Wednesday, March 03, 2010
 
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City briefs: New code officer hired, Fifth Street Road and more

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[March 03, 2010] 

CHardwareity names John R. Lebegue new building and safety officer

At the Monday night voting session of the Lincoln City Council, the group went into executive session near the end of the evening to meet and talk with John R Lebegue regarding his candidacy for the position of building and safety officer for the city of Lincoln.

When Les Last, the current building and safety officer, announced in February that he would be retiring, Mayor Keith Snyder appointed Alderwoman Stacy Bacon and Alderman David Wilmert to serve with himself on a selection committee for Last's replacement.

Snyder said the committee heard from 28 applicants and interviewed 15, before choosing Lebegue as the one most suited to fill the position.

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Lebegue has a bachelor's degree in political science from the College of St. Francis in Joliet Illinois and a master's in public administration from Northern Illinois University in DeKalb.

From 1994 to 1998 he served as the building and zoning commissioner for the village of Riverside. From 1998 to 2001 he was with the village of Hinsdale, serving as their deputy building commissioner.

In 2001 he took the position of building commissioner for the village of Lincolnwood and remained there until 2008.

Most recently Lebegue has been serving as a construction consultant, providing professional building and zoning code analysis and assistance to residential homeowners.

When the executive session was completed, Snyder said that he was seeking approval to hire Lebegue. Wilmert made the motion, with the second coming from Bacon.

With Alderman Buzz Busby absent for the evening, the motion was approved with a vote of 8-0.

Lebegue will commence work for the city of Lincoln on March 29. Snyder said that the retiring Last will remain with the city through April 9 and will have two weeks to work with Lebegue before leaving the office.

After the meeting, Lebegue said that he is looking forward to getting into the position.

He is currently living in LaGrange. Lebegue will be moving to Lincoln in the near future but said that his family will remain in LaGrange through the end of the school year.

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City raises the roof

By unanimous vote, the council approved amending city code Title 11, Chapter 4, Section 2, changing the height limit on residential accessory buildings from 15 feet to 18 feet.

This action is a result of a request from the zoning appeals board.

It was explained that new home construction is increasingly including higher rooflines. In addition there has been an increase in need for taller garage doors to accommodate vehicles such as SUVs.

The members of the appeals board have said that they are seeing increasing numbers of requests for variances to the 15-foot restriction and thus believe it would be best to upgrade the ordinance to the higher 18-foot restriction.

Council approves more money to Hanson

In May of 2006 the city of Lincoln signed an agreement with Hanson Professional Services for the engineering of their share of the Fifth Street Road project.

The cost of those services totaled $343,216. Of that amount, 80 percent, or slightly less than $275,000, was covered by High Priority Project funds from the federal government.

Last Tuesday at the workshop meeting, Alderman David Armbrust reported on information received from Hanson.

The firm is at approximately 95 percent completion of its work and has billed out approximately 90 percent of the contract amount.

However, there is a need for additional funding to the project before it can be completely funded.

Hanson had requested an additional $76,528 in order to complete the engineering stage of the Fifth Street Road project.

Armbrust reminded the council then and again prior to the Monday night vote that the city will have to come up with 20 percent of this amount, or approximately $15,300, while the High Priority Project funds will cover the 80 percent.

When it came to vote, the council agreed unanimously to approve the additional fees requested by Hanson Professional Services.

[By NILA SMITH]

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