City of Lanark City Council met Oct. 1.
Here is the minutes provided by the council:
Lanark City Council met in regular session at the Lanark City Hall at 7:00 p.m. Roll call taken by Kim Hunter, City Clerk, showed Alderpersons present were Lance Leverton, Haley Grim, Brad Knutti, Weston Burkholder, Mark Macomber and Jay VanMatre. Mayor Ken Viglietta was present and presiding.
Others present were: Rosemary Flikkema, Matt Ripplinger, Chief of Police Matt Magill, Treasurer Donalee Yenney, Attorney Ed Mitchell and City Clerk Kim Hunter.
PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE – was led by Alderperson Lance Leverton.
APPROVAL OF MINUTES – MOTION – was made by Alderperson Haley Grim and seconded by Alderperson Lance Leverton to accept the minutes of the September 17, 2019 meeting as presented. Motion carried by 6 aye votes.
PUBLIC COMMENTS – None.
CITY INSURANCE PROPOSAL-POSSIBLE ACTION- Matt Ripplinger was here to answer any questions anyone had regarding his insurance proposal. Alderperson Jay VanMatre had a few regarding the Cannabis Act. The employee’s handbook will need to be updated. MOTION-was made by Alderperson Lance Leverton and seconded by Alderperson Jay VanMatre to accept Matt Ripplinger’s Insurance proposal for the City of Lanark. Motion carried by 6 aye votes.
STANDING COMMITTEES AND BOARDS – POSSIBLE ACTION- Rosemary Flikkema talked about the Chamber having Hometown Days and the meal would be from 4:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at the Heritage Center. She invited everyone to come and buy a pork chop and the money goes into their scholarship fund. She also talked about the Transformers and Jingle Fest on November 30th with coordination Small Shop Saturday at the Heritage Center. Santa will be at Weston’s building. Crafts and pictures will be taken there with Santa. Two weeks later there will be Breakfast with the Grinch on December 14th from 8:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. they will have green eggs and ham. The Park Board is going to have a tractor parade on November 29th tentatively at 6:30 p.m. in the evening and drive around the three sides of the park. There will be a tree lighting. They are hoping to have cookies and hot chocolate. They are trying to get the choir from the high school also. She said it is a thank you from the park. Ken will have maintenance get the barricades put up for it. They will accept donations so they can get a few new things for the park for next year. She thanked everyone.
EAST CARROLL STREET SIDEWALK PROJECT-ACTION REQUIRED- Mayor Ken said the East Carroll Street project now has an estimate of $33,900.00 to do both sides of the street.
Burkholder would be doing 95 percent of it. Ken wants to know what funds to take them out of. The council discussed it. Donalee Yenney, the treasurer said there is $27,000.00 in the street fund, $114,000.00 in the street maintenance fund and around $60,000.00 in the TIF fund. Mayor Ken said that the Law Jones sanitary sewer system project will be moved to fiscal year 2020. Alderperson Mark Macomber suggested that he would like to see it split half and half between TIF and sidewalk maintenance, which would be $16,950.00 each. The council was in agreement and Donalee will administratively take care of taking the money out of these funds for this project.
EXECUTIVE SESSION-EMPLOYMENT, COMPENSATION, REAL ESTATE-MOTION-was made by Alderperson Mark Macomber and seconded by Alderperson Weston Burkholder to convene in Executive Session at 7:24 p.m. in order to discuss Personnel, Compensation and Pending Litigation. Motion carried by 6 aye votes.
REGULAR SESSION-MOTION-was made by Alderperson Weston Burkholder and seconded by Alderperson Mark Macomber to reconvene into regular session at 8:21 p.m. Motion carried by 6 aye votes.
REVIEW SALARIES OF COUNCIL AND MAYOR – POSSIBLE ACTION - MOTION- was made by Alderperson Mark Macomber and seconded by Alderperson Jay VanMatre to move the mayor’s salary to $10,000.00 a year and all Alderpersons to $5,000.00 a year effective the next election, 2021. Motion carried by 6 aye votes.
REPORTS-EMPLOYEES, ATTORNEY, CLERK, TREASURER, ALDERPERSONS AND MAYOR- Matt Magill passed out his Code Enforcement Tracking Report thru 10-1-19 and explained what has all been done since his last report. Vehicles have been moved. He answered the Alderpersons questions they asked. Donalee said the city cutting the grass the first time is a $75.00 fee. Alderperson Haley Grim asked about street lights that were out, Matt said he would check them out. Mayor Ken said he would be sending Brad an e-mail regarding the IOC meeting in regards to what Haley was talking about the lights. It is a couple of hours meeting in Rockford. He will get more information to Brad. Ed Mitchell said he has filed a small claims suit on 510 North Broad Street. He said the Cannabis Ordinance was needed to be filed with the State, which was passed at the last meeting, it has been filed. He sent them an extra copy which he asked to be file-stamped and returned back to him. He said we have done the statutory requirement on that. Kim Hunter read a thank you note from Don and Vonnie Dietz thanking the maintenance department for the work done in the alley behind their house. She also passed out website information to check out the Opportunity Zones in Illinois. Lance Leverton said he did meet with Donalee and he said she had answered a lot of his questions that he had about finances. He also said on a side note, AUSP Thomson is having a job fair on October 9th, 2019 in Sterling, Illinois. If anyone knows anyone 37 and younger that would like to apply to please pass on the information. He said they are hiring 200 plus. Haley Grim said we need more housing development in Lanark. Ed Mitchell was telling the council of some areas around Lanark that could be possibilities. Brad Knutti said we got our final application for payment for the water tower. The original contract price was $409,165.00, it came in $18,697.00 below that cost, so the entire project was $390,468.00. Ken Viglietta said the Carroll County Mayors meetings had been falling apart for a lack of interest and they want to bring it back. Milledgeville has had one meeting and Lanark has had one meeting. We will be hosting one in January in Lanark and Ken would like to invite everyone that is here at the meeting tonight to it. He would like to have a program and pizza. Ken said a tree needs to be cut down at the Fox property. Haley Grim asked when would the Tree Board be coming in for a review and when would they be cutting down trees. She still needs two trees cut down that have x’s on them. Ken said that she would have to ask Lonnie Prowant. On October 3rd, two days from now the Census worker will be here to hire some Census people for $15.50 an hour for part time work. It is a 120 hour work project. It is posted on the Library door. Ken brought up health insurance, Donalee said there was one month of a refund for the health insurance for Don Fehlhafer’s estate and she is also in contact with the Executor of the Estate regarding his retirement funds. Ken said that he would like to have Derek Carroll with Clark Carroll Insurance, Matt Ripplinger with Broadmoor Insurance and Rhett Coatney with Country Companies come in and pitch the council with health insurance as the premiums went up this year. He would also like to find out what they have to offer with reinsurance. Ken asked when the renewal date on the health insurance we have was, he asked Donalee to find out for sure and the guidelines for cancelling. Ken asked the council if they wanted to do a finance meeting or have them come directly to the council. Mark Macomber suggested to have them come to the council meeting and everyone agreed. Jay VanMatre suggested that we limit the presentations to 10 minutes for each agent. The council would like to see them come to the next council meeting on October 15th, 2019.
ADJOURNMENT-MOTION- was made by Alderperson Weston Burkholder and seconded by Alderperson Mark Macomber to adjourn at 8:59 p.m. Motion carried by 6 aye votes.
https://lanarkil.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/City-Council-Minutes-10-01-2019.pdf