Council - Regular Meeting

call the May 6 Cicero Town Council meeting to order. Um, we'll stand and do a pledge of allegiance and Rhonda will say a prayer for us. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. God, thank you, Father. Thank you for this day. Thank you for this opportunity to be together. Um, Father, be with the council members I couldn't be with here with us. And Father, I pray that you heal my bookkeeper and get her back to work. It's in Jesus name I pray. Amen. Amen. Amen. Thank you.

If you will do roll call, please. Joe Cox, present. So, we do have a quorum. Um, first on the agenda is approval of agenda. Any changes or modifications? Officially, we need to elect a president prom to run the meeting tonight. I would like to nominate Eric be our president pro Tim second. Any other do we have to is it nominations you have to No, if we've got a first and second you can just vote and then Okay. So, um make a or just

there's a first and second. So, they need a vote. All in favor? Yeah. Thank you. So, we have first and a second. All in favor of me being the proim. Prom president. I I opposed. So I guess I am it. So for one meeting we can change that. No, we cannot. So okay. So any changes or adjustments to the agenda? Oh, what did you want me to bring up the fire department thing under miscellaneous? We can just talk to it when we get to the miscellaneous.

Um I have the Mooney Farms uh purchase agreement, the final version I sent out last week for approval under new business. New business or legal? We can do it under either. You tell me where to put it. I'd say new business.

It is more difficult using the computer when you have to talk. Okay. Any other changes? So, I'll entertain a motion to approve the agenda as amended. So moved. Second. So we have first and second. All in favor say I. I. I. Opposed. Okay. We have an agenda. Moving on to approval of prior minutes. So both the town council executive session meeting minutes for April 21st and the town council cicero town council meeting minutes for April 21st. Any everyone's had a chance to to review any changes or adjustments. Can you entertain a motion to approve those?

Motion to approve. Second. Okay. Both. Both. How many do we have? Both. Two or three? We have two. Two. Motion to approve both. Was AM RDC. That's right. Okay. So, we have first and second. All those in favor? I I opposed. So, you can publish those meeting minutes. Moving on to approval of claims. Um, everyone's had a chance to review those. Rhonda, there was a transfer and water. I think 20,000.

Yeah, I said I put $20,000 in a month, I believe, into wastewater or water and wastewater improvement for anticipated bond payments. That's all I Any other questions? All right. I make a motion we pay our bills. Thank you. Second. Your first and a second. All those in favor say I. I opposed. All right, you can pay the bills, Rhonda. Thank you. Council committee reports, EDC report. I don't see anybody here to speak on that. Um, storm water management board report.

Good evening, Pro 10 president for one meeting. Take a short to bring to the table. Keith brings up a date on our project. Otherwise, I have nothing for tonight. Okay. Thank you very much. Um, moving on to legal counsel report.

The only thing I have is I got outdraft ordinances of one is for the weight limits on the roads. The other one is dealing with the 20-minut stop signs. Um, I'm making a tweak on the 20 minute not stop signs, 20-minute parking spaces um on that ordinance and I'll send it out to the full council. But if things look good, we can have it on the agenda to approve at our next council meeting. Okay. Did you say you sent a draft of the weight or you have not sent that yet? I sent it, but I I only sent it to the a couple people. I thought you were one of the ones I'd copied, but I wanted feedback. Probably was.

So, we're not doing anything with that tonight, though. No, not tonight. Okay. Seems like I reviewed it. I didn't have any feedback, but I'll go back and look as well. Sure. Anything else from legal council? Not at this time. Okay. Thank you. Um, sister Jackson Township Planning Commission report. I I like your reports that you're sending out. Is that through the new system? It is. Okay. So, I like that to be able to see the estimated value and what exactly is going on. So, Okay. Appreciate that. Dang it. Funny you say that. Anyway, good evening, councel.

Take you didn't like sending that up. Oh, he doesn't like Yeah, we're having some trouble with it right now. You're the only one who said you liked it. That would be kind of Well, I like that report. So,

that is a bright spot. Let's Let's focus on the positive, shall we? Uh I have here in front of me the uh latest version of the director's report. This is for April of 2026. Permit revenue for the month of April was this year $7,521. That brings us up to a year-to- date of $42,11. At the same time last year, April of 2025, we were at $5,214 for the month and a dismal 14,652 for the year. That's a difference for the month of April. a plus 23 uh $2,37 for the month and a plus for the year $27,359. We issued a total of 44, that's right, count them, 44 building permits for April 2026. 30 of those were inside the corporate limits. No new homes there, though, however. And then we issued another 14 out in Jackson Township. Uh one new home out there. Uh we also issued six rightaway either permits or extensions uh this month. Estimated cost of these projects permitted was $956,869. Plant commission meeting uh for May, excuse me, May. It will be on May 13, 2026 right here at the town hall. We do have items on the agenda. Uh the next BZA meeting is scheduled for May 21st, 2026. Also right here, uh 700 p.m. at the town hall. Uh, in other news, we did pause Frontier installation on two permits to allow the utility guys to to get caught up um with some of their spring tasks. Uh, the the locates were just getting uh overwhelming. So, we asked Frontier to just hold up and let them get caught up and and they agreed. So, we are uh corresponding with Terry and his guys on that. Uh, Frontier also

uh they agreed to the uh flush mount hand holes. Thank you for working that. You're very welcome. There are a few still up. Will they go back and replace those? There are. Yeah, they they had to order more lids. Okay. So, but they are on it and I confirmed them with them again this week. Uh they are going to replace every single one of those. So, thank you for that work. You're very welcome. It wasn't hard to do when I just asked them and they agreed to it. So, it's not that big of a deal. Um, you still get all the credit.

Yeah, thanks. I'll take it. Uh, I did attend the Han suburban housing conference last month to discuss changing housing needs across the region. It was very interesting and informative. That's my report. Anybody have any questions for me? Uh, thank you very much. So, when do do so pretty much pulled all out of Morse Landing? I don't know what they're going to drink. Uh, we're pretty much done. Seems like when will they be starting back up? Do you know?

Well, so we asked them to so we had a meeting before the project started and um about the town project going on on Morris Landing Drive, the storm sewer thing that we all met and got together with. Uh those guys just trucked right on through and drilled right through some of that area. We caught them, asked them to stop. Um, I guess they didn't get the message correctly, but they started pulling everything out that they had done. I stopped them and said, "You don't need to do that. Just the area that we don't want to interfere with the town project. You can leave everything else. You can still work on other areas of Morris Landing." Um, they had that wrong. So, we had a discussion about that yesterday and they intend to get back and finish Morris Landing. So that's what's going on. They're not finished. Uh they just stopped because they thought we wanted them to stop.

Yeah, I understand. Thank you for that followup as well. You're welcome. Thank Mr. Strong. Anything from your standpoint? No, sir. I have nothing to add this evening. Okay. Thank you. I'm moving on to town engineer report. Mr. Bryant. Good evening all. Well,

uh, not a whole lot to add, but I would say the wastewater rentals continues to work. Uh, had a meeting today with them. They're getting closer on the oxidation dish. They got basically all the concrete poured on the rehab, got the clarifiers ready to go. So they're they're scheduled to get bring in West and Lakeside who are the equipment manufacturers for those two pieces or those two processes in the week of the 18th of this month and switch and get those tanks up and online. So once that happens, basically everything plant capacity wise will be online and we'll be able to notify items enforcement section that hey yeah we we met our compliance plan deadline. So

and that was what June 1st. June 1st, correct? So, we might have a week to spare. I hope we have a week to spare at this point. That's that's the best case scenario. Uh they they continue to work on some they when they when they switch over to the plant. So, basically, we've got the new tanks running, processing our wastewater. We took the old tanks down to rehab and modify them. They'll get every those back online and we'll have basically double our capacity that we had before. In addition, when they're doing that change over, it'll it'll it will be about 20 24 hours depending on the influent flow that we won't have any discharge because we'll be filling the the new process tanks. While they're doing that, they're going to make some final pipe connections, which is smart because that way they don't have to bypass pump. So, so they'll do that. They got some building HVAC. They're working on a bunch of miscellaneous piping punch list items that uh they're trying to just get finished up. So, so that sometime in June they hope to to be be able to pull out and be done. I did send with process reviewed and sent their pay application 22 up on the 30th of April and you know per the agreement you could you could table that and wait and discuss that at the next meeting or you can move ahead. If if you have any questions I could answer them.

So that was pay application. What do you guys What would you guys like? This is 22, correct? The amount total is 414, 2842. There's retainage and then what we pay retainage is about 20,700 and what we pay is the difference. We heard any any anything since the last meeting about additional requests? No. No, that's good. So, it's looking like we're going to be at the 19.2 to um yeah, they they tapped everything except $40,000 at this point. So, motion to approve pay up 22.

I'll second. So, we have a motion and a second for pay application 22. All those in favor say I. I oppose say nay. Okay, it passes. Thank you.

Thank you. 2026 CCMG. That's the East Jackson Street project. I sent up schedule, but they're looking at we did have a pre-construction meeting with Howard Company. They're the contractor and we talked about u coordination with school buses, etc. They they made the probably smart choice to wait until school's out. So, basically, they're going to they plan to start in early June and be finished completely before the Fourth of July festivities. That's that's their plan right now. So, they have sent over a schedule that I emailed, but it's I'm sure it's going to change a little bit with weather and such, but uh we'll working with Dan and Terry. We're going to try to reach out to big dogs and others. You know, they that they'll have an impact on when when we get a closer date and know they're actually working. So,

so June 8th through the two through the 21st essentially two weeks seem reasonable. I think it'll I think it'll take them Well, I think they had about another weekend there for striping and things, but it seems very uh very optimistic to me, but it's possible. Okay. I mean, hopefully because Fourth of July is they have about a week buffer, right? Okay. And if they don't get to that point, they'll have to button up and close down for the We'll have to have that discussion. We might have that sooner than Yeah. later. Yeah. They're they're aware of the all equipment off off site, right?

Mr. Bryant, this there's a schedule in what you sent out the precon meeting. I don't know how to interpret this schedule. It's it's got a bunch of colors on it. Yeah. And and they should I ignore that. The tonnage. Those numbers are the tonnage. Are we talking about the 2026? It says it says like mill. Are we talking about 26? It says it's on May 11. 2026 East Jackson Street 19 East 2027 for the East Jackson 2027 is the one at least I'm interpret but it says a new 2023. Gotcha. Makes gotcha. 202 I have 26 East Jackson, right? Yes.

Should I just ignore that? I'm sorry. Should I just ignore the schedule? Yeah, I mean you could look at the dates but it's it's the contractor put it together. It's a little it's a little ragged. It's got some wrong dates in it. Some of them are 2020 the year 2023 which obviously tell me but the dates and the months are actually correct. It's just they had the wrong year call out on there. But if you look at the dates they actually make So we're not really going to see any activity till early June. Correct. So somewhere I got June 8th through the 21st. I thought it was from that table. Maybe there's a I don't know.

It's all I'm going to just go off of what you just told me and I'm good. So and we're going to get an update schedule from him and I'll distribute that. But yeah, they had some errors in that one, but it's all we had. So, I thought it's better than nothing. So, okay.

Mors landing drive under drain project that Bruce mentioned, the storm water project. Uh SLB's the contractor. They actually started work this week. um they've only got about they so they've done a lot of pothoing looking for connections and and making sure they knew where the um co the existing tiles were etc. They've got that done and they've actually started constructing and putting under drain in from the north side south. They've only got maybe 80 to 100 ft complete if you if you go out there and look they've crossed I think one driveway at this point I think one or two. So, they'll continue to work. Uh their schedule, they claim that they can they plan to be done in about three to four weeks, but yeah, depends a lot on weather and what they run into. But

so that one driveway, it looks like they just chipped out the bottom. I'm assuming they will to to put it in. I'm assuming they will pull where they cut out all that and replace that those sections. Yeah, they have to saw cut and have a clean edge. You dump that on the dry outside or back to the curb toward the homes and then they're saw cut. But they only chipped out like at the curb like where they replaced that pipe today. Yeah. I'm not sure what you mean by chipped out the curve. Yeah. They didn't take the whole section out. They just took out a small section by the curb. Oh yeah. But they will replace that where they saw

all the Yeah. Everything. All the curb will get replaced and the saw cut to the saw cut. Yes, absolutely. And then do they put rebar into the old stuff to hold it or not typically for that. They they put mesh. We've got mesh called out and they'll put that in. But those driveways typically aren't thick enough to put rebar in there. It'll just crack. Okay. Right. And then I mean if it shifts that's on the town or that's on in for how long? uh 12 months after in after completion. So then the town's responsible post that for a period of time theoretically I guess. Yeah. But okay.

I mean they're trench they have to go back in with compactor with number eight stone which is self compacting. So we wouldn't anticipate anything there. So really anything else is already been driven on and been had drive on top of for as long as the house has been there. I wouldn't expect anything else to settle beyond the trench. Okay. Should be should be good. All right. Thank you. That's all that was on the agenda unless somebody has questions for me. I think under old business I might old business we had 2027 CCG, right? So come back for that.

We're on old business. You can stay up here. We we keep going. All right. We had sent out um based on scope of work working working with uh Dan and Terry, we had sent out a cost assessment and a scope and some exhibits that we talked briefly at the last meeting. Uh and the reason for that is we're we really don't have a lot of time with the CCMG grants. INDOT has squeezed a schedule from after we get award to when you have to have construction contracts signed. Otherwise, there's no question to ask, you lose the grant. They're pretty adamant about that. So, they squeeze that down to really unless it's just a simple mill and resurface, you're not going to, you know, if you add anything else in there, you're not going to get it done in time. You're just going to lose your grant. So basically we're trying to get the scope lay laid out and agreed to at some point before the application so we can actually get started with survey and design and not jeopardize a grant in the end is the was the purpose of that. Um at that point in time we talked we were really trying to push because we were getting tight on time because the applications are supposed to be in July. Dan saw and I saw as well and talked to INDOT. The application round has now been put back to September.

So, good news is that means we don't have to rush into a decision. We've got a little more time. We can take time and evaluate, get the other council people back and talk through any changes or anything we want to do and still have time to get get in compliance. So, I would say that, you know, if we could get decisions on the scope so that we could start moving in June or so, we'd be be in good shape sometime in June. So, what do you need from us to kind of help navigate exactly what we want to see down there?

Uh, well, if you look at what I sent and if you if you see anything you want to do different or want to consider, just let us know. We can look we can look into it and see what the cost impacts would be. I'm looking at the stuff you sent us last meeting. Hang on. Because there was two different drawings last time, right? One was old and one was new. Yeah. Which one?

The new one's just the is the aerial kind of shows the whole scope cuz that that old drawing from a a prior study didn't extend all the way to the west side of the bridge or the east side of the bridge westward. So right now we're talking about milling and re and servicing and new asphalt all the way from where we left off at Pearl out to the east side of the bridge. Then on top of that we're that scope includes replacing lot street lights uh from Pearl to Maine putting street lights and walk doesn't exist on the north side of uh from Maine over to the to the um oh

condos. time those. That's what the word I was looking for. And it also includes uh replacing lights and moving them and trying to widen if we have can widen the drive where we can on the south side over to the kind of the boat ramp. Uh it includes those raised pedestals with for pedestrians midblock with push buttons on those and flashers which is kind of the safety item of it. So on Main Street, basically. Yeah. On on Main Street right now, we have the sidewalks going right at that intersection. I mean, is there any best practice to get people away from that intersection where you're crossing main? So on Jackson, you pushed them out away from

midb block. Yeah. Yeah. But normally if you got a stop sign, that's the place you want to do the crossing. So those north south roads are are stopped. So that's that's usually the logic as if you start the only reason they moved on the others is because there are no east west stops and it makes it a little safer. So that's the main reason. I got you. Okay. I'll make some. Yeah, man. I thanks for the information. I don't think we want to do anything today. I'll make I'll make take some time to review this and send you and Terry some comments, but overall I like the direction of it.

And you're welcome. Anybody's welcome if you're if as you're looking at it, you got a list of questions to fire us all an email. We'll do our best to answer them before the meeting. So, you can be thinking about that as well. So, so total total project cost is about 2.1 million with potentially a million. That's that's if you if you put that if you put that blank water main in. Yeah. for future

with the maximum grant up to a million.

Yeah. And the other thing on that water man, you know, that's if if we're ever going to extend to the west side and and do something over there. It's a lot of money because you don't I mean when are we going to do that? If if are we going to do it? There's a lot of questions there. Um, one thing he could consider is, you know, we we could we could come back in if it's five years, four or five years now, we could come back in here when there's two or three cuts, we could directional drill that main to that same area and and not spend that money now. It, you know, it may cost a little bit more because everything goes up, but it's it it's kind of hard kind of hard to stomach doing $420,000 worth of work for that. You don't even know when you're going to connect on each.

You could directionally bore that to the bridge. Yeah. I mean, yeah, it hang it hangs on the bridge. So, you have to you can't do that, but you could, right? Yeah. So, you would do minimal damage to the pavement that you put in just a couple spots. So, something to think about.

I think we need to have that discussion because I think eventually we're going to have to do something to get rid of it. Dan, did you have anything to add? once annually in September. Correct. Yes. Is other than the timing, did they announce any other changes to the program or anything? Just just the date.

Yeah. See, the only thing that I've seen in the documentation that they sent out, the only change they're making, it's still the 8020 match and then they move the date from July to September moving forward. So, other than that, everything else seems to be the same as it was previously. Okay. Anything else for Mr. Bryant? I'm good. Good. Thank you. Thank you. And you'll be here Thursday, correct? Yes. Okay. Next Thursday. Yeah. Correct. Thank you, Mr. Ever. If you don't mind send your comments to whoever sends them out, include me on that.

Yeah. Thank you. All right. Next on the agenda, bumpout ordinance 05-06-2026-01. Mr. This ordinance, we orally amended it and in order to ensure that what we wrote into it captured what the board actually wanted and that there was no lag between them, I just asked that we approve the revised version to make clear that the text of that is what the board wanted. Are we looking at the PDF? Yeah.

Okay. Well, yeah, the PDF and then we wrote into the the Word version too dealing with the picnic tables because basically we went through in addition to table chairs, we added picnic tables throughout, but then the actual standards for the picnic tables are dealt with in the PDF. Okay. So, essentially it's covering is not essentially actually coffee shop as well, right? Yeah. Everything else is the same. Correct. Any questions for Mr. P? Yeah, nothing was removed. We just added picnic tables and the standards for them.

I make a motion we approve it as amended. Second. We have a first and a second for the bumpout ordinance 05062026-01. All those in favor say I. I. I. I oppose say nay. It passes. Thank you. Thank you. Moving on to new business. The land Go ahead. The land purchase agreement.

Yeah, we have the land purchase agreement. This is for the the various sites on the Mooney Farms property as well as the easements. Uh we already at the last u redevelopment committee meeting approved using TIFF funds to pay for this. This is just the final text of the purchase agreement. If this is approved tonight, then I will reach out to start both the title surge and to get a closing date set. Can you remind me, did we end up keeping all four corners? Um, yes.

Yes, we kept all four corners. We got rid of the easement that ran along the road, but then we kept the easements connecting the sites around the west, north, and east boundaries. Okay. I make a motion we accept the purchase agreement for Moody Farms. Okay. Anything else you need included in that motion? No. A second. Have a motion and a second. All those in favor say I. I. I. I opposed. It passes. Thank you. Thank you.

Okay. Under miscellaneous, um, we'll have council comments. We can go ahead and do council comments. Okay. I thought everyone should know that we received notification from Chief Frasier on Monday that we have been moved to an ISO rating four from a 10 and we need to thank um our prior chief Lance Over Hoster for getting this in motion and then Chief Frasier and all the firemen for making this happen because it was a team effort and it's a really good thing. They've worked really hard on it. It's appreciated. So, thank you.

Yeah. Thank you guys for driving that. So, thank you guys. Council and the community appreciate that very much. Definitely.

Okay. And I'd like to also remind everyone that Saturday is the fire department breakfast. So come out to the fire department for pancakes from 7 to 11 and then go to community park to the farmers market because we are going to have our first ever nonprofit sign up for people who maybe have retired or they've moved to Cicero or they have some spare time for them to go through and find out more about many of our nonprofits and sign up to donate some time and effort. So, please come out Saturday.

All right. And finally, um, on Saturday, May 23rd at 10 a.m. at the I'll call it the new ball fields. They're not so new anymore in that parking lot. There is a trail dedication in honor of the Seth family. Um, and this goes back to the property that the town purchased um, in that area. And there is a trail and a monument um dedication ceremony for that. Again, that's Saturday, May 23rd at 10 a.m. Anything else from the council miscellaneous? Thank you all for putting that together as well, that trial ceremony. So, any comments from citizens?

Yes, sir. One question. When we approve the building of the battery storage, do we give them a time frame in which to have it built? I know they were talking to a couple years to get all the permits in. So, it's kind of an open end construction project. Yeah. If anybody else would approach us and say, "Hey, they're not on it yet. Can we build something?" But basically, it's specifically set aside for them. Yeah. Because they have a purchase agreement for that parcel. So, there are many avenues to move forward or to not move forward as well. So those are being worked um such as financial agreements. Sure.

So any other comments by citizens. All right. Entertain a motion to adjourn them. So moved. Second. Okay. Motion on the table to adjurnn. All those in favor say I. I. I. Opposed. All right. Thank you all. Thank you all for joining. The next town of council meeting will be May 9th.