City of Lexington City Council met Jan. 28.
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, Alderwoman Wilson, Alderman Franklin, Alderman Richard and Alderman Colclasure. Members of the staff and public present were: Chief Belvery.
It was moved by Alderwoman Wilson and seconded by Alderman Colclasure to approve the minutes of the January 14, 2019 regular City Council meeting. Motion carried unanimously.
It was moved by Alderman Stover and seconded by Alderman Franklin to approve the Treasurer’s Report in the amount of $10,411.65. It was noted that $50 is being paid to each employee for their cell phone and $30 is being paid to Billy DuBois for the data on the Water Plant that he has on his cell phone. Motion carried unanimously.
Public Input: None Old Business: None New Business:
Schedule Budget Workshop Meeting
Mayor Johansen started the discussion by stating that the Council needed to start looking at some dates to have this workshop. He was thinking sometime in late February.
He was thinking that all committee heads should get with their people between now and when the meeting is to be held and go over everything to see what want, if they need any equipment or anything like that. Get some idea on numbers and get them back to Mayor Johansen and Alderman Stover. One of the concerns was vehicle replacement. Mayor Johansen will have a work sheet for each department of where they are at now and what was budgeted and what they propose for next year. He will have those ready within a week. He does not think there is anything major coming up but does think we need to look at the vehicle replacement. We can wait to come up with a date until later if that works better for everyone. It would be nice to get everything done and get it approved as early as possible.
Alderwoman Wilson did not think it should take too long as they usually have the numbers. Alderman Stover says Wednesdays work for him.
The question was asked about a leaf collector. Mayor Johansen said we had been talking about using one along with Chenoa.
Mayor Johansen says we can push the workshop back to March if everyone was agreeable. Everyone take the month of February and do all their own work and we start off in March with it. If the committees get together and goes over the budget, do we need the workshop? The committees submit their budgets and we take everything to the Council meeting. We are updating from the previous year so it shouldn’t be too hard.
Alderman Stover felt he could do all the revenues and all the recurring expenses. The only thing we are interested in is the one year expenses and the placement.
Alderwoman Wilson reminded the Council that we needed to paint the Water Tower. Mayor Johansen agreed that we must put some maintenance money in there.
Mayor Johansen will get the vehicle replacement information to Alderman Franklin so he can go over it. Alderman Franklin said he has some information from a few years back to compare it to.
It was decided that Mayor Johansen would e-mail the worksheets out and the committees would work on them and return to Mayor Johansen and Alderman Stover and then they will bring that to the council meeting and there will be no workshop.
Discussion/Vote on TIF Request
Alderman Stover started the discussion by telling the Council about the latest TIF request by Main Street Hair requesting a new step outside their business. He didn’t know what their intention was, the building is owned by Mustaalic. They also want to put wheelchair access onto both doors. Our standard policy is we will do up to half. We have tried to contact Mustaalic to see if he is interested in splitting that cost. He doesn’t know if the owners wouldn’t be interest it would make sense for them to do it. But they do need it for their customers.
Mayor Johansen did send Mustaalic a message and has not gotten a response back from him yet.
Alderman Stover has gotten a bid from Tom Stacey and it was $850 for the ramp but that did not include hand rails. He has gotten another bid for the other door which was $1,400 and that included the hand rails. He thinks it will be about $1,400-$1,500 for both of them and he does not know if he can get a discount for doing both of them. This is the old Fireside Building. Alderman Stover does not think this is required by law due to the age of the building. Alderman Stover felt something will need to be done because the step in front of Main Street Hair is just a wooden step and is deteriorated and feels it is the building owner’s responsibility to replace it. If the owner does not respond, it is not the City’s responsibility to repair the building and the business owner should contact the building owner.
Committee Reports:
Mayors Report: Mayor Johansen has gotten the minutes back from the Rail Road Quiet Zone meeting and now has to resubmit the whole thing and he is working on getting the packet together. The minutes need to be sent to everyone and they all made their changes in it. He is working on getting that done.
Casey’s is working on coming up with some kind of agreement with Hanson on what we will do and what we will not do. Verbally he has agreed to what we talked about, the first 225 and then the next 225 when he has a business going in there. We are working on getting that drawn up.
All of you got the magazine, Illinois Municipal League Review, he suggest everyone read pages 7-11. That explains where we get our money from the State and is very informative. That gives us an idea of what we are working with.
City Hall will be closed Wednesday morning due to the extreme temperatures. Employees will respond to extreme emergencies but otherwise he does not want anyone out. Chief Belvery will be on duty.
The annual board review for TIF was scheduled for February 25, 2019 at 6:45 P.M.
Council Meeting Packets were e-mailed out this time to everyone. How did everyone like that? Do we still need to print out paper copies for everyone? It was decided that we would follow this format with no paper copy. Councilmen could print if they so desired.
Police: Officer Lorsbach graduates next Friday, February 8th in Bellevue and then will be starting his field training. Chief Belvery will be attending.
Officer Scott’s field training has been delayed. He has had carpel tunnel surgery which was not related to this job. He will be off for 5-6 weeks.
Building/Insurance None
Finance/TIF: Alderman Stover is working on the
TIF request and will be starting to work on the budget.
Water/Sewer/Sanitation: Alderwoman Wilson reported that Billy DuBois has been looking at software so water customers could pay their bills on line. He found one that Chenoa uses and is going to look into that a little more.
The question was asked if we could use ACH debit. Alderwoman Wilson was not sure if we could use that.
Alderwoman Wilson was concerned about there was no cost to the City but there was a fee to the customer with the program. She did not want customers to pay a fee to pay their water bill. Mayor Johansen thought the fee was $1.00. He felt it gave people an option to pay their bill online.
Maybe Alderwoman Wilson could check with the company who did the software for the billing of the water bills they might have something that could be used to pay online or people could sign up for auto pay. Mayor Johansen says we talked about that but the holdup is that the City does not have all the new meters in yet to deal with the software.
This is still a work in progress.
Street/Alley: None
There being no further business, motion was made by Alderman Franklin to adjourn at 7:22 P.M. Motion carried by unanimous voice vote.
https://www.lexingtonillinois.org/images/Jan2819.pdf
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