Board of Aldermen - Regular Meeting

Heat. Heat. down. None. That's

down. 6:00. I'd like to call this meeting to order and ask everyone to please rise for pledge of allegiance and prayer.

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. John, if you lead us in prayer, please. [clears throat] Heavenly Father, I just come to you tonight, Lord. Lord, our hearts are heavy for the deputies that lost their lives in the line of duty in Christian County. But I thank you, Lord, that you bring people up that are willing to serve and sacrifice to protect us. I just ask that everything we do in tonight's meeting, we bring honor and glory to you. In Jesus name I pray. Amen. Amen.

Next up, roll call. I am present. Alderwoman Dent, present. Alderman Kinsey, present. Alderman Whan, present. Alderman Lechworth, present. City administrator Burbridgeidge, present. City clerk Kohler, present. City attorney Weber, present. Public works director Payne, present. Chief of police, Chase, finance director, Stacy Houston, economic development director, Carrie Sutterfield, and we have no other city staff with us tonight. Uh, next up is the approval of tonight's agenda. Oops. I make a motion to approve the agenda. Do I have a second? I second.

Click. This time I'll call for the vote. Alderman McKenzie? Yes. Alderwoman Dent? Yes. Alderman Lechworth? Yes. Alderman Whan? Yes. Next up is the consent agenda. Do I have a motion for approval of the consent agenda? I'll make a motion to approve the consent agenda for tonight. And do I have a second? I'll second the motion. At this time, I'll call for the vote. Alderman Wayland, yes. Alderwoman Dent, yes. Alderman McKenzie, yes. Alderman Lechworth, yes.

See, we have nobody up for uh next up for public comment. So, we'll move right along to street closures. had a request for street closure from Rob Benowitz for the our annual 100 acre wood rally. And I don't believe Rob is here, but he requested the same streets as last year. Yes. Iron Fifth and Part of Fourth just around the courthouse. That was my understanding. Yes. Road or the rally. Same time frame, same street last year. Yes. Any questions? Any questions from the board? Okay. Do I have a motion?

I make a motion to approve Mr. Benitz's request for the close street closure. Do I have a second? I'll second. There's no further discussion. I'll call for the vote. Alderman Whan, yes. Alderman McKenzie, yes. Alderman Lechworth, yes. Alderwoman Dent, yes. Next up, we have another street uh closure request from the local for March the 14th.

Yes. And actually, Mr. Dom has requested the exact same closure on the 14th from Washington to 19. Just that one little block there so that businesses can set up tables and whatnot. Okay. So these two are the exact same. They're the same exact time frame and Okay. Okay. Can we vote on both of them at the same time? Yeah. Okay. So, is there any discussion? No. I'm in favor of it. All right. Well, let's make merchants downtown.

Make a motion for both for the local and skip Dom's uh request for street closure. Do I have a motion? I'll make a motion to close the street for the local and skip Dom's uh as per the request. Do I have a second? I'll second the motion. Oh, you're on fire. This time I'll call for the vote. Alderman Lechworth, yes. Alderwoman Dent, yes. Alderman Whan, yes. And Alderman McKenzie, yes. All right. Next item up, we have the engineering firm recommendation.

Give me a second. Okay. So, this is the same information as presented to you all the previous meeting. Um, again, staff's recommendation is to enter into contract negotiations with Toten Associates out of Springfield. I stand for any questions. I think we didn't we discuss this last meeting. Yeah. I was in favor of it then. Yeah. I just needed some time to to read through it. I wanted to read through all the every bit of it and so I I appreciate the extra time. So that helped me. So absolutely. Are you ready to vote tonight? Yeah. Okay. All right. Is there any more discussion for the board? I don't. Nope.

All right. Do we have a motion? I make a motion to approve the recommendation administration on entering into agreement with a second. I'll second. I'll call for the vote. Alderman Whan, yes. Alderman McKenzie, yes. Alderman Lechworth, yes. Alderwoman Dent, yes. All right. Next up, we got reports. City officials, boards and committees, city administrator, uh, no report this evening. [groaning]

All right, Stacy, no report. Uh, economic development director Carrie, you have anything tonight or is it all it's just all in the packet, correct? It should be in the packet.

Okay. Uh, my report, I'll keep it kind of short. Uh I've had a lot of uh complaints regarding like uh the people not receiving their utility bills and I would I would really encourage folks to come and sign up for email billing. Uh you kind of get your bill what is it 2 days early. Um that's all I have for my report tonight. Steve, would you like to come up and share your report tonight? Good evening, Mayor Alderman. I don't have anything major to report. Your city team members are doing great work. Things are functioning appropriately. Does anybody have any questions?

No, not yet. I don't think so. I'm good. Thank you. We can interrogate you later if we need to, Steve. Roger that. Thank you. I'll move right along to the board reports. Alderman McKenzie. nothing to report. Alen Lechworth. Yeah. So, I attended uh Good Dad's orientation on Friday in Springfield and uh gained a lot of insight as to how that will help the community. And so, I look forward to over the next couple of months uh help being able to help implement that and seeing that going into the schools and and uh it'll be a really good program for us. And so, I look forward to seeing it. Anyway, that was my report. Okay. No report tonight, [clears throat]

Katherine. Do you have anything to report? Yes. Beautifification was able to cut down the [clears throat] trees in the fountain area out in the grassy part of 193272. There's some brush in there that needs to be cleaned out. We'll do that when it's warmer and nicer. And secondly, um I'm hosting a Westward block party on Thursday, March 12th, and it's a thank you for everybody in the West Ward. It will be at Wilson Family Life Center at 7:00. If you're in the West Ward, please come.

All right, that wraps it up for this part of the agenda. Uh, last but not least, close session for personnel. Make a motion to move into close session. I second the motion. There's no discussion. I will call for the vote. Alderman Ky, yes. Alderman Whan, yes. Alderoman, yes. And Alderman Lynch, yes. Thank you all for attending tonight.