Hanover Park may have to choose between fixing road, buying winter salt

Hanover Park's Celebrity Circle road is in desperate need of repairs, village officials say, but with budget uncertainty in Springfield, the village may have to pick between repairing the road and having money to pay for road salt this winter.

Funds for the reconstruction and resurfacing of the one-mile road come from the motor fuel tax fund, but since July 1, the state has been withholding municipalities' share of the money.

"There's a lack of appropriation for the money and without that, the money is accumulating, but they can't pull the trigger to get it to the communities," said Illinois Municipal League Legislative Director Joe McCoy.

Hanover Park Village President Rod Craig says if the village decides to spend $1 million on the Celebrity Circle construction, the motor fuel tax fund will be zeroed out, leaving no money for salting roads in the winter.

"We're caught between a rock and a hard place," Craig said. "We can't go through winter without salt."

But Celebrity Circle is in need of repairs, Craig says.

"There are man-sized ruts over there," he said.

Hanover Park Engineer Technician Richard Fortier says the road's condition is beyond fixable by the routine resurfacing the village does.

"Normally we do resurfacing, but when a street reaches a certain level of badness, it needs to be reconstructed," Fortier said.

Fortier says the proposed project would include removing the street and replacing it with 10 inches of stone and five inches of asphalt.

"And we'll also check to see if there's bad soil under the road," Fortier said.

The village has already recommended A-Lamp Road Builders, a Schaumburg-based company, for the construction work. Seven companies put bids in for the project, and A-Lamp came in with the lowest price.

Fortier says A-Lamp worked on the street reconstruction on East Avenue in Hanover Park about 10 years ago.

The Hanover Park board is expected to discuss and vote on the project at their meeting Thursday.

If approved, the project is expected to take 60 working days, or roughly three months. But if the village waits too long to make a decision, the project could be pushed into next year as the winter months approach.

"It's getting to a point where were going to have to make a decision," Craig said. "Do we trust the state to continue funding projects we're usually partnered in, or not?"