Cicero hosts public meeting to help residents get Flood answers
On Tuesday July 18, Town President Larry Dominic hosted a public meeting at Morton College to allow residents to ask questions of the various government agencies who deal with flooding issues.
Among those present were: Metropolitan Water Reclamation District (MWRD) President Kari Steele and Commissioners Patricia Theresa Flynn, Precious Brady Davis Dan Pogorzelski and Marcelino Garcia and the MWRD Executive Staff including Engineering Department, Cook County Board of Review Commissioner George Cardenas, Cook County Commissioner Frank Aguilar, State Senator Mike Porfirio, and State Reps. Lisa Hernandez and Abdelnasser Rashid.
Also attending were officials of the Cook County Bureau of Administration which coordinate post flood relief response services, ComEd, Ted Burger, Executive Director of the Cook County Emergency Management & Regional Security office, and his deputy Director Vincent Acevez, Greg Nimmo, Illinois Emergency Management Agency Office of Homeland Security, Recovery Division Chief of the State of Illinois, and officials of the Town of Cicero from all departments and elected officials.
“I want to thank everyone here for all their hard work. Since July 2 we have been working very hard and there is not one person here who has to hang their heads down because everyone has worked very, very hard,” President Dominick said in opening the meeting at Morton College.
“I want to thank the public for coming tonight with their questions and I want to thank all of these officials who are hear to help us get answers.”
In her remarks, MWRD President Steele explained to residents what the MWRD does and how it responds to rainstorms.
“We all support you and what you are going through right now, what all of us are going through now, honestly,” Steele said noting that while Cook County had four inches of rain on July2, Cicero had more than 8 inches of rainfall.
“It was an extreme rainstorm that hovered over certain areas and unfortunately, Cicero was one of those area. It was simply too much storm water in a short amount of time to get through local infrastructure and to get to the MWRD.”
President Dominick released an overview of all the work performed by all of the Town’s Departments, and information on the nearly 7,000 Flood Disaster Assistance forms that were collected from residents. All the information is posted on the Town of Cicero Website. Click this link for overview.
