Lincoln, Illinois
City Council Committee's Meeting
June 11, 2013
Minutes of the City of Lincoln City Council Committees' Meeting held in the Council Chambers on Tuesday, June 11, 2013.
Those present were Alderman Anderson, Alderman Hoinacki, Alderman Horn, Alderman Neitzel, Alderman O'Donohue, Alderman Tibbs, and Alderman Wilmert. Also present were Street Superintendent Mr. Jackson, City Engineer Mr. Forgy, Safety and Building Officer Mr. Lebegue, Fire Chief Miller, American Water/EMC Mgr. Mr. Ferguson, and Police Chief Greenslate. Also present were City Clerk Mrs. Gehlbach, City Attorney Mr. Blinn Bates, City Treasurer Mr. Conzo, and Recording Secretary Mrs. Riggs.
Mayor Snyder called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m. There were seven Aldermen present (Alderman Anderson, Alderman Hoinacki, Alderman Horn, Alderman Neitzel, Alderman O'Donohue, Alderman Tibbs, and Alderman Wilmert) and one absent (Alderman Carmitchel).
The Pledge was recited by all.
Public Participation:
There was no public participation.
TIF Guidelines:
The TIF guidelines committee members are Alderman Carmitchel, Alderman Horn, Alderman O'Donohue, Mayor Snyder and Ms. McLaughlin. Attorney John Myers has reviewed TIF guidelines and found them to be acceptable. Everything will come back to the City Council and there is a loophole. There are roof issues (deteriorating) in town but roof repairs are not generally allowed under the TIF. Alderman Anderson wanted more flexibility with the parameters. Everyone agreed this should be on the agenda.
Creation of Public Works Director position:
Ms. McLaughlin envisioned this position would oversee the different divisions with those being the street department, the sewer superintendent, and engineering. There is an office that is vacant in the Street Department and the largest set up cost would be the vehicle. The ordinance was put on the agenda.
Purchase of Bucket Truck for Streets and Alleys:
Mr. Jackson said they budgeted $60,000.00 to purchase a bucket truck that would reach 60 feet. Ms. McLaughlin thought this was a good deal. It will take a 2/3rds vote to approve the bid in order to purchase the truck before the old truck can be sold to another entity.
High Speed Rail – Lincoln Depot Acquisition Project:
Mayor Snyder said this was just an update. The NEPA document was approved with the issues being resolved.
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FY 14 Street Improvements – Proposal for Services:
Mr. Forgy said there are four proposals from Maurer-Stutz for the 4 remaining projects for this year. He has reviewed the proposals by Maurer-Stutz (a consulting firm) and thought the hours included were reasonable for the work. It works out to 4.5 to 4.6% of the construction cost for the engineering fees. These are essentially maintenance projects versus being a total reconstruction.
The projects and costs are:
Lincoln 2013 Street Improvements – Pulverize, re-grade and seal coat $20,275.00
Lincoln 2013 Street Improvements – white – topping 7,914.50
Lincoln 2013 Street Improvements – brick street repair. 9,650.00
Lincoln 2013 Street Improvements – Heater Scarification & Microsurfacing 14,306.00
The total cost is $52,145.50
Ms. McLaughlin asked “if each of these engineer contracts were included in the amount budgeted.” Mr. Forgy said “yes they were.”
Ms. McLaughlin said when the city did the oil and chip before, our crews did it so explain to me why you need to pay an engineer $20,000.00.
Mr. Forgy said well it’s not for the seal coating as much as for the pulverization and regrading. What we are looking at is, taking those local roadways here in town, these are predominantly not exclusively but predominantly low traffic streets but that they have a non regular cross section. There is a lot of either pushing or the cross section has been shoved around over time, there are typically lots of layers of oil and chip on there and we are trying to reshape the cross section of these streets back to a more normal crown shape so they go through and they pulverize up the pavement. They need the cores to determine how much pavement structure is there because one of the things that you don't want to do is get down through your pavement structure and get the dirt underneath mixed in because it just makes your pavement less structurally sound.
Ms. McLaughlin said “so there's going to be less engineering work on the ones that are just simply being seal coated. You are talking about most of the work is for the ones that are pulverized.”
Mr. Forgy said yes, just because we are going out to bid you want to have a document that says here is what you are going to provide. You can actually get a material proposal form from the state for the seal coating portion itself.” Mr. Forgy said “a lot of this is actually for the pulverization portion”.
Ms. McLaughlin said the other concern she had was the final plans as being submitted at almost the end of August. Mr. Forgy said yes.
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FY 14 Street Improvements – Proposal for Services (continued):
Ms. McLaughlin asked “Are any of these roads going to get done this year before winter hits?”
Mr. Forgy said “it is very typical, most of the companies that do oil and chip or seal coat specifically do them in the fall. It is very typical to at least do that project closer in the fall. There are certainly quite a significant amount of pulverization and grading that has to happen before they do that. Yes I do anticipate there is enough time to complete these projects. All the schedules if you will look through the schedule on each of these projects is identical.”
Ms. McLaughlin said yes.
Mr. Forgy said we are going out for one letting for all four projects. They are dissimilar enough projects that I don't know that you are going to see any cost savings by going that direction. So we could have several separate lettings and get for example the pulverization done sooner if we wanted to and get it on the street. For the concrete over the white topping project for Hamilton Street or brick street repair they may be a little bit less weather sensitive than the ones involving bituminous so we probably want to move up the pulverization and seal coat. The heat scarification and the pulverization and seal coat are probably the most weather dependent we would probably want that the soonest. That is a pretty simple project to put in there too.”
Ms. McLaughlin said “How many engineering firms did you get quotes from?”
Mr. Forgy said “I did not get quotes from any of them but talked to several firms and don't know how many I actually talked to just asking - hey have you done brick street reconstruction, kind of probing around in the area. Frankly there is not a lot of brick street expertise in Central Illinois, in the engineering community. There is not a lot of white topping expertise. There is a lot more pulverization and seal coating, but I was looking for a consultant that you could go to.
Ms. McLaughlin asked “Do you think there is any cost savings because we are using them for all of it?”
Mr. Forgy thought there would be, something to note on these proposals as they propose them all as individual projects. For example, the borings you mentioned, if they can mobilize on all the projects and do them all in one trip you can see some cost savings. All of these are hourly contracts. It is actually what they spend. Mr. Forgy said that being said borings are also somewhat of an investigation. We're seeing what's there. I don't anticipate, we've talked about the structure of the street. There was some question when I went through the projects and drove through with Maurer-Stutz on a couple of the streets that we had some heat scarification that maybe they had too much oil and chip over the top of them already for that to be an appropriate measure to use. We might talk about adjustments as a next step. Possibly drop it from the program and use the money elsewhere. We will figure out some adjustments as we go forward. That is what some of those initial investigations are for.
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FY 14 Street Improvements – Proposal for Services (continued):
Mr. Forgy said just to make sure these are the appropriate solutions.
Mayor Snyder said these do have general terms and conditions that were attached. Mr. Snyder said “the City Attorney would have to take a look at those.”
Alderman Neitzel said we need to go forward on our streets. She has never had so many people in her life tell her when are you going to do something with our streets.
It was asked to have this on the agenda.
ITEP update:
Mr. Forgy said the Street-scape program was changing to a yearly program. This is a federally funded program with the money being through IDOT. States do not have to go forward with enhancements but Illinois has chosen to continue doing it. The enhancement program is typically more for non roadway projects. There are now things excluded: our street scape that we had applied for (had favorable ratings but not awarded the last two years) and cannot do a street scape application again unless it is associated with a federal highway project. There are two federal routes running through the downtown and they are Broadway and Kickapoo Streets. Mr. Forgy was still checking to see if this is still eligible. August 20, 2013 is the application deadline. The city would have to come up with 20% and there are several different options.
Alderman O'Donohue asked what the plan is. He wanted to know when the court house corridor would be done if they do the railroad corridor first.
Alderman Hoinacki said if they don't jump in line someone else will get it. Alderman Neitzel said they will have to tell the people that the other has to be done and the downtown will get done as the money comes. Mayor Snyder said they wanted to move forward.
Mayor Snyder said Com Ed, Nicor and legacy utilities that are responsible for the clean up on the 3rd Street garage property. A report by the architect was sent to the utilities. The documents have been reviewed and the architect feels it provides useful information. The report seemed to confirm that the 3rd Street garage facility will likely need to be relocated to an off-site location. The city would like to take this time to make it a right sized facility. The utilities are open to the notion of the city building a facility at an off-site location meaning not on Third Street. The utilities would only be willing to fund a like for like construction. The footprint for the facility was evaluated and the Farnsworth study seems to be larger than the current facility. The report seemed to confirm that the 3rd Street garage facility will likely need to be relocated to an off-site location. The city would like to take this time to make it a right sized facility. The utilities are open to the notion of the city building a facility at an off-site location meaning not on Third Street. The utilities would only be willing to fund a like for like construction. The footprint for the facility was evaluated and the Farnsworth study seems to be larger than the current facility.
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Update Prevailing Wage Resolution:
The Resolution has to be published in the newspaper after the Resolution is passed. This is a yearly item that must be passed and published. It was put on the Consent Agenda.
Re-naming of the parkway on the 100 block of South Sangamon Street:
Mayor Snyder said when it was discussed to put the constellation statue in the 100 block of South Sangamon Street he thought they needed to name the area in the 100 block of South Sangamon Street. He felt that two Alderman in Ward 4, two Aldermen left us much too soon and felt the name should be Busby-Turner Parkway.
Alderman Neitzel said Constellation Drive Nathan Turner Orville Busby. Alderman Wilmert thought it was too long and wanted to keep it at Busby-Turner Parkway. Everyone agreed it should be Busby-Turner Park. This was to be a Resolution under New Business.
Letter from Integrys concerning the new Ameren tariff rate:
Mayor Snyder said a letter was received on the new tariff charge. Integrys rate is $0.03965, Tariff charges $0.00166 with the new rate being $0.04131.
Comcast news and General Assembly telecommunications re-write:
Mayor Snyder said Comcast is raising their prices and the General Assembly passed a rewrite of several telecommunications and public utilities acts and he included a copy to the Aldermen with Point 4 talking about the public utilities act which they call the Cable and Video customer protection law was changed. The City will no longer be notified by Comcast when they eliminate programming and Comcast can now charge fees for termination or disconnection of service, there was a requirement where they had to correct a service interruption within 48 hours at the time it was reported is being deleted, and they are deleting the requirement for annual reports with performance data.
Request to Permit from First Presbyterian Church that alley behind church become one-way on 7/16/13:
This was put on the Consent Agenda.
Request to Permit from Lincoln 4th of July Committee for Old Fashioned Children's Walking Parade on 7/4/13:
Mayor Snyder said this will be a good time. This item will be on Consent Agenda.
Request to Permit from Lincoln Area Music Society a sign @ Pekin & Kickapoo:
This item will be on the Consent Agenda. Everyone agreed the sign could be put up this week.
Other Business:
There was no other Business.
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Announcements:
Alderman Tibbs said the carpet was cleaned in the Council Chambers and looks very good.
Upcoming Meetings:
Council: June 17, 2013 – 7:00 p.m.
Committee of Whole: June 25, 2013 – 7:00 p.m.
Alderman Anderson moved to go into Executive Session under 5 ILCS 120/2(c)(1) personnel, hiring, firing and discipline and Alderman Horn seconded it. City Clerk Mrs. Gehlbach called the roll call. There were seven yeas (Alderman Anderson, Alderman Hoinacki, Alderman Horn, Alderman Neitzel, Alderman O'Donohue, Alderman Tibbs, and Alderman Wilmert) zero nays, and one absent (Alderman Carmitchel); motion carried. The meeting adjourned to Executive Session at 8:05 p.m.
The meeting returned to regular Session at 8:45 p.m. City Clerk Mrs. Gehlbach called the roll. There were seven Aldermen present (Alderman Anderson, Alderman Hoinacki, Alderman Horn, Alderman Neitzel, Alderman O’Donohue, Alderman Tibbs, and Alderman Wilmert) and one absent (Alderman Carmitchel). Also present were City Treasurer Mr. Conzo, City Attorney Mr. Blinn Bates, City Clerk Mrs. Gehlbach, and Recording Secretary Mrs. Riggs.
Alderman Neitzel made a motion to adjourn the meeting and Alderman Tibbs seconded it. There were seven yeas (Alderman Anderson, Alderman Hoinacki, Alderman Horn, Alderman Neitzel, Alderman O'Donohue, Alderman Tibbs, and Alderman Wilmert), zero nays, and one absent (Alderman Carmitchel); motion carried.
The City of Lincoln Committee’s as a Whole Meeting adjourned at 8:45 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Risa Riggs, Recording Secretary
City of Lincoln