City of Lexington City Council met Feb. 6.
Here is the minutes provided by the council:
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, Alderwoman Wilson, Alderman Franklin, Alderman Richard and Alderman Colclasure. Members of the staff and public present were: Chief Belvery, Colleen Morency and Erna Bane.
It was moved by Alderman Franklin and seconded by Alderwoman Wilson to approve the minutes of the February 11, 2019 regular City Council meeting. Motion carried unanimously.
It was moved by Alderman Stover and seconded by Alderman Richard to approve the Treasurer’s Report in the amount of $197,020.59. It was noted that this amount contained TIF annual rebates. Motion carried unanimously.
Public Input: Colleen Morency has purchased the old Hotel Plaza on West Street and is in the process of doing a huge renovation. She is doing this project with the help of Jim Douglas. There is a lot of history behind that building and she wants to bring it back to as close as possible to its original state but most of the good stuff has already been removed and they are beginning from scratch. They want to make it look as it did in the 1800s which will be mostly the hallways, doors, and the outside. Each apartment is getting all new cabinets, walls, flooring, new plumbing, new electric and a better roof to make it look original. They want to paint it country blue and put up white shutters and next summer add a porch.
One of the reasons she is here, she would like to add parking blocks, which she has purchased, out front for angle parking and clean up the street as it is nothing but mud out in front of the building. She would like to have it paved as it is gravel now, so people do not have to step in mud to come into the building. The area between the sidewalk and the street is a mess when it rains or snows. She has spoken to the people next door that if they ever want to sell that house, which is a rental, she would like to buy it to put in off street parking and a back yard and patio, but for now she will be putting up a privacy fence.
Colleen was asking about TIF funds to help out on some safety concerns that she had with the outside of her property. There are five holes four inches deep on the side where garbage cans go and run along the house. She would like to fill them up and there are large cracks in the side walk. One apartment had four doors, two of which she closed up and put in windows. There are five apartments all together in the hotel. The siding is old and they make a siding that looks like this but it is not cheap and they are going to paint because they cannot purchase all of the siding at this time. She is going to match the siding, give it a coat of paint, new shutters and the new roof for now. She already has two loans from her bank and she is worried about the cost to fill those holes and how much siding she needs. She feels she can make the hotel look really nice for Lexington and hopes to be ready to rent out apartments by mid-April. She is planning an open house when she is ready to start taking applications.
Mayor Johansen suggested that she fill out a TIF application and get bids for the work that she would like to have done. The problem with asphalting West Street is it is a County roadway and he does not know what the guidelines are for that. The question was asked as to who maintains that roadway as well.
Old Business:
Discussion/Vote to Resolution 2019-1: Approving an Agreement Between the City of Lexington and Mark Hanson to Construct Roadway Pursuant to Signed Purchase Agreement with Casey’s General Store
Mayor Johansen started this discussion by stating that this was discussed last meeting but now is in resolution type form and he has added the exhibits. City Attorney Tom Shields has looked over this agreement and has approved it and the State of Illinois has looked it over as well.
Alderman Colclasure has talked with a trucker who commented that truckers will need a lot of parking. There is plenty of parking for trucks on the lot. There will be no overnight parking allowed. If the trucks need to park overnight they may do so on Wirtz Way. If someone wants to build a truck stop we will talk with them. Casey’s is offering three diesel lanes.
Motion was made by Alderman Franklin and seconded by Alderman Stover to approve Resolution 2019-1: An Agreement Between the City of Lexington and Mark Hanson to construct Roadway Pursuant to Signed Purchas agreement with Casey’s General Store. Motion carried unanimously.
New Business:
Discussion on Closed Minute Session Review
Alderman Richard and Alderman Stover agreed to conduct the closed minute review.
Committee Reports:
Mayors Report: Mayor Johansen started the discussion talking about the lights on P. J. Keller Hwy. Ameren did a study and the cost came in at $4,250, good for 90 days with a re-estimate after that. Along the cemetery side of the road they will need to be buried in conduit. He was not sure why so he sent an e-mail to see why because he thought that would raise the cost. He would like to get started as soon as possible. Some lights have already been put in by Corn Belt Electric. That area needs to be lit up. With Casey’s coming there will be more pedestrian traffic. He should have better numbers of the cost for the next meeting.
There are developers, Snyder Group and another individual that are interested in subdivisions in town. The Schweitzer family owns 75 acres out West Street and is interested in doing something with that. The down side is it will need a pump station for the sewer at roughly $100,000. Higher end homes could go in that area. Mr. Schweitzer needed to get back with his brother and sister to set a price for the property.
Two other properties are Parker Kemp’s on Orange Street which would not require a pump station but would require a detention basin and is priced at $18,500 an acre and Farnsworth is checking the flood plan on that. The third is behind Dollar General and they have proposed an apartment complex. Start out with one and two bedroom apartments with a swimming pool, rec center, kid’s play area, and possibly a hotel. He would like to get two proposals, one with a hotel and one without.
Late today he got information that McDonalds is closing. They are not interested in renewing their lease with BP that is up in April. Their reasoning was that Kelly’s opening really hurt their business but Mayor Johansen felt that local business should be secondary to business off of the highway and maybe their service wasn’t up to what it should be and their limited menu. He felt there business would pick up with Casey’s construction and the windmill construction beginning soon. He wondered if we should pursue another fast food chain or small store or was that up to BP to find another tenant.
Mayor Johansen is serving on a panel for the Small Business Assn. in Normal. They have put a panel discussion together of what towns are offering as incentives to bring businesses to town and he was asked to be on the panel. There are 30-35 people registered already. He is taking packets and will be showcasing what incentives Lexington has to bring small businesses to town. He hopes to put Lexington on the map.
Congratulations to Billy DuBois for his second place win in the Illinois Rural Water System of the Year award. Trophy is displayed in the window out front. First place went to Peoria Heights, which is a larger city with an older plant but has the same quality of water as we have.
A question was asked about the excess property that we have, if we are still going to sell it. It is approved as surplus property. We can put it on the agenda for the next meeting. We need to decide which buildings we want to sell. We talked about just doing the Water Plant. The buyer is still interested in the Water Plant. Mayor Johansen will have Attorney Shields draw up the paperwork to but the buildings out on bids. There may be some interest in the old Fire Station. We can decide to sell that property but we also need to make a decision about putting up a new building. We all agreed that the proceeds would pay for half of the new building. We still need to clean out the sediment.
Police: Chief Belvery started the discussion by informing the council that the police department was awarded The McLean County Crime Protection Network Grant for $3,700 to purchase two back up servers. One will be used here on sight to back up all the police data, videos, and gives us a new fire wall, so we are separate from the City. Chief Belvery wrote the grant so we got a larger backup server which we are going to host over at Colfax as an off site server. If the City wants to purchase a smaller backup for Star for Water Bills storage it is big enough to mirror it backup at the Colfax site. I did that it so when the City decides what it wants to do to backup water bills it will be already up and working in Colfax.
Colfax was chosen because they are a hub for the internet and are monitoring constantly and because of their super high speed internet. They are doing it at no cost, it is off site and we will house theirs.
We got the bids back on the radios and they were originally $5,900 and came back as $4,900. We are talking with other radio providers in Washington, Pekin and with Motorola to get the price down. We are in the same boat as all of the small towns around. With 20 radios all together the total bill is $100,000 which would 4,999 per radio installed, we were hoping it would come in more like $4,000. Chief Belvery thinks we could put the radios in the cars this year and wait to put one in the office if necessary. That is still $10,000 we will need to come up with for the radios. We would need to pay 10% up front and then make payments with Motorola over the next couple of years. Chief Belvery is still looking at options. Chief Belvery would like to have a test unit to test so they would have no test issues. Also dispatch needs to be able to key up the mike and tell exactly what radio it is and who it belongs to. Those issues need to be worked out as well. This is an item that would need to be budgeted for.
Mayor Johansen suggested that the USDA does give grants to police departments for squad cars and such and he should look into that.
Mayor Johansen commented that they are still working on the 911 address changes. All of Timber Ridge addresses will need to be changed and the City will be responsible for the cost of changing those house numbers. All utilities will be notified but it is up to the home owner to notify credit cards, driver’s license, etc. He should know more by the next meeting. What he would like to do is when we get close to the address changes is invite the guys from 911 to come to the meeting.
Building/Insurance None
Finance/TIF: Alderman Stover would rather than have a budget day to sit down with each department and go thru individual departments budgets. After that maybe have a prevue and send out without spending a lot of time going over. Meet with your people and see what your needs are, vehicle replacement, long term maintenance expenses, long term future costs, most of the rest is mostly year to year, etc. and let him know when you are ready.
Water/Sewer/Sanitation: None Street/Alley: None
Mayor Johansen talked about the discussions we have had in the past about a leaf vac. He has been talking with the City of Chenoa. The have a leaf vac that they are willing to loan out to us. We would have to build some sort of box on our truck and we can dump them out at ISU. He thought this year we start out as an experiment out by the school, as we restrict them from burning and have people call to get on the list to pick up leaves. He thinks that eventually we will need to pass an ordinance where nobody can burn leaves as it is getting so bad and so smoky in town. We have more and more complaints about the smoke. This is an inexpensive way for us to try it out. We have an agreement with Chenoa that we can use it and if we have to eventually pick up maintenance on it, it is cheaper than buying a new one. This would be a good way to see if people are receptive.
Alderman Colclasure asked about having chickens in the City Limits. There is an ordinance on the books preventing chickens and livestock from being kept in town.
There have also been numerous coyote sightings in town. According to the DNR until they become aggressive they are not considered a nuisance they and will do nothing.
There being no further business, motion was made by Alderman Colclasure to adjourn at 8:09 P.M. Motion carried by unanimous voice vote.
https://www.lexingtonillinois.org/images/Feb2519.pdf
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