Galesburg City Council will meet tonight with an opportunity to honor a somewhat legendary figure in Galesburg public safety. Council will vote on a resolution honoring former Galesburg Fire Chief, the late Dale May, by naming the Hawthorne Centre Regional Training Site for firefighters in his honor. Male started as a Galesburg firefighter in 1962, became Chief in 1977, and held that role until his retirement in 1994. He passed away in July at the age of 87. Council documents read that during his tenure as chief, May spearheaded the acquisition and opening of the fire training center at Hawthorne Centre. The center is still in operation today and hosts many area training classes and activities. Some groups that hold training there include the Illinois Terrorism Task Force, the military, many area fire department personnel, and continues to serve as the regional training site for the University of Illinois Fire Service Institute. The renaming would have minimal impact on the city’s budget; just $500.
Galesburg City Council tonight can authorize another $2 million forgivable loan from the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency at their meeting tonight. The funds are for Phase 5 of the ongoing project to replace all of the city’s lead water service lines. They are recently finished Phase 3, are in the middle of Phase 4, and once this Phase 5 is complete the city will only have about 500 active lines that need to be replaced. The City recently completed Phase 3, which replaced 553 lead water service lines. The City is currently in construction of Phase 4 with an estimated total of 525 lead water service lines to be replaced by the end of May. Once Phase 5 is completed, the City will have about 500 active lead service lines remaining to be replaced and approximately 200 closed lead service line accounts still connected to the distribution system.
