REGULAR MEETING OF THE MAYOR AND COUNCIL
OF THE VILLAGE OF TAMPICO
October 16, 2018
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 Al Wildman, Scott Meier and Todd Tornow were present. Commissioner Tim Church was absent. Police Chief Terry Strike 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 October 2, 2018 Regular Meeting were approved as presented.
Mayor Hill said we’re switching things up a little bit for this meeting so Council Members can get back out into the fields. It’s what you got to love about a farm community.
Bills were ordered paid on a motion by Commissioner Wildman with a second by Commissioner Meier. “Yes” votes were Wildman, Meier, Tornow and Mayor Hill. The motion carried.
On a motion made by Commissioner Meier, second by Commissioner Wildman, a Class E Liquor License was approved for Casey’s Retail Company, DBA Casey’s General Store #1304, 201 S. Main St., from November 1, 2018 to April 30, 2019 for a fee of $600.00. “Yes” votes were Wildman, Meier, Tornow and Mayor Hill. The motion carried. The $600.00 fee was paid.
On a motion made by Commissioner Tornow, second by Commissioner Meier, a Class A Liquor License was approved for Kickback Saloon, (Bonnie Anderson), 102 N. Main St. From November 1, 2018 to April 30, 2019 for a fee of $400.00. “Yes” votes were Wildman, Meier, Tornow and Mayor Hill. The motion carried. The $400.00 fee was paid.
Reports of Village Officials
Mayor Hill thanked Bonnie Anderson and the whole community for the fantastic Friday night fundraiser of Trivia down at the Kickback Saloon for the Parks and Recreation Board. We raised over $600.00 free and clear after the event was done. I think everyone had a really good time and we look forward to making it an annual event. There were some great donations and it was really nice to see the community come together.
Mayor Hill then said Steve Swanson reached out to the Village to start the discussion of possible ways to have a school resource officer. The discussion is just starting but he asked that I mention it at the meeting in case anyone had any questions or comments. Chief Terry Strike and I are going to get together and go over the information and what we might like to do. We’ve also spoke with the County to see their angels on it. It’s sad to have that discussion but we have to watch out for our kids and make sure we’re not jeopardizing them in other ways. We also want to make things affordable for the tax payers. We don’t have a lot of revenue when it comes to that. The school board is actually putting it out there and wants to know how the communities can put together a good plan that’s going to be feasible and workable for the best interest of the children. We have to get the ball rolling as much as we don’t want to. It’s how it is now.
Mayor Hill said the Recreation Board is going to have another meeting to address closing out the ball diamonds and getting everything winterized. We’ll also be discussing our Kickoff to Baseball Kickball Tournament in January. If anyone wants to help with that it would be great. We’re shooting for the end of January.
Remarks from Guests
Sergeant Kris Schmidt was present to speak with the council about running for Whiteside County Sheriff. Schmidt said this is exciting times. There are 20 days left until the election. A lot of things have transpired to get to where we are now. I want to again implore the fact that as the next Sheriff, hopefully, I will continue to work with the Village of Tampico with the up most respect for everyone who lives here. Schmidt said Chief Strike can attest to it, along with many other people. Especially when it comes to my shift. We’ve done a lot of things. We had a drug bust that was down near the apartment complex. My shift was instrumental on that aspect. We were able to get some drugs off the street and some weapons as well. We don’t do anything behind Chief Strikes back or any of the officers. I feel it’s important that we have that communication and teamwork. I’ll extend this too. You guys are starting to get into the negotiating aspect of and the preliminary aspect of school resource officers. I was a school resource officer for 5 years in DeWitt, Iowa. I was actually the first school resource officer over there. As you get going and if there are any questions, comments, suggestions or ideas, feel free to reach out to me. I’d be more then happy to come in and chit chat with you as far as different things with the school resource officer. Like the Madam Mayor said, it’s sad that we have to be apart of this society and look into that but it’s important. The other thing is I just went through some training to help out with the students because we use to always hide and have that aspect of it. Now everything has transformed to we no longer hide, we try to take it to the individual and save our lives. Hiding is not always the answer. We look back to September 11, 2001. Look at the people in the airplane above Pennsylvania and what they did. The remarkable hero’s that they are and the unfortunate things that happened, but they weren’t going down without a fight. That is so inspiring and we need to do the same thing when it comes to our children. I’m working with the legislators, whether it be Tony McCombie, Neil Anderson, Brian Stewart, Andrew Chesney. Senator Bivins had some awesome ideas as well. We have an ear when it comes to a legislation, it’s just the matter of what we can do to work together to improve that aspect of it. I won’t take up anymore of you time but if you have any questions for me I’ll be more then happy to answer them. Schmidt thanked everyone for their time. Mayor Hill and the council thanked Schmidt for coming in. Schmidt said it is important to me, and that’s why I wanted to be here tonight. Even with a busy schedule, you have to make time for the people that matter.
Next on the Agenda to speak was Jim Pozzi representing for Republic Services. Pozzi said I have a couple things I’d like to share with you all tonight. Thank you for putting me on the Agenda to speak tonight. I’ll try not to be too long. First what I’d like to talk about is that the contract will be coming up next year. It’s never too early to talk about hopefully continuing to partner with Republic Services. There’s a couple things that we’d like to talk about as well for the upcoming contract. We’d also like to get your feedback. Pozzi passed around a handout to the Council. Pozzi said this is basically what it says. Carts for residential waste & recycling collection for Tampico. This is something we’ve been offering in a lot of communities. Almost every community that we service now is carted. Most recent is the Village of Walnut. They just received carts for both recycling and trash. The residents love them. It’s a good thing for the community. It saves the residents money because they don’t have to buy any garbage cans or recycling bins. It’s an upgrade of service for the residents. Mayor Hill asked how much more does it cost? Pozzi said that’s something we would look in to if you want to continue moving forward with the carts. We can get you pricing for it. Basically, the carts have up to 95 gallons of capacity. We start everyone off with the 95 gallon cart, one for recycling and one for trash. There are smaller carts available for senior citizens. We do go down to a 65 gallon carts for those that might have issues with the larger carts. Surprisingly, as large as they are, they are very easy to move around. You can put a lot of trash in these carts. If you’ve been to Sterling, Dixon, Walnut, they all have them and I have yet to have a community come back to me and say these carts are the worst things ever, get them out of my town. The big issue that we have with them is that when people move, they take the carts with them. They are suppose to stay with the home. If that ever happens we will replace them. The carts are maintained by us, they are replaced by us. If a wheel falls off or if the cart gets run over, we will replace it. It’s an upgrade of service to the customers. For a small Village like Tampico, almost 98% of the garbage that’s out will fit into these carts. Mayor Hill asked what if you have overflow? With the holiday season you could have more then what fits in the containers. Pozzi said usually if there is a bag out, the driver will take it. These carts will get the stuff off of the ground., because you know the wildlife likes to get into it when it’s out, then it’s all over the place. On recycling days when you have those bins out and it’s real windy, then you have recycling blowing all over the place. So these carts do a lot for the community. They really clean it up. Chief Strike asked will residents still be able to set a bulk item out with the carts? Pozzi said yes, that will stay the same. They can still continue to set out 1 bulk item a week. Recycling would go down from once a week to every other week. Right now you guys have 18 gallon bins. With the 96 gallon cart we’ve gone from weekly recycle pick up in cities like Peru and Dixon to every other week. It’s working out just fine. Same with the city of Morris. The city of Pontiac is weekly right now with the bins, but they’re looking to go every other week with the carts. There is substantial room in these carts. Another good thing is the lids are attached. A lot of our machines are going automated where the arm comes out of the truck and grabs the cart, sets it back down and continues to move on. That way you won’t have the guy setting the cart down and it falling over. Mayor Hill said I want the guy back that use to bring my cans back up to my garage. Pozzi said so this is something we’d be willing to take a look at if you guys are interested in that option. Obviously there will be a slight price increase to pay for the carts. That’s something you’d have to determine whether it would be worth it or not. We think it is. Every other community that has the carts absolutely love them. I’ve been in this industry for over 25 years and it’s nice when you go into a community on garbage day and you see all the blue carts lined up on the streets. It looks clean and uniform and really nice. If that’s an option you’re interested in, obviously we’ll pursue that and give you some pricing options to either stay with what you have or go with the carts. The important thing is that we’d like to continue our partnership with the Village. We hope you do too. Mayor Hill said I haven’t heard any major complaints. We have hiccups but you will with anything. Pozzi said unfortunately we’re not perfect. Mayor Hill said no, no one is. Pozzi asked is there any questions? Mayor Hill asked how soon can you start putting a package together of what you would think would be a reasonable contract? Pozzi said I can have something together by your next meeting in November. Mayor Hill said I think it’s good to have more time to look over possibilities and come up with any questions. Pozzi said if you do decide to renew the contract early, we’d be able to implement the carts if you so choose. We’d like to get them on the street as soon as possible that way the residents can take advantage of the upgrade and service. Mayor Hill said I’m sure that makes it easier for you as well and more efficient. Pozzi said yes and as far as senior citizens, we ask that everyone waits at least 60 days after the deployment before calling in and asking for the smaller cart. We realize that some people can’t wait. Immediately after the deployment, those that really can’t wait those 60 days, we’ll start switching their carts out. But the reason we ask for you to wait those 60 days is because not only do the carts handle your day to day stuff, which you might not fill it up on normal weeks. We think about Thanksgiving and Christmas, birthday parties and Easter. Those holidays that you might have extra, now you will fill up those carts along with a possible extra bag to put along side or on top of them. We don’t want people calling for a smaller cart, then a holiday comes and they decide they want the bigger one back. Waiting the 60 days seems to work out pretty good. I’ll have something printed up for you to look over by the next meeting. Mayor Hill said that would be great.
Pozzi then said the next thing I’d like to talk to you about is recycling. Mayor Hill said yes we’ve talked about it at one of our meetings. We try not to make a panic of it, but it is an issue. Pozzi passed around packets of information on the issue. Pozzi said it hasn’t gotten any better, the recycling. On January 1st, China stopped accepting imported recyclables from around the world. They are taking nothing. Almost 50% of what they took in came from the United States. Over 40% of what we produce as a nation was going to China. What they were doing with it is taking the plastics and the fibers, melting them down and burning them to fuel their factories. This has very little to do with the Trump organization and all that with the trade wars. It’s all got to do with them cleaning up their own environment. This is all apart of their Blue Sky Initiative. If you’ve ever been to China, seen pictures or talked to people who live there, you literally cannot see the sky. That’s how much pollution is in the air. They have to wear masks. There are pictures of communities that the streets are literally littered with recyclables and garbage from other nations. They have been the worlds dumping ground and they aren’t going to do it anymore. They are taking measures to start reusing what they produce. They’ve already said by the year 2021, they are going to be self sufficient.
That’s only 3 years away. This is called the China Sword. This is the second part of their Blue Sky Initiative. The China Sword has severed ties with everyone else. There are still some smaller markets out there. China was the number 1 buyer of recycling material in the world. Now that buyer is gone. The issue that we’re having now as a nation, not just a Republic Service issue, they’re stating that if we don’t clean up our act as a globe by the year 2050, there will be more plastic in the ocean then there are fish. Basically, the smaller markets aren’t set up to handle the volume that was going to China. There’s other markets in Vietnam, Indonesian countries, Australia and places like that. The issue with those is that it’s just as costly if not more costly to get it to those places, and those countries are seeing whats happened in China so they’re saying we don’t want that. They’re putting even greater restrictions on the material coming in. China in 2017 had a greater or less than 20% contamination level. If the shipping containers had 20%, they were still accepting them. They now have dropped that down to a half of a percent. Then January 1st they announced that they aren’t accepting any imported recycling. For example, over there, a ton of cardboard is going for between $400 and $500 a ton. Over here it’s worth nothing. The demand is gone. But we’re still supplying it and picking it up every week. It’s still being produced. The issue is that it gets to the recycling facilities and it stops. It’s starting to stock pile. The larger recycling facilities are bailing it. If they have the space to store it, they’re storing it inside. If not it’s going outside. However, when it sits out in the elements it gets wet and deteriorates. Now it’s worth nothing. We’re at the point now that they’re starting to landfill it. They have no choice. Haulers on the East and West coast, Republic Services included, have already gotten permission from cities to landfill the recyclables. They don’t want to pay the increase in cost so they’re just saying landfill it. Back in late 2017, we were getting in the mid $30’s per ton for the material. March of 2018 we were still getting about $5 per ton. In May we were paying in the mid to upper $20’s to get rid of it. We’re paying more to get rid of recycling then we are to bury trash. If you add the cost of getting it to the facilities, we’re paying over $80 per ton to get rid of recycling when we can bury it for a lot less. I have some headlines for you to take a look at. The U.S. use to ship 4,000 recyclable containers a day to China. Now it’s going no where. As of now, and for the past few months, there’s nothing going to China. Back in the 80’s they would ship their goods to us, then those containers would go back empty. We had the bright idea, and the Chinese government agreed, they needed the recyclables and trash so we furnished them with it in those containers. That’s when it all started. Pozzi had a handout and said this is new from the National Waste and Recycling Association, one of the largest recycling vehicles out there. This is as of September 28th, it gives you an idea of what other communities across the world are doing. Walnut is even mentioned in here. Mayor Hill said that will be interesting to read through. Pozzi said what we’re asking, on page 7, we’re asking for clean recycling. Take all the labels off and rinse and wash out the recyclables. It will help with the contamination which led us to where we’re at. We need to clean up our recycling. We’re asking all our communities to get the word out. Post it around town or mail it with your water bills. Mayor Hill said yes, I’ve already brought this up a few months ago. We really stressed to be mindful of what you’re recycling. Pozzi said exactly. If you do chose to go with the carts, they will have a hot stamp on the lid of what’s recyclable and what isn’t. Information and a calender will be attached to each cart so residents will know when we’ll be coming for garbage and recycling. It’ll also have our contact information on it. Mayor Hill said we also have that information posted on our Village website. Pozzi said I know I’m giving you a lot of information tonight. Are there any questions? There were none. Pozzi said part of the new contract, there will be a processing fee. Recycling isn’t free, it never was. However, the material was worth something that offset that cost plus helped with the service cost. The processing fee was always there. Now there’s nothing there to offset that fee. Mayor Hill asked bottom line, what’s it going to cost us on average? Pozzi said based on what your stuff weighs, right now you’re looking at about 54 cents per home. If we came in right now and said you had 5 years left on the contract, in order to continue to recycle, we have to have an additional 54 or 56 cents. That’s what we did with Walnut and several other communities. This processing fee will be in the new contract. It is in every new contract, moving forward, since May of this year. Only because it’s now costing us money to get rid of the recycling material. I will go over it with you in more detail when I present the numbers to you at the next meeting. You’ll have a trash fee, a recycling fee and the processing fee. The way the processing fee works is that it’s held for 12 months. At the end of 12 months, we’ll look at the past 12 months of market history. That piece determines whether you rate increases or decreases. Mayor Hill said we can go over all that more in depth when we have the actual numbers in front of us. Pozzi said if there are no more questions, I know I ran on a little too long. Mayor Hill said we appreciate the information. Pozzi said if you do have questions, please reach out to me. I’ll have something more concrete for you at the next meeting. Mayor Hill said ok, thank you.
Unfinished Business
The meeting turned to the status update with the Watermain Replacement Project. Mayor Hill said we have all the easements and we’re rolling ahead. Clerk Leathers said as far as I know everything is in place. I have been working with Lorelei making sure that USDA has the things that they need. We’re going down the list. Mayor Hill said perfect. We’re getting better.
New Business
There was no New Business to discuss at this time.
Building Permits issued by Zoning Administrator, Ron Kuepker, were: 108 S. Lincoln – New Roof and 206 S. Lincoln – New Soffit and Gutters.
Communications
Mayor Hill said the only thing I have is the annual report from Blackhawk Regional Council. They do have a meeting coming up October 19th in Freeport. I’ll leave the information with Leathers if anyone is interested. I’ve gone to some before and they are informative, my schedule is just kind of tight right now.
Mayor Hill asked if anyone had anything else. They did not.
The meeting adjourned at 7:35 PM. The next Regular Meeting of the Tampico Village Council will be Tuesday, November 6, 2018 at 7:00 PM in the Reagan Community Center located at 202 W. Second Street.
Kathy A. Leathers
Clerk
Kristine L. Hill
Mayor
MINUTES APPROVED THIS 7th DAY OF November, 2018
**These minutes are not official until signed, dated and sealed by the Village Clerk**
