With Crossville Trustee Miranda Kuykendall absent, and trustee Bruce Morlock ailing, village leaders carried on with business Tuesday evening with four trustees and Mayor Rick Kuykendall. Among the business accomplished, stop signs will be going up at the Morrell and Winkler intersection as well as Morrell and First. The action was agreed to at the July 8th meeting and officially enacted via ordinance at the August 26th meeting.
The village approved spending $1,844.96 for 16 items through Amazon for the new brush truck. At the August 12th meeting, trustees voted to accept a 2012 Ford F250 brush truck donated by the Phillips Township Fire Department. The council stopped short of purchasing a 1994 fire truck from the New Harmony Fire Department. The 37-foot-long truck was offered to Crossville for $30,000. Trustees are expected to consider it over the next couple weeks and discuss it again at a future meeting. Finally on the fire department front, trustees agreed to accept sealed bids on the brush truck the new one replaces. Leaders say if they don’t receive a bid that is higher than what it would cost to scrap it, they’ll take it to Burnt Prairie. Those sealed bids are due by the September 9th meeting.
Despite Trustee Nancy Osborne’s no vote, leaders decided to move forward on trying to sell property Crossville owns at 304 2nd Street. Mayor Kuykendall says the property was offered for sale at a minimum of around $6,000 and then lowered to $4,000 with no interest just before he took office.
Mayor: How long do we want to maintain this property and not sell utilities. We had a lady call today, I’ve had two people now interested in buying it but they’re not going to pay $4,000 for it.
Trustee Nikki Jacobs: It’s a lot of money for one piece of property.
Mayor: So the way I look at this is we mow it at an expense of the guys and we’re not selling any utilities for it. Can we not drop that price down so we can potentially sell it to somebody where they can come in and hook up to utilities, we’re not mowing it anymore? We’re going to take a beating on it just sitting there. You’re never going to get $6,000 or $4,000 for it I don’t think.
The property has belonged to the village since 2022. Leaders, minus Osborne, agreed to attempt to sell it with a minimum bid of $2,500.
Trustees also heard a request from Debbie Schmittler requesting something be done to slow traffic around her residence. No action was taken.
Brad Hurt was approved for a building permit allowing him to replace a yard building at 306 Richards.
Mayor Kuykendall also updated the board on a handful of items including the brush pick up policy, meter reading and billing, and issues with people using RVs as living quarters in the village.
Kuykendall also said they’re still working on a tire cleanup day for the village.
Finally, despite it being frowned upon for a candidate to campaign during a municipal board meeting, those in attendance heard from candidate for White County Sheriff, Chris Pollard. He spent about 10 minutes laying out his reasoning for running for office, detailing his experience, and discussing issues facing law enforcement in Illinois and White County. Pollard received applause and Mayor Kuykendall wished Pollard all the best.
The meeting adjourned at 7:21pm. Trustees are next expected to gather September 9th at 6:30pm.