West Cook News

Village of Berkeley Village Board met Feb. 18.

Here is the minutes provided by the board:

1 President Lee called the meeting to order at 6:30 p.m.

2 Pledge of Allegiance

3 Roll Call

Present: Trustees Hammar, Salemi, Grenier, Graf-Stone, Washington, Perez, President Lee

Also Present: Village Administrator Rudy Espiritu, Assistant to the Village Administrator Justyn Miller, Fire Chief Michael Kuryla, Police Chief Timothy Larem, Public Works Superintendent Joseph Wagner, Assistant Attorney Liz Brogan and Village Attorney Greg Smith.

4 Presentations and Appointment

4.1 Reappointment of Jim Marino to the Hillside-Berkeley Water Commission

Trustee	Motion	Second	Ayes	Nays	Absent	Abstain
Larry Hammar			X
Diane Salemi			X
Raymond Grenier	X		X
Sherry Graf-Stone		X	X
Herb Washington			X
Jerry Perez			X

MOTION CARRIED

5 Public Hearings– No Public Hearing.

6 Public Comments and Questions (Consent Agenda Items Only)

No Public Comments or Questions.

7 Consent Agenda

The matters listed for consideration on the Consent Agenda are routine in nature or have

all been discussed by the Board of Trustees previously and are matters on which there was

unanimity for placement on the Consent Agenda at this meeting

7.1 Village Board Meeting Minutes from February 4, 2020

Trustee	Motion	Second	Ayes	Nays	Absent	Abstain
Larry Hammar			X
Diane Salemi	X		X
Raymond Grenier		X	X
Sherry Graf-Stone			X
Herb Washington			X
Jerry Perez			X

MOTION CARRIED

8 Claims Ordinance

8.1 Motion to Approve Claims Ordinance #1433 in the amount of $95,775.36

Trustee	Motion	Second	Ayes	Nays	Absent	Abstain
Diane Salemi	X		X
Raymond Grenier			X
Sherry Graf-Stone			X
Herb Washington		X	X
Jerry Perez			X
Larry Hammar			X

MOTION CARRIED

9 Committee Reports

9.1 Administration, Zoning and Technology (Chair –Trustee Graf-Stone; CoChair Trustee Washington)

9.1.1 Trustee Liaison Report – Trustee Graf-Stone informed the Board that

Staff has been very busy. Their biggest task was the budget.

9.1.2 Monthly Report

9.2 Finance and Economic Development (Chair – Trustee Washington; CoChair Trustee Salemi)

9.2.1 Trustee Liaison Report – No report

9.2.2 Monthly Report

9.2.3 Budget Workshop for the FY 2020 – 2021 Budget

Village Administrator Rudy Espiritu gave a presentation on the Budget Workshop for the FY2020-2021 Budget. He informed the Board that for the first time since he has been in Berkeley, all the funds in the budget have a positive fund balance. The General Fund was a challenging budget to do because of unknowns (the Tollway). The revenues from the Billboard and Cell Towers will be stopped due to having to bring them down during the tollway construction by December 1st. 2020.

Because of the unknowns a Status Quo Budget has been submitted (assuming everything for the most part will stay the same).

Cost continue to go up, with revenues staying flat (new revenues are needed)

Previous fiscal year, required departments to make cuts

Current fiscal year was helped by the red-light camera revenues, otherwise would have had a deficit in preparation of the budget.

New General Fund Budget is balanced, but required ($122,000) in cuts across all departments

The Village cannot continue to make these cuts annually without staffing cuts that directly impacting the community

Possible revenues options – Cell Phone carriers on the Water Tower, from the Tollway Project (the revenues the Village asked for), Red-light camera revenues, New billboard on the East side of the Tollway. Possibly moving the Utility tax revenue to the General Fund

The Village expects the current fiscal year to be balanced. Village Administrator Espiritu informed the Board that the only reason why the Village will balance is because of each department being stringent on purchases. They were asked to hold off making certain purchases.

The new Fiscal Year 20-21

No tax increases or fee charges (except for pension costs)

No water or sewer rate increases

Reductions to get balanced – includes reorganization in personnel ($122,405)

Initiatives – 6 Board laptops (5 yrs. old) – Board members agreed they do not need their laptops replaced at this time.

Events Coordination & Marketing

Rezoning/Zoning Code Updates

St. Charles Rd. Corridor Plan (TIF) Marketing of Village Properties (TIF) Façade Program (TIF)

Capital Improvements – Proviso Drive

Alley Improvements (carry over to next fiscal year) Electronic Message Board

Server Replacement

HVAC Upgrade

Concreate Apron

Sidewalk Program

Water Lining (Elm Ave.) – Current Project that may carry over to next year.

Sewer Lining – Current Project that may carry over to next year.

Vehicle Replacement

Fire Pumper (1996) – Something we have to eventually replace

2 Patrol Vehicles (2015) – No Patrol vehicles have not been replaced since 2017

2Plow Trucks (2004) – Heavily used, we will have to eventually replaced

Next Steps

February 18 – Village Board Budget Workshop - today March 3 – Partner agencies presentation

March 17 – Public Hearing on the FY 20-21 Budget April 7 – Budget Approval

April 17 – Budget filed with County Clerk

May 2 – Fiscal Year 20-21 Begins

Village Administrator Rudy Espiritu thanked Assistant to the Village Administrator Justyn Miller for all the hard work on the budget, as well as Staff, Departments and the Board for their guidance.

9.3 Police and Property Maintenance (Chair – Trustee Salemi; Co-Chair Trustee Hammar)

9.3.1 Trustee Liaison Report – No Report.

9.3.2 Monthly Report

9.4 Fire and Health (Chair – Trustee Grenier; Co-Chair Trustee Perez)

9.4.1 Trustee Liaison Report – No Report.

9.4.2 Monthly Report

9.5 Public Works and Utilities (Chair – Trustee Hammar; Co-Chair Trustee Grenier)

9.5.1 Trustee Liaison Report – During nice days, problem trees are being taken down.

9.5.2 Monthly Report

9.5.3 Motion to Approve a Resolution for Improvement under the Illinois Highway Code for the use of Motor Fuel Tax funds for the 2019 Alley Reconstruction Project

Trustee	Motion	Second	Ayes	Nays	Absent	Abstain
Raymond Grenier			X
Sherry Graf-Stone		X	X
Herb Washington			X
Jerry Perez			X
Larry Hammar	X		X
Diane Salemi			X

MOTION CARRIED

9.6 Community and Intergovernmental Relations (Chair – Trustee Perez; Co- Chair Trustee Graf-Stone)

9.6.1 Trustee Liaison Report – Trustee Perez gave an update to the Board on the Music in the Park - some of the contracts are coming in. The Lions Club co-sponsors the Music in the Park, however Trustee Perez spoke with the Lions Club about sponsoring the Polar Plunge event. The Lions Club will get back to Trustee Perez on which event they will sponsor.

10 Village President

10.1 President’s Report

10.1.1 3/3/20 Village Board Meeting at 6:30 p.m.

President Lee thanks all the Department Heads and Board members for meeting with him.

President Lee would like to look at Robo-Call system. Would like to look at what updates on communication can be done.

President Lee thanks and appreciates all the work done by Staff.

President Lee thanked the Board for volunteering to be Trustee Liaisons. It will be beneficial to all.

Community Round Table will be held on April 23rd.

11 Village Administrator – Robo-Communication may be discussed at their next meeting. On behalf of the Staff, Village Administrator Espiritu thanked the Board and they are looking forward for a good fiscal year.

12 Village Attorney – Attorney Smith reported on some bills that are pending in the General Assembly in Springfield. The first one is that each year every municipality in Illinois has to publish in the newspaper what’s called a treasury annual report, which is a list of all of your revenues and expenses broken down to by source and then employee salaries and benefits and then vendor’s payment. The newspapers love this publication because they earn several hundreds of dollars from each municipalities to publish it. Now everyone has websites, no one really looks at the newspapers, this bill will allow you to put it on the website, instead of the newspaper.

Another bill is to restore the 10% state income tax local government distributive fund share. It is now down to 6%. If this bill is passed, you would get 4% more net revenue from the state income tax which is split per capita. That will be a great benefit for all municipalities.

The third bill is interesting. Because counties may allow adult use cannabis sales within unincorporated areas, the issues come up is what if you have pockets of unincorporated areas next to municipalities that have opted out of such sales. You can end up in a situation where the village/city/town says no, but across the street in the unincorporated (whichever county) one of the shops opens up. This bill enacted into law will create a 1 1⁄2 mile radius from municipalities which opted out extending it to unincorporated areas prohibiting the counties from overriding your local zoning decisions.

Another bill that has been introduced “Right to Garden Act” which would prohibit municipalities from precluding gardens from being present on residential properties.

The last bill that is moving quickly through the house to ban red-light in non-home rule municipalities. This would not affect the Village of Berkeley because it is home rule.

13 Public Comments and Questions

No Public Comments or Questions.

14 Executive Session

14.1 Motion to enter into Executive Session to consider the:

a. Appointment, Employment, Compensation, Discipline, Performance or Dismissal of Specific Employee(s) 5 ILCS 120/2 (c)(1)

b. Collective Bargaining, Salary Schedules; categorically 5 ILCS 120/2 (c)(2)

c. Appointment/Removal for Public Office or Attorney 5 ILCS 120/2 (c)(3)

d. Consideration to Purchase, Lease (Buy), or Acquire Specific Real Estate Property 5 ILCS 120/2 (c)(5)

e. Setting Price for Sale/Lease Specific Real Estate Property 5 ILCS 120/2 (c)(6)

f. Security Procedures and the use of personnel and equipment to respond to an actual, a threatened, or a reasonably potential danger to the safety of employees, students, staff, the public, or public property. 5 ILCS 120/2 (c)(8)

g. Probable or Imminent and Pending Litigation 5 ILCS 120/2 (c)(11)

h. Establish Reserves or Settle Claims (Tort) 5 ILCS 120/2 (c)(12)

i. Consideration of Release of Executive Session Minutes 5 ILCS 120/2 (c)(21)

Enter Executive Session 7:20 pm

Trustee	Motion	Second	Ayes	Nays	Absent	Abstain
Sherry Graf-Stone		X	X
Herb Washington			X
Jerry Perez			X
Larry Hammar			X
Diane Salemi	X		X
Raymond Grenier			X

Voice Vote

MOTION CARRIED

Exit Executive Session 7:30 pm

Trustee	Motion	Second	Ayes	Nays	Absent	Abstain
Herb Washington			X
Jerry Perez			X
Larry Hammar			X
Diane Salemi	X		X
Raymond Grenier		X	X
Sherry Graf-Stone			X

Voice Vote

MOTION CARRIED

15 Action to be Taken as a Result of Executive Session

16 President Lee adjourned the meeting at 7:31 pm.

Trustee	Motion	Second	Ayes	Nays	Absent	Abstain
Jerry Perez			X
Larry Hammar			X
Diane Salemi	X		X
Raymond Grenier		X	X
Sherry Graf-Stone			X
Herb Washington

Voice Vote

MOTION CARRIED

https://www.berkeley.il.us/vertical/Sites/%7BB4877CC9-5533-47FA-94DE-B3C09F1665AB%7D/uploads/Board_Meeting_Minutes_February_18_2020.pdf