City Council - Regular Meeting

We got one more to tie in and then we're pretty much finished. Can't get a hold of the guy, so.

I don't know where I got it.

Tuesday, June 16th, 2026 meeting of the Danville City Council. Roll call to establish a quorum, please.

Mayor Ricky Williams Jr.

Present.

Alderman Ed Butler.

Here.

Carolyn DeToy. Present. James Prashard.

Present.

Tom Hightower.

Here.

Barry Johnson. Present. Mike O'Kane.

Here.

Mike Poor. Present. Rick Strebing.

Here.

Sherry Pickering. Here. Tricia Teague.

Present.

Eve Ludwig. Present. Jaleel Jones. Doug Arns. Here. John Cooper.

Here.

13 present.

13 present, we do have a quorum. At this time, we will have the invocation led by Alderman Eve Ludwig, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance led by Alderman Teague. Please rise.

Heavenly Father, we come before you with grateful hearts for the most precious gift of your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. We thank you for the protection over the citizens of Danville during the recent destructive storms, the damaged homes, places of worship, business and recreation, and schools in our community. Thank you for sparing our lives and for the Good Samaritans who assisted their neighbors during their time of need. We give special thanks for all city employees, and especially the Public Works Department, who have been involved in recovery efforts. Bless them for their hard work, long hours, and commitment to restore our city. Lord, we yearn for your wisdom and direction as we prepare to make decisions tonight for our city. Father, give us humble hearts, setting aside our pride, personal agendas, and division, open our ears to hear your instruction and our hearts to do your will rather than our own help us to be good stewards of the responsibilities entrusted upon us and to serve the citizens of danville with godly wisdom fairness and compassion we ask these things through your most holy name amen amen i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic

Thank you, ladies. You have before you the minutes of the June 2nd meeting. Is there a motion to approve those?

So, second.

It's been moved and seconded. Is there any discussion or debate? Seeing none, all those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed, same sign. You also have before you an agenda for the evening. Is there a motion to approve? So moved. Second. It's been moved and seconded. Is there any discussion or debate? All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed, same sign. Thank you very much. Tonight, for my report, we have a number of things. First, there are no proclamations. However, we do have a couple of board, committee, and personnel appointments. First, if there be no objection, I would ask for a concurrence with the appointment of Shadonna Beard to the David S. Palmer Arena with a term expiring November 28. Is there a motion to approve?

So moved. Second.

It's been moved and seconded. Is there any discussion or debate? All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed, same sign. Thank you very much. Also, I would entertain a motion to concur with the appointment of Renee Henry to the Historic Preservation Commission with the term expiring of July 2029. Is there a motion to approve?

So moved. Second.

It's been moved and seconded. Is there any discussion or debate? All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed, same sign. Thank you very much. Are there any reports of boards, agencies, or commissions this evening? Seeing none, I have a number of items for you this evening. First and foremost, I just want to thank God for keeping people safe during the storm. I don't know if you saw it, but I have a five-year-old cousin who's very disabled. The entire garage collapsed. I mean, he has feeding tubes. He's very nonverbal. the garage collapsed on him completely. And the neighbors and our firefighters saved him, and he has no major injuries. That's just one of many. That's one of many. And so I know we have a lot of damage, but we can replace trees. We can replace houses and vehicles and garages, but we cannot replace people.

So we thank for protection.

I want to especially thank our all of our team, but particularly our police and fire fighters for all the work that they have done to help keep people safe, all of them. When I was out with you all, I saw extra police. I saw extra firefighters out helping put out cones at 2 and 3 o'clock in the morning when we were out clearing lines. So thank you for all of your efforts, and especially our public works team. Director Rua, you and your team have done a stellar job of getting us back on track. So I want to say thank you for all of your efforts. I also want to thank the linemen from Ameren and many other companies that came not only from our own community, but from around the state and around the country to help us get power back. Like many of you, I didn't have power until Saturday, and I had a house full of folks, about 12 people staying with me from Missouri, so I was thanking the Lord it wasn't hot so we could open the windows. I'm glad to have power back. It came just back before my uncle's memorial service on Saturday, so I felt like he was smiling on us just a little bit. Along with that, I want to share a couple of things about some things that I've noticed or heard about. We had a family reunion coming up at Douglas Park. And although there wasn't any kind of major destruction there, there was still a lot of debris and damage. The family that was holding the reunion, the grandmother, called us and said, well, Mayor, we'd really still, to our public workers team, we'd really, really like to be able to have it still. And we said, well, you can have it. It's safe. But, you know, there's just no, it's not going to look good. Do you know that that lady rounded up all of her 15 grandchildren, her children, and everyone, and they cleaned up that park like you wouldn't believe? Yeah. I do not have her name, but I want to just say thank you to her and to her family for their community spirit. Also, we had a call from an elderly disabled woman on North Bowman Avenue. And because the big tree fell on her property and was blocking her in, we could not go on to there because it's private property, right? And we had so many public things that we had to clean up. However, our director was able to connect her with Molly Goodwin and the Serve Together group. They went right out there and got that tree cut up and got her cleaned up so her and her son, who's also disabled, could receive the service that they need. So I just want to say a huge thank you to all of the neighbors everywhere who help someone. So Lincoln Park, gosh, it seems like that place is cursed almost, right? Unfortunately, there are a lot more trees down. We have had emergency bids today. We'll be awarding a contract to the lowest bidder, and that will be starting to be cleaned up here soon. Two things. Number one, all of the events that we had planned there this weekend are going to be relocated to other places. Some of those I know and I'll share with you momentarily. Others are not yet quite determined. But what I want to say is I thank you. Just as you helped your neighbors, many of you have been willing to help out and come out to the park and help clean up. Please, please, for your own safety and the love of all that is good, do not go into Lincoln Park, okay? And here is why. So many of those trees are 100 plus years old and they're still in bad shape. There are places in the canopy where there are trees that are cracked and broken that you cannot see right away. So the last thing that we need is y'all to be out there thinking that you're helping and God forbid something, you know, we all made it through the storm and then somebody is hurt or worse by afterwards trying to help us clean up. In the meantime, the best thing that you all can do for us and for the city as a whole is to continue to help your neighbors. If you have an older neighbor, a disabled neighbor, please continue to look out for them, okay, and make sure that they are safe. And regarding Lincoln Park, a couple of things that were coming up. Number one, the Juneteenth program. So thankfully, the Juneteenth pageant is scheduled at Laura Lee for Friday evening. So that doesn't have to have any alterations. However, the celebration will be moved on Saturday to Lincoln Park. So the celebration that's going on, I'm sorry, Ellsworth Park, that's happening from 11 to 7. It will be moved to Ellsworth Park instead. Also, the Dave Schroeder, many of you know Mr. Schroeder. He was a long time music educator in our community and most recently he was the director of both the Vermillion Festival Chorus as well as the Danville Municipal Band. His memorial concert is still going to be going on. The Municipal Band is going to continue. They will be doing it at Lincoln Park. I mean, good lord. You can tell I've had Lincoln Park on the mind, eh? It will be at St. James United Methodist Church on the corner of Williams and Vermillion Street at 7 o'clock on Sunday. So that will still go on 7 o'clock on Sunday at St. James, okay? and then last but not least we've had a lot of calls about arts in the park they are still working on alternate plans and as soon as they have those released they will and that's for the weekend of the 27th and 28th so we've got a little time yet but again i very much doubt that lincoln park will be safe by that time So I just wanted to make sure that you all were aware of those adjustments that we had to make in schedules. So for those who say there's nothing to do in Danville, I think I would beg to differ. Go out and support as many of these great things as you possibly can this weekend. A lot of folks have put in a lot of work to make sure we have good things to do, and we want to make sure that we support them together. Let's see.

Did my cover open? Okay.

So last but not least, some of you are probably wondering why you see so many folks here tonight, particularly young people. And I'm excited. It's because we have a lot of good news. So many times we hear negative things about our young people. But what I'm excited about is tonight we are going to honor all of those who have won state championships. Many of them have set new records for not only their school, some have set state records. And we are incredibly proud of them. So young folks and coaches, the way we're going to do this is I'm going to call Shalarman up first. And I will recognize the young people and then the athletic director and coach. And then after that, I will call up the folks from Danville High School. So Shalarman students, if you would please meet me at the podium. For those of you who don't know, it's okay, you can, there you go.

For those of you, face them, okay, there are more of them than these guys, all right.

So for those of you who don't know, our Shalarm and eighth grade boys are the state champions in the 1600 medley relay, so give them a round of applause. one of their plaques and then and then recognize each of them individually okay city of danville certificate of recognition the city of danville proudly congratulates all your team on becoming the state champions in the 2026 iesa 1600 meters sprint red lee relay your dedication perseverance teamwork and commitment to excellence have brought pride and distinction to our community this accomplishment reflects not only your athletic talent but also the character and determination that inspire others. On behalf of the citizens of Danville, we celebrate your success and commend you for representing our city with honor. Congratulations on this remarkable achievement. We are proud of you and we wish you continued success in all of your endeavors. This time, I'd like to recognize Mr. Elijah Brown. Mr. Jalen Teran. And last but not least, Mr. Kyle Moore. And at this time, if I could have Director Forsyth and Coach Brown come forward as well to join us. So those of you who don't know, Coach Brown has been around a while, because he may or may not have coached me many moons ago. I wasn't much of a runner, but I tried, okay? The City of Danville proudly congratulates Coach Wesley Brown for your exceptional leadership, dedication, and commitment to student athletes. Through your guidance, mentorship, and unwavering support, you have helped foster a culture of excellence, sportsmanship, and perseverance. Your efforts have played an instrumental role in the success of our student athletes and have brought pride and distinction to our community. The City of Danville extends its sincere appreciation for your positive impact you have made on the lives of young people and for your contributions to the continued success of Danville athletes. Congratulations.

One of the things you don't know is Arthur did run track in the summer. So he and his sister Amy both did summer track, so he did.

For those of you who don't know, we had some outstanding athletes at Danville High School as well and outstanding coaching. So proud of them. Our girls actually got second in the state of Illinois. Today we are taking a moment to honor all of our champions though. At this time, if we could have Ms. Brown. The city of Danville proudly congratulates Samantha brown for becoming the state champion and the 2026 ihsa class to a full ball. Mr. The city of Danville proudly congratulates Jamia Esther for becoming the state champion in the 2026 IHSA 200 Meter Dash. And last but certainly not least, Mr. Jackson, please come forward. The city of Danville proudly congratulates Mario Jackson for claiming the Triple Crown by becoming the state champion in the 2026 IHSA 100, 200, and 400 meter dash. At this time, if we could have our athletic director, Ms. Mattingly, and the rest of the coaches please join us. Director Mattingly, I'm going to read yours. And coaches, just know that yours has similar sentiment, all right? The city of Danville proudly congratulates Athletic Director Megan Mattingly for your exceptional leadership, dedication, and commitment to student athletes. Through your guidance, mentorship, and unwavering support, you have helped foster a culture of excellence, sportsmanship, and perseverance. Your efforts have played an instrumental role in the success of our student athletes and have brought pride and distinction to our community. The city of Danville extends our sincere appreciation for the positive impact that you've made on the lives of young people and for your contributions to the continued success of Danville Athletics. Congratulations. we have Coach Tyler Arnholt. Coach Carl Long. If you will stay here for just one moment, would you mind hand passing me those please? Thank you. So, it's been a while since we've done this and I've decided that we need to start catching up. So, two things are going to happen. Number one, we are going to be giving to each of the schools metal signs displayed in your school that will show the championships, but also we will be putting forth signs. You know, in other communities, when they have champions, they put in signs saying welcome from these champions. We are going to be honoring these champions. Thank you all very much. We appreciate you. Well, I know a number of you mostly came to support our young athletes. I want to just say we're incredibly proud of what you've accomplished on the field. However, we're more proud of who you are as people. I know several of you. You have good character. You have good work ethic. You're not only good teammates, but you're good friends and good students. So just thank you. We wish you the best in your next endeavors. I know a lot of you only came to support them, so at this time, if you would like, we will take a few moments that you may go. I know with impending storms and such, that's important to a lot of people. Thank you, and have a great evening.

Yeah, I sure did.

We'll give them just a few moments to continue clearing out and then we'll resume.

Shoulder, I think. Is this rotator cuff?

I think they had to go back and redo it.

I bet you've been up to no good.

Oh, girl, I wish I was. I had a shoulder. We've been passing out food there for the kids.

He's had a couple, two, three.

Oh, boy.

He's been hard there for a while. He's been hard and laughing and laughing. See that, wow. That hurts too.

Yes, it does. At this time we will go ahead and resume our meeting.

Madam Clerk, actually, let's give it just a moment yet. I apologize.

Hey, what's up, baby? Oh, you're there? What? That's not Carl. OK. All right. OK.

All right, we will resume. Madam Clerk, do you have any petitions, communications, or audience comments this evening?

We do. When I call your name, please come to the podium. You'll have three minutes to speak. PJ Bourne.

Good evening. I would like the record to show as I pass out some papers pertaining to my request that I've made known. I'd like to give each one of the board's CDL a copy at all for them to look over as well. Alderman Butler. yes thank you thank you mayor appreciate you so much tell me if you work hard on me but I appreciate you so thank you as the mayor give each one of you a copy of the letter that I want to make sure that you have I did talk to my lawyer today and she assured me that the board received a letter pertaining to my request which was made to you and it was mailed out on the 23rd as well as dated on the 23rd. And so on last Tuesday when we came to meeting, Mr. Mike Purse said that that was in discussion and so I thought I'd bring this letter to the City Council so that they too can tell me what are we discussing now I've been coming to you for over a year there has nothing changed pertaining to my location nor my address I am still the only one at that location and the address it is yet a CODISEC area at that location and the address and And so I want to know, and I also want to end the discussion, and I'd like to have an answer, and hopefully we can get an answer tonight. If we cannot get an answer tonight, then I will have my lawyer reach back out to the city council to forward the next step. Can we have an understanding as to what is next? I would definitely like the record to show this and to see that each and every one of you have a copy of the letter that was drawn up by my lawyer pertaining to the street change. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Mrs. Bourne.

You're welcome. Brad Zerman.

Good evening. I'm here because I believe 7 Point was unfairly targeted by the city in connection with our sponsorship of Pride Fest. This started when the city clerk sent me a letter stating that Seven Point could not advertise its dispensary because of state law. This was not accurate. The state code does not say a dispensary cannot advertise or identify itself. The law addresses advertising cannabis products or cannabis-infused products in certain areas. A dispensary is not a cannabis product. I informed the city clerk and city's attorney Leon Parker via phone calls and emails about the city's incorrect understanding of state law. Seven Point already understood the law. We already had our plan in place with our own team and our own specialized cannabis attorneys who are experts in Illinois and national cannabis laws. Let me be clear, Seven Point never intended to promote cannabis products at Pride Fest. We were not handing out cannabis. We were not handing out coupons for cannabis. We're not advertising pre-rolls, flour, edibles, concentrates, or any other cannabis product. We didn't use any cannabis leaf imagery. In fact, our plan was to cover up the word cannabis entirely from our tent. We didn't bring merchandise that had the word cannabis on it. What Seven Point did intend to do was to support Pride Fest, sponsor a stage, promote our lawful business by name, identify Seven Point and Smoke Lab, and give away ordinary merch like shirts, stickers, and key chains. That is not cannabis product advertising. That is a lawful business identifying itself. Because the city still seemed to be treating advertising a dispensary as if it were the same thing as advertising cannabis products, I referred Mr. Parker to my attorney, David Standa. After Mr. Parker spoke with my attorney, I thought the issue was resolved. In fact, Mr. Parker later represented that he and my attorney were clear on the law. But after a few days of silence, the intimidating emails started again. The city attorney questioned a Facebook post with a seven point banner. A post seven point did not create and had nothing to do with. He brought up our interviews on podcasts. He referenced our website and a YouTube video. He even looked into our Secretary of State business registrations. This was not normal event compliance. This was a city using taxpayer-funded legal time to monitor a local business's social media interviews, YouTube content, and Secretary of State registrations to manufacture a reason to interfere with our Pridefest sponsorship. And here is why this feels selective. Another area dispensary at Pridefest did distribute coupons for pre-rolls. I have a copy of that coupon right here.

Mr. Zerman, your time is up. Thank you, sir.

Pre-rolls are cannabis products. Mr. Zerman, your time is up. That is the exact type of product specific promotion they were worried about. My question is, did the city attorney contact that dispensary repeatedly? Did the city monitor their social media, podcasts, YouTube videos, and registrations? Did the city threaten to have their materials removed? I'm not here to attack another business. I'm here to ask, why was Seven Point singled out? Let me ask you for transparency.

Mr. Parker, would you like to respond?

Sure, I can respond to Mr. Zerman. I did have contact with Mr. Zerman. I did speak to him. He also spoke to our city clerk. And I never had a communication with Mr. Zerman where I told him he could not advertise his dispensary. In fact, Mr. Zerman was pretty adamant that he wanted to have cannabis on some of his, on his tent, his promotional items, and it was made clear by the clerk, myself, that that couldn't happen. Mr. Zerman provided me with an email from his attorney wanting or giving me the contact information so I could contact his attorney, which I did. I thought we had an understanding. I thought we both understood the statute regarding the prohibitions on cannabis in city parks. I will read a quote from his attorney to Mr. Zerman in an email that Mr. Zerman provided to me. his attorney to Mr. Zerman, quote, this means that you can't have anything that is advertising cannabis at this festival if it is in a public park. Selling hemp drinks is fine. Anything talking about cannabis or referencing cannabis products would violate the statute. The statute... The state statute prohibits advertising or promoting cannabis or cannabis-infused products within 1,000 feet of school grounds, playground, rec center, public park, Ellsworth Park is included, public library, and game arcades. These are places where children frequent. That's why there's a prohibition. All we told Mr. Zerman is we would be complying with state and local laws. Mr. Zerman at no time communicated with me that he intended to cover up cannabis on any ads or his tent. Had he merely stated that, it wouldn't be an issue.

Thank you.

No, it's not time for feedback, Mr. Zerman. It is not time for feedback. It's not time for feedback.

Amy Lee.

Good evening, I'm Amy Lee with Seven Point. And before discussing Seven Point's outdoor patio, I would like to briefly address the process that brought us here tonight. We had originally been informed that this topic would be included on the June 9th Public Works Committee agenda. We welcomed the opportunity because we wanted to introduce the concept and receive feedback before this matter came before the full City Council. However, when we arrived, we learned the item was not on the agenda. While discussion ultimately occurred, it was not through the process we had been led to expect. From our perspective, this was disappointing and felt consistent with a broader pattern in which Seven Point has faced obstacles when attempting to participate in community and civic processes. The primary question before the council is whether outdoor smoking on our proposed patio would create a nuisance for neighboring businesses. During prior discussions, concerns were raised about people entering Danville and being exposed to cannabis smoke. Comparisons were also made to another establishment in Tilton. However, that comparison is difficult because the site conditions are substantially different. If you were to see the patio, it would resemble a traditional outdoor beer garden with tables, overhead umbrellas, lawn games, controlled access, and designated seating areas. It is not simply an open area for smoking. To help answer the question of potential impacts, we completed a preliminary smoke dispersion screening. The screening was designed to answer a simple question, whether the smoke from the patio would be likely to create a recurring nuisance for neighboring businesses. The preliminary findings suggest that the combination of outdoor dispersion, the separation distance, and the existing eight-foot fence barrier make it unlikely that the proposed patio would create a recurring nuisance condition for neighboring businesses. Additionally, Baymont by Wyndham had signed a cannabis smoking consent and neighbor acknowledgement, and we are communicating with the owner of the hotel behind our property. We are also pursuing independent engineering review and validation of these findings. I recognize that people may hold differing opinions regarding cannabis consumption. However, this proposal should be evaluated based on its actual impact on neighboring businesses and the objective information available. Seven Point is a state licensed legally operating business in Danville. We create jobs, generate tax revenue, support local initiatives, and contribute to this community. Like any other business, we simply ask to be evaluated fairly and on the facts. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Lee.

Dean Carlton?

Good evening. I'm here to represent Bloons over a million and basically to thank you. Pat O'Shaughnessy has taught our steering committee that we need to say thank you at least seven times and more for it to affect. So that's two. Keep somebody keep track. We had a great event. We broke new ground in a new location. Everything was new. Maybe our 10th year, but it was like starting all over again. And we have a very long list of people to thank and say thank you to. In particular, I want to give a shout out to Mayor Williams, David Rui, and Joe Claypool for their leadership in helping our event. Bloomsdale Vermillion is a fully volunteer organization. All the board members are volunteers, all the steering committee are volunteers, and we have hundreds and hundreds of people who help us make this event happen, and a great thing for our community and our county as a whole. Without those volunteers and without help from the city and other folks, it would be impossible to get this done. But we have some superstars that we wanted to shout out to. Eric Kinzer and Patrick Lewis lived out there a couple of days, worked very, very hard. The great thing about me is, for me as one of the co-chairs, we don't have to worry about what they're going to do. They figure it out on their own. This is great. We don't have to detail every piece. Your staff know how to make this happen. Eric and Patrick were joined by Jeff Pope on the teardown side. That was the fastest teardown in 10 years we've ever had. We didn't have nearly as much fence because of the park. We had reduced a lot of the extra effort. And due to the guidance of the team that made that happen, we didn't have to work nearly as hard. And I don't know about you, but I like working not very hard. It's one of my favorite things. We also had a bunch of volunteers and city employees help us move a bunch of stuff from the airport out to the park, a lot of which is not going back because we We found a place we can keep a lot of that stuff at the park. And we don't need nearly as much as we used to at the airport. The miles and miles of, what I think miles, of fencing that we were required for safety barrier at the airport to keep people from wandering on the active runways, we don't need that at all at the park. So it was great. We could not do it without the help of the city and those active folks that I listed that make this thing happen for our community, our city, our county, and people from all around. I mean, there were people from multiple states that were there. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Carlson. We appreciate you and the committee.

Michael Ewing.

Good evening. On behalf of the board of directors for Danville Rescue Men's Overnight Shelter, we again say thank you to our mayor, the city council on awarding this renovation contract along with the monetary contract that will help fortify us for the next few years as we become more financially stable. But this evening, I want to give a special shout out to the ones that actually put in the work to bring this contract before you guys. It's Logan Kronk and his staff. I can't think of a young lady name that usually worked with you, Logan. Tess. Yes, sir. They diligently did a lot of work with us and the contractors. And even after the work is completed, Logan, I'm still going to continue to tell you about those big muscles that you got. That's a little inside joke with me and him. Mr. John Foley, he always presented himself as a professional, a gentleman, and a new friend when asking anything of me. That mutual respect that these guys always showed me and our organization goes a long way. And we're forever grateful for that. We say thanks again. And my famous saying that I always say is, we're stronger together. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Ewing. We appreciate all the work that you and the board are doing and all the volunteers as well.

That's all I have, Mayor. I got a question.

Yes. In regards to seven points, what I was talking about, I went Saturday. And I guess in regards to this, did we have some type of police go and check, see if it was being enforced or not? I mean, we got a banner police. I guess that's what we're looking after. Is that what happened?

No. To my knowledge, there wasn't any police presence there. Only if they were called were they going to respond.

So, but one tent was selling drug paraphernalia. Is that legal or illegal? That would be not allowed pursuant to state statute. So it happened. I have no knowledge of that. I do. And it did happen. So just, you know, for future reference, seven points when we brought him in town. They said they wanted to get actively involved sponsoring events and stuff like that. To avoid anything like this, hopefully we can stop that. If there's a law there on the banner stuff, hopefully that'll end all that. I'm in their corner.

The bottom line is I'm in their corner, too. But we are not going to allow people to advertise cannabis to our children in our parks. And actually, this is not really a time for discussion. This is really a time for us to hear from the community. So I'm going to move on to the next item. Item 8A is a zoning petition, an ordinance amending the zoning ordinance and accompanying map thereto, petition number 314. Is there a motion to approve? So moved.

Is there a second? Second.

It's been moved and seconded. Is there any discussion or debate? Seeing none, roll call vote, please.

Alderman Butler? Yes. Detoy? Yes. Pichard? Yes. Hightower?

Yes.

Johnson? Yes. O'Kane? Yes. Poore? Yes. Strebing? Yes. Pickering? Yes. Teague? Yes. Ludwig? Yes. Arntz? Yes. Cooper? Yes. 13 yes.

13 yes. The motion carries. Item 8B is an ordinance amending the zoning ordinance special use permit number 273. Is there a motion to approve? So moved. Is there a second? Second. It's been moved and seconded. Any discussion or debate? Roll call vote, please.

Alderman Dettoy? Yes. Pichard? Yes. Hightower? Yes. Johnson? Yes. Okane? Yes. Poore? Yes. Strebing? Yes. Pickering? Yes. Teague? Yes. Ludwig? Yes. Arns? Yes. Cooper? Yes. Butler?

Yes.

13 yes.

13 yes. The motion carries. Item 9 is the approval of the payrolls. You have before you the payrolls of June 5th and June 12th. Is there a motion to approve those?

So moved.

Second. It's been moved and seconded. Is there any discussion or debate? Roll call vote, please.

Alderman Pichard?

Yes.

Hightower?

Yes.

Johnson? Yes. O'Kane? Yes. Poore? Yes. Strebing? Yes. Pickering? Yes. Teague? Yes. Ludwig? Yes. Arntz? Yes. Cooper? Yes. Butler?

Yes.

Detoy? Yes. 13 yes.

13 yes, the motion carries. You also have before you the vouchers payable of June 9 and June 16, as well as a special run from June 3.

Is there a motion to approve those?

So moved.

Second.

It's been moved and seconded. Is there any discussion or debate? Yes, Alderman T.

I see a voucher for, this is on the June 16th, accounts payable on the first page, a payment to Vermillion Heritage Foundation, which I assume then is the Fisher, for sponsorship for First Friday's event. So I'm curious to know more information about it. And I may have follow-up questions depending on the answer.

Sure. So the Fisher Theater is hosting performers for our event. The performance cost is the $5,000. So to make it easier on our end, we are paying the Fisher the sponsorship for the Fisher to be able to organize the event and do all of the organization on the back end for the performers to arrive.

And then did we? get sponsorship revenue to offset the cost of that $5,000 or no?

Yeah, I seek sponsorship every single year towards the end of the year for First Friday. So that came directly out of the First Friday's budget that we do sponsorship for. So yes. OK, thank you.

Any further questions, Alderman T? No, that was it. Thank you. Roll call vote, please.

Alderman Hightower? Yes. Johnson? Yes. O'Kane? Yes. Poore? Yes. Strebing? Yes. Pickering? Yes. Teague? Yes. Ludwig? Yes. Arns? Yes. Cooper? Yes. Butler? Yes. Detoy? Yes. Pichard? Yes. 13 yes.

13 yes, the motion carries. This time we'll receive our Public Works Committee report. Chairman Fuller.

Thank you, Mayor. 11A is a resolution approving a five-year contract with Ecolane USA Incorporated for Intelligent Transportation Services, ITS Software, for Damwell Mass Transit. I move to spend three minutes for your approval, and I need a second.

Second.

Questions? Roll call, please.

Alderman Johnson.

Yes.

O'Kane.

Yes.

Poore. Yes. Strebing. Yes. Pickering. Yes. Teague. Yes. Ludwig. Yes. Ahrens. Yes. Cooper. Yes. Butler. Yes. Detoy. Yes. Pashard. Yes. Hightower. Yes. 13 yes.

13 yes. Thank you. 11B is an ordinance amending the Danville City Code, Chapter 155, Solar Ordinance. Move to spend the reading. Ask for your approval.

Second. Second.

Question, Harvey Cooper.

Logan, highlight what we're doing here on this.

Yeah. So through trial and error of our initial amendment to regulate these large-scale solar sites, the intent of that ordinance was to regulate standalone large-scale solar sites with no accessory use or feeding into a use. It was discovered that this provided an obstacle to local industry when they want to install a solar panel array and feed it directly into their building to use power on site. So what this amendment does is it defines what a necessary solar site is and it defers it to the table of uses in the zoning code instead of the pretty heavily restrictive setbacks and bulk and area requirements that are listed individually in Chapter 155. So trying to make it a little bit easier for industry and warehouses to utilize large solar on site and not selling back into the grid. And quite simply, the reason we went this route is Typically, where these industries are, there are no residents that this can negatively impact, which was the intent with the initial Chapter 155 code revision. Okay.

Alderman Arns.

So this will allow an industrial facility to move forward with a project?

This will allow one to do so. That's correct.

Thank you.

Yes, I have a question, too. What is the ramification or the issue with any one entity selling back power back to the grid? Does that have anything to do with us, or is that just a power company? We said selling back to the power company, right?

Yeah, the city doesn't get involved in the regulation of how or whom they distribute power to. Okay.

And so what does the grid, uh, selling it back to the grid have to do with us within our ordinance?

Yeah, so I think you're referring to, there's a couple of terms in there. So typically on all the large scale solar arrays that we're not considering accessory uses are selling directly back to the grid or secondary users. The deregulation that we're attempting to propose tonight is for those that are using the power directly on site.

Okay. Okay, because it seemed like to me if they taking and selling back to the grid, I mean, this would be a plus for that company.

Yeah, we're not stopping. Yeah, we're not stopping any surplus energy going back to the grid. This is merely for what we've been proposed with on a project and more to come of allowing industry to utilize more property to make larger arrays, because they're quite limited on the space that they currently have.

OK, all right. Yeah, thanks, Lou.

No, to follow up on that, this is for businesses constructing their own solar to utilize for their own business.

In industrial circumstances, yes.

It's similar to aqua or American water now, where they put in the solar. They're the only one that use that solar. That all goes to their plant.

You're right. It might be their plant, but if they got enough solar, that they could make a profit as well and could kind of pay back to the grid so that they would have either income or credit. CHRIS RODGERS.

Yeah, if they produced an overabundance.

DAVID BURRAGE.

Yeah.

And so right now, are we saying that we're limiting them from doing that?

No. Oh, we're not? No, no.

Oh, OK. I got you now.

Nor will we have the ability to measure if they have any surplus energy. Oh, OK. Got you. OK. OK. I got you now.

And for the sake of clarification, all of the special use permits that we put in place with the last ordinance change that would prevent solar from being erected in industrially zoned or agriculturally zoned areas adjacent to residential still apply.

Nothing else is being changed other than this.

Thank you.

Roll call, please.

Walderman O'Kane?

Yes.

Poore? Yes. Strebing? Yes. Pickering? Yes. Teague? Yes. Ludwig? Yes. Arntz? Yes. Cooper? Yes. Butler? Yes. Detoy? Yes. Pichard?

Yes.

Hightower?

Yes.

Johnson?

Yes.

13 yes.

13, yes, thank you. 11D is a resolution approving the purchase of a tractor mower for Harrison Park Golf Course.

10C. Excuse me? 10C.

My pen was going too fast. I scratched off. OK, C is an ordinance authorizing the purchase of real property at 1236 Edward Park Circle for infrastructure improvements. Move to spend three minutes for your approval.

Second.

Okay? Questions? All in the hearts.

Can we get some details?

Yeah. I don't know if it was ironic or not, but this property came up in discussion, I don't know, about a month ago at either one of the committees or city council. And as you can tell from the map provided in your packet, it's a much more substantial amount of land than just a rental house, which if you went out and looked at the condition of the house itself, it's actually not in bad shape. It's an income-producing property. But I had developed a relationship with this land owner three years ago, which is the amount of time that needed to pass by for him to seek his incentives for land transfers and things like that. That three years has passed. He called and he said, He said he gave us essentially a verbal first rider refusal. And here was the sale price that's listed in the purchase contract. And that's what's being proposed and brought to you tonight. And this is, I can't remember the acreage. It was roughly seven acres. 7.7 acres total with one rental dwelling. And remaining on this roadway will be two houses if this is approved.

Alderman Ahrens, I know one of the things that you and I both agree on is infrastructure reduction, and it is our purpose and long-term goal to be able to reduce infrastructure here by not having to maintain that road and being able to hopefully cap the sewer there at some point as well.

Other questions? Roll call, please, on 11C.

Alderman Pickering? Yes. Teague? Yes. Ludwig? Yes. Arntz?

Yes.

Cooper?

Yes.

Butler? Yes. Datoye? Yes. Pichard? Yes. Hightower? Yes. Johnson?

Yes.

O'Kane? Yes. Poore? Yes. Strebing? Yes. 13 yes.

13 yes, thank you. Now that you've had time to think about it, 11b. The resolution approving the purchase of a tractor mower for Harrison Park Golf Course. Move to dispense read and ask for your approval.

Second.

Questions? Roll call, please.

Alderman Pickering? Yes. Teague? Yes. Ludwig? Yes. Arntz? Yes. Cooper? Yes. Butler? Yes. Detoy? Yes. Pichard?

Yes.

Hightower? Yes. Johnson? Yes. O'Kane?

Yes.

Fore? Yes. Strebing?

Yes.

13 yes.

13, yes. Thank you. 11E is a resolution authorizes disposal of unusable, replaced, or uneconomical vehicles and equipment. We'll dispense a read and ask for your approval.

So moved. I'll move second. So moved. OK. It's been moved and seconded and seconded. Seconded and seconded.

OK. Questions? OK. Roll call, please.

Alderman Teague. Yes. Ledwig. Yes. Arns.

Yes.

Cooper. Yes. Butler. Yes. Detoy. Yes. Pichard.

Yes.

Hightower. Yes. Johnson. Yes. O'Kane. Yes. Poor. Yes. Strebing. Yes. Pickering. Yes. 13 yes.

13, yes, thank you. 11F is a resolution awarding the contract for bid number 799 for CDBG Homelessness Project at 213 North Bowman and accepting the contract with Danville Rescue. Move to spend three and ask for your approval. Need a second.

Second.

OK, questions? OK, roll call, please.

Alderman Ludwig? Yes. Arntz? Yes. Cooper? Yes. Butler? Yes. Detoy? Yes. Pichard? Yes. Hightower? Yes. Johnson? Yes. Okane? Yes. Poore? Yes. Strebing?

Yes.

Pickering? Yes. Teague? Yes. 13 yes.

13 yes, thank you. 11G is a resolution awarding the contract for bid number 802, Boiling Springs Road Improvements. Move to Spencer Reed and ask for your approval. Second. OK. Questions?

Will there be a neighborhood meeting scheduled to discuss the project and let everybody know what to expect?

We haven't scheduled that yet, but we can. We do intend. We've coordinated with HOA out in Bayview, reached out to us, and we've got a pre-con scheduled next week. So after that, we're going to get a mailer out to everybody just to update them on any other details, and then we can follow up a neighborhood meeting if you guys would prefer that. Thank you.

Ten years. Good to see it.

Roll call, please.

Alderman Arns.

Happy to be the first yes.

Cooper. Yes. Butler.

Yes.

Detoy. Yes. Pichard. Yes. Hightower.

Yes.

Johnson. Yes. O'Kane. Yes. Poor. Yes. Strebing. Yes. Pickering. Yes. Teague. Yes. Ludwig. Yes. 13 yes.

13, yes, thank you.

Any information?

One item. Unfortunately, I'm bringing to the council not a life-threatening emergency, but an emergency nonetheless I need to inform you of. After the demolition of the downtown buildings on Vermillion, so Chart, DC Fitness, and the building in between, The south wall exposed during all these storms, we had no idea how it was going to react while it wasn't sealed. The structure, I've been notified by the owner that the structure is letting in a lot of water. Unfortunately, we will not have the ability to hold off and go out for bid. We need to get this sealed up immediately before real damage is caused here. So that is my intent, to get several proposals. We've had an architect tell us what needs to happen here. We do not know how much it's going to cost yet. So we'll get some proposals and hopefully get this weatherized as quick as possible.

Holder in arms.

What are the proposals for?

Oh, yeah. So essentially, if you're driven by the site, the building was conjoined with rafters, high and low. So filling in the brick, filling in the gaps where needed. And then essentially what's going to occur is a glue, because it's more affordable. I'll leave it as that. It's a glue to bring all the brick back together. And then it'll be a water vapor barrier. The basement will need a water barrier as well. So dig out around the foundation and put in a water barrier there. And then put on some type of siding at the end of the project. And then tuck the top, the roof.

It was backfilled before the basement wall was waterproof.

they they left us a little bit of room but yeah they we had no idea when when this next step of the project was going to occur for for safety purposes we went ahead and filled it in and had them grade and seed it but they did leave a little bit off knowing that we're likely coming back in but that's correct

Yep, and then I just wanted to follow up on a few of the items of information that the mayor provided at the beginning of the meeting about Lincoln Park. So we did get, just due to the past windstorm that I've been through and kind of learned through some mistakes and understandings and learned how FEMA dollars work, so what we did is we requested quotations. We got four quotations back from tree removal contractors to basically get the park completely safe and open and back to what we would consider looking normal other than we're going to be shorts and trees. And so the lowest number on that is actually $100,000. So we've given that contractor, which coincidentally is the same contractor that was the low bidder on our recent tree removal contract that we put out with our tree removal grant. So that contractor is set to begin tomorrow on the cleanup of Lincoln Park. They're estimating two to three weeks on that. So I just wanted to give a little bit more information than I had the ability to give the mayor prior to the meeting. And then, again, I actually just wanted to just give a shout-out to the Public Works team. I know the mayor did a pretty good job of giving a shout-out to them. We had some individuals who I thought I would be the first one in the door and start making calls, and I walked in the door and I had three individuals sitting there ready to go, knowing that the storm went through and just showed up. And So to me, that says something about the commitment that we have of our individuals. And these were lead workers that just saw the storm go through and got in there. And they were actually already calling people in by the time I got there. And I got there within like 10 minutes. So it was pretty cool to see. So I just want to shout them out. But it's Aaron Dye and Tyler West. That would be our streets lead worker and our solid waste lead worker that had showed up. And then also Tom Parsons was there pretty immediately as well. who is our operations manager and then shortly after that we had our entire supervisory team as well show up along with many many many of the guys and gals of Public Works who worked completely through the night and through the next day and we made sure that every road was open before we went home outside of the trees that had power lines in them that we had to wait on so Anyway, it was one of those times where I was out driving around and checking sites and stuff. But you see a lot of the community that ended up going and helping each other. And you see neighbors helping neighbors and things like that. And just a cool thing to see the community take something that could be such a bad thing and turn it into a really awesome thing where they come together and they unite. And so I was impressed with our team, but even more impressed with the community as a whole and just wanted to say thanks.

Over and out.

Certainly, kudos to first responders, public works, and everybody. Great response. The question on the trees in Lincoln, will they be doing an assessment of all remaining trees, going back to the not knowing what damage still exists?

Yeah, so they're going to be up in the bucket basically getting hangers and stuff like that. But we also have an arborist on retainer that is certified in tree assessments that we'll be bringing in as well once it's once we get to the point where we're able to assess what's remaining, and we'll do a full assessment of Lincoln Park. And it sounds like that might or might not be able to be covered under the tree grant as well. Some of this work might be able to be done in that aspect as well.

And Alderman Arns, after the derecho, we did do an assessment, and they took down anything that was questionable. So that means right now we have, again, what were healthy trees coming down, unfortunately.

So it was just notified to me that the contractor that actually won this bid is actually also a certified arborist with the track certification to actually assess those trees as well. So we should have the right people on the job.

And lastly, I'm assuming, because thankfully property was not damaged, we're not going to be seeing any assistance the way FEMA issues their reimbursement dollars are pretty limiting for small communities unless they're significant structural damage.

Yeah, the last time we had it come through, they had us, they covered all of the tree removal and all of the everything, you know, us picking everything up on the sides of the streets and all the labor and everything they actually covered. So I was surprised when they did that last time. So I'm kind of waiting to see. But I would say like in Lincoln Park, I'd say the damage is very similar to the last time we got coverage on it. And they covered And that last storm up to, I think they covered about $500,000 worth that we received back from them. So this is a pretty substantial amount. Good. Great.

Alderman Teague. Along those same lines, a couple of questions. Pertaining to FEMA first. Does there have to be a state of emergency declared for there to be assistance? How does that work?

Yeah. So I'm not, so we're not a hundred percent sure if there will be any assistance coming at all. We don't know. And last time we didn't know for a month and a half to two months later until they decided that, Hey, they're going to come to the county. And again, My memory is a little bit foggy, but from what I recall, the county as a whole, per the population, had to have a certain dollar figure met of damage. And then they would get down into the individual counties. And because of the documentation that our team kept last time, we actually were able to cover the amount of damage needed to cut for the whole county. So then all these little, the smaller individual surrounding communities were able to also receive funding from that. That's a very rudimentary understanding that was a few years back. So that's my remembrance of it. But once they declare it, so they may not. Either way, I think just going out for a few proposals to make sure that we're getting the best bang for our buck is the wisest way to go about it when we could turn it around so quickly.

I think the other question that I have, because you referred back to when we had the direct show back in 23, I'm assuming that all the FEMA assistance that was received at that time by us was pertaining to city-owned property, correct? Correct. Either city-owned property or city labor or city expenses. Yes. The reason why I'm asking about a declaration of emergency is because I'm concerned about citizens and their properties and what happens when a state of emergency is declared and what opportunities that may open up for our citizens who also had significant property damages. And so that's one of the things that I'm curious about in terms of if there's a threshold for what constitutes an emergency, a local declaration of emergency, and those types of things, because then it conceivably could open doors for citizens to take advantage of opportunities to get FEMA assistance outside of what the city receives, right? The city is receiving assistance for city expenses, but the city is not gonna help any of those residents along Chandler, Grant, Harmon, who also have significant property damage, because they were in that same line that Lincoln Park was in.

Alderman Teague, from talking with our local FEMA director, it was my understanding that they have to declare a state of emergency. I will follow up with him again tomorrow to verify to make sure that we receive and that our citizens receive everything they're eligible for.

Okay. Thank you. My next question The grant dollars that we just talked about two weeks ago pertaining to trees, and I know we had looked at the possibility of, or we were talking, we mentioned a couple weeks ago, looking at the possibility of helping citizens with dying trees in their yards even though they might not be in the right of way. Could those grant dollars be used to help citizens with tree damages in their yards? particularly those who have trees that fell on structures.

That would be a question that we would have to probably ask our grant administrator. I don't I don't know the answer to that just because we already have a defined scope within our grant. And so that may be a you know, we may have to request modification that may or may not be eligible, but we can ask and find out.

Because the thing that I'm thinking about is, you know, people who may have had insufficient insurance for acts of God and things that happen, and those trees have caused significant damage. And so if we happen to have tree grants, we happen to be removing trees, and if we have extra dollars available in those grants, that would be a tremendous use for our citizens because otherwise we might bear the brunt of those costs in other ways later. Let's see. I think those were the only questions that I had around the storm. Thank you.

Alderman Teague, I agree. I would love to be able to help our citizens. One of the challenges that we face, though, is now that we have identified the number of dangerous or dead trees that we have, we've created a liability for the city of Danville that if we don't, some of what you see happening right now is some of these dead trees or bad trees that we own have fallen. into the streets or onto people's property. So I think from a liability perspective, one of the things we must do is make sure we take care of our liability first so that we don't create or cause additional problems for our citizens. And while I would certainly like to help them individually, one of the ways that we must protect them is by taking care of what we have so that we don't cause any harm. For example, I saw trees on people's cars. I saw trees on people's garages that came from the right of way. And we've got to make sure we don't leave our citizens in jeopardy in those ways either. But I think absolutely if there is additional money after we take care of our responsibility, that's something we can consider and we'll certainly ask our grantors.

The last thing I have was brought to mind when the discussion was taking place. There's a lot of people that don't have access to chainsaws and things, so I recognize we'd like to have everything cut to pieces and what have you. Appreciate the approach that was taken with the lady that was discussed. I hope we can develop a program to deal with the people that simply can't cut it to four foot lengths or don't have someone capable. So I don't know if we need to give a little more time with another roundup to pick up later, or if they could get onto a special list. Because a lot of times, they may have somebody help drag it out to the curb, but they have no way of getting it cut up and piled up.

So this is just our initial projection. Alderman, if the need still exists, we will certainly revisit.

Thank you.

Alderman Dover.

Uh, yes. I also would like to thank, uh, you know, Dave and his crew as well. Uh, they've done a great job. I even called Dave myself and, uh, you know, a tree had, had done, fell across my street, but, but I'm going to let Dave know that he don't have to worry about cutting a tree or some guys and myself there cut the tree up and threw it to the side. Now, my only issue is that it fell across a pole, uh, the line cable and the pole, uh, It pulled a pole there maybe about eight inches from its barrier. And so do I need to call the power company, the cable place myself?

Yeah, you could look up the Ameren emergency contact and call it in. If you can't find that or anything, you can always feel free to give Public Works a call, and we can pass that information along for you. Yeah, yeah, okay.

And then the tree that fell, there is a fine line there between, you know, there's a city lot in between my lots, and it's on the city lot. Now, I'm going to try to cut it up there for you, and it's on the city lot, but the trunk itself, it needs to be removed. Mm-hmm. So...

Yeah, we'll be making our rounds, as Mayor stated. So we're trying to get through the city, this initial round, in the first couple of weeks. But having been through this before, I know that that won't be the end of it. And we'll have some smaller lingering things that remain that we'll have to address as the time comes. Through this first initial round, we're really hoping we can get the bulk of it picked up. And we'll go from there. Yeah, okay.

Yeah, I'm not trying to rush anything. I'm in no hurry there, you know, because it's out in the street and it's on the side of the road. I just don't want your inspectors there to come around when the grass grow around it and give me a citation.

I would say just for any resident who's got anything in front of their house or they've drug something to the curb or anything like that, I just would encourage anybody just give Public Works a call. That way we can log the address down and we've got it on a list and we can make sure we get to it. And that also gives our supervisors a list to be able to go out and assess ahead of time so that we know what kind of crew we need to send and we can more rapidly get through the city.

OK. Yeah, thanks, Dave.

Follow up question. Once upon a time, the city had a text notification service to allow for push notifications to citizens about important things like this. Do we still have that service available? Because I know it's been years since I received a text from the city.

Yes. With our new website, it also included the texting service. So we did have to have everybody resubscribe when we launched our new website. I did send out a text alert, I believe it was Friday morning, for tree brush pickup and included the link to the press release on our website as well.

So two follow-up questions. Number one, how does a person subscribe if they're not already subscribed? Number two, which I'm assuming you probably don't know the answer to right now but could send me an answer to later, is how many people do we actually have subscribed to that service?

We have, I think it's 564 currently subscribed. We can go up to 800 people so I can expand it if needed. That's just subscribe for the texting service specifically. And then to sign up, you go to the website and in the right hand corner, there's a sign in button. You can create an account and then you can choose if you want email alerts, text alerts. And I think that there might be a third option on there. but you can create your own account on there. You can also sign up for press release alerts as well, so any press release that we upload to the website as well.

The website sign-in? Yep. Oh, okay.

Yep, and it should say create an account down there, and it'll let all residents create an account, which is not limited, just the texting services. But once we reach that, we get close to that limit, I can always upgrade it so we can have more people register for it.

Administrator, is that on the first page? It seems.

Yep. If you let me pull it up so I can look at at the same time. If you go to city of Danville dot org on the right hand side, it says website sign in. If you click that, it should give you an option to let me see here. Yeah, it should give you an option, sign in with Apple, sign in with Facebook, sign in with Google. And then when you click that, it will allow you to attach whatever email account you want to it. And then it'll ask you if you want SMS texting, if you want email alerts.

Alderman Tink, do you see that?

I'm doing the process now. I would never have thought that that was where I would go to sign up to get alerts because to me, when I see websites sign in, to me that seems to be an administrator of the website and not necessarily a subscription service for notifications. But I'm

We can, that's a point well taken. We can update that.

Yeah, that is not intuitive for me to think that that's where I need to go to make sure I get alerts from the city.

We can do some social media postings and other things with it that maybe do a tutorial of how to walk through and get people registered. That's no problem.

Because I think that these types of things, particularly when people's internet service is down, people have a hard time communicating. We know that there were people who did not get phones until yesterday. Yesterday, yeah. So being able to receive whatever important notifications that we need to receive, particularly in an emergency situation, Any modes of communication and all modes of communication that people might want to be able to receive, those modes of communication is definitely helpful. Okay, I'm still not, oh well. I'm signed in. I'm not seeing where I need to put in my phone number. I just see my activity, all activity. All I want to do is get a text. So, yeah, I think this process needs some work so that it can be clear for citizens. Because I'm a very tech-savvy individual. I can't see – I'm not going to throw my parents under the bus. I can't see certain people going through this process and feeling like it's intuitive. I would have to walk them through this. And I'm kind of confused. I still don't know where to put my phone number in. I'm in now. I'm logged in. I see my stuff. I don't know where to go after that. I see applications and things. So I think we need something that's a little bit more streamlined.

We can do that.

Anything else, guys?

Well, Mayor, that concludes our report. Thank you, Chairman Poore. At this time, we will receive our Public Services Committee report. Chairman Streetman.

All right, item of information. We will meet here next Tuesday, 6 PM, June 23, 2026, for public services meeting. 12A, we have items of information, Crime Stoppers Discussion. Chris Clapp is the president. Mr. Clapp.

Thank you for bearing with me. I'm Chris Klatt, I'm president of the Vermillion County Crime Stoppers Association. I have met in the last week with about three or four different aldermen, and they felt like that it was appropriate for me to come and make a brief presentation, or a presentation to the city council because there have been questions that have been brought up before. Thursday the mayor and I and Chief Yates and all of my board we all met so that we could introduce ourselves and the police chief had questions the mayor had questions that way we could you know have an open discussion in regards to that you should have a letter here in front of you, kind of explaining what I'm going to be reading. And I'm just going to read it from there. I do have one additional item to put on there. In regards to the Crime Stoppers, it's been in existence since 1998. And I have been involved since 2009. So we're not just new, okay? And will admit I should get out you know myself should get out you know the different neighborhood associations things of that nature I have attended some association neighbors programs but I'm going to read this letter and then At the end, I'll be open for questions. And I know Chief H. has some information that he has got. You're going to start by calling 446-TIPS, which is 446-8477. The call is answered by a company out of Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas that handles Crime Stopper calls across the United States. Before I have since double-checked, before it goes to Dallas-Fort Worth, the call is scrubbed. It's sent to Canada, and it is scrubbed in Canada. It is then sent back to this company in Dallas, Fort Worth. They then scrub it. And it is my understanding from talking last night to the past president of Illinois Crime Stoppers that It would be very impossible. Well, it can be done, but it would take going in front of a judge or anything like that that had to have a special hearing to request any kind of information. And to my knowledge, that has not been done anywhere in the state of Illinois. Now, maybe Chicago, but not downstate. But I did get this updated information about Canada. Okay. When you call, we do not want your name or any personal information. Okay? So don't even give your name or anything. Just give the information concerning your tip of the crime. You will be given a code number. You will need that code number later on. The person will ask you for tip information. This is the person from Dallas, Fort Worth. And you will tell them that They'll take your information and then they'll tell you a certain time to call back. And you will need that code number, so you've got to be sure to keep that code number. In the meantime, crime information will be turned over to the Danville Police detectives. After investigation, if your info leads to the arrest of said person, you gave info about to the detectives will turn that info over to the Crime Stopper Police Coordinator. The case will then be brought to a meeting of the Crime Stopper Board. Crime Stopper Board will decide how much to pay out and tip money They will then give the police coordinator a time and date and type of vehicle, example, men in a white truck in the middle of the old Kmart parking lot. The Crime Stopper Board members will meet the tipster who has gotten that information as to where to meet. The tipster must have the code. and tell the Crime Stopper Board members the code number. After correct code is given, the tipster will receive, as an example, $500. The Crime Stopper Board members will drive away from the site so that the tipster doesn't think they're being followed. Okay, that's a brief synopsis of how this works and I'm open to any questions. I understand that there had been an individual here before asking questions and a lot of you wasn't aware, so in meeting with several aldermen in the last week, and then meeting with the mayor and with Mr. Yates, or Chris Yates, we have met in regards to all this.

I'm sorry.

Go ahead. Anybody got any questions? Mr. Clapp? A couple. OK, go ahead.

What type of budget you run on? Annual budget do you have?

we reply or we apply for different grants okay and here about two years ago i think it was in 24 the city gave us ten thousand dollars I don't know if I got it, but as of today, we have a balance of $18,925 in our account. Alderman, we also budget $10,000 a year contribution to them. So once they receive, once they invoice us for that, then the city will provide them with those funds as well.

Go ahead. Unfortunately, there were a couple of years where they did not invoice us, and so they were not paid.

But the person that came from the council was questioning the budget, and I guess the other question they had was, how many payments have you paid usually in a year?

Let me speak in regard to our budget. We have an accountant. Well, he's a retired accountant who was a teacher out at DAC. Lyle Hicks, I don't know if you're familiar with him. He's our treasurer. So he keeps an up-to-date budget for us. We have a printout. I don't know if I got one with me or not, John. If not, I can get you one.

You're fine. This is a question that was asked of the council.

Yeah, but we do have a... budget was we're required to keep one being a you know non-profit okay a 19 000 budget i mean how much do you pay out a year things have been pretty slow in regards to tips okay and this is why we met with chief yates the other day because there's been some communication um i'll use the word problems and that may not be the right word chief yates can address to that but hopefully with meeting with mr yates and with the mayor last thursday we will hopefully be improving upon payouts we we only get the payouts is when the people call in the tips and people are afraid to call in tips for fear that they will be labeled a snitch One of our things we want to do is to get more publicity out about crime stoppers so that the people do not have to be fearful of being labeled as snitched or being found out who calls in.

Although that's why I asked him to explain the process because I want people to know that it goes to Canada, a scrub. It goes to Texas and a scrub. So it's scrubbed twice before it gets to people. But I think a lot of folks don't know that. They don't understand that. So the police department is going to be working with the Crime Stoppers to get that information out there and then also... through our community relations, making sure that we have a big campaign to help better explain it for folks. And Chief Yates is going to provide some answers, too, so he might have some of the answers.

In 2025, how much did you pay out in tips?

Locally, none.

None.

This is the whole county, right? Locally, none, but we did assist the Quincy Police Department, their crime stoppers out of Quincy. They sent us $1,000. They had some kind of a crime in their town But the person called from Danville about a crime in Quincy. So Quincy then sent us $1,000, and we then in turn made the payout of the $1,000 for Quincy, their behalf.

Well, that's fine, Chris.

Those are, I think, the two primary questions that that person was questioning to the council, so I just— And since last—actually, my board voted last Thursday, or the Board of Crime Charters voted last Thursday to raise the payout amount for murders, okay? And we were only going up to $1,000. We have since Thursday have raised our payment up, you know, for murders, you know, provided the people have the good information and that the detectives with Chief Yates are able to, you know, make sure that the right person is being charged, etc.

When is the last time you made a payout? You didn't do any in 2025. Did you do any in 2024?

I believe we made one payout in 2024. Like I said, it's been slow.

Chief Yates, do you want to? If we could, I think Chief Yates may be able to answer some of your questions, and we'll continue.

This was one of those things that we appreciate when people bring things up from the public comment, because that was one of the things that when I went back and I looked into it and I started looking at the website, and then I contacted the mayor and said, I think that we need to have a discussion and a meeting. to figure out exactly what's wrong because I didn't know a lot about the Crime Stoppers process. I knew that we always had someone in criminal investigation be the liaison to Crime Stoppers. However, whenever there's different changes, whether it's in a division, whether it's in a department, there are some things that Thank goodness. I'm really happy that lady said something because it got us to look into it a little bit further. When I looked at the website, I saw some things that were outdated. This website did work, but I could tell that it needed to work better. So I reached down to criminal investigations, and I got with them. I said, exactly what do you do and what your role is? They explained it to me. We brought them to the meeting, and I'll be quite honest. I think that there's things... They're administrators of a program, okay? I think a lot of this should, is our responsibility as a police department to help them in what their program is and also know exactly what we need to do. Since then, we've updated the website. We've made some changes. We dedicated somebody specifically to make sure all that stuff's going right. We want to make sure and outline a little bit more in our press releases, all of our press releases, prior said, you know, if you have any tips on this crime or any other, it was one of those things that was always involved in our press releases. But I think we need to highlight that a little bit more. But I think that we can do a lot as a police department to enhance what they're doing. One of the things that came up in the conversation was there were some awards that were going to be given out and the people didn't show up. Or there was some type of problem in the response on the person that was supposed to be awarded the amount. That's probably anecdotal, so I don't know what the history is for several years. However, I think moving forward, we can do a lot better as a police department. And because what you have is a 501 , that's running an organization that's there to administer it based off a lot of the stuff that we should be doing. And if anybody dropped the ball, I'll wear it on my shoulders because we're going to make sure and take care of it moving forward. I don't know what the problems were before. I don't know how it got to that point of being outdated. At this point, I'm figuring out what we need to do moving forward. And I'll be more than happy to take the responsibility of that. Any questions on that?

No, and those were the only questions I was going to ask because it was from that person. But I'm fully supportive of what you do, and I hope we get more results out of it, to be honest with you.

Yeah, I mean, we've got a good group of people that are volunteering their time to try to help the community in something. But there's a lot of things that go on that they don't understand, and they don't have that ability to be able to move it forward anywhere. So if we're not working together and we're not understanding exactly what our role is in the process, I understand it a lot better now, and then I can instruct our people and we can dedicate certain people to make sure that that's taken care of. That's not a solve-all. Crime Stoppers is not going to you know like all of a sudden turn everything around but it's another tool in our box that we need to be utilizing and making sure we're aware it's there and you know if i need a phillips screwdriver out of my tool bag i better know how to use it right it's no different this is something that i wish i would have known about further i appreciate the person that brought the comment i don't know the context of everything that she was saying because she was referring a lot to champaign county uh you know Great for them. We got to do better. We'll figure it out. And I think, like I said, that was sort of the catalyst to get me looking into it. Got my people on it. I think it's going to be a lot better moving forward. I'd like to have this discussion again or someone within our department having this discussion again in a year or 18 months and see where we're at now or where we're at then compared to where we're at now.

Why don't you see if you can put a flyer up at the courthouse, Chris? See if you can put a flyer or something up at the courthouse. We don't have anything up there. Maybe that might help. Who knows?

Another suggestion is a lot of the programs that we run in community outreach, I mean, we have different events. We'll have 25 to 30 different community partners, stakeholders, and vendors there. They can set up a table there. A lot of that is lack of my communication or lack of my department's communication to get that to them, to invite them, because it's an oversight. OK, it's not anymore. We'll make sure and get that communication going. And we've got people assigned to make sure that happens.

Alderman Cooper, anything else? No. Alderman, go ahead.

Well, first of all, I want to say, Mr. Clapp, thank you for coming. A lot of this came about because, and I don't know how it is that you arrived there, but Mr. Clapp attended the Violence Prevention Subcommittee meeting a few weeks ago. Alderman Butler, Alderman Jones, and myself were there. We're all there. It was a very much more lengthy conversation about the process there than here. In the middle of that meeting is when we sent the email asking that this be added to tonight's agenda so that everybody could hear this at the same time. There were obviously questions that came up publicly because of the young lady who came to the podium asking questions. So I appreciate the fact that Mr. Clapp did not take offense to any of the questions, came here publicly to talk about how the process works, because it was definitely eye-opening for all of us. And then even has gone the additional length of meeting with city administration and having changes be made at the board level. My question is, what now is the award amount for a tip for a murder? $2,500. $2,500. Okay. Thank you.

Any questions for Chris Clapp, president, anybody?

Thanks, Bob.

Mr. Clapp, thank you. Oh, I'm sorry.

Yes, and I kind of thank the 2,500 that that recipient get. Is that for the conviction or just for information of who the perpetrator might be?

Because it takes so long to go through the court system, I think it would have to be viable and correct

It's information that leads to a conviction.

Oh, that leads to it. Okay, not a conviction.

No, it must lead to a conviction. Okay, if the process is longer and it's already gotten us to that point, it would be a case-by-case basis from what I understand because we do understand that murder cases last a long time. But once that information is given and it's submitted to the state's attorney's office, And it leads to it. It's a little bit more of a process to where it's you can't say it each case This is when it will be it's got a it's it's a case-by-case Situation, but it's got to be information that leads to a conviction Okay so that could be The information set the ball rolling to get additional stuff. And we recognize that's been being sent to the state's attorney's office. It's being picked up. And now we may be able to pay out right then. Or it may be something that takes a little bit longer. I don't know. It would be based off the information given.

CHRIS JERRAMSEN. Mr. Butler, we can verify that and get back with you all at our next meeting.

And Mr. Clapp, correct me if I'm wrong, you wait until you get some sort of follow-up from the police department or the state's attorney's department before you go through the process of doing the payout, correct?

Yes.

Can you use the microphone, please?

we wait until okay we have a meeting the first Tuesday of the month it's always on the day of the the alarm system that you know goes out okay we meet that day prior to that The police coordinator, he contacts either my vice president or me and tells us, OK, I've got some very good tip information. We tell him to bring that to our meeting. OK. And we have no idea who the person is. It all deals off of that code number. And the police coordinator will say, for example, I've got case 5678. And then he will tell us, like, okay, this was for, you know, I'll just say a burglary, okay, to where $10,000 worth of items was taken, okay? He will maybe recommend to us that he feels like that the payout ought to be $500, or he may say $750. Most generally we go with what the police coordinator suggests because he's got the information. as to what all was broken into or if it was a robbery, like somebody was robbed. We pretty much go off of what the police coordinator suggests. Sometimes we will go higher, you know, and, you know, because we feel like depending upon the crime that it might be more valuable to make a higher payout. And when we do make the payout, we try to put it out in small bills, okay? Like if the payout's $500, we don't want to give the person five $100 bills because that'll just, you know, There's too many people who are out here looking and like, well, why did so-and-so get $500? Whereas if it's in 20s and 10s and things of that nature, it's not as obvious.

Thank you. Any other questions for Mr. Clapp? Mr. Clapp, thank you very much for coming this evening. Thank you. Thank you. That puts us to item 12.2, 2025 annual DPT report presentation. Chief Yates, go ahead.

I'll respect your time and mic. I'll respect your time and everybody in the audience. So as soon as I can figure out how to get this to work. All right.

Yeah.

For me to figure this out any further than push this button, I'm going to need help.

He's coming.

All right. Probably timed out. First of all, I'll tell you, we were waiting. We were looking at the agendas and understanding that we don't want to extend the time any longer than we need to for these meetings. We had to time it with a couple other things. Are we there? What's that? All right. Okay, that's the report. You've all had a chance to read it. I'm not going to go into the letter. Did anybody have any questions on the organizational structure? Now remember, this was for 2025. It has changed slightly with the addition of some units. When we get to something, just make sure and get with me. This is the, since November 2019, with changing the record management system, we understand that we went to NIBRS. So some things you'll see from 2018 when they're UCR category type crimes. Okay, that goes back to 2018. However, remember, we changed over to NIBRS, I believe it was mid 2025. Considering from 2018 to 2025, we had four homicides that occurred in 2025. However, there was a person that unfortunately passed away due to injuries sustained from something that happened in 2024. So then we had to add that to the 2025. Our sexual assaults were down from 2018 to 30%. And I'm hoping we have some stuff that has from 24 to 25. I'll have to get to that. And you see the figures there on what we had. Does anybody have any questions on that? When you look at 2020, when we started with NIBRS, remember, the quality of life categories was something that we built. Alderman Butler, if you remember, when we had the meetings, we had multiple meetings. And from different community leaders, they gave me 13 different offenses that they felt that were the most important where it impacted the quality of life. significant decreases in some of them, while others, such as aggravated battery, we had an increase. These numbers are, especially with shootings with victims, whether it's homicides, armed robberies, we know that the margin of error is zero to very low. on those. The things that I look at as where I see probably a larger margin of error is domestic batteries, sexual assaults. Not necessarily a margin of error in the reporting, but a margin of error of the realistic numbers that are out there. But I'm hoping that the ratio between reporting reported incidents versus the incidents that occur always remain somewhat the same. So if we see a reduction in reporting of, say, domestic battery or sexual assault, we know those numbers are much smaller than what's actually happening out there because of the underreporting of those type of crimes. But we're also hoping that the numbers are going down with the number of reporting going down. We did see an increase in domestic battery reports. And a lot of that, I believe, was our push in communication and collaboration with a lot of the social services on breaking down some of the stigmas and reporting it. and trying to build the confidence that if you do report it, we will work as hard as we can to get a case presented to the state's attorney's office and help follow them through, as well as provide and assist with advocacy. Shots fired was one of the biggest things that we were concerned about, gun violence. That hit us hard in 2018. And we've seen those numbers decrease. I'm very happy about the trend and the direction that we're going, but I'm nowhere satisfied with where we're at. We need to keep pushing that lower. We need to try to eliminate it altogether. We look at the arrest numbers in the last three years. We seized 137 firearms last year. And these are not firearms where someone has it just in case. They have an FOID card and they're moving from point A to point B, or they just got done hunting or something and they didn't have their magazine away from their weapon. These are more serious offenses. Possession of a firearm by a convicted felon of a violent offense. Our patrol division has moved steadily in a direction of data and intelligence-driven policing. They work very hard. We have 36 officers that are assigned to patrol division, as well as, I believe, five sergeants, three lieutenants, and a deputy chief. Deputy Chief Webb is in charge of that division. Look at contacts. This includes radio contacts. I'm sorry it's small on there, but if you have it on your computer, you can see it a little better. But we had 35,143 community contacts last year. That could be for a call for service. That could be a self-initiated field activity, such as a traffic stop, meeting someone, a suspicious person in an area, approaching someone that fit a description of a crime. Those are initiated by the officer based off information. Any questions on that? A big part of patrol division is also traffic enforcement. People say, well, don't you have anything better to do? Yeah, absolutely. We have a lot of things better to do than traffic enforcement. However, don't think that, you know, people can't disregard the number of complaints that we get for speeding in different areas. We also got to understand the financial impact and also the loss of life and injuries that are caused by traffic crashes. When we look at socioeconomic, we talked about this and how much money that the community loses, not just the city itself, but the individual resident or the citizen, insurance cost, hospital cost, damage to their vehicles. There's 4,374 traffic stops. Out of those, almost 2,000 traffic citations were issued. Any questions on that? Our special units, one of them's our K-9. We had 354 vehicle searches, 18 tracks, 87 drug arrests, article searches, 53, K-9 involvement and warrant arrest, 37. And I'm pleased to announce that we only had one apprehension that involved a bite. We had 15 apprehensions that did not include a bite. We conducted six building searches, perimeter searches of 18, and resident searches, three. Our problem warning and policing unit, that along with our community housing unit is one of the things that I say is a catalyst to a large number of the reduction of crime. These are proactive departments that are not married to the radio and responding to every call for service. They're able to utilize the intelligence and data that's provided to them both by human resources as well as our collection of data through our data specialists as well as our crime data analysts. Do you have any information on that problem-oriented policing unit or community housing unit and what they do you notice that there's not the street crimes unit because the street crimes unit started this year and I really look forward to letting you know what they've done our other special unit emergency response unit commonly known as SWAT year you we had six emergency call outs Three people taken into custody, five firearms recovered, only eight grams of cocaine, $610 seized, and located one homicide suspect. But keep in mind, these are the Danville cases. We also do quite a few search warrants for VMAG, US Marshals, DEA. We help them and assist them a lot, and usually they'll handle the evidence. if we're assisting another agency, and we don't count that. Our Criminal Investigations Division is led by Deputy Chief Miller. He assigned 953 cases last year, 828 were closed, 125 remain open. And if you look at the number of Detectives that we had, they had about 136 cases assigned to each. Auxiliary police, any questions on that? Yes.

Is there any data or count information for a number of assist requests that the department, specifically SWAT, because you talked about SWAT?

I could get them. I don't have them with me. I'll try to include that. I'll make note and include it in next year's. The auxiliary police, I have no idea where I went. You know, often you see these, the lighter blue shirts at different like public events and stuff like that, food drives, traffic control situations whenever we have like large crowds, parades, they do traffic control. They don't get enough credit. They conducted 426 hours of service last year. If you add that, if you consider that with overtime that was saved, that's a lot. That's a big burden that was taken off, not just the department, but the taxpayer. These guys do everything for free. They're volunteers. They also train every month. We had five new auxiliaries that went through. Lieutenant Butcher is the coordinator for that, and he's done a fabulous job making that unit relevant to where it can serve the community. Commendations. We give out Officer of the Year. We give out different awards for firearm proficiency. And then other, we gave out some life-saving awards this year. One of them, the big one, was when we had the fire. We had, we believe, 12 saves, I believe, in the fire at, was it Merche? Merche. Is it Merchet or Churchill? Churchill, I'm sorry. Churchill. And that's a difficult one because when, especially in fires, We're not firefighters. We don't understand a lot of the safety and hazards that are in there. We try to educate ourselves the best that we can, but we're not firefighters and we really rely on them. But that was something that could have been catastrophic for our community. And I think we talked about that before, how the fire department and the police department work very well together.

See if you're going the wrong way.

I don't know what's wrong with this. It's probably an operator error. What do we call that, the operator actuator nut that's broken? As far as community, we do a lot of community events. We participate and provide venues for a lot of our committees, anti-violence committees. There's work that we do with Chris Senior Services, Cross Points, SRC, and we have members of the department in almost every one of those committees. We also have members of the departments serving on several boards within the community and social service boards. Where that's helped is not just for the board and that organization, but also it provides an opportunity to build relationships with the different social services to where we're not just calling an agency, we're calling a person that we know and that can get us help for members of our community as fast as possible and the best help, and we know where to go. We've worked with Chris, senior services, quite extensively lately. We only had to have 30 of our officers trained on this grant. We've trained, I believe, we're somewhere around 60 officers, and we're going to continue. Hopefully, we'll be 100% trained by the end of the grant, and that's not required. That's above and beyond. We also, you know, obviously with Friendly Town and, you know, man we can use some help from upstairs sure we'd like to get that open again because our classes were 100% full and we had a dead week this week because of SROs were in training however next week we're scheduled for a class that probably won't happen and And we're going to have to reschedule those guys and see if we can get them in other classes. But they're all full. We have interns helping. One paid intern, she asked if she can, once her 40 hours is up, if she can volunteer and do it the rest of the summer. other kids from schools getting their service hours, and we've had a lot of help out there at Friendlytown with the kids. We're also, August 1st, we're having our third annual mini marathon, and that's always a really fun event. But you can go through the numbers of how many kids went through. I mean, we had 2,400 people went through for Halloween. Police Training Center, of course, we're still having a lot of people out there. Citizens Police Academy, Junior Citizens Police Academy, those classes have been larger than we've had. Every class, it seems, it gets larger. I believe they want to have the Junior Citizens Academy out at Friendly Town this year with our new classroom building. And we'll probably use both locations. A little bit, just we're having a CPR class out at Friendly Town end of June. We thought we had, we opened it up for 40 people. I thought, you know, if we can get 25 to 30 people in that, that's 25 to 30 people that will have certified and life-saving skills throughout the community. And if we did it a couple of times a year, maybe we'd have 50, 60, whatever. And that would be a very strong, positive expectation. Within two hours, we had over 40 people sign up for it.

the next morning.

Award out by the next morning, we had over 100. So we reached out to the fire department, they're going to handle 80 over at police training center will handle their original 40 at friendly town. So that's 120 people. But now I say skills in the administration division, they're as busy as any division in the department. That includes all my administrative staff on the second floor, as well as the records department that work 356 days a year, including weekends and holidays. Thank you. Thank you. Did anybody not hear what I said? Also, it includes vehicle maintenance. If you remember in 2019 when this administration took over, we were trying to figure out how to put six officers, six to eight officers plus command staff out on the street at one time. We don't have that problem anymore. If you notice, we have many more officers on the street at one time, and we also have 23 marked cars. We do have three to four down at any given time, it seems like, but that's for general maintenance as well as damage. Three canine cars, three school resource cars, 14 unmarked detective cars, four staff service, and one ERU vehicle plus a second backup vehicle. Any questions of anything I've said? That's it. Thank you very much. I also want to give thanks to Taylor Corson. She put this together, and it takes a lot of work.

Chief, we've got a couple questions. I'm sorry.

Oh, OK. Go ahead, Alderman. Oh, yeah, OK. Yes, I noticed in your report there, Chief, I know I get a question about the, and I don't know if you could put this in your report so that Danville people would know. Because what I have to do, I have to go to the state to find out the traffic stops, the ethnic groups,

That's a that's a report that's prepared by this it's It's paid for by Illinois Department of Transportation and it is put together by whisper mountain light or something like that out of the west coast and That's not a report that I stand by I've made it very clear my problems and so has every several different departments within the state on how they comprise their numbers. So but that's always and people can always get to that by going to Illinois State Police traffic stop study and they also include the pedestrian stop study if anybody's interested in that.

Yes, so what do they do? They just guess it, then you don't send them any information?

They have all of our information. It's auto-loaded into it. It's not the stops and the indications on all the different indices within the stop. It's the base number of their methodology. Their methodology is something that I disagree with.

You're OK with that, because here a while back, we had a lot of stops of our young kids. I don't know if the police report that.

Every stop, you can't clear a stop without filling out that report, because it's all automated, and it comes right off. A lot of the information comes off the CAD. And if you'd like to see how that happens, you can get a hold of me and I'll run you out there and let someone else explain it to you that's a little bit better at it than I am.

Oh, OK. Any other questions for the chief? Thank you, Chris.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Well, I don't have any items of information. Anybody have anything? If not, that concludes our report, Mayor.

Thank you, Chairman. I just want to say I'm very proud of Chief Yates and our team at the police department. They do a lot to help improve our community and keep us safe. I'm proud that we're doing a lot more community outreach than we used to, especially with events and spending time with our citizens. because that's how you get results that's how you build relationships and relationships lead to information that helps us solve crimes and then get bad people off the streets so just want to say thank you for that are there any items of information for the good of the cause so I have questions concerning

I'm curious to know what was the catalyst behind the city approaching Seven Point concerning their advertisement.

The sponsor, excuse me, the person that applied for the special event application, Mr. Zerman directed her to our office to see if they could set up there. And originally, we knew he was wanting to promote hemp drinks. That's OK. And that was never the issue. And so as we did research, we came across the state statute that stated no advertising or promoting cannabis in public parks, anywhere where there's children. That was the only thing that we advised them.

OK.

So it started with the person that was hosting the event was sent to us by Mr. Zerman to answer that question.

Was it disclosed that one of the other dispensaries would also be at the event?

Not to our office, no, because we obviously would not license a Tilton dispensary to be at that event anyway. It was the person promoting the event that was hosting the event that was handling all that.

But do we license vendors at events, or we just? No, it's a private event.

Right, OK. We license them to hold it on city property.

Right.

That was all.

From my readings of the emails, and they were forwarded to me by a couple of people, was the issue specifically, and I don't know who has the answer to this, was the issue specifically that the word cannabis was being displayed? Because in my, I read the emails and then me doing my own due diligence, I went, and this was before Mr. Zerman even contacted me, me doing my own due diligence, I went to Facebook to look at the map, because I was trying to get an understanding, and I saw the map was mentioned in the email, and I was trying to get an understanding of, well, what exactly is the concern here? And what I saw was just a map of vendors and then named sponsors, to which Seven Point was the sponsor of the main stage. And all I saw was Seven Point Cannabis dispensary. Well, actually I really couldn't read the words cannabis dispensary is really really small I saw seven point at the top of their Signage I saw the word smoke lab at the bottom of their signage It wasn't until tonight actually that I realized that seven point didn't actually provide that signage that the the that pryfest actually put to put together that map themselves um without input from seven point um so i'm curious to because i was when i was reading the emails i was like i don't really understand exactly what the concern is what i did know what i saw in the map was that seven point it was seven point and i'm assuming the word said cannabis dispensary that's just inference because it was And then when I went out there, I did see that they, on their tent covering, that they did cover up the word cannabis in black tape with all of their lettering. So I guess my question is, and I'm assuming, and at least it seems to me that they were assuming, that that was in compliance with what the city was requesting. So my question is, is it the fact that the word cannabis was part of their, name was actually the problem or was it something else? Because I'm still kind of confused as to what the problem was. And I will say to what Mr. Zerman said earlier, I walked past, I didn't stop there, but I walked past the other tent and I did see a flag. that had the cannabis leaf on it. I didn't stop at the table, so I didn't see any of the things that they had at their table, but Mr. Zerman showed me the card that they had that was advertising cannabis products. So I guess the other, so first question is, what particularly was the specific concern? And then the second piece is, as it pertains to enforcement you know, from the city side since the city was expressing those concerns about the law.

So advertising and promoting cannabis or cannabis-infused products is prohibited by state law. And that's what we advised Mr. Zerman, and that's what his own attorney advised him. Imagery, cannabis leaf, is prohibited. So I'm not aware that there was another dispensary at the Pride Fest apparently others were aware but did not make me aware or did not report it to anybody else it would have been addressed had it been so advertisement of cannabis what from the city's perspective what does that mean

Because what I saw was Seven Point Cannabis Dispensary. So is that considered advertisement of cannabis?

Yeah, using the word cannabis.

OK. Thank you for that clarification.

In a public park. Understood. Within 1,000 feet of a public park.

Understood. I don't think, and I also read their attorney's response in terms of what They said, and I'm not here to debate the law because I'm not a judge. So I can't say whether or not a judge, you know, one of the reasons why we have judges is because lawyers disagree. There's people on either side who say different things, and the judge gets to decide. I'm not here to decide. So I was simply asking for clarification. I have a better understanding of the concern now. And from what I saw in the park, 7.8, complied with the city's request, which was to cover up the word cannabis on their tent. And so it just said seven point dispensary.

Alderman Irons.

Two items, Mayor. To follow up on this one, that was my question is, as a community that hosts these facilities, are we under statutorial requirements to enforce all of the state laws? Or are we simply using the state law as a reference for our enforcement process? You know, are we under some obligation to the state of Illinois to enforce the advertising law? And I guess the follow-up question to that would be then, if we are responsible for that, will there be repercussions for the entity that did not comply?

Yes, should be.

So yeah, we have to comply with state law. In this case, not being aware of the other dispensary or business that may or may not have not adhered to state law, I don't know that there's nothing I can initiate. Now, if someone wants to bring that information to us and we can forward that information, say, to the Attorney General's office, we'll do that.

I guess my question would be is if we are the enforcement agency, why would we forward it to the Attorney General's office? Why wouldn't we take the action? And like liquor license violations and everything, it has been reported here in a public meeting, and apparently there were people that witnessed it. So I'm not anxious to get another business involved either. I'm just trying to figure out consistency and what are our true responsibilities as it relates to that particular item because obviously advertising and marketing can get pretty gray. So I guess that was the question on that. The second item then was in relation to the building flooding. and the water in the building. Four of us haven't been any part of any discussions for the relocation of City Hall. There have been a couple of questions asked for when the plans are coming forward. Could we do a study session or something to get the four of us up to speed on what the plan is for the building? And in follow up to that, I'm interested in any architectural or engineering evaluations that assessed the conditions of the building, because I can't conceive of any reason this building would need torn down. It's built for a bomb shelter, literally. And you could scrape everything off of it and redo it. So, you know, as I departed, there were discussions regarding excess flow on the roof that prior to putting on the new roof, we had had some instances. But what happens is the roof becomes a pool under these heavy rains. And because the utilities that penetrate the roof tend to be over the legal office, it would invade those conduits and such. So there was discussion of putting a curb around that and doing some other things to mitigate the potential for flood risk. And I'm curious if a roof has been replaced or what other measures have been taken to prevent the water penetration that we're having. Because, you know, regardless of whether City Hall does or doesn't need to move, I want to see this building reutilized by someone for a productive purpose as opposed to tearing more down. And so after watching more buildings come down downtown, we've got to find a way to stop tearing stuff down. And I'm not asking for anything right now, Mayor, if there's a study or something to forward. Otherwise, if there can be an update for the four of us that we're not privy to those prior discussions, be helpful.

Thank you. Alderman Butler.

Yes, Mr. Mayor, I have a a statement or a question or maybe some good and wholesome instruction. I noticed that this concerned the street change, name change. Miss Bourne has been here consistently. And the way I understand that we have a committee that's discussing this, and I would like to know what committee is discussing it. And is this council, is anyone involved in that decision making? And now, on the other hand, since we have so much conversations about it, I guess, what's wrong with renaming the street and then having Harding as a, what you call it, an anniversary or else, you know, in memory on the sign. If we just flip the name, change. And I'd like to know who also is on this committee as well.

DAVID BURRAGE. There is no committee. My understanding of this matter, Mr. Butler, is that you all voted on this last year. And it was voted down, and it was denied. So this matter has already been brought before the council, and it was denied. Someone could ask for it to be reconsidered, but you all voted against it previously when it was brought before the council.

DAVID BURRAGE. Well, I would like for it to be reconsidered. OK. All right. Thank you. Yeah, because if the names could just flip, I mean, you have Harding as the honorary person, and then what was his name? Christian Cole as the street name. All right.

Thank you.

Any further? Yes, Mr.

This is the person that owns the malls. There are three different people, three different sections of the mall, right? Is Ross, is the same person that owns County Market, do they own Ross too?

Yes, sir. So the portions are what we call the grocery section or refer to. That is County Market through Ross. which includes the former Dunham's and Pet Supply Plus as well okay and then the what we would all know as the mall would be the rest of the entire structure right and then Alderman there's another parcel that is just parking lot kind of surrounding the dentist office so there are three parcels one person owns the section that we know of as Ross through County Market. The other, the rest of, both of the other two parcels are owned by a new owner.

With that roof being the way it is, can the city push the system around and get that thing fixed? Or, I mean...

We've had our building inspectors out there. We've had our fire department up there.

Logan? Yeah. So we've been working closely with both county market and Ross trying to figure out the challenges of who needs to replace the roof that needed to be disregarded because there was a lot of water coming in the building. Yeah, it's so hot. So we all came up with a solution at County Market pretty much the day after the big heavy rain. And they did come up with it. They'll have a temporary fix to get it open and then a permanent fix. And for both of them, Ross is going up and fixing theirs as we speak. So they're going to be open and dry for the time being until they figure out what civil is going to be civil. And we really, unfortunately, don't have any say in that.

So the roof should be fixed for county market soon?

Yeah, it's probably already got the, they're going to seal it because the materials needed for it are on six weeks of back order. So yeah, soon it will have a permanent fix. Okay.

Any further items of information? We do not have need for closed session. So having satisfied the agenda, I will need a motion to adjourn.

So moved.

Second. It's been moved and seconded. Any discussion or debate? All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed, same sign. We are adjourned.