[0:00] would you please stand for the plge of

[0:03] allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic

[0:09] for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for

[0:20] all Madam Clark If I could please have a roll call sure superviser Alex zapen

[0:25] here trustey Dean melli here trustee Greg bcas here truste Karen Johnson

[0:30] absent trustee Denise salino here Highway commissioner Jim Louch here

[0:35] collector Jessica caned here attorney Gary Mueller

[0:39] absent thank you so the first agenda we have to go over tonight is Rod and

[0:44] Bridge uh the first topic is regarding the approval of minutes for the monthly

[0:48] meeting of December 12 2023 I will need a motion to approve the minutes I'll

[0:52] make that motion I have a motion by Den salino second second by Greg vickas any

[0:57] questions on the minutes hearing none all those in favor

[1:01] I I all those opposed motion

[1:05] carries uh next topic we have is the approval of the bills in the amount of

[1:11] $768 7542 I will need a motion to pay the

[1:16] bills I'll make that motion I have a motion by Denise

[1:20] salino I'll second that motion I have a second by Dean morali any questions on

[1:24] the bills hearing none Madame clerk I please

[1:29] have a roll call saan yes barelli yes Fus yes Cino yes all right moving on do

[1:36] we have any citizens wishing to address the board

[1:45] tonight all right well hearing none we'll move on to the highway

[1:48] commissioner's report commissioner L the floor is

[1:51] yours thank you Mr supervisor uh not much report other than putting together

[1:57] our 2024 Road surface Improvement list and if any of the Commissioners had any

[2:05] input certainly get a hold of me if you had any thoughts on certain roads let me

[2:11] know thank you that's all thank you uh I have no other business are there any

[2:17] final comments or questions from the trustees before we join the

[2:21] meeting all right hearing none can I entertain a motion to return the meeting

[2:25] please I'll make that motion I have a motion by Den salino second second by

[2:29] Greg Vick all those in favor I opposed all right Road and Bridge fund meeting

[2:34] is adjourned moving on to the next meeting we have the agenda for the Town

[2:40] Fund the first topic is the approval of minutes for the monthly meeting of

[2:44] December 12 2023 uh we need a motion to approve the

[2:49] minutes I'll make that motion I have a motion by Nate

[2:52] salino a second I have a second by Dean morali any questions on the

[2:57] minutes hearing none all those in favor I all those oppos motion

[3:04] carries next on the list is approval of bills in the amount of

[3:28] $131,400 hearing none Madam clerk I please have a

[3:32] roll call melli yes Zen yes salino yes FAS yes all right motion carries do we

[3:40] have any citizens wishing to address the board tonight in regards to the Town

[3:48] Fund hearing none we'll move on to the clerk's report Madam clerk the FL is

[3:52] yours thank you supervisor I'd like to wish everyone a

[3:56] Happy New Year the 2024 monthly meeting schedule that was approved at her last

[4:02] meeting was published in the Juliet Herald news on December 15th

[4:05] 2023 on December 19 2023 once I received the adjusted tax levy for town I

[4:12] electronically filed both tax levies with the Will County clerk's

[4:16] office I submitted the information to Will County for the statement of

[4:19] economic interest for our filers officials please REM remember to be on

[4:23] the lookout for your email to arrive so you can complete your individual filing

[4:27] due by May 1st 2024 a reminder to everyone that any agenda

[4:33] item requests for the annual town meeting agenda must be submitted to the

[4:37] clerk's office by March 1st 2024 please refer to the power of

[4:41] electors for guidance on all agenda item requests since our last meeting in 15

[4:47] days of working the clerk's office has had over 56 people visit our office for

[4:52] notary services we've also distributed over 29 diaper bundles to those in need

[4:58] Boyer requests have been weekly at at times and I have set our days and hours

[5:02] for early voting for The General primary election additionally there are eight of

[5:06] us attending the Will County Clerk's early voting training classes over the

[5:10] next few weeks we're being introduced to the new modernized election equipment

[5:14] that will be utilized by Will County going forward early voting will take

[5:19] place at the loor township building in the community room starting Monday March

[5:23] 4th 2024 and ending Saturday March 16th 2024 lastly preparations are underway

[5:31] for the fourth annual Community Fund day to be held on Saturday May 18th 2024

[5:36] from 10:00 a.m. to 2: p.m. here at the township building please contact the

[5:41] clerk's office for details on participation and that is all thank you

[5:46] thank you moving on do we have any comments or suggestions from the

[5:52] trustees hearing then we'll move on to the building report so uh I do have two

[5:58] small updates regarding the building report so number one is uh you may

[6:03] recall from a previous meeting but also from the email I sent to the board uh

[6:07] back in November regarding installing a light pole near the entrance of the

[6:11] parking lot here at the township and so quick update there was as expected uh a

[6:17] slight delay due to the weather and holiday season uh but uh we hope to

[6:21] receive a final installation date uh by end of this week and we have a tentative

[6:26] installation date for end of January so it'll still be during

[6:30] uh still be during winter next update is regarding the new

[6:35] garage building uh so I I mentioned this at our last Township meeting in December

[6:41] that I had received a proposal from United Architects and I forwarded that

[6:45] to the board as well I didn't receive any questions or comments from the board

[6:50] uh so I let the architect know that we don't have any changes at this time uh

[6:54] the architect did let me know that we're he's waiting to hear back from the

[6:58] mechanical engineer and those updates should be finalized by end of early next

[7:02] by early next week and that the final step in the process is for the architect

[7:07] to come them to our office and meet with me to go over any final details uh and

[7:12] then we should uh this should likely go out to bid by end of January if not

[7:16] early February so I have no meeting on the books with them yet uh again that'll

[7:20] happen sometime later this month uh if anyone here is interested in joining

[7:25] that meeting with me uh I believe the open meetings act allows just but if

[7:29] there's anyone that would like to join me for that meeting uh please let me

[7:32] know I strongly encourage it U just let me know so we can coordinate

[7:38] schedules moving on to new business uh we have no approvals for tonight but we

[7:43] I do have a few updates so number one I want to remind everyone regarding our

[7:48] budget review meeting that will be on January 22nd at

[7:52] 3M um I would like to make a formal request to the board tonight that if

[7:58] anyone would like to have anyone would like for me to include any

[8:02] considerations uh that we can discuss on the 22nd so for example I know in the

[8:06] past uh or in our current budget we support several organizations for

[8:11] example like the lock Women's Club and we have specific vems in the budget if

[8:15] there's anyone that has ideas that would like to include so we include it in the

[8:19] budget proposal I'm all ears if not we can also discuss it on the

[8:25] 22nd next item on the agenda is the flag design contest so a couple months back

[8:30] we as a board approved a contest from Township residents to design our new

[8:35] Township flag um I am I would like to extend the deadline until next until

[8:41] February uh as the deadline was technically today and I feel like we by

[8:46] by expanding or moving the deadline we'll be able to receive more

[8:49] submissions and then we'll be able to receive you receive more submissions and

[8:53] go them as a board hopefully next month will we sending out like reminders to

[8:57] the schools about the um contest and such yes we are sending

[9:01] reminders to the schools and I think we're going to do another social media

[9:04] push is the deadline please February what date um when when is our next

[9:10] Township meeting February 13th we can do February

[9:18] 13th thank you perfect next item on the agenda is a

[9:25] Township handyman idea so uh a little bit of context is that Soo and I

[9:30] discussed um late last week uh we received feedback from residents and

[9:34] also took inspiration from programs that other government entities have but

[9:38] there's a special service that some other government entities provide where

[9:44] um senior residents uh may require some handyman services in their house for

[9:48] example you know assistance changing a light bulb or unclogging a sink you know

[9:53] making any fixes to their bathroom something that just a minor handyman

[9:58] could do um and so there is we do have it in the

[10:03] budget but we also have the possibility of us creating a similar program so if a

[10:09] resident would need help with some minor fixes they could call the township and

[10:14] then we could have some handyman out call um where we could then schedule an

[10:18] appointment and have that handyman go over to the senior um and then we would

[10:21] pay the handyman out of our pocket we'd likely ask the senior for a small

[10:26] contribution uh just to control the volume um you know we could work with

[10:30] contractors but I think the easiest thing might be just to use our own

[10:33] handyman in house so we do have a full-time maintenance person a parttime

[10:37] A's person we have a little bit of bandwidth but likely we might have to

[10:41] put out a job description for two folks and just say hey can you commit five

[10:45] hours a week or something and then we'll work with everyone's schedules um I want

[10:49] to go up to the board for discussion before we move forward or do any sort of

[10:54] uh take any actions but also want to um toss you trusty Salo if you had anything

[10:59] I reached out to or I have some information from Proviso Township run

[11:03] something similar where they uh the seniors pay $5 per visit there's pretty

[11:09] much a a little sample list of things that they can fix they expect the visits

[11:14] not to last more than 45 minutes to an hour so you're talking your change a

[11:19] shower head change a light bulb curtain rods hang some pictures some kind of

[11:24] simple things that either their family's too far away to come help them or you

[11:29] hear all the time about the poor seniors getting scammed by you know neighborhood

[11:33] people um another thing uh another thought was to also maybe look at some

[11:39] veterans in our area and try and connect some of our veterans who um we know they

[11:44] like to talk to people they have great skill sets and they might be interested

[11:50] in helping or assisting or being those part-time people um that we hire um and

[11:55] then if seniors do have a large program maybe we even have vetted contractor's

[12:00] list where they could feel comfortable reaching out to someone instead of just

[12:05] trying to call someone that they see on Facebook or someone that just shows up

[12:08] at their door um but I think it could be a really um valued service that we can

[12:14] provide to our seniors that's not do we have any

[12:18] thoughts from the board um if you're reaching out to the veterans we could

[12:22] probably I know we had a list of emails when we were when we had the veterans

[12:27] dinner we could probably send an email out to that group of veterans see if we

[12:32] got any any parties that are interested in helping out with the program yeah

[12:37] that's a good

[12:41] idea have you talked to Senior Services about how their service works is are you

[12:47] familiar with that yes and that's actually

[12:52] what we took inspiration from so originally when I discussed with them I

[12:57] thought it was originally thought it was almost like identical to what we

[13:02] discussed uh and when I reached out for partnership and I received a proposal it

[13:07] turns out that the projects they work on are much larger in scale and so the

[13:11] proposal I received is hey for about $770,000 we can help out 20 residents

[13:17] with projects on average of $3,500 and so while that is helpful I

[13:21] feel that we could if we do this in house we could help a lot more residents

[13:25] rather than just 20 right

[13:30] yeah because I I even find with my own Teenage Sons like a lot of neighbors

[13:34] will be like hey can they just you know carry the salt down to the basement and

[13:38] do this you know and change these light buls while they're down there and like

[13:42] you said it's it's a nice minor service that would be available and you've got

[13:46] the list and you can do you know the checks and everybody if they I think

[13:51] it's great yeah they couldn't work out yeah and I think there's some other

[13:56] area I know do paage Township they have aor services that does the same sort of

[14:00] thing so we can definitely and I'm happy to reach out to some of the other areas

[14:04] to kind of find out what their Baseline is and how they kind of orchestrate it

[14:09] and then we can go from there but I think it would be really beneficial to

[14:13] our yeah constituents I did have a resident um send me a private message

[14:18] asking about if there was any known you know like the snow angels there was a

[14:23] post and I I said well I know there was a city in has what they call the snow

[14:29] snow angels um that's a city thingst and then so she asked me if they

[14:35] we had anything like that and then I know the high school used to have

[14:38] something a long time ago but that was more like

[14:41] reliefs yeah I don't know if they collection does anybody know anything

[14:45] about anything around here that has

[14:49] started okay I I didn't think so I told her she could kind of touch briefly on

[14:54] that too because that was another part of their proposal for the ovation CER

[14:59] was partnering with them in snow removal and again it's a basis of Will County

[15:05] and our Township seniors and a lot of our Township seniors live in the gated

[15:10] communities that handle there but we still have a lot of seniors that don't

[15:14] that need some assistance and again getting taken advantage of by people on

[15:19] the street

[15:23] or I think it's a good idea um obviously uh depending on the and um like you said

[15:31] we have a full-time and a part-time guy that I believe are pretty handy

[15:35] depending on with job is know maybe using them first then having like a list

[15:41] of contractors or somebody else that we rely or trust that we can send out but

[15:48] you know use our guys first yeah if possible if they're not tied up you know

[15:53] what I'm say yeah I I know for our full-time minut person um they have

[15:57] occasion it's not necessarily something we

[16:00] promote to bandwidth for our parttime there is bandwidth mainly because they

[16:05] are they are part time they're here in the evening but they have some

[16:08] flexibility during the day right right that could be something you know

[16:11] depending on how schedule is you know be willing to you know might have time to

[16:19] do something like that yeah yeah so just one consider too if we are sending uh or

[16:25] taking down with years or people that want

[16:27] to get the vetted as far as getting security clearance not security

[16:31] clearance but background check oh for sure yeah for sure and I know the flyer

[16:36] Proviso had that even had like probably a legal disclaimer that Gary could help

[16:40] with of just especially person falls in your house or you know kinds of right I

[16:48] mean Insurance that's a good point um yeah

[16:54] yes definitely we can't just hey you yeah I'll work with I I'll I'll work

[17:01] with our current maintenance folks um see what capacity we have and then

[17:08] potentially draft up some sort of posting um and then of course work with

[17:12] Gary for a legal diser changing light bulbs and furnace

[17:17] filters is different than changing a water oh for

[17:21] sure we got well this provisor flyer pretty much listed like a lot of the

[17:28] things and and it was kind of nice because it gave them a a guideline of

[17:33] and and it was basically $5 for a visit and then I think they paid for the cost

[17:38] of you know if you had to go get a new ball and chain to for their toilet you

[17:41] know do do you have a copy or a digital copy of the pamphlet or anything I'll

[17:46] have to look I know I had it at home I I'll look for it CU any if we could even

[17:50] just piggy back or kind of just emulate we townships about oh for sure for sure

[17:54] thank you yeah it's good to not recreate the wheel and already working

[17:59] on awesome all right moving on to um another topic um it's not on the agenda

[18:07] but I did want to provide an update so it's regarding our mental the mental

[18:10] health project we set up with the fire district a few months back so at the

[18:14] last time meeting I did indicate that there was a slight delay and they would

[18:18] go live on December 18th uh that is true the program did indeed go live on

[18:22] December 18th so if uh anyone you know in the township that would like to rece

[18:27] mental assistance um the link and the QR code and the phone number are live so

[18:33] you could uh find assistance um for next steps is the fire department guy or the

[18:40] Fire Department chief and I will be meeting with our new account manager at

[18:43] thw Works to discuss next steps about spreading the word because as of now

[18:47] it's just kind of word of mouth and anyone that the fire department kind

[18:51] kind of comes into contact with uh so I'll be meeting with we'll be meeting

[18:54] with our account manager to see how we can spread the word specifically at

[18:57] school so that school counselors uh can refer students and families uh Whenever

[19:02] there is a

[19:07] need um one more topic I would like to bring up that I didn't get a chance to

[19:11] add to the agenda um but it is I had an idea and I also discussed with a few

[19:18] residents uh this topic so uh as you all may remember from our last Township

[19:23] meeting in December but we did experience the loss of George mushro who

[19:28] was someone that was a well-known figure in Lockport uh both in government but

[19:32] also outside of government uh he was someone that worked at the township for

[19:36] almost 20 decades and had a great effect on public service and he was especially

[19:40] known for advocating for bipartisan support um but at the same time we also

[19:46] know that we have experienced losses from other Township officials uh in the

[19:50] past couple of decades and currently upstairs in the waiting room um in the

[19:55] waiting area that is for the assessors and the supervisor's office we do have a

[20:00] few framed pictures of Township officials that passed away in office uh

[20:04] for example Highway commissioner seninsky and also supervisor heartley

[20:08] now we do have those frame pictures but there's no names or descriptions or

[20:12] anything for anyone to even really know what those are

[20:16] about so what I was thinking and again I discussed few residents also brought

[20:20] this up to me is if we could uh bring down those frame pictures and possibly

[20:27] dedicate wall uh in either this room or the executive session room and kind of

[20:32] just add a plaque uh near near the door that kind of indicates that it's like

[20:37] hey this you know is informally but honorably the dedication room for for

[20:43] Township officials uh and I was thinking that given that George mushro is the

[20:47] most most recent person we could call it like the mushro and Remembrance room you

[20:51] know we could Wordsmith the name a little bit uh but just so we could have

[20:56] George mushro but of course all the other offals that have passed and then

[21:00] any that may pass in the future we could just add them to the law uh but of

[21:04] course again before I took any action I wanted to hear some some thoughts from

[21:09] the board I'm open to making any

[21:17] changes I don't think it's a bad idea um to identify who those subjects are um

[21:25] you know some type of name plaque and years of service I mean it's all elected

[21:30] officials um put them together in a separate room

[21:36] or

[21:40] whatever it's fine it's like recording history right I mean like I said brought

[21:46] up I mean I think George was here for 20 plus years and an elected official I

[21:51] know the others that have served quite some time high with

[21:55] Commissioners and such that are that honoring them as Township elected

[22:02] officials I don't have a problem with that

[22:07] okay all right um so I think what I'll do is I'll start with having my staff

[22:14] look for like a clack and then we'll get all the Frank pictures moved down here

[22:18] I'm hoping sometime the next several weeks I'll of course let the board know

[22:22] I'll find a date maybe we could have like a little like unveiling ceremony or

[22:26] something um then open it of course to the public and again we I'll let you all

[22:31] know but I think we'll we'll start with that but if anyone has any thoughts or

[22:35] suggestions from now until a couple of weeks again you could always please let

[22:38] me know okay well that's all I have for new

[22:43] business uh for old business and past events uh we did have the children's

[22:47] winter event on Wednesday December 13th here at the township uh here at the

[22:51] township building I think most of us were were there and I think you went

[22:55] very well as always so looking forward to the one next

[23:00] we I have no meetings and corresponden do we have any final

[23:05] thoughts or questions from the

[23:09] board all right hearing none can I entertain a motion to adjourn the town

[23:13] meeting please I'll make that motion motion by Denise

[23:17] alino second second by Greg Vias all those in

[23:21] favor oppos all right count Mee

[23:26] jour

[23:31] moving on now to the general assistance meeting uh first topic is the approval

[23:36] of the minutes for the monthly meeting of December 12 2023 I will need a motion

[23:40] to approve the minutes I'll make that motion I have a motion by V alino second

[23:44] second by Greg victas any questions on the

[23:48] minutes hearing none all those in favor all those

[23:52] opposed motion carries next topic on the agenda is the

[23:57] approval of bills in the amount of $

[24:00] 4,573 49 I will need a motion to pay the bills

[24:05] I'll make that motion motion by Den salino second second by Greg bckas any

[24:11] questions on the bills this month hearing none Madam cler I please

[24:16] have a roll call salino yes FAS yes melli yes sapan yes all right moving on

[24:23] do we have any citizens wishing to address the board

[24:26] tonight hearing none we'll move on to the ga

[24:30] report and new business so uh first we'll look at the ga report so there is

[24:37] a ga uh report in your packet just a quick little summary we had 10 total

[24:43] cases for the month of December uh five of them were approved five of them were

[24:48] not approved of the five cases that were approved um we had uh two that were

[24:55] approved for assistance in water U Bill and then three for rent uh bringing our

[25:00] total relief for this month for $3,173

[25:06] 21 any any questions on the G

[25:11] report uh I wanted to give a quick visual GA update so uh you may all have

[25:16] noticed but uh we didn't have it we had uh almost no administrative cost to GA

[25:22] this month uh and that is because we were moving now forward with our new

[25:26] process in G where I indicated that be spending no more uh than about $700 G

[25:31] because that is what we calculated using the operational flow now we have not yet

[25:35] paid for visual GA um I did mention that we will be installing it unfortunately

[25:42] um there again was a delay and that has to do mainly with our it uh support but

[25:47] they're in the process of installing a new server and that was supposed to

[25:50] happen in early December unfortunately there was a delay uh due to supply chain

[25:55] issues and so uh we couldn't install visual GA until we received a new server

[26:00] else we'd have to reinstall it once we receed the new server and so the current

[26:04] update that I have is that the new server is currently being installed it

[26:08] should be finalized by end of next week um and so we will see an invoice for

[26:12] visual GA hopefully in February as that's when we will be installing it and

[26:17] we'll be paying for it

[26:23] that that's um that is all I have for general assistance this month I have

[26:29] no old business any final questions from the

[26:35] board hearing none can I entertain a motion to adjourn the general assistance

[26:38] meeting I'll make that motion live meeting by Vinnie salino second second

[26:43] by Greg pickus all those in favor oppos all right general assistance

[26:49] speak is

[26:55] CH uh last meeting person tonight is regarding the senior fund first topic is

[27:01] the approval of minutes for the monthly meeting of December 12 2023 I will need

[27:05] a motion to approve the minutes I'll make that motion I have a motion by Den

[27:08] salino second second by Greg vickas any questions on the

[27:14] minutes hearing none all those in favor

[27:19] opposed motion carries moving on to the bills I do have approval of bills in the

[27:25] amount of $1,384

[27:28] 4 I will need a motion to pay the bills I'll make that motion I have a motion by

[27:33] Denny salino second second by Greg vickas any questions on the

[27:40] bills all right hearing none Madam clerk I please have a roll Calli yes FAS yes

[27:45] Cino yes zpan yes motion carries moving on do we have any citizens wishing to

[27:51] address the board tonight in regards to the senior

[27:56] fund hearing none we'll move on to the bus report and new

[28:01] business so you all should have a copy of the bus report in your packet so as

[28:06] we can tell for the month of December we had a total of 467 trips uh for and

[28:12] there was 19 uh business days where the buses were available and this is this

[28:18] brings our average RS per day to 24.6 now if we look at exhibit B or the

[28:23] graph below uh we will see that this brings our average rides per month to

[28:28] 500 which is a slight decrease from previous month I will say that though

[28:33] our our buses are back and uh fully functional the reason we did receive a

[28:39] decrease in amount of trips um is actually we just we we really just saw a

[28:44] decrease in am of days worked because there's 19 as opposed to other months

[28:47] where we see closer to 21 or 23 our average rites per day was still closer

[28:51] to the 24 range um we did we did uh we were in Need for some bus repairs uh

[28:58] this month I know last month I mentioned that in November one of our buses was

[29:02] out for almost over two weeks du to the uh fix in the driver's seat this month

[29:07] our second bus uh needed some some repairs one of those for the step light

[29:13] that was not operable the other was the rear brake lights need replacement uh so

[29:18] those were two more repairs that were need for the second

[29:22] bus and that is all I have for a senior fund I have no old business

[29:27] uh do we have any final questions or comments or anything from the

[29:35] board hearing none I'll entertain a motion to adjourn the meeting I'll make

[29:39] that motion motion BYO second second byus all those in favor I oppos meeting

[29:48] with the chair thank you

[29:56] everyone

Lockport Township Meeting January 9, 2024

Transcript