A fiery Taylorville City Council meeting made for a hot evening on a cold night. The main discussion of the night was a motion to come out of the city council was for Andy Goodall to pay a total of $10,000 to release a lien on property located at 1423 West Adams. It also included forgiveness of fees and interest.

The vote was 4-4 with Jim Olive Larry Budd, Shawn Burtle, and Ernie Dorchinecz voting Yes and Chris Skultetty, Megan Bryant, Kathy Driskell, and Lee Lanzotti voting no.  The Mayor gave comments on the issue saying that “it smelled bad.” 

Barry continued by saying that it was the city’s fault and the city needed to be responsible for keeping the water flowing to the house.

Water was finally shut off to the unit, but by that time 7 months had ran and the damage was done. Mayor Bruce Barry was emotional in speaking but spoke strongly saying that the city should be ashamed of itself for how this all went down. After talking to the cleanup committee, Mayor Barry suggested that half of the lien goes to the Hendricks family (who owned the house prior) and the city gets 5K.  Discussion continued with Alderman Larry Budd saying that while it is an unfortunate situation, the money belongs to the water committee and shouldn’t be split. Alderman Shawn Burtle said that normally he would agree, but this was a city issue. Alderman Kathy Driskell said this was an apples and oranges issue. 

Aldermen Burtle stressed that at the end of the day, someone should have stepped in to help that family out to prevent an issue like this from happening.

The motion failed 5-4 with Mayor Bruce Barry voting “No.” Aldermen Kathy Driskell made a new motion to reduce the lien to $5,600. The motion passed 5-3 with Aldermen Larry Budd, Shawn Burtle, and Ernie Dorchinecz voting “No.” 

The next city council meeting is set for March 1st.