Commissioner Fischer

Recently, a commenter on Facebook responding to a City Council meeting agenda that I had posted asked for a status update on some ongoing projects.  Instead of struggling with Facebook's posting format I decided to dust off the blog here and add a little background commentary.   Disclaimer up front, any opinions expressed here are wholly my own, and not official statements or positions of the City Council or the City of Zion. Here we go. Where is the Popeye's?   At last report, the Popeye's is still on track to open, but exactly when is totally in the hands of the franchise owner.  The City for it's part, has completed everything that needs to be done on our end.   Here I think an important lesson learned has been learned; don't make a public announcement of a new business or other project until either construction starts, or there is a grand opening scheduled.  The natural inclination is to share good news, to show that there is progress and...

  I started writing this post with the intention of summing up the past year’s activity at the City of Zion, and for myself as Commissioner. I had drafted a set of thoughtful and carefully worded observations about how the City has adapted to operating during this pandemic.   I spent a few hours working it over, editing and drafting several times.   Like I often do when I am writing, I leave it for awhile and come back with a fresh perspective. I opened this document, read through it and deleted everything I wrote.   I scrapped it all because at the heart of what I was trying to say comes down to a simple statement. We made it. We did what needed to be done to keep the City running and serving the public. It’s not always perfect, but the diligent efforts of our dedicated staff across all departments kept the wheels of local governance rolling every day.   It doesn’t get said often enough, but I want to thank everyone at City Hall, Finance, Building, P...

Wait, didn't we do this just last year? This will be a short post, but I felt it was necessary since I am seeing some quite understandable questions about the paving projects that are currently underway in town. The streets that were paved by Payne & Dolan during the city's street project last year are being re-milled and re-paved to meet the standards that were set forth in that paving contract. Last year, when the completed paving projects were being inspected by our Public Works Director Ray Roberts, and representatives of Christopher Burke Engineering as the supervising engineers, they found that the final layer had been improperly applied.   Even though not immediately apparent, this flaw would substantially shorten the lifespan of the work.  It was determined that the work was unacceptable in this condition, and that payment would not be made until it was remediated to meet the standards of the contract. After some back and forth discussions of how best to accom...

Prologue: Fair Compensation Before I get to my statement, I just want to urge everyone that reads this to contact your Congressperson or Senator and urge them to support these bills: H.R.3731 — 117th Congress (2021-2022) STRANDED Act of 2021 To assist communities affected by stranded nuclear waste, and for other purposes.   Introduced by Representative Brad Schneider [D-IL-10]. S.1290   — 117th Congre ss  (2021-2022) STRANDED Act of 2021. Introduced by Senator Tammy Duckworth [D-IL]. Almost 40 years ago the U.S. Government promised communities with nuclear power plants, who are now or will be forced to host nuclear waste storage for decades, that they would receive impact fees to offset the negative economic and societal effects of that storage.    Now is the time to keep that promise. Atomic Necropolis On the Illinois shore of Lake Michigan, there is a monument of sorts in the form of sixty-one massive concrete cylinders, each weighing 100 tons. ...