Order, get some prayer and answer. Heavenly Father, we humbly come to you tonight to ask you for guidance and the strength to do the right work for the state 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. For that, we'll go on to approval of the agenda. Any additions and misconceptions? Motion to approve. Motion to approve. Motion by Dinnis. Second by Baker. All in favor? Aye. Any votes? Sir carries? Sir carries. We have the minutes from August 10th. Motion to approve. Motion to approve. Motion to approve. Motion to approve.

by Zimmerman. Seconded by Diddens. All those in favor. Aye. Aye. Aye. Monty claims. We have claims here this evening of $1,770 and $7.20. So hold. Second. All those in favor. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. As well. On to public comment.

What do you like 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's Karen Rivers.

May 26th, it's the County Board of Food Defense Ordinance.

On May 21st, the ordinance was signed and went into effect.

A week later, on May 28th, Zach Jeffrey, owner of AMB Aggregates, began to build the county the required fence surrounding this quarry trap will be located at 466-foot's Derby Road.

The fence was to be completed and pass an inspection on August 3rd in order for Mr. Jeffrey 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 admits, they submitted a nuisance complaint investigation request.

the copy was sent to county board members. I was told by the zoning inspector an 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 4E property on August 3rd conducting a field inspection for an occupancy permit.

She gave me a copy of the field report and 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 fence isn't completed I was an occupancy permit issued without compliance On August 21st, I was contacted, I went to the zoning to pick up Completed Instance Complaint Investigation Form I'd submitted on July 29.

It stated no violation present for the field inspection date of August 20th.

Apparently I submitted under the wrong ordinance.

No inspection was done for the fence requested.

Took three weeks to get that information.

On the same form, I wrote in part, quote, I would like to have a true inspection conducted to correct the safe and hazardous condition of Zach Jeffrey Spence, unquote.

On September 11th, I submitted another nuisance complaint investigation form at the zoning office.

Kathy was sent to the board members.

In the complaint, I 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 licensed inspector come out and do an inspection of the fence.

We spoke at your June 8th P&D meeting asking that you amend or revise your new fence ordinance to also accommodate adjacent neighbors. Please look up fencing ordinances and other jurisdictions for ideas to enforce Stevenson County's ordinance. Folks should not be forced to live next door to this dangerous nastiness. As always, you're all invited to come look in person.

with an inspector, 24-hour bill, this would be appreciated, and I'll meet you to let you up the line.

Thank you for your attention and anticipated to help.

Thank you.

I can see no other public comments, so we'll go on to the reports in the committee.

Great Freeport partnership is in your pocket.

If you have any questions on that, that will...

Go on to the zoning board.

All 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, goodness. Two were for interoperable vehicles and two or four overgrown grass and weeds. All four violations have been closed. Two FOIAs were received. Nicole and I met with the property owner of the 26th 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 Ekman 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 sign 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 a plus. 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 for 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 is replacing 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 Plan. That's what it's called. Sorry. And currently there are four outstanding dwellings that were forwarded via the specter. There's probably a few more we're going to send him after he gets these completed. That's all I have.

Questions? 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 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 D.C. this week.

and I apologize. I don't remember what order they're in. Then there's also an executive summary of the Albertus Economic Development Plan that we have put together. Again, that's just the executive summary. That's a much longer document. But if you are 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 is a 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 Stevenson County. So that is outpacing economic growth in tourism by, I, 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 that 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 Stevenson 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 Stevenson County as well as Joe Davis County. They complete the tour and they can submit for a logo class. So I know you have the IDES figures. So again, we sent, it's very tight.

And we said it's a very tight job market here. When they say that'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 Stevenson County, you're at 3.3%. So it's a really tight labor market. I've seen a lot of billboards for manufacturers throughout Freeport and Stevenson 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 you 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, Cheesecapes will be opening up in the former Hilldale Deli location. Cheesecapes is owned by the same people who own the Freeport Puzzle Company. You might have 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 Ben Zobris 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, 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 Freeport 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 overstay. So at Little Cubs Field, there was about a thousand people there. This was last 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. 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 Stevenson County, Dale Rasmussen, the Highway Department. These are unmet infrastructure needs in terms of road construction, as well as some bridges that need and intersections. 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 our legislators why we need their financial support.

support. Again, in the Albertus Airport, as Rockford Airport continues to become increasingly busy, we 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 at work.

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 in the Soil and Water District.

Soil and Water is meeting on Wednesday.

today.

So, trying to make that meeting, Recreation and Trails, Dale, I'm assuming that you all received the information from the Jane Addams Trail.

Steve Elbeck 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 pass their budget because It's not an action item at this point.

Oh, okay.

We can go down until we get to the budgets.

Okay.

All right.

That's fine.

Other than that, you know, they're starting a big bridge repair.

I don't know what's up there.

One of the larger bridges.

They finally got the funding.

We'll start that soon.

or death.

Okay.

Thanks very much.

I have no report from Blackhawk Hills.

Do you have anything special?

Chairman, do you have anything special?

Georgia and I just met with Dan Payette at four o'clock today.

We talked about trying to understand what Blackhawk Hills priorities are for 2027 and how that may or may not fit in with the county for next year.

It was a 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 talked about internet, broadband access from the northern parts of the county, which is 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 Darren LaHood's district they're at 17. I'm supposed to be meeting with Eric Sorensen sometime between now and the end of the month they're in DC right now obviously but hope to get on his radar for projects for grant awarding for projects like this in the first order of 2027. So Dan would be happy to help Blackhawk Hills with some of the engineering and some of the information to get it. But yeah, just kind of stressed we need to have more communication for Blackhawk Hills. So hopefully more to come.

Very good. Thank you for doing that.

that's why I get the big bucks, Steve.

Okay.

Yes, I understand.

I wish I could say that with a straight face.

I don't, do you have anything from Wally's officials?

Just so everyone knows Wally's wife is not well.

And you do have in your packet, just for reiteration, well, Andy talked about it, too, but you do have the own right partners point of security report.

This is in your packet.

With that, we can move on to the whole business.

to the level of budgets for 27.

We'll start with the only.

It has not changed since last month.

Do you want me to go line by line again?

I think we're in with it.

I don't know.

There was no changes.

Any comments on that?

I don't think we're either here to ask.

Okay, I'll have that one here.

and it's and it brings our budget for zoning. It's an increase of 6.2%, but that's due mostly to the increase in the number of cases being heard in the number of cases of building inspections done by the Are the building inspections not charged? Are they not? The person the inspection is being done to is not charged for that?

No, they are.

Okay. So, what is your feeling on that one? Moving on.

in a second. Any other discussion? All those in favor, I say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.

and the KOA's. I guess I don't understand what we need to name change for. Aren't those number of words? We had 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 school's not going to say The Greater Freeport Partnership.

Okay.

And the KOA one is different because they're part of that?

That's hotel-motel tax, which was part of the original agreement that he signed four years ago, right?

So that's just the name changes that are already in place in this right now?

Right.

Same dollars.

Same dollars.

just 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 later.

Right.

Thank you.

So, at this point, will those name changes the way they are and the placeholders and the dollars in that, if you move to approve this budget, that's it, it depends on the students.

I'll make a motion to approve it.

Second.

Motion and a second.

All those in favor?

White Eye. Any opposed? Adrian's got a question. Oh, I'm sorry? Are we just passing it without an amount for Black Hawk 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 that agreement? Yeah, we'll see the invoice we got. Same, same. Okay. Well, I will agree.

said we haven't really heard much from 2025.

Well, I think we need to do a better job on our side of defining what expectations that we have, make sure they fit with the organization.

So, again, I'm not advocating not doing anything.

It's just 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, if you're a sender first and you're second, you can add Blackhawk Hills if you'd like Just because it's in there doesn't mean it has to be spent Correct Personally, I would like to see the number be in there from us That way they know we've looked at it All of these can be changed in finance so they're there at the board level, or really we'll put the number 4463 in.

You can amend your motion to that.

Okay.

Or you can renew your motion.

I would set my motion and make a motion that we pass it with the, that amount of money for $1,463 waiting for the agreement.

That's all I want. Sounds good. Okay. Second. Everybody good with that? Okay. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries? Recreation and conservation?

The only component we're waiting for here is the 4th Farm Sematary And that's something that we need to decide what we want to do as far as, well, it's not been in there, I don't think that line item's been in there, and so we just need to, I don't know if any of you have had a chance to go by there, no, you were just looking at it and seeing how many lines there were 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 able to do is find out what that's specifically going to cost us down the road to repair those monuments, according to the rules that are already laid out by the state.

That's my suggestion.

I don't know if I'm supposed to be able to make a motion, but sure, I would make a motion to you if that's anything.

Second.

Any thoughts?

That's a good story to think of.

I guess the only thing, my only question would be, yeah, as long as that makes sense, you know, I don't know if it's going to cost $3,500 to repair one headstone or if $2,500 is going to repair five headstones and if it's going to cost $3,500 to repair one, I mean, my opinion would be, you know, either put the appropriate amount in or not put anything in, you know, just not make a token thing, but I have no idea what it's going to cost.

It's unfortunate probably at that point where we have any idea.

Sure. So I would be okay with that if that's your guys' feeling. I don't know much about this.

Thank you. We have a motion and a second. All of us in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed?

That's what I have on the agenda.

Move to adjourn. Somebody.

So moved. All in favor? Aye.

Aye.

Thank you very much, folks Okay It was simple That was a shizzy Yeah, I can see Yeah Yeah