City Council - Regular Meeting

I'd like to call this meeting to order tonight. We're actually have two meetings. So, we're going to go ahead and start out with the uh going to open up to the the council have a roll call here, but it's going to be a a public hearing considering the proposed approval of business Princeton business district number one. Uh third call roll, please. Mayor Mry here, council member Nunes here, Gomez here, McCall and here. Okay, with that said, we're going to go ahead now and we're going to explain what's going on tonight. Uh we're start with Michael Zaring to give an overview and then we have also Herb Klein here representing the law firm we're using for this business development district. Michael.

Yes. So, the point of this business development district is to address some of the signs we've seen lately as far as economics go. Uh we have blighted areas. We have crumbling, not crumbling I should say, but uh historic buildings that are at risk. Um we have um a factory closing. We have many empty storefronts. We have a very competitive housing market. Um so the goal of this would be to address our housing stock um and help us partner with businesses new and existing to grow to expand or to locate in Princeton. Um to address streetscape issues uh to clean up light and to study buildings. Uh we think it's going to be a great tool for us to address a lot of issues here in town. Um, happy to answer any questions beyond that. So,

what we're going to do tonight then Michael is we'll uh we're going to have you step off to the side and we're going to have Herb get up and give a little presentation. Then we're going to get questions and answers back and forth, please. And also Herb will explain about the the state of Illinois has allows the statute to allow us to be able to implement this uh program.

All right. Thank you, mayor. You're welcome. Thank you all and uh glad to be here tonight and uh I will say it's been a pleasure working with you all. Uh Michael's been wonderful. Uh easy to work with and the information going back and forth along with Cole McDaniel hometown consulting will be used. Um so uh all that process if you remember uh couple months ago I think I was over here for a meeting and we talked about it. Uh this is the next to last step. The last step would be that council considering the ordinance to establish what the state of Illinois calls a business district or a business development district some people refer to as it allows a municipality to impose up to 1% be a quarter could be a half can be 3/4 it's got to be quarter% increments um additional sales tax over an designated area and then that money um will be returned to the city uh separately by the state of Illinois as they collect your sales tax and uh directed to a fund to be used to promote some of the uh public infrastructure improvements you might might want to make in the area such as uh pedestrian walkways, bicycle access, uh landscaping, that type of thing. But also be made available if you want to do offer some assistance to some of the businesses in the area. uh whether it's facade improvements, whether it's renovating uh their business, uh whether it's constructing a new business, improving their parking, filling in vacancies, those types of things. So, they've become uh relatively common in and popular in Illinois as a way for a local municipality to address its own unique concerns. Uh by last count, uh the Illinois Department of Revenue says there are 296 business development districts in the

state of Illinois in about 189 municipalities. Some have more than one. Um that number after April 1st will increase significantly to over 300. These can be adopted twice a year at Illinois either by April 1st and then the sales tax will start being collected July 1st or by December 1st and then the sales tax will start being collected the following January 1st. So we did a study the map is in the handout for tonight. There were 954 uh parcels within the area um coming starting up north on I 80 coming down through essentially is very for you having essence two downtown businesses. We have the one at the north end since we uh come off of 80. And then we have this traditional downtown here where where we sit with courthouse square. And then we also went out east and west um to pick up some additional properties that uh you have some vacancies, have some commercial properties that you would like to assist as well. So uh we found that the area qualifies as a whole. Uh I think the qualifications were were just over 80%. Uh you have to look area as a whole. Every individual property doesn't have to qualify, but the majority have to under the act in Illinois. And and here we have a fair majority. And you know, please if if if your business is included in qualifying, we're not commenting on the condition of your business per se. We're because the qualifications under the act and they talk about blight and they talk about uh deterioration or needed improvements. We're really talking about the broad sense. Uh obviously a lot of older traditional downtowns were platted long ago. The buildings don't necessarily

accommodate modern needs, modern ADA needs, modern parking needs. Um a lot of business districts um are improving the appearance of their downtown, improving walkability, pedestrian access. So all those factors go into the qualification. Uh, I would also add that you have the ability to also apply it to your hotel motel tax. That's something that's collected locally. Uh, so if you decide to do that, um, we will have to notify the hotel motel in town. They would start collecting that additional tax as of July 1. And um, because that's remitted locally, not through the state. The sales tax, the state will update their process. they will update all the businesses that have a sales tax number and file with the state um and we'll apply it that way. So that said, it's a public hearing. I don't want to do all the talking with his questions or comments whether it's from the council or anyone here in the public. So very good. Let's do this. Let's go ahead and start with the the public that's here tonight. All you have to do is just come up and state your name and and ask questions. And we've got resourcing here tonight. So if you'd like to start with anyone here, just state your name, please. Ernest Wington, last meeting you guys had a lady get up and ask questions about this tax and you did not answer one of them. Ma'am, it is what's known as a retailer's occupation tax. Every business has to file an FT1 every month. of that 1.75% goes to the city of Princeton. She also asked, "Who's going to receive this money? How is it going to be doled out or whatever? Is it going to be like the $50,000 COVID grant we had and

nobody knows where it went and it just disappeared?" My business had a recent issue with water, which we won't go into. Cost me $7,000 to fix it. I'm a small business. I asked if there was a grant available. I was told no. Is this going to cover something like that for the other businesses besides mine? My little place generates our sales tax was $800 a month average. To further that out with all the businesses in this town, if you buy something, you're paying sales tax on it. The city decided in its ultimate wisdom to keep the 1% grocery tax, which the state of Illinois did away with. That's averaging $350 to $400,000 a year. Their fuel tax November 24th of LA November 24 of last year was $15,700 of that can only be used streets, alleys, sewers, traffic lights, whatever. The city receives 5% gaming tax on all of the games in town. They also get $250,000 $250 per machine from each one of these businesses. And the city of Princeton does not release their standalone gaming income. it's into their budget around us. Average income on gaming is 325,658 a year. As for generating new business coming to town, we had a cannabis store tried to come to town. They were turned away. Do I agree with cannabis? No. The taxes they generate would have been

awesome. Look at the city of Ottawa. Look at city of Peru. and they've had no trouble with, excuse me, we're we're we're fighting the small businesses are fighting a new generation. They're buying online. Your brickandmortar buildings are slowly going away. But anything that's purchased online, there's still an 8% sales tax to the state of Illinois, which the city gets 1.75%. Okay, now everybody says about businesses coming to town. Let's get real. Trees straight bikes aren't going to bring a business to town. They want to know about qualified employees. They want to know about overhead. They want to know about available parking. They want to know about a draw to the people. They want to know friendliness of the city. They want to know crime rate. They want to know taxes. They want to know insurance. When you hear last meeting praise the body shop out in the west end of town, which is great. I'm out there. But all of us that are out there have redone our buildings in the last three or four years and made that into accountable good. But have any one of the city officials walked out and asked, "How's business? How can this city help you?" No, it's all about downtown. And I'm sorry, but that's wrong. If we want to bring business to town, let's get our head out of our butt and quit throwing money at it and maybe change our attitude in what we're doing. Thank you.

Thank you, Ernie. We can go on if we could. Now, we're not here to go back and forth with like a a court setting, but I just want to double check things on our numbers. The state of Illinois gets 6 and a4%. Right, Michael? And I have my notes here, but I got it from the statute. The county gets 1%. So, that gets us up to 7%. And then we are at 8% right now. So, we get right now we get 3/4 of a percent is what we get, Ernie. So, just so you know, we're glad to give that county the 1% and we've got 3/4%. The state takes six and a quarter. So, we got the smallest cut right now going on that a total of 8%.

Well, mayor, the only thing I would say on the 6 and a quarter, just to be clear, the six and a quarter% that the state collects, the state keeps 5% of that. 1%'s return to the city, a quarter%'s return to the county. Very good. I appreciate that. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. And and to go along with that, Herb on on new vehicle sales or vehicle sales is six and a quart% and a quarter.

And then let's would that be the same the 1% and a quarter? So, so the the BD the business development district tax does not apply to anything that's titled. So, new or used vehicles that are titled uh the tax would not apply to that. It also does not apply to grocery items. Uh it does not apply to medicine uh prescriptions. It does not apply to most medical aid such as a cane or a walk or something like that. Thanks for appreciate that. Uh let's do this. Let's go on again. You got a lot of questions and comments and bull fights there. Let's see if there's anyone else would like to speak tonight. They come up to the Please. Michael. Yes. Yes. Thank you. Just state your name, please.

Oh, yes. My name is Michael. I've been down here in your town for 19 years and um I've come down to talk to you about what is the quality of life. Do any of you here in the city council here know what the quality of life means? is a comprehensive subjective measure of an individual's overall well-being from physical health, mental state, and social relationships, personal beliefs. It reflects a person's satisfaction with their life, including their ability to function, their comfort level, and enjoyment, which can vary based on individual experiences and circumstances. Um, Key aspects of qualities of life. Physical health. The ability to perform daily activities. Your level of pain. Management of chronic conditions. Psychological emotional well-being. Levels of your happiness. Security and your contentment. Environmental factors. Safety. Security. Access to quality. Housing and education. And that healthcare. Personal autonomy. The degree of freedom, your independence, your control over decision making like what? Your health, your work, your financial material and your well-being. Also belonging personal safe satis safety quality of environment quality uh emotional well-being social relationships relate religious and spiritual status access to that health care having preventive screens vaccinations affordable medical care

functional autonomy autonomy mind autonomy to Live an independent, move freely, manage daily personal care, mental well-being, feeling safe, reducing stress, and having a healthy habits. Regular physical activity factors influencing quality of life can change based on life events, basis, illnesses, job loss, or personal achievements. Key factors influencing it include material well-being. We all want that adequate income and financial stability, purpose and being, belonging, having personal goals, any sense of community, work life balance, ability to balance professional responsibilities with personal time. Now, what I haven't heard is this word called affordability. Affordability. We hear all about affordability. What is affordability? Okay. What is affordability? Something is reasonable. It is priced and within a person's financial means allowing them to buy or obtain it without excessive expense. Key aspects of affordable portability budget friendly priced low enough for the average person. Not excessive and reasonable cost. Content contextual affordable to a person's income or financial market. examples in context. Housing the city is the city developing affordable housing for lowincome families. Uh rent controlled affordable lowincome housing. What have we done here in this town for the lowincome people when it comes to our housing here products? They offer stylish clothing at affordable prices. Services. The company

provides affordable ser uh health insurance plans. Now let's do this symbolically. We have the chicken and the egg. Okay. Which comes first? It has to be the chicken for us to have the egg. Now what comes first? Do we put the horse before the cart or the cart before the horse? The horse goes before the cart. So now when it comes down to this, when it comes to quality of life, do we have quality of life and affordability or do we have affordability then quality of life? Affordability directly dictates quality of life. How you ask me? By determining access to essential needs like safe housing, nutritious food, our health care and education. When cost exceed income, what happens? Family pace families face chronic stress, poor health, limited opportunities. The housing expenses if they go up, it forces sacrifices on basic necessities. Key ways affordable affordability impacts quality of life and health. well-being. High housing costs, rent and mortgage force tradeoffs leading to missed medical care, poor nutrition, and chronic stress. Housing stability, lack of affordability causes housing instability. Remember that. Remember it. Ingrain it in your brain. Lack of affordability causes housing instability. Overcrowding or that homelessness rate, there it goes. Homelessness. Where does it come from? Affordability problem. Okay. Which leads to increased risk of infection and mental health issues.

Environmental quality. Lowincome households have less safe housing being exposed to mold and lead. Neighborhood opportunities. They want access to safe, stable neighborhoods. What better schools and green spaces and transportation? All right. We also want that financial security. When the big three, what are those big three? It is that housing, food, and transportation take up most of their income. Households cannot save, leaving them vulnerable to unexpected emergencies. Households that are spending more than 30% of their income on housing have significant lower levels of life satisfaction. Those spending more than 50% rem report even lower lower levels. Now the cost of living this is January. This is March 1st, 2026. Cost of living. More than one in five households over the age of 65 rely on social security for more than 90% of their income. And more than half of the households over the age of 55, they have nothing saved. nothing saved for retirement. The high cost of living is shredding, just shredding their safety nets. And the retirees are worried about paying for groceries, housing, healthcare, and utilities. Now, I was down here at a city council meeting. It was a meeting that we were going to talk about were we going to keep Teresa as our city council on the city council as our city manager. There was a man that got up. I did not speak to him before, during, or after. He got up and he said something to us about our leaders lacking vision and something about people perishing. Now, I got a feeling that that man come down here and that he was talking about a BDD, economic

development, money. I don't believe he's coming down here to the city council to save his soul. You go to a church for that. So, I got a feeling that that's what that man was talking about down there. He was talking about this money. But see, the thing is, I don't know if I want to share this with you now, cuz what that man was talking about was Proverbs 29:18. I had this lesson already wrote out before I even came down here. And isn't that something? I come down here and you guys were talking about that that night. I don't know, maybe I should share that with you now. Everybody is here cuz it has something to do with the vision, you know, and it really it is. You want to know why I come down here? I come down to this town to see what you're doing. and see what you're doing. And in here, in here in Proverbs, you're going to hear me use that. It'll be what are you doing? It says here, when our leaders lose or lack their or that vision and are stuck in their or that indecision vision, do our leaders lack that vision? My God, the God of all gods, lives his one of the people in the book of Proverbs. Where there is no vision, you're having the power to for see consequences. The people will perish. But he or she that keepeth the law, oh happy is he or she. Proverbs 29 18. The leaders of our many societies when lacking that vision. Are they more focused on the joys and of course the benefits of this present age ignore having that vision on our future? The trends and the decisions facing today all have consequences and they are coming whether we want them to or not. My king Jesus Christ say difficult times and his coming return cannot be stopped but of that day and hour knoweth no man

no woman no not the angels of heaven but my father only. Matthew 24 39. Watch therefore ye and I all this knoweth not what all our lord doeth come do we? No, we don't. Matthew chapter 24:42. But knoweth this, that if the good man or good woman of the house had known and watched that the thief, the thief would come, then he or she would have watched and would not have suffered his or her house to be broken into and broken up. Matthew 24:43, therefore be ye, you and I, all of us, be also ready. For in such an hour, ye and I all of us think, what are you thinking? Not that that the son of man will not cometh. Matthew chapter 24 verse 44. Who then is a fable fa faithful and wise servant? You, you, you, me. Who is that faithful servant? Whom does the Lord have made ruler over his household to give them meat? What meat? That is an essential or principle part of something, people. Our king is Jesus Christ attorney. But his father's kingdom in due season. You see, it's an act of sewing and reaping, watching and being ready when our king Jesus Christ returns. Matthew chapter 24 verse 45. Blessed is that servant who is the Lord when he cometh shall find. So ye and I doing what are you doing? That's what I come down to see. What are you doing here?

Michael, if we could take one more minute here, please. I can put right here. That's my point. No, why don't you summarize this in general? Your concern is really, are you for the business development district or against it?

Well, I'll tell you what I think about it. I feel that it is a number tax on the taxpayers and that when you do that, that makes it hard for people that are on fixed incomes. You have to watch where you go and what you buy because that 1% can a half a cent half a cent can be now a 1% depending on how many purchase you make during the day and then if you go and make another purchase it could be a set and a half couldn't percentage and a half. Now that would go on day after day after day. Well, and I appreciate it. I just wanted to get your thoughts and that's what it would be.

Well, I would what I would say is I'd probably limit purchases at those business businesses is what I would do. I mean, if I go down to the library and you guys are going to put a a tax on my cookies down there and a coffee and you go down to Beex and I want a donut or some coffee or something and you want to put a tax on that, too. You have to think about that. Again, we appreciate your comments. Um, why don't we uh and you'll have an opportunity to comment again if you need to later. Oh, yeah. I I appreciate you letting me come down and speak like this. I've enjoyed our friendship. I know. Yes. When you talked about when you first came to Princon, I know it's coming to Princon. So, I appreciate that. How long you been? How long you been Princon?

Oh, it's been 19 years. And your town is very, very special. We're glad to have you.

Much more special than it is to all of you people. You don't know the whole story why I come down here to this town. Thank you very much for letting me speak tonight. I appreciate it. Let's see if there's anyone else like to speak tonight. Uh Gerald Dean, way in the back. Let's go with Gerald Dean, please. Uh my name is Geraldine Woodleaf. I've lived here for 40 years. Uh my first question is on this piece of paper. I guess I don't read enough what's going on just as you have other things and a lot of people don't know what's going on and I'm reading this. This is the paper you just handed out. Notice of public hearing. I knew about this because I was at the last meeting two weeks ago and it says here that um you can uh give uh questions and so forth and so on. Where was this submitted before I see this today?

Sure. Michael Lee who has rated the VCR twice twice. It has been the VCR twice. I guess I don't read enough of the VCR. Yeah, the law requires it to be published. Oh, I'm sure there's a law posted here as well. Well, as I said, I I knew that, but as you can see, like other things the city has had, including looking and talking about the sheriff as the county did that and others. And I see just a very few people. This to me is very few people. I'm sorry. Well, Michael, you you had a prior, it's not required by statute, public meeting that was very well attended. Correct.

What? We had six people at the first meeting. We had 12 people at the second meeting. And there were what? 60 people at the Metro Center. 70. I didn't count them off. I had to leave the meeting at 6:30. Oh uh I took two days and got signature on dear friends here student business owners and guess what everybody said forget it. I'll give you the list. You can see who your friends are that are not interested in this tax. Sure. Very good. Thank you Geraldine. Thank you.

We've got plenty of time here. That's what this is all about. Somebody like to come up and speak, feel free. Um, Lyn Old, please state your name, please. Was any of this given to any business? Uh, it was run in the DCR and was any of a gift to any of the business.

Let's do this. If you could, if you could, Ernie, we'd love to have you get back up the speak, but that's not fair to Michael as well. Let's try to please Lyn Old, if you would just state your name. My name is Lyn Old and I don't have something prepared and written because I spoke to the city council about this a long time ago whenever it was first announced and expressed my support. Um, but in listening to I've been to all of these meetings regarding this and I'm hearing a lot of comments and I just wanted to share my own observations and my own knowledge. Now, I have had the opportunity to sit in on some of these committee meetings, the econom economic development, um, which specifically has talked about the deed in there. And before I go any further, I would like to express thanks to Michael's hearing especially and Teresa for all of the time and effort that they've put in this because um, some people are presenting it like there has not been a lot of thought that has went into this and it's an easy way out and that absolutely is not the case. there has been a lot of thought and they have spent a lot of time talking about and considering specifically the people of Princeton. Uh but some things that I I I just want to point out and I'm not going to stand up here forever that this BDD proposal is one component of economic development. It is not the end all to all economic development, but it is the crucial piece. Have things changed? They've absolutely changed things. We cannot continue to do business the way that we always have because the world has changed. And if you drive through town, you see the empty buildings. You know that things are changing. And we need, and by we, I mean this entire community, Princeton and the surrounding communities need to support our businesses now. And we can't wait until all the storefronts are emptied because at the point that that happens, it's going to be too late. So,

the people of the city have had the vision to see what they can do to help these businesses and put themselves in a position where they can offer support in the future, not just to attract new businesses, but to support our existing businesses so that they're able to stay here. And I think that's powerful and I think that's valuable. Um, the other thing that the city has had a vision to capture is not taking all those dollars from the people who live in the 61356. That is to me one of the best parts for the people who live in Princeton. I don't live in Princeton, but I work in Princeton. I shop in Princeton. I spend a lot of money in Princeton. But it was important to the city to provide help to the businesses here in town without taking all of the money from here in town. So what this what this sales tax does is it enables us to capture money from people outside of Princeton who come from different communities and and I'm going to share some numbers with you um that we're you're going to have to say what the program is um that actually quantifies that for you. But before I start that, I want to I actually when this first came up, I made a little spreadsheet of what if we did this at a quarter percent, a half a percent, 3/4 of a percent, 1%, and the average dollar spent, and it was very minimal. So, if you haven't taken the time to do that math, I I ask that you take the time to do and see how much that actually is going to impact your bottom line at the end of the day. So, here's some stats that I have um from what is the name of this program?

Placer AI.

Placer AI. So, this is legitimate numbers that I I've heard vaguely before. I just got these in black and white about two minutes ago when I told Jennica that I would like to come up here and say something. Um the daytime population of Princeton grows by 1,200 to,500 people a day between visitors and employees. That is a big jump. 47% of the shoppers at Walmart who would be in the BDD are from Princeton. 53% are visitors. Casey's on North Main only 27.6% of the sales there are from Princeton. The rest come from outside of town. Neighborhood A, they had 124.6,000 visits last year. Wow. Only 5% were from Princeton. Um, I just want to say shop local. No, that's not on the topic, but shop local. Um, and the South Shopping, it had 469.6,000 visits for the last in the last year and only 48.3% of those were from Princeton. So, I just would like for people to keep in mind that this is not just to help support the businesses in Princeton, but it is with the community members in mind. It is with the existing business owners. It is with residential people who live or may not even live in town. It is capturing dollars from other places that we have the opportunity to keep here in our community and to help the businesses here in our community who need our help.

Any plan? Okay, thank you. Sorry, I'm kind of rattled cuz I didn't come with a nice written out thing cuz I, like I said, I didn't plan on talking, but I just wanted to give a different opinion. Thank you. I appreciate that. Okay. Yes. Go ahead. Just come on here. Mr. Um, I just have a couple questions. I I don't know if it was answered or not. Um, I was at the one meeting for the metro center. Sure.

Um that was good information, but in that meeting there was a ton of questions that were asked and I'm not actually sure if they were ever answered. So again, that's on me. Um the biggest concern, one of the biggest concerns I had from meeting wasn't I mean obviously obviously for most people no longer taxes raised yourself you know you go from eight to 8 and a/4 to but we all like to be used and one of the things I noticed is I think one of the biggest concerns is how does it how do we know transparent wise it's definitely going to be used for business in one of the businesses hey you know pling or whatever it might be that's right we want to help small businesses I I get that I want But there's a clause in here about roads and projects and things like that that has to do that I I can see beautifying, but roads was the thing that stuck out to me and for my and I don't know what the city budgets for roads and fixing and things like that. But the concern would be okay, we have x amount of dollars budgeting for roads. Now we got an actual BBD thing in here. It's 1%. Can we take some of that funding and use some of this funding over here and use it to run because it's going to get produced anyway? That's a concern because that's not necessarily what it's meant for. It's meant for the business owners that are there that we're going to build or fix or whatever. And so that was I I just I think that's a big concern for me for that. Um and then oversight like we're just like there's got to be somebody in charge at some point saying, "Okay, we're going to fix so and so's building or we're going to do that." Um great. We want to make sure it's being used properly for that purpose. Okay. Um and I'm just I'm not sure if those were answered. Like if if if roads are being taken care of, right? We we already had roads being taken care of before. Now we're just having more tax take care of road. So that's a concern of mine. And again, I don't know how it was answered. I don't know if it was or not. Um I don't know if it even was in part of it.

It's just I know there was a ton of questions about will it be actually used for the purpose it was supposed to be used for and but when that car is there for roads and and beautifying the scapes around it is it helped. So I guess that's the question I have for it. Um and and if those can be answered you know. Very good. Thank you. And I think what we'll do then why don't you get back up to the podium if we could. We'll just talk about that and then we'll move on with more comments. I would just say and thanks for all the comments. Uh roads while they are an eligible expense wouldn't be something that we would prioritize with this fund. Uh we've set our priorities based on the feedback from the community meeting. Uh that is to help expand um support and to draw business to Princeton. um whether that be um helping a business uh redo their storefront, get them a new roof, help them with an HBAC system, help them with engineering, all those things go into expenses that businesses face, and those are all eligible expenses under the PDP. Uh so while the the eligible expenses are broad, it'll come down to our priorities, which is what the the town hall was about, and getting that feedback and hearing what's important to the community. Um I think when we think infrastructure as well, we think sidewalks. Wouldn't it be great to have sidewalks out Peru Street on the on the west side going out so we can support those businesses via foot and bike traffic on the north end so people can get to some of our major employers holidays and ACE um that's what I think when I think infrastructure improvements in the

Michael to dovetail with the question that was asked um we started out with a I call a a committee that volunteered their time with two council members just go over one more time who was on that committee and the goal is that as we proceed forward with this business development district. They will still be the people that'll help get this going with the the um criteria how the loans will go and we're borrowing ideas from other communities that have already been doing this. You could just explain about that' be great.

Yeah, the distribution will be um well, if you want to go over to the committee, it's myself, Mike McCall, Don Sleski, Lynon, Jennica, um Jeff Cecil, Teresa, and Victoria and our tourism. Um, when it comes down to how the funds will be distributed, uh, and I have examples of this, uh, we have a great consultant, uh, who's in our, um, in our corner with us of Hometown Consulting. Uh, and they're going to help us identify, well, they've already helped us identify the priorities. Now, they're going to help us with a scoring matrix. It says when someone applies, we'll identify the need, we'll identify what the result is going to be, should these funds be distributed that way, um, and so what the return on investment is for the community. Um, so it's all going to come down to um ensuring that these projects are scoring well on that scoring matrix. And there's a lot of different criteria. I'm happy to share an example. Um, but that's that's our plan uh moving forward is to ensure that um that scoring matrix is geared towards Princeton and what our goals are.

And so at that committee level, that moves forward and the council has final say on those things as far as approving that or not. So, we'll we'll get a final look at that as what similar to like what planning and zoning committee uh they look things over first and then they make a recommendation to the uh council as a whole and we'll be approving some things tonight that the planning zoning uh brought before us will be bringing before us. So, there's some checks and balances through the the whole process. Absolutely. Council has one to say on all the distribution. Got you. Okay. If you let's see uh let's do this then Michael sit down again. I appreciate that. And I have one question. Yep.

Uh you said in in this was included sidewalks, streets like that. I thought that was a motor vehicle tax. Uh motor vehicle fuel tax as far and according to the law that's the only place it could be used. I I don't oversee the budget or or how we

Okay. So we'll try to address these questions. So we know for example we talk about West Pru Street which you have a business on West Pru Street and we are thankful for your business being there. um and uh H Heartland uh auto body, but the idea is we want to clean up the J&J uh property and that's going to involve some dollars on our part, not necessarily out of this fund. That's not We already have money earmarked. Thank goodness Price has worked on that and we're working on just getting some environmental studies done to make sure that what we what we are inheriting is not going to be a real real problem for us, a real liability. But with that said, if the city didn't go in there and clean that up, who would clean that up? We've got some other properties tonight that we're going to be looking at possibly acquiring with the idea that we have to clean up that because it's not fair to neighbors. And so, uh, a simple 5 foot wide sidewalk that goes out parallel with West Proof Street out to get the folks say from Hill View safely into town so they're not walking along the and people can go out their bicycles to to the restaurants out there, things like that. So we see that as a as a good investment that could be funds could come out of the account for say a sidewalk, not necessarily a street. The goal is not to have like you said street infrastructure that we would be doing anyway out of our funds, our our general funds for our budget.

Let's do this. Um just just a quick is it a loan or a grant that we're doing? Okay. So it could vary, right, Michael? In other words, these different communities have done different aspects of that. It'll be a case by case basis.

One more followup for you. Just an example. Let's say the fund takes in $10,000. I know a lot more than that. Can a project extend for two years? So maybe your project cost $20,000, but you have 10. Can it go into the next year? I mean, is that part of criteria or is it like you got to put, you know, we can x amount like we got to do four businesses a year at the m at the minimum or whatever. or is it just one project can take up multiple years of the 23 years or the 21 years that are there? Does that make sense?

Oh, I I mean our our intent would be to not use this for one project. Yeah. We would certainly want to ensure that that anyone who has need can can tap into this whether that be this year, the next year, or the year after that. And and that's where it all kind of ties back to that scoring matrix. We can turn that back to you and say, "This is where you scored lower. Here are some things we might want to see you in your application next time you approach us and how you might better access these funds. Michael, we're going to have you sit back down for a second then again, please. And now we're going to go back to any additional public comment. Feel free then just come up to the podium. State your name, please.

Um, thanks. I'm Renee Teman and I just have um a couple of questions too. I didn't know whether to do followup or not because I never asked a question to begin with. Right. So, one of the things back in the metro center when we were cuz I was there at that meeting too and I know it was talked about like the median age for for Princeton and for the BDD to try to get you know people in. Who are you looking for and what age are you looking at that demographic? And I know it was, correct me if I'm wrong, it was talked about the younger age, like new families and families coming in. And so I did write, I was not even planning on speaking. So, but I look at that and to me looking on the out part and I'm not I'm not so of course like Tim said, I don't want my taxes to go up, right? I'm not in favor of that. I have six kids trying to feed my family and I have my own business, too. And so, but but just looking at that part and and coming as as a new family, if I was to come into Princeton, there is no way for labor or delivery at all in the hospital. There's nothing that attracts the younger family. And so, I'm looking at this going, how how do we address those issues before we even tackle the BDD? So that's that's me just just coming on that standpoint and then just looking here and and I'm just it's a question and this is what I ask for for all of my clients that I go to. What's your mission statement for the city of Princeton? Do you guys know what that is? I'm sure there's one on our website and like any good operation we came up with something and we plug that in the website and so but go ahead. I'm answer

so the so the mission is in partnership with the community the mission of the city of Princeton is to provide the highest quality municipal service to those who live, work and visit our community. And so then of course I look at the core values, right? And so the core values of Princeton is integrity, professionalism, excellence, service, collaboration, and accountability. And so if there's if there's needed in in the in the community of having more education and more understanding, possibly more information of going, okay guys, this is what we're looking for. like you said that you got the information from Cole, right, the hometown of like this is what the priorities are. Is there a way that we can make that available to the public and say this is kind of our strategic plan and then you guys develop like I I think does it go for 10 years or 20 years that people need

23. 23. Thank you. But if it goes for 23, okay, well, here's our strategic plan that we have as a city because I've looked and I haven't seen any strategic plan that I've seen on the site given where I can download it and take a look at it.

If I could just offer part of what Cole's deliverables is a strategic economic development action plan, okay, which we are developing currently by our strategizing sessions, by our town meetings. Um, so this will have a big key to that about how we use funds to address that action. Okay. And so looking at that and just looking at the community because it's me going if if it's accountability and that's part of the core value of the city and if you all agree to that that these are your core values. One of the things cuz there's a problem right there's that disconnect between the community and the city. Is there a way to possibly bring in on the on the on the committee that you guys have? Is there a way to bring in like a couple of business owners, small business, not not the franchise, not the ones that bring multi-billion dollars, but I'm thinking more of the small businesses that bring in where you have on the north side, south side, west side, east side to all come in and collaborate on this and possibly a couple of them that don't even have a brick and mortar that can help get information. And that's just that's just me where okay, I see a problem in the way that we do our business. If there's a problem, there's a solution and try to be that solution. So I'm just those are

absolutely and how can you address the part of if you want younger families how can you address that part of going okay we we really need to look at that labor delivery because let's admit it in this culture and the status of this generation it's based on fear and so if they're fearful that they're going to have this child and all of a sudden oh I'm going to have to drive an hour to a hospital I mean with me I chose to drive an hour and a half to Bloomington because there's no birthing centers nearby. But that's where I went. But in that case, how do you how do you address that type of part to really really get them attracted to Princeton? So those are

it would be by job growth by attracting large scale employers and also increasing our housing stocks bring the cost of housing. Yeah. But you also have to look at the the residents too, right? The ones that are going to live here. What's good for the kids too? So that's all I have to say.

Good. Thank you. Appreciate that. And hopefully if you stick around uh tonight, we this going to be a little bit lengthy here, but we're glad we're all here. Um under the mayor's comments, um I had the opportunity the OSF invited me as well as uh the mayor of Lal to go over to Peru and tour the OSF uh facility in Peru, which they call the hub. And I can talk more about what OSF has got going on in a very positive manner. We went to the OBGYn and the birthing section and there's u eight rooms over there ready to go for delivering children over there to prove. It's not something of course it's in Princeton but we're just we're so glad that it's 20 minutes away and it's not further than that away cuz like you said you had to go over an hour an hour and a half. Um did you want to make a comment Lynn? No, I I just happened to the president of OSF of the once on the 80 corridor was at Rotary Tuesday and said that there will be prenatal care available at the hospital here in town. They'll just go to Peru to birth.

Just wanted to throw that out there. That makes a big I've had babies. Makes a big difference. New families coming in, you have to address that. Yeah. But I think having that here in town will help. Thanks Lyn for adding on to that. Yes. Go ahead. You want to give? Yeah. Good.

I'm bringing this team. Uh I was as I was reading and listening to a lot of the different questions, I have a couple questions um which I may have shared at the Metro Center one time and have maybe already been answered. So let me know. first uh is there a written plan uh for what will be done with the BDD? So I think that actually is probably answered by the strategic plan, right?

Yeah, we also have a a BDD plan put together by uh Herb's firm, but yeah, a strategic action plan will also be you know what our overall strategy is. Is that accessible to the public by chance? This document will be a public document uh if it is adopted.

Okay. I just see that as another potential disconnect that we could probably make as a connection and maybe a little bit more public. I I just hope I'm just trying to help at that point with the solution. Um lastly, is there a budget for all the projects that we're looking into, especially for the municipal obligations? If you look at I think it's a first par or third paragraph on the is it third sentence on the second paragraph of the page that they're given it talks about how there's a specific time so it's about up to 23 years but it could also be and the tax could be levied until all the projects are taken care of and the u municipal obligations are taken care of and paid for and so what I'm curious about is is there a budget already that says okay x amount $5 is brought in, we're going to be using on 23% of these 20 percentages of different business areas to help develop them. Say for instance, 25% to the north, 25% to the south, 25% to the east, to the west. And then um once a specific amount of money has been generated and achieved and all the responsibilities progress the obligations are taken care of will we need the 23 years. So um just consider that. I do want to share one verse and that was when creating this budget. The reason I'm suggesting that is uh it comes from Luke 14 28-30 in the Bible and it's where Jesus says for which of you desiring to build a tower does not first sit down the counter for cost whether he has enough to complete it otherwise when he's laid the foundation and is not able to finish all who see it begin to mock him saying this man began to build and was not able

to finish. So my encouragement with that is with all the planning that has been put into this and I appreciate that uh if you can continue planning some more budgeting make sure that it is appropriately done and that some results are done. That's really cool. Hopefully all of those thoughts made sense. I feel like I'm just sharing a whole bunch of stuff that's trouble.

Thank you. Appreciate you good. Let's go back now to any additional public comment and I'm not here to you can certainly jump back in there. But we're going to do is we are going to um I think it's important we're going to be actually voting on this when you go into the regular meeting, but I think it while we're on this topic, I'd like to have the council members if they make any comments about this. Let's just uh we'll start with Hector at that and work our way to the Oh, sure.

Go ahead, Hector. Well, everybody had heard my comments before as far as affordability. Um and one other thing is that that was brought up specifically for small cities and I think every city including the big ones are facing uh a lot of issues as far as what to do with businesses is they're going away when when a lot of major big big box ops are taking over. Um, one of the things that we the reason we moved here aside from our flex freedom, our the towns in here, the schools is I had my children in here that was 46 in 2005, you know, when I landed here with my family. So, we did take a look at that. We took a look at the hospitals even though we weren't planning on having any more kids. But that is a that is a draw and being at the health department uh we do discuss some certain things as fires always said of what is happening uh to include uh well we started over at the health department with our rural health clinic uh which offers women's health center women's health and primary care and uh last week we actually uh we had a compliance student come over and actually uh asked for accreditation. So that's one of the things that we were offering which is something that we had uh talked about in our headline. Um but again affordability is one of the biggest things in there at the at the same time if you don't do anything to improve or to give business as far as a sales tax those are very important as well. So,

we're talking about as many different things uh to to be with that. And as far as the property taxes and that's depending on on the assessed value, I would prefer sales tax, eliminate property tax. Personally, if you're somebody who has a lot more income buys things that are a lot more expensive, they are they qualify for our sales tax. And so, there's a lot of places to kind of do that. They rather have property tax and actually hit everybody at the same time to include those that own homes they have to pass down to those that rent. That's just my take.

Thank you, Hector. Don,

I guess as far as the birthing, I do know of several couples that reside in town and obviously they have to if they're planning on having a family, they have to go somewhere else to have the child, but they choose to live in town because of certain aspects of town. The quality of life, there's certain aspects that draws them here regardless of whether we have birth at the hospital or not. Um, I do want to thank the people that reached out to me um past week with their concerns. Um, especially want to thank the people that signed their name to it reached out to me. But, uh, interestingly enough, I I I pulled out a 1984 Bureau of Republican the other day. was a celebration of Princeton and I looked and I studied it very closely and it was full of advertising ads and very interesting to look back at that time period. We had high inflation at that time. Um but yet you looked at it and things were pretty progressive there. look like there was a lot of businesses open slowly those have eroded away you know one by one and it it's it's such so slow that you don't really notice it happening until you look back and see something like that and I mean we're going to have a business that's going to close uh this summer that's over 100 years old and it will close quietly probably with no fanfare and uh you know we don't notice those things happening until until they're they're gone And uh it was just a it was just an interesting read. One of their one of their little mission statements in there was to try to retain business and retain manufacturing. We know we've lost manufacturing over time. Um I do I do um really appreciate the people that have invested in Princeton. There's some people that have dumped a fair amount of

money into their buildings and their businesses and uh they've managed to do quite well through it all. But uh I think that uh we need to be proactive for the future. Um the business district is a larger district and while our downtown main street old business district is important. I think it it gives you a it gives you a warm feeling when you see that down there. It's not that it's really efficient. It's not that it's really uh new, but people like that old town charm. But for this space, it is big enough that it takes in newer areas. It takes in other areas that quietly generate quite a bit of income that you don't really notice. And u I think that we have to be a little proactive in the future of what we're doing here.

Thank you, Don. Carrie, if you would, please. I think that our main street or some of our small businesses that there's a smoke going on right now. The economy and online shopping and for a lot of reasons there are business owners that were not successful and they closed accordingly. I don't think we can blame the city of Princeton for their closings. uh we have done I thought done a remarkable job of attracting people to come to town and uh whether they're uh uh from Ottawa or uh the Quad Cities, they still find Princeton to be a very fun place to come and find that there's a lot of resources available. I think this program will help generate interest in Princeton. It'll help fill some of the stores. Um so I I support the program. Um, but if I had to say about things that uh need work in this community, I think it's the educational system. I think it's that the schools are in dire need of funds to do to repair and keep them operating. Uh, you know, you talk about new families coming to town and some of the things that they look at, my gosh, education is one of them. If you're going to bring a young family here, you want to have a sense of whether or not this school district is readed uh adequately or uh monitored um adequately to provide the kind of education that you're looking for for your family. So, all in all, I think we've done a great job. Um I was part of the negotiation committee with Perry Memorial Hospital and OSF. I couldn't be more proud of the fact that we were able to uh change I'm sorry, excuse me. Uh I'm very proud of the fact that we were able to change the hospital ownership from puri to OSF and I can't speak uh enough good things about what OSF has

done for this community. Uh we were I was also involved in the alley's uh u deal to bring them to town and one of the things that they looked at and were pleased to see was that we have a top quality healthcare service right here in our community. Yes, they don't have birthing right now or and maybe it's not cost effective to be in Princeton but still that is I think a feather in our cap for a town of 8,000 people. So, I I think that this project has has value and um is worth giving it a try. Thank you, Jerry.

Um I think, you know, I'll pay you back to Don a little bit being proactive in the town. I I think you know uh a couple comments out there from hey, what has the city done up to this point? And when you look at our budget previously, we talked about the grocery tax. I'll bring that up, right? $400,000. If we had $400,000, we'd get a deficit. I think last year we were plus 200 little over $200,000 on our budget. That's it. And we have a major repair come up that would take that away a heartbeat. So, every city pretty much had that I've seen so far has readapted that. That's the state's way of putting on the cities and making the state look good like that. My all in all in in this um I appreciate Lynn getting up and speaking to this too. She's been very involved. You know, a lot of us have been very involved in this. We were looking at this hard. We didn't want to, you know, we wanted to find a way to bring business to town. We wanted a way to keep the businesses we have here. And we don't have a way of doing that right now. It's very important that business retention is a part of this, but also bringing bigger employers in. And we're kind of up against, you know, a brick wall here on on offering any incentives or anything like that to be a competitive city to do so. I think this helps with that a lot. Um, it it could help us with our with our housing issue or we just don't have enough inventory, you know, get more people in town, things like that. Um, and what I love about it is transparency. That's one of the big things come up. How are we doing, right? We were just back from town hall. I got spoke with them is transparency is right here. It's right in front of you. There's nothing behind any doors getting done. Period. It it comes down to the council in the end and that's the end all and everybody will see that when that's voted on uh to get those funds. Yes, we'll have a committee behind the behind the doors that are going, "Hey, yeah, maybe we should do this or that." with that scoring system that that Michael's talking about as well, right? So, I think it's very important that if if we just sit back and we don't do anything, we're going to be in a lot worse shape if we don't at least try to do something for this city. I'm born and raised here. It's very

important to me. I love this city. I love living here. I don't want to move out of this city. We've got a lot of things that we need to bring to town and this is part of it. So, I fully support this for those reasons. Thank you, Michael, and thank you to the council members uh for your comments. I'll just make my comments and then we're going to go back to again a pre public comment before we wrap this meeting up tonight. Um so, um when you hire us as council members, you vote us in and we've got a four-year term and and at that point, you can decide to fire us or to keep us on. And every one of us comes to this council table tonight with different views and different aspects, which is great. I mean, we all overall work well together. We're not we're not throwing knives at each other. We don't get on Facebook after the meeting and beat up each other. This is a council that works well together. May not always agree, but we respect each other, and we respect our fellow taxing bodies, and we work very well with our fellow taxing bodies. Now, I I I had the opportunity. There's in your packet, there's a mayor of Canton's uh had a nice little uh recommendation letter and then a council person from Bartonville. I called both of those uh individuals. Really enjoyed the mayor of Canton and and I'm not going to read his his letter, but I just would say it just talks um the second paragraph, he comes right out of the shoot saying since March of 2022, Canton has provided assistance to over 45 local businesses for all kinds of projects. Some projects have provided stability to the buildings. And we mean stability, we literally stability to a building physically. replacing roofs and windows, new HVAC systems, tough pointing brick, adding ADA accessibility, and aiding a variety of renovations. So, I I come from a concern that there's businesses and buildings on Main Street, some of them are challenging because they're 150 years old and they're soft brick. Some of them are three stories tall, so you got to have an aerial lift to get to

them. So we have business owners that it's very expensive to get a brickmason to show up on a job site and do work. And so I I have a concern over some of our integrity of our buildings on both the north end and the south end that these business owners just cannot afford to take on the projects of maintaining these older buildings that as I'd like to think he's our historian now on our council as as Don Slesky uh remindes there's so much history to Princeton and that's what attracts people to town. You're not going to get people to come to town either to to live here or to come spend a couple days just because we have a Walmart super center. They're going to come to town because of the small businesses on on Main Street that have are unique and such as Hoffman. I always talk about our Myrtles Pie people at the north end. We again without forgetting the name businesses. We got a lot of unique businesses on the north end. We have a lot on the south end. But as as Mike McCall has mentioned, it's an erosion factor of businesses that just slowly have faded away and since co um and it's not the business owner's fault in many ways and it's not the city's fault, but as we know we you know we can call up tonight and imagine by noon tomorrow there can be a package on my uh porch for with a smiley face on the outside of the package but you turn that smiley face upside down and that frown for our small business owner. So there's things we're not going to be able to change in this world. When I talk to fellow mayors in small towns, they all have the same challenges. But I see this as an opportunity for us to move forward in a positive manner. I'll finish this up by this. Each one of us on this council, we listen to you when we get uh an email, a text, and typically we try to call you back. We try to text you back. I think every one of us has has done that, right? We do. We're and we're and tonight we're we're right here and we stay after the council meeting. We say, "Hey, your council members will stick around. come up and talk to us. Um, there's already been compromises made the past eight months this project in place. I came out of the shoot and you heard my story. There was mornings I woke up at 2:00 in the morning. I

thought, man, is this the right thing to do? And then there I I felt better about it and better about it and I thought, well, I guess we need a full 1%. You know what? I had people say, well, let's pump the brakes. Let's let's compromise. Let's do a half a percent. So, we came in our council meeting from from two weeks ago. We we started the first uh vote on this with the understanding we've already compromised in a positive manner trying to work with what we've heard from the from the public and try to come up with a fair amount that can be taxed without being an overburden on that tax which is what we're looking at tonight is a half a percent. So with that all said what I'd like to do then is open this back up for additional comments from the public. Otherwise we're going to go ahead and close this meeting down again. We'd like to have you come up to the count to the podium and speak if you would.

I have a question. Sure, Michael. Yes. Yes. Yes. You guys had a city council meeting. I didn't come down to it. You guys had a vote. You go. You guys voted uh three to two. That's correct. Yes. Yes. I I believe that Hector Gomez, you voted no. And I believe that Jerry Noman, you voted no, too. Uh um so now um my understanding is that you would like to see um something with property taxes and not with sales tax. Is that sort of what you're I say that I would prefer that in a sense to

that's what I thought all along. That's why you voted no. See I didn't come I did not read that article in the newspaper but I knew all already why you were going to vote no but I just didn't know what it was going to be about and you thought it was the property taxes. Yes. Yes. Do away with those sales taxes. Yes. But we are pushed into that position right now to where we can't do that. We have to do that with the sales taxes. And then Mr. Newman, you said that people did not have a vote, a chance to vote on this. Um I feel the same reason the same thing. I feel that if we were to go and put this before the 8,000 people in this town, would they all vote yes? I I think they would vote no. And I'm wondering if this really is a good idea to do this right now to rush into this because are you ready to go and change your mind and vote yes tonight and go against giving the taxpayers a chance to vote?

No, my vote will not change.

It will not. That's sort of what I was wondering about cuz you were sort of talking. I agree with what you people need to do. I have been here for 19 years and I have past history with all these businesses. In 2014, I was out of work for two years and one month. Two years and one month. I did not bring my job search papers with me. Okay? I walked around to all these businesses, north and south, east and west. I know all the address. I had to have all their signatures. No jobs. Get out. Okay. That's what they would tell me. Now, they want me to come downtown and spend money. But I noticed that there's no restrooms down there and no signs. When you come to those businesses downtown and you see those signs on those businesses that says no soliciting, it's me. Let me come around to your business for 2 years and one month and knock on your door and want a job. You're going to get tired of it. You're going to put up a sign that says an old listing. I have pissed past history with all of these businesses. Who did I get a job with? Casey's six years retired from there. They came in from Iowa. I was hired by corporate I didn't get a job. I have had jobs here in town. I worked at Beex, worked at Casey's, worked at the Garden Room, and I worked over at Combined Cleaning, but I didn't get any help from these businesses up and down, north and south and east and west. They didn't help me. And I have very good job ethics. I worked at a rest a grocery store for 20 years. I have a pension I can draw. So, it was not something with my work history. I don't know what it was, but I I agree. I I think that everybody should have a chance to vote on this, but this is desperate times and we have to do desperate things. I understand that and I see their businesses that are going out of business here in town. I went wondering

down there at Anderson Mass, are they going out of business? Well, of course, they're the ones that got to tell us the story on that, but my understanding is that they're working their way down to he's he's going to retire. He's 70 years old. That's his goal. Yes. Yes. And he'd love to sell that business to existing business, somebody. Well, you know what? I don't understand cuz why did that man not put no money into his business? Well, I'm sure he did, Michael. Tonight, though, we can't debate a person's uh business.

Well, I just wonder about that cuz it's like we're going to the taxpayers for the money to help fix up these build businesses. And I I'm trying to figure that out. I I think that the the challenge is though we if we don't do something and I say that's not his ability I'm concerned about but um let's do this. Michael, do you have any more questions? I think he's being covered really good. Thank you, Michael. Let's go back. Yes, Caroline. Go ahead. Make it legal and just a quick question. Why is it 23 years?

Herb would buy your best. The statute allows up to 23 years. So in other words, if we say at the end of 10 years, we can cut it. They can if they want to. Um you just have to be mindful if they have any agreements in place with the business. It's carrying on for more than one year. But the statute allows 23 years. Uh part of the reason I think if you go back into the history of the statute commonly commercial loan term is if a business is going to go to a bank and borrow money is 20 years. So this gives them time to develop their plans decide they're going to invest in their business and then get a 20-year loan.

The other was you know we talked about this before people can get grants but there's one business here in town that I was I'm rather proud of. They were on Main Street and decided to move off of Main Street, put up a building, have all the equipment and tables they need and did it on their own. Very good. Thanks, Geraldine. Anyone else? Otherwise, what we'll do then is um heard any closing comments you'd like to make. Michael, any closing comments? Question. The fairgrounds is included in this. Yes. I didn't think they were right next to the city. Are they? That's on the agenda tonight. Correct. Yep. Okay.

So, uh, Michael, one more alibi as I call this thing I forgot about was so in the process of trying to have good transparency and feedback. Um, you had met with a local coffee shop. Could you just get a point and just explain how that went with meeting those face to face and and u and that might be once, you know, very I think it's very helpful when you get a sense of where this all going. Sure. That was one of many conversations I've had with local businesses about they have a little confusion about what we're trying to do, what our goals are, what the impact on them is going to be. And we sat down and had a really positive conversation and within about 5 minutes of chatting, we were on the same page. We agreed that um someone has to do something uh and the city is taking up the time. Very positive conversation.

So it went from maybe a negative perception with this program to a positive perception. Just a matter of communicating to that coffee shop owner. Correct. Very good. Thank you, Michael. I appreciate that. Okay, with that said, if there's not any further comments from the public, we're going to do is Jerry Good. We're in formally close out. You want to say something? Yes, sir. Just state your name, please.

My name is Matt. I've lived in Princeton for 17 years. Princeton. I've lived in Quincy for four years, Ottawa, the rest of my life before I came here. And Princeton is by far the most wonderful community that I've ever lived in. And I absolutely love it. I've watched my four kids go to school develop and the wonderful people. And I know some of these conversations definitely are not easy to have. But I agree with you. I worked with John Beard seating molen. I did get laid off at the end of September. But the first words out of most of the people's mouths when they asked where I was from, I said it was from Princeton, Illinois. The first things they would talk about are about the two beautiful downtowns that we have with with the special mom and pop shops. And I'm so proud of this community, what we dealt with it. I agree that something needs to be done. But this place has a lot of potential with the location with the two locations of the downtowns. This is a wonderful place to live. So I I just hope every any everyone can come to a compromise and some can get done and the two downtowns can flourish because it's a beautiful thing and it's done wonders for my family. So thank you

appreciate that. That's a great great way to wrap up comments. I appreciate that. Okay, Jerry, if you would please. I move that we adjourn our public hearing and convene to our regular council meeting. Clounc I Gomez. Hi McCall. Hi. Hi. And hi. Sorry about that. I was thinking about my Thank you. Appreciate that. Now, what we're going to do is um we're going to go ahead and go back into the regular format. So, we'll go ahead and open this city council meeting uh by the clerk calling the role, please. May we agree? Here. Council member Newman here. Here. McCall and here.

Would you please stand and join me in the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Okay. Now, on this public part part of public comment, we do ask that you limit your comments to 3 months or less if possible. And typically, we may not be able to respond to your concerns and we may don't maybe don't have. So, with that said, we go to public comment at the beginning of the meeting as well as at the end. You can speak both times. Is there anyone like to speak to the council tonight about anything? We're good. Okay. Seeing none, I'll go ahead now and get the approval of the minutes, please, Jerry. I move that we approve the minutes from our regular council meeting on March 2nd, 2026. Second. Motion in a second concerning those minutes. Is there any question or comments from the council concerning those? Seeing none, clerk call. Member Newman. Hi. Gomez. Hi. McCall. Hi. Hi.

And Mayor Mry.

Hi. Thank you. Now on to the approval of the invoices with city clerk Janet Tang. In the Department of Accounts and Finances, we have $128,37359. In the Department of Streets and Public Improvements, $83,45265. The Department of Public Safety, $287,4685. and the Department of Public Property and Utilities $879,2312 with a grand total of 1,378,31741. Mayor, all council members present have confirmed the reviews of all the invoices and they're now submitted for disposition.

I move that we approve the invoices as presented. Second. We have a motion to approve those invoices. Well, a second. Is there any questions or concerns from the council concerning these invoices? Seeing none, cler call the role. Council member Newman, hi. Gomez, hi. McCall, hi. Seei, hi. And Mry. Hi. Um, next on the agenda, we have a recommendation for a special youth petition for Living Faith Church. Jerry, you make the motion. I move that we approve the recommendation for special use permit for Living Faith Church. Second.

Okay. Yeah, we thank you for that motion. Second. Before we vote on that, uh, let's go ahead and we'll have Michael, do you want to address that what we have going on? If there's anybody in the audience that needs to speak about that, that's great, too. We appreciate that. Um, Living Faith Church whose contingency is with us tonight. Um, had a couple different locations in mind, but uh, uh, plan commission has some concerns about those, though. This is a good one. Uh, plan commission thoughts uh, is the old Tumblesson auction building at 1641 North Main Street. There was a clarification in that address just last week, but it is 1641 North Main Street. Um, uh, the plan commission voted unanimously in favor of it. So,

okay. Any questions from the council concerning that? I think we're good then. Thank you. And I don't think we have any comments from the team and panel. You're good with that. And I know like you said, you had looked at other locations. So, tonight we'd say amen, right? Amen. Amen. Very good. Okay. Council member Newman. Hi Gomez. Hi McCall. Hi Sleski. Hi. And Mary. Hi. Thank you.

Next on the agenda, we have a suspension of requirement for a second reading on ordinance 0-26-005, an ordinance annexing the real estate pursuance to 65s 5/71 through8 zero county. I move that we suspend the requirements for a special for a second reading on ordinance 0-26-00005. Second. Have a motion and a second. What we're going to do, we're going to go ahead and approve that and then we'll go and explain what that's all about on the next ordinance. So, if there's any questions or comments from council, cler call the role. Council member Newman. Hi. Gomez. Hi. Nicole. Hi. Silky. Hi. and Mary. Hi.

Next on the agenda is ordinance 0-26-00005, an ordinance annexing real estate pursuant to 65 ILCS 5/71 through8 Bureau County Fairgrounds. This would be the final reading. I move that we approve ordinance 0-26-00005. Second. So, we have a motion in second. Now, before we vote on that, Michael, if you don't mind, you can come back up and explain what we got going on there. Yeah.

Um, so, you know, when we look at at West Peru Street, we identify the whole area um with our business development proposal and and things we wanted to address out there. Uh, one of those things that, you know, is is good transportation, but another thing was, uh, the appearance of, um, maybe the fairgrounds and and some of us being privy to some of their, um, goals, but also being held back from those schools by financial struggles. So, the only way to get them in the district was to annex them um, to city limits, which uh, Jennica, who's on the fair board, um, she did a great job of explaining to the fair board exactly what this all about. Uh they were really jazzed up about it and they uh happily are are annexing it to the city. So

very good. And before you sit down, uh council members, you have any questions about that? Go ahead. I agree. Um nothing about that prohibits livestock noise. We're we're going to need to pass a resolution granting them grandfather use. Uh but we we've already kind of uh discussed that with them that that is our intent. Um so we'll have that in the near future. It'll be able to conduct business as a fair with tractor poles, no noise complaints, livestock. Absolutely.

And they've been working on this, like I said, with Jennica. So, you've already thought about those things. So, we're good. We consider the Bureau County Fair to be its own little powerhouse out there. A lot of activities every weekend go on at the fairgrounds. We appreciate that. Okay. With that said, no other questions or comments. Call the role. Council Newman. Hi. Go. Hi. McCall. Hi. Hi. And Mayor M. Hi. Next on the agenda, we have a suspension of requirement for a second reading on ordinance 0-26-006, an ordinance annexing real estate pursuant to 65 LCS 5/7128. This is for the Riker Ricker property.

I move that we suspend the requirement for a second reading on ordinance 0-26-006. Second. We have a motion second. What we're going to do, we're going to discuss it again like we did with the uh the fairgrounds property on the second uh ordinance below that. So go ahead then. That said, third call the role. Council member Newman. Hi. Gomez. Hi. Nicole. Hi. Silleski. Hi. Ender. Hi. Okay. Next on the agenda then we have ordinance O-26-006 and ordinance annexing real estate pursuant to 65 ILCS 571 through8. This would be the final reading. I move that we approve ordinance 0-26-00006. Second.

Okay, we have a motion second. Am I cling to stand up? Basically, it's because they have land that kind of intertwines in between the fairgrounds land. So, it made sense to annex that in as well. They were going to be surrounded on three sides. There's not a big effect to them really. We did the math on that. They thought it was minimal enough to agree to come in. So, okay. Any questions for the council? I hear saying none. Cl Newman. Hi. Gomez. Hi. McCall. Hi. Silki. Hi. And Mary. Hi.

Next on the agenda, we have ordinance O-26-004. an ordinance designating and approving the Princeton B business district number one and imposing a retailers's occupation tax, a service occupation tax, and a hotel operator's occupation tax within Princeton's business district number one. This would be the second and final reading. I move that we approve ordinance 0-26-004. Second.

We have a motion and second. This is uh what we were our misses was for tonight. So with that said, is there any additional questions or comments from the council before we take a vote on this today? Seeing none, clear call rule. Council member Newman. I support the program, but I vote no because I think that this approval of this should be done by the community at large, not the city council.

Go man. after listening to to a lot of uh people even emails and uh person to person um again I I don't like tags but I do believe that you have to do something to be able to help uh the city itself. So even though from the last time we did this uh I was kind of in between um and I don't like the taxes but I think it's something that has to be done. Um so in this case I will say yay. McCalli.

And mayor I very good. Thank you councel. All right. Next on the agenda, then we have ordinance 0-26-00007, an ordinance approving an agreement for purchase of property commonly known at 526 North Chestnut Street. This would be the first reading. I move that we advance ordinance 0-26-007 to the second reading. Second. Okay, we have a motion second. Before we go on to vote on that, let's see who would like to discuss this as a council or to the council. Teresa, would I take this or Mike? Michael's been a long

Well, yeah, go ahead. Go, Michael. Um, we've got the opportunity to obtain the property. It's been kind of a a headache as everybody knows. Um, but I'll let Michael talk about the details. Yeah. are only looking at

uh the property owner uh who does not occupy the the premises um understands that uh it was either this or we were going to push for demolition of the residence. Um both of us understand that um the house is blighted but it is not beyond saving. Uh and she is ready to wash her hands of it. um we can obtain it for uh a low amount and hopefully uh get back our costs, get a new family in there um and keep a house standing that that has historical significance. Um would be a lot cheaper to renovate than it is to rebuild there. So it's in a nice neighborhood otherwise we're optimistic this will be a good change for that neighborhood. Michael, thank you for that. Teresa, would you like to add anything on that?

Um no, not very much. council. We all know which property we're talking about and I think we just want to say thank you to the neighbors for being extremely patient as we worked on this to try to resolve this issue. There's no other further questions or comments. Let's go ahead and uh call the role on that. Council member Newman. Hi Gomez. Hi McCall. Hi. Hi. May. Hi. Thank you. Appreciate it. Next we have ordinance 0-26-008. An ordinance amending the city of Princeton, Bureau County, Illinois budget for the fiscal year commencing May 1st, 2025 and ending April 31st, 2026. This is the first reading.

I move that we advance ordinance 0-26-008 to the second reading. Motion and second. Teresa, if you would just give us an overview on that, please.

Sure. Uh in your packet there is about two and a half really about two pages of some amendments for the fiscal year that we're currently in. Not to be confused with the budget that I'm working on for next year. Um so you'll see if if the numbers are in presence it's a decrease in the budget. It's not it's generally an increase in revenue or uh expenditures. Um some of these you see every year when it comes to especially on the fire department with contract services the ambulance billing can be very it fluctuates every year based on calls. So that can go up it can go down um but it is often offset in the revenues. So if you see it as an expense you're incurring it as a revenue as well. So um some of the the bigger ones I'll take you down to admin the administrative department miscellaneous revenue. I'd explain off that one because that does seem like a a big jump in what we would consider miscellaneous. Uh what was brought in there, a large chunk of that was a a refund from Illinois Municipal Risk Management Association. Uh we did receive a call a rebate um unused fund we'll say. Uh that was given back to us for kind of a we we we had a good year. So, um, it was nice to have $75,000 given back to us on that one. Um, on, uh, the second page, uh, you'll see in the electric department, uh, significant amount going back into miscellaneous revenue. Uh, we are cashing in a CD that the electric department currently has to help help offset some of the expenditures related to the two that we've incurred. Uh, this is what that CD was set aside for. when something like this happens. I will just say uh when Jeff and I talked about this, I don't know if we'll need it. Um if we don't, it'll roll back into a CD. So, we'll just if it's there and you

need it, it'll be there. So, um any other ones that I don't think are major. Um if you have questions on even let me know though. Uh the probably the bigger jump is in the economic development de development fund the very last one and that is that's incurring the expenditures from the BDB discussion and going through this process. So uh you'll see a a pretty big jump there and that'll be in consultant fees, legal fees and that type of stuff. So um any questions on that? So the expenses for the BDD in the preparation is just going to come out of our regular budget. So it won't be part of the district.

Well, we'll have to keep it in mind with be coming out of this budget, but we can reimburse ourselves unfortunately be in the next. No, that's my understanding. But it is nice to keep in mind that we can absorb some of that. Any other questions? Thank you, Teresa. I think we're good on that. Thank you for that part. Um, with that said, uh, call the role. Council member Newman. Hi, Gomez. Hi. McCall, hi. So, I may I. Next on the agenda, we have resolution R-26-006 authorizing the city manager to agree to zoning.

Move that we approve resolution R-26-006. Second. A motion. Second. If you could, Teresa, when they see the word settlement, that doesn't mean a monetary settlement. Is it just go ahead just an agreement of dispute of of the deck. So, um, no, no exchange of funds at this point. So, very good. Thank you, Teresa, on that. Uh, if there's any questions or comments from the council otherwise, cler call the role. Council member Newman. Hi. Gomez, hi. McCall, hi. Hi. And Bry,

hi. Next we have resolution R-26-00007 authorizing the award of contract to low biders for water treatment chemicals for 2026. I move that we approve resolution R-26-00007. Second. So we have a motion second on that. And we understand Teresa you're chuckled there. It's hard to pronounce these words. That's why these these people that are class A white water uh wastewater people they that's a field in itself. So go ahead if you don't mind.

Every year when this happens uh so uh we did go out for bid again for the the water chemicals as you remember a couple years ago the uh we were seeing a sometimes a three 300% increase in in water chemical prices. So we decided to keep this up with the the bidding each year. Um so this year uh the low bids as you see on on the resolution in paragraph two um are going to Alexander Chemical Corp. for hydrofluorosic acid. Um there's no student and you probably correct me on this stuff. Uh and to Brent Tag for the hydrate lime. Um lime had a significant increase this year. uh Raw Wall Chemical for the hypo sodium hypocchloride and SJ Smith for the carbon dioxide.

Okay, that said, I guess we probably don't have any questions on that. We have pretty straightforward. Uh we have a motion to second. Cl member Newman. I Gomez. Hi. McCall. Hi. Belowki. Hi. And Mary Bry. Hi. Okay. Board appointment. I move that we appoint Stephanie Reinhardt to the to fill the unexpired term of Eileen Wolf with the term ending or expiring in June of 2026. Have a motion second. I leave any questions or concerns about that. We appreciate the library board. Cler call. Council member Newman. Hi. Gomez. Hi. McCall. Hi. Hi. And mayor Mry.

Hi. Now on to our state mannower with the report please. In your packet is the Princeton Firefires Pension Fund monthly report for January 31st, 2026. Uh, and a reminder um, next Monday at 5:00 we will have our budget uh, sess planning session for the fiscal year 27 budget. Um, I think everybody's done might be your first year going through it. Um, I think I've gotten a comfortable place with the budget for for next year. Uh, we got some significant projects in there again. So, we're trying to to balance all of that out, but I'm I'm in I'm in a comfortable spot with it now. Uh last thing I will point out um are jobs. If you've been watching job postings for the city, uh we currently have two active positions that are uh seeking applications. Electric generation maintenance operator, those are due on Friday. Uh water treatment distribution operator, those are due on the 27th of this month. Uh I anticipate in the next week or two we will have the um two labor positions, one for cemetery and one for streets. And then we'll have in the next couple weeks uh two department head positions too that'll be getting uh be getting posted. So anything else, Teresa?

Did I forget any of them? Great Teresa. Anything else on that? No. Um, just a I'm going to have a couple mayor's comments here, but one of the things as Teresa mentioned about the opening for a person in labor at the street department and a person for the cemetery department. Uh, think about this. It's so exciting when you come to work for the city of Princeton, which we think is a great place to work, have great benefits. Um, you can work your way up. So there is a officer that now is a K-9 officer with our police department that started on the back of the garbage truck and he's worked his way up and pretty soon he might be the next chief. Never know.

Never know. That's right. So So there's great opportunities working for the city and there's and and you know the the garbage truck and we appreciate the guidance that the the past council had on getting mechanical uh garbage trucks. Uh they're not hanging on the back of the truck that and so even that job is is a pretty hard job. I I didn't. So, with that said, I'm going to make a few comments at the podium here and we will keep this meeting moving along. I know it's got a little lengthy here, but as I say, lengthy lengthy is good. When I first became mayor, uh the first council meeting I was up here, I donated the print up there on the on the on the wall there. And that's a Norman Rockwell print of a person speaking to a public body and it shows the person with kind of some work clothes on and they got a little bit of a tan face and their their hands are callous and the persons around them have business suits on. It really represents the fact that anybody coming up here to speak is given the same rep uh respect as anyone else. So tonight was a prime example of that. We appreciate the people coming tonight and listening and we listen to you and we we listen to you all the time. As we said earlier, if you email us, if you call us, if you text us, uh we do respond back and and we we try hard to do that. Ideally, if you email us and text us and or and make a a comment that this is Bill or anonymous, sometimes gets a little hard to respect that. We really like to dialogue back and forth knowing who we we're talking to. Couple of quick things here tonight. Uh if I could, I'm going to go ahead and read this proclamation and u I'm going to just elaborate on this, but this is a proclamation of Vietnam Veterans Week. Whereas March 29th is designated as National Vietnam War Veterans Day, a day to honor and thank the brave men and and women who served in the Vietnam War. And whereas the service and sacrifices of Vietnam veterans and their families have had a profound impact on our nation. And

we are deeply indebted to them for their courage and dedication. And whereas it is fitting that we take time to recognize and appreciate the contributions of these heroes and to ensure that their stories and sacrifices are never forgotten. And whereas the city of Prince, Illinois proudly acknowledges the service and sacrifices of our Vietnam veterans and their families. Now therefore, be it proclaimed that the city of Princeton, Illinois, hereby recognizes and honors National Vietnam War Veterans Week on March March 24th through March 29th of 2026 and encourages all residents to join in expressing their gratitude to our Vietnam veterans and their families. It witness I, Raymond Mabry, mayor of the city of Princeton, do hereby affix my signature and the seal of the city of Princeton on this 16th day of March, 2026. So, with that said, there's many times we do proclamations, but I just want to uh in all due respect, and a lot of times veterans don't want to be recognized, we have veterans this evening that served either actually in Vietnam or during the Vietnam War. as we like to say because I was a guy that uh carried a weapon for 27 years, not in the Vietnam War, but I never fired my weapon at all, but there's always about four soldiers, military people that are behind the person in the front line, whether they're in the trenches or on a ship or on a plane. So, tonight we'd like to recognize all Vietnam veterans here, whether you serve actually in Vietnam or assisting in that service. And tonight, we have Jerry Newman, who served in the United States Marines. We appreciate your service, Jerry. We have John Isson that serves in the United States Air Force. And we have our city treasurer, Bob Davidson, who served

the Army. In the Army. Is there anyone else here tonight that's a Vietnam veteran? Ernie, please. What did you serve in? Air Force. Forward air control folks. Air Force. Okay. Forward air. Okay. Is there anyone else here tonight? Let's give her husband. Oh, your husband. Okay. Very good. Uh, let's go and get him around.

Oh, we appreciate that. Heard it said many times, but it's so true with Vietnam veterans. We say welcome home to the Vietnam veterans. The uh other things on the good side, the mayor gets invited to a lot of things. I'm going to keep this real short. Uh but the Bureau Valley FFA sent out a nice invitation and they were having a legislative night up at Manless at the Bureau Valley High School and the Bureau Valley FFA is a pretty active organization. So I I thought, well, why do they need the mayor of Princeton to go up there for a legislative night? Because they invited some state representatives as well. But I enjoyed going up there and I explained to them that my jurisdiction really our jurisdiction really runs to the city limits. And as I as they as they nicely reminded me though, what happens in Princeton happens all over Bureau County in a positive manner or and in in many ways. Uh we influence the whole county or the county seat in that whole respect as well. We sure enjoy all of our small communities that make up your county. But la uh last Wednesday night I was up there at Manless. Uh they had nice program. They had state representative Dan Swanson. If you remember, Dan Swanson was actually one of our state representatives until they redistrict. And believe it or not, he still has an attraction to that Bureau Valley FFA school up there. Manless. He's not even they're not even in his district, but he came and he had a great presentation. Dan's got a great bio. He uh farms. He raises 10,000 head of hogs every year. He's had served 27 and a half years in the army. he retired as a as a lieutenant colonel in the army and so as I told him as an E6 that I retired as E6, he still outranks me in so many ways. So, but it was great to be around Dan and had a chance to learn a little bit more about him. Um, and that Bureau Valley FFA, they they got their agame going. Um, the other thing I just wanted to say, I mentioned OSF invited the mayors to come over to Peru and get a better understanding of what goes on. as Jerry mentioned and and Lynn mentioned, it's an asset, tremendous asset, and I commend the the previous council for

working with that um challenge of getting a municipal hospital uh on the roles as a private entity, per se. And there's a lot of loose ends. There was employees there, there was retirements there. You had to be very sensitive to all that went on there that whole process. And I know you guys took about a year to work on that whole two years. Yeah. Yeah. It's like a thousand piece jigsaw puzz.

Yes. Um so good for you Jerry. We appreciate your efforts on that and the previous mayor aquarium to work on that. Um so they invited us to come over to Peru and explain the how the hub works. So basically you've got this interstate 80 that they call hub that includes uh hospitals in streeter Ottawa Princeton and Modota that feed feed into to uh PU and the state-of-the-art equipment that they're investing in the the proof facilities is just unbelievable. So we're all in good hands with OSF. I feel that very very strongly. Um, the other thing would be tomorrow, this is the final comment, I'll sit down. Tomorrow is primary voting in in Bureau County or primary voting in the state of Illinois. So, please get out there and vote. That's critical. And man, if you don't vote, it's it's just shame on you. That's a a great opportunity and something that our our veterans helped to defend your right to do that. So, get out there and vote tomorrow morning, please. I say in the morning, better vote in the morning than in deep. may all of a sudden forget it. Oh, okay. Very good. Thank you tonight for everybody's public comments uh and input. Appreciate that. Okay. Now, we're going to go on to old business and and it was asked and we got these two issues on there we're still working on. So, I don't want to sound like we're delaying it with the ebikes and the electric scooters. We're still waiting here from the state of Illinois on some guidance there with different uh laws and the THC infused beverages we talked about there. Some of the uh businesses in town have pulled that off their shelves for the time being and again we're waiting for some direction on that.

There will be some federal regulations on that federal level. Okay. So, we commend those uh Princeton retailers that pulled that off the shelves and are not selling that. And we would encourage anybody that still has on the shelves if they could to pull that off, we'd appreciate that. Uh, is there any new business for the council this evening? Seeing none, is there any additional public comment? This is your last chance tonight to say something again. The council will stick around for a few minutes. You can talk to the council members afterwards. Any official public comment? Seeing none, would Jerry, please move that we journ our regular meeting this evening and reconvene for our next city council meeting on Monday, April 6th, 2026, 6 p.m. at city hall. Second. Motion second. Cler call the rule.

Council member Newman. Hi. Gomez. Hi. Ma. Hi. Hi. And Mayor Mry. Hi. Thank you. This meeting is adjourned and feel free to stick around if you want to.