Village of Bartlett Committee of the Whole Met Feb. 2.
Here is the minutes provided by the committee:
CALL TO ORDER
President Wallace called the Committee of the Whole meeting of February 2, 2021 of the President and Board of Trustees of the Village of Bartlett to order on the above date at 7:12 p.m. and NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN pursuant to Section 7(e) of the Open Meetings Act as set forth in Senate Bill 2135 signed by Governor J.B. Pritzker on June 12, 2020, making it effective upon said signing (“SB 2135”), that the regular meeting of the Village President and Board of Village Trustees of the Village of Bartlett (the “Committee of the Whole”) scheduled to be held on February 2, 2021 at the Bartlett Municipal Building, 228 South Main Street, Bartlett, Illinois, may be conducted by audio or video conference without a physical quorum of the members of the Village Board present because an in- person meeting is not practical or prudent due to a disaster, that being COVID-19 pandemic and the applicable restrictions imposed under various laws rules, restrictions, Executive Orders and/or announcements issued by Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker and/or Ngozi O. Ezike MD, Director of the Illinois Department of Public Health, including without limitation “Restore Illinois: A Public Health Approach to Safely Reopen Our State”, which currently limits gatherings to the lesser of 50 people or 50% of the capacity of the meeting room as a public health measure.
PRESENT: Chairman Carbonaro, Deyne, Gandsey, Hopkins, Reinke, Suwanski, President Wallace
ABSENT : None
ALSO PRESENT: Village Administrator Paula Schumacher, Assistant Village Administrator Scott Skrycki, Sr. Management Analyst Samuel Hughes, Management Analyst Joey Dienberg, Finance Director Todd Dowden, Director of Public Works Dan Dinges, Planning & Development Director Roberta Grill, Building Director Brian Goralski, Head Golf Professional Phil Lenz, Police Chief Patrick Ullrich, Village Attorney Bryan Mraz and Village Clerk Lorna Giless.
PUBLIC WORKS, CHAIRMAN SUWANSKI
Traffic Calming Measures
Chairman Suwanski stated the first item on the agenda deals with traffic calming measures. Staff was directed to look at certain locations around the village to determine traffic calming needs. The intersections include North and Western Avenues, Struckman Blvd. and Appletree Ln. as well as Prospect and the intersection with the Bartlett Trail.
Dan Dinges, Public Works Director, stated staff was asked to look into some traffic calming tools to see if they are effective. Staff met to see what types of traffic calming we would like to utilize and in what areas. The police department has said that they get a lot of calls about high-speed traffic on Struckman. We happen to be doing the road program in the subdivision north of Struckman so it fell in place to try to do something on Appletree and Struckman. The pavement on Struckman is essentially three lanes wide, so to reduce speeds, we are reducing the lanes down to 12 feet each which is a typical road width, by adding a landscape area that will bottle-neck the roadway. We will look to add this into our MFT program if you like it.
Chairman Reinke asked if there will be a problem with snow plowing.
Mr. Dinges stated that it will slow it down a little bit, but it will not be a big issue.
Chairman Gandsey asked if there are certain kinds of landscape features that are resistant to the salt.
Mr. Dinges stated there are. We could use grass, tall grasses and daylilies or if we decide to use nicer landscaping we will use salt tolerant plants.
President Wallace thought this was a great idea.
Mr. Dinges moved on to the Prospect road traffic calming tool. There is a bike crossing at this location and Prospect is also a wider road that tends to have higher speeds. In this case, we are looking to put in a landscape median. Right now, the median is stripped, so we thought we could cut out the pavement and put in salt tolerant plants in the median to enhance the area. We will also freshen the crossing up. Currently, there is crossing signage, but staff would be looking to apply for a grant to obtain rapid flashing light crossings where the person crossing can hit a button and the strobe flashes to alert the drivers and they can cross. The force main for the Devon lift station project is going to run right down Prospect, so while we are doing that, the contractor can dig that area out and put in the landscape median while they are restoring the road. This one might be delayed until Spring of 2022 to line it up with that project. If this project works, this might be a good one to add to West Bartlett as well.
Chairman Carbonaro stated that its hard see who’s coming out of the bike path while heading southbound on the Prospect sidewalk. Is there a way to put something underneath the bike path if someone steps on it that the light will start flashing?
Mr. Dinges stated they can take a look and see if there is a way to enhance the visibility over there.
Chairman Reinke stated that those signs will only flash on demand, correct? Mr. Dinges stated that was correct.
The last intersection they are looking at is North and Western Avenues. What they are proposing to do is something temporary for now without knowing what type of vehicles use that intersection. The corner would be more of a 90-degree angle so cars would have to stop and make the turn instead of roll around the sweeping corner that is currently there. This would be a temporary fix so that we can monitor to see how it is doing. Unfortunately, the pavement is only 26 feet wide, so we can’t narrow it much. The crossings will be restriped with high visibility paint as well.
Chairman Deyne stated he has seen a number of different sized vehicles going through there. The frequency of really larger vehicles through there is limited.
Chairman Hopkins stated that a truck that is not comfortable going through this intersection could go through downtown Bartlett and on to Oak Street instead.
Mr. Dinges stated that is something they have to find out. If they have semi’s going through this area, he didn’t think they should go that route. The main focus is to slow the traffic going northbound and heading east.
Chairman Deyne stated he would like to know the percentage of people that run the intersection and do not stop. If they cannot make the right turn, they may go north and turn onto Morse Ave.
President Wallace stated they want to take North Ave. to go to Rt. 20 so if they cannot make that turn, they will stay on Rt. 59 and go to Rt. 20.
Ms. Schumacher stated the police department is going to do some pre-counts for us so we can do a before and after to see how effective the changes are.
President Wallace asked how tall the curb was, because if it is temporary, the trucks will make the turn and run it right over.
Mr. Dinges stated that they will have police cameras up.
Chairman Gandsey asked if we anticipate other people inquiring about adding these tools to other roads.
Mr. Dinges stated he thinks the plan is to get these implemented then monitor to see what kind of affect they have - from there we will be able to address other areas.
Chairman Hopkins asked if they will be permanent if they are successful.
Mr. Dinges stated they would come back to the board with their findings and go from there.
Brush Collection Service RFP
Chairman Suwanski stated the staff sent out an RFP for brush collection and ask staff to provide more detail.
Tyler Isham, Assistant Public Works Director, stated that Groot handles brush collection as part of the waste hauling contract and they require it to be bundled in the 4’x2’x2’ bundles. This would be an alternative that would divide the village in half where one-week half would be picked up and the next week the other side would be collected. They would use a grappling truck that grabs the brush and loads it into the back to haul away. The village received two bids back that were less than $2,000 a part. Tree’s R Us was low bid. They have done a lot of work in the village already and they do several programs similar to this.
Chairman Gandsey asked what the difference would be.
Mr. Dinges stated that staff can talk to Groot and there would be more savings if we removed that service, but we haven’t discussed that with them yet. The alternative is to leave the contract as-is. We have two more years with Groot so people using the brush program Groot has would still be able to use that, but we can discuss that.
President Wallace asked if Groot will remove it in mid-contract.
Mr. Dinges stated we would have to see. It is about $.50 a month per home.
Chairman Gandsey stated from what she has heard was that Groot’s program is difficult.
Mr. Dinges stated the main issue is bundling.
Chairman Reinke said it was that and the arbitrary enforcement of the length and width limitations. He asked if this was going to be different from that.
Mr. Dinges stated it will be similar to the program we had before Groot. There will be no bundling, they have to stack it at the curb and the difference with this contract is they will use a grappler truck and they won’t chip on site.
Chairman Deyne asked if they tore up the lawn with the grappling hook.
Mr. Dinges stated that if they were to tear it up, they would need to restore it, but they don’t get that far down into it.
Chairman Deyne asked if this was an optional or mandatory program.
Mr. Dinges stated it would be village-wide.
Chairman Reinke stated this was good news and it depends on what Groot says.
Chairman Suwanski clarified this was $3.23 per month and Groot was around $.50 per month
Chairman Gandsey asked if we still received a lot of complaints this past year.
Mr. Skrycki stated that in terms of Groot’s self-reporting, in 2020 we got 35. The complaints we received at village hall were pretty close to nothing.
Chairman Gandsey asked if it was an education issue.
Mr. Skrycki stated it was a combination of a lot of factors. It’s the third year, so people are familiar with it and Groot would start to send us pictures so we knew if it was not bundled correctly in the event of a complaint.
Chairman Hopkins stated he was in favor of this type of brush collection service proposed and wanted to work with Groot to recoup their brush cost.
President Wallace asked how this would be billed.
Mr. Dinges stated the plan would be to add it to the property taxes.
Mr. Isham stated the $3.23 per month figure was for just single-family homes, so it will go down if each home is paying through property tax.
Chairman Carbonaro stated he thinks it is worth getting some more information.
President Wallace agreed.
Village Administrator Paula Schumacher stated staff will talk to Groot.
Chairman Gandsey stated she would like to know the parameters of the brush program in question to compare to Groot’s.
Mr. Isham stated that they cannot pick up a large stump, but they can pick up the majority of brush a homeowner can put out to the curb. They use a grappling truck, so weight is not as much of a problem.
Chairman Hopkins asked about a subscription type “pay by use” charge.
Ms. Schumacher stated there is no way to break it up. If one house puts out brush, the brush company does not know. With Groot, you have a Groot can, they can look up if you paid your bill, etc. To have an a la carte system would not work for this type of service.
President Wallace stated to get all the information requested for an upcoming meeting. Chairman Deyne moved to adjourn and that motion was seconded by Chairman Hopkins.
ROLL CALL VOTE TO ADJOURN
AYES: Chairmen Carbonaro, Deyne, Gandsey, Hopkins, Reinke and Suwanski
NAYS: None
ABSENT: None
MOTION CARRIED
The meeting was adjourned at 8:40 p.m.
https://www.village.bartlett.il.us/Home/ShowDocument?id=11655
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