UPDATED: Way honored at Carlinville Council meeting

 

By ERIN SANSON
Enquirer~Democrat Reporter

The Carlinville City Council met Monday, June 6 for their first monthly meeting. Several items were on the agenda for the evening including honoring a girl scout for her achievement, items of correspondence from members of the Zoning Committee and from Carlinville Police Officers.

Gold Award Proclamation

Abigail Way was honored for achieving the Gold Award in Girl Scouts, the highest honor given in the Girl Scouts Organization. Her community service project was the creation of an indoor mural and a sensory garden at the Carlinville Primary School. Way has been the fourth of her age group to be recognized for achieving the Gold Award this year.

Illinois Alluvial Regional Water Company Update

An update from the Illinois Alluvial Regional Water Company was provided to the board for the IARWC’s May 26 meeting.

Some points in the update were that the IARWC board is still waiting for easement contract language from the engineers. There have been issues between Carlinville and the IARWC board recently due to miscommunications between the two entities. While the attorneys have been trying to come to an agreement, Allen Davenport, the representative for Jersey County Rural Water and President of the Alluvial Board, reminded the Carlinville representatives that if Carlinville cannot or will not contribute its share of the project costs they could become a water purchaser from IARWC instead of being part of the company.

Resignations

Correspondence came from both John Eldred and Marsha Crane resigning from their positions on the Carlinville Planning and Zoning Committee. Their resignations were accepted by the council.

Carlinville Police Officer Brent Fish submitted his letter of resignation from the Carlinville Police Department. Fish worked as a part-time officer for the city.

Carlinville Officer James Krankel also submitted his letter of resignation from the Carlinville Police department. Krankel has been a full-time officer with the department, working there for the past 18 months.

Their resignations were accepted. The Council and Chief Dave Haley wished them the best in their future endeavors.

Other Business

The ordinance, rezoning the properties at 512 and 516 W. Second South St., was passed unanimously by the council. The properties have been rezoned from residential to neighborhood commercial.

Susan Millard, on behalf of the Rotary Club of Carlinville, sought the permission of the council to hold the annual Ice Cream Social on Friday, July 29 on the Carlinville Square. The request was unanimously approved and placed on file.

May 25 Special Meeting

Several citizens were in attendance at the June 6 council meeting who worried about the council holding a special meeting on May 25. Those citizens complained that there was no notice given of the meeting, effectively creating a “secret meeting” to discuss issues between the City of Carlinville and the IAWRC.

The special meeting was not discussed at the regularly scheduled meeting, except to accept the minutes. Minutes of the May 25 meeting were provided in the agenda packet for the June 6 meeting.

As it was a special meeting, public notice of the meeting had to be posted 48-hours in advance. According to the Illinois State Open Meetings Act 120/2.02 (b), “Public notice shall be given by posting a copy of the notice at the principal office of the body holding the meeting or, if no such office exists, at the building in which the meeting is to be held. In addition, a public body that has a website that the full-time staff of the public body maintains shall post notice on its website of all meetings of the governing body of the public body.”

Subsection b concludes by saying that, “The failure of a public body to post on its website notice of any meeting or the agenda of any meeting shall not invalidate any meeting or any actions taken at a meeting.”

According to the minutes provided from the May 25 meeting two items were discussed. The council first discussed the city’s relationship with the Illinois Alluvial Regional Water Company. As the project has progressed the cost has increased. According to minutes from the April 21 Alluvial Board meeting there has been miscommunication between the parties about the expectations for who would be covering a variety of expenditures.

Carlinville and Bunker Hill were apparently under the impression they would be purchasing the land for the well sites and the plant sites and then transfer the property to Alluvial’s name at the time of closing. Other members at the meting said that a discussion featuring that topic had taken place but was no longer on the table.

There has also been an issue with paying the engineering fees, with some board members thinking the municipalities would be paying for all engineering fees equally, and some believing that each municipality would pay for the fees in their geographic area. There was no conclusion at the IARWC meeting, as Carlinville city attorney Don Craven needed to have some questions answered by the city council about what they would and would not be willing to pay for.

At the special meeting the councils’ discussion on the matter ended with the decision to have Craven send a letter to the Alluvial Regional Water Company spelling out the conditions Carlinville would like to see as the project moved forward.

The other item discussed at the special meeting was in regards to the City’s relationship with the Park Board. The Park District the City have been in a contract since 1992, stating that the Park District will receive water free of charge. Craven recently informed the council that the contract was “not valid, due to the perpetual ending date.”

The Park District had also recently had a leak and in the 12 days prior to the meeting had used 62,000 gallons of water. The Park District felt that the city should be responsible for repairing the leak.

According to the minutes, “discussion took place” over the issue. Alderman Bill Link made a motion to begin billing the Carlinville Park District for water and sewer, and move forward with processes as all other water customers. The motion was seconded by McClain and passed unanimously.

CLARIFICATION

Published June 16, 2022 in the MCED:

In a June 9 article, regarding the June 6 Carlinville City Council meeting, it was noted that several members of the community were concerned that no notice had been given to alert the public of a May 25 special meeting.

To clarify the statements made in the article: The Carlinville City Council did give notice of the special meeting.

As per the Illinois Open Meetings Act, notice of a special meeting is to be posted within 48 hours of the meeting and is to be posted at the principle location of the body holding the meeting or at the meeting location, in this case City Hall. Both of those requirements were met by the City of Carlinville.

The agenda for the meeting was also posted on the City of Carlinville website. The meeting minutes were provided at the June 6 regularly scheduled meeting.

We apologize for the confusion caused by the previous article.