Planning & Zoning / Properties & Recreation Committees - Regular Meeting

It's 7 o'clock.

I will open this meeting of Planning and Zoning. First up is approval of the Planning and Zoning meeting minutes from May 20th, 2026. So moved. Moved by Gatzke. Second. Second by Zimmerman. All in favor? Aye. All right. We do have one public participation. David Kiken.

I read an interesting article the other day and I just thought I'd share. The American Farmland Trust in cooperation with the National Resources Conservation Service released a comprehensive cost of community services study in October of 2025. Most localities continue carving up farmland into residential blocks as if it's a solution to everything. Desperate to maintain farmland as green space, the Piedmont Environmental Council undertook an exhaustive study to find out what taxable entities paid in relation to the government services they required. Amazingly, they found that farmland, even at its low tax rate, subsidized residential taxpayers. In other words, the cost of governing residential property exceeded the taxes received. The cost of governing agricultural land was substantially lower than the taxes generated. Agricultural land and commercial property was the goose laying the golden egg. Now a nationwide in-depth analysis arrives at an empirical comparison and it validates this fact. The most recent national compilation of local cost of community services studies, the cost of governance, confirms a national consistency. This is critical because local governments routinely do all they can do to encourage residential development. As it turns out, this is a vote-getting scheme more than a fiscally appropriate scheme. According to this report compiling 176 individual county assessments from around the United States, The median cost of community services for business and commercial properties is $0.30 on the dollar. This means business properties contribute $1 for every $0.30 of governance cost. Agriculture is $0.37. Again, agriculture's $1 in taxes requires only $0.37 in government costs. Are you ready for residential? It's the opposite of the other two, costing $1.16 for every dollar in taxes contributed. The lopsided tax bite is obvious. While each of these counties in the study had a different ratio, the overall message is clear. Agriculture and business subsidize residential development. One of the misconceptions this study brings to light is that residential development will lower property taxes by increasing the tax base. Although residential development may create more tax revenue than farmland, it's an economic loss to the government's balance sheet. The mantra of some on this board to add more rooftops is misguided. Our focus should be on commercial and business development, and it hasn't helped when 30-year tax abatements are made. Of the $22 million this board has spent over the last few years, only the revitalization of the downtown business area was visionary. Investing in our business base is investing in Manteno's future. All the fluff that we've spent money on, while very nice, was adding to the already costly cost of governance of our citizenry. I'm sorry. I just woke up.

Thank you, David. Yes, David. All right. This item might have stayed on unless we have any updates on the dog bags at the parks. We talked about this at the last committee meeting. Yes.

I know you were asking locations. I kind of confirmed with the guys. All over town. There's a dozen of them. Actually, I think there's a lot of them that need to be filled right now, but we go through bags quite a bit. I've got five of the doggie bag, grocery bag displays ready to go here.

Anything else, general discussion? I know Jim has something, but we can save it for the parks meeting if we want to. Good. We can motion to adjourn. I'll make a motion to adjourn.

Second.

All in favor? Aye.

All right, first thing on property rec is approval of the minutes from May 20th, 2026. Motion to approve them?

I'll second. Okay.

So motion by Zimbelman, second by Boudreau. All in favor? Aye. Okay, public participation, we've already addressed that. First item is Memorial Park. I asked this to be put on and I know that Peggy had given us the list and went through all of the items on the parks and it lists Memorial Park as being okay, everything's good. Jim, I drove past and took a look and honestly that park, I feel it's the center of our town It's all about respect there. I feel like we need to freshen up the pergolas. If you look at the paint on them, it's looking a little ratty. And honestly, with those being stones and stuff that have been sold to remember loved ones, I feel like if we let any place slide, that is the last place that should slide. So if we could, freshen that up, just get the guys out there, scrape it, paint it, the pergolas, there's some electric sign or electric board, you know what I'm talking about, right?

Yep, we got wood structures out there. I think that park also needs a heavy update of mulch. We tried using the rubber mulch over there. and it's dissipated away. And I know that's maintained by Scenic, does the landscaping over there. And he's been saying to me for the last year or so, hey, we need to mulch that up. So it's either we could try to do that in-house or I'd get a price from him to remulch that program.

I think that we pay them to do it just because, A, it's expertise. And again, I feel like that should be pristine. There should be nothing... No, nothing that anyone can nitpick on that place. Okay. So, um, anyone have any issues with that? Yeah. But I agree. Uh, Lucille, these park, a couple of things I have there. Um, one, and we talked about this last time, if you could freshen up our equipment, like the shuffleboard cues, get us some new, those get us, um, some pickleball paddles. I mean, so far, knock on wood, it's been a year and, Really. Minimal loss. Minimal loss, and it's getting used, which that's what we want, right? I mean, and our expense last year when we bought the stuff, it was minimal expense, right? It was $500 or $600.

I got volleyballs and...

a couple batch of bean bags i put an order already in once and i got the shuffle stuff coming okay later on this week good did you say the rental equipment is used or it isn't used one where people pay for it or this so no because remember last year we put in that little garage piece where we have all of our village equipment and all of our stuff is being used i think from the parking perspective, the rental thing, we got checked for five bucks or something. It's not very much. People are using our stuff and they're doing exactly what we wanted them to do. They use it, they put it back, and it's being used. It's working out.

Ours is free.

Ours is free. Why would they rent it out? That was kind of a response to that locker company. They didn't live up to what they said when they were first it, they were supposed to have the shuffleboard cues and everything, and they said they couldn't accommodate it.

Do we have a contract for that?

We do, and it's another year.

We kind of grew in that program a little bit, and we're like, well, okay, they can't do it. We ended up doing that garage, and we tried to back out, and they're like, well, we got you for five years at least.

I think it was a five-year deal.

Three to five, so we're on year two at least, if not, so...

Are we paying that company?

No. It's a shared rental program where every time it gets rented, we get a dollar or something, and they make four or five.

So when they see they're not making any money, they may want to pull it out.

You know what? I think it's also a little bit of their marketing plan is to say, hey, we've got spots here, there, everywhere. It's like the scooter rental programs. I would never rent one, but you see them in the downtown areas. People... I think I think there's two more two or three more left on it, but we tried to back out of it before but All right second thing the old tennis courts there the gate is

I don't know if you've been out there, Jim, but the latch is busted. At Thies? At Thies, yes, on the old tennis court portion. I put the latch, because it was laying on the ground, I put it inside the free rental place, so it should be on one of the shelves there. All it is is there's a screw that busted that needs to be replaced. Got it. Third thing for Thies is, Do we have any warranty on that coding or what is the lifespan supposed to be of that coding on the pickleball courts? I noticed some spots that I see that I don't want to, it's premature, but it looks like it might start to fail. It's splitting. Um, and if it, if we've got something under warranty, I'd like to get that repaired under warranty.

We have repairs done within the first year out there. I don't think there's much more. I will double check with Bruce. Okay. Anything outside and everything on top of something else, we are not the spot for that to succeed. Florida, it'll never move here. You get the freeze-thaw.

If you can, take a look at it and then see if there's a maintenance program that we're supposed to do because it's easier to maintain it than it is to replace it.

We patched the area.

I'll have to check, but we did budget money for Maintenance of the paths, yes.

We probably should get, if the money is in the budget, if we can get RFP to put together and let's do what our budget is and start with the oldest.

I can't remember if that was rough. We estimated that was like a mile, mile and a half, we thought, possibly.

I think a quarter of a mile.

Maybe it was half a mile, yeah, 50,000. We have, like you said, eight miles of paths, something like that? Seven to eight miles of paths? Yes.

Okay. So if you could get that for an RFP as well, because we'd like to try to do that while the weather's good, but I don't know if that goes hand-in-hand with any of your MFT work, if it's the same sort of company that would do it.

They can do that through. I think they went back and forth a little bit. I'll confirm with Bruce.

We obviously cannot use MFT funds for this.

I think we can, but I think a lot of it's already spoken for for this year just based on what we got.

Which is fine. Which is fine, but in the future, we may want to consider using some of that.

Pretty sure Bruce said that it can. think there's a little gray area on how you it had to be like something like close to the road it had to be like like it was a very strict parts yeah do crossroads at points so it would be if we're resealing any roads and we did pass along with it is where i think you could try to tie that in so

Okay. And then before I hit general discussion, Jim, you gave us all some photos. This got discussed in the last committee meeting about the pavilion and finishing out if we wanted to do wainscoting underneath it. So the one is Lucille Thies on the right. The other one looks like it's our legacy park, how we're doing it.

Correct.

Um, and if you see out at square and second, you've got the big pylons that are there that are elevated. And we talked about doing something to kind of wrap that up. And I think the general consensus was we didn't want to do Wayne's coding at this time on the bathroom, but we had to do something around the posts. Um, safety hazard, correct? Yeah.

I mean, it's, it's just in case the post is right there, but it's definitely there. So it's, it's something that needs to be done.

Okay. And so would you...

The one on the left, Legacy Park one, probably the more expensive of the two, probably $600,000 to $700,000. The other one would be $400,000 to $500,000 in costs and materials.

For all of them or just per post? Per post.

Eight total, so looking anywhere from $3,000 to $6,000, I guess, would be the cost.

What's the flavor for everyone?

I like the one at Thies. I don't know. I just think it looks kind of cleaner. I know it's cheaper, but we kind of know what it looks like.

Labor-wise, the one on the right, the Thies one, would be a lot easier. We could do both in-house, but the one on the right would be...

I think it looks clean. The Spirit is keeping it most cost-effective. You have a better eye for things that aesthetically look, so I would say...

I think I have enough blocks to do... We can talk about this Monday, too, so the rest of the board can decide on that, but...

think i have blocks to do maybe one and a half of those uh i have more of the toppers just because we ordered we ordered pallets to do the last one and this one you would do this in-house oh yeah yeah so do we do we even need to vote on this will this will this fall no we could we could discuss it but if you want to move i'm just saying like to get their opinion if they all say you know what we want the left one even though well peggy peggy was here at the last committee meeting And so was Todd. Mike wasn't, but I mean, we have to give him directions this week. I think the right one's fine. I think it's a cheaper option too. So I don't see why that we shouldn't go with that one then. Yeah. So let's go ahead with the one on the, on the right. And we'll bring these two for everyone to see on Monday, just this way. There's no surprises for anyone, but if you want to get that materials going, General discussion, anything anyone wants to bring something up?

I received a certified letter this week from, um, Illinois Department of Labor OSHA. Jim, do you want to tell us what happened over at the square on the pavilion?

Yeah, we had an OSHA stop. Um, two violations, one incorrect use of a ladder and lack of fall protection. Um, if we had a guy technically on the ridge being a safety monitor, making sure the guys were aware of where the edge of the roof was, we'd be in compliance. So it was debatable cause it's under a four 12 pitch roof that you don't need fall protection. Um, but yeah, we were given a, verbal citation on making sure that we do that. So we got the gear, just had to make sure we were using it. My argument was low pitch roof. I was the one on the ladder, so I was technically the one in violation on the ladder at the bottom of the roof line. So I was kind of keeping the guys far off the edge. And here we are.

So the administrator and I discussed this briefly yesterday that we had to correct the violation and Chris, it says that they want appropriate evidence of repair or corrective action. So you can take care of that.

Yeah. I've already sent in the information and actually we're just about due for our Retraining on fall protection aerial equipment. So we've hired a company out and they're coming out in the next month here to do that So yeah, we're make sure this did get mailed in or it's getting mailed in.

Yeah, I already We've got a document though that we've got to fill out and turn gotcha.

Okay.

I've got it in my office. I

Jim, how often have, we didn't get a fine, we just got a warning, basically? Yep. How many citations have we received from OSHA over the last 10 years?

None, and the OSHA inspector was floored to find out when he did the deep dive search that we've had zero incidents, and he was actually really impressed, and he even did a quick walk through our shop and said, you guys are doing a great job, just, you know,

don't make mistakes like that so just so public's paying again we think public pays closer attention than maybe what they do but if you were following osha rules basically you'd be sitting watching employees work and it's kind of a double-edged sword right because if you're following the osha rules and i'm not saying we shouldn't follow yeah but general public would see jim as sitting there drinking coffee and watching guys work and what are we wasting our money on you doing and instead you were actually out there trying to help the guys and move things along and no good deed goes unpunished is kind of my impression of.

Yeah, and there's gray areas with all OSHA code too because When you're putting the ridge cap on, you can't have fall protection because there's nothing to mount fall protection to. So technically, at that instance, you're unprotected. And then when you are initially putting the fall protection on, you're not protected by fall protection. So it's, there's understandings to these moments, and it's a, you know, we were in violation, I'm not arguing that, but there's.

And we don't want to promote that, but I guess for people watching, I want everyone to kind of put themselves in the situation that get stuck in traffic and there's a flagger that's holding that flag and you're running late and you're mad because that person's getting paid $50 an hour to stand there with a flag telling you to go slow, well, that's kind of an OSHA rule, kind of the same sort of thing that you have. And it's easy to stub your toe, if you will, and considering as though we haven't had any OSHA violations in the last 10 years, I think our track record's pretty good.

I do want to tell you that in my letter it does say that the violation was considered serious. And it says, each employee who is constructing a leading edge six feet or more above lower levels shall be protected from falling by guardrail systems, safety net systems, or personal fall or rest systems. And the exception is when the employer can demonstrate that it is infeasible or creates a greater hazard to use these systems the employer shall develop and implement a fall protection plan which meets the requirements. So we don't want anybody to get hurt, for sure. Thank you for taking care of that.

Yes, sorry. I wanted to make sure that you guys were all aware there was an email sent out to you all last week about Heroes Hogs and Hot Rods, so I just wanted to recap what this weekend's going to look like in downtown. The event is going to be on Sunday. It starts at noon and ends at 8 p.m., but there's going to be some setup during Friday and Saturday, so I wanted to make you aware. On Friday afternoon, we're going to be having stages, the tents, bathrooms, and hand-washing stations, being delivered. And then on Saturday, across from Clancy Funeral Home, the barbecue competition would like to start setting up their grills. So they're going to be starting to set up that at 4 p.m. on Saturday. The road closure request, we did provide a map, and we indicated where the road closures were going to need to be at. I know we already spoke to you about that, Jim. So just making you all aware, that email was sent out to you all. I did receive confirmation back from CJ and Peggy saying that everything will be okay. I brought that up to the committee. They're going to move forward with that. If anyone has any objections, just let me know.

I think that most of us probably didn't respond just because we get too many responses. All of a sudden, it becomes a gray area of the Open Meetings Act. Did anyone have any issues with them setting up?

I did respond to Eric.

I think all of us are in favor of it. I know I spoke to you in person. Think you have a hundred percent board support there wonderful.

Thank you So we will see everyone on Sunday and Thank You mayor and Peggy for being our barbecue Competition taste testers.

Do you need anybody else because maybe some of the other trustees are interested I will find out for you and I'll include them in the email.

Thank you Anything else any other general discussion comments questions Seeing none I'll take a motion to adjourn Like that motion?

I'll second.

Motion by Boudreaux, second by Zimelman. All in favor?

Aye.

That was easy.