Village of Bishop Hill
County of Henry
State of Illinois
September 4th, 2024
The regular meeting of the Bishop Hill Village Board was held at the Municipal Bldg. The meeting was called to order by Mayor Mike Funke at 6:00 p.m.
ROLL CALL; Mike Funke, Patrick Light, Ben Strand, Jim Nolan, Amanda Laub , Sharon Wexell & Terri Wigant were all present. Lisa Nordstrom & Mike Keup were absent.
MINUTES; Wexell noticed a couple of mistakes in the minutes. Laub motioned to accept the August minutes after the corrections were made, seconded by Nolan. Voice vote, motion carried. Wexell said we need the minutes to be correct because she is starting this month posting them on the new Village webpage, domain name listed as bishophillil.gov
TREASURER’S REPORT; Light motioned to accept the Treasurer’s Report, seconded by Laub. Voice vote, motion carried.
PAY BILLS; Wexell pointed out that on the Ameren bill for the City Well, it should have said down 119.08, not up. Laub motioned to pay the bills, seconded by Nolan. Voice vote, motion carried.
OLD BUSINESS;
Mike Funke talked to Shaun at Canvus, the company that makes items out of wind turbine blades, Funke told him the Village declined the donated items, they are too modern looking. Shaun told him they were already done for the Village and they were going to be dropped off at the Municipal Bldg. Shaun did say, if the Village Board did decide to put one somewhere in Bishop Hill, he would still pour the cement pad and place the item. Light said he talked to Jeff Olson, from Galva, he said the City of Galva would probably take them. Wigant said a few of the items will be painted to match the Swedish heritage of Bishop Hill, so they would look fine in Galva since they are of Swedish heritage.
Darren Frank finished the sidewalk on East Main St., corner of S. Bishop Hill St. to Erickson St. Todd DeDecker from the Heritage Association emailed the Village saying that the end of their brick sidewalk going to their back door is now a little lower than the new sidewalk, he wanted to know who was responsible to adjust the edge of the sidewalk. Funke emailed back and said the Heritage is responsible to adjust the height of the bricks. Nolan said that the flagstones along the Steeple Bldg. had to be pulled up to pour the new sidewalk, but when Frank replaced the stones, he didn’t put pea gravel back in around the flagstones. Funke said he would ask Frank to replace the gravel, Funke also asked his father to put fill dirt along the high edges of the new sidewalk. Darren Frank said he would call Jeremy and Nicole Nelson, the owners of the Colony Inn, before he started the new sidewalk there.
At the last meeting Cameron Meyer/Josh Curry had a bid to put in a new water main on East Main St. from Erickson St. to 525 East Main St., the last house in the Village limits. Funke said he talked to Dalton Whittington, Village Certified Water Operator, he said the Village will have to get a permit from the IEPA and Meyer would have to be bonded. Whittington also said that the water main needs to have a dead end. Funke said Whittington explained about a nitrification pocket that could form in the pipe. If a pocket did happen it would naturally move towards the dead end, at that time, it would be easy to blow it out the end. Funke said he didn’t know how long it would take to get a permit to do the job and Meyer will be harvesting the fields soon, so he would not be available to put it the new main this fall. Funke suggested to apply for the permit and get Meyer bonded over the winter and lay the new main in the spring. Funke said we do have to replace that flush hydrant now at the end of E Main St., it is broken. Strand suggested getting a fire hydrant, instead of a flush hydrant, adapting it down to the current 4” pipe, then when we put in the new 6” water main in the spring it would be ready to be connected. Light motioned to get a new hydrant, seconded by Nolan. Voice vote, motion passed. Wexell asked what size are the pipes going into the houses. Strand and Funke said anywhere from ¾” to 1”, possibly even ½” pipes.
Wexell said she sent a letter to V&K Engineering on 8/9/2024 asking for a reduction on the bill because of all the mistakes they made and she had to tell them twice to correct them and they also sent the Source Water Plan to the IEPA before they made the corrections. V&K did send the corrected plan, then the IEPA needed to have a waiver signed. Wexell was concerned that the Village could get cited in the future for having so many mistakes on the original document. Wexell said she had not heard any feedback from them on reducing the charge, so she called on 9/3/2024, the person she talked to knew nothing about the adjustment request, but she would find out who was taking care of the situation. Wexell said she hadn’t paid the bill; she is waiting for an answer from V&K.
At a previous meeting Jim Nolan, the Village Zoning Officer, had brought a paper with a list of changes that the Historic Review Board wanted to make to the Zoning Ordinance, the Review Board cannot change the ordinance. The change would make certain things easier for the Zoning Officer, the Review Board and the residents. After looking at the old ordinance, dating back to 1968 and an amendment that was made in 1982, Wexell stated that it would be more comprehensive if the ordinance was all updated. Wexell retyped the whole ordinance and gave the draft to Nolan to present to the Historical Review Board to read and suggest any changes or additions. Nolan said the Historical Review Board was happy with the draft. Wexell said there were a couple of items that were obsolete, so she would omit them and bring the ordinance to the October Village board meeting to be voted on. Wigant asked about the Zoning map, Wexell said it was included in the ordinance. Nolan said yes it is , but it doesn’t show what roads have been closed and who owns them. Wigant said the Board still needs to change the Signage Ordinance.
To recap the August meeting, the Trustees discussed raises for Board members, Wexell stated the last raise was 5 years ago, the raises would not take affect until after the 2025 election. The Trustees agreed to raise the pay for each meeting to $75, for a yearly wage of $900, this includes 2 missed meetings with no penalty. Light motioned to pay annually, Trustees $900 & Mayor and Clerk $3,000 seconded by Keup. Voice vote, motion carried. The Trustees also decided to raise the Zoning Officer wage. Nordstrom motioned to pay $500 annually to the Zoning Officer, seconded by Keup. Voice vote, motion carried. That position is appointed, so the Board started the pay retroactive from May 1st, 2024, the start of the Village’s fiscal year. The Treasurer, which is also appointed, had received a raise May 1st 2024, the pay is now $6,000 annually. Strand motioned to pass Ordinance 2024-02 for raises, seconded by Nolan. Voice vote, motion carried.
On the July 29th, 2024 meeting with IDOT members pertaining to the ADA sidewalk ramps and resurfacing the aprons/parking lanes on Bishop Hill Street, the members said at the Village’s September meeting the Board needed to vote if they agreed to pay 50% of the cost for resurfacing both sides of the parking lanes from Knox St. to Maiden Lane. Also, IDOT would install the ADA ramps on River St. and Bergland St. intersections if the Board would pay the entire cost. The ramps were already in the IDOT engineering plans, but are not in the IDOT area, so there would be no engineering fee for the Village. Funke asked if the Trustees wanted to pay the 50% for the parking lanes, and pay the entire cost for the ADA sidewalk ramps on the county side. The Trustees said they would like to have the work done, but it is hard to make that decision when they didn’t know what the cost would be. Wexell said that IDOT wasn’t planning to start the work until 2028, so she had time to get help from Bi-State Metropolitan to get a grant, also IDOT gave a name of an IDOT member to call and see if he could help with a grant through the State. Nolan made a motion to pay 50% of the parking lanes, seconded by Strand. Voice vote, motion carried. Laub made a motion to pay the total cost of the ADA ramps on River St and Bergland St. without an engineering fee, seconded by Light. Voice vote, motion carried. Wigant said IDOT also needed a copy of the September minutes, a formal letter from the Board stating the agreements, and a picture of the new sidewalk on East Main St. along with the color combination of concrete dye used on the sidewalk.
Funke asked Strand what he wanted to do on the parking lanes now, since it will probably be several years before IDOT fixes them. Strand said they are in bad shape, he was going to do patching, oil and chip, but at the last minute the township gave the tank of oil Strand ordered to the wind tower company. Strand said he would see what the county can do for us and how much it would cost.
NEW BUSINESS;
Wigant said she had a complaint of several people in the middle of the night going through the garbage dumpsters. They were talking and making a lot of noise and using flashlights, they didn’t seem to worry that anyone would hear them. Wigant asked about putting up cameras, she said we have talked about it several times. Wexell said the board passed a motion in 2015 to accept a bid for 4 cameras installed for $1,358 from OnGuard Security company, but job didn’t get accomplished. Light said cameras are less expensive now, but we don’t have Wi-fi, he volunteered to investigate options. The Board said Light would have a spending cap of $1,358.
Funke said we would have to get a sign stating that people were under surveillance.
Wigant said she had not received an estimate from the father & son carpenters from Lafayette about taking out the old air conditioner, patching the wall, and building a new little dog house over well 1. Allan Brothers, plumbers have not cleaned the mini-split or checked the furnace chimney. Wigant said if there was a hose hook-up at the building she could clean the outside unit. Funke said there was a garden hose hook-up in the Municipal Bldg. he would show her where it was after the meeting. Wigant said Jack Hawkins, a previous Water Superintendent, quite a few years ago was up on the old water tower and could see that the Municipal roof was in need of paint. Funke said he would find out who could paint the roof. (this section about the Municipal Bldg. should have been under old business on the agenda).
There was no further business, Strand motioned to adjourn, seconded by Light. Voice vote, motion carried.
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