Good evening, everyone. It is 6 o'clock, and we are in City Council Chambers in Galesburg, Illinois. And I will ask Erica to call the roll, please. Councilmember Hicks. Here. Dennis. Here. Miller. White. Present. Echera. Here. Davis. Here. Cheeseman. Here. Mayor Schwarzman. Here. Seven are present. Thank you. And we'll start the Pledge of Allegiance. I'll ask Mr. Hicks to lead us all. Someone here from the United Way, please step forward if you would. Thank you for coming this evening. You can stand over here, please. Okay, I have two proclamations this evening. The first reads as follows. Whereas the United Way of Knox County believes that all of our citizens should be able to enjoy healthy and meaningful lives, and whereas the United Way of Knox County seeks to strengthen Knox County communities by fostering volunteer action, building resources, and caring for individuals. Whereas the United Way of Knox County focuses on the building blocks for a good quality of life, education, financial stability, and health. We all win when a child succeeds in school, when families are financially stable, and when people are in good health. And whereas it takes every part of the community, individuals, businesses, and organizations to supply the passion, expertise, and resources needed to create lasting change for the better. And whereas every year, citizens generously contribute their volunteer energies as well, hereby investing in programs and initiatives that improve lives and build stronger community. And whereas the United Way humbly asks for the continued financial support of the community each year to continue and expand those efforts. Now, therefore, I, Peter D. Schwarzman, Mayor of the City of Galesburg, Illinois, do hereby proclaim the month of October, November, and December 2024 as United Way Months, dated this third day of September, 2024, with my signature. I present that to the leaders of our Knox County United Way. So here we go. Would you like to say a word? Yes. Thank you so much. We want to thank the city of Galesburg for your continued support through the Unmet Needs Fund and also through your annual campaign. So thank you very much. Thanks for coming tonight, and may the next three months be very fruitful. Thank you. And Ms. Shup, if you could come forward, and maybe even Mr. Springer. Yes, we have two of the... economic leaders here so this proclamation reads a little longer whereas investment in skilled training education and career advancement of city of galesburg's workforce is crucial to the ability of the county and state to compete in the global economy and to achieve economic equity and whereas city of galesburg employers require workers with in-demand skills to meet the needs of their businesses and communities Whereas welcoming all residents who need to become part of the workforce in a meaningful way is critical to the strength of the cities of Galesburg's employers and workers. And whereas workforce programs and services provided by Western Illinois Works and its partners in the workforce system help job seekers identify their interests and skills and assist them in developing a strong job search strategy leading to fulfilling employment. And whereas Aligning the workforce development system with employer needs and preparing job seekers to enter family-sustaining employment are among the strategies to address employment and economic disparities. And whereas the Workforce Innovation Board of Western Illinois prioritizes collaboration among all members of the local workforce development system, including business partners, state workforce development agencies, educational institutions, labor unions, and community-based organizations, which is critical to system alignment and preparing a skilled workforce. Whereas the workforce development system proactively engages customers' works to achieve equity and focuses on flexibility to provide tailored resources to help meet the needs of all of City of Galesburg's employers and residents seeking employment. Now, therefore, I, Peter Schwarzman, Mayor of the City of Galesburg, Illinois, do hereby proclaim the month of September 2024, Workforce Development Month, dated the third day of September 2024. I present this to Blanche Shoup, who I would like to say a few words about her work. Well, thank you very much, Mayor and Council Members, for supporting this, and we look forward to an excellent month of celebrating all the many things that we try to do and partnership with economic development and all the other partners to make sure that we have a skilled workforce for today and tomorrow. I think you said it all. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. And may it be a very prosperous month. Okay. First item for this council is to approve the minutes from the August 19th, 2024 meeting. We need a motion and a second. Thank you, Mr. Dennis and Ms. Achera. Any questions, comments about the minutes? Seeing none, call for vote on the minutes from the August 19th, 2024 meeting. Hicks, yes. Dennis, yes. White, yes. Echera, yes. Davis, yes. Cheeseman, yes. Six-0, yes, Your Honor. Excellent. We're here for public comment now. Is anyone here for public comment? Please step forward. Please step forward. State your name. You have three minutes. Won't you begin? fun gala on Saturday, September 28th at Cedar Creek Hall. The doors will open at 5 o'clock p.m. I want to tell you a little bit about our speaker this year because we have never had a speaker quite like this. She is internationally known as a teacher, lecturer, and diversity trainer. Her name is Jane Elliott. Some of the older people here might know her. Some of the younger people here might not. She's best known for her blue eyes, brown eyes exercise which she first conducted in 1968 with her third grade class in response. to the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. The classroom exercise was filmed in 1970, becoming the documentary, The Eye of the Storm. Ms. Elliott is considered the forerunner of diversity training and has done this training for corporations such as General Electric, Exxon, AT&T, and IBM. She has also lectured to the FBI, the IRS, the US Navy, the US Department of Education, and the Postal Service. She has spoken at over 350 colleges and universities and appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show five times. Ignore that last one if you don't like Oprah. She is 90 years old and she will not be booking speaking engagements for too much longer. So here's your opportunity to see her. Tickets are $50. I also want to point out that we have not raised the price on those in several years. And they include dinner and a silent auction and our branch awards. Tables of 10 are also available this year for $500. Last year, the tables were $400 because they only had eight seats. This year, they have 10 seats. They are not the same tables. We are at Cedar Creek and not Knox. If you would like to buy tickets or a table, please talk to an executive board member. Dwight and I are both on the executive board. And for single tickets, if you want to use a credit card, there's a QR code on the flyer. that you all are gonna be getting. I also want to, since I have one minute, I wanna thank my older person, Heather Achera, for walking around our neighborhood with me several times. I asked her to come with me to look at some houses, actually a lot of them, that are vacant or in great need of repair. She and I are in complete agreement that these houses need to be brought up to code or they need to be torn down. I just want to thank her for already following up on some specific issues. I really appreciate your help. And I hope to see all of you at the gala. And if you have any questions, Dwight or I know the answers. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else? Excellent. We will move to consent agenda 2024-15. All matters listed under the consent agenda are considered routine by the city council and be enacted by one motion. Do we have a motion? Thank you, Mr. Dennis. And that was a tie, but I'll give it to Ms. Davis this time. And is there any questions about anything on the consent agenda? I just wanted to ask about the utility cart. I'm not quite sure what that is or that's going to go with our golf carts. Sure. Utility vehicle is like similar to size and golf cart, but it's got a bed in the back to carry tools or like when they're changing the holes on the greens or just very small equipment. But it's roughly the size of a a golf cart. It just has the box on the back so the maintenance crews can move it more easily around the course. Is there a reason why we rent one instead of owning one of our own? I'm guessing it's just through the program that we used on. Do you have any other updates? That's not uncommon given that they're usually the same company, the same brand. It's just... a cart that has a bed versus a box versus that, but I'm sure they wouldn't be opposed to us buying one. The utility vehicle is used to pick the range and for other maintenance items, but it's just easier to rotate it with the golf cart, so it's the same make and model. And last question, what's our revenues for our golf carts every year? Do we have an idea how much money we make off of what we're spending? We're spending, what, $55,000, so... What do we kind of bring in for that? Somewhere in the upwards of $150,000 to $180,000. Talk to me. I like hearing that. Thank you. Yes, and I think that was the rationale for increasing the number by a few this year because there are many outings now that require or set state greater use of the carts. Is that correct? Correct. I can, and I'm sure Steve can second this, but for many years I've been golfing out there and often I will go with my cousin, Dave, who works with Coca-Cola and is off in the afternoon because he starts so ridiculously early. And a couple of years ago, we would just go if I wasn't doing anything with the real estate business and show up and tee off. You have to have a tee time now, almost always. So the course play is up, necessitating more cards, but we're doing... Brian and his crews are doing an excellent job, but yeah, there's the amount of play, and Steve, you can add to it if you want to, but it's good and it's bad. It's great because the revenue is good and the course is being played. It's bad because when you want to just drop out and play, you're looking at 20 people in front of you. Mr. Cheeseman. And concur with Mr. Hicks' comments there. A couple of other things. We're getting... enormous amounts of play from folks from other communities, which brings money into our community. I believe that we're on course to get somewhere around 32 to 33,000 rounds of golf, which would be by far and away nothing even a close second of the most used recreational facility in our community. And the number of golf carts not only is used during needed in these tournaments, But also, I've seen a number of times now where the golf carts, when we had, Don, correct me if I'm wrong, when we had a lower number, that they would all be out on a normal day, on a weekend or a holiday. And it could be on a Friday as well, and folks would have to wait for a cart to come in. As Mr. Hicks said, that's a great problem to have, but it also is one that creates more challenges. And doing this right here... Increasing the number is just good as our golf course continues to flourish for all kinds of reasons. It's really a great, great, great facility we have in our town and our area. Thank you. Any other questions about the consent agenda? Okay. With that, I ask for a vote on the consent agenda 2024-15. Hicks, yes. Dennis, yes. White, yes. Echerry, yes. Davis, yes. Cheeseman, yes. Sixth vote, yes, Your Honor. Thank you. There is nothing under passage of ordinance and resolution, so we move to bids. And we have two bids. 243041 is a painting of public areas in City Hall. We need a motion and a second. So moved. Thank you, Mr. White. Second. Thank you, Ms. Davis. Mr. Hanson. Thank you, Your Honor. Staff is recommending approval of the bid from W.F. Scott Decorating Incorporated in the amount of $32,100 to paint various public areas within City Hall, including parts of the first floor rotunda, bathrooms, conference rooms, council chambers, break room basements, hallways, etc. Staff worked to lower the cost by not doing the upper story of the rotunda. which is still in pretty good shape. The current color scheme is essentially the same and the project is anticipated to start on or after October 7th, 2024 and be completed well before the end of the year. Goes along with our efforts to try and update things here within City Hall. I don't think this has been done for close to 20 or 20 plus years. about time. Any questions about this item? Yep. You painted it last time, W. Okay. Seeing no discussion, I ask for a vote on 24-30-41. Hicks, yes. Dennis, yes. White, yes. Echera, yes. Davis, yes. Cheeseman, yes. Sixth vote, yes. Thank you. We have one other bid, 243042. This is Simmons Street and parking lot H reconstruction. We need a motion and a second. Mr. Dennis, I heard him, I saw him nod. I think that counts. Ms. Davis, seconds. I turn it over to Mr. Hanson. Thank you, Your Honor. Excited for this one because not every time you go back out do you get these results, but thankfully we did. Staff is recommending approval of the base bid plus the four alternate options and the total amount of $2.502 million from Gunther Construction. A DIVISION OF UCM INCORPORATED FOR THE SIMMONS STREET PARKING LOT AND STREETSCAPE PROJECT. THE CITY WAS AWARDED A 2.1 MILLION REBUILD DOWNTOWN AND MAIN STREET GRANT THROUGH THE DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE AND ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY FOR THE LOT AND STREETSCAPE IMPROVEMENTS ON SIMMONS STREET BETWEEN PRAIRIE AND KELLOGG. THE PROJECT WAS ORIGINALLY BID OUT IN JUNE OF THIS YEAR, BUT DUE TO THE BIDS BEING HIGHER THAN ANTICIPATED, WHICH I BELIEVE CAME IN AROUND 3.1 MILLION, The project was not awarded and city staff and the city design consultants revised some of the items in the bid specs and removed a canopy to obtain a lower bid without changing the overall scope of the project. Three bids were received, Gunther submitting the lowest and complete responsible bid of $2.341 million. The bid was approximately $660,000 lower than the low bid received in June. It is recommended to award the base bid plus all four options provided for the total of $2.502,284.94. Also included in this, and one of the alternates, if you looked at your packet closely, is an additional alternate to install public EV chargers, which would be the first for us in the city. and something that i think is uh... certainly long overdue and excited to have that be a part of this project and mostly covered by the grant have an answer any other questions if you have them the question for mister his yes sure uh... with regard to the e-videos chargers do you happen to know if any of them will be that turbo charge e-videos chargers I don't think that is the case based on the budget, but we're working towards that. There's at least one other project that includes turbochargers that's in design and approved, just waiting to be installed. Not a city project, but another one in the city. I think these are designed to be adaptive, so multiple types of vehicles can use them. I just wanted to comment. I had friends with a... with the Tesla come down this weekend and they are stopping in Davenport every time they come down and they're spending, or rather the Bettendorf, you know, the Bettendorf area I'm talking about that's so build up and all the restaurants and so forth. So, you know, I understand that they're more expensive than the other ones, but I think the city would benefit greatly from having at least one of those chargers because they are going to spend time. They're going, people who need to charge will buy lunch, spend their money here. So love to see some further, further looking into that. Thank you. Okay. Anything else? Seeing none, I call for vote on 24, 30, 42. Hicks, yes. Dennis, yes. White, yes. Achera, yes. Davis, yes. Cheeseman, yes. Sixth vote, yes. Yes, that was a remarkable... effort on the city's part. Excellent, excellent work. We've reached the city manager's report. Mr. Hanson, do you have anything to add? No report unless there's any questions. Okay. Any questions from the council? Thank you for your thorough weekly reports as well. We move to miscellaneous business and there is nothing there. So I will then ask for a motion to sit as the town board. Thank you, Mr. Denison and Mr. White. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? We are sitting as the town board. We have two items. One is the bills, 249017. Need a motion for the bills? So moved. Thank you, Ms. Davis and Mr. Chair. Anyone have any questions about the bills? I'll call it for vote. 249017. And Ms. Guglielmo will... Please call the roll. Hicks. Yes. Dennis. Yes. White. Yes. A chair. Yes. Davis. Yes. Cheeseman. Yes. Six vote. Yes. And now we move to the town audit is to be received by the city. 249018. Do we have a motion? So moved. Thank you. Ms. Davis and Mr. White. Any discussion of the town audit? Seeing none, I'll call for a vote on the town audit, 249018. Hicks, yes. Dennis, yes. White, yes. Echera, yes. Davis, yes. Cheeseman, yes. Sixth vote, yes. Okay. We now need to resume as a city council. Do we have a motion? So moved. Mr. Dennis? Second. Mr. Chair, thank you. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? We are now sitting as a city council. We have reached closing comments. Who wants to lead off this evening? Thank you, Mr. Dennis. It's going to be real short. It's getting chilly. Two weeks ago it was, what, 100 degrees? Now it's 70. So I just want to tell everybody to wear long pants with socks. Mr. White, thank you. Mr. White. Mr. Dennis, it's just, it's refreshing to see that Gunther's won the bid and that's keeping money in town. Every time we can employ somebody in Galesburg, that's always a plus. I just know that working on Custer Park, and that's just going to be one of our great places. I spent a lot of time in there as a Babe Ruth on the board and as coaching, and it's just something that we can improve on and make better and good use of. I agree. I don't golf, but I went out there and I talked to the people at the golf course, and they're moving and shaking. It's growing. Anything that we can do to bring the vibrant... See, back to Galesburg is what we should be doing. And that's great. I spent time at the parade the other day and watched my daughter, proud old guy, see him march down the street and didn't have my camera on. But it's historical. We've got one of the longest running Labor Day parades. It was very nice. I enjoyed Rover. That's where my wife went to school at. Their band played well. But we outnumbered them, and we played a little bit better. But it was great. I enjoy it. And Kellsburg's a great place, and I just see that we grow. I hope we, you know, continue to grow and continue to move forward. We're just going to do great things, I know, one day. Mr. White, I got you a picture. I sent it to you. I did get a picture as I was going down. Yeah, wonderful band. Okay, thank you, Mr. White, Mr. Sheriff. I agree. It was such a wonderful, beautiful weekend. I had friends in town who are recent immigrants, and they actually said this was the best American weekend they've ever had. So I was very proud of our town. We enjoyed the Steerman fly-in. They got to go up in a biplane. We went to the parade, went to various restaurants, walked around all of our historic neighborhoods. They loved the homes. So it was a very good weekend. I was very proud of our town. Thank you, Mr. Chair. They're from Ukraine. And Ms. Davis. I mean, those were great reports. I don't have a whole lot to add other than I did appreciate our last item being approval of the town audit. Anyone who talks to me much or at all knows I'm up to my ears in taxes right now, but reading that reminded me, like, at least it's not audit. So, huge thank you to, you know, the accounting firm that put that report together, of course, and humongous thank you to the township employees that have worked to keep those records all year and keep everything in order so that we're getting these reports put together and getting these audits without any remarks about anything needing changes. Just keep doing what you're doing. Y'all are fantastic. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Davis. Ms. Cheeseman. You know, we addressed a couple of recreational facilities tonight here with the golf course and HT Custer Park. I didn't get a chance to talk about HT as we were going through the consent agenda, but we have done such a great job in our city. And I mean, as our city government and also our community of enhancing our recreational facilities. And I know we're not done yet, but the things that we've done in just this last year plus are just terrific. And the HT Custer Park, Continued reclamation sort of both the ballpark and the outer areas of the playground just adds so much to it, so much to it. And like Dwight, it was truly a place to converge on in the summertime for so many people that participated as well as were spectators. And it's nice to see that we're continuing to try to bring this back to a place that uh... it once was and i know we have some more things to do also i want to certainly uh... agree with mrs a chair and with uh... mister and about how we we want to make it a priority or continue to make it a priority that too to do everything we can do to be concerned about the aesthetics of our town property uh... a repair, property upkeep, every little detail of it that's within reason, I think that we wanna continue to do. And I think that's the job of our entire community. And I think that as long as we keep that out there in the conversation, that it's something that all of us will continue to look to. And I think it's something that I know many of us up here, it's a priority. So we'll keep that certainly at the front of our thought process as we do things in city government. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chief. Mr. Hicks? Just a few things. I agree with everyone that mentioned the parade. That was a nice event, a beautiful day, and I did enjoy meeting your friends, Heather. It would be interesting to go over to Europe and maybe do the same thing in their culture, maybe not right now, in Ukraine anyway, unfortunately, but they were delightful and I enjoyed meeting their children and And that was good. And the parade was good. I mean, there was a lot of excitement downtown, I think. And it was good. I saw the mayor march by. I think you were looking the other way when you went by. But we were by sidetracks. You missed all three of us. WD, me, and... Well, I'm short. You were hiding behind Mr. D. Yeah, I was hiding behind him. He was getting all the candy. And just, you know, we talked about the golf course a little bit today, but I think that is a hidden jewel. I mean, Steve, you made a great point about I've met a lot of people out there when I've been playing that have come from different areas. This week, there was a thunderstorm that moved through. We luckily were literally on the southern tip of it, and it was just north of us, like in Henderson. And there was a group of ladies that got blown out of the Quad Cities because the weather didn't. They got in the car and drove down here and played golf. I'm sure it'll happen the other way around. We'll be inundated with rain and we'll have to go up the Quad Cities and play golf. But the golf course is doing great. The parks are doing great. Thanks to Don and his crew and basically all of our staff. Steve and. and his crew are doing a great job. Just thank everybody for all the time that they spend answering our questions and trying to help us. I got to spend a little bit of time with Steve today talking about a couple of potential development ideas, and they're always willing to help, which is greatly appreciated. Thank you, Mr. Hicks. And Mr. Dennis gets another 30 seconds. Yeah, I forgot to say we lost an icon last week on Saturday. I think he passed away on Saturday. Frank Rogers used to own the Miller Light Brewing Company here in town. His daughter runs Buddy's Pizza. Huge crowd. I've known when I lived out of Lake Bracken, Frank and I rode on the same golf cart, and he will truly be missed. Like I said, he was an icon in this town, and everything he did, it was for people. I just wanted to make a mention of that. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Dennis. Yes, so my closing thoughts. First, the parade was quite amazing. I was very fortunate to walk in it and just kind of take in all the positive energy that I heard from the crowd and the people walking. After I walk, I usually walk through the crowd and enjoy the rest of it. The parade went on for over an hour, which is phenomenal. And my relatives were in town and they were really, really impressed with our community. Steerment fly-in is this week, and I think they broke their record for most planes here on opening day, nearly 40 planes from around the country. And in fact, historically, there have been some from around the world. It's going to be going on all week. I guess Saturday is community day, so head on out there. If you can't get out there during the week, get out there on this Saturday. There will be all kinds of activities for people of all ages. That's a really, really special event. And I was talking to Harold today. Harold, you may know he's our lifelong Stearman advocate and supporter and worker at the airport. And I said, how many times have you been up in the air? He said, no, I'm dealing with crisis day by minute by minute because every day there's so much activity out there. He needs somebody on the ground. securely working on things. And then I saw him volunteering this morning. Speaking of which volunteers, so the volunteers at the Stearman are phenomenal. And there were even people cleaning West Main Street this past weekend in preparation for the Stearman coming in. So that's volunteering extraordinary. Seven in the morning, people are out. Today at First Presbyterian Church, the Knox football team was there, at least 20 or so of them, helping with the Blessings in the Backpack project, which is another amazing volunteer project in our community. I mentioned the Knox football team because they were also at the parade, which was nice to see, and they have a game. Their opening game is this weekend, Saturday. Tickets are also free to the public, so come out and support local football. And then, last but not least, regarding the volunteers, I mean, I could say this every week, but those folks who are watering the flower boxes that are in and around our railroad tracks and such crossings, phenomenal folks who make our city beautiful every day. And the list keeps going on. So thank you. If you're watching and you're a volunteer, kudos to you. If you know someone who is volunteering, give them a pat on the back. They really make our city remarkable. One last regarding the fill in the boot. We got one more week with that. So let's bring our, I think we're on track to break records here, but let's keep that status at least being number two in the state, which is phenomenal, phenomenal effort. So if you're driving around this Friday, drop something in the boot for their efforts. And you may notice I'm wearing a special tie. It's kind of hard to tell on TV, but... I've got my Scrabble tie on this evening. And that's because in a week from now, we're going to host our first rated Scrabble tournament. In fact, two of them in the city of Galesburg. And so we're very excited about that. At this point, we have 32 people coming in to play. We're hoping maybe to get to 40 as our limit this time. But it looks like there's going to be a lot of interest in that and maybe hopefully having a recurrent tournament maybe once every week. you know, maybe twice a year or so. So when those folks come down to Galesburg a week from now, they'll be walking around for lunch on Saturday. And so if you're a restaurant or business downtown, you're probably going to get some extra visitors. So it looks great. And just one more amenity that we can add to our community and bring visitors in. With that, I'll ask for a... Is Lions doing pancakes Saturday? Oh, well, we have a couple of Lions here. You want to announce the Lions... Pancake thing? I know they're on Saturday because I'm volunteering for the flight line on Saturday, and I was told that they would be there on Saturday morning. Okay, so big lines, pancake. You've got to go through me, Peter. Okay. Just remember that. I deferred. That's why. And you did say about the line of breakfast, right? That's where we're just. Excellent. Well, I'm glad we got that in. Thank you, Mr. Dennis. You're always on top of it. And I'll ask for a motion to adjourn. Thank you, Mr. Dennis. Second. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? We are now adjourned at 636.