Planning & Zoning / Properties & Recreation Committees - Regular Meeting

Good morning. We're gonna move the agenda around a little bit this morning just because we have some speakers here that need to get out quickly. So first thing, we'll start with the property and rec. First item I have is approval of the property and rec minutes from June 10th, 2026.

I'll make the motion.

Motion by Crockett. I'll second. Second by Zimbelman. All in favor? Aye. There's no public participation. this morning, so the first item I have is, I'm gonna jump down to the Pickleball League. Mr. Jeff Dexter's here. Jeff, if you could kind of come up to the microphone and give us a layout about what you're thinking. We talked about this at my last committee meeting that we thought it'd be a good idea to have a league on Tuesdays and Thursdays utilizing six of the 10 pickleball courts.

So Jeff, the floor is yours. First, thank you for allowing me to come here to speak today. Again, I'm Jeff Dykstra. Co-founder and director of Paddle Together Pickleball. We are the largest organization in probably a pretty large area of about almost 800 members here. Many of those are from here and you'll be surprised at the number of people in our community from Kankakee County. Manteno is the second largest group we have despite having other municipalities like Kankakee and stuff larger I think the reason for that is is because your kind of vision not just the pickleball courts but what you did there at these Park but pickleball is important and I know this I'm a member of several organizations up north and inside facilities and when there's places to play we encourage them to come down when people come down here and try this place and see what you guys have done they're very impressed and I'm not the type of individual who's gonna tell you both smoke up your skirt and tell you something different it is what it is you guys have had a great vision and from our organization we appreciate that our organization was born out of my almost losing my life in 2020 from a liver transplant I had to have to survive and I had a rare syndrome and I couldn't walk, I couldn't talk, I was on 10 liters of oxygen and my wife came up with a crazy idea to try pickleball, part of my recovery. I was the worst case ever that Mayo Clinic had seen in the world of my syndrome and I can really attest the fact that Mayo Clinic saved my life but pickleball gave my life back and part of that is you're part of that story too because your vision to inc to increase the number of courts and as you may have seen if you drove by at different times it's a busy place and it's a sport that's growing 100 every year um so the our mission is pretty simple we want to grow the game build community support municipalities like yours and create opportunities for people of all levels I was contacted about volunteering for our organization to oversee a league. Now people say, why a league? It's not uncommon. Again, I'm a pickleball addict. If there's one thing I'm addicted to is pickleball, and I would encourage anybody here, come out and try it. We have a lot of free classes. We don't charge anybody. It's just the love of the game. And the reason we want to do this is it does formalize some things for some of our folks that are a little bit more serious and want to do that. We responded, having 792 members as of today, we put out a quick survey over the last four or five days. We got about 10% back, which is common in that period of time. and we think that it was important to serve a community. With that information that we got from you that there may be a desire here, we wanted to see is there interest. We want to keep the focus on getting the surveys back without overwhelming. If we had 800 people respond, how do we fit that all in and still let everyone go there and casually play during the day at night? We used our website and our Facebook page to be able to collect that data. And the survey highlights there is a strong interest in participating. focus that into our group, which is a private Facebook group, but anybody can join. We didn't put in Talk of Bourbonnais or the Manteno Facebook group because then what happens is the limited time spaces Joel mentioned of Tuesday, Thursday, you can't fit that number of people into that space and you can't fit that in within a six to eight hour period. So we didn't want to overwhelm it. We view this as a pilot program. We view this as an opportunity for the community. We view this as the opportunity for people to come on a Tuesday, Thursday night, and be able to play a game they love, have a little bit of fun, but also a little bit of competition, which we'll talk about here in a minute. It's organized play. It's opportunities to improve. It's playing with others of similar abilities. If you get into pickleball, you'll find after a while, I like playing with newer people, but I like playing with people a little bit more competitively, and people that are newer don't want to play with people that are more competitive. It's not fun on either end of that spectrum. Social interaction, which is huge for us, as we did Our first year, we did a fundraiser and raised about $3,000 for Alzheimer's. This game touches on many areas, in particular for our folks that is the largest group of our demographics, seniors. It gets us active. It gets us doing a unique scoring style. It socializes things. Oftentimes, as we get older, our groups shrink through death, retirement, divorce, moving, whatever, and this actually touches on four of those areas that help offset Alzheimer's and is a really, really great way to be able to have fun in your community and it gets you out and exercise. We broke it down to three areas, instructional, developmental, right? So we'll be out there as coaches. I'm getting my certification, PPR certification here shortly. I'll be, quote, official, but we will do instructional development, recreational competitive, still fun, but competitive, and then more advanced competitive. Advanced competitive are folks who come together, and oftentimes you'll see they'll go into their fours, eights, 12s, skill pods, and they'll play with people at advanced levels. what we call intentional recreation, and we thought that was important to capture that. Why it benefits, we think, Manteno. It creates a consistent recreational program for residents. Again, it encourages healthy, active lifestyles. It also will help any new residents that may be interested in coming in. I think as the program, if this goes off and you guys approve it, this gives us an opportunity to do more, again, without overwhelming the courts. We don't want to take away the courts from the community coming in, but we want to give opportunities and pockets of competitive play. It also makes great use of your investment. You did a huge investment out there, and we want to make sure that that investment pays off and has people come here. It also brings participants and other people here to Manteno. So kind of the thoughts we threw around was, why don't we have a night, if it's a PJ ice cream night, right? And we highlight them and have people come in for ice cream afterwards. Sammy's Pizza, come in, have them there. If we want to, again, this is your league, we're volunteering, but I'm trying to throw out ideas. If you want a food truck night, people can come there. it more of a casual kind of fun thing maybe at the end the potluck thing where we all get together have fun we always have music playing if you show up it's music typically our people have really good taste in music so we don't get any crazy stuff but if they do i bring my speaker and i tell them i'll take care of it again many municipalities do this and so this is not something uncommon it shouldn't be controversial but you know some people may not want that but again it's a very limited time here The three divisions, if I get into real quickly, instructional development. We want to learn the game, some coaching, and bring in new players. Recreational is our largest anticipated division. Organized, friendly competition, and then advanced competitive, which is a higher level play in more of a competitive environment. No fights, no anything, just a lot of boasting about how good or how bad you are, depending on what end spectrum you're on. this allows all the players to compete and offers similar ability while also continuing improving again we looked at tuesday thursday based off of our initial discussion it seems overwhelming that people prefer those nights and actually for both nights so for us our opportunity our our task is going to be figure out how we can divide that up within those six courts if that's what you guys choose to do Again, it's probably 6 to 8 p.m., not too early, not too late. It gets people home and also allows us to be able to stop by businesses. And we're always interested in bringing some of your local folks there to highlight what they do. I think it's important. This gives us an opportunity to do this, and it also sets the stage for future opportunities for other leagues, tournaments, whatever. Again, we don't come to municipalities saying, we want this. You probably have been contacted in the past by people going, we want to hold a tournament there. Oftentimes, those are money makers. Our organization takes our money, puts it back in. We invest in youth programs, paddles, give those away, balls, and just do free classes all the time. My wife has indicated to me, my wife, Charlotte, who's my co-founder, I would be the worst businessman you've ever known because I give everything away for free. But I'm happy. We think there also would be an opportunity for us to make sure that we get people to show up. If I said to all of you, show up Thursday night, some of you would show, some of you would go, I got something to do, something will pop up. We think having a small fee to make sure people have skin in the game, commit to it, helps us to do that. So it would be five bucks a week. We would pay that, we'd ask them to pay that up. It would be 30 bucks, right? And then what we do is, You can take the money and do whatever you want. We would like to have five bucks back to us because we have to buy balls, we buy metals, we buy water. You know, it's been extremely hot this year. So, those kind of things. The rest can go back to you. You can set up a committee with us. You can do whatever you want. But we think that's an opportunity to invest back in. As you may know, unfortunately, we do have Some mysterious youth somewhere, probably not from this community, who show up sometimes and cause a little bit of problems there. We get some damages and stuff. Some of those things are helpful for us to make sure we can offset that, but do either replacements or improvements to the park. Again, it reduces our ability as a volunteer and as you run the organization for no-shows. The last thing you want to do is you need four people to play. Typically, you're not playing singles. We're not that young. Maybe there are some young folks here. But typically, you're playing doubles. The singles are a little too hard. But showing up with three, you can't play. So this reduces no-shows on the feet. it just creates a more reliable league experience for everybody um so again it's not a fundraiser it's not a money maker it's you guys have hands on eyes on everything else um again we talked about our potential community partners sammy's pizza pj's food truck nights maybe local business highlights we'll do whatever you want we think it's important that not only do they come to that western end of the town but they also maybe come in as well I think I'm not from here, I'm from Bradley, but I do love Manitino. I think you guys have always done a good job here. It's a quaint town. I know there's always issues, either at board meetings or other things, but for us folks coming in from Bradley, Kanky and stuff, I'm always impressed to come in and find that this is a lovely town. Again, I'm not the type of guy who will smoke up your skirt. I know everybody has problems and issues, but from our perspective, at least from my perspective, I think you have a great community here and we want to be part of that. I think the reason we want to do this and start a pilot program is the survey demonstrates strong commitment to the community. It's a manageable participation level. We didn't overwhelm it. Low financial risk. There's really nothing there. Opportunity to evaluate and improve on that process and allows the village to determine long-term interest if you're interested in expanding. So that's my story. I'm sticking to it. I thank you again for your time and consideration We appreciate the villages willingness to consider this endeavor you last year had voted us to be your partner in pickleball all things pickleball and we Respect that and appreciate that And if you choose to move forward We're always prepared to help you. We have a great group of folks in our leadership group that's always volunteering. You may see a couple of them out there. One of them is Dorian's, and now he's measuring, taking things, probably talking to Jim more than he wants to be talked to about, we need this, we need that, we do this. We have people that show up and bring food and water and stuff. So it's a really great community. We would ask you all to join us as well. If you haven't been out there, come out. It's a great time. but our goal is simple we want to help you create a well organized welcoming and sustainable pickleball league that reflects what the community has and what it's about so again i appreciate your time um and we're here to support you in any way we can i'll answer any questions you you have and then to be honest with you i'm going to play pickleball it's a tough life jeff when would you uh be looking at having the league when when can we

If we're all in agreement with this today, which I haven't heard anything that's different than what we talked about, when would you start sign-ups and when could we anticipate this leave going?

What we did up front was we'll take those registrations as a sign-up. We'll probably have some more paperwork for folks signed up, but we already have those folks signed up. Joe, I would say probably within two weeks we can have that thing going. The only reason the two weeks is we could start tomorrow, people don't have their schedules clear we don't want to say start tomorrow and then people don't show up that that would defeat the purpose so like starting July 22nd sure well I'm a hard sell

Jeff and I talked a little bit about the fee aspect of it, and, you know, I initially was not a big fan of it, but when he explains the skin in the game, it makes sense that people, if they don't have any money tied up into it, it's a little warm today. I don't feel like going out, and they stay home if they've got nominal cost and we talked about the money, just putting it back into the pickleball stuff as far as having waters there for people. And if there's money left over at the end, I mean, we could even have an event for the people who participated in it with their own money at a local business, you know, like you said, the PJs or whatever. Is there any questions that the rest of the board has?

You're collecting the money, correct? That would be through you or is that through us?

We're a non-for-profit, so we would collect that. We would provide you with whatever data. Let me just expand on that. We did leagues inside last year at the Rec Center in Kankakee because we don't have an official facility. Something to keep in mind. We need a real facility, but that's a bigger task there. We did leagues and we paid up front. Then we did a Friday night social league where you could just show up. The difference in attendance was amazing, right? We would get everybody showing up because they paid, they were there, right? We had a few people, never had no show, but they got people to fill in. Our Friday nights could be three people. It could be 16 people. It just depends, right? Because we said, come in, you can show up whenever you want. And we had to pay for the courts, right? Because of the indoor facility. So that was the difference. And that's when we really knew, boy, this could be a problem if you just said, show up and pay when you get there. Because people are like, nah, I'm not going to do that. So that's a pretty real-life example for you.

I think for the fee collection, and Jeff and I didn't talk about this, but it's probably as good a time as any to discuss it. the money should probably be collected by the payable to the village, and then we can disperse funds to Jeff, like for the water, the five bucks deal, and at the end, and here's the reason behind it, and Jeff, you and I talked a little bit, touched about it, but his concern is if someone gets hurt, and if he's taking the money, as his liability and insurance portion of it. They don't want to take on that liability piece, whereas if we take it in, he's just functioning, he's covered under the village. It's no different than when Ashley has an event, they're covered under the village aspect. My thought process is when you do your registration, it should be that that we take in the money to the village and then the village can then, Sheila's probably not loving me for extra paperwork for her, but I do think it would be the smarter way of doing it to protect you from, because his pickleball organization or non-for-profit shouldn't be on the hook for doing something because really you're running this upon the village's request for free.

Yeah, and again, we can do it a million different ways, right? Sometimes we do it through Venmo. I'm not suggesting that. I'm just saying write checks, pay cash. We tend to stay away from cash, but we do that. We'd like to have that for you guys before you start, not showing up. I mean, some people say, can I pay showing up if I know them and trust them? But we would like that so then that way someone says, I'll be there the first night and I'll show up and then we never see them again and then we're minus one person, which creates a little bit of a problem.

That's fine with me. I'm not in disagreement with you on that. I have a, I just a thought and how would that play out with our other organizations like MLB or a MLSB or the, uh, soccer program MIB as far as, you know, the whole liability thing, I get that. And, and I'm,

know i think this sounds like a great idea i just want to know i want to be in alignment with the other organizations and how they operate and how they pay and so forth and so on and i think that the difference there is that those are actual leagues or actual things this is being put on by the village so if if all of a sudden this is a big hit and then you know we find later on that we want to have a pickleball team, a Manteno pickleball team, then we would have to go into an MOU just like we do with the other ones, and then they would be responsible for fees, et cetera, liability. So this is more of an event versus an organization. This is not an organization. This is more an event just like how we had the shuffling with seniors. While it's the same sort of thing, this is pickling with Jeff or

We'll come up with a better name. So it's more of an event driven

It's more of an event, and hopefully it grows into a league. I know Jeff's talked about it for years. He'd love to see there be a youth league and then turn into a high school team. That's been his dream. So this is kind of more of the pilot program. Well, pilot program, and I play pickleball. I never did before last year when we got involved in it. Like you said, it gets addicting, and I heard a lot of our residents saying, You know, they show up there and they're sitting around not knowing how to get involved to play with someone or ask. There's a lot of people who would want to go and play just, you know, hey, I'm single that day and don't have a partner. It would be better if there was a league. That raises one of my next questions.

How do people sign up? Let's say, like you just mentioned, what if it's just an individual that doesn't have a partner but wants to?

We did the registration. I think what we do, if it's all right with you guys, is build from what we have. We have enough to fill both nights easily right now. So we're at probably about 80 responses within that period of time. So we figured that's about 10% what I expected to respond. Now, of course, we need confirmation. So if you show up, right, so it's a league, so it's not an assigned partner, so it's not me and Sheila got to show up every week, right? If we're all playing, I show up, and the league structure we use software, the league structure says, oh, well, this week I'm with Sheila, the next week I'm with Joel, the next week I'm with... with Todd, right? And so you don't have to have a partner. You can just show up. Joel's point is exactly right. I started, and I was doing my recovery from my transplant. I was at Riverside walking. I kept telling my wife, they're playing this pickleball. And we played a couple of times. I want to do it, but I don't really know what I'm doing. I'm afraid. And look, 95% of pickleball players are great. There are 5% that are jerks. I will give you that. And I showed up. Everybody was welcoming except for about 5% of those folks. I didn't know what I was doing. I wasn't very good, and the more advanced players, the more I played. But it took me walking around that track for three or four weeks before I finally said, I'm going to give it a try. And I think that was my concern, is that barrier. And I've had people say, well, I want to get involved, but I don't really know how. I think it just gives them that lead in. And again, I think the benefits from a perspective of where I'm at, and again, I'm an open book, Last year when I went back, I go every year to Mayo Clinic with my transplant team, and they said something to me that they hadn't seen often, was they said, from where you are at to where you are is amazing, and we give credit to Pickleball, but we've seen they do everything. They skin everything. It's not just transplant, everything. They give me the 100-point inspection, and they said, your bone density has increased, which we don't often see, and that's because of pickleball you're out there and so the benefits are great but we have to give the opportunity I try to think in my mind if I'm a senior or someone that maybe doesn't have that much a social aspect what do I do I'll give you an example and Connie I won't use lesson Connie came to us last year and said I'm so glad that I joined this group I used to go to work come home eat like crazy watch TV and I was depressed this has changed my life I found my tribe And I can go play places. And I had a lady when I was last year doing a beginner class at Adventure Commons inside show up. And I told her my story about surviving liver transplant. What I didn't know was that she had just lost her husband in December because he didn't get a liver transplant. And she was in tears. I was in tears. And I told our people, exchange numbers, gather around her, and support her. I got to see her last week. In fact, I'm going to be meeting their group Thursday morning here in Manteno and just talking with them, going over some stuff. She looks great, she sounds great, she looks like a pickleball player, tennis player. And I asked her how she's doing, and she said, I am so happy. That's the thing that we want to do with this pickleball. So we'll jump through any hoops you want, because we think those type of stories reflect exactly what pickleball does. I say I can solve the world's problems. If you give me a couple of pounds and a pickleball on the court, I'll I'll solve your differences, at least for a couple of hours or an hour. Right. So, yeah, I think when you're talking about that from an organization standpoint of view, we're just going to volunteer. It would be an event. It would just be a six week event for you guys rather than a one time event. And then if that grows, then we start talking about how do we grow? How do we model that differently?

It sounds amazing, and like you said, it brings people together. Maybe we should have a pickleball event at the next village board meeting.

You know, I suggested that last year, and I'm still open to that. That would be great. I'm telling you, Joe, I will tell you, Joe, I didn't know Joe. And Joe, I started on you last year, probably about 7 o'clock in the morning. You came out to the park, and I started on you about pickleball. And I'll be honest with you, Joe, I got a lot of no's. And then we started talking, and Joe said, well, come here, do this, do this. And then Joe started reaching out to me, hey, what do I got to do for a pickleball panel? What do I got to do? And it was because he played it, right? And I'm telling you, if you haven't played it, play it um if nothing else it may not solve all your differences but i'm telling you what it will make you happy you'll find new things um and you know there's some people i don't really care for that i play the pickleball with i like to beat up maybe that's the case i don't know maybe that good competition but yeah i think it's a great opportunity realistically i know that's you you kind of said facetiously um that pickleball does make a difference in people's lives it does resolve conflicts i've had them we've had them in this group so That would be my hope. I know there's always differences in communities, but Pickleball will help heal that, I think. Whether it be the board, whether it be you folks, we'd love to have you involved with this organization. It's a lot of fun, it's non-controversial, and it's healthy, but it is addicting. You can spend up to $350 for a paddle, or you can spend 10 bucks for a paddle. It depends on how much you want to invest and how much you're addicted to it.

So for now, for those that want to get involved, I know this one might be full, they should join the Facebook group, Paddle Together.

Yeah, Paddle Together, Kankakee County Pickleball. It's a closed group. We closed that group just because when we opened it up first, you get people from India and Pakistan and China and wherever, right? And so we ended up, so we had to close that. But absolutely, they should join that, grow that. And then if this works, we can certainly continue to build on that. And then what we can do as we go forward is how do we build an indoor pickleball facility with...

eight to ten perfect professional courts and we play year-round here in Manteno so I'm always pushing that thanks yeah is there any board opposition to us otherwise we give Jeff the green light to go ahead and start marketing to start on the 22nd and Jeff if you could reach out to village hall maybe we can get that same flyer link to your facebook group for signing up on our village website and on our village facebook page so this way it's no it's no secrets right Everyone good with that?

So when we did that survey, is that where you're getting your numbers from, Jeff?

Yeah, yeah. And I think rather than redo that and have them sign up, I think we just used, I wanted to use that registration or that survey as the registration since they showed interest. And I think if there's something that goes, maybe we can at least hint that there might be a possibility for a second round if that's something that either works or isn't. But right now we're probably pretty packed on Tuesdays, Thursdays. I didn't want to go beyond your parameters. I didn't want to expand that because, again, I know I come at night and there's kids all over playing. There's different times. There's a lot of golf in the afternoons because it's been so warm. But I didn't want to take up valuable spaces for the community that just wanted to show up and play.

So the six courts will be utilized. That will be reserved between six and eight. but they'll still be open play, like public, on the old tennis courts that are pickleball courts.

Right, I was just, because we did fill out that survey, so would that mean we are registered?

That would mean you're registered. Okay. I'm sorry, I should have clarified.

That's okay. Okay. Jeff?

So we can move forward with it. Jeff, thank you very much. Go have a good game. And do you want me to take it? Again, we said we were jumping around a little bit just to try to help people get out of here. So I'm going to steal something off of CJ's agenda. Mr. Bob Early, regarding a gaming license request. Bob, if you'd like to address the board.

Thanks for having me, everybody. So... about almost 10 months now we've been open. On our side of town, I've had a lot of requests to add this kind of thing, especially in those two buildings over there. I think it really levels us up with other companies that are doing what we're doing. If you go in anywhere else, they've got them lined up and we've got you know, the space kind of cordoned off.

So just let us know what, what organization are you with? I'm sorry.

We're true golf links. Yep. I apologize on the other side of town, uh, by, uh, cams, unknown strength. Uh, and it's an indoor golf simulator facility. Um, been going, going well when we have group parties, that's when I get most of the feedback for not everybody golfs or wants to do the other things we have. So it's something else for those groups to do while they're there. Um, Happy to answer any questions. There's really no mystery to it. I don't expect it to be a huge thing, just something for the folks to comment.

I think when you applied the first time, we just asked that you show that you have a sustainable business, and I feel like so far you have shown that you have a sustainable business that doesn't need gaming necessarily to survive. So that's all I had asked.

I think he's followed the rules just like we've asked, and just like we were consistent asking on Monday with the wine bar, you've done that. So I have no opposition to it. to putting it on the next agenda.

I'm good with that. Todd? Yeah, that's fine.

Okay, so Chris will put on the next agenda. Okay, now I'll just, I'll finish out the item. Yeah, go ahead. Okay, following along, next item is bench donations. This is put on the agenda. because we talked about the park benches going along the bike paths and different businesses wanting to make donations. And it sounds to me like we have more people wanting to make donations than what we have park benches. Is that an accurate statement?

Yeah, we originally talked about three benches at $2,500 a piece. And yeah, we've had quite a few businesses already reach out wanting to donate the full amount. I wanted to see if the board wanted maybe Ashley to put it out to the chamber. We can put it on the website as well and just see how many want to donate for each bench. We also talked about that would include a placard putting their name on it that just says donated by such and such company. If we get 10 donations, are we okay putting up 10 benches?

Well, I know the mayor had even brought up about putting a bench over by the by the peer over on Legacy. That was me. Oh, I'm sorry.

Well, you guys share the same name.

He knew it wasn't in there. He just wasn't sure. I'm not opposed to putting more benches out.

$2,500, they're going to pay for half, so that would be right?

I think the businesses that have contacted us are willing to give the full amount.

All but one. I would say we probably have five or six that have reached out to us.

I mean, if they're willing to pay the full amount, then why would we say no? Why wouldn't we want to? It was nothing for us.

I know we don't have one in the new top park out at Winfield, so that's one we could put in. We took a bench out at Eagle's Landing. There's still two left, but they're not in great shape. So there's definitely some of them in the parks that could be replaced if we get a good outpouring. So I'm hoping we can just kind of put it out there for maybe the next 30 days and see how many we get.

So I guess I'll bring up the... how this got brought up is after the parks, after we talked about it, Goshen had offered to sponsor all three benches, right? And we obviously have some issues that are ongoing that we're addressing, but we didn't want to limit it to just being Goshen everywhere. But in the same token, I'm in favor of taking their money if they want to give us money and we'll take their money but I don't want to limit it and eliminate other businesses ability to market advertise and if the community gets benefit from it so I think they would stop to I think I said at most let's give them one off the back because again same thing we want opportunity for all right right so as far as as far as that goes i mean are we okay with obviously we already approved the three benches let's see about adding locations see how many businesses we have and then we can select them at the next committee meeting we could do it but our three are set and we'll have businesses that i i guess let's give goshen the one of the first three um And if we have other businesses that are willing to take it.

I was going to just do it, whoever contacted first. That's the easiest way.

Yeah. So first come, first serve, and then we'll do.

We won't want to turn anyone away.

Yeah. No, I don't see any reason why we would want to turn people away.

No, especially if you're going to pay for all of it.

I mean, we were just asking for half, so.

Yeah.

Okay. So we'll do that, and it'll be on the next agenda. And I don't know, Ashley, Chris, you guys figure out which businesses want to do that. um next item is public works tasks so i drove around town the other day and came up with some stuff that um and i had a meeting with jim he's not here today he's on vacation which he's entitled to he does quite a bit but i went through and nitpicked I looked at things that were lacking in repair and I shared them with Jim. I had 19 things on my list that were there that i think that we needed to address with our public works people and ironically it wasn't a day after i had a conversation with jim i think peggy sent an email i think most of us had seen she listed some things that she saw and we hadn't even talked about it things that our public works it's just falling behind, right? Some weeding, different aspects. So I had conversations with Jim and told him that there's expectations that we have, and we knew that when we were cutting his staff that we'd have to concede in some of those areas. But unfortunately, I feel like Some of the cutbacks that we've done for him have hurt them too much to the point where our town's not looking the way that we want it to look. And I think that we need to discuss getting him more help. He's down over three guys right now. And he's about to lose his summer interns because they're very short windows. I think that we should consider getting him at least two of the three that he's down and do it in seasonal help where he keeps them through October because otherwise our town's going to start falling apart, guys. I mean, I talked with Jim about things like Memorial Park. When you leave here, go past Memorial Park. That was my number one nails on a chalkboard that it The pergola, the signs, it doesn't look good, and that's designed to memorialize someone's loved one. I think that's unacceptable, right? And we talked about it. If he needs to sublet some of that out, great.

someone else out there doing the painting but we have to be able to to do that um so i don't know bring it up for people's discussions um i think we're trying to cut it we need to consider too as projects again they've been working in the pavilion they've worked on the soccer shed of we've pulled them to do other tasks outside of probably what their main task could be plus all of our events and all right but that's that's the thing too i think if we do decide maybe we should be looking to contract those projects out instead of possibly i know we're saving we're saving a dollar here or there but if it's leading to the town kind of not looking its best shape

Right. And I mean, we've got situations, you know, like you said, the events last week, we had an event every single day. They were working every single day trying to get that done. And again, I think events are good, right? That's, that's what we want. We're talking about having pickleball stuff. Well, there's going to be stuff that they're going to have to do for that. We want that. That's bringing people in. That's, that's doing good things. But our expectation is, I don't want it to let things slide either because we're being cheap with it. So anyone opposed to the expansion of back to the two of the three that he'd still be down a person from before, but I don't know that it's rain and mowing and everything else that's out there. It's not feasible for him to get those people done. And a list of 19 things plus then Peggy added things to it, none of us want to be the board that's known for towns starting to look dilapidated.

I'm definitely a proponent of keeping up with what we need to keep up with and doing it professionally and the village looking good. I've voiced that for years.

so i'm in agreement with that as far as the the time span of so these would be like seasonal seasonal so they would go they would basically be working from now until october and ish when things start slowing down in the in the past we've had we've had seasonal help and we've had the summer interns and we had a lot more summer interns and then But they weren't behind the schedule like they are now. They're behind quite a bit. And those seasonal or the summer interns, they're done next month. They leave to go away to college because normally we were hiring college kids. Jim, in talking with him, he thought it would be better if he had seasonal help because, you know, use Oktoberfest as an example. He's going to need guys for that.

Well, I mean, it's obvious that we can't have it both ways. We can't reduce his staff, but then still expect the quality to stay the same. So I'm in agreement with that, but I'm also, you know, I've said for years, I think we should look at subcontracting. some of this work on a regular basis as well. Um, especially some of the finer detail stuff, maybe, uh, you know, a fertilizing program. Um, uh, you know, I know we've tried this in the past with, uh, different landscape contractors, uh, to take over some of the, some of these responsibilities. Um, and I taught, I don't think we've had a great response to that though either.

And I talked with Jim about that, like the painting, because in the past we've hired out a painter to paint all the light poles because it's a specialized product that they're using for it. And that wasn't even on my list of the salt eating away at the base of the light poles. But yeah, I think the painting aspect of that we could go out for bid and get local companies to do that. And Jim's been made aware that we need to do that. He's guilty of taking on anything we give him, and that's not a dig at Jim. That's a good quality for someone to have that they're willing to do whatever you ask, but he's overstretching himself a little bit.

So with adding these two seasonal employees... is there a focus on what we would be looking to spend that time with? Is there anything in particular or is it just kind of a general broad cast in that and let's try and get as much done as we can.

I, everything that I listed on the 19 are all things that have to be done like lights out. Um, painting of Memorial Park, things like that. I mean, I could go through, if you want, I'll go through the list of things and you can tell me what you think shouldn't be on there, but I don't see any of them that are, for example, our square or the park here on First Street, right as you come into town, well, every single light was out. Why? That should, out in front of the building here, there was three strands of lights that are out. Go down Division Street, there's bulbs out on that. I mean, it just looks bad, right? And again, I think that they, after he got the list in the meeting, I'm sure he put those all in his top priority, He does that, and if he doesn't have enough guys, he falls short on three other things.

I definitely think it's a step in the right direction. We've all voiced our concerns about the appearance. You took a lot of time to drive around and note 19 things, and I'm sure there's probably more than that if we really dig into it.

I didn't count the things that Peggy had put on there. I just think that we spent all the money to make nice things. We got to take care of what we have. I agree. Again, I'll ask, is anyone opposed to getting Jim those two seasonal help people? I'm not opposed. I'm in favor. Chris, do we need to put that on the agenda since it's a salary expenditure or double check?

I'm not sure on that.

Okay. If we need to, can we get it on a board agenda and if not, can we work on getting Chris or I'm sorry, getting Jim that those postings this way are, we get that filled cause some will be done here before long. Okay. Um, Next item is pavilion update. Jim's not here.

I think he just gave it at the board meeting. He did say that we're still waiting on ComEd to hook things up. We're under temporary power right now. I think the two mini split systems, they're still installing those. I don't know that we have enough power to run those. That's why it wasn't critical yet until we get the ComEd hookup.

And the staining of the pavilion itself, that is something that, in talking with Jim, maybe we need to sublet that out just until we get caught up with our other stuff. Right.

Is that a requirement for that particular product? Does it have to be? I know that's cedar, correct?

Yeah, I think they just wanted to put a sealer on it.

Basically, yeah the thought we talked We could put a stain color along with the sealer, but eventually before winter they'll definitely have to have a sealer on it I think we ought to stick with just like we did at these part Having it sealed with the gray semi-transparent stain Because we've got the blocks that are going out there just like that. We have at these part, right? and you know, I would say you could do the more leaving it the natural look if we had the other rocks for the, for the post, but we've already ordered the gray cause that's what we all agreed upon that it was cheaper. So let's try to keep it a uniform look in time. Don't you think?

Yeah, I agree with that. I would say though, I, you know, again, from a maintenance standpoint, I'd prefer that we dig into a product that's got some longevity to it versus a, you know, a Thompson water sealer that, you know,

six months from now we're gonna have to redo it well i think that's one of the reasons why we probably should hire sublet that out too right because those guys should know more than we do you would think yes okay um any other questions regarding the pavilion are they doing windsor sidewalk and turf and everything

Levy said that they had to do some grading with the with the stone Around the building and then turf sounded like maybe in a couple weeks.

They would be here to do the turf So when we did that we talked about replacing a tree in there, too We got that, you know when they're redoing the turf in the center aspect of it the one that we cut out Yeah, I don't know that we ever came to a conclusion on we're Replacing the tree or what we were going to do in that area.

Okay, so

Do you, uh, do we know when the blocks are going around the columns? He said those were in order.

Um, but I don't know. I think he said they're, they're in, they just need to pick them up so that they could be done whenever he's got time to do it.

They'll be ready to go. Okay. Next item is scenic tree replacement update. So, um, As we all know, we went out for bid for the nine trees replacement and got a attractive bid from scenic and then it was vetoed and then we overrode the veto. Well, in the interim scenic, when, when they're, they, when they knew that they won the bid, they bought the trees, had them ready to go. And then when the mayor vetoed it, they proceeded, they had to sell those trees and, So long story short, whether it is not conducive at this time to be replacing a tree right now, um, because now we've wasted time and it's gotten hot and he's also sold off those trees. So he doesn't have them available. So he cannot honor our contract price. So we're going to have to take those nine that we were getting at a good deal and include those in our bigger package that we're going out for bids for now.

So just thought everyone needed to know that. So those nine trees now are not going to be replaced. Is that correct?

At the, at this point, at this point, well, it has to be included in our, in our other bid that goes out cause he won't honor the contract because the timing and I, I understand why he doesn't want to. Um, but we lost out. It was a good price even, Mike had said that was a good pricing on it, but he based on everything just doesn't feel that he can honor that price now. So that's where we're at. So we'll add those nine trees to our other bidding process. Um, any questions about that or discussion? We already talked about pickleball, and I will skip general discussion on my agenda, so this way we can get to CJ's, so I'll entertain a motion to adjourn.

I'll move that motion. I'll second.

All in favor? Aye. Okay, CJ, the floor is yours.

All right, I'll open the Planning and Zoning Committee meeting. First item is the approval of the Planning and Zoning meeting minutes from June 10th, 2026. Moved by galsky second by Zimbalman all in favor. All right. There is no public participation. We already did Bob early Final auditor invoice. Yep.

So we did receive the final invoice from the auditor For the final thirteen thousand six hundred dollars to complete the full contract of one hundred and sixty eight thousand he emailed me on Monday and said that the mayor picked up the printed copies of the audit on Friday and

Has she delivered those to the office yet? We have not seen them. I've been asked by everybody to have them posted. That's why we're waiting to post because we need to get that copy to be able to post it. I can reach out to the mayor and ask her when she's going to bring those in so that we can get that up for our citizens to look at.

Have we got a tally of what our cost has been to change all of our accounts over? Not yet.

We're still waiting on the invoice for the cost of the new checks.

So before we pay that, before we pay the final invoice, I'd like to, because I think any cost that we incurred as a result of having to change it over should be deducted from the final payment.

So you want to put it on the finance committee agenda and then we can hopefully have our totals by then to know what the costs were.

Hopefully we'll have our printed audits by then too. Okay.

Anything else with that? Next item is trucks for the next decade so I was thinking about this already and then I had a resident reach out as we just purchased a truck of just kind of where we're at so I reached out to Jim just to kind of ask because obviously we just replaced it 2008 just to see it like for the next decade what do we need to do to save up because obviously we know that's a good cost our next oldest truck is a 2015 then we have a 2017 and 2018 and then two in 2023 so Just emailing back and forth with Jim. He said probably not until 2035 and we have to replace another truck Hopefully if that 20-year kind of build holds He also did say that two of those trucks He didn't I can't remember if he indicated what year are Peter builds and he thinks those might last like 25 years 20 years on average So I just want to make sure that and I don't know exactly the exact

financial how it all kind of works out to make sure that we're saving up and starting to kind of set aside every year for those trucks replacements yeah and just so you know what we've typically done in the past is the road and bridge fund that we get from the township but those are the the funds that we use for uh public works equipment so it doesn't come out of the general fund it comes out of that road and bridge fund and i think we get maybe a hundred hundred hundred and $50,000 a year out of that. So, um, you know, it, it takes a couple of years of income to cover one of the big trucks. Um, and in the past we've typically bought a pickup truck, I would say on an average one a year. Sometimes we'll go a couple of years and now those last usually a long time because they don't do a ton of driving on them with the town not being that big. The big trucks are the ones we've really got a budget for and save up for. Right.

I just wanted to put it out there just so that we know we can be aware of it obviously going forward. I think obviously we've been prepared because the next one's not for probably

seven nine years hopefully just to make sure we're putting that away and kind of indicating just that we have enough yep uh next one pioneering engineering request for the dry cleaner property so if you recall we gave them permission to dig in the public right-of-way if they needed to this is over for the dry cleaners it's over on oak street north oak street um they've been asking us to do this ordinance for about a year and a half. And what it does is it basically puts the onus on the village so that if somebody uses the groundwater that's contaminated in that area, they want the village to pass an ordinance taking responsibility for that. So obviously, Our village attorney, Joe cane cars advised not to do this because there are other ways that they can clean up that site without making the village responsible, but it costs them more money. So that's why they keep asking us to pass the ordinance. It's the cheapest, easiest way for them to, uh, get out of the responsibility of cleaning up the site. So I see no reason why we would entertain that. Yeah. We've, we've been advised not to do it because it would become our responsibility.

and this is probably the third time they've asked for it so we've told them no in the past i guess you can correlate that to one of the local gas stations if they had a an issue with some contaminated soil or ground you know there why would the village get involved in cleaning up their their site and and to let you know they have done

the major part of the cleanup has been done. Um, they've, they've gone in there and they've cleaned up the soil in the immediate area. This is kind of out on the parameters of the, the site. So it's not like they haven't done anything and you know, there's a danger over there. It's just more for future remediation. If something were to come up, the majority of the site has been cleaned, but

They requested this last year, right? At the same time. Yeah.

And I mean, there should be no reason anybody would be using any of the groundwater over there. We don't allow wells. You can't have, you know, a well even for a sprinkler system. So it's just really to kind of cover themselves, but they would like the village to take that responsibility so they don't have to.

I know. Yeah. I don't know if anyone disagrees with that. I don't know why we would take on more liability. Yeah. Any other thoughts on that? Are we all right. Second quarter recaps.

Yep. Uh, just kind of, again, let you go through this. These are the charts that we put together quarterly for the building department. Uh, right now we have a new construction in terms of residential housing. We have 14 projects underway that are being built. We've had four new single family homes in the quarter. and I should say three units over there in Eagles Landing. Total permits of 187. For inspections, I've done 162. Jim Hanley and his public works department have done 33. They cover me when I'm not here, so we're fortunate we have guys that have that background and can do those inspections, so we don't have to sub that out. Chris Ryan, who does our plumbing inspections, has done 41. And Eric Weber has done 37 electrical inspections. We did 25 sidewalk inspections. Again, that's kind of an indication of properties that have been sold. When they change hands, we require a sidewalk inspection to make sure it's in there. If it's not in there, then they either have to put it in or put up money in an escrow to make sure that the public sidewalk gets installed. And then we've had 119 contractor registrations in that period. Moving on to commercial, the Domino's building still has the vacant unit, nothing yet that we've heard for a tenant in there. Copeland's, obviously we approved a liquor license for that, so it looks like that's going to be reopening under a new name. The Carlisle building continues to be remodeled on the second floor. That was a major undertaking. It literally had to be gutted and completely rebuilt, so that's why that's taking some time. Riverside parking lot, they should be back working on it shortly. They were waiting on the state permit, which we had to grant permission first and then it had to go to the state. They did get their state permit for that sidewalk, so they should be getting over there to finish that up in the next month. The Nugent building, we have one unit completed and occupied. We did final inspections on unit number two of the three. but we still don't have any information on if they have a tenant for unit two. And the Circle K remodel on Route 50, that's been completed. They remodeled the bathrooms and then put in some new coolers in that location. And the Coolosh building, former Roger Grafnitz building on North Locust, that is also just a complete remodel. gutted the interior all the way down to the studs and then they're also redoing the exterior so that's a complete rebuild for that building uh the gave you a permit breakdown for the quarter in terms of the the breakdown of what kind of permits are being issued so you can see that a lot of hvac most of the houses are kind of the same age in terms of a 10-year span so Once they get to an age, we see a lot of replacements going on in the existing housing. They're all getting to be in that 20 to 25-year range. You can go through that. Then the bigger charts, again, show the property value increases that we've had broken down by residential, commercial, industrial, and delayed permits. We still delay residential housing permits. They don't have to pay for them until they get their occupancy permit. We did that quite a few years ago to try and spur some speculation building. They do use that and I think it does help in that they don't have to pay for those up front. The inspections, same thing, we break those down by building plumbing and electrical. And you'll see a lot of these kind of follow the same, Same numbers year after year in terms of that. And then the building department revenues. Again, we had kind of a big spurt of those back a couple years ago. That was because of the hail storm and the amount of roofs that got done in town. I think we did over 200 roofs in town after that last hail storm. So fortunately this year we've avoided any big storms that have done a lot of damage in Manitino. So we've been lucky. That's just kind of a recap on those if you have any questions.

The new houses, are they kind of spurious or are they all kind of out by Eagle's Landing out there?

Yeah, the three units are being built in Eagle's Landing. They're eating those up and he actually started two of those at the same time. So he's selling those pretty quickly. The single family homes are out in, it's either in Rock Creek or Winfield are the two subdivisions that are Pretty much everything else is built out. Eagle's Landing is done other than those multifamily lots. Then Tim Stewart did sell his single family lots in Winfield to Security Lumber. There is a spec house going up over there. Hopefully that might spur a little more action because I don't know that Tim was really marketing them very hard and Security Lumber obviously will because they want to sell the materials.

questions on that at all nope all right the last thing is general discussion I have two quick things Oh so I've been just kind of going through like the language on the mayor the language on the trustees the language on the village clerk One thing I did notice, and I think this would be an easy cleanup, and I guess shame on us, I don't know when the last time we updated this, is it all says he, he for the mayor, he for the village clerk, he for everything. If we just wanted to put Zay, I mean, we have now a female mayor, we've had female clerks, just so that's the gender neutral kind of language, probably should just be cleaned up with that. And then the other thing is for the village clerk, obviously steve has been doing a great job um and we've had kind of a rotating unfortunate uh kind of going through this last year or so i was looking at the amount that they make they make four thousand dollars and then the deputy clerks makes fifteen hundred dollars and i feel like at least in my opinion that they do as much work at least as us maybe possibly more because of the duties outside I feel like they should probably be making or have the same language as us when it comes to because we can make up to I think $4,800 we come to all the meetings or all that kind of stuff that they should maybe we should raise it up for what they do and maybe that'll help kind of deal with the Constant door opening especially maybe for deputy clerk to I don't know. I just thought I'd throw it out there It's kind of an option

I think, I think it, I mean, just to be clear, we can't change it for Steve right now. It's for the next election. It would be the next election. Which would be in April. Which would be in April. Right. But I don't think it would be a bad plan to put it on a per meeting, like we get paid per meeting. The only two people who don't get paid per meeting, the mayor and the clerk, And you're right. I mean, it's pretty hard, and I think Steve will agree, like, try to find a deputy clerk who's willing to take on that responsibility. Right. And not that any of us are doing this for the money. No, but... But it is, I think it would be wise to pay them, and I don't even, I think our rate is $100 per meeting that got up to, like, it used to be $50 a meeting. So I think that that should be appropriate and whoever attends the meeting whether it be the clerk or the deputy clerk pay them accordingly who does it i mean that would make sense this way it might be easier to find a deputy clerk you know because unfortunately steve can't make every single meeting right i mean

i still almost want this is where i think it's tough for the village clerk because it's not just a meeting since they have to do the licensures and all that kind of stuff almost like not two stipends but like some kind of salary plus then a hundred dollars for me i don't know maybe we don't need to do that i'm just because i just know that there is tasks you have to do outside of making make it 150 dollars per meeting i mean yeah you're right because there's stuff that he has to do that we don't it's

You have the toughest job of everyone in this room.

After meeting, there's a lot of time being spent, right? 100%.

So do you want to maybe get something, an idea tossed together, and we put it on a next general government meeting, and we'd have to pass it at a regular board meeting before and it would go into effect for the next election.

Correct, the next election, correct. I just thought, again, looking at that.

Maybe see what other towns are doing in comparison.

Yeah, we can do some research on it and see what everybody else is doing.

Yeah, because it's not fair to, when Melissa was here, she was a deputy clerk and she was carrying the majority of the weight of the load and was getting almost nothing for pay. Steve, you got a ton of stuff. It's a lot.

Right, that's why, like you said, I think it's a more, much more task than what we have to do on our end. 100%.

So Stephen, are you staying on or are you just? I'm waiting. Until a replacement. That's correct. Okay.

he's he's been nice enough to say that he'd be willing to stay and not leave us in a bind because we would be in a bind I mean ultimately you know I know that there's people said that dawn was pretending to be the clerk she wasn't pretending to be the clerk she was doing it because we had no one else to do it because you had work-related obligations so you know

But you don't have a deputy. I mean, the office is right here.

And there's stuff that Dawn couldn't do either trying to help out. There's duties of the clerk. She can't sign the documents. None of our employees in the village hall can sign the documents for licenses, et cetera. So if Steve did step down, we have no one to sign the licenses.

So where are we at looking for a new clerk?

That's a mayoral appointment, not a...

So that's the other weird thing. If the office of the village clerk shall become vacant, the president and the board of trustees shall appoint a successor. President and the board of trustees. Now, I don't know. If I look at the mayor one, I think it's a little bit more clear that it is their power. And I'm not trying to take power. But I read that on, like, says president and board. But I think it's the president nominates and we just approve. That's how I would read it. But I saw that. I'm like, that needs to maybe be clarified.

I mean, we haven't said no to any point.

No, we've said yes, correct. I haven't heard anything too. I don't want to keep dragging you along either.

You probably need to remind the mayor that she needs to be looking for a clerk because she's got other things going on.

Well, in fairness, I don't mean to scare Steve away, but you're probably not going to find someone who's going to take the clerk position as an appointment now because it's not that long before they have to run for election.

Any person who's going to be interested in the job is probably going to just wait until the... Well, at least we need to find them a deputy clerk because I feel like we shouldn't be putting all this though on him to have to show up, show up, show up, and sign, sign, sign.

I don't want to be here until April either.

Yeah. I feel like you're doing a lot of work. It looks like a lot of job, but I looked at the salary and I saw this waste to make it more appealing as possible.

We can't change, can't change it though until April.

So that's why, that's why I thought it's at least we started doing this now. That way we can't address it sooner than later. I agree. That's all I have for general discussion.

I don't know if anyone else had two other, two other things. If, if everyone's okay for, for very quickly, um, one was the, and he unfortunately left, Mr. Forsyth, I wanted to talk about, he had reached out to Todd and I had went out there about the drainage property next to his house. I just wanna make sure that the entire board and people are aware of this, that he owns the drainage pond next to his house, which is kind of unique. I don't know why he ever purchased it, but Chris, do you wanna give a little insight as far as what's going on and what came of you and Jim out there?

Yeah, so this has been going on for a long time. It is a retention pond, or I guess you call it a detention pond. It detains the water for a period of time and then releases it slowly. There is an outflow that goes to the north to the A Street pond, which is one that we own. The three ponds south that Bob owns and the two south of him are all privately owned. He bought it because he wanted to maintain it and he knew that we probably wouldn't keep it to the level that he wanted to see it because it's next door to his property. Fair enough, but it is private property and he gets frustrated when there's water sitting in it and thinks it should drain better. We've had engineers go out multiple times and look at how everything was installed and they've agreed that it's installed properly, it works properly, We don't want it to drain straight through his and go into the A street pond because downstream of that, there's only so much that that can take getting to the Creek. And so it works like it's supposed to work. You know, it's just one of those things where during certain times of the years, after certain rains, there's going to be water in the bottom of that pond and it makes it impossible for him to mow it until it dries up. That's true. It collects weeds rather than grass. That's true as well, but it's because of what it's designed to do. He gets unhappy because it's hard to maintain, but that was his choice when he bought it.

Has there ever been any of him or the other two that have said, did the village want it back?

I have read in the file where the village did ask him at some point, would you like the village to buy it off of you? He claims that never happened. I've read the minutes of the meeting where it was discussed. I don't know that it was discussed with him, but it was discussed in a meeting. Again, if we were to buy it, I don't think he would be happy with how often we would mow it or how we would take care of it. He does complain about the one across the street as well that we don't take care of that to the level that he likes. Peggy had me look at it. There are actually 21 privately owned ponds or lakes in the village of Manteno. It's not unique. The two that are south of him, they actually are included as part of their property. In Bob's case, it's actually a separate parcel that he didn't have to purchase, but he did. I get it. It's next door. He wants to maintain it to the level that he likes. Now he gets frustrated because he's responsible for maintaining it, but that was his choice.

I think we, you know, you and Jim both were out there the other day, and he... asked you in that so polite way to leave his property and i he called todd thursday todd wasn't able to get out there i drove immediately out there to see it to take a look at it he wasn't home so but i guess ultimately what i will think we should offer is put in writing a letter to him so it's in writing that if you want to sell that we'll We should buy it because it's part of our drainage district at the fair market value of what it appraises for. And I suspect he's not going to want that. But if he does, this way we've offered and there's no arguing of whether it did or did not. But that's my opinion. We should at least inquire if he's willing to.

Well, with the understanding, like Chris said, that if he did decide to sell it to the village, it's going to be maintained by the normal everyday village standards. Correct. It's not going to be treated differently than any of the other 21 or however many that the village has in the way of detention ponds.

So I think that's something that we should do. Is anyone... That's fine. and i don't suspect it'll go right for at least then we could say maybe see if there's an interest if he wants to sell it okay yep um and then the last thing is just to give everyone an update um i talked a little bit about it on monday night in the mou kind of where we're at with goshen um today at 1 30 myself chris i've invited mike berry because he's been the other trustee um dealing with this with with us um bnf technical and joe kankar we are going to get the parameters together and send a letter to goshen outlining what is expected for this fire brigades this way. And there's going to be timelines established. So as long as we all know, um, drop dead dates, you know, we've been kicking this can down the road. It's time to put it in writing. And that's what today's meetings about. So, so you guys know, um, I am my suggestion of what I'm going to suggest is that the, we have the signed agreement with them by the end of July. and that the fire brigade should be up and running by the end of August. Anyone oppose those dates? Because we have to have a reasonable time frame. And if we're doing it today, that gives them two and a half weeks by the time the letter gets out for them to sign that MOU. And there's really not a lot of negotiations. This is what BNF Technical says we gave the occupancy codes based upon. You either have it or... we'll address those issues. Everyone good with that? Okay, that's all I had.

If you want more detail, read the executive meeting minutes that we had for June 15th where we discussed this for a while. Well, yeah, I just, you know. No, I agree with the update of what we're just kind of following through.

Yes, and we would have done this two weeks ago if we didn't have to deal with other issues. Yep.

Anybody else have anything else?

No, I just think maybe we should put the clerk position on like one of our agendas just to bring it up to the mayor.

You can add it to the general government one because then I'm going to, I mean, we're going to talk about the sailor anyway, so.

Yeah, that she needs to be put on that.

Help find it or whatever. All right, we're good? I'm good. Awesome. All right, I'll take a motion to adjourn. So moved. Moved by Geske. No, second. Second by Crocodile in favor? Aye. Thank you guys. Thank you.