City Council - Regular Meeting

It's all good. It doesn't really matter because we don't we don't uh talk about our time to release them until the last one in January anyways. Feel like there's something I'm forgetting what's going on. Just hold that just [clears throat] I'm starting to really hate Mondays. Start the week. So much jams together.

Oh my god.

[snorts]

We got 559. No. He's on his way. Come on. He's still got 60 seconds. There he is. You still got 30 seconds. Nailed it. [laughter] Empty parking lot. Still got 28 seconds. Have a look. It's cold. How are you, Rich? Hello. How are you?

Cold. How's it going, Pat? You know, it's freezing. Let me know whenever you're ready. How are you? I'm ready. You ready? All right. Everybody ready? Like to call the Ogalsby City Council meeting to order. Roll call, please. Baldrich, here. Colin, here. McDermott, here. Moy, here. Uh, Curran here. Please stand for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

All right. Number four, uh, public comment on agenda items only. Seeing that there's none, we'll move on. Uh, number five, approve minutes from December 1st, uh, 2025 regular meeting. If there's no additions, corrections, or modifications, can I get a motion to approve the minutes? I'll make a motion to approve the minutes from the December 1st meeting. I'll second that motion. Roll call, please. Baldrich, I. Colin, I. Uh, McDermott, I. Moy, I. Currin,

I. Number six, approve minutes from October 6, October 20th, November 17th, and December 1st, 2025 executive session. My understanding is uh we need a little bit more time to review some of these. Um, and I don't think it's a big deal because I think it's the last meeting of January is when we sit and discuss to review them anyway. So, unless anybody has any other corrections or anything they'd like to add on it, we can I don't know if you guys want to just table them for now. I'll make a motion to table the minutes from October 6th, 20th, November 17th, and December 1st. I'll second. Roll call, please. Baldrich. I. Cullinin. Hi. McDermott. I. Moy. I. Currin.

I. Number seven. Approve bills presented for payment in the amount of $867,133.92. If there's no additions, corrections, or modifications, can I get a motion to approve the bills? Um, I motion uh that we approve the bills uh in the amount of $867,133.92. Second. Roll call, please. Baldrich. Hi. Cullinin. Hi. McDermott. Hi. Moy, I number eight. Approve payroll for December 5th, 2025 in the amount of $74,289.50. If there's no additions, corrections, or modifications, can I get a motion to approve the payroll? I motion we approve payroll for December 5th, 2025 in the amount of $74,289.50. I'll second. Roll call, please. Baldridge. I cin. Hi.

McDermott. I [clears throat] number nine, old business a property tax levy. Uh, Cullen.

Yeah. So, just uh to go back over this again, we we talked about it. We placed it on file at the last meeting. Um but sat down uh with treasurer Paul Danakus um a few weeks ago uh and we talked about the levy uh for this upcoming uh year uh 2026. And uh what he kind of put together was um a decrease in our tax rate from 2.12336 to uh 2.04932. Um even though there would be a decrease uh in the tax rate, there would be uh an increase in the amount of revenue we're collecting. I think it's about $81,000. Uh and this is attributable to an increase in uh net assessed valuation. Uh prop the value of properties as a result of recent assessments uh throughout the town was uh they were higher. So um we'll be making more because of that. So um we placed this on file at the last meeting and uh we just have to approve it tonight.

Sounds good. Go around the room. oil. Nothing to add. McDermott, nothing to add. Baldridge. Nothing. Yeah. The only thing I have is uh just that I think we're under what is it? 4.98% and I can't remember how much the the rate went down, but the the actual rate is uh decreased just because of like what Colin said, the values have increased. So, if there's no other um comments, if we can get a motion to approve it. I will motion that we approve uh property tax levy for 2025 through 2026. I'll second that motion. Roll call, please. Uh, Baldridge, hi. Mc Colin, hi. McDermott, hi. Moy, hi. Curran, hi.

B, 2013 tax levy abatement. Uh, I think that's I don't know if I like the the way that's labeled because that's from the bond issue time, stuff like that. But

I think it's um a little bit more Pat's wheelhouse. He is rounded up. I my understanding of it's somewhat limited. So, back in 2013, the council at the time enacted a bond levy ordinance um for just a little under $2 million to do improvements in the city. I think um I believe it runs through 2027. The repayment schedule, uh you have a repayment schedule this year. Um I can pull that out. I sure it's here though. um scheduled from that ordinance in 2013 of $167,820. That amount would be extended by the county clerk on top of the levy you just approved if you don't abate that 2013 scheduled uh levy to repay that bond. according to everything they've always done over the years. They set up a fund. They put user fees in that fund. The money is there to repay uh the bonds with interest every year. Uh and so the council every year has abated the levy that was put in place in 2013 for each year since then. And this would do the same thing again. So you wouldn't be adding that 178 on top of the 80ome thousand. You increased it already today uh and hit the residents with yet another tax that is already on the books, but if you don't abate it, they're going to love you.

Sounds good. So it' be safe to say we're kicking the can down the road. Is that No. What we're doing? No. Because you have user fees and you're paying off those bonds, Rich. And in three more years, it'll all be paid off without you ever having to do anything. And hopefully you will be able to abate it for the next three years too because every time you get money in for I think this was for sewer primarily. I wasn't here then. Um you know those user fees are set aside in a separate fund and they're used to pay back the bond interest every year and the principal on it. So no, you're not kicking the can down the road at all. You're just delaying you're you're just eliminating the levy that was put in place in 2013 or the taxpayers would get hit with another huge tax.

So it will be paid off in three years doing this. Okay. Yeah. I [clears throat] I can show you here if you want. Do you have anything else you want to add? No, we'll go around the room. You know what interest each year? Um I don't but let me see. Rich, I have the schedule here. We'll go around the room. McD, do you have anything? I'm interested in seeing the paperwork. pets. So they're not broken out, Rich. This year it's 167820. Next year it would be 172270. And in 2027 it would be 171270. Again, I anticipate we'll abate those for the next two years. The bonds and interest will be paid off in full without any more taxation to the resident and this done. We're all

and it'll be done unless you put another one in place. You used to have several of these bond ordinances in place, but two of them were paid off a couple years ago and this is the last one that's still there and traditionally we've abated every one of them every year. Okay. Anything else? Sounds like a good idea. I think we should go ahead and pass. We've done it every year. So, yeah. Okay. If there's no other uh comments, uh if I get a motion to approve the uh tax levy abatement. I'll make a motion that we approve the tax levy abatement. I'll second. Roll call, please. Baldrich. Hi. Cullinin. Hi. McDermott. I. Moy. I. Currin. I.

Questions. C. Uh, IPW. Uh, IP. I can't remember what the IP stands for. Illinois personnel. Uh, yeah. Um, so this is a a policy that we kind of have in place. It's an agreement that we can allow to u um send send workers to somebody else to aid or we can request aid. I've only ever seen it used very few times. Um, matter of fact, we got to make sure that you guys have the access because I think I used to get a monthly like emergency update just to make sure that everybody was still on the on the the list and stuff like that. So, um, have you seen this used or you saw the IMEA one used? I've seen both. Uh, this is a formal form. I you know what we talked about last time I forgot to send it to you.

Send to Rich and Mac.

Okay. I'll find the old messages I got on them and I'll send them to you so you can see what the format is. They they basically go per region. So like a call will come out that'll say this region here, region 7, needs a generator if you have this kind of generator. We need this kind of dump truck because of whatever emergency or something like that. Um most of them were either too far away. Uh there's only a few times we've ever responded to them uh in the past. So the only time I think I can remember using it was for the sticks and twigs or something like that on uh at h highway head highway road when we had uh um more than our street department could handle with all the debris from the datio. Those are the only times I remember it. So this is just an update to that um agreement. I go around the room if anybody has any questions concerns.

No seems like pretty decent idea. Bald Bridge. I mean, if it's just a a gentleman's agreement to where we help each other out and it doesn't cost the taxpayers anything, I would agree with it. Well, it's more than a gentleman's agreement. It's [clears throat] similar to the IMEA agreement to where it says that if we utilize them, we pay whoever it is at their whatever their agreed rate is. So, like for example, if we bring somebody in, like you're familiar with the IMEA, if we bring somebody in from a different IMEA city uh to help with sublight, we pay them at their rates to help us get us through whatever the emergency is. And that's all this does say. Uh, same thing on there that we pay whatever their agreements are. Yeah, I'd agree. I mean, if we need help, we need help. And I I would agree that we should be paying for help, but if we're right

sending our guys somewhere else and incurring cost, I I wouldn't agree with that. So, we get paid. Each town is paying that. I would agree with it. [clears throat] There should be a record of that. The last couple times we've sent somebody somewhere. Yeah, I can look it up. We put up like a billing thing. We invoice them for whatever the rate is and stuff like that. Yeah, I'll look that up and send it out to you guys. Okay. Um, there's nothing else. May I get a motion to approve it? Make a motion to approve IPWMAN. And I'll second that motion. Roll call, please. Baldridge. I. Colin. I. McDermott. I. Moy. I. Currin. I.

10. [clears throat] New business. A discussion and possible action on 2026 insurance renewal. Well, probably not possible action. I think we need to renew it. So, Moy. So, first of all, I want to thank everybody who served on the insurance committee, and I think it was a really great idea. And if you recall, the insurance committee was made up of union members, non-union members, retirees, anybody that was blatantly affected by our insurance policies and our decision. And ultimately, they did review all of these and they did it within three meetings. So, they were very thorough. My recommendation was to renew the current insurance policy that we have and switch the am I saying this right? The HR Yep. Switch

to UHC. Okay. And then they wanted to also switch the dental dental or the vision. The vision vision to Delta [clears throat] Dental and then dental stays with UHC. Okay. So that was their recommendation. Delta vision. Oh yeah. Yeah. Delta vision. Sorry. [laughter] Okay, we'll go around the room with any other comments. McDermott, no, I don't have any. A Baldridge, I just appreciate everyone taking a look at it. Uh, I would ditto what Rich said.

Yeah. No, it's it's always been a difficult thing. You know, costs always go up every year and the council's kind of slapped with making a terrible kind of a quick decision because obviously we can't get together for for regular just shoot the breeze sessions to to really go through all the details. So, a lot of times we're kind of slapped with the idea of trying to resolve it at the council level. So, getting a um a group of people together, not just the union workers and the non-UN workers, but we have elected officials on there, and then we have subject matter experts uh that are residents as well. So, I think it's a great idea to get people together. They can have a conversation about trying to make the best out of a of a terrible decision of what we can do. If there's no other comments or on that if we can get a motion to approve the recommended.

Do we have to do three separate motions? One. No. Okay. Just blanket motion to approve their recommendation. Right. Okay. Okay. I'll make a motion to approve the recommendation from the insurance committee for insurance renewals. I'll second. Roll call, please. Either one. Baldrich. I. Colin. Hi. McDermott. Hi. Moy. I. Currin. Hi.

B. Set meeting schedule 2026. current. So, so what [clears throat] we've done the last couple years, um there is a few holidays that are on Mondays that either the city hall is not open or students uh the schools are closed or something like that that we used to have meetings for and it was kind of a difficult pain in the butt thing. And the other one that we used to modify is not having um the the council meeting directly after Funfest. This is the unique year. One out of every seven years it'll just land naturally. Uh, so this one does not have to be modified for funfest, but the other I believe it's three holidays. Is that correct? Uh, and we have the list there. So, anybody has any correct corrections? I mean, don't get me wrong, if there's other days we could modify, I know of at least one conflict I'm going to have with my job, but that's not really the same thing as a holiday. So, uh, if anybody else has anything else to add, go over the room. Colin,

um, is there like a list of the dates? Uh, yeah. Yeah, it was in the drive. I saw there's three. I might be missing it. Martin Luther King Day. I don't There's one in January, there's one in February, and one in like September. I see the conflict dates and the adjustments. I just didn't see the full calendar. But we do have the opportunity to change it. Yeah. I don't think it's a big deal. No, it's not. But this this puts out the ones for the for the known year and stuff like that. We can always modify things further if we want, but at least the list that people are scheduled around is good. So, well, I'm no problem with moving them for a holiday. Okay. And no problem. I understand it if we need to we can always adjust them later. Baldridge. Yeah, that's fine. Okay.

Um a concern that was brought to my attention by a resident and um I frankly agree with them. Um they they had suggested that we stream all meetings, not only city council meetings, but also board meetings. And um I think that's a good standard practice. Um but I also know that it's difficult to get people for boards and if that's going to be an issue. um when it comes to getting people um I figured it was something that warranted a council uh discussion and then ultimately a consensus for us to come to because I think I've heard things both ways before. So I mean my personal uh recommendation is that we do stream all these meetings. Um but you know I can understand why that might be u a concern. So I'm just curious what everybody else thinks about it.

Okay. Well, I would appreciate them to be streamed. I mean, if I'm unavailable or I mean during the week and if I have child care issues, I can't always make the plan committee meetings. It would be nice to be able to review them later at my leisure. I'm not against that, but I also see your concern where people may not want to be on camera. German, I agree with Moy. Um I have no objection to streaming them, but you may have some people that don't want to be on camera. Aldridge.

Uh again, it's not set in stone here. I think we should go ahead and try it. The issues that he has concern of, I believe as well. Um, I don't see anything that we can't implement that we couldn't take away or change on the fly either. So, [clears throat]

so when we first started this administration, that was my intention anyways is that we were going to stream every single board meeting that we have, whether it's insurance, uh, all I won't go through all of them, planning, all all of them, right? Um, and then I had some resistance that not every member of every board wanted to be on camera. So, you know, you want to respect the the residents that are out there because you want to respect good health. But keep in mind, these boards do serve the council. So, what I think I'm I'd like to do is when we ask people to serve boards, um, I think from this point forward, the the question needs to be asked, are you okay with being on on a camera? Because you're going to I mean, you're already speaking at a public thing here like that. I mean, yeah, you're going to be streamed on a camera. Um, I think that should be kind of a requirement. I don't want to

I mean, don't get me wrong, if all of a sudden we make that requirement and all of a sudden we don't have enough people to to fill boards, that's a problem. Um, but that's how I'd like to kind of move going forward because I do believe that if you're representing a public board, I mean, now that we got technology, you can be at home and you can still see what's going on with the zoning thing, a plan commission thing, or whatever or whatever it is, uh, we have the technology. So, um, that's kind of my thoughts going forward. I mean, look, I I don't want to say some which specific boards, uh, but I remember we go in there and we're like, "Hey, we're going to put this on." Oh, we don't want to do that. I think it's What if we just did audio even?

We could do just audio. That is an option. I mean, I I don't know. I kind of think that it should be uniform across the board, but that is an option. Maybe maybe if we run into that issue that Rich was Rich is kind of talking about playing it by ear, maybe that's one of the things we can do is if we've encountered that much resistance, maybe we can do just We may not have a choice. I mean, it's the issue of either they're not going to be on video or they're not going to be on the board. I mean, yeah, we're going to have to make a decision. So, I know I [clears throat] I just feel like that should have been a question maybe and and that's on me then for not asking. I never thought that would have been an issue.

Um, so I didn't ask those kind of questions when I'd ask people to be on boards or we approach them or something like that. But I think that needs to be an issue. So, maybe we'll put something out to all of our board meetings and ask who has a concern with that. I don't want to put that as a we're going to replace you necessarily. I don't want to be rude, but um they they do serve the the city council. So, um if that's something that's important to residents, I I think that's something that we have as a as an important feature of of our members want to accept that. So, um let's have that conversation. Let's put let's put something out to all of our board members and and see if there's any push back or what we can do about that. But as a just kind of moving forward, we're we're going to go with stream meetings and if we hear any we'll we'll field feedback, but that's going to be the plan moving forward.

So that has and it has been for some of the boards that we've done. There hasn't been issues like I don't think there's anybody that's on the plan commission that's had an issue, but I won't mention some of the other boards, but they don't want that. Yeah. So, got to go from there. So, well, all right. Anything else? That's the understanding I'm going to work under is we're going to stream everything and if we hear I think it would be good if that were formaliz [cough and clears throat] has to go back and look at it. Sure. Now that he mentioned that I do I do agree with him that there are there I forgot about the one group that uh said that they did not

I know and that's the thing and [cough] they're and they're keep in mind they're not and and don't get me wrong they're not difficult people. They're really good people for the board that have really uh taken a lot of um good recommendations and thought about things deeply, but you know, if this is the next transition, I don't I don't want to force people out. So, that's I I would I don't know if I feel comfortable making that that motion there. Why don't we just let's inform our board members that that's going to be the plan going forward here and if they have an issue, I' I'd like them to respond. There's another thing I want to do as well. I think there should be a thing about email. There's been a couple uh board members that say they don't want to communicate via email. Well, this is 2025. If this is the best way to get a hold of people, that's the easiest way to to do things. So, yeah,

I I think you should probably go as far as a recommendation. I I I forgot about that and I know it would be a huge issue and you probably lose that board. So, that's that's why I say it. So, why don't we So, how about instead of making a motion that we're going to force stream meetings, we're going to reach out to every board member, let them know that's going to be our plan going forward. We'd like to know feedback of who's having some issues with that. Okay. And we'll go from there. Okay. Sound good? Make a motion to You want make a motion to send I don't think you need let's circle back. We can circle back next year. Okay. Favorite thing here. D discussion and possible action on Fielder [clears throat] Walter variance. Cullinin

deferring to Jenna on this.

Yes. So um they the zoning board met and they spoke with Mr. Fidler. He was here um he had put in a driveway and it it ended up that between him and his contractor. They weren't really nobody came and got a building permit and it ended up that his driveway was not in um our requirements. So he came, he spoke um and the the coun the committee decided that his variance would be should be allowed um because he really didn't know and it doesn't actually affect. They said that usually the reason is they didn't want it so wide at the the driveway is so wide at the street, but because of the size of his lot, it's not a big deal. He has two lots that his house sits on, so it doesn't look

like there's too much cement or anything up there. It's just a driveway basically. Okay. So, the the zoning board unanimously approved recommending to you that you grant the variance for his driveway. Yep. Go around the rest of the room. [clears throat] You have anything else? Uh, no. I'll defer to them too. Moy, it says in there while charging a penalty. Is that something that's normally is that laid out what the penalty amount is? Yeah, it's so the penalty is half the price of the um building permit. our our building permits for what he was doing is $25. So he'll be so the total he has to pay is 3750 and he was more than glad to hear. Yes. And he was totally okay with that. Okay.

And we are also sending an email to the or a letter to the contractor because it's a local contractor just to make him aware that hey make sure you have a building permit basically. Mcder it sounds like everything's properly taken care of. Mhm. Baldridge, in the future, could we just possibly get a little bit more information on it, like a picture or a street address or even a street where it's located at? I mean, there's a huge difference if it's a Columbia or a Walnut or if it's down behind this Oakwood, I think, Rich out in the new subdivision. Yeah, I believe so.

Okay. My thoughts are um I mean, yeah, that's fine. Always getting more information is fine. Um important thing to me is that the board recommended approval and it was unanimous. wasn't a split decision or something like that. So, again, I've said this before, we can go against a board's recommendation, but I think there's been a total of one time that's happened that I I know of in the last seven years. So, um all right, if there's no other um additions, comments, if we can get a motion to approve the variance. I'll make a motion to approve the Pedler water variance. I'll second. Roll call, please. Uh Baldridge. Hi. Cullinin. Hi. McDermott. Hi Moy. Hi Curran.

Hi E. Discussion and possible action on Gerard variance. Colin in

back to me. Okay. So um Samantha Gerard came in. She was here a few months ago asking for another variance that she was granted. This time she's building a garage in the back of her house and it he she wants to have a second story so she can put in an apartment basically um to add more to the city for that. But it would go above what the current height recommendations are. She came and spoke with the council. she um kind of let everyone know and in fact there were some neighbors here that asked some questions. Uh she has already taken to account privacy and is doing skylights and a and a rectangular um window up at the very top to let light in, but nobody will be able to see any of the neighbors from up there. Um there'll be a staircase on the outside. It's like 650 square feet or something. It's not very big. Uh but the uh committee again unanimously decided to let her have it.

Yeah. And the variance is from 15 feet. A building can only be 15 feet high at its tallest point in that particular zoning district to 21 21 and a half. I think she asked for 22 total feet. So it's just an extra when I published that notice because I looked at her plans and it was 2111 according to the the builder. So, I I suggested 22 ft and the neighbors didn't have any complaints about it once their concerns were addressed. Um the the variances she got three or four months ago were for the same structure.

Um she tore down a garage, a shed, and I think a deck in the backyard to make room for this. So, she didn't exceed the square footage area requirements in that district. So, she's putting a twocar garage with a little apartment up above that she's going to maybe rent out. Yeah. You said we have talked about this before, correct? It's also we've talked about it, but not in terms of the variance for the height. It was variances for other things. I don't remember what those were. Um, it was for I think it I believe it was for the size of the cement or something like that. Yeah. But nobody seemed to have any concerns about it and she's ready to move forward with her builder as soon as she gets this variance. [clears throat] Colin,

nothing more. No. So from now on the variance will go up that high for everybody else involved or no just for this one particular project each individual land owner would have to request a variance for their property and submit designs Mac for whatever they want to do there so that you can look at it and see whether you think it's obnoxious or something you know. Yeah. As long as everybody's aware of that. Aldidge I I heard that the neighbors uh did come to this and addressed any issues and they seem to be okay with it. Um, I'd like to give her the permission to get moving on it.

Yeah, I don't have an issue with that. I mean, neighbors don't have an issue. Board recommended and I think it's pretty cut and dry. I am kind of curious about the specifics about that. It's only 15 ft the maximum. Is that for what's zoned there or is there a different thing for the zoning district maximum height restriction in that district? Yeah, she did say while she was um giving some information that there are other buildings in that vicinity that are above that 15 feet and they don't look out of place or anything. It just all kind of flows zoning district is that offh hand just I'm just cur so R2 is different. Okay. I'm just kind of curious what how that's zoned that running in that issue. Okay. Not a big deal. Uh if there's no other comments if we can get a motion to approve the variance.

Make a motion to approve the variance for Gerard. [clears throat] I'll second. Call please. Uh Baldrich. Hi. Coin. Hi. McDermott. I Curran. I f discussion and possible action on culvert under ed high ed hand highway and installation of new pipe at manhole outlet mcder. Okay, we were looking at this. Everybody's got their paperwork. Um we're there's more discussion on maybe looking at the county for some help. So I'd like to table this until next until the next meeting. We have to get it done because it's getting pretty bad.

Okay. Um baldridge. Uh, if I could make a suggestion on that, I would like to also look at performance pipelining to see since you're planning on already pipelining some of it, lining the inside of it. I think it'd be in our best interest to uh possibly skip that part of it, have it bored out and uh lined. I will definitely look into all options. [clears throat] Don't know enough about it. I'll defer to them. What? I don't know much about the construction. I was asking Mac prior to the meeting because I'm just not sure. Maybe someone just knows offh hand for budgetary concerns. What is the like maximum before you're required to have three bids? Is it 20? It is. Okay. Is with being this is an emergency that wouldn't put us

that does create an exception [snorts] if you seize on it. Yes. Okay. So I I was just seeing the pictures right before the council meeting for the first time here. So I you know what I'm curious about is what is the speed that we need to act on this? You know the pictures look pretty terrible. Um but I don't know what that means. I know the culverts like for example that we had on Clark and Hickory were were failing for a very long time and we were able to kind of push those off until we got everything done. I have no idea. So I think we should probably get well the u curb and everything on the one side is falling down. Well, I think it'd be a good idea to get an engineer to look at it to let us know what the speed because here's the thing. If somebody was to tell me that Edan Highway could collapse at any second. If that was the thing, we should approve something tonight.

Don't say that. But I doubt that's the case. And I say that because the other ones been took years to to fix. Um and the other thing point with it is we got our bridge um taken care of 80% of it uh the cost because it was something with the snow county route or something like that. I was able to petition uh to the county. So because this attaches to that, I think they have some kind of responsibility with that as well. So it'd be good to we're going to try check those things out, see what funding is. So I think we need to find out the speed. Is this super important? I mean, if this is crazy important, um, we can do an emergency meeting, be back here in 48 hours and approve whatever we need to approve.

Just so happens in town tomorrow. So, I'll definitely get it on his schedule to take a look and just get more. Yep. So, that'd be my recommendation. If it is an emergency, I'd start mobilizing things for it, get everything lined up, and then we'll come back and just approve. We just need three of us. any three of us to be here open meeting closed meeting prove it be done if that's the case so I would check out speed that we need to act on it funding for it and then if there's another thing that Rich knows something about and we can look at that might be better all those things plan action moving forward I know nothing like trying to come up with the fly do you see would you want to have that at the next meeting or do you think it should be

hard to say I mean I think you should plan on next meeting but we'll take a closer look at it and get back to you guys. I think that's unlikely. No, we got to look at all the options.

And my understanding is water is still flowing, right? It looks like it's just rusted from above and a lot of the rock has fallen down. So, what how long ago was this discovered? Two months ago. Okay. All right. Well, we'll just move action on it as fast as we can. Uh, anybody else has any other comments? If not, we can just table it. I'll make a motion that we table the uh action on Culver for under Edhan Highway. Second. Roll call, please. Baldridge. Hi. Colin. Hi. McDermott. Hi. Moy. Hi. Curran. I g discussion on aiation tank foundation. Mcder.

Okay. Um, we u I sent everybody the email. Um at the wastewater treatment plant we had a little issue and best way to do it is let Ross talk about it. He's there every day. Okay. Thanks Ross. Appreciate it.

Experts Ross Baker. Um so I'm assuming everybody's seen that email. If not I can give a a brief description of what what's going on. Um so in general we're making good progress on the wastewater plant. This ring's doing a good job. You've driven you probably seen that there's a lot of work that's been moved around which was kind of the first big task and then vising over the past month and a half has um gone to work on the aeration tank which is the largest structure on the site um kind of crucial to the treatment process and um where that tank is located is on the north side of the site. So if you remember where the old barn and abandoned house are at, it's on the slope right below that. So they cut into that slope um at the deepest point about 25 ft. And so they got down to the elevation the subgrade for the tank and about 80% of it was uh sand which is what we expected from the boring that was taken. Um and then shale underlying that except at the south end we and basically this portion was underneath the steep slope that used to be there. Um between 10 and 20% of the footprint of that tank we found some bad soil uh silty soil that uh the concern would be differential settlement. So basically that would settle at a different rate than this silty soil. And silty soil is, you know, it it um settles a lot more over time than that sand would. Um so you could have cracking or just um different shifts in the concrete. Um so we got our geotech and our structural engineering team involved and looked at it up, down, sideways, every way you can. Um and the best solution that we came up with was to remove physically remove that bad soil. replace with a clean stone um that can bear the you know the uh great weight of the concrete and the water in that tank that'll be there long term. Um so obviously you know um geology wise this site varies a lot and so you know of course we would have loved to have

caught that but you know it changes so much in in short spans. Um so that's just what the case was. Um, so really there was no other way to move forward other than to remove this bad soil. Um, we looked at raising the tank, we looked at pile foundations, anything to try to deal with the issue as cheaply as as possible and that's what we settled on. So this did go ahead and move forward with that work. Um, and so the uh change order amount that's going to be required as a result for that specifically is $116,919. Um, mostly in the excavation and all the stone they had had to bring in. Um you'll notice in my um email that they also found a pretty large sistern. So it looks like there was a small well back in that area and they actually stored water in it and so that had to come out too and that created a void where more more stone had to go back. So that's part of the cost as well. Um in the change order, I'm not sure if that was sent around or not. Um we have kind of quantities of the work that this ring did. Um and you'll see there was also some small cost for additional um because they had to excavate deeper than the plan called for um and some minor costs for rental of trench boxes. Um so that amounts to that. Uh additionally um we had a small deduct. I wish it was larger. Um but there is one structure that we were able to save a manhole and [clears throat] we're not going to have to put a new one in to replace it. So that'll be um a deduct of $4,90. Um and so this is where maybe where mayor you want to talk about it more or even you Pat. Um so based on the borrowing ordinance that the council approved for this project um for the loan um there is contingency involved and the borrowing amount is greater than what the contract cost was. So purely from that standpoint my understanding is nothing has to be approved by the council. But mayor obviously you just

thought it's a very large cost. So, so my thoughts were [clears throat] even though it's within the contingency amount, I mean, it's 100, it's 100 grand that somebody's signing for. So, I just wanted to let the council know that and then see what the council thought about that because my thoughts are um as long as it's within the contingency amount. M looks at it. He's good with it. He comes to me with that. Um I just want to keep the process going because I'm sure though anytime you have a very large project like this, you're always going to have change orders. I just want the council to know though and my thoughts are uh I think this is opportunity for council to say something. Uh, but I'm thinking as long as it's within the contingency amount, if everybody's on board with it, engineer recommends, the commissioner wants it, we just sign it and we move on.

And it is, this one specifically is something where I mean that is the bulk of the work they're doing doing right now. So any delay that we create as a result delays the entire project. It's part of the critical path to completion. So there I mean there was some delay just in determining the the best, you know, structural way to go about this. Um, but that's that's the reason for the urgency. So that's why I think talking about it now if these kinds of things come up in the future we can just move quicker on this because change orders I don't know how in your experience how many change orders you normally see when you see a $27 million project.

I mean it's one of the larger projects we've done. So it's hard to estimate it really varies. You know I I wish there'd be maybe two or three on this project. We may end up with five or six. It's but we're always you know looking for ways to also save. And so even sometimes some of the small adders and small debugs can kind of cancel each other out. That's one of the realities and that that can help limit the number of change orders that have to go through. But especially on a on a challenging site like this where if you've been back there it was a a forest and it's a ravine essentially and so the the ground does change quite a bit and nobody has x-ray vision but obviously [clears throat] um once things are discovered we always put our heads together and say how can we pivot to make this as efficient or economic economical as possible.

I'm understanding that this is completed already moved on. Okay. So, let's go around the room here. [clears throat] Well, it's already completed and it doesn't sound like we have much of a choice anyway. So, okay. I I agree. Um, as far as the process, I do like being informed on it. I mean, this is a really large project in the city of Oglesby. I get asked about it. What's the progress on it? I mean, even if you are approving the change orders, like any hiccups, maybe just for transparency purposes, just let us know. Well, I think that's important. I think that should be in the commissioner's report. My thing is if it's within the contingency amount, move forward with it. Now, if it's outside of that, like all of a sudden we have something that's a what is the contingency amount maximum? Uh $681,000, I believe.

So, let's say we have $900,000 change that needs to come that's beyond the contingency amount. We need to have a meeting, put something together, go from there. Got it. Correct. And I'm, you know, I'm happy if you want me to give updates every so often or if there's some big step that was completed or I'm happy do that. It's totally up to you guys. That's something you're interested. I'm here every every meeting anyway, so happy to talk about it. McD, well, I was going to put this in the uh commissioner report, but it's always good to bring it up.

Alder, uh what you said the contingency was around 681,000. We've used $16,000 with the $4,000 refund on the other manhole. Uh do you foresee how how far along are you on the project? So they're um timelinewise um obviously they started late summer. We're looking at completion summer of 27. So we're only you know three four days into that year and a half project almost two-year project.

Um [laughter] but a big chunk of the cost is upfront where not only it's all the earth work that they're doing, it's also all the equipment submitts. So there's quite a bit of equipment involved with the wastewater treatment plant. A lot of that has been ordered, some of it received where sometimes you're paying storage on on some of those things. So, it's hard to say dollar amount, but if I had to throw something out there 10 to 20% of the way done, probably 10 to 15% total. So, I I see what you're asking and obviously the math is like, okay, if we continue on that trend, but luckily once we get through kind of the underground portion, that's where a lot of the volatility is, is you just don't know what you're going to find underground every, you know, in every place on the site. So that's one way to look at it where you would expect um a major kind of structural concern to be found early in the project. Um but but can happen anytime and so obviously once again that's why we're constantly out there observing the work um and record keeping [snorts] so that we we see what happens. You know it's not not just the contractor's work not does a great job. Not that I I don't trust them but we're obviously always watching over their shoulder. I'm no professional or engineer or anything, but uh you said that uh it was uh basically fill or whatever that had come down there and uh do you have any concern? It seems like since it was on that hill that it probably was a drainage issue and the threaded filament had got built up there. Do you have any concerns that we need to reroute anything or

No, I mean there is um a pretty extensive like storm water collection plan. That is one possibility is there's also a lot of ground water on that site which you'll see if you go out there right now which we were aware of. There is the potential for um as we see exactly where the worst seams of water are coming in

rerouting some of that not necessarily necessarily adding but just reconfiguring to most optimally capture all that water. Um but yeah, I mean that that silty sediment, I mean it's kind of yeah, it was deeper in the ravine, so it makes sense that it was, you know, we're getting um the excavation was shallower there, so it was closer to the existing ground surface. That's there's more likelihood for silky sediments to be gathering there. Um but you know, we have different structures throughout the site. And really that one that one is the the deepest excavation like I said.

Um so I'm optimistic that we won't run into the same issue but it is it is the site. I mean that's the little part little part of town. That's where the sewer point has to be. Um so kind of just the reality of it. Okay. That's all I had. Thank you. Thanks for that explanation. I appreciate that. Absolutely. Um thank you. Any else have any Thank you very much. All right. There's no that was just a discussion item. So yeah. Okay. We'll get that. We're not approved. So Mac, as long as you're good with uh whatever things for contingency, we'll just uh move on. And if you just want to update the council as move as things happen, we'll go from there. Absolutely. Sounds as always. All right. H discussion and possible action on returning oversight of the building and electrical inspectors to electric commissioner Baldridge.

Uh so those aren't aware, when we first got in here, Commissioner Stephanelli had had uh a lot of experience in the uh inspector field. Um he had he was a professional inspector. Uh at that time I was willing to give it to a professional inspector. Um but since he's gone I have talked to Commissioner Cullinin previously and uh I'm in construction. I've been in it for over 30 years and uh I I think that the qualifications there should probably would would come to me next. I I would like to retain that inspector role there. the oversight of the inspector, not the inspector. Okay, we'll go around the room, Colin.

Okay, I have a little bit of a thing written up on this. Um, so, um, I'm not going to take a firm stance on the merits of the proposal, but, um, I do want to provide a little bit of context to ultimately describe, uh, what led it to being placed on tonight's agenda. And I think Rich told me something a little bit different. Um, so on October 6th, after prior discussion at the August 4th and September 2nd meetings, the council passed an ordinance which established a fee for any letter sent to someone in violation of a municipal building zoning code. On November 20th, Mayor Curran sent a follow-up email to the city council regarding what progress we had made on a number of prospective violations of the affformentioned codes. At the December 1st meeting, Mayor Kern went over his email, omitting the specific violations, but nonetheless seeking to ensure that there was a consensus behind the original plan. Prior to Mayor Curran reading his email, I asked Commissioner Moy the same question that was posed to the council. I had assumed mistakenly that the prospective violations listed in Mayor Curran's email would have been the responsibility of the police department, which is under Commissioner Moy supervision, as opposed to the building inspector, who is currently under my supervision. I had again mistakenly thought that things were uh that were clearly visible from the street and obvious to the average person would have been the police department's authority. I assumed from previous conversations that it was more the building inspector's job to deal uh with the inside or the structure of buildings. Basically, stuff that wouldn't be obvious to the average person on the street, something that would require additional expertise. Um I was incorrect in this assumption. Um I suppose I hadn't listened intently enough to previous meetings. Um so um I after uh meeting with Mayor Curran on this just this just this just this just this just this just this just this just this just this just this this past Thursday uh he had brought up the topic of code enforcement to which I had responded uh yeah I need to follow up on that while following up on another issue discussed that night. I added by text to

our building inspector that he should watch out for a meeting invite that night. That meeting invite was then sent at 11 PM. Um, I suppose I should mention what the meeting was about. Um, or the prospective meeting, the meeting that I was supposed to schedule was about. Uh, the meeting was supposed to lay out each person's responsibilities, how we were to go about documenting vi how we were to go about documenting violations and the fact that whatever decision our decision makers made, uh, we would stand behind them, which up until this point has apparently been a cause of concern. uh nothing ever really had to be done to let the decision makers do their job, but just to tell them how to do it and again assure them that we that we have their backs, which I'm sure we all do. Um yes, I could have uh worked uh quicker and more diligently on this matter, though I don't agree I don't disagree with that point. I also frankly and I've talked to Commissioner Baldridge about this before, we have talked about this before, um just not recently. Um, I also frankly don't really have a problem with Commissioner Baldridge having authority over the city's inspectors. Um, as he probably does have more he absolutely has more expertise about the stuff over this type of stuff or at least I'm sure buildings uh than I do. And I told him as much when I came into office. Um, what I do have a problem with and why I will vote against this proposal is that Commissioner Baldridge waited until Friday to place this item on the agenda and said nothing to me about it. um and took a text message to him which to his credit he did answer very swiftly uh saying it's what we discussed months ago hasn't been acted upon yet so now it is um I have an issue with that and I also worry about the precedent uh such an action sets which is again why I will be voting against this proposal but um just the process not necessarily the idea

what um there is a third inspector right that is under Mac there's a plumbing inspector There is not a plumbing instructor. Yes, there is. Who's he under? He's 100% under. He's under me. He was never changed. It's never changed. I was the only one. The only reason why the electric changed was because of Stephan Ellie's expertise in the electric. I have to check that. I don't think I'm positive it is.

Well, my intention is [clears throat] I don't think that has anything to do with your ability to do the job or anything like that, but I don't understand. and I wasn't here during the time why it switched to Tony in the first place if president had always been under the electric commissioner or public works I assume when you were in that position you had control over that no so when was this changed what are you asking so the building inspector and the electrical understanding is they've always been under the the commissioner of accounts and finance because I'll I'll wait to put my comments before I think I was told that at one point it was under the mayor.

That could have been the I don't I I'd have to go back to find out exactly

but Okay. Which one? Both of them. All three of them. All three of them. Even I'm telling you that plumber is not under council finance. Anyway, doesn't it's not mentioned anything else. Well, um I think it should be under the electric department commissioner. Um no, nothing against you, Austin. And I it should be under the each one's department's heads and the commissioners. It's that way they can keep track of it and try to get a better understanding. It's [clears throat] okay. Paul, you have anything else you

Yeah, as as we've kind of noticed lately here uh the past few months and that you kind of have a problem here with communication as well. Um I didn't really get the just of your long explanation there or whatever it was. Probably because of the fact that I didn't know much about any of that stuff. Like nothing really about any of that stuff. So

it did not factor into Hold on, I'm talking. Please just one second. Um, I I don't think it factored into it because I'm the one that put this on there. So, I know it didn't factor into my decision to put that on there today. Um, I decided to put it on there today because I noticed that the electrical commissioner and the electrical inspector or the building inspector of what two months ago was brought to my attention of other issues. And uh I realized then like if if we were looking for a school teacher, we would probably look for a school teacher and and put you in charge of something that would relate to teaching. If you have somebody that's on the council that has more time in building trades than you have lived, I would assume that I I should probably put my knowledge into that. I think that would be a smart decision. But if anybody's got any other ideas otherwise then I I so be it. [clears throat]

Okay. So a couple things. My you know I first found out about this on Friday. My understanding is that the inspectors have never been in the department uh commissioner roles ever. And I think if there's some confusion about what the building inspector does and what the electrical inspector does, the building inspector has nothing to do with public property or public buildings, right? The electrical inspector has nothing to do with what the electric department does. Not their substations, not the high lines, not the power lines. Everything that the inspectors do is related to what happens on the private property through the building permit process. And I don't remember if it was with the mayor in the past. I I I I don't I don't recall that. Uh but if we did make that change, it was probably to put it to accounts and finance. We did a lot of things that we moved to account and finance and I was on board with that. As I've said in the past, one of the things that was a real and Tommy and I got along with it, but the person that was in charge of utilities was responsible for negotiating the payment concerns of of anytime somebody had a problem paying one of their utility bills. if you can't see that there's a massive amount of problems with that that the department that's going to collect the money and and do the billing and stuff like that, but it's a different commissioner that has to negotiate it. That was one of the things we changed. Um I don't have any issue with the building inspectors being under the finance commissioner for that one reason. To your to your point about somebody having some kind of skill set or expertise that that's great if somebody has another skill set, but that's not how this form of government works, right? the the person that's put I mean if if you're the [clears throat] best person for that that means you should be the accounts the finance uh commissioner

I have a lot of skills in a lot of other things too that are other than just mayor does that mean everything should come come to me if I have a deeper skill set knowledge in that no that's not how our formal government works um I don't have a problem if commissioners want to work together on things but to me the oversight of the inspectors needs to be with the building permit process has no value being in the other commissioner stuff like Now, you made a mention that this is based on the violations thing. Um, no, I did not. I wrote it down. He did. He did.

Oh, somebody. Okay. Well, I don't know who did, but somebody made a mention about the violations thing. I brought up the violations. Was it the last meeting or the meeting before? It might have been the meeting before last um because I know we finally came up with something uh put in place and I haven't seen a lot of action on it. So, I basically put something out to the the commissioner say, "Hey, where are we at on this?" Trying to get an update. My understanding is um the you got two commissioners that agreed to try to get together and see if they can solve this issue. My thing is I'd rather give them that opportunity to see if they can solve that between their departments. When they said they were going to try to do that before we try to change any kind of uh oversight of inspectors in the middle of of a change the the plan that they come up with, we might find out it might not work. We might have to go back to that other thing that I suggested to where uh like Ottawa and Marcel's does to where they actually have um a zoning enforcement officer, right? I know I think that the conversation was if we have skill sets in house, we're going to do that instead. So, I don't see any value in moving uh inspectors to anybody else. And if he's under a different department, I don't remember making that change as well. I'd have to look that up. We'd have to verify that. That's that's news to me because I didn't have the uh the uh plumbing inspector when I was in charge of the the water and sewer department. So, all right, everybody's had an opportunity. We can go around again if somebody has any feedback or want to just open it up to open. We'll go around. I guess

the only thing I'll say that wasn't communicated was the fact that I sent out a sign up form uh for uh basically people to sign up or to to pick it. It was an availability form um on Thursday for people to mark their availability so we can sit down and we have a meeting. I didn't really think that it was something that I had to share with the rest of the council, but um is I did send it to the parties that would be in that meeting. So that's it. Okay. Well, I should I just um I'll make a motion. Let's just change it to the oversight under the bill uh electric commission.

Hold on. The discussion's got to be complet. So you you you don't have nothing to add more on that. You're ready to move it even though it's never been okay. Go back around McDerman. Well, there's been a couple times that this uh council hasn't put people in the right position in doing job duties all the way around. Um but the electric department should go to electric, the water should go to the water department if nothing else just for an oversight. I understand that everything has to go that's being paid financially or everything goes through uh Austin's chair, but that's just the way I look at it. Baldridge.

Yeah, you referenced your uh the change of government again. Um I don't think that it really relates to what's going on here tonight. I believe it comes down to simply do you have knowledge in the situation or do you not? like we had a we had a constituent come to the podium and was talking about stuff and uh frankly we kind of look stupid. So if we want to continue doing that and not knowing what we're talking about because it didn't fall under this person's department while you actually have somebody here that maybe knows a little bit about it. I I think the choice is obvious and it doesn't it doesn't have anything to do with the form of government or anything like that. It's common sense in my opinion. What are you referring to to the resident that I don't you're referring to?

The guy that was building a house and he came in here and he was talking about things and really nobody here understood anything when he was talking about his water and sewer going to his house and how that was going to affect his time getting it done and everything else that he was talking about that day on Watson Avenue. Yeah. I don't know how that had anything to do with that was if we're going to pay for his utilities, I think. Was that the discussion that that was about? Is that what you're talking about? That guy in a way. Yeah, it was the guy. Yes. In a way, it had to do with paying for his utilities, but it also in a way it had to do with even understanding what he was talking about.

Okay. So, I don't know what you're talking about the change of form of government that was not mentioned. While I was talking about our form of government is commissioner form of government. So, your skill sets that you have, while it's great if you have a skill set and something like that, it does not dictate what you have to have or know. Um, and again, the the the conversation that the electric department should have oversight over the electric commissioner just shows me that there's a a lack of understanding of what you think the inspectors are in charge of. Um, I I have to ask a question because it seems strange that I'm just going to ask the question because I seen a motion being made before the discussion was ended. Was this a discussion prior to here that that there was said that no matter what we're going to vote to to change this? I can make up whatever decision I want. I get so tired of the bullying.

You're being You feel bullied right now? I do. But you all the time you badger and you're trying to force it. You feel that I'm bullying you right now? Yes. Because I'm asking why when we're having a discussion going around the room and you you went straight. You always cut us off and then you always when you're done and you disagree with something, it's real quick and you want to move on. I don't cut anybody off. Yes, you [clears throat] have. I'm sorry. Okay. I gotta admit. So, I just want to make sure I understand that. And I mean, if that's what the if somebody's going to make a motion, they have that right to do so. But I just want to make it clear that I think there's a misunderstanding of what Especially this coming up on Friday. Wait, wait. Are you mansplaining again? Oh, no. Is that what you think's going on here? And you've said those words to me. That I'm mansplaining to you?

Yes. In the last closed session, I said that I'm mansplaining to you. Don't want to be accused of mansplaining. I think I said that. Yes, you're correct. But I do understand when an inspector that's what you're doing is in you're insinuating that I don't know. I'd really like to get the uh ordinance because I don't think I think there was a statement that was made. I don't think the uh the I don't did you look into this? Is the commissioner does the uh the plumbing inspector the plumbing inspector? I'm not sure. I think it's obvious Jason and and Austin don't want it. Okay. I'll I'll second her motion or make the motion. We're not going to sit here going over you telling her 50 times why you don't think we want it. So,

okay. Well, there's [clears throat] no other further discussion. If someone wants to make a motion, they're more than welcome to make that motion. I'll make the motion to take the oversight of the building and electrical inspectors. I'll second. Do we need to do this via ordinance? Because if it says something, it does. It has to be done via ordinance. So, what we're really making a motion is to change the ordinance. Is that correct? has to amend the code to reflect that the um electric commissioner will have charge of the building and electrical inspectors if I understand things correctly. Does it say something in that code about the uh plumbing inspector? We don't know at this point. Mac, we think it does. And Rich thinks it's you. He's pretty.

Well, I I was understand the motion stand. This is a This is ridiculous. Get um Aeron's going to go get Max ordinance. So, we can take a look at that. I don't think that was even in question at this point. I made a motion. What is going on here? And why are you stalling it? You can't make a motion to change something without an ordinance. It says right here, we have possible action. I was authorized then to possibly take action. And the action will be that we're going to change the ordinance. Okay. So, that's the action is that you're going to direct the attorney to write update the ordinance. Is that correct? I I I assume so. What if not, we just sat here and babbled for 10 minutes for absolute zero? Like what? What I'm saying is you have to put something on there to modify the ordinance. You can't just say we're doing this.

Okay. Pat, can you do whatever you have to do to do what we wanted to do when we were voting here to do agenda is sufficient, Jason, to allow this to occur tonight to allow it to occur without having to uh without having the word change the ordinance in there. Yeah. I was under the impression that's why we made that change a while ago because you remember when uh well, it takes the council. I agree with Pat. I think we can do it. But I think the agenda authorizes the council to direct me to change the ordinance to change the electrical. And so so I got a point building inspector.

If you remember back when uh Terry Udis attempted to take control over the chief of police directly to his thing, we we made a modification to the ordinance that we have to direct the attorney to make that so that way you could never get something modified via ordinance the same night it was introduced. Did you remember that? And I think that's what they're doing is they're directing me to prepare the ordinance to make this change and we'll take it up at the next meeting. That's that's what I'm saying. So he babbled and and changed it and got his little way. This is this is typical of what you do. Do you not recall that conversation of how we modified

this is for inspector oversight? Give me a break. You're talking about firing a police chief and comparing it to inspector oversight, of which nobody here is capable of even understanding a a good a good conversation about any electrical or building codes or anything like that. It's ridiculous. But you get your way, Jason, and you do what you got to do. What we stall it up, Jason. No, you've been sitting here babbling this entire time trying your best to change it so that it wouldn't go. I mean, it's obvious. Well, I highly recommend that you look back at the minutes then because I believe we specifically put that in place. That has nothing to do with today. This is oversight of an inspector. This isn't firing a police chief. That was about personnel. It's an ordinance. Can we just take the vote?

All right. I believe the motion is because I don't think to direct the attorney to change the oversight of the building and electrical inspector to the electric commissioner. I believe that is is that accurate? Is that accurate what your motion was? Sure. Yes. Okay. Can I get a second? I'll second. Roll call, please. Baldrich, I. Colin, no. McDermott, I. Moy, I. Currin, no. Okay. Get on the agenda next time. All right. Uh, number 11, public comment over any topic. There's nothing. Move on. Uh, 12. Commissioner reports. Commissioner Cohen.

Uh, yeah. So, in my previous commissioner report, I had mentioned that we were going to try and incentivize people to pay uh their city bill online uh by waving the fees that would accompany uh paying online. Um we were contacted by Civic Systems recently who informed us that that is uh it's not possible for us to accept cards online for self-pay fee free while continuing to charge a fee in the office. Uh because of that, for the time being, we we are going to wave the fee to pay via AC. While Civic Systems works on a solution for cards, which they did tell us that they're working on. Uh while, like I said at the last meeting, we of course love seeing the faces of people in town in the office, it does streamline business in city hall for us when we have uh more people make payments online. Um second, um and last, I am beginning a transition of city hall uh to Microsoft 365 products. Uh while email is not much of a concern, although there are some concerns, uh Microsoft 365 will enable us to make a lot of the work we do a lot more simple and accessible. For instance, the council had put forth a request recently that they have access to building permits that come into city hall through simply moving a currently existing Excel spreadsheet to Excel online. This suddenly became possible. Additionally, and I have to give her props for bringing this up to me after receiving a call from Angie Partridge where we discussed a number of things, but where she also specifically suggested a community calendar. I looked into how to make that a possibility. Um, and I spent a lot of time uh Saturday night doing that. Uh, apparently it is possible through a tool uh in Microsoft 365 called Microsoft Power Automate to do this. Essentially, a business or an individual can submit an event form online through Microsoft forms and then it can be automatically uh sent to Power Automate for approval and following approval it will automatically upload itself onto a publicly visible calendar

creating a comprehensive list of what's going on in Ogulby uh while ensuring administrative oversight without the work of actually having people in city hall upload the event and then sift through their emails to ensure that we got every event. I'm very interested in what other things we could potentially automate using uh Microsoft's Power Automate. Um whether we can use it for permitting, workflow, foyer requests, other things. And uh for anybody that has any kind of expertise uh in that sort of thing or anybody that just has any ideas period, I welcome any suggestions. And that's all I have for tonight. Thank you, Commissioner Mor.

All right. I want to announce December's thank a first responder sponsored by Bulldogs Bar and we are Oglesby. John Leur joined the Oglesby fire department in March of 2019 and has shown exceptional dedication to serving our community ever since. He has spent countless hours furthering his training, earning certifications such as instructor 1, swiftwater rescue technician, grain bin rescue, and nyore gas school many while also working towards his paramedic license. Just last week, John was honored as firefighter of the year by the Oglesby Fire Department. A true testament to his commitment, leadership, and service. We are proud to recognize John for his continued dedication to keeping Oglesby safe.

Thank you, Commissioner McDermott. Okay. Well, I'd first like to thank all the volunteers and we are Oglesby for the parade. I know it was cold, but it's always nice to look at the parade. And um I would also like to uh let people [clears throat] know that the wastewater treatment plant is on schedule. Uh the guys down there are doing an excellent job and um the dry bridge. Let's hope we can get that done soon. Okay. Thank you, Commissioner Bald.

Yeah. Four years ago, I attended a meeting where um the participants at We Are Old Ogisby had suggested to have a parade and they were frankly laughed at and said that it was impossible and they'd never get it done in that short of time. Well, they did and that year was a success and I'd like to congratulate them on their fourth year of successful parades and they have got it together and uh I appreciate it from the city's perspective here that they bring that to our city. I appreciate all their efforts and hard work. [clears throat] Thank you.

Thank you. Number 13, mayor's report. Um before I get started, I just want to say I continually be surprised. Um things still showing up on Friday, the day before a meeting that's by a surprise to try to get things modified and changed. Um and I don't care what anybody says here, I could I I could hear it here and anybody listening that that was decided before we even sat down. Point of order. Point of That's not how point of order works. That's not You're disparaging the council again and you're acting like we're doing something report. I can say whatever. No, you are not going to disparrage the council, Jason. That's what a point of order is. That's not what a point of order is. Point of order is something against the proceedings are and you're disparaging the council, Jason,

because I'm saying what I want. You're Do you have proof? I said I feel. That's what I said. You've said it three times tonight, though. Great. Yeah. Was this first mentioned on Friday? There. Who cares? You throw things on there all the time. Excuse me. I'm talking. Excuse you. All right. Excuse me. I believe the draft agenda was put out on Tuesday of the week and there was updates throughout the week and this thing showed up on Friday. I apologize, Jason. I have a full-time job where I work all day. Great. So, we're not allowed to update on Friday. [laughter] Okay. New rule

and and new information came out today. I don't think we have all the the the correct facts or something like that. So, it's but it's what it is. So, it just continues to surprise me. Um, all right. First thing is I'd like to thank the Dickens House Foundation uh for getting, you know, cookies and drinks and putting on with Santa down there. I thought that was fantastic. I'd like to thank We Are Oglesby for their fourth year in a row of having a successful parade. I know the weather uh is not, you know, last time I think we had some freezing rain and this time it was just really bitter cold. Um, so I appreciate them pushing through. It looked wonderful and all the people that came out to celebrate it. And then I'd like to thank all the businesses that uh that supported with it. I think I saw a fantastic uh Grinch uh whoever was in the Grinch outfit. They did not they did a fantastic job. So really appreciate that. And I'd like to thank all the city employees for all the work that they did to get everything up. I know there had to be some plowing that was done. There was a lot of just a lot of work to to get the city looking good uh for the event. Uh second thing is chair yoga resumes next year. uh there was an unfortunate event to where the uh the instructor's not available. She was going to be available before the end of the year, but I think they decided just waiting until January. And then I've heard the means that we have for donations um it's actually been working really well. It's been self- sustaining. So, uh maybe that's a thing to think about for more programs that we might want to have in the city. Um and then, uh Santa's magic box, uh magic mailbox is going to be closed up. The magic will go away on December 17th, which is this Wednesday. So, if anybody has letters they want to get out to Santa yet, uh, make sure they get them in there before December 17th. And the last thing I have is just I want to wish everybody a very merry Christmas and a happy new year. Uh, and for everybody that maybe celebrates something different, happy holidays and, uh, have a great, uh, we'll see you next year. That's all I have. Uh, number 13, executive session for collective negotiating matters between the public body and its employees or their representatives or deliberations concerning the salary schedules for one or more classes of employees. 5 ILCS120/2C2

discuss the purchase of lease or lease of real estate 5CS120C5 the employment compensation discipline performance of disposal of specific employees 5 ILCS120C1. Can I get a motion to go into executive session? Make a motion to go into executive session. I'll second that motion. Roll call, please. Baldridge. Hi. Cullinin. Hi. McDermott. Hi. Moy. No. Currin. Hi. Um, there's no plan action after executive session. Thank you everybody. You don't get to sit up here and talk bad about us and then we don't get to rebuttal. You can do it on your report. You could go last. I want to go last next meeting.

Doesn't work that way. You guys are the

when the votes are already decided before we sit down. Jason, quit making accusations. I'm just too stupid to understand. Right. Okay. I'll tell you

Sounds like Start my car. It's actually not a bad idea.

Super smart. Wait for everybody to sit down. You go home. [laughter] Yeah, we got bad seats over here. Back in open session. Roll call, please. Uh, Baldridge here. Cullinin here. McDermott

here. Moy here. Currin here. Number 14, adjournment. Can I get a motion to adjurnn? I'll make a motion to adjurnn. I'll second. Roll call, please. Baldrich, I. Colin, hi. McDermott, I. Moy. Hi K. Hi. We are journ these are yours. 8 to 50.