BUCKLEY — The Buckley Village Board on Monday, Dec. 1, approved placing a question on the March 17 election ballot asking voters whether they would support increasing the village’s debt amount — from $8 million to $16 million — to fund a proposed sanitary sewer system and treatment plant.
Prior to the election, village trustees plan to go door-to-door to explain to residents the actual cost of the project once 45% loan forgiveness is applied and all grant money is received from the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency. If the ballot question does not pass, the village will be required to pay back the roughly $800,000 already spent out of grant money received.
It was noted that trustees, the village clerk and the village president are available to answer questions.
Meanwhile, a letter was recently received from the IEPA notifying the village that all paperwork for the project must be redone, so trustees voted unanimously to authorize engineer Larry Johnson to refile the IEPA loan paperwork.
Other business
Also at last week’s village board meeting at Village Hall: n The board voted unanimously to provide a year-end pay bonus of $200 to village employees. n Trustees tabled adding a 1% grocery tax, as they were still awaiting answers to questions from the village attorney. n The village’s auditor reported no major issues with the annual audit. n Village maintenance worker Donnie Miller said that in the past month he had plowed snow, cleaned the street sweeper and put it away, and replaced two strobe lights and flipped the blade on the snow plow truck.