HILLCREST — At its monthly meeting Wednesday, the Hillcrest Village Board unanimously approved the appointment of Patricia Garcia to a vacant trustee seat. Garcia was then sworn in by Village Clerk Dawn Bearrows.

It was announced in October that Trustee Joe Thompson had resigned his position due to personal reasons. Thompson was appointed to his position in June 2023 and served as streets & grounds trustee. Garcia will serve in the trustee seat until the next election. She has lived in Hillcrest for 32 years.

"I like the area," Garcia said. "It's nice and quiet. It's a good place to raise kids."

1A

Village Engineer Kaitlin Wright of Baxter & Woodman said during the meeting that Hillcrest's Priority 1A water main project is fully complete and final documentation will soon be done. Once the village sends its final payment to contractor Elliott & Wood, Inc., the IEPA will then reimburse the village. Wright said the project came in on schedule and under budget.

The project had a $1.2 million total budget and replaced mains along the full length of Scott Avenue, parts of Errett Road and Erickson Road from Scott Avenue to Jeffrey Avenue, and parts of Jeffrey Avenue from Errett Road to Erickson Road. Those streets are in the southern and oldest part of the village. The project will be financed with an IEPA loan that will involve 50 percent loan forgiveness. The debt service on the project will be $35,000 per year over 20 years.

Streets

During the meeting, Village President Rick Rhoads said that he plans to hold a meeting with Wright and others on what can be done in the future to improve the shape of the village's streets, along with the possible implementation of speed tables and speed bumps to deal with speeding cars.

"We don't want to put down a brand new street and then tear it up in a couple years when we put in new water mains or something," Rhoads said. "And we'll look at speed tables. I know what 20 miles per hour is, and people just fly by. I'd like to even look into getting a speed camera. It's getting to a point where people don't even care anymore. They speed and blow through stop signs and it's getting dangerous."

Wright said during the meeting that streets planned for Hillcrest's 2025 chip seal program include Hillcrest Avenue, Jeffrey Avenue, Wayne Road, Errett Road, Erickson Road and Powers Road. The board will vote to approve funds for that in February and the estimated cost this year is $48,000.

"Since we're going to be discussing potential changes with how we're addressing the roads, we'll have that approval wait until February," Wright said.

Lead

During the meeting, Wright said that Hillcrest still needs to work to identify about 50 percent of water lines running into homes in the village amid ongoing state-mandated lead service line inventory work. The village must check to see if water lines running into homes are possibly made of lead or galvanized pipe. The village recently sent out a survey to residents to determine water line materials and may send another mailing and a representative to inspect unknown water lines in homes. The inventory has an April 2025 submission deadline. So far one resident has reported a lead line in Hillcrest, which Wright has advised the village to confirm.

Roof

Rhoads said during the meeting that a new roof was recently installed on the Village Hall building. In October, the board unanimously approved a $20,495 bid from Tip Top Roofing & Construction for the replacement of the roof at Village Hall.

"I thought for the size of the building and the quality of the shingles, it was a pretty good deal," Rhoads said. "They did a good job.”