We all ready?
Yes, if you got it.
Call me norther.
Well, Newton, could you lead us in prayer?
Let us pray.
Dear gracious, eternal Father, we thank you for another day.
We ask that you continue to touch all those, Lord, who may be bereaved on this time and this week and this month, Lord.
We ask that you would continue to put your loving eyes and protection around all of our first responders and everything that they do to all of the committee and to all of the people of the county, Lord.
We just thank you, Lord, for giving us this opportunity to continue on and I will work on today in Jesus' name. Amen.
Approval of tonight's agenda, moved by Mr. Busker, second by Mrs. Hayes. Any questions? All in favor?
Aye.
Review of approval of meeting minutes for May 12, 2026.
Moved by Mr. Busker, Moved by Ms. Lamp, Lawfer, David Quartz, Follow-up Paper, Reviewable Claims,
The safety is 169,399.57 cents, but probably 79,896.40 cents.
So they're going to stand to begin class, motion to approve. Second, moved by Mr. Newton, second by Mr. Busker. Any questions? All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Aye. Public comment, any public comments? Seeing none, we move on. Report to committee, Sheriff DeFarce.
Good evening. We have two that are in the field training program where they've been there a lot
of month and they're doing well. You've got the prime suppression unit stats today. My chief deputy
was a little late on that. He has been off together off the days. I don't have anything to report from
old business, but the new business for the Sheriff's Office was about our first overweight vehicle,
I believe a week ago. We'll keep everyone posted to see how that goes. I'm not sure how it
proceeds through the court system with us doing it, but we will find out.
28,000 pound overweight with a gravel load on a truck. So it was coming out of the quarry. Some
other things that happened was it was pulled over for no license and then they did the rest of the
inspection and weighed the vehicle, ended up being 28,000 over the weight, the proper weight for the
axles. I don't know anything else about that. We had a water main break at the jail. It was out in
out in the front parking lot, the south parking lot.
The water was bubbling up between the seam of the curb
and the parking service.
We had no idea what was coming from.
I called the water department.
They verified that it's here to be the main.
I called the chairman immediately
as plans were being put in motion for contingencies
just so everyone here is kind of up to date
on how things could happen at the jail.
The first thing that we had that we found out
was the water could have been shut off
anywhere from four to five hours.
We would then have a toilet issue
with the Flushing, and then we would put on a FOIL order
for 72 hours after jail if that works in the case.
A worst case scenario, we would have had to transfer
inmates to neighboring jails for courting
until the water main was fixed
and the jail was up and running with water.
Obviously we have to have water in order to maintain
our Illinois Department of Corrections standards.
The great news is, is the Water Department
was able to reroute the water.
We did not have to have a boil order, we got water the entire time, we were not down.
They were able to fix that within a few hours, and we're up and running.
The only bad thing is, is they had to cut into our one year old surfaced parking lot.
It is the city's responsibility though to fix that, they'll be in that condition for
about two months, and then they will resurface it for us.
And the last thing I have, we've added some new pictures to the County Boardroom that I've been working on for about three to six months with the Historical Society.
You're going to see the courthouse in different phases throughout the years, starting with the first one, which was erected in 1837 and it was torn back down in 1840.
You're going to see the monument progression and the second courthouse and also some pictures of the original jail.
Gail. So I think it looks pretty good. And in the future, you will have little placards
to tell you exactly which each phase is. I'm getting everything, all the information correct
from a 1970s historical book to make sure that pictures go with the description. Any
questions for me?
What's the population of it, Giles?
It's about 72. It goes up and down. So I believe this morning it was 72.
Thank you for being here everybody. It's been a busy month. This month for us, wrapping up things in Lena. We were working very closely with Naima and the Small Business Administration. It's time to extend
Loan Interest Loans to those individuals and businesses in Lena that would need that help.
The last report I received, I think there was 38 individuals and businesses from the Lena area
that did request SBA assistance. That doesn't mean that they're going to take a loan out,
but it means that they sat down and fulfilled the application and they may decide in the future
to do that. Businesses have, I want to say over a year to decide. Residents have a little over
they finished shop, they closed up shop today, as a matter of fact. So that doesn't mean anything. They can still buy online. They can still pursue this online. But the actual disaster will not restart. They call it DLOX that was at the Legion Hall and has been shut down. We spent a lot of time canvassing the neighborhoods and the business districts, sending out emails, going to door to door.
Door, trying to get people informed and educated about this opportunity.
I think we did everything as well as we could possibly build staffing that we had.
I'd like to thank IEMIN, SBA, Nurse Systems, they were outstanding.
We attended a EMA coordinator meeting at Davenport, Iowa.
It was a workshop type thing where they explained and they reviewed all of their practices as
far as putting out warnings, the thresholds for the warnings and watches and so forth
and so on.
It was pretty interesting.
It lasted about two and a half hours.
It gave us input on what we feel is the best way to get word out to you guys.
You know, we're kind of in between that.
They'll send it out.
Obviously you get through television, get through your forum, all kinds of different
apps.
But again, you know, as far as Stevenson County, I want to make sure that the stakeholders and decision makers get the most up-to-date information.
We have some severe weather possible tonight, tomorrow, through Thursday evening, I believe, coming in.
And I do send it out if you guys receive that. So it's interesting, it's kind of nice, but I want to put a face with a name.
We had our EM2 Region 2 meeting in Hennepin, obviously the tornado was a topic of major discussion.
and I went through that, pretty much start to finish.
I guess now would be a good time today.
I'd like to take the opportunity to compliment
our Sheriff Steve Stoll while we're side-by-side with him
during that whole evolution and incident in Lena.
And I'm going to say flat out that we probably
had the best sheriff in Illinois.
Not in Illinois, but in Illinois.
He is an outstanding individual.
The way things played out, the command he took,
I was impressed from day one and all throughout that incident.
So thank you, Steve, for your professionalism and leadership
and that it was incredible.
Thank you.
We're looking at some classes.
I know I promised a NIMS class for elected officials.
We did not get the timing done on that.
We're still looking in October and November.
And we also has been requested to put on a NIMS 3 and 400.
Those are classes mostly for police officers,
fire officers, and like maybe administration officials
for Schools and Hospitals, possibly some County people will be involved with that too if they
so desire.
And we're looking to do that in the fall too.
Other than that, that is all I have.
Do you have any questions for me?
Go ahead.
What does NIMH stand for?
National Incident Management System.
It's the federal government's program that we follow in major incidents, that outlines
Chain of Command and outlines who is in charge. It goes from a small incident like a traffic accident.
President, like a traffic accident, to a large incident like the Athena, to Hurricane Katrina.
It's a uniform system that everybody trains on and needs to be aware of.
Thank you.
Anybody else?
Well, Scott, I want to thank you and commend you, too, on handling this situation and working
on it later as well.
I hope you guys are taking care of this.
Yeah, the one thing that we both talked about is there was nobody in there beating their
chest saying, I got to be in charge. It was all what needs to be done and what's the best
way to get it done as quickly and safely as possible. And it was, it was really, was it
completely by the book of the system? Absolutely not. But I've been in the emergency management
for over 30 years now, and every incident is different.
For the town, the village of Lena, I thought things went exceptionally well, and most importantly,
nobody was injured, nobody was hurt from the storms. There were some minor injuries after,
but that happens day-to-day in life anyway. It's a scary incident.
Yeah, I got some, some footage from the National Weather Service that they're not letting out, but on the backside of the storm, as it hit Lena, they, they figured that tornado was nearly a half mile wide. So 135, 145 mile an hour winds. So got pretty lucky.
And it stayed up high enough that it didn't come down on those houses. Yeah, take them totally down.
And the footage is pretty remarkable. They had some satellite photos too of the damage before and after and solar fields with solar fields circular motion of damage going through it and it's pretty impressive.
And there was no looting or anything either, was there? Which is very nice. It just tells a lot about the community too.
The residents I spoke to from Lena had nothing but wonderful things to say about both of your departments and how wonderfully everything was handled and swiftly, and they couldn't have asked for a better team.
Thank you. Thank you.
Were there any resources that you guys noticed that would be helpful in the future, or you guys had everything you needed, or?
Yeah, there's a lot of things we can, you know, do different or could have done differently.
We'll talk about communication is always an issue. Salt Tower in Redound, that was kind of something we battled through. You know, we have a group of people called COAD that can come in and assist. But in a small town like Lena, what really impressed me was the Women's Auxiliary Firemen. Their wives came in, and they turned into like, Assistant Managers for Senate Command. They did everything as far as checking people, eventually assigning duties.
You know, is that fair to them? Probably not. We probably could have found maybe some people that wouldn't, you know, could have at least relieved them a little bit more off of what they got. But telling people to go home when it's their community, it just doesn't happen. Telling the sheriff to go home when it's his county, it just doesn't happen. You know, we want to be there to make sure that all the needs are getting met and they work. It's amazing the amount of different organizations, community organizations that come out Red Cross, Salvation Army,
and the resources that we have that you don't really know that you have until you have something
like this.
So what about Pearl City?
Pearl City, it was a very smaller version of that.
Their biggest issue was the power along Highway 73 and there was substantial damage to trees
and slight damage to some buildings and around the high school campus area, but that was
about it.
The actual tornado went north, north of the actual city itself.
There was some damage or some straight line damage with the actual tornado.
They figured it was north of Oak Grove City and they were afforded the same opportunities.
I met with the, I don't know how to say this, he's, he's not Lena's village president,
but he is like the number two guy.
I don't know.
I met him at the fire station.
We sat down and had a couple of hour conversation and I gave him all the information that he had.
We got words out.
We make door-to-door in Pearl City also, but there was not
anywhere near the amount of personal home damage in Pearl
City that there was compared to Lincoln.
One thing about the small Pearl City and Maine and drive to
school both in Dakota and Pearl City, I notice how the
closeness that community is, it's a small, it's not as big
It's free for them, but they're folks, they're folks.
They're folks.
Okay.
Thank you.
Conor, Conor's report.
So the coroner reports that the truck that had to do hail damage from the Lena storm is now back in service.
He wants to put out special thanks to Deputy Coroner Dwayne Coleman and Tom Kemple for using their personal vehicles while the truck was down for a week.
the truck was then I think a few days after they got it back it was backed into in Dakota area
paint transfer was all I did mention to Tom that you should have a go go take a look at it since
it's not anyone's we have a faulty driver just make sure the bumpers are are still good and all that
so he does have the accident report for that which we took the corners page on the website
Corner's page will be updated to include the revised report request FOIA form.
The updated form lists the fees permitted under Illinois statutes.
This update became necessary after an issue arose in which an outdated form
with outlisted fees was used for the Public Access Counselor, the PAC,
and the Attorney General's office, the Stevens County Court could not legally charge fees
because it was not posted. So he has fixed that. And I'm not sure what the fees are. So we'll have
to make sure. The morgue, the air filtration system in the morgue requires a new filter.
It was discovered during the time that Tom was looking at this new system or the filter for the
system. It was currently not running and the filter indicator light was on after contacting
the Manufacturer. He learned that the last recorded service was in 2020. The unit is
overdue for both annual filter replacement, which is annual, and for a semiconductor sensor
replacement required every five years. The sensor detects when filters are saturated
with solvent and triggers an alarm for safety. At this time, we have ordered the filter and
sensors to get the unit back up and running. And then while inspecting the air unit, they'd
also discovered that the board was equipped with a UV disinfectant lighting system.
Well, when you use the lighting system, it's done with a remote control because
you can't be in the room when you turn it on as it kills all the germs and
bacteria, the remote control could not be found.
So Tom is on, on it right now, trying to replace that system or the remote
control, both the air filtration system and the UV lights are critical for
for maintaining a safe environment, not only for the staff, but also for the
personnel in the Sheriff's office who work in the building.
So this will clean that system.
So I will give kudos to Tom, uh, since he's gotten in there, he has found
so many things to do, um, you know, just making sure he understands his office.
He's getting after it.
So go just to him and that's the end of his report.
I have a question for the Chair.
Moving forward, is there, who will be in charge of making sure that we get the filter changed?
Yes, he's the one that operates in the Morgue.
So let me give you a little background on this.
Okay.
But who was in charge of it the past six years?
Not the Sheriff's office.
So when that system was put in, it was operated by the, or what we had learned,
which I have no idea.
I have not gone into that Morgue.
I have no reason to, I've not done any investigation.
There's an alarm that goes off in there and thank God Tom, after all this time,
I said, what is that alarm? And people said, we don't know. He got into there and found out it was the filter system that it was the filter that had been plugged. So then that's when all of this started. So he will be on top of this.
But we don't have a Plan B.
What's the Plan B?
I don't know, you told me we spent six years, we were supposed to have annual filters, what's our plan B? Who, who's going to, I mean, I mean, an annual filter, and no one's checked on it in six years, there's got to be a backup plan.
Well, I think the backup plan was when that building was built, I wasn't there. I mean,
that part of the morgue was built. I wasn't there. And the corner that was there at the time that it
was built, they had all that information. I'm not sure how that communication went. I'm not sure how
I'm not sure how the exit of one corner and the entrance of another one went, if there
was communication.
So the backup plan, which isn't a back backup plan, is when there's a new corner, if Tom
would leave under bad circumstances, I will now at least know you're in charge of this
agency have to be done.
Our offices have worked seamless since he has taken over the office.
He's upstairs with me all the time, I check on him all of the time, anything that we've
We've needed to talk about cameras, uh, evidence systems, recording systems, all the stuff
that he needs for his office.
So we've kind of bounced things off to each other.
So we're working hand in hand.
And the morgue is in the sheriff's department.
The morgue is in the basement of the public safety building.
The one on the corner.
Yes.
Okay.
You have to remember there's an evidence issue there.
So the corner is the only one that can go in there when there's a body in there.
Because the facility is located in another building.
I'm just trying to make sure that this doesn't happen.
And I know what you're getting at. You're making it like I'm the maintenance person of that.
But you have to understand this is just like my evidence vault. Do you know I don't have access
to my evidence vault? That's probably a good thing.
Yes. It's the exact same thing with the morgue because the morgue is holding evidence. So I'm
not responsible for what goes on in the inside of there. So I would not know how any of those
things happen. The plan B is going to have to be the coroner or the deputy coroner has to
I know, I just feel that there should be some administrative backup somewhere.
I think there is now.
Let's go.
So I just sent George two text messages asking for, to ask, because the coroner is an elected
official, if they would put together written procedures for everything in the department.
So there's something in writing, so if the acting coroner does whatever, not there, someone
can pick it up and look at for the UV filtration system, the evidence room, who can go in,
who can't.
So we're going to ask.
The other question I was going to ask is if there's a safety committee for the Public
Safety Building Courthouse, Jail, anything like that.
We have something similar.
There is one for the courthouse through the clerk, I believe, but it's courthouse only.
Well, and again, this is an asking, this is not telling elected officials. We have that for the nursing home, just to say to the committee, so everybody's on the same page of what could go wrong, who does what, where is this, where is that. So it's on your phone. And maybe everybody will agree, maybe that that's the right thing to do or not, or maybe there's a better way.
I'm going to ask that question, you brought it up. Is there anything else in there that you need to be looked at? If that hasn't been looked at, then it got to be something else.
I can't answer that question because like I said, I've looked in the door. I don't know how the cooler works. I don't know how to turn water on. But again, that's one of those off limits faces. So the only people that would be able to go in there and understand how that works is going to be the corner or the deputy corners that go in there.
I think we need, you know, the sheriff's been working with the new coroner hand in hand.
I think we've got to remember kind of the history of the coroner's office over the past
10 years or so for I don't know how many years it's been, it was out in Lena and really nobody
had any idea what was, you know, Lemons took care of the coroner's office.
And then when Tom gave that up, everything moved down to the Sheriff's office.
So we've gone through a couple of different corners in a relatively short amount of time.
So there's, you know, getting these new procedures and getting him up to speed,
I think we need to allow him the time to do what he needs to do in his office.
I think he's on a good start.
So I think you're going to see a policy come out just like I have policy for my my evidence room.
I don't go in there and I have a key to it. That's for that's for liability purposes for my office.
I think he's going to have to come up with the exact same thing where he's going to have to have
a policy on how things have to go and that's going to be up to him. So that'll be the plan B
is there be a policy in place. And we already discussed that he doesn't have a little place
to turn yet because he hasn't been through the coroners, the new coroners, uh, so hopefully,
and I talked to him about those things that he is going to have to put a policy in place that
everyone can't just walk in and out of that, even a deputy court. Why are you going in there?
You don't have one of those are not your cases. You shouldn't go in there.
Nice thing is I don't know that we'll have to recreate the wheel here. I think there's probably
Yeah, there is a lot of this should be, it may not be specific to the equipment that we have, as you were talking about policy, that should be very simple to obtain in place.
And this was all thrown on me two weeks ago. I had no idea about this UV lighting system.
Any other questions?
So, I will entertain a motion for adjournment.
It's rolled by Ms. Hayes.
Seconded by...
...Busker, or the Chairman.
Aye.
This is the resolution.
I'm just following it up.