May 7, 2025 Meeting Minutes

Village of Bishop Hill web page: bishophillil.gov

County of Henry, State of Illinois

May 7th , 2025

The regular meeting of the Village of Bishop Hill 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, Lisa Nordstrom, Ben Strand , Mike Keup, Jim Nolan, Amanda Laub, Sharon Wexell & Terri Wigant were all present.

Treasurer Sharon Wexell swore in Mike Funke as Mayor, Terri Wigant as Village Clerk; Patrick Light, Ben Strand, and Mike Keup as Village Trustees. All positions are 4-year terms.

MINUTES: Laub motioned to accept the minutes, seconded by Nolan. Voice vote, motion carried.

TREASURER’S REPORT: Nordstrom motioned to accept the Treasurer’s Report, seconded by Laub. Voice vote, motion carried. Wexell also had a copy of the Annual Financial Report May 1, 2024 to April 30, 2025

PAY BILLS: There were five bills from QC Analytical, now called Test, Inc., for water testing. Apparently, they were sending the bills just to Whittington’s email and he thought that they were also sending them to the Village email, so he ignored them until he received a past due email. He called Wexell and she called the company and explained what happened. They did not charge us late fees. Strand motioned to pay all bills, seconded by Laub. Voice vote, motion carried.

OLD BUSINESS:

Dalton Whittington, our Certified Water Operator, assembled and installed the new meter for Well #1. Whittington also installed the new chlorine scale. Rock River Electric came May 5th and installed the new fans in the VFD on Well #2. Peerless Well & Pump had sent 4 new fans, so Rock River installed all 4 new fans, now we have 2 spare fans for back-up. Wexell said now that everything has been fixed from the storm and the job is complete, she can send the last

bill to the insurance company. Wexell said she has talked to a lady from Connecticut, which is the 4th or 5th person she has had to talk to about this claim. They keep asking for more information and she and Whittington have sent everything they have to the insurance company.

Wigant had 2 bids to cut down four trees on the curve of Kronberg and Hedeen St. The first bid was from Blue Jay Lawn & Tree Service for $3,800. The other bid was from 2 Brothers Tree Care for $4,600. Light motioned to have Blue Jay take down the trees, seconded by Nolan. Voice vote, motion carried. Wigant will let 2 Brothers know they did not get the job. Wexell had emailed the State site manager about their tree that has grown into the baseball lights on the South side of the sidewalk. She never received a response. Wigant tried to call the manager at the Black Hawk office, but no one answered. Funke said that Jason Degroot, the owner of Blue Jay,

was willing to trim back the State’s tree. Wigant said she also asked Degroot to take down a small dead tree on Village right-of-way on Bjorklund St. across from P.L. Johnson’s. Degroot, did not give Wigant a price, but said it won’t take much to do the jobs. Wexell also asked to get a copy of Degroot’s insurance and ID # for tax purposes. Wigant said she would get that info for her. Funke said after the tree is trimmed, we will get the light fixed. Also, Wigant called Massie, Village attorney, to see ask if we can make an amendment to the tree ordinance, stating that the Village would not be responsible to cut down trees that are in alleys/roads that may have never been open to traffic and some of those so-called roads even have buildings on them.

T-Mobile grant is still pending.

NEW BUSINESS:

Wigant received a price to renew our contract with Eagle Enterprises. They proposed $450.00 per month for garbage and recycling for 1 year, dropping the fuel surcharge. Their last contract was for 2 years at $315 for garbage, $90 for recycling and $7.20 for fuel surcharge, that equaled $412.20. The increase is $37.80 per month. Light motioned to accept Eagle Enterprise’s bid, seconded by Laub. Voice vote, motion carried.

Funke said there was a water service leaking at the last house on N. Olson St. Cameron Meyer, our Water Superintendent, got the 6” tap and parts needed to fix the line from the Galva Water Department. He said they will send a bill for the parts. Funke said they went ahead and hooked that line to the new water main. Now we have three people on the new water main. Strand said we should order those parts to keep on hand for situations like that.

Whittington contacted McClintock Co. about replacing the hydrant at the end of E. Main St. The

company has a new tool to insert a valve into the water main to shut off the while the hydrant is being replaced. This means they won’t have to shut off residents’ water, we won’t have to take water samples to the lab, and no boil order. McClintock company is coming to Bishop Hill May 19 to do a demo of the tool. Whittington is still looking for bids to install the hydrant, he is trying to find the best price as the hydrant alone will cost approximately $5,000.

Wigant wanted to know if the Board would like to make a donation to the 4-H kids that came to help clean-up the cemetery. She said they come every year to help, a couple of times we gave them gift certificates to the Colony Store and I think last year we made a donation to the club. Light motioned to give a $100 donation, seconded by Nordstrom. Voice vote, motion carried.

Wexell and Wigant reported that they attended the IDNR meeting April 7th at the Colony School. Joella Krause & Eva Spets, from the Old Settlers Association , hosted the meeting. The meeting was to inform all who attended that the project to fix the State buildings, (Colony Church, Boys Dormitory, the State bathrooms, and the Bjorklund Hotel) was starting. At the meeting were 8 State attendees (Project Managers, Architects, Engineer, Archeologist) including Bishop Hill Heritage Association rep, 2 Village reps, John Taylor/shop owner, Henry County representatives' Henry County Tourism reps, Courtney Stone /Preserve Bishop Hill Group, Mike Massie/Key principle for new State Park fence project, Mark Slover, representing Travis Weaver, and a few people attended the meeting by Zoom. The State reps said there are many steps that have to be done before actual work will begin. First step is stabilizing structures, then there is the Documentation Phase, Program Analysis, Design & Development; then bidding of jobs may start around July 2026, then construction will hopefully start November 2026. Someone asked if there could be a contact person that can inform people of the progress on the project. JLK Architects will give Jeff Nevins, Historic Sites Division Manager, monthly updates and in turn he will send that info to all the emails of the above groups. Wexell will then post it on the

Village Webpage. Since the April meeting we have received word that the funding for the project has been appropriated and amounts to $12 million dollars.

Wexell and Wigant also attended an IDOT meeting April 24th in Geneseo. We learned that Jennifer Williams is our field engineer, we talked to her about the State’s drain on N. Bishop Hill St. at the N. E. corner of the park that hasn’t worked correctly for years and has caused huge ruts on Bjorklund St. The Village can’t fix that road until the State fixes their drain. Wigant sent pictures of the ruts and damage to Williams; she was going to look into the matter. We also found out different things that we can spend our Motor Fuel Tax funds on (not that we get that much money per year) and how to fill out requests and who to call if we need answers to questions. Wexell asked about spending our Rebuild Illinois funds, $2,811.90, on cutting down 4 trees on a Village roadside that will cost $3,800 as the RBI money has to be spent by July 2025. They told Wexell the funds cannot be used for that, only trimming trees back for safety, removing a tree off

the road or trimming trees to see signage. Ron Gaulke, MFT Projects Unit Leader, emailed Wexell that the road work the Village had done in 2021 used MFT funds and some Rebuild Ill funds, the Maintenance Expenditure Statement can be revised and change some of the MFT money spent to the RBI money and that would clear out the remaining RBI balance. Both MFT and RBI funds are in the same account. He said that would also make it easier on the Village, because there would not be much time to find a project that fits the criteria and get the paperwork done and turned in by July. We also learned the State is once again requiring municipalities to

submit MFT tax audits, now called Documentation Reviews. The State has not required audits since 2012, but now they are sending out what they call a “45-day letter” to all municipalities to gather all their records for any MFT funds that were spent, back to 2012. The State is sending out auditors to look at the Motor Fuel Tax records of each municipality. Wexell and Wigan are also going to an IDOT meeting in Dixon June 17th .

Wigant asked the Board what they thought about raffling off one of the wooden benches made from the wooden water tower. They thought that would work, if the Village can do a raffle, Wigant will call Massie, our lawyer and ask him. Strand also said we have to have a sign saying what the raffle money is going to be used for. Wigant asked if the water department or new water tower be o.k. to use it the money for. Carol Johnson from the Black Smith shop said she would be willing to put the bench in her shop. Wigant will find out more details.

Wexell said she would not have to do quarterly USDA reports for the new water tower/watermains/2nd well project. She may only have to do annual or every 3 years report. Wigant said Wexell’s flawless record keeping is why this is possible.

The USDA requested an on-site inspection May 13th at 2:00. Wigant and Wexell met with 5 people, 2 were in training for inspections. They said they were sending out an email to the Village and Jack Kusek, who was the IMEG engineer for the Bishop Hill water project. Kusek still has not turned in all the permits/paperwork needed to close out this project. They just wanted us to know the Village is not responsible for the permits/paperwork. Wigant said the USDA people were very informative about different grants and funds that the Village may utilize to help with all

the different projects that have to be done (i.e., hooking up residents to the new water main, new water main extensions, a generator, and sidewalks to name a few).

The Board discussed running a new water line from 310 N. Bishop Hill St. out to the first farm on the West side of the road. They would have to bore under the Edwards Creek. Cameron Meyer is bonded and insured now, so he could do the digging and then have a local plumber do the actual hooking up of the pipes. Meyer will have to get more quotes and specifics on the project.

There was no further business Nolan motioned to adjourn, seconded by Laub. Voice vote motion carried.