City of Lexington City Council Met May 10.
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 Stover, Alderman Franklin, Alderman Colclasure and Alderman Richard. Alderman Schreiber was attending remotely and Alderwoman Wilson was absent. Members of the staff and public present were: Kenneth Sours, Bill Elias, Violet Wright and Shane Little.
It was moved by Alderman Colclasure and seconded by Alderman Franklin to approve the minutes of the March 8, 2021 closed session meeting minutes. Motion carried unanimously.
It was moved by Alderman Colclasure and seconded by Alderman Franklin to approve the minutes of the April 26, 2021 regular City Council meeting. Motion carried unanimously.
It was moved by Alderman Stover and seconded by Alderman Franklin to approve the Treasurer’s Report and paying of the bills in the amount of $51,165.22. It was noted that Real Estate Taxes for the Brandt property were paid out of this amount. They gave us a check at closing to pay this. Motion carried with four yes and Alderman Colclasure voting present.
Public Input: None
Old Business:
Discussion/Vote Ordinance 2021-5: Transfer of Property, Lot 6 Block 20, 102 E. Parkway
This is a formality that needs to be done in order to finalize the sale of the two properties that were sold around the Park and then the attorney can move forward with the quick claim deed. This is the building that housed the police cars and was sold to Dan Vance.
Motion was made by Alderman Franklin and seconded by Alderman Stover to approve Ordinance 2021-5: Transfer of Property, Lot 6 Block 20, 102 E. Parkway. Motion carried unanimously.
Discussion/Vote Ordinance 2021-6: Transfer of Property, Lot 5 Block 20, 104 E. Parkway It was noted that there was a typo on the ordinance which needed to be corrected.
Motion was made by Alderman Richard and seconded by Alderman Franklin to approve Ordinance 2021-6: Transfer of Property, Lot 5 Block 20, 104 E. Parkway with the correction of the amount in Section 2. Motion carried unanimously.
Discussion/Vote on Final Plan for Quonset Hut
There still seems to be some confusion on the reasoning why some of the aldermen want to wait until fall to finish the repairs on the quonset hut. The money is in the budget and will be done this year and several aldermen think it should be done now as opposed to waiting till fall. The reasoning behind this is that the roof currently leaks and in the fall there is a lot of corn dust from the elevator in the air. Mayor Johansen needs some direction as to why we are not going to go ahead and do it now. They also need to make sure they are on the books for Slagel to do the work.
Alderman Richard does not want to spend the money. He feels we should wait and put up a new building. That we will never get our money out of this building. He feels for the amount of money we are going to spend we could get something bigger and better.
Mayor Johansen feels that the estimate that he gave the council was a fair estimate of getting everything done for under $70,000 and that we would get our money back should we decide to sell it. He does not see the city selling the building.
Alderman Colclasure feels we have spent four years talking about a new building and have traded our lot to Brandt and are back to square one and need more space. True Value needs more space and the Fire Department needs more space. How are we going to handle the growth of the city? We have $93,000 from the sale of the buildings around the Park and we have some dollars from sales tax.
Mayor Johansen reminded the council that part of the agreement from the sale was to take the money and fix up the buildings from the Brandt sale.
Alderman Stover feels that if the roof leaks we should fix it and spray the insulation on. Make it look nice.
The cost of new construction is out of site.
Mayor Johansen reminded the council the reasoning behind the Brandt deal was to bring new businesses to town and to get the city some storage. He has at least one person interested in the brick building by the Shake Shack.
Alderman Franklin thinks if the money is in the budget to go ahead and do it. Once we start putting stuff in it we will be surprised how much we can get in it.
Motion was made by Alderman Franklin and seconded by Alderman Colclasure to spend up $75,000 on repairs to the quonset hut. Motion carried with four yes and Alderman Richard voting no.
New Business:
Swearing In of New Alderman: Shane Little
Clerk Pease swore in new Alderman Shane Little who replaced Alderman Colclasure. Budget Discussion
Alderman Stover led this discussion reporting that he had the preliminary numbers for everyone to look at.
He made some adjustments with TIF revenue being down this year. What has really hurt us the last few years has been the county tax rate has gone down.
Motor Fuel Tax will take a one time hit.
The TIF revenue and expense looks balanced, there is nothing for grants. He believes what we are going to need to do is align our grants with repayment revenue coming back in from our loans.
We have the income from the wind farms for our Main Street improvements by the railroad tracks.
Sewer Fund is balanced and we do have a generator purchased this year.
The Water Fund is in good shape. We had to increase the fund balance by $40,000. We had to add back to the fund due to the Water Tower project in 2023.
On the General Fund we purchased a dump truck for about $48,000.
Sales tax is projected to increase not just from additional revenue from Casey’s but also as we come out of the pandemic.
Alderman Stover commented that there is no interest income showing. Currently there is no money invested. It was not earning anything and he is looking for something. They have applied for grants for the Orange Street project but have not heard anything.
There is still potential money coming in from Motor Fuel but no idea on a figure. Committee Reports:
Mayors Report: Mayor Johansen reported on the following items:
He has had some interest in the building next to the Shake Shack. It has been put out for business proposals and the due date is June 1st. We will have those to discuss at the first meeting in June.
The new owner of Charlie Koch’s building has done some work on the inside and will replace the brick sometime in May. He has put in for a TIF request but the application was incomplete. He is looking to bring a business into the building.
We have applied for a grant for the Orange Street subdivision. We are waiting to hear from Darrin LaHood’s office. We are hoping to hear something positive about that.
The hotel is still pending. They still want to add on to BP and put some diesel pumps out there.
He has been attending some County Board meetings on the redistricting of McLean County. This is done every 10 years when the census comes out, the county looks at how the districts are broken up and if they need to be re-divided in McLean County. Right now there are 20 districts and two board members for each district. It was the Mayor’s Association recommendation that they bring that down to five districts with four members from each district to get more representation. That is the proposal going before the County Board for a vote. He has voiced his concern at the meeting and with the county board members that regardless of how many county board members we have representing district one, if they don’t come around and ask us what is going on or make contact with us, it doesn't make any difference. The only time he had seen one of them was when he ran for office.
There were 40 booths at Red Carpet and they lost one vendor due to the wind. The state site had us listed as having a vintage car show and live music.
He will be working on committee assignments and wants to stress more committee work in the upcoming term.
He has had some interest in Alderman Schreiber’s council seat and plans to make a recommendation at the next council meeting.
He included in tonight's meeting packet a letter from an attorney regarding the Vern Owen’s water issue. He does not feel there is any reason to go any further with it. He did not forward the letter to our attorney due to the cost. We know what it will cost to put that service in.
He would like to elect a mayor pro tem for the entire year. He had Alderman Franklin in mind.
We got a letter from the attorney on the closing on the Brandt property. The Post Office property needs to be done differently than what we did. It should be ready for the next meeting.
The Lockenvitz property was published and bids will be opened on May 24th. That will be on the June agenda. Part of the bid advertisement was the house has got to be demolished.
Police: Alderman Richard commented that several people had commented how happy they were with the restaurants in town.
Building/Insurance Alderman Franklin commented that he was working on getting the closing documents and transfers finished up.
Finance/TIF: None
Water/Sewer/Sanitation: Mayor Johansen reported that there were a couple of water leaks that they got fixed and there were a couple more that they are working on. We did add a buffer to the budget to cover the asphalt next year.
Street/Alley: None
There being no further business, motion was made by Alderman Franklin to adjourn at 7:54 P.M. Motion carried by unanimous voice vote.
https://www.lexingtonillinois.org/images/Minutes_May_10_2021.pdf
Alerts Sign-up