I would like to ask Mr Bleck to speak up and tell the people of Peru whats going on in his department during the meeting so everyone attending can be made aware of these problems.
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Not Worthy of Public Presentation
? The city had boil orders Friday for two water main breaks, one on the east end of May Road and another at Lida Lane, said Gary Bleck, public works director, after the meeting.
Monday, January 30, 2012
On the agenda for the Peru City Council tonight
Approve renewing Insurance Consultant Agreement with Dick Martuzzo of the Duncan
Insurance Office for a two year period beginning January 1, 2012 and ending December
31, 2014 for a monthly fee of $650.00
Does Peru need to spend $7800 per year on a consultant? This is pretty much like a part time employee. Do we have that many insurance problems that need to be discussed all year long? Can this sometimes be a conflict of interest?
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Worker accused of stealing $1 million from archdiocese over six years | Philadelphia Inquirer | 01/29/2012
Worker accused of stealing $1 million from archdiocese over six years | Philadelphia Inquirer | 01/29/2012
Not Peru politics but shows how credit card abuse can happen internally. Interesting story.
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Presentation by Kurtz Ambulance of New Lenox
Underlined title is a link.
Kurtz Ambulance Service will be giving a presentation to the Public Health and Safety Committee on Tuesday, February 21 @ Peru City Hall 6:30 PM
This company also does Morris IL.
Public Property Meeting 12/11
DATE OF MEETING: Monday, December 28, 2011 TIME: 6:45 p.m.
PLACE OF MEETING: Peru Municipal Building
1901 4th Street, Peru, IL 61354
COMMITTEE MEMEBERS PRESENT: Alderman Ankiewicz, Alderman Mayszak
OTHER PERSONS PRESENT:
MATTERS DISCUSSED:
Meeting called to order by Alderman Ankiewicz
Alderman Ankiewicz made a motion that the minutes of December 19, 2011 be received and placed on file. Alderman Mayszak seconded the motion; motion carried.
PLACE OF MEETING: Peru Municipal Building
1901 4th Street, Peru, IL 61354
COMMITTEE MEMEBERS PRESENT: Alderman Ankiewicz, Alderman Mayszak
OTHER PERSONS PRESENT:
MATTERS DISCUSSED:
Meeting called to order by Alderman Ankiewicz
Alderman Ankiewicz made a motion that the minutes of December 19, 2011 be received and placed on file. Alderman Mayszak seconded the motion; motion carried.
New Business
Mayszak reported that she found information about seeking airport project bids and the
qualifications needed by the engineering firm handling the airport projects. Ankiewicz
was not in favor of going for bids since Chamlin’s has been handling the airport projects
since the airport opened.
Landfill/ground water sampling – Mayszak asked Ankiewicz if he read the letter from
Steve Weberski about going out for bids for ground water sampling. He stated that he
had received the letter. He said he spoke to Chris Perra and Chris told him that his
company does part of that testing for free, so there is no way another company would bid
less that what TEST does it for. Ankiewicz was not in favor of going out for bids for the
ground water sampling.
Frank Taylor sent an email to the owner of King’s Inn regarding the numerous things
needed to be done there. We will ask Frank to keep us informed if there is any progress.
Unfinished Business
Water Street road repair – Mayszak reported that Mayor Harl was having the area in front
of the Peru Rescue Station repaired.
Swimming Pool
Marseilles is coming on December 29 to pick up the items they bid on and won.
Airport – We need to make sure we get the airport improvements in the budget. Meeting adjourned at 7:15 p.m.28/11
If I had to bet you couldn't do what the members of PVAS do on a daily basis! Maybe it is time to sit back and listen to the truth????
This was sent to the blog by an anon blogger. So let them tell us, I am interested.
Friday, January 27, 2012
Peru Volunteer Ambulance Monthly Report
This is the report for November of 2011. One similar to this is read at a city council meeting each month.
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
WLPO News on PVAS Presentation
Ambulance service presentation turned emotional in Peru
Posted by wlpo on January 25, 2012
The discussion about the ambulance service in Peru goes deeper than finances. For the people who work for it or have, it’s personal. Staff and board members of the Peru Volunteer Ambulance packed the Peru city council chambers Tuesday night while their board member Henry Hackman presented the service to city officials.
During the meeting, PVAS Director Mark Roberson said you couldn’t take all of the emotion out of the discussion. Afterwards he agreed with a statement by the city’s fire chief that the emergency services work well together.
Roberson hopes they’ll be able to have a long-term contract with the city.
But they don’t have a contract now, instead the city council has agreed to pay PVAS four $4,000 a month, or $48,000 a year for the service.
Whether or not the city needed to bid out the service caused a disagreement between a couple of the current aldermen and former mayor, Don Baker.
Alderman Rodney Perez said the meeting was meant to help city officials get more information and that nobody was questioning the quality of PVAS’ work, still the as the crowd cleared people were irritated.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
PVAS Presentation
About all I can say about the presentation tonight was that the event was not as expected. Henry Hackman, a member of the ambulance board gave a brief explanation about the history of PVAS and what the ambulance currently does and the level of service as it exists today.
Several ex council members and ex mayor were in attendance and I will say they did not contribute to a calm sensible discussion. Also present were what must have been all the employees of PVAS.
The presentation was almost a non event in view of the fact that there was not what I would consider a calm and intelligent question and answer session. In fact throwing of rotten tomatoes might have occurred if they were available.
Thanks to Ald. Perez and Ald. Mayszak for being the voice of reason this evening.And also my thanks to Fire Chief Jeff King for trying to bring reason to the room.
Monday, January 23, 2012
Changing of Ward Boundaries
I encourage everyone to visit the Peru web site at www.peru.il.us and check out all the possibilities for change.
Come back to the blog and share your thoughts with us.
One thing that is not being taken into consideration is the number of home owners vs the number of transient renters in an area. People who temporarily live in rentals don't feel attached to the area and frequently do not vote especially in the older parts of town. The aldermans homes are marked with a star on the maps.
News Tribune - News - Local - Peru Smoke Shop robbed
News Tribune - News - Local - Peru Smoke Shop robbed
Also indicates that a $1000 reward was given to the person who identified and saw the suspected arsonists at the Westclox fire. I suspect that the person who received the reward must have known the teenagers accused of this crime or how could they be identified and so quickly? And if he/she did know them to be able to identify them, why was he/she in the area also? Remember this was a dark and cold night and also N.Y. eve and not many people were out and about. Just leaves one to wonder about the many questions that have not been answered. ,
Saturday, January 21, 2012
The Map of the Road Repairs for 2012
Check this map with the earlier chart I posted of the lists of roads to be repaired. With the map you have a visual as to how often we are repairing one block which is the most expensive way to do road repair. As the signs on the highway road repair signs say YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK.
Friday, January 20, 2012
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
News Tribune on Princeton Fire Ems
Peru hears about Princeton ambulance service,p>
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Share With Friend
Share With Friend
By Jeff Dankert
perureporter@newstrib.com
Princeton Fire Chief John Petrakis spoke 1½ hours Tuesday to Peru City Council’s Public Health and Safety Committee about Princeton’s combined fire department and ambulance service.
It was in the last few minutes that the session got down to brass tacks, helped along by questions from the audience.
Princeton’s combined service is tax-supported. Last year the service cost the city $600,000 on the firefighting end and broke even on the ambulance side — spending and taking in $960,000, Petrakis said.
However, in some years the ambulance side makes money, mostly because of patient transfers between hospitals, Petrakis said.
Peru citizen Tony Bubb asked a what-if. What if Petrakis learned he could have an ambulance service for $50,000 a year, with no staffing shortages and no legacy costs (costs associated with prior service, such as healthcare, pensions and other benefits).
“I’m not going to answer that because I’m going to stay neutral,” Petrakis said.
Peru Volunteer Ambulance Service charges the city of Peru $48,000 a year.
Petrakis began the meeting saying he was not there to sell fire-based emergency medical service to the city of Peru. But during questions, he said: “I’m giving you a really biased opinion right now.”
Petrakis joined Princeton in 2004. The city has had fire-based EMS since 1984, Petrakis said. He’s always known that system and it works well for Princeton, he said.
Fire-based EMS puts ambulance crews inside the fire station and cross-trains personnel to handle both jobs, since they often respond to the same emergencies and incidents. It has grown in use since the 1970s, Petrakis said. Princeton’s has a combined staff of 33, 10 fulltime. Sometimes it is short-handed. On New Years Eve it had to refuse a transfer from Perry Memorial Hospital, Princeton to Peoria because of local call volume and staff shortages, Petrakis said. So the patient was transferred by 10/33 Ambulance Service, Spring Valley, he said.
“Don’t think for a minute this is the best staffing model,” Petrakis said, adding he would like more staff.
A discussion has been going on for months in Peru, much of it out of public earshot, to switch Peru to a fire-based EMS. It accelerated after La Salle ended its contract last year with Peru Volunteer Ambulance Service.
This was the second such ambulance presentation to the committee. Last month it heard from Paramedic Services of Illinois, Schiller Park, which La Salle hired to replace Peru Volunteer Ambulance Service for paramedic and emergency medical service.
Next Tuesday, at 6:30 p.m. at city hall, Peru Volunteer Ambulance Service will present information to the committee.
Rodney Perez, committee member, Peru firefighter and alderman, and Peru Fire Chief Jeff King said the meetings are designed to look for possible savings for the city and do not necessarily mean a switch is coming./
Peru council commits to a ground-breaking decision about ground-water analysis costs
The Peru city council on Monday night decided by way of discussion, to move forward and advertise for competitive bids for the service of "groundwater collection and analysis" at its closed landfill sites. EPA requires municipal landfills to abide by "Closure" and "Post Closure" regulations designed to properly isolate and monitor groundwater on and around the facilites for groundwater contamination. Peru Landfills #2 and #3 are currently in post-closure status which requires quarterly collection and analysis of groundwater from a number of sampling wells and leacheate locations. What qualifies this decision as "ground-breaking" is the sad fact that this work has been required by EPA since closure of the landfill facilities in 1996. About $45,000 per year is spent by the city of Peru for analysis services without ever having been subject to competitive bidding as is required by state statute for contracts in excess of $20,000. Not only has this work never been properly and legally "let" to the lowest qualified bidder, there has never even been a legal contract or document describing the scope of work between the city of Peru and the contractor who was "given" the work from day one up to the present time. A span of more than fifteen years void of a legal contract and without the due-diligence of competitive bidding. That contractor was of course TEST, Inc. and the person "giving" the work was of course Don Baker. I would not be at all surprised if at least a few elected officials during the past twenty years were not even made aware of the city's legal obligations of closing its landfills. I suspect Don told them he was taking care of it. That "hand-shake" agreement certainly worked out well for TEST. It's obvious that some of these same elected officials of the last twenty years were also very well aware of their obligation to legally and openly bid city contracts in excess of $20,000. They just chose not to.
Recently, detailed information was provided to the current elected officials which appears to have prompted some of them to move forward with correcting the situation asap. I have been informed by three different elected officials in Peru how this simple, common sense initiative was still being resisted by at least one journeyman alderman. It is just amazing how difficult it is to change a particular mind-set. This is a huge step forward for the city of Peru. Huge.
I can hardly wait to hear some of my favorite bloggers tell us why this break-through is a bad thing for Peru.
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Monday, January 16, 2012
Organization says teens benefit from being tried in juvenile court instead of adult court « AM1220 WLPO News
Organization says teens benefit from being tried in juvenile court instead of adult court « AM1220 WLPO News
Pertains to the juveniles involved in the Westclox Fire.
Friday, January 13, 2012
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Infrastructure Committee Mtg. 1/16/12
MONDAY, JANUARY 16, 2011
TIME: 6:00 P.M
PLACE: 1901 4TH STREET, PERU, IL
ROLL CALL: S. HARL, M. RADTKE, D. WALDORF, R. PEREZ, J. LUKOSUS, J. SHAW, M. VEZZETTI, T. BUBB, M. HART, J. LOGER, J. GRABOWSKI, L SCHAUB, S. WEBERSKI
I. Approve minutes of December 5, 2011 meeting
II. OPEN DISCUSSION
III. OLD BUSINESS
Discuss 2012 road, curb and north area sewer infrastructure program
IV. NEW BUSINESS
-Publications to advertise for Contract Engineer & extending deadline
-Committee participation in the interview process
-Implementation of Certification/Training programs for PW employees
-Establishing basic leadership structure for the Infrastructure Committee
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Ambulance Presentation by Princeton Next Week Tuesday January 17
City of Peru- Presentation Update: Tuesday, January 17th @ 6:30 in the Ron Wren community room, Fire/ EMS Chief John Petraikis of the Princeton Fire Department will give a presentation on how the City of Princeton manages public health and safety through an ambulance based fire department.
PVAS- has asked to re-schedule their presentation for January 24th@ 6:30
Note: All meetings are open to the public, and hope to see you there!
Thank You,
Rodney
Saturday, January 07, 2012
E & R International
From what I understand the building at the Westclox complex was used for storage of huge amounts of plastic to be recycled. Evidently it was zoned correctly and no one publicly saw the need to challenge this. Also it seems there was enough available space for them to rent out space for storage of a boat and if there was more storage I am not aware of it.
According to the what I found on the internet, E & R International also had an office in LaSalle at 732 First Street. Names I found associated with this are Roland Chiu, CEO and President, Yee Chiu, Vice President. Other names seem to have been employees working for them.
With a part time Fire Chief and a part time Building Inspector in the city of Peru, do they have enough time to check all businesses that might have similar products in storage among all the other things that are in their job description.
Friday, January 06, 2012
Westclox Fire Update (Jan. 6)
Excellent video of what the fire departments dealt with during this disasterous fire at Westclox.
Thursday, January 05, 2012
Peru Fire & Police Chiefs provide detailed reports
Peru officials provided a detailed report to the public at last nights council meeting. The public was provided insight into how "mutual aid" systems unfold to provide additional support for municipal police and fire departments during overwhelming emergency situations.
We heared a lot of detail about what was and still is burning and why. We heard about the command structure and the decision making that is the responsibility of our department chiefs and officers. We heard about the tremendous effort in manpower and materials it takes to fight a fire like this. We heard about the efforts of other emergency services like PVAS and RED CROSS, as well as city of Peru employees and elected officials who have and will continue to contribute to the effort. Finally we heard about a grateful public who offered whatever aid and comfort they could in the form of food and encouragement to firefighters and others.
There were no questions from the gallery when Chief King finished his presentation.
Obviously there will always be more questions from the public about more specific aspects of the situation. In order for those questions to be addressed accurately and honestly I would encourage readers of this blog to take the time to ask someone who actually has the knowledge, understanding and insight to give you the answer. Call or e-mail your alderman or other elected officials and if they can't give you an answer immediately ask that they get back to you asap. Contact city department heads in the same manner.
By all means continue the discussion on the blog. Continue asking legitimate questions if you have them. But don't expect accurate information from anonymous commentors who have an obvious personal or political bias.
They remain anonymous for a reason.
Tuesday, January 03, 2012
Westclox Fire Produces More Questions Than Answers
Hopefully the massive fire that took over the hearts and minds of the local residents has finally been subdued through the efforts of many fire departments and great cooperation among all of them.
Questions will now began to surface and I have a few of my own.
1. Does the city of Peru have any regulations regarding a business located amongst other businesses as to the type of material that they can store in their structures? If the materials are flammable, do we require special permits? limitations? fire walls?sprinkler systems?
2. It appears that the building was easily accessed without the need of keys or any type of tools to gain entry. Does this mean the windows were open? Did they break the windows or were they already broken? People have said that access had previously been gained and some equipment damaged which I read were fire extinguishers.
Did the building pass inspection by our city building inspector? Does our building inspector have a schedule in which he checks local facilities for safety? Is that his job? 3. The fire hydrant issue reamains. Were any hydrants in the area near to the Westclox fire used to fight the fire or did we depend upon FD water tankers to haul water to the scene?
Monday, January 02, 2012
PVAS Presentation Cancelled Tues. Jan. 3
Rodney Perez
Hello, would you please post that the presentation by PVAS scheduled for Tuesday has been cancelled, due to the current working conditions of Westclox,
We will have a new presentation date by Wed.
Thank you!
Firefighters to attack Westclox arson fire again today
Monday, January 02, 2012
By NT Staff
ntlocal@newstrib.
Firefighters to attack Westclox arson fire again today Firefighters battled a fire in the Westclox factory building complex that resulted in evacuation of nearby homes including a block bounded by Walnut, Fifth, Pulaski and Illinois Streets south of Fifth Street (U.S. 6) on New Year's morning in Peru. Fire trucks from several counties were called to the scene - including water tanker trucks.
NT photos/Amanda Whitlock Two teenage boys were arrested and jailed on suspicion of arson just 2½ hours after fire was discovered at midnight Saturday roaring through the historic Westclox factory in Peru. Steven Gallacher, 17, 338 Creve Coeur St., La Salle and a 15-year-old boy from Peru each face a charge of aggravated arson, Peru police chief Doug Bernabei said. The arson charge was elevated to “aggravated” because a firefighter was injured in the response, Bernabei said. The charge is a Class 1 felony, with a base sentencing range of 4 to 15 years in prison.
Today, the fire remained hottest on the west end of the middle section of Westclox, at the southern end of Walnut Street where E&R International, a recycling business, is located. The roof over this section was mostly collapsed as of this morning, Peru fire chief Jeff King said.
“There’s still a lot of fire,” King said at a press conference today. “This thing could burn for a week.”
This morning, after 36 hours of watching and suppressing fire, masses of firefighters were planning another major attack using aerial trucks and a hand line with firefighters entering Westclox’s middle building from the east, King said.
“That will probably take most of the day and into the night,” King said. King stressed safety as firefighters prepared for the second day attack. "There's nothing here right now that's worth your life or anybody getting hurt," he said.
Rest of the article can be found on the N.T.in an article by the same title.
Sunday, January 01, 2012
One of the First Photos
The irony of the Christmas lights hanging over the intersection. Rechecked my camera and saw I had taken this one when the firemen were just starting to pour water on the building and shortly afterward moved the fire trucks elsewhere to be more effective.
Westclox building is afire
Westclox building is on fire with strong winds blowing, calling out ESDA for traffic control. Calling out mutual aid. Sounds like this is very bad. Route 6 is closed and no traffic allowed down from any of the side roads as Pulaski or Prospect.
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