When Jeanne Neslund moved to Winfield, there wasn’t much of a need to pave Robbins Road. She had the only house on the block.
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But as house after house sprouted up along the road, Neslund figured it was only a matter of time before the carpet of asphalt that was being rolled around town would make it to her street.
Today, more than a half-century later, Neslund is doing more than waiting for the paving of the gravel road that she and other early residents put in themselves. She also is fighting.
Neslund, 81, calls politics “a headache I don’t need,” but has taken on the role of spokeswoman for a group of 17 homeowners who want Winfield to pave the L-shaped roadway of Robbins Road and Childs Street.
Her neighbors say she is the right person to take the point in their fight with City Hall.
“She’s been here forever,” said Jim Zboncak. “She knows what she wants.”
“She’s a champ,” said Zboncak’s wife, Kathy.
“I’m the spokesman because I’m the oldest, and I know more,” Neslund said. “They (neighbors) back me up.”
Neslund said she has done the necessary homework.
“You’ve got to be quick on the answers,” she said of her appearances before village trustees. “You’ve got to be able to tell them when they’re right and when they’re wrong.”
And what she sees, she said, is a “snow job” on the part of village officials.
“For 20 years we paid a vehicle tax and they paved all the roads but ours,” she said. “Then they told us they couldn’t pave it until they put sewers in. The sewer’s in and nobody’s done nothing.”
Now, she said, the village is throwing around numbers like $60,000 to pave the road and put in storm drains, curbs and gutters.
“All we asked for is the road to be blacktopped,” she said. “That doesn’t cost $60,000.”
Assistant village manager Bob Nissen said work crews cannot come out and simply pave the road.
“To do the job right,” he said, would mean grading the existing road and making sure it has proper drainage.
Nissen said that paving the road has to be weighed against other community needs.
“We want to make sure the village gets the most bang for its buck,” he said. He said two other small streets are not paved either.
Besides, he said, construction in the area would mean heavy trucks will be using the street.
“It doesn’t make much sense to go in now if we are going to be back in five years to repair the damage” caused by trucks.
Neslund doesn’t buy any of the arguments.
“They’ve been snowing us,” she said. “They are repaving roads that already have asphalt.”
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She added: “They`ve never done anything for us. It was the original residents who put in the gravel road, not the village. Now we want what everybody else has.”
Nissen said it is unlikely the road will be paved before next year. It all depends, he said, on how village officials work with a developer who is building homes in the area. It is possible, he said, the developer would pick up part of the tab for the new road.
Whatever happens, from now on the village will have Neslund to deal with. The next meeting before the Village Board is Thursday.
“I’ll be there,” Neslund said. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”