Macon Reporter

Village of Warrensburg Village Board met Nov. 7.

Here are the minutes provided by the board:

CALL TO ORDER:  Mayor Riley called the meeting to order at the Warrensburg Village Hall on Monday, November 7, 2022 at 5:30 p.m., reminding everyone the meeting was being recorded.   

THE PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE was recited.

ROLL CALL:  Present:  Mayor Riley, Trustee Fisher, Trustee Freeman, Trustee Hood, & Trustee Oakley.  Also present were Chief Wheeler, Atty Jankowicz, DPW Allen & VAC Hundley.  Trustee Hackl & Trustee Netherton were absent.

MAYOR’S COMMENTS:  Mayor Riley spoke about the Christmas Tree project on December 3.  We will be getting a 16’ Christmas tree from Elwin Tree Farm.  The high school choir is coming down, there will be refreshments, residents can put their ornaments on the tree and then the lighting will be around 7:00 pm.

The Warrensburg-Latham Lion’s Club is hosting the Brotherhood Tree again this year.  Gifts for those aged 0-17 can be dropped off here at the Village Hall, the Barclay Library, the bank in Latham and Dollar General.  The Club will be sending gift cards to those needing assistance with food items.

There are new owners at the DaBurg and a ribbon cutting ceremony was held last Friday.  They began serving lunch today.  

Cancun opened within the last couple weeks and they’ve had good crowds.

The Warrensburg Café has been purchased by Gloria Hernandez and she’s making some improvements and changes to the property.

So, we have some good choices for dining in the Village.

PUBLIC COMMENTS:  Mayor Riley reminded everyone to vote tomorrow.   Betty Underwood asked about leaves being raked into the middle of the street was against Village Code.  

NEW BUSINESS:   Dave Mizer from Creative Insurance presented the rates for 2023 for Health Alliance.  The premiums will be increasing 7.5%.  We’ve been fortunate that vision & dental either didn’t increase or had a very low increase.  The premium would increase from $4,147.00 to $4,459.00.  The biggest concern with some companies is compatibility with physicians.  The Village would be able to change carriers at any time depending if another company becomes available at a lower premium with the same access to physicians.  Trustee Oakley asked what kind of increase he had been seeing from other companies for groups of our size.  Dave said basically the only 2 carriers he has been seeing that we could use for our size and our physicians are Health Alliance and Blue Cross, Blue Shield.  A motion was made by Trustee Hood, seconded by Trustee Freeman to renew the health insurance plan with Health Alliance for a renewal premium of $4,147.00.  Roll call vote:  Yes – Trustees Freeman, Hood, Fisher & Oakley.  No – none.  Motion carried.

VAC Hundley presented information comparing the Aramark services versus purchasing the items independently for the board to review.  She explained where she had priced some of the items.  Trustee Oakley asked specifics about some of the items and how often things are replaced.  The employees do launder their own jeans and the mats are replaced weekly.  Trustee Fisher asked who launders the shop towels and those are replaced by Aramark.  It was asked this be placed on the next meeting agenda for action.

ENGINEER:  Stephanie Brown from was in attendance but didn’t have anything from the engineers.

REVIEW/APPROVAL OF MINUTES:  A motion was made by Trustee Freeman and seconded by Trustee Oakley to approve the minutes of the October 17, 2022 regular meeting.  Motion carried.  

VILLAGE ADMINISTRATIVE CLERK:  Trustee Freeman moved and Trustee Oakley seconded to approve the Balance Sheet, pay the bills and make the appropriate transfers for November 7, 2022.  VAC Hundley explained the balance sheets and what all the transfers are for.  New accounts are being established with the State of IL (IL Funds) for TIF, Tort, Water Debt/Reserve & Water Fund & Depreciation.  Additional funds will be moved from Water checking, Sewer checking & the ARPA balance.  Interest rates are much better and funds are easily accessible.  The current rate is 3.6% with the State of IL.  There are no bank fees either.  The AP looks like a big amount but the majority of the total amount is for our liability insurance with Risk Management.  Roll call vote:  Yes – Trustees Oakley, Hood, Freeman, & Fisher.  No - none.  Motion carried.

FINANCE:  Trustee Oakley the semi-annual financial report spreadsheet.  He directed their attention to the bottom of the sheet for revenue/expenses comparison.  He explained some of the funds.

Trustee Oakley moved and Trustee Hood seconded to purchase a new copier for the Village Hall at a cost not to exceed $1,576.93 from Watts Copy Systems with an annual maintenance cost of $300.00.  The current copier was purchased around 10 years ago and it has been a good machine with little trouble.  Our contract is up with them and many of the parts for this machine are no longer available.  Striglos Office has also been asked to provide a quote.  Roll call vote:  Yes – Trustees Fisher, Oakley, Hood & Freeman.  No – none.  Motion carried.

Atty Jankowicz has provided copies of the tax levy from last year and it’s time to get the one together for this year.  It’s estimated that we can be lower overall this year.  Trustee Oakley will be doing some further work on the figures and will have something prepared for the next meeting.

Trustee Oakley moved and Trustee Freeman seconded to go into closed session at the end of the meeting to discuss the appointment, employment, compensation, discipline, performance or dismissal of an employee pursuant to 5ILCS 120/2 (C)(1).  Roll call vote:  Yes – Trustees Oakley, Fisher, Freeman, & Hood.  No – none.  Motion carried.

BUILDING:  Trustee Netherton was absent.  

POLICE:  Trustee Fisher didn’t have anything.  

Chief Wheeler presented his monthly report.  A couple questions were asked about some of the reports.  

Kevin Mante is the owner of Applied Combative Solutions and has done the range training classes.  He has provided a land use agreement for 2023.  Atty Jankowicz will prepare an ordinance to be presented for adoption at the next village board meeting.

Chief Wheeler asked if the board wanted to conduct the Christmas lighting contest this year.  Trustee Freeman moved and Trustee Hood seconded to spend up to $500.00 out of video gaming funds for the Christmas lighting contest prizes & refreshments.  Mayor Riley asked if people needed to sign up for it or could anyone with their property decorated be included.  In the past, we’ve had people sign up and some years we have 8 and other years up to 15.  It’s up to the board.  Roll call vote:  Yes – Trustees Freeman, Hood, Fisher & Oakley.  No – none.  Motion carried.

SEWER:  Trustee Hackl was absent.  

STREETS:   Trustee Hood mentioned the front tires on the backhoe are getting bald again.  He suggested to K. Crosier to obtain quotes for heavy duty road tires instead of the all-terrain tires.  It would probably be good to obtain prices on the rear as well.  He could also compare with what is currently on the backhoe.  Trustee Oakley asked about the sidewalk work.  They have 80’ done and did approximately the same amount today.  They may have 2 or 3 80’ sections to do.  

Mayor Riley mentioned he had attended an area Mayor’s meeting and during the discussion it was mentioned that is sidewalks are in fairly good shape but uneven, they used Jack-A-Slab.  He has asked Terry to take a look at sidewalks that we may be able to do that with.  It may be a viable option.

Trustee Freeman asked if anything was being considered for North St. sidewalks.  He has been taking a family member to school and several kids use that sidewalk.  Mayor Riley mentioned there are several issues with that portion of sidewalk, i.e. uneven portions, railroad crossing & extending the current sidewalk to past the railroad.

WATER:  Trustee Freeman didn’t have anything, with the exception of a water committee meeting this Wednesday at 5:30 p.m.  

PUBLIC WORKS:   DPW Allen reported prices had been obtained for tires on the water truck.  Walker Tire has them for $1,068.47.  The other estimates he had obtained were quite a bit higher.  He also reported they have been working on rebuilding some pumps.  These are pumps used for the chlorine system and they would like to have a couple extra on hand.

Trustee Freeman moved and Trustee Oakley seconded to purchase the tires from Walker Tire as quoted.  Roll call vote:  Yes – Trustees Hood, Freeman, Fisher & Oakley.  No – none. 

The lagoons are doing well.

Mayor Riley reported on a letter the Village had received from the IL EPA.  We had exceeded our effluent solids in the water test so the water being distributed into the drainage ditch was high in its concentrated solids.  This was for June, July & August 2022.  They also cited an annual report which was due in January had not been received.  Danny discovered the report had been completed and he neglected to mail it.  With the effluent solids, it was determined that due to the larger rains and aeration issues causing us to drain down the lagoons for cleaning, it most likely caused more of a discharge.  The IL EPA did state that our September 2022 test was satisfactory.  A letter stating all of these details had been sent to the EPA but no response has been received in return.  Trustee Oakley asked if these test results were something that we receive on a monthly basis.  Yes, we do and on the Discharge Monitoring Report we have to acknowledge the results.     

VILLAGE ATTORNEY:  Atty Jankowicz didn’t have anything.

OTHER AND/OR OLD BUSINESS:  Nothing.

The meeting moved into closed session at 6:55 p.m. 

The open session reconvened at 7:26 p.m. 

Trustee Hood moved and Trustee Freeman seconded to adjourn.  Motion carried.

The meeting adjourned at 7:27 p.m.  

https://warrensburgil.com/meeting-info/