THURSDAY
September 24, 2015 • 75¢
CLEAN SWEEP
Yorkville girls top DeKalb to win conference opener / 16
SERVING KENDALL COUNTY FOR 150 YEARS
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A Yorkville goal: keep small-town feel City Council receives update on new comprehensive plan By DAN WAITT dwaitt@shawmedia.com While Yorkville residents have concerns about the condition of their streets and the status of unfinished subdivisions, they like
the small-town feel and want to see that continue as the city plans for development in the future. Those are among the findings of the initial phase of the State of the City report, essentially the revised Comprehensive Plan for the
city’s land use. The city is about halfway through the first revision of its comprehensive plan since 2008. Justin Weidl of the Lakota Group presented an update on the State of the City report to the City Council. “There is a lot of good information in there,” Mayor Gary Golinski said of the report. The last time the plan was updated was seven years ago, at a
time of relatively high growth in the city in both residential and retail sectors before the recession slowed the market considerably. “We’re in a very different market situation right now,” Weidl said. Weidl said the aim of the comprehensive plan is to find a way to be strategic in a time of slower growth. Phase 1 began with a series of interviews and listening sessions
that were conducted with various Yorkville groups, including city department heads, local business owners; developers; civic groups; School District 115; Kendall County; the Yorkville Bristol Sanitary District; the Kendall County Forest Preserve; the Illinois Department of Transportation, other governmental agencies and Yorkville residents.
See YORKVILLE, page 2
Route 34 work expected to begin next year By MATT SCHURY mschury@kendallcountynow.com
Doug Fitzgerald, driving his 1984 Chevy, pulled Mean Green 304.56 feet, good for fifth-place.
Engines roar, dirt flies at truck and tractor pull
T
he roar of engines could be heard Saturday evening on the south side of Yorkville as the Illini State Pullers held their final truck and tractor pull competition of the season at the Kendall County Fairgrounds off Route 71, just west of Route 47.
Photos by Eric Miller - emiller@shawmedia.com
Tod Stewart of Yorkville, behind the wheel of his Chevy pickup named “Old School,” threw some dirt while pulling Mean Green for 340.94 feet to capture first place in the competition.
COUNTYWIDE
LOCAL NEWS
For the birds?
Service cuts ahead
Wild turkeys find a welcome space in Kendall County, even along highways / 1
Fox Valley Older Adult Services planning to close branches in DeKalb, Aurora / 3
Connecting the Fox Valley to Academic Medicine rush.edu
adno=0342915
The thousands of motorists that travel on U.S. Route 34 daily between Yorkville and Oswego should see construction barricades and orange cones go up next year as work to improve the highway begins, according to the Illinois Department of Transportation. Crews are expected to start moving utility lines out of the highway right-of-way next spring, according to David Broviak, an IDOT engineer. Contractors will then rebuild a 3.4-mile section of the two-lane highway to four lanes with curbs and gutters. In addition, a 10-foot-wide multi-use path will be installed along the highway from Marketplace Drive in Yorkville to O’Brien Way in Oswego. Project plans also call for either the improvement of existing traffic signals or new traffic signals at the following intersections along the highway: McHugh Road, Countryside Parkway, Autumn Creek Boulevard and Bristol Ridge Road in Yorkville and O’Brien Way in Oswego, according to Craig Reed, an IDOT studies and plans project engineer. Broviak confirmed that IDOT officials expect to seek contractor bids for the project by the end of this year. However, he said he doesn’t yet know when the contract will be awarded. “If it is a later [contract] letting they will usually start in the spring,” he said. The project has a pre-bid estimated price tag of $31.5 million. Construction is expected to take a little over two years to complete, according to Broviak.
See ROUTE 34, page 2
WHERE IT’S AT Fire calls........................................ 11 Forum ............................................... 5-6 Local news .....................................2-12 Opinion................................................. 4 Police reports................................... 10 Sports............................................ 13-16
Vol. 151, No. 39 3 sections