Steeleville firehouse nearing completion
<span style="font-weight: 400;">The Steeleville Village Board approved a variety of housekeeping items at its monthly meeting on Monday.</span>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">The board approved a permit and a road closure resolution for Broadway Street for the annual 4th of July Celebration parade and also a $500 donation to the Steeleville Recreation Committee.</span>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">The board also agreed to donate $200 for an advertisement on the scoreboard at the American Legion baseball diamond and decided to keep closed session minutes sealed from public view.</span>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">Steeleville Mayor Bob Sutton said village leaders and Illinois Department of Transportation officials are meeting Tuesday at IDOT's District 8 headquarters in Collinsville for a pre-planning meeting on this summer's road construction.</span>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">According to Steeleville Village Supervisor Lyn Thies, E.T. Simonds Construction Co. of Carbondale won the bid.</span>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">"I'm assuming they'll have a start date and we'll go from there," Thies said on what happens after Tuesday's meeting.</span>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">The estimated $1.8 million project will see IDOT patch and resurface the section of West Broadway Street from Locust Street to a tenth of a mile east of the Steeleville T on the village's west end.</span>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">The project's specifications shows IDOT will remove 4 inches of the existing asphalt along the route and 1 ¾ inches of the surface of the parking lanes from Locust Street to Chester Street.</span>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">IDOT will then construct the new 1 ¾-inch asphalt surface on a 2 ¼-inch binder. Binder asphalt is a coarser grade of blacktop with a higher percentage of larger stones, which increase the road surface's stability and raises its load factor before breaking or cracking.</span>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">"Next Tuesday, IDOT is having the preliminary meeting," Sutton said. "The bid has been accepted and we are going up there for the pre-planning meeting."</span>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">In other news, Sutton said the board wished to remind residents of the Regional Leaders Breakfast on Thursday, April 20. It is scheduled to be held at Opera House Bistro in Red Bud.</span>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">Sutton was also asked for an update on the new Steeleville firehouse, which is nearing completion, and what will happen to the current firehouse once the new one is open.</span>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">"They're getting close to being done," he said. "The current space, part of that will be taken over by the police department.</span>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">"There's a boat that needs to be in close proximity (to the firehouse) and we have some equipment from the police department that needs to go in there and there's an emergency truck that needs to be taken up there."</span>
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