OAK BROOK
Village hires new assistant manager
The Village Board Tuesday welcomed Blaine Wing as the new assistant village manager, a position vacant since July.
Wing’s duties include overseeing public relations, risk management and human relations. His first day was Monday.
Before coming to Oak Brook, he was assistant administrator in Cary and held administrative slots in south suburban Flossmoor and Battle Creek, Mich.
Wing, 32, of Chicago earns $86,000 a year. Village Manager David Niemeyer said he was chosen was from a field of 70 applicants.
Wing holds a master’s of public administration degree from Western Michigan University and a certificate in electronic media from Northwestern University.
This is the second top managerial slot in village government to be filled in six months. Niemeyer was hired in July.
Former Manager Richard Boehm resigned in March for a job in private industry. Wing’s predecessor, Jeffrey Moline, stepped down in July, the day before Niemeyer started. He is Woodridge’s assistant public works director.
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— Steve Brosinski
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HINSDALE
Meeting set about utility referendum
The village will hold a town hall meeting at 7:30 p.m. Thursday in Village Hall to discuss a Feb. 5 referendum measure that would allow the village to take over the Hinsdale portion of Commonwealth Edison’s electric system and operate it as a municipal utility.
Voters approved a referendum measure in April that gave the village the authority to operate such a utility. The Feb. 5 referendum measure gives the village the authority to negotiate with ComEd to buy the Hinsdale portion of the system, by condemnation if necessary.
Trustee Cindy Williams said after Tuesday’s meeting that voters also would have to approve a bond issue — not yet on the ballot — before the village could sell electric power to residents. Other towns in the Chicago area that operate municipal electric utilities include St. Charles, Geneva, Batavia, Naperville and Winnetka.
— Christine Martin
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OAK PARK
Board OKs timeline for mural project
Plans for a new mural to liven up the blank gray walls of the elevated railroad and “L” tracks at Oak Park Avenue and South Boulevard in Oak Park are moving ahead.
The Village Board has approved a timeline for the project that could have an artist painting the mural as early as this summer.
The walls are owned by the Union Pacific Railroad, which has given permission for the project, said Loretta Daly, business services manager.
The theme is “The Poetry of Movement,” and five artists have already been asked to submit their proposals for the mural. The budget for the mural is $20,500.
— Victoria Pierce
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BENSENVILLE
Trustees OK update of property code
Trustees Tuesday unanimously approved amendments to the city’s property maintenance code, saying it was for the health and safety of residents.
Highlights of the amendments include increasing requirements of living space per person and imposing occupation limits.
Village Administrator Jim Johnson said the recent action was an attempt to focus on “slum landlords and having a means for prosecuting them if violations were discovered.”
The new ordinances provide square-footage requirements and limits to how many people may occupy a building, Johnson said. “We don’t want another case in the village like the one we discovered on South Baron Street.”
Last November, a tenant living in a building on Baron Street informed village officials about overcrowded conditions at the site. An investigation later found 14 people living in a space designed for six, including residents living in a basement area using only bedsheets as wall dividers, officials said.
Johnson said the case is under investigation with the DuPage County state’s attorney’s office.
— David Sharos
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LOMBARD
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Water park’s future on February ballot
Village residents will have the chance Feb. 5 to decide whether there is a future for 50-year-old Moran Water Park.
The Park Board voted to close the pool facility indefinitely in September and is asking voters to approve a $5.9 million bond issue to fund construction of a new water park.
The project would replace the main pool, bathhouse and dive well, which were built in 1957, along with the 20-year-old wading pool, water slides and concession stand.
Park commissioners closed the main pool last July because its liner had delaminated from the pool shell. An engineering study of the entire facility in August uncovered 64 code deficiencies requiring major upgrades.
If approved, the referendum measure will annually cost the owner of a home valued at $200,000 an additional $23.40 in property taxes over the next 20 years.
— Greg Canfield