Village of Stickney The Board of Trustees met July 5.
Here is the minutes provided by the Board:
Upon the roll call, the following Trustees were present:
Trustees Hrejsa, Kapolnek, Milenkovic, Savopoulos, Torres and White
Trustee Milenkovic moved, duly seconded by Trustee Torres to approve the minutes of the previous regular session on Tuesday, June 20, 2017.
Upon the roll call, the following Trustees voted:
Ayes: Trustee Hrejsa, Kapolnek, Milenkovic, Savopoulos, Torres and White
Nays: None
Mayor Walik declared the motion carried.
Trustee White moved, duly seconded by Trustee Hrejsa that the bills, approved by the various committees of the Board, be approved for payment, and to approve warrants which authorize the Village Treasurer to draw checks to pay the bills, to be signed by the authorized signers, as provided for by the Ordinances of the Village of Stickney.
Upon the roll call, the following Trustees voted:
Ayes: Trustee Hrejsa, Kapolnek, Milenkovic, Savopoulos, Torres and White
Nays: None
Mayor Walik declared the motion carried.
The next agenda item number six concerns Disclosure and Consent to Potential and/or Actual Conflict of Interest. Village Attorney Jessica Fese explained, “My firm represents both the Village of Stickney and the Town of Cicero. This agenda item explains that we represent both municipalities and we did not negotiate another agreement that appears later on the agenda.” Trustee White added, “It has to do with a contract that we have for Waggin Tails for dogs that we wrangle here in our town. That is what the contract is. Our law firm here had nothing to do with the agreement we had with Waggin Tails.”
Trustee White moved, duly seconded by Trustee Kapolnek to Pass and Approve Ordinance 2017-13, “An Ordinance Authorizing and Approving an Intergovernmental Agreement between the Village of Stickney and the Town of Cicero for the Village of Stickney whereas Allowing the Village to use a Portion of the Cicero Animal Shelter Waggin Tails Shelter.”
Police Chief Dan Babich told us that he was visiting the shelter just today. He feels that it is an awesome facility. It is probably the cleanest facility he has ever seen. They have it broken down for dogs in one area and cats in another area. When the animals are first brought in they are treated by a vet before they are placed in with the other animals. They never ever put an animal down. If someone doesn’t claim the animal within five days, they put it up for adoption. They have experts to help through Cook County to deal with any type of animal and aggressive dogs. They will provide training for our auxiliary officer that has to deal with animals. He is going to learn how to dart an animal correctly and how to handle an aggressive dog. We will bring animals there. In the past we were keeping them in the police sally port in cages. If you had a big pit bull and you had to get it to go into a 3 x 3 cage it wasn’t a good situation. This now allows us to get those cages out and only use them if we are over run with calls until we are able to transport them to Waggin Tails. They will be fed. They will get medical attention if they need it. They will never ever get put down. It is open 24/7. Any time of the day we can take an animal there. In the past if we picked up an animal on a Friday night it would sit in the sally port until Monday evening before it is picked up. Our officers don’t have the time to service these dogs. Erica is the person who runs Waggin Tails. She is an awesome person. There is a lot of equipment for the animals. There is flea and tick medicine. They have their own dog park. They have an area for aggressive dogs to run around to get them tamed down. They spay and neuter and microchip the animals.
Trustee White moved, duly seconded by Trustee Kapolnek to combine agenda item 6 and 7.
Upon the roll call, the following Trustees voted:
Ayes: Trustee Hrejsa, Kapolnek, Milenkovic, Savopoulos, Torres and White
Nays: None
Mayor Walik declared the motion carried.
Trustee Savopoulos moved, duly seconded by Trustee Torres to approve Resolution 12-2017, “A Resolution Authorizing and Approving an Agreement with Alfred G. Ronan, LTD. for Government Relations and Lobbying Services at the State Level.
Upon the roll call, the following Trustees voted:
Ayes: Trustee Hrejsa, Kapolnek, Milenkovic, Savopoulos, Torres and White
Nays: None
Mayor Walik declared the motion carried.
Trustee Milenkovic moved, duly seconded by Trustee Savopoulos to approve the Appointment of Anthony Bertuca as Hearing Officer for the Village Liquor Commission Hearings.
Upon the roll call, the following Trustees voted:
Ayes: Trustee Hrejsa, Kapolnek, Milenkovic, Savopoulos, Torres and White
Nays: None
Mayor Walik declared the motion carried.
Trustee White moved, duly seconded by Trustee Torres to Grant Permission to the Stickney Fire Department of Conduct their Muscular Dystrophy Association “Fill the Boot” solicitation on July 7, 14 and 21.
Upon the roll call, the following Trustees voted:
Ayes: Trustee Hrejsa, Kapolnek, Milenkovic, Savopoulos, Torres and White
Nays: None
Mayor Walik declared the motion carried.
Mayor’s Report:
Mayor Walik thanked everybody for coming out. Parks and Recreation held a meeting today for the July 22, Music Fest. We have 30 volunteers. We are looking for 10 more. The gentleman that is running this Music Fest is bringing everything. He is bringing port-a-potties, stages, bands and lighting. All he is doing is using our land. We are going to get a portion of the sale of liquor and the Parks & Rec. selling food and drinks there. We will have police and fire on staff as always and that is by ordinance. The Village isn’t doing much other than supplying land. It will be a nice event from people who have gone to his events before. The big band lead singer is 63 years old. This is not head banging. Trustee Torres has been to the shows the crowd is usually 40 and over. Trustee White will explain the front stairs at the police department
CLERK’S REPORT: Clerk McAdams read correspondence from Steve Rauschenberger of Technology & Manufacturing Association. He thanked the Village for opting out of the new Cook County ordinance regulating minimum wage and employee personal time off.
Trustee Reports:
Trustee Hrejsa reported that Parks and Recreation is going to have a kid’s night in August. We are going to have a D.J. and a movie in the park. It will be at Ridgeland and the pavilion and at what had been the skate park. We will have snacks. There will be flyers out at the library, churches, summer school and in the Village Hall lobby. She asked people to get the word out.
Trustee Torres thanked Police Chief Dan Babich for all the hard work he is doing since he started. She has seen a great improvement in the Village. She also thanked Ed Bartunek for the positive work he is doing with our Blight. He has written quite a few notices. He is getting people to become aware of the things that need to be done and things that have to be done to improve their structures in the Village.
Trustee Milenkovic reminded everyone to register their drones. I heard a couple of complaints this evening about the 4th of July fireworks where some people were flying their drones above the fireworks. This is a violation. You have to have a clear line of sight. We have Midway Airport within five miles. You have to get permission from the tower at Midway Airport if you are five miles or less from an airport.
Trustee Savopoulos reported that the end of July is the deadline for signing up for the 50/50 sidewalk replacement program. There are quite a few that have signed up. The Mayor asked about Azavar. Trustee Savopoulos explained that they still have to come in and meet with Paul Nosek the Treasurer when Paul has time. They need to collect data. What they do is find lost revenue. Sometimes it is the tax on our electric bill or cable bill that gets directed to another community. Azavar finds it and we get it back. Sales tax could also get routed to another community. If they find something they get a percentage. It they don’t find anything, they don’t get paid. The Mayor added in that they did tell us that they have found from $5,000, and in southern Illinois they found $1 million that was lost.
Trustee White informed us that we are in the witching hour for our budget. The budget will be available for viewing in the Village hall starting on July 7. There will be a budget hearing on July 18, at 6:30 prior to our regular scheduled meeting. If anyone has any questions about the budget, Treasurer Paul Nosek will be available to respond. It will be on the agenda to vote and accept it at that time. Last week we opened the bid packets we received for the police stairs. We had four bids. They ranged in price from $95,000 to $164,000. There was a big discrepancy. Our engineering firm recommends that at our next regular board meeting on July18, that we consider the low bid by Tori Construction as non- responsive. All bids are rejected and this project is directed to be rebid to attempt to receive the lowest responsive bid. In the best interest of the Village to make sure we get the lowest bid, obviously there is a big spread that there shouldn’t be. If we rebid it, we have the opportunity to save some more money. That is what the reasoning is.
The Mayor added in that we were supposed to accept the bid tonight. This puts us back a little bit.
Department Reports:
Joe Lopez Director of Public Works acknowledged that everything is going well.
Police Chief Dan Babich addressed an email to the Mayor that was sent by a resident who asked why people have to call concerning fireworks and why “we” as officers don’t see the fireworks that are blown off. He explained that what they don’t understand is; our levels of officers are coming up. We have the four new officers out there now training. Two will be ready by the end of this month to go out on their own. At the end of August the other two will be ready to go out on their own as officers. Otherwise we had two officers working on the 4th of July, with myself on call. He explained that he worked Friday and Saturday from 6:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m. He thought that people would throw out their fireworks on Friday and Saturday. Instead they blew up their fireworks on Sunday and Monday. Just so people understand that we are doing the best we can. He told us that he was in Lyons and he described it as Beirut. Cicero and Berwyn sounded like demolition going off. It was heavy over there. He felt that it wasn’t too bad in Stickney. They were out there doing something.
We had a total of 88 calls: Twenty-seven were for firework’s warnings issued; Five for domestic disturbances; Two property damages; Five suspicious persons with vehicles; Three well-being checks; Two other disturbances; A man with a gun; Shots fired call; A fight; A man down; six traffic stops; a fire call; two burglar alarms going off; and six animal calls. That was pretty good for just two officers.
Police Chief Babich addressed the fireworks again. He explained that he has to rely on residents to call us to direct us where it is going on. We would like to run into it every time. There are times when the second blast doesn’t come. They are doing the best they can giving warnings and fines. He assured us that it wasn’t bad here. It was bad all around us. He then thanked Trustee Torres for her acknowledgement. He does take great pride in his job. Sometimes he lives for his job. That is how he was raised. That is the old Marine in me. He also mentioned the storage container that is now in the back of the police station. They are using it to store the extra things that were stored in the sally port and it will be protected from the elements such as all the cages, cones, traffic devices and other things that the prisoners won’t have access to. It will be painted and a star applied.
Treasurer Paul Nosek informed us that meetings have been held with the department heads concerning the budget. We have whittled down all the things that we couldn’t afford at this point. We are still looking like we will come in with a small surplus, considering the fact that we are adding staff as far as police go and we are getting up to speed on that and the ALS program with the paramedics. We will have the budget hearing on July 18, 2017 at 6:30 p.m. and we will vote on it on that day. He invited questions from those who are concerned.
Fire Chief Jeff Boyajian reported that there was a tree on fire that was caused by fireworks. There was a dumpster fire behind the apartments on Euclid and Pershing. We went to Cicero to help respond to a house fire. There was a weird call to the Viola pellet factory where they dry the waste. It appears that they moved it out of their storage tent because it got too hot in there and they put it on weeds and started a brush fire.
The Mayor informed the audience that he put off the six month police and fire report until the August 1, meeting.
There being no further business, Trustee White moved, duly seconded by Trustee Savopoulos that the meeting be adjourned. Upon which the Board adopted the motion at 7:30 p.m.
http://www.villageofstickney.com/wp-content/uploads/minutes/2017/minutes-7-5-17.pdf
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