Motion passes We do have one public comment Jim Blackburn Members of the City Council, Mayor Miller and Mr. Boyer, I thank you for the opportunity to address you tonight on an item that is near and dear to my heart and that is number 14 on your agenda for this evening That would be the water main extension to Open Bible It feels like I'm finally going to get the opportunity University to scratch an itch that's been there for about 25 years. And I thank you for addressing the issue now rather than later. It should have been done 20 years ago, but here we are tonight. A little history on that, if I could, please. They originally submitted plans about 1999. Yeah, it's been that long.

and they were granted a variance at that time by community development. They put a sprinkler system in as required under the building code required by the fire department. They were granted a variance then by community development because quite simply they couldn't hook it up to anything. At that time United Water was in charge of water and sewer. Director Trueblood I believe at the time. We talked at quite length about it.

and he thought that that would fit into their three to five year plan. I guess it didn't quite make it.

So it does my heart good to see that it's finally getting addressed. I guess this is a case of better late than never, but if you want to try and find a situation that requires it more, I think you'd be hard pressed to do so. That is a daycare center that has very young children, maybe some of our own children or in my case grandchildren might be out there. And that is to me the purpose of what city government, state government, national government does is they're here to take care of people who can't take care of themselves. And I think that's exactly many of the children that are housed do their education, do their Daycare at Open Bible. I realize this issue is going to be terribly expensive, as is most everything else except for maybe my hourly wage, but so be it. I would grovel, I would beg, I would plead, don't let this opportunity go by. You've got it front and center. It needs to be taken care of, and I commend you for the courage to look into it now.

to address the issue and to not push it down the road and let somebody else deal with it. Do I have leave to answer any questions or how would you like to proceed? No? All right, then. I'll sit down and shut up. Thank you again for your time. Thank you, Jim. Next, we have the proclamation for the recognizing October as Manufacturing Month presented by Mayor Miller.

Okay, so on behalf of the city, your proclamation declaring manufacturing month, whereas the city of Freeport acknowledges the importance of manufacturing industry as a key driver for local, state, and national economy, contributing to innovation, job creation, and sustainable economic growth, and whereas Illinois is home to over 18,000 manufacturing firms representing a diverse range of industries, including advanced machinery, food processing, in the United States of America, and the United States of America is one of the leading manufacturing states in the nation, and whereas manufacturing accounts for over 12% of Illinois' total economic output, contributing to nearly $107 billion annually to the state's economy, supporting over 550,000 jobs, and indirectly generating many more in logistics, supply chain management, and business services, and whereas in Freeport and Stevenson County, the manufacturing industry, provides more than 4,000 well-paying jobs that support families and communities with the average annual compensation to exceed 72,000.

And whereas Freeport is proud of its rich manufacturing heritage and continues to foster innovation through educational and workforce development initiatives that help prepare local students and workers for careers in manufacturing.

And whereas the designation of October as Manufacturing Month in Illinois as part of the nationwide observance serves to highlight the importance of modern manufacturing and its critical role in rebuilding and growing resilient local economies.

and whereas Manufacturing Month provides an opportunity to celebrate the achievements of the manufacturing sector, recognize the contributions of manufacturers in Freeport's economic success and promote awareness of careers in this dynamic industry.

So now, therefore, I, Jodi Miller, Mayor of the City, declare October 2024 as a Manufacturing Month and encourage all of our citizens to recognize the importance of this vital industry and its contribution to our community.

So thank you.

Thank you very much. And as I stand before you this evening, you obviously can see that I am not a manufacturer. But we do interface with many manufacturers as an economic development organization. And I just want to highlight Manufacturing Month to bring to light the importance of that sector here. It supplies over 5,000 jobs, good paying jobs. And that is one of the largest employment sectors that we have in Stevenson County.

So thank you very much for your time and I look forward to the next agenda item Our next agenda item, Greater Freeport Partnership Quarterly Presentation to Council, presented by Andrea Schultz-Winter Thank you very much Sorry, as I get situated here Tonight's presentation will highlight the activities in the third quarter and again these are going to be organized. My presentation this evening will be organized in relationship to the key focused areas that were outlined in our strategic plan. That is also how the third quarter report that was included in the packet is also organized. And those are business retention and expansion, new business development and attraction, marketing the region, visitor attraction, advocacy and policy, and building the partnership's capacity.

In the last quarter we've been on 14 business retention visits. These are key for the partnership to understand what is happening with our businesses, what their strengths, what their weaknesses, what their current hurdles are. And as we continually hear, workforce is their number one issue. Primarily workforce attraction is the issue that they're having.

There are generally a limited number of workers to pool from. Our population has not increased in some time. Oftentimes when they're attracting new talent to the area, it is difficult to do so because child care, one of the key things that many families need, is not abundant here. Also looking at quality housing, it's difficult to find housing that meets their price range. Oftentimes employers are saying that they are losing candidates to positions because of those key factors. Additionally, specifically maintenance technicians is a key position that many manufacturers, many employees, many firms are having difficulty filling. We do know, luckily, Highland Community College has many courses that speak to and train manufacturing technicians, but it's just finding enough students to enroll in those programs so that there's enough output to fill all these positions. Okay. The next is, we continually hear that greenfield site development is a priority, not only for attracting new businesses to our area, but also that existing businesses have a place to expand. Apologies here. That is why the partnership will be submitting a grant application to the state of Illinois for the regional site readiness grant opportunity. If a

awarded, this grant would pay for studies and preparation for future site development along key corridors. So more to come. We will be submitting this application at the end of this week. We continue to work on an enterprise zone boundary expansion for a future development and investment that will happen outside of Lena. Again, the enterprise zone is an incentive zone that the partnership administers. Sections of this zone span within City of Freeport, rural Stevenson County, and stretch over to Joe Davis County, and encompass areas of Hanover and East Dubuque.

We are currently We are currently conducting a Stevenson County Business Survey. This is to understand the challenges that businesses here are facing both locally and within their industry. The survey has been open since late September and will close the end of October where we will analyze results and report out.

The beginning of October we hosted upstairs downtown workshop with Illinois Main Street to understand upper story residential opportunities. We understand that this is a key redevelopment strategy in downtown Freeport for multiple reasons. Quality apartments or condos are needed. That is a housing typology that is needed here. More people living in downtown will support downtown businesses and reinvestment in businesses will increase property values which will correlate to increased tax revenue and it will ensure that buildings are being maintained. Our next steps coming out of this workshop will be working with the city of Freeport to assemble property owners to discuss their buildings on a case-by-case business, case-by-case basis. This was a very well-attended workshop. We had a cross-reference or cross-section of real estate agents bankers, building owners, city officials, county officials, small-scale developers. It was a productive afternoon.

Last, we continue to market our services to entrepreneurs and small business to help with their business development process. In the last quarter, we met with 12 entrepreneurs. Eight of these individuals were either women or persons of color, and they represented various businesses from many different sectors in all stage of development.

As mentioned before, some of the workforce challenges that we heard from our business retention visits are child care and housing. So how are we addressing those and what is the activity that the partnership has done in the last quarter to try to meet those needs? Well, we do understand that fortunately and unfortunately that the child care, the lack of child care is not a unique issue to Freeport. We're not alone in this struggle. But what we do know is that there are other communities in this region that is also struggling with this but they've come up with some creative solutions so we're talking with those communities most specifically Dubuque and Mount Carroll later next week later this month I will be attending a tour of Dubuque's Bright Minds campus with two child care providers the Bright Minds campus is a collaborative effort both public and private between the YMCA Dubuque public schools and other organizations to provide wraparound child care services includes preschool as well as before and after school care. Additionally, with the redevelopment of what was formerly Shimer College, there has been a child care center that is being developed. We hope to tour that facility and talk with the developers and stakeholders in that community to understand how they're bringing that project to fruition, what things we can extract from both those communities, both those projects, and what would work here in Freeport and Stevenson County.

as mentioned before manufacturing is a key sector in Stevenson County one oh I'm sorry I'll back up quality and affordable housing continues to be a barrier fortunately we do have areas residential areas in the city of Freeport that are also in the enterprise zone which is a great incentive tool to help lower the cost of new construction in new construction of homes in that area in the last quarter we've met with two developers looking to purchase sites in two different areas. They're currently in the process working through the acquisition of those properties with the intent to build single-family homes. We're continuing to connect them with bankers, city officials, utility companies, anything we can do to move that process along. And next, as mentioned, manufacturing is a key sector here. So it's critical that we understand or our children understand that there are great opportunities and great places to work right here in Freeport in Stevenson County. One of the key ways that we're doing this is helping coordinate Manufacturing Day, which happens every October. This is an opportunity for Freeport and other area high school students to tour local facilities, get in the plant, really understand that the new age of manufacturing is not your parents' or your grandparents' manufacturing. It's clean facilities. We're working with a lot of Technology and Robotics and Automation. These are successful, very highly technical careers that can be very rewarding and there's a lot of career ladder opportunities within local companies. High school students will have an opportunity to tour the facility and then end the day at Highland Community College where there will be a career expo and a keynote address from the CEO of New A Strokeso, Mark Braun. Lastly, we were really proud to work with

with the YIELD program and form a partnership with Goodwill Industries that has led to funding for two more years of the YIELD program. Now, we're all familiar with the Goodwill industry in terms of things that you donate or you purchase there, but Goodwill Industries, and this is maybe not known to everyone, they do have a workforce development component that they do. A lot of that is based out of Rockford, and they became a hub, or they received grant dollars from this State of Illinois to administer, I'm going to get this program name wrong if I don't read it, Illinois Climate Works Pre-Apprenticeship Program in our area. So it's a pre-apprenticeship program and understanding that and the goals that the program has and the goals of the YIELD program, we were able to make the connection and say that the YIELD program can be a service provider and receive grant dollars from the state through Goodwill Industries to help fund their program.

So they hope to, the partnership has been established and that will lead to funding for the next two years.

In business attraction, in the last quarter we've received 29 economic development leads.

19 of those leads have come from Intersect Illinois or the state's business attraction arm.

From those 19, we were able to respond to five leads because we had sites or existing buildings that met the company's needs. 14 of those, unfortunately, we were not able to meet because of some combination of what's listed. They were heavy water user, heavier water user than the city of Freeport could support. We lacked sites that were large enough or buildings that met certain characteristics or we just didn't have the geographic specific proximity to ports or intermodal facilities. Ten leads came from local businesses and or government agencies. Six of those are new businesses that are interested in starting in the area, and four are existing businesses that are interested in expanding or relocating. I'm now going to turn over the presentation to Nicole, who's going to talk about marketing the region.

Good evening. So to continue to talk about some of the work that we're doing under those focus areas, one, in marketing the region, that is a three-faceted approach. It talks about how we are marketing for future investment from developers and businesses, how we're marketing to future residents or people who could live or move here, and then also how we are marketing the partnership and the services and resources that we can provide to people who are here or could come here. That middle one that I talked about was about reaching people who can come here. And through that initiative, and another local business owner, we came up with the Stevenson County Area Advocate Program, because we already have ambassadors, so now we have to have advocates, just to separate the two.

This program gets a list of deeds from the county on a monthly basis and then we reach out to those new property owners and send them a postcard with a welcome to the area. They can scan that QR code to set up a coffee meeting with myself or future advocates to talk about what's going on in Freeport, answer questions, ask them why they moved here, where are they working, why did they come here, Are they looking for employment, child care, and answer those questions? We've been running this program since March.

We've sent out about 500 postcards so far, and we've had about 12 meetings. We had one kind of in-person meeting at our office, and then we have been able to meet with other ones one-on-one. So far, we've met with people who have moved from fairly local places like Winnebago or Savannah, and then people who move from North Carolina, New Jersey, who I really had a hard time understanding that guy, and then Florida as well, all moving here for various reasons and talk about the jobs they have, talk about the jobs maybe that they're looking for, and just to hear the enthusiasm they have about living here is contagious, and I invite anybody who is interested in becoming an advocate to let me know because we are always looking for more people to reach out. We are also creating a 12-month printed calendar while we as an organization and so many other people continue to try to find and so many other people continue to try to find other ways to let people know of all of the amazing things that happen here. We're still missing a segment of population who don't get online and who don't get on social media. So instead, we are doing a 12-month printed calendar. It's going to be available for the first time at the Senior Expo next Thursday, and there'll be 800 of them printed, and they will be available for free to anybody who wishes to pick one up.

Music on Chicago and Cruise Night were two, well, there were two Music on Chicago's in third quarter and then, of course, Cruise Night, continue to be great opportunities for our residents to feel a connection to the community. A lot of people come out, whether you're a car enthusiast or music enthusiast or you just need to get out and enjoy those opportunities. It's a really, both of the events that we're talking about here are great to see for all ages interests.

it's such a cross-section of the community and it's been fantastic to see all of those continue to grow the partnership was awarded the Matthew Marvin Community Impact Award from the Foundation for Northwest Illinois for our work in economic development if you'll remember over the past two years we have been fortunate to have funding from the Community Foundation to support local businesses during the holiday season and then also through our base camp program and then our rebranding campaign focuses on the strategic initiatives that Andrea talked about earlier. And I'm going to see if technology is going to be my friend tonight and see if it'll let me play this video. Oh, you can see it. But we might not have sound. And if you can't hear it, I'll send it to everybody tomorrow if you haven't been able to see it. Really highlighting our mission, vision, and inclusion statement that the partnership adopted earlier this year, as well as our board members and some great footage from different places within the community just kind of showing that the partnership is here for all and our services continue to be a benefit to various audiences across the county and the city. So apologize. No sound. You get to look at great pictures and then I'll send that out so you can hear it in its entirety tomorrow. It's only a minute, so hopefully it won't take up too much of your time. All right. All right.

visitor attraction. Our tourism season is heavy in second quarter, third quarter. Holy cow.

The state's tourism attraction numbers, as is everything with the state, are lagged. So we found out about our 2023 visitor spending numbers in August of this year. And for a third year in a row, so ever since COVID, we have seen tourism spending in Stevenson County continue to grow.

and continue to break new records this year at $52 million.

When we talk about visitor spending, it's not just sales tax dollars or hotel motel tax dollars.

This is also what visitors are spending at local restaurants, in boutiques, in our gas stations and our grocery stores.

So this is also a study that comes out of Longwoods International, who is hired by the state of Illinois to create these independent studies.

Our campaign this year is called Choose Your Adventure. Hopefully you, well, if you, maybe I'll include that in the email tomorrow too. We'll just send you all the videos. We've had a great response from our videos this year that highlighted a number of attractions, restaurants, and shopping destinations between multiple digital platforms. It's been viewed over 500,000 times across YouTube, Meta, and Google.

and using those and so many other tools we continue to promote our tours and partners while also sending them grant opportunities so they can be as productive as possible with the funds that they have because we know most of them are non-profit as well.

Since Bill is not able to join us tonight I'm also going to touch on partnership membership. This falls within the partnership capacity key focus area.

We were able to gain 15 new members to the partnership in the third quarter, the breakdown shown there, and we continue to have a really fantastic retention rate of nearly 95% again in the third quarter, but overall 96.5% in the year. So we're very proud of those numbers on people who just goes to show the value that they place on their membership and they continue to renew once they have joined.

Thank you for your attention, and we're happy to take any questions you might have.

Madam Mayor, excuse me, Stacy, if I could make a comment. I was able to attend your upstairs downtown presentation along with Rob. The mayor was there. There were a couple other people from community development were there. It was a very good program.

I talked to the fire chief next day and one of the things I was happy that the two presenters brought up especially the one that was the building person was what is required for that upstairs use because it's so difficult to fill because of square foot access to get in and out of the building all that kind of stuff and the new ways that they had to take a look at how they could make something fire safe and still maybe not have a sprinkler system in it, but have another means of access and other stuff.

So I thought it was great that way because they not only presented the really good things about it, but they presented that before you start into this, you know, take a look at these things and here's where you can get them at.

Thank you for that comment.

And I think it kind of, the afternoon got into the weeds a little bit, but I think when you're looking at figuring out how to make these projects work, that comes in to the devil really is in the details and understanding like fire exiting. Can you do that without having sprinklers? What does the code say? Is there a change of use? What other materials are there? What's your travel distance time into an exit? So all of those things are really specific and project to project. But I think that that is kind of when we have interviews and kind of meetings with individual building owners, those are the types of questions we're going to get to pretty quickly.

to see how their project could work. Could I add something, Stacy? Sure. The other thing that I just want to note, and I know I noted it last time and stuff, one of the things that you guys do and have to do that costs you or takes up a whole amount of time is all the requests that you get from the state of Illinois for new businesses that are coming to the state. You know, you know right off the bat there's many of them that you can't do, but you have to go through everything to make sure that a business does or doesn't qualify for something we have. But I know that's a lot of work. Thank you. Yes, we do. I mean, we vet each opportunity that comes to us. We really think critically about the spaces, the buildings we have. Could any of them fit the criteria? Could they be retrofitted? What sites might work? I think what we're finding is that we don't have a lot of available sites that have water and sewer and all the infrastructure to them. That's another reason why we're writing the grant to pursue planning for future sites. So thank you. I mean, it is, yeah, it is work and we're continuing to dedicate it to it. Thank you. Thank you. Future in fire prevention. Do you? Okay. If this doesn't work out, I'll let you know. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Item number nine, discussion regarding placing an order for replacing

investment fire engine by presented by Chief Miller. Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. So this year when we were working on preparing our budget for a presentation to council, part of the planning process is looking at medium range planning. What are needs going to be going forward in the future? What do we have right now that is in good shape, okay shape, or bad shape?

So staff and myself got together and we were doing this medium range planning and we had looked at our vehicle replacement schedule that was presented to council about two and a half years ago and was lacking prior to that. And that's how we got into trouble with old outdated vehicles that were in disrepair.

So with the support of council, we've come a long ways and I'm very proud of the decisions that council has made thus far. So looking at our replacement cycle, we recognized We recognized Engine 1, which is located at Park Boulevard, the short aerial truck, is 14 years old right now and would be due for replacement and downgraded into reserve status in four years.

So looking at the new pumper or fire engine we just received, we ordered that two years ago, talking with the folks who are on that piece of equipment or assigned there, guys that are on our truck committee, we discussed instead of going with a small aerial device, just replacing that one with a pumper.

So we looked at the exact same pumper that we just took delivery on, and I reached out to the salesman that worked with us on that, and I said, for that exact truck, how long would it take to provide that, to go to manufacturing?

He shocked me by saying four years, their building schedule right now is four years out, so if we placed an order today, we would not see it for anywhere between 46 1⁄2 to 49 1⁄2 months, so let's just call it four years.

said okay so that's quite a distance you have to do some really accurate planning for the future with those build times so then I went further to ask what is the cost for replacing that same exact vehicle we just took delivery on and not only was I shocked with the the build times of four years I was even more shocked with the cost that has escalated in two years we placed the order for our new engine two years ago and it came in just under $900,000. Ordering one today at today's money, that same exact vehicle is $1.2 million. So it's gone up 16.5% per year for the last two years, $300,000. Like, oh my God, if it's gone up that much in this past two years, how much is it going to go up going forward? So if we continue to wait longer, it's going to be exponentially more expensive. So then digging deeper, what are the scheduled price increases? What are we looking at for those time frames?

Historically, they used to do a large, somewhat large price increase after the first of the year, January, February-ish.

It'd be 5% to 7%. So speaking with the salesmen, there was one September which we've missed, but the next scheduled one is November 1st.

that's a one and a half percent price increase. Then there's another one in February of 25. All these will be 1.5 percent price increases.

So there's one November 1st, another one scheduled for February, another one in May, August and November.

I'm like, this is just crazy economics here. So looking at avoiding price increases just from now in calendar year 2025, Those 1.5% increases compounded on top of each other comes out to $92,000. So this is a huge acquisition for the city, for the fire department. So I thought, you know, this warrants bringing to the council and having a discussion on what the desire of council is in terms of a long-term replacement, making a four-year commitment, or at least placing an order for this vehicle and looking four years into the future so each of those 1.5% increases equals $18,405 which is why we've come to the total sum of $92,000 just in 2025.

So, again, placing that order prior to November 1st, one, locks in that price, no subsequent price increases we'd be exposed to, two, it gets us on the build list, so the reason it's four years up because people are ordering multiple trucks and they take about six to eight months to, once it goes to production, to actually deliver a finished product. Also, placing that order, we don't have to commit any money to it at this time.

It's just a written purchase order signed by myself and the city manager, and we get on that build list.

So going through the Fire Capital Improvement Fund, we would have the opportunity to allocate $300,000 a year for the next four years, so when that vehicle is ready for delivery, Michelle can write them a check and pay for it.

So no money commitment right now. We avoid any subsequent price increases. We lock in the price at today's dollars instead of future dollars, and we are on that build list for delivery in four years.

so and then one last area I want to touch upon is the vehicle that we're speaking about replacing again it's a 2010 short aerial it has 86,498 miles on it that's of last week but with commercial trucks like this I'm sure you most of you are aware they also come with hour meters because there's so much idle time sitting on the street sitting at fire scene sitting on various calls those Those hours are calculated at, for each hour, it equals 61 travel miles. And this is a commercial vehicle standard. It's not something I came up with. This is what Helm uses. This is what other commercial truck dealers and repair shops calculate at. So that vehicle has 9,027 hours on it.

so doing the math 9027 times 61 miles the equivalent of that that equals 550,647 miles adding the two together equals 637,145 combined miles so by virtue of a good maintenance program taking care of our vehicles washing them keeping the salt off of them we look to get an anywhere between 12 to 15 years in frontline service and then another five to seven years in reserve status depending on the condition of the vehicle and its usage. So I'm confident that this engine one that we're looking to replace will fill in that five to seven years at least at a minimum in reserve status. So after ordering, if it's council's will, after ordering this one, we're going to be set up well into the future.

with our emergency response vehicles, the large trucks. May I ask a make a comment? Yes. Chief, I understand where you're going. Can you put your microphone down? I'm sorry. Sorry about that. You're requesting that we give the clearance to sign off on it right now at the current Pricing that you were talking about earlier before the costs start escalating each year?

That's the reason for this discussion, yes. And if council agrees that this represents a cost savings, this would be up to you to desire to move it to the next council meeting, or you could approve a resolution and the next day we could place this order and avoid the November 1st pricing.

This locks it in, right?

Yes, it does.

Okay, that's what I was hoping you was talking about, that any procedures that we follow with locking it in, we'll get status reports or the report on the product that we're purchasing?

Absolutely, so if there would be any changes between now and just prior to assembly meeting, certainly I would communicate to the council, but quite honestly, about three years and two months, pending there's no changes in that, there won't be a whole lot of activity on that.

So what happens with these is about eight to nine months prior to going to assembly, the truck committee will meet with the manufacturer and they'll go over about a 19 two-sided page build list and going line by line by line through every single thing to make sure the needs are covered, the features are anticipated and planned for.

And then once it goes past that, then it goes to engineering, then it goes to production, at that point we're kind of locked in, but until then And what was the estimation cost again, about a million?

One point, it's on the notes, the precise Thanks for listening.

But a 50% prepayment option, which would represent $613,500, would reduce the overall cost of the vehicle by $61,456.

So in some cases, the prepayment discounts have exceeded what interest accrual would be on that kind of capital.

So we'd be actually paying it off with the, paying the interest.

We'd be paying it down.

We'd be getting, I think they said somewhere around 20% return on our prepayment amount.

Yeah, yeah, okay.

Chief Miller, did you say that we could budget $30,000 a year for four years?

One more zero, $300,000.

$300,000.

Yeah, yeah.

and is that if we can do that or are we able to do that? I would defer to Michelle but I believe are we able to budget $300,000 a year for the next four years? These the funds that will be used to purchase the truck come out of the fire cap improvement fund which is mostly ambulance revenues that are generated and that fund could currently has like $2 million in it.

So it would just be a matter of calculating, like Chief said, you know, the prepayment, is the money there?

Yes, the money is there.

Is the prepayment worth it?

Could I make more than that if I invested it in the bank, or do we pay it?

Right.

We wait to pay it.

Wait right out, yeah.

We just have to do the math, which it sounds like they already did the math.

Okay, so the city would be willing to allow this purchase to go forth paid in full and not finance it but pay it off in full at the end of the four years.

Wait a minute, honey.

Oh, I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.

We could do it either way.

this fund happens to have a fund balance that is dedicated the majority of it is dedicated to the fire department the end the funds are available there it's just a matter of you know seeing if this is how you'd like to proceed and also evaluating if the prepayment discount is worth it financially okay sorry will that be pay as we go with the purchase of this item? I mean, will we be able to retain this item as our property as we pay the payments per year?

So, again, as we outlined, there's three different options that we could do to consider this. We could pay the full amount, the $1.27 million, and save that $300,000 over four years, which, again, give us 1.2-ish, or we could take advantage of some of these prepayment discounts, and again, to pay the whole thing in full, and I don't know if finance would be comfortable depleting that fund that much, but if we prepay the entire amount, that would represent a savings of $122,913.

dollars if we wanted to be conservative and pay half of it at the time we sign the purchase order that would represent a savings of sixty one thousand four hundred fifty six dollars and still leaving a good amount within that that account yeah so again those are those are three options and you know that the saving the three hundred thousand per year that would cover the full amount due at delivery so we wouldn't have to put anything down until then but once they say hey your truck is done Michelle has to write a real large check. Okay because what I'm hearing is that we will pay in increments but the product is not completed until after four years? That's correct. Okay. That's the reason why I'm bringing it up to the council now because it's such a Projected Purchase and Acquisition.

Right.

Chief Miller, what would be your first choice for us to choose the option?

The payment option?

Again, my subject matter expertise is in the vehicle and fire suppression, and I would certainly like to get with the finance director and see what that fund looks like.

and certainly I would not be enthusiastic about financing a large portion of it perhaps part of it some of it depending on where that fund balance lies but that that's certainly something we could have prepared for council next meeting if if it's the desire to go forward and avoid price increases and lock in at today's dollars And Michelle, you may have to answer this one. So if it was paid off in full, the benefit in doing that or the advantage to doing that, would that money be put back into that same account? The money is gained from paying it off. It just wouldn't be expended at the higher level. We would really Retain those funds. Retain, okay. And so do I understand the city to be saying that you can't really give us an answer tonight? You need next week to determine if we could purchase this and pay it off in full? I guess I would like to confer with Chief and find out. I mean, my comfort just giving them half, but I would like to run the numbers because there is

of value to having the money in our account if we, you know, if an emergency repair comes up, something big, you know, we don't want to run that fund too low. So I would like the opportunity to talk to Chief and this would need to come back to Council for a regular approval anyway, anyway, besides tonight. Sounds good. Sounds good. Yes. I would like a motion, make a motion to to bring to the next meeting the options on purchasing the fire truck and the financing available for it. That way, Michelle and like the chief said, they would have time to get together to give what they believe to be the best options at this time. Yeah, second that. Could you also add to, because this is really about the authorization of placing an order. It's not so much the financial line of it, but are we going to place an order? So that would actually have to be on the next council meeting in order to make that November deadline. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I would make that alteration that we bring forward the option to commit to the purchase of a fire truck for Park Boulevard station and move the other one into reserve when it comes and the financing to be figured out between the Chief and the Finance Department. I second that. I second that. We have a motion. We have a second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Nay. Good. Motion passes. Thank you. Um, item number 10, discussion regarding 2025 Street Project presented by Mayor Boyer. I'm sorry, City Manager Boyer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

and I'll take the promotion. Anyway, just kind of reviewing 2025, we went over the five-year plan and each year we're going to bring back each year we're going to bring back that plan for discussion and review with council. So I'd like to take a moment tonight and just kind of discuss the 2025 year street program and then I'm going to ask Darren to jump in on any questions or additional information that is important to the subject. So I'm going to kind of start from right and move left across the map here. So the main one of the main projects for next year is Carroll Avenue. That would be from South Adams to East Empire approximately 3,000 feet at a cost of about $1.6 million. So on Carroll, the water main I think is the oldest in the city. Is that what you mentioned to me? Yep. 1880 water main. Yes. Yep. And so the water main will be replaced and that is an area with railroad ties buried causing the washboarding down the middle of it.

and so those will be removed when we do the reconstruction to make sure that it lasts. Darren, did you have any comments on they wanted to add on the Carroll reconstruct for next year? No, just the reconstruct will be curb to curb and ADA ramps. We will not be going right away to right away that the money that's shown there is just water main and pavement replacement and some curb patching. It will not, you know, be blowing up the entire section like we did on Adams.

I just want to clarify that and that would be the largest project of next year and it would likely be a contractor-led project due to the difficulty of the street and it's wider than our equipment can handle for paving so that would be similar to what we're doing on Ridge and Westwood this year where we'd be hiring that out as one completed project from start to finish by a contractor.

Anyway, in addition to Carroll, we'll be doing South Blackhawk from West Empire to West Dewey Street. That will not be the entire section. It'll just be that primary section from the school. That's looking at about 1,300 feet, and that would include new water main and any kind of repair, base repairs at an estimate of about $615,000. Do you have any comments on that one?

Black Hawk is one of the streets that we've had the most water main breaks on in the last 12 months. Last year, I think we had six or seven breaks in a matter of two months there. It's a 1954 spun cast, and it's been a problem for the school district there and a problem for the residents. So what you see there is basically about two full blocks of replacement, and that era of pipe is kind of limited to those two blocks on Black Hawk.

Can I ask this question? We're not there yet. In the process of replacing those mains, are we targeting the areas where you repaired them, made repairs to be replaced? Fully replaced. Okay, got you. Okay. Right. I believe the question was, I think Larry was saying, hey, are we going to take out the pipe that has the band clamps in it? Yes. Yes, we'll be removing that. Absolutely.

I'm going to skip over to Hans. So Hans, South Hans from Meadows to South Street is scheduled for repaving next year. That'll be a mill and overlay at about 1,400 feet and about $370,000. It'll work pretty much just like this last year with Dirk Drive. If anybody's driven down Dirk, it'll be very similar to Dirk.

Park. So in addition to that, we've got West Cleveland Avenue, so from South Burchard to Locust Avenue, approximately 2,600 feet. Again, that'll just be a mill in overlay, and we're estimating that about 500,000. And I think that includes where we had installed new water main several years ago for the new water treatment plant, and also a bad section between West and Locust that's also falling apart there.

A couple other priorities, North Greenfield from West Stevenson to Laurel, that's approximately 2,400 feet, and it should cost about $550,000. That's a heavily traveled area through that area or through that neighborhood. And then we'll also be working on and resurfacing Stevenson, West Stevenson from North Greenfield to Park Boulevard.

just a point of information here once we complete the greenfield section that'll from Laurel all the way to Pearl City Road will be easily traveled very nice pavement there and then on Stevenson you've got a lot of tree canopy that's very difficult very hard on the roads themselves whenever you have tree canopy you have moisture that tends to be retained and when you get moisture you get potholes you get problems with the pavement surface and that routine moisture. So to replace that section from Park Boulevard to Greenfield is on next year's program. I've got a few alternates. Excuse me. Yep. Yep. The station moves through that area, doesn't it? What's that? Waste treatment and water. Is that right? Park Street lift station goes up Park Street. How about the water mains? There's water main there as well. And we're talking about replacing No, on that section, it's completely just a resurfacing project. If you've been over that way right now, there's old, about two feet below the surface, there's old railroad ties that are buried there. There used to be rail cars that ran on Stevenson. That's why you see the rippling of the pavement. The old railroad trails ties are disintegrating under the pavement. They're actually just rotting in place, and that creates the ripples from the stops and starts. That's what's happening at Carroll, and the exact same things happen.

Well, a lift station goes up through there as well, right?

Force Main.

Force Main, that's correct.

I lost a lot of terms.

So the Force Main's on Park Boulevard.

Yeah, that's what I know.

And have we been doing any repairs on that Force Main lately?

No.

Okay.

No.

About five years ago, we had a large break on Park Street that was south towards Laurel, but we haven't had any other breaks in that area.

Since, okay.

yeah all right thanks as alternates and as budget allows for things are going smoothly and we can afford to do so we've added three potential streets here South Harvey that one was added it needs water main it is a dead end and that's created a lot of accumulation of sediment in that pipe and it creates constant water quality issues for the residents on that street also we're including willow and we have a area with on Willow that needs water main replacement there. It is expected that when we are completed on Ridge and we've got the water main replaced, what happens generally is you've got the next closest areas will then start to break water main. So we're looking at replacing water main on Willow and repaving that as an alternate. And then also on Dewey Street, it was originally scheduled for 26. However, if time and resources permit. That one will need water main and driving surface. So that would need a full reconstruct there.

So that is the plan for 2025. As I mentioned before, this year has been a very busy year. 2025 will also be busy, but not as busy. So that would actually be okay for a lot of the staff. Yes. Do I understand that Dewey already have the ramps. They already have the lead-free. The lead services are completed on Dewey. I don't know about the ramps. Yeah, the ramps are not done. Ramps are not, no, okay. But they do not need a water main. They does need a water main. Dewey does not. Oh, Dewey doesn't, okay. No, we did the lead services this year. The water main is good. We don't have break history on that street.

So there's a plethora of bad pavement conditions throughout the city. However, Dewey is on here because it is really poor. And what ends up happening with our water main cuts is once those services have been replaced, it creates problems during plowing and it can cause some problems and make the road condition worse and quicker.

So if resources allow, Dewey will just need paving?

Ramps and paving.

Yeah, ramps and paving, a little bit of curb.

There's only like four ramps or eight ramps.

There's only eight ramps.

Yeah, eight ramps.

But one of the biggest issues that we have on Dewey Street, and you're going to see as we move around town, Dewey has an extreme amount of trees that are in the parkway that need to be removed.

of the parkway trees are killing the pavement structure because it never is allowed to dry out. And so as we're going through these projects, we are removing not all but a lot of the parkway trees that the city owns to try to increase the quality of the pavement.

Yeah. Are we also going to be completing curves because of runoff and property runoffs? I mean, when the property adjacent to the street or parallel to the street, when it when it pours or storm or whatever, you tend to get a lot of sediment in those storm sewers because of the runoff on properties that don't have curves or, yeah, it doesn't have the curve approachments and pavements and things like that to help funnel that water properly without the deterioration of homeowners' property because of the rainwater.

Officer, if we're not doing anything with that, that's what we're going to end up with possibly again throughout the year. When you start putting that pavement through there, we'll get a lot of sediment in those storm sewers and I hate for it to be destroying people's property because there's no drainage ditch, proper drainage ditches for the adjacent home.

Homes or the homes that are parallel to the street or the ditch? How did you get a chance to look at that and make a visual of the fact that these types of runoff will create problems for homeowners? Darren, I'd like to just go ahead and answer that. Just to give you a back of the napkin, Larry, it's $116,000 to do new curb on Dewey. Yeah, well, I'm just thinking about the fact that we have erosion.

I'm with you we'll patch back in the stuff that's bad but well we got we got a whole side of the street some parts of the street without the curve and that's where and there's homes that erosion there's home erosion when that water is pouring like that because it ends up in front of people homes if the streets are not leveled properly the driveways are not level property and you get a lot of settlement. You get a lot of water settling, settling in these driveways, and then that creates insects, bugs, or mosquitoes, or whatever the case may be. And I'm just wondering, had you got a chance to look at that? Larry will look at it. Okay. All right. What's there ever curbs there? I don't know. On Dewey? There are curbs on Dewey. They're buried because the street's been overlaid three or four times.

So it's going to be very similar to the other streets that we've attacked that's overlaid. The curbs that are there are going to not be able to be exposed. They're at the brick level. I assume that's under that street. And so we will have to overlay curbs again when we go back, just like we've had to do in other areas. They're not exposed. We can't expose them. The grinding process alone will not salvage that curb.

Yeah, because you knew I was about to get to that So curbs would be added to Dewey?

Curb patching would be added to be able to overlay the street Curb patching, so we would go in and fix areas that were missing or that are destroyed, you know, 20 feet or 10 feet at a time but there was no intent here to replace every piece of curb on Dewey It would be theoretically impossible to do that I mean, it's possible, but just not with the funding that we currently have Well, I just don't want my constituents complaining about erosion on their property because we didn't put anything to prevent that. That's what I'm getting at. I don't want them calling me, talking about, A, I got water backing up in my driveway, my soil is washing away and all of these kinds of things and that's all I'm concerned about right now.

Will there be drainage vaults?

There already is drainage on Dewey.

Like I said, the street's in such poor condition right now that the storms are filling up full of asphalt chunks and gravel and everything like that because the street is so far gone.

And the erosion to the street is really a homeowner issue that they should not be letting dirt come off the properties into the street.

So some of that is a home maintenance issue.

But as improvements are made, we try to improve drainage.

we've tried to do that everywhere we can but as I started out with the street program before we physically don't have the dollars to replace every piece of curb in this town I'd love to do it we just don't have the dollars and if you drive down the street and you see it overlaid when we fix it it's probably going to be overlaid again with the current funding that we have yeah because before the overall project is completed for us all the roads that were for this project I've done I guess we'll go back and take an evaluation of what needs to be implemented again or something we should take another look at and things like that.

Yeah, like I said, that's part of the entire design process, figuring out. There's some rough cost estimates with these streets. They're not perfect. We haven't studied them yet. We're doing the absolute best we can right now to come up with preliminary costs so we can make educated decisions as city manager.

Boyer stated all of these streets were on the 25 or 26 list. Other than Harvey and Harvey, we have a water main quality issue there that that we really need to deal with. All right. Okay. Thanks. Well, you said the biggest project on the list would be? Carroll Avenue. Carroll. Will that be one of the first? Will that be where you start? Or is?

We haven't made that determination yet.

I mean, we're going to design, the reason I wanted to bring this up tonight is we're bringing the design package forward for next council meeting to approve.

We'd like to pick up topography and survey next, basically in November.

That will help us get a head start.

If we wait longer, we'll be into, you know, December, winter months.

It takes a lot more money and a lot more effort to pick up topography then.

and Carol will go from Adams to Empire ending this year all the way to Empire yeah except for we will not do the Galena intersection because that's a state intersection so we'll we'll stop at the return radius at Galena so we will not get into the IDOT throwaway there that is that is not controlled by the city and we don't want to spend our local funds on that intersection so you'll stop at Galena and pick it back up Yep. Yep. Yes. If I'm doing my math right on all this, we had about $900,000 in the motor fuel tax that we talked about earlier. The base projects without the three alternates are just under $4.2 million. That puts us, we're anticipating in the 3.3 out of the 1% sales tax then.

Um, yes, I, I will say we're, we're always estimating on the conservative side, um, so we're not exactly sure how much is going to come through until we see it, so again, that's, yes, go ahead, I just wanted to contribute that we received the first of the 1% just this past week, and it was $307,000, so that would put us, you know, that's based on sales tax, so, you know, it, you know, up, be down, you know, holidays, you know, it goes up and goes down, but, you know, we're looking at conservatively 3.6, which is if I add my three.

Thank you. I just wanted to make that point that we are putting that 1% where it belongs, and it is working.

So I'll clarify the funding for you temporarily, so because it's been a while since we've talked about this, is not perfect numbers by any means, but the plan is to take roughly that million dollars from MFT for our city's streets paving portion, estimated at the time about three million from the one percent, right, because we didn't want to overestimate it. And then our water main, we have a potential Sorensen grant that's coming forward that we should know by the end of the year, and that's about 1.6 million in water main.

so between those funding sources if you added these numbers up that I gave you they're roughly about five point three million that gives us about a three hundred thousand dollar cushion for some contingency because again these are concept numbers not perfect and it depends on what costs do next year but I think we're in the ballpark the one thing that I do want to recognize is this is more streets than we had planned for next year we got more streets done this year than we had planned last year the guys are doing great work. One of the gives and takes is the water main that has to be done reduces mileage that we can get done. So this package here, if we did every street on here, will be about three miles next year on top of the six-ish miles we did this year and I believe we did about six last year. So we are making some ground on it and the one percent is definitely going to help. But we do have to address the water main.

Carroll, the water main, as city manager said, is from 1882. On Carroll? On Carroll, the water main on, so I'm going to repeat that, the water main on Carroll Avenue is from 1882. That's, that's significantly aged. What, what have we been doing? Um, so. Depreciating water main. Yes. Um, the water main on. Records of this, I'm sorry, Darren. Yeah.

Do we keep records of this? I'm sorry, Darren. Yeah. Do we keep records? We keep records of all the main installations, yes. And do we have scheduling appointments for replacements? We do not because we don't have the funding to do it. Oh, we don't have funding just to schedule replacement? No, we do not. We do not have, we have some funding and we've been addressing it through EPA loans, but we do not have a dedicated funding source for water. I just want to jump in on that. In this particular case, Larry, to do the water main, you really got to do the road as well so if you're if you're going to replace that water main you've got to repave the street and it's kind of what we're doing right this is it right four miles a year three miles a year you know replace the water main repave the street patch in the curb do the best you can with the driveway approaches and move on yeah so I see that there's a motion so is it your hopes that we no no so that's what I did the voting thing no it hasn't been one made but is that what they're hoping to I gave you that voting bar in case it's needed I meant to fill you in I apologize we might not always need a vote but it's there if you need to record it okay this is for your information yeah this is this is because the work order is coming you know next week and I wanted you guys to have a preliminary blush at what's coming and have any types of discussion or or

for questions ready. Okay, so we'll see this next week. Yes, ma'am. Okay, item number 11, discussion regarding adding maintenance utility worker job two, work two job description by city manager Boyer. Thank you, Ms. Chairman. The maintenance department for the city of Freeport is responsible for carrying, taking care of all of our utility facilities. So that's the wastewater plant, the various water plants, pumping stations, and so on.

Those folks ensure that all the facilities are in operating order and are basically maintained at the proper prescribed maintenance schedule.

The crews help the operators. They deliver safe, clean drinking water to the residents of Freeport.

and the crews also provide maintenance support to the wastewater treatment plant their regular responsibilities include plumbing, electrical, building, construction, mechanical, logic controllers for automated controls. All these tasks are done by a crew of four individuals currently three of whom are in these positions. So one is an entry level position and it is the lowest paid in the public works department. Two of these positions perform at a high skill task referred above. The final position in the current staffing of the department is a foreman position.

So essentially what we're talking about here is we have two full-time people that are maintaining all of our facilities where we have three positions available. They're grade 17. The trouble with the grade 17s is there's a lot of requirement for knowledge and experience and we've had that job posted for over a year and we have not been successful at filling it and what we're asking for is a grade 15 position so someone who could come in at a lower pay grade and then learn all the ropes and learn all the skills necessary to maintain the infrastructure at the city and over a period of time they would then be moved into that grade 17 position where we've been unable to fill. So essentially what we're asking for is a new position however it is more of a transitory position where we could start somebody out with a lower skill level and then allow them a couple several years whatever it might be for them to learn the job inside and out and then get promoted to the grade 17 position. So that's basically what we're asking for. So the grade 15 position if filled would move in two years to the 17? Not necessarily two years but like after the completion of of, like, a learning syllabus.

This is a position through the what union?

This is an AFSCME position.

Are they, do the union know about this position?

Do they know about this want?

Yes.

So essentially tonight is for us to just open up discussion to what extent it's necessary just to let council know that we would like to come after an additional position with the intent being it's a stair step to a higher grade. Attorney Zeta. Just to piggyback off of what Manager Boyer just said, so to the extent that the council through a consensus tonight indicates that it's okay with the creation of the new position, then we will move forward with then having the formal discussions with the union to create the position. They've been given, you know, a heads up that this is being discussed by the city council, but then we would have to memorialize the creation of the position through our MOU with the union and then formally approve the job description by the city council as well there. So, but again, tonight we're just looking to see if you guys are on board with creating position, then we'll move forward with the formal process of interacting and negotiating with the Union. Would it be, would it, would the union have to be for it or against it for it to move forward?

We've been collaborating with the union on it. I believe they're for it. And yes, they'd have to be for it. Right. So that would be, if the council says, yep, we think it's a good idea to move forward with the position, then we would start the discussions with the union. They would have to agree to it as well there, but that's, if you guys are not in favor of it, then there's no sense in talking to the union about it, so that's why we're talking about it now. Yes. I'd like to move forward with it. I would second that if that's needed. I think we were just really kind of looking for a consensus, just, yeah, as long as everyone, no one's opposed to it right now, if you're opposed would speak up. Otherwise, if no one speaks up, then we'll just, because again, we have to go talk to the union about it, so, but as long as everyone's okay with it, then we'll go do that. Okay. Number 12. Discussing regarding ADA transition plan and ADA grievance policy and procedures presented by City Manager Boyer.

Thank you, Your Honor. I'm going to go ahead and move it to, I'm going to have Darren go ahead and take it from here.

Yep. So thank you. We've talked about the required ADA transition plan for probably the better part of a year. I've been trying to find different grants or opportunities to pay for this study, but it is is something that is required by IDOT. It's required for any community that has more than 50 full-time or part-time employees and has a population of 20,000 or greater. It's tied to our motor fuel tax monies. And the study, it revolves around mobility-challenged people within our community.

Freeport and most towns, most developed towns have a larger population of mobility challenged people just due to the resources that we have available here. Lots of mobility people don't have vehicles or cars or transportation to get around. One of the items that the city has right now that supports them is the Pretzel City Transit.

The ADA transition plan is a self-evaluation of all of our ADA ramps in Freeport. Currently, we have an estimated 1,900 ramps in town.

Through the last few years, the city has spent significant resources at upgrading ramps. We did a DCO project that we did about 75 ramps on, 76, I think.

this last year I think we did about 82 on the street programs so we've made some progress towards the replacements. However, the plan requires that we do a self-inventory of every ramp which means we have to have an engineer that's capable of understanding what the requirements are behind the ramps, grades, truncated domes. We have to not only inventory them but we actually have to have to also take a survey point of them and create a map that's a living document for the city of Freeport that will be attached to our website that will be updated annually as we complete projects on our progress towards becoming more ADA compliant. The idea behind IDOT is to put together a living document of a 20-year plan to try to help with these mobility challenges.

these mobility challenges. We also have to put together a grievance policy and a committee to evaluate these grievance policies. So in case that we have an area that is underserved, people have the right to have a grievance and file it with the city and a committee needs to evaluate that and determine how we will move forward to address those particular handicap areas. Again, IDOT has this tied to our motor fuel tax money, which we generally get somewhere between $900,000 and $1.1 million with the motor fuel tax money to the city of Freeport annually. So this is, I guess, a requirement, but not a large requirement that they're wanting these evaluations done. Again, we have quite a few ramps that we've done in the last, say, two to three years that are compliant, but we have numerous ramps that are not compliant.

and as we go around and fix our streets which we have been doing we have to fix these ramps and we have to update the plan and we have to work our way around town. I will tell you honestly up front there's going to be no 20 year plan that's going to fix every ADA ramp in Freeport. That's that's not going to happen. We don't have those kind of funds right now but this planning will also help us towards efforts to get more funds towards ramps. So that's one of the reasons they're requiring it.

Right now, we've been working with Ramp. Rob and I have been for approximately the last year and a half. We know, based on some survey data, that about 60% of our mobility challenged residents live between Park Street and Clark Street on Galena Avenue. That's a high concentration of them. Another area of concentration that they made us aware of was around Hantz Drive, which is down around Birchard and South Street. And then 10% are various areas around the community. Currently, forgive me if I said this already, it's estimated that we have about 1,900 ramps in Freeport. I'm going to guess that we have about 20% compliance at this point. There's five main parts to an ADA plan. It's the transition plan itself, which is usually a large planning document, the data collection, self-evaluations, which we're coming up with a program, if you will, to make it so it's even at every location. There's annual updates to this program, but we don't have to update the plan, the entire plan every year. We just need to update the map on which ones are compliant or not. Again, we have to come up with a commission to evaluate any grievances and make sure that we are providing pro-ag, which is our standard for being compliant on ramp construction. So with that, I'll take any questions. Yeah, I'm sorry.

Okay. Okay. Man, I almost got lost in that whole discussion you was making. The previews of the drafting of the plan of the ADA ramps. Would you present council with a preview draft?

of those, of that plan, or those plans, I should say, and the mapping of those ADA ramps and placement on maps where we can see the location of these ramps within our, within the maps that we're receiving.

Oh, I probably skipped over this part, but as part of the ADA transition plan, once it's completed, right, and we come with a formal plan, it'll have to be adopted by council.

because it becomes a living document that the city is looking to move forward with. Right now, any state or federal funds, and they're even stretching it as far as local funds, but I have no evidence of that yet. They're requiring when you go to these meetings that any basically tax money that's spent on streets needs to make the ramps compliant.

it used to be years ago when we just did mill and overlays we weren't required to do the ramps because the ramps are so expensive we're you know we're somewhere in that six to ten thousand dollars per ramp so they add up pretty fast but we don't have a choice in it anymore unless there's a technical difficulty with building one for instance we had one downtown that we were going to replace but it has a giant vault under it and it's going to cost probably a hundred thousand dollars to do that one corner, and so we deemed it as technically unfeasible at this time. We just don't have the funds to do that ramp. Well, excuse me for a minute. You're going to draft the plans for this particular project, right? The first thing we need to do is collect the data. That's the most important because we're probably about 10 months behind the eight ball on this one because I've been trying to find somewhere to fund this plan. So the reason I wanted to discuss it more in detail tonight is I intend to bring a work order for the next council meeting to review to start this plan. We're wrapping up the 2024 street season and I would like to get out and get these areas all surveyed while the weather's decent. It will make it easier. And then we'll work on the plan during the winter months. And then again, we'll create a commission. Just kind of like the library, our commission, we'll create a commission, a review

policy, all that will be adopted by the city at the end. That makes sense. Yep. That makes sense. Okay, so we look forward to getting this data here soon. How soon are you? Probably take us, if we get a signed work order next week, it'll probably take us the better part of the last two months of the year to collect just the data and the physical data in the city, and then probably two to three months to create the plan and get a final version that can come and be reviewed and adopted.

Okay. All right. Thank you.

Darin.

Yes.

What is something like this going to cost?

Initially, I thought it was going to be around $95,000, but I believe that it'll be cheaper than that.

We're trying to estimate the numbers and part of the ramps, we were trying to get a better known number of ramps to figure out how many hours the data is going to take.

I'm hopeful that we can get it down. It won't be huge, but maybe down to about 85,000. I'm hoping by the time we can bring it next week. It's a lot of survey data. It's a lot of man hours to create this and also to create a policy that is going to be inclusive of not only the city, but ramp has to be part of this plan. And we have to make it as a plan that we can live with as far as having a commission that's reasonable.

We don't have the funding to go just, you know, do an entire area of town because we have to. So we have to have some reasonability in the plan to give us time to work at areas that are challenged.

If we're able to get it down to the 85,000, will that include collecting the data and?

Yes, I intend to do full everything with just a review by the council, and then the city with Rob, Jodi, and the council will have to help create a commission. Obviously, it's very hard to get people to serve on committees, so we will be looking. Somebody has to be in charge of the committee. In most communities, it's the public works director that is the head of the committee.

of this program. And then as grievances are bought in, you have meetings to decide how you're going to resolve this. And I'm not suggesting this for this cycle, this budget cycle. I'm trying to accelerate this so it doesn't lock up any of our MFT funding. That's the most important thing. Now, I admittedly have drug my feet long enough and couldn't find a funding opportunity to pay for this because I didn't really want to pay for it ourselves. But at this point, I don't think we have anything but a choice to move forward with it because our MFT monies are too valuable to the projects that we're doing and then what I would say is I think we'll be fine for next year because by the time we get this done and approved by council and get it to IDOT we'll probably be through most of the construction season next year then we'll start having to budget a line item for some of these grievances that may or may not come in so we have some funding to address some specific issues. Okay okay all right so again I plan to bring a work order to the next meeting and really I've heard you say that numerous times you wanted to be educated about things prior to the work orders coming so that's that's the intent of these items tonight okay thanks okay so that would be at the October 21st meeting okay and that was number 12 moving to 13 discussion

to 13. Discussion regarding ordinance approving amendment to lease amendment with thank you for solar array at landfill presented by Director Duckman. Thank you all the person, Stacy. I can see that Attorney Zito's got his hand up. Oh, I'm sorry. That's all right. I can. So this item we're going to staff is going to ask for it to be removed from discussion tonight. It's not ready to go. I was hoping to get some answers from Amaresco, but I have not heard back from their attorney as of today, so we're not quite ready with what the plan go forward is going to be, so we don't even know if we need this amendment or not, so it depends on when I hear back from them.

Thank you. Item number 14. Discussion regarding the Water Main Extension Project on West Stevenson Street and specifically the consideration of rescinding resolution number R2024-95 approving an agreement with Fair Graham to provide design engineering services related to the Open Bible Church Water Main Extension Project.

Okay, so I have had discussion with Darren, Director Darren, Attorney Zito, Ms. Anderson, and because it was voted on and approved I can't just pull it back that's where rescinding it came in it and it was said that it was going to take about a year to design it but I find out that in less than three weeks it's been designed and already at the EPA for approval. I don't know how you do that. I don't know how you say something is going to take a year to design and then it's designed and completed in two weeks. But that's where we're at with this. So I just have some questions.

City Clerk Anderson and a member to the council for the September 3rd meeting referencing the Open Bible Water Main Extension, City Manager Boyer stated through a series of documents the information details the city agreed upon regarding the Water Main Extension in 1999 to be installed between three to five years.

So my question is, have you found any ordinance, variance, written agreement, resolution, council minutes, or executive sessions regarding recording references to Open Bible Water Main Extension?

You're asking me?

I have not looked thoroughly. I have not been directed to do that thoroughly.

I don't know what memo you're speaking of Are you sure it was from me?

There was a memo in the September 3rd meeting I don't typically write I don't typically write the memos Okay, I misunderstood that There was a memo in the September 3rd meeting Referencing the Open Bible Water Main Extension City Manager Boyer stated it and he stated that through a series of documents or information detailed and maybe I addressed this to you maybe I should have been addressing it to you city manager Boyer do you have any of this information details the city agreed upon regarding the water main extension in 1999 to be installed in three to five years have you found any ordinance variants written, agreements, resolution, council minutes, or executive sessions regarding this matter.

Former Chief Blackburn came and discussed that at public comments tonight. He said that during his conversations with, at the time, United Water, that there is an agreement with him and the head of the Water Sewer Commission at the time that it would be a three to five year project. I think he stated as much tonight. And he stated that that agreement came from the community development person at that time? No, he was talking about the head of the Water Sewer Commission at the time. Head of the Water Sewer, okay.

Alderman, Stacy, I think one thing we're getting mixed up is it wasn't water and sewer at that time, it was United Water that handled water, just so we know it was totally handled by city, that's the only thing I want to bring.

I'm very aware of what Mr. Blackburn, I think, said tonight, but let's also recap on when Mayor Getz came to the council, who was the mayor during the 1990s.

in the 1999 year who said that nothing never came to the council, nothing never hit the council floor, nothing was discussed pertaining to this matter. And so I don't expect you to have an answer as to why that is, because we was not even under a city manager at that time.

at that time, we had a full-time mayor. But it disturbs me that something so important could be thought that it's going to be moved forward, even by Open Bible, and they not have the decency to even bring it to the council.

So, are you telling me that there is a paper out there based upon what Mr. Blackburn, thank you, said tonight, that there is a signed document out there that you can produce?

As far as I understand it, there was a commitment made by the head of the Water Sewer Commission at the time that a three- and five-year time horizon would be fine for budgeting that water main extension to the Open Bible and in that area for this fire suppression system. Well, it was the handshake and the comment was made through the community development. And so the community development person have that kind of power, again, without bringing anything to the council floor. This was between the head of the water and sewer commission and also the manager for United Water who ran the utility for the city of Freeport, not not Community Development. Community Development only required that the structure be built with the appropriate fire suppression as of code in 1998 or whenever the thing was constructed. But it was said that the Community Development shook the hands of the principal. Don't know about that. And made the deal.

I don't think that anything. I think Community Development produced a waiver to allow the city time to hook up the water.

Attorney Zito?

And and Rob correct me if my understanding is wrong but my understanding is that where community development came in is that they granted a waiver or granted I think the term that was used tonight was a variance there as far as the construction of the building because normally they would need to have constructed the building with the sprinkler system in right and then connected it right and where the waiver came in or the variance it was like where community development signed off and said no you you can go ahead and build the building now, operate it, use it, as long as you put in the sprinkler system, and we know that it's going to be hooked up in three to five years, we'll go ahead and let you build the building. We'll issue you the building permit there. So I think that's the variance where the community development director is. So then there's written statement out there pertaining to a variance and a waiver. Are you asking me? Yes. I haven't personally seen it, but I think it's out there, yeah.

Okay, so can we put forth an effort to find that?

Sure.

Okay, thank you.

My second question, City Manager Boyer, did the issue arise after Open Bible failed its mandated DCFS state fire inspection on May 28, 2024?

I have to ask the Chief to confirm that for you.

So my understanding is the State Fire Marshal went out there, conducted their annual inspection, and determined that the suppression system in there was not fed by any kind of water supply.

So he indicated that was a violation and also said that he would be interested in working with the facility and granted them one year in which to make arrangements to have that complied with.

Okay. Can anyone tell me how did they go 25 years with yearly mandated inspections and they were passed?

I won't go into this whole thing now, but I happen to represent the area where Open Bible's in.

So I've had discussions with Open Bible and had a lengthy discussion with Jennifer Fuller, who is the head of it.

The fire inspection on that building, and Chief, tell me if I'm wrong, it's mandated by the state every three years it has to be done.

and there was a person out there. She was there from 2006. So from 2006 till this year, every three years there was a person out there to inspect a facility. They made them change fire doors at one period of time. There were swinging doors that went between the what would be the sanctuary out into the educational wing. They had them changed to regular fire doors that they had to be and they also had had them specifically put a sign on the sprinkler system that it was not connected to city water, the system was not connected to water, and that was told to them by the fire marshal. So the city, so it had been inspected every three years, which was their policy. Every three years was the policy, not every year. Every three years for a childhood facility, child care facility. Alderman Sanders.

Every three years, were they in compliance with that water sprinkling system with no water?

Excuse me, Larry, I didn't hear your first.

I'm sorry.

That's okay.

Was the Open Bible Study building in compliance every three years when they came out to inspect that property to make sure that it was taken, unless they just was given a pass?

Is that what what took place? No. They was given a pass. There was no was was there stamp saying that the inspection was completed and they was in compliance. Is that is that what we're saying? I would assume that would be the thing and that can surely be checked. But they had them specifically make changes in every change. Everything that they suggested to do open Bible did. Yeah, but they were still in violation regardless every three years. Remember, I said, all the fire department, the fire inspector did was have them put a sign on the sprinkler system that it was not hooked up to- Yeah, so that means that it was in compliance if that was the case. That means that if that was stamped of approval to pass it every three years and that kept going, they kept doing that, then there's a violation that has been taking place and we must find the paper trail, see who's signing off on it, and then we can have further discussion in regards to how we got here and who's coming to keep feeding this notion that the city is liable for any parts of that.

I'm just having this discussion because we're spending money with no one responsible or have the rights to ask the city to help fund something that the taxpayers are paying for, especially if it's a Bible study or anything like that, because we're spending money if it's just going to sit there.

and the building is not in compliance or the property is not in compliance, but they're getting this, there's violations going on. I'll put it like that. And we got to get to the root of it. We need to get to the root of it because there's a paper trail. And I like to see that paper trail because that will make, that will give us whatever it is that we're looking for to make sure that everything is in accordance to what the fire marshals and the state of Illinois wants this particular establishment to have. So we're not going to be passing any more violations every three years because I need to see that. I want to see what is that all about because we have not gotten in that area. I was told a whole different type of story and I was fed a bunch of bull BS and I don't appreciate that. And so my thing is We better come into order here about this particular discussion that we're having because we're not fully invested our time and efforts into discovering what it is that we're talking about until we have the paperwork to talk about it, you know, and I think we're wasting a lot of time with that.

Let me give you a little information I found, and this may be a little helder-skelder to you because I wrote it a couple different times, but like I said, I do represent Open Bible, Open Bible area, okay? I want to tell you that the market in the child care facilities over the last year, last years, have considerably changed.

And if you're not familiar with this, I want to tell you that there's 1,700 kids, 1,700 children every day in Carroll, Joe Davis, and Stevenson County that have absolutely no daycare, no place to go, okay? That's one thing.

Second thing that is a critical problem here in this area, they even go as far as to the Y brought it up at their morning meeting a couple weeks ago, that this was really referred to these three places as a desert, because there wasn't places available for them to go.

Another big issue for the teaching industry is that when teachers become pregnant, many of them end up going out of the trade because they have no place to take their kids for daycare. There are only a couple places that even handle kids zero to two. Every daycare facility in the city of Freeport has waiting lists. Okay? I'll just give you kind of a rundown.

It may take a couple minutes. If you want to tell me to shut up.

But that's, yeah, that's off the topic. That's off the topic right now.

No, it isn't off the topic. I'm telling you, it's a daycare facility that's got people out there that have got...

It's a daycare facility that come May 28th, its year will be up. It's a daycare facility that didn't do what it needed to do for 25 years.

It's a daycare facility that have put kids in endangerment for 25 years and now they expect the city of Freeport and our tax dollars to I don't know, 9, 10, or 11 residents in that area to connect to city water.

If so, would it be at their expense, or will the taxpayers also connect to city water?

also bear the cost. Will Open Bible be required to pay for its hookup, yes or no?

Darren?

So per our codes and ordinances, every house that we would go by that is not served would be served. We've done that on every project that we've done. That is the city cost of building it, but we would only connect to their right of way like we do with everyone else. And then it's their responsibility to connect to that point. Once we run into their property, it's considered ready to serve. And so those customers would be ready to serve and get a ready to serve invoice until they connect, at which time they would just go to a normal connection fee. Open Bible per our codes and ordinances. By the way, per our courts and ordinances. We do not charge residential customers to hook up at the time of construction.

That's in our codes. So if we build a new main, anybody that connects at that time does not pay the connection fee.

If they choose not to do it, then they pay the connection fee at a later date if they waive that opportunity while we're there.

And what is that connection fee?

It depends on where the water main is, but I believe it's $1,600 for a close side and $3,200 for a long side service, they call it, I believe that's in our code, and then Open Bible is a commercial account, so they would pay a commercial fee to connect, but that's a different size service, because they're going to probably need a six inch service to connect out there And what is the commercial fee cost?

I couldn't tell you that off the top of my head, but Darren, I just want to jump on that Excuse me? I'm sorry. I didn't hear what he was saying. I'm not sure what the commercial six-inch connection fee is off the top of my head. I've been working on some residential ones lately. That's why I knew that off the top of my head I'd have to look in the code. As I understand, Open Bibles already got their connection there and ready. Right. There still would be a connection fee to the city of Creeport proper. Can I ask when did that come into? When did that happen?

When was that installation being made? What year? What time? As far as I know, it was installed at the same time that the building was constructed, so about 2000. It's been there 25 years. So we inspected that, right? Because if we put a water box down there, then we would have a paper trail of that water box for a temporary possible hookup. No, there's no water box. Yeah, so...

It's just a connection pipe that's right into the street. It's connected to nothing. It's connected to nothing. Is it generating an invoice? No, it has no money. A monthly invoice? No. It does not generate a monthly invoice? No, it's not served. We can't charge somebody for something. We're not serving them. We're not there yet. Okay. All right. I just want to make sure that we don't stick something down there. Yeah. So, could you please get me Um, a cost for commercial the commercial fee hookup Yep, I can Because that won't be on city's tax dollars that would be on Open Bible Open Bible Yep Okay, city manager Boyer or public works director Darren Stiegel isn't the average cost to connect to the city between $10,000 to $12,000 You just said it's $16,000 to $32,000. For water. For water. So the $10,000 to $12,000. That would be a whole new service line ran. Remember on a new construction, the city provides the service to the Buffalo Box. That's what we've standardly done. And then we waive the connection fee if they connect at the time that we're building, right?

So that $10,000 to $12,000 would be waived if they connected at the time?

No, they would have to hire a plumber to pay their portion of the fee from the Buffalo box or the right-of-way into their home.

So that cost becomes their own, which they negotiate with a plumber, and that depends on how far they have to go to their house, what the materials are.

We don't pay that at all. Our initial connection to each house could be averaged at, I don't know, probably $5,000, maybe $6,000 to get everything set so they're ready to serve.

Okay. Talking to the constituents all over, and this is a sad situation, but I'm still going to say it's not our job to use our tax payer money and fix this issue.

I have not once heard Open Bible agree to meet halfway or anything since it is unclear where would this money come from?

I proposed in September that we could use it, use the capital improvement fund to build it and construct it, and then we could potentially repay the capital improvement fund with any, with the equivalent amount of funds coming from the perfluorinate compound litigation that we should be seeing.

to them. It's the Forever Chemicals. There's a damages lawsuit between the city and 3M and BASF and DuPont. And when those funds come in, this would be an appropriate use of that. You know, I, you know, because what I was told was a rainy day fund.

I don't know what makes up a rainy day fun Well, we can talk about this till whenever, but I think the bottom line is if we can't come up to an agreement with them, we're not going to have a say it's going to be in the court and there'll be a judge deciding it for us Why would you say that?

I just think that there was an agreement made 25 years ago, we didn't fulfill our You said may have been an agreement?

I'm just going by what Chief Blackburn said Okay Okay. Okay. And the way it sounded, it was agreed upon, city didn't carry through it, if we don't come up with some kind of a compromise to do it, we're going to end up in court and we're not going to have a thing to say.

We don't have a document. I have a solution. I have a solution. Since it is unclear where the money for the entire project will come from, I think it is necessary that we, as a council, Resend Resolution Number R204-95 and draft a more responsible resolution creating a binding referendum to be placed on the ballot for the April 4th, the April 1st, 2025 general election.

given the people, the taxpayers, our constituents, who we're here working on their behalf to give them the power to design. Attorney Zito.

Just as a point of clarification, so I think what your suggestion is, is that you want to put into the hands of the people the decision whether or not to run the water main out to open Bible.

Are we going to pay for this project?

Yes.

Okay, that decision.

That is different, though, than rescinding the fair Graham contract.

Right?

That's two different things.

Well, because it's already 80% done, I thought I was told that was really not an option any longer.

Right.

That's why I want to make sure, because you mentioned here in your proposal, you said rescind the resolution.

So that's why I want to make sure that you're talking about two different things That it cannot be rescinded Right, so you're not looking to rescind it You're just looking to put the question of whether or not the city should pay for extending the water main to a referendum Yes Is that what you're suggesting?

Yes Okay And I'm also making a motion to move that to the October 21st council meeting October 21st council meeting that question for a vote. I second it. Darren. Yeah. So just some points of clarity. Our contract that was approved at that meeting was only for design, not to move forward to bidding, right? So our contract is just to get it to a bid ready set of plans that then can be shelved, discussed, grant opportunities could be looked for.

there was no intent from the design approval that was there to move this to a bid at that time. We took that option off when it was approved. So this contract without council approval to go to bid cannot go to bid, right? It's just a design, shovel ready, then maybe we can chase some grant money because of the children and items out there. I also want to clarify the schedule. So we did say a year, but because it it will take two to three months to get it ready, then it's got to go to permitting for three months, and then by that time it's going to be like April, and this is probably a two to three month construction window depending on when it would get fit in or bid, so by that time we will be a full calendar year, that's generally what most projects end up taking.

and you know that yeah but that was not said to us so when you said it's gonna take a year to design it that's what I thought well I'm sorry I deal with it all the time so I may have not spoke clearly but that's typically what a project can take we were asked to accelerate this one because of the children and the nature of the liability here and so we did accelerate the design because the sooner we haven't designed the sooner we can try to look for funding opportunities that may not be solely Freeport. One other point of clarity that I want to make, I have no skin in the game. I want to be transparent. My kids went to Open Bible. I don't know anybody there that has kids anymore, but my kids went there. I never knew they didn't have a sprinkler, and it would have been during the time period.

There wasn't no sign up above the sprinklers saying not in service?

I never, if it did, I didn't read it, right? But I do think that we have to look at this at a little bit bigger game than what we are. The city of Freeport has a responsibility with our water system to serve people within our municipality if they want to be served.

they are within the city limits as is all the other people that are from A to B and I will fully admit that we made a mistake calling this the open Bible water main expansion it's really to the west side of town my question to you guys would be if this was in a different direction of town if it went south east or west would we still be having this argument yes we would because to me if there if somebody's within our city limits and wants water. We have an obligation to serve them. Our ordinances say they can't have a well. Yes, you're right. Yeah, we do have to serve them if they want water. They can't use wells. But it doesn't have to be at our expense. It doesn't have to be at our tax dollars' expense. But it does with everyone else. I mean, every water main that's put in is our expense.

private church slash school and they don't pay taxes. Yes, they're in the city limits. So you're telling me Open Bible pays taxes on their church and their school? Exactly. Like the church that you go to, that you go to. It's no different. There's not a difference. Okay. So can I add to this too, please? Yes. So it's Good conversation we're having here and certainly Open Bible would be a beneficiary of this water main placement out there.

But what concerns me even beyond that particular facility is that span of more than 2,000 feet represents seven more city fire hydrants that would go in service in there.

So right now, any kind of structure fire issue we would have between Branmar and further west, we have no water supply Yeah, I see, I understand what you're saying So seven more fire hydrants, 300 Would be a benefit Yeah Benefits the whole area, not just open viable And the fire department as well I understand that Yeah Right I can understand that right there so it would not just be a dedicated open Bible water main ran out to them it would be a west side of town benefit what's odd enough is they have city sewer out there the earth was opened up and pipes taking material away from that facility in that area exist now why can't there be pipes put in the ground that runs water to that facility I mean it's like a double standard we're all discussing here in recognizing. So their waste goes to city services and runs through city, you know, sewer mains, and it gets, you know, handled by city services, but yet it's city limits and we don't have water out there. And it's like if we didn't have seven fire hydrants running down Stevenson with this large gap, it's a city utility. And again, my main concern is Water Supply going on the west side of town.

Yeah.

An added benefit would just be protection to Open Bible and any other structure that is within those boundaries.

Right.

And what you're saying is all of that has to come by design.

You have to really design those hydrants.

If it has to go in place to be installed, Now, Open Bible could be a recipient of that installation without paying anything. Is that what we're getting at?

It would certainly be hooked up to that main, which is also providing, again, seven more fire hydrants to the west side of town.

Yeah, yeah.

And I'm looking at it in even a larger scope, a bigger picture than just one particular facility.

Right. I hear you loud and clear right there, Chief. Again, it is my desire to put it into the hands of the people and that it be placed on the ballot for the April 1st, 2025 general election. Okay.

Okay.

Did we have a motion for that?

Do we have any?

No, no, it's no motion.

A motion, okay.

Do we have any?

I think there's an order here.

You said.

There was a motion.

I thought you said.

Oh.

Yeah.

That was.

You did.

That was to move it to the April.

Right.

Yes.

So, right.

So, that means, right, you made a motion to put the referendum concept.

Yeah.

Yes.

Yeah, I second.

I did.

So, you didn't have a vote.

Yeah.

Okay.

But I think there needed to have a stand up.

All I want to comment is, you know, within the next, say, three months, we'll have an EPA-approved set.

We're not going to go to construction, but there's a lot of powerful individuals in this room having a disagreement about something that maybe if we put our efforts together, we can find a way to fund this project that has a lot of need for fire protection, for children, and find a way that it doesn't use city funds.

We've had the ability to find grants before. This story would play well with constituents and state representatives and other parties. So maybe we can all, instead of have a big disagreement about it, find a way to work together to applaud or apply to agencies to find some kind of funding for this.

I really think due to the early child care aspect of this project, along with the safety needs and the fire needs of the community, this is something that a lot of people here could work together to find some kind of avenue to, you know, maybe we can find a grant to fully fund it.

and hopefully the school is trying to do that and not waiting for a handout. Hopefully they're looking for ways of getting money to help fund this.

I can't speak educated on that subject. I have no idea what power that school or the demographic of that school would be to have to find a grant to place a public infrastructure. And really, you know, Open Bible isn't looking for a handout. It's the city's responsibility to provide water to every constituent. It's not a handout. It's what we need to do. We're obligated. It's just too bad that it was put in our lap and we didn't know it. So why wasn't this done 25 years ago? Well, that's the magic question. No one has that answer. I don't know it. I wasn't in it. You weren't in it. If it was our responsibility then, if you're saying it's our responsibility now, It was our responsibility then, but they didn't even have the decency to bring it.

didn't even have the decency to bring it to the council. Mayor Getz said it never even hit the council floor.

So who are you asking for what from and through when you don't even go through the mayor or the council who works on behalf of the city and the constituents and making it run and operate as it should?

But you avoid that lifeline? Really, the only lifeline that can give this life was avoided because the community development person shook the hands of the principal? Really, that's all we have to do now? Duckman, let's shake some hands. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

Well, if the discussion is done, you should probably call for the vote Um, yes, I want to call for the vote, but we don't even Can we clarify what the vote's for?

Her motion is to put a referendum question on So a yes would be in favor and no would be again On the city council meeting for next Monday night Okay. So if you want, if you want to have a referendum on this, then you vote yes. If you don't, then you vote no.

Just wanted to verify it. I'm a little confused.

But I asked that the vote, that it be placed on for vote next week.

Right. So, right. So that's your motion, right? Just so that at the next city council meeting, there will be an agenda item about authorizing a referendum question.

Yes. Right. Okay. So, and I will double check because there are certain deadlines. You did mention specifically the April 1st election date. I will double check to make sure we haven't missed the deadline for putting a referendum on the April 1st there. So assuming we haven't missed that deadline, if this passes, then we can move forward as presented. Otherwise, we may have to take it to the next available election. So I thought that any two people could put anything on an agenda. Unless it's state law. But this is, you're asking about an election. You're not, that's a totally different subject. Yes, but that would give Attorney Zito time to find out if we're even at. Monday will be, yeah, I'll find out by then. If this passes, right, right, if this, if this is the will of the council to go to referendum, then. And so if it doesn't pass, then what you're just saying is dead?

you, well, you can, you, again, like you said, two people could put it right back on and see if, you know, see if the vote changes. Okay. Um, could I ask a question? Sure, Tom. This would be for Aaron or for Darren, one of the two. Uh, if the, if the, contract is pulled for the design. Is what we're discussing now pulling it for the design also? No, the design is completed. Okay, then forget what you said. The design is done. That $69,000 is paid whether we do anything or not. Yes. Excuse me. I have a suggestion. Rather than making a motion to put it up for referendum, how about make a motion to put it on and maybe we can discuss directing staff to look for grants so that we don't have to worry about the issue of the money. Maybe we can find, like Darren suggested, we can find an outside source that'll help get this done versus putting it on the, putting it up for vote.

Well, I would like to think that that has already started happening and it hasn't been no success. Darren?

I have not attempted to look for any grant opportunity on this project to this point. A, I hadn't been directed to and number two is until we have a shovel ready set, the kind of funding that we would be able to get for this, you know, we'd just be talking about the uncertain until we have it, you know, designed and permitted.

that's when you can really chase some opportunities of people that have immediate funding like Sorensen or Cabello or somebody of that nature.

I actually had a discussion with McGuire Woods just to give him a heads up that we're going to be needing some funding.

So they're aware and waiting on that.

Okay.

McGuire, the lobbyist, is aware and waiting on.

And what that design and the whole concept, I mean, you can't go looking for grant money if you don't know what you're asking for.

True.

You got to put the horse before the cart.

Well, that's already happened, but, um, isn't, since the design is already at the EPA, that's enough information for the lobbyists to know what he needs to find, what he's looking for?

Well, isn't there a three-month process that, that, excuse me?

Review time is a three-month process for EPA review on this type of water main project, which you said.

So we sit and we wait three months?

No, you can put some feelers out, but I'm just saying the immediate money that we're looking for will be probably a greater opportunity once we actually have the permit in hand. It's not shovel-ready until you're permitted.

Gotta be permitted.

I would be willing to pull back my motion, however, Attorney Zito, I still would like that information on a time frame, and Director Stiegel, and City Manager Boyer, and Mayor Miller, Mayor, if you're physically willing to look and search and see what may be out there. Now, that's three people. I'm attempting to put it in your hands and see where we can move with this, how we can move, if we can move.

So under those conditions, if I have your commitment, I would be willing to pull back that motion, but I still do want Well, I already told you what I was already doing, so City Manager Boyer, do I have your commitment?

Yep, we'll look for as much funding as possible Now, I hope that just wasn't an answer just to blow me off, because that's what it sounds like, City Manager In order for that to happen, we have to also have the second follow suit.

Yes. Director Stiegel, do we have your commitment?

Always. I'm always looking for money.

Alderman Sanders, would you be willing to pull back your second since I'm willing to pull back my motion?

Yes, Your Highness. I'll be more than I'm just being comical.

I'll do anything for you, but yes, I would be willing to pull back my motion, but adding to that, as you are doing, we're just not going to let it just linger, let's put this thing on a time schedule to meet reporting updates, I don't know, monthly, Uh-huh. Weekly. Weekly? Every meeting. Okay. And so we need to get an update status on where we're at with our project researches and grant researches or whatever we're researching.

Grant researchers or whatever we're researching or trying to come up with just to keep everybody upbeat about everything. I just want the energy to stay in the room because there's a lack of energy that I perceived. That's what I'm looking at. I want the enthusiasm from the council. Rah, rah, cheer, cheer.

We're doing this for the general public. We should have pumping stans. We should have all kinds of horns blowing.

Thank you, Alderman Sanders.

We have all this going on because, I mean, it looks doom and gloom in here.

Thank you, Alderman Sanders.

And I don't like that.

Do we have any public comments?

Yes.

since I was told this was irrelevant during our conversation I'd like to talk a little bit about who we're talking about running water to another thing I'd like to bring up is it's for everybody to know it's awful easy to blame it on a guy that's dead who gave the handshake the community development director doesn't have to be around and we do have obligations from things that have been done in the past whether we like it or not. I had the pleasure of meeting with Jennifer Fuller, School Administrator at Open Bible. We had talked about two times by phone and then I got together with her so she could provide me some information on Open Bible. She started there in 2006 and was promoted to superintendent in 2009. Open Bible's been a mainstay in the city of Freeport Church in the 50s, 60s when Bob Bush started and there's only been three pastors since that period of time. The church expanded out here as we know so they could grow. The building has been always maintained in three separate sections, the church, the childhood center, and the early development center. Open Bible does not take children under two years old and provides grades through K-5 for education.

after after that children go to other schools. The current makeup and demographics of 2024 in September maximum enrollment is 217 children have totally staffed. This includes daycare and educational. Right now there's 174 people there. They were the only facility that was open during COVID that people could drop that people could drop off their children. Right now they have 131 children, 3 to 5. When these people leave after 5th grade, let me see here, 116 of them go to other schools or homeschool.

The facility is inspected, like I said, every three years by the state fire marshal, which is the code that she told me they went by, and I'm sure they have figures on it.

The city's authorized Ferrogram to do design drawings, the city can go out for a shovel ready project, this will give extra consideration due to the shovel ready part of it, labeling the project which allows for immediate start up of the project and for funding, this can also provide city water to existing houses on both sides of Stevenson Street, supply water for additional housing if it was built next to Park Hill Golf Course, and would also provide water needed for sprinklers in the daycare center.

The church has water for the building because it already has a well. I thank you for your time, and I have no seconds left. I appreciate it.

Any other public comment?

Don't forget the banquet tomorrow.

Yeah, I'm probably not going to be able to make that, Tommy, but thanks for the invitation. And did you see that Rick Verru opens on Friday?

Oh, it is?

On Friday.

Oh, you, how are you fine?

I can't believe you don't know that You can get your cheddar fries on Friday Oh, who's going to cut the ribbon?

There isn't one We already did a shovel ceremony So, it'll be open like Friday morning?

I don't know their time, just Friday, that's what I know Okay If there's nothing else, I make a motion to adjourn Second.

Oh, can I do that?

You just did.

Is there a motion?

Do we have a second?

All in favor?

Aye.

Aye.