City of Braidwood City Council met Oct. 10.
Here are the minutes provided by the council:
Call to Order: The Regular Meeting of the Braidwood City Council on October 10, 2023 was called to order at 7:00 p.m., by Mayor Hart in the Council Chambers of the Braidwood City Hall.
Pledge of Allegiance: Mayor Hart requested all rise for the Pledge of Allegiance.
Roll Call: Upon Roll Call by the Clerk, the following members of the corporate authorities answered "Here" or "Present";
Elected Officials;
Present: Commissioner Money, Commissioner Wietting, Commissioner Walsh, Commissioner Mikel, and Mayor Hart
Absent:
Appointed Officials:
Present: City Clerk, City Administrator Altiery, and City Attorney Hannah Lamore
Absent: City Engineer Dave Weber
Quorum: There being sufficient members of the corporate authorities in attendance to constitute a quorum, the meeting was declared in order.
Public Comment: Kim Earling180 N Mitchell St: I have more of a comment; I have mixed emotions about the decision that has been made on behalf of our community right now. I am sure due to legal reasons our community will be left with many unanswered questions in regards to request of retirement of our Police Chief. I would like to say that in 2018 when Chief Lyons was appointed, he and his department gave my family hope in the justice system at a time all hope was lost. At this time, I do not see a justified reasoning for the request. Not only did he bring my family hope but he has cleaned up the very bad reputation of Braidwood in a short time. My husband and I campaigned for everyone sitting on this board and we believe our community deserves continued transparency at this sudden decision. Has the council made sure that every option available was taken. Such as speaking with the officers of the police department, was there disciplinary actions or possible restructure changes that could have been made before making your decision? My questions truly are to ensure that the best interest is of this community and they are still being taken into account with such a huge decision being made.
Marylu Jensen 340 Washington St: I am here for two reasons. The first one is that I have read the word of Governor Pritzker about finding places for the illegals in this country to live that Chicago cannot handle it. So, that they are going to be looking at small communities all around. I want to make it known that I totally oppose that idea in any way at all. I want absolutely nothing to do with that illegal situation within our country. I am saying that if you are asked to do that, I am a community member, lived here since 1978, and I don't want that in my town. There are a lot of other things I don't want in my town. I am not an advocate of bringing big business here. I live in a small town because I want to live in a small town. I can go within 10 minutes and be within any big box thing I want whenever I want. I don't want it next door to me, I don't want it that close to me. I don't want to deal with the traffic, I don't want to deal with all the trucks that are delivering things, I don't want to deal with people that perhaps do not admire our community the way most of us do that would be coming here. I am not an advocate of growing this town at all. Never have been. My last one is, hearing all the talk about getting rid of our Chief of Police, that is very disturbing to me that this community is not brought into those particular situations. My opinion is that I voted, and I hired you guys. You guys work for me, you guys work for my community, you guys work for our community. So, when you do whatever, it is you need to do about certain situations, its bet to be transparent and letting us know what the issues are. Because we are living within it, we want to know the issues, we want to know why you think they way that you think and we want you to hear our opinions about it whether we agree with your opinion or not.
Danita Morgan 635 W. Cermak: I originally came here today because I wanted to ensure that the community was aware of the Smart Recovery meetings that we do have every week in the community now. Which does serve as an alternative to 12 step programs. It's a substantive meeting to help them with more support. These are held every Monday from 7-8:30pm at the Old Smokey Building. On Wednesday's we also have meeting for the family and friends to provide them with support if they have someone or a loved one in their life who is struggling with addiction. They are open meeting they are strictly confidential. They have been ongoing for a few months now; they are actually turning out really well. I would like to thank everyone that has supported this, which does include the City Council. My second thing I have to say is based on the news today, I am going to be the third one now. I also supported all of you, with the understanding that you were keeping the Chief of Police and you did not do so. That man not only helped me in my recovery but has helped several others. I drove with him to take people to rehab and it kills me to hear that it seemed like you guys turned your back on him. I want reasons just as much as everyone else because you would have to be completely blind to not see what he has done for this community. That man has gotten off his couch to find a missing dog, I don't see anyone of you doing that. I am very hurt and upset. Thank you.
Shree Salazar 465 E Reed St: Otherwise known at the Braidwood Coalition Office. I am here for two reasons; I am here to introduce or re-introduce myself to those who do not know me. I am the project coordinator for the Braidwood Coalition and I am here to share some exciting, happy news. As some of you may know, we were just notified that the coalition received the years 6-10 drug free communities' grant. So, that means we will be receiving 5 additional years of federal funds to help our efforts in lowering and preventing youth substance use. We spent much of the summer applying to be a Blue- Ribbon Coalition, which we are now. What makes that important or of note is that not every Coalition can apply because not every Coalition qualifies. The most important criteria to be a Blue-Ribbon Coalition is you have to show outcomes and your outcomes have to be data driven. So, we are really proud to say that our Coalition was able to do that. Since the inception of the Coalition, we have seen a decrease in youth substance abuse in our community, which is a good thing. We are a Blue-Ribbon Coalition for the next two years. We were formally invited to celebrate this honor at the White House at the end of the month. Lastly, I just wanted to remind you and invite you to our Coalition meetings. They are held every month, the second Monday of the month outside of July via zoom unless otherwise noted at 4:30pm. You can get all of our information and find out what we are doing, follow us and like us, support our efforts through Facebook which is Braidwood Coalition and email us if you have any questions, comments, concerns, or want further information at braidwoodcoalition@gmail.com. Thank you.
Approval of Minutes: Commissioner Wietting made a motion, seconded by Commissioner Mikel, to approve meeting minutes from the September 26, 2023. Regular Council Meeting. Motion carried with 5 ayes: 0 nays. (Money, Wietting, Walsh, Mikel, and Hart)
Mayor's Report Since all of you already know, Todd Lyons had submitted his retirement papers today affective today. We wish him well; we thank him for his service to Braidwood and wish him well on his retirement.
Administrator Report None
City Clerk Report I just have a couple reminders. The Braidwood Lions will be having their candy day this weekend on October 13. Again, I wanted to bring up about the Food Pantry teaming up with the Reed-Custer Middle School to help families in need. The kids will receive give cards so they can purchase presents and this is all funded by donations only. So, if you want to donate, please reach out to the Middle School attention Lucy Fiedl or if you are interested in as a family to take part in this program, there are papers to fill out either at the Food Pantry or here at City Hall. The Food Pantry is open on Tuesday from 8-12 and you do need to return that form to the middle school by November 1, 2023.
Engineer Report:
Chief of Police:
City Attorney Report:
Accounts & Finance Report: Commissioner Money made a motion, seconded by Commissioner Wietting, to approve the Payment of Bills, in the amount of $188,523.15 as identified in the Accounts Payable General Ledger dated October 10, 2023. Before voting, Comm. Money wanted to explain that $21,084.65 is a payment to ComED for our well that is out here. They are putting in a new electric pole across the street and they will tunnel underground to run a new electric line. We have been waiting for over a year for this to happen. We still currently tied on to the transformer over here. So, there will be a transformer on this side of the street, electric pole there, and a line underground. The rest of the electrical has been done, we are waiting for that line to be tied in. Motion carried with 5 ayes: 0 nays. (Money, Wietting, Walsh, Mikel, and Hart) Commissioner Money then made a Motion, seconded by Commissioner Walsh, to Approve Payroll Expenses, in the amount of $100,048.88 as identified in the Payroll General Ledger dated September 29, 2023 and October 02, 2023. Before voting Comm. Money would like to explain that the normal Payroll is $93,402.19 there is a $6,646.69 payment to bring the Sergeant's pay up since we just passed their contract that's retroactive from May 1st. So, this covers from May 1st to this pay period. Motion carried with 5 ayes; 0 nays. (Money, Wietting, Walsh, Mikel, and Hart).
Streets & Public Improvement Report: We now have a City of Braidwood Honorary Street Sign application, policy and application. There has never been one, with the help of our attorney, it's three pages. The application is available online and at city hall. If any one has any questions they can email me, I will be glad to respond.
Public Property Report:
Public Health & Safety Report: I have a few things; I just want to say thanks to Chief Lyons for all he has done for the community and surrounding areas. Josh Bolatto, do you want to come up?
Josh Bolatto: Thank you very much council. What we want to do tonight is give a presentation on our Community Notification System roll out. Tonight is our kick off, it went live today. So, we want to give everyone an idea of what it is, what it's going to be used for, how to sign up for it, and where we go from here. The Intergovernmental Agreement was established between the City of Braidwood and the Will County ETSB basically for a buy-in to they system. The county is the administrator of the system and the communities that buy into it are the buy in agencies. This allows us to take advantage of a very expensive system at the fraction of that cost. It will cost the city $750.00 a year for a system that is about $20,000 plus. This is a huge benefit for us. Thank you to the Will County EMA with their assistance with this because it helps us to get the system up and running. They did a lot of the technical side of things which helped us out a lot. We will post the slides on the ESDA Facebook page tonight. Registration and publication kick off is what we are doing tonight. We have flyers with the QR code to hep sign up, there will be an article in the newspaper, and we will have this on social media as well. We will be out at PR events and the next one coming up is October 22 at the open house at the Braidwood Fire Station. We will have a preparedness booth open there along with all the information for registration. We will also have a couple laptops set up that people can sign up right then and there. We are doing a targeted campaign to those who do not have access to computers or smartphones. You can still sign up if you don't have an email or a smartphone. You can receive phone calls on a landline, cell phone, or a text message. We will be going to senior citizen groups, later this month we will be going to the senior housing here in town. We will show them what it is and how to sign up for it. Fossil Ridge Library has agreed to allow residents to come to the library and utilize the public computers for registration as well. We have flyers and also a link on the City of Braidwood's home page where it says sign up for community notifications it also has the instructions for signing up. By enrolling in this system, you will be able to stay connected receiving up to the minute emergency alerts from local officials. The non-emergency side is what we never had access to before, which will include anything from notices from public safety non-emergency messages: Examples are street closures and delayed garbage pick-up dates. This system is not being used for any type of weather notifications. This is an opt-in service; what this means is that you need to go to the website and enroll into it. All listed phone number are automatically imported by Everbridge for emergency notifications only. You have to opt-in to receive those non-emergency and local notifications. When you enroll you add your contact and location information and all the information is confidential, they do not sell to a third party. You can opt-out but we highly not discourage that. If you change numbers or emails you need to log in and update information. We have paper registration forms here at City Hall if you do not have a computer or a smartphone. When you put locations in, they will need to be in Will County, you can add up to five locations. You can still register for this if you live outside of Will County, you just need to make sure your notifications are for a location within Will County. There are multiple choices of alerts types you wish to receive. Our goal it to balance out the notifications, we want alerts to go out, but we don't want to overuse the system and become a nuisance. In the emails we can add a bit more detail or add attachments if needed, such as parade routes or a picture of a missing person. We have business cards being made up and we will be handing those out at any type of events or hand out to who is interested in signing up. If anyone has any questions, they can send a direct message to our page.
Planning & Zoning Report: Our next meeting will be November 6 at 7:00pm
Old Business
New Business:
Executive Session: Commissioner Walsh made a motion, seconded by Commissioner Mikel to go executive session at 7:32 p.m.to discuss (i) the appointment, employment, compensation, discipline, performance, or dismissal of specific employees (5ILSC 120/2 (c) (1)) and (ii) pending, probable, or imminent litigation against, affecting, or on behalf of the City (5ILCS 120/2 (c) (11)) at 7:20 p.m. Motion carried with 5 ayes: 0 nays. (Money, Wietting, Walsh, Mikel, and Hart)
Commissioner Walsh made a motion, seconded by Commissioner Wietting to close executive session at 8:07 p.m. Motion carried with 5 ayes: 0 nays. (Money, Wietting, Walsh, Mikel, and Hart).
Adjournment: Commissioner Wietting made a motion, seconded by Commissioner Walsh, to adjourn the October 10, 2023 regular meeting of the Braidwood City Council. Motion carried with 5 ayes: 0 nays. (Money, Wietting, Walsh, Mikel, and Hart) The next regular meeting of the Council will be held Tuesday, October 24, 2023 at 7:00pm
https://www.braidwood.us/_files/ugd/4cd10a_6315f2d9cefc4cbd87e49f201408dbec.pdf
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