The Kewanee City Council will meet on Monday, October 28th, 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. Trick or Treat Hours and Street Closures
3. Payment of the bills
4. Public Comments
5. Swearing in
6. New Business
a) Bill 24-109 Ordinance amending Chapter 90: Abandoned Vehicles and Property established in the City of Kewanee Code of Ordinances.
b) Bill 24-110 Ordinance to amend Chapter 95: Health, Safety and Sanitation established in the City of Kewanee Code of Ordinances.
c) Bill 24-111 Resolution to award demolition work at 601 O’Dea St to Boers Excavating LLC.
d) Bill 24-112 Resolution authorizing the purchase of a Kubota SVL75-3 Skid Loader from Pillar Equipment, Inc for the City of Kewanee Public Works Department.
e) Bill 24-113 Resolution to authorize an agreement with the lowest responsible energy supplier for the purchase of electrical energy for the City of Kewanee facilities starting January 2025.
f) Bill 24-114 Resolution authorizing the City Manager to execute documents for the renewal of a selffunded insurance plan with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois and other carriers for the plan year 2025.
g) Bill 24-115 Ordinance directing the sale of excess real estate located at 1105 Roseview Ave.
h) Bill 24-116 Resolution to affirm the Mayor’s recommendation for appointments to various commissions and boards.
i) Discussion Only: Economic Development Funding Update
7. Council Communications
8. Announcement
9. Adjournment
Also in the packet:
1. Storm Recovery— The City is working now without the assistance IDOT to clean up the storm debris that remains. This work will continue for the foreseeable future as time, personnel, and workload permit. FEMA’s staffing has been significantly reduced, though they still maintain a presence at OEM to assist customers who are able to make it to the site and online submittal of applications for assistance is still an option that residents can choose to complete at their own convenience.
2. Lyle Street Reconstruction— Advanced Asphalt is making progress on the completion of the Lyle Street improvements. They expect to complete the improvements before Thanksgiving.
3. Get the Lead Out— City employees were joined by individuals from New York and Virginia last weekend at the Enchanted Pumpkin Festival as the City continued its public outreach efforts to inform people about the dangers of lead in their drinking water and the steps that are being taken to remediate the issue. This time of year, kids love putting on their costumes and learning about the impacts that lead exposure can have on their own health and cognitive abilities.
4. Fire Department Hiring—From an initial field of 34 applicants, Madison Allen of Bushnell completed the process with the highest overall score. With the departure of Joe Butler, Madison was offered the opportunity to fill the vacancy that exists and accepted the position. We’re looking forward to November 4th as she becomes the first female to work as a Kewanee Firefighter. I’m excited to see her serve not just as a firefighter, but also as a role model to girls in this community. It’s important that they see people that they can easily identify with serving as firefighters, particularly given that it has traditionally been such a male dominated profession.
5. Street Maintenance— The contractor is making good progress on the street improvement located in the southeast quadrant of the community. Additionally, there are several significant patches throughout the city that will be added to the contractor’s scope of work for the 2024 street maintenance program. The state’s contractor has identified a number of areas for overlay/patching work on highway 78 from 10th Street south to the railroad tracks. We remain optimistic that they will contract for similar additional work south of the railroad tracks sometime next spring.
6. Public Works Hiring— With the upcoming retirement of Roy Dunn, Matt Brody has been selected to fill the vacancy that will be created with Roy’s departure. Matt will begin his employment on November 12th
.
7. Mobile Home Parks—Two Fire Department crews have been working to verify the occupancy status of manufactured homes in the mobile home parks. They found that 38 are occupied by residents of the parks, 2 are occupied by squatters, and 45 appeared to be vacant/unoccupied. Some residents made a point to inform the crews that they pay their bills. Some openly admitted that they no longer send rent/bill payments. Additionally, Keith has continued to work with M. Shapiro Real Estate Group regarding nuisance violations for failure to properly maintain the property (vegetation, trash, junk, open
structures, etc.).
8. KEDC/Economic Development Funding— The Mayor and I met with the President of the KEDC board this week. He values the public/private partnership between the organizations and has asked the City to continue funding the organization at a reduced level while they attempt to complete a specific set of tasks or goals.
9. Henry County Economic Development— Henry County Economic Development Director Jim Kelly provided a connection between the City and a prominent retailer looking to add a location in the southern portion of Kewanee that could more specifically be identified as ‘the south side of Kewanee but not within the Midland Plaza Shopping Center.’ Staff is working with the potential developer to provide them with site-specific information for each tract that meets their specific site requirements.
10. Solid Waste— Staff and LRS continue to work together in an attempt to streamline the process of collecting trash, recycling, and landscape waste from residential properties in Kewanee. Customer contacts are now less than 10% of their initial total during the first 2 weeks after the transition in service providers.
11. Station 2— The roof, bay door, masonry, and bollards are complete, with only minor “punch list” items such as replacing the damaged spotlight for the flagpole, building lettering, and the placement of bollard covers over the bollards remaining to be completed. The Chief and MSI are hoping to verify the completion of all such items next week.
12. Haz-Mat Training— MABAS Division 39 will be having division-wide training this Saturday. Training will begin at Station 1 and then move to the burn containers on Fisher Ave. This is a full-scale training, complete with full dress and decontamination simulations.