Mascoutah Council Approves St. Clair County’s New Emergency Alert System
By Zachary Daum
The Mascoutah City Council met on Tuesday, Feb. 21 at 7:00 PM instead of their regular Monday date because of Presidents Day.
Mascoutah will be receiving a new city-wide sirent system soon. This siren system is a county-wide measure to install and update siren systems across St. Clair County. This would include the installing of a new siren just north of the city limits. This new siren will be installed to improve coverage throughout the city. Mayor Pat McMahan also added that this would be an improvement to the siren system in Mascoutah, eliminating the need for a monthly test, as the sirens will self test silently, daily. Another siren near airport road will also be replaced, but will be the responsibility of the county to test and maintain it.
Public Safety Director Scott Waldrup discussed plans for discussions at the next city council meeting to purchase a license plate reader used by many towns throughout the metro east area. This would assist the police department in more quickly checking license plates accurately.
Frontier Communications has been laying lines throughout Mascoutah on both public and private properties and Alderman Jack Weyant said that he has seen that the company has been very professional with their work and that they have been alerting residents when and where they will be working in their yards.
The council approved the funding of the Electric Phase II bank loan to purchase distribution materials from Brownstown Electric Supply Co., Inc. of Fairfield, IL in the amount of $218,761.48. This project utilizes the existing distribution line that will be transitioned to a new line.
The council approved an engineering Services Agreement with Gonzalez Companies, LLC for engineering services for preparation of the Water System Facilities Project Plan. This plan was said to assist in slightly increasing and improving the water pressure throughout Mascoutah and would also act as a redundant water source that would provide assistance in the event of water meter or booster station functionality issues. This plan also extends the water main along Illinois Route 4 to connect to the Boeing facilities near the water system south of Illinois Route 161.
Mayor McMahan discussed attending an enjoyable historical society meeting discussing the history of German street names in Mascoutah and looks forward to seeing more upcoming events from the Historical Society.
The council amended the agenda to include an executive session for an emergency personnel meeting involving litigation that took place at the end of the meeting. The next city council meeting will take place on Mon. March 6, at 7:00 PM.
