Logan County Board
Zoning & Economic Development Committee hear concerns about delays in Enterprise Zone application process

 

[June 15, 2023] 

Members of the Logan County Board making up the Zoning and Economic Development Committee met on Tuesday, June 13th in the Orr Building in Lincoln.

The full membership of the committee was on hand for the meeting including Chairman James Glenn, Vice Chair Dale Nelson, Emily Davenport (Board Chairman) Joseph Kuhlman, Keenan Leesman, and Robert Sanders.

The meeting was called to order by Glenn and guests in the room were called upon to introduce themselves. There were several people on hand for the meeting including two county board members, Gilbert Turner and Kathy Schmidt, New Holland Village Board President Annie Coers, and several local business owners.

After the introductions, Glenn reviewed the agenda and brought the committee updates on the items of old business.

He said that Carbon Sequestration was more or less on hold from a county perspective. He said questions had been asked about county zoning and permits, but there was nothing for the county to do at this time as it awaits decisions from other bodies. He said that the Interstate Commerce Commission would be in charge of the pipeline development and the Environmental Protection Agency would be controlling the permitting.

He said the grant applications were submitted for the County Broadband program and there wasn’t much else to do until those were approved.

There was a request for the committee to consider charging a fee for hard copies of Freedom of Information (FOIA) requests. He said he had nothing to say on that.

Moving on to wind Farms, Glenn said there had been some concerns regarding the Top Hat Wind Farm that had been addressed and the project was moving forward “full steam ahead.”

Under new business the single topic listed was a Wind & Solar Farm Advisory Committee. Glenn told the committee that at this time, he knew there had been a group interested in having such a committee formed, but the state has taken control of the wind and solar farm issues, and the individual counties no longer have a great deal of say. He said he didn’t know that there was anything that needed to be done or should be done at this time.

Glenn reminded the committee that there were meetings to be held on June 28th and 29th regarding language changes in the Zoning Ordinance Section F pertaining to Commercial Solar Energy, Section # pertaining to Commercial Wind Energy, and Section 14 pertaining to permit fee schedules.

Glenn resigns as committee chair

Glenn then announced that the current meeting would be his last as the chairman of the committee. He said he was not resigning from the county board or the committee, but no longer desired to be the committee chair.

The last item before the Zoning Officer report was not on the agenda. Glenn said that the Regional Planning Commission (RPC) had designated several dollars to the County for the administering of the Enterprise Zone (EZ). The RPC is taking another at that relationship. He said, “they are looking at that relationship. I don’t know what exactly that means.” He said he didn’t know if the RPC was going to leave the EZ with the county or look at something else. He said he knew little more but wanted to be sure the committee was aware.

Glenn said that he had asked that the Zoning and Economic Development Officer, Beth Davis-Kavelman provide the committee with a more “formal report” as opposed to saying “this is what is going on” and “Hey, we’re busy.” Glenn said that he didn’t know if the next chair would keep that up, but for this meeting, the members did have a report from the EZ/ED Director.

Zoning Officer report

Davis-Kavelman was then given the floor for her verbal report. She began by letting the committee know that Tracy Bergin had joined her office on April 3rd. She said Bergin had “hit the ground running” and had turned out a lot of work in that time, doing an excellent job of taking over addresses and other tasks including work with the website.

Davis-Kavelman repeated that there would be special public meetings on June 28th and 29th at the Orr Building starting at 7:30 p.m.

She moved on saying that her office has been very busy. She said that the upcoming meetings would be the ninth Zoning Board of Appeals Hearing she has prepared for and there was a lot of work involved in those.

She reported that since January 1st, the office has brought in $39,000,000 in permits and $64,605 in additional fees.

She asked the chair if she should go ahead and discuss the EZ at this time, and he said he knew there were some applications that had been made, so yes, move forward.

Davis-Kavelman reported that there have been 12 applications received, and the last one was for the Tremont Bank on Woodlawn in Lincoln last fall. She said it had been put together well and it was easy to process.

She said the problem the office is having with the application process is that the paperwork is coming in incomplete. She said the majority of the applications were incomplete and therefore had been marked as pending.

She told the committee some of the issues that she had with costs not being properly itemized and accounted for. She said that she had learned that some of the businesses, for example the grain elevators, had hired an outside source to put together their application packets and they came in very well done.

She had learned that the previous EZ/zoning officer had reviewed applications and if they were not complete returned them to the applicant.

She said, “I have been taking (up) my time trying to add it all up and get it all done for them, and that is not my job.”

Davis-Kavelman was asked if the applicants had been told that they needed to correct their applications. She said that yes they had, she noted that she had called on applicant three times and the applicant had not returned her calls.

Davis-Kavelman had mentioned the professional group who did the applications for some of the businesses. She said that it was a group called Opportunity Alliance and she had seen their work years before and then it had been very easy to process an application.

She said she has been trying to do all that work, when she wasn’t responsible. She was asked if she was still working with the applicants, and she said she was on a one-on-one basis when they contacted her.

Public Comments

After the report, Glenn asked for public comments. He reminded potential speakers that all comments were welcomed but to please keep it civil.

The first person to speak addressed the committee with information about a webinar she had attended regarding Carbon Sequestration. She said the meeting had provided excellent information about the concerns of having the pipelines networking across the country. She asked the committee to study those issues, hear those concerns, and take them seriously.

Coers was the second person to speak. She introduced herself as the Village President for New Holland, an employee of Tremont Bank and one who works with several business owners and has addressed the benefits of the EZ for new businesses.

She said that she had reached out to Davis-Kavelman for information and sometimes she got it and sometimes she didn’t. She said that she had gotten a voicemail from Davis-Kavelman that was “scatter brained.” Coers said that a scheduled meeting between herself and Davis-Kavelman had been cancelled via an email eight minutes before it was supposed to occur. Coers said it was disrespectful that Davis-Kavelman had not at least called in person.

Coers concluded that she has talked to a lot of people who are having the same problem and that the board should “make this problem go away.”

Glenn said he didn’t want personal attacks in the public comments, to please be civil.

Jeremy Wells with Wells Firearms also had concerns. He said he had started the process of EZ inclusion in August of 2022. He said he had met with Davis-Kavelman in her office and he said it was an “unorganized mess with no place to sit.” He said he had been given incorrect information, and much more.

Wells said he had worked with the city on some ordinances, and on May 3rd had made an effort to get the paperwork completed. He said it didn’t work. He called the zoning office and received no return calls. He said he had gone to the office at Davis-Kavelman’s request. He understood then that everything was complete, but she told him all the things that were missing. He said he had never gotten any kind of list of materials he needed.

Wells said he had spoken with the former EZ officer and had been told that there was no way the process should have been this complicated.

Davenport spoke up saying that the city planning commission had been responsible for approving an ordinance request. She said that the city had not done that timely and “that is on them.” Davenport said the county could do nothing without that permit from the city. Wells said he had the permit in October of 2022. She asked what it was that the city had done just a few months ago. Wells said it was a different scenario, and also a correction that needed to be made.

County Board Member Gilbert Turner spoke next saying he was “very concerned.” He wanted to know why this had come to a head now, without the board being aware there were any problems ahead of time. He felt like the board should have known about the difficulties and the delays.

Davenport said that when Davis-Kavelman came on board, Davenport herself had told Davis-Kavelman to put everything on the back burner and give all of her attention to the county broadband project. Davenport said that project was extremely important for the county and Davis-Kavelman devoted a lot of time to it.

Davenport said the broadband grant was huge and complicated and that she had never seen a grant application that big. She said Davis-Kavelman had focused solely on getting that done as Davenport had requested, “So that is my fault, 100 percent. I told her she had to get that broadband grant done.”

Davenport added that the county had advertised on three separate occasions for an office assistant for Davis-Kavelman and no one had applied. She said finally Bergin had applied and was put in the position in early April. Davenport said Bergin is “a very good learner, very intelligent and she has been able to help some of these things along.”

Davenport also said that she too had spoken with the former zoning officer and he had said that the EZ application was “a bear.”

Turner began trying to speak over Davenport and raised his voice. Then Glenn called a halt to the conversation, giving Davenport and Turner a moment to quiet down, then permitting Turner to continue.

Turner said that he had heard from a lot of people that it was a conflict of interest that the Zoning Officer is the mother of the County Board Chairman.

Davis-Kavelman asked if she could speak again. She told the committee that she had been accused of not having transparency in her office, but she does. In addition, anyone was invited to come into her office and see for themselves that she and Bergin are working hard.

She said that had sent Coers all the information requested, but that it had gone to the wrong email address. Davis-Kavelman said the addresses had been corrected and Coers had gotten everything she asked for.

She said there had been issues with logging into the state system, but it was not her fault it was a problem with the state, that she had to have three different new passwords before it finally got straightened out.

She told Wells that if he came to her office, she would sit with him and show him everything that he needed to do immediately.

Another EZ recipient stood to speak. He said that he had gotten his EZ approval, but it had taken a lot of time. He had spoken with two different county officials that promised the approval would be “retroactive.” He had moved forward, withstood the costs believing that he would be reimbursed and now he has found out that is not the case. He asked if the county was going to stand by the word of those two officials and see to it that he gets his money back.

Glenn said he understood the applicants’ concern, but he did not believe he as the chair or anyone on the committee should address that question. He felt that the county attorney should be consulted before any public comment is made.

Coers stood a second time and said that transparency was an important part of the county process and she wanted to know where she could find minutes for past meetings. She said she has looked and can’t find them. That is why she placed a FOIA request for them, still only got part of what she asked for, and therefore went to the Illinois Attorney General with her issues.

Bergin explained how to find the minutes of meetings. The meeting agendas are posted on a calendar under the date of the meeting. Minutes are taken, recorded, and then given to the board for approval. Once approved then those minutes are linked in the calendar under the date of the meeting. But they cannot be placed there until the minutes are approved. Coers said they needed to be easier to find.

She then asked why when someone was “let go” from the city of Lincoln was that same person hired as a county employee. Glenn said he would not address that question, and Coers said she didn’t need or expect an answer, she just wanted to put it out there.

Speakers were almost done, with Schmidt being the last person to speak. She said she wanted to know why Glenn was resigning from the chair position. He said that it was a matter of personal commitments and a need to spend less time with the Zoning Committee in order to take care of those personal commitments.

Glenn asked for a motion to adjourn which was made and seconded. Davenport then asked if the committee could call an executive session. She said she had questions for Davis-Kavelman and Bergin that she wanted to ask and have answered without public debate.

There was then a discussion about should the session be called by the Zoning Committee or in the next meeting which would be the Executive and Personnel Committee. The decision was to move the request to the next meeting.

The Zoning meeting adjourned and the Executive and Personnel meeting began immediately thereafter.

The business on the agenda took up only a few minutes, then the executive session was called.

All guests were asked to leave except Davis-Kavelman and Bergin. The two board members not on the committee, Turner and Schmidt, were also invited to stay.

The next regularly scheduled meeting of the Logan County Board will be the Workshop Session held tonight (Thursday, June 15th) at 6 p.m. in the Orr Building, 628 Broadway Street in Lincoln.

[Nila Smith]