Good evening.
Pastor Anna, could you please give the invocation?
Good evening, everyone.
With deepest respect for each one of you, let us take a moment to offer a prayer for our city and for those who serve it, asking for guidance, peace, and blessing for our city.
Proverbs 11-4 says, Where there is no council, the people fall.
But in the multitude of councilors, there is safety.
Let's pray.
Heavenly Father, we thank you for the City of Freeport and for those entrusted with leadership and public service.
We ask you to grant wisdom, understanding, and integrity to the Mayor, Council, Members, and all officials present.
May every decision be guided by trust, justice, and a genuine desire to serve the common good.
We pray for unity, peace, and clarity during this meeting and we ask for your blessing over the city and its people.
We commit this time into your hands.
In the name of Jesus, Amen.
We'll officially call this meeting to order.
Madam Clerk, please call the roll.
Mayor Miller.
Here.
Alderpersons, Klemm.
Here.
Johnson is absent.
Simmons.
Here.
Parker.
Here.
Stacy.
Here.
Shadle.
Here.
Sanders.
Here.
And Sellers.
Here.
If you could please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance led by Alderman Parker and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
Also over the minutes from the committee, the whole meeting held on January 12th, 2026.
Is there a motion to approve?
So moved.
Seconded.
The motion made by Alderman Shadle, seconded by Alderman Sellers.
All those in favor?
Aye.
Opposed?
That motion passes.
Next is item number six, which are employee recognitions.
Chief, Courtney.
Adam Holts, who's a firefighter with the City of Freeport.
He's shown great character in being the candidate to receive the Firefighter of the Year award.
He's not Not only a member of the Freeport Fire Department, he also gives his free time as a paramedic with Lemons Ambulance in Lena.
He has extensive history and background in wildland firefighting and has been deployed across the country in a couple of different deployments when needed.
As a consummate leader, patient, knowledgeable, self-motivated.
He's instrumental in the setup of our first-due record management system.
He leads by example, arrives to work early with a positive attitude, and never hesitates to assist whenever needed, especially in all my little projects that I have all the time.
He's here with his wife Melissa and a couple of his children.
He was hired in 2007.
He's currently our EMS Coordinator, appointed in 2020, part of this Mavis Division 17 Hazardous Materials Team was giving the Life Safety Award in 2022.
He works normally as a paramedic and a driver engineer, but also works out of class as a lieutenant for quite a bit of the year for us.
Morris, he's a Firefighter 3, Officer 1, Instructor 1, he's a Fire Investigator and Inspector, and a Hazmat Tech.
Nobody wants to stand next to me.
Next is Chief Rostow, Manager, Boyer.
This award goes to Justin Daniel Holden who started with the Freeport Police Department as an auxiliary member in December of 2017 and was then hired as a full-time police officer on March 28, 2018.
He exemplifies the highest standards of professionalism, integrity, and dedication to service.
Throughout the year, he has consistently demonstrated sound judgment, reliability, and a strong work ethic while carrying out his duties.
His commitment to the mission of the department is evident in the way he approaches each assignment with preparedness, accountability, and respect for policy and procedure.
Whether handling routine responsibilities or complex for over 100 firearms in 2024, and has seized over $100,000 in narcotic forfeiture.
His professionalism fosters trust among peers and supervisors alike, and his interactions with the public reflects credit upon themselves and the department, which I'm very, very proud of.
He is married to Elizabeth Holden and has two German Shepherds, Nova and Allie.
Allie.
Please come up.
We're gonna stand up here on this side.
Okay, and I am happy to also present one last award for the year and Justin You are selected as the City Employee of the Year as well Well.
Obviously, you've done a tremendous amount to support the department and an excellent job within the community and you really deserve this recognition.
So, I just want to say thank Thank you.
And John.
Okay, we'll move on to item number seven, which is public comment.
Can you look and see if there's anybody signed up?
None?
Just okay.
Then we will move on to item number eight, which is Freeport Campus Life, Ministry of State Line Youth for Christ presented by Bishop Grozinger.
Hello.
Hello, all.
Hi.
Madam Mayor, ladies and gentlemen of the council, my name is Bishop Grozinger and I'm from the Freeport area.
Bishop, Grosinger, and I'm from the Freeport area, and I work for an organization called Youth for Christ.
I think we can all agree that Freeport is a needy place.
When we look at Freeport, there's a lot of brokenness in our city.
The Freeport community is needy.
A huge part of any community is its youth.
Freeport's no different, and myself and Youth for Christ have a huge heart for serving the community of Freeport in a number of different ways.
We're planning on doing this through Freeport Campus Life.
Freeport Campus Life is committed to mentoring young people where they are.
We seek to help young people navigate the pivotal years of middle and high school, uncovering God's story of hope in their lives.
So our plan is to start a community of students where they can build relationships with trusted adults.
Through these relationships, we'll be able to help these students navigate through these tough times of middle and high school.
These years are so influential in these young people's lives.
In the age of social media, anxiety, depression, bullies, mental health scares, and all the other concerns in the minds of middle and high school students, we intend to get them connected.
We want to meet their stories where they are, share our stories and how we've navigated through these tough times, and ultimately show them how our stories connect to God's story.
We want to share the hope that we have with the students of Freeport to give them hope when they feel hopeless.
We intend to have a safe place for students to hang out after school and make relationships with trusted adults who can lead them well and give them direction.
We will also have weekly meetings filled with fun, games, and best of all, free food.
It's a safe place to be in community and fellowship with one another and other students.
We want to give students the opportunity to succeed, to have a place to go, to have people to look up to and to mentor them, and the people who truly care for them.
You don't have to have everything figured out to come to campus life.
We will love them all the same.
There's also more good news is that we've seen this model and this campus life work.
There's a thriving group in Harlem right now and I'm going to invite my friend Joey up to share a little bit about this.
And I are here to talk about this.
I just want to reiterate our gratefulness to be here in front of you this evening.
Now it's been my pleasure to lead Harlem Campus Life for the last three years.
Our group started in 2019 about six years ago and going on seven years ago with just four or five Harlem students in a small office across the street from Sand Park Pool in Loves Park.
Because of the value that the students Huffines saw in our program as well as the parents and even teachers and administrators in the school.
We saw our group go from just a few students in that little office to what you see here in this picture, exponential growth.
This is this year's yearbook picture for Harlem Campus Life.
Now we are grateful for the number of students that have come our way, however we care more We're passionate about each student not only escaping some of their limiting circumstances, but also achieving their full potential.
Let me tell you about a student named Lexi.
This is Lexi.
Lexi was one of those first four or five students in that little office seven years ago.
And she actually writes, I was first introduced to campus life in my senior year of high school because of the circumstances of the world.
If you remember 2020, there was a few circumstances going on around her.
She says, because of the circumstances of the world, I could have easily fallen into a dark space.
Thankfully, because of the community I developed and nurtured through campus life, I was provided a space to connect with other people I had known for years in a way that I hadn't before.
It was really special to have a space to discuss my faith with my friends in a way I wouldn't have been able to otherwise.
Having leaders from all different walks of life and seeing how their choices led to where they are now was really helpful for me.
Now that Lexi has graduated college, not just high school, but graduated college, she's actually come back to Harlem Campus Life.
She's there right now as our group is meeting.
And she's now pouring into students that are coming up behind her.
So because of the adults that mentored her and her life, she's now pouring into the ones that are coming up behind her.
And Lexi is just one of the many stories of hope.
We've watched students go from being arrested to leading their peers with integrity.
We've watched them go from failing all their classes to graduating with honors.
We've even watched some go from threatening suicide to helping others navigate that tricky landscape of mental health.
So our passion is to similarly assist Freeport high school students to uncover God's story as it relates to their story.
Thank you.
Thank you, gentlemen.
Any questions for the presentation on campus life?
Thank you.
Next we will move on to item number nine, which is a presentation of the 2025 Annual Report.
Manager Boyer.
Good evening, Mayor, Council, and members of the community.
Its theme for the 2025 Annual Report is Momentum.
Momentum is a measurable progress sustained over time.
It's the alignment of strategy, discipline, and execution.
Our Strategic Framework guides budgeting, staffing, capital planning, and daily execution.
Everything presented this evening ties directly to infrastructure modernization, public safety Stabilization, Neighborhood Strength, Financial Stewardship, and Community Engagement.
The goal is not activity, the goal is progress.
This year we laid approximately 11,000 tons of asphalt and paved 3.5 miles of roadway.
That ties back to our strategic plan of reliable strong infrastructure obviously these are our focus areas for the entire strategic plan including safe and inclusive community responsive efficient government connected and accessible community strong private public partnerships quality communications effective land use in vibrant arts and culture those are the primary and many other tenants of our 2023 through 2025 strategic plan.
However, we do have a new one, but we were achieving this year's accomplishments based on our previous strategic plan.
That's why we're looking at that tonight.
Next slide, please.
So on our our public work strategy focuses on moving from reactive maintenance to planned infrastructure renewal.
We are targeting sustained pavement cycles.
We are working on ADA compliance and making sure that our ramps and disabled infrastructure is maintained and repaired.
Also, we are doing the full lead service line elimination and a long-term water and wastewater modernization projects.
The outcome is reliability and long-term cost control.
If you would please move, okay, we've got it, thank you, nope, we got it, going back to that last one.
So, this year we laid approximately 11,000 tons of asphalt as I mentioned.
We are, originally our goal included 8 miles per year, however, with current funding limitations, that has been changed and reduced to kind of align with what our resources are available.
But this last year we did 3.5 miles, the previous year I think we did 7, 6.5, 7 miles.
So we're making progress achieving that.
We also handled more than 5,000 residential calls down at the yards for service, approximately 500 more than 2024, and that increase reflects, again, more engagement with the community.
We replaced 53 disabled ramps this year, bringing the total to nearly 400 that have been reconstructed since 2021.
This represents again more progress toward fully accessible compliance.
The outcome is improved pavement conditions, improved accessibility, and improved service reliability.
Additionally, we successfully negotiated a successor agreement for our AFSCME labor agreement, as well as installed 13 miles of fiber optic network citywide for high speed internet.
Oh- pretty unique, if you could go ahead and go to the next one.
In addition we had 281 trees as you can see we that was an increase of 20 trees from 24 we installed 8 EV chargers, improved Streetlight Ramps, Improved Street Lighting, had 78 dog-related calls that were dealt with humanely and safely with our Animal Control Officer, as I mentioned before, 53 ADA ramps.
So some of the projects that were completed this year, you'll see on the far left, that's 18th Avenue in the Arcade.
That was actually a project that worked hand in glove with a solar project.
We had asked and did receive funding from the solar company to resurface 18th Avenue.
Also you'll see Black Hawk Avenue as well.
That's right in front of Black Hawk School.
That project was not only benefiting the school but also getting out some fully depreciated pavement surface.
On the far right you see Cleveland Street.
That was between West and Locust and completed that project from a previous year that we We had done on Cleveland.
Next slide please.
Here's a few aerials as well.
This is West Stephenson and the Park Boulevard intersection.
We did, I think we did from Stephenson from Park Boulevard to Greenfield and then there was a much degraded intersection there in the middle that required gas main relocation and a whole lot of utility relocates but were able to accomplish that and we also took the the Stephenson Street from four lanes to two with a center turn lane and walk-ride infrastructure on the edges.
Go ahead, next one.
We've got Carroll Avenue that was reconstructed that was a contracted out project that Helm accomplished for us.
We did end up running into an unexpected manhole issue on the intersection of Carroll and Gallina, that manhole was fully reconstructed, ensuring that all the work that we did on Carroll will last a very long time.
And also on the right there, you can see Greenfield, we can, that's kind of part of a larger project that we've been working on, but that was from Stephen to Locust, that was completed this year, and that also connects with the section of Greenfield from Stephenson to Pearl City Road.
So, water main breaks this year totaled about 30.
That's five fewer than last year, and we're hoping with some adjustments that were made to the startup geometry on our pumps, that'll have a positive impact even more so in 2026.
The reduction overall is confirming our proactive water main replacement is also assisting with the reduction in water main breaks.
We installed 15 new hydrants and replaced 373 lead service lines this year bringing the total to nearly 2,000 and we are in phase 4 which is coming to, essentially kicking off shortly.
That'll be our final construction on lead services and we will have once complete we will have all the lead services completely remediated within the city limits.
Also we continue to work on phase 1 of the wastewater treatment plant modernization and the outcome there is to gain regulatory compliance and long-term replacement on that.
Go ahead to the next slide, thank you.
So Community Economic Development Strategy, our focus remains neighborhood stabilization, blight reduction, and transit accessibility.
The outcome we are pursuing is property stabilization, workforce access, and private investment Confidence, which move on to the next one.
So code enforcement handled essentially 8,200 cases this year, a 59% increase over, uh, over 2024.
And that reflects stronger accountability and improved neighborhood standards.
Uh, we also completed 49 demolitions, um, issued 761 Building Permits and that's an 11% increase over 2024.
It also shows and signals some renewed private investment in our community.
On the Pretzel City area transit, we delivered over 45,000 rides and continued planning toward our structured routes.
The outcome is improved economic participation.
We also hired and onboarded Gertrude Heimerdinger, our new Community Development Director, and in her department a new Administrative Assistant, Katie.
So thank you.
Go ahead and move forward with the next one.
Human Resources, the city city operates with 202 employees.
We hired 32 in 2025 with 25 separations and five retirements.
Succession planning, recruitment efforts and strong bargaining contracts are strengthening workforce stability and operational continuity.
This is Dovie's favorite slide.
The clerk's office processed 213 FOIA requests this year.
That is a 122% increase in FOIA requests based on 2021.
So that is something that we're going to continue to work on and we may be coming back to you on some of the needs there.
We've passed 159 resolutions.
As you all know resolutions can be all kinds of actions of government but it does show you that we are getting things done and that is a hundred and sixty-five percent higher than 2019.
Administrative capacity is tracking alongside activity making material impacts in the community so every resolution obviously has an outcome and every outcome has an impact back positively to the community.
Next slide, please.
So police strategic goals, the Police Department continues layered staffing, technology deployment, and community engagement strategies.
The outcome is sustained reduction in serious incidents and strengthened community trust.
Shots fired incidents totaled 23 in 2025, which is 57 fewer than in 2020, or 71% reduction since 2020.
The Department recovered 93 firearms this last year, hired seven officers, and conducted 50 neighborhood watch meetings.
The outcome is measurable stabilization of the public safety conditions.
In addition, we onboarded our new Chief of Police, Jacqueline Frostow.
On the Fire Department side, the Fire Department responded to 6,035 calls including 5,156 EMS responses.
More than 350 inspections were conducted and 187 smoke alarms installed.
The library circulated 198,000 books, an 85% increase over last year.
Youth Attendance reached nearly 24,000 participants and the outcome is strengthened educational engagement and community connection.
So excellent job at the library moving all those statistics in that it is really quite something when you think it's an 85% increase from 2024.
Please next slide please.
Thank you.
Finance, the city received another clean audit opinion we have for several years.
And Council approved a balanced budget in 2026.
So, more than $50,000 in grants and approaching $80 million at this point have been secured since 2020.
The outcome is accelerated infrastructure modernization without excessive taxpayer burden.
So, these are many ways we are watching the taxpayers working toward the taxpayers' interests.
Walsh, the IT Department achieved more than 542,000 emails and prevented approximately 1,600 network-level cyber incidents, migration to the Office 365, and support for the new 911 system improved operational resilience and security.
Communication, the City now has 9,600 Facebook followers, a 30% increase on last year.
We reached 7.5 million views, an 1,800% increase on previous years.
That expansion strengthens Transparency and Public Awareness for City Operations.
Recognition, the City has received several outside recognitions, one is the Gold Water Ambassador Award, we also received Tree City USA designation again, we are a solar friendly City, and the Illinois Department of Public City, and the Illinois Department of Public Health recognition for water quality and national recognition as a desirable place to retire.
Validate the discipline and standards we are applying locally.
So we are not without outside recognition.
And if you will just stand by on that last slide there.
So it is important to distinguish between maintenance and transformation.
Maintenance includes calls handled, permits processed, emails archived.
Those are essential daily functions that keep the city operating.
They are the foundation of service delivery.
But maintenance alone does not change the trajectory of the city.
Transformation is different.
Transformation includes well 12 construction.
It includes wastewater modernization.
It includes full lead service line elimination.
It includes multi-year corridor reconstructions.
It includes cybersecurity hardening.
It includes disciplined financial stewardship.
Maintenance keeps the lights on.
Transformation strengthens the foundation for the next generation.
Over the past several years, we have focused on both, maintaining service levels while investing in long-term structural improvements.
That balance is what creates momentum.
Momentum requires honesty.
EMS demands continue to rise.
That's not unique to Freeport.
It is a national trend, but it affects staffing, response models, and cost structures.
Many parts of our infrastructure remain aged.
We have made significant progress, but replacement cycles take time and discipline.
Workforce recruitment remains competitive.
Municipal governments compete in tight labor markets, and we must continue building internal pipelines and succession planning.
Long-term revenue diversification remains necessary.
Infrastructure modernization and service stability require sustained funding strategies.
And acknowledging these realities strengthens credibility.
We do not avoid challenges.
We plan for them.
That is responsible government.
In the coming year, we will advance the Well 12 completion, continue with Wastewater Phase 1 construction, move toward full lead service elimination, expand structured transit planning, New Corridor-based Infrastructure Replacement and Strengthened Strategic Economic Development Coordination, momentum must continue through disciplined execution.
Freeport is not drifting.
We are building systems.
We are strengthening infrastructure.
We are expanding public safety.
We are enforcing neighborhood standards.
We are protecting taxpayers.
We are planning long-term.
Momentum is real.
However, momentum is not owned by the City Manager and staff.
It belongs to all of us.
To the Mayor and Council, continue providing disciplined, thoughtful leadership.
Long-term investments require long-term commitment.
To our residents, stay engaged, maintain your properties, participate in your neighborhoods, support local business, take pride in your Community.
Progress requires partnership.
The City will continue building systems and strengthening infrastructure, but a thriving Freeport requires alignment between leadership and community.
Momentum is real.
Let's protect it, let's strengthen it, and let's continue building together.
Thank you.
Thank you, Manager Boyer, for that quick overview of 2025.
Any questions, Council?
Thank you.
And I will move on to the next item, which is public comment.
Is there any public comment this evening?
Seeing none, I will entertain a motion for adjournment.
Second.
A motion made by Alderman Shadle, seconded by Alderman Sellers.
All those in favor?
Aye.
Opposed?