Logan County Board Regular Meeting
Logan County Jail Expansion, Logan County tourism Bureau, and staff termination in the Zoning Office

 

[February 20, 2025] 

On Tuesday, February 18th, the Logan County Board met for their monthly regular meeting. This meeting took place in the first floor courtroom at the Logan County Courthouse starting at 6:00 p.m. Nine members were in attendance, those being Chairman JR Glenn, Jim Wessbecher, Dale Nelson, Kathy Schmidt, Bob Sanders, Gil Turner, Lance Conahan, Joseph Kuhlman, and Hannah Fitzpatrick. The three members absent were Vice Chairman Julie Bobell, Michael DeRoss, and Keenan Leesman.

This meeting started a bit different than past meetings, with Chairman Glenn announcing that, per a conversation he had with Turner, the Logan County Board is going to start doing an invocation at the start of every regular board meeting, once per month. Glenn stated that the reason for this is because of Logan County’s strong faith community. “One of the strong assets we have is our faith community,” Glenn stated. “So we are now going to have an invocation at the start of each board meeting once a month.” Glenn shared that the plan is to have various church leaders from the community come to give each invocation.

The invocation for this meeting was given by Reverend Dr. Glenn Shelton, the pastor of the Second Baptist Church in Lincoln. Rev. Dr. Shelton’s comments regarded showing faith in the county board leaders. He stated that he knows Logan County is going to become “number one in the state of Illinois.” Rev. Dr. Shelton recited a short poem before ending his invocation in prayer.

After Rev. Dr. Shelton’s invocation, the board went into public comments, the first of which was made by Mayor Tracy Welch. Welch introduced himself to the board, mentioning that he recently sat down with Chairman Glenn and had a long discussion about uniting the goals of Lincoln with Logan County. He alluded to past “strained” relationships between the town and county. He stated that he wants to figure out how both the board and the city council can become better partners, sharing that it would be good not only for the people of Lincoln, but also the people of Logan County.

Glenn then shared that he has reached out to several other townships, stating that he and other county board members are willing to attend their meetings to help keep open lines of communication between the county and its towns.

Melanie Blankenship speaks on behalf of the Logan County Tourism Bureau

The next person to speak was Melanie Blankenship, President of the Logan County Tourism Bureau. Blankenship was asked to come before the board to speak on the nature of the Bureau, as the board was voting to renew its certification as a certified tourism bureau. Blankenship started with the way the bureau gets its funding, which is through the taxes generated by the county’s taxes from its hotels and motels. She then stated that the majority of that money comes from the workers who install the wind farms around the county, as they tend to stay in the county’s hotels or motels.

Blankenship then began to speak on the nature of the bureau and what they do for the county. She stated that the bureau spends a lot of its budget on advertising, advertising far north and south of the county to try to get people to come visit. She also stated that they have done grants for county projects such as Mt. Pulaski’s Courthouse and Christmas on Vinegar Hill. She also shared a few of the upcoming projects they are working on, including a large donut in front of Mel-O-Cream and two watermelon park benches.

Blankenship also mentioned that, should the bureau lose its certified status, she is not sure that they will be able to get it back. Under current rules, Logan County does not have enough hotels and motels for our tourism bureau to qualify for certified status. The bureau was granted certified status before this rule went into effect, and so they were “grandfathered in.” If the board votes to not renew their status, Blankenship was uncertain that they would be able to get it back. She then urged the board members to vote in favor of their certification. The board then took a vote, voting unanimously to renew the Logan County Tourism Bureau’s certified status.

A special recognition

The next item on the agenda was nice surprise that the board had planned and kept under its hat for the past few months. To read about this special agenda item, please read LDN’s article on County Clerk and Recorder Theresa Moore to be published Saturday, February 22nd.

Sheriff Landers discussing the Logan County Jail expansion project

Sheriff Mark Landers then gave a brief update on the Logan County Jail expansion. He stated that the initial bid from O’Shea Builders and Dewberry came in at about $8 million. They then proceeded to cut as much as they could, bringing the price down to around $6.8 million. One of the things that was cut was renovating the parking lot. Landers stated that they are required to have mental health facilities, and that those, along with other required items, cannot be cut.

The board will hold a special regular board meeting next week about the jail expansion. The board would like to get some people who are going to be working on the expansion there, as well as Sheriff Landers. It was decided that this meeting would be held on Thursday, February 27th at 6:00 p.m. in the first floor courtroom of the courthouse.

Other miscellaneous items on the agenda

The board then voted on several items on their agenda. The first was an update on the per diem, or amount the board can receive as reimbursement for work outside of their meetings. The motion was voted on and passed unanimously. The next item was an amendment regarding recording fees, which was also passed unanimously. Four other items were also approved unanimously. These were an item bank depository designation, a tax sale in the village of San Jose, a motion to approve an update on farm leasing, and a motion to approve DOAP grants for rural public transportation (which funds Showbus for Logan County).

Board terminates staff member in the zoning office

The board then voted to go into executive session to discuss an item on the agenda from Executive and Personnel. The item was titled “Motion for Logan County Board to Take Disciplinary Actions on County Employee.” Everyone left the room, and the board discussed this item in private for a little over an hour.

When the executive session ended, Nelson made a motion to terminate Tracy Bergin. No further discussion was had. The roll call vote was taken. In a vote of 7-2, Bergin was voted to be terminated from the Logan County Zoning Office. The two board members who voted against this decision were Turner and Wessbecher.

Board learns Blue Cross Blue Shield will increase insurance premiums 19 percent

The last major item discussed by the board was regarding insurance. The insurance broker for the county came forward with news that insurance is going to be going up again. They shopped around for another plan, but either the companies would not take the county on, or the offers were higher than what Blue Cross Blue Shield (BCBS) is offering. BCBS will be raising their insurance premiums by 19 percent when the current contract expires. It was stated that the county currently has seven high cost claimants on the plan. Blue Cross also has a loss ratio of 130 percent, meaning they are spending 30 percent more to cover county employees on their plan than is being paid in. The insurance broker stated that he felt an official letter from the county to BCBS could potentially help in getting them to reduce their increase by a few more percent.

Nelson stated that he wanted to see if there were other brokers who might be able to help the county find a better deal. He stated that it was nothing personal to their current broker, but that they have a responsibility to the people of Logan County to find the best deal they can. The meeting was adjourned shortly after.

Additional items discussed will be covered in future articles in Lincoln Daily News including the $2 million or so the County Board is hoping to get back from the Inflation Reduction Act, and an update on the Community Action Partnership of Central Illinois’ financial request from the board.

[Matt Boutcher]