 She began by saying that she had submitted copies of the group's
insurance policy to the city clerk, showing that she had added
bodily injury liability insurance to the plan, per the request of
the council. In addition, in the past week she had received help
from street superintendent Tracy Jackson, city engineer Mark Mathon
and input from the Lincoln Police Department on how the route for
the run might be amended and classified as a "rolling parade"
The original plan was for the group on lawn mowers to traverse city streets from Rumors to the Glass House, the OK Tavern, Mr. Lucky'ss, the Alley-Bi and finally Chad's Blind.
That original plan included traveling along Pulaski Street,
Oklahoma, McLean, Peoria, Chicago and crossing Fifth Street to get
to Chad's Blind.
Tuesday night Perdue asked Jackson to explain the changes that
have been made to the original plan.
Jackson said that first of all, he'd removed the OK Tavern from
the route. He said that the new route he had come up with would
start at the Logan County Food Pantry, where the group would have to
cross Logan Street for the first of three separate times.
From the food pantry the group will take Pekin to Hamilton for a
stop at the Glass House, proceed on Hamilton to Tremont and then
Chicago Street for a stop at Mr. Lucky'ss, and continue on Chicago to
Pulaski to the Alley-Bi Saloon. From the Alley-Bi the group will
continue on Pulaski, crossing Logan Street again, and then take
Kankakee to Sixth and Sixth to Chad's Blind. When they leave Chad's,
they will backtrack up Sixth to Kankakee and then on to the food
pantry.
The plan now is to keep the group together and close streets one
block at a time. Barricades will be placed at the end of each
street, and it will be the group's responsibility to close the
streets as they travel the route. Perdue said they were going to
have lead and trailing trucks and that doing the barricades would be
no problem.
Mathon said that the city is now waiting to hear from the
Illinois Department of Transportation on what they will require from
the city so that the group can cross Logan.
Because Logan Street is part of Business Loop 55, it is under
state jurisdiction.
Mathon said that just as the city has to do a resolution
regarding the closing of Feldman Drive, which is a state frontage
road, when Lincoln College has their Run, Ramble and Roll, the city
will have to do something similar for the group to cross Logan.
Mathon said that Logan won't be closed, but it will be crossed,
so the state needs to inform the city of what they will require.
Acting police Chief Michael Geriets said that if the state
required a squad car at the crossing of Logan, he felt like that
could be done.
He also wants the group to congregate at the end of each block
and cross all at the same time. He said that would be safer
and more efficient than having leaders crossing early and slower
mowers lagging behind.
Alderman Jeff Hoinacki said that Jackson and Geriets had worked
on this, and he felt like they had come up with a good working
compromise for the Lawnmower Run.
Alderwoman Marty Neitzel examined the insurance documents that
Perdue had provided, noting there was $1,000,000 coverage on bodily
injury and saying that should be sufficient.
Finally city attorney Bill Bates said that he too was becoming
much more comfortable with the idea. He cited that designating the
event as a rolling parade and closing the streets one block at a
time offered a solution to many of his concerns.
The city has a motion on the table currently, and providing
Mathon hears from IDOT this week, it will come to a vote on Monday
night.
If approved, the event is slated for May 15.
Another food drive in May
Rebecca Van Nydeggen, the director of the local Salvation Army
and a member of the Senior Task Force in Logan County, came before
the council to advise them of a monthlong food drive for all of
Logan County that will take place throughout May.
She said there are six food pantries in the county, four of which
are located within Lincoln city limits. With summer coming on and the
subsequent dismissal of school, pantries are going to be in great
need.
She talked about the benefit of the food pantries to seniors and
to multigenerational households and the need for those pantries to
be fully stocked.
She said the food drive would include collection points at a
variety of businesses throughout the county and that there would be
no door-to-door solicitations.
Van Nydeggen said she would soon be issuing press releases about
the monthlong event.
[to top of second column]
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 Al Eckhoff discusses video gaming license
Al Eckhoff came before the council as a board member of Hartley
Amusements of Peoria to talk about the new video gaming laws and the
effect they are going to have on local businesses as well as the
city.
Under the new Illinois law, video gaming machines currently
being operated in several locations in the city are going to become
illegal. The machines will have to be removed from the
establishments and replaced with state-approved units.
Eckhoff said the current plan includes mandating that all those
machines be taken out by the end of July. However, new
machines are not slated to be available until later in the summer.
Eckhoff said the new law was going to be good for the businesses
and the city in that these new machines would bring in greater
revenues. He estimated that currently the city earns about $1,000
annually from every five machines. Under the new law, those earnings
are estimated to go up to as much as $4,000 for every five
machines.
However, Eckhoff said there is a concern for the business owners
in their licensing of the machines. Currently each business that
offers video gaming has to purchase a license from the city. Those
licenses renew each year in May.
He said that if the state does follow through with current plans,
there will be possibly a three-month period when businesses have no
machines at all; thus, they won't be earning anything.
Eckhoff said he would like for the city to consider prorating the
license fees for the period of time that there will be no video
gaming machines in the city of Lincoln.
He said there is legislation before the state asking that the old
machines be allowed to remain in operation until new ones are
available. If that bill passes, then his current request would be a
moot point.
Based on that legislation, Eckhoff said he wasn't asking the city
to take any action now. He just wanted to put this out to them so
they can be thinking about it.
He added that if the legislation does not pass, and the machines
are removed in July, he will be back before the council then with an
action request.
Light agenda for next week
After all the guest speakers had concluded, the council made
quick work of going around the room and putting together a list of
agenda items for Monday's voting session. Currently the main items
that will come up for vote are the budget resolution for the 2010-11
fiscal year and the Lawnmower Run.
A petition has been submitted by the Logan County Genealogical &
Historical Society for a handicap-accessible ramp to be placed midway
in the block of Chicago Street where their storefront is. It was
discussed at length, as ramps are not generally put in midblock, and
there are ramps at each end of the block.
The solution may be to add a handicap parking space on that side
of the street, near one of the existing ramps. However, there are
space issues because there is parallel parking on that side of the
street.
Mathon and Jackson are to look into this further and see if there
is a workable solution. The item was added to the agenda, but it may
not come to vote, depending on what they report back to the
council.
Evening ends with an executive session
At the end of the evening, the mayor said he wanted to call
a short executive session. Alderwoman Melody Anderson made the
motion that the council go into executive session to discuss the
appointment of a city official. The motion was approved 9-0.
Guests and press were dismissed, as there would be no actions taken
after the session.
[By NILA SMITH]
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