Mayors take brunt of residents' winter frustrations

This is not a fun winter to be a village president in northern Illinois.

Mother Nature's wrath has angry residents pointing their blameful fingers at many community leaders. Some constituents are not happy with the way streets have been salted or rapidly deteriorated from potholes.

Whether it falls in their towns or not, the village presidents still get the complaints.

"I got an e-mail the other day from a resident wanting to know when we were going to fix the potholes at Randall Road and Route 72," said Gilberts Village President Tom Wajda. "That's not even in our village."

Then, there's the residents who have complained to the leaders about plows pushing snow from the street back into freshly shoveled driveways.

"I've received a few of those calls," said West Dundee Village President Larry Keller. "I think people are just frustrated because the streets are not in the conditions they are accustomed to."

In a perfect winter, public work crews have enough time and salt to keep snow off of streets in between storms. But this is an old-fashioned winter, some people say. Storms are frequent and road salt has been constantly used. Supplies for many communities have run low. While they are waiting for more, more snow falls and less salt is used.

"Most people understand," Keller said. "When we're low, we concentrate on the intersections and the hills."

East Dundee Village President Dan O'Leary considers himself lucky. He's received one call from an angry resident about the lack of salt on the road. He assumes other residents have read stories in newspapers explaining that Northern Fox Valley villages are not alone.

But the calls, no doubt, won't stop when the snow melts in spring. Residents may be just as angry with the condition of the roads.

The freezes, thaws and continual scraping of steel plow blades on cracked asphalt tears up older streets. Put moisture in the cracks and the problem worsens.

Repairing the potholes promptly is challenging. And finding enough money in overburdened municipal budgets will be a chore, the three leaders said.

"We got some roads in (the Timber Trails neighborhood) that are going to need work," Wajda said. "The asphalt around the manhole covers have sunk in."

"You have to remember it started to get expensive back in August when we had those rain storms," Keller said. "Rain water seeped into our sanitary sewer system and we had some bills to treat it at the (sewer treatment plant)."

Then there were village-owned computers to replace after they were struck by lightning, roads to fix, and fallen trees to cut and pick up. Don't forget the employees' paid overtime wages to get the roads back into shape.

"We've had our share of unexpected expenses this year," the West Dundee village president said. "There may be some belt-tightening later this year (to pay for it)."

Numbers have been recorded, but not tallied. All the leaders said they will sit down with their village boards and talk about how much this winter has cost their communities.

Gilberts officials have already dipped into their budget's reserve fund to pay some of the costs, Wajda said. But the winter isn't over yet.

At least it's not a village election year.