Lincoln, Illinois
City Council Committee's Meeting
August 23, 2011
Minutes of the City of Lincoln City Council Committees' Meeting held in the Council Chambers on Tuesday, August 23, 2011.
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. Department Heads present were Fire Chief Miller, Safety and Building Officer Mr. Lebegue, Police Chief Greenslate, City Engineer Mr. Mathon, Mr. Kitzmiller for EMC, and Street Superintendent Mr. Jackson. Also present were City Clerk Mrs. Martinek, Mayor Snyder, City Attorney Mr. Bates, City Treasurer Mr. Conzo, and Recording Secretary Mrs. Riggs.
Mayor Snyder called the meeting to order at 7:01 p.m. There were ten Aldermen present (Alderman Anderson, Alderman Armbrust, Alderman Bacon, Alderman Busby, Alderman Hoinacki, Alderman Horn, Alderman Neitzel, Alderman O’Donohue, Alderman Tibbs, and Alderman Wilmert) and none absent.
The Pledge was said by all.
Public Participation
Michael Maniscalco the new Executive Director with the Lincoln/Logan County Partnership. He was looking forward to working with everyone and was hitting the ground and getting his feet wet with everything. He is in a fact finding mission at this point trying to get as much information as possible. He said was good to be there and be able to say Good Evening to everybody and that he looked forward to working with each of them. He wanted to encourage anyone that had an idea about something or potential prospect, a thought or just anything a question you may have just give me a call or shoot me an email. He is hoping to run an open and transparent office to make sure you have as much information as you need as well as we have as much information we need. He said to please feel free to contact him any time.
The Mayor asked for the Committees' Issues to be Presented:
Finance, Policy and Procedure:
Chairman Alderman Anderson said she did not have a report.
Fire/Water & ESDA:
Chairman Alderman Horn said she needed to put on the agenda the promotions. They have Assistant Fire Chief Darren Coffey, Captain Chris Harding, and Lieutenant Jason Van Winkle effective as of September 1 and would like to have on the agenda September 5, 2011 to swear them in.
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Alderman Horn said also tonight they will be eligible for funding in a grant through FEMA for assistance to the firefighters grant. The grant is to upgrade radios and pagers along with automatic defibrillators at City Hall and apparatus. The request is for $12,000.00 but the cost will only be $1,200.00 for us. They would like that on the agenda as well.
Mayor Snyder said the meeting will actually be September 6 due to Labor Day on September 5.
Grounds, Buildings and Local Improvements:
Chairman Alderman Tibbs said she did not have a report.
Alderman Tibbs asked Fire Chief Miller about how many babies we had delivered here in Lincoln.
Fire Chief Miller said this week has been good. The fire crews help deliver a baby boy at Wal-Mart Sunday for a lady that was passing through town decided to have a baby early and wasn’t able to make it to the hospital and our crews were able to help out with that get the baby and the mother transported to the hospital and everybody was fine.
Mayor Snyder said the drop boxes look very nice and that Street Superintendent Mr. Jackson and the street crew did a very nice job in getting that pavement lifted up and replaced smooth. The boxes look good the staining of the concrete is good so a job well done. They are going to get two planters planted with some stuff before the weekend. Thanked everyone involved in that. We will be sending out the invoices to the people that got new boxes.
Sewer Treatment Plant, Sewers and Drainage:
Chairman Alderman Busby said he did not have a report.
Police:
Chairman Alderman Hoinacki said he had a petition for the Knights of Columbus for Friday and Saturday, September 16 & 17, 2011 for their annual tootsie roll drive and asked to have it on the consent agenda.
Police Chief Greenslate said he wished to announce that Corporal Matthew Vlahovich has left our department and that he was resigning effective September 1, 2011. He has accepted a position with the Illinois State Police and he was very happy for Matt and very sorry to lose him to the department and that he was a very fine officer with us and wished him the very best for him and his family and for the future.
Mayor Snyder said we will miss Matt and he did a great job for us. He was a tribute to the force and we were pleased to have him as a city employee.
Police Chief Greenslate said he hoped to have him back in Logan County in not too long.
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Streets and Alleys:
Chairman Alderman Neitzel said they had a curb break request for a new home at 19 Westminster, by Roger McCall and asked to have that on the consent agenda.
Alderman Neitzel said she was thrilled that Canadian National is finally going to fix her crossing on Kickapoo Street and Route 10 and Nicholson Road. We will have smooth crossings throughout the whole City of Lincoln.
Mayor Snyder said that was great news. The three crossings are the crossing at Route 10, the crossing at North Kickapoo and also the crossing at Nicholson Road. Those crossings will be closed during the work week. The Route 10 crossing will be closed Tuesday, September 6 and reopen sometime no later than Friday, September 9, Kickapoo will be closed Monday, September 12 and open no later than Friday, September 16, and Nicholson Road will be closed September 19 and reopen no later than Friday, September 23. He said Mr. Mathon has worked out with IDOT to get truck detour routes for all of those. IDOT has approved those and the signage will go up to get the trucks around on the proper detour routes for that. He was sure that local residents will be creative and find ways around the closed crossings but certainly Route 10 and N. Kickapoo crossings have needed attention for a long time.
Alderman Neitzel asked if the right of way for 4th Street have to be on the agenda.
Mayor Snyder said he thought they wanted to talk about that. This is the right of way that used to be Evans Street from 4th Street to the alley which runs by the former Lincoln Church of God which is located at 1415 4th Street. The church has a contract to sell the property and the new owner of the property would like to have the right of way, they would like to have the right to that right of way or at least their half of the right of way to put a yard in there. He thought they had some folks that would be able to address some of that if we have questions.
Mr. Mathon said those were the high points basically this was a right of way that was platted but never developed and has been in use for sometime as basically a parking lot, parking area for the former church facility. The right of way is platted only between 4th Street and the alley South, South of that alley was a different subdivision and there wasn’t a street ever platted or intended there.
Mayor Snyder said the process as I understand it for the practical end result is we vacate this right of way it is basically divided down the middle, half goes to each adjoining property owner. The process to go through we have to have a public hearing on that, we can do that before our meeting on 6th, is that correct.
Mr. Bates didn’t think they had enough time. There has to be 15 day advance public notice in the paper of the hearing.
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Mr. Bates said it requires an ordinance to vacate and prior to the passage of the ordinance at least 15 days prior to such a hearing notice of time, place and subject matter shall be published in a newspaper of general circulation within unincorporated areas in the city. We have to publish a notice two weeks from tonight is the 6th and we would not have time to publish notice for the 6th. We could do it on the 19th probably and that would be the next voting meeting. He thought the thing that has to happen first is you need to have the utilities determine whether they have any utilities in that right of way for which we need to reserve easements when we vacate it, if there are any utilities which we don’t know whether there are not.
Mr. Mathon said he was not aware of any. He has a form letter he briefly mentioned in the memo for the vacation process that is ready to be sent out to any utilities that may have any rights to utilize that ground.
Mr. Bates said if you do want to vacate it we need to get a notice put together for a hearing when you tell me what date then we need to get an ordinance put together and really we can’t finalize the ordinance until we know if there are any utility services through there, if there are then we need to reserve easements to maintain them but if there aren’t then we don’t need to say anything about them.
Mayor Snyder said would it be safe to say that the utility would be rather responsive to the request. Mr. Mathon said yes, in the past they have been. Mr. Bates said we could always do it as a JULIE request and tell them we are going to dig up the right of way and they have to do it within 72 hours.
Mayor Snyder asked what the Council’s comments were. Alderman Horn said she thought it would be great for the neighborhood because the house on the other side of the alley was just sold so these people would be moving in and it would be nice for all of them. Alderman Neitzel asked if the Assessors Office had to be informed and have to come out to revamp that for tax purposes.
Mr. Bates said they will be told after we pass the Ordinance. The ordinance then has to be recorded with the County Recorder then the Assessor will pick it up.
Mayor Snyder said we were talking about voting on this possibly with the time frames would the 19th work within in your time frame of what you would like to do.
Mr. Gene St. March said he was with the community services foundation which are the ones acquiring the church and would be happy to acquire either side of the vacation if the neighbor doesn’t want it or whatever. He was just wondering he would like to keep the architect moving on this because they are trying to get that facility done before the snow flies. He asked if there was a chance he could get a consensus from the board on how you feel about this that he could just tell his people to go ahead.
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Mr. St. March said he realized it was not binding because you might get some kind of a crazy public hearing but in the meanwhile he would like to proceed.
Mayor Snyder said he thought they could get a general nodding. He thought everyone there was generally in favor of it and he didn’t know that there would be any problems with doing that.
Mr. Bates said you did hit the nail on the head that none of us know what will come up at the public hearing. Mr. St. March said of course he understood.
The meeting was set for 7:00 p.m. (before the City Council meeting) on September 19, 2011 and the City Council will follow immediately. The publication has to be in by September 3, 2011.
Mayor Snyder said while they were talking about street work. He had spoken with Mr. Mathon about utility cuts or street breaks that take place. We recently had an issue where there was a street break that took place in one of our neighborhoods and we believe that there was a situation where a contractor didn’t follow the rules and we are continuing to investigate all that but it raised some questions for some of us just exactly what our requirements are and with regard to the utility cuts and street breaks. He said Mr. Mathon put together some information that he passed out to them this evening. It provides information about three different things. The first is the current requirements that we have in our codes here in Lincoln. Title 8 Chapter 2 covers excavations on City right of way and it kind of spells out the process and what should take place with the different types of pavement material that is used for the existing surface. One the second page there are some IDOT requirements where Mr. Mathon spelled out 8 requirements for the utility cuts and what has to be there. He also asked Mr. Mathon to put together some information about what other cities and village. He did Springfield, Rochester, Bloomington, Taylorville, Jacksonville and Chatham. We have all that information and if you will notice some of our older streets are particularly rough a lot of that surface irregularity is the result of old street breaks or utility cuts that have either settled or something that has happened there. He wanted to get them the information so they would have it but would like at a future workshop meeting to have a discussion about “Are our requirements what you think they should be”, “Is the process good, do we need to re-examine that”, can we pick up anything that other communities have used to try to make sure these things are when our street surfaces are disturbed or put back the way they should be. Although it is not ours, a lot of you may know 5th Street the state had to resurface that last year and it couldn’t have been more than a month that there was a water break about a block off Broadway there and it had just been redone and then there was a water break and patch. Those emergencies are going to happen we just want to make sure the repairs are done well and we track those and keep on top of those. He said Mr. Mathon pulled this information together and it is for you to look at and review and we will have a discussion on this at a future workshop meeting.
Ordinance and Zoning:
Chairman Alderman O’Donohue said he did not have a report.
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Alderman O’Donohue said he wanted to bring up he had sent an email to Mrs. Martinek earlier this week to see what the status was to getting the letters out, sewer people for collections. Mrs. Martinek said they had sent 7 letters out and they are looking at perhaps more probably in the next couple of days. Alderman O’Donohue asked how many we had, 22 was it. Mrs. Martinek said it would be a couple of weeks.
Sidewalks, Forestry and Lighting:
Chairman Alderman Armbrust said he had a sidewalk petition for 309 N. Sangamon Street the citizen was requesting us to do something that we do not do build sidewalk and step between the city sidewalk and the street. He had spoken to them tonight and they are satisfied with the answer and they will remove those steps and fill it with dirt.
Alderman Armbrust said if you looked at the courthouse today you probably saw some trees sprout around there quickly. Mr. Jackson said a few years ago the Courthouse was our Arbor Day project and he wasn’t exactly sure why 6 of the 8 trees died so today we actually got those replaced and he had purchased some of them, they are called water saddles you can put around the base of the tree and fill them up once or twice a week so the tree constantly has water. Hopefully these will take hold. They are about 16-18 feet tall.
Sanitation/Technology:
Chairman Alderman Wilmert said he did not have a report.
Insurance:
Chairman Alderman Bacon said she did not have a report.
Mayor Snyder said they had a request from Bill Shelby about a cab company. Mrs. Martinek said she really didn’t know anything either he had just brought that in today. Mayor Snyder said they would come back to that since they had some other things.
Mayor Snyder said he had passed out to everyone a revised job description for the City Administrator he tried to take the comments that were made the last time and include those. He did go through the document and search for references to the fire department and got that cleaned up. He added language about the City Administrator working appropriately with all City Council committees on matters such as the development and adoption and implementation of the budget and appropriations ordinance, any infrastructure resource plans, short and long term capital improvement plans and that might not all be finance committee in all those cases. He also added language about the City Administrator attending and participating in committee meetings, if requested by the Committee chair. If we would have separate committee meetings the City Administrator could certainly be expected to attend those if the Committee chair asks them to attend. He thought it was pretty much the same document that you saw previously. He wanted to get this to them for their final review and if you have any comments now let him know.
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Mayor Snyder said what they will need to go forward Alderman O’Donohue, Alderman Wilmert and I will get together and get an advertisement together to get out and need to get on that fairly quickly he thought.
Alderman O’Donohue said he happened to be in here Monday and somebody was downstairs looking for an application for a City Administrator. He told them to come back later.
Mayor Snyder said they would take this job description and use it and Mr. Bates had already worked on an ordinance to put into the city code with regard to all the functions of the City Administrator so they will tweak that if it needs to be tweaked. They will have to get that ordinance passed as we move along and the three of us will get an advertisement together probably will advertise with the Municipal League to have a job posting and also the Illinois City County Management Association, they also have a job posting service we will probably post. They will set a deadline for that and also establish other timeframes. If we allow a month for people to respond and time screen the applications that come in and set up interviews and they had initially hoped to have a person for November 1st but he thought it would be closer to January 1st and that will be our target date. It would get someone here just slightly ahead of the budget process but they could be on board and Alderman Anderson is excited about that. We will move and try to get that done as quickly as possible. They also want to allow time to screen people and schedule interviews and do background checks and things like that because we want to be thorough about this. He said if they had anything to let him, Alderman O’Donohue or Alderman Wilmert know and they would proceed.
Alderman Busby said where in here is there anything with grant writing. Alderman Anderson said yes. Mayor Snyder said under key responsibilities the third bullet point down.
Mr. Bates said once that is finalized then they need to coordinate to get where the changes were made into the ordinance. They actually did put some of that in the ordinance.
Mayor Snyder said with regard to this weekend everyone is getting ready for the Art and Balloon Fest this weekend. The Chamber has asked if they could have permission to put out yard signs along Keokuk Street and Kickapoo Street in the area between the sidewalk and the street and the city code does not allow that.
Alderman Neitzel and Alderman Hoinacki both said they are already there. Mayor Snyder said what they wanted to do on those two streets in particular are put up signs directing people to the airport but also clarifying that there will be a parking charge at the airport. Alderman Neitzel said it is out there. Mayor Snyder said he was told they wouldn’t be put up until tomorrow. Alderman Neitzel said they were up over the weekend sometime.
Mayor Snyder said the shuttle will run between Burger King, downtown and the airport. They have a couple of school busses that have been rented as well as some busses from local churches. Lincoln, Illinois
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Mayor Snyder said they will have fleet of shuttle busses that will run that route and it is all free. He told the Chamber it was ok to put their signs up as long as they were down by Monday. They were very concerned that they would get all the way out there and find out it would be $1.00 to park and be upset. This is just a way to inform people on their way out there. It is being done to help underwrite the shuttle. They are going to have trolleys around downtown and those will be pulled by tractors. They are similar to what is at the state fair so people that want to hop on maybe at one park and ride over to the other park they can do that. The trolley they will let people get on and off wherever they would like as long as they tell them to stop. The parade is Friday at 3:30 and Chief Miller is going to have at least one truck possibly two trucks in the parade. This year they are allowing candy.
The giveaway is as follows as done by Alderman Hoinacki, Mayor Snyder and Fire Chief Miller:
Adult:
Grand Prize Amy Kenny, 330 N. College Street
1st Prize Brett Slater, 420 N. Jefferson
2nd Prize Delores Hurley, 310 Delavan
2nd Prize Cindy Ayres, 125 9th Street
3rd Prize Emily Lowe, 100 Allison
3rd Prize Dwayne Moore, 374 Northgate
Kids:
1st Kaylee Thomas, Age 3
2nd Denver Nodine, Age 4
3rd Emma Van Fossan, Age 7
4th Paige Raymond, Age 6
They had 156 adult entries and that was over the age of 12 and they had 33 kids’ entries. They called all earlier.
Thursday there will be sidewalk chalk thing and it is new for this year. There are 60 entries right now.
Mayor Snyder said they would jump back to the cab company issue.
Mr. Bates said we have in this city a public vehicle license board which consists of the Mayor and this City Council. Before any taxi cab license is issued there has to be a request for permit filed, which it was. There has to be a finding by the Public Vehicle Licensing Board that public convenience and necessity requires additional taxi service and it is compulsory that if any applicant or taxi cab licensing to publish for three successive days in the local newspaper, a notice of the filing of such application and the date of the public hearing held to determine the necessity for each additional taxi cab service.
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Mr. Bates said the board is to require the applicant to pay the expenses of the publication of that notice and then upon the publication and before the date set for hearing anybody that has any objections or support or input is entitled to submit that and appear at the hearing for their testimony and if the board then determines that public convenience and necessity requires it they can authorize another license and before that is issued a owner has to file with the Secretary of State financial proof of responsibility. He is required by State Law and provide us with proof of that and pay the fee that is required in our code. The next step would be for the public vehicle licensing board to set a public hearing and the applicant must publish a notice of that hearing for three successive days. He would recommend at least 15 days before the hearing.
Alderman Tibbs said Mr. Bates didn’t we go through this once before about four or five years ago. Mr. Bates believed that we did. Alderman Neitzel said same person. Alderman Tibbs said they determined it not to be necessary.
Mr. Bates said he thought it would be a good idea for him to at least come up here so we could tell him what the process and requirements are and then he could decide if he wants to publish that notice and have the hearing. If he wants to have the hearing and is willing to pay the fee to publish the notice he thought they had to give him the hearing.
Alderman Neitzel agreed and didn’t think he would want to do all that. Mr. Bates said if he wanted to have the hearing they had to give him the hearing. Mayor Snyder asked Mrs. Martinek to invite Mr. Shelby to come on the 6th or 13th. Mr. Bates said he preferred the 13th because he would not be here on the 6th.
Mayor Snyder said they had a letter from Watch Clinton Landfill Association. They are concerned about an operating permit which is currently pending before the USEPA Regional Office in Chicago about the common aqua fir in the region. If they wanted to see that information they were more than welcome to look at that.
Mayor Snyder said he had another letter from CILCO about tree trimming.
Mayor Snyder said on the Balloon Fest the Chamber wanted him to specifically invite all ten of you to attend each of the two ribbon cuts they are going to have. One is Thursday night at 5:30 p.m. at the airport which will be the ribbon cut for the Balloon Festival. The other one is going to be Saturday morning at 9:00 a.m. at the corner of Kickapoo and Pekin for the Art Festival. Thursday night is media night and there might be spots available. The Chief will make sure everyone gets back downtown.
Alderman Horn said that volunteers are needed. Mayor Snyder said if you know of anyone they need volunteers Saturday night out at the parking and at admissions and get signed up tomorrow night is the volunteer party and typically there are Marilyn Armbrust cookies.
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Alderman Tibbs said Taste of Wine needed a little bit of help.
Alderman Busby made a motion to adjourn the meeting and Alderman Neitzel seconded it. There were ten yeas (Alderman Anderson, Alderman Armbrust, Alderman Bacon, Alderman Busby, Alderman Hoinacki, Alderman Horn, Alderman Neitzel, Alderman O’Donohue, Alderman Tibbs, and Alderman Wilmert), zero nays, and none absent; motion carried.
The City of Lincoln Committee’s as a Whole Meeting adjourned at 7:57 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Risa Riggs
Recording Secretary
City of Lincoln