Shorewood hires firm for park renovation
February 28, 2013 7:58AM
Updated: April 2, 2013 6:10AM
SHOREWOOD — Village officials are a step closer to the highly anticipated renovation of Westshore Park.
The village board Tuesday unanimously accepted a bid from Channahon-based Frank Burla & Sons Builders for nearly $332,000 worth of work on the park, 701 Westshore Drive.
The park, which is considered to be a crucial part of Shorewood’s plan for redevelopment of the DuPage riverfront, currently has equipment that is beyond its useful life, officials said. Plans for the park include a new playground, splash pad, volleyball court, picnic areas and more.
Park improvements are funded in part by a $215,000 Open Space Lands Acquisition and Development grant.
— Clare Walters
Cheerleaders honored
NEW LENOX — Providence Catholic High School Varsity Cheerleaders earned the state championship title with an undefeated season, and went on to win the Grand National Championship in their division. The village of New Lenox honored the squad at the board meeting Monday.
“Anyone that’s watched cheerleading, I can assure you, it’s a sport,” Mayor Tim Baldermann said.
Cheerleaders include seniors Brianna Chibe, Alyssa Gialamas, Courtney McEnery, Alyssa Meurer, Lauren Murphy, Roslyn Parayo, Gabriella Senese, Bailey Sineni and Taylor Vennetti.
Juniors are Brittany Charnot, Morgan Duesing, Skylar Evans, Meghan Marth and Tori Vennetti.
The sophomore is Maryssa Presbitero, and the freshmen are Allison Bebar, Sera Cummings, Bridget Fudula, Nicole Glynn, Dana Joseph and Carson Sineni.
The team is led by Head Coach Laura Duesing and Assistant Coach Beth Gornick.
— Erin Gallagher
Electricity savings
MORRIS — Residents and business have saved $1.5 million since starting the electrical aggregation program in 2011.
“I’m pleased to say that the program has gone exceptionally well,” David Hoover of the Northern Illinois Municipal Electric Collaborative, told the city council and residents at the council’s Tuesday night meeting.
Morris was one of the first 20 municipalities in the state to take part in the electrical aggregation plan, after residents had approved a referendum in April 2011 allowing the city to go out for bid for lower electrical rates than what ComEd offers, Hoover said.
“Chicago is just now implementing this program,” he said.
A total of 3,141 residential homes and 238 small business took part in the program, which took effect November 2011. Since the city chose an opt-out program, those who did not want to participate had do so in writing to ComEd and the collaborative.
The average Morris homeowner is saving about $287 per year since the city accepted NIMEC’s bid of 5.43 cents per kwh, Hoover said.
— Sarwat S. Ahmad
New website
NEW LENOX — The village will go live with its new website Friday, Trustee Annette Bowden told the board.
The village has been working on a new site so that residents can access information even after Village Hall is closed. It will feature information on ordinances, meetings, concert schedules, French Market and regular updates.
“Hopefully this is going to be a good resource for you,” Bowden said.
The emphasis has been on making the site more user-friendly.
— Erin Gallagher
New textbooks
New Lenox School District adopted new textbooks for its social studies curriculum.
Rather than picking a single publisher and adopt its curriculum, the district chose a different approach, Assistant Superintendent Peggy Manville said. There is typically a lot of duplication across grades in the subject of social studies that the district wanted to remove.
Then, the district selected different publishers for different grades to match its scope and sequence.
It is unusual to have different publishers from grade to grade.
“We felt this was a better way to go because it matched all our goals for our curriculum,” Manville said.
— Erin Gallagher
