City of West Frankfort City Council met April 25.
Here is the minutes provided by the Council:
1. Mayor Jordan Called The Meeting To Order At 7:00 p.m. Requesting A roll Call. All Commissioners Were In Attendance, Along With The City Clerk. The City Attorney Was Absent.
2. Mayor Jordan Asked For Approval Of The Minutes From The April 11, 2017 Regular Council Meeting. Commissioner Harkins Made A motion To Approve, Seconded By Commissioner Simpson Roll Call Vote: All Commissioners And Mayor Jordan Voted To Approve Motion Carried.
3. Mayor Jordan Next Asked For Approval To Pay City Bills And Payroll in The Amount Of $207,965.05 Commissioner Simpson Made A motion To Approve, Seconded By Commissioner Harkins. Roll Call Vote: All Commissioners And Mayor Jordan Voted To Approve Motion Carried.
4. The Next Item Was Approval To Adopt An ordinance Establishing A Budget For Corporate Purposes For The City Of West Frankfort For The Fiscal Year Commencing On The First Day Of May, 2017 And Ending On The Last Day Of April, 2018. The Mayor Stated There Are Copes Of The Budget If Anyone Would Like One Commissioner Simpson Stated We Have Reviewed The Budget at A public Hearing There Were A lot Of Good Questions And Would Like To Command Cate For The Excellent Job you Did On The Budget Commissioner Simpson Made A motion To Approve, Seconded By Commissioner Chambers. Roll Call Vote: All Commissioners And Mayor Jordan Voted To Approve Motion Carried.
5. The Next Item was Discussion, With Possible Action, Regarding Facade Improvement Grant Applications. The Mayor Stated We Do Not Have Any.
6. The Next Item Was Approval To Accept Bids For Purchase Of Surplus Property. The Mayor Stated This Is A $500.00 Bid For The Property At 210 S. Gardner He Lives At 216 S. Gardner. Think That $500.00 For The City To Sell a Lot Is a Little Low. I Would Like To Try And Get At Least $1000.00 Out Of These Lots. He Has Offered To Pay $500.00 For This Lot Commissioner Simpson Stated There Were No Bids On This Lot At The Last Bidding, The Mayor Stated There Were No Bids. I am Just Afraid If We establish The Practice Of Taking $500.00 That Is All We Will Ever Get Out Of Them. Commissioner Harkins Stated When You Talk about What It Takes To Demo These Lots It Isn't Cheap. The Mayor Stated We pay $630 Just To Buy These Lots From The Tax Rolls And The Demo Of This Particular lot Was Around $2,500.00. Commissioner Harkins Stated So it Is Well Over $3000.00 We Have Invested In It. Commissioner Simpson Stated What Is Your Recommendation Mayor? The Mayor Stated Would Like To Talk To Him and See If He Would Give $1000.00 For The Lot. That Is Where Would Like To Beat On These Lots At Least $1000.00. Commissioner Simpson Stated So Let’s Table This So You Can Go Back And Talk To Him. The Mayor Stated Will Talk To Him and See If He Will Consider Giving $1000.00 For This Lot. This Matter Was Tabled.
7. The Next Item Was Approval Of A Proclamation Declaring May 11, 2017 Through May 14, 2017 As The West Frankfort Old King Coal Festival The Mayor Stated We Had Some Pictures Taken With The Old King Coal Committee Before The Meeting. Commissioner Harkins Stated It Was A Privilege To Be Able To Attend The Princess Flame Pageant It Was Interesting The Mayor Stated Wan To Thank Jerry Was Supposed To do The Welcome And Help Out And Was Out Of Town And Jerry Stepped In for me. Commissioner Harkins Made A motion To Approve, Seconded By Commissioner Chambers. Roll Call Vote: All Commissioners And Mayor Jordan Voted To Approve. Motion Carried
8. The Next Item Was Approval Of A Resolution For The West
Frankfort Recreation association To Sponsor their Annual Memorial Day Parade On Monday, May 29, 2017 At 9:00 a.m. Commissioner Chambers Made A motion To Approve, Seconded By Commissioner Simpson Roll Call Vote And Mayor Jordan Voted To Approve Motion Carried.
9. The Next Item Was Discussion, With Possible Action, Regarding Lateral Transfer Hires For The West Frankfort Police Department. The Mayor Stated We Have Twelve Members On Our West Frankfort Police Department. We Have Recently Hired Three New police Officers And We Will Need To Hire Another One Out Of Twelve Members Of Our Police Department Three Of The Last Members Have Less Than Eighteen Years Of Service. We Have Two Officers That Just Returned From The Academy That Will Be Undergoing Some Field Training And It Will Be The End Of May before They Will Be Released To Work On Their Own The Situation Is We need To Hire Another Officer We Have Several Officers That Have Been Injured And Are Retiring So These Replacements Are Excellent Hires But They Lack The Experience That We Feel We Need For The Police Force. This Consideration To Hire Laterally Will Give Us The Ability To Hire An Officer From Another Department That Has More Than Two Years Service With That Department. They Would Be Considered An Applicant That We Could Hire And They Could Laterally Transfer Them Into Our Department. They Would Have All The Training That Would Be Required That Mr. Yunker And Brock Have Had. They Would Meet All The Requirements And Go Through All The Things We require They Would Not Have To Go Through The Testing Process Of The Merit Board. The Benefit Of This Would Be If We Went To The Merit Board List And Hired Another New Officer That Has No Training We Will Have Basically 1/3 Of Our Department Will Be Less Than Eighteen Months Service. That Is The Reason I Am Considering This Option. We Have An Officer That currently Working For Us That Came From another Department With Three Years Of Service And would Give Us The Ability To Hire Someone That Has More Experience The Next Thing Is The Statistics Of A New Police Officer By The Time You Hire Them, Get Them into The Academy Get Them Through The Academy And Get Them Trained It Is Somewhere Between 28-35 Weeks Before They Can Work On Their Own. It Saves The City A lot Of Money With An Officer That Can Go Straight Into The Department And Do The Job. Under Home Rule The City Has The Authority To do This. Our Merit Board Has Checked This Out And Our Chef. Chief Irwin Stated The Man Advantage Of It Is It Makes Us Immediately Effective The Financial Aspects When You Look At The Costs Of The Academy You Are Realistically Looking At Saving Twelve To Fifteen Thousand Dollars Right Off The Top Simply Because We Don't Have To Send Them To The Academy. This Is Not Uncommon, It is Done Quite A bit In The Metro Chicago And St.Louis Areas. Obviously The Officers Would Be Interviewed; We Aren't Interested In Taking Somebody Else's Problem. My Opinion We Are Looking For People Who Are Already Competent And Professional They May Work For A Department That Is Smaller Or That Doesn't Have The Same Amount Of Pay And Benefits And They Want To Step up And Move Into Another Agency. The Merit Board Serves A valuable Function And Think That Is Very Important, But Anybody That Runs Their Own Business And Law Enforcement Is To An Extent A business If You Can Hire Qualified People And Put Them right To Work Or even Hire New People That Have Training And Not See a Return On Your Investment The Majority Of Business Owner And People That Think along Those Lines Would Hire The qualified People: You Want To Make Sure You Get The Best Qualified Applicants And Think It Is An Important Option For Us To Have To Make Forward Progress. Realistically Over The Next Four Or Five Years We May Loose Half Of Our Department To Retirement. The Mayor Stated Think That Is Something That Is Note Worthy. The Fact That The Hiring Dates Of The Personnel That Are Working Now. We Hired Three Or Four At One Time Within An Eighteen Month Period And You Don't Hire Again For A Couple Years It Kind Of Groups. Our Department Will Turn Over Again So This Is An Option Thinks Very viable That Has Been Brought To Us. An Audience Member Stated So You Are Talking About Hiring A New Police Officer The Mayor Stated We Are Talking About Hiring A Police Officer That Has Al Ready Worked Some where else And Has Two Years Experience Or More At Another Agency, He Has Gone Through The Same Process That The New Recruits We Just Hired Went Through only He Was In Another Community. An Audience Member Stated Are There Any Regional Limitations On Who Can Apply Or Be Hired In The Area? The Police Chief Stated They Would Have To Be Certified In Illinois. The Option Is There For Someone Certified In Another State To Go Through An ADR Transition Course To Be Certified In Illinois, But Primarily It Would be Illinois Certified Officers. The Mayor Stated We Have An Application Process That Lays Out The Requirements. The Reason We Are Dong This Tonight Would Like To Talk about This Before We Do It. If The Councils Leaning To do This Which I Would Recommend Then The Next Council Meeting we Will Have An Ordinance Prepared By Our Attorney And We Can Take Official Action On Dong That My Perspective Would Be That This Would Be Separate From The Board Of Fire And Police Commissioners. I Would Recommend That We Keep Them Separate. Police Chief Stated This Is The First Draft And My Preference Is That It Would Be Separate From The Merit Board Because They Are new Hire, New Applicant And New Testing This Is Literally A lateral Transfer Of An Already Certified Police Officer My Suggestion Would Be That The City Council Interviews Them i Believe That Is Appropriate I Believe The Community Deserves Someone I Can put In The Car And Put Them To Work. The New Hires That We Have Are Going To do Fine They Are Working Hard, But Like Any Other Job you Aren't Good At It The First Day. I Believe This Presents Us With An Option And We May Not Use It. If We Don't Have People That Want To Lateral In Then We Will Have To Go To The List To Hire We Aren't Eliminating Anything It Just Gives Us Another Option To Get Already Qualified, Certified Officers. Think It Is An important Step Forward Commissioner Simpson Stated Would They Come In Under The Same Probation Period As The New Hires? Chief Irwin Stated yes, A one Year Probation. Commissioner Simpson Stated Think It Is A Good Program and I Am In Favor Of Moving Forward With The Ordinance We Need Good Police Officers And One Of The Problems We Have Had In The Past Couple Years Is Having qualified Applicants That We Could Even Choose From we Needed Officers And They Were Not Available. Commissioner Simpson Made A motion To Approve, Seconded By Commissioner Blades. Roll Call Vote: All Commissioners And Mayor Jordan Voted To Approve Motion Carried.
10. The Next Item was Approval Of A Resolution For Local Public Agency Agreement For Federal Participation For Improvement Of Route FAU9474- East St.Louis Street. The Mayor Stated This Is Our Project On St.Louis Street That Will Go From Bryan To Horrell Commissioner Blades Stated Would Like To Thank The Sewer Department On This For Fixing The Sewers And Saving Us a Lot Of Money They Are Dong A Good Job. Commissioner Chambers Made A motion To Approve, Seconded By Commissioner Simpson. Roll Call Vote: All Commissioners And Mayor Jordan Voted To Approve Motion Carried
11. The Next Item Was Approval For Payment Of Invoices From American Bankers Insurance Co Of Florida In The Amount Of $50,279.00.00 Regarding The City's Annual Flood Insurance Renewal The Mayor Stated When We Came Into Office We Realized We Didn't Have Flood Insurance We Have Several Things Near The Flood Plain So if There Was a Flood We Wouldn't Have Had The Coverage We Needed. This Is Not Cheap And As This Has Grown What Has Happened Is They Have Increased Our Coverage. We Have More Things That Are Covered. Last Years Cost Was $39,774.00 And With More Coverage The Cost Is Now $50,279.00. We Have A Generator On North 37 That We Gave $100,000.00 For It Is Next To The Creek That Runs The Pump Station If That Pump Station ever Quits Working It Will Flood The Generator. We Have A Generator at The Sewer Plant, The Levy Pump Building, Electrical Building, Chlorine Building And Storage Building Commissioner Simpson Made A motion To Approve, Seconded By Commissioner Chambers. Roll Call Vote: All Commissioners And Mayor Jordan voted To Approve Motion Carried
12. The Next Item Was Approval For Payment Of A Contractor's Partial Pay Estimate #12 To Midwest Petroleum & Excavating Inc. In The Amount Of $249,841.01 Regarding The Sewer Treatment Plant Retrofit Project Commissioner Blades Made A Motion To Approve, Seconded By Commissioner Simpson. Roll Call Vote: All Commissioners And Mayor Jordan Voted To Approve Motion Carried
13. The Next Item Was Approval For Payment Of A Construction Engineering Bill #12 For Brown & Roberts Inc. In The Amount Of $14,553.11 Regarding The Sewer Treatment Plant Retrofit Project. Commissioner Simpson Made A motion To Approve, Seconded By Commissioner Blades. Roll Call Vote: All Commissioners And Mayor Jordan Voted To Approve Motion Carried
14. The Next Item Was Approval Of An Invoice From K & Street Service In The Amount Of $3,000.00 Regarding Removal Of Trees At The Historical Museum. The Mayor Stated There Were Some Trees That Were Causing Some Problems Up There So we Had To Remove Three Trees. Commissioner Chambers Made A Motion To Approve, Seconded By Commissioner Blades, Roll Call Vote: All Commissioners And Mayor Jordan voted To Approve Motion Carried
15 Building And Sign Permits:
There Are Two Building Permits.
The First Request Is From Derrick Salliez He Lives At 601 N. Walnut. He Is Requesting A Building Permit To Put Up a 36 X 50 Pole Barn That he Will use For Storage He Is Going To Put This On A Regular Foundation With A Concrete Slab. He Is Going To Have Sewer And Water With An Investment Of Around $35,000.00. Commissioner Harkins Made A motion To Approve, Seconded By Commissioner Blades, Roll Call Vote: All Commissioners And Mayor Jordan Voted To Approve Motion Carried
The Next Request Is From Jim Russell And Jame Wallace They Are Requesting A Building Permit To Put Up An Additional 20 X 20 Building By Their Ice Cream parlor. This Will Strictly Be For St down Eating And Will Be On The South Side Of Their Existing Building. Commissioner Chambers Made A motion To Approve, Seconded By Commissioner Harkins, Roll Call Vote: All Commissioners And Mayor Jordan Voted To Approve. Motion Carried
16. Mayors Comments:
We Had a Real Good Meeting Today With Brown & Roberts, Charles Hubble And Ed And I. Mike Talked About Future Sewer Projects For The City Of West Frankfort. Our Sewer Lines Are Really Old We Have Done A lot Of Work On This We Talked About Some Projects That Need To Be Addressed In The Future And Some Things That Need Our Attention. Want To Thank Brown & Roberts For The Excellent Job That They Do And Charles Hubble And Ed For All The Input. This Council Has Been Committed To This Community And Although We Don't Have A Lot Of Resources What We Do Have We Put To Good Use And That Was Just a nice Opportunity To Stand Talk About That Want To Thank Cate For The Budget, We Have Great Employees Thank You Very Much To All Of Our Staff Everyone Does A Great Job.
Commissioner Blades Stated I Have A Quote That We Need To Make An Emergency Motion On For The North Sewer Plant From Sander electric. We Had To Have A Pump Rebuilt The First Option Was $3,440.93 And The Second Option Was $4,522.52. We Want To Go With Option One For The Minimal Repairs Until The Plant Renovation Is Completed It Is A 25HP HYDR-O-MATIC Pump. Am Going To Make A Motion For Emergency Repairs At The North Plant as Needed Up To $3,500.00. Commissioner Blades Made A motion To Approve, Seconded By Commissioner Simpson Roll Call Vote: All Commissioners And Mayor Jordan Voted To Approve Motion Carried
17. Commissioner Comments:
Commissioner Simpson Stated Would Like To Comment On The Meeting we Had Today With Matt Tosh And J M Brown Learned Probably All Want To Know About Waste removal.
Commissioner Harkins Stated Appreciate What You Guys Did For This Lateral Transfer Chief. This Is Very Beneficial To The Police Department And It Will Be Used Wisely. Good Help Is Hard To Find. The Fire Department Is Going Good.
18. Audience questions Or Comments:
Do You Have Any idea Of How Many Zeros Would Be in a total Overhaul Of The Sewer Pipes The Mayor Stated 86 Millions What We Spent On The New Sewer Plant Retrofit Project Of That The City Paid 2.2 Million And We Got A Grant For 6.4 Million.
19. Mayor Jordan Stated There Was No need To Go Into Executive Session.
20. With No Further Business To Be Discussed The Meeting Was Adjourned On A Motion By Commissioner Harkins At 7:43 p.m.
http://www.westfrankfort-il.com/web_files/forms/April%2025,%202017.pdf
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