Kendall County Times

At its April 3 meeting the Village of Plainfield Board of Trustees opened a public hearing to discuss its proposed annual budget for the upcoming fiscal year. 

This year’s balanced budget totals $96.2 million, over a $15 million increase from the previous year’s budget, mostly due to the capital projects that the village has planned, a huge portion of which is dedicated to the 143rd Street renovation project. The city staff has had over 10 workshops and meetings since October of 2022 to create and portion out their upcoming budget, which also includes 10.5 additional positions within the city workforce. 

Mayor John Argoudelis expressed his appreciation to assistant village administrator Traci Pleckham.

“Traci Pleckham, I know I thanked you last time as village administrator (Joshua) Blakemore has now,” Argoudelis said. “You and your team do an excellent job of having a very responsible budget. You’ve kept us in the black and you’ve made sure we have rainy day funds. This village is in a strong financial position due to a great part due to your hard work and your staff’s hard work. It’s a very responsible budget. We talk about a lot of terms around here, but I think fiscal responsibility is what our residents expect of us, and you guide us so well in that regard.”

Later, city staff engineer Dan Shug told the board the west side of the 143rd Street extensions will be done in about a year, with the east portion being completed in about two years. The board was told the two projects will increase traffic to the intersection in question by a few thousand additional vehicles each day. 

Shug said If the village started Phase 1 now with budgeting, the intersection would experience one full year of increased congestion before any construction. 

He said the project would include traffic light improvements, capacity improvements, additional left turn lanes, passing lanes, crosswalks, and a complete redesign to the intersection to better handle new traffic. 

Without the improvement, Shug predicts that there would be decreased safety, and motorists rerouting themselves onto the smaller city streets to avoid the area. 

The board amended the budget to have the line for the 143rd project with the stipulation that the board has to have another vote to spend the money when it chooses a contract in the future, however the final approval of the budget failed for lack of a super majority so it will vote again at a future meeting.

In other business, the board discussed paying approximately $39 thousand to Dell Technologies to purchase 17 desktops with monitors and 18 laptops for its staff.

The board will meet again at 7 p.m. on Monday at the Village Hall on 24401 West Lockport St.