 Neitzel opened by saying that she would not want to live anywhere
else but Lincoln, Ill. She further said that she has lived in every
ward in the city with the exception of Ward 1.
Neitzel stated that she's been in Ward 5 for approximately 10
years. She loves her ward and said that it offers residential,
commercial and industrial opportunities as well as being home to
Lincoln College and its museum, which is a tourist attraction.
She named the bottle factory as industry, Graue Chevrolet,
Puritan and several other commercial businesses.
Neitzel also said that she currently lives in Mayfair, and come
Saturday night she'll have no less than 150 kids trick-or-treating,
and she looks forward to that every year.
Hoinacki added a thank-you to District 27 for the use of the
school.
Soccer complex discussions continue
Alderwoman Joni Tibbs said that city engineer Mark Mathon had
investigated the question that came up last week regarding allowing
the club access to the proposed park property via a gravel driveway.
Mathon said that he had spent time last week looking at city
regulations and that paved road rules applied generally to the
development of subdivisions.
He explained that because this is city property and the proposal
is basically for a park, there are no rules that would prevent the
gravel drive.
Other topics that came up with the club involved their business
status. Dru Hauter and other members of the Lincoln FC board were
present for the meeting. Hauter said that the group has filed to be
an Illinois not-for-profit corporation. They will also be applying
for a federal tax-exempt 501(c)(3) status.
Tibbs said that another question that had come up was what would
happen to the property improvements if the club abandoned the
complex. Hauter said that the club would eventually put in lighting.
While the club was hoping for a long-term relationship with the
city, if there would be a departure, the club would gift that
lighting to the city.
Mayor Keith Snyder asked how the club would view the lease. He
wondered if the club viewed that for the term of the lease, the city
would not pursue or entertain any other offers on the ground. He
asked if they would work with a clause in the lease that allowed for
a certain amount of notice if the city wanted to terminate the
lease.
Hauter said that the club was willing to go along with that, and
that they would also want a clause in the event they wanted to
terminate the lease, and the amount of notice that would be
required.
Issues that will still need to be addressed by the club include
the natural waterways on the property. Mathon provided everyone with
a topographical map showing the land's elevations, as well as
marking the locations of two concrete drainage structures.
The club will have to work around these issues in laying out
their playing fields.
On the agenda for Monday night, there will be a vote to approve
or deny going ahead with drafting the lease agreement. Tibbs noted
that the city does want the lease for five years, and it will be
rent-free.
Anderson discusses racetrack
Alderwoman Melody Anderson passed out a list of questions that
have come up regarding the racetrack.
She said that she had spent upward of six to eight hours
searching through old minutes of meetings to find answers to
questions that have come up this year regarding the races.
She said that as she receives calls she has had to go back and
dig out this information because there is nothing specific such as a
written policy on what the track managers can and cannot do.
Tibbs said that first of all, the racetrack managers didn't come
before the council this year with their program, and they should
have.
Anderson agreed that they should come to the council annually,
but still there needed to be some kind of written outline to clarify
what they can and can't do.
Questions on the list included the curfew, violations of curfew,
notification of curfew violations and fines imposed.
In addition to this, Anderson and Tibbs both said that the track
managers should provide their race schedule annually and the council
should be permitted to approve it.
Also, there should be special approvals for race events held for
multiple successive dates, special races and events such as
fireworks.
Other questions involved the sale of beer, the number of Sunday
races that should be allowed, and whether the city should receive
notification and be allowed to approve schedule changes once the
season begins.
Updates to policy and procedures manual
Anderson said she has been looking at the city's policy and
procedures for a while now. She has sent everyone a copy of the
current policy with her notes and suggestions added.
She said that one thing she was interested in exploring was the
procurement policy. Anderson noted that Main Street Lincoln has a
policy that offers a bit of an advantage to local businesses during
the procurement process.
However city attorney Bill Bates said that his initial
investigation into this shows that the city cannot do anything that
would show favoritism, and giving local businesses an advantage of
any kind would be favoritism.
Anderson also wondered if the city had sufficient job
descriptions in their policies. She noted that the alderman job
description is "fairly loose."
She said that it had come up particularly with aldermen and the
pay schedule that there might be a potential problem.
Voting meetings pay $75 each, committee of the whole pays $50 and
special meetings pay $25. The problem arises in figuring out the
absences from meetings and whether or not the aldermen are entitled
to pay when they are absent.
City Clerk Denise Martinek said that the alderman can have two
excused absences paid, or if there is an illness or a family-related
issue, that is still payable. She explained, though, that in looking
at past payments, she has had difficulty determining whether or not
the pay was justified.
She said that with the current recording of absences, it could
raise a question as to whether or not some aldermen were getting
special treatment.
Alderman Buzz Busby also noted that the $25 for special meetings
includes attending committee meetings outside of the council. He
noted as an example that Alderman David Wilmert is entitled to the
$25 for attending meetings of the Joint Solid Waste Management
Agency.
Tibbs said that the individual was responsible for filling out
the pay sheet for those meetings. She and Busby jointly noted that
there are several aldermen who never ask for pay for those outside
meetings.
Anderson asked for a committee meeting at 6:15 p.m. Nov. 10. She
wants everyone to review the policy and procedures and bring
suggestions to the table then.
Cost analysis from Mid-America Electric
Busby handed out a cost analysis from Mid-America Electric. He
said that for whatever reason, the company is charging the city for
electricity at City Hall, when in the past there has been no charge.
He said that waste treatment manager Bob Tackett and the city's
former waste treatment manager, Dave Kitzmiller, were going to look
into why this has changed.
Busby noted that at the waste treatment plant, the electric usage
is still under budget for the year. However, in all the other areas
of usage, the electric bill is above budget.
[to top of second column]
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Please call the police
Deputy City Police Chief Mike Geriets said that the aldermen may
be receiving calls regarding dogs running loose. He encouraged them
to tell their constituents to call the police so that police can
document the incidents.
He said that the problem is coming up with specific breeds that
residents are afraid of. He added that the police department does
get a lot of these calls, and once in the past year they have even
had to shoot a dog. He said killing an animal is not something they
want to do, but sometimes it is necessary if they are aggressive.
Geriets said that he has met with animal control and they too are
concerned about the breeds that they are seeing running at large.
They noted that approximately 70 percent of the animals they are
receiving calls on are pit bull mixes. Geriets also noted that the
majority of these dogs are not aggressive, but they are perceived as
so because of their breed. Other breeds that residents are wary of
are German shepherds and Rottweilers.
He added that he didn't know what the answer was for stopping
this: if the fines needed to be increased, or what. But the bottom
line is that something needs to be done to motivate owners to take
responsibility for their animals.
Discussion on this moved to an incident that happened over the
weekend, when a child was bitten by a large breed, aggressive
animal. It was noted that at first the animal was not taken into
custody.
Bates said that he had received a call about that on Monday
morning, and that he personally contacted animal control and they
went out and apprehended the animal.
Bates said that the state's attorney's office is responsible for
prosecuting a vicious dog complaint, but he has also volunteered the
office of the city attorney if necessary to assist in that
prosecution.
Bates noted that on Sunday, during the initial offense, the dog
actually bit two people: the first being a child, and the second
being the person who attempted to rescue the child from the animal.
Sign ordinance to be revisited
Neitzel has given out copies of the new sign ordinance. She said
that at the next committee-of-the-whole meeting she wants everyone
to come prepared if they have any questions or areas of the
ordinance that they want to discuss.
Brick sidewalk repair will be tabled
A petition from Tim L. Aper for the construction of a concrete
sidewalk at 208 and 216 Third streets will be tabled next week.
When the petition was read, Tracy Jackson, city street and alley
superintendent, said that this was a second request for work to be
done on a brick sidewalk.
At the first request, the sidewalk committee had stated that the
walkway needed to be cleaned up so that it could be evaluated. That
has now been done; however, Jackson said that he had talked to the
committee chairman, Alderman David Armbrust, and Armbrust wants this
petition tabled.
Armbrust has advised Jackson that within the next two weeks, he
will bring up for vote a new procedure for addressing brick
sidewalks.
Snyder and Smiley to attend IDOT meeting
Mayor Keith Snyder said that next Thursday he will attend a
meeting at Illinois State University, along with Joel Smiley,
director of the Lincoln & Logan County Development Partnership.
The meeting is being put on by the Illinois Department of
Transportation and will offer an update on the state's high-speed
rail program.
Ribbon-cutting for business incubator
Snyder reminded everyone that there will be a ribbon-cutting for
the business incubator program at 11 a.m. Thursday at 600 Broadway.
He encouraged everyone to attend.
Mayor calls for an early meeting next Monday
The mayor is calling for the Monday voting meeting to begin at 6
p.m. rather than 7:15.
He explained that while at the Illinois Municipalities League
Conference in September, he attended a session put on by Buxton Co.
The presenter at that meeting is in Illinois next week and has
contacted the mayor about meeting with the full council.
Chip Rogers will do a presentation about retail attraction.
Hoinacki said that the company has a Web site that includes their
success stories, which all look very good. He encouraged everyone
who could to take a look at that Web site before the meeting.
To learn more about Buxton, visit
http://www.buxtonco.com/index.asp.
Mason and Gates not-so-merry go-round
City Treasurer Les Plotner spoke up that seeing as how the
meeting was in Ward 5, perhaps they should talk about the junk at
the Quonset hut on Kickapoo and what could be done to get it cleaned
up.
Bates said that he could fill everyone in on what is going on
there.
The city attorney has been after the property owner, Mr. Mason,
as well as the tenant, Mr. Gates, to get the messes cleaned up
there.
Mason obtained an order of eviction to get Gates off the
property. Mason then began immediately cleaning the property up
himself.
Gates in turn got a restraining order against Mason prohibiting
him from removing anything from the property.
"Mr. Gates has been evicted and has no legal right to enter the
property, but Mr. Mason has been enjoined from removing anything
from the property," Bates said. He went on: "This is our court
system at its finest."
In addition to this the city attorney has taken Gates to court
for failing to put up an opaque fence around a junkyard within 300
feet of a residence. However, when that went to trial before Judge
Harris this week, the judge fined Gates $2,000 for the failure to
comply but could not order him to erect the fence because he's been
evicted and is not allowed on the property.
Bates said that until Mason and Gates finish their fight in
court, there is nothing more that the city can do.
Another area that is under Gates' control is off Kickapoo, along
the Ophir Street right of way. Snyder said that Jackson and city
officer Rawlins have been out to take a look at a tractor and
trailer plus another trailer parked there.
Jackson told the mayor that within one hour after he and Rawlins
were there, Gates was removing items from the property.
He also noted that the tractor-trailer was registered to Gates
and had been tagged by the city for towing.
The serial numbers had been scratched off the trailer that was
there, but it is believed it is Gates' responsibility as well.
Fast track on track
Bates said that the legal notices have been published for three
consecutive days regarding the demolition of two problem properties.
Effective Wednesday the 30-day countdown can begin.
Providing that no interested party comes forward to stop the
process, the properties located at 417 N. Madison and 718 S. College
will be demolished at the end of the 30-day waiting period.
Geriets introduces Ward 5 resident
At the end of the evening Geriets said he wanted to personally
introduce the council to the one Ward 5 resident who attended the
meeting at Adams School.
He said that Jim Oliver is not only a resident of the ward, he is
the arson investigator for the state fire marshal's office. He added
that Oliver has worked with the city police and fire departments on
several occasions over the past years.
[By NILA SMITH]
Past related article
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