City of Lanark City Council met Sept. 17.
Here is the minutes provided by the council:
Lanark City Council met in regular session at the Lanark City Hall at 7:02 p.m. Roll call taken by Kim Hunter, City Clerk, showed Alderpersons present were Lance Leverton, Brad Knutti, Weston Burkholder, Mark Macomber and Jay VanMatre. Alderperson Haley Grim was absent but arrived later at 7:36 p.m. Mayor Ken Viglietta was present and presiding.
Others present were: Renee Krick, Jocelyn Lilly, Jason Alvarado-Maintenance Manager, Matt Ripplinger-Broadmoor Ins., Bob Spring from IPMG, Donalee Yenney-Treasurer, Kim Hunter-City Clerk, Matt Magill-Chief of Police and Ed Mitchell-Attorney.
PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE – was led by Alderperson Lance Leverton.
APPROVAL OF MINUTES – MOTION- was made by Alderperson Mark Macomber and seconded by Alderperson Brad Knutti to accept the minutes of the August 20, 2019 meeting as presented. Motion carried by 4 aye votes by Alderpersons Lance Leverton, Brad Knutti, Mark Macomber and Mayor Ken Viglietta. Two abstained votes by Alderpersons Weston Burkholder and Jay VanMatre. Alderperson Haley Grim was absent for this vote.
PUBLIC COMMENTS – Renee Krick, a resident of Lanark, was wanting an update and status report regarding her neighbors vehicles being removed. She said this started on April 2, 2019. She said that she has asked Chief of Police Matt Magill about what is being done so far. Others that have complained about other vehicles have been removed. Matt said they had to order titles for them. Renee feels that there is no progress being made. Mayor Ken said if they don’t get those titles by the end of the week he would like to have an administrative decision to have these vehicles towed somewhere else until the titles come in. Matt said there could be problems getting them towed being untitled. Ken said he wouldn’t junk them until the titles come in.
HERITAGE CENTER PAINTING PROPOSAL – ACTION REQUIRED- Jocelyn Lily, is the chairman of the Heritage Center Board, her and the committee are wanting to have it painted on the inside. They have collected three different bids and they have decided to give the bid to Bentley Painting from Thomson, Illinois in the amount of $3,827.00 for labor and all material. They are licensed and insured. They will be fixing the cracks, and any damages, painting the ceilings and the walls. They said they can get it done before the Holiday season if they get started soon. She said we can pay $1,913.50 down and pay the rest of the balance of $1,913.50 when it is completed. MOTION was made by Alderperson Brad Knutti and seconded by Alderperson Lance Leverton to move ahead to paint the Heritage Center for the amount of $3,827.00 as described by the Heritage Board. Motion carried by 5 aye votes. Alderperson Haley Grim was absent for this vote.
CITY INSURANCE PROPOSAL – POSSIBLE ACTION- Matt Ripplinger from Broadmoor Agency Inc. and Bob Spring from IPMG came to the council with a proposal for our City insurance. All the council had a packet with the proposal to look at while Matt and Bob went over the price and coverages. This will be an insurance with agent involvement and advice. They will survey all our buildings to make an appraisal. Bob Spring said they are the program administrator, he went over their programs and services. They do full property appraisals and locations. They have legal services. They will look at our Employee’s handbook at no extra cost to review. They cover flood and earthquake. Attorney Ed Mitchell asked if they cover FOIA and they said yes. They answered questions the council asked. Matt and Bob thanked the council for having them. Mayor Ken asked if the council would like to put this on the next agenda. Alderperson Brad Knutti said to put this on the agenda for the next meeting for October 1, 2019.
HALLOWEEN TRICK-OR-TREAT HOURS- ACTION REQUIRED- Council decided to leave as is.
AMEND FEHR-GRAHAM CONTRACT-ACTION REQUIRED- MOTION was made by Alderperson Brad Knutti and seconded by Alderperson Jay VanMatre for a resolution to amend the service contract 19-264 to cover the additional expense of the Lanark VFD and the work done on well #4 for an additional $45,000.00 with a built in $5,000.00 for contingency if needed. Motion carried by 6 aye votes.
MUNICIPAL CANNABIS RETAILER’S OCCUPATION TAX ORDINANCE-ACTION REQUIRED- MOTION-was made by Alderperson Jay VanMatre and seconded by Alderperson Weston Burkholder to pass and adopt Ordinance #970 An Ordinance Amending the Municipal Code of the City of Lanark, Illinois by the Addition of Chapter 4, Article 4-1-3 Imposing a Municipal Cannabis Retailers’ Occupation Tax. A tax imposed is hereby imposed upon all persons engaged in the business of selling cannabis, other than cannabis purchased under the Compassionate Use of Medical Cannabis Pilot Program Act, at retail in the City of Lanark at the rate of 3% of the gross receipts from these sales made in the course of that business. Motion carried by 6 aye votes. It was discussed what the legal requirements were to have a dispensary in Northwestern Illinois, it is very restrictive. They will only be giving out 3 licenses for a dispensary so far, as of January 1, 2020 in our area. The 3 percent tax has to be passed by September 30, 2019. The council also talked about the Employees manual will need to be updated such as pre- employment drug screening, testing and maybe a zero tolerance in the work place policy. Alderperson Jay VanMatre said he will e-mail Broadmoor Insurance to see what is covered by insurance and the zero tolerance work place policy.
SECURITY CAMERA FOR CITY HALL-POSSIBLE ACTION- MOTION – was made by Alderperson Weston Burkholder and seconded by Alderperson Mark Macomber to buy security cameras up to $500.00 and have maintenance install them. Motion carried by 6 aye votes.
STANDING COMMITTEES AND BOARDS – POSSIBLE ACTION- Alderperson Jay VanMatre said they had an Ordinance committee meeting and there was a discussion on solar power. They came up with including ‘non-reflective”, a maximum height of 15 feet and talked about a maximum number of panels to be determined by the council as a whole. He said Matt Magill came with a lot of information. There needs to be a permit for any placement of solar panels anywhere such as the ground and/or roof. Matt said we have had four put up already in the city and four more are coming. Alderperson Mark Macomber asked if the city farm wants to do it, and will we let them do it? The council discussed it. Alderperson Jay VanMatre said they also talked about dispensaries at the Ordinance meeting. Mayor Ken said that Rosemary Flikkema from the Park Board and Transformers will be at the next city council meeting on October 1st, 2019.
EXECUTIVE SESSION – EMPLOYMENT, COMPENSATION, REAL ESTATE- No Executive Session.
REPORTS-EMPLOYEES, ATTORNEY, CLERK, TREASURER, ALDERPERSONS AND MAYOR- Maintenance Manager Jason Alvarado said that OSHA came to visit 2 or 3 weeks ago, they inspected all of the buildings and want all of the trainings that are given to the staff. Cliff from OSHA wants to know what they are training the staff. Blaine Kurth from IML did a training on March 26, 2019 taught an 8 hour course and did it all on the computer with a slide show. Jason called Blaine last week to see if he could get the slide show from him to give to Cliff and Blaine told him no because he was told we were shopping around for insurance. Jason even told him that OSHA is requesting this information. Blaine told Jason to tell OSHA who he was and who he is with and they will know what training they provided. Blaine said in the future we can do the training for free if we are still with them. The council said this is poor customer service. Jason said that he needs 3 years of OSHA logs, the OSHA 300 and 300A forms. Jason said he needs to follow up with OSHA and that they will work with us. They had a few things they needed to do to comply such as moving records that were upstairs in the loft and to sweep better. Jason will get together with Weston Burkholder regarding the security cameras being installed. Chief of Police Matt Magill asked if anyone had any questions regarding his code enforcement excel sheet. Alderperson Weston Burkholder asked what his color coding meant and Matt explained it. Attorney Ed Mitchell said the Reed property will be closing on September 30th, 2019 contingent on getting all their things out of there. He asked the council if they are wanting to do anything regarding a Vaping Ordinance. Alderperson Jay VanMatre said they decided to change the signs to “No Smoking and No Vaping”. Three signs will need to be purchased. He said he would do some research. Ed also asked if the council wanted to do anything regarding 510 North Broad Street and if they wanted to file a small claims/suit against it. He needs to know how much they owe on it. Ed also talked about there is a Nicor bill scam going on. City Clerk Kim Hunter read two thank you notes, one from The Fehlhafer Family and one from Dorothy Shearer. She had passed out a change to the Open Meetings Act and Mayor Ken Viglietta read it. On August 23, 2019 Governor JB Pritzker signed HB 2124. The new law amends the Open Meetings Act and expands the list of purposes for which a public body may hold a closed meeting. Treasurer Donalee Yenney said she is opening a new account at the Exchange State Bank and bringing money from our Illinois Funds account to our local bank. The Illinois Fund has $500,000.00 in it and Donalee is moving $400,000.00, she said it is at a very comparable interest rate. They will adjust the rate on a monthly basis, it is a quarter percent less than the Illinois Funds. The cost of our employees’ health insurance is going up, the four full time employees is going up $188.00 a month increase. The cemetery’s is also going up for their one full time employee around $100.00 a month increase. The cemetery board takes care of that bill. Mayor Ken brought up that we may have to do some comparative shopping on our health insurance policy too. He asked the council if they would like to have it looked at administratively and the council agreed to it. Donalee also went over the Profit & Loss Budget vs. Actual August 2019 reports and the Changes In Bank Balance for 04-30-19 to 08-31-19. Donalee said that she had sent out two bills to property owners for mowing that Ardena Grant has been doing and we did get payment back from one of them. A letter and bill was sent to the Fox Property Attorney for mowing. Another property was brought up that needs mowing and discussed. Donalee said that she has received some preliminary numbers from our audit. It is not a report yet. It shouldn’t be too much longer and the auditor can come in and tell us about the audit. Mayor Ken Viglietta said that tomorrow is the Carroll County Mayors meeting in Thomson. They will be taking a tour of the Train Depot. About three weeks ago Ken said he went to a Regional Leadership meeting at the Whiteside Community Center in Sterling. They had leaders from industry, education and government. They looked at communities our size and what people would like or what they don’t like. They talked about what the Millennials would like, they would like downtown rental living, they don’t want a house, they want to be downtown. They would like to have dog parks. Ken talked about the Campbell Center in Mt. Carroll. Matt Magill said they are requiring funding for development and going through the process. In manufacturing, in our region here, there is approximately 1,100 good paying jobs that are vacant and about 350 people qualified for them. These jobs are not getting filled. Ken said the biggest thing, the Regional Superintendent said, is they feel that the teachers aren’t having important conversations with the students that are not bound to go to college and telling them about places like the trade school at the convention center he was at (Whiteside). Teachers need to be trained to have these conversations. Ken said that Morrison put in a 1 cent sales tax that can only be spent only for roads. Another trend is business run day cares. The challenges are in education and getting our streets repaired. He thought maybe the council persons could try some field in their interest and hold some little community workshops and maybe hold them in the Heritage Center and see what interests they can generate in those areas. He thought the three hour workshop he went to was very productive. He said he never thought about what millennials needs and wants are. He said that Illinois has 103 counties. He asked if anyone knew what “Opportunity Zone” was. He said it is in conjunction with the TIF. He said they talked about considering making ourselves an opportunity zone, we will look it up.
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/2019/12/City-Council-Minutes-09-17-2019.pdf
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