City Council - Regular Meeting

That's right. You're right. I'd like to call this meeting of the Princ City Council to order. Click here. Trevor Newman here. McCall here. Would you please stand join me in the pledge of allegiance? I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Hey, thank you very much. Now, before we go to public comment, we're going to have Jeff Mangri come up and speak about our challenges with the electric generation engine number eight, please.

Good evening, everybody. Um, I gave everybody a handout kind of give you a little bit of a timeline of what's been going on and kind of where we're at. Um, it's been frustratingly slow to get moving on this thing. Um, as you can see from the timeline, you know, things that are are going on. Um, we're just not seeing a lot happen at the plant. insurance. It's just driving me nuts, you know, that they just delay everything, you know, and and make make things hard. Um, we're still hopeful that the the block down on the engine in Florida is a go. He's thinks he's going to be going down there next week to look at that. It's still our best bet, quickest way to get that engine back going. But he's also working with the um metal surgery guys where they cut out portion of it, stitch a new section back in. Um so that's he's kind of working both angles just in case one falls through, the block falls through. Um the uh the lost revenue or credits on our IMA bill, I've been working with them on that. I'm getting verbals that they're going to deny it, but I I said I want something in writing saying they're going to deny that. So then my thought is we'll turn it into our insurance and let them to battle it out.

So right now, Jeff, you're we're being penalized, I guess, because we don't have that engine operating. Correct. How much a month? Uh just a slightly over 30,000 a month. Okay. And you're fighting that to say we that we should we should be getting it because just because the engine failed, you know, that wasn't our fault. Yes. Um but they're they're saying they're not going to be responsible for loss revenue. We'll see. Okay.

Um the way it's going, uh contractor thought best case scenario would be August. I don't think that's probably going to happen. But, you know, if you look at $30,000 a month, 12 months, it probably be at least 12 months, that's $360,000 that we lost out on. So, that that's frustrating as well. Um because every month that's that's money out of our pocket. We don't have any kind of a reserve in your electric to paint that or we do. We don't want to use it. Um we were just actually had a brief discussion about that. Sure. And we got a CD that we could draw on

Yeah. if needed. But I hear we read.

Um we just got to look at the budget overall and see see where we're at. Um so eight is moving very slowly. Um the liner that we think is the problem that failed is at the metallergist. um right now be in there's like 12 different tests. It's I think like the last page on your your email or the handout is the email from the place that's doing it. They've done the macro visual. Uh their next is the magnetic. But again, they they've had that for like that liner for like 3 weeks and they've gotten the one test done. So it's just everything is so slow. Now, one bright side is engine one that's also being worked on right now. It is starting to go back together this week. So, we're hoping by 1 April, mid April that that one will be back up and online and running. And we're not getting penalized for that one though

because that was a planned outage on that one. Well, it was not planned, but it was it was scheduled once we found the problem. Um, if we give 90 days notice uh and can make it happen very offbeat times, uh, we're good. So, any questions? I know Don's been he was just there last last week and didn't walk through and you could probably vouch that there's not been a lot of changes on number eight since the last time he was in there.

Not much. I think going forward, is there an insurance company that would cover that 30 grand a month we're paying now in the future, 5 years from now, that you could buy a policy to help protect us a little bit or no? Possibly. I don't know. It's not not anything we've ever looked into cuz we've never had like happen. Of course. Um, I don't know if our insurance will would be any better or not, but like I said, we'll once we get that letter with them denying, we'll take it we'll take it to our insurance company and see what they say. So, that would be a good question though. If they have anybody else that's insuring for

loss, lost revenue with a particular company or something. How many communities do they have in generators like we do though? 18. Oh, there is that one. Yeah. But not as old as ours. We have some They have some banks of some of the Caterpillar engines too, right? Yeah. Some of some of the newer ones um are all Caterpillar, but there's several of them like Pru's all Caterpillar now. They got their old jet and then the old diesel engine that they're trying to put back in service. So, there's you get down in southern Illinois, there's a lot of this type of generator sets down there. Boy, you sure think Teresa that other communities have experienced the same kind of thing as we are now. Yeah. Interesting discussion.

So when IA gives us a credit every month based on we have eight engines and and each engine gets a certain amount of credit. Is that right? And this is the big one based off based off of it output. Output. Okay. So this is our big one. So we it's a $30,000 hit each month. And the other inches might vary from three or four thousand depending on a small one to whatever it might be. Yeah, this the smallest one would be uh let's see do some math in my head here. Just rub the numbers about uh $4,000 a month. Okay. Number one engine would be the smallest. So that's our range from about 4,000 to 30,000 to the tune of about one and a half million a year.

Okay. Uh, any additional comments or questions from the council tonight? The ones going back together? Well, they're they're in the very early stages, still prepping, but it should should be um they should be dropping uh rods in this week. Heads are scheduled. They were supposed to get put on a truck today to get come back. So, that's a good sign. It means everything's going to be here to get put back together. Okay. Good luck with all that. Yeah. Great. Exactly. Good on questions then. Very good.

Yeah. And if anybody ever wants to stop in and see this, feel free. We're there every day. So, well, except for SP. I've been giving them updates on the solar as well. issues that we had. Oh, the wind. Yeah. Yeah. Then they did get that fixed and then they had problem with a couple of them that weren't tracking. Yeah. But um that appears to be fixed now, too. So, it's putting out what it can put out. Just needs some good sunny days. It's about five megawatts on a good day. One one megap. Okay. Okay. And that's on a good day. On a good day. On a good day. Okay. Day like today, maybe 300. Woo.

All right, we're great. Uh, so we've got some good updates on that, Jeff. We appreciate it. Sure. Go ahead. You want to sneak out here and head home? Go for it. No, I'll stay.

Okay. Very good. We're going to go now to u real quick before I go to public comment. Um, the uh Hector Gomez is not council Gomez is not here tonight. He had a a county meeting he had to go to. This is one of those uh like once a year we have this where we are meeting gets shipped to Tuesday night. So he was not able to be here. He apologize. Uh with that said, now we're going to go to public comment. If you'd like to speak to the council, you can speak now. And also at the end of the meeting, we'd like to have you just give your name and you can limit your remarks to three minutes if possible. So anyone here like to speak to the council at this time, feel free to get up to the microphone and just state your name. Good evening. Uh, my name is Michael Stsky. I'm speaking this evening in in a way that hits near to home for me. Uh at the same time, I am very much in favor of what is being proposed to you good folks to vote on regarding the need for funds for our main street. Almost 40 years ago, I started visiting my wife's hometown of Princeton while we were still living in Florida. I remember a vibrant Main Street, as I'm sure that picture resonates in some of your memories as well. It was not only the charm of Main Street, but the people who make up this community that swayed me to begin thinking of Princeton as a place I might call home. Upon retirement, we did make Princeton our home. And every day, we enjoy the beauty that surrounds us on our farm and in this community. It was never my intention to invest and renovate buildings on Main Street, but after our move here, I saw a need to

preserve the architecture that so that so that many Main Street buildings once possessed, but they had through the years been neglected. Without going into detail, our family has been very proud to invest in what we consider Princeton's real gem, and that is the quaintness and the charm of our small town, Main Street. Sadly, however, of late, I have witnessed the decline of businesses both on North and South Main Street. We currently have 21 vacant storefronts. We have an infrastructure which requires repair and updating with a real need for a building inspector to ensure Main Street safety and historical preservation. The proposed BDD that you are considering is the best news I have heard in our community in the past 5 years. The time is now to take action to promote business here and support those shop owners who are working every day to maintain their success. I encourage you as our elected officials to vote in favor of the tax. Whether it's 1% or 3/4, hopefully not anything less than that. Managed properly and transparently, our community will benefit in the long term. Not only for those of us who live here now, but for future generations who want to make Princeton their home. I feel it is imperative to revitalize our Main Street and to capitalize on what Main Street offers from a historical and business perspective for Princeton's future. It is also important that we fully capitalize on the I80 and Amtrak draw for our community. Failure to make the investment now will make us simply a bedroom community with a ghost town of Main Street. I know many people, both elected and otherwise, are opposed to an increase in our tax rate. Increases bother me as well. Remember, I moved here from

Florida with low taxes to a place called Illinois. But I'd like to put the 1% in perspective. Last year, our community waged and lost $6.3 million on slot machines. So, we obviously have spendable dollars here and yet there are those who are not willing to add 1% to our consumable purchases which will benefit our entire community. If the average sale of consumables across the board in Princeton is $50, 1% adds up to 50 cents or one-third the cost of a Snickers bar or 1/4 of the cost of a large diet Coke at McDonald's. I hope we do not get hung up on 1% or 3/4 of a percent, but rather look at how this investment in Princeton's Main Street can revitalize it into the gem I once thought it to be. More vibrant businesses increase employment, draws people to shop, eat in our restaurants, stay in our hotels and our Airbnbs, visit our community events, and perhaps even move here. Our homes also maintain their value when our city maintains its value. In closing, I'd like to thank our city manager, Theresa Whitenower, city planning and zoning director, Michael Zering, and the Chamber of Commerce executive director Jennica Cole for all of their efforts in bringing expert advice to our city and for their vision of a renaissance that can revitalize Main Street. What we all do now truly makes an impact on what we will enjoy in the future. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Michael.

I'm sure there's some other people like to speak. Is there at this point like wait until after the end of the meeting? Anybody else like to speak? Final call. Okay, very good. Thank you for public comment. Uh we'll go ahead now and approve the minutes, please. I move that we approve the minutes from our regular council meeting on February 2nd, 2026. Second. We have a motion and second on those minutes. Is there any questions or comments from the council? Seeing none, clerk call the role. Council member Newman. Hi. McCall. Hi. Gleski. Hi. And mayor. Hi. Uh, on to our invoices with city clerk Janet Penny.

In the department of accounts and finances, we have $70,525. Department of Streets and Public Improvements, $127,9423. Department of Public Safety, $257,88.19. And the Department of Public Property and Utilities, $893,42055 with a grand total of 1,348,8482. Mayor, all council members present have confirmed the all the invoices and they're now submitted for disposition.

I move that we approve the invoices as presented. Second motion and second on those invoices. Is there any questions or comments concerning those? Seeing none, cler call the role. Council member Newman. Hi. McCall. I may. Next on the agenda, we have ordinance 0-26-002. an ordinance to propose the approval of a business development district redevelopment plan and establish a date for a public hearing. This is a second and final reading. I move that we approve ordinance 0-26-002. Second.

We have a motion and second on that. If I could then we vote on that of course have some discussion. Um, Michael Terry, if you come up to the podium then just let's just give us another overview what we're doing tonight and then what we're hopefully moving forward to doing. So, the implementation requires two ordinances. One ordinance to um propose the business development district, a second one to establish it. Uh, so this would establish a date of a public hearing which will be at a normal council meeting on March 16th. Um, and then from here, uh, we'll have a posting in the paper, uh, establishing that date and other pretty information according to the state statute, uh, will be in that posting as well.

And determining what the tax rate will be, when does that need to be done? End of the week. End of the week. Yes. So, we would appreciate that being established, you know. So, tonight's tonight. Could be tonight. Yeah. We would need a special meeting if we don't do it tonight. Is that No, we wouldn't. It doesn't require a vote per se tonight. We just we need to give consensus as to what they need to be posting in the paper and what can be on that ordinance for the 16th. Okay.

So, why don't you stand past there? And Teresa, did you need to add anything to this or council's opinion? What we're going to do tonight then is um I did talk to all four council members, gave us some updates on some things, and I told them we're going to have a discussion on this tonight. Um, so I'll I'll come back to Hector's comments at the very end. So we'll go ahead and start down there with you, Don, please. Your thoughts.

Well, I think we've got a real need for it. Um, but I'm kind of um nervous about getting close to that kind of sense. So I'm my thoughts are closer to the half and closer to the half on it. And I do appreciate um the Michael Stkis of the world out there that have done tremendous investment on Main Street and uh brought back some buildings that have really needed the update. Okay. And we can certainly come back to so you don't get this one shot here additional thoughts. Okay. Let's go ahead now. Let's go over to Jerry, please.

Um like Don, I think that this is a valuable project. I especially like the um development of this database because I think that if I was a potential business owner in Neapville and I could go to the city's website in Princeton and gather this information plus I would hope a lot more that kind of describes who we are and why it would be advocates for them to come here. Um I think that's great. Uh my concern is down the line when our funds are in place and we start looking at allocating the funds that we really need to be smart and fair and make it equitable for those people that truly need and deserve these funds. So I would go half percent as well. Great.

Okay. Thank you, Jerry. Mike.

Um, I mean, obviously being on the committee on this, we all know how vital this is to reestablishing, reinvesting in our business, I I guess you say, and hopefully being in a competitive market to bring business as a town. You know, we've talked about land outside of town, trying to annex in, things like that. Um, I'm at a point where I'm in I'm in favor of the 1%. I think the difference in the monies is large enough to make a quicker investment over time versus a half percent to where it may take us a couple years to get some of these bigger projects done. Um, so I am in full favor of a 1%. I personally I think that's that's vital to doing what we need to do quicker and to try and grow uh the town, you know, reinvest in and get some economic growth going downtown. So that's what I'm saying.

Okay, very good. Um, so I visited with Hector and u again it's not easy to speak for someone that's not here, but I I made it very clear what you want me to say and he said that he'd be in favor of a half a percent. So again that we're just going to set that off to the side since he's not here to elaborate on that, but I'd like to make my comments then. Um, first off, we're all in this room doing the exact thing same thing we want to do. We're all trying to move our community forward and we think about uh Mr. Stesky's comments tonight about the history of our community and we all cherish that. There's no doubt about it. We we want to come into a community when we go on vacation, we go for a day trip, we want to visit a community that we feel good about that has uh history. It doesn't matter how many big box stores they have or how many um franchise eating places they have or we really appreciate the the uniqueness of a community. We think about Myrtles Pies for example, and we talked about that the other day at the counciling house. They're they're closed for a couple months of extended vacation. We miss that because every day people are coming to town and they want their Myrtles Pies. So, we appreciate those small victories. We think about the loss we've had the past couple years of places like Bruce Jewelry Store, which will hopefully will get a jewelry store someday back in Princeton. that we had probably I would call as we we know we don't understand diamonds but we trust our jeweler and the Bruce family did such a tremendous job in representing the city not only with the items they sold but the contributions they made back to our community on on a regular basis. So that is going to be hard to to replicate down the road. Um tonight I'd like to say that um I have had some people in the community concerned about the 1%. I've had people say that we need to go forward with that 1%. Um, I also know that there's possibly some other things could be happening in the next year with some other u people wanting to possibly come forward with some ways to generate revenue, other taxing bodies. My point would be though tonight is I'm going to be asking the council then if we can go with consensus of a half a

percent. That's where I stand and we'll move forward and be careful how we diligently spend that money. I know that uh there'll be a committee that'll be set up to review the applications and the criteria for that application and then it comes to the council for approval for us to to approve those funds going out. They're going to hopefully keep it simple enough that it won't bog down these individuals and businesses that want to apply for this money. I want to do I do want to say when the group got together and started this I appreciated the seven core people that were involved with this. Um the thought was that the business district was going to entail a certain portion of Princeton. Then it got spread out going east and west which I think was a great idea of doing that for a lot of reasons. So so this whole thing has evolved. So tonight then the consensus is going to be then to send Michael uh forward with a half a percent at this point. That's our consensus. Okay. And we move forward in a positive manner on that.

Sounds good. Okay. Very good. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Okay. So now we're ready to approve that ordinance. If possible, we go ahead and have a motion to second on that. So cler call the role. Councelor Newman. I. McCall. Hi. Sitki. Hi. Here. I. Thank you. Next on the agenda, we have an ordinance 0-26-00003 authorizing the sale of personal property no longer necessary or useful to the city of Princeton. This is the first reading. I move that we advance ordinance 0-26-00003 to the second reading. Second. We have a motion second. Uh Teresa on that report.

Uh in your packet is exhibit A with the breakdown of what is going to be up for call auction uh bidding. Uh one power unit tray mount. Is that AUS? I'm looking at you D because you're going to know what these are. AUS. AUS. Yes. Um, one AMCUS spreader, Zephr mouth included, and an AUS cutter, one of those. Uh, and then a AUS rams, two of those. And two Annie powered hide hose reel. I got to get one of these.

Wait till I get to the chemical, but I can't pronounce any of those either. So, we'll get those. Uh, this is actually the first reading. So, um, once we get these released, we'll do a we usually do a post fit on those. We'll get everything posted online. So, really extraction extraction tools for automotive rescue, it looks like. Um, the small engine with it and they obviously updated something that's newer. Yep. See, great father's gift for anyone. Okay. With that said, then come with further questions. Third call. Council member Newman. Hi. McCall. Hi. Silky. Hi. And may

I. Next on the agenda is a recommendation. It's a preliminary plat approval for Spencer Davis. We got anyone to talk about? Well, we are. You'll make a motion first. Oh, I'm sorry. It's a recommendation. It's not a Is that right then, Jen? Okay, very good. Michael, if you would please come up and educate us on that.

So, Dober Road, south of the children's home. Everyone aware of the land I'm talking about? You should have it in your packet somewhere. Spencer Davis has proposed to subdivide the land into 25 lots with rideofway, sidewalks, public infrastructure in those uh via easements. Um, plan commission held a preliminary plat hearing uh and their recommendation was to approve it. there wasn't any feedback from the zoning side. There was some recommendations from the neighbors on maybe some fencing that should be added. Um, but that would be more between like for example, Freedom House wants them to maybe put a fence between Freedom House and the subdivision for privacy reasons. Um, so Spencer's going to work with them on that, but from a zoning perspective, uh, they found it to be satisfactory and we'll have the final plan hearing next month or whenever we get the documents in. It could be a couple months. When does he expect this project to begin?

This year. In the spring.

I mean, I was at the zoning meeting and there were people that were concerned about, like I said, the fencing and all that and maybe a burn to kind of move the water that's draining down to a different area and keeping it out of their backyards. But I I also wonder about and I'm thinking back to the sports complex that was once proposed to the city of Princeton where we had a guy coming in here with his surveys and his uh plans and everything else and we unfortunately spent some time and some money on this project that never ever happened. He did not have financing. I'm just wondering if Mr. Davis can attest that he's got full financing to complete this project. I haven't gotten into the discussion as far as financing um with Spencer. I suppose that a question I should be asking. Um as far as I know, every indication I know Jeff and I met with him today, it sounds like he's very very

ready to start building. And I'm thinking the city's going to make an investment, a substantial investment in infrastructure for this project. And we'd certainly like to see this project come to completion. We've had we've had no talks about us investing in this in terms of water, sewer, lighting, that sort of thing is what we uh yeah, lighting and electrical, reinstalling the the sewer and the and the water lines tapping into our infrastructure. So, he also mentioned rentals that he prefers to build these standalone single family dwellings and rent them versus selling them.

I boy, I don't like the idea of that at all. informed us today. He's actually had an elderly woman in the community say, "I'm living in an old house. I don't want to take care of it anymore. I'd love to rent a two-bedroom house. I want to be the first one on your list when you when you build." Um, so I mean, I know that's a small case study. Uh, but that gives me a little optimism that renting can work. Yeah. Um, but I think he's still open to, you know, if renting's not working, if he's not getting the tenants he wants or the demand he wants, then he would sell. He's also open to selling lots if people were interested in that so that they could build their own home. And I think he also implied that if he did have a substantial amount of renters that he would be the landlord. Correct.

Wow. He's got a bad track track record on being a landlord. his East Peru property just east of Main Street was a disaster and adjudication meetings because there were violations and the building was eventually torn down. Was that Spencer? It was a different I think it was a different uh Davis. There's three There's three sons. Yeah, there's three sons. There's Spencer, Luke, and Brian. And that was not Spencer.

Oh, Brian. All of that. a couple things and we we're all as a council appreciate uh some thoughts here. So, first off, um as we all know, uh when somebody develops a piece of land, it's their responsibility to put in the sanitary sewer, the storm sewer, and then they're going to do the sidewalks. Correct. The city's going to be responsible for putting in the underground electric. Correct. And I don't know about we're putting in street light lamps on this street lamp. Okay. Street lamps. So, and he's going to be using Chandlin Associates as an engineer, which is the city's also engineer. So really we don't have a lot of money invested per se as a city on this risk factor. He's he's bought the land. He's going to be doing all the infrastructure. He's going to put in the gravel road service and then he's either going to black top or concrete the street

black top

black top. And so there's a lot of burden that he has to come up with. We certainly it cost us money to do directional boring and bring in the electric. the benefit that we have of possibly 25 building lots that are ready to go to build on. And the whole idea about, you know, first blush, we think about, well, we don't know if we want rentals. that at the end of the day when the city owned a a R3 lot over on Park Avenue East uh across from OSF and we sold it as a city and the young u contractor built a three-unit um uh townhouse type ranch tile and he had those rented and he had a waiting list for those and the caliber people renting is retirees and I think the same thing would happen with a $250,000 ranch style home. is going to be somebody that can afford the rent and afford to maintain things in a proper perspective. So, I I think we should be very uh receptive to this is what we're trying to do is grow our community. So, even though we have some concerns, reservations, I think that uh the Davis's three separate boys, I think Spencer is an excellent track record and I think Annette, his wife, is right there with him. They own the 100acre orchard out there, the event center. They bought the old Elks Club Hotel that was pretty tough shape and you go out there now called the Cliff Event Center. That's a first class facility. So, we're going to take a risk factor on this. And I just I appreciate everybody else's concerns over this, but I think it's a minimal risk for the city to move forward. Let me be clear. I want to see this happen. I truly want to see this happen. We need this type of housing in Princeton. I just have to ask because I've got some experience that says sometimes big plans just kind of fizzle out. I don't want to see that happen. We we respect that chair. We do. Um let's go back to that. Uh we have a recommendation. So we Janet, were we acting on that or we just plan ahead?

I've got one question on it, right? Um has the street department looked at this? Do you know? Yeah, I I met with all the utility heads today and Spencer on site. Uh so we're all on the same page. Because my one question was you got the call stack at the far end here, but the other end looks like it's got I don't know if that's a a curved area in that center section there or if it's like kind of a mini boulevard with like a U-shaped drive. Yeah. Is it a boulevard with curb or is it is it grass or you know what it is? It'll have curve with a little island in there. Okay. My only question about that is if Aaron had looked at is there any issue with snow removal in that because it looks like it could be tough. Aaron hasn't brought anything to our attention regarding that. So, so that looks like it'd be good. Yeah. Okay.

I would think so. Okay. And the city is going to put street lights in. Yes. So, that's that's a concession on our part. We've done that in the past to help out developers and sidewalks on both sides. Sidewalks on both sides. Okay. That's all I've got. All right. Council member Newman. I McCall. Hi, hi Henry Mry. Hi. Thank you. Now we're on to the city manager report. Thank you, Michael.

Uh, only thing under my report is the announcement for the uh invitation to bid for um the water in the water department. Uh, Princeton Water Department will be accepting sealed bids uh for suppliers of hydroilic acid. I did not say that right, but it was close enough. hydrate lime hydrated lime liquid calcium hydroxide, sodium hypocchloride and CO2 uh used in our potable waters uh uh supply treatment process. So uh these can be submitted here uh at the city clerk's office no later than 10:00 a.m. on Tuesday, March 10th, and facts and email bids will not be accepted. Um, just as a a reminder, we're doing these uh more often now to make sure that we're staying on top of the cost of chemicals because if you remember about two years ago, the cost of chemicals nearly tripled in some cases. So, uh, just kind of keeps us on track with it. So, if anybody's got questions, uh, reach out to Tim, superintendent of water, and, um, or John Edgars, the chief operator.

Anything else? Uh no, next meeting uh I I saw today uh one of our financial reports came through. So we'll have that at the next meeting as well. So good. Okay. Thank you, Teresa. Uh let's see. Is there someone here tonight from the closet? He's going to be here tonight. No. Okay. Make sure that we miss him. Um just on the mayor's report, uh one of the things that we're involved with as a community and one of the blessings we have and Mr. sets brought this up is to be an Amtrak U stop and u there's a group of mayors, city managers, uh tourism directors, chamber directors that get together and we call ourselves the western quarterly Amtrak group and it basically includes communities from Menota going west to Quincy and so that the Amtrak stops as Mandota Princeton, Kiwani, Gailsburg, Mcome and Quincy and we call those local trains that a lot of them that originate in Quincy and they spend the night there. Then they take off early in the morning and they go into Chicago and then they come back out in the afternoon and then we have we're blessed to have a total of eight trains that stop at our train station here in Princeton. Um last week um the mayor of Mcome hosted the quarterly meeting and uh we traveled to Mcome to um have a meeting and it was with ID do which ID do is involved with Amtrak and then Amtrak was there uh with the representative and you get the chance to ask those uh kind of pointed questions like we had 11 days where we had uh bus service we didn't have uh did not have train service on a regular basis going into Chicago and of course there's People get distraught when they get to the train depot and find out that they're going to be getting on a bus for two and a half hour trip to Chicago. Yikes. Uh but we they explain what's going on there and we understood it was mechanical issues with equipment. Um but just to give you an example of the good things that are happening uh in

Princeton, uh Amtrak reported that the last 12 months there was just a little over 29,000 people that either got on the train in Princeton or got off the train. They call those that wrership. So, uh, either on or off the train in Princeton, 29,000. And then the other thing is, uh, when I I wanted to see these other Amtrak stations, I been to the one in Kiwani. So, in order to get to my 11:30 meeting in Mcome, I left early enough to stop at Kiwani. Then I went to Gailsburg and and and got out and went into the Amtrak station there in Gailsburg. And if you get a chance, it's a neat station. Now, that one is actually a man. There's an Amtrak employee that's behind the ticket counter and they sell tickets and they've got um a rugger hub going on right there. And when we in Princeton have questions, when we have our station attendants that are that we appreciate them, there's five different part-time employees that that man the station here in Princeton, when they have questions about the train arriving on time, they call down to Gailsburg and Gailsburg does a good job of conveying that information on on a timely fashion. But anyway, so uh the process of seeing the Gailsburg station, you you get a chance to get a feel for the station, but also the parking there. And you talk to the station attendant there. That's again, it's a full-timer that works for Amtrak. And he talks about that people from Quad Cities or from Iowa. They have a choice when they're going into Chicago going eastbound of driving to either uh Gailsburg get on the train or to Princeton. And consistently we have a lot of Iowa players, we've talked about that before, the people that come to Princeton to get on the train and it's so much more involved. They get there early enough, maybe they grab something to eat or they go to Myrtles to get a pie or they they're stuck there waiting because the train's delayed by two hours. And so we're glad to have them and it's uh it's just been very positive. They all compliment us on our parking lot. So I want to thank the committee that work worked on that. I want to thank Teresa for helping to coordinate those things. We had some grants. We went stoler. Uh we were able to get was it 250,000

from county ARPA? Oh, County ARPA, right? And 250,000 from uh Yeah. And then the rest right there.

Sure. But money well spent. Wow. What a what an asset. So anyway, uh things good things are happening including the Amtrak station. As long as you don't have to get on a bus, that's the main thing. Nobody wants to get on a bus when they expect to see a train. So, with that all said, uh, good meeting. Um, and we're going to go on now to old business and we'll hit these two, uh, topics again. Ebikes and electric scooters. I don't think there's been anything different on that. Okay. And the THC infused beverages. Michael. Okay. Tom was talking some stuff last time that might come from the state. So, think we're waiting a little bit on that.

Very good. Still on the radar, though. Is there any new business before the council this evening? And now we're going to move on to public comments. Anyone here would like to make additional public comment to the council this evening. Otherwise, in just a moment here, what we'll say is if you if you do want to talk to your council members, we'll stick around for a few minutes. You can visit with us oneon one. With that said, Jerry, if you would, please. Yes. I move that we adjourn our regular council meeting this evening and reconvene on Monday, March 2nd, 6 p.m. in the city. Second. Have a motion to second. Cler call the role. Clever Newman. I McCall. Hi Sanski. Hi and Mary. Hi. At this meeting is adjourned. Thank you for attending.