Planning & Zoning / Properties & Recreation Committees - Regular Meeting

I will start or open up this Planning and Zoning Committee meeting. I'll start by approving the minutes from the April 8th meeting in 2026. So moved. Begatsky? I'll second it. You second it? Yeah. All in favor?

Aye.

There is no public participation. Uh, so we will start with the pergola permitting discussion.

Yeah. So this is, uh, something that's been in place since before I started. Um, typically for pergolas that are not attached to the main structure, we've never required a permit. Most of them are kits bought from Lowe's or Menards. Occasionally somebody will build one out of wood from scratch. Um, they're most of the time they don't have like a permanent roof over them. It's, uh, spaced out two buys that create some type of shade but still let some through so we've never had an issue with it a resident brought this up saying that their neighbor was building a pergola and they didn't have a permit so i explained to them that we've never required permits again we've never had any issues since i've been here in the 13 or 14 years i've been here it was that way before I got here, but I promised him that we would bring it up at a committee meeting and just see what the board decides on that. They want to start requiring permits for that. We can do it. It's up to you guys.

Are these more permanent structures like that are over decks or are they the ones that just bolt down like the buy?

Yeah, it's, it's mostly, like I said, kits that you bolt down to either a deck or a patio that's existing. There's no, There's no weight or structure to it that, you know, requires posts to go down in the ground. And that's the main thing. And why, if they're not attached to the main structure, they just move with the frost. Um, if they're attached to the structure, then we do require a permit because then they do have to go below the frost line if it requires any kind of a, a base structure to it.

I don't have heard any issues.

And those are totally movable. They could be moved. I don't think people want more regulations and, I mean,

Unless it becomes an issue, which it hasn't obviously for how long, so, okay.

Yep. They're already aggravated enough when they get that bucket of 10,000 bolts.

Easy assembly. Any other discussion on that, or are we good? No. Okay, awesome. All right, next one. The South Route 50 Village Sign Landscaping. I brought this up because I know, Chris, you emailed out that the guy was wanting to know if we wanted to do anything, so I just thought we might as well talk about it.

Yeah, so the history of this is when we decided to do these signs at three locations here in town, we're not allowed to put that on state right of way because if a car hits that, the state gets sued, we get sued, everybody gets sued, so this is private property that that's on. Jeff St. Alban was gracious enough to let us put the sign on his property. He's since sold his body shop and that additional building that he built, um, was taken over by a plumbing company. They've made kind of a mess in the yard out there. Uh, Jeff, I think finally came back into town and saw what was going on. They are a renter as I, I think so. Uh, he's not very happy with the mess that they've created, especially cause it's literally right next to our sign. So he's getting them to clean that up and then he's going to do some landscaping around that rental building and just reached out to us and wanted to know if there's, you know, did we want to tag on to his landscaper and pay for our share of dressing up the sign? We do have these in three locations, north route 50 south route 50 and then out there by a county highway nine and route 45.

So I didn't know if we want to do one, do all three.

Um, they pretty much all look the same. We did not do any landscape around them because we didn't want to have to maintain it and trim bushes and all that stuff. So they really just have grass around them.

What kind of landscaping are we talking about, just bushes?

How would you water those in those areas?

How much money are we talking about?

it's like the lowest option like the most basic i i honestly don't think that this looks bad if it is mode i don't either but if is jeff wanting us to do that because i mean it's his property is he is i mean i guess we could wait and see what he does how extravagant his landscaping is to kind of match it you know and see i don't know we haven't seen a plan for his. So maybe we just want to sit tight and see what he does and then evaluate it as to what would really dress that up along with it.

Cause I don't, I don't, I'm kind of with you, CJ. I don't think it looks bad that way.

You start putting landscaping around it. It's just another thing that we've got to maintain and you know, The problem is if we do landscape it and then we don't maintain it, non-maintained landscaping looks worse than no landscaping.

Jim, do you want more property to maintain?

I agree with that.

And we could always chuck back once Jeff does his and see if it's something that we don't think is going to be too hard to maintain and then decide. My also concern is we do it here, the other properties might be like, well, let's do it there too. Again, it's only three, but still.

I don't think we need to... We could say we're not going to do it right now and then just... Let's see what Jeff has in mind and then make a decision on it then.

Yeah, I don't want to slap him in the face because he's kind enough to give us permission to put this in there. And if he... If he has something in mind that he would like, then it's worth entertaining.

But it's not something at the top of my priority list to spend money on and then spend more money to maintain. So if he wants to do something nice around his building and we can complement that, maybe we can make that decision.

I agree with that.

All right, general discussion. I brought this up on Monday because I know we now have two vacancies in the Planning Commission. But as I said, I still don't know Dolly Carsons or Chris Pilbeam. I know, Mayor, you reached out to me yesterday that he will be at the meeting tonight. So at least I'll be able to get in there.

Dolly's out of town right now. But you will get to meet them. I have chosen to appoint them to the Planning Commission.

As I reached out to yesterday, Eric Urbanowski reached out to me saying maybe other future members are saying he's interested. I don't know if we want to let him just talk really quick, quick spiel, just like a background of why you want to be interested in this. Again, if we don't mind.

I don't mind. Yeah.

Good morning, board.

Many of you already know me, but my name is Eric Urbanowski. I've lived in the community of Manteno since 2005. I have worked also in the community for the majority part since 2006 to current and founded my own business here in Manteno since 2018 and I really think that I can add some asset into pointing towards recruiting businesses and trying to get the village set up for a future success.

And you have lots of free time to go to more meetings?

I've made my board meetings. I'm current chair of the Chamber of Commerce. I can definitely make it happen.

We can keep you in mind for something that comes up. Okay. Thank you. Thank you.

Any other general discussion at all? CJ, I think you wanted to talk about contracts. Are you going to do that at the finance meeting?

Oh, that's right, yes. And I talked to Mike too. We're going to do the contracts obviously there too. And then he asked if you could possibly come to the next finance meeting too. He would like to meet you also with that stuff. Yes, contracts. So contracts are up for... Mr. LaRock, Mr. Hanley, and then our chief, Alan Swinford. Was there any comments or concerns in those when you're looking through? I'm pretty sure based on how I figured it out, looking at the police officers and stuff, the raises that were given to the three were just the raises that the staff got to. I don't think there's any more. Am I wrong in saying that? Correct. And at this time, I have no concerns with any of the three. I don't either.

I think we need to get through the two major things that are coming up right now, the audit and the Goshen issues. So let's get through that, and then we'll talk about contracts.

Okay, and the audit will be done tonight, and then, I mean, the Goshen issue is, it's a lawsuit against us, so I don't know when that will end.

There's a meeting this morning, isn't there, Chris?

I believe they have a status hearing today.

Okay. Well, as a village, I think that we need to be able to juggle multi... faceted topics, right? And I don't think contracts have anything to do with Goshen. I don't think contracts have anything to do with the audit.

Let's wait and see what kind of changes come up.

I mean, people don't want to continue to not have a contract. If I was under contract, I'd want to have my contract renewed, and I think that we're able to multitask.

Todd, let's wait and see what happens after these two issues, and then we'll move on.

Okay, well, I think that's your, obviously that's your opinion, Annette, but There's six other board members. We have the right to put it on the agenda and vote on it.

That's our next meeting, what, two weeks from now? Correct? That should be plenty of time if both things are happening today to process all that information to decide. I know it's going to be at Mike's meeting and finance next week, but I ask if we put those back on the agenda, then that'll give us plenty of time to think about it, discuss it more if we need to.

What I have seen is a pattern of us continuously kicking the can down the road with not just contracts, but we have these committee meetings. We discuss topics. It seems like we're in agreement, and then we get to the boardroom to vote on it. And then all of a sudden, while it's tabled, it's kicked down the road. That's why we have these meetings that we're at today, to discuss this so that when we get to the board meeting, we can make a decision.

If all of us agreed on everything,

all the time we would not be a very good board would we well we're not always all going to agree on everything that's true i mean that's what gives us the diversification and we don't have multi opinions we don't have to rush into a decision so we will discuss it at the next board meeting i i i personally don't think we're rushing into a decision this is i mean this has been on the table we do that for a year right yeah it's a year contract they're not new employees either i haven't heard

And I mean, Mayor, you have the right to appoint anyone, but I haven't heard you throw any nominees for any of the three.

There will be some coming.

Well, you better put it out in the next two weeks because we are voting on contracts.

Good idea. Thank you.

All right. Is there any other general discussion for my meeting? All right. I will ask for a motion to adjourn. So moved. So moved. Second by Zillman. All in favor?

Aye. Awesome. Okay. Parks and Rec. First item is approval of minutes from April 8th, 2026. Have a motion to approve that? I'll make that motion. Motion by Boudreaux. Second by?

I wasn't at that.

I'll second it. Okay. Second by L'Amour. All in favor? Aye. Okay. No public participation. First thing is jump pillow hours.

This was brought up because I got a phone call from a young mother, and she was representing seven other mothers who were afraid to call me. I don't know why. But they get up early in the morning, get their older kids off to school, and some of them have toddlers, and they like to go to the park, and they want their kids to be able to jump on the pillow earlier than 10 o'clock. So she said, would you consider changing the hours instead of 10 to 10, make them 9 to 9, or just open it up earlier? So that's why I'm bringing it to you. It's coming from the people.

How long does it take? We deflate every night, correct?

Yeah. We have a timer that goes off most of the time, 15 minutes, maybe half an hour before we open the gate. That's how long it takes to pump up. On our end, it's just changing the timer.

I think initially we changed those hours because of park ranger issues, correct? Yes. I don't know that we really have troubles in the morning, the early aspect of it. Those who will cause this heartburn probably are still in bed at that point in time, right?

By the way, I was at the park yesterday and it was still early, I don't remember exactly what time it was, probably early afternoon. And one of the mothers came up to me and told me that a 12-year-old boy said something sexual to a seven-year-old girl. And when she told me what it was, I'm not gonna repeat it, it was very inappropriate, but it made me just reaffirm my belief that we do need to have rangers in that park.

Hope that mother ghost talks to the police, because that would be above the park ranger level.

I mentioned that right away. I said, did anybody call the police? And I don't know if they did. But there are issues that come up at the park, and especially around the jumping pillow, because that's the most popular thing there.

Well, I think the jumpy pillow, what time of day did that happen at?

I don't know.

Because we were going to have, I mean, our plan was still to have park rangers. It was just not the early day hours, correct? Yes.

I believe they're working 4 to 10 or 5 to 10.

I spoke with Chief Swinford yesterday about this, and how can you decide which hours of the day are the most important? I think we should have at least one ranger there when the parks open.

Well, I guess a couple of things, and I know it was brought up on Monday about we don't have park rangers there right now, It's because we opened up the jumpy pillow earlier than we normally do. It normally doesn't get opened until school's out, like after Memorial Day. But having them there, yeah, in a perfect world, if money wasn't an object, you'd have 24.

Safety is the most important thing, and we want to make sure all the kids are safe. And also, when you have some kids who kind of get rowdy, haven't we had kids damage the jumping pillow before? Didn't somebody knife it?

We have, we have.

You don't want bad things to happen over there.

But again, so how are we going to work towards balancing the budget then?

You still have to take care of the things that are the most important, and safety is key. Keep the kids safe, keep the people who are safe.

If you want to hire 24-7, we could put a- Could we ask the chief to, I don't know how many people are on patrol, like to put a car there? Would that be a deterrent in a way? At least in the early hours, like again, i teach high schoolers teenagers they ain't they ain't moving until like noon in the summertime so i don't really see a reason to start putting them out there until maybe like one or two at the earliest i know there would be little kids out there but their parents are there well i'm putting putting the car out there the deterrent remember when the police station was right there and all the police officers were parking and in and out of the parking lot

I can't fathom the people who cut the jumpy pillow and did damage to it when they know they're on camera, when they're right there by where the police station was.

Not all kids think about that.

No, they don't, but I don't know that a park...

Best thing we can do is keep a watch. Just have the police drive by and see when it gets crowded and see what the hours are that we need to cover.

And that's, yeah, I'm, I'm open to having flexibility with it, but you know, the ideas of keeping, what are we talking about here?

Chris, $15 an hour. Is that what they get paid?

No, it's a little bit more than I think we pay him $17 an hour because we had a hard time getting people that wanted to do it especially responsible people you can't have a High schooler over there in charge of the pillows need adults And we did have those discussions with the police department earlier this year and asked them their opinion on When the trouble was taking place and you know, it can happen anytime. I mean, there's there's no doubt about that in fact the damage to the pillow was done while there was a park ranger there, so you're not going to catch everything. You're not going to be able to stop cameras around the pillow, correct? We have cameras all through that park. Um, and it, this was just the police, you know, recommended that we have them present when the older kids are there, you know, they're limited in size to being on the pillow and some kids follow the rules.

Some don't something else that came up yesterday. There were quite a few kids there and there were kids going on that merry-go-round And one of the mothers said that she doesn't think we should move that. It's in a good spot right now. Why go to the trouble of moving it? The kids love it.

I don't think they're not going to like it when it's moved over to the other location, too.

But why move it? Why go to the cost when it works the way it is? I also think that that fence being there and that sidewalk is not a bad thing.

It's definitely hard to push. I'm sorry, I didn't hear the other part there.

I also think that having the fence and the sidewalk that you said you wanted to remove, I don't know if that's really necessary.

That was agreed upon.

I did not come up with that.

I proposed that. We talked about that because we wanted more open space so the kids can run and have more freedom with that stuff. Because that was always a big complaint that I heard from kids was tight, tight, tight. Well, at least that would open it up more and they could actually move around and they don't have to worry about going over a sidewalk and stuff like that. That would be... smoother, safer. I don't know. When I see kids out there, they like playing football and throwing stuff around or baseball and stuff. That would widen the space for them too. That's why I thought that was a good idea.

We already approved the plan and are halfway underway with it.

I don't think that's a big thing. I've never heard that concern from anybody because the fence along the road is still there. Again, they're still contained. The safety aspect is there.

Let's go back to the jump pillow hours what hours do you want it open mayor nine o'clock in the morning okay so it's opening an hour earlier so the mothers who are getting up super early because they have little kids okay i i'm fine with an hour earlier it's you still want to keep it open guys um like okay so the fountain also turns out at 10 do we want to change that or are we still good with the 10 o'clock start with that make the whole park open up at nine o'clock. This way you're not back and forth trying to turn things on and off. What about the park ranger issue then?

What will it be?

I think we ask the police maybe to just check in every, like for the next week or couple weeks and get some data on when they see the surges of kids. As the summertime starts and just kind of then we go from there. I don't, again, I don't think we need to adjust the hours right now. I don't think there's going to be much. I mean, again, is there going to be trouble? Who knows? But in my mind, I don't think it would be that frequent in the morning.

I think input from Chief Swinford and the police department would be valuable on this.

So we'll. Let them, we're gonna move the hours from nine to 10 for both the jumpy pillow and the fountain. We'll hold off on any park rangers, adding those, and if we have issues, then we can always readdress that in the future.

Again, I wanna ask you, is it important to keep it open till 10 o'clock at night?

I think during the summertime, it gets used then. When you start getting later hours, I think it's pretty busy.

We don't get any complaints from the neighbors who live near there?

I haven't. None that I'm aware of. The other parks are open until midnight on the signs. So I don't know if a lot of people are out there that late, but this park in particular is really well lit. It's got the restaurants and PJs and everything else kind of going.

That sign that I sent you a picture of, I don't know what it was supposed to say.

I don't know. I think one of the rangers put that up last year. I'll get a new one up there.

We need a new sign over there at the square.

I feel like keeping the kids in a more well-lit area as it gets later, too. That's always a good thing.

Easier to keep control over them when they're all in one spot versus... All right, event pictures discussion.

Emma Mikos called me and wanted to know if we still wanted to hire her to do the photography and the drone pictures of events and things that happen in town. She's been doing it for several years, Chris? Yes.

Yeah, that's something that Jacob had taken control of.

She'd like to continue, but she wants the board to approve it. She charges $325 an hour, and that includes all her editing and work she does to put out a video.

Do we have anything put in the budget or anything?

Is that something that the village has been covering or was that through the chamber?

Yes.

Both. I think they, they do some media, both video and pictures for chamber events. And then they also did some for a village events.

So we can have Ashley connect with her then if that was under Jacob's role.

It's been a night, a budgeted line item for years.

Yeah.

So we've got money in the budget for it.

I mean, I think Emma does a great job too.

She does a really good job.

i just say though connect connect ashley with her that way they can figure out what events we want them to do or upcoming all that kind of stuff as long as we've got it in the budget let them continue on and you know she can move forward with ashley we good with that i believe the market is today right market on the square yeah it's every other week and i was told there's 34 vendors

Good?

Yeah. That would be a good thing. All right. Under general discussion, I had first thing was Goshen permits that I had Chris. I was speaking with Mike yesterday, and we've got a little bit of feedback about some permits for duct work and the ventilation duct work. that EPA's supposed to be issuing those permits, and there's been some reported questions of whether these permits have been issued or not. Do we know anything about that?

Yes, I did send an email to Mohamed on April 28th. They have received air permits from the EPA. He's going to send me copies of that permit, and in terms of the duct work that's being installed, we're now doing weekly inspections with BNF and the fire department, and we We did have one inspection report so far for some of the HVAC equipment that was approved. That was done on April 20th, but we are doing weekly inspections out there for the work that's being done on phase two.

And when you say we, is BNF Technicals doing them?

BNF Technical and the fire department walk through every week.

And as far as these EPA permits that would for the air quality that we have nothing to do with that, those aren't filed at village hall or that's completely under their jurisdiction yet. So how would we know if they drew those permits or not though?

He's going to send me copies of it that the, that they've received from the EPA giving them permission to do what they're doing in the plan.

Okay.

So that, Did he say when he was going to do that because that's about two weeks ago? Yeah, I should have it this week or early next week at the latest.

Is there a point person we could contact at the EPA to confirm or go to if we had to?

Yeah, I assume there is somebody. I don't know whether they release them to municipalities or not.

when you get, when you get that copy, can you forward it to myself and Mike? Yeah, I'll send it out to the whole board. I told him that I would ask about it. Yep. And any other discussions? General?

I have one quick thing and I should have brought up on mine and I, This is another thing that kind of got lost in the weeds here was surveys. Mike Graham had asked me to make them. I think I sent them out a while ago, so I'll send them out again. These are surveys of kind of just, well, one is for children, one is for adults of just like, um i know obviously we're watching our budget but what do we like about the parks what would we want added to the parks what are activities we could offer all that kind of stuff just ideas that we just if we wanted to get that data from the kids um i'm gonna just send that out and then if you guys are all good with it We just had a school board meeting last night, but there's still one more in June. If you wouldn't mind, I would just bring it up to them and be like, hey, do you mind if I start it next year, have you push it out? That way, you know what I mean, we can hit most of the kids. I mean, obviously not the ones that go to Mac, but most of them, just to get some data on what are the kids wanting, especially maybe coming off summer. That could be a good kind of time to start planning on if we want to change anything, tweak anything, stuff like that. Okay. Um, and then there's an adult one too, that I'll maybe we can push out on the village website of just what are things that they would want to see added to the parks.

Um, they're going to want a place to ride their scooters, their electric scooters.

But I just thought if we're okay with that, um, and I'll say, I got that surveys are made. He helped a lot with that, which I appreciate. Um, I thought it'd be kind of good information to have.

Okay. Yeah. Sounds good. Great. Um, Chris, there's something I asked you to remind me of that on the property. over on South Creek.

Yeah. Yeah. Is that torture?

Yeah. So, um, I think you and Mike had met with Paul towards trick about the property in the, um, about possibly doing a development there. They didn't want us to talk about anything publicly yet, so it's just something they're looking at. Well, my understanding is they're going to pull that out. The road improvements are not, the cost of that's going to make it prohibitive. Other than that, that's all I have. If anyone else has anything else?

Meeting's tonight, correct, at 6.30?

Meeting tonight, 6.30. Okay.

The windscreens, the new windscreens out at the pickleball courts? Yeah. They look really good.

Oh, okay. They came down Monday. We had a microburst.

Really?

Zip ties just broke, but yeah. I'd rather see the zip ties break than the fence break. Yeah.

That's kind of tough. They did bring a class over there because our juniors are done with AP, and I will say having that... free equipment. I had the kids playing bocce ball. They were playing with that shuffleboard, beanbags. It's great. That's awesome, because I don't think my kids would be playing bocce ball. You wouldn't think teenagers would, but they were having a blast. I love the day we have that stuff. We might need to replace, though, the bag set.

I heard there's a couple things missing, so yeah, we have to refresh our inventory.

Pick a ball, balloons, whatever it is. That's great.

where do we stand with that rental place? Uh, I assume that no one's renting anything.

I think we did get one check so far for 10 bucks or something. Yes. So it's not getting the use. I think we have a four years left in the contract. I think it was a five year contract if I'm not mistaken, three to five. So yeah, it's not getting a lot of use.

All right. Well, if you can give it a freshen up on the rentals, our free stuff that we have, and we haven't had too many problems that we've heard about. We got a camera there too.

I will say, and I will push it out better, the teenagers, they did not know that was free equipment for them. They thought someone left the shed open and there's stuff there. I'm like, no, no, no, that's like, it's for use for all. I said, no, you should... we got a sign on the inside maybe put another right yeah or just or just uh it could be a message on from ashley again saying hey cease park just remember it's free equipment if you want to use it yep a sign on the outside is not a bad idea and again that would be available right or above it like just says we can make our own signs right now we'll go there and it'll all be gone well we got cameras jim we make our own signs don't we uh no we pay for them yeah We can get a price on that, though, if we need to, but I think word of mouth, too, works a little bit. All right.

Motion to adjourn.

I'll make that motion.

Moved by CJ, seconded by Zimelman. All in favor? Aye.