City Council Committee's Meeting
Minutes of the City of
Those present were Alderman Anderson, Alderman Armbrust, Alderman Bacon, Alderman Busby, Alderman Hoinacki, Alderman Horn, Alderman Neitzel, Alderman O’Donohue, Alderman Tibbs, and Alderman Wilmert. Also present were Police Chief Greenslate, Building and Safety Officer Mr. Lebegue, Street Superintendent Mr. Jackson, and City Engineer Mr. Mathon. Also present were City Attorney Mr. Bates, City Treasurer Mr. Plotner, Mayor Snyder, City Clerk Mrs. Martinek, and Recording Secretary Mrs. Riggs.
Mayor Snyder called the meeting to order at
Those present recited the Pledge of Allegiance.
The Mayor asked for the Committees' Issues to be Presented:
Insurance:
Chairman Alderman Bacon said she had some good news. Our insurance if we drop the comprehensive on vehicles that are 10 years or older we can $3,100.00 and that excludes anything from the fire department.
Alderman Busby said if we have a hail storm there are a lot of vehicles that are outside. Alderman Bacon said there were back to square 1. Alderman Neitzel said they will just let you take comp off. Alderman Bacon said yes that was what she understood. Alderman Anderson said Mr. Jackson said they never turn anything in they just take their hammers out and fix them. Police Chief Greenslate said he was proposing to wait for purchasing new squad cars. Mr. Tackett said there was quite an expense when you consider repair and replacing two of their trucks for $100,000.00 each.
Mayor Snyder asked all the departments to get with the insurance committee and then they could come back to this issue.
Sanitation/Technology:
Chairman Alderman Wilmert said we have a very slow pc in the zoning office that is rendered absolutely unusable. I have witnessed it myself and even though there is money in the budget this year Mr. Lebegue has decided to be thrifty and go the route of securing a machine for him. I did get Integrity Data to donate another server, a decommissioned machine to the city and that is ready to go. He was waiting for a letter which will have the value of it on there.
City Council Committee's Meeting
Alderman Wilmert said he had some of the upgrades that would be needed and they should be fine and the only thing that really has to be done to it is we need to take the zoning stuff off the old one and put it on the new one. We have the disk and I can install it but we have to move the data over too. That might require an hour of someone’s time at Integrity Data to help him through the process. He said he should be able to replace the machine at no cost to the city.
Alderman Wilmert said on email he had been talking to City Clerk Mrs. Martinek little bit about this when it came up that he was trying to set up Alderman O’Donohue with a city email it came to light that we have a service that provides that for us and I am not in on all the particulars but I would like to be so we could at least manage it on our own. There isn’t really a reason why we should be paying permanent fees to make calls down to wherever and say please set me up an email box for a new Alderman and they will say alright we’ll do that and it will be ready in about 5 minutes and that will be $75.00. That is something that I am sure if we had the right passwords we could go into the web interface and delete the people that are no longer with the city and add Alderman O’Donohue on ourselves but we haven’t been told how to do that. I am going to try and get with Mrs. Martinek and get with whoever our rep is down there and talk tech with them and see if we can’t do some of this ourselves or at least a couple of minor things. Our cityoflincoln-il.gov was due a while back and asked if it got renewed.
Mayor Snyder said yes. Mr. Bates said the Mayor and I have both had some citizens complain because apparently our server is Lincoln Police or at least all of email goes out through the police server.
Alderman Wilmert said he had nothing for Animal Control.
Streets and Alleys:
Chairman Alderman Armbrust said I have a few things. We had received a letter on the 26th of April from the Logan County Genealogical Society about an
Mr. Mathon said on further discussion and investigation on the ADA requirements for acceptable parallel parking place neither of the two places that have been cited earlier would be compliant due to either the height or the cross slope on the sidewalk adjacent to those spots. One the corner of
Mr. Jackson said he called Miller and Miller who owns the parking lot next to them and they still haven’t gotten back to him. He called them to see if they would just donate one or two spots of their parking lot so I am just waiting on that one.
Alderman Armbrust had City Clerk Mrs. Martinek to read the Resolution for MFT. Alderman Armbrust asked to have this on the agenda. Alderman Armbrust said he would like to point out something before the red flags go up.
City Council Committee's Meeting
Alderman Armbrust said it is about $107,000.00 more than the number we were tossing around. The reason for that is they have been allowed to stretch this thing to fit our fiscal calendar. Always before we were dealing with the normal calendar and that will save us some money because we can charge things differently.
Mr. Mathon said that is accurate and also the additional as Alderman Armbrust mentioned it is actually around $170,000.00 higher than our usual yearly Resolution for this and those two reasons was 1) we’re going another 4 months on this to sync up with our motor fuel tax year and 2) there was additional costs for street lighting and for the landfill disposal cost for the street sweeper.
Alderman Armbrust asked to have on the agenda a request for permission to go out for material bids and that too would be on May 17 agenda.
Alderman Armbrust said Mr. Jackson received a letter and I have a copy and the Mayor has copy and the City Attorney has a copy help for the
Mayor Snyder said he had to recluse himself because that is his employer and he can’t be involved so he left at
Alderman Armbrust said I just want to bring this up so everyone is aware. He said they have no funding for this in the budget.
Mr. Jackson said they are asking for a yearly agreement to be negotiated a set amount and we provide the labor and they provide the material. They contacted me I want to say it was the beginning of April to see if we could seal coat that road and I told them at that time that we actually the beginning of March is when we put together what we are doing and we have to submit to the state so we wouldn’t have. The only overage we have for seal coating is what we are allocating for
Alderman Armbrust said it may not be something we would want to slam the door on but I think as far as the budget that we’re dealing with I think we would be fooling ourselves and the college if we even ended maybe. It could be investigated farther down the road a year from now if things change but we’re not doing it for
Alderman Bacon said am I correct in assuming that Campus View is a private drive and it is owned by the college.
City Council Committee's Meeting
Mr. Bates said that is correct it is not a public road and the letter. He asked if everyone had a copy of the letter.
Alderman Bacon said no. Mr. Jackson said no just Mr. Bates, Mayor Snyder, Alderman Armbrust and himself.
Mr. Bates said the letter alludes to an agreement that existed in 1999 between the college and the city and they are willing to discuss buying the necessary materials or paying for the materials up to a fixed amount and the city would be willing to do the labor, it had been done in the past and we could agree to do this one year only or agree on some type of annual agreement and they are open for discussions. They are soliciting the opportunity needed to discuss and he attached a copy of the minutes of an August 2, 1999 meeting in which the city stated that with this agreement it allows the city to coal patch, hot patch, add gravel for potholes, seal coating, chip coating, snow removal and that a $2,000.00 cap was just a figure the minor charge from Lincoln Christian College incorporate into a new agreement. I have never seen an agreement. They are basically soliciting the help of the city with the maintenance of the private road and they would be willing to pay for all or some part of the materials if we will do the work.
Alderman Bacon said I am going to finish what I was going to say since I know it is private. I have a real problem with any street, drive, boulevard or anything within the city limits that is private the city paying any money to maintain it whether it’s labor or materials what have you I don’t think the city should do snow plowing, repair and maintenance, overlay or whatever. If it is privately owned those expenses should be by the owners not the City of
Alderman Busby said we’ve had a problem out there with the sewer system on who owns it. Alderman Bacon said who owns the sewer system. Alderman Busby said the college does. Alderman Bacon said then they should have to maintain their own sewers and it is not just
Mr. Jackson said we do plow out there, because of emergency services and that is the only reason we plow. We have to go where the curve is at the maintenance shop that is where our road stops and their road stops. While we are there we plow to the end so emergency services can get down there. We do that with almost every private road there is.
Alderman Bacon said there again that is private I mean I understand the need for emergency services. Mr. Jackson said we still have to come in and plow for the fire department, the police department or whoever so we do it while we are there so we don’t have to come back if there is a problem.
Alderman Armbrust said if I had a choice I would rather run this through my shredder but he didn’t want to have a closed mind before he presented it to the rest of them.
City Council Committee's Meeting
Alderman Armbrust said even if we were willing it’s not going to happen in the near future with the shape we are in. Quite honestly it isn’t ours. He asked to have it on the agenda.
Alderman Hoinacki said I know and maybe it is apples to oranges but I can remember the fair association asking us to do their road with tar, gravel and chips and we agreed to that. I know that budget times were different then, but is that not true.
Mayor Snyder came back at
Alderman Armbrust said they have a curb and gutter petition by Gene Baker and asked City Clerk Mrs. Martinek to read. Alderman Armbrust asked to have this on the agenda. Mr. Bates said can I inquire and you tell me where this goes. Mr. Jackson said in front of your building. Mr. Bates said that is what I thought. Alderman Armbrust said we’re going to look at it. Mr. Bates said I thought this is where Mr. Baker had redone by his building and I haven’t asked for anything.
Mr. Jackson said it actually starts where his curb and then runs right in front of your business and goes to that catch basin there. He and Mr. Mathon had looked at that this morning while the water was running. We think we might be able to cut the asphalt out and re-lay some of that asphalt instead of going in and tearing up that curb and it would tear all the way up to your sidewalk. We think we can get by just redoing the asphalt there.
Mr. Bates said he does get a lot of complaints but I don’t think you can eliminate that. Just so the city knows that is not my petition and I didn’t ask.
Sidewalks, Forestry and Lighting:
Chairman Alderman Armbrust said they had a presentation for Arbor Day winners on May 17.
Ordinance and Zoning:
Chairman Alderman Neitzel said in my inbox is a new Ordinance instituting a new hotel/motel operators occupation tax increase of 1%.
Mayor Snyder said this is a working draft that Mr. Bates prepared and wanted to get it out so people could look at it. He also wanted to make it available to out hotel/motel operators so they can review it and have opportunity to comment it on it a little bit before we vote on it. It was more for informational purposes and they needed to settle on a date when it would be effective.
Mr. Bates said there are also some administrative items to work out because the Clerk’s office is going to have to come up with a form that the hotel/motels are going to have to file, the month they pay, they are going to have to come up with a method for collection of the money and he was sure other places have forms but we haven’t gotten as far as finding a form to use or to report. The tax is administered by the Clerk’s office.
City Council Committee's Meeting
Alderman Neitzel said she would like on the consent agenda the Resolution for Historic Preservation.
Police:
Chairman Alderman Hoinacki said he had two petitions. 1) For First United Methodist and
Mr. Jackson said they did a two day count on the stop signs and said there never was 2 cars at the intersection at the same time. Alderman Hoinacki asked to have both petitions on the agenda.
City Clerk Mrs. Martinek read a petition for Balloon Fest. There was a discussion on the parade part of petition and that part of it was a state route and it was something new. Alderman Hoinacki asked to have this on the agenda and he would have to get with Andy Hake.
Police Chief Greenslate said he had a meeting yesterday with Dan Fulscher regarding the FCC mandated by
Mr. Jackson said the lawnmower run would be starting at the back of the IGA.
City Council Committee's Meeting
Sewer Treatment Plant, Sewers and Drainage:
Chairman Alderman Busby said he did not have a report.
Grounds, Buildings and Local Improvements:
Chairman Alderman Tibbs said she wanted to ask Mr. Mathon if he had anything from BLI.
Mr. Mathon said we received from the DECO notice of receipt that the grant monies had been reserved for our lighting project. The required paperwork with initial signatures that were needed have been sent in and we are waiting on some scheduling information from BLI for when those upgrades will take place.
Alderman Tibbs said she had a couple other things. We had our National Train Day on Saturday.
Mayor Snyder said we need to give a big thank you to
Alderman Tibbs said the Scout Sweep is on Saturday starting at
Fire/Water & ESDA:
Chairman Alderman Horn said she did not have report and that Fire Chief Hulett was doing training.
Finance, Policy and Procedure:
Chairman Alderman Anderson said the Mayor had received the agreement with the fire union with regards to their furlough days and it has been setup in our system. Alderman Bacon asked if the department heads would take furlough days if they are asking the union workers. Mayor Snyder said yes and he has had conversations with FOP representative as well as the Engineers representatives and they both told him they would get back to him on that.
Mayor Snyder said a couple of other things. He had gotten a letter from DCEO saying they had approved their application the deleted territory from Lincoln/Logan County Enterprise Zone. He would assume it would be the most recent one but it might be the one before that.
Mayor Snyder said he passed out a letter they received with their quarterly franchise fee payment from Comcast just so you would have that information. Also so you know he got an email from Kevin with Azavar late last week and Mayor Snyder was asked to sign the agency letter that they would then send a copy to say that they are our agent to audit the franchise fees so that will start that whole process rolling.
City Council Committee's Meeting
Mayor Snyder said one last thing the city has received a grant from the Illinois Public Risk Fund for $8,250.00 and that is a safety grant award to the city. Our safety committee put in an application for these funds and it was approved basically in its entirety. That means that we have $3,620.00 for safety equipment for Street and Alley department, $2,600.00 for safety equipment for the Fire department, and about $2,000.00 safety equipment for the police department. Not only did they approve it but they sent the check. He wanted to thank the other members of the safety committee Darrin Coffey of the Fire Department, Chris Whiteman of the Street Department, Lieutenant Butterfield of the Police Department, Austin Maxheimer of City Hall and Bob Tackett sat in on a meeting where they came up with some figures as well. It is a good thing for our safety committee to have a nice win and be able to buy some safety equipment that will hopefully decrease some of our exposure there.
Alderman Busby made a motion to adjourn and Alderman Neitzel seconded it. There were nine yeas (Alderman Anderson, Alderman Armbrust, Alderman Bacon, Alderman Busby, Alderman Hoinacki, Alderman Horn, Alderman Neitzel, Alderman O’Donohue, and Alderman Tibbs), zero nays, and one absent (Alderman Wilmert); motion carried.
The City of
Respectfully submitted,
Risa Riggs
Recording Secretary
City of Lincoln