Riverside’s village board is poised to vote on granting the Illinois Department of Natural Resources (IDNR) and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers an easement for the second phase of the Hofmann Dam removal project.
Village trustees are scheduled to convene in a special meeting on Wednesday, Sept. 21 at 6:30 p.m. in the third-floor meeting room of the Riverside Township Hall, 27 Riverside Road.
The agenda includes only a discussion of the dam removal projects, the plans for regrading Swan Pond Park and whether or not to grant the easement needed for the work to take place in Riverside.
The Army Corps of engineers is slated to open construction bids for phase two on Sept. 26 and award a contract by Sept. 30. Village Manager Peter Scalera said that the easement must be passed prior to awarding the contract or risk losing the funding for the projects.
Before the board votes to either grant or deny the easement, the village will host a public town hall meeting on the dam removal and park regrading plans. That meeting is set for Tuesday, Sept. 20 at 1:30 p.m. in the second-floor auditorium of the township hall.
Village officials along with representatives from the IDNR and Army Corps will be on hand to field questions and comments from the public. Anyone unable to attend the meeting can email comments or questions to the village manager at pscalera@riverside.il.us.
According to Scalera, the vote on the easement originally scheduled to take place on Monday, Sept. 19, but officials “didn’t feel it was appropriate to vote on the easement until the town hall meeting had been held.”
Meanwhile, in a letter to Village President Michael Gorman dated Sept. 8, the IDNR’s director of the Office of Water resources, Arlan Juhl, sought to clear up charges that the project would result in disastrously low water levels on the Des Plaines River above the dam.
