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Room for
balloons
The Lincoln/Logan County Chamber of
Commerce is looking for a different large outdoor space to host the
balloon portion of the Lincoln Art and Balloon Festival next year.
Mass balloon launching and glows were hampered at this year's event
by the added half-mile car racetrack inside the horse track at the
Logan County Fairgrounds.
Chamber director Bobbi Abbott is
negotiating with the county airport committee in hopes of bringing
the festival out to the Logan County Airport next year. There are
many issues that would need resolved to be able to do that. If
possible, the far south end of the airport grounds nearest Route 10
would be used for the balloons, she said.
Numerous aspects of using those grounds
are now being looked into. The county would have to keep crops out
of the ground for the year and would need compensation for that.
Insurance is also being looked into.
The balloons would cause little
interference to general aviation flights coming and going from the
airport, and it would not need to shut down, but approval would be
needed from the Aviation Division of the Illinois Department of
Transportation.
Emergency
responders to all talk the same talk
Terry Storer informed the board that
the president has issued a directive to all emergency management
agencies to develop a universal management plan. The National
Incident Management System is a disaster management system that will
be used throughout the United States during major or minor
disasters. It combines everyone's separate plans to make one unified
plan. This enables responders from other states to go to another
state and talk the same language. Storer said, "They will know what
to request and know what's coming."
It will take several years to develop
the unified plan, but local agencies need to initiate compliance
right away if they want to continue qualifying for U.S. Homeland
Security grant funds.
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The first step was for Logan County to
pass a resolution to use NIMS during a disaster within the local
jurisdiction.
The board agreed and passed the
resolution to be active members of the national Incident Command
System.
Logan County is well ahead of the game
on this matter, ESDA director Dan Fulscher said at the September
Local Emergency Planning Committee meeting, as we already have a
plan written that falls within the new guidelines, and that plan can
just be expanded.
Logan County was the first county in
the Illinois to comply with the requirement for a
multi-jurisdictional weapons of mass destruction disaster exercise
under U.S. Homeland Security guidelines.
The 12-hour exercise on May 8 this year
not only involved all major aspects of emergency response, it also
drew together community and disaster response leaders from
throughout the county, other counties and from key state agencies.
Harvest
permits
It is difficult for farmers getting
crops out of fields to correctly assess weight loads on the trucks'
individual axles while in the field, farmer and county board member
Bill Sahs commented in a pre-meeting discussion. Last Tuesday county
engineer Tom Hickman announced that a special 40-day permit that
allows overweights on axles is being issued by the county highway
department for use on county roads. The permit does not apply to
township roads, Hickman said.
Farmers who would like to apply can
come to the county highway office at 529 S. McLean St. in Lincoln.
Everyone will receive a map of the county, it will be explained, and
they will be told which bridges cannot be crossed even with the
permit.
Chairman
Dale Voyles declared the permits are effective Sept. 21 through Oct.
30 in Logan County. A permit costs $5 per axle.
[Jan
Youngquist] |
