City of Lexington City Council met July 23.
Here is the minutes provided by the Council:
The regular meeting of the Lexington City Council was called to order at 7:00 P. M. by Mayor Spencer Johansen in the City Council Chambers at City Hall.
Mayor Johansen led the council in the Pledge of Allegiance.
Roll call was taken to find the following physically present: Mayor Johansen, Alderman Schreiber, Alderman Stover, Alderman Colclasure, Alderman Fosen, Alderman Richard and Alderwoman Wilson. Members of the staff and public present were: Chief Belvery, Lucy Loper, Thomas French, Michelle French, Bob Wahls, Betty Luster, Darrell Luster, Gina Roberds and Don Cavallini.
Public Input: Public Input was moved to the beginning of the meeting to accommodate the schedule of some of the speakers.
Lucy Loper spoke on behalf of the Lexington in Bloom Garden Walk which was held June 23, 2018. She introduced the Garden hosts who attended the meeting and named the ones who did not attend, Linette Brown, Mel Fowler, Jeannene Payne, Mike and Julie Cotter and Alderman Fosen.
When they were approached about participating in the Garden Walk with the proceeds going to replace the trees in the City Park they all agreed to open their gardens for the day. The day was a very profitable day, The Fort had a house tour and there was a Garden Faire in the park with vendors. It was a really nice day for Lexington.
Lucy presented a check to Mayor Johansen to go toward the trees.
Mayor Johansen thanked Lucy and the gardeners for their participation and the check in the amount of $1410.00. Also saying that it was a huge event and good for Lexington. It is events like that that brings people to town.
It was moved by Alderman Colclasure and seconded by Alderwoman Wilson to approve the minutes of the June 25, 2018 regular City Council meeting. Motion carried unanimously.
It was moved by Alderman Fosen and seconded by Alderman Stover to approve the Treasurer’s Report and pay bills from the first half of July in the amount of $9,635.62. Motion carried unanimously.
It was moved by Alderman Fosen and seconded by Alderman Stover to approve the Treasurer’s Report and pay bills from the second half of July in the amount of $19,135.54. It was noted that the web marketing expense was a monthly charge. Motion carried unanimously.
Public Input: None
Old Business: Discussion Surplus Property/New Building: Mayor Johansen has passed out appraisals for the surplus property around the City Park. The first appraisal is the building where the Squad Cars are parked and the appraisal for that building was $55,000. He has the full report if anyone wants to read it. The next page is the old Fire Station and that was appraised at $61,000. The third building was the Salt Shed and it appraised at $40,000.
The law requires that we need to have the buildings appraised by a certified appraiser before we do anything. If we decide to sell one of the buildings. We put it out first for bids and this just gives us an idea of what it is worth but we can take a lesser amount.
This first building where the Squad Cars are parked, parcel 164-001, that is one whole parcel and that includes the old Water Plant and that brick building. The Water Plant basically is worthless, this $55,000 is for just that one building there. As was discussed previously, we do have someone interested in moving forward with that project. I know many of you are not ready to move forward with putting up a new building yet, but looking at these appraisals if we would sell them all at close to that we are half way to a new building. If we consider moving forward on at least this parcel and enter some type of agreement with him. If he gets the bid and he buys this, he can start on the Water Plant and put his business in. Maybe we can get a year lease on the building that we can use for storage until we get something else. We could also clean out the Salt Shed. Mayor Johansen just does not want to delay the buyer any longer. He has spent some time looking at this site and we still need to put it out for bids. He does not think there will be a lot of interest in the old Water Plant knowing it will cost us $125,000 to tear it down.
Alderman Fosen is of the opinion that if we would like to sell all three properties then you need to divide them up. The building that gives us the most flexibility on timing first of when, where, how and how much we build a new building is the Squad Car Shed and the Water Plant sold out of excess property would give us the flexibility to use alternative funds to build. If we want to liquidate all three building the first decision is are we ready to do that.
Mayor Johansen stated that he thinks that if we put the property out on bids that they will sell and prices should be close to the appraisals. He would like to see retail business come into those spaces. The question was asked if retail spaces were not in the bid, then the City does have the option that if the bid is not in the best interest of the City they do not have to accept the highest bid. The property is zoned General Business now. If we sold it all there would need to be some type of agreement for storage until we got a new building put up. We do own the property to put a new building on, so that saves a big cost. We have talked about going to Menards and buying a building and putting out bids for someone to put the building up. We do not need to finish the whole thing this year. We can do part this year and put the rest in the budget for next year.
Alderman Richard does not think we can get a building up this year unless we bid it out.
Alderman Fosen’s thoughts were that the Squad Car Shed and Water Plant can be sold without us having to put up a building in the next six months. If we want to accept bids on all three properties then we would need a building and we would need to find the money to finish the project.
Everyone has a copy of the appraisal and has time to look at it between this meeting and the next council meeting on August 13, 2018. There was more discussion on who was in favor of selling and why. If it is put out for bids Alderman Stover felt it was good to see if there were serious bidders and who was interested in what parcels, Alderwoman Wilson felt if we had a serious buyer we should sell and Mayor Johansen says he has buyers interested. Any bid submitted does not need to be accepted. Mayor Johansen also urged the council to talk to Mike, Bill and Billy in the shop to see what their thoughts were as well as to the size and use of the new building.
This item will be on the agenda for a vote at the next council meeting with a first vote as to whether to move forward with the new building and a second vote to sell surplus property.
Discussion/Vote Rail Road Quiet Zone: Mayor Johansen and Alderman Schreiber have both done research on the project. Mayor Johansen wanted a Council vote on this before he proceeded any further on this. There is no cost to the City except for the signs to go up on the City streets and we pay the rail road for those, we cannot do it ourselves.
Alderman Schreiber said there might be other costs but that is the only one that we know of right now. The rail road will tell us what the cost will be when we apply for the quiet zone. There are several communities around that have quiet zones.
Mayor Johansen does not know if the price includes the signs that they put on rail road property. When talking to the rail road all of our crossings meet the criteria for a quiet zone.
If there would be an accident at a crossing there is no liability to the City per the FRA. The whistle will be blown if there is an emergency or they see something on the tracks.
There was some discussion as to what hours should be quiet and the process should the City change its mind after hours were set.
Alderwoman Wilson has had complaints about the train whistle.
Motion was made by Alderman Stover and seconded by Alderwoman Wilson to move forward to request a study and cost of the Rail Road quiet zone. Motion carried with five yes and one no.
Mayor Johansen will get started on this project and get back to the Council with his progress.
Discussion/Vote Ordinance 2018-5 Small Wireless Facilities Deployment Ordinance:
We received this from the State and was signed by the Governor. It gives us some control over wireless antennas and communication devices put within the City limits. Gives us the hands on that we can charge a fee for the application, sets guidelines for the companies to control them a little bit. It may never affect us but someone could buy property within the City limits and put up an antenna. Mayor Johansen recommends that we pass the Ordinance which must be done before August 1, 2018.
Motion was made by Alderwoman Wilson and seconded by Alderman Fosen to approve Ordinance 2018-5 Small Wireless Facilities Deployment Ordinance. Motion carried unanimously.
Discussion/Vote Main Street Closing August 4, 2018 for Main Street Under the Stars and August 24, 2018 for Street Fest: Street Fest was rained out from its original date and Jon Kemp has moved it to August 24, 2018 and needs Council approval to close the street on that date. Jon Kemp has already had approval for the first street fest and Main Street Under the Stars will only need to be closed from 1:30 P. M. to when it is over or early the next morning. The biggest thing with Main Street Under the Stars is the lights going across Main Street and they need to be removed because they hang down very low.
Motion was made by Alderwoman Wilson and seconded by Alderman Colclasure to close Main Street August 4, 2018 for Main Street Under the Stars and August 24, 2018 for Street Fest. Motion carried unanimously.
.NEW BUSINESS: None Committee Reports:
Mayors Report: Governor Rauner is coming again on August 26, 2018. Originally the motorcycle ride was going to go down memory lane, pass through Lexington and go to Bloomington and have lunch but the governor was impressed with the turnout that we gave him last year and wanted to stop again so they are going to have lunch at Kelly’s that day. There will be no presentations or anything. It’s good for Lexington to have the governor visit us.
The governor’s aide was here and I showed them around Lexington and they were very enthused about helping us on some programs to enhance Main Street. We are working together to come up with a grant.
The second Farmer’s Market is tomorrow night, July 24, 2018, 4-7 P.M. at Patton Park. The first one was that Saturday with all the rain but regardless of that the vendors said they did just what they expected and sold just what they wanted to. I think we have up to 12 vendors coming tomorrow night. Most of them are local. The thing about the Tuesday night is it takes us out of the competition of the Saturday morning market in Bloomington and we want to keep it in the downtown area.
All these events we are having we get a lot of attention for Lexington, and the better they turn out the better it looks for Lexington. Star and Tabitha have worked hard on some of these and if you see them be sure to thank them for their hard work.
Casey’s site plan is in the review stage with the engineers. The last meeting they are spending some money on that property and on their study. That is a good sign.
Police: Alderman Richard reported there are 12 applicants for the opening in the Police Department. Chief Belvery will start the interviews based on the applications, then we will enter a recommendation for everyone to vote on. This will be a full time position, 40 hours per week.
Building/Insurance: None
Finance/TIF: Nothing related to finance. Regretfully Alderman Fosen will be resigning after the second meeting in August. He has purchased a home in another community.
Water/Sewer/Sanitation: None Street/Alley: None
Mayor Johansen would like to have a meeting of the Liquor Committee, consisting of Aldermen Fosen, Stover, Mayor Johansen and he has appointed a private citizen who is Donna Elias. He would like to set up a meeting to go over the liquor license structure. The reason he would like to do this is, he went to that class in Springfield and there are a lot of loop holes in the way we issue our licenses; for instance brewery licenses. We have two interested and we have no license to cover that. I think we need to move forward in changing that, plus addressing some of the issues with the catering licenses, people coming in from out of town catering events. They are getting by fairly cheap.
The question was asked about how many licenses we can issue. Mayor Johansen stated that one thing that was brought up was that we consider passing an ordinance restricting the amount of liquor licenses we issue. What they suggested was pass the ordinance restricting the number we have currently right now. When we are approached to change that number to add another one if we want. It would be a lot easier for us to say no we have no more vacancies, approach the Council and request one rather than deny one if we don’t want that particular business in town. The kind of business I am talking about is the gaming. These businesses are popping up all over with just the gaming machines and they have a liquor license in order to have the gaming machines. I do not know that we want that kind of atmosphere in town.
Alderman Fosen would like to have it after the next Council meeting.
There being no further business, motion was made by Alderman Richard to adjourn at 7:40 P.M. Motion carried by unanimous voice vote.
https://www.lexingtonillinois.org/images/minutes72318.pdf
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