WEBVTT

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the invocation this evening.

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I have two verses I'd like to share.

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First is 1 Timothy 2, 1 to 2.

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I urge then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession, and thanksgiving is made for everyone,

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for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness.

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And the other one is from Psalm 133.

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Oh, how wonderful, how pleasing it is when God's people all come together as one.

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It's like the sweet-smelling oil that is poured over the high priest's head.

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It's like that runs down his beard flowing over his robes.

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It's like gentle rain from Mount Hermon falling on Mount Zion.

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It is there that the Lord has promised his blessing of eternal life.

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Let us pray.

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Our Heavenly Father, we just thank you for today.

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We thank you that we live in a community that can have government where the people can come and make decisions for the good of us.

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And Lord, we ask that you be with each one of our council members, with our mayor, with everyone that's in authority in this room.

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And Lord, we ask that you give them wisdom and knowledge and common sense and good results, a plan for our city that will prosper it.

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and Lord, I pray for unity.

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I pray that this community would no longer murmur against each other, come against each other,

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but Lord, that we would be a praying community just like it is when we enter this building

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and it says, in God we trust.

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We put our trust in you and we praise you and we do what your will is and that is to love one another.

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And so we put aside our differences and we ask for the good of the community.

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and we ask for brotherly love to flow through Freeport and Stevenson County.

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In Jesus' name we pray, amen.

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Amen.

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Now we'll officially call this meeting to order.

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Madam Clerk, please take the roll.

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Mayor Miller.

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Here.

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Alderpersons, Clemm.

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Here.

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Johnson.

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Here.

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Simmons is absent.

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Parker.

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Here.

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Oh, I thought I saw Stacy.

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She is.

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She's out here.

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She's not at the dais at the moment.

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Shadle.

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Here.

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Sanders.

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Here, here.

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I'm sorry.

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Here.

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

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Stacey. And item number four is approval of the agenda. Is there such a motion? So moved. Second. Motion made by Alderman

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Sellers, seconded by Alderman Shadle. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? That motion passes. Number five is approval of the minutes from the committee of the whole meeting held on February 9th, 2026. Is there a motion? So moved. Second. Motion made by Alderman Shadle, seconded by Alderman Sellers. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? That motion passes. Public comment? I have two, Madam Mayor.

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received by email in regard to agenda number agenda item number eight the first is from Joshua Atkinson good evening my name is Joshua T Atkinson a resident of Freeport first I want to apologize for not being able to attend the first public comment session this evening and due to the limited number of items I don't think I'll make it in before you adjourn I understand that I have been critical of this city government at times but even those who have been

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the target of that criticism must admit that I try to be fair. I acknowledge the good work that is done and I speak up when I believe this council can and should do better. Tonight you are discussing amendments to chapter 660 specifically section 660.10. Under this proposal the city would allow the director of public works either within 30 days notice or without notice in cases he deems as an emergency. What that means in reality is that this council is considering giving someone the

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authority to enter the private property of every resident in this city based on their own judgment, instinct, and

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unfortunately bias. The problem is that Freeport does not currently have a trusted public works director on

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staff. Instead, that responsibility has been outsourced to a third-party engineering firm, Fairgram, meaning the

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authority described in this ordinance will effectively fall to Darren Stiegel, who according to an email

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received from our own city attorney is not a city employee, but an employee of Fairgram. And more

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importantly, this means that the city takes zero accountability or responsibility for Stiegel's

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lack of judgment, integrity, behavior, and or actions. A title alone does not make someone accountable to

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the residents of Freeport. And unfortunately, time after time, Mr. Stiegel has demonstrated

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questionable judgment in his interactions with members of this community. Each time this governing body has chosen to excuse it, forgive it, or simply look the other way. So I want to be very clear tonight. Darren Stiekel is the last person in the world welcome on my property. If there is a legitimate emergency at my home, send trained emergency responders, firefighters, hazmat professionals, or police officers.

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and if I am suspected of violating a law send a trained police officer from the beginning because if Darren Stiekel ever steps foot on my property a police officer is going to have to come anyway. This ordinance raises serious questions about property rights accountability and the wisdom of granting enforcement authority to someone who is not even a city employee. I urge this council to amend this provision and think carefully about the precedent it sets for the residents you represent.

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Thank you for your time, Joshua T. Atkinson. The second is from Carol Krupke. Dear council members and city officials regarding chapter 660 of the city code hazardous materials, I am concerned that anyone who is not an employee of the city of Freeport being given the right to enter any property for a suspected emergency.

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More specifically, with the city's response to a past issue with Mr. Siegel impersonating a hospital employee and harassing a citizen and there being nothing they, the city, could do since he wasn't an employee of Freeport, Illinois. This is not something I can agree to. I do agree, however, that in some instances there could be a need for an emergency entry to a property.

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but as a citizen of Freeport I believe this should be done by a city employee where they are governed by the laws of the city and the city is held responsible for any abuse of power, damages done, or harassment. Thank you for reading this. Carol J. Krupke. Thank you. Darren, could you look and see if anybody's signed in?

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Okay, and then, Madam Clerk, could you please note for the record at 605, Alderman Simmons entered. Thank you. We'll move on to item number seven, which is the discussion regarding ordinance amending chapter 1448 erosion control permits, city manager. Thank you, Your Honor. Everybody's looking at this and wondering why now are we bringing all these modifications to our ordinances?

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related to erosion control and at least illegal discharges and that kind of thing. And kind of the

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purpose is we actually have to maintain a MS4 permit with the EPA and that is municipal drainage essentially

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dealing with stormwater or whether that's dealing with any kind of runoff situation. So years ago we

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had an exemption from this requirement and then in 2020 we then were notified they had changed the

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requirements and any community over 10,000 people had to have an MS4 permit. So we've abided by all those

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requirements at this time and we're looking to the future. We're seeing where this is going and we're

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just simply trying to keep pace with the challenges and in the ordinances that need to be updated

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according to our permit moving forward. So the first item on the agenda and so we've got four items here

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that are related to this in various forms and fashion. And tonight's a cow, so we have plenty of time to discuss them and also make edits to them. So I thank the individuals who have submitted comments, and we can certainly make those adjustments as we go forward. These are by no means perfect. And the reason we're talking about them tonight is so that we can make the appropriate changes that are correct for Freeport. So moving forward with that, I'd like to talk about item number seven, which is chapter 1448, Regulations,

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erosion control, and land distributing activities in the city of Freeport. The ordinance ensures compliance

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with state and federal stormwater regulations, including requirements of the Illinois Environmental

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Protection Agency, the MS4 permit, and the NPDES, that is the National Pollution Discharge Permit that

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regulates wastewater into receiving streams. Since its adoption, staff have identified the need to

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Clarify, Permit Classifications.

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permit classifications, strengthen planned requirements, improve enforcement improvement sorry provisions to better align with the current IEPA MS4 permit standards and the city's enforcement requirements. The proposed amendments here tonight in for item number seven, which is chapter 1448. The proposed amendments establish clear permit classifications based on project size and type of land disturbance. The ordinance strengthens erosion and sediment sediment

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management control plans required to ensure appropriate best management practices are designed and implemented.

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And in addition, the ordinance expands enforcement authority, including the issuance of stop work orders when necessary.

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These changes ensure continued compliance with IEPA and MS4 stormwater obligations while improving regulatory clarity and environmental protection.

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So at this time, I'd like to invite Randy Colebarra up to the podium.

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as I understand in this particular one you see quite a few changes primarily it kind of streamlines what we it would streamline our ordinances with communities who have already been through a fairly lengthy process and would be make our ordinance a little more clear and easy to understand and enforce but Randy would you mind going through the proposed changes? So Rob has asked that I kind of walk through each section of the ordinance

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tonight and kind of talk about it and what the changes are. So the first part is 1448.01 is scope. That just kind of lays out the entire chapter. Some of the stuff in the beginning is mostly just legal jargon, so your findings, finds that excessive quantities of soil may erode areas, undergoing development, that kind of just language there,

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talks about what is in our MS-4 permit. In our MS-4 permit, we have two sections. There is pre-construction and post-construction.

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We are required to ensure that during pre-construction and post-construction, there is no soil eroding into our streams or into our system, which would impact our infrastructure.

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So the purpose kind of lays that out as well.

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um then it kind of it goes into the authority of the city engineer which I did notice that in this one and in another ordinance we missed updating it to say the city engineer and or their designee so that language will get added as well. General principles talks about how a permit needs to be sent in for any land disturbance.

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and that all waste discarded materials generated at the site shall be prevented from being carried off.

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Talks about the placement of concrete and asphalt and similar materials.

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There are a few exemptions that are in here.

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Things like cemetery grave sites, emergencies posing immediate danger to life or property,

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activity for the total area of material disturbed or stored,

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is less than 1,500 square feet, any ag or farming activities, and any lawn maintenance.

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Those would just be excessive if we were trying to permit those.

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Then we go into the permit classes.

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We went from two permit classes to three because we had some issues where contractors had a lot of questions,

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and we felt that this system actually kind of clarified the system better and would work out better for both staff and contractors.

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So we turned it into class one which is land disturbances that require an EPA permit for more than one acre. Class two is land disturbances between 2,000 square feet and one acre and then class three is for your utility companies and land disturbances between 2,000 square feet and an acre. We went through and did manner of work

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you're doing that work. You need to make sure you're doing it in a safe way. Last thing we need is for anyone to end up buried or anything like that. We went into erosion control performance standards, which per our permit with the state, we have to make sure that contractors are searching out and going after the best management practices, so the BMPs for those.

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We updated some definitions to kind of clarify a few things there. We put in language for the application process and permits and documents that were needed. And then we did it for each class so that it would be easily understood and easily applied for. Then we have 144817, which is the erosion and sediment control plans. This just lays out what you need in your plan.

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There had been questions and we kind of put together like a cheat sheet originally, but by putting it in here and just kind of having a standard that everyone can see, everyone can have the same information and always have the same looking plan, that way it's easier for review and everybody's on the same page.

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Permits are good for a year which is the same as it was previously. Renewal and extensions basically after the one year if or if you think you're going to go over you're welcome to renew with us or extend the permit. Permits can be denied if they don't meet any of the section which is standard for most of our permits that we issue. It goes through standard or conditions of approval so basically making sure that you've met everything we've asked for

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or everything that our permit with the state asks for. We lay out the responsibilities of the permittee just to make that super clear. We talk about who authorizes the permit, and then if you want to change your plan, so your erosion control plan that you've submitted, if any revisions need to be done, we now have a process for that.

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Um, 1448-26 talks about inspections and supervision, which just the state requires that we do inspections on site to ensure that everything is going the way you said it would go. Nothing's gotten away from you. Your, um, sill fence hasn't fallen down and you didn't take care of it and that kind of stuff. Changes during construction reports are kind of the same thing. Circumstances with recommendation for corrective measures. Um, that's just

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Hey, you've got this problem, you need to get it fixed. If it's fixed, it's not a big deal.

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Maintenance during and after construction, the contractor is responsible or whoever pulls the

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permit is responsible for making sure that everything is graded and grass is coming back up or something is

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there to keep that from running away. Then it just goes into compliance and cost of recovery,

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stop work orders, which we didn't previously have. This just gives us the power that if there is

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something that's off, whether it's safety-wise or it doesn't meet our permit, we can say, hey, you need to

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stop until this gets fixed. Then there's a section in here that talks about requirements for small-scale

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Land Disturbance. It talks about BMPs, everything that was required by our permit to cover just additional things that wouldn't fit into one of the classes. That's kind of the quick highlights of everything. Thank you. Mr. Teikle. I just want to give you the crib note versions. The City of Freeport is required by the Illinois EPA to regulate stormwater discharges.

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One of the reasons these things are coming up is I asked Randy to go through our existing codes, make updates. We're getting back into construction season very shortly. What I want to remind everybody, so the city of Freeport is the authority for drinking water. We're also the local authority for wastewater. And since 2017, now we're the local authority for stormwater as well. So if we don't enforce these types of policies, these fines and penalties, if we get a state and

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inspection will actually come to the city of Freeport, so we are obligated by our permits to enforce these codes and ordinances. Some of the ordinances that were done when this was originally brought in were not complete. It was getting the program started, and Randy and I have worked together for the last couple years, and we've been learning things that are good and bad about the ordinances as we have gone along, and so that's why you see these updates. We have to be able to monitor the sites.

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The state of Illinois has always had a program that they monitor an acre.

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that they monitor an acre and larger during construction.

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So you have to get a state permit for that, which we honor those state permits if they get them.

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It's when you get under an acre of construction, but we don't want to regulate a garden, right?

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We have to have something in the middle that we're regulating people to make sure the dirt stays on site.

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We're not tracking it down the roads.

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It's not going down the stormway.

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These ordinances, especially this one, allows us to effectively communicate

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and effectively codified and inspect these which Randy does the inspections for our city give you a great example of a project that's been going on that we've been inspecting for over a year now is the landfill project with the solar panels she goes out there on a regular basis and checks their permitting and checks to see that they have all their BMPs which is the best management practices like the geo tubes and socks in place to make sure the runoffs not coming off so very important to the city

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City of Freeport that we remain vigilant to this for our stormwater permitting. Thank you. Is there a motion to move this ordinance amendments forward to the next city council meeting? Second. Motion made by Alderman Shadle, seconded by Alderman Clem. Discussion? Alderman Johnson? Okay. I just had a couple of questions and then just a comment. Chapter 1448.01 purpose on Section 2A. The original ordinance states

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runoff can carry sediment and other pollutants, and Section 2b talks about managing pollutants and water discharges, etc.

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And 2b3 states we are protecting stormwater, groundwater, water bodies, watercourses, and wetlands.

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The amended document, 1448.03, Section 2, refers to preserving and enhancing water quality by preventing silt-laden water from reaching creeks, channels, streams, wetlands, and public waterways.

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Sediment and silt are two different things and so are pollutants.

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So just wondered why all three are not included on the amended document and why groundwater is not included on the 1448.03 Section 2 of the amended document.

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Second question is I was wondering what the cost of the permits are, Class 1, Class 2, Class 3, if we have a cost for those.

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and just the comment that I wanted to make it does appear that the amendment does give the city more

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leverage to stop projects they're out of compliance if I'm reading that that's what it sounds like to me is

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that correct so those were the questions I have does somebody if you don't aren't prepared for that

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answer you can always get back to the council at a later date too that's fine I might have to get back

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to you because that I might need that in writing so I can think of what everything you just okay is there

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Do we have a charge for the permits, how much they're going to be, or do we not have that?

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But if it's not, then it was something that was missed and needs to be added.

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I believe it's $100.

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I believe they're going to stay the same as previous.

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$100 for each one, regardless of the one, two, or three class.

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Okay, then however you want to get back with when you've got that information, that'd be great.

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Remember, there's still two readings, so there's still time to have these discussions.

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I can type that out and send it to you.

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Sellers, I'm sorry.

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Yeah, I just wanted to ask.

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I know Darren had said you checked the solar panels.

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Are they all the solar panels that are in the area, or is it just the one that's by the waterfront?

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So the project I was talking about was just at the landfill, but Randy inspects every project that pulls a permit by this requirement.

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so we get anybody that does a large construction so another new project well 12 will have a what they call a SWP MS4 permit so she'll have to regularly go out and do random inspections right at her schedule unless we have a tip off or a complaint that somebody's unhappy or something somebody saw something running in a storm then we do a like an emergency type request but the way the documents work

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is there's actually a report that's done on an inspection on these projects on a weekly basis and they have to be held on site so not only part of her inspections are to check that things are in place but also to check that the contractors or the engineer has been doing the weekly checks. So again, the answer to the question is it would be every location in the city of Freeport that's under an acre but larger than a garden, let's say, type construction.

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Alderman Stacy, did you have your hand up?

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Yes. So are you saying that right now where this ordinance stands that it's out of compliance?

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I believe we're stating that it is not out of compliance is probably not the word we would use.

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I think we would say that it's not as effective as what we would like it to be able to be.

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we like to make we what Randy explained is we did more tiers. So it was more fair to the size of project that you had what what the requirements are. And then we also made it more, I think a little bit more authoritarian. So we had some legs to stand on as a city in case somebody is not doing it right. Because the last thing we want to do is have a contractor dragging mud all over down the streets, or concrete is a big thing.

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right now, concrete washouts, there's a professional washout that's required. A lot of contractors used to just dump it into a gravel pile, pick up the spud, they called it later, and that concrete water just would work its way wherever. That's not legal. It has to be in a professional bin. It has to evaporate. There's a whole process to it. And we want to enforce that the contractors that are working within the city limits are taking care of the environment. And you guys should know, this isn't just a Freeport thing.

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This is anywhere that's an MS4, or even if you're not an MS4, it just happens to be that since we are the MS4 authoritarian, it's up to us to provide the guidance and the inspection and also the discipline on it when people don't follow it.

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Alderman Sanders?

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Forgive my ignorance, but I never got an opportunity to look up what was MS4.

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Could you explain that part to me before I proceed on?

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Sure. MS4 is just a fancy term the state uses for stormwater.

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Yeah. And I noticed that you also specified erosion, but you never specified the list of erosions or the contaminants that could enter into those storm sewers by way of any form of waterway, whether it's sewer, whether it's somebody's dumping, whether it's

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runoffs and things of this nature. I know those things contribute to erosion, but my question is what are we doing to monitor to make sure those outlets are being effectively, what I want to say, monitored, tested, lab work, all of these things to make sure these biochemicals are not getting off runoffs because we know manufacturers,

00:27:29.360 --> 00:27:52.340
get in the habit of dumpings and things of this nature. We need to know who's monitoring these things before we start to tread down this path because we don't have data before us to show us who's in violation. We don't have that before us. At least I don't. I'll put it like that. Maybe others do, but I don't.

00:27:52.340 --> 00:28:12.740
And I'm going to be the one who's going to be looking at who's qualified to do this type of inspection, what agency, what contractors, who are the people that are going to be licensed.

00:28:12.740 --> 00:28:41.340
I don't care about permits, but they have to have license to check the meters data and everything else to give us a proper understanding of what has been accumulated in those storm sewer because we used to know back in the day there has been sewer breakage contaminants

00:28:41.340 --> 00:29:10.880
entering into the waterways or the storm sewers? And have we done a comprehensive exploratory on these areas to indicate to us whether or not these things are looked into to show us some kind of data, that checkoff list, I should say, that we are able to look at it for ourselves as council members, people of that nature, and who is qualified to do that?

00:29:10.880 --> 00:29:39.900
I know you have this young lady going out doing these inspections, but I need to know whether she's licensed to handle all of the criteria of the inspections of stormwater flow, because you're talking about sediments, you're talking about all kinds of things that might can enter into it, because one thing we have not done with as an exploratory group or city is exploring those under

00:29:40.880 --> 00:29:48.760
sewer lines that runs on the railroad tracks, and yeah, yeah, we have, yeah, we have storm

00:29:48.760 --> 00:29:53.980
sewers that runs on the railroad tracks, and so let me answer your questions, because I've

00:29:53.980 --> 00:29:55.960
got five of them here, I'm not sure I can keep track.

00:29:55.960 --> 00:30:23.980
got five of them here. I'm not sure I can keep track of them. I'm sorry. So currently we have nobody that has compliance issues because we really don't have active constructions at this point, right? We're getting into construction season. So there's nobody that's not in compliance at this point. There might be a couple carryover permits from last year because MS4 permits or stormwater permits are only good for 12 months from the time they're submitted. We do actually do stormwater testing and it's required by our MS4 designation. Every outfall in Freeport,

00:30:24.000 --> 00:30:30.760
has to be tested. Randy has a matrix, but they're randomly selected. And then she has to go out and

00:30:30.760 --> 00:30:37.440
take a wet flow and a dry flow. And we send those to labs looking for chemicals, constituents. And if we

00:30:37.440 --> 00:30:42.120
find anything in those, we actually have to track it back up the storm basin to see where that stuff's

00:30:42.120 --> 00:30:47.840
going. So that's all within our regulations and codes. You asked about metering stormwater. We don't meter

00:30:47.840 --> 00:30:53.640
stormwater. There's nowhere for it to be metered. We only meter sewer water and we meter water, but we

00:30:53.640 --> 00:31:23.560
don't meter stormwater. All the outfalls are open basins. We don't meter stormwater for the actual flows? No. Why is that? Because it's not required by the state to monitor it. Okay. Thank you for that. All of the testing that you asked about is all regulated by the state. So unless we get a bad stormwater sample, our testing is done for the quarter and they're reported and Randy has to report that annually. If we do

00:31:23.560 --> 00:31:37.220
find something that's out of line, then of course we've got to track it back upstream to be in a sanitary, a business, maybe even a private party that's dumping oil, something to that nature. So we do do that effects and that's why they require dry flow and power.

00:31:37.300 --> 00:31:40.660
Alderman, Sanders, you're going to have to let him finish those five points.

00:31:41.260 --> 00:31:43.580
Go ahead. I just wanted to get that in there.

00:31:44.080 --> 00:31:53.500
So anyway, all that testing's done. Randy does that all. That's part of her. If you haven't met Randy before, she's our environmental compliance and safety officer for the

00:31:53.500 --> 00:31:58.700
City of Freeport. She actually has a degree in environmental science, and she actually is the

00:31:58.700 --> 00:32:02.640
person that physically goes out and does this testing, does all the reporting for the City of

00:32:02.640 --> 00:32:09.380
Freeport. That's one of the large components of her job. And do we have enough staff? Yes. At this time,

00:32:09.380 --> 00:32:16.620
we have enough adequate staff to do it. That's what I wanted to know. Okay. There's no, for Alderman Stacy.

00:32:16.620 --> 00:32:27.080
Yes, I thought I had saw something in this ordinance that's stated weekly, but how often is this test done?

00:32:27.980 --> 00:32:39.400
So the MS4 compliance on a site has to be done weekly or any time it rains more than a half an inch. That's the state law.

00:32:39.480 --> 00:32:40.920
Within 24 hours, yeah.

00:32:40.920 --> 00:32:45.400
Now, we don't inspect every site every time it rains a half an inch.

00:32:45.500 --> 00:32:47.480
That's the contractor's requirement.

00:32:48.820 --> 00:32:55.300
Ms. Kolbauer randomly selects people to check after rainstorms to see that everything's in place.

00:32:55.680 --> 00:33:02.480
And if she finds things that are out of compliance by state law, that person has 48 hours to correct that deficiency.

00:33:02.960 --> 00:33:06.400
And if they correct it and move on, it's just a warning.

00:33:06.400 --> 00:33:12.200
if they are significantly deficient for a long time or they refuse to fix it then she can write a

00:33:12.200 --> 00:33:17.280
compliance ticket that comes to the code hearing that's the whole process of the way this works

00:33:17.280 --> 00:33:24.620
we don't have the manpower to check every construction site in Freeport every time it rains I'm not going to

00:33:24.620 --> 00:33:28.960
lie to you about that and nor can we afford that as the city of Freeport so I think that expectation

00:33:28.960 --> 00:33:35.540
would be unrealistic and that's why it's a random test now if we have people call in and say you know

00:33:35.540 --> 00:33:41.420
Gertrude's construction site has mud running down the street, then obviously we're going to send

00:33:41.420 --> 00:33:47.720
Ms. Cole Bauer out to check that specific situation if that's the case. We don't receive a ton of those

00:33:47.720 --> 00:33:52.780
phone calls, but occasionally we do on some of the bigger projects, especially when contractors start

00:33:52.780 --> 00:33:57.840
dragging mud out of the construction sites and down the street. That's usually where we start getting

00:33:57.840 --> 00:34:03.460
tip-offs on it. But the reason we get behind these permits, guys, is because when we issue the permits,

00:34:03.460 --> 00:34:15.040
We enforce the permits, we don't have near as many problems with them down the road, and if we start enforcing the ordinances that we have in place, a lot of these issues go away because people realize that they need to be compliant.

00:34:15.860 --> 00:34:17.600
Alderman Sanders, did you have another question?

00:34:17.600 --> 00:34:47.320
Well, yes, ma'am. When you say to me that there's no flow meters or any flow evaluations in storm sewers, the capacity of water flowing through these storm sewers are good indicators whether or not there's areas within the city of Freeport where there's too much of a charge coming into those storms by way of

00:34:47.600 --> 00:35:17.240
opening manholes, storms, drainage, or whatever the case is, which increase the capacity over at the treatment plant with such a head of a waterfall, shouldn't we be monitoring those meters to see how it's coming on rainy days and measuring one week, how much water are we getting through storms as opposed to

00:35:17.240 --> 00:35:18.460
for a rainy day.

00:35:19.360 --> 00:35:22.900
So to answer that question, we're mixing two different things here.

00:35:23.020 --> 00:35:25.080
You're talking about sanitary sewer flows.

00:35:25.080 --> 00:35:27.020
No, I'm talking storm.

00:35:27.260 --> 00:35:30.940
But you're talking about stormwater flows that are going into the sanitary.

00:35:31.100 --> 00:35:33.340
We monitor that at the wastewater treatment plant.

00:35:33.360 --> 00:35:33.560
Okay.

00:35:34.040 --> 00:35:38.880
The question you asked earlier were storm outfalls that discharge directly to the river.

00:35:38.960 --> 00:35:41.780
There is no way to meter those or account for those.

00:35:41.780 --> 00:35:45.600
We can take guesses off of rainstorm events on what's going through there,

00:35:45.600 --> 00:36:15.580
but they're too big a discharge to meter. We do monitor how much stormwater comes into the sanitary sewer and we do that based on every time it rains there's a computer program that's linked up that shows how much the average rainfall was and how much our inflow comes in and how many days it's projected out and due to the all the lining that we've been doing in Freeport for many years that has gotten significantly better. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm sorry, Alderman Stacy, you've already gone twice. Anyone else?

00:36:15.600 --> 00:36:18.980
I didn't think there was a limit at the count.

00:36:20.020 --> 00:36:20.700
There is.

00:36:21.480 --> 00:36:21.920
Okay.

00:36:22.640 --> 00:36:24.660
But so you are more than welcome to pick up the phone.

00:36:24.820 --> 00:36:26.320
We want your questions answered.

00:36:26.820 --> 00:36:28.660
It's just that's the rule.

00:36:29.040 --> 00:36:29.400
Yes.

00:36:32.470 --> 00:36:32.770
Okay.

00:36:33.170 --> 00:36:35.430
Then this will be moving on to the next meeting.

00:36:35.750 --> 00:36:36.230
Thank you, Randy.

00:36:36.950 --> 00:36:42.990
Item number eight is discussion regarding ordinance amending part six of the general offenses code.

00:36:43.090 --> 00:36:43.670
Manager Boyer?

00:36:44.310 --> 00:36:45.010
Thank you, Your Honor.

00:36:45.010 --> 00:36:46.210
And just a point.

00:36:46.210 --> 00:37:16.210
each one of these items on the agenda tonight are all related so if you have questions we're going to have an opportunity to ask those so just going over this one is chapter 660 the MS4 stormwater additional hazard hazardous material and chapter 660 of the city code regulates additional hazardous materials staff has reviewed the existing language has identified areas that require clarification modernization and administrative

00:37:16.210 --> 00:37:46.210
administrative updates to improve consistency with current practices and the updates from the MS for stormwater requirements. The proposed amendments are intended to update the code, eliminate outdated provisions and ensure the ordinance reflects current operational procedures. The proposed amendments revise specific provisions within Chapter 660 to clarify regulatory requirements and improve administrative efficiency. The change updates the language for consistency within the code and at this point I'd

00:37:46.210 --> 00:37:53.570
Randy, if you would kindly just kind of go take it walk us through the proposed changes to section 660.

00:37:53.990 --> 00:38:11.750
Sure. So part of the updates to our MS4 was to increase enforcement opportunities for hazardous materials, illicit discharge, a couple of the other things that you're seeing tonight. So with this one, we went through and we redefined a lot of the definitions to make them more clear.

00:38:11.750 --> 00:38:19.870
went through and we added the layout for administrative hearings and how that looks.

00:38:21.250 --> 00:38:33.170
You'll see the access to premises. This also needs to have the and or designee added to it that was missed in the draft.

00:38:33.170 --> 00:38:58.330
Act. This section basically is if there's an issue such as ones that we've had in the past that we haven't had good enforcement measures for were people dumping sewage in their backyard, gentlemen dumping oil in the driveway because that's what they used to do. It's situations like this where we can go look at what's going on.

00:38:58.330 --> 00:39:28.270
okay does this like create a hazard for public health does this create a hazard that could get into our drinking water does this create a hazard somebody's dumping something down their drains at home and now we're killing the bacteria at the wastewater plant so that's the intent of this it's not really access into a home necessarily it's more so just the ability to go and look at what's happening inspect and see

00:39:28.270 --> 00:39:38.090
just how bad it is. There's a notification of the discharge where we have to notify you of what's

00:39:38.090 --> 00:39:45.250
happening or you have to notify us if you have a hazardous materials discharge. Language on notice

00:39:45.250 --> 00:39:53.590
of violation and how that happens. Suspension of activities for emergency situations, non-emergency

00:39:53.590 --> 00:39:53.990
situation.

00:39:53.990 --> 00:40:03.160
situations, non-emergency situations, and then language for the abatement. So the kind of the layout for how

00:40:03.160 --> 00:40:11.300
we require anything to be fixed and who has to have bear that cost. Again, this is for anything from

00:40:11.300 --> 00:40:18.260
major hazardous material spills where we call fire department in to assist to, again, the people that

00:40:18.260 --> 00:40:21.680
are using a bucket instead of the bathroom and dumping it in the backyard.

00:40:24.000 --> 00:40:30.420
Different spectrums, but both have safety concerns for drinking water, wastewater, and just public health in general.

00:40:31.600 --> 00:40:32.360
Manager Boyer?

00:40:32.360 --> 00:40:34.260
I just wanted to also comment.

00:40:35.120 --> 00:40:44.520
This also is so that if we have any industrial runoff or anything like that happens to get into the sanitary or into our stormwater system,

00:40:44.520 --> 00:40:51.040
then, you know, we have the ability to backtrack to those sources. Something similar happened years ago

00:40:51.040 --> 00:40:56.680
in a different community where a large industry partner was cleaning out what's called fracking tanks.

00:40:56.800 --> 00:41:02.340
They used a lot of acid to do the actual cleaning and then the contractors doing the cleaning just

00:41:02.340 --> 00:41:08.660
released all that acid into the sanitary system. In this case, it actually killed the plant for a

00:41:08.660 --> 00:41:28.780
community of approximately 150,000 people, which resulted in all kinds of fish kill and the receiving streams and also a lot of problems. So what this is doing is it's giving us the ability to make sure that we can manage those situations if that ever was to come to pass along those lines.

00:41:29.260 --> 00:41:30.060
Mr. Stiegel?

00:41:30.060 --> 00:41:59.720
Yeah, so I wanted to give you some real case issues that have happened in the last two to three years with this. I believe we've had two issues of people putting wastewater on their property on top of the ground in their rear of their properties that we we had to deal with. And there's been five. Oh, excuse me. Okay, we'll take five. That's even a better number. We also had an issue in Cecilia's ward.

00:42:00.060 --> 00:42:08.420
of a commercial contractor dumping sanitary waste into storm basins for a method of cleanout that was caught doing that.

00:42:10.840 --> 00:42:16.620
The real evidence behind this is to protect our drinking water and our waterways.

00:42:16.740 --> 00:42:17.480
That's what it's for.

00:42:18.160 --> 00:42:24.960
When people put oil or greases or other foreign materials into the sanitary collection systems,

00:42:24.960 --> 00:42:27.200
everybody in the city of Preport pays for that.

00:42:27.200 --> 00:42:33.760
every gallon of clear drinking water or clear storm water that goes into the sewer costs two and a half

00:42:33.760 --> 00:42:38.700
times to clean at the wastewater treatment plant that drives our cost up that will come all to the end

00:42:38.700 --> 00:42:45.560
users. So these ordinances are not about Darren Steakle or somebody from public works getting on our

00:42:45.560 --> 00:42:52.040
property. This won't even pertain to 99% of the issues in this town. This is for the one percenters

00:42:52.040 --> 00:43:17.920
that are creating havoc or destroying our environment within the property. Again, these people that have been dumping wastewaters on properties, we're not asking to go into their residence per se. We're asking to look in the backyards. It's a violation of many different codes. But in order for us to enforce it, our codes have to be rigid enough to allow our inspectors like Randy to be able to run the enforcements.

00:43:17.920 --> 00:43:24.740
Okay, so is there a motion to move this ordinance forward to the next meeting regarding Part 6?

00:43:25.440 --> 00:43:25.920
So moved.

00:43:26.200 --> 00:43:26.440
Second.

00:43:27.440 --> 00:43:31.500
We have a motion made by Alderman Shadle, seconded by Alderman Sellers.

00:43:31.980 --> 00:43:32.640
Alderman Sanders?

00:43:33.600 --> 00:43:44.580
Yeah, Mr. Stegall, in order to be effective with what you just stated, in order to be effective,

00:43:44.580 --> 00:44:11.260
You have to be preemptive in order to do that. And we can't rely on citizens of the city of Freeport to be our investigators. We can't put them in a situation where they're snitching on their neighbors and things of this nature. We can't rely on that. People violating any ordinance as far as that is concerned.

00:44:11.260 --> 00:44:34.560
And the fact of the matter is, when I ask about whether or not we have enough manpower to do that, we have to be very critical about where we're doing our inspections in order to determine whether any business formation or business company or whatever is making improper dumping and things of this nature.

00:44:34.560 --> 00:45:03.580
So I'm just curious, are we able to do that? Because we have to be preemptive. We'll find out at the end of the treatment plant that somebody had been putting bad chemicals inside of the structure of the manhole, the sewer, or the storm. It's too late. Now we have to do an all-out investigation to determine where this flow came from.

00:45:03.580 --> 00:45:33.440
and my thing is if we do preemptive of all companies that have this type of any kind of chemical that they're discharging or putting in the waterways that they receive some kind of notification I'm talking about any business that does that I know you probably get that in in your plans but the thing about it is I like for us to be more vigilant about that because you are right my time my time here

00:45:33.440 --> 00:46:03.420
yes storms and sewer lines were definitely contaminated and infiltrated with all kinds of crap and so I just want us to be cognitive of all of those things that once we start down this path we have the right manpower to whether or not if we have to inspect not just on a regular basis but you know these companies but periodically to go around and have these things

00:46:03.440 --> 00:46:31.900
is checked because you can see the residue of some of these things like from Microswitch, a potato chip company, all of those kinds of places was spewing all kinds of contaminants within the city's sewer lines and storm sewers. And I'm one that went out testing and monitoring these systems to validate whether or not this is going on because why? It shows up at the treatment plants. These things

00:46:31.900 --> 00:47:01.880
demonstrates, comes out at the treatment plant and I know they have to do that based upon storm sewer simply because it's hitting the waterways and it is killing the plants and whatever that's going on in the rivers. It's doing the same thing. So whether it's storm or sewer, we need to have indicators that allow us to know whether or not waters that we're dumping back into the river is taking care of.

00:47:01.900 --> 00:47:18.060
care of properly and that we have already notified the citizens of Freeport any kinds of improper dumping results in fines, possibly jail, you know, that kind of thing.

00:47:18.060 --> 00:47:28.480
So let me break that down just a second. So, yes, while you've been on council, we conducted a local limit study and we passed that and we've enforced it.

00:47:28.480 --> 00:47:35.220
so we have local limits expectations for all of our commercial users. The significant industrial user

00:47:35.220 --> 00:47:41.000
discharges are checked regularly and they also have to report regularly and we take independent samples

00:47:41.000 --> 00:47:46.840
and send those in so that's part of our original process. When it gets to the residential end, yes,

00:47:46.840 --> 00:47:52.420
it's much tougher but we find evidence in manholes or storm basins and we track those backwards to try

00:47:52.420 --> 00:48:00.380
to figure out where that's coming from. Again, you know, if somebody wants to affect our environment or

00:48:00.380 --> 00:48:07.160
damage or pour something down there, it's going to be very hard for us to stop them. We're not relying on

00:48:07.160 --> 00:48:14.100
the snitchers of the world, but yes, they're helpful to stop the damage, and we do respect people for their

00:48:14.100 --> 00:48:20.480
time and their investment in helping us protect the city of Freeport, and so we take those responsibilities

00:48:20.480 --> 00:48:50.060
very seriously, and Randy does the best job we can monitoring them, and I believe in the time that I've been sitting in this chair, we've done a significant job in cleaning up a lot of these issues and making this environment better. Finally, I'll tell you that how do we measure this? We measure it because the state requires us to do river testing before and behind the wastewater treatment plant, and then that testing's back up at other treatment facilities that are down the way to see if we are making an effect

00:48:50.060 --> 00:49:23.100
on the amount of discharge and the items that are discharged and we believe that we have been making a difference with our work. Thank you. Thank you. Alderman Stacy. Since I'm limited to questions, I would like reports on the last week and reports on when they were spotted in my ward

00:49:23.100 --> 00:49:38.020
And how would you have even have known that something had been put through the storm drain if it was not seen and reported?

00:49:38.820 --> 00:49:40.980
So I can answer that for you right now.

00:49:41.120 --> 00:49:47.540
So we likely won't have any reports for this last week because we don't test like that.

00:49:47.540 --> 00:49:51.860
We would have quarterly reports because that's how we do the storm.

00:49:51.860 --> 00:50:14.700
That's how we do the storm basin testing. And you're right. In your specific instance, had somebody not have reported what happened in your ward, we would not have caught that because we can't be everywhere all the time. If people want to make illicit discharges and they're going to do it at night, after hours, wherever, we can't be everywhere. We don't have cameras all over town. We would never be able to suspectly find that.

00:50:14.700 --> 00:50:20.900
we're talking about large discharges is what we're going to catch.

00:50:21.280 --> 00:50:25.240
So that was not a large discharge and it was 10 o'clock in the morning.

00:50:25.240 --> 00:50:33.440
Right. But again, it was at one storm basin in the middle of 139 miles of streetway. That's pretty hard

00:50:33.440 --> 00:50:39.760
for us to track that down. But with the person that called us, we were able to get over there and take

00:50:39.760 --> 00:50:44.420
a sample. And we didn't quote enforce that. I don't want to name the contractor, but we did quote

00:50:44.420 --> 00:50:55.220
enforced them and I think we find them five or six thousand dollars in damages for that dumping so that and that sent them a message that we weren't going to allow that to happen.

00:50:55.780 --> 00:51:08.100
So if I get copies of reports it will show a difference that month or that quarter compared to the most recent.

00:51:08.100 --> 00:51:37.960
I think it's going to show that our stormwater quality in general is good that's going out out of our basins right I don't I don't think you're going to see it's not like there's a scientific measurement it's either the water quality is good or it's not and we have not had any stormwater quality issues because we're trying to correct these issues as we can remember that dumping that happened that day in your ward was let's say a thousand gallons

00:51:37.960 --> 00:51:40.260
in the middle of the city of Freeport.

00:51:40.580 --> 00:51:46.160
It's, you know, like throwing a penny in the wishing well, honestly, but it does translate

00:51:46.160 --> 00:51:49.880
that that went into the river somewhere as storm discharge flows.

00:51:50.260 --> 00:51:51.800
But it could have been 3,000.

00:51:51.900 --> 00:51:52.940
They said it was one.

00:51:54.380 --> 00:51:54.860
Right.

00:51:57.200 --> 00:51:57.680
Okay.

00:51:59.000 --> 00:51:59.760
Alderman Johnson?

00:52:01.120 --> 00:52:07.500
Yeah, under 660.05 prohibition, it looks like maybe, I know this is a rough draft, but

00:52:07.500 --> 00:52:11.600
it looks to me like the first sentence there might have some repetitive statements we need to work on.

00:52:12.420 --> 00:52:19.300
Also under 660-09 it talks about injunctive relief and administrative hearing letter. How long do we wait

00:52:19.300 --> 00:52:24.420
for the injunctive relief or how many days of fines? I guess I just want to see what is the progression

00:52:24.420 --> 00:52:31.240
once someone is caught or we suspect that there's hazardous dumping. What is the progression? Do we

00:52:31.240 --> 00:52:38.880
fine them starting on day one? Do we do the injunctive relief administrative hearing? Or what is the

00:52:38.880 --> 00:52:47.480
progression of what happens? And so I want to answer to that. And also, the violation fine is $250 not to

00:52:47.480 --> 00:52:55.640
exceed $750. Violation each day shall constitute a separate violation. So I'm wondering, is this how

00:52:55.640 --> 00:53:13.320
How much, you know, this is stating that can be $750 up to that amount per day. What determines whether it's $250 or whether it's $750 or what the amount is that's charged for the violation for that day? So just if you could clarify those two things for me, I would appreciate it.

00:53:13.320 --> 00:53:22.080
meeting. So as far as the amounts, a lot of times we look at how many times are you a repeat offender?

00:53:22.520 --> 00:53:27.120
Is this something, you know, we've talked about you, we've educated you, we find you and you just

00:53:27.120 --> 00:53:35.960
continue to do so. That will make it go up every time we talk to you. We try to shoot for, you know,

00:53:35.960 --> 00:53:41.660
a lot of it's case by case. You know, what did you dump in there? What does it look like? What are the

00:53:41.660 --> 00:53:47.580
circumstances. Can I educate you first and gain compliance that way? Is it someone that just

00:53:47.580 --> 00:53:55.180
really honestly didn't know that's what we shoot for? Educate compliance. After that, it goes into,

00:53:55.180 --> 00:54:01.980
okay, you knew better. Now you get a fine for $250 and then we work from there. Ideally, if it's a

00:54:01.980 --> 00:54:09.760
situation they can clean up, great. Have you clean it up and we'll mosey along. If it's something that we

00:54:09.760 --> 00:54:18.380
can't clean up or something that has a large impact on public health or on our drinking water or anything like

00:54:18.380 --> 00:54:26.760
that, then it's a little more serious and we look towards fines first. So the progression is fines first and

00:54:26.760 --> 00:54:34.620
case by case, usually I try to educate first and then go to fines. It just kind of depends on what

00:54:34.620 --> 00:55:04.180
what the scenario is. Just one more comment. Sure. I appreciate all this, but also what I'd like to see is some proactive things like maybe a letter in the, maybe like the Water and Sewer Bill or something that states what can be flushed down toilets, what can be put down drains, or what, I should say, what can't be put down toilets, what can't be put down drains, and also

00:55:04.620 --> 00:55:33.800
a note to the public of where they can take these hazardous ways to get rid of them. Because I know there's only certain places you can take certain things. So maybe if we did some more education of where those things go, maybe that would be helpful. Yeah, we currently have a few things in draft, but I'm hoping to get those out and out this summer so we can get those. Okay, thank you. Okay, so we have a motion made by Alderman Shadle, seconded by Alderman Sellers to move this forward. All those, Alderman Sanders. Can I ask one question? Sure.

00:55:34.620 --> 00:56:06.200
piggybacking off of what Sister Johnson was just saying. Is this an ordinance on the 660? Is that an ordinance? Yes, it's item number eight. It's the ordinance change on those parts. And it's asking us to amend it to what was discussed tonight. What we discussed tonight. Right. I think we should make sure that

00:56:06.200 --> 00:56:13.100
and we put more into what Ms. Johnson was just stating.

00:56:13.580 --> 00:56:14.820
Yeah, we've got two more sessions.

00:56:15.140 --> 00:56:15.320
Do we?

00:56:15.500 --> 00:56:15.720
Yeah.

00:56:15.820 --> 00:56:16.060
Okay.

00:56:16.160 --> 00:56:16.320
Yeah.

00:56:16.400 --> 00:56:17.640
This is just the cow.

00:56:17.740 --> 00:56:18.680
We're not voting on anything.

00:56:18.740 --> 00:56:20.420
We're just saying, do we want to move it forward?

00:56:20.580 --> 00:56:20.840
Okay.

00:56:21.140 --> 00:56:21.480
All right.

00:56:21.500 --> 00:56:28.860
I just wanted that to be noted because there's a lot of things that can be implemented into that

00:56:28.860 --> 00:56:30.200
that we can bring.

00:56:30.200 --> 00:56:30.380
Okay.

00:56:30.380 --> 00:56:37.580
So, Alderman Simmons, did you want to share something?

00:56:37.780 --> 00:56:38.040
No.

00:56:38.120 --> 00:57:08.100
Mr. Stegall. Yeah, just as part of Randy's everyday role with the city is she's one of our education officers as well. So she educates on water, sewer, stormwater, everything resulting in this. And we've been started a quarterly newsletter where we're releasing information quarterly out to everybody through their water and sewer bill, trying to educate people on these different facets of the city.

00:57:08.120 --> 00:57:10.040
of the utility business.

00:57:10.520 --> 00:57:23.080
So I would recommend that everybody look to there for information because there's lots of tidbits that we're constantly putting in there and it's usually a two to four page pamphlet that we're putting out with education materials like this.

00:57:23.240 --> 00:57:27.040
And by the way, that's required as part of our discharge permits.

00:57:28.080 --> 00:57:28.560
Okay.

00:57:29.560 --> 00:57:32.600
So we'll just take a voice vote on this.

00:57:32.700 --> 00:57:36.500
All those in favor of moving this ordinance changes forward, signify by saying aye.

00:57:36.720 --> 00:57:37.240
Aye.

00:57:37.520 --> 00:57:38.000
Opposed?

00:57:38.120 --> 00:58:07.700
And then if we can just back up to item number seven, I forgot to take a vote on that. We had the motion to move that ordinance forward concerning the erosion control made by Alderman Shadle, seconded by Alderman Clem. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay, that moves forward as well. So move on to item number nine, which is the discussion regarding ordinance amending part 10 with the streets, utilities, and public service code.

00:58:08.120 --> 00:58:16.460
as well as Section 1040.07A as well as B. Manager Boyer?

00:58:16.820 --> 00:58:22.300
Thank you, Your Honor, and I want everybody to put a pause on what our conversation's been.

00:58:22.300 --> 00:58:29.700
We're going to come revisit it with item number 10, but we're going to get out of sequence just slightly

00:58:29.700 --> 00:58:37.540
and discuss new Julie laws that require new requirements from us moving forward with utility

00:58:37.540 --> 00:58:45.800
Locates. So in 2020, the 2026 amendment to the Illinois Underground Utility Facilities Damage Prevention Act

00:58:45.800 --> 00:58:52.160
requires that all newly installed or replaced water and sewer service lines will be electronically traceable

00:58:52.160 --> 00:58:59.760
and locatable. This is now the law as of January 2026 and all communities must comply. In the past, certain

00:58:59.760 --> 00:59:05.320
private service laterals were not required to include tracer wire or any other locating technology,

00:59:05.320 --> 00:59:12.820
which creates difficulty during excavation and utility marking. Excavation work must continue to be

00:59:12.820 --> 00:59:19.480
coordinated through Julie, Inc., and the updated law expands the responsibility of private service owners

00:59:19.480 --> 00:59:25.840
to ensure that underground infrastructure is properly installed, locatable, and maintained in the right-of-way

00:59:25.840 --> 00:59:31.260
and on private property for all new installations or repairs. So the purpose of this ordinance amends

00:59:31.260 --> 00:59:48.040
and updates the city code to reflect the state requirements. The changes will require tracer wire or approved locating technology for applicable water and sewer service lines and make compliance a condition of permit issuance and final inspection.

00:59:48.820 --> 00:59:50.040
Aligning local regulations.

00:59:50.040 --> 01:00:16.060
and aligning local regulations with state law and so on. So essentially what we're looking at here is we're asking for you to consider moving this forward. Essentially what it's going to do is require any new sewer service line or water service line to be marked with electronic tape. It's basically a foil tape or a wire that you can hook onto a locating device and specifically find those utilities that are buried underground.

01:00:16.060 --> 01:00:46.000
So with that I'd like to just open up with comments I think Randy Randy's gonna sit tight for until the next agenda item but yeah any comments okay so is there a motion to move this ordinance amending part 10 forward second we have a motion made by Alderman Clem seconded by Alderman Shadle discussion Alderman Sanders I like I like the fact that that they're doing that now because that was

01:00:46.000 --> 01:01:03.300
talked about years ago to do just what you just incited. But what I'd like to know is the old method of how we went about doing it, we still have to keep that in place, right?

01:01:03.800 --> 01:01:15.360
Yeah, we're still going to be locating city utilities. And if there's a house, for instance, that doesn't have locating wire on their service, we'll continue doing what we normally do,

01:01:15.360 --> 01:01:44.600
which is we find where the service connection comes in the street and then we'll, you know, basically paint a tee heading toward the house. However, with all the new ones we'll be required to locate it up to the house once that tracer wire locates up is installed. Norman Sanders? I'm sorry. Televised inspections will result into the placement of connected services.

01:01:45.360 --> 01:01:47.300
to the sewer main and things of that nature.

01:01:47.920 --> 01:01:52.120
Yeah, that is something you know quite a bit about, so yes.

01:01:52.340 --> 01:01:54.580
Okay. All right. Thank you.

01:01:56.920 --> 01:01:57.580
Alderman Johnson?

01:01:58.300 --> 01:02:16.000
Okay. Under Section 2B, I just want to make sure I have understanding of this. It's regarding existing houses, structures, factories, et cetera, that have the ability within 200 feet, I believe it is, to connect to our sewerage system.

01:02:16.000 --> 01:02:32.340
that they're given a notice within 180 days that they should connect to the city water sewage and once they're given that notice they don't have any choice in the matter they have to connect to the city sewage is that am I reading that right is that correct?

01:02:32.340 --> 01:02:45.540
Well that is correct so once so this is a little bit outside of the scope of this particular discussion but yes once the individuals in town are notified that they need to hook up to city sewer because

01:02:45.540 --> 01:02:50.220
because maybe they weren't originally or they were originally in the county and the city annexed them in.

01:02:50.820 --> 01:02:56.160
When we're doing a project, the time to get people hooked up is when we're doing the construction part of it.

01:02:56.220 --> 01:02:59.520
So we would send them a notice saying, hey, we need you to hook up to the sewer.

01:02:59.820 --> 01:03:04.140
And then so much time goes by and then they need to be hooked up.

01:03:04.320 --> 01:03:04.380
Yeah.

01:03:04.780 --> 01:03:05.560
Follow-up question.

01:03:06.740 --> 01:03:06.940
Okay.

01:03:07.320 --> 01:03:12.160
So, Alderman Johnson, the language that you're asking questions about, that's existing language right now.

01:03:12.160 --> 01:03:38.800
so it's really not on topic as to what we're talking about tonight which is the Julie requiring the tracer line so the area that you're reading from is all existing language in the ordinance it's already in the ordinance right it's the current one it's only the stuff that's underlined and emboldened is the new language this is adding the requirement of the Julie tracer wire so I'm not saying your classes are valid they're probably but not appropriate for this topic right now because they're they're existing now all right thank you

01:03:38.800 --> 01:04:07.820
Okay, so we have a motion made by Alderman Klemm, seconded by Alderman Shadle. All those in favor of moving this forward, signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? That motion passes. Item number 10 is discussion regarding ordinance amending part 10 concerning section 1046.59 and section 1050.08. Manager Boyer?

01:04:07.820 --> 01:04:35.280
Thank you, Your Honor. So, Section 1046.59 prohibits stormwater, groundwater, sump pumps, and other clear water sources from discharging into the sanitary sewer system. So, just to break it down a little bit, if you have your gutters connected to the sanitary, that would be a problem. If you have your sump pump from your basement connected to the sanitary, that would be a problem. These items need to be connected to an outflow someplace that goes to the storm.

01:04:35.280 --> 01:04:48.320
Section 1050.08 addresses illicit discharges to the municipal storm sewer system and is required under the city's MS-4 permit by the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency.

01:04:48.960 --> 01:04:55.480
Recent updates to the MS-4 permit require clear ordinances requiring and strengthening enforcement authority.

01:04:55.480 --> 01:05:03.340
Staff proposes amendments to ensure the city code aligns with current regulated Freeport MS-4 stormwater requirements.

01:05:03.340 --> 01:05:14.980
The proposed changes in Section 1046.59 clarify prohibited connections to the sanitary sewer and strengthen the city's authority to require corrective action.

01:05:15.420 --> 01:05:23.660
The amendments in 1050.08 update the definition of illicit discharge and reinforce the city's authority to investigate and enforce a violation.

01:05:24.300 --> 01:05:28.260
And these recommendations are necessary to continue with our compliance with MS4.

01:05:29.020 --> 01:05:32.180
So, Randy, if you would walk us through those changes.

01:05:32.180 --> 01:05:53.880
Sure. So starting with 1046.59. So we went through and added prohibited acts. Basically, this says that you can't change any natural or man-made water flow. So you can't place or deposit any debris or fill, any construction, such as ditch, pipe, pulver, coursework.

01:05:53.880 --> 01:06:01.480
It's not permitted to fill, obstruct, dam, divert, or otherwise change natural or artificial flow of waters

01:06:01.480 --> 01:06:09.040
It prohibits excessive vegetation and debris

01:06:09.040 --> 01:06:14.840
Pretty much anything that might change how water's moving

01:06:14.840 --> 01:06:18.520
We did put in there correction of existing conditions

01:06:18.520 --> 01:06:20.920
So if there's something already out there

01:06:20.920 --> 01:06:52.120
ideally it needs to be rectified this ensures that water continues to flow and get out to the river instead of getting dammed up and causing puddles we went through there's acts that are permitted it talks about the permitting process there's penalties and corrective action and then we go into 1050 08 which is illicit discharge and connection prohibited so illicit

01:06:52.520 --> 01:07:04.310
connection prohibitions. So nothing can go into the stormwater except for normal stormwater.

01:07:06.070 --> 01:07:15.700
Construction for continued existence of illicit connections are prohibited. Person is considered

01:07:15.700 --> 01:07:21.700
in violation of the section. If a person connects a line conveying sewage to the stormwater,

01:07:21.700 --> 01:07:53.580
basically it's just protecting what can go in there and what can be sent out to the rivers we do have some discharges that are exempt in here things like firefighting flows landscape irrigation air conditioning condensation that kind of stuff stuff that won't cause or should not cause any kind of harm to the environment

01:07:53.580 --> 01:08:06.740
We then have a section in there for suspension of MS4 access, meaning if you were to violate any of this, we can say, hey, you're done, you're not going to send anything else to the stormwater until we get this fixed.

01:08:08.880 --> 01:08:10.540
That's kind of the basics of the changes.

01:08:11.840 --> 01:08:12.560
Mr. Stiekel?

01:08:12.560 --> 01:08:41.880
Yeah, one of the reasons this is important is because putting more teeth to this, we need to prevent clear water drainage from being pumped into the sanitary sewer. Per EPA, that should be pumped back onto the ground. When it gets commingled in with our sanitary, again, we pay to clean that clean water at the wastewater treatment plant, which increases our user costs for everybody in the system.

01:08:41.880 --> 01:08:50.960
These changes allow Ms. Kohlbauer to be more effective in allowing checking for illicit hookups.

01:08:51.500 --> 01:08:57.340
We know that they probably exist within Freeport, and we are continuously looking for them.

01:08:59.980 --> 01:09:11.680
It's very hard to find them throughout, but this ordinance allows her to make sure that clear water that we should not be sending to the wastewater treatment plant is going back on the ground.

01:09:11.880 --> 01:09:15.460
as runoff to our sanitaries and back out to the waterways.

01:09:15.960 --> 01:09:20.920
Okay, so is there a motion regarding this ordinance change amending Part 10?

01:09:21.000 --> 01:09:21.560
So moved.

01:09:21.780 --> 01:09:22.100
Second.

01:09:22.540 --> 01:09:26.700
A motion made by Alderman Shadle, seconded by Alderman Clemm.

01:09:27.420 --> 01:09:28.400
Alderman Sanders?

01:09:29.020 --> 01:09:29.340
Yeah.

01:09:30.340 --> 01:09:35.780
I'm glad you're talking about what it is that we can't see.

01:09:35.780 --> 01:09:47.420
But my problem is sometimes when developers and contractors are involved, building homes with garages,

01:09:47.420 --> 01:10:15.980
homes with garages. They have the propensity to want to install sewer for runoff when people are washing cars or whatever mechanical machinery work that they're doing in their garage. And they're using that by way of discharging, whatever they're using. And I'm not saying detergent is one of them, but the fact of the matter is when you have

01:10:15.980 --> 01:10:33.660
a car wash or car washes or garages, private garage areas that's using storm insertions to discharge water from the property or whatever, you're right, there's no way to evaluate that.

01:10:33.660 --> 01:11:01.100
But here's the thing, new development, if we're going to start amending things and encouraging people to not just discharge any kind of solvent water or whatever, clear water, whatever, we must let them know at the time of birth of a home that you have to be legal with these new storm drains that you want to put in your garage and your homes or whatever the case is.

01:11:01.100 --> 01:11:23.440
I'm just putting that out there simply because I know these things happen and this is the reason why we never could find who's doing a lot of the dumping, improper dumping, and it's just another way of saying we'd like to notify developers who are constructing new homes and things of this nature. You just can't do that.

01:11:24.140 --> 01:11:24.520
Mr. Stiegel?

01:11:24.520 --> 01:11:50.540
Yeah, that's all part of the building code and permit process now and mandatory inspection for all buildings that we work hand-in-hand with community development to do. Nothing gets built anymore without full compliance. We even have resources from Elgin that we bring in, plumbing and sewer and other things that we need to do. So that's all insured through new construction, which we don't have a lot of, but hopefully that will change soon.

01:11:51.100 --> 01:11:51.680
Yeah, thank you.

01:11:51.680 --> 01:11:52.160
Anyone else?

01:11:52.380 --> 01:11:52.760
Thank you.

01:11:53.500 --> 01:11:54.320
Alderman Johnson?

01:11:54.520 --> 01:12:03.200
Yeah, Chapter 1046.59, Letter D2, Line 2 seems to have some repetitive statements, may need to be restructured.

01:12:04.260 --> 01:12:16.660
And under the violations and penalties, H, Permit 1, it says, Permit required, no person shall do any of the acts prohibited in subsection D without a permit.

01:12:17.180 --> 01:12:20.600
I just want clarification, how does that happen?

01:12:20.600 --> 01:12:25.340
Section D is things that are not permitted, so I just want that explained what that means.

01:12:41.540 --> 01:12:43.780
Would either one of you want to just get back with that?

01:12:44.120 --> 01:12:45.560
No, I mean, I can answer, right?

01:12:45.660 --> 01:12:45.800
Yeah.

01:12:45.880 --> 01:12:52.480
So you're talking about, I just want to clarify, 1046.59D.

01:12:52.880 --> 01:12:57.820
It's H, H permit, and it says number one beside it, permit required.

01:12:57.980 --> 01:13:02.640
No person shall do any of the acts prohibited in subsection D without a permit.

01:13:02.880 --> 01:13:03.120
Right.

01:13:03.300 --> 01:13:03.740
Yeah.

01:13:03.740 --> 01:13:21.240
So this is addressing people that may already have a structure but illegally hook up without our knowledge, but then are, you know, caught during code enforcement or something that was wrong. So obviously addressing our existing structures that are already built when we do inspections.

01:13:21.940 --> 01:13:22.540
Okay, so

01:13:22.540 --> 01:13:39.120
So when we do new construction, we're in control of that all the way through, but obviously we have 11,500 homes and businesses that are already built within town, so we have to account for people that may already be connected illegally as we figure that out or find that out.

01:13:39.500 --> 01:13:41.720
So then they have to get a permit for that?

01:13:41.720 --> 01:13:47.060
They have to get a permit or they have to disconnect from whatever utility they're hooked up to illegally.

01:13:47.360 --> 01:13:48.980
Okay, thank you for clarification.

01:13:50.440 --> 01:13:51.340
Alderman Stacy?

01:13:53.950 --> 01:14:12.050
So people who runs a sock pump out of their basement, are you saying that they need a permit to have a sock pump in their basement? And are you going to need a permit to wash your cars?

01:14:14.460 --> 01:14:25.140
So there's a difference. Let me do number two first. There's a difference between a commercial car wash and somebody just washing one car or two cars at their house on their driveway.

01:14:25.360 --> 01:14:55.340
so that effort at your house is not permitted when we're talking about a commercial establishment like any of the car big car washes in town they are permitted only because they have to have a rewash cycles they have to have they use a lot more soap than most people do it's not always biodegradable and they have recycled tanks under the ground and those are all part of the codes and ordinances when those places are built your first question on sump pumps sump pumps are illegal to be hooked up to the sanitary sewer that water is supposed to be returned

01:14:55.340 --> 01:15:24.940
to the ground and pumped outside of your home. Anybody that has those connected within the city of Freeport, that would already be considered by code an illegal connection for any sump pump in a house. We don't pump basement water into the sanitary. Again, that's clean water and it should be directly discharged outside of your home to run on the ground and infiltrate back into the to the groundways, stormways. Okay. We have a motion made by Alderman Shadle, seconded by Alderman Clem.

01:15:24.940 --> 01:16:05.500
all those in favor of moving this forward signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? That motion passes. Item number 11 is discussion regarding overview of the 2026 road work. Mr. Stiegel. So council members I printed out packets for you because I didn't know how well this would show up on the big board. And I want everybody to know this is just just be more of a general conversation.

01:16:11.770 --> 01:16:37.190
So we're anticipating a very busy construction here in Freeport this year. And I just wanted to start off on this slide to remind council members, because I know you guys don't do it every day. The city has 140 miles of streetway that we take care of, just about 60 miles of alleyways, five wells. Currently, we're soon adding one, 12, probably in about two years, the groundbreaking was today.

01:16:37.190 --> 01:17:07.170
out of those five wells two of them are in reserve those are the wells that we have the PFAS traces in and they are not used to the water system currently they are in reserve only in case we had a major fire catastrophe and we needed to have extra water supply currently in our distribution system we have 137 miles of water main 127 miles of sanitary sewer we have about 2800 sanitary manholes

01:17:07.190 --> 01:17:13.170
We also have nine list stations with another one on Walnut being built right now.

01:17:13.350 --> 01:17:19.130
We have one large wastewater treatment plant capable of treating 16 million gallons a day.

01:17:19.670 --> 01:17:23.210
We have 50 miles of stormwater within the city limits.

01:17:23.650 --> 01:17:31.930
We actually have 20 stormwater basins, which basins are what lead to the waterways that take the water out to the river.

01:17:31.930 --> 01:17:57.070
We have almost 2700 stormwater manholes. We have one bridge, the Hancock Bridge, and we have three closed landfills right now. And while I was putting this together, I wanted to remind people our staffing levels that we have currently. So currently, we take care of nearly 200 miles and we have 10 street employees. So that's about 20 miles per employee.

01:17:57.070 --> 01:18:27.050
We have three forestry people and we took down nearly 300 trees last year. So that's, you know, quite an effort. That's more than a tree per day. Out of the 300 or I think it was like 285, we only contacted about three of those trees out. Our crews did the rest. We have two members of our crew that do painting and sweeping. Street sweeping is done very early in the morning and at night. And those guys are responsible for painting the lines that you see

01:18:27.050 --> 01:18:57.030
on the streets annually out of the paint budget. We have one cemetery full-time employee that takes care of the grounds and maintenance, also digs the cemetery plots. We have two full-time mechanics that is something that City Manager Boyer has really pushed forward that has saved the city tens of thousands of dollars in outside equipment repairs. We currently have eight construction crew members. We have a young crew member

01:18:57.050 --> 01:19:23.630
Crew, but Learning. We have three service technicians. Those are part of the meter and water departments. So those are shutoffs, turn-ons, meters that are installed, MIUs that are installed, operations team. We run operations 24-7, 365 here. We have eight members of our operation crew right now running the water plants, the sewer plants, and everything in between.

01:19:23.630 --> 01:19:32.450
We have three full-time lab workers that do our lab sampling and our required water sampling daily

01:19:32.450 --> 01:19:38.550
We have one utility worker position and we have three maintenance positions right now

01:19:38.550 --> 01:19:45.350
So our maintenance people take care of our water plants, our lift stations, our wastewater treatment plant

01:19:45.350 --> 01:19:45.930
doing

01:19:45.930 --> 01:20:09.720
Wastewater Treatment Plant doing the preventative maintenance schedules that saved the city quite a bit of money from hiring that out. And then we have three summer mowers that I believe the number is around 80 properties that we have to mow. Obviously, we can't mow 80 properties weekly, but you can see why three people are having a heck of a time keeping up with all the lots that we have all over town to maintain.

01:20:09.720 --> 01:20:17.180
so we're trying to make plans to move some of them lots over to residential people. Next slide, please.

01:20:23.000 --> 01:20:31.180
So the next map is pretty congested. This is the overall 2026 map of projects that's going to happen.

01:20:31.800 --> 01:20:38.620
I'm going to break that down in the next few slides, but I wanted everybody to see how much work is going to be happening all over the city of Freeport.

01:20:38.620 --> 01:21:08.600
We have water main replacements, street reconstructs, mill and overlays, we have some additional projects that were added, we have crack sealing that's going to happen, we have several IDOT streets in main corridors that are going to get paved, we have, we call them STU streets, there's some special federal funding that we've been able to get for some streets, and then we have cleaning and lining that we're doing within our

01:21:08.600 --> 01:21:38.500
Sanitary Sewers. Additional projects that really couldn't show up on here is we still have about 200 remaining lead service lines after the last inventory was done last week. We're working on airport terminal design for that build out. We're also working on the Pappy light program at the airport and some crack seal. And also we have various building repairs that are going to happen between the fire department and city hall. And then we've already contracted 31 trees to come down on top of our

01:21:38.500 --> 01:21:45.140
crews. Those trees are the large, dangerous trees that our crews don't have the equipment to take down.

01:21:45.700 --> 01:21:53.140
Next slide, please. So kind of trying to break this down a little bit. So this next sheet shows the water main

01:21:53.140 --> 01:21:58.740
replacements and street constructs and mill and overlays that the city crews are planning on doing

01:21:58.740 --> 01:22:07.820
this year. This is a full, complete list of everything that we've gone over. We have bid projects A, B, and C

01:22:07.820 --> 01:22:37.080
that are currently out on the two of them are on the street. The other one goes out Wednesday and those bids will all be coming to council in April for approval. I'm just going to say we're doing Concord Drive. We're doing Seminole Drive. We're doing South Demeter. We're doing the Gladewood Entrances. We're doing North Stewart Drive, the Police Alley, the large municipal lot downtown. South Benton Avenue is getting done.

01:22:37.820 --> 01:22:45.720
South Carroll is getting done, Pershing is getting done, and Dewey is getting reconstructed.

01:22:46.640 --> 01:22:51.040
So that's our list of city street projects for this year, and I want to remind everybody,

01:22:51.660 --> 01:22:59.100
this is probably about six, six and a half million dollars worth of work. Our streets budget annually

01:22:59.100 --> 01:23:04.880
is about three million dollars from our one percent, and we get about, we might be three and a half tops,

01:23:04.880 --> 01:23:12.640
and we get about a million dollars from MFT that we buy materials with. The next slide please. So this

01:23:12.640 --> 01:23:19.980
shows some additional projects that we've been able to get to Freeport. This summer they're planning to bid

01:23:19.980 --> 01:23:26.520
Galena Avenue from Park Street to Clark Street. That's going to be an entire mill and overlay of

01:23:26.520 --> 01:23:32.840
the section. It's about three and three quarter inch mill and overlay. They're also going to replace

01:23:32.840 --> 01:23:40.160
somewhere around 75 ADA ramps in the corridor. And I was, I found out at a meeting last week that

01:23:40.160 --> 01:23:46.440
they're also planning to replace all of the stop signals with the new ADA detectable signals that

01:23:46.440 --> 01:23:52.540
beep and talk to people as they, as they cross, because that is a high traffic area of Freeport for

01:23:52.540 --> 01:24:02.600
our handicapped travelers. And then the other project that a lot of people know about is South

01:24:02.600 --> 01:24:31.940
Street. We got a commitment from IDOT, a memorandum of understanding that if the City of Freeport replaced the ADA ramps in that corridor that they will repave that and we're planning on having that done this fall as well. We're in the close stages to bidding the ADA ramps out now and that project's supposed to go to bid in July of this year. Next slide, please. Additional projects. Some of these are already under construction.

01:24:32.600 --> 01:24:41.160
We're looking at the Galena, Laurel, and, or Park Street, some people call it, lift station renovations.

01:24:41.880 --> 01:24:45.800
We're also planning on doing Sierra tank renovations this year.

01:24:45.900 --> 01:24:49.300
That's our 2 million gallon storage tank out on the west side of town.

01:24:49.960 --> 01:24:56.360
The Public Works Department is building a new $800,000 salt shed that we've already committed to.

01:24:56.360 --> 01:25:21.800
Galena Avenue. We're also doing about 87 manholes of storm and sanitary repairs too. City Hall is having $100,000 worth of tuck pointing done this year. The Hancock Bridge is supposed to go out to bid in July of this year. That will be nearly a $2.5 million project for renovations to the deck.

01:25:21.800 --> 01:25:27.620
Wastewater Treatment Plant. We're in the middle, maybe a little bit over the middle of phase one.

01:25:28.160 --> 01:25:34.000
Phase two is in design and the city crews are planning to do clarifier equipment upgrades this year

01:25:34.000 --> 01:25:40.460
in-house and we're also looking at some blower building replacements because the old boiler there

01:25:40.460 --> 01:25:46.300
is beyond its useful life and we need to go to gas heaters in the blower building. It's much cheaper

01:25:46.300 --> 01:26:13.620
than replacing the boiler. Hancock Vidot, we're in the midst of that project. I know there hasn't been a lot of action there. City Manager Boyer and I had a meeting with Helm Group last week. They're supposed to be doing test borings there tomorrow to see if the frost is out of the ground, and we hope to see some action there shortly. I will say that that project, based on the asphalt plants opening, I do not see it being completed until the end of May of this year.

01:26:13.620 --> 01:26:18.860
I know it's an inconvenience I know we had a resident here earlier that is very upset about it

01:26:18.860 --> 01:26:25.300
there's nothing we can do about it I can't open the asphalt plants Helm can't open their plant and it and

01:26:25.300 --> 01:26:31.300
they typically don't open till May season for paving there's still underground work to do there and I know

01:26:31.300 --> 01:26:37.980
it's an inconvenience for all well number eight we're doing a generator the pad was poured there today

01:26:37.980 --> 01:27:07.960
Obviously, we're doing the ADA ramps on South Street. Meadowbrook Lane is going to get new sewer and street this year. This will be a fall project. And West Demeter Drive is also looking at new street and storm. Well 12, we had the ground breaking today. And the wall dent lift station is already under construction and should be finished late summer. Again, we have the lead service lines, the work at the airport and the trees that

01:27:07.960 --> 01:27:30.740
We're just too much to make this list. Additional streets. These are kind of bonus streets. We were able to get some federal dollars to help with what the city of Freeport calls the FAU routes. And this is something that was determined by IDOT many years ago. And so we tried to figure out a way with IDOT that we could get as many miles as possible done.

01:27:30.740 --> 01:28:00.460
the targeted streets that are in approval right now is South Walnut from Empire to South Street again these are mill and overlays they're not full reconstructs that street was determined it could be mill and overlay and then we have Lincoln Boulevard from Locust to West this year and then we're hoping for Lincoln the second part to be on next year schedule we don't have a commitment to that yet and then Stevenson Street

01:28:00.460 --> 01:28:08.680
basically from Locust all the way to where we stopped at Sunset on a mill and overlay. I can't 100% guarantee

01:28:08.680 --> 01:28:15.880
these projects will move forward this year but it looks like in all likelihood they're going to from the

01:28:15.880 --> 01:28:21.460
advanced communication that we had there could be a slight possibility that they all push to 2027

01:28:21.460 --> 01:28:28.860
and as a reminder we will not only be doing the surface pavement on all these streets to smooth

01:28:28.860 --> 01:28:34.540
them out, but we'll also have to replace all the ADA ramps. Michelle and I went over the numbers this

01:28:34.540 --> 01:28:41.400
afternoon, and that's approximately $3 million worth of work, and the city has a 20% match to do that work,

01:28:41.400 --> 01:28:46.820
and it was kind of a surprise that these streets got pulled forward. We were kind of planning on them

01:28:46.820 --> 01:28:55.180
possibly be there next year. Next slide, please. So this is a list of streets that we're doing crack

01:28:55.180 --> 01:28:59.940
ceiling on this year. As I've told you in the past, the city of Freeport has not done a lot of crack

01:28:59.940 --> 01:29:06.060
ceiling. Crack ceiling is effective on streets after they've been constructed between 12 and 24 months,

01:29:06.640 --> 01:29:13.100
those original cracks. And just so everybody knows, all streets crack, whether they're new, whether they're

01:29:13.100 --> 01:29:19.280
old, they're going to crack. The sooner that we can crack seal them in the next season or two, the sooner

01:29:19.280 --> 01:29:25.060
we keep water out of them. Water's the enemy to making potholes and making streets bad. So we have

01:29:25.060 --> 01:29:43.920
made it part of our platform to come back and do the crack sealing every couple years. This year is an awful large package. This is about $150,000 worth of crack seal. These are all two streets that have already been done in the last couple years. So this kind of shows you how much work we've done in the city of Freeport over the last couple years. And so we're

01:29:43.920 --> 01:29:47.980
over the last couple of years. And so we're making it a point to try to maintain that so it lasts as long as possible.

01:29:51.380 --> 01:29:58.180
Cleaning and lining. So sanitary sewers within the routes that we're doing, we're having an evaluation

01:29:58.180 --> 01:30:04.340
by a company of all the sewers looking for point repairs, things that might need to be dug up prior

01:30:04.340 --> 01:30:10.740
to doing the streets. And then we have a half a million dollar budget for lining. I don't think

01:30:10.740 --> 01:30:14.980
it's going to get all these streets done but we'll prioritize them based on what the worst sewers are

01:30:14.980 --> 01:30:21.060
and just doing inspections on Galena Avenue we have 16 manholes on Galena that are brick

01:30:21.060 --> 01:30:27.360
and they all need to be lined prior to IDOT doing their project or we would potentially have failure

01:30:27.360 --> 01:30:34.940
in those old brick manholes those are probably original to that section um next slide please

01:30:34.940 --> 01:31:04.940
so this is just the same slide as we started with and no changes but I wanted to end on it there's not an area of Freeport here that is not getting some type of work there is going to be a havoc we're trying to make a internal communication so fire police school districts on the same page as far as constructions going for this season and we'll do the best we can and we'll try to coordinate with the

01:31:04.940 --> 01:31:07.060
emergency people as much as possible.

01:31:07.800 --> 01:31:08.220
Let's do.

01:31:09.700 --> 01:31:12.800
Actually, we're not done with the presentation yet, so just wait a second.

01:31:14.140 --> 01:31:15.120
All right, folks.

01:31:16.100 --> 01:31:18.420
There's a lot up here.

01:31:19.080 --> 01:31:26.920
It's going to take every bit of our effort to get this done this year, and it is going to require complete supportive counsel.

01:31:27.380 --> 01:31:33.900
We've got some items that didn't make it into the budget in August that we will have to somehow pay for

01:31:33.900 --> 01:31:40.480
and we'll be coming back to you on those fundings that we need to do to complete this construction plan.

01:31:41.320 --> 01:31:47.680
I will not say that we can't reschedule some of this and we probably could, but I believe this is what

01:31:47.680 --> 01:31:52.620
everybody in this council chamber wanted and we've been working very diligently to provide.

01:31:53.180 --> 01:31:59.760
So I ask simply that if you feel that this is too ambitious, then let's look at it. However,

01:31:59.760 --> 01:32:27.920
If you feel like this is what we're supposed to be doing, I need your support, I need when community members have challenges driving through construction zones, when they move the barricades, or they're just slowed down, just remind them that this took a tremendous amount of work to get this together, logistically, funding-wise, and it takes basically every bit of all of our department staff putting in 100%, plus our contractors, to get all this work done.

01:32:27.920 --> 01:32:57.800
so I would like to at this time open up this for questions and go from there. Alderman Sanders. Yeah I just I just have a request I guess you might say the next time we are doing visuals up here with these projectors or with these maps that we're trying to illustrate to the community or to

01:32:57.800 --> 01:33:26.140
Council. We got to do a better job of zooming in, zooming out with these bad boys because it's hard for us to even look at the paperwork to decipher what it is that we're reading. If you can just make, enlarge these mappings so we can go along with you so we can read it for ourselves because there's a lot of us sitting here wondering whether we should bring binoculars the next time.

01:33:26.140 --> 01:33:34.280
But, you know, I'm just saying, I'm just saying, I'm just making a request, can we do better than this thing up here?

01:33:34.440 --> 01:33:35.200
Okay, thank you.

01:33:37.410 --> 01:33:38.110
Alderman Klemm?

01:33:39.310 --> 01:33:40.530
Yes, a couple things.

01:33:41.070 --> 01:33:44.850
Thank you for the maps and the overall view of this.

01:33:45.290 --> 01:33:56.270
I know one of the most important parts of this also that you didn't really mention up front here, but is the cooperation with the citizens in getting this done.

01:33:56.270 --> 01:34:26.270
this is going to be a massive undertaking I've been in the construction trade all my life and I've always said there's two seasons there's winter and construction and when it comes time for construction you can only do so much in such amount of time Darren or Rob one of the things kind of fill us in on you talked about when stuff was going out for bid and that kind of stuff my question is basically when can we really start doing some of the pre-work

01:34:26.270 --> 01:34:32.630
on the streets such as, you know, as water and sewer, whether it be that kind of stuff, when does that work

01:34:32.630 --> 01:34:42.390
actually start? So currently we don't have any bids, but I anticipate with the season changing, so to speak,

01:34:42.550 --> 01:34:48.690
people are going to want to get moving sooner than later. For instance, the municipal lot, we've already

01:34:48.690 --> 01:34:55.010
seeded Tristan starting that in the next couple weeks if the conditions allow. You know, we have to

01:34:55.010 --> 01:35:23.430
remind everybody it's still early March. We're still going to probably have a snow or two. We don't want to get going too early, but Rob and I strategically have been trying every year to move the bid cycle up a little bit farther. I looked this up just recently. The bids that we took out last year were not till late April. We're a good month, month and a half ahead of that. You should have approvals in April. So we would like to see construction starting in May,

01:35:23.430 --> 01:35:29.230
which is about as soon as anybody can start. Some of the removals and things like that can start but the

01:35:29.230 --> 01:35:34.330
street construction is really tough before May especially I know last year there was lots of

01:35:34.330 --> 01:35:39.070
complaints about why we're waiting why we're not moving. Water construction when you're replacing

01:35:39.070 --> 01:35:44.290
water mains and water valves we have to wait till the ground's unfrozen because we're digging very large

01:35:44.290 --> 01:35:49.970
and deep holes to put that stuff in. It's not just like paving out on Route 20 where there's no utilities

01:35:49.970 --> 01:35:55.910
and you're buzzing the top off and you're putting more pavement down. I don't want to call it simple,

01:35:56.050 --> 01:36:00.450
but that's the easiest kind of infrastructure you can do. When you get into water and sewer, we're going to

01:36:00.450 --> 01:36:05.110
have a lot of contractors and we got to figure out how to space this out so we're not tripping over each

01:36:05.110 --> 01:36:10.730
other and that we don't have Stevenson closed at the same time Lincoln's closed. So there's going to be

01:36:10.730 --> 01:36:17.190
a lot of scheduling and a lot of discussions after we actually have contractors that are bid about what

01:36:17.190 --> 01:36:23.830
we are going to let them do and what the timeframe it takes. The street construction, we're really limited to

01:36:23.830 --> 01:36:31.430
that, say, May 2. You know, we'd like to be done by now November 1st, nothing later than that, especially

01:36:31.430 --> 01:36:36.970
on our street, our city street stuff. We want to be done by that because we run into leaf season and we

01:36:36.970 --> 01:36:42.570
just operationally don't have enough people to do it. So that's kind of our goal is to the three and a

01:36:42.570 --> 01:37:10.330
half miles or 3.2 miles that the city has to pave. We'd like to see us actually done by October with all that paving city-wise, so we'll push the contractors to get that. Some of these bid-out projects with Galena and South, that's going to be determined by IDOT because we're using their dollars, so they're going to help determine. I can't tell you that some of this might not push to next year. It just depends on how many bids go out on these big IDOT contracts and what the timing is.

01:37:10.330 --> 01:37:17.730
we've requested for it to be done this year but honestly if some of it pushed we don't want to get

01:37:17.730 --> 01:37:23.810
into a weather situation where we're trying to pave on frozen ground so you have to remember a lot of

01:37:23.810 --> 01:37:28.610
those IDOT areas as well they're going to go faster than our typical construction because they're not

01:37:28.610 --> 01:37:33.310
taking it all the way down and removing the base and putting that all back in those streets have already

01:37:33.310 --> 01:37:37.650
eight nine inches of pavement on it they're taking three three and a half off putting three and three

01:37:37.650 --> 01:37:46.870
and a half back on. But it is considered a long-term fix for us. And I'm not going to exaggerate. We went to bat

01:37:46.870 --> 01:37:51.990
very hard for the city of Freeport to get this extra work done. And I'm afraid that if we don't move

01:37:51.990 --> 01:37:57.590
forward with it between the state and the federal government, this money might not have a second

01:37:57.590 --> 01:38:03.390
chance at it. So it would really behoove us to get as much as possibly done this year as possible while

01:38:03.390 --> 01:38:04.750
while the funding is there.

01:38:05.170 --> 01:38:06.050
Allerman Johnson.

01:38:07.170 --> 01:38:12.790
What could the citizens of the city do to help to cooperate and keep moving this forward?

01:38:15.510 --> 01:38:16.430
I've got mine.

01:38:16.590 --> 01:38:17.130
You can give yours.

01:38:17.430 --> 01:38:19.770
So that's a great question, Linda.

01:38:20.030 --> 01:38:21.450
One thing is be informed.

01:38:21.590 --> 01:38:24.410
We'll be working with Bryan, our communications director.

01:38:24.410 --> 01:38:30.650
We'll be pushing out timely updates and communications related to what's going on and where.

01:38:30.650 --> 01:38:46.850
But I think the main thing everybody can do is kind of map out your week before you leave, kind of review what's out there in terms of communications on what's under construction for the week and do your best to avoid those areas, make your way around.

01:38:47.010 --> 01:38:53.670
I mean, we do have, as you can tell up there, a lot of, you know, east-west corridors that are going to be under construction.

01:38:53.670 --> 01:39:18.250
And we're going to do our best to stage those so that we're not impacting, we'll be impacting at a minimum the day-to-day travel habits, but you're just going to have to keep your head in the game, be patient, plan extra time, and let our guys know they're out there doing a good job. That is their work space, and we want them to be safe in it. So slow it down and also be patient as you navigate.

01:39:18.250 --> 01:39:41.590
I just want to thank both of you for this excellent map, we started getting phone calls from our constituents, now we have something to relay to, show them, and tell them this is what our plan is, so thank you both, this is excellent, yeah, Alderman Sellers, yeah, I also want to say thank you for all of this, but I also want to ask, do you think it's possible, um,

01:39:41.590 --> 01:39:56.840
I think it's possible. I know like sometimes what Rockford does, they'll put on the news that this street from here to here will be closed or whatever, just to, you know, some people to be informed that don't really look at their, on the internet or whatever.

01:39:56.840 --> 01:40:26.540
Yeah, so we have been thinking very hard about what's the best way to communicate and honestly Freeport doesn't get as much news traffic as probably Rockford with having all the stations there. I believe this year our intent is to use Bryan Bridge with the Freeport Facebook social media post. We've been using that. It was very successful last year and we'd like to steer all the constituents to that because we can control that communication.

01:40:26.840 --> 01:40:56.300
Bryan's really effective about getting it out quickly and we can update it quickly when things change and as you all know and Tom's been in construction forever, things change every day in construction just depending on the weather, right? And so I think that's the best way to do it. I would also like to mention that these sheets that we put out tonight, they'll be available on the city website. We'll post them up there, give us a couple days and they'll be all up there for people to look at. There's nothing but transparency.

01:40:56.840 --> 01:41:05.240
A lot of dollars, a lot of taxpayer dollars being spent, a lot of tax dollars coming back to the community to get this stuff done.

01:41:07.380 --> 01:41:12.620
It's not going to be an easy season. It's not. And we're anticipating a lot of people being upset.

01:41:13.060 --> 01:41:18.960
I know there's a lot of people upset, but we can't make it better without making it worse first. That's construction.

01:41:18.960 --> 01:41:26.940
it's going to be a pain. As Rob said, plan your routes, try to stay out of our way. There is no, I will

01:41:26.940 --> 01:41:33.240
guarantee you, there is no town the size of Freeport doing this much work in the community for this type

01:41:33.240 --> 01:41:38.400
of a season. This is really a challenge for us, but we're going to try to make it happen.

01:41:39.000 --> 01:41:39.540
Alderman Clem.

01:41:40.180 --> 01:41:48.280
Just to follow up, I know on Demeter, there are some areas that have people still have their own septics

01:41:48.280 --> 01:41:50.200
and Wells and stuff.

01:41:50.840 --> 01:41:56.240
Is that going to, are we going to address that in this construction on Demeter?

01:41:57.500 --> 01:42:14.340
Well, Tom, yes, that's the idea here is when we do, let's see what that, Demeter, the east to west Demeter by the park, the idea there would be prepare that area for connections to the sewer service.

01:42:14.340 --> 01:42:19.780
there's a lot of people on septic over there as you noted and wells and uh we'll be sending out those

01:42:19.780 --> 01:42:25.740
notices and letting them know that the time to hook up is uh is going to be when we got the road tour up so

01:42:25.740 --> 01:42:33.980
yes yeah okay something that's different than other projects that we've done so uh this is fully funded

01:42:33.980 --> 01:42:42.520
free port projects for sewer water um we can't use private dollars on um or excuse me public dollars on

01:42:42.520 --> 01:42:47.140
private property. So some of those other projects that we did that included connections to the house,

01:42:47.160 --> 01:42:51.800
that is not something that's feasible with public dollars unless we're getting grant money. And so

01:42:51.800 --> 01:42:58.420
we've already put notices out to the residents on Meadowbrook and Demeter that sewer was coming so

01:42:58.420 --> 01:43:02.820
they could make plans and they could have conversations. And I've actually had conversations

01:43:02.820 --> 01:43:09.120
with many of the people in those areas about sewer connecting. It's going to be a difficult

01:43:09.120 --> 01:43:17.560
challenge for some people, but ultimately some of the ordinance that Linda read tonight about the

01:43:17.560 --> 01:43:24.180
connections and the spacing and all that stuff has been in our ordinance and it behooves everybody to

01:43:24.180 --> 01:43:31.140
get as many people in Freeport on the city water sewer as possible. I'm sharing the cost fire protection

01:43:31.140 --> 01:43:36.520
that's provided is for everyone in town. So those water mains go in front of those properties, whether

01:43:36.520 --> 01:43:43.200
whether they choose to hook up or not. Alderman Sanders? Uh, Darren answered my question. Okay, thank you.

01:43:45.520 --> 01:43:50.920
All right, thank you, gentlemen. Next, we'll move on to item number 12, which is public comment.

01:43:51.280 --> 01:44:02.710
Is there any public comment this evening? Tommy? I want to tell Stacy, we do best to all the men and

01:44:02.710 --> 01:44:16.740
and you said the cleaners is going to take down?

01:44:17.220 --> 01:44:23.560
The cleaners and 1719 Main Street is going to start coming down on Friday if it's not raining.

01:44:24.000 --> 01:44:26.790
Any other public comments?

01:44:29.010 --> 01:44:30.590
Is that a yes?

01:44:31.230 --> 01:44:31.790
Okay.

01:44:57.550 --> 01:45:01.330
Hi, my name is Sue Cook and I have a question about

01:45:01.330 --> 01:45:32.620
the sign that is in front of the observatory and it appears like there might be construction of a cell phone tower directly in front of the observatory. It's going to be a very tall cell phone tower in front of the observatory which is a wonderful tourist attraction for Freeport because we are the only one that has the deep space telescope

01:45:32.620 --> 01:45:39.640
telescope in this area, and that includes over into Chicago. Is that correct? In Chicago.

01:45:43.240 --> 01:45:49.320
The word observe is actually in that observatory, and this is going to be built right there. The people

01:45:49.320 --> 01:45:56.180
that are tracking the sky that come out for various events sometimes line the parking lot with their

01:45:56.180 --> 01:46:01.280
telescopes, and as they're moving it across, here we go, beautiful, beautiful, oh, cell phone tower,

01:46:01.280 --> 01:46:07.720
are beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. Is there any place else? And I know that there's going to be some sort of

01:46:07.720 --> 01:46:14.000
meeting, but unless you can get right up on the sign, you can't really read it. Is there going to be another

01:46:14.000 --> 01:46:25.750
chance for possibly another place to place this instead of in front of the observatory? And so I

01:46:25.750 --> 01:46:31.630
just wondered if maybe there was a possibility of placing it elsewhere as opposed to that spot,

01:46:31.630 --> 01:47:02.620
just so that it would not obstruct the view there. That's it. Thank you. Thank you. I'm sure Manager Boyer can speak to you privately. Okay. That's great. Any other public comments? Thank you. Okay. Excuse me. Oh, no, no problem. I just have a public announcement. On Wednesday, March 25th at 530 in the Council Hall here, we will be having a public meeting for the Hancock Bridge replacement.

01:47:03.040 --> 01:47:32.120
so anybody's invited to come to that that wants it's just a question and answer session there'll be two paper advertisements that's going out and the post will also be on the city's website but I wanted to make sure that everybody knew that that public meeting is not only required but we're going to have it here on the 25th. Thank you. Any other public comments this evening? I will entertain a motion to adjourn. So moved. Second. A motion made by Alderman Shadle, seconded by Alderman Sellers.

01:47:32.120 --> 01:47:34.360
All those in favor signify by saying I