August 21, 2025 Local Stories in and Around St. Joseph, Illinois

Live at St. Joseph Village Board, Aug. 12, 2025

They honored Lowell Suits who is retiring as Zoning administrator. I interviewed Lowell and will have a story later this week.

Great news for those of us in the south part of town- they approved the MFT resolution for Water and
Evergreen to MIll and resurface. And the one to oil and chip. But the one we care about most is Evergreen.

They are tabling the CCES request for money for a hazardous waste disposal facility. They feel like they have big expenditures coming up and need to be conservative.

They are discussing the possible approval of bids to provide a sanitary sewer lateral connection at 404 Sherman. It sounds like they split the lot so that’s why they are doing a lateral connection. Childers saying it could be worth it because it will bring in more property tax money but its a hard pill to swallow when you are kinda forced into it. It cost roughly $14,000. They approved it.

Discussing stump removal within the village. They have bids. There is a wide variety of prices. The bids range from $6,000 to $17,000. Terri asking for some clarification.

They picked the roughly $6,000 bid 3-1 with one abstain.

Lighting bids at the sports complex ball diamonds. Joe is discussing how they need to address the revenue side of parks and recreation. MX Electric total was lower but they were a little higher on one of the location. Joe saying they can stick with one vendor or split it up.

Terri saying they need to discuss taking money out of the general fund to pay for these sort of things. “Are these a must, are they failing or are they unsafe?”

Page saying that $110,000 came from the solar field and it was intended for capital upgrades at the park instead of it going into the general fund.

Discussing when the lights stay on out at the sports complex.


Joe saying the maintenance is justifiable but its just a question of if they want to spend the money or not.

They are discussing how often the lights are on and where they get the lights from.
Some guy is coming to discuss their power bills. They pay to keep a light on the welcome sign apparently.

They would have to pay $15,000 out of the general fund but $110,000 would come from the agreement with the solar field. (They gave the village money for parks.)

They keep going back to they need a revenue stream for parks. The former board/administration kicked around a local sales tax increase- like one cent, that would go to parks.


Terri pushing the revenue source. Saying that she and her husband helped maintain the parks when her kids played and worked the concession stand, ect.

Page saying the funding of parks has to be a priority.

Childers saying the parks are a huge asset to the village.

MX Electric is the winning bid. They were the cheapest.

They are amending the appropriations ordinance. This happens fairly often. This was the first reading. The second reading will happen at the next meeting.

Page “This is something I wanted more focused on with the advent of the TIF and maybe an enterprise zone.”

They are creating a Community Development Department.
Basically, Joe will be the zoning administrator. They will hire a person in to
deal with nuisances and paperwork and permits. This would be a part time position to not work more than 29 hours.

There are two subdivision requests that will be on the agenda next meeting. (Calm down, that can be one lot split in two.)

One is for the condos that are going in north of the sewer plant, one is outside the village limits but within the 1.5 mile limit that gives the village a say.




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