Is 545, Linda, could you please give the invocation?
Sure.
I, Council Mayor, let's bow our heads.
Dear Lord, we thank you and praise you, Lord Jesus, for all that you are.
We thank you that you are who I am, that you see all, you hear all, you know all.
You are in all, you are through all, and you are over all.
Father, we just invoke your presence here tonight, Father.
We ask you, Lord, that everything that's done tonight will be done decently and in order.
We ask you, Father God, that we would honor and bless those that are around us, that we will all look to each other and give each other the respect and honor that's due them.
Father, we ask you to move in our midst that all things that are done tonight will be done for your plans and your purposes for this city, will be done in accordance with your will, Father, and will help to prosper this city and move it forward in all that you have for it.
In Jesus' name, Amen.
Amen.
Thank you Linda now we'll officially call this meeting to order madam clerk would you please take the role mayor Miller here Alderpersons Klemm here Johnson here Simmons Parker here Stacy here Shadle here Sanders and Sellers here please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance led by Alderman Shadle Sands, One Nation, Under God, Indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for All.
Okay just so you're aware, items 6 and 7 are resolutions that are just slightly out of order, but we wanted to put them right next to the presentation, that's why it's that way.
So we'll start with item number 1, which is the approval of the agenda.
Is there such a motion?
So moved.
Second.
Motion made by Alderman Shadle, seconded by Alderman Sellers, Alderman Sanders.
Yeah, I'd like to dismiss the approval of this agenda so that we can bring it up at another time.
I think that anything that's on this agenda has not been approved by council.
And if council is not approving this agenda, then there is no business and since we have not set in motion a meeting on this agenda to even comprehend what this agenda is about as opposed to just traditionally going through the old traditional format of following along, that has to stop, that is my recommendation that this agenda is dismissed and no other agenda is to be approved unless council approve the agendas and that we need to set a statue where we can meet, talk about the regulation rules and the governing of this body and if if you need to get caught up on things to assert yourself into what government and legislating body is all about, especially on the ordinance part because we gotta be able to validate every ordinance that council submitted, not anyone else because ordinances are ruling areas of the body.
Of the Body, and so this is my motion to have this meeting dismissed, all consent agendas to be dismissed, and if anybody wants to challenge that, as Council, I'm talking about Council, where we have debated, talked about these ordinances, adoptions, amendments, and anything else that rules this community.
This community is run by laws and governing and ordinances or bylaws.
Those are the kinds of things that we have not put in place yet, but we're not going and I want to keep flying off on the side playing flag football as if though everybody's on the same page and we're not all on the same page.
Okay.
So your motion- Are you interrupting me?
I just want to clarify what your- can I ask you what your motion is?
My motion is for this meeting to be dismissed.
That's what my motion is.
Okay.
Yeah.
We have a motion on the floor made by Alderman Sanders.
It's not a voting matter.
I can suspend it as well that we won't even have this conversation of whether or not we're going to vote or discuss this matter until council come back with this own agenda and not anybody else's agenda.
And so we should meet.
And I thought we was going to do that at one point in time this year, but for whatever happened got set aside.
The mayor does not conduct council meetings.
I want you guys to understand that.
She knows that, the councilman knows that until we get our head and put it in the right place, then we should be able to move forward.
But as far as governing is concerned, and we have not even touched the half of it.
It's not even the surface and this has been going on ever since 1971.
And if you want to ask me why 1971, I don't have time to give you a good history lesson at this point in time.
But my thing is this has been going on since 1971 when they implemented something called and John.
I'm going to go back to the home rule and then try to fraud the people with robber rule.
And here's the thing.
None of this that I'm talking about has been validated or not been validated.
Prove me wrong that anything that I said was already validated with the signatures of Collaborated on any issues of the business of the city until we have gotten together and adopted anything.
Rules of laws and governing bylaws and ordinances.
We're not even half touching the surface.
That's all I wanted to say.
Thank you.
Okay.
So we have a motion on the floor to dismiss all items on the agenda.
Is there a second?
That motion dies for a lack of a second.
So now before you is the motion of approval of your agenda.
Alderman Sanders, please stop being out of order.
If it happens again, I will call you out of order.
Please don't do that.
If you have the floor, you are welcome to speak, but you don't have the floor at the moment.
So right now we have a motion on the floor.
Can I ask a question?
Sure.
Who gives you the orders to say just what you said?
That's my job.
No, your job does not stipulate that.
You can't find that in print where that stipulates your job.
Alderman Sanders, you should maybe meet with one of the attorneys and talk about it.
I know.
I wouldn't dare do that.
Why would I do that?
Well, because you don't seem to believe me.
No, because the attorneys are people we shouldn't be believing at this time.
Okay, let's get this back on track.
Your motion dies for a lack of a second.
So now before you is the motion to approve the agenda.
Madam Clerk, please take the roll on the approval of the agenda.
Sorry, I was prepared for a voice, but roll call is fine.
Please.
Shadle.
Aye.
Sanders.
I'm here.
Your choices are yes, no, or abstain.
Yes.
Sellers.
Yes.
Klemm.
Yes.
Johnson.
Yes.
Simmons.
Yes.
Parker.
Yes.
And Stacy.
Yes.
The motion passes 8 to 0.
Item number 2 is approval of the minutes from the special meeting on November 17, 2025.
Is there a motion to approve?
So move.
I second.
We have a motion made by Alderman Seller, seconded by Alderman Johnson.
All those in favor signify by saying aye.
Aye.
Opposed?
That motion passes.
Item number 3 is recognition of service awards.
Good evening everybody.
Good evening.
I have two service awards that are pretty substantial this evening.
The first officer was unable to make it, but I wanted to recognize him Anyway, Lieutenant Weichel was hired on December 27th, 2025 and celebrates his 20th year anniversary this month.
Lieutenant Weichel has served the city in a variety of positions, including the Mobile Field Force, being a member of the ERT, or Emergency Response Team, who's also the ERT commander.
Sander.
He then worked through all of those processes.
He also worked his way through the rank as Corporal, as Patrol.
Corporal, as Patrol, and then was promoted to his current position, the Operations Lieutenant, on January 16th, 2024.
Lieutenant Weichel oversees the Patrol Division, including the K-9 officers and the School Resource Officer.
Lieutenant Weichel works hard daily to serve the citizens of Freeport.
Lieutenant Weichel spends the majority of his time out in the community on the streets, solving issues and fighting crime.
Lieutenant Weichel is a law enforcement leader.
Who plays a crucial role in ensuring the Freeport Police Department provides professional service to the citizens of Freeport.
Lieutenant Weichel also does a great job organizing multiple department events including basketball and softball games wherein, I apologize Chief, the Police Department usually wins.
So we do thank Lieutenant Weichel for his 20 years of service and for the fun of the Softball, Basketball, and his leadership.
Secondly, I'll have Brandy Hilby come up here and join me.
Brandy Hilby took her oath to serve the citizens of Freeport on December 26, 2025.
She celebrates 25 years this month.
Brandy has served the city in a variety of positions.
Patrol Officer, SUV Detective, Special Victims Unit Detective.
Detective Hillby is an integral part of the Police Department.
Her level of dedication to the Freeport Police Department over the past 25 years has been extraordinary and incredible.
Detective Hillby often covers overtime shifts Hicks, more than probably any other officer in the department.
Detective Hillby has been acknowledged for a high level of productivity which goes above and beyond that which is required.
Through the years, Detective Hillby has consistently participated in community events.
She's well known by the community and draws quite a large crowd.
This in particular when we do shop, cop on a rooftop, sorry we have shop with a cop coming up too.
Cop on a Rooftop, I happened to be at one of those and Brandi just kept getting more and more and more people to come and donate which goes to Special Olympics.
She's also raised awareness for that Special Olympics during the torch run.
And she also helps with Shop with a Cop and she also plays in the charity basketball and softball games that we often win.
Randy was the Department Officer of the Year in 2023, and her quality of work has only improved.
So for 25 years, thank you very much, it's a job well done, and I'm glad to have you for at least four more.
That was inappropriate, Mayor, Mayor, that was inappropriate.
You can't do that as an officer.
Oh, Dovie.
Oh my god, Dovie.
Oh, big family.
Oh, nice.
Nice, nice, nice.
Should be.
Thanks guys and girls.
That's good.
All right.
That's awesome.
That's great yes all right okay we'll move on to item Darin, can you look and see if there's anything signed up?
No?
Okay, then item number four, there's no one signed up for public comment.
We'll move on to the consent agenda.
The consent agenda is considered to be routine in nature and acted as one motion unless there's a member of the council that would like to have something removed for further discussion.
Seeing none, the consent agenda.
Alderman Sanders?
Ordinance, I have to look at the number on the ordinance.
Do you know which item you want?
Yes, I do.
I just gotta make sure I get the right number for you.
Do you know?
Yes, I do know.
Are you impatient?
Yeah.
Well, you shouldn't be.
We are here to do the business of the people, not yours.
Well, that's what I'm doing.
Just give me Okay, okay, let's stop the talk.
Which item do you want to have pulled?
I might say all of them.
How's that?
If that's your pleasure.
No, that's not what I want to do.
If you just be patient, like I will give everybody in here the same respect.
That's what I expect you to do, and that's what I expect you to do.
If I give you the same respect.
Alderman Sanders, please tell me what item you want.
Yeah, well, I got agitators in my ear right now distracting me, so I don't care for agitators.
Can I suggest you read them and you can still pull them out?
Okay, I'm going to read it.
Okay, so the consent agenda consists of approving and to receive and place on file the Board and Commission meetings from the Joint Review Boards for The Berchard Hills Downtown Meadows West Avenue and Lamb Road Tifts for October 25, 2024 is also for the Municipal Compliance Reports for both the Firefighters Pension and the Police Pension Fund ending December 31, 2024, the Greater Freeport Partnerships Monthly Report November 2025, the Building Permit Report October 2025, approval of the finance bills Payable in the total of $2,200,518.89 in payroll for pay period ending November 15th, 2025, in the total of $670,021.70.
Which of those did you want to be removed?
Uh, 20 and 21.
Uh, you have to be more specific because that's nothing that I just read.
Well, I'm just telling you what number it is.
Are you talking about, did you say 20 and 21?
Yes.
So are you talking about the Fehr Graham agreement and the land application for biosolids agreement?
Yes.
Okay we're not on that.
I know but that's what I'm telling you that I don't want on the agenda.
Okay well it's too late because we've already approved the and you voted yes to approving the agenda so they're there for discussion.
I did not approve an agenda.
You did.
It was the very first thing you said you said here and the clerk told you you needed to say yes, no, or abstain and you said yes so you approved the agenda already.
So with that the consent agenda is as read.
Is there a motion to approve?
So move.
Second.
A motion by Alderman Sellers Senators, seconded by Alderman Shadle.
Discussion on the consent agenda.
Yeah, I'd like to bring a point of order, put a point of order in motion here.
And the fact that you're rushing this thing, this agenda process, processing going on.
I want my councilmen's to pause for a minute to think about what item 20 and 21 is doing because this has nothing to do with that.
I call a point of order.
If you don't understand what that is, then you need to look it up.
My thing is the mayor just shot me down for consent of agenda, but I oppose that consent Simple B. And Blanford, Lovemore, terry.
I believe that I would get consent simply because I need to engage with the council in matters that is concerning the taxpayers of this city to not allow agendas to be.
Attorney Zito would like to speak.
No, he doesn't have the right yet to do that.
I'm giving him the floor.
No, you can't do nothing, Mayor.
Well, your time, his time is up.
Your time's up, so.
I saw the clock running when I came in, and it stopped, and now it's reset to four.
I didn't have a point of order, neither, at that time when you walked in.
That was your time of speaking.
Okay, I have given the floor to.
I think with you, Attorney Zito, you do not dictate counsel.
You are out of order.
I'm warning you, if you do it again.
What you gonna do?
It is done.
That's your warning.
So, please stay in line with counsel rules.
Attorney Zito has the floor you asked for a point of order okay about you wanting to engage with the council about items 20 and 21 that you do not agree they should be on the agenda we're not on that portion of the agenda the agenda approval of the agenda was already done okay and you it sounds like you voted in favor of it now the agenda item is the consent agenda that's the only thing that should be discussed is the consent agenda which is not what you're talking about you're looking for approval of the agenda that's a different item that took place already there are two different things now but so now before you is the approval of the consent agenda need to be able to rebut what he just said we're talking about the consent agenda a point of order not a consent of agenda I said a point of order and a point of order no that is that is not a motion yes a point The point of order is not a motion.
You asked for a point of order, a clarification of the rules procedure.
I just gave you your clarification.
Okay, so Madam Clerk, could you please take the roll on the consent agenda?
Shadle?
Aye.
Sanders?
No.
Sellers?
Aye.
Klemm?
Aye.
Johnson?
Aye.
Simmons?
As absent.
Parker?
Aye.
Stacy Staying you're abstaining.
I'm sorry.
I didn't hear you So we have one two three four five in favor one opposed one abstentia One absent equals eight madam mayor who had the second on that?
Shadle thank you and the motion passes thank you item number six is the presentation of safe streets for all Matt and Lexi should I just dive into it or okay um thank you for having me tonight my name is Matthew Deerdahl I I work for ALTA planning and design and today we're just giving a presentation in offering adoption of the Freeport Forward SS Fray Safety Action Plan.
So I'm going to give a high level overview in this presentation of what is in the plan and then discuss some next steps and I also want to introduce my colleague Lexi Petrella who was the Associate or Assistant Project Manager on this and I am the project manager.
So I'm definitely gonna cover the slides but I'm gonna kind of go quick and then see if there are questions because I know you all have access to the plan and I would love to hear any thoughts or questions that you have.
So overall I'm gonna give a high level reminder of the plan.
I was last here in February also during a snowstorm except we were on the front end of it before we left.
And so just a little bit about why this matters.
Basically, crashes that are harming or ending people's lives are unacceptable, and we want to prevent them.
That's, in a nutshell, what we're here to talk about.
You can see some data on the bottom, a large increase in crashes over the study period.
Four of them were fatal.
And then the more vulnerable users of the road are at greatest risk.
On the next slide, or am I doing the slide?
Let me check.
Oh, I can do the slides, okay, cool.
So the safe system approach, as I was discussing, is about identifying the items that are causing the most harm on our streets and working to prevent them.
And so the overall idea is that people are going to make mistakes as they are walking, biking, driving around our communities.
We don't necessarily think that it's possible to prevent those mistakes from happening.
But what we want to do is make sure that those mistakes don't end or significantly alter people's lives.
So that's really what this is about.
And then so that's basically our framework.
And then the four phases you can see here is assessing the risk through some fairly rigorous data and safety analysis engagement and then we took those two things together along with some policy and some peer city analysis and developed strategies that the City of Freeport can tackle moving forward along with some specific projects which we'll get to in a second and then the final stage here towards the end of the year has been drafting and I will be hosting the plan that's before you today, I got the slide here.
And so, the, the vision that we are articulating here is a city where everyone can travel safely and confidently.
It's, it's fairly simple.
And something that we believe can happen.
So I'm gonna move into the engagement approach.
There was a significant amount of engagement effort.
We developed a transportation advisory committee that I can share kind of the names and representation of that committee towards the end if you're interested.
We had an online survey with an input map and we got a lot of comments on that.
Staff, Darren and Derek, Fehr Graham, did walk audits of several of the corridors, field audits, essentially, of the corridors that rose to the top to get a sense of what the issues are, and then we held an open house, again, last February, here in this room.
So over 150 residents engaged, which we always, you know, we always want more people to engage, but we are pretty happy with that in Freeport.
And there's a variety of ways that people were engaged, as mentioned.
So speeding was a big thing.
That was one of the major themes that we heard from a lot of people.
And then also just places where there are no sidewalks and places where it's tough to cross the street.
Those were big themes that we heard in engagement.
So the role of the TAC, to guide each phase of development of the plan, They helped review each of the analyses and the memos that we developed that are in the appendices that are also before you.
And then helped us think through the locations and what the priorities should be.
One thing that we were excited about that we sort of added as a part of this trip is an implementation workshop with the TAC tomorrow morning.
And we look forward to that as sort of a way to say, all right, we did all this work to develop what I think is a robust and interesting plan, so what are some of the steps that we can do right away, next year even, to get started on implementation and then even look farther into the future.
So data, the data analysis was fairly robust, lots of different interesting outcomes.
I think the main plan is about 70 pages.
The appendices are like 150.
This was a big part of that.
And I'm not gonna go into all of it, but I wanna go back to what I think I said at the beginning, which is a lot of this is how we figured out where the most harm on the streets of Freeport are.
And it's one of the, I don't wanna say good because we're talking about crashes, but one of the interesting parts of this method, which is identifying where the most harm is on a relatively small amount of roads.
So the map to the right, especially the red, you know, the brighter colors, that represents about 9% of streets in Freeport that account for about 60% of severe crashes.
So crashes that end in fatalities or people's lives being dramatically altered because the crash was very serious.
I'll move on to the next one and I think I said some of that here discussing you know we talked about infrastructure gaps like sidewalk gaps things like that visibility at night is a big one that we heard as well and then we looked a lot at vulnerable road users and usually we mean people walking or biking when we say vulnerable road users We're talking about walking or biking when we say vulnerable road users, or wheelchairs or things like that.
So moving on to the recommendations.
This was an interesting one, because the city of Freeport manages the city streets, and IDOT has a lot of really busy roads in Freeport.
To identify a specific subset of IDOT highways that showed up on the safety analysis.
And one of the big things that we would like to encourage you all going forward, and the TAC agreed in our most recent meeting, is that coordination with IDOT will be really important to sort of raise the profile of these corridors to see if we can get some safety treatments in the coming years.
And so I So I think that'll be a big part of the implementation workshop tomorrow.
And we also recognize that the city only has so much power over these corridors.
Moving on to some of the areas where the city does have control.
School crossings was an important part of this process and so we identified just issues at school crossings.
Now these aren't going to necessarily be the major infrastructure projects.
A lot of the issues at school crossings can be addressed through striping, signage, you know, things like that.
But it's important to note that that's something that we want to focus on just to make sure kids can safely cross the street and get to school.
Now, I think this is the most interesting or high level takeaways of the plan is identifying the five priority locations, some of them, most of them are corridors, and then there's an intersection.
And so that's Adams, Cherry, Empire and Walnut intersection, Kiwanis Drive, and then Stephenson Street.
And we can we can come back to that in a second.
In a second.
And then beyond sort of the physical infrastructure projects themselves, we included some goals moving forward.
And I think the main takeaway here, other than getting the state roads on IDOT's radar, is just thinking about safety holistically any time you can.
So thinking about how you program projects in the CIP, how you approach grant funding or seeking grants, and other staff training, doing things quickly, so we call it the quick build method of implementation using lower cost but high value materials such as ballers, striping, movable items, things like that, that can be implemented really quickly and see some safety improvements.
Because I think sometimes with plans like these, if all the projects are like five years out because we have to go write a big grant and then you know it's like it's like millions of dollars over five or ten years I think you can lose momentum and so the quick bill getting something done soon so people can sort of see the change is important and frankly can be fun and and keep people involved and then we also included a safety action plan dashboard which is essentially a a pretty interesting interactive website page that as you scroll down, a lot of the really interesting findings will appear and you can click and zoom and look at different maps and see where the crashes were, see the corridors that we identified in a really interacting and interesting way.
And this is a requirement, to have something like this is a requirement because transparency is really important.
And then also evaluation and tracking progress There's just an example, static example of what's on there.
And again, like I mentioned, in the website itself, you can like zoom in on this map and play around as much as you want.
In the website itself.
You can zoom in on this map and play around as much as you want.
Alright, so the implementation roadmap.
I think we have a fairly clear roadmap in the plan, going from quick build to permanent projects.
There's some information on coordination, again with the state and with with others.
And then I'll also note in the plan review period in November, we did add a couple other things on non infrastructure items.
So dozens of people commented on the plan itself, and most of them were more about getting the word out, you know, encouragement, trying to help people slow down, you know, things like that.
And so we thought that was a good finding from the engagement period, the and so we added that to what's before you.
So what does adoption mean?
I think the main thing is that it really helps, it's like the whole point actually, is to make you eligible for federal grants to implement some of these ideas.
So that's the big one.
But also it's just important because there are a variety of strategies, a variety of ways that this can be hopefully useful for you.
And so we think that adoption is helpful from that perspective as well.
And then in the implementation workshop tomorrow we're gonna assign champions and I think that's such an important part of this.
I was saying if you have no champion you have no project and so basically a champion can be somebody that really like takes something, they own it, they help make sure that it gets implemented and so we hope to do that tomorrow.
And then we'll also talk more about annual tracking going forward.
That's all I have in terms of presentation.
I'm very curious to see if you all have questions or comments.
Thank you, Matt.
We'll open it up.
Does anyone have any questions concerning the presentation?
Darren?
I just want to make a brief comment.
So I've seen some comments regarding, you know, a safety action plan being a crime study.
I wanted to remind everybody that this was grant dollars that we were received from IDOT to do this study.
So it's based on street safety of traffic, pedestrians and bicyclists.
That was the focus of this entire project.
And that's, that's why we came up with the list we did.
And I also wanted to mention that our group and the data kind of came together that the Walnut Empire intersection where the streets are offset has become kind of our number one focus of projects that we would like to get implementation money for.
So the process, the way IDOT works is in order to get implementation money, you had to do the Planning Study in order to qualify Freeport city of Freeport and the county are the only two municipalities I know locally that actually have have gone through this process and the county did receive some implementation money to do some some safety action items.
So it is a positive benefit to have done this and adopt the plan means that the city's support of us of us chasing the implementation money.
Thank you.
Alderman Johnson.
Yeah, I read through it and it's quite an intensive study that was done and so thank you for all the work that you did.
It was a lot of work and recognizing the areas that need to be fixed.
I did, was curious to see if you did include possibly ages of people that were in the accidents or if they were people that lived in the city of Freeport or not that were involved in the accidents.
And others.
So, that's something that was included or not in this study.
So, directly connecting with people who had been in accidents.
Yeah, in accidents.
You know, you had the number of accidents.
I was just kind of curious.
It was people that lived in the city or the age group that might have involved for all the accidents as well.
Also, I know that the city's been very good lately or has had a better relationship with IDOT, so I have no doubt that this will Carter, and Safety, especially for the kiddos at school.
Thank you.
Happy to do that.
Okay, then let's move on to the adoption of Resolution 2025-143.
Madam Clerk, could you please read this?
Resolution Adopting a Safety Action Plan as a Part of the City's Participation in the U. S. Department of Transportation's Federal Highway Administration's Safe Streets for All grant.
Thank you.
Yes, I would like Council to support this moving forward so we can move forward with the Safe Streets for All grant.
Is there a motion to adopt?
Second.
A motion made by Alderman Klemm, seconded by Alderman Klemm, seconded by Alderman Klemm, seconded by Alderman Klemm.
Alderman made by Alderman Klemm, seconded by Alderman Sellers.
Discussion on the resolution?
Alderman Stacy?
Yes.
What is this going to cost the city?
Darren?
At this point, nothing.
This is strictly going after implementation money, so adoption of the plan doesn't cost anything, just gives us the ability to chase grant dollars and bring them back to Freeport.
Okay.
But still, even through IDOT, they only pay a certain percentage and we have to pay a percentage back in return.
It depends on the grant and each one's different.
A lot of times IDOT grants are 80-20, but it depends on the specific grant in which dollars you're chasing, but true implementation money.
So let's say I'm picking a number because I don't know off the top of my head but let's say that the Walnut Empire intersection would cost two million dollars to renovate, straighten out, make safer and they went to an 80-20 match to do that if if that wasn't the case we would never be able to afford it as a city.
But this remember this is just about adopting the safety action plan but when you when you commit to adopting this plan then you have to accept all that comes with it the good the bad and the ugly well each whatever those pieces are will have to come before council this is just the plan to get us going in that direction that is correct and I'm shocked that West and South Street was not even on that map because you've already said it's nothing they could do with West and South for people crossing and this and that.
So West and South was in the IDOT corridors but we just received the HSP grant to address the sidewalks in that neighborhood of what was it 2.3 million dollars.
And I will give Matt and Lexi some credit because we had early data on the IDOT corridors that they shared with us that we were able to share with IDOT as part of that grant submittal, showing that that area was in need of having sidewalks, which helped our grant application to get the the history that we just received.
So I think, honestly, we've already seen a benefit from the Study, even though it wasn't 100% complete, because if you went back to the map, the I-DOT map, that anybody looked at it, a lot of our heavy crash data locally surrounds the I-DOT corridors, especially near the traffic signals.
Any further discussion on the action plan?
Madam Clerk, please take the roll.
Shadle?
Aye.
Sanders?
Aye.
Sellers?
Aye.
Klemm?
Aye.
Johnson?
Aye.
Simmons?
Parker?
Aye.
And Stacy?
No.
The resolution is adopted 7 to 1.
Thank you.
Item number 7 is the presentation of the draft of the 2026-28 strategic plan.
Eric?
Good evening, everybody.
Thanks for having me tonight.
I'm excited to share this plan with you.
I have talked to the folks that were a part of the planning process a couple times and even shared this in some of my emails to all of you that when I think back to the I think this is back in 2017 when you did your first plan as a city ever and you look at some of the things that were in that plan some of those things are still in there but that plan was a lot about really basic blocking and tackling figuring out how to start repairing streets you're going to see some highlights in here about how many streets you've repaired recently anyway and I think you're going to see a different story.
Some of those elements are in this plan, by the way.
There's still more to do.
But I think you'll see a different story in this plan.
And it's been exciting to see Freeport continue to work a plan and get things done and check those off and make a new plan and continue to have success.
So looking forward to walking you through that process.
I'm going to hit highlights.
I won't read this to you, but I will walk you through the plan so you can get more familiar with it.
Tonight we're just reviewing this draft.
So the plan itself has components, a little bit of an about page here, a vision for what Freeport can look like in 2040, and a mission statement as well.
Sorry, I clicked the wrong button there.
There we go.
And so these reflect where the city is going.
The vision statement is literally written to be like a person you know visiting Freeport and seeing here's what they would see.
Freeport is a destination of choice so they wanted to come here right.
Our innovative city boasts a thriving business-friendly economy with vibrant and safe neighborhoods.
Freeport supports an abundance of Fowler.
So, that's the vision.
That's where we're trying to go.
Each plan walks you towards that vision.
And then your mission statement is about how you work as a city, as a city government.
In particular, this is a plan for the city government to execute.
Citizens and partners and other folks will have roles to play.
So, that's the vision.
And the City of Freeport proper and the mission is to strive to improve the quality of life for all residents living and working in this community by maximizing opportunities for social and economic development while ensuring an attractive sustainable and secure environment so that's sort of the basis for the whole plan everything is about making those things happen in this plan at least incrementally right as we go along and it's organized into priority areas so you can see here these these priority areas are pretty much the same as last year we did change I think neighborhoods and housing has a greater emphasis on neighborhoods and the idea of building strong neighborhoods and I think the rest might have stayed the same as we go and others.
So, they just help you sort the plan and bring focus to each area of the plan.
I'll hit highlights of each one of these as we go through the plan.
The first one is safe, inclusive community and you just took a step to help make that happen by passing a safety plan.
Some highlights here, when we looked back at the last plan, some of your key strategies in the last plan or police department staffing, the idea of adding a social worker, the idea of improving the use of technology, increasing the diversity of the force so that it better represents the community.
These are all ideas in the last plan.
And you can see in these bullet points, lots of those things have happened.
You can see a lot of technology in that third bullet point and then improvements to staffing in the second bullet point there.
So just some highlights from the last plan.
Main strategies as we look forward are continuing to work on the police census and fire department census, right?
The number of staff we have and building that strong team to keep the community safe, deploying More technology, looking for areas to continue to use technology.
You've been having some success in that area and and then continuing neighborhood watch programs and some of those those ideas as well.
So those are all part of the overall plan here as it relates to safety.
And you can see every also too far.
You can see every section also has targets and milestones.
So, we're not just saying what we hope to do, we're actually outlining exactly how you can measure whether it happens and you'll get regular updates on how that works.
So, for example, you can measure the police force census and demographics, same with the fire department, looking at response times, grant dollars that are coming in, things like that will help you know if you're on track with this section of the plan.
In Neighborhoods and Housing, like I mentioned, this features a little bit of shift to thinking more about how neighborhoods can become stronger overall, and yet some of those those basics that you've been working on in your neighborhoods are showing.
We've been working on in your neighborhoods are showing up here.
So if you look at progress, 422 trees, that's a tree more than every day being removed and planting 150 to still keep, we want trees in our town.
We just had trees that were not having a good time and need to go away.
So, working through those.
Home demolitions as well, still showing up.
We're on track, continuing to make progress in cleaning up neighborhoods that need that support.
So, those are things you've accomplished in the past.
Looking forward, we're looking at how do we support refresh report even more expanding that cleanup program and incentives that help homeowners and landlords take better care of their property.
Continuing enforcement and other supports to improve rental property standards.
A big one there in the middle is completing a development of a downtown master plan.
So looking at the downtown as a whole, this is successful in cities all over the country by having a plan, just like you just heard in your safety plan, by having this plan, it helps you attract funding and and other developers, in this case, and other partners to help you continue to build up your downtown.
So those are some of the probably the highlights inside of this page.
You can see the targets and milestones are also very clear as well.
So you can look over the course of the year and say, well, how are we doing?
Are people using Refresh Report?
We have a target of 200 participants by the time we get to the end of 2027.
You can ask how that's going, you know, rental properties being registered, external funding, tracking dollars that are coming into the city, you know, some of you are thinking about, well, what's this plan going to cost?
Well, if you bring in a half a million dollars to support external funding in the city to help take care of demolition and bright and blight work that you're doing, that makes a big difference.
And others that are coming from outside in the form of grants and not coming from taxpayers here in Freeport.
Those are examples of the kinds of things that we're measuring in each area.
Another category is quality communication engagement.
So this is about how the city communicates and engages with citizens overall.
Hall.
In the past, you had goals around improving bilingual communications.
We actually started, we created a plan during that period and launched it and actually started producing some bilingual communication tools.
We also launched quarterly newsletters and the utility bills using water notices in multiple languages, those sorts of things, improving road construction and Public Notification, improving the use of your Facebook page.
I follow your page and it's pretty interesting to see, you know, the information that's happening about, you know, a street closure or a street improvement that happened or celebrating something that the city accomplished.
So these are all part of the communication strategy, as is this plan, by the way.
So if your citizens want to know, hey, what's the city going to do for me in the next few years, they can flip through this.
You can see it's easy to read.
It's regular language for the most part when we can we try not to make it too technical and in a pretty quick read as a group of citizens could understand what the city's goals are so gives gives a lot of really clear direction about what's going to happen key strategies in this category going forward continuing to build on bilingual communications continuing to participate in events and being out and visible in the community, creating a dashboard to help you see.
So you just saw an example of a safety dashboard.
We're planning a dashboard that would let you see at a glance how you're doing on some of the most important things that you're working on in any given year.
And, you know, maybe that dashboard gets updated quarterly, for example.
So those are some of the highlights in this area.
You can see targets of milestones here.
I like to look at those because it's kind of, you know, if you're not sure.
What's going to come out of the strategy?
You can always look at the target milestone and say, oh, okay, I see.
We're going to have more.
We're going to count.
We're going to have more bilingual communications, or we're going to have a dashboard complete and being utilized quarterly at a meeting.
Those are tangible things you can look for and see if they're really happening.
All right.
Next one, reliable, strong infrastructure.
The next couple of sections are, you know, core to your budget, core to what cities do at city government level, you know, people rely on city government to make sure they're sewer and water and garbage and sidewalks and roads, you know, the first things people think about when they think about city government, you know, for most people.
And this section is all about that.
So you can see a lot of progress in the past here.
And you'll see even a bigger list of things coming up when we turn the page.
But, you know, if you just tick through this one, for example, You've had the Adams Avenue reconstruction, an 11 million dollar project there.
You've got 5 miles, over 5 miles of water main, almost 4 miles of sewer, about the same number of linings in the sewer lines, the lead service replacement, you guys are leading many cities in the state in terms of replacing lead water lines.
So, 1,902 lead services replaced and a few more to finish up.
And when we turn the page, you'll see that you've got new wells online.
So these are these are big time infrastructure projects, wastewater treatment plant getting 5Million dollars in external funding.
So again, $5 million in external funding means funding that you got a grant or some other source to give Freeport money that so the taxpayers didn't have to pay for that portion of the wastewater treatment plant.
And you'll see all the way through the city does a pretty, pretty terrific job of bringing in external dollars.
Another one is Internet.
So you've got a second Internet provider committing to put citywide connections throughout the entire city for Internet.
So you'll have redundancy at that point.
You want to have just one provider.
These are all really important for your growth in the future.
So, that's what you've done, a whole page almost, and this is what you're going to do.
So, it's a packed page.
I'm not going to read all these to you, but you should spend some time thinking about all of these, some highlights though, doubling the funding for residential matching grants.
So, you've been offering citizens $1.50 a square foot to help them replace sidewalks, you know, with a match, and you're going to double that to $3.
And others.
And it fits inside of your budget.
Executing the Street Improvement Plan, so continuing to work on streets to the tune of 17.5 miles of streets being paved on average over the next five years.
That's total over the five years.
So that'll be a big impact.
With IDOT, you've got IDOT support coming.
And if you kind of go down, I think I have that in here where you can see it well.
Maybe it's on a different page though.
Anyway, kind of related to the safety, but also just partnering with IDOT on those thoroughfares to draw in dollars to help you repave those streets as well.
Not just make them safer, but make them Smoothers, Lift Stations, Water Treatment Plants, Targets and Milestones, Miles of How many dollars of external funding are we bringing in to support this so we can offset the cost to our citizens, right?
So, those are key targets that we'll be measuring and tracking and sharing with all of you, completion of lift stations and storm water basins and things like that as well.
So, lots of infrastructure, economic development, also a big function of the city.
And again, eating up two pages in your plan.
So, last over the last few years, you've had land acquisitions, you've developed a pocket park.
You've gotten site readiness grants and launched a campaign to help attract and retain workforce in the community.
Just a few highlights, right?
It's not everything that's happened.
Everything that's happened.
Too fast.
Excuse me.
So here, this one focuses on a few categories, but it's all about attracting and growing business or making sure the infrastructure exists for that to happen.
So the Greater Freeport Partnership drives a lot of your economic development efforts.
We want some of the goals are related to improving retention and growth of existing businesses.
So a big focus on that, obviously attracting new businesses if we can, expanding retail, you know, in and around the metal shopping area, building on that 13 million dollar investment that's happened in the past creating a five year economic development plan for the airport.
So the airport's there, how do we leverage that?
What can we do to have that become an economic driver for the community?
These are just some of the highlights I'm just popping through.
You can read through these more as you go.
And then, so if we do all that, so what, right?
Well, you should have more businesses retained, you should have more jobs in the community, and these are things we can track and see if we're making progress, for example.
Shovel-ready sites are some of the infrastructure things we can do to help an industry or a business relocate or move here.
Obviously, the airport plan being done and then, you know, if you want more workers, they've got to live somewhere.
So, are we developing housing and tracking that in the course of our economic development efforts?
Next section is about how the government works.
So everything from what these city council meetings are like and how people can engage in them and how they actually function to how the staff delivers the water bill and whether people understand it and can pay it on time.
So, and everything in between.
There's a long range of things in between that go into the city actually being responsive and efficient government.
So, the first thing that we highlighted here in progress updates is the amount of money you've been able to bring into the community.
D., I'm not trying to do that, over the last few years.
So, 83 million dollars in grants and forgivable loans, right?
So, forgivable loans are loans that if you execute them the way you're supposed to execute them over time, you don't have to pay them back, right?
They essentially turn into a grant.
So, 83 million dollars of grants and forgivable loans have and others have been secured over the past five years from outside the community and that's gone to streets and fire and police service, water and sewer services, fiber optics, neighborhoods, et cetera.
That's pretty incredible and speaks to government efficiency.
You know, the other side of that is either that work didn't get done, you didn't get the streets and the fiber, et cetera, or the community paid for itself, right?
Fert, so I'd rather have the $83 million if I'm living here.
Partnership with Fehr Graham has secured $47 million.
So they come and report to these meetings on a regular basis and you're like, man, how much are we paying them?
Well, you're not paying them $47 million, I know that.
So you're winning with Fehr Graham.
Surf Internet is going to invest $15 million, that investment is secured.
So these are all dollars that the city and IDOT, this is what I was looking for earlier, the partnership committed for three and a half million dollars for overlays and Stephenson and Lincoln and Walnut and Adams Streets, right, and I could read all these to you.
I just want you to see the impact of these dollars and the focus that the city has on bringing them in terms of progress from the past, right?
But looking ahead, you got to keep doing that.
So that game's over, new game, looking forward, continuing to build on that, increasing forgivable loan and grant programs to maximize taxpayer dollars, key strategy, improving collaboration and using technology to increase efficiency inside of how we work as a government, key strategy, staff development, succession planning, so we've got good talent running and supporting and the City, helping the Council, all of you, be more prepared and be involved and engaged is a key strategy as well and hopefully you'll all engage in that as well.
So targets and milestones, how much money and grant can we bring in?
Are there staff development plans in place, including succession goals?
Is that City dashboard I mentioned established so we can share information and you all can see how things are going?
Those are some of the key things from that section.
Connected Accessible Community, another focus area in the plan.
This is connection, meaning all kinds of things, transportation primarily, but you know, trails, biking, walking, how do you get around, how do you stay, get from one place to the other, How connected are you?
So, big focuses here are around accessibility.
How can we continue to improve accessibility?
How can we continue to improve walkability and being able to bike and, you know, hop on a trail, those sorts of things for recreation, but also maybe even just to get around town better.
And then, can we also explore how to increase maybe even public transportation?
Right?
So those are the key strategies you see there.
By the way, you've been making progress adding ADA ramps and getting that ADA transition plan in place in terms of that sort of accessibility and then targets and milestones, sorry, below the screen here, tracking that, right?
Are you building those those bike and pedestrian ways?
Are you getting funding to support that?
Were you able to make route improvements to Pretzel City and then are we making the city more accessible by hitting our target with ADA ramps?
So those are all measures of this portion of the plan.
Sorry, excuse me.
The next section is all about public-private partnerships.
Cities don't operate in a vacuum and they don't get the kind of things done you're getting done without having both public partnerships with state agencies, et cetera, but also private partnerships with nonprofit groups and even individual businesses in some cases.
Some of the progress you've seen in the past, you know, the Yield Program, connecting students to opportunity, High Hope Freeport, and Faith Leaders for Peace Partnership to address violence.
You couldn't be doing that on your own, right?
So, those are just a couple highlights in that section.
Section.
And if you get to the next page, lots of strategies here around partnership, continuing to expand and deepen the partnerships you have around all kinds of categories, whether that's with IDOT, engaging youth and a youth council is a concept in this plan.
And then looking at healthcare and park districts and, you know, senior resources and, you know, the list goes on here of different partnerships that you can strengthen and try to impact the results you're getting as a community with the city, you know, either taking a lead or being a convener of some of these partners often.
So you can see targets and milestones around, are we able to increase opportunities like mentoring or new services or healthcare services or park district experiences, et cetera, through these partnerships.
So that's that section is about.
And then I think this is the last section, if I recall, vibrant arts and culture experiences.
This is something that was not in your first plan and neither was partnerships, by the way, or maybe if it was, it was very small in the first plan.
So, the idea that you can get more done with partners or that you can attract and retain people in your community through vibrant arts and culture has been something that has been building momentum as you've grown as a community.
And in recent progress, the Arts and Culture Commission was formed and that led to the Sculpture Project, which is a pretty cool amenity for your city.
There's a speaker that I like.
She actually lives in Oaks, North Dakota, which is a town of 600 people.
And she speaks all over the country about how cities grow and one of the things she talks about is this idea of amenitizing, she made up that word, it's not a real word, amenitizing your community by having things like sculpture or more coffee shops, right, or more things to do, this idea that amenities actually make people want to be in your city.
And the City Council.
We are working with the city to make sure that we have the best strategy, make people want to be in your city more and more.
You guys are implementing that kind of strategy that we are seeing working all over the country.
So it is great to see you leading on that.
Looking forward, you have an arts and culture commission, which is great.
And I have more arts and culture events and amenities in your community.
So those are all the kinds of things that are in here.
Riverwalk development, cultural festivals, those types of things are all in this, and we would measure it all, right, to see if it's actually working or going to keep doing things that don't work or don't seem to make an impact.
So, you know, not only how many events you had and who came, but did they make an economic impact and how much was that, right?
So you can see, is it helping businesses grow in and around the arts and culture district, for example, if you form one?
Those kinds of things that you'd be able to measure in the future.
So these are some of the awards you've gotten over time.
Just highlighting those in the document this time around.
This is all of you.
We'll open it up for discussion on the presentation.
Okay, then let's go to the adoption of Resolution 2025-144.
Madam Clerk, could you please read that?
Resolution approving a strategic vision and goals plan for 2026 through 2028.
Thank you.
Manager, Boyer?
Thank you, Your Honor.
You've just seen the presentation on our future strategic plan as we move forward.
Staff request you move forward with a resolution to accept the strategic plan.
Is there a motion to adopt?
So moved.
Second.
Motion made by Alderman Sellers, seconded by Alderman Klemm.
Discussion on the resolution?
Madam Clerk, Please take the roll.
Shadle?
Aye.
Sanders?
Abstain.
Sellers?
Aye.
Klemm?
Aye.
Johnson?
Aye.
Simmons?
Aye.
Parker?
Aye.
And Stacy?
No.
And the resolution is adopted.
One, two, three, four, five, six.
Six in favor.
One opposed.
One abstentia.
Thank you, Eric.
Item number eight is the second reading of ordinance 2025-61.
Could you please read this?
Fiscal Year 2026 appropriation ordinance.
Manager Boyer.
Thank you your honor.
We have gone over the 2026 appropriation ordinance and staff recommends moving forward and approving it tonight.
Discussion on this ordinance.
Madam Clerk please take the Shadle?
Aye.
Sanders?
No.
Sellers?
Aye.
Klemm?
Aye.
Johnson?
Aye.
Simmons?
Aye.
Parker?
Aye.
And Stacy?
No.
The ordinance passes 6-2.
Item number 9 is the second reading of Ordinance 2025-62.
Could you please read this?
City of Freeport Tax Levy.
Manager Boyer?
I think, Your Honor, just to recap, The city will be keeping the tax levy level or no increase as of last year and staff requests moving forward with the 2025 city tax levy.
Discussion on this ordinance.
Madam Clerk, please take the roll.
Shadle.
Aye.
Sanders.
No.
Sellers.
Aye.
Klemm.
Aye.
Johnson.
Aye.
Simmons.
Parker.
Aye.
And Stacy.
No.
And that ordinance passes 6-2.
Item number 10 is a second reading of Ordinance 2025-63.
Could you please read this?
Freeport Public Library tax levy.
Interim Director Myers?
Thank you.
The City Council adopts a separate levy for library operations each year.
In 2023, the library reduced the levy request for Medicare liability insurance, unemployment, and IMRF in order to spend down prior reserves in these areas.
At the time, we informed Council that these rates would need to increase when funds were exhausted.
The equalized assessed value for the City of Freeport has decreased by $105,004 over the last year.
Due to this decrease, any additional increment from rising property values is not available.
The other alternative is to increase the tax rate.
As the 2023 levy was decreased previously in order to spend down reserves, the Library would like to increase the rate for 2025 paid in 2026.
The library may increase their tax rate but only to an amount under 5% of the previous level.
Based on this information, the library's levy request for 2025 paid in 2026 is $1,114,500.
This increase would generate $52,500 more in property taxes from last year.
Property taxes make up 84% of the library's income.
A house valued at $100,000 would see an increase of $6 in the library portion of the tax bill.
Staff Recommends Adopting the Ordinance.
Thank you.
Discussion on this ordinance?
Madam Clerk, please take the roll.
Shadle?
Aye.
Sanders?
Aye.
Sellers?
Aye.
Klemm?
Aye.
Johnson?
Aye.
Simmons?
Aye.
Parker?
Aye.
And Stacy?
No.
The ordinance passes 7-1.
Item number 11 is, this will be a motion to abate all real estate tax levies for repayment for the General Obligation Bonds.
Madam Clerk, could you please read Ordinance 2025-62 through 72, please?
Ordinance 2025-64 is to abate the 2025 Real Estate Tax Levy for the repayment of the General Obligation Bonds, Series 2013-A. Ordinance 2025-65 abates the 2025 Real Estate Tax Levy for the repayment of the General Obligation Bonds, Series 2014-B. Ordinance 2025-66 abates the 2025 Real Estate Tax Levy for the repayment of the General Obligation Bonds, Series 2015-A Ordinance 2025-67 abates the 2025 Real Estate Tax Levy for the repayment of the General Obligation Bonds, Series 2016 Ordinance 2025-68 abates the 2025 Real Estate Tax Levy for the repayment of the General Obligation Bonds, Series 2018 Ordinance 2025-69 abates the 2025 Real Estate Tax Levy for the repayment of the General Obligation Bonds, Series 2019-A Ordinance 2025-70 abates the 2025 Real Estate Tax Levy for the repayment of the General Obligation Bonds, Series 2020 Ordinance 2025-71 ordinance to abate the 2025 Real Estate Tax Levy for the repayment of the General Obligation Bonds, Series 2021 and Ordinance 2025-72, abating the 2025 Real Estate Tax Levy for the repayment of the General Obligation Bonds, Series 2022.
Thank you.
Manager Boyer.
Thank you, Your Honor.
The bond abatements have been discussed at the Committee of the Whole and also first reading at the last council meeting and staff request City Council approve the abatement ordinance.
Discussion on these abatements.
Madam Clerk, Alderman, Stacy?
Yes.
Are these payments made through the TIF districts that these obligation bonds fall in?
No.
Any other discussion?
Madam Clerk, please take the roll.
I'm sorry.
Michelle.
Director Richter.
Clarification.
Can you put your microphone down, please?
Sorry, Debbie.
There is, I think there's only two.
Yeah, on the memo, it segregates that there's two bonds that have portions of them that come from the TIFs.
What numbers are those?
2015A has a percentage because that one's divided up among the TIF, the General Fund, Storm Fund, and Sewer Funds, and then also the Downtown TIF bond 2018, all comes from Downtown.
Madam Clerk, please take a roll.
The 2015A was what?
Which TIF?
Yeah, they are.
Yeah, they're both from downtown.
Madam Clerk, please take the roll.
Shadle.
Aye.
Sanders.
No.
Sellers.
Aye.
Klemm.
Aye.
Johnson.
Aye.
Simmons.
Aye.
Parker.
Aye.
And Stacey.
The ordinances 64 through 72 are passed by a vote of 7 to 1.
Item number 12 is the second reading of ordinance 202573, could you please read this?
Ordinance authorizing the sale, recycling, donation, and or disposal of certain personal and or Disposal of Certain Personal Property Owned by the City.
Tonight, we have equipment stored at Albertus Airport.
Manager Boyer.
Thank you, Your Honor.
We had first reading at the last city council meeting about a surplus inventory at the Albertus Airport.
And staff recommends moving the ordinance forward for destruction or sale.
Discussion on this ordinance.
Madam Clerk, please take the roll.
Shadle.
Aye.
Sanders.
Aye.
Sellers.
Aye.
Klemm, Johnson, Simmons, Parker, and Stacy.
The ordinance passes 8-0.
Item number 13 is the first reading of Ordinance 2025-78.
Could you please read this?
Ordinance amending Chapter 1020, Streets Generally, Section 1020.13, Erection of Banner, Signs, etc.
To prohibit the placement of signage on any city, street, alley, or public way.
Thank you.
Director Heimerdinger.
Thank you, Madam Mayor.
The City Staff Planning Commission and Building Commission are working on cleaning up zoning codes and ordinances as it relates to signage.
Chapter 1020, Section 13 was evaluated by the Planning Commission and a public hearing was held during their Thursday, November 13th meeting to discuss the changes.
The Planning Commission has recommended moving it to Council.
I'm going to read the current ordinance and then afterwards I'll read the modified what The current ordinance reads as follows.
No person shall erect, fix, fly, or maintain any banner, sign, flag, advertisement, or other such device, regardless of its height, over and across any street, alleyway, or public way, except with the prior approval of the City Manager.
Now the modified ordinance is as followed.
No person shall erect, fix, fly, or maintain any banner, sign, flag, advertisement, or other such device, regardless of its height, upon, over, or across any street, alley, or public way within the city.
City.
The prohibitions of this section shall not apply to the installation of any signage or maintenance of any banner or decoration by the City, nor to any signage directed by another roadway district within its own right of way.
As you can see, these changes do not alter the idea behind Chapter 10, 20, Section 13, which is that signs are not allowed in Public Way or Right Away.
Instead these changes bring clarity, ensure fair treatment, and address necessary signage that is permitted to be in the Public Way and Right Away by the City and other roadway districts within the City of Freeport.
Staff in the Planning Commission recommends moving to a second reading of this ordinance.
Thank you.
Is there a motion to move this forward?
So moved.
Second.
We have a motion made by Alderman Shadle, seconded by Alderman Sellers.
Discussion on this Fiscal Year 2025 Reappropriation Ordinance Thank you.
Director Richter.
Thank you.
At the end of each fiscal year, the City Council amends the appropriation ordinance to take into account necessary revenue and expense adjustments.
I do have several to read, so I'll try and be concise.
The memo identifies each of the changes, and along with the ordinance, there was an Exhibit A in your packet, which represents all of the changes numerically.
So we have made adjustments to several of the state revenues based on actual receipts from the Illinois Department of Revenue.
Sales tax increased by $323,000.
Home rule sales tax increased by $200,000.
However, special use tax was reduced by $245,000.
I'd like to explain this just a little bit.
Special Use Tax.
You might recall on your personal income tax, there's always a line that says have you bought something in another state but you wish to pay tax for it now on your income taxes.
That's special use tax.
This has from the Department of Revenue now been rolled into our regular sales tax line item.
It's not going to be separate anymore.
We saw a dramatic decrease in those revenues this year because they're just rolling them into the sales tax line item.
We receive each of these items separately from the Illinois Department of Revenue.
We've also seen reductions in the areas of electric and natural gas, so there's been adjustments there.
And also cable television tax.
The city does have a tax on cable television.
However people are now moving personally moving away from cable and they're streaming they're just getting internet only that kind of thing so we're seeing we have been seeing that over these last few well several years we've slowly seen reductions to cable television tax school resource officer our agreement to provide a school resource officer was re-established We received several small grants.
We don't usually budget for these grants as we don't know they're coming in.
So we received grants for TASERS.
We received grants for the AED units that we purchased in the spring.
Yinn.
So we received grants for tasers.
We received grants for the AED units that we purchased in the spring.
ComEd gave us support to the Streetlight program, $35,000, and then also PD is receiving a retail crime grant for $9,000.
A couple other things quickly that were we added revenue overweight oversight load load permits that was new this year we've added a new ordinance we're tracking that revenue separately airport grant we increase the amount of funding coming in for airport grants we're receiving residual grants grant funding from a couple projects that they're finishing up the roadway is one of the grants that were in the fencing Grant, that we're still receiving little bits of money, they're just about wrapped up.
Spiller fee, we never know if we're ever going to, if we get spiller fee unless an incident happens and so we had a hazmat, it's incident, we're able to bill wherever that happened at to recoup the cost of the materials that were used to clean up that incident.
And insurance proceeds, we generally don't budget for insurance proceeds as it's really and the General Fund.
We'll see that we've added in the smaller funds, we had additional costs in our medical insurance as our pool required additional funds to be part of the terminal reserve.
It's a little bit complicated, but we're part of a pool.
We need to have funds in reserve with them.
And they had increased that a little bit.
It didn't affect the big departments.
It only affected the small departments that only have one or two employees in the department.
So you'll see that throughout my memo.
Finance department increase of $300 for overtime due to tight turnaround times and holidays and vacations.
Increase to bank fees, decrease in other technical services, and an increase to computer software.
This year we added the new AP automation module in our financial software.
So that was just a switch from one line item to another.
Legal department, we did have to do some increases in this area.
We had two bargaining unit contract negotiations this year.
And then we have an increase to our outside legal.
Government buildings, we've had kind of the opposite to the insurance proceeds on the PD that we had, this is where the expense line comes out of.
So out of government buildings.
So we had to increase the expense line item where we also increased the revenue line item.
We had to, in government building, We had to increase the capital outlay for the storm windows.
We thought this project was going to be substantially completed last year.
So that sometimes happens, you know, and this happens with grants as well, is where you think you're going to be 50% done with that project, but you're only 25% done by the time the year ends.
So we have to make small adjustments for those types of things.
In the airport, we've decreased the airport management expense slightly.
We've decreased the contracted building repair and maintenance because we're significantly able to reduce the amounts of the cost to fixing the hanger roofs out there.
And then we increased the cost of the grant projects.
So I, this is another situation where we increase the revenue and we increase the expense.
And they counter cancel each other.
And other.
Cemetery, we had some other technical services we needed to adjust for.
Street lights, these were two big projects.
Well, we added street lighting per one of our resolutions earlier in the year.
And then we also added lights and I might be corrected here, it had to do with the IDOT corridors or downtown lights, I think is what it was, where this is where we got Grant Funding back through IDOT Community Development, we decreased non-bargaining wages due to the departure of the Community Development Director.
We had some open time there and we had an open Grants Manager position.
We increased consulting services to assist with grant compliance for a Housing Rehab Grant.
And then we also decreased education, training, and travel for 9,000.
Police and Fire, there are just a couple changes there.
With Fire, we needed to increase the fire pension contribution.
By $50,000, that amount is determined by our actuary.
And we have to, per our agreement, our bond agreement, we need to increase that.
We need to pay what the actuary says is due each year.
Building Department, increase in health insurance expense and an increase in plumbing inspections.
Animal Control, we had a significant vehicle repair that we needed to cover.
Animal Control is just one person, very small department, so this was kind of an outlying expense that wasn't anticipated.
Hearing Administration was also increased due to increased hearings for rental registration, landlord rental registration, and then interdepartmental, we had some other smaller increases in technical services, increase of postage due to postage rate increases, and also an increase of $12,660 for real estate taxes.
Davis, and those are on the 5G cell tower properties, which we're working on trying to get that alleviated or reduced.
Moving on to neighborhood housing, we have an increase in real estate taxes of $600, increase to land property acquisition for property to be demolished, and then a decrease to Demolition expense health care fund several accounts needed to be adjusted in the health care fund this is where all of the payments for our medical insurance come into and we pay the bill out of bulletproof vest bulletproof vest grant we had a slight increase because the city has a city percent fifty percent match so we had to increase that a little and a little bit.
Let's see.
A lot of these are small.
Sorry to keep going on and on.
ETSB 911.
This is a new category for us.
We just started receiving these funds.
We keep them tracked separately as they're for the 911 Dispatch Center.
We have found through Through the past year that we just needed to expand the number of categories to track expenses in 9-1-1.
So that's why there was a change there.
We've made changes to the EV Charger grant because we're anticipating that to be fully funded.
The Library Fund, any changes in the Library Fund were reviewed by the Library and the Board approved their changes.
I'm going to, let's see, the Lamb Road TIF, kind of skipped down just a couple to the Lamb Road TIF.
I decreased the amount of reserves needed in 2025 as the Walnut Lift Station project will not be completed in 2025.
Um, so this is another one of those situations where we have to make an adjustment at the beginning and the end of the year, depending on how far that project is along, um, slight changes to West Avenue and Meadows TIF.
And coming on the last page here Street Improvement Fund I've increased the sales tax revenue by 295,000 that's based on actual sales tax receipts that the way that they're coming in and also reduced electric and national natural gas taxes as those receipts are dropping but the the big The big thing that we have added here was the project on 18th Avenue, both the expense and the revenue, as this will be paid by the solar company.
I don't remember their name, but that project is a wash.
We will bill the solar company for that expense.
And then I did project to use the carryover funds in the Street Improvement Fund of $1 million and we do have that in the fund and that's kind of due to the viaduct and the status of where that is.
We thought we'd be further along last year at the end of the year.
That's kind of taken a little bit longer.
Longer.
And finally, just small changes in the Water Fund and Sewer Fund.
I did decrease the grant revenue in the Water Fund for 8 million just because those projects aren't quite here yet and those revenues aren't coming in yet.
That's for the Water Treatment Plant Is there a motion to move Ordinance 2025-79 forward?
So moved.
Second.
We have a motion made by Alderman Shadle, seconded by Alderman Sellers.
Discussion on this Ordinance.
Item number 15 is the first reading of Ordinance 2025-80.
Could you please read this?
Adopting Revised Hanger Lease Form.
Manager Boyer.
Thank you, Your Honor.
As everyone's well aware, we've changed the lease agreement last year.
Several of the tenants brought forward some concerns about the language and we're adopting the language that they've requested the change.
It is in paragraph 6, Repair and Maintenance, so essentially it changes.
It essentially means the city's and others responsible for the repair of the electricity in the hangar and also in the outside premise.
So with that being said, it's fairly minor changes.
We're just trying to do our best to work with the current tenants to accomplish their concerns.
So there are currently seven un-executed hangar leases which we're working on.
These are the related to the small portion of the wording for the leases and the current lease places the responsibility on the leasee for maintenance of the lease premises and excluding the roof and hanger door the electric and concrete and roof hanger door these all need to be changed moving forward so staff recommends moving forward with this ordinance for a second reading.
Is there What were you saying about the electric portion of this?
It's the wiring in the hanger was originally not included in the mechanicals and electrical responsibilities of the leasee.
So we're including the electrical within the hanger.
Well now, the city is responsible for all electrical work that needs to be done at the airport.
Well it basically consists of some simple lighting circuits, so they were just wanting to see that included in the lease moving forward.
And was that included in the budget?
Yes.
For a million dollars, I hope so.
Manager, Boyer, these were things that we kind of covered anyway.
We've just now memorialized it in the lease, correct?
We didn't really add any responsibilities.
We're just clarifying what the city will do.
Absolutely.
This is a clarification of what we always intended to do.
It just hadn't been in the previous lease agreement.
So Alderman Stacey.
So, okay, um, Ms. Anderson, by you saying that, the- Anderson, by you saying that, then you're saying we were covering stuff and committing ourselves to stuff that we never even agreed on or never even knew about.
Sure.
Not necessarily.
It's like saying the original lease said we will take care of items one and two, and we always did take care of three, four, and five.
It's no different.
Now the lease lists items one through five.
Okay, so when we redid the lease, because we redid the lease image, like a year ago, why didn't it say all that then?
That's a very good question.
I mean, think things come up, you know, the landlord takes care of certain items and it's just, you know, you're going to you're going to maybe your lease says the landlord is going to take care of your gutters, but it didn't mention the downspouts.
Well, your, your renter wants downspout listed in there.
I mean, it's, it's just kind of obvious things that should, should be listed.
Right, like concrete.
Yes, absolutely.
I mean, that was a very simple example.
Right.
So, staff recommends moving this on to second reading.
We have the first and second to move forward.
Item number 16 is the adoption of Resolution 2025-145.
Could you please read this?
Resolution, Establishing a Ceremonial Sister-City Relationship with Littitz, Pennsylvania Thank you, Manager Boyer.
Thank you, Your Honor.
Freeport's recently developed a growing connection with Littitz, Pennsylvania.
They share many similarities with Freeport, the German heritage, strong downtown activity, life, and a well-known pretzel identity.
Tim Connors has served as the informal local ambassador to Littitz and has proposed the city consider a ceremonial resolution Establishing a Sister City Relationship.
The Mayor of Lidditz has also expressed interest in moving forward with this partnership.
A Sister City designation would recognize the goodwill already formed between both communities, and the purpose is simple.
Build friendships, share ideas, celebrate shared heritage, and look for opportunities to strengthen both cities.
Possible areas of collaboration include tourism, cultural events, youth activities, Historic Preservation and Resident Engagement.
This action is ceremonial.
It does not commit the City to program, staffing, or funding.
Any future activities will be voluntary, community-driven, and brought to Council if they require approval.
The next step would be a joint statement of friendship and continued communication with Lidditz.
There's no direct financial impact.
Any future costs will be evaluated separately.
Staff recommends moving forward with the resolution Establishing a Sister City Relationship with the City of Freeport in the borough of Lidditz, Pennsylvania.
Is there a motion to adopt?
So moved.
Second.
A motion made by Alderman Shadle, seconded by Alderman Sellers.
Discussion on the resolution?
Alderman Stacy?
I don't know if you, City Manager Boyer, done your homework, but I did mine, and I don't see what we have in common with this city.
It consists of about 9,700 people, Asian non-Hispanic 2.2%, Other Hispanic 1.55%, White Hispanic 2%, Black or African American 1.1%, White, non-Hispanic 89.8%, really, other than a pretzel, what do we have in common?
If we're going to be joining something, I think it needs to be something that we're compatible to.
And while we're on this, I would like to make a motion that this topic be removed indefinitely.
Well, there's a motion on the floor for this to be removed indefinitely.
Is there a second?
I second it.
The motion made by Alderman Stacy, seconded by Alderman Simmons, discussion on removing indefinitely.
Sure.
Is it just because of the nationalities or, or, or what is it?
What do we have in common?
What do we have in common with this city?
Would you mind if I answer that?
There's a lot of shared roots here of the German-American heritage.
There's a lot of shared pretzel, which is really about craftsmanship and the tradition that both cities embrace.
This is about a resolution that encourages the practices of exchanging ideas in business, arts, culture, and tourism.
Are actually we're planning on moving forward with different aspects through the GFP to explore cross promotional events, heritage tours, collaboration, branding efforts.
They they have the the oldest first pretzel factory.
We have discussions of bringing them here for sale.
There's there's actually it's much greater than just we don't have a lot in common as far as population.
They have Do they have their stuff together?
Oh, boy, do they have their stuff together.
We're the ones that don't.
But if you feel they have their stuff together, why wouldn't we want to work with them to get our stuff together?
That's what I can't understand.
If they have their stuff together and you feel that they're doing.
They have their stuff together, we don't.
We're not even in a place to even consider joining forces with this little rich.
Mead Finish, but evidently they must feel something, the reason why they want to sister with us.
I mean, if they were so good at what they were doing and you feel that they're so great and they got their stuff together, they're saying, hey, we'll help you get your stuff together.
Well, they only saw a part of the neighborhoods, too.
But it's not costing us anything.
They didn't see the whole Freeport.
They saw the downtown.
There's more to Freeport than downtown.
Let's look at the whole city.
Well, they loved what they saw.
So before us.
Before us is the removal of this indefinitely.
If there's no more discussion on this particular motion, Madam Clerk, please take the roll on.
Yeah, I second it.
I don't need a second.
Well, she made a motion, didn't she?
Yeah, I already have a second.
She seconded.
Okay.
So if you could please take the roll on the removal of the Sister City ordinance.
Shadle?
Resolution.
Sanders?
Yes.
Sellers?
No.
Johnson, Simmons, Parker, Stacy, yes the motion fails three to five of course it does so then before you is the passage of the resolution any further discussion on and the resolution.
Madam Clerk, please take the roll.
Shadle?
Yes.
Sanders?
No.
Sellers?
Yes.
Klemm?
Yes.
Johnson?
Yes.
Simmons?
Aye.
Parker?
Yes.
Stacy?
No.
And the resolution is adopted 6-2.
Item number 17 is the adoption of resolution 2025-146.
Please read this.
Resolution Approving a Capital Improvement Plan for 2026-2029.
Director Richter.
Thank you, Your Honor.
As our community continues to grow and evolve, it's essential that we plan carefully for the maintenance, replacement, and improvement of our public infrastructure and facilities.
To accomplish this, we are proposing the Attached Capital Improvement Plan, which is a long-term planning and budgeting tool designed to guide investments in major community Assets.
A capital improvement plan is a multi-year roadmap that identifies and prioritizes major projects such as road repairs, water and sewer upgrades, public buildings, and other infrastructure investments.
It outlines what needs to be done and when it should be done and how much it should cost and how it will be funded.
It is important to have a capital improvement plan for strategic and Transparent Planning, Efficient Use of Resources, Financial Stability and Predictability, Accountability, and Supporting Economic Development.
Attached is the City of Freeport's Capital Improvement Plan for years 2026 through 2029.
Each of the items identified will come before Council prior to purchase.
You are not approving the purchase of the items at this time.
This is a living document.
It's fluid and will change year over year as it reflects the city's changing needs, priorities, and Changing Needs, Priorities, and Financial Realities.
Changes to this plan are necessary as projects are completed, delayed, or re-scoped each year.
Designs are finalized or costs are clarified.
Budgets and timelines will need to be updated.
Construction costs change requiring adjustments to project budgets.
And new regulatory requirements may create new infrastructure needs or technology changes which can make older projects obsolete or asset condition changes.
Each year, the updated plan will be presented to Council requesting adoption.
The strategic plan alignment is responsive, efficient government and staff request approval of the resolution adopting the 2026 through 2029 Capital Improvement Plan.
Is there a motion to adopt?
So moved.
Second.
The motion made by Alderman Shadle, seconded by Alderman Klemm.
Discussion on the resolution?
Alderman Stacy?
All these things that says pending loan, pending loans like we're going to take loans out for all this or are they the ones that's already out there?
Those projects, I think it's mostly underwater and sewer is where you're looking, would be IEPA loans but if I remember if I'm looking at this all of these are projected out a year also so they are pending loans but like I said it's fluid you know if we come across a grant that's gonna pay for it or we're gonna get some forgiveness or something like that that will change we're not locked and others.
We have been locked into these loans at this time.
IEPA loans have to come to council.
But if we agree to do the project and we don't get any money in, then we're locked into that loan.
We wouldn't start a project without knowing where the funding is coming from and approval by council with these dollar values.
The years 2026 are budgeted in the budget that was just passed earlier, 2026, 2027, and further out, those are our goals, those are the projects we have that we know we need to get done, but funding sources may change.
My problem with all of this is that we have so much, so many irons in this skillet.
We got so much already started and so much that you're planning on to get started when this that we've already started is not even finished and complete.
And I just feel like it's just too much it's too much any other discussion Madam Clerk please take the role Shadle aye Sanders no Sellers aye Klemm aye Johnson aye Simmons Parker aye and Stacy no the resolution is adopted six to two item Resolution number 18 is the adoption of Resolution 2025-147.
Could you please read this?
Resolution authorizing the write-off of uncollectible water and sewer balances aged seven years and older.
Thank you.
Director Richter?
Thank you, Your Honor.
The write-off of utility balances is necessary when a resident's balance is considered to be uncollectible.
If the balances are not written off, the City will carry an accounts receivable balance that overstates the amount of outstanding customer balances.
By writing off the accounts yearly, we more accurately reflect our financial position.
Despite efforts to collect these outstanding balances, we propose to write off all balances prior to July 1st of 2018 at this time.
This would leave seven years of balances on the books.
The proposed total to be written off is $75,556.46.
Please note we are able to track prior balances that have been written off in our computer system.
If future utility service is requested in the name of an account that was previously written off, we will collect prior to new service starting.
The resident is also required to pay a higher deposit on the account if an old balance was not paid.
The strategic plan alignment is responsive, efficient government.
Staff request approval of the resolution to write off $75,556.46 of water, sewer, storm and garbage receivable balances at this time.
The detail of the write-offs is contained in Exhibit A.
And I'd also like to point out at the end of Exhibit A is a total amount of revenue that was taken in in FY 2018 per our audit report was 11 million, a little over 11 million.
And so at this time we're We're writing off.
682% That's less than 1% of balances at this time.
Is there a motion to adopt?
So moved.
Second.
Motion made by Alderman Shadle, seconded by Alderman Klemm.
Discussion on the resolution?
I just have a quick question.
Yes, Alderman Sellers.
I just have a quick question.
How long are these residents' names?
How long do they stay on the list, you know, if they want to come and re-apply for water, sewer, whatever?
How long is their name on there?
Is it on there indefinitely, or.?
At this point, it's indefinitely.
We just switched to a new computer system five years ago.
But even the old stuff from the old system kind of came over.
So we actually, we have access to the old system still.
So a long time.
Alderman, Stacy.
How many of these are businesses, landlords?
I'm going to pick out one.
I pulled out Banker's Trust Company of California.
Why do we even have Banker's Trust Company of California on us?
$485.
It was foreclosed on.
The mortgage wasn't paid on the property.
It went back to the bank.
And so we tried to charge the, they would be considered the owner at that time.
And our CIP charges on the water and sewer accounts.
At this time, I would like to point out back before 2019, there were five years of CIP charges that would go on an account even if the water was paid.
Was turned off.
That was changed to one year in 2019.
So if you're there, you know, there's higher balances on some of these accounts because those CIP charges stayed with the home for five years.
They don't stay with the home anymore.
For five years, it's only one year.
Landlords that have water in their names, are they on this list, are we allowing landlords to get their bills paid?
I didn't go through, and I don't know if every single one of these is a property or Is that something that can be easily determined through all this technology system that we have?
We did go through this list to make sure there were no active accounts that we could transfer these balances to.
Yeah, but can we through, maybe I need to be asking the gentleman at the back, can we We determine what is landlords and what is the people.
City Manager Boyer?
We can definitely discuss it right now.
Just moving forward with the write-offs, we'd like to move forward with this one and we can carry on that conversation outside of the meeting.
I think it kind of comes back to Director's point of none of these names are active.
So if that's the case, none of them would be landlords right now with that bill going on.
Well, we'll see, because.
Because I don't like being blew off with this and I just know from last year and the year before, when we went through all that list that landlords were getting over like fat rats and I don't know if it was buddies, friends, I don't know but I just know Miller, that they still had apartments and their name was on the list because it had been outstanding for seven years.
Director, I guess I just would like to make sure you know that we do not choose favorites in the water department.
I have never been ordered by any of my superiors to do write off any balances because someone is a landlord.
I'm not, I'm not going to do that.
I would also, I would just like to continue.
We did check every one of these to see if they had an active account currently.
And if they did, we moved it to the active account.
So we did look to see if they're active.
After seven years is my understanding you can't I can't take them to court after seven years but I do try to collect and we collect several lots of dollars for someone who maybe was here in the community left a balance and now came back again we look everybody up when they come in we ask for maiden names we look them up to to see if there's an outstanding balance prior to setting up Madam Clerk, please take the roll.
Shadle?
Aye.
Sanders?
Aye.
Sellers?
Aye.
Klemm?
Aye.
Johnson?
Aye.
Simmons?
Aye.
Parker?
Aye.
And Stacy?
Aye.
The resolution is adopted, 8-0.
Item number 19 is the adoption of resolution 2025-148.
Could you please read this?
Resolution Approving Agreement with Fehr Graham to Provide Consulting Services for Landfills 2-3 and Landfill 4.
Manager Boyer.
Thank you, Your Honor.
As we all know, we own several landfills, all of them capped but have legacy costs related to monitoring for contaminants, and that will go on for quite some time.
So the City of Freeport has an annual engineering requirement for these services for 2, 3, and 4 and as part of the Illinois EPA protection closure process.
The engineering contract is required for the IEP-mandated routine sampling, lab analysis, and various reporting and upkeep of landfill and leachate system.
City approves a required landfill engineer contracted for the annual needs of the three We own Dumps, we already discussed, Fehr Graham is the licensed Freeport Landfill Engineer and their environmental team specializes in landfill monitoring and closures.
Fehr Graham has been a landfill engineer since it originally closed and this contract requires significant landfill sampling, lab analysis, leachate system outkeep and reporting, which an Illinois licensed engineer must perform.
This 2026 contract reflects an increase in the IEPA required sampling parameters and and the cost of professional certified lab testing.
A contingency line is set up for unforeseen regulatory work mandated by the leachate system issues, I. E. We've had various concerns with jetting or cleaning and monitoring those and other EPA permitted directives.
These items can only be approved for addition by the City Manager, me, and funding for this This annual landfill engineering agreement is included in the 26th budget.
Staff recommends City Council move forward with the landfill engineering contract with Fehr Graham.
Is there a motion to adopt?
So moved.
Second.
A motion made by Alderman Shadle, seconded by Alderman Sellers.
Discussion?
Madam Clerk, please.
Alderman Sanders.
Yeah, I'm listening to all of this, but who's hiring Fehr Graham, first of all?
I'm not asking a question right now.
I'm just going to bundle it together, couple it together, so I'm not cut off.
I'm making my point.
When hiring Fehr Graham to do this study, this analysis, reporting, and everything, you say it goes to the EPA or some organization, some agency, and what we haven't discussed, you're bringing this to us, but we haven't talked about the cost assessment of all of the studies that is being done for this particular program.
And more.
And others.
I don't have no problems with it.
It's just the fact that we have not heard any financial report study estimation cost or whatever to even do this study.
What I'm wondering is, and I heard Director Boyer spoke that he was making that decision.
He don't make that decision when it comes to making reportings onto and John.
I have a question for the Council.
Let's get that straight.
If anybody does any reporting agencies or estimated cost, financial budgeting and everything like that, that has to pass through Council.
Director Boyer brings us up to date of what the discoveries are to talk about it with Council.
Then Council has and others.
So, I don't have no problem with that.
It's just that how it's being presented on the floor as if though we have no one individual is a council's responsibility.
I don't mind it coming forth, but I'd like for it to be exposed unto council where we have a clear understanding where this particular project is moving and how it's going to be financed and things of that nature.
So, I don't have no problem with that.
Always being presented on the floor as if though we have to accept it immediately today without having a chance to debate it or discuss it before we even come to these types of meetings.
So that's my problem.
I don't know what the astronomical cost is going to be like for a certain project just like any other project.
We just can't throw that thing lily out there in the sky and say, well, this is what we and the City of New York.
I want people to know that I'm not going to let it be known, that people should know that I'm a great person, that I'm going to do what I want to do, and things of this nature without coupling it with a cost.
If there's a cost, if there's a grant brought with this project, then let it be known to the council that we can look at it from a different perspective.
And that's all I wanted to say on that.
People, nevermind I won't criticize nobody in council today but that's it.
That's all I wanted to say.
Alderman Sanders, you are correct.
It's not the City Manager's job to approve it.
It's his job to bring it before you.
Yes.
And it's your job to approve it or not.
Thank you.
I know that already.
So Darren, you have something to add.
Yeah.
In the packet today, every cost for the services was outlined specifically by unit price.
It's established by a unit price.
The only items that could be added are contingency items that are unknown at this time, so the permit's been issued.
So we know what the requirements are.
If some condition changes during the calendar year, the DPA directs us that we have to do additional sampling or, you know, God forbid something happens out there that, you know, a sink or something extra happens, we have contingency Money that is only placed for that to address emergencies, and it can only be approved by the City Manager through this contract above and beyond what is already listed.
So that will come back to you as an emergency authority, just like everything else that we've done.
But every, every cost center is identified in both at each landfill individually.
And if the line items don't get used, they don't get charged.
Okay, thank you.
I will also like to tell counsel that Jake, which is our landfill manager, the guy that does the sampling and runs the testing, he went above and beyond this year for the city.
We filed numerous letters with the EPA to reduce sampling at all of the landfills trying to reduce this contract and save the city costs because we know this is an expensive contract.
We have several letters back that they've denied the reduction in sampling, but we did that had no.
And Sampling but we did that at no service cost to the city just trying to reduce the cost because lab sampling is getting extremely expensive and is probably close to 50% of this contract cost alone.
Thank you.
Madam Clerk, please take the roll.
Shadle.
Aye.
Sanders.
Aye.
Sellers.
Aye.
Klemm.
Aye.
Johnson, Simmonds, Parker, and Stacey.
I did not hear you.
Abstain?
The resolution is adopted 7-0 with one abstentia.
Item number 20 is adoption of resolution 2025-149.
Please read this.
Resolution, approving an agreement with Fehr Graham to provide Albertus Airport stormwater inspections and reports.
Thank you, Manager Boyer.
Thank you, Your Honor.
The city-owned airport is required to have quarterly inspections and annual reporting for required stormwater pollution prevention by a licensed stormwater inspector and professional engineer.
Again, Fehr Graham has brought forward and has assisted the city for several years on this.
And we would like to bring that before council.
The total cost of the program is $7,300 and staff recommends moving forward with the stormwater inspection reporting project.
Is there a motion to adopt?
So moved.
I second.
Motion made by Alderman Shadle, seconded by Alderman Johnson.
Discussion on the resolution.
Madam Clerk, please take the roll.
Hold it, hold it, Mayor.
You're moving a little bit.
You gotta pause for a minute.
You gotta pause, Mayor, because I'm pausing to see where my colleagues are.
Okay, Alderman Sanders, did you want to speak?
Were you asking for the floor?
I'm speaking to you, directly.
That's who I'm speaking to.
Okay, do you want to use?
No, I'm talking to you directly.
I'm not posing a question in regards to the floor.
Okay, I'm the Chair.
If it's silent, I can move things forward.
If you have something to add in discussion, then add the discussion.
Before you rush the discussion.
Would you like to add something to discussion?
Yes, I would.
Okay.
Yeah, but the point of matter is, let's everybody else chime in, you know, it's not just a one-off thing here.
And John.
I wanted to table this or suspend this thing, but I'm just going to table it for now because my colleagues are not in a, is not on a court with anything that we're discussing tonight, especially in areas that's costing millions of dollars.
The concern should and the City of New York.
So there should be millions of dollars that should be concerning folks to evaluate and study why it is that we're considering adopting any of this thing without consulting with Council and talking about it.
We're talking millions of dollars right now at this moment.
We're moving into that area, whether we know it or not.
And if we can debate that, discuss that, see where we're at financially with it and where the financing is gonna come from, these things need to not be rushed through council.
So anyway, I just wanted to stay on topic about the whole way that we're processing this and how we come to the data or the project and the data or the project of testing storms, storm and water out at the Albertus Airport.
And what brought that matter up?
What I'm saying is if there was no problem out there, and it definitely doesn't describe as a problem that I'm looking at, what is the implementation of this study?
Have we had a problem out there with the storm and sewer, whatever the case is that we're looking at?
Has there been a problem that prompted City Manager to look into these matters?
What did we discover?
Was there a discovery with the storm and water program on this item?
Was there an issue there?
That issue should be brought to the council where we can understand why it is that we're hiring someone to do a study if we have not even talked about the study and the reason why that study should be even relevant at this time.
So Mike, that's what I'm trying to do, that's the reason why I've tried to pause for council to inject their viewpoints as well as my own.
So my thing is, are we engaged to just let things happen?
That's, that's, that's my point of view of things.
Okay, so you're, you want to make a motion to table?
Is that correct, what I'm hearing?
No, I'm not going to table this.
I thought I would, but I'm not going to do it.
Okay, and just for a point of clarification, we're not talking about millions of dollars, we're talking about $7,300.
I, I know on that particular one, but I, I said, as we go along, it's going to get into the millions.
You didn't hear that part.
So.
Darren, did you want to?
Yeah.
So this is a stormwater inspection that's required by the EPA and the airport due to the jet fuels that are used out at the airport.
There's nothing suspicious about this.
This is an annual contract that we do every year.
It's time and material and usually this is worst case scenario.
It's usually much cheaper than this by the end of the year.
It depends on if there's anything found in the water or not, there hasn't been anything found for the last year and a half, to my knowledge.
And we do quarterly inspections, you have to do a wet inspection and you have to do a dry inspection.
So and the paperwork's all reported up to the EPA and to the airport managers.
The better job that they do at the airport, the less work needs to be done.
Thank you.
Madam Clerk, please take the roll.
Shadle?
Sanders, Sellers, Klemm, Johnson, Simmons, Parker, and Stacy.
The resolution is adopted 8-0.
Item number 21 is the adoption of Resolution 2025-150.
Please read this.
Resolution approving an agreement with Cinegro Central for the loading, transporting, and land application of biosolids generated by The City's Hancock Wastewater Treatment Plant.
Manager Boyer.
Thank you, Your Honor.
The treatment plant, wastewater treatment plant, as a byproduct, creates two end products.
One of those is clean water, and the other one is biosolids.
The biosolids is a solid matter.
After it's gone through the treatment process, it has been dewatered and stored in a biosolid building at the wastewater treatment plant.
Once the storage area is full, staff Call a contracted hauler, Cinegro, to land apply that biosolid.
Cinegro contracts and coordinates with farmers in the area so that the biosolids can be land applied to agricultural fields and used as natural fertilizer.
Cinegro is then responsible for keeping records and contracts with the participating farmers as well as records on the amount of fertilizer that it applied to each field, on which days and where the biosolids came from.
Laws regulate with the amount of biosolids that can be field applied within specific amounts of time, and Centro keeps all the legally required documentation and provides quarterly reports that staff then use to complete and file additional EPE reports in the compliance and during our permitting process.
Centro services are a key component of keeping the wastewater treatment plant running efficiently and effectively, maintaining regulatory compliance.
The contract between Centegro, and the City of Freeport is set to expire December of 2025.
The new contract ensures continued compliance with our National Pollution Discharge permit and Biosolid Land Application is a special service.
It's very difficult to find qualified bio application companies.
Staff solicited bids from four Midwest companies that perform these land applications and no one else Schroeder.
This is required for the municipality.
The current contract was signed, it said, it expires on December.
The original contract price was $46.99 a cubic yard for an estimated 3,300 cubic yards.
The amendment would adjust the price to 48.21 per cubic yard effective January 1st to 26 through December 31st to 28 when the contract expires.
And Staff recommends moving forward with the resolution to approve of Cinegro for hollage of biosolids.
Is there a motion to adopt?
So moved.
Second.
A motion made by Alderman Shadle, seconded by Alderman Sellers.
Discussion on the resolution.
I'm coming, Mayor.
I'm looking at you.
Yeah, I'm coming because like I said, I wanted to pause, let my colleagues chime in and see where they're at.
That's what I'm trying to do.
Be respectful.
Alderman Sanders, did you have some discussion?
Yeah, I do.
I do.
Well, any Well, anyway, by any chance, Manager Boyer, how many people contract, I mean, how many employees working for CentroGro to do the hauling for the City of Freeport and who is maintaining the program, who's taking care of the whole project and are these people Staff at the City Waste Treatment Plant.
Cinegro is a private entity that is contracted for services for land application of biosolids.
Okay, give me more.
You're leaving things out.
Give me more.
I don't know how many people work for Cinegro.
Yeah, it's more than that.
There's no way I could know what their payroll is or how many people work there.
And you can't know how much we're paying them for the year of their services.
That, you didn't ask.
No, I didn't, but that's the reason why I'm trying to encourage you to give more detail.
Essentially, it depends on our wastewater.
Essentially, we're talking about our averages, 3,300 tons per year.
Director Richter has some I do have a number for 20 in 2024 we paid Cinegro hundred and twenty three thousand this so it's last year okay so how long we've been in business with this contractor very long time ever since I've been here we have so we put the bid out to four other places we only got one bid back Okay, okay.
Darren?
So one of the issues with finding waste haulers is people that spread biosolids contract fields and if they contract they you know it's hard to bring a contractor from a long ways out of the area to contract land around here to spread it and then do all the paperwork requirements and I believe CineGrow they've done it for at least the last eight years that I know of maybe B. Longer.
They've done a great job.
Part of the cost here that has really changed things is the prevailing wage, which the state weighed in on it and said this is a prevailing wage function and we must do certified payrolls for this job.
That's changed the spreading business and it's put a lot of the small haulers that would have ever thought about doing this out of business.
Second question.
How much, well Director Richter already stated how much per year that this service is costing the city, but what financial obligation does this contract have with the and the State of Biosolids to be formulated to be put out on the field because that's a cost within itself throughout the year.
So I don't know.
I know it's a cost factor.
The city has all the chemical costs in our own bids and it's part of our process.
They just haul the biosluds, they rent the fields and they spread it.
That's their service.
Okay, so it's by the ton.
So because our tonnage changes.
So now we were talking about the chemical that actually Creates the bio solid how that's the cost how much are we spending to do that?
For contractors to come in to make sure that these solids make it out to the field it takes a chemical it takes chemical We have no material to create this type of form for that.
Do we have a cost factor for the chemicals that are going in there?
Because that's a major cost to transform sewage into a biosolid, you know, that's a serious change in the financial impact on the sewer department or the city itself.
Deren?
It has nothing to do with this contract so it's no not the contract I'm talking about the chemical base for the haulers to be able to haul it city has to be able to break that solid break it down to uh so it can be uh hauled what chemicals are we what we're kind of what chemicals are being financed to do that and how much is it costing well like Deren said this has nothing to Alderman, Stacy, but I'm I'm with Alderman Sanders on this there is another fee and what is that fee attorney Zito if I think I'm understanding the question right and so I'll pose this as a question to you Darren because I think they're asking I think they're asking the question right and so I'll pose this as a question to you Darren about when the chemicals right to create the biosolids right that's our normal treatment process right our normal waste treatment process the end result is this biosolids are through our normal treatment process now it's just a matter of every time we treat waste there's always going to be this residue what do we do with that residue Cinegro hauls it away and spreads it on farm fields so it's our normal treatment process anytime we treat sewer waste so there's nothing that's our that cost is the cost of us treating waste.
Madam Clerk please take the role.
Shadle.
Aye.
Sanders.
Aye.
Sellers.
Aye.
Klemm.
Aye.
Johnson.
Aye.
Simmons is absent.
And Parker.
Aye.
She's here.
Oh and your vote.
Aye.
Parker said aye.
Aye.
And Stacy.
Aye.
The resolution is adopted 8 to 0.
Sorry about that.
We'll move on to department head reports.
Finance.
Nothing your honor.
Thank you.
Community Development.
No. Public Works.
Nothing tonight.
Thank you.
Fire.
Thank you.
No report this evening.
Thank you.
Police.
Nothing from the Police Department, Mayor, Library, Nothing, Thank you, and IT, thank you, City Manager, Nothing tonight, your Honor, and I don't have anything to add either, so we'll move on to Council Announcements, Alderman Shadle, I just would like to thank all of our city employees, Police, Fire, and Street Department especially for handling a very trying weekend in a very fine manner.
Thank you.
Alderman Sanders?
Nothing.
Alderman Sellers?
Nothing.
Alderman Klemm?
If I could Mayor, Chief, at our neighborhood watch the other night, it came up about the shop with a cop, and there were some people interested in giving, and we passed the information on.
Is there anything that you can tell that if somebody wants to give, how they could contact you guys, or who would be the person?
Sure, so we'll be doing shop with a cop on Saturday morning.
We'll be taking donations any time, particularly this week.
Donations can be made to the Fraternal Order of Police.
That's who ultimately funds the shop with a cop.
So they can come down to the police department and give it to dispatch or any officer, really, that's available.
And they'll turn it over to the FOP and go straight to the kids, so.
Appreciate it.
Thank you.
Welcome.
Johnson, nothing tonight mayor, Alderman Simmons, Parker, just a couple one is a shot with a cop is a great program we've been doing it for years that's good the other is want to just echo what Alder and Shadle said about the employees for this past weekend had to be a whole so thank you woman Stacy yes to the many Any cause and constituents who called me pertaining to leaf pickup, Tuesday night and Wednesday, I did the best I knew to do.
I don't know where we go from here because now the leaves are in the snow.
And I do wish we could have been more productive Wednesday with the leafs being picked up in areas where they had never been touched, however, they were already flipped over to snow plows.
Snowplows.
So, I don't know, City Manager Boyer, how many phone calls you received, you gave me permission to give them your number and I did.
But I don't know where we go from here come spring because the leaves, they're going to be there.
And John.
Okay.
Move on to public comments.
Tommy?
I wanted to tell you, you know about World Siding and Freeport, it's empty buildings.
You know what they're going to do with it?
No, not yet.
And so you know you do a good job and so Stacy we want to tell you uh I I got a new house at the at the solar program in Freeport and uh I want to tell Tom Quinn he does a good job of Alderman in Freeport and he knows everything thank you Any other public comments?
I will entertain a motion to adjourn.
I move.
Second.
I have a motion made by Alderman Shadle, seconded by Alderman Sellers.
All those in favor?
Aye.
Opposed?