Village Board - Regular Meeting

the 12th at 5:30 p.m. Yes. All right. We'll open a hearing, a public hearing for discussion of the adoption of the 2026 village budget. Uh specifically, um the line items you can see below number six. So, we'll open the public hearing if there's any comments.

Damn. Not just all right. All right. All right. I understand. But it's your job. Bring some more friends along with you. [laughter]

Sandy West 230 South Milky Way Road. Anyway, you guys, um I know I don't have anything to say about the budget. I mean, I think the process I, you know, I missed the last workshop, but I made it one or two of the things and discussions that took place and um I thought it went really well and you know, nice and tidy and and and quick. But I have other concerns about the budget as so to speak when you guys are talking about ambulances that are coming in and other expenses and I would appreciate some understanding of the financial situation where it seems to me as the last one that I watched or whatever meeting it was that you know expenses are going up faster than our receipts from the levy. So, I don't know how long we can sustain that. And I'm interested in, you know, what you guys think about that. Um, and I don't know as far as the firehouse, anything being done to the firehouse, I think that's, unless I'm mistaken, whatever the dollar amount is, that's going to require um, you know, some kind of a referendum. And I have actually no idea what the appetite is in the village for that expense. I I just don't have any idea. My circle is, you know, relatively small of all the people that vote. You know, I I don't know what they think. And I've encouraged you before to do some kind of an advisory referendum [clears throat] or something to to get a feel for it unless you think you know. You know, you're elected to govern and we expect you to know more than the populace and you know that's why you're elected because we trust you to make those decisions. But some decisions it seems that back of not too long ago they made the rule that you got to have a referendum after a certain dollar amount. And it just seems like there's

an awful lot of effort going into that um project without any expectation that that people are going to vote yes. So I encourage, you know, from a financial standpoint, it's not really having to do with the budget tonight, but those are the things that that I think I think the budget process was great. You know, I think it went really well. So um that's all. Thank you very much. Thank you. There's others in the gallery. You don't always just have to look at Sandy. Just saying if you want to make a comment or two the hearing. No pressure. No, not at all.

Hey D calls, West 25254 South 503 Drive. Um, is there any money in the budget? I don't I wasn't at any of the workshops. I couldn't make those. But um is there anybody money in the budget for the DPW building and the and the fire station for next year? What's what is the status? I I'll address the budget overall, but I'll take that as a note. If you have anything else Okay. [clears throat] No.

Well, I'm just there's only one more. [laughter] Just saying.

Before you um poo poo this idea, there's something called Survey Monkey. I don't know if anybody's heard of it, but we when I was downtown, we were doing surveys all the time. And you mail it out, email if you have email addresses, and you ask three questions or four questions. they come back and they they you have to make sure that that they do the coordination of it because downtown we had all the bars deciding everything all the time. They would pass it around. So I would just suggest that we look at Survey Monkey. Even if you do a smaller survey of of the people in the village, maybe we could get a better idea of what they would pay. Sure, they don't nobody wants taxes, but they've got to understand where we're at. Fire department, DPW, you know, we're kind of in dire straits. What are we going to do? How are we going to pay for this? And maybe they'll have some ideas or at least warned that something's coming. So, thank you