Lots of improvements at Greene County Highway Dept.

By Editor | April 19, 2023 |

By Carmen Ensinger

Greene County’s new Highway Department Engineer is making a mountain of improvements at the facilities located east of Carrollton.Thanks to some money from ARPA, Greene County Highway Department Engineer Aaron Haverfield has been able to make some much needed upgrades at the facilities. He gave the County Board an update on the progress at the April 11 Transportation Committee meeting.
At a previous board meeting, the board approved the purchase of new LED shop lights and fans to circulate the heating and cooling in the building.
At the February meeting, Haverfield said he got a quote to upgrade 18 lights in just the main shop from halogen to LED lights and the cost was around $5,000. After looking into it, he figured that it would be simple for his workers to do the installation themselves and order the light figures online at a cost of around $170 per light.
“The quote we got for the lights just at the main shop was over $5,000 and we have done every light in all of the buildings for less than $5,000 by installing them ourselves,” Haverfield said. “Also, if we get enough LED lights installed around the perimeter, we can eliminate the two outside lights that we are paying $12.50 a month for, which will save us an additional $25 a month.”
The new fans cost around $1,000 each and work much more efficiently than the old fans in regards to moving the air through the building.
“We did have to build brackets to hold them because we moved them from their previous locations,” Haverfield said. “But they work phenomenal compared to the old ones. It makes a heck of a difference.”
Another project Haverfield tackled was getting the garage doors fixed to the buildings. While the doors were in good shape, the garage door openers did not work. If a worker came back from a job, they would have to stop, get out, open the door, get back in the truck, pull it in, get out again and close the door. These are not your standard garage doors – they are very large and very heavy so it is quite a task.
Back in February, Haverfield received a bid from a company in Alton to readjust five of the doors at the main shop and set the whole thing up at a cost of $7,500, or around $1,500 per door.
Haverfield said there is a possibility they could do the remainder themselves.
“We watched them and I thought there would be a lot more to installing them than there was,” he said. “I think we could do it ourselves for around $1,000 cheaper.”
Haverfield said they have six doors left to do and at a cost of say $600 each, that brings the total cost to around $3,600 for all six doors.
“They really didn’t have to do a lot other than grease the hinges,” Haverfield said. “I can do three of them now because we have those funds in our garage door budget. The other three would have to wait.”
Haverfield said there is a culvert that needs to be replaced on a bridge in Woodville Township. The bridge is currently 18 feet wide, which is less than the 20 foot minimum width to make it eligible for federal funding.
“If it is not 20 feet wide it doesn’t count as a structure in the eyes of the federal government,” Haverfield said. “It is in severe shape and I would have closed it already. If we are going to replace it, I would say replace it as a 20 foot instead of an 18 and make it eligible for federal funding in the future.”
The project qualifies as a County Aid Bridge project, which means the county pays 50 percent of the total cost of the project and the township pays the other 50 percent.
“The total cost of the pipe alone is going to be around $35,000 so you are looking at close to a $135,000 project,” Haverfield said. “The dilemma is the township is going to spend their entire budget on one bridge.”
The board discussed several options, including loaning the township the money for their portion of the 50 percent of the project, but no decision was made. It was stated that this was not a good idea because then other townships would be wanting to borrow money and it would set a deadly precedent.
Ambulance Director Marc Clark discussed with the Judiciary Committee the issue of mutual aid to Jersey County.
Clark explained that Lakeside Ambulance in Godfrey closed leaving Madison County lacking in coverage. They have since started relying on Jersey County Ambulance to start providing some service to their area. This, in turn, leaves Jersey County lacking service and they are asking Greene County to provide mutual aid to Jersey County.
“With Lakeside Ambulance closing in Godfrey, it has put a strain on the entire area down there,” Clark said. “Jersey has been responding to Godfrey three to five times a day and the whole system is crazy.”
Clark said he had met with the fire chiefs and discussed mutual aid, primarily providing mutual aid to Jerseyville and he also reached out to their medical director.
“Per our system plan, which is through the Illinois Department of Public Health, we are required to cover our primary area before providing mutual aid,” Clark said. “However, it is still a gray area of what our primary area is. We need to keep in mind that we already go there more than they come here. They do come here, but not as much as we go there. We do need to try to reach some agreement.”
Clark also gave an update on the new ambulance that was ordered exactly one year ago.
“They still don’t have a chassis for it,” Clark said. “Once they have a chassis in for it, they can give us a day when we can actually take possession of it. They were hoping at this point, post Covid, we would see improvement in work flow, but it hasn’t happened yet.”
Clark said they need to keep that in mind when ordering their next ambulance because it might take two years to get the next one.