KANE — “As far as I’m concerned, this issue is over after next week,” exclaimed Councilman Brandon Johnson after a group of concerned citizens asked how far the council was willing to go with an alleged nuisance property located at 328 Haines St., Kane.
Citizens of Kane have been lodging complaints with the council since late 2016, with most stemming from odors allegedly emitting from the property in question. Borough Manager Don Payne has been working diligently to address the issue with the homeowners and their legal counsel, but there have been multiple delays including the death of their first lawyer.
“They did request an appeal hearing,” stated Payne while addressing council about the Haines Street property. “But I’m not going to try and work out a date with them. I hope we can set a date here tonight. Set the date and time and move forward.”
Shortly after Payne’s update, the council moved to give notice of the meeting to be held at the residence Tuesday of next week. Council unanimously voted to move forward as Payne had stated.
Councilman Denny Drost raised a question on the police report submitted by Chief Heath Boyer.
“Police will no longer be able to provide police coverage as we have been,” read Drost from the report. “Additionally we will be doing less random patrol and traffic enforcement due to budgetary constraints and no guidance in rectifying the situation.”
Then Drost added, “What is that all about?”
Boyer addressed the council citing that the budget was cut back from last year’s amount with regards to part-time officer salary and fuel funds, and that these cuts were causing him to quickly approach his budget limit.
Drost then asked about not receiving guidance to which Boyer responded, “I said something to mister Payne and I also said something to the mayor. The mayor said to cut shifts and Mister Payne said he’d look into it.”
In response to this information, the council then turned to Mayor Yogi Osmer asking which shifts should be cut. Osmer explained that during off-peak times, little police coverage is needed and that cutting those times from the shifts could help offset the expenses hitting the budget.
Referring to a copy of the budget, Payne commented, “I take a look at the labor component of that department and we budgeted $203,000. To date, the expense is $117,955. If you look at the percentile, we’re at 58.10 percent. That’s right on the money for where we’re at in the year.”
“I think that if we continue where we are and perhaps cut a few shifts, will be well within the budget,” continued Payne. “Remember the second time we went over the budget last year and I recognized that we weren’t getting the revenue we projected and we had to cut a few areas? I said this was going to be a tight budget and it’s shaping up to be just that.”
Following that comment and explanation, the issue appeared resolved and the council moved into other business.
The next regular Kane Borough meeting will be held at 6:30 p.m. Sept. 13.
