City Council - Regular Meeting

I'd like to call this meeting of the Princeton City Council to order. Clerk, call the roll.

Mayor Mabry. Here. Councilor Newman. Here. Spillman. Here. McCall. So let's see.

Here. Would you please stand and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance? I pledge 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, we're going to go into public comment period. Now, public comment is the time for you to speak to the council. It may not be an opportunity for us to respond because we may not have the information that we need to do a response. We ask that you limit your time to three minutes. We have public comment at the beginning of the meeting as well as at the end. All you have to do is step up to the podium and give your name. And again, we respectfully ask for you to limit your comments to three minutes. With that said, is there anyone who would like to speak to the council this evening? We have two opportunities, now and then a little bit later.

I'll go ahead.

Sure. I'll just state your name.

All right. I am Paul Pratt.

I'm sure you guys all know me. I'm just curious. When I came here to speak the last time, if there was any conclusion or feedback you could give me about the whole apartment situation break-in. You know, I would say you've got a landlord or land person that you need to deal with on that and you have talked to that person, right? About maybe changing the locks, things like that? I had a talk, not about changing the locks, but about the front door code that needs to be changed. Because she has that combination. So I would encourage you to work with the building owner or the building manager and get that addressed. That's our suggestion. We really consider that... It's not necessarily, it's a private thing in the sense that your buildings should be secured by your landlord. And secured to the level that you feel good about as a renter. Okay, so I should just take this up with him? Absolutely. Okay, sorry if I ever called anybody a scumbag because they wouldn't help me. I don't remember calling them a scumbag. I remember telling someone they were a scumbag. But I'm sorry about that. And that's all the advice or help you guys can give me. I think that's the most prudent thing. You guys have a good day. Thank you, Paul. See you later. Thank you. Anyone else for a public comment? Kent, please. And just again, for the record, just state your name and get up the podium.

statement two weeks ago, so this is why I did not have time to finish. And I'm glad Mr. McCullough is not here because some of it is addressed to him, so I had to see it by videotape. In 2025, this council had a special meeting to decide whether to keep employing Ms. Wittenauer. It was attended by my estimate of 125 citizens, whom virtually all, including myself, supported her. With her huge reduction of millions of dollars of debt, it would have been foolish for you to have terminated her. She didn't deserve termination, and the three of you, excluding Mr. Celestia, was not on board, and Mr. Newman highly appeared ready to do so. Mr. McCall will remember this was the meeting where, at the end, the mayor told each commissioner to apologize to Teresa, whereby, following Mr. McCall's apology, Mr. McCall snugly said he thought it had grown out of proportion. It was Mr. McCall and this board who caused her such stress and caused all those people to spend their evening coming to a two-hour and 17-minute meeting to support Theresa. With his statement, in one moment, he threw everyone under the bus, including not only the citizens, but also the other commissioners for what he himself had caused. Similar to the North Chestnut property, and as Mayor Mabry has alluded, it took such public pressure for this board to act. This year, at the July 6th meeting, Mr. McCall stated that South Church property, after several meetings, was now beating a dead horse. He purposely didn't want to repeat the issues, though they are many and multifaceted and very hard to discuss in a few allotted minutes. He perhaps forgot I have been affected by the property for very many years, even prior to the water damage four years and seven months ago, and prior and after last year's demand letter in his exhibiting a low tolerance for spending his small amount of time discussing the property. He seemed to know it all in stating it was false that the bats were coming from that property, though to my knowledge he has never been on my property or that property, and he complained he had 36 pages regarding the issues. It's too bad he's not here. I would like to ask Mr. McCall, did those pages include the nine pages to which, at Mr. Kammerer's request, I spent days assembling, detailing the nuisance property ordinances and the violations that should have been written by Mr. Kammerer himself? At the last meeting, Mayor Mabry stated the commissioners do not expect to receive compensation for their service, which, Ray, I'm sorry to say, was a lie. Words matter, and a half-truth is a full lie.

Kent, three minutes. And we welcome you to come back then at the end of the meeting to continue that. Is there anyone else that would like to speak to the council tonight during public comment? Seeing none, we'll go ahead now to the approval of our minutes, please. I move that we approve the minutes from our regular council meeting on July 20th, 2026. Second. We have a motion and a second. Is there any questions or comments concerning those minutes? Seeing none, clerk, call the roll.

Councilmember Newman. Aye. Gomes.

Aye.

Velazquez.

Aye.

And Mayor McCreary. Aye.

Now on to our invoices with City Clerk Janet Penny.

In the Department of Accounts and Finances, we have $50,709.16. Department of Streets and Public Improvements, $156,226.18. The Department of Public Safety, $471,296.91. and the Department of Public Property and Utilities, $278,393.53, with a grand total of $966,625.88. Mayor, our council members present have confirmed the reviews of all invoices, and they're now submitted to the commission. I move that we approve the invoices as presented. Second. We have a motion and a second.

Any questions or comments concerning the invoices from the council members? Seeing none, clerk call the roll.

Council Member Newman? Aye. Don Matz? I would like to state also that there's one specifically that has no itemized under it, just again, credit card in the middle and everybody can see. But other than that, I will again suggest that we make sure that this I wish to come in and get paid from everybody that's traveling or anything else has an itemized bill. It's only to protect them and the city. Other than that, aye.

Selesky?

Aye. Mayor Mayberry? Aye. Thank you.

Next on the agenda, we have resolution R-26-022. A resolution authorizing the award of contract to low bidder for the police department road restoration project to economy riffing for $36,300.

I move that we approve resolution R-26-022. Second. Motion second. Unless there's any questions in the council, we know it's pretty self-explanatory that roof out at the police department has been giving us trouble for the past couple of years, and this hopefully will solve that problem. So with that said, we've got a clear call to roll.

Council Member Newman.

Aye.

Gomez.

Aye.

Valesky. Aye. And Mayor Mayberry.

Aye.

Next on the agenda, we have ordinance 026-016. and ordinance modifying Princeton Historic Preservation Commission abilities and oversight to protect historic structures. This is the first reading.

I move that we advance ordinance O-26-016 to the second reading. Second.

We have a motion and a second. What we're going to do, we have Michael Ziering, that's our planning and zoning officer. He's going to speak on this as well as Michael Stutzke, I believe.

I'll invite Michael Stutzke up first.

Okay, very good. Michael, you would. Thank you. Michael, if you would, tell us the different board members that are on that committee.

More than half the two mayors. In fact, one of them this evening, Michael Lee, is with us. He serves as Secretary of the Historic Preservation Commission. Members currently are Abby Taylor, Grace Seneff, Laura Kahn, Tina Klingenberg, and David Morris. You folks have approved. My statement is brief. This evening you have for your consideration, and Councilman Newman is advanced, but for the sake of what I put forth here, a proposed ordinance that seeks to protect historic structures in our city. This ordinance is brought to you from the Historic Preservation Commission. This document, which the commission has taken many years to research, is the direct result of the hard work performed by many commission members over the past decade. some who are present this evening, as I mentioned, Michael Lee is with us. I hope we can agree that our historic homes and Main Street buildings, some dating back to 1837, have enabled Princeton to become an intricate part of our state's history. Some of our beautiful and historic homes include the Clark home in 1837, the Lovejoy home, 1838, the Paddock home, 1840, the Stephens home, 1849, and the Karst home in 1847. Those are the early ones, if you will. The Historic Preservation Commission has been and will remain dedicated to maintaining Princeton's place in history. I believe it is important to give credit where credit is due to those whose leadership of the Commission over the past 10 years has brought us to tonight's proposed ordinance. They are Ryan Keitzer, Michael Ziering, and Katherine Hunzinger. My responsibility as the new chairman of the Historic Preservation Commission has been to bring this ordinance to you and hopefully across the finish line. With your support and approval, this sets Princeton on a direct and secure path to protect and preserve our cherished heritage. just ever so briefly because the document itself is pretty heavy, but just to kind of give you an idea of where the Historic Preservation Commission is at this point. This was prepared many years ago. In fact, it's the second one of its type. What we're looking to do is to landmark the historic properties in our community to move forward and protect them. Oftentimes these dwellings have been sold multiple times and it's important that the new owners understand their historic importance to our city. And so what the Historic Preservation Commission will be able to do through this ordinance is to bring to your attention, and for your approval, those homes that deserve to be landmarked. And I have brought as an example, once it's brought to you and you vote on it, the owners of said property will be presented a landmark emblem to put on their home, or if they so choose, to have it in the front of their property to hold a stand. no more, not larger than this. And of course, if an owner does not wish to have something on their property, certainly they're not required. But I certainly, and I think I can speak for our commission, our hope is that anyone that we reach out to, that we hope to educate and to share with them the parameters of what this ordinance is about, they will more than welcome it because it helps them protect and preserve that property. let alone when it should inevitably change hands. So with that, we appreciate moving it on to a second reading. We're excited about it. We've got a great commission that's in place right now. First time we've been full in a number of years. And with that, of course, Michael, having been our chairman for a couple of years, if there's anything specific, obviously he would be, he knows us in bulk. I thank you for your time, and on behalf of the commission, we thank you for your support of this ordinance.

So we had initially proposed one from more or less we weren't reinventing the wheel when it came to getting a landmark.

Ordinance Cross. We had a couple different communities that we explored. One of the ones we were exploring was Gurney, Illinois, that makes every single building older than, I think it's like 80 years, follow this requirements. But we backed off of that and decided to copy Joliet's, which is more fresh. It was actually written by someone who's now with Landmarks Illinois and he thinks it's a really good ordinance and he's the one that guided it to us. But really it is an opt-in policy where someone who restores a historic home to its period elements can petition this for preservation first for approval of landmark status and then that would be recommended to City Council. And so then after that Anything on the exterior, doors, windows, siding, porch, roof, things like that, if they want to redo that, first it would come to me. If they're saying it's fight like for like shingles or something like that, I can just sign off on that. If it's something that I would have more questions about, then they would come in front of the Historic Reservation Commission. So it's also opt-out, so they get petitioned to opt-out, and then that would be approved by city council as well. There's flexibility involved. Does that include like paint? No, it doesn't include paint colors, no.

How is it different from National Register of Historic Places for your building?

Well, the National Register doesn't necessarily stop anyone from tearing down a building or anything like that. It more or less incentivizes you to restore it to its period elements. This would allow someone, we always use Karen McGee on South Bank. She has restored that house to its former glory. And I think one thing that she wants to see, we assume that she's going to be one of our first people to landmark. After that, it's going to give that a layer of protection so she can comfortably sell that to the next person to hopefully continue protecting it. I agree. You said you lived in a landmark home at some point? We did. We lived in Arizona. It's not uncommon.

Is this residential only? Can you explain what the difference is between this and the registered listings of U.S. historic places? Because I know if you go up on Main Street, sometimes you see the calendar window with registered U.S. places. I think some of our first registrations were probably Lovejoy and the Red Cover Bridge. How does this differ from that?

So national, yeah, similar to what Jerry asked. The National Register of Historic Places is just a national program that allows buildings on the register, if someone wants to restore them to period elements, they can apply for tax credits to do so. It basically gives them that qualification to apply for tax credits. This would just provide an extra layer of protection for those at the local level. So it's not an incentive program, more or less. It's just a court regulation.

the other questions from the council I think it's I think it's great I think that I appreciate Michael stuff even the presentation and recognizing the ten years of different leadership and where it stands now you know on our Commission's that we have that were set up by the previous mayor with the recommendations from the ten years ago we did the The gentleman came out of the Chicago suburbs to help us volunteer. Remember the gentleman who helped us with that land? Scott Mahaffey. Scott Mahaffey, appreciate it. He suggested these different commissions, which is great. We appreciate folks that are on these commissions. It's work. If you want your commission to be active, it's work. So we appreciate you bringing this to us. I like the idea. It's not in, it's not out. So I think it's a no-brainer. I think we should go ahead and push this thing forward in a very positive manner.

I MEAN, YOU GET SUCH A VARIETY OF INPUT FROM ALL THESE DIFFERENT FOLKS THAT ARE PARTICIPATING. I THINK IT'S GREAT. IT'S A GREAT THING TO DO. YES.

LYNN, LYNN. YEP. OKAY, VERY GOOD.

WE HAVE A MOTION SECOND, SO ARE WE READY TO CALL THE ROLL? CLEAR TO CALL THE ROLL. THANK YOU, MICHAEL.

THANK YOU, MICHAEL STEPSKI.

COUNCIL MEMBER NEMAN.

AYE.

GOV. ED. AYE. ZALECKI. AYE. AND MAYOR MAVERICK.

AYE. VERY, VERY GOOD. I MOVE THAT WE REAPPOINT THE BOARD MEMBER Chris Yepsen, Lanning Swinford, and Stephanie Reinhardt to be appointed for another three years term for the Princeton Public Library. Board of Trustees, their term would expire on June 30th of 2029. Motion to second. Any questions from the council concerning those appointments? Seeing none, clerk, call the roll.

Councilmember Newman.

Aye.

Gomez. Aye. Walensky.

Aye.

And Mary Magritte.

Aye. okay very good thank you city clerk appreciate that now under our city manager report in your packet is the police pension report for june of 2026.

A couple of other items just to touch base on. Furrow is National Night Out for 5 to 8 at Ziering Park. This is in recognition of America's National Night Out crime. The Princeton Police Department in conjunction with the Princeton Park District is sponsoring the community awareness event. Tom, do you want to touch on anything?

We'll have a lot of different not-for-profit and civic organizations there talking about what they do and a lot of displays, helicopters and trucks and all that.

Canine demonstration at 630, drone demonstration, space painting, blood drive, tours of emergency vehicles, light flight helicopters, police fire obstacle course, and Mr. Simmons, the balloon twister. So, come on out. Actually, it's some food to hot dogs chips and water so um just a fyi starting tomorrow uh we will have some parking lots in town here that are being closed for uh the blacktop will be getting resealed and repainted so starting tomorrow the lot behind city hall here will be closed off and as well as the lot next to myrtles next to betsy's that corner lot there. That one will also be getting sealed and repainted with the hopes of reopening that up possibly Thursday or Friday depending on how things dry. So it looks like the weather should be cooperating. Lastly, I did let the council know this, this is just FYI, IDOT did do their bidding for the red-covered bridge for the upcoming construction season. with hopes to possibly be starting that reconstruction, we'll call it, this fall. So we are making some headway. That actually went a little quicker than I thought. The construction will obviously take many months, but at least it is on the radar and it's moving. So council, there's a link in your report. If anybody wants to just go to the IDOT website under related articles, there's an article in there. It's got it kind of all detailed out. So it's good to hear.

Trisha, is the handicapped parking spaces on Main Street going to reopen? Yeah, yeah. Pretty soon, yeah.

Very good. Anything else, Teresa? Okay, very good.

Yeah, that's great news about the Red Cover Bridge. So we've all, I know we had that meeting about three months ago, informational meeting put on by Ryan Spain, Representative Ryan Spain. We had a chance to have the district engineer, Mrs. Thompson.

She covers Dixon and Ottawa.

She has both districts. Very good. So, that is good. I'd say that would be a real celebration when that opens back up.

And early detection devices. Perfect.

appreciate that's good news yeah I know I was invited to go off to the National Night Out that was the big blue chair that's not still in the shop it worked on some minor wear and tear repairs and then they also asked if they wanted to do the taser of the mirror and I said well I'll try to pass on that I appreciate that last year was the canine was chasing me so anyway no just kidding we appreciate I know Peg really works hard on this every year National Night Out so good for Peg and Justy through the Princeton Police Department. To the council members, when we have our unhoused folks in Princeton, just a couple quick comments. So, you know, it seems like there's an influx maybe for just a little bit and they sometimes disappear. I just want to reach out and let you know a couple things. First off, some of these unhoused people, you know, they've got just a tough go right now. And they are in a situation where they may need a little help from the community. And we're fortunate to have Aruka. First off, Aruka is a great line of defense to help. They can go there with the living room and they can grab a meal. They can do laundry. They can do a shower. There's a thing that in the early morning hours, I'm out watering flowers. I see someone in-house. They're there sleeping in different places, trying to get a little rest. I bring some $5 McDonald gift cards. I encourage the council just to carry someone with you and stop and introduce yourself to these folks. They all have names and they have a story to tell. And some of them are just, like I said, a tough go. We're very fortunate at our train depot, we've got some good station attendants. I just want to reach out and let you know Ida is doing a tremendous job there, Ida Mitchell. She had an unhoused lady in a wheelchair and her companion, and they were able to get them tickets to get to back home, which was Kansas City, and they got on the train this afternoon. And Ida coordinated all that through her church and got some donations. So that's all good stuff. So we appreciate people like Ida that they are employed by the city as a station attendant. We have eight Amtrak trains to go through our... depot every day. And it's people like her that take the initiative to make sure some of these people don't fall between the cracks. So I command them to see an unhoused person. You might want to stop, introduce yourself, and listen to their story. It's not necessarily a drug addiction. It's not necessarily mental health. There's just some people that have had a tough go when they're on the street. And they're part of our community while they're here. With that said, we're going to go ahead now and go to any old business before the council. We're going to pass on the e-bikes and the scooters for the time being. Any new business before the council? Any additional public comment before the council? Please.

At the last meeting, Mayor Mager stated commissioners do not expect to receive compensation for their service. Words matter, and a half-truth is a full lie. They do expect to be paid. They're paid every two weeks and will be inquiring if for some reason they didn't receive their pay. Their choice of words highly suggests to an unknowing public that perhaps the commissioners are not even paid, that they give freely of their time. This is actually true of the park board commissioners. They are not paid. It is prohibited in the Illinois Park District Code passed by the state legislature. I correctly responded to Mr. Mabry that city commissioners are paid $6,000 per year, which he and I, in fact, had discussed following the June 15th meeting. I will remind Mr. McCall that he is paid to be on this board, and many taxpayers and residents have very modest and low incomes, and would surely love a side gig that paid them an extra $6,000 per year. And in the four previous meetings where I presented the South Church topic, it was in fact Mr. McCaw himself, the only commissioner, who was absent for the first meeting and now is absent for this meeting. The number of days lost out of my life due to Mr. Kammerer's non-enforcement of the ordinances and $100 per day fine has been utterly huge and pales to the scintilla of time Mr. McCaw has spent at these meetings. As I said two weeks ago at the July 6th meeting, Mr. McCall closely attempted to limit my free speech as provided in the United States not-alone constitutions and did nothing to support the dog ordinances and the nuisance property ordinances, the latter which should have been issued for 512 South Church by Chief Kammerer and his police department, and all of which you and he twice or some of you three times swore under oath to support. Hopefully, Mr. McCall went further into the U.S. Constitution I brought to him two weeks ago to the 14th Amendment and learned about due process granted to all citizens of the states. I see from tonight's rule he didn't resign as I told him he should, but since he has remained, I suggest a spoonful of humility would make this medicine go down. Several weeks ago, I did my own little study, and I went to the 2023, 2024, and 2025 meetings, and I recorded how long they were. There were 23 meetings in 2023, 23 in 2024, and in 2027, there were 27 meetings. The average time of each meeting in 2023 was 38 minutes and 8 seconds. Isn't that amazing? And the commissioners' payment at $6,000 per year was $410.49. $410.49. In 2024, the average meeting was 36 minutes and 30 seconds, and so the commissioners' per year $6,000 was higher. It was $430.72. At the 2025 meetings, there were four meetings, and one of them was the long, unnecessary meeting about Teresa's employment. And those meetings took 18 hours and 25 minutes, and it averaged $325.80.

So the average for all three years was $389.

The median income per Princeton household in 2020 at the census was $51,844, and that works out to $25.92 per hour. The median income per family was $66,000 and $473, and that would cut to $33.23 per hour. The commissioner's three-year average of $398. We'd like to have you come back then in two weeks. Could I finish one small sentence? Sounds good. Please, go ahead. Okay. I encourage you to do it. Thank you. The commissioner's three-year average of $389 per hour is 15 times the amount of the median income for Princeton household and 11.7 times the amount of the median income for Princeton family.

Very good.

I'm going to do this too.

Thank you, Ken. We'll come back in two weeks to continue this discussion. If we could, is there anyone else for public comment this evening at the Court of Counsel? What we're going to do at the moment here, we're going to adjourn and we're going into executive session. We will not be taking any action in executive session, but we're just going to discuss some contracts, bring up things like that. So with that said, Jerry, if you would please.

Move that we adjourn our regular meeting this evening and reconvene in executive session. to discuss collective negotiating manners between the public body and its employees. The next regular meeting of the City Council will be Monday, August 17, 2026, 6 o'clock at City Hall.

Second. Second. Third call to roll.

Council Member Newman.

Aye.

Gomez.

Aye.

Zalewski. Aye. And Mayor Rager.

Aye. Thank you for attending. This meeting is adjourned. And we appreciate you being here tonight. Good job.