Peoria Standard

Village of Germantown Hills Board of Trustees met September 28.

Here is the minutes provided by the Board:

1. Call to Order/Roll Call/Pledge of Allegiance- Mike Hinrichsen, Village President, called the meeting to order at 6:00 p.m.

Everyone stood and said the Pledge of Allegiance. Mike Hinrichsen stated that he would like to do a moment of silence for those serving our Country both near and afar.

2. Minutes Approval

a. August 24, 2017-Village Board Meeting- A motion was made by Amy Pace to approve the August 24, 2017 Village board meeting minutes. The motion was seconded by Julia Miller. Motion passed #1.

b. September 11, 2017 Special Village Board Meeting-Approval of the Special Village Board meeting minutes was deferred until the next meeting.

3. Public Comments on Any Action Item on the Agenda-None

4. Public Comments on Any Non-Action items-None

5. Current Agenda Items

a. Presentation of the Annual Audit and Financial Reports for FY 16-17-CliftonLarsonAllen

Adam Pulley and Lindsey Samp were in attendance to present the annual audit and financial reports for FY 16-17. Adam reviewed the financial analysis of the funds and stated everything went well this year with the audit process.

Mike Hinrichsen thanked Adam and Lindsey for their professionalism and support.

b. Discussion and approval to amend Title 1 of the Village Code regarding bidding for public improvements

Mike Hinrichsen stated the State Statute was changed in August to increase the amount of a public improvement that requires a municipality to enter into a public bidding process from $20,000 to $25,000.

Marty Clinch voted no as he stated he needed more information.

A motion was made by Amy Pace to approve Ordinance #789 an Ordinance to amend Title 1 of the Village Code regarding bidding for public improvements. The motion was seconded by Julia Miller. Motion passed #2.

c. Approval of a Business Community Improvement Grant

Ann Sasso explained the EDC had recommended approval of a Business Community Improvement Grant to Dean Waldschmidt in the amount of $4,250 which is half of the cost to paint and clean the brick exterior of his portion of Germantown Crossing.

Todd Rice stated he is glad he is going to do this but he was going to vote against the grant approval due to the fact Mr. Waldschmidt in 5 years has not stepped up to fix the building and help himself.

A motion was made by Marty Clinch to approve the Business Community Improvement Grant in the amount of $4,250 to Dean Waldschmidt. The motion was seconded by Jim O’Laughlin. Motion passed #3.

d. Discussion and approval to change the date of implementation of the grinder pump policy

Mike Hinrichsen noted there is going to be a sewer committee meeting on October 2nd at 5:00 p.m. The previous discussion had a recommendation to defer the date of implementation for the grinder pump policy to November 1st.

Rich Brecklin noted there are several residents that aren’t keeping up the area around their grinder pump systems and are ignoring the need for the Village to access the grinder pumps for maintenance. Rich stated most of the time it is other components that fail and not the pump. The issue is not having the resources at night that are available during the day.

Jim O’Laughlin explained the water company is mapping their shut off valves with GPS. Rich stated we aren’t able to do this because the shut off valves are made of plastic and we cannot locate our valves.

Julia Miller asked Rich if he sees anything coming out of the meeting that would change the policy. Rich noted there is a valid point in a valid emergency the need to have an immediate contact number but we really need to educate more people.

Todd Rice feels we either need to eliminate the policy or come up with a date rather than continually deferring it.

Mike Hinrichsen stated he feels there’s been some good discussions and the sewer committee can decide what the next steps may be.

A motion was made by Jim O’Laughlin to defer the date of implementation of the grinder pump policy to November 1st. The motion was seconded by Marty Clinch. Motion passed #4.

e. Approval of the contractor’s application for payment for the J.R. White Park Trail

A motion was made by Jim O’Laughlin to approve the contractor’s application for payment for the J.R. White Park Trail payment of $49,126.42 to ICCI. The motion was seconded by Amy Pace. Motion passed #5.

Rich Brecklin stated there have been many positive comments about the trail. There is still some grading, purchasing of some benches and signs before completion.

6. Ongoing Agenda Items-None

7. Presentation of Bills

a. General-A motion was made by Todd Rice to approve the general bills as amended. The motion was seconded by Marty Clinch. Motion passed #6.

b. Sewer-A motion was made by Jim O’Laughlin to approve the sewer bills. The motion was seconded by Marty Clinch. Motion passed #7.

c. Audit- A motion was made by Julia Miller to approve the audit bill. The motion was seconded by Marty Clinch. Motion passed #8.

d. MFT-None

8. Reports of Standing Committees

a. Finance-Amy Pace had nothing new to report.

b. Streets/Equipment-Todd Rice stated he will be scheduling a meeting in October to talk about the Somerset sidewalk in order to get a better understanding as to what might be able to be done.

c. Personnel-Julia Miller had nothing new to report.

d. Police-Marty Clinch stated the traffic by the school is going smoothly.

e. Parks- Julia Miller stated they are getting a lot of compliments on the J.R White Park Trail.

f. Sewer-Brian Wysocki was not in attendance.

g. Storm Water-Jim O'Laughlin noted there is a drainage issue on Warrior Way. Mike Hinrichsen will take a look at the issue. There is a letter on file that states it is not the Village’s responsibility.

h. Economic Development Council-

Marty Clinch stated he and Mike had a meeting with CEFCU today on the Germantown Crossing vision. They seemed to be very receptive and will be taking it back to their board.

Mike Hinrichsen noted the meeting went very well and they seem to be open to our ideas and the vision.

Ann Sasso noted she had attended the IML and ICSC conferences the past two weeks. There was another meeting on the potential regional branding initiative. The group came to the conclusion that the area chambers need to take the lead so there will be more information at some point coming back to the communities.

9. Reports of Special Committees-None

10. Reports of Officers

a. Zoning Officer/Village Clerk/Village Administrator-Ann Sasso noted:

The Christmas party is set for December 3rd.

The ITEP grant program will start again on October 2nd. A solicitation permit was issued to a company selling cleaning supplies. All of the background checks checked out.

b. Superintendent of Public Works-Rich Brecklin stated the WWTP Peak flow improvement is moving forward.

Rich Brecklin reported normally we have Woodford County do our paint striping but their equipment is old and the paint doesn’t last. In talking with Ron Kiefner at the Township he decided to do a joint venture with Varsity Striping that was doing the Township’s paint striping. He is also talking with Ron about the possibility of doing some crack filling.

Rich noted the filters are still not working.

c. Village Attorney-Bill Streeter had nothing new to report.

Chuck Urban stated they have heard nothing back from Mr. Clark’s attorney on the signing of the documents. The Village is scheduled to go to court tomorrow. Chuck will talk with Scott to confirm the potential environmental issue should not impact the area we are looking at for easements.

Chuck Urban reported we are waiting on a tract search for the right of way dedication on the Greg Harman and Christ Church property.

Bill Streeter reported we finally have the title work completed so we will be setting up a closing on the ATM lot soon.

c. Village President

Mike Hinrichsen noted he had met with Joel Shoemaker, Library Director and they had a great meeting.

Mike met with Henry Vicary from Caterpillar on the possibility of helping with some funding on the MTCO Park. We will know more by the end of the year.

There will be an ESDA meeting on October 19th to talk about the Emergency Operations Plan. Ann Sasso noted some Fire Department representatives will be in attendance to discuss a possible storm shelter.

The Village received a grant on the Natural Hazard Mitigation and the first meeting is coming up soon. We had our first meeting with Tri-County on the planning of the Metamora to Germantown Hills Trail. Metamora and Germantown Hills received a grant for the planning of the trail project.

Mike noted GPEDC is still looking for a CEO and a new office location.

The Woodford County Board meeting went well with six Woodford County Mayors attending to show their support for GPEDC and the Tri-County Planning Commission. All of the Mayor’s communicated the same message and that is that GPEDC and Tri-County Planning Commission are important to the communities. All of the Mayors showed interest in getting together to talk about issues facing Woodford County.

Mike stated Stan Glazier, Woodford County Board Chairman attended the Community Prayer Breakfast. The event went very well.

The Mayor’s Association meeting is coming up. Any board member that would like to attend with Mike should let him know.

We need to look at the next steps for the Germantown Crossing Vision and whether or not it needs to be a public/private type of partnership. Woodford County has a revolving loan fund that is going to be shut down that still has some funds available.

Mike met with Tri-County Planning Commission and showed Eric Miller the vision. They discussed funding alternatives to work on paying for the improvements.

11. Communications to the Board-None

12. Adjournment-A motion was made by Jim O’Laughlin to adjourn the meeting at 7:31 p.m. The motion was seconded by Marty Clinch. Motion passed #9.

http://germantownhillsillinois.org/media/09-28-17-Village-Board-Meeting-Minutes.pdf