Turkey Creek Council holds off on building restrooms at race track

Budget issues dominated the proceedings of the Village of Turkey at the regular monthly meeting Tuesday evening. The Village Council accepted the final amended budget for the current fiscal year, and it adopted a budget for the upcoming 2017 fiscal year.
Mayor Heather Cloud announced that the Village will finish paying for the Civic Center in next year’s budget. The funding for the center comes from the streets and drainage department. In comments after the meeting, Cloud said that the Village is already beginning to assess the roads in the village so that the roughly $25,000 expenditure can be used to improve the streets.
Alderman Neal King inquired about the building of bathrooms at the Lil Dega Speedway. The Village owns the recreation area. The former horse race track is leased by Clyde Ware, who refitted it for use as a competitive go-kart race track. The facility does not currently have restroom facilities.
In February, Alderman Kurry Stewart asked the Council to pay for restrooms, considering that Ware has to pay about $500 to for port-a-potties at his racing events. After negotiations between the Village and Ware, it was decided that Turkey Creek would pay about two-thirds of the cost of restrooms, and Ware would pay the remainder.
As of this point, no construction has started on the restrooms, prompting King’s question.
Cloud told the Council that Ware has decided to postpone building the restrooms this racing season. According to Cloud, Ware said that this year there were many events that had been canceled due to wet weather; and that he would rather just wait to build the restrooms at the start of next racing season.
In other business, Cloud explained adjustments to two water customers. A hairline crack in the water line resulted in about 300,000 gallons of water seeping into the ground over the last year.
Cloud said that the bills for the customers were adjusted downward because the Village had not been properly reading their meters. She said the person who had been responsible for reading the meters is no longer employed by the Village.