First, the Village Board has agreed to install a water-bill drop box at the Village Hall.  This way, residents need not mail in water bill payments each month (and spend 44 cents, and risk mis-delivery).

Second, the park equipment should be updated by the July 4th holiday.  The Village has scheduled concrete work to be done the second week of June.  Assuming the concrete workers are on  schedule, the park should be finished shortly.  Just as a reminder, the update consists of removal of some older swings and other equipment, and installation of new play equipment and a water fountain.

Finally, electrician Dave Parsons was selected to fill the Trustee vacancy left by Matt Buffington when he became the Acting Mayor.

Your input would really be appreciated.  Are there any features or information you would like to see presented on a village website?

I have several ideas.  First, the village should look into accepting water bill payments online.  I proposed installing a slot for in-person payments at the Village Hall, but due to security concerns, that idea has not been acted upon to date.  Second, there should definitely be an online comment/complaint/suggestion form, so residents can express their opinions (anonymously, if they wish) to the village. There could also be a page or section devoted to community events or organizations.

If anyone has any suggestions, or if anyone even thinks a website would be useful (or not), please feel free to contact me or post a comment here.  Thanks for your help.

So go here to nominate our community for this project! And get others to do the same. Google stops accepting nominations by March 26th.

Soon, census workers will be coming to Broadlands and surrounding communities.  These workers will be going door-to-door, verifying addresses, and delivering the official census questionnaires.  The census representative may ask questions about any living quarters present on your premises in order to ensure that questionnaires are delivered to each dwelling.  Please note that any information you share with the Census is federally protected as confidential under Title 13 of the U.S. Code (even your address is considered ‘confidential information’). The Census is not allowed to share this information with anyone — not even with other federal agencies.  (The Census Bureau is not a police force, is not looking for violations of any kind, and has no authority to report any apparent violations. The only thing the Census Bureau cares about is making sure all people are counted).

The Census worker, after informing you about the confidentiality of your information and verifying your address, will provide you with a census questionnaire.  While I have not personally seen the forms, I imagine the information requested is rather basic. The form may (or may not) ask about certain quality of life topics, such as your access to internet or television (judging from prior decades’ census questionnaires).   The envelope provided is postage pre-paid, and the form will not take long to complete.  If you have questions about the form or about how to best complete it, a telephone number will be provided on the form.  If nobody is home when the Census worker knocks, the employee will leave the form in a plastic bag (marked 2010 Census) at your door.

It is highly important that everyone fill out the census questionnaire and return it.  First of all, population figures are often used to determine levels of state and Federal funding for public entities, such as cities and schools.  (You may recall reading about the adventures of Sidney and Homer in obtaining sewer services.  Homer received grant funding to cover a large portion of the cost, while Sidney was not as lucky.  The Today paper reported that Sidney was ineligible for some of the grants Homer received based on the higher median income of Sidney residents).  Just as important, the population numbers are used to redraw legislative districts at local, state, and federal levels.  You may have read recently that Champaign County plans to redraw its district boundaries once the census results are tabulated.  This redistricting is to maintain equal representation across districts, but the process is absolutely dependent on an accurate population count.

In short, please complete the confidential census form so that everyone in our village can be accurately counted.

If you live in Broadlands (or Allerton or Longview), your internet options are quite limited.  We just don’t have the land-based fast options, such as cable, DSL, or fiber-optic internet, available in larger communities.  Instead, our options are limited to the obsolete and slow dial-up through telephone lines, or expensive and problematic wireless or satellite internet.  Neither is sufficient to meet the needs of our community.

Dial-up, as everyone knows, is by today’s standards extremely slow and inadequate to load today’s increasingly complex webpages.  Ever try watching a video over dial-up? Forget it. Dial-up also ties up the telephone line while in use.  It also requires having a telephone line, so for those of us who would like to forego a home telephone in favor of cell phones, that is impossible without also giving up the internet.

Satellite and wireless providers promise higher speeds and reliable service.  However, in many cases, such providers deliver neither.  First, these providers typically charge high installation fees — hundreds of dollars.  The monthly fees are similarly unreasonable — some can be as much as $60 or more, monthly, for access.  Second, in the case of satellite, the internet signals must travel thousands and thousands of miles to the satellite, and then back again to the user’s computer, which causes a noticeable delay when browsing or using interactive web features.  Service can be interrupted during storms, windy weather, or for no apparent reason at all.  Moreover, this type of access is sight-dependent.  This means that, unless there is a direct line-of-sight between your receiver and the satellite or signal tower, you won’t get a signal.  Something as simple as a tree can block access.

The State of Illinois recently announced $11 million in funding for increasing high-speed internet access in northern Illinois.  The State has a website, called Connect Illinois, where you can report your lack of high-speed internet access, and you should do so.  Otherwise, the State will not know our towns exist, let alone that we have no good internet solutions.  The Connect Illinois site is located here.  There should be a large red button on the top right hand side saying ‘Broadband is not available to me yet.’  Click that, and it will take you to a short fill-in page where you can describe your internet access. (If you have trouble finding it, here is a direct link).

If we don’t bring our area’s internet problems to the attention of the State, nothing will be done.  I encourage everyone in Broadlands, and those in the nearby communities of Allerton and Longview, to take a minute to let the State know about our poor internet service.

First of all, the rumor didn’t specify exactly what kind of “meeting” during which this policy was announced.  I presume, then, that the person meant a village board meeting, since no other meeting would have any authority over village affairs.  The Village’s meeting minutes are public information, and are kept as a permanent record of the Village’s meetings.  The Village has not yet made the minutes publicly available on the internet — but I have, right here on this site.  In addition, summaries of the monthly minutes are published in the Southern Champaign County Today weekly free newspaper. I challenge anyone to find in the minutes any mention of banning alcohol sales in town. It’s not in the minutes because it was never discussed during my time on the board, nor at any prior time that I am aware of.

Second, Illinois law allows for local control over the “number, kind, and classification of [alcohol-sale] licenses.”  However, local regulations cannot override state law.  State law prohibits the sale of alcohol on Sundays, unless a municipality passes an ordinance to allow such sales. 235 ILCS 5/6-14 [The Liquor Control Act].   235 ILCS 5/9-2 describes the only way in which a municipality can become completely “dry.” That mechanism – holding a public referendum to decide the question — has nothing to do with the municipal authorities, and incidentally, requires pretty tough hurdles to be overcome before placing such a question on the ballot.

Third, even if the Village Board had the power to ban alcohol within village limits, there are several reasons the Board would not do so.

To begin with, banning the sale of alcohol in town would likely result in residents traveling elsewhere to purchase (and consume) alcohol.  Those residents would then return to our town, possibly under the influence. Certainly nobody wants more intoxicated drivers on our roads. 

Next, banning the sale of alcohol would remove what is likely a significant source of revenue for the only restaurant in town.  The ultimate effect could be to make the restaurant unprofitable to keep in business.  I, and I’m sure the other village trustees, are very much in favor of keeping existing businesses open, and attracting new businesses to town.

I very much doubt the originators of this strange rumor visit this site.  The rumor gave me a chuckle because it was so preposterous.  However, I imagine others might not realize the rumor’s falsity, so I hope this article has set the story straight.

As always, feel free to contact me with any Village related questions or concerns.

Brian Pondenis

Typically, post offices in rural areas do not provide home delivery to residences within a quarter-mile radius of the post office, unless a residence happens to be on a rural carrier route.* In order to get your PO box, you must go to the local post office and fill out Form 1093.  It does not seem that those eligible for free boxes are able to submit this form online, as paid box customers are.  Form 1093 itself makes no mention of free boxes, so people typically are unaware they may be entitled to a free box.

Form 1093 does refer to a “Group E” box.  This is the Postal Service’s cryptic way of referring to the free post office box.  The Domestic Mailing Manual, a publication of the Postal Service, describes Group E boxes.  The Manual’s provisions are also incorporated into federal regulations, per the  Code of Federal Regulations, Title 39, Section 111.1. 

The relevant part of the Domestic Mailing Manual provides:

“4.6.2 Free Box Service (Group E)

Customers may qualify for free (Group E) Post Office box service if their physical address or business location meets all of the following criteria:

a. The physical address or business location is within the geographic delivery ZIP Code boundaries administered by a Post Office.

b. The physical address or business location constitutes a potential carrier delivery point of service.

c. The USPS chooses not to provide carrier delivery to the physical address or business location.

d. The customer does not receive carrier delivery via an out-of-bounds delivery receptacle.

4.6.3 Additional Standards for Free Box Service

Only one free (Group E) Post Office box may be obtained for each potential carrier delivery point of service. Group E customers are assigned the smallest available box that will reasonably accommodate their daily mail volume. Eligibility for Group E boxes does not extend to individual tenants, contractors, employees, or other individuals receiving or eligible to receive single-point delivery such as delivery to a hotel, college, military installation, or transient trailer park. A customer must pay the applicable fee for each additional box requested beyond the initial box obtained at the Group E fee. The online application tools described in 4.3.1b cannot be used for free Post Office box service.”

I have yet to see any notice posted within a rural postal facility mentioning possible eligibility for a free box. Nor does the Postal Service make this information easily found on its website, which is why it is posted here in as much detail as possible.  If you live in a non-delivery area, do not allow the Postal Service to illegally charge a fee for your PO box!  PO Boxes can cost upwards of $40 per year, and the financially-struggling Postal Service has no incentive to hand out free boxes. The only charge the post office may legally assess is a minor one-time key deposit, usually a dollar or two.

If you already have a paid PO box, and believe your box should be free, discuss it with your local postmaster (and certainly demand a refund for any paid prior years).  You have the relevant information on free boxes above, straight from the Postal Service’s own regulations.  By making customers fill out Form 1093, the Postal Service knows your residential address and certainly knows whether it delivers to your house and if you qualify for free box service. By charging a fee for qualified residents, the Postal Service is committing fraud. Don’t let the USPS get away with it.

(*The postal service does not seem to rationalize its distinction between rural residents and city dwellers living close to post offices.  Surely city dwellers are just as capable of picking up mail from a nearby post office. And, since there is typically more than one post office in a city, the USPS could save more money in mail delivery by applying this odd rule to everyone living near a post office.).