Order, it's in my lack of it.
It's in prayer, in name, share, in the name of the Holy Spirit, bless you.
Heavenly Father, we humbly come to you tonight to ask you for guidance and the strength to do the right work for the students and county, citizens that elect us.
And we thank you, Lord, for this beautiful day and beautiful setting and we love Jesus in Jesus name, amen.
Amen.
Thank you.
With that, we'll go on to approval of the agenda, any additions or suggestions?
Motion to approve, motion by DeMeester, second by Baker, all in favor?
Aye.
Any votes?
So it carries.
We have the minutes from August 10th.
I'd like to motion to approve by Zimmerman, seconded by Diddens, all those in favor, aye.
Monteclanes, we have claims here this evening of $1,707.20.
Second.
All those in favor, aye.
Carey as well.
I have a few public comments.
What do you want me to be?
You're right there if you want to take a seat.
Take your name so everybody can hear it.
Yeah, the next one might be better.
My name is Karen Rivers.
May 26th in the County Board of Food Defense Ordinance.
On May 21st, Jogerst, the ordinance was signed and went into effect a week later on May 28th, Zach Jeffery, owner of A&B Aggregates, began to build the county-required fence surrounding this 40-tropically located at 466 Ft. 30 Rd.
The fence was to be completed and passed an inspection on August 3rd in order for Mr. Jeffery to obtain an occupancy permit.
On July 29th due to the fence being built having numerous safety issues and not being in compliance with law and that's they submitted a nuisance complaint investigation request.
The property was sent to County Board members.
It was told by the zoning inspector and inspection of the fence would be completed by August 14th.
On the 14th, I went to pick up the report and Mrs. Williams told me she hadn't inspected the fence yet even though she was at the quarry property on August 3rd conducting a field inspection for an occupancy permit.
She gave me a copy of the field report certificate of occupancy stating no photos were taken during the inspection.
Her field report states the permit requirements were met.
As of today, the trees still aren't planted and the fences are completed.
I was an occupancy permit issued without compliance.
On August 21st, I was contacted.
I went to the zoning to pick up the completed instance complaint investigation form I'd submitted on July 29th.
It stated no violation present for the field inspection date of August 20th.
Apparently I submitted under the wrong ordinance.
No inspection was done of the funds requested.
Took three weeks to get that information.
On the same form, I wrote a part, Quote, I would like to have a true inspection conducted to correct the safe and hazardous tradition of Zach Jeffrey Spence, unquote.
On September 11th, I submitted another nuisance complaint investigation form at the zoning office.
Happy was sent to the board members and the complainer listed numerous construction defects and pointed out structurally unsafe, unstable and dangerous efficiencies.
I have requested three times in writing and now in person with you all that a license inspector come out and do an inspection of the fence.
I spoke at your June 8 PND meeting asking that you amend or revise your new fence ordinance to also accommodate adjacent neighbors.
Please look up fencing ordinances in other jurisdictions for ideas to enforce Stephenson County's ordinance.
Folks should not be forced to live next door to this dangerous, nasty mess.
As always, you're all invited to come look in person.
Same as with an inspector,.
4-Hour notice would be appreciated and I'll meet you to let you up the line.
Thank you for your attention and anticipated help.
Thank you.
Let's see no other public comments, so we'll go on to the reports in the committee.
Great Freemore Partnership is in your pocket, if you have any questions on that, that will go on to the zoning board.
Right, the deposit for the month of July was $5,520.06.
Total deposits to date to the general fund are $181,246.24.
We issued four code enforcement violations in the month of August, two were, or July, I'm sorry, two were for, no, August, soonest.
Two were for inoperable vehicles and two were for overgrown grass and weeds.
All four violations have been closed.
Two FOIAs were received.
Nicole and I met with the property owner of the 26 North property and took photos of the progress that was being made towards bringing the property into compliance.
We did hold the administrative hearing that afternoon on August 26th regarding the property.
The property owner had attended the hearing and no fines were issued because the property had been brought into compliance.
We met with County Board member Ronnie Bush to discuss the data center moratorium.
And we continue to review data center information and relay our findings to our attorney.
Chad Eckman with the local IBEW, he's the local representative.
He made his monthly visit.
And we discussed data centers and any other upcoming builds for the county.
We continue to complete site inspections throughout the month.
We forwarded another property with a dwelling and outbuildings for our inspector to review.
I can tell you that building now has been demoed.
So that's less, we're just working on a couple other of the buildings on that property.
We're still waiting for the other three, there were four, we're waiting on three of them to get back to us and the inspector, The one four on Henderson Road has a, the word just off my mind.
Continuation, I guess, of how he's going to take care of the property.
He has it all mowed.
He's got the weeds down.
He took care of all the inoperable vehicles.
He has been placing rafters in the open attic and we'll be covering those up, putting in new windows.
So that's another one that we're getting taken care of.
Corrective action, that's what it's called, sorry.
And currently there are four outstanding dwellings that were boarded at the end of the spectrum.
There's probably a few more we're going to send him after he gets these completed.
That's all I have.
Questions?
Very good.
Thank you very much.
We can go back to you, Andrea.
I just thought you wouldn't be able to make it.
Apologies for my tardiness.
I did not realize that our meeting got moved up.
I'm going to ask if you, there should be enough copies for everybody to speak to some of those things.
What's being distributed are three different items.
There is a marketing package that we put together for Chairman Helms, as well as Sam Newton and Adam Moderow as they go to DC this week.
And I apologize, I don't remember what order they're in.
Then there's also an executive summary of the Alberta's economic development plan that we have put together.
Again, that's just the executive summary.
That's a much longer document, but if you were interested in the entire document and have trouble sleeping at night, please message me.
I'd be happy to send it over.
And then the last but not least is press release on tourism economic impact.
So the state of Illinois, the Illinois State Office of Tourism puts together economic impact figures each year.
2025 Was released last week and there was a 9.3% growth on economic impact in Stephenson County.
So that is outpacing economic growth in tourism by which on the state average was around 3%.
So it's more than just inflation.
There were more visitors here.
I think a lot of that translates into as the cost of everything is increasing, you had a lot of families making the decision Maybe they weren't going to take that long vacation.
They were going to stay more local, travel within the state, travel to neighboring states.
So we were happy to host them here in Stephenson County.
We have kicked off our tourism campaign, obviously, for the summer that's going on.
Nicole has just kicked off the Ale Trail.
That is collaborative with different breweries that are in Stephenson County, as well as Joe Davis County.
They complete the tour and they can submit for a logo glass.
So, I know you have the IDES figures, so again, it's a very tight then we said it's a very tight job market here.
When they say that it's around 3% unemployment, you're looking at kind of total employment.
So in Freeport, it was 3.9% that is down from 4.4 in June and in the entire Stephenson County are at 3.3%.
So it's a really tight labor market.
I've seen a lot of billboards from manufacturers throughout Freeport and Stephenson County advertising for open positions.
So the need for qualified employees still is critical.
We have a number of ribbon cuttings that are coming up and I will forward these dates and times over to Georgia so that you all have them.
But there will be a number of them throughout the month of September.
Heart Strength and Rehab, we have our Business After Hours this Thursday at Mercy Health.
So if you're interested in attending that for the County Board meeting, who will enter the hospital off of their old entrance, kind of the U-shape right off of Stevenson Street where they're going to have the Christmas tree lit.
Two Friends Art Studio in downtown Freeport is opening up.
RooFest will be later this month.
We have a ribbon cutting at Tricor Insurance.
They have merged with Fruit Summer Insurance in downtown and done some building renovations.
And at the end of this month, Cheese Tapes will be opening up and the former Hildale Deli location.
Cheesecapes is owned by the same people who own the Freeport Pestle Company.
You might've seen them at some local events that we've had.
They were there at the Freeport 100 Year Celebration.
That was held this Saturday.
They were also at Benzobris Day.
We are wrapping up our Enterprise Zone Boundary Expansion Application for Lena and AutoSmart.
We're still waiting on a few certified copies and ordinances from our city of Freeport.
Once those are put together, and we can package that application and get it sent out to the state.
The Enterprise Zone Board met last week and they did approve the City of Freeport's request for a boundary amendment.
They are looking to do something very similar to what Lena did, expand the boundary to incorporate areas that are zoned residentially in Freeport that aren't currently in the zone.
They would like to also increase residential housing.
We've had positive conversations with a quick service restaurant that has led to a franchise securing the location on the South 26 corridor.
The company is currently opening a branch in another community, but where it will be next.
So we mentioned the ribbon cutting.
Our business incubator will be kicking off in October 8th.
We've had very successful and busy conversations, a lot of engagement from makers and vendors who are interested in kind of maturing their business and getting them into a brick and mortar.
That's our end goal with having a business incubator.
So we're kicking that off October 8th and there will be a series of classes that will be all around business, financial skills, business foundational skills of having your business.
Last but not least, Ben's Overseas.
So at Little Cubs Field, there was about a thousand people there.
This was last, a week ago, Saturday.
And the sales in the gift shop were a little over $3,500 in a six hour period.
I'll catch my breath.
Whether, I did not speak to a lot of the detail that were given in these packets, but I wanted to just include this.
This was information put together by students in county, Dale Rasmussen, the highway department.
These are unmet infrastructure needs.
In terms of road construction as well as some bridges that need an intersection.
So we just tried to put together a synopsis, excuse me, of all of those projects along with some pictures to help give context as they explain to five legislators why we need their financial support.
Again, in the Albertus Airport, as Rockford Airport continues to become increasingly busy, you may know that we have an opportunity to hopefully take some smaller businesses that no longer fit at Rockford or other businesses that are in the aerospace industry.
So trying to work with, there's a new airport operator to develop plans to market to those businesses.
Also understanding that there's some infrastructure needs that have to happen to enable a business expansion at the airport to help the city plan it.
I am happy to answer any questions on anything I've presented, and again, apologies for my tardiness.
Anybody?
Oh, thank you.
You can take a breath.
Thanks.
Thank you.
I did not meet last month with Soil and Water, District Soil and Water is meeting on Wednesday.
Well, so, Trap and Make Back Meeting, Recreation and Trails, Naomi, I'm assuming that you all received the information from the Jane Addams Trail, Steve Elbach sent a whole bunch of stuff out, and they are looking for us to award them $16,500 for our annual contribution to Jane Addams Trail, so I would make a motion that we and pass their budget request.
It's not an action item at this point.
Oh, okay.
We can go down to the budgets.
Okay.
That's fine.
Other than that, they're starting a big bridge repair.
Yeah, well, it's up by Orangeville-Sama, one of the larger bridges they finally got the funding.
All right, we'll start that soon.
Okay.
Thank you very much.
I have no report from Blackhawk Hills.
Do you have anything special?
Chairman, do you have anything?
Georgia and I just met with Dan Payette at 4 o'clock today and we talked about trying to understand what Blackhawk Hills priorities are for 2027 and how that may or may not fit and then with the county for next year.
It's good stepping off conversation that we had.
We really haven't had much interaction with Blackhawk Hills since maybe November of 2025.
It's been quite a while.
I encouraged Dan to continue to meet with us and talk about different things.
We've talked about internet, broadband access of the northern parts of the county.
It's almost non-existent.
We talked about road infrastructure, bridges.
I informed him that I met with Darren LaHood on Thursday to talk about funding.
A lot of these projects, unfortunately, are not in Darren LaHood's district.
They're in 17.
I'm supposed to be meeting with Eric Sorensen sometime between now and the end of the month.
They're in D. C.
Right now.
Obviously, but hope to get on his radar for projects, for grants awarding for projects like this in the first quarter of 2027.
So Dan would be happy to help Black Hawk Hills with some of the engineering, bring some of the information together, but yeah, just kind of stressed.
We need to have more communication for Black Hawk Hills.
So hopefully more to come with that.
Very good.
Thank you for doing that.
That's why I get to beg Bob Steve.
Okay.
Yes, I understand you.
I wish I could say that with a straight face.
I don't.
Do you have anything from the wall?
Just so everyone knows Wally's wife is not well.
So it's good.
And you do have in your packet just for reiteration.
And you talked and I'll talk about it in two days.
You'll have the honorary darkness on your security report.
This is in your packet, I'll remove right now.
With that, we can move on to the plan on the whole business.
It's a new refusal of the whole study.
It's about 27, and we'll start with the only.
And it has not changed since last month.
Do you want me to go line by line again, or is it?
Actually, I don't know that there was no changes.
Any comments on that?
Steve or either of you has asked?
Okay.
We all have that one here.
Lifts.
It brings our budget for zoning, it's an increase of 6.2%, but that's been mostly to the increase in the number of cases being heard to go here and for the number of cases of building inspections are the building inspections not charged are they not the person the inspections being done to is not charged for that no okay so what is your feeling on that one Moving on, I'll treat you to a booth in a second for any other discussion.
All those in favor, say aye.
Aye.
No toast.
All she cares.
Okay.
We still need some information as far as black and white changes.
Some of them need changes.
Name change as far as just a broader economic development line and the KOAs I guess I don't understand what we need a name change for aren't those the word we have a specific organization in there before GFP was listed in those we have yet to get a contract for 2027 for that so it's putting a placeholder in there for economic development right dollars are still going to be in there but and a K-O-A one is different because they're part of that.
That's Hotel Motel Tax, which was part of the original agreement that we signed four years ago, right?
So that's just the name changes that are already in place in this right now.
Right.
Same dollars.
Until we have, it's easier to do, I think in my opinion, until we have a contract, it's easier just to list it like that.
So at this point, both of those name changes the way they are and the placeholder's in the dollars and then we can move to this bunch of investables and that's just.
I'll make a motion to approve it.
Second.
Motion and second.
All those in favor?
Aye.
Are we just passing about an amount for Blackhawk Hills or is that going to take care of our finance?
We'll take care of that finance.
That's all right.
Same situation, looking for a new agreement.
Do you have any idea why we're going to look at just that?
Yeah, what was the invoice we got?
Same.
Same amount?
Well, I would agree.
We haven't really heard much from 2025.25.
So we just, I think we need to do a better job on our side of defining what expectations that we have, make sure they fit with your organization.
So again, I'm not advocating not doing anything.
It's just a more specific, make sure the dollars are in the budget so that when we do have an agreement, we're able to spend the dollars.
You're more than well, you can send your first and your second, you can add Blackhawk Hills if you'd like, just because it's in there, doesn't mean it has to be spent.
Personally, I would like to see, I would like to see the number be in there from us that way they know, they know we've looked at it and they would still, all of these can be changed in finance.
So they're there at the board level.
Put the number 4463 in.
You can advance your motion to that.
Okay.
So I would, or you can redo your motion, my advance will be done.
I would set my motion and make a motion that we pass it with the, that come out of month $14,463, waiting for the agreement.
That's all the way.
Sounds good.
All in favor?
Aye.
Any opposed?
Any theories?
Recreation The only component we're waiting for here is the floor farm cemetery.
And that's something that we need to decide what we want to do as far as it's not been in there.
I don't think that line I'll explain there.
And so we just need to, I don't know if any of you have had a chance to lie there knowing My suggestion, the conversation is that we put in $2,500 for now and then if there's other things that we need to pull from, we need to not do all of the repair work right away or if we need to go into contingency to do something because what we need to be Well, that's a good starting figure for me.
I guess my only question would be as long as that makes sense, I don't know if it's going to cost $3,500 to repair one headstone or if $2,500 has been repaired five headstones and if it's going to cost $3,500 to repair one, my opinion would be either put the appropriate amount in or not put anything in, just not make a token thing, but I have no idea what it's going to cost.
So I would be okay with that if that's your guys feeling.
I don't know much about business.
Thank you.
We have a motion and a second.
All those in favor?
Aye.
Any opposed?
That's what's in periods.
That's what I have on the agenda.
Move for adjourn.
Somebody.
All in favor, aye.
Aye.
Thank you very much folks.