City Council Moves Ahead w/Bike Lane Project

Effingham city officials and a number of volunteers held a strategy session several years ago and mapped out a bike lane program for the city.

That project might finally be coming to pass.

The Effingham City Council Tuesday approved a construction engineering agreement with Milano and Grunloh Engineers of Effingham for the bike lane project. Under the agreement, $840,000 in state grant monies will be matched by just under $228,000 in local dollars to cover the engineering and construction work. Of the $228,000, half will be paid by the City and half by TREC, the local trail development entity.

The hope is that actual development of the network of bike routes could begin in 2020.

The Council also approved an intergovernmental agreement with the Effingham Unit 40 School District. Utilizing Tax Increment Financing district dollars, the City will allocate up to $100,000 in each of the next three fiscal years to the school district for job training expenditures. Another $300,000 will be allocated over the coming two years towad the cost of retrofitting the Effingham Junior High School facility. Additionally, the City will allocate up to $100,000 annually to the school district in exchange for the district's support of an extension of the TIF program.

Council members approved an intergovernmental agreement with the Effingham County Emergency Telephone System Board (also known as the 911 Board). The City will receive just over $95,000 the first year of a three-year agreement with percentage increases in what the City receives in the following two years with the option of extending the agreement past those three years. The Effingham County Board has a similar agreement with the 911 Board. The funds are paid by 911 for the use of City and County telecommunicators.

The Council contracted with Herrmann's Landscaping for lawn care work for the City for the next three years; rezoned land in the area of the John Boos and Company plant off South US 45; and approved plats for a fifth addition to American Way Industrial Park and for a second addition to Thies Commercial Subdivision, also involving a potential expansion at the John Boos operation.

Council members voted to hire Stantec to conduct a sewer rate study; and discussed a potential zoning change that would permit construction of a cell phone tower south of Burkland's Flower Shop with action on the issue to come in January.