City Council - Regular Meeting

We're ready to call the meeting to order. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. We'll go ahead and call to order the Wilmington City Council meeting for Monday, September the 14th, and ask all to please stand, if you're able, for the Pledge of Allegiance and remain standing for a moment of silent reflection.

Thank you, the Republic, and all the nations under God, indivisible, liberty, justice for all.

Roll call for attendance, please. Madam Clerk.

Council Member Curran. Here. Council Member Mosley.

Here.

Council Member Montney.

Here.

Council Member Dannenberger.

Here.

Council Member Strava.

Here.

Council Member Hendricks.

Here.

Council Member Ward. Here. Council Member Lee.

Here.

Council Member Scott. Here. Mayor Brady.

Here. Thank you. Next, we'll move to recognitions appointments. And under appointments, we have the boards and commissions of reappointments in historic preservation. And I don't know if any of these individuals are here in the audience tonight. If they are, please stand so we can acknowledge you. Historic Preservation Commission is John Altrich and Emma Meyer. They are here. If not, we thank them for their past service and future service. And then the Planning Commission, Anna Schatzke. If Anna is in the audience, if not, thank you to her as well. And then Planning Commission, John Corey. And thank you to all those individuals for their past and future service. Next, we'll move to public comment. And under public comment, Madam Clerk, are there individuals to speak tonight for public comment?

There are. After you read your statement, we'll start with Gary Stevens and then to follow Brian Cagle. And just for the record, Brian Cagle also submitted emailed public comment that was provided to council ahead of the meeting.

thank you public comments an opportunity for speakers to provide their views and feedback to the city council there's also an opportunity for the city council to listen and hear diverse points of view to maximize the impact of public comment and show respect for the expression of all viewers speakers should maintain stability and focus on city issues speakers must identify themselves for the record but not are not required to give their address each speaker is given the floor for three minutes and the council does not respond or engage in debate Any speaker that engages in threatening or disorderly behavior will be deemed out of order and their time ceased. Our first speaker.

I'm Gary Stevens, and I have a couple comments to share tonight. I am concerned about the flooding that happened on Martin Luther King Drive a couple weeks ago with a storm, and I don't know if the city has already come up with plans to deal with this. But I did go out and look at it myself, and there is an open field next to the area where water comes up from the creek and comes into the road. And it would seem like at least it could be some land there could be moved around so there'd be more room for the creek to expand. So that's one idea maybe the city could consider. Another one would be if that doesn't work, then I think we need to look at some kind dams, which would help regulate excessive flooding when we have it on the creeks. Another aspect of our city is the bus system we have. And I noticed that in the past year, only about 10% of the operating revenue came from people that use the bus. And so I think we need to work at getting more people to use the bus. And one way of doing that is to raise the price of parking. We have much free parking in the city. And I think nationally, most parking spaces are worth at least $5 a day. And in places where people demand more parking, one way to expand that parking is to raise the price. And then there are fewer people who think they really have to have that space. And if we are able to do that, I think we could raise enough money with parking spaces and to help reduce the traffic on the roads to save our roads from getting worn out so fast would be to be able to cut down our taxes so that our businesses could have a better chance of growing. I know that our year from 25 to 26, our area increased the unemployment by a tenth of a point. And so we need to figure out ways to make it easier for businesses to be here and for people to live here. And a good way to do that is to lower our taxes. Thank you very much and have a good meeting. Thank you, Mr. Stevens. Next.

All right. Next up, we'll have Brian Cagle and then our last speaker will be Chris Holt.

Hello. so my name is brian cagle and i am a resident of one of the houses on mercer right now that is currently undergoing construction as part of the locust cso elimination phase 8 project since about july 19th or july 30th right when the new water lines got installed our blocks water has been smelly and foul um The words people on our street have used to describe the smell have been mothballs, chemical, chlorine, construction, and drywall, to name a few. We haven't been able to nail down what we think. I've been in contact several times with the lead engineer over the construction, Jonathan Kothe, and he shifts all the responsibility to the water department. So I've also been in contact several times with Scott Joyce of the water department, and he has been more helpful uh staying in contact and speaking with me several times he's come and taken water samples he sent samples out for testing um but we haven't gotten an answer and he said more testing is being done but um he agrees there's a funk and but he doesn't know why this is not typical Bloomington water this is not from last year with the algae and that this is specifically on Mercer uh so in the meantime my neighbors and i have had almost two months of unacceptable water conditions what i've been told by scott is the water is safe but he's also admitted he doesn't know the cause of it so i don't think that can be guaranteed since we don't know um initially he expected the water would go back to normal after a few days but now our water is being tested for unknown agents um he doesn't know where to look so prior to the construction the residents of Mercer Avenue were told by some project managers at a meeting at the library that this would construction would happen and everything would go back to normal this is not what has happened uh but the construction side seemingly doesn't think they have any responsibility for it but I would be hard-pressed to find a reason why I would be hard-pressed to find a reason other than the construction since it started when the construction started. Then my concern increased a little bit when I was talking to Scott recently, and he offhandedly mentioned, oh, well, we better check they installed the right drinking pipes. While I do believe the project is responsible, this is a city project and is now a city issue. My neighbors and I are requesting help for a resolution to our water issue. We want answers from the project crew, expedited testing from the water department, or just someone that can give us any answer and what and if can be done. We can't get our water back to normal soon. We would want some sort of recompense from the city or something. know having to install uh full water house filters now um i ask all of you to consider if this was your living situation what if you were washing your hands showering washing the dishes bathing a newborn watering your plants with this unknown odorous water or what happens in the next phase of the construction plan when your road's being torn up and your water is being changed and this is also a question what's happened in phase one through seven first time this has happened um you know i'm not entirely sure i'm sorry if you could bring your remarks to a closer yeah sorry i don't know what you guys are actually able to do but we would appreciate some help so thank you thank you the last speaker is chris holt uh seeing that the person's not present that's our last speaker

OK, thank you. Thank you to our speakers next in our agenda will move to the consent agenda and the items under the consent agenda. Are there members of the Council who have an item on that consent agenda that they wish to have pulled and discussed? For further discussion. If not seeing none, then I'll ask for a motion and a second to accept the consent agenda and to pass. move to accept this manager a motion from member scott seconded by member kearns and then if the clerk would take the role please uh we were just going to do all in favor say aye aye all opposed thank you uh passes no names to announce thank you very much next we'll move to the regular agenda for this evening And there is no items under the regular agenda for this evening, which means we will then move into the city manager's discussion and our city manager, Mr. Jeff Juergens.

Thank you, Mayor and Council. Just a couple of things tonight as they pull up my report. You could go to the next slide. A quick update on the 400 block of downtown. It will be open tomorrow, hopefully by this time. So fully open. We had several of the intersections around the 300 block, both of those intersections reopened today, and then we will have the 400 block fully reopened tomorrow. A few punch list items and some plantings and some other things to be done, but it is ready to be driven on, parked, all those kinds of things. So we're really excited about that. a very, very, very long block. And so we're happy to see it come to a close and it looks great. Next slide. Wanted to provide a little bit of a water update. First, construction of our pack silo, which you can see up there, is now complete, and we believe it will be operational by the end of this week. We have, as the council and the community is aware, have created a manual system to add pack to the drinking water as needed. This will be an automatic system and is much more appropriate for a system our size, so we're excited to have that up and running. Really appreciate our water director revolution for for helping get that across the finish line then also just in terms of the water. Levels evergreen is down slightly that's where we're getting our water, right now, but it's technically I think we've got 42 more days of water. compared to where we were at last year at this time, and Lake Bloomington continues to be full. So we'll eventually be switching over to Lake Bloomington and allowing Evergreen to recharge a little bit. But as far as the amount of water right now, we're in a good position as we get ready to go in to potentially some drier months. Next slide. Data centers. So we have been talking about the public hearing dates for some time, discovered an issue today. And so sharing with the community that we are regrouping on the specific dates as to when these public hearings will be. We will still have a public hearing in October. and another one in november but because of the size that we expect of the crowd we do not believe this room is going to be large enough so we're trying to hold those over at the bcpa so we're working on that scheduling uh there is because of how the timing works there is notice that will go out saying that it's going to be here on october 1st but we will cancel that we will republish notice we'll make sure that catherine gets it on our website and that everybody is aware of exactly when those public hearings will be, and we hope to have that finalized in the next couple of days. Next slide. I'm going to turn this over to Sue to give a brief update. This is my last slide on the cleanup. We're now a month into this or a month completed with this. One of the key figures up there is 2,300 loads. I think that, no, 500 tons of bulk that's been picked up. I think that equates to about a million pounds of material that's been picked up. So our crews have done a fantastic job. I know there are still some things to get and some cleanup to do, and they will obviously get to that and get around to anything that's left out there. But they've done an amazing job, and we appreciate all of their work, as well as the patience of the community. This is a historic storm. And with that, I'm going to let Sue talk a little bit about the work she's been doing in terms of collecting the costs and getting those submitted. Sue?

Thank you very much. As you know, the storm was on the 13th. And so when we instituted the EOC that day, we were pretty sure that what we were hearing, we were going to need to start tracking. And so we said, look, right off the bat, everybody start tracking your time, your equipment use, all that, so that when this time came, we'd be ready, which is great. Thank you to everybody. I mean, public works, forestry, everybody's been killing it. So on August 18th, the governor declared a disaster in McLean County and many other counties across the state. This activated the state EMA to provide state resources and what's called a public assistance grant. So they asked that we submit damages to see if it would qualify for the next step. At that time we submitted, it was about $1.2 million. IMEA determined it was enough to pursue FEMA. Their cap was just under $25 million. And so luckily, or I should say maybe scarily, there were multiple agencies. I mean, McLean County alone is $42.5 million is the damages that they submitted. So we more than qualified. So what we did is they're looking for wages and overtime. Equipment costs is what they call it. They have a schedule. So let's say you use a chainsaw. What size chainsaw and for how long is worth so much money? And so we had to break all of that down, submit spreadsheets on everything across every department. And so that's called debris removal. So you have wages, labor, equipment. And that was just over 1.2M dollars to date when I submitted it last week. It's still climbing. Emergency response is your police and fire. We also had Julie locates a lot of emergency Julie locates for power poles and light poles. That was almost $75,000. Public buildings, so your facility damage, we had to the arena. We had a garage door come off at our fire station at the airport. And traffic signals, over $100,000 just for traffic signals. And then parks. Parks is... your building. So I know we had a shelter, had roof damage, some fences and whatnot. So all of it ended up being just over 1.6 million when I submitted it last week. That is going to climb because they recognize that that's an estimate and that our cleanup is still continuing. So the governor will have to submit that to the president by September 15th and then There is no timeline. I think we just wait for him. But we did ask for public assistance for the cities and the counties, individual assistance for residences that submitted those. Do you remember those QR codes? And then small business loans for businesses that were hurt. So we asked for all three. The president can pick and choose. He could give all three. He could say individuals, but not publics like cities. So we'll see what happens. But I know Jeff just reviewed that we had over 2,300 loads of brush. 502 tons of bulk and debris wages alone. Now this is just wages and overtime, 482,000. And this was as of Friday. So that number is climbing, but I'm old fashioned. So this is easy for me to pull out. So if you ever wanna look at any of the documentation, I have it in my office, but happy to answer any questions.

thank you sue and um that's unless there are questions that's that's all i have for my report with that are there questions from members of the council if not then we will thank you to all for your report thank you to all those who have worked so diligently to help uh clean up the city of bloomington um on so many fronts um next we'll move to council members discussion and we will start with uh remember scott

Thank you. Just two items here. I'd like to say Shana Tova to those who celebrated Rosh Hashanah this weekend. Good year to them. And then secondly, I was so proud to sit at a full table with the city at the NAACP Freedom Flood Dinner with the city manager and the mayor and Chief Symington and Sergeant Nowers and Assistant Chief Klesson and Lieutenant Furman. So proud that we got a shout out for the BPD from President Linda Foster Carruth. That is very cool. you know, cities and police departments that build relationships, build safe cities. So grateful to us for doing that. That's it.

Thank you. Member Lee. Member Hendricks. Number four. Nothing. Okay. Let's go down then to member Kearns. Member Mosley. Member Montney.

Hi. My last update related to a fact that was funding advisory committee for them behavioral health and public safety fund that was earlier in August. Actually had another funding advisory Council meeting on August the 28th 2026 the purpose of that meeting was to approve a multi year funding policy is requested. by the staff. It was approved unanimously. I also attended another behavioral health coordinating council meeting on September the 11th, 2026. The purpose of that meeting was for the department in the county to update the behavioral health coordinating council Susan Nemitzki, Members. They shared specifically news of what we approved at the Funding Advisory Council meeting. Susan Nemitzki, Also, they reiterated that their updates will be provided on the website mcleanbhcc.com I would encourage everyone who has an interest in what's going on with this group to regularly check that website. They have several things under development for the website. I understand in the future, it will include things like who has been awarded grants and performance measures and things like that. But when I last looked it up before I came here today, I was unable to find all of those things, but I do know they're under development. Thank you.

Thank you, Member Dannenberger.

David Lodowski, Board of Trustees Meeting, Mr yes, I wanted to kind of give a quick update on one of the committee's boards i'm on which is visit the end. David Lodowski, Board of Trustees Meeting, which is also kind of the conventions visitors Bureau people know it from that term i've been on there for about a year now it's been almost one year and a couple things just want to run through real quick just to kind of give a. snapshot of what's been going on and what's been involved there. So a lot of things have been happening. My first year, it encompasses Bloomington Normal, of course, McLean County. What we've seen, you've probably seen some social media out there. Visitors have spent $549 million in McLean County, an increase of nearly 30 million or 5.8% in 2024, from over 2024. Basically, visitors spending across Illinois grew 3.5%. we grew about 5.8% in our area. One of the course things everyone knows is Route 66. We've been very active in that. You saw the centennial celebration, saw the cruising through the century signature celebration downtown, which was a couple months ago. A couple other things is VisitBN has secured more than 500,000 in state Route 66 funding for projects and visitor experience throughout McLean County. Some of the other things we're doing right now on the past year, we've adopted a five year strategic plan. We've invested in new websites, and we were also invested in better data. So we can show a measure of the impact that this group is doing more than just counting activities. They put together a couple other last couple of things on this. One of the big initiatives that we continue to do, which they've been doing for a long time, is looking to grow sports tourism, tourism, meetings and conferences and destination development and leisure and travel. So that is something really important that they're going to look at is to continue to increase the visibility of our community and to bring more people to our communities to spend more dollars. Let's see one last thing. Uh. Like I said, the visitors spent in Klink County last year, it grew nearly 6% in just one year. So we've seen a big increase. Activity supports more than 4,000 local jobs and generates 15.8 million in local tax revenue. So just I would give that quick update. And in the future, I'm gonna try to provide other updates on what this group is doing. Thanks.

Thank you. very much, and a brief report as mayor. I too, Member Scott, enjoyed the time that I was there for the dinner of the Freedom Fund banquet. So thank you to all. A number of you were at this year's Labor Day parade and represented the city council. We appreciate that. And we all, I think, enjoyed the parade. So thank you to those members that were able to be there with us on the parade route. I also had a number of members from the council that were able to be with us on September the 10th, the evening before, where we turned the lights on in the ring in downtown Bloomington. red, white, and blue and had an honor guard from the Bloomington American Legion. bagpiper, retired from the Bloomington Fire Department, and actually Roger Troxell's wife, Diane, who spoke as well, who had gone to Ground Zero shortly after 9-11, as a number of Bloomington firefighters did at that particular time. That was, I believe, warmly received, and it was a distinct honor, and I think it was such a creative purpose that that particular area of the ring was used for, and showed a number of our citizens the multi uses that that area can be used for. So thank you to all that were part of that as well. And I believe that we also then had several members that were there for the Miller Park, Bloomington Fire Department Memorial on September the 11th and our city manager, deputy city manager were there and member Straz I know was there. So members were all at all these events taking a moment to reflect upon 25 years of September 11th. And so thank you to each and every one of you that were there. With that, I believe that summarizes my report. Next, I would like to move into executive session and ask for a motion in which to do so. And a second in the purpose of the executive session under 2C1 is personnel matters tonight. not focused on discussion of litigation, but that the council will enter into the executive session regarding personnel. And so I'd ask for a motion in which to do that under the statutes.

I motion to move to executive session.

Motion by Member Straza. Seconded. Second. Seconded by Member Dannenberger. Thank you. All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed?

Motion carries.