The McLeansboro City Council’s September 8th meeting ran for about an hour and 45 minutes as the group toiled through their 25 agenda items. Trick or Treat will go on in the city from 6p – 8p on Saturday, October 31st as it has in the past. The city doesn’t host a trunk or treat and therefore the individual churches will have to decide if they think those events are a good idea. Additionally, the council refrained from taking any action on the Christmas parade saying that given that the city has been host to at least 3 car shows since the pandemic began, they wouldn’t tell people they couldn’t gather for the event.
Council took up payment requests for the water tower project to Shawnee and Caldwell and also to Sharp’s Landscaping. The latter’s $66,414.93 pay request was approved. The Shawnee/Caldwell pay requests totaled more than $181,303. Water tower construction is moving along. The new water tower will hold 600,000 gallons of water, 4 times what the current water tank holds. The Shawnee Professional Services representative at the meeting also asked council to amend the preliminary engineering report for sewer improvements and to move forward with the pre-application process for those proposed upgrades. The city will be obligating itself to a 9 million dollar loan for those sewer improvements. Discussion with regards to financing on the water tower project revealed expected savings of about $30,000 per year over the next 40 years.Beth Sandusky was approved to utilize city property, if she decides to move forward with plans, at 133 South Jackson for flea markets on Saturdays in October. For the privilege, Sandusky will be asked to pay $50 per event.
At the most recent August meeting, Councilman Dale Biggerstaff made known his concerns about a singular business handling the city’s budgets, audits, and bookkeeping. Kent Armstrong appeared before the council Tuesday to offer a 3 year renewal at $17,000 and to attempt to address those concerns saying that while it was the same firm, there were 3 different departments within Botsch & Associates that handled those tasks. Armstrong discussed various procedures. Biggerstaff said while he didn’t have any personal reason for his questioning, he didn’t mind letting the company know that he was aggravated about a 2 page document the firm charged the city $500 to produce. Further discussion exposed that options to the city including additional and more specific breakdowns were available. Discussion ended with Biggerstaff saying he felt it would best serve the city to, just as one checks rates for insurance “every so often” to get the best rates, that they involve some other firms in price checking.
One of the city’s two Benton based lawyers spoke with enthusiasm about selling of city owned properties encouraging the council to contract with auctioneer Don Burke and to post the notices of property on the city’s website and facebook pages.
TIF reimbursements to Dairy Queen and Wuebbel’s Repair were approved as was a funding resolution for repaving parking spots and the IDOT agreement along Route 142.
Dakota Vanover was announced as the winning bidder (of 8 total) for a 2004 Chevy Colorado the city took ownership of following a drug bust. He’ll pay $2,676.
Beer Garden licensure and liquor license classifications were discussed at length with the city creating new directives and Rodney Campbell addressed council with some historically significant items now in the hands of the McLeansboro Fire Department.
