[0:00] [Music]
[0:07] then I will call the meeting of the
Riverside Township Board of Trustees to
[0:11] order please rise join me in the pledge
of allegiance iedge of aliance to the
[0:16] flag of the United States of America and
to the Republic for which it stands one
[0:22] nation under God indivisible with
liberty and justice for all please
[0:28] remain standing for a moment of silence
for uh late President Jimmy
[0:37] Carter may he rest in
[Music]
[0:44] peace
do clerk Rees would you please call the
[0:49] role sure uh truste clerk trusty henok
present trusty deosta present trusty
[0:57] Carrol present clerk Reus is here super
visor Wilt present everyone's here we
[1:02] have a quorum and we may begin first
order business is the minutes of the
[1:08] December 10th board meeting what is your
pleasure make a motion to accept the
[1:15] minutes of the December 10th 2024 board
meeting I have a motion do I hear a
[1:22] second I'll second it I have a motion by
trusty deasa seconded by trusty Highland
[1:27] Bach to approve the minutes of disc
December 10th Riverside Township Board
[1:32] of Trustees meeting are there any
additions
[1:37] Corrections
[1:40] comments hearing none then all in favor
of approving these minutes please
[1:45] signify by saying I I I all oppos nay
motion is carried thank
[1:51] you uh next we have
communications we have two
[1:55] Communications supervisor will the first
is a thank you letter from feds plus uh
[2:01] chief executive director Tina rounds who
thanks the board for uh the their
[2:06] support of the program and particular of
the
[2:08] $5,000 uh contribution to the
organization uh in addition we received
[2:13] a nice note from miss Patricia henbu uh
thanking um the township for their
[2:19] support uh on the passing of their
mother thank you very much um
[2:27] supervisor's
report um fortunately the various
[2:31] viruses circulating during the holidays
all seem to find me so I don't have much
[2:36] to report tonight I managed to meet with
all the assistant assistance clients
[2:40] though during the healthy days uh the
food pantry gift cards came out exactly
[2:45] as needed 70 total were given out 35
each from Aldi and uh and Riverside
[2:51] Foods for a total of
$3,500 everyone who received them was
[2:56] very grateful uh by the way I did a
quick count late in the year and we had
[3:02] served exactly 100 families at one point
or another during the course of
[3:08] 2024 uh numerous groups were also very
generous to The Pantry this holiday
[3:12] season the Riverside Foods filled the
truck event reportedly brought us 67
[3:18] $6,700 worth of items the village of
North Riverside delivered a load of
[3:23] donations as did
starbuds uh various groups and
[3:27] individuals also dropped off items
without us necessarily knowing who they
[3:32] were for example we received several
large donations of what I would call a
[3:37] birthday party kit cake mixes frostings
cake decorations aluminum pans candles
[3:43] party napkins plates etc those items we
place on a shelving unit for the food
[3:48] pantry clients to take as needed um we
don't put them into the the regular tote
[3:55] bags many recipients did help themselves
to these extra treats
[4:00] uh we also received almost $800 in
monetary donations including from
[4:05] individuals and groups like The
Wednesday bridge players who meet here
[4:09] and the Riverside investment Club this
is a big thank you to the community who
[4:14] has shown such generosity at the
holidays um I have received a quote for
[4:19] an appraisal on our building for
insurance purposes it's been quite some
[4:23] time since we had the last one and um
this is an experienced reputable firm
[4:29] that is quoted under 2,000 for the
project which is within my SP spending
[4:34] limit so I will be engaging them
ironically I found them through a state
[4:39] CMS but by Contracting directly I can
save onethird of the cost of what it
[4:44] would be through the CMS so hopefully um
I can I'll be getting some more quotes
[4:51] on some of the building improvements
that we've talked about in the near
[4:54] future now that I'm feeling better so if
you have any questions I may have missed
[4:58] something because I'm still in a bit of
a
[5:01] fog okay if not then how about the
assessor we have some news good evening
[5:11] good evening ran citz the Township
Assessor and um we're off to a good
[5:18] start for the year um tomorrow we'll be
sending out a constant contact email
[5:23] address emailed going out to probably
about 2,000 people of our our
[5:28] taxpayers um second installment property
tax bills will be out on time people
[5:32] should be receiving them the first
couple days of February they'll be due
[5:36] March 4th um the our exemption
applications are a little delayed by the
[5:42] assessor's office they're going through
another transition or the continuing the
[5:46] transition um that they're making to a
new system um we probably will not get
[5:51] the senior renewal applications out till
mid late February uh so we'll we'll be
[5:57] getting a lot of calls about that I'm
sure and um and then also in the email
[6:01] we'll have a reminder for our taxpayers
that the treasurer's office does
[6:07] administer a program called the senior
tax deferral it is not the senior freeze
[6:12] it is a loan program for people who are
struggling to be able to pay up to
[6:17] $7,500 of their property taxes through
this loan program so um it's a quick uh
[6:24] quick deadline the March there's a March
1 deadline it's always offered this time
[6:29] of year by the treasurer's office so uh
that'll be going out tomorrow I'm sure
[6:34] that'll generate a lot of phone calls so
be prepared be you usually get them too
[6:38] we do too and probably we should warn
the um the CRC because I'm sure Sean
[6:44] will be getting those questions if it's
for seniors yes yes um and then Andy
[6:48] said he'll post the information on the
website as well very good okay so that's
[6:53] what's going on right now thank you so
FR for the senior free that's after you
[6:58] turn 65 is that yes okay yes so you have
to turn 65 in the tax year so right now
[7:05] we're working with the 2024 tax year so
anyone who's turned 65 um there's
[7:10] actually two senior exemptions a senior
exemption you're 65 you live in the home
[7:14] you're paying the taxes you get that
exemption but then there's a senior
[7:17] freeze so with the senior freeze all
those requirements and the additional
[7:22] your income has to be $65,000 or less to
receive the
[7:27] freeze so um there the assessor's office
is now calling it or actually it was
[7:34] originally legislated to be called the
lowincome senior citizens tax deferral
[7:39] everyone got in the habit of calling at
the senior free so we're going back to
[7:42] what it was originally called
um yeah and $65,000 has been the limit
[7:50] on that for probably about eight years
now so I know that people have been
[7:56] talking about um legislating an
adjustment on that but so far we haven't
[8:00] seen anything
happening okay thank you any questions
[8:06] thank you thank you very much welcome
trustees uh trusty Carol you have
[8:12] anything nothing today Madam supervisor
trusty deasa uh thank you nothing
[8:16] tonight okay uh truste clerk uh thank
you supervisor um I
[8:26] um uh got a notice uh that that uh the
township officials of Illinois their
[8:32] scholarship program is open and um they
offer um$ $2,000
[8:40] scholarships and uh the requirements for
that are um write a
[8:47] 500w plus essay on Township government
you need two
[8:52] recommendations and interview a Township
official and your application is on the
[8:58] toi website
to.org and it has to reach the toi
[9:04] offices by March
1st um I uh asked the seniors if they
[9:11] would like to learn to play maang
because that seems to be all the rage
[9:15] right now and I had eight to 10 hands
saying yes they would like to do that
[9:21] and so I am looking for a majan
instructor uh because I don't know how
[9:26] to apply
it uh
[9:29] were you one of the eight or
10 no I wasn't but when I did post that
[9:36] I was looking for a Maan instructor on
the uh Riverside Facebook page uh four
[9:42] or five people said hey I I don't know
how to play but I would like to learn
[9:46] also and just this is a big rage now on
college
[9:51] campuses uh you know you can go to the
bars at night and play
[9:54] MAA you may have to go to Chinatown to
find somebody to teach I think it's kind
[9:58] of an AS
[Laughter]
[10:02] you know how to play you want to te the
[10:06] seniors teaching but I did have a friend
who GRE up as her she'd be interested
[10:13] that's F that' be fun and then hopefully
after they learn um you know they you
[10:18] know twice a month or something we can
have a little Maan play get together
[10:25] maybe on a Tuesday morning or Tuesday
afternoon we'll have to invest in some
[10:30] isn't it a set of tiles that they use
it's a set of tiles so we would probably
[10:34] you know invest in a few games of it
yeah we would invest in three or four
[10:38] games which I can't imagine would be
more than1 or $150 sure for that um so
[10:45] I'm I'm hoping we can get that off the
ground and then uh the exercise class
[10:51] has consistently having between 24 to 30
people in it uh with the exception of
[10:58] Last Friday when we had that snowy slick
weather we only had 10 yeah and that
[11:03] concludes my report thank you very much
any
[11:07] questions all right and trusty Highland
Bach um just briefly uh we had no
[11:13] meeting in December the uh but we did
have a meeting last night uh we're
[11:18] trying we've got an engagement committee
that we're going to be working you know
[11:23] trying to get the word out for the
mental health you know that were out
[11:27] there that were available for them um
we've got a lot of bullet points and
[11:33] ideas um QR
codes um the one thing that I believe
[11:39] that we are definitely going to do is
start putting our board notes or minutes
[11:46] on the website and and the reason is is
that not only for
[11:50] transparency but Joan does such a good
job with those notes that it actually
[11:55] shows a lot also uh Dr TR iani uh posts
some really nice articles good articles
[12:03] and we'd like to get those up on the
website too so I those are two things
[12:07] we're going to do uh we meet uh back for
January's meeting which will be at the
[12:12] way back in and that will be tomorrow at
6 in
[12:17] Maywood that concludes my report thank
you very much any
[12:22] questions and let's move along new
business the only thing um it's a
[12:28] preliminary discussion of the 2025 26
Township budget you have a copy of the
[12:34] 2025 uh fiscal year budget in your
packets um take a look at it see where
[12:41] you think uh we we might need to expand
we and I would recommend that we not
[12:49] cancel our scheduled meeting for the
first Tuesday in February and hold a um
[12:56] a budget meeting for our committee of
the hall
[12:59] I don't believe I got that
copy it should be under new business in
[13:04] your in your
[13:08] packet it was empty here take this one
trusty clerk you want to I H I can take
[13:16] Theus thank youen I'm sure you didn't
miss Point well I'll double check on
[13:20] that that could always be a possibility
it may be in there but uh not to worry
[13:26] uh we we can always print more and then
then I would also um reference as you
[13:32] look at that uh look at your uh monthly
statement of Revenue and expenditures
[13:39] that will pretty well follow the budget
in terms of line items so you can see
[13:44] where we have been spending and have not
spent yet this year um and that'll give
[13:51] you some idea it think about the
priorities of what we need to do in the
[13:55] building uh I certainly want to give
this place a bit of a facelift uh as
[14:01] best that we can so let's figure out
where the priorities need to be and um
[14:07] and be prepared to discuss some some
budget Direction at our meeting any
[14:13] discussion any questions on
[14:17] that then the next order of business is
the approval of
[14:24] warrants I make a
motion uh that the board authorized and
[14:30] ratified payments of the bill identified
on the general warrant January 2025 in
[14:36] the amount of
[14:40] $1,661 thank you do I hear a second
second I have a motion by truste Clark
[14:46] seconded by trusty deasa to approve the
general warrants for January 2025 in the
[14:53] total amount of
[14:56] $1,661 even any
discussion then clerk Reyes would you
[15:02] please call the role sure truste clerk
yes trusty hbot yes trusty dla yes
[15:09] trusty Caroll yes supervisor Wilt yes
motion is
[15:16] carried oh uh I'd like
[15:22] to I'd like to make a motion that the
board ratify an authorize payment of the
[15:29] amounts indicated on the following
warrants uh utility warrant uh
[15:39] 17678 payroll warrant in the amount of
[15:45] 9,332
197 Health warrant in the amount of
[15:50] 3, uh
$370 10 cents general assistance warrant
[15:56] uh in the amount of 9
,
[16:02] 2989 Township radio players warranted in
the amount of
[16:08] 9.78 and the food pantry warrant in the
amount of $398.00
[16:29] of
$1,767 182 payroll warrant in the amount
[16:34] of
[16:38] $1,329 the health warrant in the amount
of
[16:44] $3,371 the general assistance warrant in
the amount of
[16:50] 9,298 the radio the township radio
players warrant in the amount of
[16:56] $900. 78 and the food pantry warrant in
the amount of $398.00
[17:26] [Music]
public
[17:31] comments hearing nothing then I will
entertain a motion to adjourn motion to
[17:36] adjourn do I hear a second second motion
by truste Clark seconded by trustee
[17:41] deasa to adjourn this meeting any
discussion hearing none all in favor say
[17:47] I I I all oppose nay motion is carried
thank you
[17:54] [Music]