County highway department looks for new leader         

Fifth Street Road project to move forward

[JULY 29, 2005]  The county is looking for a new engineer. Robert Thomas "Tom" Hickman has been manning operations at the county highway department for the past eight years. Hickman submitted his resignation effective at the end of his contract on Aug. 17.

Hickman has effectively kept up the department and services in the midst of extremely tight budget times over the last two years. Finance chairman Chuck Ruben has credited him with holding down costs to the general county budget by holding back expenditures, mostly on equipment.

He also spearheaded implementing Logan County's Geographic Information System. He has done a lot of work on his own rather than the county having to contract it all out. That project is well under way. This has saved the county money and gotten a project important to our economic development going.

Hickman is known for his straightforward, no-nonsense candor. He has done great work and kept a complicated department running smoothly during his tenure as Logan County engineer.

Office secretary Jerri Ferris said, "We hate to see him go."

The road and bridge committee voted 6-0 to place assistant highway engineer Bret Aukamp in the role of acting county engineer.

The Illinois Department of Transportation will be consulted for the procedures to hire a new county engineer.

Hickman presented a plan to the road and bridge committee that will steer the county highway and road development for the next five years. The Fifth Street Road project will be forwarded first. Plans to renovate the road from Lincoln Parkway to Middletown have been in waiting and will be implemented in sections and stages as funds become available. That work has been waiting on federal and state dollars.

Information was just released today that Washington has approved those funds. However, they are far less than first projected. See "LaHood hails passage of transportation bill."

Logan County will receive $762,056 toward reconstruction of Fifth Street Road. Aukamp said that they just learned the figure today also, and it is not clear at this time how those funds will be spent, but they will go on that project. Hickman has been in regular discussion with the committee on it, deciding how the Fifth Street work might be divided up and done.

The next road priority is the Elkhart-Mount Pulaski blacktop.

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