The Kewanee City Council will meet on Tuesday, October 15th, at 7 PM. The meeting will be carried out live on our WKEI RegionalMediaNews.com Facebook page. The agenda and notes from the packet are below. You can find the background information on the agenda items in the Kewanee City Council Packet, linked here.
1. Roll Call
2. Consent Agenda
a. Approval of Minutes
b. Payroll
c. Staff Reports
d. Bock Report
e. Enchanted Pumpkin Festival Street Closure
3. Payment of the bills
4. Public Comments
5. Swearing in
6. New Business
a) FEMA and SBA Presentation: Leyla Gulen and Tim Watson
b) Bill 24-103 Ordinance granting a special use permit to Victoria Montes for property located at 925 N Tremont St.
c) Bill 24-104 Resolution awarding the Franics Park Shelter House and Pavilion Project to Chenoweth Construction.
d) Bill 24-105 Ordinance to establish parking restrictions in certain areas.
e) Bill 24-106 Ordinance to amend sections 70.01 Definitions, 70.10 Obedience to Police Officers, 70.38 Unlawful possession of highway sign or marker, 70.41 Stop Signs and Yield Signs, 70.99 Penalty, and removes section 71.003 Maximum Attainable Operating Speed of the Kewanee City Code of Ordinances.
f) Bill 24-107 Resolution to declare certain equipment excess.
g) Bill 24-108 Resolution of intent regarding the subdivision of property in the industrial park located at the intersections of US Highway 34 and Cole Street.
h) Discussion Only: Mobile Home Parks Water Relief
i) Discussion Only: Code of Ordinance Review Chapters 90 and 95
j) Discussion Only: Economic Development Funding
7. Council Communications
8. Announcement
9. Adjournment
1. Storm Recovery— The assistance provided by IDOT personnel and equipment during the past two weeks was helpful the City’s efforts to remove a lot of storm debris from the former hospital site that that OSF has generously allowed the use of. Leyla Gulen and Time Watson, of FEMA and the SBA, respectively, have been placed on Tuesday’s agenda so that they can answer questions about the assistance they can provide to our shared stakeholders and perhaps set the record straight in some areas where misinformation has run rampant on social media.
2. Traffic Safety Action Plan— WQAD came out today for a story they are working on about the plan we are working on through the SS$A Grant that Bi-State secured for the Quad Cities, Kewanee, and Muscatine. The plan will help to prioritize traffic safety projects in the region for several years, and will also help communities in their ability to secure grant funding for such projects, since the justification will have already been identified through the planning process.
3. Water Planning— The Get the Lead Out initiative will be similar to the Traffic Safety Action Plan in that the leg work that has been done and is being done will give the City an advantage when it comes to securing funding for such improvements. In developing plans to address EPA and IEPA mandates, CMT was able to find in excess of 13 miles of waterline that is over 100 years old in this community, identified locations for test wells that we hope will confirm favorable chloride numbers at shallow depths, and plant improvements that will likely need to be made in an effort to become compliant. None of that will be cheap, so it’s incumbent upon the City to keep looking for opportunities to secure outside funding for such projects, as our own resources within the community simply are not enough to fund the work that needs to be done.
4. 1st Amendment— There has been some discussion on social media regarding the City’s ability to restrict comments, which some feel is a limitation of their constitutionally protected freedom of speech. It is not. It is not a violation of anyone’s rights for the City to post material for informative purposes only. When we do so, we often limit comments because Facebook as a platform can quickly devolve into an uncivil, hate-filled, abusive, verbal free-for-all and because of the vitriol, the messages lose their informative value. Moreover, responding to a nearly endless string of redundant questions is enormously
taxing on the limited number of people who serve as admins on the City’s social media pages.
5. OSLAD— The walking trail at Francis Park was laid earlier this week and the playground equipment was removed so that the new equipment can be installed in its place before the park reopens in the spring. The staff at Hutchison Engineering has worked diligently to keep the project moving forward while working to keep costs under control. Which is no small task given the hyperinflation that appears to be present in the construction industry.
6. Industrial Park— The plat map included for the Subdivision of the industrial Park (Bill 24-108 in this packet) shows that the surveyors need 2 pieces of information. They need a name for the Subdivision and a name for the new street. I propose that for the subdivision name, it be called “Kewanee Industrial Park.” As elementary as that sounds, the place has been called the Kentville Industrial Park since its inception, presumably as a way to distinguish if from the Lininger Industrial Park (for people around here who knew there were two). I would suggest that anyone from outside the area looking for an industrial
park, property, building, etc. would be more likely to search for Kewanee than Kentville. We should use a name that make sense to people who don’t already know where it’s located. As for the name of the street that serves the industrial park, I have two suggestions.
• Francis Way—as the street will be in an industrial park and Fred Francis was an innovative and industrial person, the name is emblematic of the innovative nature of new industry.
• Kuster (Road, Drive, Street)— the Kuster name goes back as far as the Francis name around here, perhaps even further. Bennett (Benny) Kuster was a hardworking man who for several years farmed the ground on which the road will be built.
7. Hide and Seek— On Saturday, October 5th, the Kewanee Police Department participated in the Hide and Seek event in collaboration with the Kewanee Commission on Human Relations and Timeout Bar and Grill. Approximately 30 participants hid throughout downtown Kewanee, with Kewanee Police Officers and Telecommunicators acting as seekers. The event was a fun and enjoyable way to foster positive interactions between citizens and police. All participants were found, and the officers may have even used some “tools of the trade” to locate a few particularly well-hidden individuals. Tauren Bond from the Commission and co-owner of Timeout Bar and Grill was responsible for planning and coordinating the event, ensuring that all details were handled to make it a success.
8. Fire Department Staffing— Anthony Rushing has completed his paramedic training and passed the national exam, making him a fully licensed paramedic. That brought our total to 16 paramedics out of our 18 firefighters.
9. Fire Department Staffing II— Joe Butler worked his final shift as a Kewanee Firefighter this past Thursday, October 10th. He is relocating to Tampa, Florida and will be using his skills obtained in Kewanee to begin a new career as a paramedic for the county he will be living in. Joe was an exemplary employee and while we are disappointed to have lost him, we wish him the best of luck going forward.
10. Fire Department Testing— With the departure of Joe Butler, the Department will be conducting testing to create a hiring list for a new employee. Testing will be this Saturday, October 12th. We have a total of 34 applicants, some of which have EMS and firefighting experience and certifications. Though past performance is not indicative of future results, history suggests that 15 to 20 of the people signed up will be present for testing, and of that group, perhaps 7-10 will pass the written and physical tests.
11. Fire Station 2— As of Thursday morning, the masonry is finished, and the roofers and garage door laborers were on scene finishing their installations. Electricians will be there on Monday to finalize the door opener installation and to reinstall the flood lighting. Laborers are scheduled to be on site Tuesday to install the new bollards that will protect the building. Barring unforeseen circumstances, the station will be back to full operational capabilities by the end of next week.