Tazewell County News Briefs

Chronicle Media

The public will get to meet new Washington Fire Department Chief, Roger Traver at a reception from 6-7:30 p.m. Jan 24 in banquet rooms A and B at Five Points Washington.

CENTRAL ILLINOIS

Program to train future solar energy workers

A new solar jobs training program based at Illinois Central College is accepting applications.

ICC recently won a $1 million grant to establish the Central Illinois Solar Workforce Pipeline Training Program, a partnership with Tri-County Urban League and Heaven’s View Community Development Corp.

The nine-week program includes four weeks of job-readiness training and five weeks of solar technician training. The program also includes 58 hours of work-based training at a local business. Participants earn $10 an hour during the technical training portion.

The program is designed to help ex-offenders, former foster children and residents of Peoria’s poorest areas. But it is also open to all 18-year-olds with a high school diploma or equivalent who live within ICC’s 11-county boundaries.

Thirty students will be enrolled each year of the four-year grant.

Applications are available at icc.edu/news. Peoria Jobs Partnership at (309) 682-2360 and Tri-County Urban League at (309) 673-7474 also can provide more information.

COUNTY

Official calls for budget changes

Tazewell County spends more money that it has, and that has to change. County Board Vice Chairman Tim Neuhauser wants to change that, and said an ad-hoc committee answers the call he made last fall to get a head start with new ideas on budget planning before the board’s regular budget preparation meetings begin in June.

He wants the recommendations by June 19 to give the board time to implement changes for the next fiscal budget.

In the meantime, the county may get more money depending on the outcome of a March referendum in which the county is seeking voters’ permission, required under the county’s tax cap restrictions, to raise the county property tax rate by 15 cents per $100 assessed valuation.

Approval would inject $4.3 million in new revenue, the same amount as the overall county budget deficit projected for this fiscal year. It would be the first significant county tax rate hike in 15 years.

PEKIN

Cast ballots for Pekin’s best by Feb. 2

What is your favorite arts, culture, dining, and services in Pekin? You can vote for your favorites among the finalists for the Best of Pekin contest. Everyone will be allowed to vote until 11:59 p.m. Feb. 2. Only one vote per person. The link to the ballot is surveymonkey.com/r/BestofPekin2018Finalist.

The winners will be announced at the February Puttin’ on Pekin Breakfast hosted by the Pekin Area Chamber of Commerce, Feb. 9. Tickets are $15. For reservations, call (309) 346-2106.

Follow the contest on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to stay up to date on all the details and announcements.

Bags of books selling for $2

The Pekin Public Library Bag Sale continues through Jan. 27, at the library, 301 S. 4th St. Bags of books are being sold for $2 each. Proceeds will support the work of the Friends of the Pekin Public Library. The library is open 9 a.m-8 p.m. weekdays, 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Friday and 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday.

WASHINGTON

Reception to introduce new fire chief

The public will get to meet the man who will become chief of the Washington Fire Department at a reception Jan 24.

Roger Traver and his wife, Nancy, will be the guests of honor from 6 to 7:30 p.m. in banquet rooms A and B at Five Points Washington. There, a contract signing ceremony will be held at 6:40 p.m., and District Judge Kate Gorman will administer the oath of office to Traver at 6:45 p.m. The contract calls for him to become chief April 1, a day after retiring as a captain in the Peoria Fire Department.

Born and raised in Washington, Traver, 55, has been an EMT and paramedic in the Washington Fire Department just about every year since 1988, even during stints as a firefighter with the Pekin Fire Department starting in 1990 and Peoria Fire Department starting in 1999.

After the board’s unsuccessful initial search for a new chief, Traver was recruited for the job by the board. But he wasn’t ready at the time to make the career switch, he said, so he became the department’s director of operations in July 2016, with many of the same responsibilities as the chief.

Once in his new job, Traver says he wants to increase staffing — there are about 30 volunteer firefighters and 18 EMT’s on the roster — because of climbing call numbers. The department responded to 1,278 calls in 2012. Last year, the department responded to 1,500 calls, a 17 percent jump in five years. There were 61 calls this month as of Saturday.

Randy Hurd, who has been serving as interim fire chief, will continue to be in charge of fire suppression efforts while Traver focuses on the business side of department operations.

 

–Tazewell County News Briefs–