Golf carts will roll before South Jacksonville trustees again in two weeks, but they may have a tough hill to climb before they roll on village streets.
The Public Protection Committee took up the question again Tuesday night.
“We have done a lot of work on [the golf cart ordinance], and I think we would be foolish not to pass this ordinance,” Trustee Mike Elliott said. “Looking at it with an open mind, I don’t think it will be a problem. I think it’s a smart thing to do. I just think that since we are contiguous to Jacksonville and it’s legal in Jacksonville, and they have the same ordinance we’re trying to pass, it’s the logical thing to do.”
However, Trustee Kem Wilson thinks otherwise. “The citizens who have come to me have said they are not in favor of golf carts on village streets,” she said. “They think it’s dangerous.”
Village resident Mike Looker, who wants to be able to ride his golf cart to The Links golf course, is frustrated about the board’s stalemate on the issue.
“I got 380 people who signed my petition in favor of golf carts,” Looker said. “I maybe had 10 people who objected. I don’t understand what the problem is.”
In board action July 7, trustees were deadlocked 3-3 on allowing golf carts to operate on village streets.
At the time, Public Protection Committee co-chair Stacy Pinkerton said her committee had been studying the golf cart ordinance for several months.
“I had several people come to me and ask me to not approve its passage,” said Pinkerton, who voted against the ordinance July 7. “It made me nervous to approve it. I think it’s dangerous. One of my biggest concerns is that the police department is very busy making sure our streets are safe and they don’t need the added pressure of policing golf carts.”
The Personnel and Finance Committee also met Tuesday night, discussing information technology and trustee compensation.
Trustees received a letter from Locis, the village’s software provider, regarding the board’s request for backup discs containing water and sewer department records.
In the letter, “Locis is saying in a nutshell that ‘they have their own backup mechanism, but it must be initiated by the operator and this has not been routinely done by the village until recently,’” Trustee Paula Belobrajdic-Stewart said.
The letter goes on to say that the village’s water and sewer department files “may not reside anywhere other than on the computer where the software is presently running.”
Belobrajdic-Stewart said the next step will be for the village to provide its attorney, Rob Cross, with the original agreement with Locis to see what the company was supposed to provide and also look at bringing in an outside information technology professional to do a backup of water and sewer department files.
“This letter we received from Locis is further proof to me that we need to follow through regardless of hearing from others that we don’t need to,” Belobrajdic-Stewart said. “I remain steadfast in my feeling that monies will not be released to switch computer systems until we have access to as many past and present records as possible.”
The Personnel and Finance Committee decided to propose a $100 monthly raise for trustees, taking them from $100 to $200.
If approved by the full board, the raise would take effect for three newly elected trustees in 2017 and for three other trustees elected in 2019.
The last time trustees received a raise is believed to have been in 2004, according to Wilson.
All of these matters will come before the village board at a special meeting at 7 p.m. Sept. 27 at Village Hall.
