What is this? Oh, we got two up. What's going on? I have. Working through their permit time. Are you excited?

Blessers doing that? Good evening. Evelyn, could you please give the invocation?

Borrow heads, Father God, we thank you for being who you are in all areas of our government.

Thank you for leading and guiding this city council meeting tonight.

Father, please lead and guide every council member in all the discussions that are discussed tonight.

Let there be no division between any council member.

Psalms 33 12 says blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord we thank you for the city of Freeport and for the leaders you have put in place to lead us in Jesus name amen amen thank you Evelyn now we'll officially call this meeting to order madam clerk would you please take the role Mayor Miller here Alderpersons Clem here Monroe here Simmons is absent Parker here Stacy here Shadle, Here, Sanders, Here, and Sellers, Here, and Alderperson Simmons, are you present?

If you could please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance led by Alderman Sellers.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible.

Alderman Sellers, the meeting's yours.

Thank you.

At this time, can I have a motion to approve the agenda?

So moved.

Second.

It was approved by, first by Greg, well, Shadle, thank you.

Shadle and Clemm.

Okay.

All those in favor?

All those in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed?

Motion passes.

Approval of minutes from the Committee of a Whole meeting held on December 9, 2,024.

So moved.

Second.

Okay, it was first by Shadle.

Oh, right here.

It's okay, Yohan.

Okay, first Shadle, okay, and second, Clemm.

Okay.

All in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed?

Motion passed.

At this time, we'll have public comments, and there are three names.

The first name is Diane Yoakam.

Hello, my name is Diane Yochum, and I'm a citizen of Freeport, and I noticed on the agenda number 15 that it's coming up again about some of the ordinance changes that one wants to do, I think, to some of the meeting principles that go on here, in particular fines and so forth.

One part of that that I especially want to speak against is section 20, I believe it's 20 part 4, where it states in this, any member present when his or her name is called to vote on any question during a meeting of the city council or any of its committees and who shall refuse or neglect to vote shall forfeit $100 of their compensation for the current month unless he or she has a conflict of interest.

McF and Dr. Comm in section 45.3 that there is a right of abstention and it is not necessarily always connected to having a conflict of interest and so by putting this in I think it is an unjust and unfair principle that is being added into this because for me not only is it unjust but it also I think is down a slippery slope of basically a form of vote suppression of city council members and heaven knows we've got concurrence I have no concerns about that enough as it is, and that I do not think this is fair, that it's right, that it's just, and I think it's very undemocratic, per se. I don't particularly like this whole ordinance as a whole, but some of these principles, I think, are not necessary. You already have, I understand, in the ordinance rules about what you can do and cannot do regarding this, and I think these changes are completely unnecessary for the reason that I spoke about.

Robert's Rules of Order, I suggest you look at 45, 3, and read that section through. There's another area where it talks about if you have a conflict of interest, which by all means, any person should indeed abstain from voting, but by right, you do have that under Robert's Rules of Order, the option to abstain whether or not, and it doesn't have to be called an abstention when the vote is called, Call, but you do, by right, have that freedom and that opportunity to abstain. Thank you.

Thank you. Next on the list is Akia Sanders. How y'all doing? This is my sister. We own 404 together.

I just want to state that she was never served at her address. Steve Cox used my address to serve her.

My sister lives in Rockford, and they ask you, where do you want the deed sent? She sent the deed to me.

but that was not to be used as her primary address he did that on his own I was also called Friday by the police to say that they are not going to press any charges on Tony I don't know if his last name Miller Albert or whatever his name is because they would have a hard time proving intent there was three different occasions he brought my belongings to whoever but it's called a theft after the fact or something like that but you mean to tell me three times he didn't know he had my stolen property, insane. And then on another note, as this came out, I was told that Rob Boyer was asking or telling people, do you know who this is about? This is Akia Sanders. I don't know what he meant by that, but I just want him to know that means more, says more about you than it says about me. Okay, next on the list is Cheryl, is it Altman? Thank you. Good evening. I owned a house at 124 Black Hawk. And I think that they did the fast track demolition process on me. We were not served any notice, no registration. One day it was there, the next day it was gone. And we had a whole bunch of stuff in there. And matter of fact, when they went through my house, they broke in to go through the house. The house was locked. So now I lost not only my house, but all my building material that was in

this house. And that's unfair that I was not served any notice. And then we have another property, that we're trying to get it. We have our contractor's license. We're trying to get a permit. We had to have an engineer it for 16 to 422 and a half prospect years. We had the engineer come in, gave them the report that it's a sound building. We got a permit last year, but they refused to give me this year, and we were two-thirds of the way done with the house, and now they want to try tearing that down, too. This is unfair. The city needs to take a look at some of their buildings, like the Raleigh building, which has been a very eyesore for years.

and you guys got grants but yet it's still standing and you got trees growing in there hundreds of windows that are broken that's the biggest eyesore in Freeport. Okay, at this time we'll move to discussion seven discussing regarding possible implementation of a flock license plate reader LPR and video system presentation by Chief Schimberger. Thank you. So the Freeport Police Department has utilized vigilant which is Motorola, LPR cameras at various locations in the city and sound thinking gunshot detection sensors.

The use of LPR cameras and sound thinking have significantly helped the PD staff with shots fired investigations.

LPR cameras have also benefited PD staff with investigating other crimes including recovery of stolen vehicles, serious felonies, and retail thefts.

Staff has been working with representatives at the end of the day.

working with representatives from FLOC with potentially expanding our technological resources that will allow officers to be more proactive and improve the response to criminal incidents. FLOC offers a three-pronged approach, LPR cameras, live video cameras, and gunshot detection. The City of Freeport is currently under contract with sound thinking and vigilant until 2027. Staff is looking for other alternatives to improve public safety and feels that FLOC can offer more alternatives under one user-friendly program. So there is no funding at this time or any cost. This is just something we're looking to explore and looking into possibility of maybe being some grant funding out there or in the future of reallocating funds that's used towards sound thinking and vigilant after the expiration of the contracts. But the contract with vigilant was paid up front, so there is no annual cost with that.

until the contract expires. I also have Blaine Thomas. He's a representative from Flock. He's just going to, you know, give a little presentation to the council and everyone who's watching here and at home just to give you an idea of what Flock can do for the city.

Yes, thank you, chief, and to the council and everybody here. I know that you all have a packed agenda tonight, so I greatly appreciate y'all.

given us the time to go through this. Yeah, absolutely. While he's pulling up the slides, I can speak a little bit to who Flock is. My main objective for this time is really to highlight what the company, what our company does, what Flock does, briefly speak to our technologies. There's a lot to go into, but I'm going to try to highlight the ones that the chief brought up. And then finally, kind of share the vision of Flock and how how all the technology works.

What does that mean, Flock?

Flock's the name of our company.

Huh?

It's just the name of the company.

Name of the company?

Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Correct.

All right.

So to give you all some context, Flock is a public safety technology company.

We have a host of hardware sensors, whether that be live video, LPR cameras, gunshot detection, drones, mobile security trailers, a number of different technology assets. We then take all of that data and put it into a public safety platform that allows the police department to make objective data-driven decisions. To give you a little bit of an idea of the scale of our company, we work with approximately 1,500 law enforcement agencies in cities across the United States, have right at about 90,000 license plate reading cameras throughout throughout the country. For the sake of time, I'll kind of continue here. So the way that the way that the company works is so... Could I please get your name while we're waiting? Yeah, Blaine Thomas. Thank you. Yep. I can go from here. Am I able to scroll down on this? Okay, great. Yeah, so I went into this a little bit. I'll be brief on this slide. We at Flock, we understand that public

Public Safety creates dynamic challenges and it's also a resource constraint business, whether that be manpower or financial resources. We use our technology to try to multiply the impact that a police force and a city can ultimately have while still providing safeguards to ensure that the public's data is that the city is a good steward of public data.

To kind of go over this one more time, so at the top you'll see a number of different technologies, what you see from left to right is LPR, gunshot detection, and live video. We also have a few other products, but those are the primary ones that I'll speak to this evening. We have a three-pronged approach when it comes to the data that our technology captures. We detect the data, and then we decode it, and then we deliver it.

In that decoding layer, we take AIML models and put it over the different technologies that we have, whether that be over the image that a license plate reader captures or a video stream that a live video camera will pick up. And then we ultimately deliver the data in a digestible manner to law enforcement. There's a number of different ways that we do that, which I'll go into when I dive into to the products a little bit more. LPR cameras, this is something that you all already have in the city.

What makes our LPR cameras a little bit different is that they are plugged into the nationwide network of FLOT cameras.

What that means is that if, say, a vehicle that is associated with a felony warrant out of Chicago, Bloomington, insert whatever city you will, If one of those passes a camera in your city, the police department will get alerted to that.

The idea of that is being able to prevent crime, to go and investigate certain vehicles before a crime is committed.

Also, the police department has the ability to go back and look at historical data.

So if an incident happens in a given, you know, in a given part of the city, the police department can go back and see what vehicles were in the city during that time. I was just down visiting a customer on the eastern side of the state. They had a 911 call that somebody heard gunshots and that was the extent of what the police department had. They looked at their LPR cameras in the area within about a 15 minute time window of that 911 call.

call. Saw one car that had blood on it, one car that had bullet holes in it. So the idea, right, is being able to give the police department more data, more insights to do their job. I always like to just spend a second on the slides. I think it's important. Just really speak to what LPR is, what it isn't. An LPR takes a license plate reader takes a picture of the back of the vehicle. We are going to get the license plate of that vehicle as well as some unique characteristics, make, model, color, if there's a bumper sticker, roof rack, etc. What we are not doing with these cameras is there is no facial recognition going on. We are not looking for or at individuals. We are simply just looking at a vehicle. Next piece that I want to go into is live video. Live video is nothing that is new. What makes our live video cameras a little bit different is that they have the ability to detect people and vehicles. So while it's not an LPR camera, it can still record characteristics of vehicles that pass it as well as have features like people detection so if if you know if let's just say that if if you want to be alerted to you know maybe groups of people past a certain time of night the the cameras have the capability to do that next gunshot detection gunshot detection is also not Gunshot detection is also not a new technology. We have a couple statistics on this board that we take pride in. First one would be 90% accurate to within 90 feet. Gunshot detection is really only as good as it is accurate. We actually slow rolled this product to market to make sure that it was as accurate as possible. If you have a wide area that a potential gunshot could have happened, it is not as effective as if we can

triangulate it to a relatively precise area. The one thing that I do want to talk to you before I speak to how this platform works together are the things that we do to make sure that data is protected. Ultimately, the police department, therefore the city, owns all of its data.

data. We do not sell the data. I personally don't have access to the data. It's not like every flock employee has access to the data or anything like that. The city owns the data. The city is able to create policies around their data and you own 100% of that data. Also, the data is only retained for 30 days. This is not a technology that can go back and look at the movements of an individual over two years. The idea is to get this objective data for a period of time to allow law enforcement to do their jobs and then to have the data go away.

There also is a transparency portal, which we provide if the city would like that. This is a public website that anybody in the community or really the country can have access to. What this will do is it will show if the city has an LPR policy, it will show that, as well as how the LPR is used, any agencies in the area that might have access to that data. This will all be, this will all be public.

To speak a little bit about how the platform works together, I use this example here to kind of illustrate how it all comes together. LPR, live video, gunshot detection, they are products that do great on their own, but together they really start to have a profound impact.

So if we, this is a bank robbery case here, but if we use our imaginations here, if we get a hit on a LPR camera, and you have live video cameras in town as well, you can say, you know, if you get an alert on a LPR, you can then go into the live video cameras around there, and officers can be getting situational awareness to what is going on while they are en route, as opposed to just maybe getting a call for service and showing up to that call without a lot of context. Same thing works with gunshot detection. If you get an alert that a gunshot was detected, police can then go and look at the cars that were in the vicinity during that time, as well as pull up live video cameras to understand what is going on on the ground while in route.

I will pause there.

I think that that covers the 60,000-foot view, and more than happy to answer any questions if we are doing questions.

Are there any questions at this time?

Oh.

Thank you.

Alderman Moreau.

I've got a few.

Thank you. So just a quick deep dive into some of your past with cameras. Seems like there's a lot of issues with cameras popping up as far as the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution. I noticed that there was a lawsuit that was filed back in October of last year against Flock.

Flock. Storing this data for 30 days clearly is potentially a way to track somebody who's not committed any crimes. What is Flock doing to protect citizens' rights and the community from that type of intrusive behavior? Yeah, so what I will say to that is we have a legal team that I can connect you with that can answer that in depth. What I can, because I don't want to speak out of term on public record, what I can confidently say though is that there have been a number of cases where precedent was set that this technology is okay, the state of Illinois has said that this technology is okay under certain parameters. Our 30 days data retention is under the, that is a, that is less retention than the state law has, but I can, I can provide some greater context as a follow-up to you. Can I follow up? That'd be the two you wanted to be? We don't get two in this one. Oh, okay. Well, go ahead. So my second question coming back to that, and I appreciate that information, there are safeguards put in place so that a police officer or some official could not run your license plate multiple times to check on somebody's status, their information for no reason, just going in for random are there protections like that with this type of software? Yeah, that's a thank you for asking that question in the sake of trying to be timely. I breezed over that. Anytime that the system is used,

there's an audit trail. So if I so I cannot go in there and look up I cannot go in there and look at my wife's license plate willy nilly. What I would have to do is I would have to put a search reason as to why and then the system would log that myself, Blaine Thomas, searched XYZ license plate for whatever reason and that's an audit trail that lives in the system. Awesome, thank you very much. Yeah, thank you for the questions. Yeah, is that dedicated to the police department only of what Alderman Monroe was just saying? The ability to use the system? Yes. Yeah, Yeah, so the way that it works is yes. The police department ultimately is the, I don't want to say owner, is the owner of the system. And what I mean by that is a bad word. They manage the system. So the police department ultimately can, they grant access to who they want access granted to.

Okay, so this would not be something that the public can access? Yes, correct. Okay, what is a sound, thinking, vigilant that the city is currently running? You familiar with that? Yeah, those are competitor products to Flock. They are what? They're competitive. Those are products that our competitors have taken to market.

And the city of Freeport is affiliated or own anything of that nature? Chief, do you want to? Yeah, we have vigilant LPR cameras and then sound thinking, formerly known as ShotSpotter, we have a contract with them as well. And we only, do we have mapping of where these cameras are located? No, we don't. Okay, so who did the installation and then provide and the locations of these of these devices. Well, I mean, we know where they're at. They're fixed. They're in fixed locations. So, yeah, I mean, but the installation, I believe, I think we went to it in 2021, but it might not have been rolled out until 22. So. Okay. But these cameras that that we're looking at, the city hasn't purchased any of those yet, have they? Yeah, you're correct. The city has not purchased any of those.

cameras. Okay, and do you sell this all over the country? Is this device sold all over the country? Yes. Okay, and who does the installation of these cameras? We do. You do? Okay, at the discretion of the police department? Yes, correct. We require a permit for it. We pull permits for every installation, so whether that be on city right away or IDOT right away.

So there, okay, so there's books and pamphlet installations and the value of these cameras that the city might consider purchasing or may not consider purchasing, so there is things that we can look at to make a determination if that's the route that we'd like to go.

Yeah, just to understand, just to make sure that I understand the question correctly, are you asking, are there like budgetary quotes and other types of documentation? Yes. Yeah. Okay. All right. Thank you. Are there any other questions? Yeah. Okay. Alderman, Clem.

Chief Shenberger, I really appreciate you bringing this forward, like last year we brought forward the drones and they were turned down, but it shows that we have some of this existing technology now, but this is a chance to upgrade it, move it around, and locate it in more spots that may be more beneficial, but I appreciate the fact that you're proactive in taking a look at the different things that we can do.

So, needless to say, manpower is one thing that's increasing, but anything that we can do to help with assist manpower is really a great thing for the city. Thanks for bringing it forward.

City. Thanks for bringing it for me.

All the mistakes.

Yes, Chief Shenberger, I would like to know, are we or would we be replacing what we have already spent money on, or is this in addition to what we already have?

So, I mean, eventually the contracts with Vigilant and Sound Thinking, they expire in 2027, so we would have to consider renewing.

I'm just exploring options on perhaps getting started with the flock system and possibly, you know, transitioning to that if, you know, the council is on board with that. I mean, it just, I'm just putting this out there just to show, you know, what's available to us. As of now, Vigilant, like I said, has been, that was paid up front. So we don't, it doesn't cost us anything, but eventually it will again.

and the sound thinking, you know, we pay annually. There's two more years left on that as well.

That's the cut. Oh, I'm sorry.

Just a second. So you're saying, Chief Shenberger, that if we add this, this will take away the other two shot spotters that we have?

It could eventually, yeah, because, I mean, if you think about it, we have an LPR system that's one Company. Then we have Sound Thinking, that's another company. Well, they offer, you know, LPR's live video, which is something we've, well, I've been talking about, and gunshot detection all in one company, one program, instead of, you know, utilizing different programs. We have a fixed camera, you know, that takes one program. We have a portable camera that takes another. So it's just a good option to have, something that can offer all three with just one program.

Okay, so one more question. So this would be an upgrade, and we paying one bill instead of paying maybe two, or is that, would that be correct?

It could be, yeah, I see it as an upgrade, and I mean, he could talk more about the cost of it. So like, for example, Vigilant, right, we paid for that up front. I've had a couple things go wrong with them, so I had to go through the company for, to RMA to get them replaced.

that was quite a process it took about three or four months for me to get get the replacements and get them them fixed with with flock they would come out and just do it it's a per camera cost but that includes everything it's an all-inclusive it's like 3,000 a camera but it's all-inclusive that includes cloud storage that includes replacing the camera all that stuff. Okay, thank you. Any other questions. Oh, Yeah. It's Blaine, right? Yeah. Blaine, I've been to a couple presentations of Blaine's and just something I wanted to bring up that I thought was really valuable. Other police departments in the area, including, I believe, the county police, the state police in our area, and many of the smaller communities are utilizing Flock. Rockford is entirely Flock. Yeah, and Rockford, too. Yeah, I forgot about Rockford. Thank you.

and maybe you could speak to the ins and outs of that and what the benefit of being on the same program as the other communities around us.

Yeah, absolutely. Ms. Sellers, just so you're aware, there's a slide in the PowerPoint in your agenda packet that goes over some of the things that are included in the subscription, like the maintenance and everything like that.

Yeah, so one of FLOC's biggest value adds to a community is the broader network of FLOC. I briefly touched on it earlier, but when you join the FLOC network, you not only have access to the cameras that are in your city, but also the surrounding cities, really the state and beyond.

So that means that if a vehicle that was associated with a violent crime in Rockford, Illinois, if they entered into the city, your police department would be alerted to that immediately.

Additionally, if you were trying to find a suspect vehicle and you were relatively confident that they fled town, you would be able to look for that vehicle on any other agency's cameras that has shared their camera feeds with you.

So if somebody fled to, say, St. Louis and they passed by 19 flat cameras on their way out of town to St. Louis, the police department would be aware of that and could alert the police department in, say, St. Louis, for example, that that suspect was in their town.

I have one more question. So you're saying does it only have to be a flock camera or could it be any camera from any camera that takes pictures? I mean, does it only have to be your company or could it be any camera?

Any camera that's integrated into the Flock system. For example, there are some license plate readers that will be fixed to police cars. So that would be a case where those cameras are ingested into the Flock system. So that would be a case that that license plate is now in the Flock system.

Oh, okay.

So is that just in the state of Illinois?

No, so the cameras are all over the country. The reason that I use the state of Illinois is because LPR policy is different from city to city, so it ultimately is dependent on the policy of the police department and the broader city as to what cameras you have access to as well as what other cities have access to your cameras.

Any other questions?

So, would these cameras be placed on our comm-ed poles?

What poles? Excuse me. Sorry.

Utility poles.

Oh, utility poles. So, the cameras are infrastructure-free, so they run off solar power. So, we generally will put a pole in the ground ourselves. Mounting on power company poles can sometimes be costly.

or shouldn't say costly, but there can be a fee associated with that sometimes because that's not our property. And did you say it's $3,000 per camera? Approximately, yes. There are some differences in price based off different models, but for a standard camera, yes, ma'am, $3,000. One other comment I'll make because I've seen this a couple times and this was in a brief version. One of the stats that he had at another meeting I was at that I was really taken back by was 70% of the crimes use a vehicle at some point within the crime and so that's why the LPR technology is so important to the situation of finding out who does it. So for instance if somebody was targeting an area I think you said you could actually sort the vehicles to pick license plates that were from out of the area to that area.

area to narrow the field very quickly. And in the presentation that I was at, I mean, they could narrow the field in minutes, which time is of the essence with crimes. So it's kind of, it was very interesting to learn that. What's the acronym to the LPR? What's the acronym to the LPR? License plate reader. License plate reader? Is that what it means? Okay. Are there any other questions? Well, thank you so much. Thank you so much. Appreciate you all.

At this time, I would just like to know if Chief Shemberger, where do we go? Do we go to wanting to get more information or do we want to take a vote on it, put it in a first room? How do we want to do this?

This is just something I've been working on for a few months. Continue talking with Blaine and his team and we'll get to the point where I'll get a bid or get an offer and I let the council know and then let you guys decide what you want to do but right now it's just kind of in its infancy you know we're in the planning stage of it trying to find the best option that we have for the city while utilizing the technology we still have right now so and that we're using so okay and we currently have two more years in that contract correct yep any other questions if not we'll move on to number eight greater free for Partnership Quarterly Presentation to Council presented by Andrea Schwartz-Winters.

Are you putting it in presentation mode?

Okay.

All right.

Awesome.

Good evening and happy new year.

Tonight's presentation, we will cover the highlights of our work in the fourth quarter.

This information is outlined in more detail in the fourth quarter report that you received in your packets.

as Packets. As in previous presentations, we're outlining this in order of our strategic plan key focused areas, which just to remind you all are business retention and expansion, which involves our workforce development efforts, new business development and attraction. This includes attracting new businesses, helping businesses start, and assisting small businesses to grow. Marketing the region to prospective businesses and employers to show them the opportunities for growth and work in Stevenson County as well as marketing the partnership services to future and existing businesses. Visitor attraction, which encompasses our tourism attraction efforts. Advocacy and policy is related to our internal work and we do a lot to track legislation that might affect local industries and communities. It's been very active in the fourth quarter and I would foresee that in the first quarter of this year.

And we are looking to always build the partnership's capacity by increasing our membership numbers and maintaining a high retention rate.

I'd like to highlight some fourth quarter wins, some positive news from the fourth quarter.

As outlined in our strategic plan, we completed a countywide business survey.

There are some key factors and key takeaway points in the report you have before you, but the survey was completed last quarter and 84% of the businesses that responded reported that their company was stable or expanding. We see that as positive news. An existing ag manufacturer publicly announced last quarter that they have established a partnership to revolutionize ethanol production.

production by capturing and converting CO2. Now, this is not my area of expertise by any means, but I think if you see anything in conversations around what's happening in the energy sector and alternative energy, I think that this is key and this company is on the forefront. This project has been in the works for over two years. Enterprise zone benefits will be utilized to make this project come to fruition, but not only is this helping to diversify, this company's existing income stream. It's also allowing them to use something with their byproduct that puts them as a competitor and entering into another market. So they are looking at how do they continue production of ethanol and push into other markets at the same time. They're doing something that they're one of the first in the nation. This is outstanding work.

An existing manufacturer in Freeport added jobs to support a new service that was previously outsourced.

With that has come job creation, around nine new jobs.

We attracted a new manufacturer to Freeport to fill an existing space and co-locate with a current manufacturer.

This is still under development and in the works.

I will meet with this company later this week to get a better understanding of investment level and job creation number.

The former Visitor Center building was sold, closed on December 31st, and will open as a new business later this spring.

We were also awarded five awards at the state conference from the Illinois Main Street Association.

Two of those awards are in recognition of volunteers, awarded to Tim Connors and the Pretzel Pickers.

We were also able to take home some hardware in relationship to a promotional approach for our Rediscover Your Downtown campaign, and noteworthy was our economic vitality business startup program, Basecamp. Additionally, our organizational approach, the partnership was recognized for its merged collaborative approach to economic development, which is being sought after, this merged efficient model and other communities. Moving on to business retention and expansion, key activities where 18 business retention visits were conducted last quarter. As always, we need to understand what the needs and difficulties of our local businesses are so that we're able to respond to them with solutions and resources. I already mentioned our business survey results. We connected businesses with the Illinois Workshare Program, which is an alternative to layoffs. As you might see in the news, and I'll allude to this a little bit later is that there has been some upheaval commodity prices have been lower that has a ripple effect into some of in the ag manufacturing or ag sector with that you have some local manufacturers who are related to that sector and that they have taken a hit and so understanding that there are programs available for those businesses so that they can do something in an alternative to layoff we're trying to connect them with resources to keep as people employed here as we can. We worked with 11 entrepreneurs and assisted them in their business development process, the majority of which were women or minorities. We connected multiple Stevenson County businesses with an international business forum that was hosted by Representative Cabello. It was an opportunity to understand what they would need to do to kind of enter the global market and what relationships they would need to build, and there was representation from multiple

different countries. Workforce solutions. As we've talked about, we can't have thriving businesses without a talented workforce. The highlights of our workforce development effort was really around building our local workforce pipeline. We had the honor of working with our educational partners as well as our business community and really trying to bridge that gap in the fourth quarter by playing a key role in these three events.

here, working to coordinate, schedule, promote, help organize manufacturing day, the career and job fair, which was co-hosted by Highland Community College and Freeport High School, and the Ag Expo. These are, it's an opportunity for businesses, or for, excuse me, students to understand that there are future career opportunities right here. This was, they were able to secure internships and some job offers through these through these events, and I think maybe most importantly was the takeaway that employers and the community gave that helped the student to build an understanding that their community wants them to stay here, that there are opportunities for them to be gainfully employed and contribute to the community that they've called home. Additionally, last quarter we reported that our efforts led to a connection between the YIELD program and Goodwill Industries. We're happy to say that that effort is paying off.

This connection led to funding which has expanded the yield program training to include education on alternative energy sector and basic electrical construction this is a requirement as of the CEJA grant or that is an acronym for the climate and equitable jobs act so that was a key training component that needed to be involved in the yield program for them to access these funds to help fund the yield program next in business attraction and Development. In the last quarter, we received 14 leads. Eight of those originated from a statewide business attraction organization, Intersect Illinois. We were able to respond to five of those leads, those requests for information with information on existing property and sites. We were not able to respond to three leads due to the requirement of a large acreage and or a building that met specifically requirements, and one opportunity required a heavy water user that wouldn't work for the city of Freeport.

Additionally, there were six leads that originated from local businesses and or government agencies.

There are three new businesses, and three were existing or relocating businesses within the community.

I will now turn the presentation over to Nicole. We'll talk about marketing the region.

Good evening. Fourth quarter was really about trying to promote the area to existing residents to continue to help small businesses, organizations, and future events thrive, whether that was in the fourth quarter itself or in the upcoming year. We printed, it was a first-time project, a 12-month calendar, because we continue to try to find new ways to help people understand what's going on in this area. We continue to hear.

I didn't know that this thing happened until it was after it was passed. So this new 12 month printed calendar was funded by advertisers who paid for the availability of putting their event on a calendar date. And then that calendar is available in the homes of residents throughout Stevenson County. And they have a constant reminder of the things that are happening in the area. We have already gotten rid of 800 calendars. They really literally flew off the shelves. So we hope that With that success, we will have even more advertising dollars to make a larger print order next year.

Shop Local for the Holidays was the campaign started in mid-November, highlighting opportunities and different small businesses.

and different small businesses so residents could learn to shop local as they purchased all of their holiday gifts.

Mistletoe Walk was part of that as well, which happened on November 23rd. From our survey to downtown businesses who participated, we've received great reviews and actually participating locations for the most part.

all of them or a great portion of them over 70% cited increased in pedestrian traffic and increased sales in compared to the last year and the last year was a day and a half event and this was just in one day alone and I might also say weather was not as nice this year as it was in previous years so that really goes to show how many people came out to support businesses during mistletoe walk the photo you see here is another feature that we added this year in the lot next to jet Beauty. We actually set up a couple of different photo locations as well as a free s'mores bar for residents. Visitor attraction, we hosted our annual tourism partner meeting on November 14th at Lena Brewing Company. This is our opportunity to talk to the executive directors of different nonprofits who own attractions or hotels, a lot of other agencies here in town about what went well in 2021.

24, what we're planning on for 2025 and how we can be involved and also hear their feedback on other ways that we can help their attraction or organization. A lot of them have some issues with funding or increasing programming, so we continue to send multiple grant opportunities for attraction funding to those parties who can apply. The Choose Your Adventure campaign wrapped up in October with engagement that is greater than tourism industry average.

Why I recognize that is when you see the ads pop up, whether you're on social media or whether you're on Google, the amount of times that somebody will click on that ad is considered engagement. And the industry average for local tourism entities, we actually scored almost double what that industry average is. So that's a pretty good indicator that we've been using.

Pretzel City Brewfest, which was held September 28th, that is one of our largest tourism events where we are really looking to attract people from outside of this area. This year was no different. More than 50% of our attendees, because all of our tickets are purchased online, we can tell by zip code that they are all 50% or more were coming from 30 miles away. And I'll turn it over to Bill. Thank you.

Good evening. So membership was pretty steady in the fourth quarter. As you can see, we are still hovering around 400 members. We added 10 members over that course of time, and we continue to retain our members at a very high rate, which we're proud of and hope to continue to do. And really, that's all we have. If there was questions, I think we'd all be glad to.

entertainment. Are there any questions? If none? Oh, oh, I'm sorry, I didn't see you. I didn't see you. Okay.

So, Andrea, you did the first slides with the businesses, so these questions probably should come to you. So, my question was, with the increase in membership, that means we've gotten more businesses in Freeport? With the increase in membership to the partnership? Yeah. Well, we hope there's a correlation between that, right? I mean, it's our goal is that as we work with businesses and show our value that they become members to the partnership. Okay. Go ahead. So do those members pay? But my question is, do non-profit members pay to be a member? They do. We have a non-profit rate that's $165 a year. Okay. And then for the sale of the business center, was that to a business that you found and reached out to and convinced to come to Freeport? Not you personally, but the partnership. That was through a connection that one of the ownership group had. We worked with them. We met with them when they were going through their due diligence process.

And we talked about the enterprise zone that's out there, what their plans for the building were, how our organization could support their business as they move to Stevenson County. They're not a business that's here currently, and they would be relocating their business here. Right. So they came, they were coming anyways, and you reached out to see how you could help? Correct. Yes, they were. That was through a connection from the ownership group. Do you have any more questions?

I do. Oh, okay. What are retention visits? What does that mean? Retention visits? Sure. Great question.

It's really just a meeting. We go and we meet with the business and we talk about what's going on in their business. We usually ask them for some information around employment numbers. Is that changed? How do they see their business growing? Do they see their business declining? How do they see their business fitting into the larger market? What can we do to help? Are there having any infrastructure troubles. Are they having workforce issues? It's really just a meeting to talk about the health of their business. Is it okay? Is that okay? Yeah. So if in these retention visits they say, hey, I'm missing this, this, and that, then do you go out and find that for them or at least put them in touch with the people who need it? Yes, absolutely. Right. And so sometimes it's not even, there are programs that we connect them with, like, let's use the work share program as an example. It sat down with a business and they were talking about that they were going to be slowing down in the fourth quarter and that they looked like they were going to be running not as many days, not as many shifts per week. And so I knew there was a potential that there could lay off or furlough workers. And so I knew of this work share program, their HR department did not currently, that's where we coordinated and had a presentation. And then I invited as many businesses, I let all the businesses know that we were offering this to try to connect them with resources. So your question is exactly, that's what we're doing is

we're connecting them with the resources that are there. And if there aren't resources that meet that need, how can we help create a solution to the problem? Did that answer your question?

Yes, yes. I'm looking at these, this annual report, looking at the slides that are being presented. All of the slides that have been presented has no pause, no gaps, or has no time to inject a question. While the slides are flowing, the audience or the council has not an opportunity to elaborate on the the things that you're presenting. And my thing is, if you're presenting these types of slides, then there must be a space where questions can filter in because you're blowing over these slides, your whole crew is going over these slides, but we're not able to inject a question to open it up to the public so we can get more collaboration, for detailed information in regards to all of the things that we've been hearing. I'm subject to ask, well, I want to ask all this that you laid out in these slides, where can we find more detailed information so we can follow up because there was no telephone numbers to make contact with during these slides and things of this nature.

the companies that you and the visiting the visitors programs whatever programs that are going on objectively throughout the city we have no way to validate whether or not these things have taken place this is just stuff that is thrown together and we're supposed to assume that is relevant to the council if we don't have further details we just can't take things top that right off the surface and can't dig deeper into the programs that you're presenting and the slides that you're presenting.

So I think I would like to see more detailed construction of what we're doing or what you're doing because that is very relevant to us because the public needs to hear more details in the effects that the Greater Freeport is causing, creating within the city.

I mean, I mean, it's almost like we didn't slow this this videotape down or this track down. We didn't get a chance to absorb it mentally because it was just flying by us. And so if we want to have a opportunity to come back and ask you about these things, because there's a whole lot of things that took place.

There's a whole lot of things that took place in the last quarter, according to you guys, but we have not had an opportunity to evaluate these things and objectively looked at it for our own satisfaction, and we're just not contesting the things that you're bringing to the council, and I would like to be able to absorb more of the details of the work that you're doing.

guys are doing because this is just surface annual reporting that is not digging deep into the process of what your program is all about. So that's all I'm saying. I just need to get more.

Other person, Sanders, well, first, this would be a great time if there's any questions that you'd like to ask about anything we presented, we would be happy to answer.

Sure. Second, I know, I think in the agenda was linked to this report that's here. This is our full fourth quarter report. And we just extrapolated or took out highlights of what's in here and presented it to you tonight. So more detail is in here. And I would be happy or any member of staff would be happy to sit down and we can answer any questions you have at a later time. If you want to walk through this, we would be happy to answer any questions then or now.

Yeah, because I also want to make sure that the general public can get access to these kinds of things because we're all are querying about what it is that Greater Freeport Partnership is actually doing. And I just don't want you to come here and just give us these reports without giving us really analytics.

No, and understood that this would be of benefit for anyone in the public residents of Freeport or Stevenson County to know what we're doing. And that is why everything that I've mentioned tonight, as well as a link to this report, is on our website at greaterfreeport.com. People are welcome to view that and reach out to us if they have specific questions. Sure. All right. Thank you. Yes. You had said something about grant funding. Who can apply?

who can apply for grant funding that you have?

We can, well, I think I'll let Nicole elaborate on that, is that the grant that we, the grant funding that we helped other organizations apply for was not grants that we were administering or there were grants that we operate.

We were connecting those organizations to a grant opportunity that I believe the state had in this specific instance.

I believe I was the one who mentioned that. The Illinois Office of Tourism provided two grant opportunities that closed in December. We provided those via email. I mean, they're always available through the state, but we were just alerting the attractions and events who we thought fit the criteria to those.

and then offered our help in writing letters of support, helping to gather data for that those opportunities. Also from the Foundation for Northwest Illinois, they have a letter of intent that is soon due on February 1st. So we have alerted nonprofit organizations that can apply for those funds as well to that opportunity. So we try to be selective to really send opportunities to where they're going Okay. I have one more question. On your hotel occupancy, this is your fourth quarter report, but it stops at September. What happened to October, November, and December?

I apologize for that. When I had to send it to you guys, the last hotel had not submitted theirs. I will send out the revised report for that.

I didn't want to guess at their occupancy for the fourth quarter and I hadn't heard back from them so thank you for noticing that I will send they got back to me of course the day after your agenda came out so I will resend that to everybody so you can see that thank you so much for asking the visitors for site that was sold who find I mean who does all of the real estate I think the state is governed by, I should say, and who takes care of that, and when was it up for sale again? We didn't get any reports on that, and we'd like to get a report on where did the asset go that was invested in that property or sold for that property, where did all of those things go, and where did they end up? And then not only that, the building, something else that you brought up that was supposed to be purchased. Did I hear that right?

If I can answer your first question, and then if there was another question about a purchase, I'm happy to have you follow up. The Stevenson County Visitor Center Board, which is a separate organization from the partnership, was founded to construct the visitor center. That organization, which was a separate nonprofit owned the visitor center and the partnership leased that building to run visitor center services from that facility. So when it was sold, that was never an asset of the partnership. We were only leasing that space. So what they there, it was their business to sell it, you know, authorize the sale. And what they do with that money is up to that board. That's completely separate from our organization.

So that's the Stevenson County It is a separate non-profit. It has nothing to do with the actual county. It was just the name of the organization. Oh, that purchased the building. They were the ones who owned the building and sold it.

And sold it. Okay. All right. Thank you.

You had two events to raise money. One was for decorations for next year Christmas, and one was to beautify downtown. Did I miss it or was that spoken about? It's outlined in the actual written report. I mean, I know we would love to highlight lots more, but we try to be respectful of everybody's time, which is why we provide so many different opportunities to read about things.

The first concert that you were saying was for downtown beautification actually had to be canceled. That never happened. So that one, it is actually rescheduled. I believe it's for April 5th, if my memory serves me. And then the second one was Christmas Wizards, which was held at the Masonic Temple. Christmas what? Christmas Wizards. It was a Trans-Siberian Orchestra tribute. That is the one that was for future holiday decorations. Obviously, holiday decorations are an asset that, you know don't depreciate in a year they would be available for years to come so we are still collecting expenses from that but we do anticipate having a profit from that that will then be restricted for holiday decorations in the future but you haven't made a profit yet we are still so it hasn't been or I guess just today it's a full 30 days so we're still collecting all of the expenses so I'd hate to give you a full figure right now are there any other questions I do. Thank you. This is a question, I'm not sure who would handle it. How much city funding was used to build the visitor center? Oh, that, I'm not positive. And that was in 2005? Yes. So very much predates this organization, let alone me. So would the sale return any of that funding back to the city?

so the this is the my only portion of it that I know Alderman Monroe so I will give you what I can that the majority of those payments have been paid by hotel motel tax I don't know if there was an any initial investment at all from the city of Freeport again that would have been much earlier in the construction project and that would have to go question to be asked to the the nonprofit who owned the board or who owned the building okay Sorry, I'd like to follow up with another question. So on your slides, there were three businesses that did not, we didn't answer their request for information. 200 acre sites, one heavy water user. Sounds an awful lot like manufacturing, distribution, food production kind of businesses.

businesses. We've been talking about this for four years now. We've put almost $2 million into the GFP and we're still not in any better place to bring in large-scale businesses that would help a significant number of Freeport residents, county residents, so on and so forth. How do we fix that problem that we've got?

because we've been asking the same question, and I know the city manager, we keep asking him, we're not getting the answers that I would like to hear, especially when we've invested 60-something, almost $65 million into the water, wastewater treatment plant.

Yeah, it would be great to use that.

Yeah, it would be great to use a heavy water user that would be able to pay some of that back, right?

So one of the key things we know, greenfield site development, having shovel-ready sites is key, not only for attracting new businesses, but for any existing businesses that would need to expand. Late last quarter, we submitted a grant application to the state of Illinois for a site readiness planning grant.

The state said that they were going to what notice of award was in January. So we're waiting to hear that would help us. We that grant was structured for planning, not construction, but it would help us identify key locations where we could do planning activities. We've already met with some of the landowners, but what would it take to get infrastructure there so that it could become shovel ready. So it's kind of the first step. We hope to get any day now.

I think we had a little bit of misinformation there, but I'll see if I can correct some of it. The city has zero amount of money in the in the visitors bureau years ago. It was organized by a group of people. It was a complete separate entity. I think it ended up that there were four people that ended up owning it. They ended up selling it and they ended up selling it and they ended up selling it.

Bill in it, so guess what? The money's there. We can talk about shovel-ready projects. For years, we can start out by Mill Race Crossing. The county themselves lost about three places that were going to go in there and were voted down by the county. We still do not have water and sewer there, which is a big entity, which makes it a shovel-ready project.

As you get these things from the state of Illinois, they are required to fill out the paperwork for them.

So if we don't have 120 acres of farm there that somebody's going to sell to produce a land for, it's not their issue to come up with it.

It's their issue to work with people to see if that's available.

and obviously that is not available and if it's a big water user, needless to say, we're reconstructing it at the plant and have been and there'll be phase two, three, and four. So it isn't as though it's something that's going to end tomorrow and it's going to continue. But all those costs are not necessarily laid on the greater Freeport partnership. A lot of those costs are laid upon the city of Freeport, the county of Stevenson.

if you remember they went out for an estimate for water and fell far short of the dollars and cents so the project was not completed. We still all as a group need to work to complete those projects so we can get some of those done. We don't have an overabundance of structures that sometimes people are looking for. We know that there's two, three, four that have been sold here lately that have great potential for stuff.

but I appreciate your work on it moving forward and we all need to work together to try and get these places shovel ready so we can do something.

Are there any aldermen Simmons?

Okay, I'm sorry, I have one last question for the Workforce Solutions slide with the different events or career type fairs.

Were those things thought of and created by GFP or something that once you found out about them, then you joined on and offered resources?

The Manufacturing Day has been in existence for many years, and I think one of the organizations that predates the partnership, NIDA, which was the Economic Development Organization, worked with that.

We've been on the planning committee every year for that. We give feedback and engagement in terms of I think trying to evolve that event and I think next year opening it up talking with right now CareerTech and seeing how it might be expanded into other Freeport high school students that would get exposure into what manufacturing is. The career and job fair was something that I think We created in partnership with Highland and Freeport High School. Before it had been Highland had their own job fair, and then about three weeks later, Freeport High School did. And so this was kind of a brainchild sitting together and saying this would probably be most efficient for the employers, especially as both of these events had been put in the fourth quarter, and we know how everyone's fourth quarter is very busy, especially if a business is on a calendar fiscal year.

that if we could combine these events, so, and no, we did not create the Ag Industry Expo, the Highland Community College Ag Industry Expo has been in existence for a number of years, but we continue to help provide them with information to make sure that they are reaching the right person at the right company, so that they make sure that they have the opportunity. It's really about connecting, so.

And the YIELD program, you mentioned that.

YIELD?

Yeah.

Yeah, YIELD, so we've helped promote the program as much as we can through the community, but what our key role, I think, was late last year was we knew that YIELD program through board members and through other community members that we've engaged with didn't have sustainable funding.

They didn't know how they were going to continue, and it's such a critical and important program, especially getting people more people into the trades. So I saw an opportunity with the CJA grant that maybe that would work for funding. And so it was really connecting the dots, reaching out into our network, Goodwill Industries, the workforce connection, really understanding who the point person was, and then connecting some leadership within the YIELD organization to connect them. And thankfully, it worked out.

Alderman Klemm.

If I could, just one more thing for the audience so they know.

All of these documents that were presented tonight, over a week ago we received the fourth quarter presentation.

Our packet was the slide presentation before tonight's meeting.

It was in there at least on Friday's meeting in the packet.

Okay.

We're not allowed to ask questions.

Were you talking about the fourth quarter?

Go ahead and talk together so you can figure it out.

No, it's figured out.

I asked my questions because they were not presented in the packet.

They were presented by email.

Not the questions that I asked.

Okay, we're going to move on.

Okay, you guys, we've got to bring the meeting to order.

You have the information.

You have to bring the meeting to order.

Okay.

Thank you, Andrea.

Thank you.

We appreciate it.

Okay, at this time, we're going to go to question number nine.

Discussion Regarding Ordinance Amending Chapters 608 and 806 of the Liquor Coal.

The presentation is by Attorney Cox.

I know.

That's what he's, he does.

I know.

Evening.

Good evening.

Not much exciting here, but just good governance generally.

I'm with you.

This is part of the Liquor Commission's commitment to keep our liquor ordinance up to speed and up to date at keeping track of legal developments through ILCC and conditions that we're experiencing on a regular basis, including things that Dovie and I run into in the licensing process.

I'm not going to take much time. Please stop me, ask questions as we're going through here. I'm going to move pretty quick.

So if you look at Section 2, that's a modification of Section 608, which previously required that everybody keeps a landline phone.

I'm not sure how many of our establishments have a landline phone anymore but we feel that that's probably an obsolete requirement as long as we can get a hold of somebody via cell phone that's good enough and that's taken care of through our authorized agent process and our resident manager. Section three involves a modification of section 608.18. This is actually a statement which came out from ILCC's legal division regarding retail establishments having paint and pours, things like that to attract businesses in. I think, you know, generally those are well received by the public, but ILCC is really putting their foot down about what's allowed and what's not. So if you are serving free alcohol, for instance, to get people into your store, that's just not okay. We did put a de minimis of eight or less persons there so that if it's just a social gathering, that's not going to run afoul of the provision.

but if you're running a special or something open to the public that's not allowed a couple modifications to the definitional section in 806.01 first is we added a brewer and then there's a class BR if you look at section five there as well this was simply added because we have we we never had somebody that fell under this category before recently generations has been upgraded in terms of their their brewer license and we just didn't have anything to track that so we're adding something that tracks almost exactly with what ILCC has for their definition. Also, resident manager previously required a full-time employee. That's just not the situation.

employee. That's just not the situation. You know, these managers kind of bounce around from store to store, and there's no reason to require a full-time. We have specific provisions that say that we have to be able to get a hold of you, and we've got contact information for each of the establishments there. In 806.03, we've got Tier 3 licenses, we've got a caterer license. We'd have previously and intentionally left out The incidental part of food service that is required here, again, this is an ILCC legal thing.

Dovie is very, very connected with the clerk's network, and the ILCC has been pushing back on that and saying that if you are a caterer, liquor can be provided as part of a package, but it has to be incidental to food service.

so you can't just have a traveling bar. And a couple more, again, just technical changes. 806.07, that's Section 6 of the ordinance, took out the requirement of listing all owners in a publicly held corporation, Walmart, Walgreens, that sort of thing. We don't need a list of every shareholder. And they don't provide it anyway. They just tell us to go look at the website. So that doesn't need to be provided as part of the application.

Roof of Liability Insurance, this just tracks what we've already been requiring, that any of the insurance certificates list the City of Freeport as a certificate holder. Again, that's been a requirement for years, it just didn't say it in the ordinance.

at least 806.22, the Festival District, that actually, there's an addition to that and that extends down Chicago Avenue from Spring Street to Jackson. That's from Wagner House South to pick up the exchange, which is a new establishment. And that's it. Again, nothing very exciting there, but all changes that need to be made and the Liquor Commission has has all vetted this and is recommending those changes. So any questions for me? Any questions? Thank you. If not, thank you. Do we need a recommendation to move that forward? I'll make a recommendation to move it forward to the next meeting. Any second? Okay. It was first by Clem and then second by Parker.

All in favor?

Aye.

All opposed?

The motion passed.

We'll go to discussion regarding amended ordinance.

Ordinance 2025-04, Chapter 144.2.14, Increasing Plumbing Permits.

Director Duckman.

Thank you, Alder Persons Sellers.

So at the heart of this proposed ordinance so we're discussing it today is to move costs from a water and sewer service install from $50 to $150. So basically what that means is you're getting a new water service a new sewer service outside your building. A lot of times this is common when people's sewers collapse. There's a lot of old clay sewers in town. So that would be the most common type of work to think about here. Reason we're discussing a increase in this fee to $150 is there's a significant amount of staff time. Our water superintendent has to go out and physically inspect all of these connections. And there's also staff time involved in processing the pictures, the paperwork, etc. And so the request has been made and gone through our building commission.

has reviewed this as well and made a recommendation to go from the $50 to $150 for a water and or service install. The other part of this that's being discussed is increasing from $30 to $100 for any standard water line that's going to be installed in a building. The reason for this is our plumbing inspector, which is BNF Code Services out of the Chicago suburbs. They raised their rates from $80 to $100 per hour, and the intent here is to help cover some of these inspections. So this ordinance change, this went through our building commission. What's not being discussed is there's some technicalities with the types of connections used in our solar. That will be discussed at the next, when this goes to council with recommendation for approval.

but really wanted to kind of discuss and focus on the increasing the rates for our inspections or pardon me for our permits. At this time is there any questions? Okay Alderman Sanders. Yeah how you doing doc? Good. Listening to the reason why the cost is increasing for homeowners is this subject is this a mandatory for all homeowners. Is this a policy or ordinance or something that has not been implemented yet, but we're making a decision, or wanting to do an increase on people's property or for their services for these upgrades?

Well, the reason for discussion is this would go to council. The intent is to bring this to council at the next meeting.

but I think whenever we're talking about something like raising rates on permits it's a good idea to bring it to a cow committee of the whole talk about it discuss it so right now there's not actually there's no action being taken on this today but it's going to be moving forward to a council meeting so now's the time to ask questions about why there was why was it suggested that we raise the rates for this so certainly you know you could hear this and say this is ridiculous but I No way, keep the rates the same, and I anticipate certain people are, and that's fair, but as a member of staff, it's important to say that, you know, the rates from our plumbing inspector, which is contracted out to BNF code services, they've raised their rates from $80 to $100, so we're trying to capture some of that money back.

The other part of this is we are doing a better job in our public works department of ensuring that we always have every single sewer connection and every single water connection inspected at the time that the work's done That's what I was going to come up with next And we've done a better job with that, I think, and not, I don't want to get too much into the weeds about why it wasn't done as good in the past or as efficiently but I've worked hard with the public works team to kind of look at especially with our sewer connections oftentimes there's what's known as infiltration which is basically stormwater or groundwater runoff that will get into a sewer system and that's when you don't a fern co is the connection that goes on to a sewer service pipe and if those aren't done properly you can't have what's known as infiltration which is bad for your treatment plant you're basically treating stormwater as opposed to sewage water so we've done a better job of I've worked with the public works team and to do a better job of making sure that, hey, when we're getting a sewer service, let's make this, let's make sure this is done every time.

All right.

Do you want to move this out?

Yes, followed.

Uh-huh, go ahead.

Yeah, and the method that you might use to determine whether or not stormwater or any kind of infiltration is getting into a property owner's sewer line, you would have to do some form of testing to declare whether or not water has water is getting into this location or this property owner's property. We would have to do something in order to make sure that the inspection is done correctly and not just inform homeowners that the possibility that there might be an infiltration.

You are correct in that we're going to have our water superintendent is going to either be himself or it's going to be someone under his responsible charge to go out and inspect the connection at that time and if there's something not done right that's when the water superintendent or the person under responsible charge would actually say hey you got to redo this connection isn't done right and then once it's approved then they can backfill or And we do take photos before and after, right?

Yes, and that's the one thing that it's mentioned, too, in the memo that that's what's being accounted for is the documentation, excuse me, of the work done, which is part of it is photographs.

Right. Okay. Thank you.

I have a question. Do you think that, I know you said from $50 to $150, correct?

Correct. That is what's being proposed. That's what will be proposed. Do you think that, you know, that's tripling it. So do you think that there's some way that we could start off with maybe trying 100 and see how that, you know, affects, you know, different plumbers and, you know, so that price won't be put on to the consumers so much? If we could just, since we do, you know, that the, you said the other company raised their price, you know, we have to do something.

So, do you think that just doing it to 50 instead, I mean, doing just doing it to 50 instead, I mean, doing it to 100 instead of the 150 and see how that helps us out?

I think it's a reasonable compromise. I mean, this is a public service, correct? So the idea, you know, public services, which governments provide, the idea is not always to make sure you're making a profit or making money, but at the end of the day, too, you also want to be responsible with the public's money, and so you're also looking at it going, okay, we see, you know, we're increasing in this, in the case of, you know, with having our inspectors do a better job documenting the service connections. Well, we're using more time. So yes, some of that is the idea of public services where we're not necessarily trying to make a profit on their time, but it also is their time. So we want to be responsible with that. Same thing goes for BNF services who does our plumbing inspections. They're increasing their prices. Certainly an argument can be made that we do provide public services. Some of that should be burden should be taken on by our general fund already. But at the same time, it's also being responsible, and saying, you know, an increase is necessary. So our building commission, we presented it to them. These were the prices that was agreed upon. However, you know, incremental increase, certainly, you know, that's your purview and something to consider. You know, you can obviously put that into ordinance if that's what you'd like to do. Okay. Alderman Monroe. Thank you, Alderman, Thanks for taking my call today and returning my call. And question for you really comes back to, you know, why are we not tying the actual cost of the inspection as opposed to setting a rate in the ordinance? It would make sense if they charge $100 an hour and they come out for less than an hour and they're going to charge it for $100. They would pay $100, not $1.

50. Why would we do that? That was number one. And number two, why are we using a company out of Chicago when we probably have somebody closer that could do it for less money? Well, the thing is, we do not have one that I'm aware of that has bid on the contract to do plumbing inspections. So believe it or not, the state license to do plumbing is a highly coveted license. I believe it's, and again, I could be wrong on the years here. But I believe it's 10 years you have to work for a licensed plumber. So you cannot just go out and say, I want to be a plumber. It's like some people come out and say, I'm a contractor. It's a little easier to do that than it is to be a plumber. Plumbers have a very strong grip on being a plumbing inspector. And oftentimes when you have that license as a plumber, you're golden for your career. And oftentimes, so my point that I'm getting at is in the community to then be a plumbing inspector, that's a highly coveted designation to have it's not not to say somebody couldn't do it locally or not to say that we couldn't look into possibly at a next and that's something you know you can task staff with I can double check when our contract ends with BNF but we could certainly reopen it again and kind of look into that professional service so that would answer your to answer your question is is we'd have to go out again and see when our contract would be enough ends and then we could look into entering with another another company or going for an RFP to kind of look for those professional services. So it is, but it is, I will say it is difficult. I've ran into it in other communities as well where that's a powerful state license to have. Thank you. Yep. So are you, are you saying that this has not been ran by local plumbing? Oh, it has because that's the building commission. So the building commission is where our local contractors, architects, or, you

you know our building commission would have looked at this and they recommended approval have you taken advantage of GFP to see what they have what leads or direction they can lead us I work well at the greater Freeport partnership I've never known them to be plumbing experts but I I guess I could go down that path I mean by the next time I I will make a comment at the council meeting what the GFP had to say can you tell me how many premieres it's pulled in 2024? Yes, 39 for plumbing. Thank you. Darren? Yeah, I sit on the building commission and there is a very reputable local plumber that sits on that commission and he agreed that the field structure that was set was reasonable and I believe it was approved unanimously. If the council decides they would like to do less, that's fine. In discussions with local groups, they would rather see an amount that they can count on instead of a various amount by the inspection so they know what to include in their price and just I wanted to point out as part of the utility we are required as a city to observe and document these connections for water and sewer it's part of our ordinance structure and they want to make sure that we're cutting eye and eye out and we want to make sure the connections are proper to our potable water system as well so it is

something that we have worked hard with Wayne to make sure that we are doing a very good job of it and we have made it mandatory for a physical inspection of all of these connections now. It's not something that somebody's taking a picture of and send us. The superintendent or one of the crew members are going to verify it, documenting it, and recording it for our future as-built records for the city.

Very good Any other questions?

I just Are you saying though Are you saying that There is no local Inspectors to be hired?

I am saying that because I would have to look at our contract with BNF We entered into a contract and I do not know the deadline there and that's an easy enough Ask which I will get the deadline for BNF We have a contract with BNF services to do these inspections and so once that contract would expire we can put an RF request for proposal for that to kind of gather and it would probably fall under request for qualifications as well since they have to have that state plumbing the proper licenses but once the once the contract is over with BNF we can certainly put that out for bid again.

Do you know how long we've been in it?

I know as long as I've been here, we've been using BNF, so three years at least, but I can double, I can get that information to double check Okay, yeah, Wayne?

Yes Sir, have we looked within our own entity, within the city ranks itself, because everyone that works for the city has some form of qualification of doing any kind of plumbing inspection inspections. This is the work that they do. If they're working in this particular field and they're asked to do these types of inspections, do we have the personnel that could be qualified? Because I assume that all personnel that works in construction have that ability to do those inspections.

I see Darren over there shaking his head.

And I know he's shaking his head because...

Yeah, but my thing is, my thing is that before Darren personnel, city personnel were doing those types of things of inspection jobs and things of that.

Let's, yeah, so let's, let's back it up to kind of look at what's going on here.

You're talking about BNF is doing our plumbing inspections.

So let's say you're running into your house and you just ran all new copper or packs.

because you ran new water lines in your house.

That has to be a licensed plumbing plumber.

Oh, in that respect, yeah, I can understand that.

And I would just say that that is a highly coveted, in this state, that's a highly coveted license to have.

And anybody who has it is very protective of that license, meaning people will go and try to get their own plumbing license.

and if that plumber finds out you put their name on it and you didn't work there 10 years or the required years, they'll go after you because they really protect that plumbing license.

So when we're talking about property and city, okay, we go to a degree, we go to a certain point when we're evaluating whether there's infractions or any kind of intrusions or anything that is creating a problem on the city side? Who does the inspection for the property owner?

So that's where you are. See, I think I know where you're going with it with this. When you have a water or sewer service connection, which goes into the city's utility, that's their asset. That's where our water superintendent is going and checking because that's they're doing that to protect the asset of the city to ensure that there's not that infiltration we talked about.

Okay. And then when you get a building permit with the city, the city is doing its inspection, which is protecting the property owner. Because if you don't have a licensed plumber, if you don't have a proper contractor, and you don't have inspections, work gets done, it doesn't get inspected, people can get hurt, people can get sick, etc.

So that's the liability of the city to make sure that that happens?

We have to do inspections on all construction, yes.

Okay. Yes.

All right. Okay. Thank you for that.

Are there any other questions?

Okay, at this time, do we want to move this to a first reading?

First reading. Is there a motion? Make a motion to move it to the next council meeting. Second. Okay. It's been moved and second by Clemm and Shadle. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Motion passed. Number 11. Discussion regarding solution 20, no, R2025-01.

approving memorandum of agreement MOA between the city and the American Federation and state. City and municipal employee asked me to create the position of instrumental and control technician and electrician. Manager Boyer. Thank you, Madam Chair. The city of Freeport's maintenance department, primarily the utility we're speaking of, is vital to the care and operation of the utility facilities, performing high-skilled tasks to support water and wastewater treatment plans.

However, one of the department's two skilled grade 17 maintenance positions has remained vacant for nearly a year due to lack of qualified candidates who are obviously not applying.

This increases the strain on the team and causing a growing backlog of routine maintenance activities.

Staff is proposing a new pay grade 15 so that would be two grades below the grade 17 just mentioned and this would focus on routine maintenance tasks as a promotion step toward the currently vacant 17 role. This position would be easier to fill internally offering advancement opportunities while ensuring the maintenance crew remains adequately staffed and trained to support critical utility operations operations. The approach also fosters employee growth, promotes retention, and provides budgetary savings, helping to maintain safe and efficient operation of the utility. I'd just like to go over a couple of the highlights in terms of the two positions here. So on a grade 15, you would have basic knowledge of water and wastewater process, power and control circuits, and hand-powered tools and minimum exposure to to a PLC and SCADA system. So that would be like your motor drivers and controllers and also the software that's related to those operating those in the system. The responsibilities would be somewhat lower than the grade 17. So that'd be routine maintenance, including lubrication, oil changes, general building repairs and equipment inspections, assistance to maintenance utility workers as needed in on-call duties for emergencies. In addition, the required experience required would also be less two years of industrial, environmental, or wastewater and water systems. And that's the primary focus of the 15. So just to give you a little bit of context, the grade 17, which is the current position that we're had trouble filling, that essentially would expand responsibilities into troubleshooting, repairs,

and comprehensive preventative maintenance of advanced electrical electronic and control systems greater independence and technical decision making so from a technical skills perspective that would include comprehensive knowledge of water wastewater process advanced understanding and operational use of PLC's and SCADA system strong troubleshooting skills for power control circuits and instrumentation and proficiency in reading electrical schematics and performing electrical installations. Also with the grade 17, the responsibilities are higher, including troubleshooting complex systems and performing calibrations, managing subcontractors, ordering parts, scheduling deliveries, and processing invoices, handling maintenance records and coordinating with vendors, and independent problem solving in a varied of operational conditions. So the grade 17 also currently requires five years of industrial environmental or water wastewater system.

with at least three years focused on electrical, plumbing, HVAC, and electronics. So staff would request that we move this on to the next meeting and that eventually approving this grade 15 position as an intermediate step to the grade 17 for the water and wastewater maintenance department. Are there any questions? Yes. I'm looking at you with these query eyes.

because I don't agree with, well, let me say this first. AFME, the American Federation, they entered into a meeting with you to discuss the agreement on this 15 classified upgrade for new job creation. Is that what took place? Has that taken place?

So we just talking about it right now discussing this matter. Ask me if supportive of it. So ask me, okay, so the job description that you listed meet the rate quality, does that fit the job description at the rate that you're mentioning at a 15, maybe going to a 17, but does that fit the I don't want to hire a guy that does not have these kind of technical background skills at a rate of 15. A guy that's with all of this listing of description, he has to be qualified, certified somewhere along the line. And I don't think 15, a great job description, does that fit?

I think grade 15 would be the appropriate one. I'm just wondering, is my ears cleaned out or something is just not balancing right? It just don't balance right to me right now. And I guess that's the reason why we'll move it to the next council so I can probably come to you again and have a full-blown discussion on how did we get there and why did AFME whatever they are, uh, agree with that. I, I, I, I have to, I have to go with the problem with, I have a problem with the balancing of the rate, the grade, the pay grade and all this other kind of stuff. I have a, I have a problem with that. Okay. And so I just want to get in, get into, get in tune with it just to see how did we get there.

So you're saying you're gonna, you want to get with manager Boyer and talk with him later.

Yes. Okay. Okay. Sure. We can set up a time. Yeah. Yep. Yes. City manager, Boyer. Yep. I had hoped to seen a job description at the 15 level. So can you tell me what duties are different between the 15 level and the 17 level? I did just touch on those. I did just touch on those.

So the main changes are the technical skills, and the responsibilities, and then the experience required.

Overall summary, the level of complexity, the level two involves more complex systems, PLCs and SCADA, and advanced troubleshooting while the level one focuses on routine maintenance and foundational skills.

and the independence level two requires greater autonomy and decision making where the level one operates under close supervision and the experience the level two demands more years of experience and specialized knowledge reflecting the advanced nature of the role and then administrative responsibilities level two includes administrative tasks like processing invoices and managing subcontractors and that's not included in the level one so I hope that covers some of the main differences there.

Um, yeah, I, I just was handed them Uh, what They're both hyperlinked I never saw the 15 Okay It's a new agenda Forgive me You are correct Um How long Have this Job when it was filled How many years have someone been in this position that was not qualified. When this job became available, the person that had it before, it became available, was not qualified, did not have these qualifications. A young man bidded on this job, and now things are changing, and he's being asked to accept a position at a lower level.

and why not bring him in at the level everybody else came in at and give him the needed training or schooling like we do everybody else to get him prepared.

to get him prepared for the position.

I believe that's kind of what we're doing.

We're trying to make a permanent change here, similar to like a street trainee.

We don't hire people in as street maintenance workers.

We hire them in as street trainees.

So I think we're making a, you know, we're really improving this particular case by providing that stair step.

So I think, as you noted, there's been times in the past when folks get promoted into a position based on their background and experience and their resume, and I think that this is a necessary change that will allow our staff to graduate into more complex roles.

So will he be getting training from his supervisor, the person that held this position before he did?

Well, I mean, we've had several people promoted or hired in and promoted. We had one gentleman who is no longer with the city. So obviously he won't be here. We've got two other gentlemen. One is now the foreman and the other one is instrument controls technician currently spent a lot of time on the wastewater side, and he'll be doing a lot of the mentoring and training, yes. And he's qualified? Yes, he's, he's, when you, when you have as, as many years in grade as this individual had, um, yes, he is qualified, yeah. Is there a motion to move this for first reading? So moved. Second. Okay, um, it was first by Clemm and second by Shadle. All in favor? Aye. Opposed?

Okay, motion passed.

Okay, let me, discussion regarding R-2025-4, approving memorandum of understanding with the Fraternal Order of Police regarding post-employment health plan by Chief Schemberger.

Thank you. This was presented last week to the council. The intent of this is to enter in MOU with the Fraternal Order of Police Labor Council regarding three individuals who either have or will reach the years of retirement during this next contract. This was something that was part of the negotiations to get rid of the post-employment health care plan, but yet offer these three individuals an opportunity to have their sick time paid out if they chose to retire during these next three years of this contract. Are there any questions? Yes, I do. Thank you. So, Chief, was this taken out during the negotiations or was it just overlooked? I mean, Attorney Zito probably can elaborate.

So the plan, the PEP plan, was negotiated out of the contract there, so that's something that is in this current contract, the FOP negotiated it out. It wasn't something that they were willing to give it up as a part of the contract. However, what they negotiated as a part of that, we'll give it up, but there are three particular employees, they're the only three, that are going to qualify for under the original plan, because they're going to hit their within these next three years, they would hit the 20 years and they would have the requisite number hour of days that could be cashed in.

So they asked, we'll give up PEP, but could you grandfather just these three people in?

So we've already approved the agreement and now we're coming back.

To memorialize with this MOU just those three because it wouldn't be appropriate to write the three of them into the overall contract there.

So that's why you would handle this separately as a side MOU, just with regards to these three people, the grandfather, these people, and again, there's no payment to them if they don't choose to retire in the next, within the term of this, this, this CBA. So if they don't require in the next retire, excuse me, in the next three years or in 27, then this goes away. And then, and, and then pep's gone for everybody at that point. Okay. Okay. Understood. Thank you. Okay. Are there any other questions?

If not, do we have a motion to move this to the first reading by Parker and Clem? All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Motion passed. The next status update of the street light at the intersection of Iroquois and State. Presentation, Manager Boyer. Thank you, Madam Chair. I would like to invite a representative, George Galraff, to do this kind of touch based on this, I think he's pretty well handled this already. Good evening, George Galrap, President of Freeport, Employee of ComEd. So, as I was asked, I started in the Fifth Ward. I did a survey of Fifth Ward for all the lights there, looking at them. They're all functional. They don't have any foliage in front of them. Of course, here we are in January. Be good to go through this again in the spring when there are trees and things like that. Continue to work with City Manager Rob Boyer and Darren Steakl, Public Works. I went north of the fifth ward into the third ward and went to the corner of Ottawa and State Street. ComEd installed a light there today. It went from a 40 watt to a 70 watt, which is 75% brighter and actually encompasses a little bit of Shalom Park, if that's the correct pronunciation. I asked them to tilt it a little bit.

I called three aldermen up that were within the area, told them that, left messages for them. I talked directly to Alderman Sanders about the light, asked them to drive by it, see what he thought about it. It's quite a bit brighter. It's a big difference from when I was there last week. Okay. Any questions or concerns? Yeah, I did have a question. As I looked at the park itself, I didn't think I think it was illuminated enough. No, it's not. And because anybody that wants to peddle anything in that area can conceal any evidence, even though there's a little lighting there. Yes. But it does not cast off enough to eliminate the possibility of someone either bringing illegal alcohol, drugs, weapons, uh whatever country bands or whatever the situation is i don't think it's bright enough to deter uh individuals that they just can't just show up at this park and and try to conceal their their actions and things like that i i would like for it to be so so so bright over there that they wouldn't even want to come back well and i agree i agree 100 but if you want to do that it's private property so you're going to have to go to the property

owners. Right. And they're going to have to call a new business to install a light and they're going to have to pay for it. All right. Okay. I don't believe that city council or the administration would approve using. What about a lamp? What about just a lamp, a little property lamp? You know, one that stands up in the yard and. That would be up to the property owner how they want to do that. They don't want. Okay. Okay. I don't know who owns that property. Me neither. I don't. I don't. Is anybody else on the council? I know. You do? Okay. So it's really up to the property owner, and I'm sure this is very supportive by the city of Freeport, but it's something that would have to be done with the property owner and a new business, the ComEd, and I'd be happy to walk them through it. Overall, it does look lit up. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Yeah, we got right on it today, so. Yeah. Okay. Yes, Alderman. I would like to thank you for that. Oh, you're welcome. I, too, on the way here tonight, drove through, and it is a little better.

Okay, 75% better Yeah Well, you said we went from a 40, a 70, we went to from a 40 to a 70 Yes, yes, so 75% more lumen It looks much better It does look better Hopefully we can work together as, you know, like, drive through the fifth board with you like I did today And we can take a look I have a list that I received from Chief Shenberger Okay The concerned areas All right Where crime happens and take place Okay And I would like to do that this week if possible Let me check my schedule and get a hold of you The cell number I called today is the best one to reach you at You didn't call me today I called the 908 number Yeah, that I got off the Freeport website All right. Is that an office number? No, sir. Okay. I got it on my phone the number I called. I'll let you know. 908-9814. What is it? 908-9814. Okay. I'll check my phone. Please and thank you. Okay. All right. Any other questions? Any other questions?

Any other questions?

Alderman Simmons?

That's not so much a question, just a comment.

Yes.

I do appreciate that it was done and handled in a very timely manner.

Oh, you're welcome.

Anytime.

Thank you.

Well, I'd like you to get to the corner of Oak and Empire.

I'll do that on the way.

Do La Cresta out there where Monroe lived.

Okay, as we move on, discussion regarding resolution approving the transfer property, commonly known as 431 and 437 South Adams Avenue, from Stevenson County to City of Freeport, presented by Manager Boyer Thank you, Madam Chair. Eric, could you put the map up? Yeah, thanks, Wayne So over the last several months we've been working with the county discussing several topics. This property is one of them. Currently the county owns this property and has come to the city asking if we'd have any interest in taking this property off their hands. I am favorable toward that since it is so close to some of the other community facilities and it would fit in close with our existing, we have some Lots in that area. We're investigating some infield housing possibilities, and I know we've worked with GFP a couple of years ago on a concept for this, so I think it makes a lot of sense for the city to take over this property from the county, and it would be an opportunity for us to also control it and make sure it is maintained in the interim until we are able to move forward with any residential or commercial opportunities with it.

So, I guess I will open the floor for any questions or discussion.

Alderman, Stacy.

What would it cost us to take this property off the county's hands?

I believe the county is just willing to deed it over to the city.

So, zero or minimal cost.

Paperwork says a dollar.

A dollar.

A dollar.

It's in your packet.

And what does the city plan to do with this property?

Well, as I just mentioned, we're looking at a couple of infill projects along this corridor, being that we've just redone it, and we've also investigated some other commercial activity or potential for development there. So I would say either one of those would fall under the category of what we would be looking at.

Would the city consider a third ward park?

Well, that would be up for discussion, and that would have to involve the park district, but I'd definitely put that a yes. So the answer would be yes, we could have further conversations about that. Any other discussion? Yeah. Yeah, just FYI, Alderman Stacy, the park district was the original owners. Is that right? The park district was the original? Yes, and it was deeded over to the county as a part of West Block when they acquired it, so I would find it hard to believe that the Park District would want to get back in that, but there's a possibility, I don't know.

Well, I'm a little surprised because I just had a conversation with a gentleman on Saturday, and I will be having another one with him tomorrow.

Auderman.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Freeport Park District covers a lot of areas in Freeport.

and their locations is not being, what I want to say, conveyed or revealed of why they have these jurisdictions under their government, under their jurisdiction.

I just like to know where does the city factor in? Why is it that the Freeport Park District has so much territory, land, property here in the city of Freeport?

did they inherit it or did the city give it over to them, parked it into their possession to create parks and things of this nature? I'd just like to know how it originated that the park district was able to cover much land base here in the city of Freeport.

And we don't have that because I'm trying to get it all out right now because I may not get another chance. So I'd like to get more details about it. I would like to have a conversation. I would love to have more than just what I'm going to say.

I wanted to talk about it more with other individuals, understanding the whole magnet to all of it, and so I would like to create a meeting that we can some form of way that everybody can get involved and talk about it. I'm talking about the whole council. I'm talking about everybody to talk about the thing and see what we come up with.

I think we can work on that, but I would suggest maybe we start with a one-on-one with the park district director.

Okay.

Okay.

Are there, Autumn and Clam.

Just have a question I agree with is not a problem.

I just want to ask about the corner at the top of the drawing there.

You show four lots that are equal and then you show a fifth one and a thing going over.

And I'm just wondering if that creates a headache down the line or what that is.

Uh-huh. My guess is that would be like a driveway or something that somebody had at one time and somehow got orphaned in the data. Eric, I don't know if you can overlay the city-owned parcels. Do we own any of the other adjacent parcels there? Sure. I may be staying corrected here, but I believe we actually currently own a couple of parcels there as well from previous demolitions, so that would allow us to kind of accumulate that piece and perhaps move move forward with another project there, whether that be infill housing or recreational related, but I think it makes sense and it, because we have our, we already have an established crew that's taking care of lots, the only maintenance related to it besides cleaning it up is mowing it, so since we are kind of in a good position in that regard, it seems like it'd be a good opportunity to pick that up and be able to control that moving forward.

I just, oh, go ahead, Tom, I can wait, go ahead I was just going to make a motion to move it forward Oh, no, I just wanted to know, at one time, I know as a little girl, I lived in that area So, at one time, that used to be a park, it was called Tutti Baker Park, and that's what that was So, I know that, okay Fantastic Tom wants to make a motion to discuss it at the next meeting Do I get a second?

Second.

Okay.

Excuse me.

Motion first by Clem, second by Parker.

Are there...

Oh, I thought he was pointing.

I just went blank.

All in favor?

I'm dying.

All in favor?

All opposed?

Motion passed.

Number 16, discussion regarding electric bill provider of kilowatt hours, distribute fees and process for residents to switch to a different provider.

He skipped 15.

Oh, sorry.

Okay.

I have a discussion regarding ordinance amending chapter 220, council section 220.10, rule of council, presentation by Audermon, Stacy, and Monroe.

Yes.

On November 12th, there was an ordinance that was brought to the council.

Mayor Miller was not present.

Attorney Zito presented.

And it was voted on and moved to supposedly the December 16th agenda.

and I want to know who have that power to take something from an agenda when it's been voted on? What right and why did it happen? Why was it removed? That's what I want to say.

I would like to know, please, and thank you.

For three minutes.

I can answer the question.

Please.

So this ordinance was originally along with my understanding with some other older persons to present this.

with some other persons to present this ordinance here. It was scheduled to be placed on the November cow. They're at that November cow. The mayor was not absent, so I presented the, or the mayor was absent, excuse me, so I presented the ordinance at that meeting. Then this item was laid over. There was a motion, a second, to lay this over to the following cow for further discussion there. So that would have in the December cow. Prior to the December cow, the mayor contacted me and said, Aaron, the group of aldermen and I, we talked that were proponents of this, I put this forward. You know what? We don't want to, we're not ready. We think we got to look at this more. So, you know, we want it removed from the agenda. We're not pushing it forward anymore there. So that's happened before in the past when someone who proposes an item, whether it be a property owner who says that, hey, I'm applying for a text amendment to the zoning code or whatever and it starts to move its way forward and then when that applicant says, you know what, change of mind, I don't want to move this forward anymore, the item just gets removed. So that's why I relate when the mayor contacted me and said, hey, the people that were proponents of this were withdrawing it. So I said, okay, following past practice, I reached out to Dovie and said, hey, the people that wanted this no longer want it. You know, they don't want to put these changes forward anymore. So that's why it was taken off.

the agenda. Attorney Zito, once it was asked to be moved forward by myself and seconded by Alderman Simmons, shouldn't it have come to us if you were going to question or decide to just take it off? We were the ones. I think the only thing about this, Alderman Stacy, was the fact that normally, yes, it would be on the agenda, right, for further discussion. The only reason why the difference here was because the people that were pushing it, that wanted it in the first place, that asked for it to be on the agenda, basically withdrew it. Why would that matter? It had went past that step. It had went to another level by two different people. So why would that have mattered? You know, I just felt disrespected. I felt like my opinion and what I asked for and what we all took a vote for, Ford, 7-0, I believe Alderman Monroe was missing that, that it should have been acknowledged and should have been granted because regardless of who puts on or who takes off, just like today, because it was moved all the way to February, Kyle, and I said, no, I want it on January's, Kyle, and I've been told over and over again that as long as two people bring it that anything can be on an agenda. So two people brought it and it should have been respected.

Well, and that's why it's on now because two people have asked to have it on. So that's why it was put back on because you and Alderman Monroe have asked for it to put that on. And that's fine. You can always do that there. And that's an accurate statement that our ordinances say that any two older persons could have an item added to the agenda.

But for the 16th, seven people, seven people agreed to bring it.

And I think that to have further discussion on it, and the difference being is that at that point, though, the proponents of the ordinance in the first place asked to have it withdrawn.

So that's the difference here.

So I give the example that when an applicant, a citizen, applies for a text amendment to change the code, right, to change the zoning code or whatever it is, That can go through Zoning Board of Appeals. It can come to committee. Committee can say we vote to move it forward to first reading. If prior to first reading or even prior to second reading, the applicant says, guess what? My application, I withdraw my application. Typically, that item then is just removed from the agenda without the council saying, you know, okay, we officially allowed for it to be removed, you know, your application to be withdrawn. It's usually just withdrawn.

but that involved one person this involved eight I suppose well it involved I suppose the proponents of the ordinance originally there was more than one person there asked for it to be withdrawn I suppose ultimately to clarify if you know if this is what the council wants to say that hey whenever anything is moved forward to council even if it's subsequently withdrawn or the the person, you know, drops it, you know, doesn't want it anymore, that will still hear the, you know, put it on the agenda, and the council can then be informed of the fact that, hey, such and such is withdrawing the motion, and then you guys can say, okay, well, if you're withdrawing the motion, then there's no, you know, or you're withdrawing the topic, then there's no really a need to discuss it anymore, unless someone else wants to keep, you know, if you want to discuss it, you can have it placed back on, right, you know, because that's the difference here, is that the original group, that wanted it put forward. They said, we don't want it anymore. We don't, you know, we don't feel the need to move forward with those proposed changes there. Now, if you want to put forward to say, hey, well, I still want to talk about some changes, maybe not those changes. I didn't, you know, maybe I didn't agree with those changes, but I want some other changes made to this, this rules of council. Then just like our one and says, two people put it on and you guys can move forward with then, you know, whatever changes that you guys want there. So are there any other questions?

questions? Is this something? Which one do we do? Do we have to take a vote? Okay, we'll move. We can move it to the... Nobody's made a motion to move it. Oh, okay. I'm saying. As of right now, the group that wanted this draft here withdrew that prior to the December, whatever. Now, if Alderman Stacy and whoever else, if you guys have other chains, like your own changes that you want to make to that section we can put we can my purpose for bringing it here tonight was to get clarity on why it was not on the December 16th agenda when it was voted on and passed to be and the response to that is because the proponents of the original proponents of the ordinance asked to have it withdrawn they didn't want to even they didn't want to put forth those suggestions anymore.

and I still feel that once I asked for it and it was seconded, that it was no longer at that level and that if indeed that was was going to happen, which is what did happen, that it would have been respectful to inform Rachel and I, Alderman Simmons and I, what you were doing instead of just not doing it like we were going to forget and not remember, or not know, or.

Alderman, Roe, do you have any discussion on it?

No, I'm not at this time.

Okay, yeah.

Okay, we'll move on to item number 16.

I'll read that again.

Discussion regarding electric bill provider of kilowatt hours, distribution fees, and the process for residents to switch to a different provider.

Alderman, Stacy, and Monroe again.

Yes.

So, gentleman came here, and he proposed some rates. Could you help me with his name, Manager Boyer, or the company?

It's Mike Mudge with Rock River Energy, but that's the generation aggregation contract that's different than the increased changes recently.

just for him. Okay. So he came here and he presented some numbers to us. We all received this in the mail and you either had to apt out using this company or you automatic was switched. And then he came back about, oh, I don't know, six, eight weeks.

weeks later and because rates were going up, he could not guarantee us at the original quote. Am I correct? It is, however, we have, there's not, yes, the, the. He never said the rate was going up. Oh, no, the rate is not going up. I'm sorry. No, no, no. He, he questioned if they will be able to meet what they had told us the first time.

And we discussed, I actually had a conversation.

Because rates were going up, not their rates, they didn't know.

Well, this is about generation, and on the generation side, they weren't sure what was going to happen with the ICC ruling coming down the pike.

So they were expressing their nervousness about being able to fulfill the aggregation contract that we had bid and accepted.

That has to do with generation.

We could not, we could not cancel the contract. They would have to drop us. We couldn't drop them.

Yeah, offhand, since I didn't realize the direction of this conversation, and I guess I don't have everything I need to adequately He gave us three different options.

Yes, he did. Long story short, my phone has been blowing up because people feel like their electric bills are higher than ever before, and they don't want to stay with this company, they want to go back to their original holders.

If they were on an original aggregation contract with the previous, I think, AEP, that contract lapsed and then we re-bid it with, yeah, so if they were on ComEd previously, they can go back to ComEd and that's fine.

But when they call ComEd, they're being told that the company you signed with has to release you. ComEd can't just switch them over.

So they should just call Mike Mudge, they should call Rock River Energy to get that moving forward.

No.

No.

He doesn't want them.

He doesn't want them calling him. I've already been told that.

I'm sorry, Nordic. Thank you, Dovie.

But we do need information available to the constituents so that they can have the correct number they need to call so that they can cancel this service if that's what they want to do.

And that's what the purpose this was for here tonight.

to inform the people of the number they need to call if they want to switch back to ComEd so that they're not being tossed to and fro and getting nowhere.

But it was in your contract when you made that decision on if you wanted to stay or if you wanted to go.

Alderman Sellers.

Yeah, go ahead.

So one of the things, and I think this is where the concern and the confusion is coming from, a lot of people submitted the form saying they were opting out. Now they're being told they never received the letter. They're not able to opt out. So they're stuck in this no man's land between Nordic and ComEd. And they're looking to us to assist them or figure out a way to get out of this agreement with Nordic.

Yeah, I, I'm sorry, I've been trying to flag you. Yeah, I feel the same sentiments that you guys are feeling because I called them. I called them directly. And when I was looking at my utility bill, that their service, whatever they're supposed to be providing was not part of my subsidy or my letter stating that I'm using Nordicist, but ComEd charged me because they did not comply with ComEd. ComEd had no idea that that should have been implemented to my electric bill, so I called Nordic, and they're scrambling, trying to get the right information to me, and telling me that they're going to take care of it.

Well, I'm looking at, I'm going to look at my bill this year, this month, yeah, this month, and see if their name is on there, see if there's any adjustments been made, because they gave, they gave me, uh, sure numbers that would benefit me, and I, and I had not seen that yet, so, uh, yeah, there's something nefarious going on there, and I like to know what it is myself.

We can follow up on that.

So how can we get the people this information? Is it something can go on the city's website?

Yes, we will basically get with Mike, address the concerns that you've expressed tonight, put together a statement, we can push that out on social media, then we can get with also to ensure some of the customers aren't confused because there was an increase on their distribution and green energy portion of their bill.

So to ensure that we're actually talking apples to apples here, they may be confused because just recently the ICC approved an increase going forward, which was pretty substantial on the portion of their bill that's not related to the generation. It's related to distribution and so on. So as long as we're talking about the same thing here, yes.

Are there any other? Oh, if we could, I'm just trying to confuse things more here.

not actually, but as you mentioned, there's an upcharge on the distribution side and that kind of stuff.

Well, Mr. Golrapp's here. Could he explain that? So we know what's there and an estimate of what's there.

So we know there's issues on that side. When you get done with dealing with one part of it, you know what the other charge is.

Alderman, I mean Alderman. George Golrapp.

I'm ready. Well, let's start with Nordic Energy. Their phone number for customer service is 877-808-1022. So, and when people call to opt out at this late date, they want to make sure that there's no type of administrative fee attached to it. Some of these companies do have it. It should have been on the contract whether or not they had it. I checked with city manager on that.

As far as ComEd's concerned, you'll see a rate increase for, because we're the suppliers, or we're the distribution side, we're the wires and the poles, we take the energy and bring it to your home.

In June, there will be a substantial rate of probably about $10.50 per month, depending upon the size of your home and what you currently incur.

A lot of that is due to electrification, so electric cars, putting in the infrastructure for that, the enormous amount of data centers we have in the area, the increased cost to upgrade and maintain the distribution center or grid itself, but there's two different parts, so you have Nordic, who supplies your energy, and ComEd, who delivers it to your home, okay?

Has ComEd fees went up since September? I believe January 1st they went up slightly, but the main increase will be June 1st of 2025. And I get that information to you. Fees. Yep. Okay. It's been a two-year process with the ICC that we've had a multi-year grid plan in place to make sure that the grid is sustainable. We are the number one company, electric company, company in the nation right now. So some of the state senators and representatives question why we want to continue to put money into our system and we want to stay number one. We want to make sure that you have your power. We see a lot more people working in their homes, a lot more electricity being used, and we want to make sure we maintain the system itself. Nobody likes an increase, even myself, even though I work for ComEd.

but if you want to maintain things and have good reliable service we have to continue to take care of our grid which we do so thank you. I have a question. So switching from Nordic to ComEd will not necessarily lower their electric bill significantly. I looked up the rates. Do you have them? Yeah I think Nordic is at 6.399. 0.08315. Okay that's a little bit different than I have. So I think we're within one hundredths of a penny. What is ComEd right now? I believe within one hundredths of a penny compared to Nordic. Of what? A penny. From the rate you said? Yeah, they had 6.399 and then we were 6.4. And you were 6.4? Yeah. And that is lower than Nordic, but Nordic will stay at that contracted rate for three years and ComEd can fluctuate right up and down, correct?

Correct. And the electrical supply is not the largest part of the bill? No, I don't believe so. It just depends on who you use. Yeah, so that's the apples and apples that Manager Boyer was talking about. But you would really like to have Mike Mudge come here and talk to the council again. I think that would be, he's been a proven person as far as getting great rates since I was mayor.

We were the first administration to have an aggregation. Saved everybody about $300 a year. So it just depends on where your supplier is. So it's tough right now, though. It's difficult right now with electrification and how much energy is being used. Okay. All right. Thank you. It's been a pleasure.

Any other discussion? If not, we'll move to 17. The discussion and explanation of a fast-track demo process presented by Stacy and Monroe. Are you doing the presentation? No. No. No, we're going to start off with trying to understand the process for a fast-track demolition. There's not a lot of information.

online that we have. If you have, awesome.

Awesome. So who's doing the presentation? Oh. Okay. Okay. Thank you, Alderperson Monroe, Alderperson Stacy.

Starting off here, just going back, this was in April 28th of 2023. I'm pulling this from, we had an orientation, so it's just kind of a little background on when I kind of talked about this in the past. It's kind of a little bit of a refresher. So I talked about in that orientation kind of the four main areas my department works in code enforcement, planning and zoning, building code enforcement, grant administration in the upper left is where in our orientation we kind of talked about our general process, our chronic nuisance and fast track and how this all kind of works in our code enforcement. Scrolling down when I talked about this back in 2023, which it hasn't changed significantly. Basically, when we're talking code enforcement, the first process here would be a warning issued. Then a property would have one week, this is all general, but a property then would have one week to address their violation.

At that point, a property would issue a citation with an associated hearing date. And a little background there is anybody who receives gets to step three we have a hearing officer you're given a date I always consider it similar to traffic court but it's not it's it's an administrative hearing process and essentially at this point this is where you'd have a hearing and if you don't show up to the hearing you get a default judgment similar to traffic also you get a chance to plead your case you can get your case can be continued you can hear it have a judgment for or against you at this point. Moving down, moving up the ladder here, I kind of gave some information on when our hearings are. They're held the first and third Thursdays of each month. Some of you have showed up to these, so you're aware with this process. At that point, when you're at one of these hearings, a fine would be issued. The next two steps are how you eventually get to, these are what you gets you to get to fast-track demolition here. Chronic nuisance is the big step here before you get to fast-track demolition. Chronic nuisance means you get three of these violations in a six-month period.

So you have to have three judgments in a six-month period to be declared a chronic nuisance.

All of the fast-track demolitions that I have processed have gone through this chronic nuisance process first. And then finally, we get to this fast track demolition process. When I was speaking back in 2023, one of the points I mentioned was that my department, one of the goals when I took over the department in 2022 was to increase code enforcement. So as you can see, these are the years here. And this is kind of cumulatively how many code enforcement cases, inspections, hearings we've had.

And I was really proud of the team, as you can see here in 2022, and it's carried on into 23 as well.

We really increased the number of inspections, which that leads to ultimately at that time when I was talking about it is it leads to higher chronic nuisance cases and then eventually more fast-track demolitions, which ultimately gets you to more blight remediation, which is in line with our strategic plan.

I mean, I'll get there later, but kind of go forward here. So won't get on too much about chronic nuisance, but want to kind of talk about it a little bit here. Three violations in a six-month period. It requires a judgment from a hearing officer. So again, these cases go. Due process is important. A hearing officer has to declare a property a chronic nuisance. City can be granted authority to take action, remove garbage and debris, demolish a structure, could also, big one here is this $100 a day. So when you get to this point, that judge is going to give you $100 a day. And that tends to lead properties into high liens, etc. And then what I talk about is that in 2023, we had 20 fast track demolitions. So this is kind of what I talked about when I was going through our orientation for that year. So now we talk about fast track demolition. Again, kind of what I talked about when you saw that ladder there, it is the last resort in the process. It essentially means you've gone through at least, you know, three code enforcement cases, you had a judgment for chronic nuisance, and now you're at a part for fast-track demolition.

So why did I come here? I created this slide here to kind of say, okay, I see the numbers, we see the statistics, we've seen the process, but why do fast-track demolition? Why have it? I thought it was a good point. I think when we came up with a strategic plan, I really did appreciate Alder Person, Monroe, says, well, I don't want to pay for a strategic plan that is just simply put on a memo and nobody does anything with it, right? Why just have a strategic plan if you're not going to run departments behind a strategic plan? So I kind of tied here how fast-track demolitions are tied to the strategic plan in the sense that, you know, this is one of our major goals or one of our major strategic initiatives here, safe and inclusive community.

One of our key strategies here is to ensure that neighborhood buildings are well-kept improving safety by expanding enforcement time for code enforcement team, increasing penalties, continue funding, and implementation of demolition blight reduction program.

So my team, my department is essentially judged by making sure that I keep our neighborhoods safe by remediating blight. So while we're getting into the technicalities of how this works, why do it? Well, this is why we're doing it. And all of our council members put into this plan and agreed upon this plan.

all right so now this is where it gets to be I would say a little bit more in-depth granular but I've highlighted some important parts this is a statute that the city enacts so property has to be three stories or less the corporate official designated to be in charge of enforcing the municipalities building code that's me as I'm really interested in charge of enforcing the building code.

building code and determines that the building is open and vacant, an immediate continuing hazard to the community in which the building is located, then the official shall be authorized to post a notice less than no less than two feet by two feet in size on the front of a building. Practically speaking, this is what you'll see as an orange sign put on the building. Next step, sorry, I'm bending over here. Next step would would be you have to do three types of notices in addition to the posted notice, certified mail, newspaper published, and then you have to record a notice at your recorder's office. So looking up here, I'm just highlighting in other parts as a municipality may proceed to demolish. And I'm just reading the highlighted parts here to for a fact here of what we're essentially talking about. Under this subsection within 120 day period following the date of the mailing of the notice if the appropriate official determines that the demolition is necessary to remedy an immediate and continuing hazard. So that basically says once the letter is mailed and the 30-day period has lapsed for an injunction, the city has 120 days from that mailing period to demolish the structure. Following, and another important part here is following demolition, a municipality may file a notice of lien against the real estate for the cost of the demolition.

So oftentimes another part that's been tasked with my department is being stronger on property owners.

We're talking about, you know, why aren't we holding people accountable? Why aren't we holding people accountable? Fast-track demolition is a means to hold problem property owners accountable. And how is it?

well essentially once that demolition is performed the city can then put a lien against the property so our department takes that information and kind of puts it into this flow chart here and it makes all of that language and legalese a little bit that statute a little bit easier to understand so you start with a building that is three stories or less in height it's got to be open and vacant it has to be an immediate and Continuing Hazard. Then I talk about posting the notice on the building. We have 30 days to do our three notices here. And then in 30 days, we talk about, hey, has an objective been filed? If yes, then we stop this fast-track demolition. If no, we demolish the structure. And then in 180 days, and then in 180 days we record a lien or have the ability to record a lien and so that concludes the process is there other I mean maybe we'll put the slideshow back on in case they have some questions are there any questions or do you guys want to take this to a private oh I'm sorry yes who oh no I I do have questions I do have questions so I've actually got several questions so as we've you've seen in in many city council meetings. He's got I'm sorry, I just want to keep that in case he had a question on that. Yeah, many city council meetings that come you come along with city manager to the council asking for money to be appropriated to tear down specific houses. Okay, so why are these different than those instances? And why not just hold that money back for these fast

fast-track demolitions. Well, there's a couple different reasons there. I mean, there is a time period on fast-track demolitions of 120 days. So, but I'm also trying to understand your, I'm genuinely trying to understand your question here. So, we're talking about the fast-track process. So, I'm really genuinely just trying to understand your question so I can answer it appropriately. Well, my question is, is why don't you come to council for these types of demolitions? Oh, that makes sense. So, when I go to a slide here and on this this is directly from the statute it talks about how the corporate official designated to be in charge of enforcing the municipality's building code determines that a building is open and vacant and an immediate continuing hazard to the community which the building is located then the official shall be authorized to post the notice and you know on a two by two sign and then it goes on to the duties gotcha so that's so I'm going to come back at you the different one so why on a House, that you fast-track demolition, you've put these notices up, you then go back to that person and say, no, you cannot have a permit to correct the issues that are outstanding. Sure, that's you, most of the time, and I could show in specific cases, and I think one of our people here, I think it was Miss Altman, had stated, oftentimes when these buildings are up, the structures are deemed dangerous and unsafe. Oftentimes we get a dangerous and unsafe designation at the chronic nuisance hearing.

So when a building is considered dangerous and unsafe, at that point the city is going to require that you have a structural engineer approve the plans to save this structure. And if they don't provide that, then the city will not move forward with a permit. That is not going to happen. So if you have look at a building and it's leaning like this or there was a fire inside of it it's this this department is going to require a structural engineer analysis as well as plans to move forward with a permit and that happens it's stated in our code that the department will require that and it's also common practice in many municipalities so once you get that engineering letter saying that it's safe and that it should be remedied and you continue forward with the demolition is that a normal practice well I've yet to I'll be honest with you I've yet to see an actual engine when I've been in these processes and I've been in this faster I've done a process several of them here I've yet to seen us I've yet to see a satisfactory architect or engineer come in and provide plans stating that demolition you know or stating that they have the plans to reconstruct the property. I've yet to see one. I've definitely seen people say a contractor might write a letter, but ultimately when you're dealing with fire damage, you're dealing with age, you're dealing with termite damage, you're dealing with immense water damage on these structures, I am going to require a full analysis from an architect or structural engineer to protect the safety of the people who live in that building.

because ultimately there are situations where not only can a city be liable but actual the head of the department can be liable if somebody gets hurt and dies on a permit allowing somebody to build something that somebody falls and dies in or collapses and dies. I'll be honest I've gone back and I've looked at some of the houses that you fast-track demolitioned and I have seen significantly worse around this town and I I'm really questioning right now if this is the right rules and I think no well I mean it is the correct rules this is from the statute but I mean we go back to and we're not following them okay that's fair I mean if you think that they're not being followed I mean I will certainly listen I'm listening with all ears and there's also do there's also due process and anybody here who has had a fast Direct Demolition is certainly welcome, and I've spoken with them and provided resources that says if you feel like you've been wronged in any way, you know, Prairie Street Legal Services is a place that I refer to people often, where if they feel like they've been mistreated or haven't received proper due process, I want people to have due process. I genuinely do.

Alderman.

I wish I could believe you.

Yeah, I understand. I understand the lack of trust.

Alderman, J.D.O.

Yes, thank you. The thing we need to consider is you're emphasizing on what happens after they've had three violations in six months and have been in front of a judge. That happened three times in six months before he can get to that point.

I'd also like to say it's all it's three judgments plus an additional judgment for the chronic nuisance.

So they've been aware of this.

But if you can't get the permit, I have the floor, sir.

Yeah, you do.

And if you haven't got it in your head after four times coming in here and speaking with the judge, then I don't know what argument you have.

Audubon Monroe.

Thank you.

you really so we'll go down this road and I'll show I can show images of the property in concern I can show text messages from city employees to an individual sitting in this audience tonight whose house and property were taken and torn down and the problem is people like you don't have a heart and care about the citizens of this city and it's based on the color of that person.

Anderson's skin. And I, I know, I have the floor. I don't care. I will show you the house. I don't care if you like what I say or not. What I'm saying is the fact and the truth. No, no, no, no, no. Don't correct my speech. You are violating. I'm not hollering. I got hollered out. I've got the floor. I'm telling you right now, this is appalling to me. Appalling that we would go in and tear a property down that's got a better roof, got better outside exterior, I can pull up the images still on Google Earth, I can walk through it, I can look at it, I've seen pictures on the inside, and I've got, and I drive down 26 on West Ave, and I've got roofs collapsing, porches collapsing, and those buildings are still there, and we're fast tracking this young lady's house for what?

Well, I can answer some of that. Number one, if there's any properties, and I've sat down with many community groups, community leaders, if there's properties that are a concern, I will listen, I will take them, and I will work them through due process. So that's number one. So if there's properties with concern, we will address it. I can assure you of that. I will work it through due process.

but I'm sure you're talking about the next agenda item which is um the discussion regarding demolition of 404 East Shawnee I'm if that's what we're talking about we can move on to that agenda item whenever you're ready we can go right into that but I believe Mr. Alderperson Clem had a question but whenever you're ready um fully prepared to talk about that property as well okay let's well then let's move on and let let's let Alderman Clem yeah I just I just like to say don't keep being sorry What do you have to say?

Nothing now, nothing now, but you asked over me three times.

Yes, I'm sorry, I can't, I can't see that way.

Well, I flagged you, I flagged you three times.

I'm not a flagger, but anyway, do you have something you need to say?

No, yeah, I did, but I don't know.

Okay, well then we'll move on to Alderman Clem, because it's getting late.

I'd just like to bring up that this is not the only place in our town, whether it be 404, whether it be whatever.

I'm working through a process in four houses in the first ward, three of them owned by one woman, one of them owned by another person, all are vacant houses that nobody lives in, the city mows them for them, sends them a bill, tries to lien their property and all that kind of stuff, and we finally got them on the $100 a day fine, the woman that had three houses wrote out a check for five Three Houses wrote out a check for $5,000. They're all still in violation at $100 a day. And when we got a van moved out of one of the houses, the guy next door, the house sits in between a business and his house. It's so overgrown you can hardly see the house. The business sent me a text that said, thank you for getting that van moved. It's only taken me 10 years to do it.

So that gives you an idea how long these properties have been not mowed, gone before a judge, gone before a hearing judge, and to go into this whole fast-track deal. It isn't just one house here. There's plenty of them around.

Thank you.

Do you have anything you want to say?

I just want to ask a question in regards to a home that has been sitting for over 10 years probably and my recollection is the last time I drove by it was still there boarded up and things of this nature and when I looked at the property 404 East Shawnee I'm just wondering if that's the same property now I'm looking at the property on Shawnee the north side of the street of Benton, which is on the east side of the street of Benton. So it's the northeast corner. And I just, I'm just, the reason why I'm asking is because it's been there so long, there's no, there's no fast track involved that that property is still sitting there. And then we need an explanation because it's a definite nuisance. It's an eyesore in the community. Have we paid any attention to that particular property?

particular property, and what are we doing about it? Because I don't know if it's in the bracket of homes to be demoed. It's a great question to ask, and off the top of my head, I don't have my system here to know what the status is of that actual property. However, many of the older people here have worked with me, and I would say probably all of them have called me, or I will return their calls, and they'll say okay here's the property what can you tell me and where are we at and I will do that for you all the person Sanders we can sit down and talk about that property and I can provide updates because we need to because that that property is sitting in a very bad neighbor area I'm not gonna say neighborhood but in a very bad area and it's been sitting there for over 10 years board it up and I'm quite sure we have those two foot signs whatever but I don't see a two foot demo sign for that property. I'm just wondering why is that possible? I can meet with the other person, Sanders, and get that figured out. We'll move on to, is there any other questions? If not, we'll move on to 18. The discussion regarding demolition of 404 East Shawnee, including personal property missing, and reports stolen by the demolition company presented by Alderman Stacy and Monroe.

Wow. So I'll start with this. You know, I understand now kind of who, you know, the authority and why it was done. But I will, I will question. So number one, you know, who authorizes the company that tore the building down to remove property from the location as well? Then if it's unsafe, why were they in there and not just demo it. And who goes through that process? Sure. I presented a, we'll put it in slideshow here.

I presented a little process here for, prepared something for Sean. I knew this was a question to be asked. Lots of questions about this property and its demolition. And, you know, in the future, you know, I saw that this was put on, I think on a Friday, you know, today you called me, I was able to get some information for you. I'm always here to go over this in person, you know, so if you ever want to talk about something like this again, just call me up. I've met with all the person Stacy plenty of times. I can always talk in person for more detail, but I really wanted to make sure that I met, you know, he had questions on this property, so I kind of wanted to go through it here. This is a picture, we time stamp our pictures, this is a picture of the property on September 3rd, 2024. So I'm going to go over, kind of show some pictures and go over the history of this property. This picture was taken April 17th of 2024.

Obviously, I put this on here because there was questions about whether there are holes in the building. Yes. Were there problems with the roof? Yes. This is, I just wanted to show some evidence there.

Pictures of the outside. Were there issues with the foundation? Yes. This would require a structural analysis in a permit to move forward. A couple more pictures here. More of the back of the house issues with the back of the house here. Again, timestamped, our inspectors timestamp all pictures. Moving on to the inside of the house, as you can see in this picture, it might be a little difficult, but you can see here, this was taken October 10th, and it gives the address here, and it kind of shows what's being take a picture here drywall and it says here fireplace one of the issues in this building is work being done without a permit and right so we're going to get to the three permits that were pulled but one of the issues here is that in the permit when I start to talk about the permits which is later on in my presentation one of the issues with this drywall here is that had this this would be eventually pulled or torn off because we would need to see the exhaust in this fireplace or also need to see connections to a fireplace. So if you cover up that's anybody in the city of Freeport or any municipality for that matter in Illinois, when you start drywalling before you move forward in the proper steps in an inspection, you do have to take that off so that you can make sure that the exhaust and everything coming out of natural gas connections are done correctly. So I wanted to show time stamped time date material to put people's minds at ease that, hey, this happened, these pictures,

took place. Due process happened. So I'm going to keep moving forward. Another picture here, this is another picture here of some of the drywall that was installed. This here, again, October 10th, drywall, living room, again, showing pictures. You can't see great in here, but you could see, looking at the outside of the building, you could see holes or protrusions where people are entering. The city has received multitude Institute of Complaints, which I will get into about people breaking and entering into this into this property, vacant property. So one of the questions that has been brought up by several people is kind of who owns this property? Who owns it, right? Who actually owns this property? So this is what's known, I'm doing a little title history here of like who owns of who owns a property. So this information here comes from our tax assessor. In In 2016, the property was sold from this person to the Freeport Habitat for Humanity, okay? Habitat for Humanity bought this house for $2,000. It was my understanding that when Habitat for Humanity bought it, the property had been sitting in a poor condition, I believe, since 2010, circa. It was longstanding when Habitat for Humanity had bought it for $2,000.

dollars. So then when looking at the title history in 2017 the Habitat for Humanity quits quick claims a property to a Raven. So then the question becomes well what's the connection between Raven and IKEA taking some information from a summary report interview that's conducted by City Fire Marshal Hillary Brocious on December 19th of 2021. This is regarding two arson cases on the property from that year. And so this information was taken from that interview. And in that property, it says she, meaning Akia Sanders, advised that she and Raven were the sole owners of the property. She stated that they purchased the home for $2,000 from Habitat for Humanity. There is no mortgage on the property.

Akia advised that there is not any insurance on the home. She commented that she did not think she could get insurance on the home due to the current state of it. This is important, very important information to have because when we're considering dangerous and unsafe structures, not having insurance is a death sentence for our community. What happens when kids go in there and they hurt themselves? Where are they going to get there? What's going to happen? What happens when people fight a fire and they burn?

This house has no insurance, which really adds to how scary it is to have these properties in our Community. Okay, so still looking on to who owns the property. When this thing, when this property was eventually going through the fast track demolition process, Raven quick claims the property to Tiffany Sanders, which I believe from what I understand to be Miss Akia Sanders' sister. And that, excuse me, that happened on June 7th of 2024. So the title to Ms. Sanders was gone in June. So that, you know, I know you had stated it was her property. It's no longer her property. It's now her sister's property. But moving forward, the county will soon be taking this property for back taxes. So they've not, they not only do not, they've not only not paid insurance, they've not paid their taxes.

So in 2024, a Liz Pendens, which is a fancy way for saying a notice Way for saying a notice. They're basically saying on December 9th of 2024, in June, they're going to be taking ownership of Ms. Tiffany Sanders' property for back taxes. So if the taxes aren't paid, the property, this will soon be the county's property. And then I kind of go into here a little bit showing all the years that the taxes weren't paid. It was since 2021, the taxes have not been paid. And here's some back tax payment amounts. Okay, building permit history, we wanted to talk about why are we not providing permits to people? It's a very good question to ask. The city provided three permits for this property, which totaled five years, six months, and 19 days of minimal progress from the property owner. I really want this to settle in. When we put in our strategic plan that we want to step up code enforcement, the city worked hard and bent over backwards to give the property owner five years six months and 19 days those pictures that you saw are the result of five years six months and 19 days of building permits that's the result the pictures I showed so I'm going to go over the actual permits now what was pulled in 2018 a permit was issued for one year the dates are May 9th to May 9th

9th of 2019. The city granted a 180-day extension. So again, working with our community to try to fix this building. We granted a six-month extension on top of this one-year extension. During this time period, no work was performed during this and there were no subsequent inspections because when you get a permit, you do work, you call the inspector and say, I've done electrical work, I've done plumbing work, I'm ready for my inspection before I move on to the next step. That never happened on this permit. In 2020, a permit was issued for two years, probably asking why did we give a two-year permit? There was some leniency in terms for permits during the pandemic. So there was a two-year permit granted from December 17th to December 17th of 2022. Again, the city in 2022 granted a six-month extension. This had expired on June 17th.

18th of 2022. So again, this narrative of the city not working with the property owner is very unfair because they're coming to us with a permit and we're saying, where's the progress? It's not there.

On January 11th of 2021, I'm showing the work that was done in this permit. A rough electrical work was completed and this is from an inspection on January 11th of 2021. The inspection was approved for three rooms only. And this was the only work that was performed for the entire period and approved by our inspector was during this two-year period. So now you're looking at 2018 to 2022, four years, and you had rough electrical work done in three rooms. That was what was done. That was the work done.

So in 2022, we issued another permit, this was one year, and this went from October 21st of 2022 to November 28th of 2020, a lot of 20s in there, pardon me for that, say that three times fast, 2023, the work that was done there was, there was footing inspections for a room addition, it was approved with notes, as I kind of showed before, there were some issues with some of the footings and the foundation on that property. So that's why it was approved with notes. Now at the end of this, our inspector went in and he's coming in at the end of this three years, five years, six months, and 19 days. And he's saying, okay, I'm going to do one more inspection and I want to see what the condition of the property is. And at that point, after this five years, six months, 19 days, he then said, this property is moving forward to code enforcement.

it. Closing the permit and it's moving forward to code enforcement because there's multitude of code violations and they were given five and a half years to fix them. So now we're going to talk about our code enforcement history on this property. What were some of the code enforcement issues that ultimately led to it being a nuisance to this community? There were two arson cases in 2021 on this property.

this property was properly inspected by City Fire Marshal Hillary Brocious and this was taken directly from her report which was given on both arson cases the act or omission that brought the ignition source and material first ignited together was a deliberate act of a person or persons so when I come in and I say it's a nuisance and a danger to the community it happens people are burning these vacant buildings I'm asking you to please understand the facts. I'm not making this up. People burn these buildings to the ground and people die and the owners don't have insurance. I don't know what else I can do to prove that this is a nuisance to the community and a danger. Please tell me what danger is if that is not. Here, this is from the report. Two reports in one night. First fire happened here. Second fire happened here. Here's a picture of the fire that happened. Here's one of the evidence pictures of the arson that happened on that property. So moving forward, we're going to go on to the code enforcement cases that happened after the five and a half years of permits. So I highlighted an important part of the findings of this case.

A couple important parts to remember here is that Nicole Bowers are hearing officer. So when my team provides data and information on these buildings, Nicole Bauer looks at it, makes a judgment. Here's her signature. Here's the date. And you can see it matches up. It was after the city gave time and permits to fix the building. It came afterwards.

and I want to talk about something very important and this is very it's a very good point to bring up I highlighted that the city of Freeport has proven violations by the preponderance of evidence I'm talking about preponderance of evidence here because we all watch Dateline we all watch TV and a lot of us quite frankly are obsessed with true crime and the burden of proof if you're going to put somebody in prison for the rest of their life is beyond a reasonable doubt. So a lot of us look at cases, we look at the city and we go, aha, I found a mistake, there's reasonable doubt that Mr. Duckman did his job wrong, throw everything out the window. I'm highlighting preponderance of evidence because it's a different burden of proof, it's a different level. And I have some legal training and multitude of my degrees and education and experience. And the way preponderance of evidence has always been taught to me is that You have two scales. Here's the defendant's scales, or here's the city, their evidence, and then here's the evidence that will be provided by the defendant, the owner of the property, and then the judge is going to look at it and say, okay, does the evidence tip slightly towards the city or slightly towards the defendant? So it's different than, aha, the city made a mistake, there's reasonable doubt. That's a different burden of proof. So oftentimes we're looking at the city, they made a typo here, they did something wrong here.

oftentimes a hearing officer or if it goes to a civil case they're going to look at it by the preponderance of evidence versus what we're what we're all used to right we're all used to beyond a reasonable doubt so I highlighted that there so that we can start to understand how some of these cases are looked at so we have our next case here and if you notice the preponderance of evidence statement here doesn't exist well why doesn't it exist The property owner showed up to this case. So the judge is saying, I looked at the city's case, these violations here, I looked at it, and they proved their case by preponderance of evidence. The second case, appearance. They didn't show up. So they did not show up on this case. They didn't show up to testify. And that goes back to, was notice given?

our hearing officer looks and checks this box saying yes the city of Freeport notified properly and then any box check below the statement constitutes as a final order default defendant failed to appear and the hearing will be held before me this day goes back to that similar with parking trap parking tickets etc and then that's why you see here she signs off this is case number two case number three similar to case number two there was no appearance Despite the fact that they showed up at the first case, notice was given, default judgment, so now we're at $1,700 plus $1,200, that's $2,900 That's $2,900 plus $3,335. You're looking at about $3,200 already right now that has been accumulated.

So now we talk about, and you should all see this falls right in line with the process I laid out to all of the officials when they came here in April of 2023, except the city worked with this property owner for five years before any code enforcement even was enacted. Five years before any of this process been enacted. So we have actually been more generous to this property owner than a typical out-of-town person who never has been here and never applied for a permit. So here it is. This case went before the judge on May 16th of 2024. And then this is kind of what the judgment says. And I want to bring this up here. Here's the $100 per day. Here is also Nicole Bauer writing a statement. This is not Wayne Duckman. This is Nicole Bauer, our hearing officer. This case has been ongoing for a significant period of time. There was ample time to appear on the other cases with legal counsel of if the, excuse me, if the defendant had chose to do so, plus ample time to correct these issues prior to this hearing.

This is due process. This is time. This is not my words. This is the words of an independent hearing officer. So in addition to this $100 per day, the city says, and it's a little hard to read here, but the city sought, and this statement was incorporated in herein, so I'm showing where it is, the city was requesting that this be defined in chapter 1456 of the city's codified ordinances to be using remedy conditions that would be considered dangerous and unsafe. So on top of my statutory duties given to determine that a property is dangerous and unsafe, I brought it before It was brought before a hearing officer who said this is a dangerous unsafe building. It was brought before a hearing officer and they made that judgment in conjunction to the sign I put on the, a sign was put on the building. Questions are going to be had. Declaration of chronic nuisance. The property contains a structure. This comes from above. So this here comes from above here. And then I highlighted this.

The property contains a structure which is dangerous and unsafe building as defined in chapter 1456 of these qualified ordinances and or within the meaning of the statute. The structure is defined as C attached and incorporated here in. And that's where we went to here. And then when you scroll down, I decided this is from our ordinances what was being defined. And it states, as used in this chapter, dangerous and unsafe building means any dwelling which which violates any provisions of this chapter and shall include but is not limited to any building or structure whether a dwelling or otherwise which A, is dangerous to the public health because of its construction condition which may cause or aid in the spread of disease or cause injury to the health of the occupants of it or of its neighboring structures. I think well beyond preponderance of evidence that has been proven. It's not just my opinion. It's our hearing officer's opinion.

clear as day. And then I'll just go on. Because of the faulty construction, age, lack of proper repair of any other cause is especially liable to fire and constitutes or creates a fire hazard.

I believe that one's checked. Reasons of faulty construction, age, lack of proper repair is liable to cause injury or damage by collapsing or by collapse or fall or any part of such a structure. I already showed a picture of its foundation. And by the way, it doesn't have to be all of these, but I'm showing examples of how they're all can be checked. Because of its condition, item D, such a lack of a door or window is available and to be frequently by male factors or disorderly persons who are not lawful occupants of such structure. I showed a hole on the side of the wall. I showed places where people could get in. I showed that with time dated pictures. This has not been substantially completed whose construction phase has been abandoned and which is unoccupied by persons legally in possession. Check, check, and check. Contains garbage, debris, or other hazardous, noxious, or unhealthy substances or materials so far as to pose a threat to the public health and safety. Yep, I think that one was considered as well. And check. So my department has been staffed with holding problem property owners accountable. That's what a lien does. This lien was filed on September 6th of 2024. It encompasses all of the due process and all of the judgments granted by our hearing officer to the tune of $14,451. Now, when this property, I'm just assuming they're not going to pay their property taxes because what a tax lien does and what a tax

deed does is that wipes out any of these liens. So all that hard work of my staff is going to be unrecoverable when they continue to not pay their taxes and that goes to the county tax assessor and then you sir can yell at me for having to have people go and mow the grass because that's how that works.

That's exactly how that works. I'm glad you're mad because now do the Raleigh building, now do other buildings, and I'll point them out to you, and I'll drive around this town. Let's meet. Let's do it. I'll do it. I'm here. Okay. Okay. Let's call the meeting back to order. Could you turn the light on for me? Because I can't see. Yep. Yeah. Are you done? No, I've still got more to talk about. Oh, okay. I thought you would. No, I think you've answered it. I think I was misled. Okay. And I will make an apology here in front of the room.

I was misled, but at the same time, I will say, I question a lot of what's around the city that's not been done the same thing to, and that is where we sit right now, and quite honestly, I think the same could be true, and I pick on the Raleigh building, because everything you just mentioned, except for fire, I don't know if there's been a fire or not, I don't have the research, but all the windows are busted.

that, yeah, well, the structure is not in great shape, but I'm just saying, okay, so, okay, wait a minute, we're going to have Alderman Sanders say something, then we'll, we'll move on, yeah, when I talked to you earlier about that, that location, I didn't know that was the same building we was referring to, so, yeah, man, I, I commend, um, all that you just said, I appreciate all that you just mentioned, for the preponderance of evidence has been there for almost a decade or more, and it was just an absolute eyesore, but after listening to all the detailed information that you guys have gone through, your staff and everyone, I say I take my hat off to everything that went forward because it was exactly how you described it.

I want to say thank you, sir, and I want you to know, it doesn't always have to come to the floor, you can call me and I will talk with you, and if there's problem properties, please call me and set up a time, you called me today at 3 o'clock, and you said, hey, Wayne answered the phone, this doesn't have to go like this every time, you can call me and we will look at these buildings and we'll work together, I want to, I want to work to get this done.

Otter, Ms. Stacy, Otter, I mean, Manager Boyer wanted to go and then you can go after me, you know.

Number one, Director, thank you for that presentation, but are you complete with your presentation or were you just interrupted?

If there's more questions, I can show this, I can show more ifness.

Okay.

Okay, we can go into that.

Please finish the presentation without being interrupted, thank you.

Well, I think all the person, does all the person, is there a question?

Did you want to add?

I just wondered why it wasn't demolished September 3rd. Why did it come to December?

Let's, let's, this, I think I can answer, I genuinely will answer that question. I think the rest of these slides will answer that for you because I'm going to go into the process right now.

but the answer to the question is you have to wait 30 days from September 3rd and then you have to wait for any court petitions from the property owner which I go into there were there were motions made at the circuit court by the property owners and I go into those details in this next slide so from the day slide so from the date of September 3rd the city has 120 days we have 120 days demolished from this date but you might as well knock off 30 days because you can't the property owner has 30 days to properly file at the circuit court an injunction so there here is the time stamp date of September 3rd 2024 here you can see the sign here's the notices remember I talked about you got to have letter. This is the letter. This is the recorded notice. And this is the receipt that it was put in the paper on September 10th, 11th and 12th. Those are the notices. Now I talk about you said, well, hey, why did you not demolish it sooner? Akia Sanders petitioned for injunction October 17th of 2024. This injunction was was dismissed on December 19th of 2024. And this right here has the date, December 19th, and it says plaintiff's complaint is dismissed. And there's the plaintiff, Akia Sanders and Tiffany Sanders, it was

dismissed. So now we go through this process. Junction was dismissed. Albert and Son commenced demolition after this dismissal. Akia filed, and Ms. Sanders filed a new petition on December 19th, 2024. So she filed another petition, which had to be answered. When that was filed, Albert and Son, by myself, was told to stop the demolition work because of the injunction. And if you remember the process, if somebody files an injunction or a petition of some sort, you stop. The work stopped. You need to get that stopped. So Albert and Son, when this work was done, they would then return the personal property to the site on December 20th, excuse me I keep getting too many 20s in here so when they they my understanding of this is that they took the property off site instead of throwing it in the street they put it in their shop and then I was on site to make sure that construction had stopped per the the new petition that was filed and Miss Sanders and I talked and she said hey there's property of mine that's missing. And I said, let me call the contractor and have it returned. And that's where I'm talking about here. The property was returned to the site on December 20th of 2024. I took, I have pictures of that as well. I don't have it here, but I, I confirmed that the property was returned. Again,

a Kia filed, this is now, this is again, Ms. Sanders filed a new petition on December 19th that we're we're talking about. This petition was dismissed on December 27th of 2024. Defendant's motion to dismiss.

The city of Freeport is the defendant and the motion to dismiss is granted. I'm reading through my notes here.

Petition was dismissed on December 27th of 2024. Albert and some began demolition immediately following this dismissal. Ms. Sanders was allowed to enter the premises to remove personal property.

Ms. Sanders notified me at that time that there was personal property missing I contacted Albert and Son and they returned the additional property to the site so that's the second time they brought property to the site and the conversation went like this I called Josh Albert and I said hey you better go through your site again and you better get the property over here now because we're not playing around the property owner is here they want their property back bring it back if you got it and he goes well I don't I thought we did it all I said no go take another check and look. So that's exactly what happened. And they immediately brought the property back to the site. After that, Ms. Sanders claimed that there was additional property missing.

I told Ms. Sanders, I said, at this point, you need to file a police report to ensure that if there's any property missing, you need to make sure that you have due process and you get it back. Because I said, they're telling me that they returned everything in that building. And I said, you need to file a Police Report. And to my knowledge that they did. Now, there's been an accusation last week that I've been targeting Ms. Sanders for these properties. And I just want to go over some statistics. Two of the 20 properties demolished in 2024 by Fast Track were Ms. Sanders. Zero of the 20 properties in 2023 were Ms.

Sanders and zero of the five properties in 2022 were Ms. Sanders. The two properties that went through the Fast Track Demolition Process, our 402, 404 Shawnee, which was demolished on December 27th of 2024, and the other one was 909 South Oak, and this is the property that was Fast Track demolished on 909 South Oak. It's not targeting. It's going after blight remediation. This is the property that I've been accused of targeting the person on. This is it.

Two building permits issued in 2022 on 909 South Oak. City worked with the property owner. These two permits expired on August 5th, 2023, stating it was dangerous to even enter the building, to stay away, watch the floor joists. It was extremely dangerous property. Code enforcement cases began. This should look very familiar because it follows the exact playbook that I had mentioned in the orientation in 2023. Code enforcement case here, code enforcement case here.

here, code enforcement case here, chronic nuisance judgment, May 18th, 2023, fast track noticed on October 11th, property demolished on January 29th, and that's the rest of it, so that is why it took longer for this property to be demolished.

Can you come back forward, right, back.

Keep going up.

More.

Okay.

Back.

I wanted the one that had the doors and the window.

yes okay so when I went over there okay this is what I saw not the holes and everything you show in the first pictures yes so I saw new windows I saw new doors I saw that so I knew work was being put into it so what you had showed in the beginning was not the final this is more of the final of what it looked like when it was demolished.

Well, let's see here.

I mean, let's talk about that a little bit here.

I mean, you know, it is what it is, but, you know, even when they put the sign up, it looked a whole heck of a lot better.

So work went into it.

That's all I'm going to say.

I saw the doors.

I saw the new windows.

I saw the work being put into.

Right.

All right.

is that is that yes, yes, yes, done. Okay. I guess my thought on this is that I agree with you. I hate that we had to bring all this. I think it's a private issue and it should have been discussed more in the conference rooms with attorneys than us, you know, because you bring out people's personal information that, you know, it to me, I just think it's it's a personal issue that should have been handled behind the closed doors to not bring out other people's information. But does anybody else have? Anybody else have? James, are you done with what you want to talk about? You're done? Okay. Okay, I guess we move on to 20, to public comments. Oh, my goodness, I'm moving on.

I'm willing. Can I make a motion that we move this to a later date and take it off? I'll make a motion since in the essence of time to take this off for tonight. Okay, is there a second? I don't have a date at this point. Is there a second? Second. It's been moved and second to have this taken off the agenda for tonight.

All in favor? Aye. It was Sanders. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Okay, now we'll move on to public comments. Are there any public comments? Okay, would you state your name?

Okay Now you see in this fast track you give three types of warnings the posting certified letter and the orange sticker on the houses first of all my house was all enclosed doors new windows in there from window world the door was locked it was kicked in by cities officials to inspect this house I was never sent any certified letter that you were tearing down my house at all. I have building materials, a whole bunch of stuff in there that has just disappeared, gone. And I don't feel...

and I don't feel that it was right for you guys just to come and take that property without a certified letter.

I hadn't even come into this hearing administrative for that property at 124 Blackhawk.

Never once did I appear in front of the hearing committee to get this taken care of.

Not once did I have an opportunity.

But you still took that house.

That's wrong.

You sit here and complain about the landlord's property, but the city owns a lot of properties that are in worse shape than with the house you tore down.

We'll get the rally building going again. I have seen people in there. I own properties up there. There's trees growing through in there.

The roof is caving in. That's been there for years, but the city still has not taken. They want to hold the landlord accountable for their actions, but the city won't be accountable for their actions in their property. This building has been there for years like that.

So it's wrong for you to come on landlords when you don't want to take care of your own properties Okay, did you, did you want to say something ma'am? In the green, in the, you had your hand up Okay, come on up My name is Miss Garris and this is kind of a wild ride tonight This is the first meeting that I've been to ever here and I feel for everybody here and on the housing side what we were talking about with the building and permits and all that kind of stuff I'm coming from the side of I live next to a house like that I think there's a correlation with Habitat for Humanity I think is what it's called in selling these properties like this because in my case got a hold of it and he's been known, well known to do this over and over again where he buys properties, doesn't take care of them. I had a 10 foot antenna heavy iron fall on my house in the middle of the night. I am a single female, have no backup. I had to take care of that myself because the landlord would not respond. He bought that property, never did a thing to it for years and years.

while I kept having people break into it I had to board it up myself with my own money and tools I mowed that lawn for probably eight years because he never took care of that picked up the garbage had to call the police for drug deals constantly on that house I had to put up a floodlight just to protect my own self so While I feel for the people putting money into these houses, you know, you have to understand where the homeowners coming from as well, because we're affected by all that. So that's part I want to say on that. The other issue that I wanted to talk about is maybe could someone look at from the city The couple intersections, some issues there. I'm not sure the addresses, but one of them is by the fire station on Adams. They newly redid the street, which looks great, and it's great to drive on. That's much appreciated. There's a stop sign, however, that's turned towards Adams, and people keep thinking that they're supposed to stop there.

I have witnessed and then had it happen to me today where I had to slam on my brakes because the person in front of me was confused and didn't know if they should be stopping at that sign. It's actually for the side street coming this way but it's facing this way on Adams. Your time has expired. Okay. Okay. Thank you. There's who can I talk to about the other intersection? Right there. I think it's I want to say Winnishek and Adams, but I'm not sure.

Oh.

Yeah.

Is there someone we can talk to or I can talk to about another intersection?

Oh, I know.

Okay.

I guess Alderman Clem had a...

Yeah, I just wanted to announce on...

I originally had a neighborhood watch meeting set up for January 28th, which is my normal date.

January 28th is going to be a candidate forum at the library I don't want to interfere with that I think it's more important for people to go meet the candidates and listen to what they have to say so I've sent a notice out I will send other notices out but I will rearrange a date maybe I can get together and do it at the same time as Greg's thank you is there any other mic Uh-oh. Well, I came up here to say everybody can start smiling now, okay? We can get the tension out.

On behalf of Flight Radio Studio Production Company, I am the Program Director, and I am inviting the whole City Council to this upcoming Saturday's Dance Against Cancer Ball, okay? As the 70s and 80s Dance Against Cancer Ball. We are raising money for the Leonard C. Ferguson Cancer Center, and what we're doing is is trying to improve the city with through flight radio 105.7 FM. So I'm inviting all council members, please attend this Saturday. Mike, could you say your name? Say your name. Oh, Michael Johnson. I'm sorry. All right. Okay. Thank you.

Okay, the event is being held at the Eagles Club this Saturday at 7 o'clock until 11. The Real Deal Band will be performing and yeah, we're coming out to have a good time and we're doing some community support, okay? Let's stop being mean, everybody. Let's get some smiles on our face. Thank you.

Just a second. We'll get a Kia and then you, okay?

So if you was listening to me, I didn't say that they didn't work with me during my permit phase. I told you they knocked down my house illegally, which his last statement was that he, the last dismissal, he forgot to say before they left that courthouse at the last dismissal, I served him and Steve Cox with my, only my sister's name on it, with a legal filing that is going to be, supposedly got heard on July 21st, I believe.

that and what you did say was it's when somebody files a paper it stops so why didn't you stop when you and Steve Cox got served that paper that was not a let's make a decision Steve Cox and Wayne Duckman that was for the judge and to the judge hear it it wasn't supposed to be knocked down he dismisses it you don't dismiss the idea of me filing a paper you act I mean if you want to see that you talked about me bad in here if you consider that to win. I never said that you didn't work with me. It was over a 5,000 square foot house. It took a lot of time. That was a lot of material. And then nobody talks about my stuff being stolen. Three times it took somebody to bring my stuff three different times. How do you overlook bounce houses three times my size? You did nothing but show that the privilege is Jodi Miller's brother. He can steal what he want to. I never heard that there was a contract that you guys had.

I did more houses, but go shopping first, steal something first. I never heard that. So somebody should answer. There's theft after the fact. And I'm just going to tell you, like, if you know me, you know this ain't the end of it. This is only a council meeting. I got laws to, you know, make sure that stick to me. And I never meant to mislead anybody, not you at all. This is truly what happened to me. And I'm going to see fit that something happens to him and whoever else is against me. And if you know me, that's not my brother.

Okay, we're going to have, we're going to, but Akia, Akia, Akia, Akia, Akia, Akia, let's not, let's not do this, right, yes, right, but both, both, we're just going to have more, right, right, we're going to have You truly show who you for, truly, I got no minutes, but you need to, you need to get on the right side of this I don't care what you say, we're just, we're leading a council meeting Tommy. Okay, you need to stop or you're going to be removed. Tommy, would you come up and say what you got to say? Yes. Yes. Bye-bye. Right. Bye-bye. Yeah, I know who I'm for. Motion for adjournment. Oh, we got to listen to Tommy. Tommy wants to say something. I think James had something. Who? Wait a minute. Tommy, that's what it's about. We're not going to argue. Come on, Tommy.

what do you have to say? Joyce, you did a good job doing that meeting in the hole.

He did a good job and Jodi Miller is doing a good job too. Thank you, Tommy. Okay. Are we in a, are we, um, you have something you want to say? Okay.

Saturday, January the 18th, there will be a National Day of Racial Healing at the Freeport Farm Bureau from 9 to 1.

The purpose is to reflect on our shared values and engage in conversation to heal division and bring our community together.

That's Saturday from 9 to 1, the 18th at the Farm Bureau, and let's not forget Monday, January the 20th, Dr. King's celebration, so I guess there won't be council that day, Monday at 5.30, and Mr. James Ryan says, I hope that this year's attendance will reflect the diversity of our community as we celebrate one of our greatest heroes.

One last thing. Thursday, January 16th, Second Ward Neighborhood Watch Meeting at 6.30 at the Carson's House.

Same place as always. No snow.

You said January 16th, you said?

Thursday, January 16th.

Okay.

Thank you.

If there's no more, can I have a motion to adjourn?

Second.

Second.

It has been moved and second.

All in favor?

Aye.

Okay.

Moved him adjourned.

Yep.

Yep.

Second time?

Oh, you're good.

Yep.

I mean, coo coo.

Thank you.