March 24, 2026 Local Stories in and Around St. Joseph, Illinois

Live at St. Joseph Village Board, May 14, 2024

On the agenda tonight: approval of the street, sidewalks, curb and gutter projects and purchasing a mower deck.

Reminder for Dumpster Days:

Dumpster Day will be Saturday, May 18, 2024, from 7:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m. at the Sports Complex.

Items not allowed:
Electronics
Yard Waste
Paint
Tires
Chemicals
Batteries

And I think, they like you to be able to unload it yourself. Don’t expect the public works staff to throw your trash away. 🙂

Mike Sennert is being appointed interim clerk. Mike does IT for the village in addition to being the curriculum coordinator and IT guru for the grade school. Mike is going to be the clerk for three months and then after three months they will ask him to serve permanently. He will be compensated the way the clerk would be normally.

Amy McElroy is here to support the village workers who make the village “run well.”

Tiffany McElroy is here urging the board to look at Luke Fisher’s total work history before making any decisions. “I am in Luke’s favor.” Tiffany is urging the board to look at all sides and consider all he has done for the village. She also said that she wishes there was a compromise that could be reached and she hates that everyone, the board and Luke, are in this position.

Ryan Barnes is talking now. “What’s sad, things happen people make mistakes. It has been two weeks, four days since the incident he got suspended.” Barnes saying they need to either fire him or move on. Barnes saying that an officer outside the village board is wrong and he knows it’s a tough situation on both sides. “19 1/2 years. It will be hard to replace that guy.”

They are approving the special event permit for Summerfest on June 8. My hot take: Ashley York in the Village Hall has spearheaded that event and, per usual, is just rocking that.

More info is here: There are going to be bounce houses, vendors, music and more in downtown St. Joseph. Owen Knap is performing. Can we just talk about what a great local music scene St. Joseph has. Lots of talented musicians live here.

They are discussing the bids for the street, sidewalk and curb and gutter projects.

They approved the mower deck purchase for $2941.34 #idkwhatthatisbutitsoundsofficial

Administrator, lawyer, clerk have nothing to report. #firstmeetingofthemonth

Mayor’s up. CIMOA is going to be held in Mahomet. The guest speaker is Tim Bannon, the director of Willard.

Discussing their ARPA money request that they made to the county. Joe the administrator has put together a presentation and will be going back to reiterate that St. Joseph’s projects are shovel-ready.



Everyone’s favorite state politician Chapin Rose got the village a grant for DCEO. This isn’t snark. I literally don’t know anyone who doesn’t like Chapin.

Max Painter was going through Homer last week. They had a “gaterish thing” for the public works people to use. They may look into that in the future. I have seen that. It’s pretty cool.

Discussing getting bids to mow now. It may be more feasible to break the mowing up into three sections and now hire someone to do the entire mowing situation.

They are going to go into closed session to discuss information Tiffany gave them regarding employees.
They cannot vote on anything in the closed session and can’t vote when they come out because it’s not on the agenda.

So effectively, the meeting is adjourned.

I am outside waiting for them to come back into open. It’s getting windier.

No action after closed session.









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