City Council Meeting/Strategic Session - Regular Meeting

To for July 14th, 2026 to order roll call.

Houseman here. Furman here. Green here. Seton here. Stamen here.

Whatever and please stand for the invocation given by Rick. Rick Hudson from the Heights Church and remain standing for the pledge of allegiance.

Father, we're so grateful today for the privilege that we have of living in the country that we have, the freedoms that we share. And we recognize and understand that there's so many things that are going on, so many different opinions and so many different ideas. And yet, we thank you today that we can recognize as we begin this time together. that we owe to you all that we have and all that you have given to us. I thank you for these men and women. I thank you for the effort and the time that they put into the positions that they fill. I thank you, Father, for the service that they give to this city and to the people of this community. And I just ask... your anointing and direction upon them. I pray that you would guide them each and every day and in the decisions that they make, that they would seek your wisdom and seek your guidance in all of it. Again, we are so thankful today for the freedoms and for the privileges that we have. to be americans and the freedoms and privileges that we have especially to be your children so bless and anoint this mayor and this council in this meeting we pray in the precious name of jesus amen

First item.

First item tonight is the 2025 Annual Comprehensive Financial Audit Report.

The presentation will be given by Finance Director Tim Longboat.

Thank you, Mayor. Good evening, Mayor, Council Members. Tonight we have our principal from Lauterbach and Almond, Brad Porter will be switching to a team's broadcast in a moment, and he will present the out brief of the audit. As you know, the audit's been a grueling timeline from about the first of the year until 6th July. I'd like to especially recognize and appreciate Ms. Cindy Bowman, our city of Collinsville controller. and then all the contributions from across the departments when we went through our sampling. It puts a little bit of a load on them, big load on us, but Cindy, thank you for all you did to help bring the audit to close. I wanna also give a special thanks to two folks that are not on the line, but are key at Lauterbach and Almond for getting us to the finish line where we turned over a lot of staff, as you know. And that's Joe Laudon, Principal, and Jack Flomker, just helped facilitate pushing information. The good news is we have a clean, unmodified opinion. That's the best outcome, that's what you wanna hear. And without further ado, I'm gonna pass the mic and the virtual screen to Brad.

All right. Good evening, everyone. Can you hear me okay?

Yes.

Excellent. That's step one with the virtual presentation. My name is Brad Porter. I am the principal and CPA with Lauterbach and Amon here to provide a brief overview of your fiscal year 2025 audit process. Before doing so, I wanted to thank members of council for allowing me to remote into the meeting here this evening. We have a newborn at home, so I really, really appreciate it. And an extra special thank you to Alex for coordinating everything with the virtual presentation here tonight. With that, let's jump right in as I hope I come bearing good news at the conclusion of our audit process. Can everybody see my screen at this point? Are we working on getting the presentation pulled up?

We just got it. Brad, you're good to go.

Excellent. How's that for timing? All right, I'd like to start my presentation here this evening by thanking the finance department and the army of other individuals that contributed to getting us to this point here this evening. An audit process can be quite daunting, especially for 2 individuals who are relatively new to their respective roles. But I cannot speak highly enough of Cindy and Tim's efforts in getting us everything that we needed in a timely manner. We were receiving emails notifications that things were being uploaded on nights and weekends just to make sure that everything stayed on schedule. Now let's start things off with some good news here. The city was the recipient of both a clean unmodified opinion and the GFOA certificate of achievement award. Both I will be highlighting on the following slides. Additionally, I wanted to note that we had no internal control weaknesses or deficiencies that were identified in our client communication letters. So again, a huge kudos to the team for maintaining the right safeguards over the financial reporting processes. We had a handful of recommendations that were outlined in what we call our management letter as we seek to really add value to the city outside of just the financial statement opinion that we issue. The 1st comment was with regards to funds, not in compliance with your fund balance policy. The city does have a 15% target set for your water and sewer fund. And the unrestricted unrestricted fund balance came in below that target this year. Tim and I had a great conversation just yesterday and some ideas to amend the city's policy in late 2026. So I would anticipate that that comment would be alleviated moving forward. The city also has a small deficit fund balance in the police vehicle fund, as well as our cumulative governmental activities in that position was also reporting a deficit. But really, that's primarily attributable to some of your long term pension liabilities that we'll get into here momentarily. So nothing specifically of concern from an auditor's perspective. Regarding our recommendation that we issued for the IT environment and emerging risks, we have issued this comment in every management letter that we have issued as a firm. There's unfortunately been an increasing number of our clients that have fallen victim to cyber related crime. And we just wanted to make sure and outline for council that it's important to continue remaining vigilant and very aware of these risks. It is not to allude to the fact that the city's IT environment is insecure or anything along those lines. I don't want to spend too much time on our commingled cash recommendation here that you'll see on this slide. We'll be working with the team on the remedies for that moving forward as well as the upcoming Gatsby standard statements 103 and 104, which will make sure that the team is equipped and ready to tackle moving forward. I believe council has received the bound copies of our audit here tonight. So feel free to follow along with the page numbers in each slide header. We'll start with page six, where you will find that certificate of achievement award issued by the government finance officers association. This award represents the highest form of financial reporting excellence that is recognized in our industry. There's a very lengthy list of additional compliance requirements that must be met in order to receive this award. So, again, a huge congratulations to the city on this accomplishment. You will notice that this award is 1 year in arrears as we will be submitting the 2025. Audit report and hope to expect to receive the certificate again for the 2025 audit. As Tim had mentioned, on pages nine through 11, you'll find our independent auditor's report. We have issued the city an unmodified opinion, which is the cleanest form of opinion that we can issue as a firm, ultimately stating that we as your auditors feel the financial statements are presented fairly in all material aspects, and that there are sound internal controls in place. I personally love presentations where we can share good news, so you're gonna notice a lot of good news here this evening. Moving on to our management discussion and analysis, which begins on page 13, we realize as auditors that the financial statements themselves are quite daunting sometimes and difficult to digest. So, I would like to point this section out to council, because I think you'll walk away with a great narrative overview or bird's eye view of fiscal year 2025. it's got a lot of great comparative information charts, graphs. So I would highly encourage council to spend most of your time and energy here and you'll have a really good feel for all things fiscal year 2025. So we'll cover a couple basic financial highlights here, starting with our general fund. I just wanted to point out that your general fund balance sheet can be found on page 31, the income statement on page 35. I wanted to highlight that your general fund is considered a governmental fund, which is reported on what we call a modified accrual basis. Conversation for a different day on the difference between modified accrual and full accrual. But I just wanted to highlight that your general fund that focuses on short term and current resources. So a lot of our long term capital assets and debt are not maintained on the balance sheet of your fund level financial statements for your general fund. The General Fund reported an ending fund balance this year of $14.0 million, up from $8.6 million in the prior year, which is about a 62% increase. Although there are many factors contributing to this, I did just want to point out that it was primarily due to favorable revenue and expenditure budgetary variances with regards to the General Fund. Similar story here, I just wanted to point out that your water and sewer financial statements can be found on pages 39 through 41. On the contrary, our water and sewer fund is considered a business type or enterprise fund, which is reported on a full accrual basis. The ending net position of our water and sewer fund was $28.6 million versus $27.7 million in the prior year for an increase just shy of about a million dollars for fiscal year 2025. On page 59, you'll find a summary of your governmental fixed asset balances. I just wanted to highlight that for fiscal year 2025, the city had approximately $9.1 million of governmental capital addition, so a busy year on the capital front. The governmental capital assets, net of accumulated depreciation, represent about $57 million of your overall governmental net position. On the water and sewer front that begins on page 60 for our capital asset disclosures. There were about 3.1Million dollars of total additions for the year and we ended with about 51.2Million dollars of accumulated net assets. I'll briefly highlight some useful information with regards to our pensions. We'll start with IMRF that is on page 76. The schedule on our slide here is what we call our change in IMRF net pension liability. IMRF had another great year with their investments, which took the city's IMRF net pension liability as of the prior fiscal year end to a $2.3 million asset in the current fiscal year. So just wanted to highlight that this is a very volatile figure that's gonna follow the flow of the market. As long as the city continues to make your defined employer contributions as IMRF sees fit, we'll continue to see the IMRF pension plan remain healthy. Very similar story on both our police and fire pension fronts here. I just wanted to highlight that the city's police pension liability reduced by about $2.9 million this year, ending the year at $22.1 million due to, again, favorable investment earnings primarily. We also saw our funding percentage in terms of assets versus the net pension liability Increase from just shy of 60% to 65.82%. So, again, great to see that number trending in that direction. With regards to the fire pension fund again, that can be found on page 86. we saw similar stories 60% funded ratio in the prior year up to 6 to just shy of 68% in fiscal year 2025. I had mentioned some of those favorable budgetary variances on a previous slide. I just wanted to point out that page 106 will contain your budgetary information for your general fund. So if you're interested in seeing how a certain line item for revenues or line item for expenditures performed in relation to your budget, page 106 will be a great place to start for a functional breakdown. That concludes my overview of the fiscal year 2025 audit process. I, again, just cannot stress enough how appreciative we are for the finance team's efforts and the 2026 audit. Unfortunately, we'll be here before you know it, Tim, so my apologies. Any questions, comments, or concerns here tonight?

Any questions or comments for staff or auditor? Nope. Tim, do you have any?

Just wanted to thank Brad and the team. It's far more extended than the two other people I mentioned. But please pass along our thanks. We look forward to strengthening our relationship with you next year. And we'll find the efficiencies that we probably were a little bit blind to this year and get ahead of the game all season long.

Absolutely. It's a team effort, and hopefully you and Cindy can get some sleep now.

You too, since you have a newborn.

Yes. Amen to that.

All right. Thanks, Brad. Thank you.

Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Take care.

So first of all, I'm kind of reiterating what Tim said. There has been a lot of changes in the finance department this year, hiring new things. Cindy moving into her position. I can't thank you guys enough for the job you've done with the limited time in those different positions. And so it looks like some good decisions were made and we're charging forward. So thank you. Any other comments or questions? All right. Thank you. Next item.

Next item is the discussion of the Southwest Corridor Business District number two.

Okay, that will be given by Acting City Manager Jessica Schert.

Thank you, Mayor Stammen, members of the council. This discussion item is to present an overview of some proposed changes to the existing southwest corridor business district as well as the creation of a new business district that would overlay this existing footprint and incorporate some new areas including uptown and part of south morrison avenue so just a brief overview of what a business district is this is an incentive tool that is defined and regulated by state statute with the intent of revitalizing a specific geographic corridor of your community, it does require evidence of blighting or unemployment conditions to qualify for the designation, so it can't just be created, it does have to meet certain qualifying criteria. The business district does allow for the additional sales tax on certain retail sales of up to 1%, It generates these tax revenues. They're held in a special account for those business districts to be used back within the business district they were generated from. There is a 23-year lifespan, which is just like the tax increment financing or TIF districts, and currently there is no formal mechanism to extend the life of a business district unlike TIF. TIF does have an actual extension process. might need some help the clicker is not working here so the relationship to this proposal for uptown since i've been here started in 2023 learned a lot about our business community and conversations i've had with uptown have really um kind of circulated around what happened to tip one where's where's the tip money do we have incentive money to do new projects here And as you recall, TIP 1 was created in 1986 and it did go through that renewal process. So it had an initial 23 years plus a 12 year extension, expired in 2021. So the TIP is gone. Uptown is located within the Discovery Enterprise Zone, which is another incentive tool, but it's really not aligned with small businesses. It's intended more for large scale commercial development that occurs on vacant ground. particularly industrial, machining, manufacturing, things that generate a lot of additional jobs. There are conditions that exist in Uptown that do qualify for a business district. That word blight, it's not a nice word, but it tends to look for things. Blight really means poor infrastructure or obsolete planning, so maybe subdivisions that don't currently meet our code. deterioration of buildings, aging conditions, and vacancy. Those all contribute to the blight qualification. So last year, staff began working with Moran Economic Development to find some ways to bring incentive funds to the Uptown Corridor. And Moran Economic Development recommended potentially an amendment to our existing Southwest Corridor Business District. So that would incorporate Uptown into a business district that already has a stable revenue base with commercial properties that are, in this particular instance, generally located around Collinsville Road and 157 parts of St. Louis Road. And then, excuse me, Moran also recommended a creative solution to add additional time to this business district. By doing so, what we would do is actually dissolve the existing business district and carefully time it with the overlay of a new business district that encompasses the original footprint plus the properties we'd like to add and have it so that one ends immediately when the other begins, but that would start a whole new clock, a new 23-year lifespan for this business district. Next slide, please. Got it. Thank you. I might just be turned off here. All right, just a little brief background on the existing Southwest Corridor Business District. This was created in 2016, like I said, 23-year lifespan. So this will naturally roll off in 2039. It does extend to Fairmount Park, covers, or excuse me, Fairmount Racetrack. It covers parts of 157, portions of St. Louis Road. It is almost 900 acres. It does not include Collinsville Crossing or Eastport Plaza. Currently has a fund balance of about $3.3 million and earns just under $500,000 annually. And so from the original plan, I just wanted to highlight some of the qualifying conditions that made it eligible for us to have the original southwest corridor business district so i won't read this word for word but it is building site improvements vacancies subdivisions and obsolete platting that doesn't meet our current code and problems with street layout or storm water and other infrastructure issues and lack of pedestrian and bicycle facilities So some of these pictures, we've got Mall Street and parts of South Bluff and Beverly. Next slide, please. And here are some other images. These are from Collinsville Road, I'm sorry, jumped ahead here. Collinsville Road, St. Louis Road, Bluff Road. So the reason I brought these up is many of these conditions are still in need of repair. We've not been able to get all of these done in the business district yet. Next slide. Okay, and so today I went out and took some pictures of our southwest corridor, and this is Mall Street, as you can see. We do still have some infrastructure problems, ponding, issues with the curb and gutter here. And then uptown, here are a few properties, and I don't mean to pick on any of them in particular, but these are vacant properties, and... We did an audit in 2024. We have roughly a 25% vacancy rate in Uptown. I share these because this helps with qualifying us for a business district in this area. Next one, thank you. And then we are also considering adding the portions of South Morrison Corridor There's currently no existing incentive district here either and since we are touching the district and making amendments to it, this is contiguous so we could include this area as well and help get some incentive funds to these areas. So this proposal, like I mentioned, it does include creating a new business district, which would encompass the existing Southwest Corridor Business District. Also adding in the uptown area, parts of South Morrison. This would be renamed creatively Southwest Corridor Business District 2. At the same time, we would plan to dissolve the existing business district. And staff does recommend transferring the entirety of the fund balance into the new one. so that we can continue to make those improvements in the existing district, as well as immediately provide funds to Uptown and the South Morrison area. Next slide, please. Okay, and the next steps, we would be bringing this forward to the next city council meeting. We'll have another discussion item that'll actually go in depth about the draft plan and an ordinance excuse me, establishing the public hearing date, which would be held on September 8th of this year. And then we would proceed with all of the publications, public hearings, so that we can meet the Illinois Department of Revenue deadline of October 1st. If we get that filed and submitted to them by October 1st, then we would start tax collection January 1 of 2027. That concludes the discussion item. Are there any questions I can answer?

Well, of course. Go back to the map, if you will. One of the questions I've had or suggestions I've had originally was extending that northern thing up to the Culver's area in United Drive. Was that included in that?

It is not. We did talk with the consultants, and they did not recommend going past the interstate there.

so it doesn't go past interstate now no no the that northernmost boundary on bluff road that is the current northern boundary okay so that includes like the bob right up to no that would go to the interstate correct and i hey i do think that would be a I don't know what their reasoning was to do that, but it would be another revenue generating thing to help develop that. And also that's kind of selfish, but it's also the station three is gonna be built. So I think, Do you know what the particulars were or why they didn't?

I don't, and I can say it does currently stop at Ramada, so, but that's certainly, you know, they're still developing a plan for it, so we can get them that feedback, and at least, if nothing else, have a good answer at the next meeting.

Yeah, I'd like to explore that to make sure that we're capitalizing, if we're going to do it, to capitalize on those funds. then I'd like to know there's a good reason for leaving that out. And I would like, I've been attending not all, some of the uptown meetings, and thank Jessica for kind of getting those uptown meetings up and rolling again that we haven't done for quite a long time. And the uptown businesses were, had questions at first, but are 100% in support of of this effort to create that. And like Jessica said, one of the things it does, it provides some immediate funds that will be available to help some of the uptown businesses with the absence of the TIF. So it's a good compromise, or a good move, I think, to help them out. Yeah, and bringing in the South Morrison area, I think, is comparable to bringing that in our section. And so if it wasn't good for one, it wasn't good for the other. So even if they need to come to the next meeting and explain it or however, but I think, let's see, what's the schedule for this to get it on the next council meeting? Yes, that'll be the 28th. Yeah, so we got to move pretty quick on getting those answers. So how does the rest of the council feel about those items?

I think there's some... Go ahead. I'm sorry, Tony. You go first. There's some hotels, obviously, down there by the convention center that... they could probably use a facelift. So if they're in that district, it'd be a benefit. You know, that would require us to go past Ramada and then west a little bit. So I don't this is all pretty new to me, if I'm honest. So I'm learning about this, but I I don't, I want to see why cutting it off at any certain point. I mean, might have to change the name of it because it may not cover just Southwest anymore, but that would be the least of my concerns. I would rather, you know, if the most businesses could profit from it.

You bring up a good point. It wasn't what I was going to say, but now that you said that, I thought that I read that this tax is not applicable to hotels?

I believe that it is, but I can confirm.

I just, okay, I thought I read that today on a presentation I saw, but that was through Google AI, so it was for the state of Illinois, okay, but I agree with David, but if the hotels are exempt from this tax and we can't that extra tax, then, then we need to think about, can, would they be recipient of the funds? So, but that's another deal, but anyway, um, so have you, so you've had a big impact on utilization of the Northeast business district funds by businesses up there.

have and i should know this but have businesses in the existing southwest district utilize funds similar to northeast very little and um actually ironically or maybe not but one of the property owners here in uptown they also own property on wall street and talking about this was really kind of their first exposure and then oh wow can you use some of this and i will say that since i've been here there was a lot of conversation about let's not over commit anything because the racetrack is coming and Chick-fil-A is coming and there's going to be asks. And so there was a lot of, maybe I want to say reservation around developing any kind of plan until we knew more about those. But I think at this point we do know what, what those asks might look like. And I would really recommend that we also develop some formal incentive programs like we have in the Northeast Business District so that we can proactively approach these properties and spend this money the way it's intended to be spent.

And with guidelines and parameters so we don't exhaust the funds.

Absolutely.

Now, the other thing too is the city can use these funds as well for certain improvements on infrastructure, roads, and things like that, but it must be within that district, correct? Yes. Okay. And I have a last question is, Do these funds are sitting somewhere? Are they in an interest-bearing account of any type? And if not, can they be? Some of them moved to an interest-bearing account.

Yes, they are on interest-bearing accounts.

Thank you, Tim.

So after the 23rd year, that's right, it expires? Yes. So maybe I missed it. Does this, because we're making this new business district, which will encompass the existing one, Will part of it then expire still in 23 years, or do we start the 23 years over again?

We start all over. So this plan includes basically the dissolution of the existing district, the current footprint, and then creating a whole new one overlaid on top of it.

So then in 22 years, we could be having this discussion of a new business district at that point?

We could. Hopefully in 22 years we don't qualify anymore. We've resolved all the blight and all the problems. But yes, you're absolutely right. We could be.

You may be having that discussion. You guys are all going to be here with me.

It's going to be great.

Any other comments or questions? So I think since we are on a tough timeline here... we're going to probably have to work between council meetings to get the answer to the rest of the council. So, um, so I, I probably would ask that. I think I'm already asked it, but ask is, does everybody agree with that looking into getting extended?

Yeah. I would want to know why, why, why they don't, they didn't recommend it initially. And, um, because if that is the location of fire station three, that would be good to extend it down.

Okay.

You guys okay with that too? Yes. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Are there no other questions? Do we need a motion on that now?

No, this is just a discussion item. And like I mentioned, next meeting we'll have a discussion item talking about the draft plan. So this is still in draft form. And then we will also have an ordinance establishing when we will have our public hearing. So there's still, we will work immediately. I'll get a message out to Moran. We'll work directly with them and communicate back with council. But we do have time to tweak this.

Okay, sure. All right, next item. Next is speakers from the floor. Speakers may address the council under the terms of ordinance number 4765. Time is limited to four minutes per speaker. Please refer to the last page of the agenda for our specific rules governing input. Is anyone on the left side of the room that would like to speak? I guess that's you. Please go to the podium and state your name.

All right.

Coincidentally, I'm talking about Beverly again. I know everybody's surprised. But mayor, city council members, acting city manager, didn't realize that was the case at the time. Everybody else is here. Tonight I come to speak again about the abandoned homes on Austal and Beverly. As everybody in the room is aware, these once homes are in Iceland for everybody here. They're a danger. They're a drag on property values for any home that's near. On the Collinsville GIS zoning data site, these sites are still zoned residential, which means we have a, I did not, I wasn't aware of that until today. I took a day off work to do a little research. They're zoned residential, and if they are zoned residential, that's an unpresent landlord that's letting houses go to crap, to be honest. So, moving on. In news flashes from Watch Hill, which is right off of Beverly, this week in the abandoned residential home zone, I see it every day when I drive by. Somebody built a bed in the backyard. It's gone now, but it was there. It was there for three days. And then it was surrounded by trash. Now it's gone. Now there's just trash bags in the backyard. So somebody kind of cleaned it up, kind of like a teenager would have, to be honest. The fire department and an ambulance were called to the area. I don't know why. It's not my job to know why. I drove by and there they were. The same window that I reported last week is still broken and still unboarded. Now every door has a wonderful piece of plywood slapped up in the way. It looks great. We've got white walls, white signs over, or I'm sorry, white wood over every window, a piece of plywood slammed on the door that says private property. It looks, honest to God, like a condemned zone. It looks horrible. But moving on. So I have a few questions. How much have we spent? How much is my city? How many city resources have gone into maintaining this for someone who's not present, for somebody who doesn't live in Collinsville, for someone who simply bought homes so that you guys could then come around and zone them as commercial so they could make money how much am i paying for this honor i'll move on uh let's see as an even more example there's two homes for sale one on watch hill one on beverly what do you think that does to their home bottom Honest to God, just down the street from me, it's young for me, I'm old. A young man and woman, they just had a baby. She's pregnant again. They're moving. They put their heart and soul into that home. And now they're trying to sell it right on Beverly, right where the city's not taking care of the street that I pay taxes to be taken care of, that you just showed as blight. And they're trying to sell their home. I watched their father come by and build the fence. It's gorgeous. The house is nice. How much is their home value going down so that somebody can put in a Chick-fil-A? And how is that fair to them? But I'll move on. So I've watched his home fall into disrepair. I've seen him drawing animals. I've seen vagrants being there. I did a little more digging. You know, guess what? We've got codes about this. I looked it up. You guys list the 2021 International Residential Code as our residential code. On the website, it's section 15.10.01. Section B, if you want to get real technical about it. This is important. So securing, closing, securing and closing vacant housing. If it's unfit for human occupancy, this is off your side. I'm not making this up. Unfit for human occupancy, but it's not an imminent danger of structural collapse. The building code official is authorized to post a condemnation sign and order the owner to close and board it up. We've got that done. The boards keep coming down, so that's not working. To prevent vandalism, just like we would think. My time up?

Yes, sir.

Thank you for your comments. All right, anyone else on the right side? Since we're all mostly city staff, probably not. So next item.

Comments and announcements from the mayor?

The only thing, I was gonna respond, but he left, but I... I will say I'll talk Travis and Kendrick tomorrow, and I know there's been some recent police developments down there. So we'll continue on. That's all we'll do. That's all I have.

Comments and announcements from council members?

There being none, next item.

Comments and announcements from city staff.

Excuse me, just a minute. Sir, we are, we'll follow up on your comments tonight and somebody will be back in touch with you. I apologize for the story. Go ahead. City staff.

Oh, I'm sorry. Thank you. Mayor, if we could have Kimberly Corrin come up and give us an update on parks programming, please. Yeah.

Mayor Schaman and members of the council have one program I'd like to highlight tonight, and that will be our first movie night of the summer. It will not be this Thursday, but it'll be next Thursday. We're showing Zootopia 2. A couple fun things about this one. It'll be the first movie that we've shown out at the farm, and we have a sponsor this year. So thank you to Revity Credit Union for coming out and helping us pay for these programs, as well as they should have some free giveaways and fun stuff happening at the movie. It'll be a Thursday. july 23rd at the farm at sunset so about 8 8 15 8 30 ish is when some the sun sets and then something that i do not have a side of but that happened this morning would be um i actually have a little bit of good news to report from the park and rec department in that thank you very much to the public works department specifically um water and wastewater for helping fix one of the broken slides on monsoon mountain so monsoon mountain is up to its full capacity and it's working as it should kudos to billy and detroit for getting their crews out there and everybody involved it was it was pretty fantastic to watch it happen and to watch it happen so quickly it started this morning and it was done right before we opened so a little bit of positivity from the aqua park good thank you thank you kimberly kimberly i have a question

Can you provide an update on the all-inclusive playground and when we anticipate an opening?

Yes. We are so close. So, so very close. The surfacing is done. The fencing is done. There are a few minor pieces that need to go on the playground yet to complete it, so we are just waiting on the delivery of those and the installation of those. We will, it's currently fenced off right now because it's not fully complete, but we will be doing an official ribbon cutting which we will promote and we will push and we will invite everybody out to it because this is a project that we're very proud of and we'd like to show off. So we thank everybody involved with getting it where it is and we are. We are this close. We are this close to getting it done. There's a flush mount merry-go-round. I think it's one of the most fantastic things because in its simplicity. It's just a merry-go-round, but it's sunken into the ground, so anybody with a mobility device has no barrier to get into it. The handles aren't in on that yet. That's the biggest thing that we're waiting on to get complete, as well as the signage for the donors that have participated in helping us fund it. So, so close.

Thank you.

Kimberly, related to that, I asked Jessica after seeing the posting the other day about Morris Hills Park. Is there any plans for the one we were just talking about and Morris Hills to have Camerons?

Um, no specific plans yet, but we do start our CFP process here pretty soon. And so we will start to talk about that. I think, um, Glidden at least is right next to it. You know, both of them are in a neighborhood, so they should be able to get the electricity and, uh, the, you know, the internet access that's needed. Um, cameras won't stop it from happening, but hopefully it would help deter it and, you know, help us to catch the people who are, you know, misusing our parks and, um, taking time and effort away from making them better.

All the efforts we put into the All Abilities Playground. Vandalizing is nothing new, but it seems to be on the uptick all over. Morris Hills has always had a problem with that because it's so secluded. I'd want to see that be a top priority for next year that we figure out a way to get cameras in both of those sites. Great.

Tim, put it in the budget, please. All right.

Thank you.

Thank you, Kimberly. Next, I'd like to bring up Public Works Director Troy Turner to give us an update on the Summit Avenue reconstruction project.

uh thank you mayor and members of the council i wish i could bring you uh better news but at least we have some news um we are we've talked to keller construction and idot and looking at what all has to be done we are going to be delaying the start of construction until 2027 for summit avenue when we went out and met with keller we went and started doing stakeout of storm sewer structures and it was very clear that we were going to have to relocate the water main We went through all of the utility conflicts with our designer at an earlier point And we specifically asked if there were issues with the water main and we were not told there were any Except for outside of hydrants. So we're going to be pushing it out. We're going to be replacing a 6 inch water main in this area with an 8 inch water main so we can at least Increase the fire flow in the area while we're doing this project and so it comes with some good things we are also we have a dinner on dinner we have a sewer extension project so it gives us a little more uh... breathing room on getting that done so it does provide some benefits to the city but i mean we're still not excited about the delays uh... appear you see just a general overview of the funding that we've received roughly two point five million dollars And right now with the original bid for Keller was $2.2 million. With change orders right now, we're already at $2.4 million. The main reason was there was an issue with the retaining wall and the plans that is going to have to be upgraded to a larger retaining wall. So that was a huge, significant cost to the project. And then we have about $200,000 of that funding that is for construction engineering. So we might have some delays, but we will be getting the project done and upgrading all the water mains while we're there. If there's any questions, I'd be happy to answer. Will the cost with Keller change any with the delay? So yeah, there will be some escalation factors when we go into the beginning of next year. The good news is most of the material we've got, they've already ordered and it's going to be going out to the Judah property. Asphalt, concrete, any kind of increase in price, they'll pass along. Also any increase in labor costs.

The last time you have the construction engineering 200,000, is that far what was already done or is that moving forward?

Yeah, that'll be for what has been done and what is going to be done. That was their estimate for the entire project. We might see some slight increases on that as well.

Is that for the management? It's not for design plans.

No, no, it's not for design. That's for overseeing the construction, taking quantities, answering contractor questions. dealing with issues with utilities during construction.

So that's the amount of folks it was involved with?

Yes, sir. So that also included any kind of testing we have to do on any kind of materials or concrete and then oversight to make sure that we're being built correctly.

Sorry, go ahead, sorry.

Well, and I've talked to Troy about this. I'm very disappointed that the firm that we hired to do that did not catch that. That's a pretty basic item when you come to designing road construction or anything, is looking for conflicts between different things. So it is what it is. We can't do anything about it now. I am concerned about the cost we're going to incur to do that because if it would have been identified in the original plan, could have been something that we could have received extra grant money for.

Well, not necessarily extra grant money, but we would have known we could have last year we could have done the water main relocation ahead of the project.

So it's failure for them to catch that on the original design is going to have a big impact on us.

Yeah, especially on time.

Time and money. Yeah. Any other comments or questions?

You guys touched on it with that.

So then if they missed it, is there any liability on their part that they like made a mistake? So I would leave that question up for Steve.

I haven't been pretty calm the whole story. So I'm, I'm hearing most of it tonight. I've heard a little bit otherwise, but maybe, maybe not. Okay.

So, okay. I guess, I mean, an update, good or bad. It's an update, but it's definitely not we wanted to hear and it's not what the residents wanted to hear. So okay. No more questions. All right. Thanks.

Thank you, Mayor.

That concludes staff comment.

Okay. Next time.

Next item is the Consent Agenda. Item 1, motion to approve payment of bills for the period ending July 3, 2026 in the amount of $3,390,276.53. Item 2 is a motion to approve payroll for the period ending June 19, 2026 in the amount of $992,513.62. Item three is a motion to approve minutes of the June 23rd, 2026 council meeting. And item number four is an ordinance authorizing the mayor or city manager to enter into an Illinois workers' compensation settlement agreement for Domingo Collins.

Is there any items in the consent agenda that anyone would like removed and voted on separately? If not, have a motion to approve. So moved.

I'll second it.

Motion by firm, second by Green. Roll call.

Houseman?

Yes.

Furman? Yes. Green? Yes. Seton? Yes. Stamen?

Yes.

Next, under new business, item one is the ordinance authorizing professional service agreement with WHKS and company in the amount of $1,875,000 for the design, bidding, construction phase of the water treatment plant PFAS addition and clear well project.

Presentation given by Waste and Water Superintendent Billy Jones.

Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor, members of the council, acting assistant manager, Jessica.

First item I have for you tonight is ordinance authorizing the professional service agreement with WHKS engineers in the amount of $1,875,000 for the design, bidding, and construction phase engineering services for the water treatment plant PFAS addition and clear well project. This supports our strategic plan goals WHKS scope of service under this agreement will include project management and meetings, IEPA coordination and permitting, funding package assistance, topographic survey and research of existing conditions, preliminary design pilot study phase one, final design, bidding, construction administration, and construction observation. This project is included in the 2026 YAPI project as WTPFAS with a budget of $750,000. The remaining balance of the project of $1,125,000 will be included in the fiscal years of 27, 28, and 29. CIPs. We will have multiple funding sources which include the following, Enterprise Capital Fund, Illinois Environmental Protection Agency State Revolving Fund, Federal Community Project Funding from Congresswoman Nikki Badinski's office, State Legislative Support Grants from Senator Eric Harris' office, and PFAS national litigation proceeds that include payouts from 3M, DuPont, BASF, and Tyco. I'd like to introduce Scott Hunt. He's the project engineer with WHKS. So if there's going to be any questions after my slides, we'll get Scott up here. Next slide, please. So this is a proposed site layout for the plan. The existing building, west of the existing building will house a 48 foot by 115 foot treatment addition for PFAS. It will have eight vessels. The vessels will be 12 foot in diameter, 27 foot tall. These will be the filters for the PFAS removal. Just west of that, there's an existing clear well that will be changed to a low-lift pump station that's 20 foot by 72 foot. And then just south of that will be an estimated, we'll say 60 to 67 foot diameter clear well, one million gallon tank. And then some additional piping that will have to be put in to route these structures together. So that concludes my presentation for tonight. Staff recommends approval of the ordinance authorizing the mayor to execute a contract with WHKS in the amount of $1,875,000 for project design, bidding, and construction phase engineering services for the water treatment plant. With that said, take any questions you may have.

Well, I'm sure there could be a bunch.

So how much of that $750,000 do we have at hand currently? That is on hand currently right now.

Thank you.

So right now the goal, please correct me if I'm wrong on this, is four parts to $1 trillion. Is that right?

Four parts per trillion is where we've got to be. Four parts per trillion or less by April of 2019.

could that ever change? Could they throw us a curve ball and be like, now it's two parts?

I mean, I can't say it would never change, but the timeline can change. So the federal government's talking about pushing the timeline back, but the state is not going to remove the timeline. We'll still be in the same.

So regardless of what the federal, because that was my next question, regardless of the timeline changing, we're going to stick to the timeline of 2029?

Yeah, the state's not changing their timeline. So, David, to answer your first question, if you remember at the October 14th City Council meeting, the folks from Illinois IPA used to be like 20-some parts per trillion, and it went to four parts, and I specifically asked that question, and he said, well, it's because the testing equipment got better. So if testing equipment gets better, it could be one part per trillion, right?

So...

There are no guarantees. I'm sorry. Oh, no, you're OK. Gallup, you're perfectly correct. There's no guarantees. They have went through the public comment period, or the feds have went through before they established the rule. I'm not going to say that it won't happen, but anything's possible. But they're pretty confident in that level for the foreseeable future.

So I guess the follow up to that is, The filtration system that we are going to install, the goal is four parts per trillion or lower than that.

Based on the MCL, four parts per trillion, but you can always add vessels or slow down the treatment process to treat for further reduction of that. And the media, not to get too much into detail, but different types of media that you install inside the vessels can be targeted for more specific changes or more removal or less removal. So there will be some adjustments that you can make within the treatment system.

I think it's worth noting that Scott was the engineer that to the original water plant, too. You're with a different firm, but you're very familiar with the facility. And I got just one question. Would there be any conflicts with any lines? I just couldn't pass that up. I'm sorry.

I will state that we do have the majority of the original team. So we have a lot of confidence moving forward with this. As part of this agreement, we do have some consultants on our team. We'll be obviously the lead, but RMAD architects will be doing the architectural design for the building. WRF engineers will be doing the mechanical, electrical, and plumbing design under our direction. We've got SCI, they'll be doing the geotechnical investigations for the building additions. And then Farewell, and then we've also got Bar Engineering, who's done a lot of ethos design on the East Coast. That would be our expertise as far as detailed design of the vessels. And they'll also be conducting phase one pilot study. I guess that's the only thing I would add to it. This is all inclusive of everything you need to get to construction and complete construction. The only thing that we are currently aware of to date that's not in our proposal is the phase two pilot study. and we can't estimate what the cost will be for that until BAR completes the first phase. So when we say phase one, they're gonna evaluate all your sample results that you have today, identify the chain lengths of what type of PFAS you're dealing with before we actually do a pilot study. That way they can gear the pilot study towards those specific chains. So once they do their phase one assessment, then they'll have a lot better idea how many different loops we need to do a pilot study, how many different types of media we have to test for. So there will be, I want to be upfront and honest with you, because we don't know those costs, we didn't inflate it, our recommendation is just to do an amendment once we know the scope, and then we'll submit a cost for what it would cost to actually do the pilot study itself. This will cover everything that we're aware of today, and we would follow up maybe in three to six months with an amendment once we know what's needed for the pilot study.

Chair Jerry Cook And we've known, I think we've known all along that the pilot study would have to be done, right?

Is your firm doing this with any other communities in Illinois? Are any other communities going through the same process in Illinois right now? There are other communities going through. We're not contracted for any of those. We did work with the neighboring community of Glen Carbon, although they don't have PFAS in their water yet. They're building a new plant. We did do a preliminary design to size the plant if they were based on the assumption that they were going to have similar levels to you guys in the surrounding communities. So we have went through a PFAS design, what we call a 30% design to size the building. I guess the last question, all of the solar stuff, that's clear.

Yes.

Yes, that's clear. Then I would like to add our Our design now, we're looking at GAC system, but the tanks are gonna be large enough for GAC, but also we're gonna design it to where we could change out the media as well, so we don't have to design and put different structures in.

So can you say that one more time?

So we're designing for a GAC system right now, but if it comes out to where we need to change out the media, the system we're designing for will allow us to change that media out. We won't have to change out the structures.

Okay, so like there's a future things we're trying to filter out, this makes it easier?

No, it's just, it makes it cheaper in the long run if GAC, if something changes in the future, our vessels there will be the correct size to change out the media.

Can you explain what GAC is?

It's granular activated carbon, so it's just media that strips off the impurity.

I didn't want to ask it. Thank you. I was just shaking my head like I was tracking it up.

During that phase one pilot study assessment, if it's determined that the type of PFAS that you guys tested positive is better suited for GAC, granular activated carbon, versus anion exchange, that decision will be made early on in design. But this footprint that you're seeing, this sizing is based on the worst case scenario. So if anything, if your changes are more conducive to anon exchange, the footprint would get smaller, actually, because those vessels are smaller than the GAC vessels.

So the testing happens before the construction, right? Yes.

Yes.

So what's the time frame on the testing?

Well, we're hoping. Full breakthrough is like almost two years, I think. But we're going to simplify that down. I think we can do it probably in about three months, three to six months.

So the study measures the level and also the material that's causing the level? Correct. The pilot study, we're going to know early on that the EPA, all EPA cares about, they don't care about the cost, how much it costs you guys to operate it. The big cost of this is that when the media gets used up, you have to change it out. So that's an O&M expense that we have to look at with the city. EPA just wants to know that these vessels are going to remove it. They don't care how often you have to change it. I shouldn't say they don't care, but their permit is that we'll make sure. So early on in the pilot study, we will know that the, it will prove that whatever media that's being pilot tested is capable or not capable of removing it, and then that's where design will be based on. But we'll continue the pilot study to try to get an estimate on how long the media's gonna last.

That was my next question. Since you mentioned dollars, how long do we anticipate the media lasting? I mean, are we talking months, years?

So GAC is, It depends on your level of concentration, but for the program report that we did, the GAC is projected to last two years. The annual exchange will be slightly longer, two to three years.

A dollar amount to replace that?

We have those dollars with me tonight, but they are in the project plan report.

Are we talking hundreds of thousands or millions or...

Yeah, I'll get back with you on that.

All right, thank you.

It's hundreds of thousands. It's not tens of thousands.

You notice I didn't say tens of thousands. I said hundreds or billions.

Any other questions or comments for Troy or Scott, or Billy and Scott?

One more. This may be a silly question, but I know when this water plant got built, PFAS was kind of out there. People were sort of talking about it, from my best understanding, but not really as worried. And so no concessions were made to do anything with it. While we're in the midst of this, is there anything else that's like, on the horizon that we can be proactive so we don't get caught with a new thing in five years that we could just go ahead and make the changes now.

Well, that doesn't allow, uh, so the funding doesn't allow for that. So even if there is something that's coming down the road, the funding that we're receiving doesn't allow for what ifs.

Okay. So we're very restricted by that. Yeah.

Totally understand the survey, but it's not impossible, but it's without knowing what's out there. It is impossible to design for something that we don't know about yet. Or even if you know about it, at what concentrations is it going to be regulated?

OK, that makes sense.

So it has to go through that whole public comment period, the study period. before we would even know, the city or the engineer would know at what levels they're gonna require removal for. But to our knowledge, there's nothing pressing that's under current EPA review other than PFAS is the big issue right now.

Makes sense, thank you.

All right, I have a motion to approve.

So moved.

Motion by Green, second by Seaton. Roll call.

Councilman. Yes. Furman. Yes. Green. Yes. Seton. Yes. Stamen.

Yes.

Thank you.

Thank you. Item number two is an ordinance designating the posting of a stop sign on Clay Street at the intersection of Summit Avenue.

Prestation be given by Public Works Director Troy Turner.

Thank you, Mayor, members of the council. There we go. So this is to post stop signs on Clay Street at Summit Avenue. I don't know if anyone's familiar with this intersection, but if you're coming south on Summit, it is very hard to see any cars to your west on Clay Street. So this was a combination effort between Public Works and the police department. PD contacted me asking me my thoughts on putting in stop signs. I said, well, just to come to think about it, today I had an issue with it today. We went back and we did a history, looked at site obstructions, and then we also looked at traffic volumes and then accident history. It met all the warrants for putting in stop signs on Clay Street. We are now recommending that this come to council to have stop signs placed on Clay Street at Summit. So if there's any questions, I'd be more than happy to answer.

Any questions or comments?

So when you put the new stop signs in down on Washington, they had the red. right around and flashing to make people aware they were there? Will you do something similar with these to start?

I'll leave that up to the police department on what we do to start. But we typically don't put those up unless we have issues with people not seeing them, if there's a visibility.

I just think people are not going to know they're there. So I think the visibility is getting people to recognize there's a stop sign there now.

OK.

Training them, yeah.

So we'll see what we'll, I'll work with PD and we'll see what we can figure out.

Are there already stop signs if you're going on Clay?

Not on Clay, they're on Summit.

They are, they're currently on Summit? Yeah. So we're just, so it'd be a four-way stop, right?

That'll help some of them speed down there.

I had requested this about two years ago due to a resident reaching out about the number of accidents there. So I'm glad this is finally happening. Thank you.

Any other questions or comments? Not have a motion to approve? So moved. Second. Motion by Howelson, seconded by Seaton. Roll call.

Houseman? Yes. Furman? Yes. Green? Yes. Seaton? Yes. Stamen?

Yes.

Item number three is an ordinance authorizing the execution of real estate purchase contract regarding 929 McDonnell Lake Road.

Again, Troy Turner.

I think, again, Mayor, members of the council. So this is, we've been working with McDonnell Lake Road 1 LLC for purchasing right away for the Horseshoe Lake Road, McDonnell Lake Road reconstruction project. They were working with us. They told us we could go ahead and proceed since we had come to... come to terms we just had to get their attorney on board with everything and and move forward so this is just us coming back as part of that agreement we are paying them eight thousand dollars for the property that we are taking um and then we are also going we've already put in a pipe under mcdonald lake road but we will be putting in a water main under mcdonald lake road to get from the east side to the west side and then right now the sanitary sewer is north of their property so we'll be extending it down to their property but this allowed us to get to our final alignment so we don't have to come back and realign the road in the future. If there's any questions about this, I'd be happy to answer.

So the new concrete pavement isn't changing, you're just doing bores under it?

So we've already put a pipe under the road. We put a casing pipe in for this for the future because we didn't want to have to go in and bore under a brand new road.

Okay, good. Any other questions or comments? Being none, motion to approve.

So moved.

Second.

Motion by Green, second by Furman. Roll call.

Houseman?

Yes.

Furman? Yes. Green? Yes. Seton? Yes. Stamen?

Yes. So I do have a question before you walk away. It must be my night to grab people. No, you're good. You're chatting. Yep. Sorry about that. Stoplight? Yes. Do we have a time frame?

Yeah, so we're supposed to be meeting with IDOT in August about a pre-construction meeting. The project is expected to start and end this year, so we should be having a light put in this year.

So for all those Sacker parents that won't be there, it's Sacker season, August, September, October.

I think the winning bid was Gershner Electric, and I want to say it was around $380,000. Yeah.

Okay, any other?

It'll be nice to have it all final.

Okay, next item.

Item number four is the ordinance authorizing the execution of a real estate purchase contract regarding 8386 North Illinois Street.

Presentation again by Troy Turner.

All right, well, this is the last time I have to bore you with anything else, but this one is for the purchase of property to extend the street garage property. We've worked with John Folletti and his wife with obtaining this property, they were agreeable to the purchase price of 109,500, which is what the appraisal came back at. As part of this contract that we're going to get into with them, we are reserving the right where we can back out based on the results of any kind of environmental study we do and any kind of soil testing we do. So we're gonna be lining up a firm to do the soil testing and an environmental survey of the site just to make sure there's no contaminants on the site that are gonna cause us more cost than the property's worth. We're very happy to be able to have this moving forward so we can get in compliance with our MS4 permit and have our salt storage facility enclosing our salt. If there's any questions, I'd be more than happy to answer.

One of the other positives about this besides getting the salt under a cover is we have to clean up this property coming into the city, coming over the bridge south there on 159. This has been an eyesore for years. This will really help, I believe, clean up that end of the city. We'll have control of the property, be able to do that, plus get the salt equipment storage there. So any other comments or questions? Being none, motion to approve. So moved. Second. Motion by Seaton, second by Hausman. Roll call.

Hausman? Yes. Furman? Yes. Green? Yes. Seaton? Yes. Stamen?

Yes. Thank you.

Last is adjournment.

Before adjournment, I'd like to mention something that you might wonder why we have an acting city manager up here tonight. Derek Jackson, the city manager, is on maternity leave. Had a baby boy last week. Everybody's healthy. They're home. And I'm sure he's beaming right now. So just some great news for Derek, but he'll be back in about five weeks. All right. No closed session. So I have a motion to adjourn. So moved.

I'll second it.

Motion by Furman, seconded by Green. Roll call.

Houseman? Yes. Furman? Yes. Green? Yes. Seton? Yes. Stamett?

Yes. Council City Council meeting for July 14, 2026 is adjourned.