City Council - Regular Meeting

The only way I can help him is to try to get an ordinance passed. So Becky had this in a report that was a little different. I don't know where the report came from, but it was much easier to see and read.

I don't know if there's another way. I think Becky has an Excel spreadsheet that she put everything. There's a way that we can do that. Austin. Yeah, that's his next order.

Austin, did you change from surf over to Comcast for the buildings?

Yeah, if there's a button to maybe send out to Excel or something like that, because this is very difficult. I'm looking at it like trying to figure out the columns. Surf to Comcast for the internet. But if we're just getting it on file, that's fine.

Actually.

I had them down to like $85.

Oh, okay. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Okay. So, Jen, I see what I did with the bills earlier. So, these in front of you, okay. I screwed up on that earlier. I thought I'd make it from that folder, but I was in 2025, so I was trying to find something. Whoa.

These are actually, if you look at the top, it says 2025, so I think I was in a different folder and printed these out. Oh, man. Doing your honey-do list.

Yeah, I printed out the wrong year.

No, we were kind of all over locally. We had different groups and parties to go to and stuff, and it was mostly a down day on Sunday, which was good.

Too damn hot.

It was too hot. I got eaten alive by every bug known to man, too. I really wanted to play with fireworks this year, but I put a video out there telling people not to be stupid and lose any fingers, and I thought about lighting something off, and I go, I can't imagine if I would be mocked religiously.

So I didn't play with any fireworks.

Hopefully we can get out of here early. Oh, it's 6 p.m. now. I'd like to. That'd be nice.

So does everybody else, please?

Well, let's keep that in mind. Keep the show moving. I will keep her moving. I will read these names as fast as I can for the volunteers. All right, where's Jen? We'll get started momentarily. I think our clerks checked on something.

Because the stream started and everything? Yeah, the stream started. Richard just made me aware of it. I printed out July of last year's bills as opposed to July of this year's bills. And so she's printing out July. I looked at them all online already.

A little bearing at this point.

Just a little.

Whoops.

I don't know if you want to read them in the next two minutes, but. Do I see firework shows anywhere?

I can sit on the couch and study and watch them right out the sliding glass doors in the city of Peru.

It's a much better view or a much better environment to sit and watch.

Less crowded, cooler. Less mosquitoes.

Less mosquitoes probably. Less mosquitoes probably.

You know every window I had that I

The roof comes down to a gutter.

Okay, you should be receiving an email from me right now.

Okay. I'm going to be asking me questions. You already have the answer.

Get to it. I guess.

I can't look at it now.

it had me nervous because it was pumped for eight i mean i i have a lot of water table issues where we live uh eight seconds it would pump to be off for 12. because normally it would pump for like four seconds and be off for like minutes but it could barely keep up with the water you know i had a lakefront property as well

Hey, Hillary, did you receive an email from me just now?

From who? Me. Today? Yeah, just now. Oh, wow.

You should have received it, too. An email?

From today? I just sent it.

Yeah, I just got it.

Okay, that'll be brought up, okay?

World Cup, 56 minutes.

England game last night was good.

Very good.

U.S. men's soccer better win today.

I'm curious to the controversy stuff. So there was a red card that was overturned. Yeah, that was so shady. Well, I'm curious to know if it's ever happened in the history. If it is, then that's fine, but... I'm a little nervous if it happened because there was a call from.

I think that's why it happens.

That's kind of crazy.

Yeah, I'm going to get this going.

Kind of crazy. So I'm hoping that.

No.

Okay. Sorry about that, everybody. All right. We'll get started here. I'd like to call the meeting to order for Oglesby City Council. Roll call, please.

Baldrige?

Here.

Cullinan? Here. McDermott?

Here.

Moya? Here. Curran?

Here. Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. Okay. Number four, mayor's report. First thing, I only got a couple things here. I want to keep it moving because we got a World Cup tonight. Fun Fest. We had our Fun Fest, and I just want to say that Fun Fest would not happen without all the volunteers that are part of everything that we have. It's so important. I can't imagine. I think half of all the profits would probably be eaten up if we had to pay for employees to do all the things that have to get done. So I want to give a huge shout out for the following individuals. Bev Sons, Terry Essel, Pam Supan, Deb Wallace, William Dahm, Lisa Dahm, Lily Medina, Kimberly Curran, Amy Arthur, Mike Wallace, Illini State Bank, Kay Myers, Courtney Ator, Andrea Gerard, Alan Stremlau, Lane Hone, Jen Meredith, Jolene Decker, Ryan Osberger, Josiah Springer, Samantha Brush, Chelsea Myers, Ali Agostiniak, Skye Lenhart, Jenny Leal. Ruth Snelting, Hope Pico, Haile Leak, Kathy Lawyer, Kelly Dalton, Nick Baker, Mike Pico, Patty Echolkraut, Ashley Konczak, Mary Jane Daniels, Charlie Menthe, Lance Greathouse, Jen Marsala, Austin Cullinan, Calvin Hancock, Colleen Mueller, Chris Mueller, Pat Flecker, Joel Gerdovich, Nick Muzzarelli, Rhonda Van Zuiden, Brenda Hermosillo, Anna Hermosillo, Kristen Gosnell, Amanda McLaughlin, Amy Aldenhoff, Adam Clark, Annabelle Clark, Nathan Orlandi, Tasha Kelly, Toby Walser, Jennifer Spratt, Rob Spratt. And then for the kids' fun zone, we had Julie Lynn Hancock, Eliana Ramirez, Iris Hirota, Ava Myers, Jacob Arthur, Cash Hancock, Claire Baudreau. So that's an incredible number of names. And some of those people actually volunteered multiple slots even. I won't go into that. I cannot thank you enough, because if it wasn't for them, we wouldn't be able to have such a wonderful event. We did have a little bit of unfortunate stuff with the weather. I think this was the first time that we kind of knew the weather was going to be bad before the day happened. So it's tough when you have to make a decision like that to kind of close the festivities. We usually have a bad day every year for Fun Fest. It's just unfortunate that was the last day when we did stuff. So fireworks would be looking to be probably moved. Speaking of fireworks, I want to give a huge shout out to the city of Peru. Fantastic job. I know how difficult it is to have to make a decision on when something's weather related. So Mayor Kowalski and his staff did a fantastic job, and what a great tribute to America's 250. It was a very beautiful fireworks show, so great for them. as our fireworks show we talked about that internally a little bit if we were going to move them to another event later this year we don't know if there's a real appropriate event for it or not yet the good news is we didn't lose out on any of the money for it so we're looking that it will either roll to next year or maybe it could be something with the 125th celebration we don't know yet but the good news is it didn't get lost out on so thanks for everybody that that did participate in fun fest i think it was a great three days we didn't get our fourth day unfortunate but it was fantastic The last thing I want to talk about is a huge thanks to JP and all of his Parks and Recreation staff.

Remove and replace existing damaged 36 storm sewer. At the wastewater treatment plant, they were digging up and they found a sewer line that has been damaged. They're looking at replacing it or going through to a certain amount. Now there's gonna have a roadway over top of it, so we're gonna have to reinforce it, okay? We're looking at $19,458. I know I could approve this, but it being a wastewater treatment plant, I thought everybody should know. If the board wants to approve it, that's fine or whichever way you want to do this. But being transparent and everything else, everybody needs to know. my only question with this is it related in any way shape or form to the actual wastewater treatment project that's happening down there because if it is you might just be able to roll that into the project then well that's that's what it is it's just i gotta prove nineteen thousand four hundred and fifty eight dollars for it you have a fund for that right yeah there's already it's there that would be

What the contractor found is that there is an existing storm sewer down there that was installed 15, 20 years ago. And they had to work upstream and downstream of it, but not on the pipe itself. And when they inspected that sewer, they found that a portion of it is partially glass. It's one of these ABS plastics. Anyway, the problem is that right now, the portion that's damaged is not underneath a roadway. It's just off the side of the road. With the project, the plan will be to, that's gonna be the new access into the plant. There'll be more pavement, and that portion will be underneath the road. So I think, first of all, I think it needs to be addressed. I strongly recommend that it be addressed now while we have the equipment out there.

The temporary road, right? The temporary road?

No, it'll be a permanent road.

Oh, okay, the new entrance drive. Okay, well, obviously you want to fix it before you lay any concrete.

Right, so the question becomes, you've got a 100-foot run of pipe. You replace that whole run, which more of that run will be underneath the roadway, or do you just try to repair that section that's named in terms of... This would be to replace that entire line. I would recommend that because the fact that it's damaged this early into its life tells me that it probably was installed improperly. It wasn't vetted properly, and so that caused it to be damaged. If anyone asks, there is no signs of it, of the contractual damage. What's the difference in the cost between the patch and the full thing?

number or if you're probably talking less than ten thousand dollars okay because my only concern was if it would take you out of the contingency amount or something like that no no either way well that'd be my recommendation especially if it's under 20 000 right you can just approve the thing we got to look at is this we can put a band-aid on it eventually down the road

Maybe we'll have to tear that road up and replace the pipe that's underneath the road if we don't fix it all at one time.

I think we're all in agreement to do it the right way. Right.

Thank you very much.

Especially if you can roll it into the EPA loan. The more you can roll into that, the more we can hopefully get a percentage of that forgiven anyways.

But to be transparent, I thought I'd at least bring it up to everybody.

All right. Anybody have anything else on this topic? No.

And that's it.

All right. Nothing? We'll move on. D discussion of possible action on the addition of water service to the existing facility water plant McDermott.

Okay, just letting everybody know they needed water service to the existing water plant. Okay. It was $14,955. I've already gotten this done. We had to do it but transparency once again it was fourteen thousand nine hundred and fifty five dollars and that got rolled in we had to fix that one right away didn't have no choice it had to be done all right okay are you just informed is this just is this just for him just to inform

All right. Thank you much. Appreciate it. E, discussion of possible action on creating a special use designation for business opportunities. Curran. Thank you, guys.

What's going on? Oh, my goodness.

Air conditioning. Gotcha.

That's what happens when you take time off work.

All right. This is the one item I put on here. I don't have the perfect solution for this, so let me explain the situation of what happened. Actually, can you bring up the, I'd love the, that's probably not important. So there is a business down, an old business downtown. We obviously have like 20 vacant buildings downtown. And any time a business wants to come in to populate that storefront is a great thing. That's what we want, right? We want retail shops. We want service shops. We want all kinds of stuff like that. Well, this one in particular, this building, it's far down on Walnut Street. It got converted to residential back in 2018 when we redid the zoning for it. um and so what a business wanted to come in they wanted to make it a dog grooming business i actually think it's perfect for it because it's got a nice big glass window out front it obviously looks like a business type lace you know the whole story doggy in the window whatever all that stuff um it'd be great so they went go ahead and they went to go look at it to see if they can do a special use permit well unfortunately for that services our land development code doesn't allow that you can't even put a request in for special use so So, because, well, that was the thought process. Let's give you a special use for it. I mean, we did it with the tattoo shop and stuff like that, but for that kind of service, it is not even authorized to make a request for it. So then the only other option would be to change the zoning for the whole thing. the owner of the property does not want to change the zoning of it because again it's a business that could come in and maybe the business doesn't last or it doesn't work very long so they don't want to go through the whole process of doing the zoning so now we're losing that opportunity to come here so this is to me this is a great example of we are our own rules are holding us back from a development opportunity right just because of some kind of a piece of paper that says nope you can't even put a special use in for that so i talked about this what what is the what is the best way to do this i'd love that the council have the ability to put something in there that says the council can supersede and make a special use for anything they want well that's problematic too because if you put something like that in there What the hell is the purpose of having special use codes then if it comes to ordinary circumstances, things that would not be allowed for? I don't know the best way to do something like that. you don't think there's a way to even make a text amendment over anything that we can control?

Well, no, you can make a text amendment to your planning code, but we got to be specific about what it's going to be. And you can look for recommendations from the plan commission. We have one, maybe two things that we're going to have to have a meeting about anyway. So we can bring this.

I think we need to put it on there just because again, I don't know the right answer, but to me, if we have a developer that wanted to come in to put a service that I think everybody would enjoy to have, And the answer is, sorry, we have a rule that says we can't even discuss it. We can't even consider it. That's a rule that we've put on ourselves that we need to find a way to be able to solve that.

The Press Okay. Is there a way to rescind the 2018 one? so that it's gone? The planning code? Convert all.

They spent years developing that code, Rich.

And they convert a lot of buildings to either residential or commercial for different purposes.

I've had two people come to me this year about buildings on Walnut Street that are obviously commercial, formerly commercial buildings that they want to sell. And they're zoned residential now, and because the commercial use has not been used for a continuous period of six months, they have no ability to use those for a business, and yet they're completely unacceptable for use as a residence. They're just not set up for it. And the only way to change that is to petition to change the zoning designation of that property, which I have to tell you, the Planning Commission has not been keen on doing. They made a lot of decisions to change zoning on properties on Walnut Street when that code was set up, and they're trying to stand by it, I think. That's up to them, and it'll ultimately be up to you if they make a decision you don't like.

Yeah, I mean, I don't want to obviously unravel all the work that people have done to try to benefit stuff like that, but there are situations that come up, like if a business wants to come in town and we have a rule that's preventing it, we're getting in our own way. There has to be a workaround for something like that to make us there. And I don't want to... put something in there that says unilateral authority that the council can approve whatever because then you're just opening a can of worms there too so i would kick it to them i come up i have a couple ideas but i really want to hear what a smarter group will love i think i want you to come to the planned commission meeting jason Okay. I agree. All right. We'll go around. Anybody have anything on that? Any concerns about that?

No, I would agree with you. I'm not a believer in strict legalism, and I don't necessarily think we should be handcuffed by our own rules. Obviously, I believe rules exist for a reason, of course, but in extraordinary cases, I definitely do think, I mean, if we're the ones making those rules in the first place, we, again, shouldn't be handcuffed by them. So I agree with what you're saying. I'm kicking it to the playing commission. Okay.

I assume you guys had a conversation about this before you and Pat.

Actually, this specifically, no.

But is there a better way to do it besides going through the plan commission, Pat? Do you have any other...

you're straddled with your development code and it specifically says that use changes cannot be made by variance with the zoning board so we could say you know this property is not allowed for this use but we want to get a variance to allow for that use forbidden by your zoning code

only the plan commission can grant a special use permit and then only for the specific categories of special uses that are authorized for that zoning district I'd love to have something in there and I mean and I'm just spitballing here but something that says the effect of if something of a special use falls out of the granted permission the I understand what you want is they can make a recommendation and I made a note to think about okay but I'm not sure we can get there

I agree it needs to go to the Planning Commission. Okay.

Rich? I'm not familiar with what they did in 2018, but is it my understanding that they were trying to develop the downtown into residential? Is that what the... No, not necessarily.

First of all, they redid the entire... City. Well, the planning... Oh, my God. What the hell is that? Section 14. What the hell is that thing called?

Development code.

Development code. They did the whole development code, and there were certain properties that they said, hey, these are more, this is obviously a commercial area, so these residential properties are going to go to commercial use now, but they're going to be under continued use. So they were grandfathered. So they're grandfathered as long as they continue to be used that way. And vice versa, in some of the areas that get further away from the downtown area, they converted them from residential to commercial. So, and they, again, whether, I mean, because I don't like to Monday morning quarterback people, because if you look at some of these buildings, I look at some of them and I go, well, that's obviously a commercial building.

At one point, I think that was a lawyer's office, wasn't it?

I don't know which one you're talking about. Is it Pam Sklorek's old office? I thought so.

Yeah. So, again, I don't want to Monday morning quarterback people, but. i look at it now and i go that's obviously a commercial building why'd they do that but they got people together they had a plan they realized for the future of the city because they're making a plan for 50 to 100 years from now of how things are supposed to look like and things like that so that was the plan i don't want to say it's badly written but we're handcuffing ourselves when i have to tell a business sorry we can't do that i don't i don't want to tell anybody that ever i want to be the yes man Okay. Anybody have anything else in this topic? If so, can we get a motion to send it over to the Planning Commission in their next regular meeting? They can add this as an item.

I'll make a motion that we send it to the Planning Commission for the next available meeting.

Roll call, please.

Baldrige.

Aye.

Cullinan. Aye. McDermott.

Aye.

Moyle. Aye. Curran.

Aye. Number 11, public comment on any topic.

tonight is to show you something that I've asked for to be fixed and it hasn't yet. And Ann at the library today showed me how to do something I've never done before and that's hotspot the laptop to cell phone because this building isn't accessible to regular people like me. So and both May's bills to be paid, they. It goes to this screen.

Yeah, that's so we'll fix that.

And for everybody, it goes to the screen that it wants a password for these people here. it's probably already programmed in your computer so it lets you in and you don't see that it's not doing this what are you trying to access sir he's trying to access so there's both bills to be paid for may of this year um don't show up for us to download that recently changed because it used to work so when when

Thank you. So I was trying to contemplate when we move things to Office 365, you obviously have the ability to make folders. And as opposed to having a bunch of individual links listed on our website that we'd have to update, the idea was that we could just dump everything into SharePoint and then share it that way. So you only have to upload it once, which is to SharePoint. However, the sharing permissions, for whatever reason, it didn't work. And so those are just two things that are left over that just need to be fixed. Greg, I was not aware of those two specific things. I was aware of...

I did mention to you and somebody here took care of a lot of the... Agenda, minutes and bills.

I took care of the agendas and minutes, but I don't remember the bills. So I might have misheard you.

Everything's been filled in for this year, except for those two items. I'll fix that. Appreciate ASAP. Also, I sort of think that I don't know if this is an ordinance that says who does what or whether it's a memorandum, but it'd be nice to have a web page that we could go on the city site Who does what operations in the World Wide Web around here? Who takes care of the city page? Is that what connecting points get paid for in the next 10 months? Who does the Facebook page? Who does the summer funfets page? Who takes care of the fire department, police, and the parks department pages? Who's in charge of each one of them pages? And also, who's your internet service provider? Is it surf? Is it the fiber optic that's even higher than them as far as the iFiber people that's a government source iFiber? Or are you using Verizon or Comcast? You use Surf?

We have Surf for internet. We have Verizon for cell phone service.

Okay. All right. And so the... I can... THINK OF THREE PROVIDERS THAT ARE DOING SERVICES FOR THE CITY OFF AND ON, CAN THEY KNOW ABOUT? CONNECTING POINT AND MCS, SEEMS LIKE THEY SHOW UP EVERY NOW AND THEN. I'D KIND OF LIKE TO KNOW WHAT THOSE THREE PROVIDERS ARE DOING INSIDE THE CITY. AND THE LAST THING, AND THEN I'M GOING TO LET YOU RATTLE OFF WHATEVER YOU WANT AT ME, THE FILE DOWNLOADS I don't own Microsoft 365. I have gone through a number of computer programs in my lifetime since I got my first computer back in 1985. And I think the city should be putting files in a format that is shareware, not a subscription-based Microsoft 365. tell it to let people download the file and read it, not make changes to it, but download it to read only. And that's why I suggested PDFs. Because Adobe Acrobat PDFs have been shareware for a very long time. And I think maybe 50 years from now, it probably still will be.

Greg, I think we already had a conversation about this. And I said I agree with you. Everything on that page is PDF besides those two links, which we missed.

Not the agenda and the minutes? No, no, the agenda is the minutes are in docx.

Okay, well, if the minutes are in docx, then that's something that needs to be fixed. So I could have missed stuff when I went through and corrected it, but no, I agree with you. Everything should be in PDF.

They've all been downloaded. So it allows me to... Swipe copy-paste. Yes, I agree and then put it in a note notepad I agree with you, but it loses all the line feeds sure and No, I agree with you the last thing I see this in the Box over there. I haven't seen it available to download It's not it's on the city's website if you go to lifestyle its community newsletter and So you didn't put it in Facebook yet?

It's not put on Facebook. I don't know if that specific one is put on Facebook, but they do post it on Facebook.

I'll tell you what, Greg, I appreciate you bringing up any concerns that we have that our information is not is accessible out there so it's definitely something we'll look at because i mean our goal is to make sure if we're putting something out there if only some people can read it because there's an access issue or something that's a problem so we'll get that resolved thank you okay are there any other um public comment on any topic

everybody we're the um committee that you elected to do old v 125 and we just thank you we respectfully request we're going to read a little letter here i'm nominated that the 125th anniversary planning committee be tabled until the new city administration takes office next may um as committee members we volunteered because we care about our community and wanted to help create a memorable celebration From the beginning, however, we received limited direction regarding expectations, priorities, or budget, so we developed plans based on what we believed would best serve the community. Our request for $18,000 to secure bands and sound services was made because entertainment for events of this size must often be booked well in advance. While we understand the need for fiscal responsibility, no specific budget parameters had been communicated, making it difficult to align our plans with the council's expectations. It was also stated that some members didn't know about the committee and we found this confusing as you guys appointed us to the committee. Additionally, our meetings have been held at city hall and they're open for attendance and participation. We actually had more to schedule to have two meetings. We had one and then we did not have the other because we decided we wanted to go this direction. We believe there would be opportunities for ongoing communication and input throughout the process, looking back, presenting our full vision to you before the last meeting and providing you with greater clarity. But immediate priority was securing our entertainment before these opportunities were no longer available. We also recognize that the city has two wonderful, experienced event planners who have great expertise on what they're planning. So we were thinking that maybe it could just be part of the summer fun fest. Why should this be a separate celebration? Why spend more money? Maybe do a parade along with it, which we're happy to help out with. But you have two event planners that do a fabulous job. Summer Fun Fest was wonderful. And rather than taking volunteers, as we know, they're few and far between. But I'm going to go back. Anyways, that was what we thought. We'll gladly assist with planning and organizing the parade to help build community excitement. Our community has worked diligently in good faith. We value constructive feedback and believe clear communication is essential. After careful consideration, we believe tabling the committee until the new administration takes office is the most appropriate course of action. This will allow future planning to begin with clear expectations and establish budget in a shared vision. We appreciate the opportunity to serve our community and remain hopeful that it will be 125th anniversary will be successful celebration through collaboration, transparency, and effective communication.

Thank you.

So that's all we have. And furthermore, just as a citizen stepping back, and I've wanted to say this for months, No disrespect to any of you, but the bickering, let's just do the hard job that we elected you for because it's just so much things get tabled and bickering and the community is saying it constantly. So I'm just telling you as a community member, that's where we're at.

Thank you. I'd like to add just one thing. One of the things you led with your whole meeting was thanking everybody. And I was surprised that it didn't get applause from the audience because that was very positive. And you just finished up on a celebration. So I think now is the time to give all those volunteers applause.

Are there any other public comments? Seeing none, we will move on. We got one more. I apologize. Go ahead, sir.

Yeah, my name is Dave Phillips. I live on 3rd Street, West 3rd Street. And I have an issue with my raw sewage coming into my house. I don't know if any of you have had that problem, but I'm here to see if we can get something fixed. I was told backflow preventer and i'd like some comment on that i don't think anybody wants to go through raw sewage in their basements i don't know if the pattern or not it's not pleasant

thank you sir okay we were he actually called me this evening he's got sewer back up in January 4th I guess we were talking about the injectors and went to the and I don't think it ever got back. And there's no, nobody's for sure if it was even got back to us or where we're at on it. Was there, at the previous commission,

I remember we talked about it. I think the last time we've addressed this on the council might have been two years ago. I can't. I remember Al Stout came because we had something drafted up to make a backflow prevention thing, but I think Al Stout when he came, he I don't really recall. I remember he showed that there were some potential problems with that, too. Like if it failed, it could cause more problems than anything. And I think he had a different suggestion, which was like a pit-type thing, and he had diagrams for us.

An injector or something? What's that? I believe it was something like injectors.

Yeah, I can't remember the details.

It's an injector pit.

Right.

Yeah, so I don't remember. Ross knows a lot about these.

Yeah, I don't remember if we actually approved anything or if it got just tabled. I don't know. I don't remember that.

Well, I thought we brought that to the board and never did come back.

That would not go to the plan commission. They would have nothing to do with that, I don't think. I thought it did.

Me and Patty looked through the minutes today and tried to find something. And February 4, 2024 was the last time you did that. Right.

For an ejector pit or a blackfold printer?

No, the whole thing about the backfolds.

Boy, that does not sound familiar. Was that when Al Stout came and talked? Yeah, it was the meeting Al Stout. He talked about the injection fits and that, which are more expensive.

There's nothing wrong with injection fits. I mean, that's a beautiful idea. But that goes with the same thing, too.

You know, that's what Al recommends.

I don't remember why we didn't approve. I thought he said something like there's a problem with the backflow, the check valve.

It's just a power flapper. Some stuff can get caught in it. There is some maintenance due to a homeowner in that. But it does do its job. The injector fits would be in the home also.

Well, Mac, I think it was something, if I remember right, it was something you put up on the agenda, and I thought we looked at it. I thought we actually had something drafted if we were going to approve it, but I feel like we didn't approve it at the last minute. We need to take a look at it.

Well, he's had this happen four years exactly to 4th of July. We've got to do something.

Well, I say let's take a look at the minutes of what we had last time and see if this needs to be reengaged then. I can't remember, to be honest, it's been two years, obviously, two years, four months, so I don't remember the details.

Was there an ordinance before the last committee? I don't think so.

No. I was the first one to start bringing it up back then. We have five inches in 45 minutes, and it came up for a couple houses. So we started looking at something putting together and then but that was right at the kind of the tail end, I feel. And it didn't. And then we started talking about the beginning of our administration, Al Stout got involved and started having some different recommendations. And I just remember that it, it didn't continue. I thought he said there was an issue with that the check valve could work for a period of time until it doesn't work, and then you run into the same problem over again. I thought he said something like that, but I can't remember. I would recommend let's retake a look at those minutes, bring the topic back up, and see if there's something we need to address with it then.

Okay, well, there's something we need to address. We've got to take care of these. Nobody wants that.

Do you know what those meeting minutes were, the date was?

February.

Okay. Jen, can you make a note to have Patty or somebody send me those?

Please attach me to it, too.

Yeah. March of 2023, a week before the election. Nice. I knew it was at the end.

Yeah. Yeah.

could you attach me to that too please yeah in addition with that i would look at the old packet stuff because i i really feel that there was something drafted up to be approved and we ended up not approved that's how i remember it i could be wrong yep i'll check through everything okay thank you 30 seconds because you're already up here once so 30 seconds go ahead i remember all that happening and i believe uh you that would be facebook uh

video streaming, right? And you moved all those over to YouTube? How far back did you go back i don't know whenever they started reporting them i don't know during covid yeah we should have it okay and uh and back in summer fun fest uh got me thinking is it a little too early to know if uh the sunday rain out uh killed swamped your budget and and how when are we going to see how well the fun fest did this year in the

Mr. No, I think last year it took about a month or something like that for all the invoices to come in, be approved, signed off on. But we'll put the financials out there when they're available, just like we did last year. Mr.

But to answer the question, generally it did not. Sunday is not our usual high profit day. I mean, our numbers were in line with everything from the carnival and stuff like that. And we did lose out on some money with some of the band stuff that we had to be only able to capture some of it. But the fireworks, we were able to maintain the credit for it all. So really, it wasn't that huge of a fan.

Have you talked about what you're going to do about fireworks?

We have talked internally with the different events stuff to see if there's something that we could roll into later this year. But as I said in the mayor's report, we were not sure if something's really appropriate for it. Like, would it make sense to do it during Harvest Fest with the kids in the downtown area? I don't know. So as of right now, there hasn't been a plan put in place. It's still being looked at. Thank you. All right. Are there any other public comment on any topic? All right.

Ross did you have anything on the injectors or anything okay okay number 12 Commissioner reports Commissioner Cullinan the only thing I have for tonight is I kind of want to echo Mayor Curran's comments regarding fun fest As I sat down there, I think it was, well, I guess it was, I was down there Thursday, Friday and Saturday, a portion of Saturday. But as I sat down there, I really just reflected on just how complex of an operation that Summer Fun Fest is. There is a lot of planning that goes into it. And, you know, you have to be able to, you know, communicate and be on the same page as your vendors, as the carnival, whatever. And there's a lot of different parties that are responsible for different things. And so I just want to echo Mayor Kern's gratitude for everybody who was involved, particularly the employees within my purview, which would include, well, basically everybody who works in my office. I want to thank them for their work, and particularly I want to thank our two kind of event planners, or people that plan events, Sherry Harlow and Zoe Hancock, for all of their work. I also want to express specific gratitude to Sherry Harlow as we do not actually have two event planners anymore. Sherry has tendered her retirement and so I Definitely want to make a point to thank her because, I mean, really, it was – I know that their first Fun Fest, Zoe and Sherry, that they worked last year, they kind of took over things most of the way through it, but they had to finish everything. And they did a very good job last year with finishing everything and ultimately making sure we had a smooth operation. This year was kind of all on their own. And again, they did a seamless job. You couldn't tell that it was two different people running FunFest from, I think Becky was kind of in charge of it before or whatever as event coordinator. I mean, they did a really, really good job. And they deserve to be commended for all of their work as well. So that's all I have for tonight. Thanks. Commissioner Moore.

I appreciate everyone who's involved in Summer Fun Fest. As far as the employees, volunteers, et cetera, I did want to highlight some of the unsung heroes, though, of Summer Fun Fest that sometimes often go unnoticed. The police, the fire and ambulance, who are always there every single year from opening to close. They give up their Father's Day weekend to make sure that all of us are safe. And then I also did wanna highlight one person who volunteers in his police capacity that often gets overlooked, is Chief Michael Margus. He also spends his entire weekend there. And I appreciate everything he does. For everyone who really loves statistics, here we go. The fire department had another really busy month. They had 41 total calls. And it consisted of 10 mutual aid, auto aid, 7 rescues, 5 accidents, 4 PR events, 3 brush fires, 3 structure fires, 3 storm standby, 2 vehicle fires, 2 lift assist, 2 odor investigation. Of these calls, 18 of them are in city limits and 13 are in district. 10 of them were out of district. And I did want to also kind of give a little bit of a tidbit on this. So we're now in June, so we're halfway through. All these calls are up until the end of June and currently We are at 161 calls for the year. So when we're comparing that to previous years, in 2025, in June, we only had 124. So we're ahead, and it is a considerable.

Ahead.

It's a considerable difference between 22, 23, 24, and 25. There's been quite a spike in 25 and 26. And it's not just our area departments. There are also other chiefs in the other departments who are also seeing an increase in fire calls. So just something to consider. as far as the ambulance for the month of june there were 15 district calls three transfers three als intercepts three nights of special detail which was summer fun fest and 40 in town 911 calls for a total of 64 calls for the month of june and then lastly for the police we had 127 traffic stops 17 ems assists 27 case reports 24 vehicle lockouts And that's everything for my statistics tonight. day basically what was this do you have the last so it's fascinating i found it interesting as well for 2025 fire calls there were a total of 247 for the entire year so it relatively stays pretty steady in the second half of the year for 24 there was 195 total calls 23 205 22 198 There was no significant increase like in the type of call that they're responding to. So it just seems to be all the neighboring cities are also very interesting.

I mean, it's concerning, but interesting. Thank you for that. Appreciate that. Commissioner McDermott.

I'd like to thank everybody for volunteering for fun fest. Thank you, Chief Vargas, and thank you, first responders. The street department will be working on Clark Street to fill some of the holes that's out on the street. I'd like to thank Deconstruction for a safe route to schools. The residents are even telling me, hey, it's looking good. A couple people are actually even using it. The dry bridge it. I need to thank deconstruction once again. It turned out pretty good. And thanks for doing it in a timely manner. That's all I have for tonight.

Thank you. Commissioner Bulger. I'd like to thank all those who volunteered for the fun fest. It was a great turnout and unfortunate that it was cut a day short. Thanks to all the employees who make this happen and run as smooth as it does. It takes a lot of time and effort, but the return is a great time for everyone. Special thanks to Zoe and Sherry, and I wish Sherry a happy retirement. The electric department had some trees down in all the storms. They acted quickly in removing the trees and had power restored ASAP. Big thank you to them. They will continue to cut trees back this week.

to help in the future that's all I have thank you all okay number 13 executive session for the purpose of the employment appointment employment compensation discipline performance or dismissal specific employees discussion of meetings minutes of meetings lawfully closed under the opening meetings act collective negotiating matters between the public body and employees or representatives or deliberations concerning salary schedules for one or more class of employees the purchase of lease real property for the use of the public body including meetings held for the purpose of discussing whether a particular possible should be acquired pursuant to the authority granted by five aisles 120 slash to see 115 two and six respectively can I get a motion to go into executive session my motion we enter executive session for the aforementioned exemptions to the open meetings there roll call please

Baldrige?

Aye.

Cullinan? Aye. McDermott?

Aye.

Moyle? Aye. Curran?

Aye. And I only have one possible action item after. It depends on what comes out with the zoning administrator. I don't know if that will be the case, but it's potential. Thank you, everybody. Have a great night, and go USA. but the approaches, those are the ones that were like four or five years ago.

Thank you. Thank you.