Council - Regular Meeting

Thank you. And...

Good evening. I'd like to welcome everyone to the East Dubuque City Council meeting. It is Monday, July 20th. I ask that you please turn your cell phones off during the meeting and please be quiet during discussions. Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

26-0714, call to order.

Bergmaier?

Here.

Dagenhart? Here. Fleur?

Here.

Meyer? Here. Roby? Here. Taylor? Here. Mayor Digman? Here. Attorney Hess? Here.

26-0715, staff reports, city manager report. Thank you, Mayor. Indian Hills, the laterals are going in.

That's the last stage of that project, so it should be done in the next couple weeks. The emergency services building, the bell tower is ready for windows. The bell is up there and covered. The rebuild of the main arch is complete and been projected in the ceiling into the building. So a lot of it's been primed and it's looking pretty good. It's on schedule. Last week we hosted the TIF annual meeting. We had to wait for the audit to be complete for 25, so this is the 25 annual TIF meeting. Attendance was light, but the response to the report and the audit was good. Council members have the documents from that meeting in your packet. The River Ridge Estates, the subdivision going in off Hill Street, met last week with the developer and the engineers after Origin, and we went through the Plat proposal, discussed the layout of the subdivision, the utilities, and all the other infrastructure, It conforms to city code and was approved the development will begin they'll begin clearing activities up there and There we're discussing whether one more blanket variance for the placement of homes. So dealing with the distance between the homes and the property lines and Had a meeting with regional transportation at Illinois DOT and regional transportation officials discussing the Third Street channel and whether funding would be available or whether final improvements might be included in the bridge project. So remember we're talking about two phases. We went through with them the plans. Travis from HKS was here to brief them. We then went down and looked at it. After the meeting with us, the DOT people walked Highway 35. We showed them my videos of the flooding from 24 and the pictures which are on the desk of the flood in 2011. On Highway 35, they're now considering going from basically an overlay to more of a rebuild of Highway 35 as a next action on Wisconsin Avenue. in order to try to fix stormwater there. And they thought that in a new bridge project that the ditch would be something that we should be bringing up and put in. But, you know, the timing of getting the retaining wall fixed doesn't fit that So I think we really have to go ahead with phase one to fix the retaining wall, expand the capacity of the ditch, do some more of the drainage into the ditch. And then hopefully if they were involved, they would get involved in phase two, which is moving the pipe. And so that's another fairly expensive project. So we also discussed the new Mississippi River Bridge. I know that people roll their eyes when they hear that they're a date set, but they've begun a process with the Illinois and Iowa DOT to plan to kind of go back to square one on that and reassess all the plans that they've made for the bridge itself. in the past, and they've put a 2033 date on the project for whatever that's worth. So, my report.

Thank you. The only thing I have, I've been receiving a lot of great feedback on the different campaigns that the local business owners have been doing. People say that it's great to see everybody coming together, working together. A lot of creative things being done, and I really hope that... We can build from this and make the East Dubuque business community stronger, even past when the bridge is done and everything. Because, I mean, there's a lot of good things happening right now. I mean, they're being very creative, and it's great to see. Alderperson report, Bergmeier?

Nothing this week, Mayor.

Thank you. Degenhardt?

Nothing, Mayor.

Thank you. Fleur?

Yeah. We got another... ticket situation with slats again? Why are we ticketing all his vehicles?

We are not ticketing all his vehicles. I believe in the last four or five months, I believe two vehicles have been ticketed across the street, on the city street, that were customers of Mr. Slatt's. Thanks for bringing it up. He asked the chief, Luke and I, to go over and talk to him about the situation. The last ticket was in conjunction with the Thursday night car show, and he had someone that was dropping off a vehicle, and someone in the public had parked at his private parking lot spots, and so the person parked on the street and left the vehicle overnight there. The vehicle was ticketed. we went over and tried to discuss with him options where we could help him to keep people from parking in his private spots, which should not be happening. We suggested cones and things, but he did not want to discuss anything about any solution that involved keeping the public from parking in his private spots. I suggested that If someone was parking in his private spots, the parking was that constricted at that time, probably the spots on the street would also be full in most cases. So the better solution was to find a way to help him to preserve his parking in his spots. We had the same conversation we had at city council. The city council was clear on the parking ordinance on that street. And so we set it up, but at that time we did set it up where he was able to call and tell us when he had a vehicle that couldn't be moved that was parked there, and we have kept our end of that bargain. In this case, apparently he went home early from work, didn't know the person was parking there, and the person parked there and got a ticket. So we have taken care of 90 some percent of every complaint that he's had about the parking spots across the street, and we have tried to help him with his parking spots at his business, but he was unwilling to work with us on his parking spots.

Can he park in front of his doors?

Sideways and it's it's his yeah, he'd been people do park. He does a lot of people to park there, and he could park He could have people parked there. We would not we would not have anything to say about someone parking With his permission in his spots, and he's got spots around the other side of the building and those are the ones that he said Someone had people had parked in to go to the Thursday night event so You know we've we've been trying and

Working with them then? Yeah, I followed up also with them, and we made things right on the ticket and stuff. Oh, okay.

Yeah, we said we'd like to help you try to find a way to protect your spots for your customers, and he said he didn't want to talk about that. He wanted to talk about the parking across the street.

And there's a black van on Depp Street there with the tires blocked. We know anything on that? I don't. It's been sitting there for, I don't know, a long time.

It was up on blocks for a long time. Now it's got a rock behind the passenger side back wheel. That's considered street storage as far as I'm concerned. I mean, that's got to be a danger if it doesn't have brakes to keep it in place.

And somebody knocks that rock out of there and

I'll ask about it.

I'm just curious. I see it all the time because that's the way I go to work. Okay. And I've seen it there for quite a long time.

Okay. Anything else?

That should do it.

Thank you. Meyer? I don't have anything tonight. Thank you. Roby?

Two things. Bob, on your manager's report, did they have funds available for the Third Street ditch for the reconstruction?

No.

No?

No, we would have to work it into their planning process for the new bridge.

okay yeah okay we're on our own and then have we talked at all about the sidewalk on montgomery avenue we were talking before i left about lifting that sidewalk have we looked into that or um we did um and it was a it is a candidate for being raised i think you had asked us to hold off at that time so we can trying to are we going to have engineers look the thing i wanted to hold off until we could get engineers to look at those intakes to make sure they're not leaking because if they're leaking according to what the guy said that could lift the streets if that inundates underneath where he lifts then the guarantee on the lifting isn't viable anymore

Yeah, I think, Tony, you took a look at that on those intakes. Yeah, I can have them come back and get someone there to look at the intakes.

Because the edges and everything are busted off of most of those intakes. We should do something with that, too. The metal's all routed off of them. But there's a lot of people that walk that hill, and someone's going to get hurt when they fall. I've seen two people fall.

Technically... Technically, per code, all of them are the responsibility of the property owners. So we try to be reasonable with places, especially, that's a place where it's a more excessive, a little more stressed sidewalk, and so we try to be reasonable, but it does come down to it is the responsibility of the property owners by code.

Right. But isn't there a way we could fix it and charge them for it or send them out a letter and say, hey, this is what it's going to cost. This will be your responsibility. The city will do this part of it or whatever.

Yeah, I think what the code, I think the code tells us to, we can instruct people that they have to fix their sidewalks. But that's why we did the lift, the foam thing, because that's kind of a way of us helping them with a major expense.

That's all I have.

Okay, thank you. Taylor? Nothing tonight. Thank you. City Attorney Hess?

Nothing to report, Mayor.

Thank you. Public Works Director Van Ostrand.

Nothing.

Thank you. Fire Chief Heim. Nothing. Thank you. 26-0716, speakers from the floor. We have none noted this evening. 26-0717, consent agenda. Still move. Second. Roll call.

Bergmeier.

Aye.

Degenhardt. Aye. Fleur.

Aye.

Meyer.

Aye.

Roby. Aye. Taylor.

Aye. New Business 26-071918. Discussion of possible action to approve a resolution to accept Attorney Sue Hess as City Attorney from July 20, 2026 until July 19, 2027.

So this would be the same terms that we have, and we have managed to find work for a City Attorney in the past year.

Any questions?

I'll second.

Roll call.

Dagenhart. Aye. Fleur. Aye. Meyer. Aye.

Roby. Aye.

Taylor. Aye. Bergmeier. Aye. 26-0719, discussion and possible action to approve emergency service building payment number nine in the amount of $284,000. $52.12 for Tricon General Construction in the City of East Dubuque.

So it's just the latest payment. I've gone through the process of accounting and inspection with Origin, and I'd recommend approval.

Any questions or discussion? I'll make a motion to approve.

I'll second.

Roll call.

Floor.

Aye.

Meyer. Aye. Roby? Aye. Taylor? Aye. Bergmeyer?

Aye. Degenhardt? Aye. 26-0720, Discussion and Possible Action to Approve Professional Services Agreement with WHKS for the 3rd Street Drainage Channel Widening and Utility Improvements Phase 1 Project in the City of East Dubuque.

Oh, this is probably one of the most involved projects that we've had since I've been around here because it involves, as the mayor said, moving utilities as well as water system improvements, sanitary system is impacted, utilities cross the bridge, the bridge has to be replaced regardless, we have to replace the bridge, the retaining wall, regardless of anything else we do, the retaining wall needs to be replaced. The slope and things like that make this a very challenging place to work. But as we discussed in prior meetings, we also are building into this the effort to drain more of the flats into the ditch because that's where the greater pumping capacity is to be able to move water out. particularly when the river is high so I always hate just replacing something without an improvement this is a project that is a big project but it should reduce the potential for flooding especially flooding when the river is high It impacts the nominee, the bridge, the retaining wall, and should be a good first phase of this. So Travis has done a lot of work for us on figuring out what a viable option is here. and the best way to go about using our limited resources in this project. So he can come up and if anybody has any questions, we can go through that. Anything I missed?

You covered most of it. We are also, in our agreement, we are planning to design the water main from DeSoto to Menominee and make that other connection in a new alignment where there wasn't previously that looping. So that was an additional benefit to the... Since we're in that street anyways, we might as well do that water main connection, which was... planned for and stopped for when they did the DeSoto improvements a year or two ago. So this accomplishes looping this? We're adding the loop. We'll probably also run a new water line through the channel because currently that is undersized and we'll get that through the channel while we do the bridge. So we'll replace that piece as well in addition to the loop. We're adding the storm sewer that you mentioned and we're doing phase one of the channel widening. to increase the capacity, along with the bridge replacement itself.

So to remind folks, when the bridge inspector came through this past year, he said the good news was that the bridge would last longer than the retaining wall, but the bad news was the retaining wall only had two or three years left in it. And when the DOT people looked, I think the engineers that they had were in agreement We've got sinkholes developing and general subsidence going on on 3rd Street.

So to do the loop, do we have to dig that road back up down on the soda that they just did, or is that off to the side?

It would be right at the corner there with Third Street at the connection because we have to make that connection and we'll have some disturbance regardless because of the channel wall needing to be widened and connected into the existing wall.

So it's going to be on this end. Okay. Thank you. Yeah.

Any further questions for Travis? Any further discussion? If not, we need a motion to approve. Okay.

I'll second.

Roll call.

Meyer.

Aye.

Roby. Aye. Taylor.

Aye.

Bergmeier. Aye. Degenhardt. Aye. Fleur.

Aye. Thanks, Travis. Thank you, Travis. 26-0721, discussion and possible action to pursue approved facade improvement to Lacoma Golf. We need a motion to table this indefinitely.

I'll make the motion. I'll second it.

Roll call.

Roby. Aye. Taylor. Aye. Bergmeyer.

Aye.

Degenhardt. Aye. Fleur. Aye. Meyer.

Aye.

26-0722, discussion and possible action to approve IEPA 17-5984 payment in the amount of $143,490.20 for temporally excavating an origin design grant request number four in the city of East Dubuque.

We're approaching completion of this project. This all falls within the grant funds from the state. The project is on budget, so it all falls within that.

Has the city been refunded any of the money from the grant funds?

Yeah, so I think it was close to $300,000 that we had invested, and we just, what, a few weeks ago, that we finally got the check from the state. So we got a check for pushing $900,000. So it was like $894,000, something like that. So that included the engineering from the past.

Any questions or discussion? If not, we need a motion to approve.

I'll make a motion to approve.

I'll second.

Roll call.

Taylor. Aye. Bergmeier.

Aye.

Dagenhart. Aye. Miller. Aye. Meyer. Aye. Roby. Aye.

All right, there will be no executive session tonight. So 26-0725, motion to adjourn. Don't move. I'll second. Roll call.

Bergmayer.

Aye.

Degenhardt. Aye. Fleur. Aye. Meyer. Aye. Roby. Aye. Taylor.

Aye. We are adjourned.