Dixmoor Mayor Wants to Improve Village’s Infrastructure

Fitzgerald Roberts is the President of the Village of Dixmoor. He has been in office since May 2021. Photo provided by Mayor Fitzgerald Roberts.
Fitzgerald Roberts is the President of the Village of Dixmoor. He has been in office since May 2021. Photo provided by Mayor Fitzgerald Roberts.

Dixmoor Mayor Wants to Improve Village’s Infrastructure

By Tia Carol Jones
The Village of Dixmoor President, Fitzgerald Roberts wants to improve the water infrastructure for the Village.

Recently, there was a 12-inch water pipe, as well as two water mains, that burst in the Village. One at the water main located at 141st Street and Woods Street and another at 143rd and Davis and Spaulding Streets.

This latest incident is just another series of water woes the Village has experienced within the last 12 months.

In 2021, Dixmoor was without water from Oct. 16 to Nov. 3 due to a leak that disabled the system from filling the water storage tank. In April, the Village of Dixmoor received $2 million for a new water main project and water infrastructure repairs. The money was received with the help of a partnership between federal, county and village officials.

Roberts said the water main project includes running a new water main from the water station, down to 139th Street on Leavitt. The main will be turned into a 12-inch. The new water main will feed all of Dixmoor’s trailer parks and some of the businesses in that area, as well as a halfway house. The plan is for pipes that currently run under I-57 to become one unit and come around I-57, instead of coming under the interstate. Roberts said this was the main part of the problem when Dixmoor was without water during those days in 2021.

“The infrastructure out here is over 100 years old. It’s crumbling and bursting everywhere,” Roberts said. “Whenever a 12-inch bursts, it affects the whole town.”

Roberts estimates that it would cost $25 million to begin to fix all the infrastructure issues the Village has. The pipes were never replaced, Roberts said, just patched. He described it as “putting a band-aid on it.”

Roberts added, with the trains, which are heavier than they were in the past, and the frequency of the trains coming through the Village, the water pipe on Roby has been broken in 10 places already.

Roberts has been the Mayor since May 2021. Before that, Roberts said there were issues with the water infrastructure but because there wasn’t an audit conducted during the previous administration, certain issues were not addressed. Roberts said his administration had to pretty much start from scratch.

While the 2020 Census estimated there were 3,570 people in the Village of Dixmoor, Roberts estimates there are more than 4,000 residents in the Village.

Roberts doesn’t mind saying there are issues with the water infrastructure in the Village because he wants those issues to be addressed. He wants the State of Illinois, Cook County and federal government to provide the funding that is necessary to make the improvements to the infrastructure.

“Spread the money out kind of equally, where we can all get a piece and get some work done in our communities,” Roberts said. Roberts is asking the residents of  Dixmoor to be patient, while he and the Board of Trustees, as well as his staff work to move the town forward.

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