Hoffman Estates OKs road salt and fireworks purchases

It was all about fire and ice Monday night in Hoffman Estates.

The ice? The village board gave preliminary approval for purchasing road salt. And the fire — fireworks, as trustees also gave preliminary approval to fireworks for the Fourth of July.

The board will have to again approve both purchases at next week’s board meeting.

Due to icy conditions Monday following the frigid nighttime temperatures over the weekend, Hoffman Estates Public Works Director Joseph Nebel said his department used more salt this weekend than during the blizzard that ravaged the Chicago area earlier this month.

“This weekend was pretty difficult for us,” Nebel said.

As of Feb. 23, the village had 4,780 tons of salt stored, which officials said will last to the end of winter. Through a joint purchase with other Illinois municipalities, Hoffman Estates wants to buy 6,000 tons of salt for next winter. That’s 1,500 tons less than what the village bought for the current season.

What the village will pay will depend on how many villages decided to join the joint purchase.

The last two winters the village paid $68.82 per ton for 7,500 tons, or $516,150 per year.

The price for road salt has risen dramatically over the past decade. In 2001, the village paid $31.57 per ton for 5,500 tons, or $173,635 that year.

Nebel said the village also would look into other ways to melt ice, such as a brine solution.

But with February at a close, the village board did discuss news that Trustee Karen Mills said “would make you feel warmer.”

The village board voted in favor of a three-year deal with Melrose Pyrotechnics, the Indiana company which regularly provides fireworks for the village’s Fourth of July Festival. The fireworks company will give the village a larger show in the third year of the contract — worth $1,500 more than the previous two years’ shows. That amounts to a 10 percent increase for the $15,000 per year contract.

Increased show costs starting in 2009 shortened the fireworks display — from 25 minutes to 23 minutes — even though Hoffman Estates was paying the same amount.

Earlier this year, Wendell Howell of the village’s Fourth of July Commission, the volunteer group that helps put on the festival, asked the village board for help with raising money for the event by soliciting more donations from local businesses.