The Village of Beecher has $227,000 to spend with money made from the sale of the old police station.
It won’t be spent, however, on renovation of the stage at Firemen’s Park.
Beecher trustees and Mayor Marcy Meyer mulled over a wish list of items to be considered for use of the cash at their Feb. 23 meeting. The stage improvement was the biggest-ticket item on the list with a $130,000 price tag — $120,000 coming from the sale and $10,000 coming from the village’s Fourth of July Committee. The hope was to have the stage done by spring and be ready for the start of the concert season.
But Meyer cast the deciding “no” vote after the trustees voted in a 3-3 deadlock.
“It’s a ‘no’ for today,” she said. “I would like to do it at the end of the season when we see more money coming in but not now.”
Todd Kraus, Brian Diachenko and Erik Gardner voted in favor while Joe Tieri, Jessica Smith and Roger Stacey voted against.
Village administrator Charity Mitchell told the board that some future impact fees that will be used for parks in the village could go to the stage makeover.
“That might be a better use of funds rather than spending $120,000 on the stage,” she said. “I don’t know exactly how much we use it. Maybe 10 times a year. We can wait another year – maybe two – when we have developments and have park impact fees coming in that can help pay for that.”
She added that recently there were emergency repairs that cost $128,000.
Officials brought up that the village’s water tower needs painting and repairs and the painting alone could be in the $300,000 neighborhood.
So, the board is going to squirrel much of that money away for now.
However, the board approved using $21,000 for a lighted sign for the new police station and $5,320 for flooring for Village Hall.
All-Right Sign, of Steger, received the go-ahead to do the work on the police station sign and Beecher Floor Covering to handle the flooring.
The board also approved permanent lighting for the Firemen’s Park beer stand pavilion for $4,000 but those funds will not come from the $227,000 from the sale. Phil’s Electric received the OK to work on that project.
Drone, sweet drone
The board agreed to allow new Police Chief John Galvin to apply for a $10,000 matching grant through the Commonwealth Edison Powering Safe Communities program to support the purchase of a police drone.
It would include costs of required training, insurance and certification.