City Council - Regular Meeting

Thank you. Amen.

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Okay, then that's probably

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Thank you. True. The last person.

rolling in here, and I'm like, oh, that light.

So good. I think you're the last person on this side. Oh, there he is. I see him now. but it's almost .

And then next time we'll mix it all up.

Hi. I emailed in a proclamation request and haven't heard back, so I thought I would just leave it.

Okay. September 8th.

Okay. All right. Okay. Other question was, when I talked to you about the cops doing like a patriotic constitution display in September, you know, a little display cabinet. Is that something? Okay.

Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Do we like? Thank you. I haven't.

Thank you.

And... Come on. Thank you. Thank you. um Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Call the August 17th, 2026 meeting to order. If you can, please remove your caps. Stand up for the Pledge of 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.

Okay, good evening. I want to thank everybody that took the time to come out and join us tonight in person. Those that are watching online, we welcome you as well. And tonight we also have our treasurer, Mr. Hersey, with us. And with that, we'll start with agenda item 1.3, the roll call.

Thank you, Mayor. Rosenberg. My Lord. Here. Lots. Stoffel, here. Carney, here. Thony, here. Roach, here. Newcomb, here. Hudson, here. Blackburn, here. Gorse, here. Campbell, here. Parchman, here. Ford, we're just missing this lot.

Okay, thank you. Moving on to 1.4, approval of the minutes from the August 3rd, 2026 meeting. Can I get a motion for approval?

Make a motion.

We have a motion from Mr. Carney.

Second Campbell.

Second Campbell. Do we have any discussion or comments on 1.4? Seeing none, all in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. We do not have any public hearings tonight, but we do have a city presentation. 3.1, we have a proclamation for the America 250th celebration that occurred July 3rd. So I'm going to come down. Okay, we were very fortunate to have a lot of volunteers to help us pull this off. If we can get the, I guess the mothers and the sons of the, daughters of the American Revolution, if you guys would like to come forward. Marcy, please join us. Aaron, Andrea, Roy. For those of you that were able to attend, you realize how hot it was that day. Unfortunately, the day picked us. We didn't get to pick the day for this event. But we still could not have done it without the help of all the men and women that are up here, especially Marcy. If you ever need a parade put together, she's your person. She did an absolute amazing job. Everybody talked about what a great event the parade was. And I have no doubt, Marcy, your assistance in helping us with that was very, very valuable. Roy jumped in right away, set up most of our vendors, most of our food, petting zoo. He was getting ahold of everybody to try and make that a special event. So Roy, we really appreciate everything you did. And Grant, I appreciate you taking the lead on the city side and holding the meetings and keeping everybody together. We also have our friends up here. Early on, they were like, we want to be a part of this event. We were so excited. They were very instrumental in the dedication of the Liberty Tree. Uh, it was a really great event. There's a nice marker for it, uh, out at the sports park. So again, we thank you for everything you did to help make this a special day, uh, and the guest participants that you brought, uh, to share the experience of some of our, our past figures in history. And then Andrea, Aaron, thank you for all the work you guys did. I know it was hot. You guys were out there all day. Sandy, uh, and her team were out there. Andrew, you guys did a great job as well. as well as public safety. So we didn't have a turnout. We won it because of the heat, but everybody that did participate, we really appreciate it. So recognizing and celebrating the organizers, volunteers, and the contributors of the O'Fallon Celebrate America 250th event. Whereas the city of O'Fallon came together to honor this momentous milestone through the extraordinary O'Fallon Celebrate America 250th event, and whereas the success of this monumental gathering was made possible through the untiring dedication, vision, and selfless effort of numerous event organizers, municipal staff, local businesses, community partners, and volunteers. And whereas these exceptional individuals devoted countless hours to planning, coordinating, and executing a vibrant celebration that showcased the rich history, cultural heritage, and enduring unity of our community. And whereas Through their hard work and commitment, the people of O'Fallon were provided an unforgettable opportunity to reflect on our nation's past, celebrate our present achievements, and look forward with the hope of our shared future. Now therefore be it resolved that highest recognition, gratitude, and appreciation are hereby extended to all of those who worked tirelessly behind the scenes and on the front lines to make the O'Fallon Celebrate America 250th event a resounding success. Be it further resolved that all citizens are encouraged to join in expressing a heartfelt thanks to these dedicated individuals for their extraordinary service, leadership, and pride in our community. And witness whereof this proclamation is hereby conveyed to honor your contribution to the legacy of O'Fallon and the United States of America to be affixed on this, the 17th day of August, So again, thank you. We had Mr. Campbell. He helped put our float together. Without him, I don't know if the wheels would have fallen off probably. So we appreciate all his help making a float available for the council. So with that, congratulations, Dahl. Do you guys have any comments you'd like to make?

Yes, we'll be available in 25 years to do it again.

I bet you will. I bet you will. Thank you so much. Really appreciate it. You guys were amazing to work with.

Thank you.

Okay, we will now move on to agenda item four, public comments. This portion of the city council meeting is reserved for any member of the public wishing to address the council. All remarks should be made to the council as a whole, not to individual members or the audience. The Illinois Open Meetings Act 5 ILCS 120 forward slash one mandates no action shall be taken on matters not listed on this agenda. But council may direct staff to address the topic or refer the matter to a committee. please provide the city clerk with your name, speak into the microphone, limit your presentation to five minutes, and avoid repetitious comments. Thank you. Would anybody like to make public comments at this time? And just so everybody online knows, we have a second set of public comments later in the meeting. But if anybody would like to make public comments at this time, please step forward. And if you could adjust the microphone down a little bit. Perfect, thank you.

Good evening, members of the city council. My name is Bev Reeves, and I am a 22-year resident of Southview Gardens, which would be in District Four, okay. I'm here tonight because our neighborhood is facing an overwhelming skunk infestation that has severely impacted our daily lives. My own home has a six foot privacy fence, yet right next to my home, our dog has already been sprayed twice this summer. There are truly no words to describe the atrocious odor that permeates my home every time she is sprayed. that makes you sick to your stomach to smell it. It lingers in your home for days. It soaks into your clothes that have to be rewashed again. It soaks into furniture and carpet. It's just no candles, no sprays, no air fresheners or anything can cover up that odor. It just takes time. And I believe that this issue actually began when the Brandywine apartments behind Dartmouth Drive there disturbed their habitat. Now all these displaced skunks are causing havoc throughout our neighborhood, and they are roaming both day and night. And our overall quality of life has actually been drastically reduced. The skunks also are responsible for the death of a dog in our neighborhood. The dog was sprayed directly into his face. It triggered a neurological response that he was unable to recover from. That dog's name was Bennett. and also whenever we feel like our hands are tied because under the Illinois, Illinois, sorry, wildlife law and IDNR regulations, skunks are a primary vector species They are also protected fur bearers. Whenever our dog had been sprayed the second time, I called City Hall here to ask, is there anything that can be done? They suggested I call animal control. Animal control does not take care of skunk problems. So we cannot legally trap them. We can't relocate them ourselves without a very specific permit that's issued by the ID in our district wildlife biologists. And that's just to get one at a time. Our only other legal path is to hire licensed nuisance wildlife control operators. However, this population has grown so much and it's beyond what each of us as individual neighbors can even manage on our own. And therefore, we need the city's help in this matter. The only viable solution is for the city to contract with a professional wildlife management company to eradicate this nuisance for us. And I ask you to please find room in your current budget because this is a health and quality of life problem for many, many of us. And just if you need to kind of get even more of an idea, if you will look on the O'Fallon, Illinois community page from six days ago, there is an extensive amount of comments and information that is actually provided on there. And you can also find a lot of comments based on when I did a page on our Southview Gardens where there's a lot of comments. And very this would all be very much worth your time and attention to read into this Because this is just something we can't do anything legally about and so we are just asking please as a city Look into your budget find a way to help us Thank you so much for considering my request.

Thank you for your comments Would anyone else like to make comments at this time?

VermaWare Ward 3 with notes about your upcoming 589th budget request for your warrant report for this month. $2,804,243.84. Now, this is just a summary of the items I've notated. Now I know some of them may be budgeted, and some of them were payouts on different portions of contracts. But I believe the public needs to know where the money is being spent at. Breckenridge of Illinois, $21,267 and change. Brewer Company for Pine, Public Works on Pine Tree Estates Drainage Service, $532,807 and change. Your Commerce Bank Card, credit card for training, lunches, et cetera, activities, merchant meetings, and et cetera, luncheons, $30,016 in change. You bought some stuff from Dell, some type of subscriptions, I guess, for your computers and whatever, $5,208.31 in change. You gave a rebate back to Drury Incorporated of $9,162 in change. Jerkier waste waste people who taken away the sludge and whatever ten thousand four hundred dollars The four fees four seasons food vending situation eighteen thousand eight hundred thirty two dollars and change I Hope we get a decent return on that funding to pay in that bill Gonzaga again still doing work for you, $10,210 and change. Payment number 11 on Hanks for $277,529 and change for your wood stream sewer bypass work. Hanks, The ozone for the water. I want to bring that one up in the Public Works Act to try and figure what that does for the water system Anyway, I'll talk in Public Works on that when that meeting comes up next week Arner Schiffley you also gave some more money to for on work on West 50 and Greenmont Road, I mean continuously eight thousand six hundred forty two dollars and change I The Department of Illinois Transportation, Greenmount and Central Park intersection, $50,380 and change. I ain't seen anything done out there, and what this is, unless these are drawings that the state's providing, I don't know. Illinois EPA, a loan for, $420,588 in change. What's the project? Now we had the maid service, Maids My Way, for the month of July, $18,976 in change. Of course, now I know we're spending a lot of money on the meters and pipe supplies and copper and that, so Midwest Meters, you've bought another... You bought another $30,500 worth of meters, copper and everything else. You bought another $14,374 and change. And Millennium, for some drawings that they're doing, $28,805. Oates Associates for the streetscape project is just getting started. for Lincoln and State, $5,236 and change. Along with the sandwiches, we also sold soda for Pop for $12,518 and change. Now last month, I made a point about Perfect Mounds paying $17,000 for pitching mounds. And when I was in the JCs, we're grateful to get a hat and T-shirt and have a dirt diamond to plant. I'll continue on that when I have more time. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you for your comments. Would anyone else like to make public comments at this time? Okay, seeing none, we will close our first session. We will now move on to the clerk's report, 5.1. Mr. Mouser, please.

Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. I have one item on the clerk's report tonight about nominating petitions will be available in the clerk's office during normal business hours, which is Monday through Thursday, 7 a.m. to 5 p.m., beginning august 25th 2026 so for those who are interested in running for the office of council member in the april 6 2027 consolidated election thank you mayor okay thank you sir moving on to the mayor's report uh 6.1 mrs fomey please

Yes, Mr. Mayor. Motion to approve the reappointment of Julie Spangler to the Historic Preservation Commission for a three-year term expiring September 8, 2029.

Second. We have a motion, and we have a second from Mr. Rosenberg. Do we have any comments or discussion? Seeing none, roll call, please.

Mylar.

Yes.

Stoffel.

Yes.

Carney. Yes. Foney.

Yes.

Roach.

Yes.

Newcomb? Yes. Hudson? Yes. Blackburn? Yes. Vorce? Yes. Campbell? Yes. Parchman? Yes. Ford? Yes.

Rosenberg?

Affirmative.

Okay, thank you. Motion carries. Agenda item seven, resolutions. We do not have any. Agenda item eight, ordinances first reading. We do not have any tonight. Before we go into the ordinances second reading, 9.1, Mr. Littiken, our city administrator, wants to make an announcement on that.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Mayor. So at the committee meeting last week, there was a motion made by the Community Development Committee to amend the approval to remove the provision to allow alcohol sales and consumption on site. So if anybody would like for that to be moved into the approval, that motion needs to be made tonight.

Make a motion.

Second, Campbell.

Point of order, I thought last time we had to make a motion on the existing ordinance and then do the motion for the amendment.

Yeah, let's just treat this like we would with any other amendment to a motion. Let's just assume that this motion is coming to the council as originally written. There needs to be a motion for an amendment and then vote on whether or not you want to have the amendment. If that amendment then passes, vote on the amended motion as amended.

But prior to that, there has to be a motion and a second to have a discussion on the original approval of the item.

I make a motion on the original item.

Second.

Okay, we have a motion. We have a second from Mr. Rosenberg. Does anyone have any comments or questions or statements that they would like to make about the new motion here?

I would like to make a motion for the amendment that was presented in committee.

Okay, we have a motion. Do we have a second?

I will second that.

We have a second from Mr. Campbell. Do we have any comments, sir, that we want to make at this time? Okay, roll call.

This is on the amendment. This is on the amendment, okay. Stoffel?

Yes.

Carney? Yes. Foney?

Yes.

Roach? Yes. Newcomb? Yes. Hudson? Yes. Blackburn? No. Bourse? Yes. Campbell? Yes. Parchman?

Yes.

Ford? No. Rosenberg? Affirmative. Mylar?

Yes.

Dunos?

Okay, thank you. The motion carries. So now 9.1, Mr. Roach, please. What's that? As amended, please.

So I would make a motion that we approve on second reading the motion as amended, zoning 623 for the city of O'Fallon, development known as O'Fallon Golf Studio, located at 715 Lake Point Center, suite 119. Subject to the condition hereby, all BYOB on-site consumption of alcohol, liquor, and liquor sales are prohibited as part of the planned use approval.

OK, we have a motion. Do we have a second?

Second, Carney.

We have a second for Mr. Carney. Do we have any additional comments or anybody wants to make on 9.1 as amended? Seeing none, roll call, please.

Carney. Yes. Foney.

Yes.

Roach. Yes. Newcomb. Yes. Hudson. Yes. Blackburn. Yes. Yes. Force. Yes. Campbell.

Yes.

Parchman. Yes. Ford. No. Rosenberg. Affirmative. Mylar. Yes.

Stoffel.

Yes.

OK. Thank you. Motion carries. We do not have any additional ordinances for second reading, so we'll move on to agenda item 10. This is our second portion of public comments. I'm not going to reread the instructions that I read before the first session, but all the rules still apply. Does anyone want to make any questions at this time or statements?

Continuing on where I was at, Vern Miller Ward 3. Talking about the perfect mound situation, last month you... Put $17,186 toward it. Now you had some revamp and repairs and everything else, and you spent another $3,980. And like I was stating, I don't know if we're building a system here for professional ballplayers or what, but... And I know my days have long gone and passed, but we were just grateful to have a hat, a shirt, and our own ball gloves when we was able to play. Moving on to rural construction, they received, for their maintenance work around town, for Booster Road, $85,173 and change. Yeah, I can't, okay, there's an amusement tax that you paid. I'm trying to figure out what the amusement tax was for, for $35,525 and change. If you can enlighten me what that was about, I'd appreciate it. Tubman, Wayne, and Merchant also did some, I guess, continuous work for you in regards to Highway 50 and the path work, $6,382 and change. And Weber of Greenwich City, the city purchased three new vehicles, 2026. One was a F-150 for 45,533, an F-350, 76,805, and a Ford F600 for $68,873. I would imagine hopefully these were budgeted items. I hope it just wasn't the last minute thinking. All in all, the other items that I have are still out there waiting. I noticed that... Yellow paint has been taken care of around the school, around the curbing around here, and around town and everything else, but nothing has ever applied to putting the center line down the roads for where people can maybe see at night, maybe because it rained, you have a hard time seeing the middle of the road. I know you fixed a section up there on State Street, but that was under contract. So hopefully we'll get something done in that area. Thank you for your time.

Thank you for your comments. Does anyone else wish to make public comments at this time? Seeing none, we will move on to agenda item 11, staff and council member comments. We will start with our city administrator, Mr. Grant Littiken.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. First to address the issue with the skunks, the same laws that prohibit and limit the residents also prohibit us from relocating or eliminating skunks. We have to follow the same rules by IDNR and the Illinois Wildlife Law. And so we will work with St. Clair County who has the animal control unit for the county and see what can be done and pulled together. The additional limitations that the city will have that the residents don't have if they contract themselves is we're not allowed to go on private property without a homeowner's consent. So there would be some input sessions or some partnership that would need to be happened. But hopefully we can work on that in the future. Long list of things in the warrant. Again, they were read very well tonight, but for a few answers. Brewster is the contractor that's working on Pierce Boulevard and Pine Street, and so they're still busy working that. Dell is our computer and server service, and so these prices have drastically increased over the last year. And so we are trying to budget future years to catch up and not get hit with large influx and spikes on our server replacement program. And so why you saw some purchasing recently is because we're trying to capture some pricing before it's been projected to increase here in the next few months. The hotel rebate to Drury is the same as we have with other hotels in the area, where they charge a 1% additional hotel motel tax, and that was rebated to them. Those are funds they take for rentals of the room, and it was rebated directly back to them. Four Seasons is our concessions that we use at the sports park. Gonzales is currently working on our wastewater projections. Hanks, as mentioned, completed on the wood stream bypass project. The IDOT payment was our share of a CMAQ grant, which is a congestion mitigation air quality grant. That project was actually completed in 2019 on Green Mountain Central Park, and they were a little bit slow to tell us what we had to pay for it. So that's why that seven-year-old bill just got paid. The large payment to Illinois Environmental Protection Agency is our low-interest loan that we get to pay for the sewer plan upgrade that many of you remember we did a couple years ago. I believe that interest rate is less than 1% and so we typically use these to fund those large projects that are 10 plus million dollars. Oates has kicked off the downtown streetscaping project that goes on State Street from the Spur or from the railroad crossover to Seven Hills Road or Smiley. and then goes from North Lincoln all the way down South Lincoln at Highway 50. And so there'll be some public outreach sessions on that, some input provided. I know we've talked to the downtown district and some other people around town, and their input is provided and important on that. The amusement tax, what was seen is the Marcus Theater's amusement tax. They spent over $10 million remediating the mine subsidence underneath the movie theater. This is a partnership that the city worked on and was approved a couple months ago. So they charge 5% for extra on a movie ticket, and that is rebated directly back to them. As discussed in the committee meeting and council meeting when we approve this amusement tax, how the box office works is most of the money that somebody goes in and pays for a movie ticket actually goes to the studio that made the movie, not the movie theater. And so this was a way to help them recoup some of that 10 plus million dollars on that important minor mediation project. And then finally, with the Weber purchases for the roads, or for the vehicles, they were all budgeted, and especially one, which was the F-150, was an insurance claim that we had a totaled vehicle driven by our street superintendent. Insurance issued that that was totaled, and we were able to get that replaced all at the same time while we were at Weber.

That is it there. Okay. Thank you. Does anyone on the leadership team have any comments they would like to make? Okay. City Council?

I would just like to say that I appreciate the city staff a lot, all of them. Every time I have questions, the residents come and ask. I'm sure I'm not the only one. I can expect a response very quickly, even if it's on the weekend, and I'm just very appreciative of their work.

Thank you. Anyone else? Okay. Seeing none, we will move on to agenda item 12, which is reports. We'll start with 12.1, community development. Mr. Roach, please.

Yes, we met on August 10th. Those minutes are attached. We had one item to cover, and we had already taken care of that business. Next meeting is scheduled for this coming Monday, the 24th, generally at 6 o'clock, but check the website for any changes.

Okay, thank you. Agenda item 13, reports, public works. Mr. Rosenberg.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. We have not met since the last full city council meeting. Our next scheduled meeting is for next Monday, 7 o'clock, but times often change due to whichever meetings happen before us, so please check the website.

Okay, thank you. Agenda item 14, public safety. Mr. Blackburn. Thank you, Mayor.

We have not met since the last council meeting. Our next meeting is scheduled for September 14, 6.30 p.m.

Okay, thank you. Moving on to 15, 15.1. Mr. Vorce, please.

The minutes for our last meeting, August 10th, are attached. And our next meeting is scheduled for September 14th. Check the website for details.

Okay. Thank you. Agenda item 16 is finance administration. Mr. Parchment, please. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

We've not met since our last meeting. Our next meeting will be next week at 530 unless there are changes. We do have one item for approval, which would be the warrant approval. I'd like to make a motion to approve warrant number 589 in the amount of $2,804,243.84. Second, Roach. We have a motion and we have a second from Mr. Roach. Do we have any questions or comments?

Yes, Mr. Mayor. As an Ameren employee, I do consent to all the items listed with the exception of the payments on page two to Ameren. So for that reason, I will be abstaining from this vote.

Okay. Thank you for your comments. Anyone else? Roll call, please.

Boney.

Abstain.

Roach. Yes. Newcomb. Yes. Hudson. Yes. Blackburn. Yes. Vorce. Yes. Campbell. Yes. Perchman. Yes. Ford. Yes. Rosenberg. Affirmative. Mylar. Yes. Stoffel.

Yes.

Carney.

Yes.

Okay, thank you. Motion carries. We do not have executive session tonight, so we will move on to agenda item 18, adjournment. Can I get a motion for adjournment?

So moved. Second, Carney.

We have a motion and a second for Mr. Carney. All in favor?