Carbondale Reporter

City of Genoa City Council met March 1.

Here are the minutes provided by the council:

Mayor Brust called the meeting of the City Council to order at 7:01 p.m. Pro Temp City Clerk Tures called roll call. Aldermen Wesner, Pulley, Freund, Stage, Winter and Holcomb were present. City Clerk Braheny, Alderman Cravatta and Hughes were absent. Quorum present.

Mayor Brust led the Pledge of Allegiance.

Guest Speakers –Kim McIver, Habitat for Humanity: Executive Director DeKalb County-Vision Home Ownership, Home preservation program. Genoa is an area that Kim would really like to build a partnership with. This program would help low-income owners as well as senior citizens with repairs and code violations within the community. Every November Habitat hosts a home ownership class. Their 17th home will be breaking ground in Kingston this year. This will be the second home in Kingston that they have built. 87% of habitat homes are built by volunteers the other 13% is built by trades HVAC, Plumbing, Electrical and Roofing. Habitat is not a give away program they sell all the homes at a fair market value with a 0% interest. The money that is paid for the homes is pooled together to pay for the next home to be built. Volunteer information is being left with the council members. This year is the Habitat’s 25th year. They are looking to complete 5 repairs with a cap of $5,000 per repair, families will pay 25% up to $1000 per repair which makes it cost effective. Repairs done in the home would be done with a contractor not a volunteer. An ADA ramp would be an outside repair, they are looking to keep people in their homes as long as possible. They are passionate about code violations to reduce penalties with the habitat helping and working with the cities. Looking to get donations either through grants or people donating to help others. There is an application process. They would have 6 months to pay off the repairs. Alderman Winter asked about how long it takes to complete projects for the home preservation program? Kim states it depends on what the project is could take a couple of days or 1 day. They like to have 6-8 volunteers out on the site to get projects done quickly for the homeowners. Alderman Stage asked if there is a minimum age requirement? Kim stated there is 16–17-year olds can climb on ladders per OSHA safety standard. 14–15-year-olds can help with painting, ground work etc. but no ladder work with adult chaperone. Alderman Freund asked how they choose which family gets their home built? Kim stated that they have standards that have to be met, just as anyone who applies for a loan. They have to have a credit score of 550 or better, they have to have a debt to income ratio of at least 40% and they have to have the willingness to partner with Habitat for Humanity. They also have to complete 250 sweat equity hours into their home before it will be sold to them. They have a whole host of grading system.

Motion made by Alderman Pulley to approve payment of the account’s payables for February 28, 2023, seconded by Alderman Stage. Alderman Freund asked about line item 10 in regards to the salt? Janice Melton stated that we just got the requisition now and that we have to guess on what we will need for next year. Roll call vote was taken. Aldermen Wesner, Pulley, Freund, Stage, Winter and Holcomb voted yes. Motion carried.

Alderman Cravatta arrived at 7:17pm

ITEMS FROM INDIVIDUALS IN ATTENDANCE – None

OLD BUSINESS - None

FUTURE ITEMS FOR DISCUSSION: None

NEW BUSINESS:

APPROVE AN ORDINANCE ADOPTING THE ZONING MAP OF THE CITY OF GENOA: Motion made by Alderman Stage to approve an ordinance adopting the zoning map of the City of Genoa, seconded by Alderman Wesner. The City of Genoa is required to annually update its zoning map. Staff worked with the DeKalb County GIS Coordinator to updated the City of Genoa’s Zoning Map based on zoning action taken in 2022 by the City Council. The Ordinance in the packet approves the new official Zoning Map of the City of Genoa. No further discussion. Roll call vote was taken. Aldermen Wesner, Pulley, Freund, Stage, Winter, Cravatta and Holcomb voted yes. Motion passed.

APPROVE A REVOLVING LOAN WITH MALCOUR DEVELOPMENT, LLC NOT TO EXCEED $60,000: Motion made by Alderman Wesner to approve a revolving loan with Malcour Development, LLC not to exceed $60,000, seconded by Alderman Stage. Malcour Development, LLC will be expanding its business by building an additional building at 406 S Center Drive. The new building will allow for additional storage and office space, allowing the business to add an estimated 5 employees. Alderman Cravatta stated that he noticed he is putting up a truck and equipment as collateral; Seguss stated that the owner stated it was a $60,000 truck. Alderman Stage stated it looks like a great expansion. Seguss also stated that Malcour has participated in the revolving loan program before and has successfully paid it off as well as another loan between his older building and this building. Alderman Stage asked if this is included in the zoning of our downtown. Mayor Brust stated that at this point we have not expanded on the boundaries of the program. Seguss stated that downtown façade program and the revolving loan have the same boundaries but they are different programs. Mayor Brust stated that we should look into expanding the boundaries. Roll call vote was taken. Aldermen Wesner, Pulley, Freund, Stage, Winter, Cravatta and Holcomb voted yes. Motion passed.

CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PLAN PRESENTATION AND DISCUSSION: City Administrator Seguss gave presentation on the Capital Improvement Plan to the council. Alderman Cravatta expressed concern that is this the right time to do this improvement plan with the waste water treatment plan needing expansion with the cost of everything? Seguss stated that she understands Alderman Cravatta’s concern however these are different funds to support the different projects. Alderman Cravatta stated that this was a great presentation and the expansion in the downtown area will be great.

DEPARTMENT REPORTS

Finance Report – Treasurer & Finance Director, Jan Tures stated that final numbers on the budget are being completed, next meeting there will be a presentation on the budget and voting will be done in April.

Public Works – Public Works Director, Janice Melton stated that they have been busy cleaning up with the weather. Couple of trees will need to come down because of the ice storm. Water department has 80 meters that are not reading or not working; public works has 25 that have been changed out. Alderman Stage asked if public works helps homeowners who have trees across the sidewalk or in their yards remove the trees? Janice stated that if it’s a city tree public works takes care of all of it; if it’s a personal tree the homeowner needs to take care of it. With the storm however public works was out on Monday and Tuesday chipping any limbs that were left at the curbs of residents. Alderman Pulley stated that he has had a lot of compliments on how public works helped residents.

Police Department – Chief Smith stated that they had a lot of reports of wires down, if it was a ComEd wire they were notified and had to come out and move the wire. The department has been busy looking for a missing person from over the weekend. The person’s car, wallet, keys and phone were all in the home. They completed a ground search yesterday with about 50 volunteers and drones. They were assisted with the fire department and the conservation with a boat. Salvation Army fed all the volunteers. They are coordination with DuPage County to get blood hounds out tomorrow to track. If worse case they will bring out cadaver dogs when water goes down as the water is too high right now and the water is too cold right now as well. Alderman Cravatta asked if there will be another coordinated search? Chief Smith stated that as of right now they had 50 people initially with drones, they are going to wait and see what come out with the blood hounds and drones again. The department currently has an officer who is out with an injury and will be out till about August. Another office is out on shorter term and will hopefully be back next week. Chief Smith stated that on Monday there was what to believe a suicide.

Administrative Report – City Administrator, Alyssa Seguss stated that we are very close with presenting to the public with the downtown revitalization project. We have some designs from an architect and we hired a local marketing to put together some fliers that will share on social media and a survey for residents to fill out and share their feedback, we are only going to accept the feedback through the google form as any other way is really hard to keep track. This will be open for a couple of weeks and then they will sit down with the downtown committee, elected officials and staff and go through everything and finalizing it. We have two incoming façade grants are being finalized and will come to the council soon. The strategic plan focus group met on Monday which had about 50 people that broke into residents, staff, businesses and governmental civic groups. They wrote things down on big community boards and shared feedback for community direction and things that will feed into the comprehensive plan and strategic plan. The next step with the comprehensive plan is collecting the resident survey data. This is being promoted on the city website, social media, the library is hanging it up as well with paper surveys and hoping to push it out through the school somehow but that is not yet complete.

Committee, Boards and Commission Reports (WTC, EDC, PC, PC, PP, TB, DBC AND FAC) – Economic Development Committee- Moved forward with marking and social media will see some posts upcoming. They are talking at the next meeting a revamp of their EDC page and how they can organize information to make it interesting and appealing to people who visit the site.

Planning Commission- None

Police & Fire Commission- None

Tree Board- Katie Lange is getting the information together and the council should see the resumes probably around April

Finance Committee- Will be meeting in two weeks

Mayor’s Report – Mayor Brust stated that he has nothing new to report at this time

ANNOUNCEMENTS – Expo this Saturday at the High School

Motion to adjourn the meeting of the City Council was made by Alderman Wesner, seconded by Alderman Pulley. Voice vote was taken. All voted yes. Motion carried. Meeting was adjourned at 8:18 p.m.

https://www.genoa-il.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Meeting-Minutes-03012023.pdf