East Central Reporter

City of Chrisman City Council met May 16.

Here are the minutes provided by the council:

PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE

ROLL CALL

MINUTES:

Chaney Moved And Stratton Seconded That Council Approves Minutes From May 2nd, 2022. Voting Aye On The Matter Were 3 Members. Voting Nay None. Motion Carried.

CLAIMS:

Chaney Moved And Haddix Seconded That The Council Approves The Claims In The Amount Of $45,217.23 Voting Aye On The Matter Were All Members Present. Voting Nay None. Motion Carried.

BUILDING PERMIT AT 404 W MADISON:

Chaney Moved And Crispin Seconded That Council Approves The Building Permit At 404 W Madison. Voting Aye On The Matter Were All Members Present. Voting Nay None. Motion Carried.

BUILDING PERMIT AT 605 S ILLINOIS:

Chaney Moved And Crispin Seconded That Council Approves The Building Permit At 605 S Illinois. Voting Aye On The Matter Were All Members Present. Voting Nay None. Motion Carried.

DEMOLITION PERMIT AT 323 S IOWA:

Chaney Moved And Crispin Seconded That Council Approves The Building Permit At 323 S Iowa. Voting Aye On The Matter Were All Members Present. Voting Nay None. Motion Carried.

PURCHASE OF LOCATOR:

Stratton Moved And Haddix Seconded That Council Approves The Purchase Of Locator. Voting Aye On The Matter Were All Members Present. Voting Nay None. Motion Carried.

RELISTING THE PROPERTY:

Haddix Moved And Chaney Seconded That Council Approves The Relisting Of The Property At 221 S Illinois For $2500 Starting Bid. Voting Aye On The Matter Were All Members Present. Voting Nay None. Motion Carried.

PACE LAB:

Stratton Moved And Haddix Seconded That Council Approves Using Pace For Lab Tests. Voting Aye On The Matter Were All Members Present. Voting Nay None. Motion Carried.

DISCUSSION:

Ambulance Department:

Neal- Sidewalk? Crispin- I am waiting to hear back from my engineers, if we can get started. I’m doing stuff with MFT for my sidewalks, I set up my budget for it. I emailed them today, and haven’t gotten any word back.

Erik Bohle:

At some point in the final stretch of paying off the main water line, I’d like for the board to consider turning that over to Paris in some form or fashion, not necessarily trading money. See what we have invested in it versus the cost of water average for however many months and possibly approach them to see if we can turn it over to them. Maybe just as an even trade for the cost of water other than that, I think it will probably have to wait until we own in. Haddix- In doing that would you want to move the meter? Bohle- We could leave the meter where it is, I say that because there is also a meter in the new building. Paris reads the one down at malfunction junction, but we do have a way to read what actually comes in before the tower. They bill us off the one at malfunction. Haddix- We have 6 miles in between there, as you know from this week, we can have a pretty serious leak. We did have a pretty bad leak across from Franklin cemetery, which is 6 miles down there. Crispin- We have already had a leak on the new line? Haddix- Yeah, the main line is some type of PVC and it have a PVC elbow coming out of it, and then every so often they have a vent that they can open to let the air out. One of the brass fittings between the bottom of the vent and the main, the water pressure just ate through it. Chaney- Is that covered under any type of warranty with B&T? Haddix- There is, but only for a year. Crispin- That’s crazy that that has already happened. Haddix- Tom Boyer told us that this is not the first fitting that he has had trouble with, He has replaced like 3 or 4 of them already. Stratton- I just want to throw in the material cost if we have to fix something like this. Bohle- There are about 20 of those between our meter and the water tower. Crispin- He didn’t replace it with the same fitting. Bohle-It’s the same thing, but from a different vender. Chaney- We have been looking at the cost analysis of that line anyways. We have a history built now of a few months. Haddix- We are so short on help right now, about 300 auto meters that where already installed before Erik took over the water department, and I’m going to guess 285 of them haven’t had the lid off of them since they have been installed. We are going to have to get somebody to get out and take the lid off of every one of them and take out the installation to make sure they are not leaking. Chaney- Brice and I talked about that last week, maybe once a quarter they need to walk them and pull the lids off and check them. Haddix- I went out the nursing home with Erik, and they have not installed the new meter that we bought for them. We can’t tell if it is on their side or ours.

Backhoe:

Stratton- Just the numbers we came up with last time, $6,000- $7,000 to fix it and $14,000-$16,000 for a trade in. Bohle They were going to give us $15,000 for ours then we would still owe $100,000 and that is for the base model backhoe. The last I talked to the guy, he was going to try and find a used machine, and he basically said he would keep his eye out but there is typically a waiting list. He was about 6 months out if we were to order one. The $6,200 for repairs was fixing the 3 cylinders that are leaking and the 3 tires. Stratton- Was that with us fixing it? Bohle- No, that was with us taking it to them, Terre Haute is the closest John Deere Construction. Crispin- Have we checked with any other municipalities to see if they are going to upgrade, maybe they would be interested in selling. We bought this one used off of Ridge Farm. Haddix- This might be a good time to look into a good midsized on rubber tracks. We can drive it down the street on rubber tracks, we could have used one on a lot of the things we work on. Bohle- It would be very handy on the water main leaks.

Water and Sewer Adjustments:

Haddix- We have never really made any decision; I think I had mentioned that I would be in favor of not giving the yearly adjustment on the filling of swimming pools. I’m not in favor of any adjustments since we are losing money. Chaney- I am in favor of that. Haddix- I move we don’t give water adjustments for filling swimming pools as long as we are running at a deficit for the water department. Perryman- Last summer we just adjusted the sewer not the water. Crispin- I thought we gave meters out to hook on, so they only get charged the water. Haddix- I know Rodney was adjusting the water.

Neighborhood Watch:

Haddix- I talked to Mayor Owen and he suggested that we table that for another meeting. I think he wanted to be involved and he knew he wasn’t going to be here tonight.

IEPA Participation Letter:

Perryman- We discussed this last week, and now we have received a letter for Pace as well. Chaney- This is about whether we want them to do it, or we can keep going to the same lab. Haddix- Is there any that are closer than the one we are using? Bohle- I don’t know, I know PDC was always the reliable one to get our results back in the allotted time. Haddix- With the carrier service, we have had problems getting our stuff to them, and I only see it getting worse. Bohle Their curriers are not their employees, they are subcontractors. Crispin- What was the problem with scheduling a pickup with UPS? Bohle- They were not making it in time. The sample was expiring before it would make it to the lab.

Locator:

Stratton- I have a quote from the only company that sells here in Illinois. Its $5,561 and that is for the locator, the batteries, everything you will need. We do get a 10% discount when we send our old one in, so the price will go down. We just need to get him a tax-exempt form. It will be here either Friday or Monday. Haddix- Lets here the pros and cons of the new locator. Stratton- The pros are that you will be able to locator the water main for a longer distance and not have to worry about the hook ups. You can hook up in one spot and locate almost that whole line. It’s very simple, power on, and hookup- unhook. Chaney- It sounds like we need it, I know Erik spends a lot of time out their doing locates. Stratton- It would save us a lot of time. Erik- A couple weeks ago, I had to probe the line and it took a little over an hour.

Handicap Requirements for Pavilion:

Haddix- I’ve had a couple people ask me about getting concrete pored for ADA compliance to the restrooms. Crispin- I’m waiting for plumbing to get done, I don’t want to poor concrete and then for some reason they have to take it up. I talked to Gore today, but he said it’s a rainy-day project. He’s waiting on the weather.

Street Position:

Crispin- I have only had one applicant, and he was a pretty far distance away. I’m wanted to see if we can get more. There was a mix up with the paper, but I think we have gotten that resolved. Stratton- How far of a distance radius do you want the person to be? Crispin- I don’t really have a set one. Of course, I would like to see someone from Chrisman but this one is about 30miles. Haddix- With the anticipated fuel prices, you would think that more people would try to get closer to home.

Commissioner Crispin

I’m waiting to hear on my MFT engineer, so we can get started on getting quotes to get things started. Haddix- Have you been down behind Humrichous’s since we dug down there the other day. Until the water level drops, there is not much we can do. But we have barricaded it.

Commissioner Haddix

Mayor Owen had us send out about 7 letters, there has been some completed clean ups and a few demo permits have been turned in on the issues. I got the little John Deere with the bush hog, and went out and cleaned up the dump. Chaney- What happened with the property that was coming up for taxes? Perryman- We did get lien on the property on Jackson. I tried to send a copy of the lien to the current owners, it’s like the fifth one I have sent them, they didn’t sign for and it comes right back.

Commissioner Stratton:

We have 103 meters that still need to be replaced, we got a quote from Schulte, it would cost us about $7,300 to get them replaced. If we were to do it ourselves, it would take 28 days of Erik doing 5- 8 of them a day and nothing else. They said they can get 100 done in a day and a half. Haddix- That also includes them programming and starting the meters also, doesn’t it? Stratton- Yes. I’ve also had a couple people ask me about the lights at the park, around the baseball diamond. Crispin- I don’t even know who to contact to get those taken down anymore. Stratton- 3 Phase would be one company, they subcontract for Ameren, but they do work like that as well. Haddix- If Lewsaider can reach high enough to take the bulbs out, I wouldn’t be opposed to him topping the poles. Stratton- The only thing the score board needs is a plug in.

Commissioner Chaney:

After the last meeting Kaylen got ahold of Michelle at Fehr-Graham to take Matt up on their free service. They sent back a letter with probably 6 or 7 grants on their but only one that we actually qualified for. We would have to do a community income survey. I talked to Mayor Owen about that, and it will be a lot of work and we may not even quality for the minimum. We will keep searching, so we didn’t send the $3500 with the other service.

ADJOURNMENT:

Haddix Moved And Chaney Seconded For Adjournment At 8:08 P.M. Voting Aye On The Matter Were All Members Present. Voting Nay None. Motion Carried.

http://cityofchrisman.com/docs/2022/May16minutes.pdf