,000 windfall for the windmill.
Mayor Chris Vieaux announced at the Dec. 15 meeting that the village could receive the money courtesy of ESP Solar even though a proposed solar energy facility will not be within Peotone’s border.
“This project is northeast of Peotone, not in Peotone,” Vieaux said. “It’s located near Eagle Lake Road and Egyptian Trail. This is the first project approved by Will County in May of 2025. It has been reviewed and approved. It’s not in Peotone’s boundaries but it is in our general planning area.”
Vieaux said ESP Solar wants to give the village $100,000 with 50% coming at the financial close of the project and the rest coming at the beginning of operations.
“(Village Administrator Nick Palmer) and I have discussed this awhile and we believe – and I strongly believe — in putting this donation toward Peotone’s windmill.”
Vieaux put it out there for discussion but an actual vote on accepting the money and how to spend it will come at a future meeting.
The mayor said that ESP Solar is a family-owned business that is “proud to be at the forefront of the solar energy movement in Illinois.”
He said the mission of ESP is to develop and operate power facilities that benefit local communities and provide pathways for households to adopt and benefit from clean energy solutions and have access for sustainable power.
The Peotone Mill, also known as “Millie” and formerly known as the Rathje Mill, was donated to the village in the 1980s and is designated as a building in both the National Register and Will County registers of historic places. The mill was built in the late 1800s.
Upkeep on the old structure requires money, especially in light of recent damage to the second-floor balcony as well as the basic core of the structure.
The Peotone Historical Society continues to restore and preserve the windmill and Millie is the star of the show at the annual Old Mill Fall Fest, which has taken place for more than 20 years.
“The Peotone Mill really needed to be restored instead of just decaying,” Ed Nelson, the president of the historical society, told the Vedette in September. “We all understand that there’s not a lot of money just sitting around for a big project like this, so it’s going to be a big challenge reaching our goals.”
Levy approved
The board gave the go-ahead on a tax levy of $715,751.
The money will be allocated for general corporate purposes, the Municipal Auditing Fund, the Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund, the Social Security Fund, the Liability, Unemployment and Workers Compensation Insurance Fund, the Police Protection Fund, the Medicare Fund and the Police Pension Fund.
Residential permit approved
After tabling the item in November, the board gave the green light to Bingo J Transportation Limited Liability Co. for a home occupation permit at 532 Hauert St.
“This is a startup business for them, and they are getting their paperwork ready,” Palmer said. “But I was very clear with them that this is a residential home occupation. No trucks are coming to the house. No customers are coming to the house. For the neighbors they virtually wouldn’t know they are running a business.”
Peotone bits
- New part-time police officer Oscar Galaraza was approved by the board and was sworn in.
- Vieaux and Palmer will represent the village on the South Suburban Mayors and Manager Association Environmental Justice Committee with the mayor serving as a representative and Palmer as an alternate.
SD 207-U showers praise on grounds crew
By Jeff Vorva
It’s not often that a director of buildings and grounds gets a hearty round of applause at a school board meeting.
But trustees, administrators and audience members clapped loudly for Mike Singleton at the Dec. 15 Peotone District 207-U meeting.
For weeks, Singleton and his staff have been boxing with issue after issue including problems with snow, power and a boiler.
There was some snow to deal with.
He told the board that as of Dec. 7, 14.9 inches of snow fell on district grounds.
“Some of the earliest significant snowfalls in the past several years have kept our team busy on a fairly regular basis,” he told the board. “Each member of our crew has spent time plowing, shoveling, salting and bucketing snow piles in response to some significant snow totals.
“This has been a very active winter season already.”
It’s been active enough outside but it’s also been active inside the buildings as well.
The elementary school suffered a power outage in early December. There were a few power issues in August that confounded Singleton and some of the district’s consultants but this Dec. 3 outage was widespread to the whole building.
“Our partners at Midwest Mechanical, Klass Electric, and Forefront Electrical Testing responded immediately to troubleshoot, and provided a temporary generator to run the school until the problem was resolved,” he said.
He added that after many hours of testing systems throughout the night, they replaced a breaker coming into the school from the Commonwealth Edison transformer.
“This breaker was inconsistently tripping regardless of the load or sequence of power restoration, and since we were not able to replicate any of the outages, we felt this was a likely culprit,” he said.
But…
On Dec. 5 another problem arose shutting down the power and an e-learning day was called for the elementary school.
“Power from Com Ed was disconnected late and the breaker was removed and replaced. This new unit was tested by Forefront before installation and shown to be good. The building remained on generator power until ComEd returned (Dec. 7) to restore power. At this time, temp power was removed and the building was placed on utility power once again without incident.”
As of Dec. 15, he said there were no further power issues at the school and a backup generator remained on site through the weekend of Dec. 13-14.
Then, it was a boiler’ turn to create havoc.
The boiler at the high school was acting up as there was a leak in the water box. The boiler had to be shut down so it could be inspected and repaired.
Singleton said they wanted to take care of it during the winter break, but the boiler was not cooperating and on Dec. 10, they shut it down.
“The leak got consistently worse to the point where we needed to shut down the boiler to at least put eyes on the damage firsthand,” he said. “Communication was shared with the board, administration, and parents that the boiler would be shut down for at least part of the day.
“With temperatures above freezing for the majority of the day the building maintained temperatures above 65 degrees in the gym and in some areas above 70 degrees throughout the day.”
Singleton said there was corrosion damage in two corners of the water box that required steel to be cut out and new material welded in place to stop the leak.
Singleton and his staff didn’t plan on relaxing too much during the holiday break.
He said the crew will be doing Asbestos awareness training and catching up on work while the buildings are empty and they are on standby if there are any more snow issues before classes resume.
Levy passed
The board passed its levy and will request $15,657,873 for operating funds.
More than $11 million will go to educational purposes.
The corporate and special purpose property taxes levied represents a 5.74% increase from last year.
Retiring Village Clerk Janett McCawley (right) swears in (left to right) Ben Juzeszyn, Joe Gianotti, and Eric Gardner as trustees in 2023. (Photo submitted)