Project Pickle Perplexing but Will Persist

By Jeff Vorva

Project Pickle was in a little bit of a pickle, but not enough to shut down the initiative.

Project Pickle is the marriage between the Village of Beecher and the Beecher 200U Board of Education to set up pickleball courts on the site of the Beecher High School tennis courts.

The village wanted to use $115,000 from the American Rescue Plan to set up three pickleball courts, a half-court basketball court, and a compact soccer court for the public to use.

Village officials have gone shopping for the supplies and, like anyone else who has gone shopping in recent years, found some high prices and sticker shock.

The village received just one bid – from Deerfield-based Home Court Advantage – that would take up a chunk of close to $100,000 of that money for equipment and installation.

“The proposal came in quite a bit higher than what I anticipated,” Beecher Superintendent of Public Works Matt Conner said at the January 23 board meeting. “I think a lot of people were shocked by it. We’ll definitely have to put more funds to that project in order to get it completed.”

He estimated the project is $24,000 over budget.

“It’s higher than we expected, but it’s not a huge, huge number by any means,” Conner said.

That hiccup likely won’t set the project back. Conner said ARP money set aside for playground equipment at Firemen’s Park is available because that project will be under budget.

Village Administrator Robert Barber said he wanted any leftover money from the playground project to stay allocated to projects in Fireman’s Park and suggested taking money out of the water main budget to make up for Project Pickle.

“We should have enough money to make everything work,” Conner said. “I really feel comfortable with that.”

The board did not vote on that item but did approve to award Blue Island-based Pavement Systems $40,131 for resurfacing the tennis courts.

Five-year plan

The board voted on a five-year financial plan that, for the most part, is solid.

Barber has concerns about funding sewers in the coming years.

“The sewer utility is leaking a little bit,” he said. “It’s not a drastic leak, but it is not going to go away, and it’s going to get worse as time goes on.”

Bridge will close

The Penfield Street construction is scheduled to start in early February.

Public Works Committee Chairman Todd Kraus said it’s possible the bridge will be taken out of service from March 27-April 19. The target date for completion of the entire project is September 15.

Beecher bits

•The board voted to pay bills each meeting to streamline the process.

•The 2011 Chevy Traverse the police department used will be designated as surplus property.

•Police officer Krzysztow Szwab resigned to take a job in Worth and there is a search process starting for his replacement.

•Street lights that have not been working in the village were not being repaired by Commonwealth Edison. It was found there was a computer error and workers came out recently to repair the lights.