Dixmoor village president says questionable recordkeeping by previous administration is keeping water woes from being fixed

DIXMOOR, Ill. (CBS) — Schools in south suburban Dixmoor are anticipated to be open Thursday – regardless of damaged water predominant issues that shut down two faculties this week.

The water predominant issues return years.

As CBS 2’s Jermont Terry reported Wednesday night time, some say the present issues with the water in Dixmoor have a direct hyperlink to what the village didn’t do for a few years.

Wednesday marked the fifth consecutive night time of labor to restore damaged water mains in Dixmoor. Crews have been digging underground to unearth rusty water pipes and repair all of the damaged mains, as CBS 2 dig into why Dixmoor cannot get money to resolve the issue.

It seems questionable recordkeeping could possibly be behind all of the boil water orders and advisories going again months.

“I don’t know if they were afraid to open up the books, but I’m not,” stated Dixmoor Village President Fitzgerald Roberts.

Those books, or metropolis information, are key in getting any federal funding into the south suburban village – to not point out fixing the deteriorating water pipes.

“Only reason I would think that the books weren’t open and the audits weren’t done is because someone was hiding something,” Roberts stated.

When the previous administration left office, Roberts stated there was no switch of knowledge. In reality, buildings have been locked.

Roberts claims even monetary paperwork went lacking.

“The past administration, when they left, they shredded all documents. They took hard drives. They took keys,” Roberts stated. “I had to break into the building when I got in office.”

Without these information, an audit, or any clarification of the spending in Dixmoor going again years. It’s almost not possible to get any federal money to repair what retains breaking underground.

Terry: “You do understand the optics do not look good when you know you had some infrastructure issue that was going to happen at some point – the only way to get federal money is by showing the records.”

Roberts: “Well, if you have people who didn’t care, that’s the problem. You had people in place that didn’t care.”

Dixmoor did safe $2 million from the state and county by emergency funds this year.

“Right now, it’s a Band-Aid,” Roberts stated.

Roberts predicts the entire price is $25 million to forestall anymore underground leaks. As crews work to restore the leaks, Roberts is not solely asking for federal funds.

Terry: “You’re asking for the feds to look into what happened here?”

Roberts: “Exactly.”

The feds want information and annual monetary audits from at the least the previous 5 years in Dixmoor. Right now, these information and audits merely do not exist.

That is why the village president is insisting an investigation is wanted.

Before the most recent water predominant breaks CBS 2 reported on at the least three others Dixmoor since October 21 of final year, which have brought on important points for the neighborhood.

Last month, two water predominant breaks in Dixmoor shut off water service to your complete village for a lot of the day on July 21.

In early March, water additionally was shut off for a number of hours after one other water predominant break.

Last October and November, water was shut off there for greater than two weeks after a leak brought on low water stress – which means individuals dwelling there could not bathe, cook dinner, or wash dishes or laundry. The disaster additionally led to high school cancellations.  

Roberts stated there have been many greater than that.