City Council - Regular Meeting

And you came back.

2026 meeting of the Danville City Council. Roll call to establish a quorum please.

Alderman Ed Butler.

Present.

Mayor Ricky Williams Jr. Present. Alderman Carolyn DeToy. Present. James Pashard.

Present.

Tom Hightower.

Here.

Barry Johnson. Present. Mike O'Kane.

Here.

Mike Poore. Present. Rick Strebing. Sherry Pickering. Here. Tricia Teague.

Present.

Eve Ludwig. Present. Jaleel Jones. Doug Ahrens. Present. John Cooper. Here. 12 present.

12 Pleasant, Madam Clerk, please let the record reflect that Alderman Strebing and Alderman Jones are out due to family commitments this evening. At this time, we will have the invocation led by Pastor Tom Myers of Crusaders Church, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance led by Alderman Teague. Please rise.

Let me begin with just a little scripture to guide us along the way here. This is from the Apostle Paul and he said this, Therefore I exhort you first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men. For kings and all who are in authority that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of truth. So let's pray. Heavenly Father, we seek your guidance for each one of these men and women before you this evening. We ask you to direct our hearts, our minds, and also speech and our actions in all matters. so that whatever is done draws your praise. And may it all be done right in thy sight. Don't let us be misguided by basing our decisions on what is most expedient or pleasing in the moment or financially profitable. because that is so many times humanly destructive. But help us see the lives and the families behind every decision, not the dollars and the cents of revenue. Lord, shape our future direction for our community and shape it away from any misguided decisions. Even those of the past that may have slowly led us to the problems we end up facing today. So reshape. Remold us. And do it according to your will. We appeal to you, our God, who has made this promise. If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways then I will hear from heaven and forgive their sin and will heal their land. Amen.

I pledge allegiance to the Father,

Thank you, Alderman Teague. Pastor, we'd love to hear about anything about the church you'd like to share with us.

Well, I want to begin by thanking you so much for beginning this meeting with an invocation. which means to call for help or support, guidance, and blessing. And I'm so glad that you did that. I think of the Apostle Paul and the statements that he made. You know, he got to speak. He even had a governor call him and say, I want you to tell me more about the Word of God. Of course, he was in front of a lot of councils and councils. well we don't want to talk about those things but you know you know he he said we're supposed to pray for those who are in authority and and we need to remember that as citizens every one of us now this Sunday there'll be a special sermon talking about Danville City Council you're all invited I don't want you to worry. Not that kind of sermon. You don't have to be afraid. You know, it's really a good thing for me to be here. I remember the first time I came. I learned a whole lot. I've even applied some of what I learned in this council meeting. I learned a little bit about how things run. And the last time you talked about trees and deciding right of way and stuff, and all of that, that's knowledge that as citizens we really need. It's practical. But I also got a chance to see your faces. I do want to say that it disappoints me that the school district does a video with sound not just sound and I think that you guys deserve a video so that the community can see your august personage and your smiling faces so if that ever comes up for a vote I'm voting for it. I love your smiling faces. It's going to be good news when I talk about the City Council. Good news, you know, that's literally a Greek word that means the gospel. And whenever the gospel is used in the New Testament, that really is good news. And one part of the good news that I have for you is that, as I mentioned earlier, we are admonished to pray and intercede for each of you.

That's our obligation.

But it's also our privilege. So God expects us to be privileged. And then Paul, who said that, goes on and says every person is to be subject to the governing authorities. Now, isn't that good news? Amen.

Amen, bro.

Amen. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God. Therefore, whoever resists authority has opposed the authority of God, and those who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves. For rulers are not a cause for fear or good behavior. but for evil. Do you want to have no fear of authority, Paul says? Then do what is good, and you will have praise from the same. So, that's really good news, but it's a double-edged sword. because it requires citizens to be subject to authority, but it lays upon authorities the responsibility to promote good behavior and to oppose evil. So, authorities and subjects alike must recognize that our primary concern is the condemnation or praise from God. That's our concern. So the bottom line is that we are all ultimately subject to the authority of God. And that is why we should all be praying about. So Mayor Williams and members of the council and all those elected and appointed city officials and all those who serve this community, I want you to know that we'll keep praying for you and we'll give thanks to God for your service. So God bless every one of you. Amen. Thank you, Pastor Myers. Amen.

You have before you the minutes of September 1st, 2026 meeting. Is there a motion to approve those?

So moved. Second.

It's been moved and seconded. Is there any discussion or debate? All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Same sign. Thank you very much. You also have an agenda for this evening. Is there a motion to approve the agenda? So moved.

Second.

It's been moved and seconded. Is there any discussion or debate? All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed, same sign. Thank you very much. As far as my report goes, I do not have any proclamations this evening. Are there any board, committee, or personnel appointments? There are no board, committee, or personnel appointments. Are there any reports of boards, agencies, or commissions this evening? Seeing none, a couple of items of information. I just want to thank and congratulate administrator of Pierce and her team on an outstanding effort that they did with the Labor Day. Having to do that so quickly behind the first Friday and so many other events that we have coming up, I just was really proud. For those of you who don't know, national organizations have been forcing consolidation. So, for example, the AFL-CIO in Danville, which has run the Labor Day parade for so long, was forced into a combination with champagne. Well, when we talked to the champagne folks, they said, we're going to concentrate on our parade. And we said, we can't let this not happen here in Danville, especially with it being our 90th anniversary. So I just want to appreciate, I really appreciate you and your team for stepping up. Thank you to everyone who participated in the parade. It was our first time, so we're still learning. There were a few little kinks, but I think overall it was a great day for Danville. So just, Administrator, thank you and congratulations to you and your team. We also had a great time at the First Friday event, and just want to remind everyone, every First Friday from usually around 5 to 8 o'clock, we have something that's free or low-cost downtown for everyone to come and enjoy. So please come out and join us. This next month, we have a progressive dinner, I believe. You do need to register for that one ahead of time, and there is a little bit of cost, but it's going to be a good evening with food, with meals, and entertainment at different places around downtown. Madam Clerk, at this time, do we have any petitions? Also, I'm sorry, I forgot, we also dedicated Garfield Park yesterday, and that was a great day, a long time coming. It was so wonderful to see so many of you out there and see so many kids enjoying the park. I mean, there were probably a couple hundred kids there enjoying themselves and families, so I want to thank again Public works and for all their efforts and leadership there I did forget one person that I should have mentioned expressly and that was Kaylee Sanchez our grants administrator She went back and forth and got us a heck of a deal on the playground equipment. So really appreciate her leadership there Madam clerk at this time. Do we have any petitions communications and audience comments?

We do When I call your name, please come to the podium. You'll have three minutes to speak We have pastor Ken McCrae

good evening everyone to the mayor and all the city council i'm standing to share with you it has been placed upon my heart to initiate in collaboration with others a meritorial reform is going to be launched on november the 5th at 6 p.m at the fisher theater I've spoken to each one of the current candidates that's running, minus one, and each one has consented to participate. After October the 21st, we'll know exactly who's present and who to work with in regards to this meritorial forum. Some people call it a debate. I do my level best to stay away from that. We're going to operate by the Marcus of Queenberry rules. No rabbit punching, no hitting below the bell. It's going to be done with decorum, professionalism. and it's going to be monitored properly we're going to give space for the council and other city officials to suggest some questions that will be posed to the meritorial candidates it also will be given a space in a room for the community the citizens to generate some questions which will be vetted prior to being used we are hoping that Chief Yates would have some muscle present in case somebody gets out of hand. That was meant to be funny. In any case, we have spoken to some individuals and asked their participation, and they have consented to do so. Again, I just want to reiterate, it will be done with professionalism. It will be done with decorum, and it's an opportunity for the candidates to present their forum and present their vision so that we'll be able to make an intelligent decision about who's best suited to sit in that seat and then move it away from personality driven to performance driven so i will field any questions that anyone has in regards to that i'm trusting that there will be participation and presence by everyone that is here so that we can make sure that it's done and executed with excellence i'll field any questions that anybody has

Thank you, Pastor McKay. I'm sorry? Date and time?

November the 5th at 6 PM at the Fisher Theater.

Thank you, Pastor McKay.

Kendra Tillotson.

Hello, everybody.

My name is Kendra Tiltz and I'm the board president of downtown Danville incorporated which is our special service district for downtown Downtown Danville Incorporated supports the purchase of the property located at 33 Hazel Street to help address the need for additional parking in the downtown district. This acquisition would support continued downtown development by improving parking accessibility for businesses, residents, and visitors and community events. As downtown Danville continues to grow and attract new business investment, events, and visitors, adequate and accessible parking is essential to sustain that momentum. DDI believes that the property can provide a valuable long-term asset that strengthens the continued economic growth of downtown Danville. Thank you, sir. Thank you.

PJ Bourne.

Good evening again. My name is PJ, as you've spoken of. And I'd like to present to the city council and our mayor some signatures which has been noted according to the regulations of 157.04, which talks about changing the name of the street. In 1 and 2, it says, the applicant shall present a petition signed by 66% of the owners of the property which abuts the street segment in question, and the signature shall be verified. So I'd like to present those signatures to the county. to the city clerk actually, to our mayor, and let you all look at them and verify them. There are 80 of them here, and I will get the other 200 or more so that you all can look at them. I have been coming to the city council for almost two years, And apparently, I don't know if we have a deaf spirit in the atmosphere or what, but according to the regulation 157.04, the name change of the street should be no problem. As I have said for almost two years, and I will continue to say, there is no one on the street but me. I am on a dead-end cul-de-sac. I own that area. My house is the only one there. And I've also looked around and for the last, I believe it's the 10 mile radiance, there are other houses on the same area who also have their name as well, Mayor. And so I am again, and I will continue to come until this is complete. There is no reason whatsoever that would hinder me from having my street change. And so I will continue to bring that to the city council and to our mayor. And I would like the record to show that I'm going to pass out 80 signatures from the city of Danville. And I have more than that on the change.org that will also present to the city of Danville. so that we can get this clear, and that we will remove all discrimination, all biases, all prejudice, and we'll do just like the pastor just prayed, that we'll continue to do the right thing for the right people, because we are a city that should not be divided. As I said before, and I will continue to say, there should not be a white Danville, and there should not be a black Danville, it should just be a Danville, where we all created equal, as we have all spoken and have the prayers gone forth, We also sit here and we shake our heads, and that's true. But let us be about it. Let's be sincere. Let's be real. Let's be genuine. Let's not pretend like we're something that we're not. But let's treat each other correctly and right. Let's treat each other like Jesus wanted us to be treated, like we belong, like we're loved, like we say, like we pray. And let's work together, and let's get this together. I see nothing wrong with my street being changed since I'm the only one there. And if you did it for Dr. Harding, you can do it for me. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Mrs. Bourne.

Sorry, Brenda Brown.

Good evening again to the mayor, the council, and our corporation council. Again, I am here speaking on regards to the council considering to change the treasurer's position from elected to appointed. I beg and I plead you again to leave this as an elected position. as we all know and you've heard me speak and you all have read consent decree and all that went in with it we've talked about the seven plaintiffs we've even mentioned that one of the plaintiffs would be willing to come to speak none of this has come forth as far as that invitation but i'd like to say that remember this wasn't just about but you're making a change in a position for the treasurer because we see, we have different opinions on that. But it was for equality for the city council. That included ethnicity, races, gender. Again, we have now sitting, we have women, and I've said, because of this consent decree. We have African Americans, I don't know if we have any Hispanic or other races here that have sat on the council, but I do know that we need to recognize what this was set forth for and not just pick and choose what we want for our own selfish reasons or veins or or whatever reason you have to change this position of the treasure from appointed from elected to appointed it has served our city all these years since 1987 And I do recognize you had one issue, but now we have a treasurer that's there and doing a great job. And I believe if we continue with an elected treasurer, we'll continue to do well. And so I beg of you, remember that as we set our pledge of allegiance, liberty and justice for all. And that includes all of us, regardless of our race, our religion, color of our skin where we live and I think we need to put this on the back burner and consider what this consent decree was set forth when this change of government came forth and that the treasurer's position is included as an elected says the mayor and the treasurer let's leave this alone I beg you and I plead, let's leave it alone. Don't go through having to do a lot of changing referendum. It's working for us. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Mrs. Brown.

Karen Schult.

My name is Karen Schilt. I've been here before. Good evening to the mayor and all the persons this evening. I want to ask you to consider doing more for the homeless in Danville. There are now 70,000 people in 200 concentration camps in this country. Most are not criminals and they were not here illegally until our government changed the rules. Last time this old white lady was here, I brought a similar concern and you said I had nothing to worry about. Well, I haven't been kidnapped, but my heart breaks and I am sick with the brutality and cruelty of those

who are kidnapping people.

I'm sick when I read of children appearing in court with no parent or advocate and when everyone in those detention camps are suffering from filth, dirty water, contaminated food, no health care. and torture. People are dying and these are people with families and friends and attorneys who can advocate for them. If the homeless are snatched up, there is often no one to advocate for them. We already have no due process in those camps which are privately run. What do you think will happen to those people? The Ewings are doing a great job at Danville, as much as they can, but a bed is not enough. We need addiction and mental health services. We need safety and food, education. We have the experts. I've heard them right here in this room. No, I am not safe, and neither are you. Government rhetoric right now includes incarcerating or deporting domestic terrorists. That's anybody who is against the government or speaks negatively, or socialist, or communist, whatever. Censorship is real, and it is here. And if everyone is not safe, no one is safe. We elected you all to take care of all the people of Danville, even the ones who are unkempt, look a little weird, act a little weird, and make a mess living in the rough. They are our citizens also. Thank you.

Thank you, Mrs. Schultz.

That's all I have, Mayor.

Is there anyone else who wishes to address the council? We do not have any zoning petitions this evening. However, you do have before you the payrolls of September 4th and September 11th. Is there a motion to approve those?

So moved.

Second. It's been moved and seconded. Is there any discussion or debate? Roll call vote, please.

Alderman Arns.

Yes.

Cooper. Yes. Butler. Yes. Detoy. Yes. Pichard. Yes. Hightower.

Yes.

Johnson. Yes. O'Kane. Yes. Poore. Yes. Pickering. Yes. Teague. Yes. Ludwig. Yes. 12 yes.

12 yes. The motion carries. You also have before you the vouchers payable for September 8th and 15th of 2026. Is there a motion to approve those?

So moved. Second.

It's been moved and seconded. Is there any discussion or debate?

Yes, Alderman T. I have a question about item number 103 on the September 15th vouchers. I think that's page three. It was for fire department lawn mowers. And so I'm curious as to why the fire department would need lawn mowers and not public works.

Yeah, the fire department does mow its own grass and takes care of its stations in general, do our own cleaning and everything like that.

Okay, so Public Works has never taken care of fire?

I don't know about never, but not in recent history, yeah.

Okay, thank you.

Any further discussion or debate? Roll call vote, please.

Alderman Cooper? Yes. Butler? Yes. DeToy. Yes. Pichard. Yes. Hightower. Yes. Johnson. Yes. O'Kane. Yes. Poore. Yes. Pickering. Yes. Teague.

Yes.

Ludwig. Yes. Arntz. Yes. 12 yes.

12 yes. The motion carries. At this time, I'll receive our Public Works Committee report. Chairman Poore.

Thank you, Mayor. 11A is an ordinance approving the acquisition of real estate at 1703 East 4 East for economic development. Member Spencer Reed, I ask for your approval. I need a second. Second. Alderman Cooper.

I guess I should go to Logan. Solar panels and back. I assume we're taking them with us. Yes, that's correct. And what's the plan for them?

Yeah, so in front of you I've placed a handout that provides a brief summary of all the information that we are able to obtain by either PepsiCo or Ameren and a little bit of pro bono help from third party consultants. And essentially what I wanted to show here was what the current market rate for on peak hours or while the sun is shining, because there is a different rate for that for when it's dark out, which it's substantially higher. And I wanted to kind of reflect the revenue versus liabilities. And essentially, we came up with a really conservative number of an estimated annual revenue based on current rates and power production from the panels. And that's 85%, so very conservative. That's roughly $94,000 annually. And we're expecting 28 more years of life expectancy out of these panels. What we understand in terms of liabilities is there's inverters on site. Probably I'll give you a we don't exactly know the exact number because they won't. We can't get on the property to assess them at this time. 15 to 30 inverters roughly at $10,000 replacement every 10 to 12 years. So that is about the only liability that comes with these solar sites other than if a panel gets damaged randomly. Other than that, we're projecting roughly, over the life of the panels, $2.6 million of revenue generated, not subtracting out any maintenance expenses.

So are we putting that in a special fund, or what are we doing with it?

Yeah, the next Public Works and City Council meeting next month, we will have a fund to have this allocated to for longstanding maintenance.

Has anybody been biting on this property?

um we actually have received a big helping hand from norfolk southern since there is a rail leg on this property and they are going to assist us on nationally marketing this we have one major obstacle to overcome first which we believe there is a revenue source coming which is the flood plain that splits the heat craft and quaker site

A couple questions, follow-up. I did speak with Mr. Kronk regarding some of the other questions. Regarding these particular panels, are they currently hooked up to the grid and are they producing for the grid?

Yes, it is our intent come property closing that the account will just get flipped over to the city of Danville and it will be producing income.

Okay, so Ameren is satisfied or has approved any switchgear, any controls?

Yeah, the switchgear is on site and we had a big meeting with them and they feel comfortable with that. Okay.

And then second question follow-up would be, is there an estimate for what it will cost to remove and dispose of the solar panels at the end of their life?

Yeah, that was where the pro bono work from the third party came in. The decommissioning at current rates could roughly be anywhere between $300,000 to half a million dollars.

Thank you.

Alderman Deak. The contract referred to environmental testing reports. So have there been any reports provided or requested concerning the soil and particularly in the spot where the solar panels are? Yeah.

um so yes the city of danville performed their own in-house phase one environmental study on this property no soil borings were completed we do oftentimes take the guidance of that phase one report from the consultant to assess a threat level they never will say there's no no threat of environmental contamination but there wasn't a lot of concern they understand there was a manufacturing company here and they identified that Other than going out and truly spending six figures and drilling, you know every 10-15 feet The unknown is there but it is our intent to make this more marketable Once acquired to do a limited base soil boring essentially so it's It's responsible taxpayer dollars, but it should paint a whole picture of what the soil types are like. But our consultant, while they can't guarantee there is no contamination, they had a high confidence level that there wouldn't be.

Percentage high if there was one provided. Yeah And if there is contamination on the site what would be the estimated cost of remediation

Yeah. While I'm no expert, my roughly seven years of experience doing this, it's got to be truly specific on the hot spots on site. So it depends on what materials or solvents, so how it gravitates around the site, et cetera. So I can't give you an answer on the magnitude of cost without knowing exactly what it is and essentially how far what it may be sprawls throughout the site.

The reason why I ask those specific questions is because I have had anecdotal conversations from former employees pertaining to the possibility of dumping in the site where the solar panels have been placed. Ah. So the comments that were made to me was, well, of course Quaker wants the city to take the site for $500 because then the remediation responsibility then becomes the city's. And so that is the reason behind my line of questioning. Obviously, no one has provided me with evidence of anything, you know, that occurred. But like I said, it was anecdotal, and they were former employees who brought this to my attention.

Yeah. Just to follow up to that. It's obviously in my mind that that is a hopefully minute possibility. But like we're dealing with the floodplain, if something is identified, we will obviously be very aggressive at trying to seek funding to be aggressive at remediation for that.

And I know that in the past we have received brownfield remediation grants like we did for the corner of Fairchild and Vermillion. So I imagine that if there are opportunities, we will go after those as well. But obviously having that cost and having that potential issue does present some additional challenges beyond just the floodplain.

For sure.

Aubrey Johnson.

Just for a point of clarification so that we on the committee and the audience that are listening either here or on the waves know exactly where 1703 Voorhees is so you can understand the specific site we're talking about, please.

Yeah, this is the former PepsiCo or Quaker site on East Voorhees Street. It's roughly 45 to 50 acres.

This is something that we've been working towards for a couple of years now. One of the biggest issues we have in the city of Danville outside of state regulations that make business sometimes prohibitive here when we're competing with neighboring states particularly is us having either the space or the utilities. We either have the land but not the utilities, and utility companies usually won't spend tens or hundreds of millions of dollars on speculation. We might get something there eventually, right? Or we have utilities but we don't have enough land. You know, most of the places, logistics and manufacturing that are building places are looking for 50-plus acres, right? So the good news about this is that we already own the former heat craft site next door. With the addition of this property, that would give us almost 100 acres. of land that has all the utilities right there. It has also a railroad spur, which is why the railroad is interested in working with us, as well as a solar installation, which would make this highly marketable. Not only that, but the state of Illinois is actually working with us to market this site as well. My recommendation and my thought is that this is one of our greatest prospects for economic development in the community of Danville. And it's already a place where there's been manufacturing for a long time, so it wouldn't interfere with the people or the neighborhoods in any way. So it's my hope that we can make this possible.

All right. I see no more. Roll call on 11A, please.

Alderman Butler?

Yes.

Detoy? Yes. Pichard? Yes. Hightower? Yes. Johnson? Yes. O'Kane? Yes. Poore? Yes. Teague? Yes. Pickering? Yes. Ludwig? Yes. Arns?

Yes.

Cooper?

Yes.

12 yes.

12 yes, thank you. 11b is an ordinance approving the purchase of real estate at 33 Hazel for community improvement and amending the budget for fund 122 for fiscal year 26-27. Move to Spencer Reed and ask for your approval and need a second.

Second.

Questions? Alderman Arns.

A couple of questions. Regarding the TIF fund, what is our balance in the reserves? We're pulling $50,000 out of reserves.

Yeah. If you have other questions, I would – Yeah, if we have other questions, I'd like to get an exact number for you. I would ask for the comptroller to please pull that up for us. I could give you a ballpark, but I want to be exact. All right.

And for clarification, this is an empty parking lot, if I'm correct, at the southeast corner of North Street and Walnut, or Hazel. Hazel. Yeah.

Figure out where. $431,000.

OK. And recognizing that we have some large structures, as we talked about at the last meeting, to take down, if we were to move on those structures right now, would it be likely that it would take all of that to remove them? I would say that that's a safe bet. Yeah. Okay. How many buildings do we have downtown that are suffering detrimental damage due to the lack of roofs and lack of water protection from neighboring and adjoining structures?

Around five or six, I would say.

And so, you know, as I indicated at that meeting, I don't have a problem with if we want additional parking, let's look at additional parking. I question whether the need is there, considering we just gave up some on-street parking for other enhancements, which may be beneficial. But I have real concern that we have these buildings that are currently occupied that With conditions based on some of the conversations I've had with property owners and others, maybe they shouldn't be because they have black mold and some of the same experiences under the circumstances that we move people out of our own building for. And I don't feel it's responsible use of the dollars in the TIF to continue to buy more property that is not harming anyone right now, while we have roofs that are actively leaking with building owners that have either abandoned the buildings or are unwilling to apply for TIF grants and use those funds in the downtown area. So once again, I ask for what is our plan to tear down what, with what money, and who's going to put roofs on these buildings that the owners are refusing to do? You know, the city does have as a home rule authority and the mayor's office does have certain authorities to protect the public health and safety from these types of conditions. And that has been exercised in the past where someone has an awning getting ready to fall off, somebody has a side wall getting ready to fall off. There have been circumstances where the city had to step in, spend its money, place a lien on the property, and then pursue the lien. And I guess my question is, how long are we gonna let these roofs continue to destroy buildings next to them where some of these people have actually put new roofs on their own buildings trying to solve the problem? And so once again, we need a plan for how is that half a million dollars in reserve gonna be spent, and how's it gonna best benefit the people that have already invested their own personal dollars in their buildings downtown. They're now being harmed because we're not able to effectively require the building owners adjacent to them so my suggestion is is that we should have a plan if we don't think those buildings are salvageable they need to go now before they continue to damage their adjoining neighbors and i've seen no plan we've had not a thing presented to the council it was news to me that we had this many structures that are being damaged by their neighbors and they can't get a response, or at least a satisfactory one to this point. So I will be voting no on this, and I would encourage you to do the same until we all understand how much of a liability we have down there and what's gonna have to be torn down, and two, how can we get roofs on these to protect the people who have already made significant investments in their own property? And that's my position, thank you. I appreciate DDI supporting this, and I understand the purpose, and that's not a bad thing if we didn't have what I consider to be a much higher priority in damaging buildings of people that are trying to run businesses. Thank you.

Anyone else?

Mayor.

Yes. I understand Alderman Aron's concern, but I would put the question back. Most of these buildings have been empty for longer than this administration has been in place. And in fact, when others oversaw public works, these buildings were in similar or worse conditions. And in fact, we have torn down many of the buildings that were allowed to rot under the previous administration that we owned that were causing similar problems for decades. So what I would say is that we have taken a very aggressive stance in remediating the problems in downtown by getting rid of problematic buildings. However, as you well know, having overseen this for so long, $500,000 is not going to tear down even one of these buildings. So to suggest that all of a sudden that this $400,000 is a miracle cure, to fix a problem that's been ongoing since previous administration. And when Public Works oversaw it and was aware of these same problems in many of these same buildings, I think is a little bit misleading. But absolutely, we are going through the court process. We are prosecuting these folks where we can and getting the right to do something about the building so that we can move if we have to. And the emergency powers that you mentioned, it has to be an immediate threat to life or public safety. So the things that we have addressed have been immediate threats to life or safety. For example, over on Fowler Street, again, a long time, I mean, not Fowler Street, on Factory Street, a known problem that the previous administration knew of for decades. It took literally the building start crumbling into the street when I became aware of it and then we did something about it. We got rid of it. So what I would say is that this administration has taken a very aggressive approach to addressing this issue that was not addressed for many decades even though these conditions were known to exist.

Well, I think the relevant points here, Mayor, is that people want to look forward. We can go back and revisit what was done over the last 30 years, but that doesn't do us any good in this community for the existing conditions we have today. And while you like to continue to refer to a prior administration, I was not in charge of that administration. I was simply a worker like all of they are, and I had no authority to vote on anything. But most importantly, I think the distinction between this administration, if you want to go there, and those are is, they were never handed $25 million to use how they saw fit in their community. You chose to put $19 million into Garfield Park. I think five would have been adequate, maybe a little more. But we could have torn down every structure in this community that needs torn down with the balance of that. So let's focus on what we need to do going forward. Talking about what didn't get done before does not stop the water from leaking in on the neighbor's roofs. And so let's focus on where we need to go forward. And going forward means these things aren't going away. Yes, there's a lot of things. We can all sit and talk about what we wish we coulda, shoulda, and woulda done. Had we had $25 million, we didn't have those choices. We had council members like yourself that voted against every fee increase, regardless of what it was used for. And so what we're dealing with today is what we need to deal with today, and that is we have building owners in their downtown area, and we're waiting for the courts to solve the problem. And all the courts will do is require the owner to do it and if they choose not to do it they can still walk away that's why we're tearing everything down that's the way it is in america you can walk away from property but we need to decide which ones are salvageable which ones are not so as people are coming into the downtown area they're not buying a property that they find out next door well the city knows it's bad but they're not going to do anything about it so let's not go back and forth on that Let's figure out what is the plan for Danville, how are we gonna do for these structures, and how are we gonna stop these folks from being damaged from things that are going on today, not 10 years ago.

Thank you. I would also just add that $25 million, $19 million of ARPA was not spent in Garfield Park. You've forgotten about you all put together a master plan for stormwater management. We actually have completed seven of the 10 worst problems of stormwater management in there with ARPA money. We also bought new fire trucks. We also did a lot of other things in the community with that money, so let's just make sure that we're honest about what was used with that. Also, we need to make sure that we're honest about the fact that you know that when you demolish more than a certain number of properties and area, that there are additional criteria, additional steps that you have to take. And if you take those additional steps, then you have to spend much more money. So the cost of demolition, let's say we did exactly what you said and we demolished every bad structure in Danville, we would have paid three times more for each one of those structures to do it. So we would not have been able to get quite as far as you've supposed.

Okay, is this about the resolution? Yes, it is.

In my thinking about the resolution, I take the influence of DDI and their decision as a body to have the president come forth and provide their support for this very, very heavily, especially considering I know that some of the business owners who are directly impacted by some of the issues that are happening in adjoining businesses are also members and voting members or board members for DDI. I like to think the two things can be true at the same time. You can deal with the issues of problems that we have and also at the same time do the things that promote growth. The fact that DDI has come forth and said we support this because it's going to help grow downtown to me is a very strong influence on how I will vote on this. And I do take into consideration that we do have a number of buildings downtown that need to be demolished. And if DDI was opposed to this, then I would say that I would be opposed to this because the people who are on the board of DDI are also the people who are paying additional taxes for that special service area and how that money is being used. I do believe we have to address the buildings that need to be demolished. I would love to see a plan. I am in agreement on that because we've not really heard anything about the issues with the buildings downtown and whatnot. But that should not stop the growth that we need to have downtown, particularly because Our organization, DDI, has said that they want this. For that reason, I plan to vote yes, and it is heavily influenced by DDI's decision to support it.

All right. Just as a point of clarification, it's a parking lot today. Our plan is to keep it a parking lot. No change in status. No benefit that isn't there today. Thank you.

Well, it is a private parking lot today and it's actually closed off from parking. So I think the fact that the city is acquiring it actually gives us the opportunity to reopen it for parking because you cannot park on that lot today.

Alderman Teague, I also might add that one of the things DDI has asked for is additional parking. Our goal would be right now we have paid parking by the building owners in the, I can't remember, maybe it's the G lot, immediately behind, in between Vermillion Street and Hazel Street. so our goal is to move the paid parking out to this new lot that we're going to acquire and then to have free parking or you know available parking to the public right there joining the businesses in that first in that block also with a goal of using of having the food truck court there near nearby soon I think that will substantially bring additional folks downtown to park and they're going to need places so they can go and buy their food and enjoy the enjoy themselves

Follow-up question based on what you just said. Does that mean that we will have limitations on the timeframe for parking? Because one of the issues that we have downtown is that you can't be downtown for more than two hours without moving your car because you might get a ticket.

That's actually not an issue we have. We've, for over eight months now, temporarily suspended that, and we have not had any issues with it. DDI has been very appreciative.

So there is no more time limit for downtown?

It's temporarily suspended.

So then will it come back? Is the plan for it to come back at some point then? Because you can't say it's not an issue. There's not a plan for it to come back?

Not at this time.

So then all of the signs, have the signs been taken down?

They have not because it's been temporary. I have the authority to do so for a limited period of time. If we were to change that totally, I would need to bring it to you as a council.

How would this, okay. This is the first that I've heard of that because I know I've gotten tickets downtown previously and I've avoided parking in certain spots. As a matter of fact, I went to a meeting actually with DDI and parked far away because I thought I was going to get a ticket or I thought I was going to be there for more than two hours. So I walked further than I needed to and it wasn't that long ago, it was maybe a couple of months ago. So this is news to me and probably news to many of the citizens. So I feel like we can't say that we have a parking issue and then we're going to provide free parking, but it's not going to be free parking. And we might not make it free later, but it's free right now. I think we need to be able to say it's either going to be this or it's going to be that. If it's going to be paid, then it's going to be paid. And people should know that all the signage downtown says that that's what's required. If that's not the case, we could take the signs down. And then if we need to put it back, we can put them back later. But right now it's confusing. But that's neither here nor there as it relates to this. This is about... acquiring a lot to provide for parking that is sorely needed downtown and i think that the downtown businesses would love for us to be able to have the signage down because not having parking keeps people from coming downtown they had they had previously been in agreement with us that while we were doing a trial basis to see how it would impact traffic traffic patterns that we would leave them up in case it were to return so far we have not had any of that

But that was actually a mutual agreement with DDI.

That's understandable, but the DDI people aren't the people who are actually patronizing their businesses. So I think that those of us who actually want to come downtown and shop would love to be able to know that we won't have to worry about tickets or any of those things in order to patronize the businesses that are downtown.

okay roll call on 11b alderman detoy yes pichard yes hightower yeah johnson yes o'kane yes poore yes pickering yes teague yes ludwig yes arns no cooper yes butler yes 11, yes.

11, yes. Thank you. 11C is a resolution approving the change order to bid number 795, 2026 Cape Seal program. Moves Spencer Reed. And after your approval, I need a second.

Second.

Questions? Seeing none, roll call.

Alderman Prichard?

Yes.

Hightower? Yes. Johnson? Yes. O'Kane? Yes. Poore? Yes. Pickering? Yes. Teague? Yes. Ludwig? Yes. Arntz? Yes. Cooper? Yes. Butler? Yes. DeToy? Yes. 12 yes.

12 yes, thank you. 11D is a resolution awarding a contract for Phase 1 Preliminary Engineering Services for Seminary Street and Bowman Avenue VRU improvements and authorizing a budget amendment. Move to spend three and ask for your approval.

If I read the scope of work correctly is it stops at Bowman so the section of seminary from Bowman to Griffin will not be receiving a sidewalk as part of this I

Seminary from Bowman to Griffin. Yes. Yes, it's essentially seminary from Vermillion to the Bowman intersection, including improvements at the intersection itself.

Okay. So we're replacing existing with either a shared use or whatever is appropriate. Correct. But the section that's been talked about for a while that remains without a sidewalk, that's not part of this scope. Correct. Okay. Thank you.

Alderman Teague. I was reading the resolution, and I'm not sure if I understand it correctly or not, so I'm really asking questions for points of clarity. The grant covers the later phases, but does not cover phase one, and so this is for us to pay for phase one.

Correct.

Was this already budgeted or is this, are we moving money from some place in order to cover this expense?

Yes and no. We were carrying money in this budget. This is something, we were carrying $600,000 in there. Essentially predetermined for this. However, we got the grant award in recent years and this has come to fruition in the past year of We need to get phase one going to do this stuff. We have the six hundred thousand dollars sitting here unassigned currently It's 700 for phase one. So we're amending to pull out of reserves to fund the remainder Thank you.

That's exactly the clarity. I was looking for.

Thank you Other questions

Chairman, just for clarification, I've seen a lot of people misunderstand and focus on the wrong things. The great thing is, yes, we're going to be getting sidewalks so we can make sure that we keep our people safe when they're walking, kids getting to school, folks going to get their groceries, going to doctor's appointments. But the other important part is we're going to be able to redo the road. I, for many years, from the time I was 18 until a couple years ago, attended Community Church of God, and for a long time, that's on South Bowman across from Douglas Park. When you drive down there, it's like you're riding on a wooden roller coaster, right? When you're going up, it kind of just shakes you. Same thing we have on Seminary Street, right? And so this is actually going to allow us to reconstruct those roads as well. It's more than just sidewalks and safety for pedestrians. While that is important and we're thankful for it, it will also allow us to redo the roads in those areas, which I think is equally important for our citizens.

Okay. Roll call, please, on 11D.

Alderman Hightower? Yep. Johnson?

Yes.

O'Kane? Yes. Poore? Yes. Hickering? Yes. Teague?

Yes.

Ludwig? Yes. Arntz?

No.

Cooper? Yes. Butler? Yes. DeToy? Yes. Pichard?

Yes.

11 yes.

11 yes, thank you. 11 E is a resolution approving the purchase of a rear loader refuse truck for the city of Danville. Move to spend three and ask for approval. Need a second.

Second.

Questions?

Second.

No, questions.

Oh, sorry. I didn't hear anybody say it.

OK, say none. Roll call, please.

Alderman Johnson?

Yes.

O'Kane?

Yes.

Poore?

Yes.

Pickering? Yes. Teague?

Yes.

Ludwig? Yes. Ahrens?

Yes.

Cooper?

Yes.

Butler?

Yes.

Detoy? Yes. Pichard?

Yes.

Hightower? Yes. 12 yes.

12 yes, thank you. 11F is a resolution authorizing application to ITEP for funding design and construction development and construction of Bowman and Voorhees pedestrian accommodations. Move to spend three minutes for approval. Need a second.

Second. Questions?

Seeing none, roll call, please.

Alderman O'Kane?

Yes.

Kaur?

Yes.

Pickering? Yes. Teague?

Yes.

Ludwig? Yes. Arntz? Yes. Cooper? Yes. Butler? Yes. DeToy? Yes. Pichard?

Yes.

Hightower? Yes. Johnson?

Yes.

12 yes.

12 yes, thank you. Okay, 11G, a resolution authorizing application to ITEP for funding to perform phase one and two engineering services and right-of-way acquisition for the Kickapoo Rail Trail extension into Danville. Move to Spencer Reed and ask for your approval. I need a second.

Second.

Anybody, questions? Chairman? Yes. Oh, Alderman Arntz.

No question, just a comment. This is absolutely important to get done, and I'm glad to hear from all the parties that helped continue to nurture this project and get it in here. It has tremendous ability to help our heights as well as other parts of our central community, so getting that trail into Danville is critical going forward.

Yeah.

All right any other comments questions roll call please alderman Pickering yes Teague yes Ludwig yes Arntz yes Cooper yes Butler yes Dettoy yes Pichard yes Hightower yes Johnson yes O'Kane yes Poor yes 12 yes 11h item of information

Once we figure out the remote.

Yeah. Thank you for the reminder. Little update on an emergency we had at Milliken dry cleaner demolition and underground tank removal. We hired consultants to come in, remove the tanks on site in the last two weeks. I don't know if anybody drove by and saw them sitting out on ground. There was only supposed to be four tanks sitting on the ground, and if you drove by, there was a significant amount more than that. Four of them, four tanks were registered with the state fire marshal, and that is all we knew about. As the contractor started digging around the site, they doubled. and the amount of tanks that were underground. I laugh because it hurts. So I needed to let the city council know that essentially the original proposal I did not have to come to city council with which was $49,300 and it essentially doubled with the tanks that need to be removed and then the required excavation of the potentially contaminated soils around them. It's a part of the underground storage tank removal process. So I am informing the city council that unfortunately the increase of price was $45,615. The intent is to fund that through Midtown TIF, through property assembly, which fortunately that fund has an operating budget that has enough funds to cover this expense to get this ready and down the road. But yeah.

That is what I needed to inform the city council of tonight I just had a question regarding the Cape seal program if we had a date when they're gonna come back and do the repair work It's supposed to be I think it was two weeks from last time I talked to you so it's probably this week I'd have to follow up and check with our project manager.

Thank you

The Midtown TIF change, does that need to come back, come to us for a vote, or no?

I would seek to make sure with the Comptroller, but since it's an emergency, would it have to come back? Doesn't matter. Yes? Yeah, I'll bring it back.

Okay, so it'll come to, will it come to public services, or just as soon as you get it done? I'm just curious.

Yeah, I can bring it to public services, that's no problem.

Anyone else?

All right. Well, today I bring you some exciting information. So I've received a number of questions from a number of you about just how the demolition ranking process works and the process that we've put together over the past few years. So I just actually wanted to just really quickly run through. This is very short. I won't take much of your time, but also just wanted to make sure that everyone was informed and I was able to express this out loud to everybody on how we do things. So the focus of this presentation, just so we're clear, is once we have the legal ability to tear down a house, what happens? How does it get ranked? And what's our process there? So leading up to that is more through the legal process, but this is after that. And then just to be clear too, this is just a snapshot right now of where we're at. And we're working on taking a very holistic view of the entire demolition program that we run. And that was listed in our Public Works Top 10 within the business plan section. With that, you know, we want to just make sure that when we look holistically, we understand all of the assumptions that were taken in the past and where are we at now and where are we going in the future and where are the trends going. So all of that is being taken into consideration as we develop our business plan, but this is a snapshot of where we're at now and how we do that with our process. Basically, the goals that we started with the ranking process is making sure that we have an objective and transparent decision-making process. We want to have that mindset of what we do for one, we're willing to do for all, and we want to be fair across the board. So we want to take a look at things through that type of a lens. And then we also want to make sure that, hey, we get the biggest bang for our buck. We want to focus the limited resources on greatest impact. And then prioritizing public safety, and then supporting neighborhood stabilization and reinvestment, you'll see one of our ranking criteria is focused on the stabilization of healthy neighborhoods, and, and trying to make sure that we are adding that into the way as well. And then just aligning with redevelopment goals, which we'll get into here in a second. All right. So when our properties out to the list, this is just OK. This is how they they get put on the list. Either the city acquires the property or court demolition orders, dangerous building determinations, owner consent with legal authority. Those are those are a few avenues that things can get added to the list. And those are case by case basis most of the time. And So let's see. The biggest thing I wanted to note on this, if there is concern over where we're at on a property, I know that this is discussed pretty regularly. I get calls quite a bit. I know Council Parker does as well. Please continue to reach out, let us know, and we can let you know if a property has made it to the list, if we're in process on something. We're always able to answer those questions. Okay, so the scoring philosophy, and these are a lot of what we talked about earlier, but when we were putting this together, a biggest thing that we wanted to talk about on this slide is I wanted to talk about the fact that we want to make sure that we are taking into consideration what the impact is of a demolition of a property, not necessarily the time on the list. uh i know that uh it may it may seem logical at first to just hey in the order they come in is the order we demolish them but that could also push some really really important properties to get out of the uh get get demolished um push those pretty far down the list so uh All right, so our evaluation and scoring categories. These are the categories that we use and we score by. And you'll see the scoring matrix on the next slide. But we first look at safety risk. What is the risk to residents, people in the area? I always think of kids playing in the neighborhood and wanting to make sure things are safe. And then the neighborhood stabilization impact. That's what we basically call, we want to strengthen a neighborhood. If a neighborhood is completely healthy and has an isolated blight instance, that receives a higher score than maybe a more saturated neighborhood with blight. And then we've got the priority area designation. That's one of those, like a targeted redevelopment area, such as what we did in the Madison neighborhood. And we purposefully try not to share those too much publicly for obvious reasons of prices going up if we're trying to acquire properties for a redevelopment. And then arterial road visibility. This is one that we actually have added in as a score here in the last couple of years. This wasn't on it when we initially developed this, but I will get into why that has been added here recently. um and then fire damage obviously for one safety and and that but also the appearance of a fire structure is is a little bit uh um more impactful at times as well so all right so this is the scoring matrix we do everything on a 20-point scale and what we did initially is we set up our our categories with the point system And we sent out three of our different supervisors to run through the list and rank our properties. Those supervisors then came back and we input all of their scores into an Excel sheet and compared their scores to see, hey, if we're looking subjectively, these are three people, all I did was give them the give them the description of what they're rating, and then send them out. And we wanted to see, hey, how closely do they align? And after a couple of tweaks and then redoing it, we found a spot where we aligned pretty stinking close with each other as far as order of houses are concerned. one of the big things that we had happen though is we had some houses that were pretty visible from our arterial roads a couple that I can give an example of would be on on hazel just just behind like royal donut area and as you're going to the as you're going to the high school they were glaringly obvious right there in one of our main thoroughfares and you have a lot of visitors coming from out of town going to the high school and wanting to make sure that those are prioritized so that we're we have I guess our highly trafficked areas looking nice and putting on a good face there So that's one of the bigger things that we've changed in the past, and I guess in the last two years. Other than that, we've been pretty solid on our rankings here as of late. All right, so basically how we develop our priority score. We basically rank all of those 1 to 20, add them all up. The higher the score, the higher the priority. If there's a tie that is when we take into consideration time on list So if we've got four houses that are all ranked, you know an 86 the longer it's been on the list the higher it goes and then Re-evaluation of scores. We're trying to get through the city twice a year just to reevaluate and So that's a way that things get reprioritized. The other is complaint-driven evaluation with just a windshield survey, honestly. And I wanted to give an example, a specific example of this. Alderman Teague had someone reach out to her and she passed that concern along to us on John Street. And so we did a windshield survey a couple of weeks ago, probably three weeks ago. And the house had in the time, so we have pictures every time we go out. So we have a picture of this, what it did look like when we raided it. And when our supervisor went out and assessed it, basically all the trusses had collapsed in and the house was structurally unstable So that house got re-ranked and shifted way up the list to where we were getting it done in almost an emergency order at that point. So the last slide here is just exceptions to our priority order. So there have been plenty of times where houses are in grant eligible areas. We want to make sure, obviously, if we're able to use outside funds rather than our own local funds, we want to do that as much as humanly possible. And so that way we can stretch our local funds as far down the list as possible as well. So there have been times where whether we have grant funding or we are waiting on the grant funding, we'll pass by some of the houses so that we're able to stretch the dollar as far as we can. And then obviously emergency demolitions if there's some major health and safety issue there. And then active development areas such as what happened in the Madison neighborhood there. So with that, that's kind of how we get our rankings. That's all I wanted to go through tonight is just kind of explain that. I'm gonna pass around the SOP for it that coincides with this slideshow. I'll do it now because I forgot to do it before started my apologies and uh that way you guys have something what i would encourage is if you guys have any feedback on any of this feel free to get get a hold of us we are always looking to get better i know we can always get better so if you guys have any input on it love to hear it so all right appreciate you thank you director uh

How many structures have been ranked to this point?

What do you mean? I mean, I know how many-ish are on the list right now, but. Okay. What's that number? It's a little over 200, I believe.

And we believe that's probably a larger number. Or are we suggesting there's only 200 houses that still need to be demolished?

No, that's what we have. The list that we have is only what we have the legal authority to tear down at this moment.

Okay.

Yeah.

Do we have an idea of what the full scope of the problem is yet? I asked this about a year ago. How many of them are out there waiting to get court approval or legal approval?

So that's within our kind of our demolition business plan that we're putting together. We're trying to get a holistic view of that that's not put together yet. We're still in process on it. Okay.

I think a pretty good number could be generated by in-process condemnations, right? Ward by ward. Yeah. There's a lot of ways you can get it.

Yeah. Thank you.

Hold on, I'm writing down a question.

I have several questions.

First question is, is this just residential or is it residential and commercial? Because I know the property on Factory Street that the mayor brought up, if I recall, Alderman O'Kane was bringing up that property for quite some time prior to it becoming emergency status where it collapsed into the street. So I'm just curious to know. And I know that I have sent you some commercial properties in our ward as well. So I'm just curious to know, is it only residential or is it a mix of both?

Yeah, so we do – on the list, we do have some commercial properties. Now, obviously, those are handled a little bit different. And because, you know, the larger the commercial property is – the more of an eye that we keep on things as time goes on, and obviously funding sources are so much higher. So those don't really, I guess, fall into the consideration of just going straight down the list because of the amount of funding it takes to demolish most of those.

And then... The scoring process, this is me doing data stuff. You said that there are three people scoring, so all properties go through?

So that was our initial scoring to develop our list to ensure that no matter who went out to score something that we knew we were falling roughly in the same priority after that. Like the demolition manager, Dustin Brown, basically goes through and associates scoring for each of the properties.

Okay. And then you said that properties get re-reviewed periodically. Was it every six months? Yes.

Yeah, that's our goal. I will be honest with you, that is, we probably missed that goal this past year, but that's kind of been an assigned goal that we're looking for for a key performance indicator of that is just trying to get through those every six months to ensure that we're monitoring our houses. And then do they get rescored then at that? So when he goes around, that's what he'll do is he'll rescore those. And it may end up shaking up the list a little bit. Now, if the list is if this system works properly, the hope would be that they don't really change order too much unless we've had a major collapse or something such as what happened on John Street.

But that would be the point of rescoring then, right? Yeah. And then will we get – you haven't passed out the papers yet, so I'm going to remind you. And then will we get a copy of the presentation, or is that included in what's on that?

Basically, the presentation is right off of that. There's more information on that than there is in the presentation slides, but – Will we be able to get that electronically?

Yep. I can send that over. Thank you. I think – Anyone else? I got a couple. I think that's all I got.

Do we got a dedicated crew that's going out there every week, every day, or every week tearing down houses?

Yeah, so we have a demolition operator that is constantly working on houses. I will say, obviously, there's times where the machine's down or something like that. But, yes, we have a crew dedicated to that.

How far out is the city out on these things? I talked to somebody in public works. They said it's about nine months out of the house I had, but how far out is it?

I wouldn't necessarily be able to give you a really accurate understanding, but if there's over 200 on the list and internally we can get two to three down in a week, now that being said, we also have a

funding related uh things where we can contract out more to get more done and that's what we've been doing uh pretty prevalently here uh in the past few years is just really trying to push to get as many down as we can as quickly as we can so if we've got a house and it's in a real nice neighborhood it's been probably should have been on demo list three or four years ago can we as an individual on this council pushed it up the list or not

So I would say that if our scoring works correctly, it should end up towards the high end of the list as soon as we have the authority to demolish. If you want, maybe after the meeting or whatever, you can give me the address and I can check the status of that tomorrow and find out where we're at with it.

So how long... Because you said we have 200 that we have the authority to demolish.

Probably a little bit over that, yeah.

And what is, if we were to try to get through all of them without any new houses coming on the list or shifting the list around, how long would it take us to get through that list?

A FEW YEARS, LIKE I SAID, I THINK I JUST PULLED THE DATA THAT WE HAD ON THE LAST THREE YEARS. I THINK WE'VE BEEN AVERAGING, I WOULDN'T WANT TO GET QUOTED ON THIS, BUT I'M PRETTY SURE THE AVERAGE WAS BETWEEN 80 AND 90 THAT WE'VE AVERAGED THE LAST THREE YEARS.

The reason why I'm thinking about this further and asking this question, and it actually makes me think about another question that was on here, but you actually answered it in the presentation, and that was about weighted scoring. Obviously there is no weighted scoring, right? All of the categories are equal. I'm wondering if some categories should potentially have a higher weight. The thing that I'm specifically thinking about is fire. And the reason why I'm asking this specific question, because I know that there's a house that I asked about, I believe the address is, it's on McKinley, I believe the house number is 1310, that has a fire. that had a fire in 24 that Corporation Council has said we received the right to demolish in either January or February of 25, and yet the house is still standing. And it seems that as if, okay, well, if that house wasn't on McKinley, right, if it was in a neighborhood that all of the other houses around it were great, it might actually, or if it was on a major street, it would have a higher score. Because the other houses in the neighborhood are also, some of the other houses in the neighborhood are also deteriorating at the same time, then because the neighborhood is unstable, then it actually leads to the house being on the list longer, which seems to be detrimental to the neighborhoods where there's multiple houses deteriorating because we're doing things to stabilize neighborhoods that are already stable but letting neighborhoods that are unstable remain unstable based on how this is been explained and we can have further conversation about what that could potentially look like but it is I think troublesome to many people particularly the neighbors on McKinley Street that they've sat and looked at a house that had a fire almost two years ago and the house is still standing.

Yeah. So I'd say just a couple of things in response to that. So as we're going through and developing the demolition kind of business plan, we're trying to take a holistic view of like, hey, what are what are other options? What are big picture options that we can look at here? So with that, I understand your your thought process there. And also, I appreciate the feedback on kind of the priority or the neighborhood blight scale. I'm always open to hear that. I think the thought process was just trying to stabilize neighborhoods that haven't gone downhill yet, but understanding that thought process as well. So I appreciate the feedback there.

And I know in this particular instance, and I imagine it's probably the case with every house that has had a fire, because everyone knows that the house is empty, that the house has fallen apart, that there's dumping. And you've seen the picture of the one on McKinley, because I sent it to both you and Corporation Council. So the considerable amount of dumping that's happening at that particular address I'm sure has happened in many other addresses where the house is clearly uninhabitable. And so I don't know if that can be a criteria. Obviously, like I said before, we've talked about it many times. So more than happy to sit down with you and brainstorm on what some of those additional criteria might be or what – a weighted version could also look like, but their seat what you guys are doing is great it is definitely needed uh... and there's obviously way more that needs to be done then you have the capacity to do in a year or two years right you said it again what five years to get through all two hundred or something like that uh... no i can read it is very two-and-a-half two-and-a-half years okay yes i'm not taking into consideration anything added to it right so Obviously, there's a lot of work to be done and you guys are doing a lot of great work already. And yet and still, we still know that, as you've already acknowledged, we can do better. So I appreciate the work that you've done. You know, by the way that you giggle, because I was making eye contact with you like, oh, yes, because that's what my eyes were saying. I really appreciate you bringing this presentation because it is something that I have been asking about a lot, and we get asked about a lot. So for us to be able to have something that we can share with people online about priorities is great. I would love to be able to see whatever the list looks like because especially considering that this list is only of properties which we already have the legal authority to demolish. We should be able to see it and be able to share it because those properties are already under the city's responsibility. If there are other properties that are not our responsibility, I can understand why we do not share that publicly, but there's no reason why we should not be able to see this list and for it to be able to be shared publicly, especially if we already have the legal authority.

awesome yes I don't want to call the name of the house I'm glad that y'all really kind of concerned about around the high school areas and and I'm talking about this one particular house on hazel we've done put a fence around it right now and or they wait until the house fall down or we still keep it in contact with the foundation

I will have to look into that and get back to you I'm not actually aware of what you're talking about at the moment so okay it's a dig man dyke house oh okay yeah all right yeah I'll have to get back with you on that one and find out what the status is you're right there because it look like it's getting ready to fall down right now gotcha two items in in follow-up to alderman Teague's comments

based on what's likely out there it's it's probably a five to ten year period at at the current rate and so that's where in order to accelerate that we would have to dedicate additional resources because while there are 200 that are legally qualified to demolish based on previous structural surveys and things like that that identified up to 1200 structures not so long ago and i think the mayor's indicated they've torn down about 500 to 600 during his tenure, there's still 500 to potentially 700 houses out there that are gonna need it or need it today within that same timeframe. The other thing that is unfortunate and I think we have to be careful in how we communicate this is some of us suspected that houses were catching on fire because neighbors knew that moved them up the list. And that's why it was so important to keep them secured and keep them unable to get inside them to start the fires because that was an unknown but sometimes there were some coincidences were a little too coincidental so thank you and it's a big big task no question about it and they do change a winter snow load can change the condition of any of these structures and so it's important to keep that followed up and Really, I think it's critical that we get a full scope of what is the total problem for the council to be able to set aside whatever they feel is a reasonable pace of time. If we want to get them all done in three years, five years, we need to know the numbers. Data is what we can base it on. Thank you.

One last question. Does the list then have Does the list currently have estimated date or desired date?

No. So we do scheduling out, but I have our demolition manager send me what's he got in the upcoming months, like a couple months. We try not to share too much of the dates within two to three weeks because we have a for instance situation like the John Street one where something changes and I always want to be a man of my word and I think that enough has happened that I have regretted sharing too much information. So if I'm being honest, I try not to share a whole lot of the time frames just knowing how things end up going.

And the dumping is the other big thing that you've mentioned to me too, Dave, is that when people know, then all of a sudden, as you mentioned Alderman Teague, it becomes an even bigger problem more rapidly.

And that's understandable, but that doesn't mean that there can't be something done to share more information with us, whether it's a house is in the top 10 or these are the things that we actually scheduled the week of that it gets scheduled or something of that nature. Because right now we are flying blind and it is, there is an exceptional amount of time spent on, at least by me, when I get calls on this. I don't know about anybody else. But there's an exceptional amount of time spent on empty houses and problem properties. And I personally, my approach has always been when somebody calls me about a house, regardless of where it is in the city of Danville, I drive by. I look at it for myself. I take pictures. I send emails. I follow back up with the person who contacted me. So there is a significant amount of time that happens on every property. And it seems like all we're doing is, from my perspective, chasing problem properties. When if we actually had some information, I could at least say, yes, it's on a radar. But I can't say that because I don't see it.

Alderman Teague, we were to be providing a monthly update of what's coming up in the month, and there was a little miscommunication on that, so that will be happening moving forward.

Well, we'll talk internally, too, and just see. I've got some ideas kicking around that I'll kind of run past and see. We'll talk internally, and I'll figure out what we might be able to do to communicate a little bit better with you guys.

Okay. And if you want feedback, you know, feel free to call or text me anytime.

Awesome. Thank you.

I'll enjoy it.

It has been my experience that when the public finds out something's going to be demolished, all of a sudden it becomes a dumping ground. I really think we would be causing more problems for ourselves if we made it public that this house is going to be torn down at this time. It happened in my own neighborhood. They found 20-some tires in one house, and they hadn't been there, to my knowledge, before it was said that it was going to be torn down. So I think we have to be careful what we say. It's not that we don't want the public to know. It's just that the houses are dangerous, and we don't want people in them. And if they're dumping in them, they're in them. So I don't think it's all that good of an idea to release a list of demos that's going to happen in a recent projection.

I can appreciate that people will dump at houses that they know are on the list. People are dumping at houses that they don't know are on the list. I mean McKinley has been on the list since, at some point, since January 2025. And if you saw the pictures of that house, you can't see the house hardly because of all the dumping. I also sent Dave a house, oh, I can't remember when, but I can remember where. It's over by Douglas. There was a bunch of dumping. You guys went out there, because it was dumping in the back and dumping in the front. And the front of the house, I still have the pictures, the front of the house had actually collapsed. um the front on the front porch area had collapsed and i remember that there was a bunch of dumping and you guys went over there and cleaned it up and i don't believe that that house was on the list at that time or not um people are dumping just because they're dumping they're dumping at the end of streets if i drive down shasta street right now which is in my ward and go to the end of shasta street i guarantee you i'm gonna find tires and there's no house there they're just dumping And they're dumping all along Fowler Street as well. People in this town are dumping regardless. But we still need to see the list. I'm not saying that we have to make it public or that we got to post it anywhere. But if somebody calls me about a house, I should not have to then go drive by the house, take a look at it, and then go call Dave to see what's going on with it for me to know that it's already on the list. I just want to be able to know that something is imminent and I can at least see it on the list. And if it's in the top ten, I know that it's going to be taken down at some point soon when I get a phone call. And if it's not in the top ten, I can say, well, you know what, it's on the list and they'll eventually get to it. And at least that satisfies the person who is calling me because they think that the city is not paying attention to what's going on in their neighborhoods. And we don't have anything to tell them because we don't know ourselves. So we need to be able to tell them something. And for us to not have the information, to me, is problematic. Whether or not we make it publicly accessible, I'm open to whatever works for everybody and creates a win-win situation. But having nothing to be able to give them is not a win-win situation. It's a win-lose situation because the citizens feel like nobody cares.

Okay.

Two things. There is a little bit of subjectivity in the objective evaluation scoring and what have you, and that's where I do think the alderman could play a supportive role in staying in communication with the department of, hey, you guys have this one ranked here, but this is what goes on at night that you don't see as an inspector or something like that, and that's something that perhaps can be worked out between the others. The other has been wrestled with for a long, long time. And what I can tell you is if it's provided to us, it's FOIA-able, which means it's available to everyone. And so the concerns that we had in the early days go back to what Alderman DeToy indicated is they were getting into these places and taking out stairways and everything else and anything else of value. And I assume that still happens if they can get in them, copper, everything. And so it is a problem to have the list out there. I get it. But there does have to be a way that the elected officials can interact with the administration to get the data they need without creating documents that can then be distributed.

And you're right, because I watched the houses around Garfield Park when we purchased them get torn to shreds.

Yep.

Mayor that concludes our report Thank You chairman for at this time we will receive our public service committee report by chairman Pickering Thank You mayor 12 a is a resolution authorizing the purchase of surveillance cameras through organized a rental crime grant program at this time I make a moat I'll make a motion to dispense with the reading and ask for their approval is there a second I second second is there any discussion or debate

Chief Comptroller did very well with that presentation by the way this did come to Public Works because it was time sensitive so it went to the Public Works Committee last week and not moved to the Pro Council this week Thank you Roll call please

Oh, I was just stretching. It looked like you had a pressing question, Alderman.

I was just stretching.

Exactly where are these cameras going to go? It's a retail grant. I mean, what are you planning on doing? Where are you putting them? Are they not in the parks?

Well, I will say that some of the parks that we will be taking the cameras that we're getting, we're finding that there's a I think the effectiveness with some of the cameras that we're getting will be better there. And then we'll be taking some of those cameras and putting them in another area where the vantage point is taken care of with that current status of the camera. You know, angles, views, capabilities, and so forth. So this is all a continuance of what we had talked about with the parks. This was the second part of the funding that was approved, and then the grant came in after fiscal years. OK, that's fine. Yeah. So this is just essentially to spend the money that you already approved for us to spend.

Any other questions?

Roll call, please. Alderman Teague?

Yes.

Ludwig? Yes. Arns? Yes. Cooper? Yes. Butler? Yes. Detoy? Yes. Tashard? Yes. Hightower? Yes. Johnson? Yes. O'Kane? Yes. Poore? Yes. Pickering? Yes.

12 yes. 12 B, items of information. We will have our public service meeting September the 22nd, next Tuesday at 6 p.m. in these chambers. And that concludes our report, Mayor.

Thank you, Vice Chairman. At this time, we have our items of information. And first, which has been on our list for some time, is a potential change in treasurer selection. Although we do not have a written opinion yet, we expect that any day, Corporation Counsel Parker and I did have occasion to speak to the attorney who was writing the position. So I wanted to have Corporation Counsel provide you with a verbal update of what he shared with us.

So the city retained an attorney to provide a second opinion on changing the treasurer's position from elected to appointed. As the mayor mentioned last Friday, we spoke to attorney Lance Molina of Klein, Thorpe, and Jenkins. They're located in the Chicago area. Mr. Molina was hopeful he could have the written opinion to us by this evening for the council meeting, but we have not received it. So he was able to provide the mayor and I with his preliminary opinion stating, however, he was completing some research for his final opinion. So should the council choose to change the treasurer's position from elected to appointed, his preliminary opinion is as follows. He does not believe the federal court has jurisdiction. The city absolutely has the authority to place the question of changing the treasurer's position from elected to appointed through the referendum process without going to federal court. He does not advise making the change by ordinance. He does not believe case law allows to change the form of government. He was also asked to provide an opinion that was brought up. He states there is no rule requiring Danville to keep two elected positions. So he is like the mayor stated we expect his formal written opinion any day now Get that to you as soon as possible So the key points being that the it may not be changed by ordinance or he recommends that it cannot be That it would have to go to referendum He did not recommend we do it by ordinance. Yes, that's correct.

And that the other thing which we've had some question about, and I know Alderman O'Kane, you brought this question up again recently. And it's been, for many years, a discussion. We've always been told that we have to have at least two officials elected at large. That is not the case. That is not a statutory requirement. We could determine that through referendum. Yes, Alderman O'Kane.

if it council decides to send it to referendum what's the drop dead time that they have to get it to the November or any other election November has passed November has passed I believe it would so

79 days before the election. So you'd have to have that question certified to place it on the ballot. So the general election is April 6th of 27. 79 days would be January 17th of 27. The primary is February 23rd of 27. 79 days would be December 6th of 26.

Yes, Mr. Butler.

So what you're saying then is that the council has the authority to put it on the referendum, right? So we also have the authority to vote it up or down, whether we want to or not? Correct.

OK. Alderman Arns.

Did he offer an opinion on what Chairman Poore had indicated as far as the number of aldermen and any type of a waiver for not complying with the statutes on the number of aldermen?

That was not something that he was asked for.

Correct. Thank you.

In speaking with the council, it was my understanding that we were to focus on the treasurer's position. Any further items on that, discussion on that? Yes, Alderman Teague.

Did he have any opinion on any potential cost if we were sued as a result of the change?

He was not asked to give an opinion on that matter.

OK, thank you. Are there any other items for the good of the cause?

mayor i do have an item here yes um we had sent out a press release earlier and i've just got it posted on social media while here tonight we will be having a meeting at mad goat monday september 21st at 4 p.m it is to talk about the kickapoo rail trail what that plan looks like and to get engagement from the community so if you do or don't support it please come out or if you don't understand what it is please connect with us we'd love to share more information Yes.

That Mad Goat South.

Yes, Mad Goat South. Thank you. We've got that sent out on our media, social media, all of the things. So first that, and then the second thing is we'll be sending out more information. It's going to be a survey about pedestrian safety and like extending sidewalks. So just keep an eye out for that. That will be coming shortly. We did one a couple of years ago, but we are just trying to get that refreshed and get some additional feedback on that. So just keep your eye out for that one.

Thank you, Administrator.

Could we have the date and time again, please?

Yeah, absolutely. September 21st, which would be Monday at 4 PM.

At Mad Goat South. So on South Gilbert.

4 PM. It's on our website, if that's helpful for you guys to share it. And I've also got it, like I said, posted on social media. So hopefully that helps you guys.

Are there any other items of information for the good of the cause? Having satisfied the agenda, we don't need closed session. I would entertain a motion to adjourn. So moved. Second. It's been moved and seconded. Any discussion or debate? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, same sign. We are adjourned.