and
Father God, thank you for the divine promises you have given to us in your word. Thank you
that you have not left us to fend for ourselves as we navigate through this sin-filled world,
but that you have commanded us to ask for wisdom, knowledge, and common sense which
you will give generously to all and so we do bestow upon the Freeport City Council members
the ability to conduct themselves in a state-like manner towards Mayor Miller and themselves.
Give the City Council members skills to apply wisdom, knowledge, and common sense when introducing
and voting on legislation to create new laws for the city,
negotiating and approving the city budget,
ensuring proper allocation of resources,
monitoring city agencies to ensure they effectively
serve the community, representing constituents' interests
and addressing community issues, and collaborating
with other council members and local officials
for effective governance.
and Lord, last but not least, help each city council member effectively execute the positions
to which they were elected and you installed them by seeking wise counsel and by being
prepared before council meetings so they can make informed decisions.
All blessings, honor, glory, and power belong to you.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
Thank you.
And now we'll officially call this meeting to order.
Madam Clerk, could you please take the roll?
Mayor Miller?
Here.
Alderpersons, Klemm?
Here.
Johnson?
Here.
Simmons?
Here.
Parker?
Here.
Stacy?
Here.
Shadle?
Here.
I stand for the Pledge of Allegiance led by Alderman Sanders.
Item number four is the approval of the agenda. Is there such a motion?
So moved.
Second.
We have a motion made by Alderman Shadle, seconded by Alderman Sellers.
All those in favor signify by saying aye.
Aye.
Opposed?
That motion passes.
Item number five is approval of the minutes from the Committee of the Whole meeting held
on August 11th, 2025.
Is there such a motion?
So moved.
Second.
We have a motion made by Alderman Shadle, seconded by Alderman Klemm.
All those in favor signify by saying aye.
Aye.
Opposed?
That motion passes.
We have one signed in, Ann, Annette, Mason? I'm not sure. Did you want to speak beforehand?
Okay. Okay. Thank you. Then we will move on to item number seven, which is the presentation. I'm sorry.
Oh, did you have something on the agenda you wanted to talk about? Please.
I'm Ryan Glick. I live in Freeport.
About last year in July, I found out about this whole supplier issue.
It took me from July to about December to get everything situated.
I reached out to the city, Ryan Bridge contacted me.
I told them the issue when I tried to, I got the paper from Nordic, I called them to cancel it, I got forced back in with the AP when I wanted to go to ComEd, and I finally got back with ComEd on December 17th of last year.
So, that was a horrible six months I had to deal with, with my combat bill. Being switched
in it took almost six months to be back where I wanted. And I'm on low income, so, it's
like, okay. So, I just want to bring that to you guys' attention. Thank you.
Thank you.
Item number seven is a presentation regarding the maintenance of landscaping at City-owned
lots.
Lynette Williams with the Pretzel Gardeners.
Hello, Council and City of Freeport.
I found something quite by accident that so perfectly aligns with the reason maybe that we're here today to even discuss community pride and somebody had asked about it on Facebook and this was this gentleman's reply and it fits perfectly.
Building a sense of civic duty in a community is about inspiring people to feel ownership, responsibility, and pride in the well-being of the place they live.
It requires a mix of education, engagement, culture building, and opportunities for action.
That hits our group square on the head.
You want to dim the light so you can see the pictures that we took.
I am Lynette Williams. I have lived here 50 years. Mayor Miller called me in July of 24, I think is when we started this, and she was looking to get the area cleaned up around city-owned lots within the community right before Tutti-Baker days.
and this is what it looked like.
That might even be good in some instances because we've pulled a lot of stuff.
Anyway, what happened in 24 was we pulled,
I gathered this crew, let's see here,
my senior lady's here,
behind me and we pulled this whole lot
or this whole area along the parking lot and we thought oh and you know we come back in 30 days
and no such luck. It looked just as bad as it had earlier. So when we started out 25
we were a little bit better prepared. First off we knew that we needed a new plan at least for
for this specific area.
And so we gathered in, what was it, February of 25.
And I knew that we were gonna need to do some deeper cleaning
at least for our particular area.
So with the help of the mayor and Greater Free Partnership,
there were groups of people who were,
I don't know whether they all volunteered
or whether you like grabbed him by the neck and said,
hey, come along type of thing.
But anyway, it ended up where the Tuddy Crossing sign
near the Pecatonica River, the city was going to do.
The Lincoln Douglas Rock at Stevenson and Liberty
in the parking lot, the master gardeners were going to do.
I don't have any pictures of these areas.
The landscape on State Street
that was North and South borders on Maine
where Steve Schlump was going to do.
and his area has been featured this today,
I think is the post from GFP.
There was landscaping at the corner of Main and Adams
near the Raleigh Building that was assigned to the city.
Walnut and spring landscaping, Trish Vandenberg
from the Father's House took care of that
along with anybody from her congregation.
My pretzel gardeners took this municipal lot
and then the triangles at Locuston, Maine and Locuston, Lincoln, the Bangsburg Agna kids did.
Hello.
So, this was not, it was, it was one of those things you start, you started in on it and it was like,
oh my gosh, it's just getting worse and worse and worse.
We ended up, what we ended up doing, here is my crew.
Simmler is from the Farmers Market, Paula Skanezny is not here, Ann Mason is here, Sharon
Cook is here, Kathy Perkins is not here. They are my fellow pretzel pickers. Lorenzo Allen
down there.
Lorenzo Allen down there at the end he I became acquainted with him and he has
come along and helped us on various days Robin Dole you have one lone bush that's
on the city landscaping property I don't know if there was more before but there's
only one left Robin Dole took that upon herself to do the trimming on it and my
My friend Dovie Anderson of 40 years also helped us out.
So anyway, we pulled weeds.
We had to decide what was good, what we had.
I am not a gardener.
I have no idea, you know, it's like, is this a weed, is this not a weed?
Milkweed.
Milkweed was a huge discussion.
Jodi has taken the liberty of sprinkling a lot of milkweed seeds, or either that, or
we had pods at one point, or birds, or whatever, but we've got a lot of milkweed over there.
We decided that we would keep anything that was next to the fences, anything that was
close to the sidewalk, we were going to pull.
That still left us with a lot of milkweed out there.
Let me think. Where else am I at on my thought here? What we started doing was we started
at the corner of Exchange and Van Buren in that corner where the steps come down and
just started bringing the mulch back. Anyway, we eventually discovered that there's weed
Fowler.
And I swear that weed barrier must have been there since Columbus came along because it
was filled with weeds, which is the reason that we couldn't get any place by just taking
care of the top layer is because we had to get rid of the weed barrier, which is what
we've done. We've pulled all that weed barrier up. We've laid down cardboard. We've put
Maltz on top of that compliments of the city trying to think oh yes we transplanted the corner of at
Van Buren and Douglas was totally looked like just a grassy knoll and it's huge it's absolutely
huge we I asked Leslie if these kids would come along and help us between them and us we did it
in four hours, but they did most of the work, because pulling up the weed barrier was horrible,
absolutely horrible. Right now in that corner we've got down cardboard and then just mulch
on top of it. The other corner's got a tree, but of course the tree is having its own ideas
about how many extra sprouts it wants to come up, so we have to cut those back. We tried
to replant as much as we could.
Leslie came and took some irises.
We took some of the irises and moved them along the edges.
We had an opportunity to get lilies.
No, I'm sorry.
We transplanted the lilies.
We got irises for free from a community member.
And so we're trying to make it look the best we can
with the limited resources we had.
We discovered that, well, yes, but what's growing that's crazy?
Morning Glory. Morning Glory.
Looks beautiful, absolutely beautiful, but it takes over everything, absolutely everything.
Which is part of the reason for the cardboard being down because we're trying to cut out and kill the weeds underneath it.
I worked weekly with Pat Ingram from the Street Superintendent. He dropped us mulch. I would tell him how many bags we had. I would tell him that's landscape waste. White bags are trash, because we find people who, you know, the cup, the sucker wrapper, the cigarette, they're using it as an ashtray.
and oh, for their dogs too. That was the other thing they were using it for, very much so.
Anyway, I kept track of the hours that my crew did. My crew worked 134 hours on this,
which is almost four weeks worth of work. Now, we did that in two and three hour increments
because we're a group of seniors.
We don't like the heat.
We don't like the cold.
But I'm figuring that we have saved the city
somewhere around $2,700 by doing, by the manual labor.
Obviously, right now, it takes us maybe an hour
to go out there every other week
because we're not fighting with the stuff
that was underneath.
I know that the parking lot is going to be improved at some point in the future and, you know, water accessibility, electricity, and maybe just some solid cement.
You've got a sign in the one corner at the corner of Douglas and Van Buren that's been there since George Galrap was mayor.
Maybe we don't need that anymore.
just ideas just thoughts anyway I could not have done it without these people any
of these people I mean this has just been fantastic I for those people who
thought they had to give us advice and we look at them and say you want to help
oh no I don't want to do that but we had a lot of those kinds of people so we
We tried to, I guess, be diplomatic in our comments and wanted to make sure that the
City knew what this took. You're talking about your budget, so it would be nice for
a little bit of money in it, you know, for lawn bags and plants, if you want something
other than what we can scrounge from neighbors. You know, that's about, that's about what
we're doing. We're sort of scrounging from neighbors.
Thank you for your time. I'm done talking. Leslie, would you like to introduce your kids?
I'm Leslie Price. I'm the Social Worker at Banksburg Agnes Educational Center. We represent
Freeport School District. We are at the Students in Transitional Education Program, and we're
a big service education program, so we like to give back to the community. And these are
only a few of our gentlemen that helped. We had a lot of other students that assisted
2, Mrs. Jacarion Sanders, Floyd, Floyd Carter, and Christian Segal. Again, we had a lot of
other students that helped as well, but they worked in that 100 degree weather week that
we had. I think one day it was raining and we walk every time we go. So I just think
that they deserve a little bit, a little bit of praise for the hard work that they did
and so on. Thank you. That's all we have. Well, thank you, Lynette, to you and your
entire crew. Hopefully your sense of community pride just continues to be catching on with
other people, so thank you for your service. I would love to see other people doing this.
and it would be not actually right now it's not too bad and I think that once we got at
least that particular area tamed that's why it's not so bad right now.
All right.
Thank you again.
Thank you.
Thank you all.
Move on to item number eight which is a presentation regarding the 2025 summer reading program.
and Amanda Myers.
Good evening.
Can you hit the lights again so we can see better?
Thank you.
My name is Amanda Myers and I'm the Youth Services Administrator
at the Freeport Public Library.
So I'm here tonight to tell you a little bit
about our summer reading club that we had.
As you can see, our theme this year was Color Our World
which was a really fun theme to program around and decorate
and
Mary.
We'll start off by talking about the reading part of summer
reading. I'd like to break it down into two parts, reading and
programming.
For the reading part, we had 523 kids who were birth through 6th
grade sign up for summer reading, which is a 5% increase over
last year. Of those who signed up, 271 of them successfully
and I have successfully completed the summer reading program, which consists of reading either 20 hours if they're reading like longer books and independently or reading 60 books if they are being read to or if they're like an early reader and reading shorter books so it's easier to keep track by book for them.
So our finishing percentage this year was 51%, which is down a little bit from last year, but that's okay. Usually I feel like most libraries are around like 20-25%, so I'm very happy if it's over 50%.
and I. I'm happy if it's over 50%. So next we'll talk about programming. I feel like Ashley kept telling me like it's okay if it's not better than last year, like it's fine, don't worry. And this year we ended up with 8,232 people at our summer programs. That includes in-house programs, outreach programs, passive programs, and other programs we do throughout the summer field trips that come in. So that was a 36%
Hicks, and a 25% increase from last year's amount of 6,000.
And we had 119 programs beginning in June through August 9th.
And we offer numerous programs each week for children, community groups, outreaches.
And as you can see, ever since we have come back from COVID, our numbers have just been increasing steadily each year, which I mean, I feel like might possibly, it's going to be hard to beat this year, I feel like definitely.
But somehow we always do it, so maybe it will happen again next summer.
These are just a few of the programs we offer every year.
As you can see, most of them, the numbers went up this year.
The kickoff party was bigger, slime making was definitely bigger.
We've been getting bigger Storytime crowds all year, so our average Storytime kiddos
for Storytime and Debate Square was up to like 37 this year, which for us, as a small library, is a lot.
and yeah they either stayed the same or generally went up so and now we will talk
about the fun programs we had this is our summer reading club kickoff party
which was on June 9th and thankfully this year we had good weather so we
could have it outside I feel like the beginning of June is kind of hit or miss
on the weather so we have it inside a lot too but we had 550 kids and adults
We do like the registration is at like the Douglas Street entrance and this year our line wrapped all the way around to the Chicago Street entrance it was like the longest we had ever seen it and it was very steady the whole time like the line kept moving but it just kept staying that long so that was really good we have lots of different games and activities for them to do we always bring out our sensory table and this year we actually dyed rice to put in since the theme was colors it gave them
and
the other one is a little
ballon
inside and they wanted to get in
on the summer reading club
action too.
This is our
collaborative art
we made for the summer.
We do a different one
every year and we try to keep it
theme related.
This year we decided to base it
off the book the dot because
this girl doesn't know what to
make and her teacher is like
everything starts from a dot and
So we gave them dots at the kickoff party that they could decorate and we actually used like salad spinners and put some paint in them and so they got to like swirl it around and make really cool art so we put those up on the wall and this is one of the things that actually helped our numbers increase a lot we started doing scavenger hunts in the library like last November and they had so much fun that when we didn't have one in December they were like where's the scavenger hunt we want to do a scavenger hunt so starting in January we've been doing it every
and
We did over the summer. So there's just 12 little pictures. You can see like the watermelon card there. That's what they're looking for. We had them all over the Youth Services Department, like by our posters on the tree on the shelves, like wherever and they have to find six. And if they find six, they get a prize. So it's pretty simple. Like they just get a sucker or a pencil. It's not like a big prize or anything. But this summer from June 1st to August 9th, we did 1804 scavenger hunts. Like this is
and so on.
Like their favorite thing.
I kid you not.
Like every time they come in, they were doing it like multiple times a week too, even though
we hadn't moved the pictures, they were just like, let us scavenger hunt again.
And I'm like, okay.
It's easy for them.
Well, it's fun for them.
It's easy for us.
So these are some of our pictures at Storytime at Debate Square.
I love summer because we get to do outside programming and Wednesdays actually though
this year were very hit or miss on the weather.
Fowler.
Some of them were very rainy and some of them were very nice.
But we had good crowds all summer and everybody just kind of brings their blankets and they
bring picnics and we just kind of go outside and have a good time.
We usually do like the sensory table or some sort of dance party or bubbles or things like
that.
And this summer, since our theme was colors, I kind of broke out of my usual summer themes
and we did a different color every week, which was really fun and actually different to do.
So it was very fun.
And you can't have a good summer reading program without making slime a few times, which is
on our monthly program cycle anyway, but in the summer it gets really, really big.
We made some disco ball slime and firecracker slime using pop rocks, which actually make
your slime pop and fizz and stuff.
And then we also made some orange creamsicle slime to finish out the summer.
and this year we had 493 people including kids and adults at our three slime days.
So the popularity of slime is not slowing down at all.
And these next few pictures are from our Make It Monday programs.
I love Make It Monday because the kids just get to be, they get to do whatever they want
and be as creative as they want.
So this week we made cardboard birds and as you can see they all had a different take
on it.
We have a cardboard bird that was pre-cut and a white canvas and this is what happened and the little girl on the right she was finger painting and like blending her colors like nobody's business and we were all just like oh what's that gonna look like when it was done because it was kind of this weird greenish grayish for a while but it actually looks really good with her bird that's yellow and it just kind of looks like a darker sky and here we have our button art day we gave them the choice
of having a pre like drawn out template so like the hearts and rainbows that you
see those were all templates that we had drawn out for them or we just like gave
them a canvas and they could make whatever and as you can see some of them
even made very cool 3d sculptures with their buttons and this was from our last
Make It Monday which was melted crayon art which I will fully admit did not
and so on.
We had a really good time.
They all finished their artwork.
It turns out no matter how big your building is, you can't plug in multiple hair dryers
at a time.
It just kind of overloads all the outlets.
Lesson learned there.
We let them all hot glue them and we were like, you know, you can just take it home
and dry it.
But actually, we had two hair dryers that were still working by the end and most of
them actually stayed and dried them there.
they were in no rush to leave because they were picking out books, they were scavenger hunting while they waited, it was fine, and as you can see, the girl on the left, she's very excited to have her picture taken, so, I mean, it turned out fine, and people were fine with it, even though it just didn't happen quite right, this is from our messy art day, which I will say was very, very messy, but you can't have a summer about color without having messy art, so we did like squeegee painting, we rigged up a pendulum that they could push back and forth,
Johnson, and I feel like Aaron, my librarian assistant, and I spent probably more time
cleaning the patio that day than our actual program was, which was an hour, but the patio
is all nice and spotless now.
And this is from our Bluey bash.
If you're not familiar with Bluey, he is a cartoon dog that's very, very popular with
the littles.
We had decided to have a bluey party this summer and he appeals to kids of all ages.
As you can see we have little littles and then we have bigger kids and we had 283 kids
come that day.
They played games like heebie yuppy which is the balloon game and dressing up like grannies
which is apparently a bluey thing that you have to do and they made some magic asparagus
which turns adults into animals.
This is one of our presentations this summer.
It was fantastic foam and more from Absolute Science.
And the kids loved it because they got to be a part
of the show and they made the exploding foam at the end
and everybody just had a really good time.
We also had an animal presenter come this year.
It was Incredible Bats.
And they presented their Animals Around the World program.
And they must've brought like 15 different animals with them.
and they told us like a few facts about each animal.
So they went through all of them in an hour
and then the parents helped hold the animals at the end
and then the kids got to pen them.
So there was like a snake and a rabbit and an armadillo
and a fox, authentic fox and a spider.
There also was a bat, which I feel like everybody
was a little bit afraid was gonna get
like to start flying all over, but that was fine.
and we had over 130 people at both of those shows.
So those were both really exciting.
We also hosted an outside library field day this year.
Last year we did our first outside like kind of game day.
We had like 25 kids.
So I didn't know what to expect.
And then this year we ended up with 68 kids.
So that was very excellent.
They ran relay, relay races.
You can see they did water balloon catching
and they did the limbo.
and about halfway through we divided up the littles and the bigs because we had a lot of teens too.
So the teens played capture the flag.
So the teens played capture the flag and then the little kids played hot potato and tag.
And this summer we had a really fun new partnership with Mac Camp, which is through Hope wins.
And we've kind of always they've kind of always come to programs sometimes when they could.
But this year they have a home based location.
So we decided that it would be easiest if I just went to them because they have like
50 kids pretty much all summer.
So each week I went and took some books and a craft or a project. As you can see, we made
slime. They actually came to the art plaza and we did tie-dye with them because everybody
loves to do tie-dye. And we talked about things like Juneteenth and we did service dogs when
they had the police dogs come. So that was really, really fun. And that girl making her
slime there, she was so excited that day. She was like, are we making slime today? And
I'm like, yeah, and she like freaked out with excitement.
She was so happy.
And we also have a partnership kind of going on
with the Stevenson County Fair.
Usually I just go do story time, but this year we
were asked to do Glow Bingo.
And so Ashley and I went and did that,
and it was really fun, a couple hours playing
bingo with teens, adults, kids.
Everybody mostly was super competitive about it,
but they all also went home a winner.
So that was really fun.
And these are some pictures of our end of the summer party.
Our attendance for the end of the summer party
was down just a little bit.
But it was a very, very, very hot afternoon.
And usually people will stay the whole three hours.
But I noticed this year there was a lot of people coming
and people going because it was just really hot.
But they all enjoyed their ice cream.
They did the bouncy houses.
They played games.
They got to dunk library staff in the dunk tank.
they got to play games, and they just overall had a really good time.
So next year, I'm sure you're thinking, what is going to happen?
Next year we are doing dinosaurs.
The theme is Unearth a Story.
So I am super excited, I already have my list going.
I actually already have my first performer booked.
We have dinosaur people coming, so we're super excited about that.
and so that was our summer at the library.
Thank you, Amanda.
We will move on to item number nine, which is the discussion regarding municipal electrical
Lacklaw Aggregation Program, Mike Mudge.
Okay, we're going to do the Lacklaw Aggregation.
I just want to make sure I didn't give away my only sheet.
I have a question after that last presentation. Who would like to go back and be kids again? It looks like there's a lot of good stuff to do in the community.
I got a lot of good questions from Councilman Johnson. Thank you. And I'll address those questions.
Two topics, we're doing item nine right now, and that's the electrical bids that we got
for municipal aggregation.
And I'll just do a recap while the sheets are going to be coming up.
We had a three-year contract that we secured last spring with, or last fall, with Nordic
Energy.
and what happened was the capacity, we can go to the bottom part of that sheet, that'd
be great. There, that's perfect. Part of our energy rates comes from when we have an all-in
and Ray. I'll just use 9 cents as the all in rate. About a fourth of that was used for
capacity and what capacity is, thank you, what capacity is, is the money that's collected
by ComEd and given to generators. And we're part of the PJM grid which goes from our area,
ComEd area, all the way out to the East Coast and down to like Washington, D.C. It's the
the largest grid that operates in the country.
FERC realized that, FERC is a federal agency
that controls all the grid operators,
that we weren't building enough generation plants
across the country and they delayed PGM Zoom auctions.
We used to have an auction every year
and it would be a third for this year,
and the third for the next year, third for the year afterwards.
So suppliers always knew kinda what their costs were.
If you look at the second to the right bar chart there,
we went from 2024 to 2025, a very low capacity rate
that was given to the generators to maintain their plants,
but also encourage them to build new plants
to meet our demand.
Why is our demand goin' out of sight since 20,
2012 to 2020, our energy prices were flat.
And our prices kept going down.
Every time we did aggregation, we would get a lower rate.
And that was due to conservation.
More generation, that was supply and demand.
In 2021, we started increasing our growth.
More and more electric vehicles, but also data centers
started increasing the load,
and we weren't adding any new generation to speak of.
Yes, we were adding solar, adding some wind, but not, not.
And the other thing we were doing, we were retiring,
we were retiring coal-fired generating stations
at an accelerated pace
because the markets weren't supporting them.
And as soon as they shut them down,
they pretty well flattened them
to seek out from underneath a cost, the tax cost on them.
So what happened, supply and demand again, when they opened up the bid, PGM was like two years behind getting the bids out.
In July of 2024, we got the bids for this. This was after we had secured a rate with Nordic Energy.
and they reneged on it, not only with the City of Freeport, but also with Joe Davies County and Riverwoods and Berett Township.
We had four communities that they had the low bid, they won the bids.
So, saying all that, that's kind of the background of what happened to our market.
ComEd's rate jumped up about 3 cents a kilowatt-hour also, which started in June.
Not only did we have a lot of heat, we had ComEd rates going up, plus their delivery rates themselves went up.
So this summer we started seeing some huge electric bills because of the weather,
because of the capacity factors kicking in, and so on and so forth.
But what we decided to do, I think as a consensus, was to have everyone go back to ComEd until we knew what the new ComEd rate was.
That didn't happen until May. But then we decided to hold off on this a little while and see what happened.
So now we're bringing the bids back to the Board, to the Council, to see if you're interested in securing a new rate.
Wright. So if we could go back up to the top a little bit. Oh, one thing before we move,
the new capacity rates for the following year from June 26 to 27 are even higher. So some
of our bids are taking in that effect. So if we go back up to the top, these are the
The three bids that we have, and the ComEd rate we have on there is 10.229 cents. If you'll get your summer bill, you'll see it says 10.028 cents. That's for the four summer months. The eight winter months is a little bit higher, so the average...
is a little bit higher, so the average of the 12 months is 10.229 as it stands today.
The two bills that we have from MC Squared, they make sense. We're not saving a lot of
money. We're not saving two, three, four cents like we had in the past, but that's about
but a penny, a half a cent, and if that chart's right,
it may add another half a cent, you know,
if we go with the two-year rate.
One of the questions that Mrs. Johnson had was,
let me see, what does the average person,
what would the average person save?
If you move this forward to the Council, I'll have fresh bids for you because these bids were on August 26th and we'll know then.
The average customer at 634 kilowatt hours would save at half a cent, .005, $3.17 a month.
Is that worthwhile?
Well, if you look about, if you have 3,000 residents, that's about $9,500 a month, it stays in the community.
And I just threw that $3,000 out, because at times we've had a lot more people in the program than that.
If it goes to a penny, then it's double that, about $6.25 or so savings.
The key on the aggregation program is people can opt out anytime they want.
There's no termination charge.
When we roll out a program, if we decide to lock in a program,
everyone gets sent a letter from the supplier at the supplier's expense.
On the city letterhead side, here's what the community rate's going to be.
After our decision was made on the contract, it's then their decision to decide, do I want to be on the community rate or do I want to go back to ComEd?
They can make a choice then.
Next up is the second choice.
ComEd will send out a letter saying you're going to be switched to this supplier on such and such a date.
If you don't want to, call this number or call the supplier number and ask to get out.
So that's the way the program's been since the start.
Sometimes we get somebody that kind of gets caught in or they didn't get mail or a different
address or something like that.
We're always open to taking the calls and helping customers out to find out, express
what the program is and what their choices are and let them know their choice.
So ComEd's floating rate, if the Illinois Power Agency purchases the power for ComEd
and Amron, the downstate utility, and they go through their costs and they set their
rate, ComEd does not make any money on the power that they sell and they break even on
and I. What ComEd makes their money is on their delivery fees. That's the middle part
of the bill. And at the bottom of the bill is taxes and fees. Part of that on the fees
is a cost of a half a cent per kilowatt hour. I'll talk about that when we talk about community
Johnson.
Yeah, I just want to read the questions that I gave you so people know what I gave you.
What is the rate that the city and most residents are paying now for electricity per kilowatt
hour?
10.028 until October and October through May, it's a little bit higher than the 10.2 cents that I mentioned.
Okay. And also the, I'm not sure how you pronounce that, is it Dynogy?
And the direct energy have a renewable green option which is, which the green option would be the purchasing of electricity generated from renewable energy sources like wind or solar.
Why are those rates higher?
I'm just going to read all the questions
and then you can answer them.
And you explained a little bit what the floating rate means
that how ComEd gets the money from that.
Does ComEd still receive monies from the electric bills?
That would be the rate that you were talking about,
even though we have a different supplier.
And then you explained the last one based on 634 kilowatt a month,
which is an average give an example of what a bill would cost and you kind of
explain that how many cents higher that would be.
So I guess the answer I'd like to number two,
the dynagy and direct energy have renewable green options so why are those
rates higher if we do if we go with a green option?
Because the cost to build the the solar even with the subsidies and everything
is a little more expensive and the wind is a little more expensive.
A one megawatt wind tower, windmill, costs like a million dollars, so, without the subsidies
net.
So it's a little higher.
Now, some communities along the Chicago area, suburban area, they want to be a hundred percent
green community.
Out here, our communities as a whole pretty much want the lowest price.
So what we do is we get lowest price.
We do get that option from suppliers. If somebody wants to be 100% green, they can opt in and
have that option. So, if we go with MC2, they don't offer that option.
Okay. Thank you.
Hopefully, I addressed the rest for you. Okay.
Any other discussion, Council? Manager Boyer?
So, Council, just at this time, we're scheduled to bring this before you next Monday for the
aggregation contract for the community.
So this is your time to ask any questions related to this and make some indication that
you do want me to bring this aggregation contract next week.
So just wanted to point that out.
Okay.
Alderman Johnson, do you have something else?
Can I ask Manager Boyer?
Sure.
Okay. So the lowest price on here is from MC squared, which one year is 9.65 kilowatt per kilowatt hour and two years is 9.85 per kilowatt hour. So that is lower than what ComEd would cost us if we just stay with straight ComEd. Is that correct?
that's correct thank you but I want to know I was going to add next week we're
gonna have different bids so this is an example of today Monday when we come
back to approve the aggregation contract if that's what council's desire is those
numbers will change based upon the conditions in the market at that time
Thank you. Alderman Klemm. I'd just like to add that I've known Mr. Mudge for many
years in the trade and also before being on the council and he's very knowledgeable
about this and if you have any questions please ask him because I mean he'll tell
you I know some of us went through some terrific electric bills this year and
and the way it looks in the future,
it isn't gonna be any better.
But where I was really surprised
when I got looking into the bills
was not necessarily how much per kilowatt hour you paid,
it was some of the delivery fees and the taxes
and the so on and so forth that you went into it.
But you're gonna pay what it is,
but thank you for your work on this, Mike, we appreciate it.
City Manager, you don't need a motion to move that to the next meeting, right? It's all good? Okay.
Well then, we will move on to item number 10, which is discussing regarding community solar with Illinois Shines. Mike?
Okay. What we're looking at on community solar, and that's a long list of questions,
But I'm pleased that people are looking at this and going through the Community Solar of Illinois Shines program.
Community Solar. So what is Community Solar and why am I bringing it to your attention?
Community Solar is solar farms that are built out in different areas where it's been able
to be connected to the grid at a lower cost with ComEd, but also it's land that the developer
works with the owner and secures a long-term agreement.
In Illinois, I mentioned that we're all paying .005 or a half a cent per kilowatt or every
and others.
And that's it for this week.
Thank you for watching.
We'll see you next week.
K. Lottar, every rate payer is paying in to the state solar fund. And our governor,
he wants to build more and more green power. This is the way that they're doing this.
When the CJ Act was passed, that was the bill that pretty much kept Byron Station and the
Fiering Station and addressing nuclear stations online and continuing to produce power for
us. For me, that was very, very important because in extreme weather, whether it's hot
or extremely cold, the nuclear plants just sit there and run, and they're our base load.
When the sun's not shining, when there's natural gas restrictions for gas generation,
to keep homes from that, it's not that we don't have a lot of natural gas, it's just
getting it to where it's needed on those critical days.
And coal piles freeze up, things like that.
So nuclear in my mind, we needed it basically as a survival.
Electricity's very important when it's below zero on that.
But going back to community solar,
why are we talking about that?
I think I'll start into your questions.
The community solar, to be able to build, be able to build them, the developers need
money to finance them. What they do, once they get these agreements and they think they
want to build a field, the next step is to go out and get subscribers. And the way the
state statute set this up was, your big companies like your hospitals, like OSF and things like
and others like that, they're called anchor tennis, Walmart, they can lock in a certain amount of power and then the state says well 40, 45% have to be kept for, sold for all, which means residents and stuff.
So a certain amount of power on those fields are set aside for residents.
what we have is a small sliver in the middle
which means our smaller commercial accounts
not all of our accounts here in the city of Freeport
I'm talking about the municipal owned accounts
that are not free service, the ordinance from ComEd
so we look at the water treatment facilities, the wells, things like that
what accounts will fit under the guidelines
So that's what I'm looking at.
If we can carve off a few dollars here or there,
there's no investment on the city's part at all.
These are plants that are out there being built
and coming online.
They're not built, the ones that are already built
are already fully subscribed.
So we're trying, we got one coming online in October,
we got one coming online in January.
I'm trying to get as many municipal accounts in there as possible.
Community solar usually gives 10 percent credits for the large customers in that.
Since municipal accounts are investment grade, when these developers go out and borrow money
from the market, they like to have good subscribers and that lowers their borrowing cost.
West, just like going for a mortgage on a home, the better your subscribers are, the better
the tenants are, the better your rates are going to be.
So it's important for them to pick up municipal accounts.
So what I'm doing is I'm shotgunning out all of our communities and saying, who's interested
in community solar?
So tonight, I've got six of them doing presentations, but I'm here because I've been talking with
with Rob for this since kind of last spring.
And that's when we were involved in all the Muni Ag stuff
and that was all blowing up and he said,
Mike, just put it on the back table for a while.
So now it's our time on this.
Subscription costs zero.
That's your question.
What'd you say?
Caused what?
Does energy come from solar farms that are already established?
No, those are already fully subscribed out
and serving their customers.
We are on a waiting list,
and right now I got a short waiting list,
and we're able to renegotiate it up to get 15% credit
instead of the standard 10.
Where does this credit go?
It goes to the accounts that are assigned.
So I'm just gonna say, well, number three,
uses a certain amount of power.
Fowler. That's got its own ComEd account. Whatever those panels that are assigned to
that account produce, that's the solar credits that's going to show up on the ComEd bill
for that specific account. So what we're doing right now isn't for the residents and it's
not for the communities that sign up like Community Egg. This is just strictly the city
and the City accounts that we can get into the program, the City-owned accounts, if you
will.
And I took off without my savings estimate sheet, but Rob, do you remember about how
much I estimated the savings was?
Could be maybe, I'm thinking $6,000 a year.
Miller. It's not a lot of money, but we're kind of, in my terms, these are my terms,
we're clawing back some of that RPS charges that we're all paying in, clawing some of
it back and putting it back into the water and sewer fund, you might say, keeping those
costs a little bit lower.
Is that $6,000 estimate, whatever, nothing we're holding you to, is that per account?
Can we have multiple accounts on there?
Can we have multiple wells, multiple wastewater treatment plants, four or five accounts?
They gotta be in the ComEd 0 to 100 KW classification and that's the total of all the counts that
I was able to get.
I think the treatment plant, if you didn't already have solar there, it would be too big.
City of Rockford just signed theirs last week.
They have like 40 some accounts and I think I got 17 of them in there.
So, yeah, it went through their finance committee and their council says, yes, let's do it.
and I might have missed it but I didn't hear you say the term which I think I've seen at
other presentations.
If you sign up and you get in these things, they want to make sure you stay in it at least
five years. If for some reason you want to pull out, something better comes along or
something like that, you have to make up that subscription unless we find somebody that
that wants to backfill in.
When I say we, we or the solar developer
wants to backfill that in.
But this 15% goes on until the life of the plant,
which is up to 20 years.
Comrade rates, and it's not on our rate.
Our rate for our power, you know,
like six, seven cents a kilowatt hour.
Comrade rate is like 10 cents.
So we're doing well on the accounts
but we have under contract with the city.
But this will come back on your budget.
And I'll have all the specifics next week
if you move this on to the board, the council, I mean.
The information on the fires we are giving
Bush, Illinois Shines that is administered by Energy Solutions on behalf of the Illinois
Power Agency, Independent Government Agency.
Illinois Power Agency, as I mentioned earlier, buys the power for ComEd and AMRUN, puts it
out there, and does the contracts and the agreements.
So they're established to do that.
Then the Illinois Shines program came underneath their jurisdiction also.
and others.
They say they're an independent agency.
The legislator wrote the laws and that under the State Utility Act.
What?
The IPA administers it.
There's a lot of paperwork with it, but go ahead.
Okay.
So, it says it's independent, but if it's a state government agency, it's not really
independent.
What does the State Government benefit from this program? Does the State Government regulate
this program? What are the rules, policies, procedures from the government that regulate
it? Does the government set the fees, the amount of credit a person can receive, etc.?
Who determines how much a person saves if they save anything? So those are all the questions
under there. It is government-related somehow, right?
Right. Illinois Power Agency was created because ComEd
because ComEd was evolving where they didn't own any generation anymore. So they had to have an agency that says, okay, we got to go out and purchase power on the grid or wherever from the generators to furnish to ComEd so people have power.
That happened in the later, late 1990s and early 2000s when all that developed. That's how the Illinois Power Agency created.
They run it, they got to run it underneath the law, but the legislators and no other agencies have a hand in it.
And anything beyond that is over my head.
Did that help? Did that answer?
Sort of.
Who determines how much a person saves if they save anything?
If an individual person wants to sign up for Community Solar, they can.
My next step is once we get everything else, to evolve that so we can get subscriptions
of individuals if they want.
If the subscription rate is 10% they will get 10% credit, solar credit on the ComEd bill.
The reason this didn't happen before was you could not be on third party supply and then
turn around and have community solar.
They changed that when they changed the CJA law.
The other thing is you had to get billed from a third party for your subscription.
If ComEd gave you $100 credit from what was produced on the field, then if you're getting
15%, you would get an $85 bill from a third party supplier.
In June, ComEd started to set up, so they now bill it, so you're going to see that credit
right on the ComEd bill.
Now I put my son on this solar thing, community solar, three years ago, because I actually have solar at my house because I wanted to go through that process so I could explain that to people, our home office.
And it works. But I wanted to try it because I wasn't going to go out and advocate something that didn't work.
We'll get into the individual stuff possibly next year if the City and the City Council wants to have a program and that would mean I can opt in, not an opt out program.
What does Energy Solutions Illinois Power Agency gain from this?
Illinois Power Agency is tasked with doing the program.
And again, the governor wants to build solar up in the state.
And this is the way of doing it.
The legislation says, are we going to pay for it?
for it, they all need to determine it. So we're all paying, like I said, we're all
paying into this fund. I wrote down on my notes here, as I after the questions, it
encourages solar development and we are adding more power to the grid. More power
We're adding to the grid, our overall costs are going to be kept down. Again, we're going to supply more supply, more demand.
Just a matter of point, about 50% of our power is generated by natural gas in our PGM grid.
About 19% from nuclear, coal's getting down to around 10%. Wind and solar is producing about 1% in the PGM grid.
So, it's growing, but not at the rate that the demand is.
Who owns and controls the solar farms and electricity they generate?
The developers, the ones we're working with is U.S. Solar.
One of the reasons we're working with them is because they are building a site about three miles from my home.
They have multiple sites. They had five this year. Three of them are full now. They've got one coming in on October and one in January and then later on next year.
I like them because they're a vertical company. They find the ground, they get the permits, then the next thing they do is they go out and they get the subscribers, they get the financiers signed up, they get the subscribers, they bring it all together.
Miller, they operate the fields. It's not to say that they may not sell it, but the subscriptions
are part of that field. In other words, if you have a subscription, you're going to be
on that until that field is finally closed or whatever.
I'm kind of skipping around on your questions here. Does everyone have to buy into this
and the Mayor.
So, I'm going to go ahead and start with the community solar.
I'm going to start with the community solar in order for it to work.
No.
What we're talking about tonight is strictly the city counts.
And do you have to put something on your house connected to community solar?
No.
But that brings up another topic.
The only way to claw back some of our money from the state is put solar in to your home.
That's not metering.
You will get S-Rex back.
Moore, Subscribe to a Community Solar Garden and that's how we get, other people can get
money back. Your non-for-profits, your public entities, if you look at solar leases, I personally
don't recommend a lease for anyone. I've not seen where it doesn't cost people. In my opinion,
it costs people more. They say free solar will come to your house, put free solar in.
if you look at what that cost so much it might be negative
and if common red rates keep going up in the future
you may start to see savings down the road
but not right now so
did I miss anything that you want me to look at?
The one, where does all the electricity go that is generated by the solar farms right now?
Where does all the electricity go that's generated by the solar farms that are here right now?
It's going into the grid and ComEd is absorbing this power to distribute it out to other customers.
For the customers that have a third party supplier.
And that was the hardest thing for me to kind of get my arms around like,
Lammett, we're getting power from a third party supplier and we're going to get power from the solar farm, but we're only paying one bill and we're getting a discount. How does it work?
Well, Darren?
I have a question, Mike.
So the city's been approached by one of the solar developers that's putting the system on the south landfill and a very similar program although it wasn't named quite the same but they're as well offering credit rebates from that site is that different than the comment sites or just one of the facilities that they haven't brought on yet and how does that affect the city's ability on this program
Graham. Each developer has their own program and their own cost and fee structure. Typically
they're not going to move off of 10 percent. But you could ask them, and I'd be very interested
in that, and I'm looking, I'm going to run out of capacity. We're getting tight now, finished
not this year. I want to find more. So I would like to talk to them and find out what we
I guess my question is can we do both. Right Mike so my question was the exact same thing
Darren in the sense that we have certain city owned sites like for example our landfill or
our wastewater treatment plant that all have solar panels the solar fields there that we
We then have an agreement with that particular solar developer that put those solar panels
on those specific sites to which we, you know, are given a certain rate, you know, there.
Can we, through this program, piggyback onto that or is that an account that then can't
be on this community solar program?
Say, hey, you guys are already part of a different program.
You can't piggyback onto this community solar program with Illinois Shines then, so you
We can't have two programs running for the same account, so to speak.
There can be, there can be, if I run out of room, and we're going to put so many qualified
accounts on, yes, you can put the other qualified accounts on that, it just depends when.
They have the same criteria that they have to meet.
The Anchor Tennis, that's prime. If they don't get their Anchor Tennis, they don't move.
if they don't get their anchor tenants they don't move forward and some of these
projects are a little bit smaller it's it that's why now they wanted to do like
five megawatts which takes about 30 acres 25 or 30 acres so um you can you
can you can look at this you're not obligated tonight even if you pass the
Resolution next week that gives you authority to go forward and get the best
deal that you can don't have to be through me but then it's gonna be up to
Rob or the mayor or someone or yourself. Manager Boyer was there something you
We'll move on to item number 10 which is the discussion regarding the implementation of
and Kim, Joe, Eddie, Semineria,
John, Bob, John, John, Troy,
and Jacinta, and then two of the other
of the members of this group,
very good colleagues,
who will present the presentation
of live video cameras, et cetera.
Chief Shenberger?
Is that in love it?
Yes.
Thank you.
Freeport Police Department has utilized
vigilant Motorola LPR cameras
of various locations in the City of Freeport
and sound thinking gunshot detection sensors.
The use of LPR cameras and sound thinking
LPR cameras have also benefited the PD staff with investigating other crimes such as recovery of stolen vehicles, serious felonies, and retail thefts.
In early 2025, staff conducted a presentation on FLOC technology at a COW meeting.
Later in the year, staff applied for an organized retail crime grant, an ORC grant,
and also worked with the lobbyists to request Congressional funding to enhance the Department's technological resources.
Staff learned the City of Freeport was awarded $9,000 in ORC grant from the Office of the Attorney General Kwame Raul
and $630,000 in fiscal year appropriations from U.S. Senator Dick Durbin's office.
The requests for the appropriations were to purchase the following equipment.
$200,000 to fund two existing Sound Thinking shot spotter coverage areas for two years.
$60,000 to purchase Sound Thinking's Resource Router Program for two years.
$69,200 to lease a live video camera trailer and a radar trailer equipped with an LPR.
$28,988 to purchase 20 additional body-worn cameras.
and others, $9,309.90 to purchase two additional Squad video cameras and DVRs, $30,000 to
purchase a Skydio X10 drone, $100,000 to lease additional OPRs for two years, and $130,000
for mobile command trailer.
Staff has been working with representatives from FLOC with potentially expanding our technological
Flock presented a quote utilizing $9,000 from the ORC grant and the $169,200 from the fiscal year 26 appropriations to add more LPR cameras, live video cameras, and trailer cameras.
The funding for this project will be covered by the ORC grant and the fiscal year 26 appropriations.
The agreement with FLOC would be contingent upon the passage of the appropriations bill.
So this is just something that, you know, I'm gonna bring forward next week for a resolution.
Like I said, it would cover two years of adding additional LPRs along with live video cameras
and Trailer Cameras to help us out, to help us do our job better.
So any questions?
Chief, but this is really contingent
upon the 26 appropriations passing.
So how do you bring that forward now
when that hasn't happened yet?
Well, the reason why we're bringing it forward now
is because they would like to have,
FLOC would like to have a resolution passed
by the end of the month so they can start with everything
We're just trying to get ahead of the game.
Correct. I just want to get the ball rolling so then we can get started as soon as we can.
Any other questions for Chief?
If it doesn't pass, then how will it be paid for?
If the appropriations bill does not pass, then we're not
subject to anything. We'll have $9,000
to utilize, which will give us about two cameras.
The first payments due December 1st, the $9,000 payment. If the appropriations bill, and I think was that sometime in December, I don't, I have no idea. If that, if that does not pass, I mean, I would say that it's going to, I mean, I would think that it's going to, but if it doesn't, then we haven't, we're out of nothing. Then that was in the contract.
No, no, that the contracts contingent upon the Appropriations Bill passing.
City Manager, do you have something, oh, okay.
Alright, thanks Chief.
Thank you.
Which will move us on to item number 12, which is public comment.
Is there any public comments?
Chief, you did a good job working in that police station.
And Jodi Miller, you did a good job with Mayor.
We saw you at final house on Saturday.
Is there any other public comments this evening?
Seeing none, I will entertain a motion for adjournment.
As we open in prayer I'd like to close in prayer. Father God in the name of Jesus, your word
in Second Chronicles 714 says, if my people who are called by my name would humble themselves
and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven
and will forgive their sins and heal their lands.
and also in James 1 and 12, blesses the man who remains steadfast under trial. For when
he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life which God has promised to those
who love him. So Father God, I continue to seek your face on the matters, concerns and
I continue to trust in you and your word that you will do exceedingly abundantly above all we could ask or think according to your riches and glory.
Continue to lead us and guide us, Father God.
Take control over this, your city.
that we may reap the benefits that you have intended for us, that victory is ours in Jesus name. Amen.
Ms. Leininger, did you leave a letter here?
No, no, no, that was that was from Alderman Parker. Yeah. Okay. That's not to be read into public comment. No, that was just Alderman Parker. Okay, so we have a motion on the table for Alderman Shadle seconded by Alderman Sellers for adjournment all those in