City briefs      

[JUNE 12, 2006]  Several temporary street closings were approved for the downtown area during Lincoln Heritage Days, which takes place from Friday, June 30, to Tuesday, July 4.

This year's Lincoln Heritage Days begins the Abraham Lincoln bicentennial celebration, which peaks in 2007. Activities have been added, with an emphasis on the heritage that this great man left for us.

Heritage Days kicks off with a ceremony opening a special Lincoln display at the Lincoln College Museum. Downtown activities include talks at the Lincoln Public Library about Abraham Lincoln.

There will also be sidewalk sales, a community garage sale in Scully Park, car cruise-in around the Logan County Courthouse and two evenings of street bands.

New this year is a big-screen outdoor movie, "Sea Biscuit," at the Lincoln College soccer field.

The holiday culminates with a day of games, water fun and food. followed by traditional fireworks, all at the Lincoln Recreation Center on the Fourth of July.

You can have it all and eat your cake -- Mary Todd Lincoln cake -- and watermelon too. Click on the Heritage Days celebration button found at the top of the sidebar on the front page of LDN for times and locations of all the activities.

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Mayor Beth Davis gave recognition to newly graduated Lincoln Community High School student Dustin Schaub and his teacher Sandra Bronson for the development of the city of Lincoln website. Schaub donated his time and talent to create the site, which was completed in late spring.

Schaub, who was unable to be in attendance for the award, will be a freshman majoring in computer science at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville campus this fall.

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Five bid packages went out, but only one bid was submitted for the Zion lift station. Petersburg Plumbing and Heating was awarded the bid at $103,897. Even though it was higher than planned for, Alderman Buzz Busby said that it was best to go ahead with it at this time since the work needs to start before the end of the month to be on time for the Wal-Mart project.

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The Lincoln Art & Balloon Festival is scheduled for Aug. 25-27. A request was approved to close a portion of Kickapoo Street on Saturday and Sunday during the festival.

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The city renewed its annual approval of participation in the Illinois Prevailing Wage Act. Busby was the only "no" vote.

The wage law is focused on construction projects and compares the wages to the standard rates in the county where the work is to be performed.

"The Prevailing Wage Act requires contractors and subcontractors to pay laborers, workers and mechanics employed on PUBLIC WORKS construction projects no less than the general prevailing rate of wages (consisting of hourly cash wages plus fringe benefits) for work of a similar character in the county where the work is performed," the Illinois Department of Labor says.

[See Logan County prevailing wage rates.]

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The intergovernmental agreement for the Fifth Street Road project between the city of Lincoln, the county of Logan and West Lincoln Township was approved unanimously

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The local agency agreement for the federal participation for the Fifth Street Road was also approved.

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