August 20, 2026
A request to rezone three parcels at Prospect and Prairie for a 24-unit apartment building split the Marengo Planning and Zoning Commission 2-2 on Monday night, sending it to the City Council without a recommendation. That is not the same as nothing: under the zoning code, granting the three variances that travel with it now takes a two-thirds vote of the council rather than a simple majority. Two members were absent and a third recused because he is one of the applicants, leaving four to decide, and the code required all four to agree before the commission could recommend in the applicants' favor. It separately recommended rezoning 605 E. Grant Highway from residential to general business for a grocery, along with six variances describing setbacks and a lot size that are already there.
Continue reading →August 18, 2026
The council approved $32,161 to take down trees on city property. The estimate lists them by address, so we mapped it: nineteen trees at fourteen places, seven of them within about 900 feet of each other on the southwest side. Nothing goes back in their place, and the city says its own code bars a resident from planting there either. That code is not an accident. Marengo used to replant, and in 2016 the council closed the parkway to it.
Continue reading →August 11, 2026
Two different sets of rule changes were in front of the Marengo City Council on Monday. It adopted one, a renumbering and cleanup of the entire city code, and only discussed the other, the nuisance and outdoor storage rules that would change what property owners can do with their land. The second one drew the crowd, and nothing was decided on it. The council also approved a health insurance renewal that trims a 20.7% PPO increase to about 13.5%, a $629,578 sewer lining contract, and $32,161 of tree removal with the bid process waived.
Continue reading →August 8, 2026
The biggest street rebuild in years is finishing on Prospect Street, and a resurfacing program covering about 2.3 miles of the numbered avenues is next in line. Here is what the city has planned for its roads this year, what it costs, and who pays.
Continue reading →August 7, 2026
Marengo is looking at a broad rewrite of its property and nuisance rules, the first piece of a full update of the city code: what can sit outside and for how long, where you can park in your own yard, and screening for dumpsters. The council discusses the package August 10, with an adoption vote planned for August 24. One change since the first draft: the trash-can size cap that, read literally, ruled out the carts residents actually roll to the curb is gone. Here is what would change, and how to weigh in before it's final.
Continue reading →August 6, 2026
After a 4-3 split in July, the plan to turn a long-idle Route 23 factory into five contractor spaces is back before the county with a lighter zoning request. The new hearing is August 13.
Continue reading →July 31, 2026
The Marengo Park District has named Amanda Damisch, who represents Ward 1 on the city council, as its interim director. The appointment took effect July 30.
Continue reading →July 30, 2026
The city has paid at least the state minimum every year since the 2018-19 budget. The fund is still barely half full, the bill keeps climbing, and this spring the city dropped a $150,000 catch-up pledge.
Continue reading →July 28, 2026
Marengo has a new Public Works Director: the council unanimously approved Tyler Ankney's appointment Monday night, with a start date the morning of its next meeting. It also approved the lift-station change order it tabled in July after the city's engineer called the added cost fair. The council discussed a first-ever mural policy. The night's expected centerpiece, a package of tougher nuisance and outdoor-storage rules, slipped a second time, pulled from the agenda with the code officer who wrote it unable to attend.
Continue reading →July 23, 2026
The county board declined to ask voters the binding home rule question and sent two advisory questions to the November 3 ballot instead. Here is what happened, and how every member voted.
Continue reading →July 22, 2026
We compared Marengo's 2025 water-quality report against ten neighboring towns, using the annual report card every Illinois municipal water system must publish. The complaints about taste and staining check out: Marengo had the group's only manganese violation, and by far its highest levels. Safety is a separate question, and the numbers answer it differently: Marengo's lead and radium results were the cleanest of the eleven towns, and its copper was among the lowest. Here is the full side-by-side.
Continue reading →July 18, 2026
Since last summer, a code citation in Marengo can be decided at city hall instead of the county courthouse. How the city's hearing program works, what it can and cannot do, and what to know if a ticket lands in your mailbox.
Continue reading →July 17, 2026
An advisory home rule question is headed to the November ballot. Here is what home rule is, what it is not, and what it would mean at a Marengo address.
Continue reading →July 14, 2026
Marengo's City Council lost power ten minutes into its July 13 meeting and finished in the dark, working through nearly the whole agenda before adjourning early. Members adopted a $32.94 million appropriation ordinance for the year ahead, awarded a $4.86 million contract to extend water and sewer along Route 23, seated new Ward 3 alderman Ryan Mueller, and swore in Police Chief Andrew Kjellgren and Sergeant Roy Amaya. A lift-station change order was tabled, and a nuisance-rules discussion was pushed to a future meeting.
Continue reading →July 10, 2026
Marengo's annual water-quality report for 2025 is out. Most of what the city is required to test for came in under the legal limits; the one violation was manganese, which went over the state's limit late in the year. Here's the plain-English version of what the report says, and how to read it yourself.
Continue reading →July 8, 2026
Marengo overhauled its water and sewer rates in the spring. We put the new numbers next to ten neighboring towns and built a calculator so you can check your own bill.
Continue reading →July 1, 2026
Marengo's council agrees with itself most of the time. But on the rare nights it splits, who is missing from the room decides the outcome. A review of every council vote since 2009 shows how an empty seat has quietly moved the property tax levy, the garbage contract, and the ties only the mayor could settle.
Continue reading →June 23, 2026
The Marengo City Council met June 22. Members approved three engineering work orders for the city's water and sewer upgrades and talked over possible new rules for e-bikes and scooters. The city also expects to launch bank-draft autopay for utility bills on September 1. In closed session, the council interviewed four candidates for the vacant Ward 3 seat but didn't make an appointment.
Continue reading →June 18, 2026
Marengo cut the ribbon on its new $7.55 million water filtration plant on Greenlee Street on June 15. The city says the facility, now fully operational, removes iron, manganese, and radium from the municipal supply and, paired with a new 1,020-foot well, adds capacity for the town's growth. City Hall says the project will not raise residents' water rates.
Continue reading →June 13, 2026
The City of Marengo is accepting applications for a new Director of Public Works, a full-time, salaried position overseeing one of the city's largest departments.
Continue reading →June 13, 2026
The empty fields by the Route 23 interchange have frustrated Marengo for years. The exit opened in 2019, and the businesses everyone expected never showed. A new state grant is, in theory, what changes that.
Continue reading →June 13, 2026
The council named Andrew Kjellgren chief of police. It approved engineering for this year's road program after pushback over Railroad Street, and locked in a two-year natural gas contract for city buildings.
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