Guest House patrons enjoy coffee on the Mayor and discussions about the state of the city of Lincoln

 

[August 25, 2022] 

At the end of the night at the Tuesday Committee of the Whole meeting of the Lincoln City Council, Mayor Tracy Welch and Aldermen Kevin Bateman and Rick Hoefle spoke briefly about an event Welch had hosted on Saturday at the Guest House in Lincoln.

Welch had put the word out that from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. Saturday, he would host a “Coffee with the Mayor” event with the public invited to attend. He said Tuesday that such an informal meeting was something he has wanted to do for a while, and after last Saturday, hoped to do again.

He noted that while the members of Lincoln’s governing body makes every effort to be accessible to all the citizens of the city, sometimes, it just works well for people to come together in a casual setting, and sit and talk over a cup of coffee.

Welch said the plan had been to wrap up the event at 10 a.m., but there had been a nice crowd on hand, and a lot of good discussions. Therefore, it was after 11 a.m. when the meeting broke up.

Bateman said he thought it was an excellent opportunity to speak with constituents. He noted that one of the topics had led to talking about what the city representatives can speak about and what it cannot with the public. He said it was good for constituents to understand that the city is well informed, even though sometimes they are bound to not speak about a given situation.

The meeting had begun with Welch and Bateman. Aldermen Hoefle had come in later and stayed through the end of the event. Bateman noted that Alderman Sam Downs had also attended briefly, before moving on to another commitment. The aldermen of the city have to abide by a law that states that if more than three aldermen (a quorum) are gathered in one location it may constitute a council meeting. Aldermen work to abide by that rule. Bateman said he wanted to clarify that Hoefle did not come into the meeting until after Downs had left, so there were still only two aldermen in attendance at any one time.

Others who stopped by included City Attorney John Hoblit and State Senator Sally Turner.

Hoefle also commented about the Saturday event. He said that he felt that the people who attended had been there with “no axes to grind.” He said he believed, “people came with question, got answers, and left satisfied.”

On Saturday morning, as customers placed their orders, they were told that their beverage was courtesy of Mayor Welch. Food items with the orders were not included. Welch bought for the house, regardless of whether or not people stopped in to the open meeting in the room next door.

During the course of the morning, there were about a dozen people who stayed for the entire event. Others came in for a while then left and new visitors arrived, creating a continual rotation at the back of the room.
 

One topic that came up was the new i3 Broadband that has moved into the city. That company is currently laying fiber optic cable along city streets. A constituent asked about the boxes that are being placed along the edge of the street by the company. She wanted to know if a homeowner wanted to do improvements to a driveway would that box prevent them from doing so. Welch said to the best of his knowledge there would be no issues with doing driveway improvements next to the boxes. He went on to explain that the boxes are junctions that allow i3 to trench and run lines to individual customers and connect the customer to the system via the box. He said that neither he nor the city had any investment in the i3 project. He said he didn’t want to be mistaken as promoting the company, but did want to say that the work he is seeing in the city, the company is doing a great job of running their cable and restoring the land where they are working.

Bateman brought up the trash collection service for the city. He said he would like for constituents to know that the city of Lincoln did not fail to do their due diligence when selecting a trash provider for constituents. He explained that there was a bidding process when Area Disposal was first selected. The company had proven to be the best value for constituents. That company has been taken over by GFL and the city is seeing some improvement in service, but there is still work to be done in that area.

Bateman said that there was a concern for a lack of staff at the disposal plant, but he was happy that they are keeping office staff on hand to answer the phones. He does feel like there should be more people on hand.

Welch said there had been a period of time when the phone system went down at the GFL Lincoln office and that had caused a great deal of concern among Lincoln residents. Bateman added that he had heard from a constituent who voiced concern as well, not so much about the service as about the safety of the two staff members who were in the office at the time. The constituent had told Bateman there were a lot of people who went to the office irritate, and the constituent was concerned for the staff safety in the building.
 

Welch concluded that GFL knows they are low on staff, but they are working to get “up to speed.” It was also noted that the citizens of Lincoln have a really good rate for trash services and constituents will enjoy savings for years ahead.

A member of the audience commented that the city had done a good job with the most recent electric aggregation contract and that citizens utilizing that option over Ameren Illinois were saving money in spite of the new higher rate.

Welch walked through the process of selecting providers for the electric aggregation and explained that through the Stone River Group the city was able to join a larger group of buyers, which meant lower prices based on volume.

Welch also told the guests that rolling blackouts were inevitable and Lincoln customers should expect those to happen when there is a surge in power usage in the area.

Bateman also noted that as the world evolves to electric vehicles, there will be additional struggles. He said that the current “grid” is not strong enough to support multiple EV’s in a neighborhood. So, if five neighbors all have EV’s plugged in at the same time, it will cause supply issues.

The talk about electric costs led to a summary discussion of the replacement of the blinking stop lights in the downtown area. The stoplights were historic because they were old and that in itself was what caused the blinking issues. The city couldn’t get parts to repair the lights when they malfunctioned and the cost of new stop lights was going to be very high. Years ago, the city had decided to make each downtown intersection a four-way stop and let the lights blink.

Welch said on Saturday that he had sought opinions from others about the impression the blinking lights left with those coming to town. The feedback he received was that the impression was that the city didn’t care enough to take care of the equipment. Few had voiced positive opinions about preserving the old lights.

Bateman said furthermore, the decision to put in stop signs would save the city about $400 a month in electric costs for the lights.

Talk moved on to sewer rates. Choosing to base the fixed rate for sewerage per household on water consumption had been a big issue when it occurred. Creating a formula that included using usage from October through December had been a reasonable compromise that saved constituents from paying sewer fees based on watering their gardens or filling their swimming pools.

He reminded everyone that sewer rates are based upon water usage in the months of October, November and December each year.  To keep the sewer bills low, constituents can use extra care to reduce water consumption during those months.

Bateman also suggested that Lincoln residents look at the water using devices in their home and see if they are water saving. He noted as an example that older models of toilets use more than twice as much water per flush as the newer models on the market today. He suggested residents conduct a survey of their own homes and see what they could save overall if they invested in some upgrades.

Hotel/Motel taxes also came up as the city leaders discussed recent issues within the council about supporting local events with the city’s share of the tax money. Welch said his position on the matter revolved around seeing other towns that have their names on the lists of sponsors for community events. He said Lincoln did not have enough and he would like to see the city sponsor events so as to show public support for events and to improve the quality of life for constituents.
 

Comments from the audience were made about events held in other communities that seem to promote racial and transgender bias. Welch said the city has to be very careful not to show bias and not to deny freedom of speech among the citizens.

Welch also asked if the city should bring in more activities such as the Balloons over 66 or the Friday night events in the summer, and the general consensus was yes the city could do more to attract visitors through festivals, parades and more.

Senator Sally Turner was asked if she would like to comment on anything. She said that she thought the city aldermen and mayor do a great job of taking care of the city and the citizens. She said the efforts to grow the city are noted and that growth is needed on the west side as well as the downtown area. She also noted that she hears that there is still a need for more senior housing in the community.

Bateman said that the city cannot pick and choose who comes to Lincoln and who doesn’t but that there have been efforts made to bring more businesses to Lincoln and there will be efforts made in the future.

Welch said that many times, there are people considering bringing a business to Lincoln but they insist on non-disclosure. So, aldermen may be aware of what is coming and yet they cannot speak of it until the company says it is okay.
 

Welch said the city is tasked with showing support for all prospective businesses, but there have been some lines drawn, businesses that may not come to town because of what they promote. He said that he had drawn the line on the video gaming because he felt the city had too many gaming locations. His opinion had been supported by a friend who was not a part of the community coming into town and later commenting to Welch that with all the gaming signs, Lincoln left the impression of a “little Vegas.” Welch said that was not the impression he wanted his town to make on visitors.

Roads and sewers were also discussed and Welch shared that the city is investing all that it can in remedying the troubles with both, but there is much to be done on limited resources. He said the city is looking for new revenue to put into streets and sewers and hoped to be able to speed up the estimated 30-year timeline for upgrading all the roads in Lincoln.

Asked about brick streets, Welch said he liked the brick streets, they have historic value and he wants to preserve them where it is feasible. The biggest problem with the brick street is not the bricks, but the infrastructure under the bricks. Bateman said to restore the streets, will go deeper than re-aligning bricks, it will have to address the cause for the issues and that is the aging sewer system that runs beneath them. To do it properly will take millions of dollars and the city doesn’t have that kind of tinder.

Under the topic of visions for the future, Hoefle said that he wanted to see more offerings for the people of the community. He talked about projects that would improve the capability of the city to do food events such as food truck days where many trucks were gathered together with pop-up food courts. He said ideally, the city could get the city owned parking lot between the Lincoln Public Library and the back side of Rio Grande Restaurant fixed up and on certain days it could be converted to a food court when there were specific activities going on in Latham Park across the street.

Welch also gave an update on Fifth Street Road. The project has been ongoing for more than a quarter of a century, but at last the city is almost to the point of having completed the land acquisition for the project. Welch said ultimately there is one last landowner who has not come to terms with the city, and that person has said simply that he/she will sign when everyone else has. He said agreements have been reached and work is being done to complete all those other acquisitions. Once done, he is confident that the hold-out landowner will get on board as promised.
 

Then the city will have to finish coming up with the money for the project.

As the meeting was approaching an end, one constituent commented that it had been a good event and that he had learned that the city government does have concern for the constituents and pride in their city.

Welch, Bateman and Hoefle thanked the audience and said that it had been a great morning, and though it had run longer than expected the participation and the feedback from the constituents present was well worth the extra time invested.

At the Tuesday night city council meeting, Welch did not spell out every discussion that had taken place, but did say that it was a very worthwhile effort to speak with the citizens face to face in a relaxed environment, and something he hopes to do more of in the future.

[Nila Smith]