McLean County Times

City of Lexington City Council met Feb. 10.

Here is the agenda 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 Spencer Johansen led the council in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Roll call was taken to find the following physically present: Mayor Spencer Johansen, Alderman Stover, Alderman Richard, Alderwoman Wilson and Alderman Franklin with Alderman Little and Alderman Mattingly absent. Members of the staff and public present were: Gabe Biehl.

It was moved by Alderwoman Wilson and seconded by Alderman Richard to approve the minutes of the January 13, 2025 regular session meeting. Motion was tabled until the next meeting with three yes and Alderman Franklin voting present.

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 $48,118.55. Motion carried unanimously.

Public Input: None

Old Business: None

New Business:

Discussion/Vote TIF Agreement Emerald & Amethyst, LLC.

This is for the new book store and coffee shop. They are doing a fantastic business. The amount is for $2,000.

Motion was made by Alderman Stover and seconded by Alderwoman Wilson to approve the TIF agreement for Emerald & Amethyst, LLC. in the amount of $2,000. Motion carried unanimously.

Discussion/Vote Resolution 2025-1: NIMS (National Incident Management System)

This is a formality that needs to be in place to get some grants and to address emergency response should we have a major incident. It will be worked through the Chief or through the Mayor.

If we have a major incident, it allows for someone to come in to assist the Police Department at no cost. Major incidents could be tornados, etc. Without this resolution we would not be eligible for grants or other government aid.

Motion was made by Alderman Franklin and seconded by Alderman Stover to approve Resolution 2025-1: NIMS (National Incident Management System). Motion carried unanimously.

Discussion Reference Budget/Finance Committee Meetings

Mayor Johansen would like to see the Finance Committee meet with section heads during February, March and April to go over requests for the budget.

Mayor Johansen and Alderman Stover have said that it is not a good idea to have only one person with all the information. They need to be prepared with a backup plan.

Alderman Stover does have projections on insurance, water, sewer and streets so they have been looking at theirs. He is down to admin and primarily projects and overall expenses.

COMMITTEE REPORTS:

Mayor’s Report: Mayor Johansen reported on the following:

The attorney has sent Ben Snodgrass and Brian Hoggins a letter regarding the hardware store and he has not heard anything back from them. He did try to contact Brian but he was out of town and did not know when he would be back. He will reach out to him again prior to April 1st. The worst that could happen is that we will get the property back.

He has been working on bringing a business between Dollar General and Subway and working on that intersection. The design study cost for the intersection when we brought in Casey’s was $24,000 and now it was $55,000. The county is telling us we need to make all these improvements to their road. He does not want to pay that much for a design study of an intersection. They have engineers on staff that do this on a daily basis, so why can’t they do this?

He passed out a spread sheet that showed how much city residents pay to the county for property tax and how much various entities receive. The city receives only $204,000 out of $3.5M that Lexington residents pay. Heartland College receives more than we do to operate the city.

City residents are paying that much in taxes but when we go to the county and ask for something it is like we are begging for help and we should not feel that way. When we needed police protection we had to pay a lot of money.

Engineering fees are eating up our money and we have never put engineering fees out for bids. The max we can raise our tax levy is 5% before we need to have a hearing. He doesn’t want to raise taxes but when we look at the cost of inflation, equipment and salaries we can’t move fast enough. He thought bringing in more retail business would help, and it does.

Alderman Stover commented that our rate is actually coming down and this year is the lowest it has been but at some point we will have to catch up. We will have a higher target rate to satisfy the city’s needs after the TIF runs out.

Next year the new airport tax will be on the tax bills.

Mayor Johansen felt the county should do the engineering and calculating and we split the cost with them. They have to approve it so why not have them do it rather than go through Farnsworth. If we went through Farnsworth they still might not approve it and we would have spent $55,000. Their answer was they will give us the road. He is going to formally request that the county do the engineering design out there.

He is meeting tomorrow with the governor’s aide and sustainable housing group to discuss options at the subdivision. He is also going to bring up the need for the state to get involved with the need for smaller municipalities needing help to pay for infrastructure to get developers to come.

He wanted to compliment everyone that was out to the incident at Casey’s. They handled it very professionally by State Police, our Police and Public Works Departments. They got the barricades up and blocked everything off. They set up a command post at City Hall. Star made sure they had everything they needed. It is unfortunate that it happened but everyone did a good job.

Police:

Chief Edmiaston gave his January report: Arrests 1, Misdemeanor 0, Traffic Stops LXPD - 19, UTT’s - 8, Warnings - 11, Traffic Stops MCSP - 0, UTT’s - 0, Warnings - 0, Reports Taken - 6, LXPD - 6, MCSP - 0, Calls for Service - 71, LXPD - 29, MCSP/Other - 16, School Patrols (walk through/meetings/teaching/programs) - 10, Business Checks - 288, QR Code Checks - 12

Assistant Chief Chambers conducted an audit of the BWC’s and in-car video system and no issues were noted.

Building/Insurance Alderman Franklin reported that there had been an audit of their workman’s comp.

Finance /TIF Alderman Stover is working on a new budget.

Public Works Alderman Stover reported that they are getting a full replacement computer for the Water Plant and it will be in next year's budget.

They will be meeting with Billy DuBois and Farnsworth to install the software and to make sure that more than one person knows how to run the Water Plant. It was also discussed that Kaden Tolan should also be shown how to run the plant. They should also know how to run it manually.

There being no further business, a motion was made by Alderman Franklin to adjourn at 7:31 P.M. Motion carried by unanimous voice vote.

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/6434800fb878b80609076ac4/t/67bdf53afd70961a27c0af6b/1740502330252/Minutes+February+10%2C+2025.pdf