City Council - Regular Meeting

She's absent. Carney here. Cloney here. Roach here. Nukem here. Hudson here. Blackburn here. Force here. Campbell here. Parchman here. Ford here. Okay. Thank you. Moving on to 1.4. Approval of the minutes from the March 2nd, 2026 meeting. Uh they should have everybody should have received that in their packet and uh I need a motion to approve the minutes from March 2nd, 2026. So moved. Second. We have a motion. We have a second. Do we have any questions or comments on 1.4? Seeing none, all in favor?

Anyone opposed? Okay, motion carries. We do not have any public hearings. We do not have any city presentations. So, we will move on to uh public comments. This portion of the city council meeting is reserved for any member of the public wishing to address the council. The Illinois Open Meetings Act 5 ILCS1201 mandates no action shall be taken on matters not listed on this agenda, but council may direct staff to address the topic or refer the matter to a committee. Uh, please provide the city clerk with your name, speak into the microphone, limit your presentation to five minutes, and avoid repetitious comments. Thank you. Does anyone want to make public comments at this time?

Good evening, Mr. Mayor, members of the council, Doug Gaines, Ward 5. Tonight's topic is public servants then versus now. This evening's comments are inspired by a profound article by Robert J. board titled, "Did our founders ever think that government should be trusted?" It echoes a timeless truth. Our founding fathers built this nation on a foundation of vigilant distrust toward government, not blind faith. They envision a republic where power is restrained, liberty is fiercely guarded, and rights are ordained not by bureaucrats, but by God. Now, as we look around us today, we see modern government has twisted this divine blueprint into a bloated leviathan that mocks the founders's vision and defines God order, God's order for limited accountable authority. Our governments, federal, state, and especially local, run rampant contrary to this sacred design. At the municipal level, like and St. Clair County, we see grotesque inversion. Our local governments treat us not as valued, self-governing citizens, but as discounted citizens, overt taxed surfs, micromanaged subjects whose every move is regulated into submission. Consider the founders's intent. A government of limited enumerated powers with states and localities as safeguards against tyrannical government standing up for and with the people to ensure our rights are respected and protected. But alas, state and local governments are just cogs in an oppressive wheel of the system selected by corrupt machines and only do the bidding of their puppet masters. James Madison warned us in Federalist 51 that ambition must be made to counteract ambition, crafting checks and balances because men are not angels. Thomas Jefferson insisted that free government is founded in watchfulness and not confidence, urging external

eternal vigilance to prevent depatism. They drew from biblical wisdom like 1 Samuel 8 where God warns against kings who would tax, conscript, and oppress. Government in their eyes was a necessary evil, a dangerous servant as George Washington called it, not a benevolent benevolent master. The Fourth Amendment was born from colonial outrage over general warrants. Yet today's surveillance state, from NSA bulk data collection of every call, text, and email to these damn flock units everywhere spies on citizens without cause. Founders like Benjamin Franklin warned, "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither." Today, government tracks our every move from phone metadata to biometrics transmitted by injected nanotechnologies, the ultimate erosion of our god-given freedom. And what about overreach in Oallen and St. Clair County? We are shackled with sky-high property taxes, funding bloated bureaucracies, and largely unnecessary services absolutely contrary to the founders aversion to taxation without representation. Any and all forms of taxation are theft then and now. Our local codes and ordinances strangle freedom with strict zoning bans of businesses and residential areas, forcing homeowners to beg permission for simple livelihoods. Burdensome building codes and standards demand endless permits and fees, turning property owners into supplicants, to name a few. and worst, our elections. Despite mountains of evidence and discrepancies reported under oath by insiders, experts, and whistleblowers concerning machine vulnerabilities, our county clings to electronic voting machines, refusing handcounted paper ballots, behavior that epism epitomizes betrayal and contempt for we the people. Friends, this is not the America our founders envision.

It's a perversion where government plays God, redistributing wealth to the ma from the masses to corporations that do the bidding of a global elite. We must reclaim our heritage. Our founding fathers crafted a nation where government was a restrained servant, not an overbearing master. They envisioned self-governing citizens covered coveted as vigilant stewards of liberty endowed by God with inalable rights to life, liberty, and property. In this 250th year, each of us bears a responsibility to stop and correct. Let us be the protective guardians of liberty as our founders intended, honoring God's ordination of free people under limited rule. Thank you for your time and God bless.

Thank you for your comments. Does anyone else want to make public comments? We also have a second session later in the meeting. uh Vern Moare Ward three as a I noticed on here in your clerk's report that you're going to ask to I guess purchase or demo demo de demolition question on a unsafe housing structure. I guess eventually that would be turned into a Habitat for Humanity home if I'm thinking correctly. Uh hopefully we'll find out about that. Uh on to the warrant report number 579, 2,86,000 and change. These are just a few points for the public to know. Your Amazon bill was uh $6,381 and change, but half of that was for a ceiling fan, model PMF. Half of that money was for that. Very interesting. You need a ceiling fan. I guess the blades are 10 foot wide or something. I don't know. It's got to move some there around, I guess, for the uh public works department. Um, your HR department purchase 10 trophies for appreciation. $54 for 10 trophies. That's uh $5.40 a piece.

That's interesting. $5.40 a piece for 10 trophies. Okay. for appreciation. Your um contractor for the new turf out there is uh 354,000 and change. You had a masonary guy take care of the public safety building for $12,130. And you're still having problems with your door at the gym and the pool even though it's a new buildings. another 5,700 and change had to be push pushed there to take care of some problems. It's a new building. You shouldn't have to be paying for that stuff. Um, Millennial Professional Services is still working on the north parking expansion, lighting, turf, and field for $32,95 no change. And uh I noticed a readymix bid here for two yards of concrete for $68. Well, I did some checking with the concrete people. You got a $50 cut on that bill, but in in interest to this, you only got two yards. You know, there's a upcharge for that because of $250 because you only ordered two yards. Now, generally in the construction trade, you don't get the minimum. You go over whatever it is, like four yards, until you get enough little pet jobs to take care of it, so you can take and use advantage of more than two yards at upcharge. Just food for thought. Your TWWM, they're still working on North Cherry and of course the pavement management deal. I don't know why the street people can walk drive around and

tell you where the bad problems are at for $34,816 and change. And you had some holiday lights put up for $6,800. And then I noticed on a tiff scenario, uh, money was given to several different businesses that it was about almost half your budget, almost a million dollars tonight for tiffs for them. You had tiffs number three, tiffs number four, and tiffs number five. I just wondering when the city is going to give some of the citizens of Fallon a tiff on their bills. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Do we have anyone else that would like to make public comments at this time? Seeing none, we will move on and we will move on to the uh clerk's report. Mr. Mouser, please.

Okay. The city is seeking to demolish the unsafe structure at 407 East First Street, of Fallon, Illinois 62269. parcel number 0429030614.

I just wanted to start adding these to uh the city council agenda to provide additional public notice um for any homes or properties that the city is seeking to demolish. Um that's all. Okay. Information will be right

information. Yeah. Okay, that's all for the clerk's report. Uh for the mayor's report, uh the first thing it's not on the agenda, but uh we do not have an agenda item or anything uh for the committee of the whole on March 30th. So that meeting will be cancelled. Uh 6.1 March 17th is uh St. Patrick's Day. It's also the general primary election day. March 19th, uh, we have another one of our together Fallon workshops for the library at the KC Hall from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. March 28th, we have the Vine Street Micro Market from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. May 29th, we have our fire department golf scramble at Tamarak Country Club. And July 3rd, we had the America's 250th anniversary celebration. And that is all for the uh mayor's report. Uh we will move on to resolution 7.1. Mr. D Parchman, please.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'd like to make a motion to approve a resolution authorizing the mayor to sign an intergovernmental agreement within Township and support of the Ofallen Township High School after prom event for a three-year period. We have a motion and we have a second. Do we have any questions or comments on 7.1? Ju just one question necessarily I agree with this entirely but I just from the staff report mentioned that we hadn't are is the plan then any donation of any amount would come to the city council from going forward

that right now we're still working through getting some additional uh information from our um city's audit and legal opinion on it. Uh but yes, anything that's public funds that is going to go out to whether it's a nonfor-profit uh organization um or in this case uh another government agency, uh we will be bringing that forward uh for the council to vote on, but this is something uh that's been done for many years. We're just trying to make sure we're doing it the way we're supposed to. Yeah, that's all I just wanted to clarify. Thank you. Yep. Correct. Thank you. Any other comments or any questions on 7.1? Seeing none, roll call, please. Var, yes.

Lots, yes. Carney, yes. Phony, yes. Roach, yes. Nukem, yes. Hudson, yes. Blackburn, yes. Horse, yes. Campbell, yes. Parchman, yes. Ford, yes. Rosenberg, Affirmative. Thank you. Motion carries. Uh, moving on to 7.2, Mr. Rosenberg, please. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'd like to make a motion to approve a resolution authorizing the mayor to execute an agreement with Badger Meter, Inc. for Beacon SAS management solution.

Second. We have a motion and we have a second. Do we have any questions or comments on 7.2? Seeing none, roll call, please. Lots. Yes. Carney, yes. Phony, yes. Roach, yes. Nukem, yes. Hudson, yes. Blackburn, yes. Vor, yes. Campbell, yes. Parchman, yes. Ford, yes. Rosenberg, affirmative. Miler, yes. Okay, thank you. Motion carries. It's all we have for resolutions. We will now move on to eight ordinances. First reading uh 8.1. Mr. Parchman, please.

Thanks, sir. Like to make a motion to consider on first reading an ordinance declaring certain equipment as surplus property for sale and/or disposal pursuant to 65 ILCS 5 back11-76-4. Second. We have a motion and we have a second. Do we have any questions or comments on 8.1? Seeing none, roll call, please. Carney, yes. Phony, yes. Roach, yes. Nukem, yes. Hudson, yes. Blackburn, yes. Force, yes. Campbell, yes. Parchman, yes. Ford, yes. Rosenberg, affirmative. My yes. Lots.

Yes. Thank you. Motion carries. We will now move on to our final ordinance. First reading 8.2. Mrs. Lots, please. Thanks, Mr. Mayor. I move that we consider on first reading an ordinance approving the final plat of patio homes first edition. Second. We have a motion and we have a second. Do we have any questions or comments or discussion on 8.2? Seeing none, roll call, please. Phony, yes. Roach, yes. Nukem, yes. Hudson, yes. Blackburn, yes. Campbell, yes. Parchman, yes. Ford, yes. Rosenberg,

affirmative. My yes. Lots. Yes. Carney, yes. Yes. Yes. Council member Boris was a yes. Oh, okay. Oh, yeah. We thought you were Boris. Okay. Got you, baby. Okay. Okay. Gotcha. Okay. Okay, we're going to move on to ordinances, second reading, uh 9.1, Mr. Parchman. Thank you, sir. I'd like to make a motion to consider on second reading amendments to the 2026 uh employee handbook.

We have a motion and we have a second. Do we have any comments or discussion on 9.1? Seeing none, roll call, please. Roach, yes. Nukem, yes. Hudson, yes. Blackburn, yes. Horse, yes. Campbell, yes. Parchman, yes. Ford, yes. Rosenberg, affirmative. Milard, yes. Lots, yes. Carney, yes. Bony, yes.

Okay. Thank you. Motion carries. We do not have any other ordinances for second reading. So, we will move on now to our second portion of our public comments. I'm not going to reread everything, but the same requests do apply for the the second as they were read in the first. So, Vern Muire War II. Just throwing out a few notes that I keep always uh emphasizing. The uh public works department did their budget. Didn't see anything there in there for money for painting for striping on the roads. Hopefully that'll get accomplished this year. I'm hoping I'm hoping maybe dreaming. But anyway, um still haven't seen the light over at the ice cream place over there. It's coming up on spring pretty soon, even though it's not so nice weather outside right now, but keep up the hope for that. Um, and of course public safety for um, Vincent's Trail and Troy Scott Road. I hate saying this, but you know, statistically something's going to happen there pretty soon. Uh, it happened up the road on the other intersection, so please be aware. Um, it's sad to say, but it's statistically going to happen. Um, you know, they always talk about viewers at home and you count everything else. I just wondering if you really know how many viewers actually I mean, you got

all the sophisticated equipment to figure that out. Maybe once in a while you can tell us. Welcome to the viewers at home and 23 of you are online tonight listening to burn talk or not. I don't really care. I would just like to know how many's out there really listen. You count everything else. Speaking of counting, you know how you count all the people out the park? I'll never understand. But uh I guess the man in the sky can figure it out for you. I just, you know, there's things here to have questions on that maybe you can answer sometime. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Does anyone else want to make public comments at this time?

Okay. Thank you. Seeing none, we will move on to uh 11 staff and council member comments. We'll start with our city administrator, Mr. Grant Litkin.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. U just a few notes from the day for the questions that were asked. Um when we demo a house whether it's because it's derelict or dangerous um sometimes we do not have full possession of homes when we do that um we do try to partner quite a bit with Habitat that has been a very successful collaboration between the city and the organization I know right now they're active on booster again and where we're helping with that culde-sac and so we always like to see properties come back to life and so that's always a good example of what can be done. Um, there were questions about purchases on Amazon. Um, the one that was potentially called out was a ceiling fan that PMF is a code for the parks maintenance facility. Uh, the speaker was correct. This is a very large fan that goes in the bays. Um, and obviously keeps the mechanics cool during the hot summer months and all the lawnmower equipment. Um, it was great news. We did have our employee appreciation event uh two weeks ago. We did hand out some awards. Um, I hate that those award winners now know their trophies were only $5, but I think it was more the sentimental value than the the price tag. Uh, Bernardon Jones is the lead contractor right now on the sports park improvements. Uh, Millennium is helping. They do all the the engineering and design. U, coincidentally, Millennium is also working on the Pierce um engineering for the traffic calming and the roadway improvements down in Pierce. And so that should go out to bid um I believe in the next couple weeks. Um TWWM's an engineer for the North Cherry project that's starting to wrap up and the overlay's happening. Uh the bill for the holiday lights is all of our Christmas lighting in the town. Um and so we have roots that do the one the ones that hang on the light pools and then wade service does all of the buildings. Um tiffs are always paid out from redevelopment agreements. Those are all passed by the council. um they're

available to the public. You can see how much the eligible costs are, what they collect. Um as we treat all these tiffs, it's the businesses that do improvements upfront that cause an increase in their property values and then there's a negotiated rate that's approved by the council that then rebates some of that amount back to them for reimburseable costs like utilities and ground um work. And so again, if if anybody's interested in those redevelopment agreements, they're all online on our website. Um, we talked about some public works projects and public safety projects. Um, we do have the LPRs. We do not maintain them. Um, they are owned by the DEA. And if you are interested in how many viewers are at home watching Facebook, um, you can go on our feeds and it does tell you how many users while you're watching them live and it also tells you users that have watched the video at all as replays. Um, that is all I have, Mr. Mayor. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you. Um, I want to take a minute to thank our public works director, uh, Jeff Taylor. A couple weeks ago, uh, ID do started a project on, uh, Highway 50 at I 64 that caused a considerable amount of traffic backups and, uh, Jeff on his own accord, uh, went ahead and reviewed the plans, uh, made some recommendations on how it it should be done to help the traffic flow better. So, uh, Jeff, thanks for your work with ID do. Uh I was shocked when I went through the other day uh with no backup and I totally understand what you were saying needed to happen and and now that it has u we're not getting anywhere near the traffic concerns uh that we were getting before that. So uh thank you.

Does anybody else have any comments at this time? The only thing I wanted to mention u many of you may know but uh Dennis Rener passed away yesterday and I just wanted to thank him for his service. He was a W four ward five rather alderman as well as a central uh school board uh district me or school district member school board member um for a long time and and served in many capacities in the community and and just wanted to remember his service and and of course thank his family for uh borrowing them to us. Thank you. Appreciate that. Mr. Roach, does anyone else have any comments? Mrs. slots.

Um, I think that's a great question that was brought up about how many views we received since we've invested heavily in improving the technology and just access over the years. So, uh, just Facebook alone because we also stream to YouTube. I think those numbers are lower, but um, the council meeting from two weeks ago had currently has 5.9,000 viewers. Um, it averages anywhere 2 to 4,000. Um, and I only know that because we've used it as a council to make decisions based on how we can improve things um, for transparency and and announcements and stuff. Now that we know that there's so I mean we've always tried to approach it that way, but with so much active participation, we want to make sure that it can be as easy as people we can make it for them to access it. So I'm really proud of the fact that several thousand people, not to say they watch all hour and 42 minutes, but certainly long enough to count as a view. So that was a great question.

Thank you. appreciate that information. Any other comments? Okay, seeing none, we will move on to our committee reports and we will start uh with community development. Mrs. Latz. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Uh our committee last met on uh March 9th. The meeting uh minutes are attached and we are scheduled to meet on March 23rd at 6 p.m. So check the website because sometimes that time changes. Okay. Thank you. Moving on to public works, Mr. Rosenberg, please. Thank you again, Mr. Mayor. We have not met since the last full city council meeting. Our next scheduled meeting is next Monday at 7 p.m., but check the website in case the times change.

Okay, thank you. Uh, moving on. 14. Uh, public safety, Mr. Blackburn, please. Public safety committee last met on March 9th. Draft minutes are attached. We have no items to vote on this evening and our next meeting is scheduled for April 13th, 6:30 p.m. Okay. Thank you. Uh 15, Parks and Environment, Mr. Vorce, please. Yes, sir. We uh met last week and uh it was justformational, so there's nothing to vote on. Um next meeting is scheduled for April 13th. Check the website for details. Okay. Thank you. Uh 16, finance and administration. Mr. Parchman, please.

Thanks, sir. We've not met since the last meeting. Uh our next meeting will be uh next Monday at 5:30 unless there's changes. So uh plan to meet then. And then we do have one item 16.1 the warrant we need to approve. So I'd like to make a motion to approve warrant number 579 in the amount of 2,86,567.65. Second. We have a motion and we have a second. Do we have any questions or comments on the approval of the warrant? Yes, Mr. Mayor. As an Amron employee, I do consent to all listed items with the exception of the four Amarron payments listed on page two. So for this reason, I am abstaining from this vote.

Thank you. Anyone else? Seeing none, roll call, please. Nukem, yes. Hudson, yes. Blackburn, yes. Vor, yes. Campbell, yes. Parchman, yes. Ford, yes. Rosenberg affirmative. Milard yes. Lot yes. Carney yes. Bony abstain. Roach. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Motion carries. We do not have any uh thing for executive session tonight. Uh so moving on I would ask for a motion for adjournment. Motion. Second. We have a motion and we have a second. All in favor?

Any oppose? Meeting is concluded.