McLean County Times

City of Lexington City Council met Dec. 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 Colclasure, Alderman Richard, Alderman Franklin, Alderwoman Wilson and Alderman Stover. Members of the staff and public present were: Don Cavallini, Kenneth Sours, Greston Miller, Bill Chaney, Susan Chaney, Jon Fritzen, Julie Sobley and Dennis Killian.

It was moved by Alderwoman Wilson and seconded by Alderman Colclasure to approve the minutes of the November 25, 2019 council meeting. Motion carried unanimously.

It was moved by Alderman Colclasure and seconded by Alderman Franklin to approve the minutes of the December 9, 2019 council meeting. Motion carried unanimously.

It was moved by Alderman Stover and seconded by Alderman Richard to approve the Treasurer’s Report and pay bills in the amount of $30,368.04. Motion carried unanimously.

Public Input: None

Old Business: None

New Business:

Bill Chaney Presentation

Bill and his wife Susan own property behind BP and along P. J. Keller Highway and South to Turkey Creek. They are working on a subdivision and a motel behind Dollar General. There are about 20 acres. The concept is a new urbanization type of development with parks. You can see all through it there are pocket parks, and these are small lots that they will build little cottages on. Those may be for rent or for sale. He is not sure right at the moment. He is not sure about financing, rentals may be easier and more attractive to get. That might be what he ends up getting. There will be 70 lots and they will be for austitic adults and or adults over 55. There is more and more autism. The original idea was for high functioning autistic adults that as their caretaker parents age they need more assistance and cannot quite completely live on their own. There would be a center that would house some services for them, different levels of that. Marc First is interested in providing those services on a supportive level. It would be similar to a retirement home, different levels of services. The second level is supervised. They would be supervised 24-7 with a live in person or staffed 24 hours. He sees one of those two or a combination of the two. A center would provide those services. This also would be available for the over 55 community. There was also a possibility of Lexington putting a rec center somewhere. It could go in close to P. J. Keller. He wants to put trails down the back of the lots and keep it all natural. That way someone coming to the center could come in and workout and if they wanted to run, walk or bike the trail, they could.

Mayor Johansen thought they should get the Park District involved as they had talked about doing a rec center and maybe the school as well.

Bill remarked that this will create a lot of TIF money. It will be a lot of taxable land when it is all built out. He is still in the early stages of working on financing but he thinks he could offer to build and lease to the city if that would be more attractive. It could be done in phases. He would be willing to donate the land, if the city wanted to build it, for the rec center. He is looking at a time frame of 2021. It was noted that this plan was laid out by the same person who built the Community Center, Paul Young.

Mayor Johansen thinks it is huge for Lexington and will not find anything like it in the state of Illinois.

Bill noted that there are very few autism developments. This will attract people from all over the state because there are not many places for them to go.

Mayor Johansen thinks it will open up the door for a hotel.

Bill has been in contact with people who want to open up a hotel. People have been asking about that lot for quite a while.

Mayor Johansen has spoken with a developer who is interested in putting up a 50 unit hotel in Lexington in that area. He thinks 2020 is going to be a big year for Lexington. That is a big part of the attraction, and we have Checkers going in and Casey’s out there.

Bill believes that residential leads the way before commercial. This will bring a lot of people into that motel coming to see their children or family. Austistic or asperger’s are able to live on their own for a short period of time but not for a longer period.

If we found a way to do the multi use rec center, that would move everything along quicker. Marc First wants to do the services but they do not have the resources to solve this and it would be multi use at the rec center.

What Mayor Johansen would like to see is Alderman Franklin start some talks with Park District and the school. See what direction we can go with that.

Bill thought it could be a lease with some sort of buy out down the line, maybe when this thing gets built up. There is a need for another gym. Alderman remarked that with the workout place here in town they have eliminated that portion of it. Also with the austistic and aspergers there would be no filtering into the school system of children.

We are close to ISU, State Farm and Country Companies where many of them can get jobs. Marc First helps with this.

The city’s involvement will be to extend Douglas Drive South and put water and sewer along that far tree line. We have talked about road construction this year but this is huge for the city and the whole area, McLean County. Bill has been told it will draw from other states. It will be very nice, with pocket parks it creates a sense of community for those who have trouble socializing.

Mayor Johansen also mentioned that there will be no need for a pump station.

Mayor Johansen followed up by saying this is exciting news for Lexington and he applauds them for even thinking of this. It is not going to be an easy or cheap project.

Lexington Social Presentation, Jon Fritzen

Jon started his presentation by introducing himself and telling a little about himself. He is a native of Bloomington/Normal and has lived there his whole life. His father was a german professor at ISU. For over 30 years his mother was one of the first licensed massage therapists in town. She also had a gourmet dessert company. His entrepreneurial spirit comes from her. His brother owns the Coffee Hound which has three locations and over 40 employees. His first summer job was washing dishes in a restaurant and he always knew he wanted to own a restaurant someday. The first opportunity came when he and a friend created the first food truck “Two Blokes and a Bus”. They converted an English double decker bus into a mobile restaurant. They had a full kitchen on the first floor and seating for 23 people on the second floor. They gained a reputation for great food, a fun environment and great service. The bus had an accident it was not able to recover from and was eventually sold. After that he worked for Epiphany Farms Hospitality Group as a sous-chef and hosted private dinner parties for people up to 20 guests in their homes and private locations. He also did pop-up brunches at the Coffee Hound where they served 80-100 guests on Sunday allowing him to continue to be known in the community and help grow his following knowing that he would open his own place which led him to the concept of Lexington Social.

What is Lexington Social? Lexington Social is a neighborhood restaurant providing fine casual dining experience, with delicious food, genuine hospitality and smiling faces. A true destination restaurant that includes a fully restored train depot. This location provides the business with an ideal location to create a unique experience. It may further be described as first generation American cuisine drawing fresh and provides cultured past and present using seasonal fresh local produce and products. Lexington Social offers cuisine with international influence while prepared with simple and seasonal ingredients. We offer four dining services upon opening with a plan to add more as customer interest grows. One of these will be brunch. Brunch has become a way to usher in the weekend. We will give our target market the most and fun reasons to brunch with Lexington Social with delicious food, amazing presentation, service and value. We have a great beverage menu, including craft cocktails and brunch favorites will help build customer satisfaction.

Beyond the basic purpose of restaurants to provide food and drink, restaurants provide the human need for connection. Restaurants have always played an essential role in business, social, intellectual and artistic roles in society. The major events in life and personal and professional achievements are celebrated in restaurants. Lexington Social wants to be the kind of club for the residents of Lexington and surrounding communities to become part of the social fabric of the area making the Depot a public place to be enjoyed all again.

The Depot is important to the streetscape of Lexington. He feels he will add to all the hard work and investment that has already been done by the residents and city in helping Lexington be a vibrant and up and coming community. While many towns see their Main Streets struggle, Lexington is showing the way on how to grow and he looks forward to creating a business that the community is proud of.

A question was asked about what he was going to do with the upstairs. The building has so much potential for generating revenue. As he is fine tuning his business plan he is going to use that space as an overflow space for customers to wait. When people come to this place as a destination restaurant. It is a magical environment in there. When you go in there you want to stay and he wants to provide that environment for people to stay. As they wait for a table they can go upstairs have a coffee, or a drink, or a beer. There is also room to host parties for 12-15 people which would be hard to do downstairs in the dining room. He is gravitating away from an AIRBNB. He wants to focus on having a full service restaurant.

The question was asked about his menu. He will have a fixed menu that will be smaller focused menu that will change on a bi-weekly basis. One of his business strategies is that he will have a very expensive menu that is very labor intensive, so a smaller rotating menu rather than a big stagnant menu. Doing less and doing it very well. Very similar to what we did with the bus.

Mayor Johansen remarked that his business plan was one of the most organized that they have seen on any of the TIF applications. This will be a good draw for Lexington and is filling up an empty building on Main Street.

He is doing a lease to own agreement on the building. That allows him to get into the building, start construction, get his buildout going. He is putting his house up for sale to help fund this project.

His start-up time frame is 45 days after securing funding.

He is putting in a commercial kitchen in the back. The Health Department has already been on site and sees no problem putting a commercial kitchen in. Everything is accessible for the buildout. The dining room is already set up for the most part or what he would consider the dining room so he can focus on getting the commercial kitchen in.

The question was asked if he would have entertainment. Live music is more Jon Kemp’s type of thing. He feels like he is filling a niche where he is not competing against the existing businesses that are already here. He is not having a bar where people just come and drink. There will be an area for them to sit and have a drink if they would like. That will be on the far West side in the Freight Room.

Mayor Johansen explained that Jon had applied for a 40,000 dollar TIF loan and they have worked out the details of the agreement.

Discussion/Vote Resolution 2019-5: Authorizing TIF Loan Agreement for Lexington Social

Alderman Stover explained that Jon did tie the house that they are selling to this so that when that property in Bloomington sells they have committed $20,000 of that back towards this loan. That really adds to the security that we needed. Alderman Stover is very comfortable with this loan.

It was moved by Alderman Stover and seconded by Alderwoman Wilson to approve Resolution 2019-5: Authorizing TIF Loan Agreement for Lexington Social. Motion carried unanimously.

Discuss Updating Ordinances

Mayor Johansen would like for the aldermen to look through the ordinances and review them. One thing we don’t have, and we have had a lot of public comments at some of the recent meetings, we don’t have any time limits in place as to how long we will allow a person to talk. While he wants to listen to what everyone has to say at some point we need to set some time limits on it. There are also a lot of ordinances we need to look over. He suggested the aldermen get among themselves and split the ordinance book up, go through it and highlight what needs to be changed and updated. The ordinances can all be found online. If we do not want to do anything with the public comment, a lot of people asked me at the last meeting if we had a time limit. Bloomington has three minutes per speaker and 30 minutes public comment per meeting. That can be our project for next year.

Discussion Only, Pay Increases for Elected Officials

Mayor Johansen started the discussion by stating that he thought it had been over 25 years since the mayor and councilmen’s salaries had been adjusted.

Alderman Stover said the only reason he had brought it up was that when he first got on and John Mohr was mayor they were discussions then and they talk about it every year but it is one of those things that we are going to do we have to do it prior to the election. It is nothing we would do this year, everything would go into place after the election happens. What it comes down to is thinking about the last couple of elections where we have struggled to get people to even run for positions where there are alderman and mayor or whatever. Looking down the road, and keeping in mind we don’t have a city manager, the amount of time, both John Mohr and Mayor Johansen spent as mayor, we can't set the hours for them, but the expectation is that they do the job, and the hours that are required to do the job increases every year as things become more and more technical. His thought was to increase the mayor position to something that he has not determined yet. He wants to start looking around at other towns, some have city managers and we are not ready for that. Something that would encourage people that if they put the time in they might benefit in some way and hopefully bring more people to run for these positions.

Alderman Colclasure remarked that when he was first elected he would be totally opposed to that but the blinders or scales have fallen from his eyes. From what he has seen recently this is a full time job. He also feels the council should be more involved. He hopes the mayor does not try to take all this on himself.

Mayor Johansen thinks 2020 is going to be a big year for Lexngton. He is planning on calling on more people to get involved. He did not run nor did the councilmen run for the positions for the money. By him being in the office, and he is in the office five days a week, that helps the people that come in with an idea that they can sit down and talk with someone right then, instead of someone will call you by the end of the week or next week. He thinks we have brought businesses into town because of that. But he thinks as this progresses and the subdivision goes, and we start Casey’s, and we have a party that wants to meet when he gets back from vacation over the hotel. He is ready to move right away. They are ready to go as soon as the weather permits. They will be putting in a 50 unit hotel. Those are the types of things that we are going to be looking at. He will not say it is a full time job but he puts in his fair share of hours in up here and so would someone else.

Alderman Richard remarked that he is also on call 24/7. He also stated that the treasurer’s and clerks’s salary does not cover their time.

Mayor Johansen stated that any elected official salary increase must be approved 180 days before the election. If people see results he doesn’t think they mind paying that. When they see the good things, he knows we have had a lot of negative press lately. The positive things we have going on will out weigh all of that. He thinks people need to be made aware of that and that it couldn’t happen without all of us working together on projects.

Alderman Franklin commented that it is a tough balance between paying somebody for doing the job and not paying so much that people wanted to run for that office because they want a paycheck.

Alderman Stover felt this needed to be addressed before the next couple of meetings.

Mayor Johansen went on to comment about the subdivision that he thought not only would it be good for Lexington but for this whole area because you are not going to find anything like this. Our investment right now is 100 foot of road or so and water and sewer. He thinks if we can get the Park District interested, and he doesn’t know about the school, and if the city got involved somehow, he thinks there is potential. He thinks the rec center could house a little coffee shop for the people out there. If the fitness center decided they wanted to expand and have more equipment, maybe open up a second location. There are a lot of possibilities. Something Mr. Chaney didn’t cover tonight is, he converted all of his office space to solar. That is what he would like to do with the rec center. It would be like a carport on the back side that would have the solar panels on it.

Discussion/Vote on 2020 Calendar

Mayor Johansen noted that there were no changes to the calendar from 2019 but it must be voted on every year.

Motion was made by Alderwoman Wilson and seconded by Alderman Franklin to approve the 2020 calendar. Motion carried unanimously.

Committee reports:

Mayor’s Report: Mayor Johansen reported that the city’s new website is put together and should be up and running in late January or February. It should be more user friendly than the old site. He asked all aldermen to write a short bio to go on the website before the next meeting.

Not much new to report on Casey’s. They close on the property January 15th but we don’t expect much going on out there until late spring. The surveyors have gone out and marked where the road is going to go, turn lane, etc. We are getting some ideas of how we are going to approach that. We will have a Street and Alley Committee meeting in January and go over some of that.

He met with Jazbar Suda with Suda Builders and Construction out of Naperville, he specializes in new construction of hotels, restaurants and department stores. He is going to meet with them the week he gets back to discuss the hotel, location, etc. He is ready to move right away on that.

The new water billing system will go online in February. It will be a postcard type of bill. We are going to save a lot on postage, envelopes and stuffing the envelopes. The newsletter will still be printed and will be offered online or we will have copies here, at the Library or at the grocery store. The new water billing software will allow you to have your water bill emailed to you as well. We will be saving over $400 a month on postage.

He found out today he was appointed by the Illinois Municipal League to serve on the Public Health and Safety Commission. He feels that someone is paying attention to what we are doing in Lexington.

Police: None

Building/Insurance: Alderman Franklin reported that he would have two ordinances for the next meeting. One would be to deed over the triangular lot on the North side of Douglas Road to Casey’s and Attorney Shields suggested redoing the Ordinance for listing the surplus property as it was done over a year ago and did not quite follow the protocol as to have those surveyed.

Mayor Johansen explained that the way Attorney Shields explained it to him was when the ordinances were approved they were approved the way they were then. Now that we have had them separated into different parcels we have to go through and make an amendment. Hopefully will be done by the next meeting.

Finance/TIF: Alderman Stover is still waiting to hear back for the levy approval.

Mayor Johansen reported that the audit is done and we should be getting it within the next week or so. The question was asked about the price of the audit which was about the same as last year. The auditor from last year had doubled his price was the reason we changed auditors. Star is real happy with the new company and they will give us advice on how to make things work better.

Water/Sewer/Sanitation: None Street/Alley: None

There being no further business a motion was made by Alderman Richard to adjourn at 8:06 p.m. Motion carried by unanimous voice vote.

https://www.lexingtonillinois.org/images/agenda-minutes/Minutes_December_23_2019.pdf