REGULAR MEETING OF THE MAYOR AND COUNCIL OF THE VILLAGE OF TAMPICO
September 19, 2017, 7:00 PM, Reagan Community Center
Mayor Kristine L. Hill called the Regular Meeting of the Tampico Village Council to order at 7:00 PM.
Commissioners Derrick Maupin, Robert Sigel, Scott Meier and Todd Tornow were present. Police Officer Brian Oostenryk and Assistant Clerk Jamie McIntire were also present. Village Clerk, Kathy Leathers, recorded the written and audio minutes. The meeting was also video recorded.
Mayor Hill led those present in the Pledge of Allegiance.
Minutes of the September 5, 2017 Regular Meeting were approved as presented.
Minutes of the August 15, 2017 Closed Meeting were approved as presented.
Reports of Village Officials
Mayor Hill advised that the Village received two thank you notes recently. One was from the Tampico Memorial Cemetery for the donation given by the Village for their mowing. Mayor Hill encourages others to help out whenever they can. The second was a very nice thank you from Art and Lydia Sage. The Village did a 50/50 share on their sidewalk. The Sages are enjoying watching the kids enjoy it and Mayor Hill said it does look so much nicer. It’s improvement and keeps the kids safer. Mayor Hill said she’ll leave both thank yous in the Village Hall office if anyone would like to see them.
Commissioner Meier advised that he passed out information on a new policy to the council. Meier said this policy needs to be in place by January 1, 2018. Mayor Hill said to read through it in case anyone has any questions on it. It is a Sexual Assault and Abuse Policy.
Remarks from Guests
Mayor Hill introduced Matt Hanson with Willett Hofmann & Associates, INC to discuss the Water Main Replacement Project and the USDA Rural Development Preliminary Engineering Report.
Hanson said the council received copies of the Preliminary Engineering Report and said it’s the biggest part of the Pre-Application for funding through USDA Rural Development application for the Water Main Replacement Project. This is tying into back in 2010 when there was a complete assessment on both the water and waste – water system. We prioritized things to do and what needed to be done in both systems. Obviously, the highest priority at that time was on the waste – water side. The Village had violations at the treatment plants, so we went through and were successful at receiving grant funding, a loan with forgiveness of principle and loan funding to complete some major projects at the treatment plant on the Market Street Lift Station. A little over a year ago, the Village finished up, with just local funds, a small sewer replacement and also upgraded some of the controls and things like that at the Kimball Street Lift Station. We’ve checked off a lot of boxes on the waste – water side of things that we wanted to do. Not to say there’s nothing left to do on the waste – water side. Most of it will be in the collection as we move down the road. Those things are a much lower priority then what’s on the water side. We took a little bit of a breather and now we’re moving over and taking a look at tackling the water side of the system.
Hanson began speaking more on the Engineering Report. The highest priority we put on there was the Water Main System. And that’s the report we have here and that we’re going to gear towards. The report is a fairly thick document. Hansen said he’s not going to go through it page by page, and asked the council to turn to the table of contents for us to refer to. There are pretty strict guidelines for the report, so this outline shown is nothing that we dream up. We follow their criteria of their program. We’ll basically go through the general information. Project Planning Area, Existing Facilities we have to go through to give them an assessment because this will go to an Engineer at USDA Rural Development to review. When they see this report, they’re going through it for the first time. Whether is Tampico, or some place else, they don’t know the Tampico water system and sewer system from other communities. So we have to tell the story of what the condition of the system is.
Need For A Project, we go through and take a look at the need based off of Health, Sanitation, Security, Aging Infrastructure and Reasonable Growth. Then determine what’s the biggest need for this particular project. Then there’s Alternatives. We always have to evaluate, whether it’s USDA Development or low program. Hanson asked to take a look at Alternatives. There’s not a lot of alternatives with Water Main Replacement. We did have a few things we have to address in Rural Development, because they do take a look at Regionalization. And also, look at what they call Decentralized System. That would actually be getting away from a public water supply and going back to private wells, which is going backwards and doesn’t make much sense, but we do have to comment on it. Then Selection of an Alternative. As we go through, it basically looks at a present Analysis, Capital Cost, Operation Maintenance Cost and then Salvage Value after 20 years from the system. And then you convert that all to present day cost and see which is the most economical to do. The Proposed Project (Recommended Alternative) is really kind of a summary of the report, where we go through and giving them Project Designs, Project Schedule and then going through any Permit Requirements, Project Cost Estimate and then the Project Budget. Those are the highlights of the Rural Development Report. We have a List of Exhibits in there. Most of them are basically for the review engineer to take a look at. And it helps them to visualize what the water system looks like and the condition of it. Exhibit A, B and F are probably of most interest. Project Location Map, Water Distribution Improvement Map and the current Village Water Distribution Map.
Hanson asked the Council to skip to page 2 to talk about the Project Planning Area. This will give everyone an idea and it’s written down naratively. The Project Area. If you want to take a look at it from a map stand point, you can go to the back and open up the Exhibit A. It’s the first large colored 11 x 17, and fold that out. The Project Area is outlined in the red color. Basically, the water mains are going to be focused on the North West part of town. We’re looking at replacements on Washington, Lincoln, Joy, Main Street and on Benton. All, except for Benton, we’re replacing from Market up to 4th Street. And also, there’s a water main on 4th Street. We’re replacing that up to Washington and to Benton. Everything on Benton is getting replaced all the way from Kimball and all the way up to 4th Street because that’s the way the system is set up. That’s the main transmission line because the water tower sits on Benton. All the water, supply and storage, all the water in distribution comes from that location and it goes North and South on Benton and then feeds back into the other water mains. We’re also replacing the main on Kimball from Benton, just past the school because we felt with the school there that’s a critical main to be upgraded. What we’re going to be doing is taking all the existing, smaller mains, generally in that area they’re all 4 inch mains and 6 inch mains. We’re going to be replacing it with 8 inch and 6 inch mains. Our 8 inch main is going to be in the blue color on the map. That’ll be everything on Benton, and then everything on 4th and also on Washington Street and then Market. We kind of create a little bit of a loop there. Everything in between is going to be fed back with 6 inch water mains. We’re going to see increased water volume and pressure in those areas, whether it’s a fire situation or even for the normal distribution flushing that’s done annually. This should be able to get more water out of the hydrants in those locations and see a higher residual pressure as a result. Commissioner Sigel asked with this pressure, will the new fire trucks we have be able to use those hydrants readily available. Hanson said yes and we won’t see pressure drop like we do now. Hanson said when we go through the report, it will show some of the hydrant flow testing and see what kind of volume of water we’re getting out of the hydrants and what the pressure was. Also, it’s going to be all 8 inch on Kimball Street, and that’s 8 inch because in the future as this works, what we want to do is piece this puzzle together. This is the first phase and at some point in time, as we start replacing the entire distribution system, you’re going to have 8 inch lines all the way down Washington Street, all the way down Kimball, over to Canal and then it’s going to loop back around. You’ll have one big loop around the outside, and then down Benton Street will be your large transition main. On a lot of the other streets and residential areas, you’ll have 6 inch mains there which are more then adequate for residential service. The 8 inch lines will carry the bulk of the water to fire situations or any other demand that you might have there.
Hanson then asked the Council to turn to page four of the report. This is talking about Existing Facilities. This will give everyone an idea of your existing facilities because it’s been a long time since we did the last conditioning back in 2010. Under the Water Distribution System, there is a table that lists all the diameters of the mains, based off your water maps. The pipe material, PVC, Transite, and Cast Iron Pipe, are what you have in your system. It shows the footage of each and the percentage in the system that you have. There’s not a total there, but Hanson said he added it up. You’ve got a 4 inch diameter less 90.1% of your water distribution system. The reason why that’s key is with the smaller mains, you can’t get higher flow out of those mains. You see significant pressure drop. Hanson said he knows in Tampico and in other communities that have a lot of 4 inch leads, you do have what he considers a standard fire hydrant on the system. EPA will not permit you to put a standard fire hydrant on a 4 inch water main anymore, because you don’t want the fire departments to come out and hook up to those hydrants and think there’s a large volume of water. They start pumping from your system, drop the pressure to a point where it could create a vacuum and collapse the line. You’re not the only ones with hydrants on 4 inch lines, but we couldn’t design it now and get it permitted that way. Cast Iron and Transit, you’re at a 83.2%. The big thing with the Transit Pipe is it’s very brittle. Contractors don’t like working around the Transit Pipe because sometimes it has odd dimensions so it’s tough to make repairs. Sometimes you need special parts to make repairs. A lot of communities are, if they can, getting rid of Transit Pipe. That’s a pipe we’re definitely trying to get out of your system and we’re going to replace a decent percentage of that with this project.
Water Storage, we have a 55,000 gallon elevated storage tank, built in 1912. Generally, the condition is good. You shouldn’t be scared of the age. A lot of the steel industry celebrate these towers that are over a 100 years old because it shows the longevity of the towers. The key to a long lasting tower is paint maintenance. You have to make sure to monitor rust on the tower and maintain a good paint system so you don’t get corrosion. The only thing there, normally if you’re designing a new system, the goal is to keep the pressure between 60 and 80 PSI for distribution system pressure. Hanson has seen systems up to as high as 90 or lower 90s. If you do that, a lot of times you’ll have pressure reducing valves in the homes to reduce the pressure. But Hanson has also seen them in the 50s. We’re running down the 40-41 PSI range. At some point, when you have to replace the tower, you’ll probably be looking at something that might be a little larger in storage volume to give you a little bit more for fire protection. Also, you’ll be raising the tower slightly. What will help, when you replace your distribution system, it’ll be able to handle the higher pressure better. Even if you wanted to raise the pressure now, you’d have to do it very slowly because of the age of your system. If you try to add another 5 or 10 PSI to your distribution system, Hanson can guarantee there will be leaks. It’ll start with the galvanized water service lines and then it’ll start working into the weak spots in the distribution system. That is down the road a little bit.
Water Supply and Water Treatment, from the water supply stand point, volume on the two wells we have are, as far as capacity, more then adequate for the daily demands on the system. We use, primarily, well 2 because the water quality is much better then well 1. Well 1 has higher arsenic and iron in it. We basically use well 1 on an emergency basis. The long term would be to eventually take a look and see if we could get it water quality, or drilling out a well that could give us some more quality to well 2. Or putting in some sort of treatment for well 1.
Conditions of Facilities, Hanson said we’ve talked about a little bit. The main thing with it right now is system pressure. You’re seeing very low system pressure. Especially, just including normal flushing and maintaining the system. The other thing is valves and locating valves. We have a number that don’t work and others that we can’t find. When you do get a break, typically you want valves at every intersection so you can isolate one block at a time. If you would have an issue with a Main you can isolate it, and you’re probably taking out no more then 8 to 12 customers. Right now, you can’t find them or they’re inoperable. You may be taking out large sections of your community and putting them on a boil order. With this replacement we’re going to get, the valves will be new, they’ll be functioning and they’ll be operable and able to find them.
Water Storage, we’re going to talk a little bit about the pressure. As far as higher flows are concerned and storage volume, if you’re just providing for your domestic usage, or consumer usage, the storage is adequate for what you have. If you want to try and provide for fire protection and try to meet some of the ISO ratings, you could probably use a little bit more elevated storage capacity. Your largest volume is going to be in your downtown area. But overall, generally speaking, it’s a residential community. So taking a look at ISO, Insurance Service Office, that comes in and rates the community and what the clerical needs are. It also rates your water system. That’ll determine what everyone pays for on homeowners insurance. If you get a better rating, eventually you get the water distribution system upgraded and you upgrade the elevated storage capacity, you could actually see your rating improve from ISO. Which should in turn lower everyone’s insurance rates. Hanson didn’t know by how much. Probably have to talk to an insurance company to find that out and what an approved rating would do to everyone’s individual insurance. If you take a look at the standard residential home and measure the general distance between homes, they are 11 to 33 feet apart. ISO looks for a fire flow rating of about 1,000 gallons per minute for a 2 hour duration fire event. Part of the 2 hours, 1,000 gallons per minute per 2 hour duration, is a combination of distribution system and storage and well capacities. The 2 hour duration is, can you provide the volume needed for 2 hours for 1,000 gallons per minute, plus whatever domestic usage you might have. The other component of it is that volume is at the tower and the wells. To get 1,000 gallons per minute on to where it’s needed for the fire flow demand, do you have the right size water distribution mains to get the water out there. That’s what we’re tackling with this project. We’re working on replacement of the aging mains and get them sized so we can get better fire flow out there into the distribution system for in the event of a fire. And also for the towns general water distribution maintenance.
Hanson then asked the council to refer to Water Supply on page 7. It highlights the water capacity that you have. EPA takes a look at capacity and the public capacity of the system with your large well out of service. When you do that, you have well 1 in service and that has 223,200 gallons per day. Your max day demand is about 61,300 gallons so it’s more then adequate reserve capacity there. Water Quality, we kind of touched on that and the water quality issues with well 1. And then it talks about Financial Status. You have a break down of your water system expenses on page 9. This table is right out of your expense report. You currently have no dept on your water system.
Hanson began speaking on section 4, page 10, Need for the Project. Note on page 10, table 6. This can give everyone some perspective on what your flow rates can be out in the distribution system. We ran a fire flow test at 3 locations. One at Washington Street and 4th, one at Washington Street and Market and then Washington Street between 2nd and 3rd. You can see the flow rates were about the same at 460 and 430. Static pressure was at 45 and 42 PSI. The residential dropped down to 17, 23 and 20 so we’re basically at the max flow at those hydrants with dropping below 20 PSI. With ISO, our goal would be to get 1,000 per minute in those residential areas. And that’s what we’re going to be able to do once we start building the system the way we want to get it built. With the 8 inch transmission main looping the system and then on Benton and then back feeding the 6 inch water main.
Water Storage Tank, at some point in time in the future we’ll take a look at increasing the capacity of the tank and provide for the fire flow capacity and also take a look at pressures. Water Treatment, we’ll take a look at whether we want to try to find another well that’s similar to 2 or put in water treatment. We’re coming in on Aging Infrastructure. The cast iron industry has the cast iron pipe rated for some where between 80 to 100 years. That’s not to say you can’t get more out of those systems, but if you’re taking a look at the design life and a replacement schedule, you’d be looking at 80 to 100 years. The asbestos pipe industry says roughly around 70 years for an asbestos pipe. The tower was built in 1912. Hanson said he can’t tell you exactly when all the mains were built. Some of the distribution mains in your system, some are more cast iron in nature, and are probably some where 100 to 105 years in age. Your asbestos pipe wasn’t manufactured until the mid 1900’s. So those are probably 60 to 70 year range. But they are starting to reach there design life. We’re trying to be a little bit proactive here and start chipping away at the water system distribution. The tower is over 100 years old. Just keep doing what you’re doing. Do the preventative maintenance, do the inspections periodically and make sure the paint system is in good condition. You should still get a number of years out of the tower. Then the Water Supply. There are wells that are well over 100 years old and still pumping well. Your wells are 53 and 49 years old. As far as age on those wells, there’s no issue with the age. It’s really just taking a look at the water quality.
As far as Reasonable Growth, Hanson said we have to address it. There’s a small reasonable growth for some residential development. There’s things happening regionally. Not everyone is going to live in the communities that they’re working in. Some people like living in small, rural communities like Tampico. You could see some residential growth. So we included some in there for the design, just to show the system and the way it’s designed has that capacity for any future growth.
Alternatives Considered, priority one is replacement. Hanson said to take a look at page 16 under Replacement. That’s the detailed breakdown of the construction cost. Breakdown for the construction cost is $2,145,000. We’re going to be replacing a little over 13,000 feet of water main. And for a total, we had about 34,000 so a little over a third of the system is going to be replaced with this project. And then you have 147 water services that we’re going to replace. We’re going to be replacing water services from the main to the shut off boxes at the property line. It will be up to the homeowner if they want to upgrade their water service, they can. What we’re going to be doing is, unless there’s a business that requires a larger water service, all water service will be 1 inch to the property line. If for some reason the people that have older homes, and we run across where some still have three quarter inch water services, what we’ll do is reduce down and tie in after the shut off box. That will give the homeowner the opportunity to upgrade their water service and go to a 1 inch line if they chose to do so.
Hanson said we did comment on the Decentralized System, but we’re not going to spend much time on it. Basically, it was a portion of the system we thought we could drill wells in and separate it from the system. From a cost stand point, it really wasn’t economical to do. Just from a general concept, it’s not good to start breaking people off from public water supply. Hanson said he’s not even sure the Department of Public Health would allow that to happen with a public water supply already in place. The last one we commented on was Regionalization. That’s trying to connect to another system that has a water supply that can produce water. Regionalization is only good from a water supply stand point. Is it cheaper to put in new wells or buy from someone else. With this option, you could get water from Prophetstown or Rock Falls, but it doesn’t help our project. Our project is distribution and you still have to get water to your customers. So Regionalization for our project is nothing we can evaluate.
Hanson asked the council to turn to page 26, section 6. That talks about the Alternatives. This is where we go through Present Worth Analysis and determining present worth cross analysis. On table 13 on the bottom, there’s the Initial Cost, O&M Value, and Salvage Value. At the bottom you see a total net present worth. Typically, the one with the lowest dollar amount is the cost effective solution. Water Main Replacement was cost effective when you take a look at the 20 year present worth analysis.
Section 7, Proposed Budget, the last section Hanson said we’ll go through here. The first thing Hanson wanted to talk about is table 14 on page 28, Anticipated Project Schedule. Hanson said he planned on being at the September 5th meeting, but was unable to make it so he’ll be adjusting the schedule accordingly. Basically what we’re doing here is we started the Engineering Design work and we’re getting close to that completion. Last year we did a topographical survey and we’re getting a lot of construction requirements completed. What we’re going to be doing, pending tonight, is submitting the engineering report. This document, along with other permit forms, to Rural Development tomorrow. And then they will go through their review process. It’ll probably take about 3 weeks or so to do their initial review. The way they work is they do a review, making sure the project meets their program. Once it does, then they send out a letter requesting a full application. Then there’s another set of documents that we need to submit to them. Hanson has on here submitting full application on October 27, 2017. He moved that back to November 8th, 2017. Then you should actually receive, once they go through all those documents, a loan and hopefully a grant along with it, and an approval from Rural Development. Then you’re ready to proceed with moving on to completion of design and permitting and going out for bids on your project. We’re hoping to get that approval by November 29, 2017. We’re hoping to have the design completed by October 27, 2017. Then we have some submitals that will have to be permitted through IEPA, and they’ll be reviewed as well by Rural Development. We can’t submit to Rural Development until we get their approval on the plan. The major goal is, as far as construction, try to get to the point where we can advertise for bids in January 2018, take bids at the end of January 2018, awarding the bid in February 2018, have the closing / pre – construction meeting in March 2018 or early April 2018. And then have everything substantially completed by the end of 2018.
Permits, the only thing we’ll have to do for Permits on this is the IEPA Public Water Supply Construction Permit. And then for our work on the IDOT, the IDOT Utility Permit, to work on their right away.
Project Cost Summary on page 31, table 16 at the top. This summarizes all the project cost associated. Construction, Contingency, Design Engineering, Construction Engineering, Geographical Services, Legal Services. Primarily, the legal services are going to be, the way the Rural Development works is for the loan portion of the project, the Village will be selling bonds. And what happens is Rural Development, the bonds go on the market and they get sold for whatever that interest rate might be. Rural Development, they will guarantee a certain interest rate. They’re basically subsidizing the interest rate on that bond so you’re going to pay no more than the interest rate they establish at the time of the closing. You’ll have to get bond council. If you’ve been through that bond process before, it’s going to be very similar if you’ve ever issued any bonds for any public works improvement. The Preliminary Engineering Report, that’s what we’re completing now. Environmental Report, we’ll do that when we do the full application, so that’ll be the next step. With any loan, there will be Interest During Construction. When you get into the construction phase, we’ll start drawing down on the Rural Development portion of the loan. As we make requests to pay the contractor, we’ll send in a request of disbursement from Rural Development, and they’ll transfer money into your account and then you’ll pay the contractor. The total project cost is $2,571,429. And all those costs are eligible through Rural Development. Even the cost that you’ve been incurring for us to do some of the preliminary design work and also this report. Once we do the closing in March 2018, one of the first things we’ll do is once that loan is closed, we’ll make a request and you’ll be reimbursed for all those expenditures. We’ll be able to reimburse your account for those funds.
Hanson asked the council to refer to page 32, table 18 on the bottom. We have to go through and give them information on Customers, Billable Volume, Current Rates and basically some of your Operation and Maintenance Expenses and Recommended Budget. Hanson did include for everyone tonight a breakdown. The first one at the top, the water system expenses and revenue summery, and the one below is the sewer system budget. Instead of doing a big long breakdown of all your individual budget line items, Hanson grouped them by your headings. Expenses, Maintenance, Operating Expenses, Water Department, Other Expenses, Purchases, Labor, Supplies and Salaries. Hanson summarized them for you. You can see how he budgeted it for each line item. Some things to take note there are some of the line items you can see are slightly less then what we had in the recommended budget. But we had some higher then normal expenses. Like under Other Operating Expenses Maintenance in 2016-2017, you already started paying some of the engineering related to this project, what you normally wouldn’t have. So that’s what kind of threw that budget a little higher that particular year. And then in 2015-2016, you did some maintenance work on your water tower. Those are one time maintenance things. When you have maintenance like you do on your water tower, or the year before you did some water meters, you’re not doing those projects every year. What you want to do is be collecting money over time, having a little cushion every year for when you have those spikes. You use whatever reserve funds you might have to balance out the budget. The budget isn’t set off of those one time expenses. We set the budget and we take a look at what our recurring expenses year in and year out, and then we take a look at those expenses that might occur once every 10 years or once every 20 years and we try to smooth those out over those time periods. You can take those spikes but you balance out those spikes with some of your reserve account. The other one you have under Other Expenses, you had some transfers that were a little bit higher then normal in the past couple years, which effected the bottom line on the water. You can see how we came up with the recommended budget and compare it to your individual line items.
Just real briefly, on your sewer system budget, your sewer system has actually been doing pretty well. If there’s a need for any sort of rate adjustment on the water, we may be able to adjust the water up slightly and compensate on the sewer side. That way we can keep the overall rate the same. People just might be paying a little more for water, but less for sewer. In the last couple of years you showed a cash loss at the end of the year. In 2016-2017 you wouldn’t of had that cash loss if you wouldn’t of paid for the lift station work on Kimball, the sewer replacement, with your own funds. You had reserve funds to use for that. If you didn’t have that expense, you would of had a net income there. And then you also in 2015-2016, you made a transfer out of the other expense category. It was a little bit higher. If you take that out, you reduce that down to a normal level expenditure there, you would of had a net income on the sewer side. Sewer is looking good. We’ll tackle the water once we get through the process of finding out exactly how much income we’ll be able to get from Rural Development.
Hanson said going through here, don’t be too alarmed. We have to go through the analysis, and getting those grant funds. If you take a look at this project with a 40 year loan, no grant funds, the water increase is almost $10 more per month, but we have to go through Rural Development. We’re hoping to get a large portion of this project paid for with grant funds. If there is any necessary increase it’ll hopefully be minor. But we won’t know until we get through the full application and we find out exactly how much grant funds we’ll get. With the grant funds, Rural Development takes a look at two things. One, the immediate income of the community, and they also take a look at your water rates. Then they determine the level of grant funds you’ll get for the project.
The highlights of this, the first thing we want to do is get this report in, present the application documents that were signed and get that submitted. That’s the first step of inquiring the Rural Development funds for the project.
Hanson asked the council if they were ok with the construction schedule over the next year. Mayor Hill said it was better then what she thought. Hanson said we like to bid any project over the winter months. We generally get better bidding over the winter. And that’s why we’re gearing up for the 2018 construction season.
Commissioner Sigel had a question on the transfer of funds. He asked if there was a breakdown on the transfer of funds. He asked if that was funds taken out of the water or the sewer. Clerk Leathers said that information would be in her office. Sigel asked Commissioner Maupin if he would also have that information. Maupin said Leathers has all that information and he also said all those transfers are voted on. Mayor Hill said those transfers have to be approved. Leathers said she can’t just transfer that kind of money. Sigel said he understood.
Sigel had another question. If it comes down to it that we don’t get the funds that we need from the state, instead of raising our water / sewer bills again to try and pay for this, is there any kind of way we can streamline it and not do all the projects you have listed. Can we thin it out a little bit. Hanson said we would go back to Rural Development and see what we can do to trim the project back to where we keep it, so the whole goal is to try and keep the water / sewer rates where they’re at. Mayor Hill said that’s why we section it out it too. Maupin said no part of us want to raise the rates again. If we don’t get the grant funds that we’re expecting we’ll have to change the project or shelf it until we can get the funds. Maupin said we’re not going to proceed with this type of project under the assumption that we have to raise the rates that high. Mayor Hill said that typically, Hanson has worked with these well enough that he knows the boundaries that we can try to pursue. Hanson said they don’t have a magical formula of determining how much grant funds they give. Hanson does know that they take a look at household incomes, the size of the community, and what the water rates are. That’s why Hanson said we may have to take a look at the sewer budget and adjust it accordingly because, depending on household income, if we’re to maximize grant funds we may have to do a slight increase on the water rate and decrease the sewer rate to balance things out. Mayor Hill said there won’t be a rise in the overall rate. Hanson said right, just one will go up and the other will go down. Mayor Hill said it has to be accountable.
Mayor Hill said it also looks like we moved through another hurdle of the Enterprise Zone. Mayor Hill seen in the paper that it was approved. So that will help our community too. Especially with the Water Mains.
Sigel asked so we did get an Enterprise Zone. Mayor Hill said we haven’t gotten anything here officially yet, but we seen this information in the paper. It spoke about one of the towns that’s in it with us. Sigel said good deal. Mayor Hill said it’s been a long time working on that.
Mayor Hill asked if there were any more questions. There were not.
Unfinished Business
Mayor Hill began discussing the Approval to Rescind the Hire of an Employee on August 15, 2017. Mayor Hill said she explained the need for this at the last meeting. Commissioner Sigel asked if the Village is going to hire someone for the mowing. Mayor Hill said no and we’ll speak on that in a minute. A motion was made by Commissioner Maupin and a second from Commissioner Tornow. Clerk Leathers said a motion has been made to approve rescinding the hire of Art Spencer on an “As Needed Basis” that was effective August 15, 2017. “Yes” votes were Maupin, Sigel, Meier, Tornow and Mayor Hill. The motion carried.
New Business
Next order of business was discussing Temporary Help for Fall Mowing. Mayor Hill asked if any applications were turned in. Clerk Leathers said no. Mayor Hill said she wanted this item on the agenda to discuss just in case someone did step up and then there would be the opportunity. Bruce Hill and Chief Strike have both been helping Superintendent Pierce mow. Mayor Hill said the Village will probably get through this season just fine. The council will reevaluate the situation and get something together for next year. Commissioner Sigel asked if there was any active application. Mayor Hill said no, not for that. Commissioner Maupin said the council will have to define the position and go through more of an extensive hiring process. Mayor Hill thought if someone did step up and say they’d like to help out for a month or two through the fall, she wanted it on the agenda just in case. Mayor Hill said she did hear a couple people might. Sigel said Nick Owens called him with interest. Mayor Hill said the hire must have a license. Sigel asked that you have to have a license to drive a lawn mower. Mayor Hill said yes, you must have a license. Leathers said that comes from the insurance company. Sigel said ok, understood. Mayor Hill said there were a few people that asked that are good at mowing, but they must have a drivers license.
Building permits issued by Zoning Administrator, Ron Kuepker, were 201 W. Market – new deck, and 315 S. Main – new roof.
Communications
There was the normal question from Ancel Glink given to the council. The question was do you have to be a resident to speak at a meeting. Clerk Leathers said the Village already has a policy in place that was set up several years ago, and there’s a copy of it on the back table. It’s all compliant with the Open Meetings Act. Mayor Hill said basically, they can.
Bills were ordered paid on a motion by Commissioner Maupin with a second by Commissioner Tornow. Mayor Hill asked if there were any questions. Commissioner Sigel said like I do every time, the Day Care. He said he’d just like to know where that money is coming from and where it’s going. Mayor Hill told him it would be best to address the Day Care council. Sigel said if it comes out of the Villages pocket he’ll address this council, and if it comes out of the Day Cares pocket he’ll talk to their council. Clerk Leathers advised Sigel that there has not been a change in the Day Care fund. Sigel said ok, that’s all he wanted to say. Leathers said yes, there’s been no change. “Yes” votes were Maupin, Sigel, Meier, Tornow and Mayor Hill. The motion carried.
The meeting adjourned at 7:54 PM. The next Regular Meeting of the Tampico Village Council will be Tuesday, October 3, 2017 at 7:00 PM in the Reagan Community Center located at 202 W. Second Street.
Kathy A. Leathers
Clerk
Mayor
Kristine L. Hill
MINUTES APPROVED THIS 3rd DAY OF October, 2017
**These minutes are not official until signed, dated and sealed by the Village Clerk**
