I urge then first of all that requests, prayers, intercession, and thanksgiving is made for everyone, for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness.


and the other one is from Psalm 133. Oh, how wonderful, how pleasing it is when God's people all come together as one.


It's like the sweet smelling oil that is poured over the high priest's head. It's like that runs down, got some problem here, that runs down his beard, flowing over his robes.


It's like gentle rain from Mount Hermon falling on Mount Zion. It is there that the Lord has promised his blessing of eternal life.


Let us pray. Our Heavenly Father, we just thank you for today. We thank you that we live in a community that can have government, where the people can come and make decisions for the good of us.


And Lord, we ask that you be with each one of our council members, with our mayor, with everyone that's in authority in this room.


and Lord we ask that you give them wisdom and knowledge and common sense and good results, a plan for our city that will prosper it and Lord I pray for unity I pray that this community would no longer murmur against each other come against each other but Lord that we would be a praying community just like it is when we enter this building and it says and God we trust we put our trust in you and we praise you and we do what your will is and that is to love one another and so we put aside our differences and we ask for the good of the community and we ask for brotherly love to flow through Freeport and Stevenson County in Jesus name we pray Amen. Amen. Now we'll officially call this meeting to order. Madam Clerk please take the roll. Mayor Miller? Here. Alderpersons, Klemm? Here. Johnson? Here. Simmons is absent.


Parker. Here. I thought I saw Stacy. She's out here. She's not at the dais at the moment.


Shadle. Here. Sanders. Here. And Sellers. Here. Thank you. If you could please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance led by Alderman Stacy. I pledge allegiance to the flag of of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.


And item number four is the approval of the agenda. Is there such a motion?


So moved. Second. Motion made by Alderman Sellers, seconded by Alderman Shadle. All those in favor signify by saying aye.


Aye. Opposed? That motion passes, number five is the approval of the minutes from the Committee of the Whole meeting held on February 9th, 2026. Is there a motion?


So moved. Second. Motion made by Alderman Shadle, seconded by Alderman Sellers. All those in favor signify by saying aye.


Aye. Opposed? That motion passes, public comment. I have two, Madam Mayor. Received by email in regard to agenda number, agenda item number eight.


the first is from Joshua Atkinson good evening my name is Joshua T Atkinson a resident of Freeport first i want to apologize for not being able to attend the first public comment session this evening and due to the limited number of items i don't think i'll make it in before you adjourn i understand that i have been critical of the city government at times but even those who have been the target of that criticism must admit that i try to be fair i acknowledge the good work that is done and i and I speak up when I believe this council can and should do better.


Tonight, you are discussing amendments to Chapter 660, specifically Section 660.10. Under this proposal, the city would allow the Director of Public Works, either within 30 days notice or without notice, in cases he deems as an emergency.


What that means in reality is that this council is considering giving someone the authority to enter the private property of every resident in this city based on their own judgment, instinct, and unfortunately bias.


The problem is that Freeport does not currently have a trusted Public Works Director on staff.


Instead, that responsibility has been outsourced to a third-party engineering firm, Fehr Graham, meaning the authority described in this ordinance will effectively fall to Darren Steekle, who according to an email received from our own city attorney is not a city employee, but an employee of Fehr Graham and more importantly this means that the city takes zero accountability or responsibility for Steakle's lack of judgment, integrity, behavior and or actions.


A title alone does not make someone accountable to the residents of Freeport and unfortunately time after time Mr. Steakle has demonstrated questionable judgment in his interactions with members of this community.


Each time this governing body has chosen to excuse it, forgive it, or simply look the other way.


So I want to be very clear tonight. Darren Steakl is the last person in the world welcome on my property.


If there is a legitimate emergency at my home, send trained emergency responders, firefighters, hazmat professionals, or police officers.


And if I am suspected of violating a law, send a trained police officer from the beginning.


As if Darren Steekle ever steps foot on my property, a police officer is going to have to come anyway.


This ordinance raises serious questions about property rights, accountability, and the wisdom of granting enforcement authority to someone who is not even a city employee.


I urge this council to amend this provision and think carefully about the precedent it sets for the residents you represent.


Thank you for your time, Joshua T. Atkinson. The second is from Carol Krupke, Dear Councilmembers and City Officials, Regarding Chapter 660 of the City Code Hazardous Materials, I am concerned that anyone who is not an employee of the City of Freeport being given the right to enter any property for a suspected emergency.


More specifically, with the City's response to a past issue with Mr. Sekel impersonating a hospital employee and harassing a citizen and there being nothing they, the city, could do since he wasn't an employee of Freeport, Illinois.


This is not something I can agree to. I do agree, however, that in some instances there could be a need for an emergency entry to a property, but as a citizen of Freeport, I believe this should be done by a city employee where they are governed by the laws of the city and the city is held responsible for or any abuse of power, damages done, or harassment.


Thank you for reading this. Carol J. Krupke. Thank you. Darren, could you look and see if anybody's signed in?


Okay, and then, Madam Clerk, could you please note for the record at 6.05, Alderman Simmons entered.


Thank you. We move on to item number seven, which is the discussion regarding ordinance amending Chapter 1448 Erosion Control Permits, City Manager.


Thank you, Your Honor. Everybody's looking at this and wondering why now are we bringing all these modifications to our ordinances related to erosion control and at least illegal discharges and that kind of thing.


and kind of the purpose is we actually have to maintain a MS-4 permit with the EPA and that is municipal drainage essentially dealing with storm water or whether that's dealing with any kind of runoff situation so years ago we had an exemption from this requirement and then in 2020 we then were notified they had changed the requirements and any community over 10,000 people had to have an MS-4 permit so So we've abided by all those requirements at this time and we're looking to the future.


We're seeing where this is going and we're just simply trying to keep pace with the challenges and in the ordinances that need to be updated according to our permit moving forward.


So the first item on the agenda and so we've got four items here that are related to this in various forms and fashion and tonight's a cow so we have plenty of time to discuss them and also make edits to them.


So I thank the individuals who have submitted comments and we can certainly make those adjustments as we go forward.


These are by no means perfect. And the reason we're talking about them tonight is so that we can make the appropriate changes that are correct for Freeport.


So moving forward with that, I'd like to talk about item number seven, which is Chapter 1448, Regulations, Erosion Control, and Land Disturbding Activities in the City of Freeport.


The ordinance ensures compliance with state and federal stormwater regulations, including requirements of the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency, the MS4 permit, and the NPDES, that is the National Pollution Discharge Permit that regulates wastewater into receiving streams.


Since its adoption, staff have identified the need to clarify permit classifications County, Permit Classifications, Strengthened Plan Requirements, Improved Provisions to Better Align with the Current IEPA MS-4 Permit Standards and the City's Enforcement Requirements.


The proposed amendments here tonight for Item Number 7, which is Chapter 1448, the proposed amendments establish clear permit classifications based on project size and type of land disturbance.


The ordinance strengthens erosion and sediment control plans, requires to ensure appropriate best management practices are designed and implemented, and in addition, the ordinance expands enforcement authority, including the issuance of stop work orders when necessary.


These changes ensure continued compliance with IEPA and MS4 stormwater obligations while improving regulatory clarity and environmental protection.


So at this time I'd like to invite Randi Kolbauer up to the podium. As I understand in this particular one, you see quite a few changes primarily.


It kind of streamlines what we, it would streamline our ordinances with communities who have already been through a fairly lengthy process and would be, make our ordinance a little more clear and easy to understand and enforce.


But Randi, would you mind going through the proposed changes? So Rob has asked that I kind of walk through each section of the ordinance tonight and kind of talk about it and what the changes are.


So the first part, 14-4801 is scope that just kind of lays out the entire chapter.


Some of the stuff in the beginning is mostly just legal jargon to your findings.


Finds that excessive quantities of soil may erode areas undergoing development. That kind of just language there talks about what is in our MS4 permit.


In our MS4 permit we have two sections. There is pre-construction and post-construction. We are required to ensure that during pre-construction and post-construction there is no soil eroding into our streams or into our system which would impact our infrastructure.


So the purpose kind of lays that out as well. Well, then it kind of goes into the authority of the City Engineer, which I did notice that in this one and in another ordinance we missed updating it to say the City Engineer and or their designee.


General Principles talks about how a permit needs to be sent in for any land disturbance and that all waste discarded materials generated at the site shall be prevented from being carried off.


Talks about the placement of concrete and asphalt and similar materials. There are a few exemptions that are in here, things like cemetery grave sites, emergencies posing immediate danger to life or property, activity where the total area of material disturbed or stored is less than 1,500 square feet, any ag or farming activities and any Land Lawn Maintenance. Those would just be excessive if we were trying to permit those.


Then we go into the permit classes. We went from two permit classes to three because we had some issues where contractors had a lot of questions and we felt that this system actually kind of clarified the system better and would work out better for both staff and contractors.


So we turned it into class one which is land disturbances that require an EPA permit for More than one acre. Class two is land disturbances between 2,000 square feet and one acre and then class three is for your utility companies and land disturbances between 2,000 square feet and an acre.


We went through and did manner of work. Work. Basically, this means that while you're doing that work, you need to make sure you're doing it in a safe way. Last thing we need is for anyone to end up buried or anything like that. We went into erosion control performance standards, which per our permit with the state, we have to make sure that contractors are searching out and going after the best management Practices, so the BMPs for those. We updated some definitions to kind of clarify a few things there. We put in language for the application process and permits and documents that were needed and then we did it for each class so so that it would be easily understood and easily applied for.


And then we have 1448-17, which is the erosion and sediment control plans. This just lays out what you need in your plan.


There had been questions and we kind of put together like a cheat sheet originally, but by putting it in here and just kind of having a standard that everyone can see, Everyone can have the same information and always have the same looking plan.


That way it's easier for review and everybody's on the same page. Permits are good for a year, which is the same as it was previously.


Renewal and extensions. Basically, after the one year, if or if you think you're going to go over, you're welcome to renew with us or extend the permit.


Permits can be denied if they don't meet any of the section, which is standard for most of our permits that we issue.


It goes through standard or conditions of approval. So basically making sure that you've met everything we've asked for or everything that our permit with the state asked for.


We lay out the responsibilities of the permittee just to make that super clear. We talk about who authorizes the permit, and then if you want to change your plan, so your erosion control plan that you've submitted, if any revisions need to be done, we now have a process for that.


144826 talks about inspections and supervision, which just the state requires that we do inspections on site to ensure that everything is going the way you said it would go, nothing's gotten away from you, your silt fence hasn't fallen down and you didn't take care of it and that kind of stuff.


Maintenance during construction reports are kind of the same thing. Circumstances with recommendation for corrective measures.


That's just us telling you, hey, you've got this problem, you need to get it fixed.


If it's fixed, it's not a big deal. Maintenance during construction, during and after construction, the contractor is responsible or whoever pulls the permit is responsible for making sure that everything is graded And then it just goes into compliance and cost of recovery, stop work orders, which we didn't previously have, this just gives us the power that if there is something that's off, whether it's safety wise or it doesn't meet our permit, we can say, hey, you need to stop until this gets fixed.


Then there's a section in here that talks about requirements for small scale land disturbance.


It talks about BMPs, everything that was required by our permit to cover just additional things that wouldn't fit into one of the classes.


That's kind of the quick highlights of everything. Thank you, Mr. Teagle. I just want to give you the crib note versions city of Freeport is required by the Illinois EPA to regulate stormwater discharges one of the reasons these things are coming up is I asked Randy to go through our existing codes make updates we're getting back into construction season very shortly what I want to remind everybody so the city of Freeport is the authority for drinking Water. We're also the local authority for wastewater. And since 2017, now we're the local authority for stormwater as well. So if we don't enforce these types of policies, these fines and penalties, if we get a state inspection, will actually come to the city of Freeport. So we are obligated by our permits to enforce these codes and ordinances. Some of the ordinances that were done when this was originally brought in were not complete. It was getting the program started and and I have worked together for the last couple years and we've been learning things that are good and bad about the ordinances as we have gone along and so that's why you see these updates.


We have to be able to monitor the sites. The state of Illinois has always had a program that they monitor an acre.


that they monitor an acre and larger during construction. So you have to get a state permit for that, which we honor those state permits if they get them.


It's when you get under an acre of construction, but we don't want to regulate a garden, right?


We have to have something in the middle that we're regulating people to make sure the dirt stays on site.


We're not tracking it down the roads. It's not going down the stormway. These ordinances, especially this one, allows us to effectively communicate and effectively codified and inspect these, which Randy does the inspections for our city.


Give you a great example of a project that's been going on that we've been inspecting for over a year now is the landfill project with the solar panels.


She goes out there on a regular basis and checks their permitting and checks to see that they have all their BMPs, which is the best management practices like the geo tubes and socks in place to make sure the runoff's not coming off.


So, very important to the City of Freeport that we remain vigilant to this for our stormwater permitting.


Thank you. Is there a motion to move this ordinance amendments forward to the next city council meeting?


Second. Motion made by Alderman Shadle, seconded by Alderman Klemm. Discussion? Alderman Johnson? Okay. I just had a couple of questions and then just a comment.


Chapter 1448.01 Purpose on Section 2A, the original ordinance states runoff can carry sediment and other pollutants, and Section 2B talks about managing pollutants and water discharges, etc.


In 2B.3 states we are protecting stormwater, groundwater, water bodies, watercourses, and wetlands. The amended document, 1448.03, Section 2, refers to preserving and enhancing water quality by preventing silt laid in water from reaching creeks, channels, streams, wetlands, and public waterways.


Sediment and silt are two different things and so are pollutants. So just wondered why all three are not included on the amended document and why groundwater is not included on the 1448.03, Section 2 of the amended document.


Second question is, I was wondering what the cost of the permits are, Class 1, Class 2, Class 3, if we have a cost for those.


And just the comment that I wanted to make, it does appear that the amendment does give the city more leverage to stop projects that are out of compliance.


If I'm reading that, that's what it sounds like to me, is that correct? So those were the questions I have.


Do somebody, even if you don't aren't prepared for that answer, you can always get back to the council at a later date too. That's fine.


I might have to get back to you because that I might need that in writing so I can think of what everything you just said.


Okay. Is there a charge? I mean, do we have a charge for the permits, how much they're going to be or do we not have that?


But if it's not, then it was something that was missed and needs to be added.


I believe it's a hundred dollars. I would say I believe they're going to stay the same as previous.


A hundred dollars for each one, irregardless of the one, two, or three class. Okay, then however you want to get back with when you've got that information, that'd be great.


Remember, there's still two readings, so there's still time to have these discussions. I can type that out and send it to you.


Sellers, I'm sorry. Yeah, I just wanted to ask, I know Darren had said you check the solar panels.


Are they all the solar panels that are in the area, or is it just the one that's by Waterport. So the project I was talking about was just at the landfill but Randy inspects every project that pulls a permit by this requirement so we get anybody that does a large construction so another new project well 12 will have a what they call a SWP MS4 permit so she'll have to regularly go out and do random inspections right at her schedule unless we have a tip-off or a complaint I believe we're stating that it is not out of compliance is probably not the word we we would use I think we would say that it's not as


is effective as what we would like it to be able to be. We like to make we what Randy explained is we did more tiers so it was more fair to the size of project that you had what what the requirements are.


And then we also made it more I think a little bit more authoritarian. So we had some legs to stand on as a city in case somebody's not doing it right.


Because the last thing we want to do is have a contractor dragging mud all over down the St., or concrete is a big thing right now, concrete washouts.


There's a professional washout that's required. A lot of contractors used to just dump it into a gravel pile, pick up the spud they called it later.


And that concrete water just would work its way wherever that's not legal. It has to be in a professional bin.


It has to evaporate. There's a whole process to it. And we want to enforce that the contractors that are working within the city LeMits are taking care of the environment. And you guys should know this isn't just a Freeport thing. This is anywhere that's an MS-4 or even if you're not an MS-4, it just happens to be that since we are the MS-4 authoritarian, it's up to us to provide the guidance and the inspection and also the discipline on it when people don't follow it. Alderman Sanders? Forgive my ignorance, but I've never got and then you got an opportunity to look up what was in this for.


Could you explain that part to me before I proceed on? Sure. MS4 is just a fancy term the state uses for stormwater.


Yeah. And I noticed in the I noticed that you also specify erosion, but you never specify the list of erosions or the contaminants that could enter into those storm sewers.


By way of any form of waterway, whether it's sewer, whether it's somebody's dumping, whether it's runoffs, the things of this nature, I know those things contribute to erosion, but my question is, what are we doing to monitor to make sure those outlets are being effectively, what do I want to say, monitored, tested, lab work, all of that.


All of these things to make sure these biochemicals are not getting off runoffs because we know manufacturers getting the habit of dumpings and things of this nature.


We need to know who's monitoring these things before we start to tread down this path because we don't have data before us to show us who's in violation.


We don't have that before us, at least I don't, I'll put it like that.


May be others do, but I don't, and I'm the one who's, I'm going to be the one who's going to be looking at who's qualified to do this type of inspection, what agency, what contractors, who are the people that is going to be licensed.


I don't care about permits but they have to have license to check the meter data and everything else to give us a proper understanding of what has been accumulated in those storm sewer because we used to know back in the day there has been sewer breakage contaminants entering into the water Waterways or the storm sewers and have we done a comprehensive exploratory on these areas to indicate to us whether or not these things are looked into to show us some kind of data that check off list I should say that we are able to look at it for and myself as council members, people of that nature, and who is qualified to do that.


I know you have this young lady going out doing these inspections, but I need to know whether she's licensed to handle all of the criteria of the inspections of stormwater flow.


Because you talk about sediments, you talk about all kinds of things that might can enter and I have been interested in it because one thing we have not done as an exploratory group or city is explore those under sewer lines that run under railroad tracks.


And yeah, we have storm sewers that run under railroad tracks. Well, let me answer your questions because I've got five of them here.


I'm not sure I can keep track of them. We've got five of them here, I'm not sure I can keep track of every one of them So currently we have nobody that has compliance issues because we really don't have active constructions at this point, right? We're getting into construction season so there's nobody that's not in compliance at this point There might be a couple carryover permits from last year because MS4 permits or stormwater permits are only good for 12 months from the time they're submitted We do actually do stormwater testing and it's required by our MS4 designation every outfall in Freeport Miller. It has to be tested. Randy has a matrix, but they're randomly selected and then she has to go out and take a wet flow and a dry flow and we send those to labs looking for chemicals, constituents, and if we find anything in those, we actually have to track it back up the storm basin to see where that stuff's going. So that's all within our regulations and codes. You asked about metering stormwater. We don't meter stormwater. There's nowhere for it to be metered. We only meter sewer water and we meter water, but we don't We don't meter stormwater. All the outfalls are open bases.


We don't meter stormwater for the actual flows? No. Why is that? Because it's not required by the state to monitor it.


Okay. Thank you for that. All of the testing that you asked about is all regulated by the state.


So unless we get a bad stormwater sample, our testing is done for the quarter and they report it.


And Randy has to report that annually. If we do find something that's out of line, then of course, we've got to track it back upstream to be in a sanitary, a business, maybe even a private party that's dumping oil, something to that nature. So we do do that effects. And that's why they require dry flow.


Alderman Sanders, you're going to have to let him finish those five points. Go ahead. I just wanted to get that in there.


So, anyway, all that testing is done. Randy does that all. That's part of her. If you haven't met Randy before, she's our environmental compliance and safety officer for the City of Freeport.


She actually has a degree in environmental science and she actually is the person that physically goes out and does this testing, does all the reporting for the City of Freeport.


That's one of the large components of her job. And do we have enough staff? Yes, at this time, we have enough adequate staff to do it.


That's what I wanted to know. Okay. There's no for Alderman Stacy. Yes. I thought I had saw something in this ordinance that stated weekly, but how often is this test done? So the MS4 compliance on a site has to be done weekly. Okay. Or anytime it rains more than a half an Inch. That's the state law, right? Now, we don't inspect every site every time it rains a half an inch. That's the contractor's requirement. Miss Kolbauer randomly selects people to check after rainstorms to see that everything's in place. And if she finds things that are out of compliance by state law, that person has 48 hours to correct that deficiency. And if they correct it and move on, it's just a warning. If they are significantly Deferent for a long time, or they refuse to fix it, then she can write a compliance ticket that comes to the code hearing. That's the whole process of the way this works. We don't have the manpower to check every construction site in Freeport every time it rains. I'm not going to lie to you about that, and nor can we afford that as the city of Freeport. So I think that expectation would be unrealistic. And that's why it's a random test. Now, if we have people call in and say, you know, Gertrude's construction Construction Site has mud running down the street then obviously we're going to send


Ms. Cole Bauer out to check that specific situation if that's the case. We don't receive a ton of those phone calls but occasionally we do on some of the bigger projects especially when contractors start dragging mud out of the construction sites and down the street.


That's usually where we start getting tip-offs on it but the reason we get behind these permits guys is because when we issue the permits, we enforce the permits, we don't have near Alderman Sanders did you have another question well uh yes Dodd uh the capacity of upper flowing through these storms or your good and others.


There are indicators whether or not there's areas within the City of Freeport where there's too much of a charge coming into those storms by way of opening manholes, storm drainage or whatever the case is, which increase the capacity over at the treatment plant with and so on. So it's such a head of a waterfall. Shouldn't we be monitoring those meters to see how it's coming on rainy days and measuring one week how much water are we getting through storms as opposed to a rainy day? So to answer that question, we're mixing two different things here. You're talking about sanitary sewer flows. No, I'm talking storm. But you're We're talking about stormwater flows that are going into the sanitary.


We monitor that at the wastewater treatment plant. The question you asked earlier were storm outfalls that discharge directly to the river.


There is no way to meter those or account for those. We can take guesses off of rainstorm events on what's going through there, but they're too big a discharge to meter.


We do monitor how much stormwater comes into the sanitary sewer and we do that based on Every time it rains, there's a computer program that's linked up that shows how much the average rainfall was and how much our inflow comes in and how many days is projected out. And due to the all the lining that we've been doing in Freeport for many years, that has gotten significantly better.


Okay, thank you. Thank you. I'm sorry, Alderman Stacy, you've already gone twice. Anyone else?


I didn't think there was a limit at the cow. There is. Okay, but so you are more than welcome to pick up the phone that we want your questions answered. It's just that's the that's the rule. Yes.


Okay, then this will be moving on to the next meeting. Thank you, Randy. Item number eight is discussion regarding ordinance amending part six of the general offenses code. Manager Boyer.


Code Manager, Boyer. Thank you, Your Honor. And just a point. Each one of these items on the agenda tonight are all related.


So if you have questions, we're going to have an opportunity to ask those. So just going over this one is Chapter 660, the MS4 Stormwater Additional Hazardous Material.


And Chapter 660 of the City Code regulates additional hazardous materials. Staff has reviewed the existing language, has identified areas that require clarification, modernization and administrative updates to improve consistency with current practices and the updates from the MS for storm water requirements.


The proposed amendments are intended to update the code, eliminate outdated provisions and ensure the ordinance reflects current operational procedures.


The proposed amendments revise specific provisions within Chapter 660 to clarify regulatory requirements and improve administrative efficiency.


change updates the language for consistency within the code and at this point I'd allow Randy if you would kindly just kind of go take it walk us through the proposed changes to section 660. Sure. So part of the updates to our MS4 was to increase enforcement opportunities for hazardous materials, illicit discharge, a couple of the other things that you're seeing tonight. So with this one we went through and we redefined a lot of the definitions to We added the layout for administrative hearings and how that looks.


You'll see the access to premises. This also needs to have the and or designee added to it.


that was missed in the draft, this section basically is if there's an issue such as ones that we've had in the past that we haven't had good enforcement measures for were people dumping sewage in their backyard, Um, gentlemen dumping oil in the driveway because that's what they used to do.


Um, it's situations like this where we can go look at what's going on. Okay.


Does this like create a hazard for public health? Does this create a hazard that could get into our drinking water?


Does this create a hazard? Somebody's dumping something down their drains at home and now we're killing the bacteria at the wastewater plant.


Um, so that's the intent of this. it's not really access into a home necessarily it's more so just the ability to go and look at what's happening inspect and see just how bad it is. There's the notification of the discharge where we have to notify you of what's happening or you have to notify us if you have a hazardous materials Discharge, language on notice of violation and how that happens, suspension of activities for emergency situations, non-emergency situations.


and then language for the abatement. So the kind of the layout for how we require anything to be fixed and who has to bear that cost. Again, this is for anything from major hazardous material spills where we call Fire Department in to assist to, again, the people that are Using a bucket instead of the bathroom and dumping it in the backyard.


Different spectrums, but both have safety concerns for drinking water, wastewater, and just public health in general.


Manager Boyer. I just wanted to also comment. This also is so that if we have any industrial runoff or anything like that happens to get into the sanitary or into our stormwater system, then, you know, We have the ability to backtrack to those sources. Something similar happened years ago in a different community where a large industry partner was cleaning out what's called fracking tanks. He used a lot of acid to do the actual cleaning and then the contractors doing the cleaning just released all that acid into the sanitary system. In this case it actually killed the plant for a Stiegel, Mr. Stiegel, Mr. Stiegel Two issues of people putting wastewater on their property on top of the ground in their rear of their properties that we we had to deal with.


And Excuse me. Okay, we'll take five. That's even better number. We also had an issue in Cecelia's ward of a commercial contractor dumping For a method of clean out that was caught doing that, the real evidence behind this is to protect our drinking water and our waterways. That's what it's for. When people put oil or greases or other foreign materials into the sanitary collection systems, everybody in the city of Freeport pays for that. Every gallon of clear drinking water or clear storm water that goes into the sanitary collection systems.


the sewer costs two and a half times to clean at the wastewater treatment plant that drives our cost up that will come all to the end users. So these ordinances are not about Darren Steakle or somebody from Public Works skiing on our property. This won't even pertain to 99% of the issues in this town. This is for the one percenters that are creating havoc or destroying our environment within the property. Again, these people that have been dumping wastewaters on properties, we're We're not asking to go into their residence per se. We're asking to look in the backyards.


It's a violation of many different codes, but in order for us to enforce it, our codes have to be rigid enough to allow our inspectors like Randy to be able to run the enforcements.


Okay, so is there a motion to move this ordinance forward to the next meeting regarding Part 6?


So moved. Second. We have a motion made by Alderman Shadle, seconded by Alderman Sellers.


Alderman, Sanders, yeah Mr. Stegall in order to be effective with what your talk what you just stated in order to be effective you have to be preemptive in order to do that and you can't we can't rely on citizens of the city of Freeport to be our investigators we can't we can't put them in a situation where they and others as well.


These are very important things to do. We have to be very careful. We need to be very careful in the way we conduct our inspections that we do our inspections on our neighbors.


We don't want to be a snitching on their neighbors and things of this nature.


We can't rely on that. People are violating any ordinance, as far as that is concerned.


And the fact that the matter is that when I asked about whether or not we have enough Formation or business company or whatever is making improper dumping and things of this nature.


So, so I'm just curious are we are we able to do that because we have to be preemptive. These things we we'll find out at the end of the at the end of the treatment plant that somebody had been putting bad chemicals with inside of the structure of the manholes or the storm. It's too late.


Now we have to do an all out investigation to determine where this flow came from and my thing is if we do preemptive of all companies that have this type of any kind of chemical that they're discharging or putting in the waterways that they receive some kind of notification I'm talking about any business that does that I know you probably get that in in your plans but the thing about it is I like for us to be more Vigilent about that because you are right, my time here, yes, storms and sewer lines were definitely contaminated and infiltrated with all kinds of crap. And so I just want us to be cognitive of all of those things that once we start down this path we have the right manpower to whether or not if we have to inspect not just on a regular basis but you know these companies but periodically to go around and have these things checked because you can see the residue of some of these things like from MicroSwitch, a potato chip company, all of those kinds of places was spewing all kinds of contaminants within the city's sewer lines and storm sewers and and I'm and I'm one that went out testing and monitoring these systems to validate whether or


not this is going on because why it shows up at the treatment plants these things demonstrates comes out at the treatment plant and I know they have to do that based up on storm sewers simply because it's hitting the waterways and it is killing the the plants and whatever that's going and others.


It's doing the same thing. So whether it's storm or sewer, we need to have indicators that allow us to know whether or not waters that we're dumping back into the river is taken care of properly and that we have already notified the citizens of Freeport any kinds of improper dumping results and fines, possibly jail, you know, that kind of thing.


So let me break that down just a second. So yes, while you've been on council, we we conducted a local limit study and we passed that we've enforced it. So we have local limits expectations for all of our commercial users. The significant industrial user discharges are checked regularly. And they also have to report regularly and we take independent samples and send those in. So that's part of our original process. When it gets to the residential end. Yes, it's much tougher, but we We find evidence in manholes or storm basins and we track those backwards to try to figure out where that's coming from.


Again, you know, if somebody wants to affect our environment or damage or pour something down there, it's going to be very hard for us to stop them.


We're not relying on the snitchers of the world, but yes, they're helpful to stop the damage and we do respect people for their time and their investment in helping us protect the city of Freeport.


Fort, and so we take those responsibilities very seriously and Randy does the best job we can monitoring them and I believe in the time that I've been sitting in this chair, we've done a significant job in cleaning up a lot of these issues and making this environment better.


Finally, I'll tell you that how do we measure this? We measure it because the state requires us to do river testing before and behind the Alderman, Stacy, since I'm limited to questions I would like reports on the last week.


and reports on when they were spotted in my ward, and how would you have even of known that something had been put through the storm drain if it was not seen and reported?


So I can answer that for you right now. So we likely won't have any reports for this last week because we don't test like that.


We would have quarterly reports because that's how we do the storm. that's how we do the storm basin testing and you're right in your specific instance had somebody not have reported what happened in your ward we would not have caught that because we can't be everywhere all the time if people want to make illicit discharges and they're going to do it at night after hours wherever we can't be everywhere we don't have cameras all over town we would never be able to suspect we find that we're talking about large discharges is what we're going to catch. So that was not a large discharge? No. And it was 10 o'clock in the morning?


Right. But again, it was at one storm basin in the middle of 139 miles of streetway. That's pretty hard for us to track that down. But with the person that called us, we were able to get over there and take a sample. And we didn't quote enforce that. I don't want to name the contractor, but we did code enforce them and I think we find them five or six thousand dollars in damages for that dumping so that and that sent them a message that we weren't going to allow that to happen.


So if I get copies of reports it would show a difference that month or that quarter compared to the most recent? I think it's going to show that our stormwater quality in general is good and a lot of other good that's going out out of our basins, right? I don't I don't think you're going to see it's not like there's a scientific measurement. It's either the water quality is good or it's not and we have not had any storm water quality issues because we're trying to correct these issues as we can. Remember that dumping that happened that day in your ward was let's say a thousand gallons in the middle of the city of Freeport.


and the Wishing Well, honestly, but it does translate that that went into the river somewhere as storm discharge flows.


But it could have been 3,000. They said it was one. Right. Okay. Alderman Johnson?


Yeah. Under 660.05 prohibition, it looks like maybe, I know this is a rough draft, but it looks to me like the first sentence there might have some repetitive statements we need to to work on.


Also under 660.09, it talks about injunctive relief and administrative hearing letter. How long do we wait for the injunctive relief or how many days of fines?


I guess I just want to see what is the progression once someone is caught or we suspect that there's hazardous dumping.


What is the progression? Do we find them starting on day one? Do we do the injunctive relief administrative hearing or what is the progression of what Williams, and so I want to answer to that.


And also, the violation fine is $250 not to exceed $750, violation each day shall constitute a separate violation.


So I'm wondering is this how much, you know, this is stating that can be $750 up to that amount per day.


What determines whether it's $250 or whether it's $750 or what the amount is that's charged for the violation for that day?


So just if you could clarify those two things for me, I would appreciate it.


So as far as the amounts, a lot of times we look at how many times have, are you a repeat offender?


Is this something, you know, we've talked about you, we've educated you, we find you and you just continue to do so.


That will make it go up every time we've talked to you. We try to shoot for, you know, depending, it's a lot of it's case by case, you know, What did you dump in there? What does it look like? What are the circumstances? Can I educate you first and gain compliance that way? Is it someone that just really honestly didn't know? That's what we shoot for, educate compliance. After that it goes into, okay, you knew about her, now you get a fine for $250 and then we work from there. Ideally, if it's a situation they can clean up great have you clean it up and we'll mosey along if it's something that we can't clean up or something that has a large impact on public health or on our drinking water or anything like that then it's a little more serious and we look towards fines first. So the progression is Files, Finds First. Case by case, usually I try to educate first and then go to Finds.


It just kind of depends on what the scenario is. Okay. Just one more. Sure.


I appreciate all this, but also what I'd like to see is some proactive things like maybe I'm hoping to get those out now this summer so we can get those. Okay thank you.


Okay so we have a motion made by Alderman Shadle seconded by Alderman Sellers to move this forward.


All those Alderman Sanders. Can I ask one question? Sure. Piggybacking off of what Sister Johnson was is just saying. Is this an ordinance on the 660? Is that an ordinance? Yes, it's item number eight. It's the ordinance change on those parts. And it's asking us to amend it to what was discussed tonight. What we discussed tonight. Right. I think we should make sure We're not sure that we put more into what Mrs. Johnson was just stating.


Yeah, we've got two more sessions, Alderman. Do we? Yeah. Okay. This is just the cow.


We're not voting on anything. We're just saying, do we want to move it forward?


Okay. All right. I just wanted that to be noted because there's a lot of things that can be implemented into that.


Okay, so, Alderman Simmons, did you want to share something? No. Alderman, or Mr. Stiegel?


Yeah, just as part of Randy's everyday role with the city is she's one of our education officers as well.


So she educates on water, sewer, stormwater, everything resulting in this. We've been started a quarterly newsletter where we're releasing information quarterly out to everybody through their water and sewer bill, trying to educate people on these different facets of the utility business. So I would recommend that everybody look to there for information because there's lots of tidbits that we're constantly putting in there. And it's usually a two to four page pamphlet that we're putting out with education materials like this. And by the way, that's required as part of our discharge permits.


and the next item is item number seven . We will take a vote on this.


All those in favor of moving this ordinance changes forward signify by saying aye. Opposed?


And then if we can just back up to item number seven. I forgot to take a vote on that.


We had the motion to move that ordinance forward concerning the erosion control made by Alderman Shadle, seconded by Alderman Klemm.


All those in favor signify by saying aye. Opposed? We're going to move on to item number nine which is the discussion regarding ordinance amending part 10 with the streets utilities and public service code as well as section 1040.07a as well as b.


Manager Boyer? Thank you your honor and I want to everybody put a put a pause on what our conversation has been.


We're going to come revisit it with item number 10, but we're going to get out sequence just slightly and discuss new Julie laws that require new requirements from us moving forward with utility locates. So in 2020, the 2026 amendment to the Illinois Underground Utility Facilities Damage Prevention Act requires that all newly installed or replaced water and sewer service Lines will be electronically traceable and locatable. This is now the law as of January 2026 and all communities must comply. In the past, certain private service laterals were not required to include tracer wire or any other locating technology which creates difficulty during excavation and utility marking. Excavation work must continue to be coordinated through Julie, Inc., and the updated law expands the responsibility of private service owners to ensure that underground infrastructure is properly installed, locatable, and maintained in the right-of-way and on private property for all new installations or repairs. So the purpose of this ordinance amends and updates the city code to reflect these state requirements. The changes will require tracer wire or approved locating technology for applicable water and sewer service Lines, and Make Compliance a Condition of Permit Issuance, and Final Inspection, aligning local regulators.


Aligning local regulations with state law and so on. So essentially what we're looking at here is we're asking, we're asking for you to consider moving this forward. Essentially what it's going to do is require any new sewer service line or water service line to be marked with electronic tape. It's basically a foil tape or a wire that you can hook on to a locating device and specifically find Fowler, John, and John.


And I think we're going to have to look at those utilities that are buried underground.


So with that, I'd like to just open up with comments. I think Randy, Randy's going to sit tight for until the next agenda item.


But yeah, any comments? Yes. So is there a motion to move this ordinance amending part 10 forward?


So moved. Second. We have a motion made by Alderman Klemm, seconded by Alderman Shadle.


Discussion. Alderman Sanders. and other people that they're doing that now because that was talked about years ago to do just what you just incited. But what I like to know is the old method of how we went about doing it. We're not playing, we still have to keep that in place, right?


Yeah, we're still going to be locating city utilities. And if there's a house, for instance, that doesn't have locating wire on their service, we'll continue doing what we normally do, which is we find where the service connection comes in the street, and then we'll, you know, basically paint a T heading toward the house. However, with all the new ones, we'll be required to locate it up to the house once that tracer wire locates up is installed.


and others. Televised inspections will result into the placement of connected services to the sewer main and things of that nature.


Yeah, that is something you know quite a bit about, so yes. Okay. All right.


Thank you. Alderman Johnson. Okay. Johnson. Okay. Under Section 2B, I just want to make sure I have understanding of this.


It's regarding existing houses, structures, factories, et cetera, that have the ability within 200 feet, I believe it is, to connect to our sewage system, that they're given a notice within 180 days that they should connect to the city water sewage.


and once they're given that notice, they don't have any choice in the matter. They have to connect to the city sewerage.


Is that, am I reading that right? Is that correct? Well, that is correct. So once, so this is a little bit outside of the scope of this particular discussion.


But yes, once the individuals in town are notified that they need to hook up to city sewer, because maybe they weren't originally, or they were originally in the county and the city annex, the men, when we're doing a project, the time to get people hooked up is when we were doing the construction part of it. So we would send them a notice saying, hey, we need you to hook up to the sewer. And then so much time goes by and then they need to be hooked up. Yeah. Follow up question. Okay. So, Alderman Johnson, the language that you're asking questions about that's existing language right now. So it's really not on topic as to what we're talking about tonight, which is the Julie requiring the tracer line. So the area that you're reading from is all All existing language in the ordinance.


It's already in the ordinance. Right. It's the current ordinance. Only the stuff that's underlined and emboldened is the new language that's adding the requirement of the Julie Tracer wire.


Okay. So, I'm not saying your claims aren't valid, they're probably but not appropriate for this topic right now.


Okay. Because they're existing now. All right. Thank you. Okay. So, we have a motion made by Alderman Klemm, seconded by Alderman Shadle.


All those in favor of moving this forward signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? That motion passes.


Item number 10 is discussion regarding ordinance amending part 10 concerning section 1046.59 and section 1050.08.


Manager Boyer? Thank you, Your Honor. So section 1046.59 prohibits stormwater, groundwater, sump pumps, and other clear water sources from Discharging into the Sanitary Sewer System. Section 1050.08 addresses illicit discharges and Terry Seuer and strengthen the city's authority to require corrective action.


The amendments in 1050.08 update the definition of illicit discharge and reinforce the city's authority to investigate and enforce violation.


And these recommendations are necessary to continue with our compliance with MS4. So Randy, if you would walk us through those changes.


Sure. So starting with 1046.59. So we went through and added prohibited acts. This says that you can't change any natural or manmade water flow. So you can't place or deposit any debris or fill any construction such as ditch pipe, culvert, coursework.


It's not permitted to fill, obstruct, dam, divert, or otherwise change natural or artificial flow of with water, prohibits excessive vegetation and debris, pretty much anything that might change how water is moving.


We did put in there a correction of existing conditions, so if there is something already out there, ideally it needs to be rectified.


This ensures that water continues to flow and get out to the river instead of getting We went through, there's acts that are permitted, it talks about the permitting process, there's penalties and corrective action, and then we go into 10-50-08, which is illicit discharge and connection prohibited.


So, illicit connection prohibitions, so nothing can go into the stormwater except for normal stormwater, construction for continued existence of illicit connections are prohibited, The person is considered in violation of this section if a person connects a line conveying sewage to the stormwater.


Basically, it's just protecting what can go in there and what can be sent out to the rivers.


We do have some discharges that are exempt in here. here, things like firefighting flows, landscape irrigation, air conditioning, condensation, that kind of stuff, stuff that won't cause or should not cause any kind of harm to the environment.


We then have a section in there for suspension of MS4 access, meaning if you were to violate any of this, we can say, hey, you're done, you're not going to send anything else to Mr. Stiegel, yeah, one of the reasons this is important is because the putting more teeth to this, we need to prevent clear water drainage from being pumped into the sanitary sewer. Per EPA, that should be pumped back onto the ground. When it gets co-mingled in with our sanitary, again, we pay to clean it up. So that's kind of the basics of the changes.


and that clean water at the wastewater treatment plant, which increases our user costs for everybody in the system.


These changes allow Ms. Kolbauer to be more effective in allowing checking for illicit hookups.


We know that they probably exist within Freeport and we are continuously looking for them.


It's very hard to find them throughout, but this ordinance allows her to make sure that clear water that we should not be sending to the wastewater treatment plant is going back on the ground as runoff to our sanitaries and back out to the waterways.


Okay, so is there a motion regarding this ordinance change amending Part 10? So moved.


Second. A motion made by Alderman Shadle, seconded by Alderman Klemm. Alderman Sanders? Yeah, I'm glad you're talking about what it is that we can't see, but my problem is sometimes when developers and contractors are involved, building homes with garages.


Homes with Garages, they have the propensity to want to install sewer for runoff when people are washing cars or whatever mechanical machinery work that they're doing in their garage.


And they're using that by way of discharging whatever they're using. And I'm not saying detergent is one of them.


but the fact of the matter is when you have a car wash or car washes or garages, private garage areas that's using storm insertions to discharge water from the property or whatever, you're right, there's no way to evaluate that but here's the thing.


New Development, if we're going to start amending things and encouraging people to not just discharge any kind of solvent water, clear water, whatever, we must let them know at the time of birth of a home that you have to be legal with these new storm drains that you want to put in your garage and your homes or whatever the case is.


I'm just putting that out there simply because I know these things happen, and this is the reason why we never could find who's doing a lot of the dumping, improper dumping, and it's just another way of saying we'd like to notify developers who are constructing new homes and things of this nature, you just can't do that.


Mr. Stiegel? Yeah, that's all part of the building code and permit process now and mandatory inspection for all buildings that we work hand in hand with community development to do. Nothing gets built anymore without full compliance. We even have resources from Elgin that we bring in plumbing and sewer and other things that we need to do. So that's all ensured through new construction, which we don't have a lot of, but hopefully that will change soon. Yeah. Anyone else? Thank you.


Alderman Johnson Yeah, Chapter 1046.59 letter D2, Line 2 seems to have some repetitive statements, may need to be restructured.


And under the violations and penalties, H Permit 1, it says permit required, no person shall do any of the acts prohibited in subsection D without a permit.


I just want clarification, how does that happen? and Diaz, things that are not permitted.


So I just want that explained what that means. Would either one of you wanna just get back with that?


No, I mean, I can answer it. So you're talking about, I just wanna clarify, 1046.59 D.


It's H, H permit. And it says number one beside it, permit required. No person shall do any of the acts prohibited in subsection D without a permit.


Right. Yeah. So this is addressing people that may already have a structure, but illegally hook up without our knowledge, but then are caught during code enforcement or something that was wrong.


So obviously addressing our existing structures that are already built when we do inspections. Okay, so.


So when we do new construction, we're in control of that all the way through, but obviously we have 11,500 homes and businesses that are already built within town.


So we have to account for people that may already be connected illegally as we figure that out or find that out.


So then they have to get a permit for that. They have to get a permit Alderman, Stacy, So people who runs a sock pump out of their basement, are you saying that they need a permit to have a sock pump in their basement?


are you going to need a permit to wash your cars so there's a difference let me do number two first there's a difference between a commercial car wash and somebody just washing one car two cars at their house on their driveway so that effort at your house is not permitted when we're talking about a commercial establishment like any of the car big car washes in town they are permitted only because they have to have a rewashed cycles they have to They have, they use a lot more soap than most people do.


It's not always biodegradable and they have recycled tanks under the ground. And those are all part of the codes and ordinances when those places are built.


Um, your first question on sump pumps. Sump pumps are illegal to be hooked up to the sanitary sewer.


That water is supposed to be returned to the ground and pumped outside of your home.


Uh, anybody that has those connected with the CNF report that would already be considered by code an illegal connection for any sump pump in a house.


we don't pump basement water into the sanitary. Again, that's clean water and it should be directly discharged outside of your home to run on the ground and infiltrate back into the, to the groundways, stormways.


We have a motion made by Alderman Shadle seconded by Alderman Klemm. All those in favor of moving this forward signify by saying aye.


Aye. Opposed? That motion passes. Item number 11 is discussion regarding overview of the 2026 Road Work, Mr. Stiegel.


So council members, I printed out packets for you because I didn't know how well this would show up on the big board.


And I want everybody to know this is just, yeah, I think we're done. Let's just be more of a general conversation.


So we're anticipating a very busy construction here in Freeport this year. And I just wanted to start off on this slide to remind council members because I know you guys don't do it every day. The city has 140 miles of streetway that we take care of. Just about 60 County, 50 miles of alleyways, five wells currently. We're soon adding what 12 probably in about two years. The groundbreaking was today out of those five wells. Two of them are in reserve. Those are the wells that we have the PFAS traces in and they are not used to the water system. Currently they are in reserve only in case we had a major fire catastrophe and we needed to have extra water supply. Currently in our distribution system, 137 miles of water main, 127 miles of sanitary sewer.


We have about 2,800 sanitary manholes. We also have nine list stations with another one on Walnut being built right now.


We have one large wastewater treatment plant capable of treating 16 million gallons a day.


We have 50 miles of stormwater within the city limits. We actually have 20 stormwater basins, which basins are what lead to the waterways that take the water out to the river.


We have almost 2,700 stormwater manholes. We have one bridge, the Hancock Bridge, and we have three closed landfills right now.


And while I was putting this together, I wanted to remind people our staffing levels that we have currently.


So currently we take care of nearly 200 miles and we have 10 street employees.


So that's about 20 miles per employee. We have three forestry people and we took down nearly 300 trees last year.


So that's, you know, quite an effort. That's more than a tree per day out of the 300, or I think it was like 285.


We only contacted about three of those trees out. Our crews did the rest. We have two members of our crew that do painting and sweeping.


Street sweeping is done very early in the morning and at night. and those guys are responsible for painting the lines that you see on the streets annually out of the paint budget.


We have one cemetery full-time employee that takes care of the grounds and maintenance, also digs the cemetery plots.


We have two full-time mechanics that is something that City Manager Boyer has really pushed forward that has saved the city tens of thousands of dollars in outside equipment repairs.


We currently have eight construction crew members, we have a young crew, but learning, we have three service technicians, those are part of the meter and water departments, so those are shutoffs, turn-ons, meters that are installed, MIUs that are installed, operations team, we run operations 24-7, 365 here, we have eight members of our operation crew right now, Running the water plants, the sewer plants and everything in between.


We have three full-time lab workers that do our lab sampling and our required water sampling daily.


We have one utility worker position and we have three maintenance positions right now. So our maintenance people take care of our water plants, our lift stations, our wastewater treatment plant.


Wastewater Treatment Plant, uh, doing the preventative maintenance schedules, uh, that saved the city quite a bit of money from hiring that out.


And then we have three summer mowers that, uh, I believe the number is around 80 properties, uh, that we have to mow.


Uh, we obviously we can't mow 80 properties weekly, but you can see why three people are having a heck of a time keeping up with all the lots that we have all over town to maintain.


So we're trying to make plans to, um, uh, move some of them, uh, lots over to residential people, next slide, please.


Um, so the next map is, uh, pretty congested. This is the overall 2026, uh, map of projects that's going to happen.


Um, I'm going to break that down in the next few slides, but I wanted everybody to see how much work is going to be happening all over the city of Freeport.


We have water main replacement, street reconstructs, mill and overlays, we have some additional projects that were added. We have crack sealing that's going to happen. We have several IDOT streets in main corridors that are going to get paved.


We have, we call them STU streets. There's some special federal funding that we've been able to get for some streets.


And then we have cleaning and lining that we're doing within our sanitary sewers. Additional projects that really couldn't show up on here is we still have about 200 remaining lead service lines after the last inventory was done last week.


We're working on airport terminal design for that build out. We're also working on the PAPI light program at the airport.


and some crack seal and also we have various building repairs that are going to happen between the fire department and City Hall and then we've already contracted 31 trees to come down on top of our crews.


Those trees are the large dangerous trees that our crews don't have the equipment to take down.


Next slide please. So kind of trying to break this down a little bit. So this next sheet shows the water main replacements and street constructs and mill and overlays that the city crews are planning on doing this year.


This is a full complete list of everything that we've gone over. We have bid projects A, B and C that are currently out on the two of them around the street.


The other one goes out Wednesday and those bids will all be coming to council in April for approval.


I'm just going to say we're doing Concord Drive, we're doing Seminole Drive, we're doing South Demeter, we're doing the Gladewood Entrances, we're doing North Stewart Drive, the Police Alley, the large municipal lot downtown, South Benton Avenue is getting done, South Carroll is getting done, Pershing is getting done, and Dewey is getting reconstructed So that's our list of City Street projects for this year, and I want to remind everybody, this is probably about six, six and a half million dollars worth of work.


Our streets budget annually is about three million dollars from our one percent, and we get about, we might be three and a half tops, and we get about a million dollars from MFT that we buy materials with.


The next slide please. So this, this shows some additional projects that we've been able to get to Freeport. This summer, they're planning to bid Galena Avenue from Park Street to Clark Street.


That's going to be an entire mill and overlay of the section. It's about three and three quarter inch mill and overlay. They're also going to replace somewhere around 75 ADA ramps in the corridor.


Harder, and I was, I found out at a meeting last week that they're also planning to replace all of the stop signals with the new ADA detectable signals that beep and talk to people as they as they cross because that is a high traffic area of Freeport for our handicapped travelers.


And then the other project that a lot of people know about is South Street.


We got a commitment from IDOT, a memorandum of understanding that if the City of Freeport replaced the ADA ramps in that corridor that they will repave that and we're planning on having that done this fall as well.


We're in the close stages to bidding the ADA ramps out now and the project's supposed to go to bid in July of this year.


Next slide please. Additional projects, some of these are already under construction. We're looking at the Galena, Laurel, or Park Street some people call it, lift station renovations.


We're also planning on doing Sierra Tank renovations this year. That's our 2 million gallon storage tank out on the west side of town.


The Public Works Department is building a new $800,000 salt shed that we've already committed to.


Um, Galena Avenue, we're also doing about 87 manholes of storm and, um, um, sanitary, uh, repairs to, um, city hall is having a hundred thousand dollars worth of tuck pointing done this year.


Uh, the Hancock bridge is supposed to go out to bid in July of this year.


Um, that will be nearly a two and a half million dollar project, um, for renovations to the deck, um, wastewater treatment plant, we're in the middle, maybe a little bit over the middle of Phase 1, Phase 2 is in design and the city crews are planning to do clarifier equipment upgrades this year in-house and we're also looking at some blower building replacements because the old boiler there is beyond its useful life and we need to go to gas heaters in the blower building. It's much cheaper than replacing the boiler. Hancock Vidoc, we're in the In the midst of that project, I know there hasn't been a lot of action there, City Manager Boyer and I had a meeting with Helm Group last week.


They're supposed to be doing test borings there tomorrow to see if the frost is out of the ground and we hope to see some action there shortly.


I will say that that project based on the asphalt plants opening, I do not see it being completed until the end of May of this year.


I know it's an inconvenience, I know we had a resident here earlier that is very upset There's nothing we can do about it, I can't open the asphalt plants, Helm can't open their plant, and they typically don't open until May season for paving. There's still underground work to do there, and I know it's an inconvenience for all.


Well, number eight, we're doing a generator. The pad was poured there today. Obviously we're doing the ADA ramps on South Street.


Meadowbrook Lane is going to get new sewer and street this year. This will be a fall project.


And West Demeter Drive is also looking at new street and storm. Well 12, we have the groundbreaking today.


And the Walnut Lift Station is already under construction and should be finished late summer.


again we have the lead service lines the work at the airport and the trees that were just too much to make this list additional streets these are kind of bonus streets we were able to get some federal dollars to help with what the City of Freeport calls the FAU routes and this is something that was determined by IDOT many years ago and so we tried to figure out a way with IDOT that we We could get as many miles as possible done The targeted streets that are in approval right now is South Walnut from Empire to South Street.


Again, these are mill and overlays. They're not full reconstructs. That street was determined it could be mill and overlay.


And then we have Lincoln Boulevard from Locust to West this year. And then we're hoping for Lincoln the second part to be on next year's schedule.


We don't have a commitment to that yet and then Stevenson Street basically from Locust all the way to where we stopped at Sunset on a mill and overlay.


I can't 100% guarantee these projects will move forward this year but it looks like in all likelihood they're going to from the advanced communication that we had there could be a slight possibility that they all push to 2027 and as a reminder we will not only be doing We've been working the surface pavement on all these streets to smooth them out, but we'll also have to replace all the ADA ramps.


Michelle and I went over the numbers this afternoon, and that's approximately $3 million worth of work, and the city has a 20% match to do that work, and it was kind of a surprise that these streets got pulled forward.


We were kind of planning on them possibly being extra. Next slide please. So this is a list of streets that we're doing crack sealing on this year.


As I've told you in the past, the city of Freeport has not done a lot of crack sealing, crack sealing is effective on streets after they've been constructed between 12 and 24 months, those original cracks and just so everybody knows all streets crack, whether they're new, whether they're old, they're going to crack.


The sooner that we can crack seal them in the next season or two, the sooner we keep water out of them, water's the enemy to making potholes and making streets bad.


So we have made it part of our platform to come back and do the crack sealing every couple of years.


This year is an awful large package. This is about $150,000 worth of crack seal.


These are all two streets that have already been done in the last couple of years.


So this kind of shows you how much work we've done in the city of Freeport over the last couple of years.


And so we're. over the last couple of years. And so we're making it a point to try to maintain that so it lasts as long as possible.


Cleaning and lining. So sanitary sewers within the routes that we're doing, we're having an evaluation done by a company of all the sewers looking for point repairs, things that might need to be dug up prior to doing the streets.


And then we have a half a million dollar budget for lining. I don't think it's going to get all these streets done, but we'll prioritize them based on what the worst sewers are and just doing inspections on Galena Avenue.


We have 16 manholes on Galena that are brick and they all need to be lined prior to IDOT doing their project, or we would potentially have failure in those old brick manholes.


Those are probably original to that section. Next slide, please. So this is just the same slide as we started with and no changes, but I wanted to end on it.


There's not an area of Freeport here that is not getting some type of work.


There is going to be havoc. We're trying to make an internal communication. So fire, police, school districts on the same page as far as construction is going for this season.


and we'll do the best we can and we'll try to coordinate with the emergency people as much as possible.


Question. Actually, we're not done with the presentation yet, so just wait a second. Alright folks, there's a lot, there's a lot up here.


It's going to take every bit of our effort to get this done this year and it is going to require complete support of council.


We've got some items that didn't make it into the budget in August that we will have to somehow pay for and we'll be coming back to you on those fundings that we need to do to complete this construction plan.


I will not say that we can't reschedule some of this and we probably could, but I believe this is what everybody in this council chamber wanted and we've been working very diligently to provide.


I ask simply that if you feel that this is too ambitious, then let's let's look at it.


However, if you feel like this is what we're supposed to be doing, I need your support. I need when community members have challenges driving through construction zones, when they move the barricades or they're just slowed down, just remind them that this took a tremendous amount of work to get this together. Logistically, funding-wise, and it takes basically every bit of all of Taylor, We've got to do a better job of zooming in zooming out with these bad boys because it's hard for us to even look at the paperwork to decipher what it is that we're reading if you can just make enlarge these mappings so we can have a better understanding of what it is that we're reading if you can just make enlarge these mappings so we can have a better understanding Go along with you so we can read it for ourselves because there's a lot of us sitting here wondering Whether we should bring binoculars the next time. You know, I'm just saying I'm just saying that I I'm just making a request


Can we do better than this? thing up here. Thank you. Alderman Klemm Yes, a couple things. Thank you for the the maps and the overall view of this I know one of the most important parts of this also that wasn't you didn't really mention up front here but is a cooperation with the citizens in getting this done. This is going to be a massive undertaking. I've been in the construction trade all my life and I've always said there's two seasons there's winter and construction and when it comes time for construction you can only do so much in such amount of time. Dear Leonard, Rob, one of the things kind of are going to want to get moving sooner than later.


For instance, the municipal lot, we've already seeded Tristan starting that in the next couple of weeks, if the conditions allow.


You know, we have to remind everybody it's still early March. We're still going to probably have a snow or two.


We don't want to get going too early, but Rob and I strategically have been trying every year to move the bid cycle up a little bit farther.


These, I looked this up just recently, The bids that we took out last year were not until late April, were, you know, a good month, month and a half ahead of that. You should have approvals in April. So we would like to see construction starting in May, which is about as soon as anybody can start. Some of the removals and things like that can start. But the street construction is really tough before May, especially I know last year there was lots of complaints about why we're waiting, why we're not moving. Water construction, when you're replacing water mains and water valves, we have to wait till the ground is unfrozen because we're digging and very large and deep holes to put that stuff in.


It's not just like paving out on Route 20 where there's no utilities and you're buzzing the top off and you're putting more pavement down.


That's, you know, I don't wanna call it simple but that's the easiest kind of infrastructure you can do.


When you get into water and sewer, we're gonna have a lot of contractors and we gotta figure out how to space this out so we're not tripping over each other and that, you know, we don't have Stevenson closed at the same time Lincoln's closed.


So there's going to be a lot of scheduling and a lot of discussions after we actually have contractors that are bid about what we are going to let them do and what the timeframe it takes.


The street construction, we're really limited to that, say, May to, you know, we'd like to be done by November 1st, nothing later than that, especially on our city street stuff.


We want to be done by that because we run into leaf season and we just operationally and they don't have enough people to do it so that's kind of our goal is to the three and a half miles or 3.2 miles that the city has to pave we'd like to see us actually done by October with with all that paving citywide so we'll push the contractors to get that some of these bid out projects with Galena and South that's going to be determined by IDOT because we're using their dollars so they're going to help determine I can't tell you that some of this might not push to next year it just depends on how many bids go out on these We've requested for it to be done this year, but honestly, if some of it pushed, we don't want to get into a weather situation. We're trying to pave on frozen ground. So you have to remember a lot of those IDOT areas as well. They're going to go faster than our typical construction, because they're not taking it all the way down and removing the base and putting that all back in. Those streets have already eight, nine inches of pavement on it. They're taking three, three and a half off, putting three and three and a half in.


Hap back on. But it is considered a long term fix for us. And I'm not going to exaggerate we we went to bat very hard for the city of Freeport to get this extra work done. And I'm afraid that if we don't move forward with it, between the state and the federal government, this money might not have a second chance at it. So it would really behoove us to get as much as possibly done this year as possible while the while the funding is there. Alderman Johnson.


What could the citizens of this city do to help to cooperate and keep moving this forward?


I've got mine you can give yours. That's a great question, Linda. One thing is be informed.


We'll be working with Bryan, our Communications Director, we'll be pushing out timely updates and communications related to what's going on and where, but I think the main thing everybody Winslow, Paul, Michael, John, Matt, and Chris.


So, we're gonna go over what we can do is kind of map out your week before you leave, kind of review what's out there in terms of communications on what's under construction for the week, and do your best to avoid those areas, make your way around.


I mean, we do have, as you can tell up there, a lot of east-west corridors that are gonna be under construction, and we're gonna do our best to stage those so that will be impacting at a minimum the day-to-day travel habits, but you're just going to have to keep your head in the game, be patient, plan extra time, and let our guys know they're out there doing a good job. That is their work space, and we want them to be safe in it. So, slow it down, and also be patient as you navigate.


Alderman Parker I just want to thank both of you for this excellent map We started getting phone calls from our constituents Now we have something to relate to Show them This is what our plan is Thank you both Alderman Sellers I also want to say thank you for all of this But I also want to ask Do you think it's possible I think it's possible, I know like sometimes what Rockford does, they'll put on their, on the news that this street from here to here will be closed or whatever, just to, you know, some people to be informed that don't really look at their, on the internet or whatever.


Yeah. So we have been thinking very hard about what's the best way to communicate.


And honestly, Freeport doesn't get as much news traffic as probably Rockford with having all the stations there. I believe this year our intent is to use Bryan Bridge with the Freeport Facebook social media post. We've been using that.


It was very successful last year and we'd like to steer all the constituents to that Ryan's really effective about getting it out quickly, and we can update it quickly when things change. And as you all know, and Tom's been in construction forever, things change every day in construction, and just depending on the weather, right? And so I think that's the best way to do it. I would also like to mention that these, these sheets that we put out tonight, they'll be available on the city website, we'll post them up there, give us a couple days, and they'll be all up there for people to look at.


There's nothing but transparency. A lot of dollars, a lot of taxpayer dollars being spent, a lot of tax dollars coming back to the community to get this stuff done.


It's not gonna be an easy season. It's not. And we're anticipating a lot of people being upset.


I know there's a lot of people upset, but we can't make it better without making it worse first.


That's construction. It's going to be a pain. As Rob said, plan your routes, and others, try to stay out of our way, there is no, I will guarantee you there is no town the size of Freeport doing this much work in the community for this type of a season.


This is really a challenge for us, but we're going to try to make it happen.


Alderman Klemm? Just to follow up, I know on Demeter there are some areas that have people still have their own septics and wells and stuff.


are we going to address that in this construction on Demeter? Well Tom yes that's the that's the idea here is when we do let's see what that Demeter the east to west Demeter by the by the park the idea there would be prepare that area for connections to the sewer service there's a lot of people on subject over there as you noted and wells and we'll be sending out those Yeah, okay. Something that's different than other projects that we've done. So this is fully funded Freeport projects for sewer water. We can't use private dollars on or excuse me, public dollars on private property. So some of those other projects that we did that included connections to the house that is not something that's feasible with public Ballers, unless we're getting grant money. And so we've already put notices out to the residents on Meadowbrook and Demeter that sewer was coming so they could make plans and they could have conversations. And I've actually had conversations with many of the people in those areas about sewer connecting. It's going to be a difficult challenge for some people. But ultimately, Finally, some of the ordinance that Linda read tonight about the connections and the spacing and all that stuff has been in our ordinance and it behooves everybody to get


as many people in Freeport on the city water sewer as possible sharing the cost.


Fire protection that's provided is for everyone in town. So those water mains go in front of those properties, whether they choose to hook up or not.


Alderman Sanders. Thank you gentlemen. Next we'll move on to item number 12 which is public comment. Is there any public comment this evening? Tommy.


I want to tell Stacy, you're the best of Alderman and Freeport and Sellers, Sanders, and Darren, you said the cleaners is going to take down or something?


The cleaners in 1719 Main Street is going to start coming down on Friday if it's not Rainey. Any other public comments? Is that is that a yes? Okay.


Hi, my name is Sue Cook, and I have a question about the sign that is in front of the observatory.


And it appears like there might be construction of a cell phone tower directly in front of the observatory.


It's going to be a very tall cell phone tower in front of the observatory which is a wonderful tourist attraction for Freeport because we are the only one that has the Deep Space Telescope in this area and that includes over into Chicago.


Is that correct? In Chicago. The word observe is actually in that observatory, and this is gonna be built right there.


The people that are tracking the sky that come out for various events sometimes line the parking lot with their telescopes.


And as they're moving it across, here we go, beautiful, beautiful, oh, cell phone tower, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.


Is there any place else, and I know that there's going to be some sort of meeting, but unless you can get right up on the sign, you can't really read it.


Is there going to be another chance for possibly another place to place this instead of in front of the observatory?


And so I just wondered if maybe there was a possibility of placing it elsewhere as opposed to that spot, just so that it would not obstruct view there.


That's it. Thank you. Thank you. I'm sure Manager Boyer can speak to you privately.


Okay. That's great. I just have a public announcement. On Wednesday, March 25th, at 530 in the council hall here, we will be having a public meeting for the Hancock Bridge replacement. So anybody's invited to come to that that wants. It's just a question and answer session. There'll be two paper advertisements that's going out in the post We'll also be on the city's website, but I wanted to make sure that everybody knew that that public meeting is not only required, but we're going to have it here on the 25th.


Thank you. Any other public comments this evening? I will entertain a motion to adjourn.


So moved. Second. The motion made by Alderman Shadle, seconded by Alderman Sellers. All those in favor signify by saying aye.