No Dollar General in Edinburg – for now

January 17, 2024 18

EDINBURG – The Village of Edinburg held a regular meeting on Monday. January 8 at 7:00 p.m. in the Village Hall.

Village President David Luttrell informed the Board on Monday that he finally heard back from Dollar General around two days before Christmas. He was informed that currently, the project was too expensive for Dollar General to pursue.

Specifically, the cost of land acquisition and the cost to get utilities out to the proposed store was too expensive. However, the representative that Luttrell spoke to said that if there was a way to get the land acquisition cost down, there was a possibility that the project could come up again. It could even come back up as soon as July.

Luttrell asked if annexing the land in and making a TIF District for the business would be possible. Village Attorney Rocci Romano said it was, but added that the Village would need to know exactly what land Dollar General wanted before they could do that. Romano added that a TIF District required a lot of extra work, including additional attorney fees for a company that specifically handled and took care of the legality of a TIF District.

“I don’t have a problem with it,” said Board Trustee Clay Davidson, “But setting up a TIF District is going to be expensive. And we have to get the approval of a lot of other parts of the community and it’s tough. It’s real tough.”

The Board decided to talk to Dollar General and see if they could get any kind of commitment before looking into getting started on a TIF District for the Village.

Last month the Board heard from Village Engineer Ben Spreen about additional costs accrued from the raw water line project that he wanted the Village to agree to pay. However, the Board did not wish to approve more money unless they understood where these extra sudden costs had come from.

To that end, the Board has scheduled a special meeting for Monday, January 22 at 7:00 p.m. to meet with Spreen and see exactly what additional fees he wants to add on to the project. The Village will also discuss if they wish to go forward with the project as it is currently with the increased costs at the meeting. Until then, the Board tabled the amendment to pay for additional Engineering Services until next month.

Water Superintendent Mike Lebshier informed the Board that SNAWS had not yet tested the main line interconnect from their system into Edinburg yet. They were still waiting on one part, the vault, before running the test, but Lebshier assured the Board that all the other parts for the line were there. He said it should not take more than a day or two to install the vault part into the system.

Board member Jamie Francis has been working on proposing changes to the Village leaf burning ordinances due to complaints he has received and a personal feeling that the ordinance needs more regulation. Francis wished to select specific days for the burning and have people plan for those.

Francis was leaning towards mimicking the burn ordinance that Assumption had in place, finding it the most palatable. There were many questions and conflicting views on what changes were best, or even if there needed to be changes made to the current ordinance.

In the end, the Board asked Romano to make some changes to the existing ordinance for a vote next month. The Village wants to implement a 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. burn window, as well as no green grass clippings allowed for burns. Residents also will not be allowed to burn in the streets and will be required to supervise the burn.

Finally, the Village wants to ban burns on Christmas, Thanksgiving, the Fourth of July, and Memorial Day so people can enjoy those holidays.
Also approved at the meeting:

– Minutes of the December 11 meeting

– Payment of December ($130,522.78) bills

The next regular meeting of the Village of Edinburg will be held on Monday, February 12, 2024, at 7:00 p.m. in the Village Hall.