FAIRBURY - There will be some progress made on a key part of the PWF Road, but not until later this month.  

That was one of the main points on a full agenda for the Jefferson County Board of Commissioners on Tuesday. The county’s highway department will meet with reps from JJK Construction to kick off construction plans for the PWF Road bridge repair project next Monday. The county selected the Ceresco-based company to execute the project last month. 

Tuesday, assistant highway supervisor Terry Blas said he doesn’t expect construction on the bridge itself will begin until after Thanksgiving. 

“I don’t look for them to start any time before that, because if nothing else I’m going to try to put them off for that long – there's a lot of corn standing over there yet," Blas said. "If they can hold off a couple weeks I think that would help them out a little bit.” 

Once construction does begin, the workers gave the county a timeline of 110 working days, factoring in weather delays, which means work on the bridge should be completed around May. From there, the county plans to open bids to repair the rest of the affected stretch of the oft-traveled PWF Road. In the meantime, the highway department will begin instituting delays and detours around the project area for both trucks and general traffic.  

Construction on the PWF Bridge will cause some detours and delays
Construction on the PWF Bridge will cause some detours and delays  

 The board acknowledged those detours will make things “not a lot of fun” for a little while, but that’s simply the cost of progress – and in a few months, the payoff will be some long-awaited improvements on part of the PWF Road.  

Elsewhere, with representatives from the four schools in the county – Fairbury, Meridian, Tri County and Diller-Odell – in attendance, along with the county department heads, elected officials, and reps from the VFW and American Legion, the county braintrust finalized plans to bring back County Government Day next Thursday, November 13.

"I wanted to meet with everybody this morning to get any recommendations, thoughts, about what you might like to do differently this year," board chairman Mark Schoenrock began. "The objective is to connect with our young people, and have them come away with a really good understanding of what their county government does for them every day."

The students will cycle through ten different stations over the course of the morning, learning about the wide range of functions county government employees perform – many of which aren’t commonly known to the general public. The schools are expecting to send close to 100 students to Fairbury for the program next week. 

Finally, the board voted 2-1 to give the county’s planning and zoning committee two extra months to deliberate a potential new commercial solar energy conversion system.  

"They need to come back with recommendations and then give it to us. But they only had a window of three months, and they haven’t met because of harvest and other different things," Commissioner Danielle Schwab said.

This extension gives that committee an additional two months to complete the task after harvest season concludes. Michael Dux was the lone no vote. 

With the county courthouse closed next Tuesday, November 11 in recognition of Veteran's Day, the county board will instead meet next Wednesday, November 12.