The Galesburg City Council in order tonight. This is August the 4th, 2025. Our meeting starts at 6 o'clock here in the chambers, and we'll have our city clerk call our roll, please. Councilmember Hicks? Here. Hunnigan? Here. Miller? White? Present. Achera? Here. Saul? Yes. Cheeseman? Here. Mayor Schwartzman? Six are present, Your Honor. Okay, and if you could stand now for our Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. And if you could also hold a minute for a moment of silence before we begin our meeting, please. Thank you very much. Our first item tonight is to approve our regular scheduled City Council meeting minutes from our last meeting, which was July 21st, 2025. Do I have a motion for that? So moved. Okay, Mr. Chair. A second? Sure. From Mr. Hicks? All those in the discussion? Okay, let's call the roll, please. Hicks, yes. Hunnigan, yes. White, yes. Achera, yes. Saul, yes. And Cheeseman votes yes. Sixth vote, yes, Your Honor. Thank you very much. Now it is time for public comment. A couple directions with that. This is public comment. We up here, if you're asking questions, we don't respond to them at that time, so we don't want you to think that we're being disrespectful or... Not interested in what you have to say in terms of a question, you can contact us or our city administration if you have a specific question. Otherwise, it's your time to comment. Please make sure you speak in the mic clearly. We have folks at home on TV that are watching, and you have three minutes to speak. So whoever would like to come up first, please come up, state your name, and you can begin your comment. Hi there. I'm Sue Hewlett, a member of the Pickleball Focus Group that has been working with the city. I'm in Ward, Brad's Ward. On behalf of the Pickleball community, some of whom are here tonight, we thank the city and the city council for going forward with six to eight courts. to expand our opportunity to play pickleball in the city outdoor facility. The facility will not only serve the growing pickleball community here, but will enable Galesburg to host tournaments and bring visitors and revenue to Galesburg. Sorry, might go over my minutes. Okay, college professor, technology, it just doesn't work. Retired. So sorry, folks. That's all right, take your time. Thanks. I feel your pain as well. That's right, there you go, I still got time. And so what we wanted to say to, again, the city council and city manager, is that we are greatly in support of moving forward with building six to eight courts out at Rotary Park to handle the overflow of people that we have playing. And there'll be myself speaking and then two others from the pickleball group. There are a few others in the crowd. You can't just hear, but you can wave to the city council. Okay, thank you. But again, we think that these pickleball courts expanded to eight courts, we hope, again, that will serve Galesburg, can allow us to host tournaments. I still keep losing my place. So I might have help for . I am so sorry. Gosh, stupid phone. Okay. We strongly support the investment in pickleball courts at Rotary Park, not only to deal with the crowds of people we have in Galesburg, but to host tournaments. This would all be beneficial to the entire community. And again, the focus group and other pickleball players, we've been sort of a sounding board, if you will, for the city council and the city manager, and we appreciate that. being invited to participate in that way. I will suggest that we're a little bit disappointed that it's taken quite so much time to get to groundbreaking for the courts, but we are optimistic that this will move forward hopefully sooner rather than later, although now we realize it might be next fall or next, gosh, winter or spring. Thank you very much. That's the time. I'll try to give you a few seconds extra, but I know you have some others they're going to speak to as well. Thank you. Well, thank you, City Council, for allowing me, I'm Teresa Rash, this opportunity to speak to you this evening regarding the pickleball courts. I'm representing Ward 1, Precinct 4. What does Galesburg offer our youth and families in the way of physical activity? There's no bowling, no community center, no pool halls, no place for youth to hang out. Yes, they could golf, they could go to Lakeside to swim, or play tennis at Lakeside, or go to the YMCA. But these places all cost money. What the city can do to help families and youth be active together would be to resurface the Bateman courts and to build a new pickleball court at Rotary Park. Well, this would mean to our community to offer such a wonderful place for all of us to enjoy being together, not only for physical activity, but being active not only helps build strong bodies, but strong and healthy minds. We have so much mental illness and depression among our youth and older adults. We all need to be active, to be outdoors, and to be off our cell phones. Our children need to have interaction with their friends. Pickleball would be enormously helpful. We go past Bateman Park any time of day and night, and you just see people out there playing, young and old. It helps all of us to see our kids playing and being active and having fun. We know where our kids are. It's a safe environment. It's free and it would be easy for them to get to these parks. They can walk there or ride their bikes or walk with a friend there. Please, please, please really think about what you can be offering our youth and really anybody that has a desire for activity. Not only do we have a good time, but we are all active. and we make new friends, and it is good for our mental health as well. We all come together, and we are a very diverse group of people that play pickleball. It's very enjoyable for everyone. Thank you again, City Council, for this opportunity to you this evening about such a very important, useful, and valuable asset for our community. The pickleball courts will allow benefits now and into our future. It's not just about physical activity, but our mental health as well. The courts would be providing us more than just courts. It's socialization. It's bringing professors from Knox. It's police officers. It's firefighters. It's teachers. It's retirees. Please wrap up, Mrs. Brash. Huh? Your time's up. Please wrap up. Oh, okay. And it's so much more. It's friendships and exercise. Thank you. Thank you very much. Good evening. My name is Jenny Atwell and I have moved to Galesburg about eight years ago and I teach school at King Elementary. I'm the PE teacher. One thing that I would like to share with you is that up until now, I really haven't found a community of people where I can be active. I'm an active person. We lived down in South Alabama. We were active. I had workout buddies. I had sports buddies. We had women's softball, the whole nine yards. And when we moved here, it all kind of stopped. And I didn't really have a group. My child was in high school, so I could watch sports. I had friends that were parents of players. I have friends that were teachers and are teachers, but I just didn't have that community where I could go, hey, let's go work out. Hey, let's go get some exercise. Pickleball has offered that. This summer, I found this group and have loved every minute of it. I've made new friends. I've enjoyed it. I go at night with people, and it is loaded with youth, probably students that wouldn't be on a regular sporting team, but they're out there. They're playing. They're learning the game. They're enjoying each other's company. They're talking and laughing. It's just a really nice... change from when we were stuck in our houses in 2020 and couldn't communicate and couldn't socialize. And there's people from different countries, people that come to visit, people that are just new to the area that just show up and they just jump in and they just participate and enjoy their time. I am thankful that you have the courts that you have. I am thankful that you've considered and are planning to build some new courts. And I hope that you will see the benefit from it as this continues to grow. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Anyone else like to for public comment tonight? Hello, Jeanette Chernin, Ward 5. I just want to invite all of you to the NAACP Community Cookout on Saturday if you could stop by. It's from 10 o'clock a.m. to 2 o'clock p.m. Usually the food is ready between 11 and 11.30. Everything is free. It's free to everybody. We have free lunch and we have... 250 backpacks last year. That's up from like 150 last year. So we're giving them to kids K through 12. They do have some school supplies in it because this is the first year since the pandemic that District 205 is not providing school supplies. The reason they're not is the ARPA funds ran out. So they're not providing school supplies at all this year. So if you would like to come, we would like to have you. We could definitely use some more volunteers. for various things. So if you show up and want to help at the beginning or the end, that would be great. So I want you all to come on Saturday. It's probably going to be really hot. It usually is. Dwight will be cooking your food for you. He does a great job. We served 400 people last year. Since I'm up here, I just want to bring up, I haven't brought it up for a while. Heather has done a great job in my neighborhood. I live like about a block from my older person. But 110 East North Street. It doesn't look any better than it did two years ago when the house next to it blew up, and they haven't done anything to it in about two years. They did glue some Tyvek onto the east side of it, but the rest of the neighborhood is looking somewhat better. That house is... It is terrible. And I do believe all of the kids, or most of the kids that were living there are back in that house. I don't see how that is an appropriate house for children, but I am not DCFS, so I can't do anything about that. But if any of you want to drive by it, it's on North Street where it meets Cherry. You can't miss it. I don't know if there's anything else Heather can really do, but if you guys have any... brilliant ideas because the rest of the neighborhood, our neighborhood is looking a little better. And I do thank Heather for everything she's done. But please come out on Saturday. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, it's like Kiwanis Park where it always is. Okay. Anyone else? Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and city of Gettysburg, I'm Mindy Knapp. I'm here again, once again, talking about homelessness. And I'm glad that this group is finally here and see the participation because now I have an opportunity to talk to you, okay? Your idea and your sources is important to our community, but not until we start helping the community first. We are in financial need of help. We already told we don't have funding in places. We have over 400 homes in town that are empty with people living in them. We got people living on the streets, living in a downtown everywhere, okay? And they're being forced even in this bad weather lately, the bad horrible storms we had last week, not to be underneath shelter, okay? Upsetting because this is upsetting me. When you're homeless, you have nowhere to go when it rains. Come on, people, we have to pull together. I am here again to speak that we need more low-income, affordable housing for our people in town. We also, ladies and gentlemen, and the City of Gettysburg, We also have people that cannot afford to have utilities on, okay? So we're gonna have more and more people going downtown and using places to stick in their phones and to charge your cell phones, okay? Utilities bills have, Ameren had jump, jump, Okay, mine was normally 200. It was 318 last month. This one month's bill for me in Avon area, but no different than up here is 459. Our little tiny restaurants that we love in town are spending what? About $9,000, if not more on utilities for the month. We are going to lose these little restaurants that we like. The Coney Island has been here forever. Come on. We need to focus, I want the pickleball, I think it's enjoyable, I think it's good for the children, environment for community, but I'm telling you and the city and the board and city of town, is it safe to have our children out there by themselves when we got criminals, people unmarked, sex offenders, no identity walking all our streets, coming in from prisons? coming off the trains. Do you think this is a priority? I think the city of Galesburg, if you guys want to be involved helping something, help feed them, help things in town to make it a better and safer environment for everybody to live in there. Everybody pinch in. I know that's important. When our income and our society is better, yes, pickleball is neat. But right now, we need to focus on helping the city of Galesburg, get off of this crunch, because we're in a financial need, ladies and gentlemen. I would like to talk to you afterwards, because I need all the help I can, okay? I am working all the time every day. Would you like to talk to me? I got lots of things you can help me with, and we all can be working together. Thank you, thank you. Anyone else for public comment? Okay, we'll move on now to our consent agenda, number 2025 slash 15. All matters listed under the consent agenda are considered routine by the City Council and will be enacted by one motion. The first one is 25-5005, where we will receive the quarterly investment report. The second one is 25-8014, And it is approval of warrants, approval and warrants drawn in payment of saying, again, a part of our bills and advance checks. So I have a motion to take a look at the second one, which is the approval of warrants drawn in payment of saying. Mr. Hicks, did you? Yes. So moved. A second. This is a chair. Mr. Hanson, do you need to say anything with that at all? Okay. Okay. Any other discussion with that? Okay. Roll call for that, please. Hicks, yes. Hunnigan, yes. White, yes. Achera, yes. Saul, yes. Cheeseman, yes. Sixth vote, yes, Your Honor. Okay. Thank you very much. Now we move on to the category of passage of ordinances and resolutions. We have number 25-1014 in ordinance. It's a zoning amendment for land south of 40 East Simmons Street. It is our first reading. And Mr. Hanson. Your Honor, if the council pleases, staff would be supportive of moving this to final reading. And then I would be glad to provide a thorough overview so you all can move forward. Okay. I'll make a motion to move this to second reading. All those in, or any discussion with that? Do we get, we got a second from Mr. Hicks? Okay. And we don't have discussion on this. We would vote on this. Okay. Just to vote to suspend the rules on that. Yes to do so. No to not suspend the rules. Hicks, yes. Honegan, yes. White, yes. Echera, yes. Saul, yes. Cheeseman, yes. Sixth vote, yes, Your Honor. Okay, thank you. So the next part of this is to make a motion to actually for this particular thing to be voted on tonight, okay? Move. Okay, Mr. White, a second. Mr. Echera? Okay, and now we go to Mr. Hanson. Thank you, Your Honor. The Planning and Zoning Commission recommends and the staff concur approval of a zoning amendment to rezone approximately 610 square feet of land adjacent to 40 East Simmons Street from I Institutional to B3 Central Business District. This small strip of land was recently conveyed from the City of Galesburg. to the galesburg public library to prevent the library property from encroaching on the adjacent city-owned parking lot rezoning this parcel to b3 aligns it with the zoning of the main library property which wasn't updated in december of 2024 and consolidates the site under a consistent zoning classification staff is recommending approval happy to answer any questions any questions for mr hansen with that any other comments okay we will go ahead and call roll and vote on Ordinance number 25-1014 on that zoning amendment. Hicks, yes. Hunnigan, yes. White, yes. Achera, yes. Saul, yes. Cheeseman, yes. Sixth vote, yes, Your Honor. Now we move to bids, petitions, and communications. Our first one is number 25-3032. It's a bid on Bucker Links Golf Course hole number three bridge replacement. Mr. Hanson? I need to have a motion for that. I knew I'll get ahead of myself there a little bit. Okay, can I have a motion for that, please? Okay, for Mrs. Echera. Second, Mr. Hicks. Now we'll go to Mr. Hanson. Thank you, Your Honor. Staff recommends approval of a bid in the amount of $88,594 submitted by Sinicola. What is that? Is that close enough? That sounds good to me. You can read it in the report. For the replacement of a deteriorated wooden bridge on Hole 3 at Bunker Links Golf Course, the scope of work includes removal of the existing structure, installation of the prefabricated fiberglass bridge supported by Pyle Foundations. The new bridge is designed specifically for golf course use, requires no ongoing maintenance, and has an expected service life of more than 50 years. The project was publicly bid, advertised and bid with 13 proposals submitted and two bids received with the low bid submitted at $88,594. The company has prior experience with similar installation, including the successful replacement on hole 15 last year. Staff is recommending approval. Any questions for Mr. Hansen or any discussion? Yes, Mr. Hicks. I got a question for Mr. Miles. Is there a possibility that we could slightly angle that bridge to the west so when my ball hits the bridge, it'll bounce towards the green into the road? All that engineering answer that. Mr. Miles, that bridge has not been replaced in how many years? It was redecked maybe 15 years ago, but it's original for, I'd say, 40 years. Yeah. I know a number of the bridges were very old and in bad shape, and it's a must to have those in the way they need to be because that's not an easy thing to go over those bridges, and the drop-off is a dangerous situation as well. Correct. Anything else? Okay. We'll call. What's that? Okay. Thank you. Any other questions then? Anything else? Okay, we'll have a vote then. Ms. Benowitz? Hicks, yes. Hunnigan, yes. White, yes. Achera, yes. Saul, yes. Cheeseman, yes. Sixth vote, yes, Your Honor. Thank you. And now we move to bids, petitions, and communications. The second part of this, number 25-3033, excuse me, it's a bid on security software renewal. Do we have a motion to accept that? So moved. Okay. Mr. Honegan, a second? Second. Okay, Mr. White. We'll go to Mr. Hanson. Thank your honor. Staff recommends approval of the fiscal year 2025 renewal of the city's network security software from SHI in the amount of $35,867.41. This software provides critical protection for the city's IT infrastructure, including next-generation antivirus, firewall management, and endpoint detection and response. For FY 2025, the renewal also includes enhanced features such as internal vulnerability assessment and data protection tools. Three quotes were received with SHI submitting the lowest and best proposal. Staff recommends awarding the contract to SHI based on both cost and performance. Funding for the renewal is available in the general fund budget. Happy to answer any questions. Any questions for Mr. Hanson? Any other discussion, comments? I have a question. In as few words as possible, What are we voting on? System protection. Most of these things were required to in order to maintain our cybersecurity insurance. And this is critical network support and network security is what you're voting on. Any other questions or comments? Okay, we'll go ahead and vote on this particular bid underneath our bids, petitions and communications. Hicks, yes. Hunnigan, yes. White, yes. Cherry, yes. Saul, yes. Cheeseman, yes. Sixth vote, yes, Your Honor. Thank you very much, Mrs. Benowitz. It's now, we're at the point of the meeting where we have our city manager's report. Mr. Hanson? Thank you, Your Honor. Just a few quick updates. One, I want to remind everyone, tomorrow night, 5 to 7 is the national night out in Standish Park. The effort led by the chief and his team and city staff will be there from five to seven. There's a lot of great stuff going on. Last year, if I'm not mistaken, Mr. Hicks put on the suit and got attacked by the canine dog. It's worth your time. A lot of great activities, always a good event. It's part of a broader national effort and I'm proud of our team for participating and not only Our entire public safety, police, fire, but also the county sheriffs and GHAS will be there as well. Great event. Hopefully you can step out, stop out. This is about as good as weather as you're going to get for this time of year and that event. Also wanted to give a special recognition. You know, we've talked ad nauseum at the great work that our fire department does with the MDA campaign and we're regularly competing at the top. But last year we finished second only to Chicago and the state of Illinois. I want to give special recognition to the leader of that effort in the fire department. T.J. Scott was recently designated as one of 12 district directors in the entire country to lead those efforts on behalf of the MDA Fill the Boot campaign. I couldn't be prouder of his work. Obviously, last year we raised over $30,000. But going back to 1997, they've raised over $651,000 in support of MDA efforts, and I think that's an amazing statistic, and I applaud them. That event's coming up soon. I think there's going to be some interviews with GIL, who has been gracious enough to, I think, are going to host an update. But I think here, end of the month, going into early September, we'll be raising money again, and I hope folks participate. It's a great cause. And finally, Your Honor, you asked about road maintenance season, and we are in road maintenance season. And I know because people complain about orange barrels, and we have some of them around. So I thought this might be an opportune time to spend a few minutes and just hear from Mr. Gavin about, you know, what we got going on in terms of road projects so that the public is updated and then I will conclude and be happy to answer any questions, but appreciate the council's opportunity to speak tonight. Thanks, Eric. Yeah, we have a couple of projects that are going to be starting up in the next couple of weeks or so that affect traffic flow a little bit, but we're going to see some improvements on the city streets. So our intermittent resurfacing project is planning to start later this week. They'll be on Locust Street between Knox and South near Lombard School. The first step is going to be to start replacing sidewalk and curb. They'll also be working on South Chambers and Lincoln Park Drive north of US 34. I don't anticipate that the actual resurfacing work will take place for a couple months, so they're going to get all the concrete work done. For the most part, the roads will remain open. Just some delays and watch out for workers as they're out on the street. We're also going to be doing a seal coat In the southeast portion of the city, we'll be starting in the next couple of weeks. And also in the Swangataha neighborhood, again, the roads will mostly remain open during the work, but we'll see some improvements there and some work getting done. And then Safe Routes to School project is going to start in about a week and a half. That's going to be on Pfeiffer Street near Silas Willard School. That'll take a couple months to complete, but we'll add some new sidewalk. uh... leading to silas willard there and a grant funded project that we're excited to get done and work with school district on and then of course uh... simmons street downtown everyone's aware of the work that's ongoing there happy to say that the project's on schedule uh... hoping to see it mostly complete towards the end of september maybe some cleanup and some final work uh... from then but hopefully getting the road and intersections back open by then so Things are going well there. Projects on schedule. Thank you, Mr. Gavin. Mr. Anson, may I ask Mr. Gavin a question in terms of you received some type of instrument last year that allows you to determine the conditions of roads, et cetera, so you can prioritize where work needs to be done. Just in simple layman terms and brief, how do you go about doing that? Yeah, so the... The consultant that we hired, they collected data on all the city streets in town and we received the road condition data from them after that was complete. They also ran all of our sidewalks and did a curb ramp survey. So we have access to all that and we can develop kind of five-year maintenance plans for our streets based off that data that they gave us. And we have a software that makes it easy to do that and also gives us all that data in one spot when we're trying to make decisions on road work to do. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Gavin. Any other questions for Mr. Hanson? I have one question. When will Simmons Street be completely open? Open around the end of September. It'll be completely open. Why has this project seemed to take such a long time? period of time since most of it is just one block? Well, whenever they're working in the downtown area, we ran into a few delays with utilities. There's a lot underground there. So when putting in storm sewer or trying to make those improvements when you have the amount of utilities and buildings you got to work around, it's caused a few delays. But ultimately, we kind of anticipated that based on the amount of work, it would be done in the fall and we're still on track for that. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Hannigan. Thank you, Mr. Gavin. Anything else for Mr. Hanson? I would add my congratulations and admiration for TJ and the fire department and the great work they do with that, and also for our city staff and public safety for tomorrow night's event. They do a terrific job with that as well and hope you're able to attend. We'll now go on to miscellaneous business agreements, approvals, et cetera. And I need a motion to sit as a town board meeting, or excuse me, as a town board via voice. First, we get a motion for that. So moved. Okay. Mr. Saul, second. Second. All those in favor of now sitting as a town board? Aye. Okay. And we can sit as a town board and we need to consider approval of the bills, which is number 25-9019. And can I get a motion? Do I need to get a motion on that as well? Okay. A motion for that to pay the bills? Okay. Mrs. Chair and Mr. Solis second. Any discussion with any of that? Okay. We'll have a roll call now to pay the town business bills. Hicks, yes. Hunnigan, yes. White, yes. A cherry, yes. Saul, yes. Cheeseman, yes. Sixth vote, yes, Your Honor. Okay, thank you. And now we need a motion to return to the City Council. And a vote there. A motion to return and resume as a City Council. So moved. Okay, Mr. Hunnigan, a second. Okay, Mr. Saul. All those in favor? Aye. Okay. And we are now at the point of closing our meeting down and closing comments. Would anyone like to begin with that? Mr. Saul, we'll just go around here, right around the horn. All right. Well, I drove past the Dale Kelly shelter house and saw the new shelter house that the Parks and Rec put up. I think that was a very good job. Well done. And unfortunately, we didn't have... So good weather for the great balloon race this weekend. That's what happens when you have five plus inches of rain for a balloon race. But big thank you to Philip Wolford out at the airport for allowing us to use the airport and Dave Wines and the Knights of Columbus for allowing us to use the hall for the band Southern Exposure. On a Saturday night, we laid to rest a great lady, Ruth PC Friday. I grew up with Ruth at Trinity Lutheran Church with her family. One of the people in the receiving line said to me that she never had to wonder what was on her mind because she was happy to tell you what was on her mind. I think we should all be more like Ruth. That's about all I have. Thank you, Mr. Saul. Mrs. Achara? I got to go this way, okay. Well, I'm a left-handed here, so you know how I'm going with that. Mr. Hicks, go ahead. Yeah. Just wanted to congratulate, and Steve, you and I have talked about this, but one of my golfing friends is a young man who's 11 years old who won the city junior all-tournament, 10- to 12-year-old boys by 15. Looks like, and my math is right, by 14 strokes. It's a three-day tournament. They play at Bunker, Lake Bracken, and Swangataha. And Connor Perez, I think he has a future. He's passionate about golf. I don't know if you've played with him, Steve, but you've probably seen him out there. He's practicing all the time. Just an outstanding young man. My cousin and Dave and I had a chance to play best ball against him, so we had two shots for every one that he had. And we were lucky to tie him. So look for him over the next few years. I think Connor is potentially going to be playing college ball one of these days soon. And then with Greg, it was great being able to volunteer for the balloon rally. The only thing we really did was to set up the balloons at the airport and helped. Your friend from the Quad Cities do that, and I do appreciate you canceling the 5.30 time in the morning. That was nice, so I didn't have to get up. Yeah, but hopefully next year we'll have better weather. Even with the weather, which no one can control, there's still a lot of people that came out to the airport and a lot of people that came out there before the rain hit us on Friday night. And it was good, not really working with, but working beside my friend Dwight. He was at the balloon right next to me. And hopefully next year you can get up and take a ride. Wendell was out there as well. So I'm sure Mother Nature will be kinder to you next year. Thank you, Mr. Hicks. Mr. Hunnigan. I want to commend the greater Galesburg community for the wonderful turnout. on July 24th that commemorated the life, service and sacrifice of Galesburg native Corporal Paul Eugene Hoots, who was killed during the Korean War 75 years ago. His remains were escorted by the VFW, our local fire and police departments. the Rolling Thunder and Patriot Guard riders, as well as many local residents who lined the two-mile route to East Linwood Cemetery. The funeral route from Hinchcliffe to the cemetery was decorated by 600 large American flags made possible by the efforts of dozens of volunteers. Our mayor, Dr. Peter Swartzman read a proclamation at the graveside services and I just want to say job well done. And I do want to say something about the balloon race. Since the year 2000, the great balloon race has called Galesburg and Lake Story its home. I want to thank the sponsors of the great balloon race, especially Councilman Greg Saul. who's one of my former students at Carl Sandburg College for allowing me to participate in this year's event. The whole city of Galesburg wishes you better luck next year. What I really mean, better weather next year. It was a great turnout on the day I was in attendance with lots and lots of kids and their family. I was also impressed. by the many people who unselfishly volunteer for this event each year. This is a one of a kind special event, which is free to the public. And again, Greg, we thank you for making this event possible. And again, I want to also emphasize the fact that on this Saturday, there's gonna be the NAACP community cookout. Free food, backpacks, free haircuts, lots of games. And it'll be again on Saturday, August 9th from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. It's at Kiwanis Park. If you don't know where Kiwanis Park is, it's on 2191 Knox Street here in Galesburg. And there will be not just a few kids, there'll be hundreds of kids. that participate in that project. And everybody, everybody is welcome to come. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Hunnigan. Mr. White. I, too, want to start off by saying congratulations to you and thank you for the great balloon race. I hope I'm getting this name right. The gentleman that I worked with, the balloon was fire and ice. And there was a gentleman of mine, Tom, Klitz. Tom Klitz. Tom Klitz. And believe it or not, I have a new respect for you guys. That's a lot of work. You guys put in a lot of work. Just holding the balloon down, taking it up, putting it down, putting it away. It's big work. And so I take my hat off to you guys. I got a chance to help him at the airport the other day. And it was... When I went home, I got in the tub and turned on the whirlpool. But the gentleman was out of Quincy, and that's Gelsberg and Quincy working together on something. So it was a great time. As Mr. Gavin was going through the work on the roads, he went a little bit fast for me. But we have a great website. Gelsberg's website, you can find everything you need on it. I went right to the resources page. And right in the resources, online resources, go down, find the GSI maps, and it'll tell you exactly everything that he was talking about today. Our resources, the company, the community can find anything you need. Ask somebody and they'll tell you how to get to it. That information, if you want to check it again, it's on there. Where we're getting work done on the roads, all kinds of stuff. It tells you how much it cost us, how much we're spending. Look, use this resource. It's great. It's great. It's great. And I will be at Cook School with Gayla tomorrow at 10 o'clock in the morning. If you have any youngsters, bring them out. We'll be having pizza. I was going to do hot dogs, but 10 o'clock is early to start. So we'll be doing pizzas for everybody that wants to come out. Bring your kids out. It'll be the last one this year. I just want to. I'd say you did a great job today. I'm left-handed, right-handed. I need to get that figured out. Thank you. I didn't misfeed at all. Okay. Thank you. And you are our unofficial webmaster and expert, so thank you for all of that. Mrs. Agera. So as many of you know, my mother-in-law passed away recently, and so we have inherited her lovely, beautiful little dog, Maltese Bailey. And, you know, there's really something about having a small dog. He doesn't move very fast, but I'm going on a lot of walks. And so this leads me to really want to compliment all the folks in the city that maintain... all the beautiful parks, the Fullview Park, the downtown planters, the landscaping. It really is lovely. So there's something about being with a small animal that just forces you to slow down a little and smell the roses and see all the beauty around you. So I just want to give some thanks for that experience as I'm out and walking around our beautiful city. I regret that I won't be at the NAACP picnic. I've been there a couple years in a row. I've enjoyed it very much. Many of you know I'm on the board of WTVP and if you haven't heard funding has been cut for public television so I am as a volunteer I will be in Peoria and will be promoting WTVP and having some activities for kids on Saturday there so but you know if you don't know that is our Galesburg viewing area so that is our station and we need to support it so best of luck I know it'll be fantastic event I also want to appreciate the people who came out in support of Pickleball as an activity. Many of you know I'm very concerned about health and wellness, and I just really think we have the opportunity to help support an activity which is intergenerational, which helps get kids off their phone and moving and being active. And as you can see, this was a very diverse group. So I think it really enhances our community, not only in terms of physical activity, but the social, emotional well-being that we're seeing in terms of all the connections that are being made. Thank you. Thank you. Wonderful comments by all. A couple things to address the folks from their public comments tonight with a pickleball. I think it's something that every one of us here is listening to. We're looking at. We're examining in every way possible, and certainly I can't speak for everyone on here, but we're looking in every way possible to get this done. We continue to have some discussion about our unhoused, and I know that our city is working with other groups. It's a work in progress. It's something that we want to make better. I certainly want to make better, and I know that we're going to have better conditions here. It just takes some time, but I would also encourage those folks out there that may be struggling now, We do have some places available, and if they're not aware of those, let's make sure that they understand those. We have our city one in accordance with Knox County out on Iowa Court. We certainly have the rescue mission, and we need to look at some more things here, and I know that we are doing that. Property upkeep. I know Mrs. Chernin had mentioned that. It is something that I certainly... implore folks to do as a high priority is making sure that you're taking care of your property. And I don't mean that in a way that you have to spend money. Keep it up in terms of the things you need to do to keep it safe, to keep it looking appealing. We're all affected by all of that. And it's something that all of us need to pay attention to and make as a high priority. Finally, and also talking about some things, that one other thing with that, free things for our citizens to do. It was a number of years ago that I served with Heart and Soul and Galesburg on Track. And Tom Simpkins and a number of us had a brainstorming session one time with a blackboard where we wrote down all the things in our city at that point in time, and this was 2016, 17, whatever, that were free, that people could go and enjoy free. And there were over 200 of those. So... I'm not going to say that we cannot improve on more things that need to be out there. We have to improve on those things, especially as new things become popular. But there are numbers of things out there that are free, that people can enjoy, and that meet the needs of all interests. Finally, I want to compliment Brian Fuller, who is the supervisor of the Street Department Asphalt Division and his crew. for dealing with a challenging situation the other day as they were doing some repair work on the road. Their poise, their professionalism and expertise was duly noted and I know so many of our city employees when they meet the public and have to deal with things that are sometimes challenging, they do a great job of that and Brian and his crew did that very nicely. Tomorrow, Carl Sandburg College has a big welcome ceremony for their international students led by a number of folks that will be out there, including Mr. Lowe, who is now the assistant director of student support and has worn a number of hats there to help these types of students. So we want to welcome them into our community and allow them to get to know our community and be of service and help and be warm toward them. I know we also have other schools opening soon, and there are new students that are coming into these schools as well. And whenever we as citizens can be of help to these students and show them we care, that is very, very helpful and important. And a shout out there to a gentleman named John Prats, who is the ELE coordinator for our school district. I think a number of years ago, he started with about 30 and he's up to about 300 students that he works with that English is a second language and works with their families to help them get acclimated to our town. So tomorrow, big event with that and lots of big events coming up with school. So please take note of all those. That's all I have. If I could get a motion for adjournment from Mr. White. And a second? Second. Okay, Mrs. Chair, all those in favor? Aye. And as my dad said, hit my gavel. We are adjourned.