West Cook News

Village of Bellwood Committee of a Whole met Sept. 11.

Here are the minutes provided by the committee:

The Village of Bellwood conducted a Committee of the Whole meeting on Monday, September 11, 2023, at 3:30p.m. in the Village Board Room at 3200 Washington Boulevard, Bellwood, IL. 60104-1984.

Call to Order 

The Committee of the Whole meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Village of Bellwood was called to order by Mayor Harvey at 3:30p.m. on Monday, September 11, 2023.

Roll Call 

Those in attendance were Mayor Harvey, Clerk Janel Moreland, Trustees Ciavattone, Boston, Holman, Robinson, Delgado, Nightengale, Willie Norfleet (Finance), Attorney Michael Castaldo.

1. Pledge of Allegiance

2. Approve Minutes of last Committee of a Whole Meeting

3. Approve Agenda for Committee of a Whole Meeting

4. Trustee Committee Reports

a. Public Works - Trustee Ciavattone, Chairman; Trustee Delgado, Member

b. Community Development – Trustee Boston, Chairman; Trustee Robinson, Member 

c. Quality of Life - Trustee Holman, Chairman; Trustee Boston, Member

d. Administration – Trustee Robinson, Chairman; Trustee Ciavattone

e. Public Safety – Trustee Delgado, Chairman: Trustee Nightengale, Member 

f. Finance - Trustee Nightengale, Chairman; Trustee Holman, Member

g. Ad Hoc Committees - Traffic Safety

5. Department Head Reports

a. Economic Development

i. Capital Project

ii. Developmental Projects

b. Finance Director/Comptroller

i. Utility Collection Billing and collection Status

ii. Payments of Bills

iii. Review of Revenue and Investments

iv. Inventory

v. Bidding

c. Police Department - Police Chief

d. Fire Department - Fire Chief

e. Director of Public Works

i. Street Department

ii. Water Department

f. Village Engineer

g. Building Commissioner

h. Director of Human Resources

i. Village Attorney/Corporation Counsel

i. Litigation (item to be reported on in executive session if required)

ii. Contract negotiations (item to be reported on in executive session if required), and

iii. Pending legal matters.

6. Clerk's Report - Per Mayor Harvey & Attorney Castaldo, the clerk will no longer give a report and Attorney Castaldo removed it from the agenda.

7. Mayor's Report 

8. New Business - Discussion/Agenda Items for upcoming board meeting

9. Unfinished Business

10. Public Comment

11. Adjournment

Mayor Harvey requested a motion to approve the agenda for the September 11, 2023, COW meeting. Trustee Robinson made a motion and Trustee Delgado seconded to accept the agenda of the regular COW meeting. Upon a voice vote, the motion was carried unanimously to approve the September 11, 2023, COW Meeting Agenda.

Mayor Harvey requested a motion to approve the minutes of the August 14, 2023, regular COW meeting. Trustee Holman made a motion and Trustee Ciavattone seconded to accept the minutes of the last regular COW meeting. Upon a voice vote (minus Trustee Holman), the motion was carried unanimously to approve the August 14, 2023, COW meeting minutes.

Committee Reports 

Trustee Ciavattone: regular report

Trustee Boston: regular report

Trustee Holman: regular report

Trustee Robinson: regular report

Trustee Delgado: regular report

Trustee Nightengale: regular report

Ad Hoc: no report

Department Head Reports 

Economic Development 

Peter Tsolis reported the following:

i. It seems like Bellwood is on the radar for people who want to move their business to Bellwood. I got off the phone today with a developer that put together the Duke deal. They're trying to buy the SureBuilt bldg. They want to develop that site. There's a tenant that wants to buy the whole building and they said they wanted to buy it even if the tenant wasn't taking on the entire property because they love Bellwood and love doing work in Bellwood. The word is getting out there. That is a 12 1⁄2 acre site. With next door will give them about 16 acres. It will be a completely brand- new building. We're trying to put that together.

ii. We will have another call tomorrow regarding the downtown St. Charles Bellwood. This call is all hands-on deck with the lawyers, developers, finance, and everyone involved. The mayor's initiative is to develop downtown Bellwood. Developing both sides of 27 & 26th Avenue on St. Charles both sides multiple use. Commercial on the bottom, parking inside the building and market rate apartments above not subsidized. This is a big project to redefine the village and put all the pieces together really complicated but we think we will get it all done and should be happening Spring/Summer 2024. We have been purchasing some parcels on St. Charles Road on those blocks. We have presented and the law firm is working on purchase agreements for two more parcels to complete land acquisitions that will be the downtown Bellwood first phase going from 28th-22nd that's why we are purchasing 2501 St. Charles which is the corner. The village already has some parcels there, land banking some other parcels. This will be done by the next board meeting to be voted on that purchase.

iii. Single family home initiative is in review for 3-4 parcels. 15 homes in different parts of town.

Finance Director/Comptroller 

Willie Norfleet reported the following:

i. Utility billing - Fairly well consistent. The only increase are the individuals who are 90-days delinquent. 30 day and 60-day billing are fairly well consistent. 90 days is where the largest amount of money is going. The collections are fine still on schedule. No difficulties. 

ii. Revenues on our budget schedules with revenues and expenditures, so we're within our budget and we're doing very well.

iii. Investments, things are going well with interest earned. The month of September we hit $60,000 in one month of interest earned in our general fund. Going back to 2014 we can only find three years that we've gotten that volume of money in a year's period of time.

iv. On schedule and on time with paying our bills that come in. Our cashflow is more than adequate to take care of the bills.

Police Department 

Chief Allen reported the following:

i. Currently have three officers in the field training program. Everyone has graduated from the academy.

ii. We have a records clerk that will be starting tomorrow, Jasmine Kelly.

iii. We have a couple of officers that helped with Taste of Melrose and Hispano Fest the last two weekends.

iv. We have an orientation coming up this weekend.

Fire Department 

Chief Ritz reported the following:

i. We have a new female fire fighter which is the first ever started 3 weeks ago. She comes fully trained and won't cost the village anything as far as school. Mayor – Michelle is doing a wonderful job but you gotta tell her to calm down a little bit. People may not know that I still come in at 3am and when she's here at 4:15am she's downstairs doing something. Tell her to chill out.

ii. We got a grant for radios. We were hoping they would be in service at this time, but they need to be programmed. Very high tech which will allow us to improve going in the future. We hope to have them done by next month.

iii. We received an Auto Pulse machine that does compressions during CPR. It's in use and is very successful. It allows compression to be given from the time is being worked on all the way to the hospital.

Director of Public Works 

Assistant Superintendent Arnie Brown reported the following in Marty Walker's absence:

i. The street resurfacing project started today.

ii. We have to do some emergency work on our pumping station at Hyde Park lift station sanitary sewer. The pump isn't working properly, so we had to rebuild and replace the check valve and wet wheel. The Davis Drive lift station, pump isn't working there properly we have to rebuild there too. 

iii. On Granville and St. Charles Road the laundry sanitary sewer collapsed. We had a company come in to replace the pipes and we replaced the manhole.

iv. Clean up week is September 25-29 picking up garbage on the residents' garbage day, except for construction material. We will pick up e-waste and tires.

v. The tree crew was cutting down trees weather permitting we will start back.

Village Engineer 

Chuck Hodges from Hancock Engineering reported the following:

i. Bid proposals were received for the village's pavement patching project. Schroeder Asphalt Services were the same contractors that received it last year. They were the lowest bidder with $90,797.00 was the bid they submitted. We're looking forward to them getting started.

ii. The 24th Avenue Street resurfacing project is underway between Washington and Madison Avenue. The completion date is October 30th.

iii. Mayor - I got a citizen complaint on 25th & Madison going East is very long for the east west traffic. Give me some idea of the time. They said it was 7 minutes, but I don't think it is 7 mins. She wanted blame it on the Quik Trip. I told her QT is not related. Can you and Marty look into it?

Building Commissioner 

Jim Stock reported the following:

i. The building department is doing very well. We are at full staff for the first time in a long time. We have a new inspector starting Tuesday. He will be taking over the district that Robin Jones.

ii. I spoke with Patrick Walsh he is the superintendent at the senior building. He says they will the final inspections by September 26th. The elevator final inspection is on the 25th. They are working seven days a week trying to meet that schedule. The landscaping is ongoing. Intent is to try and be complete by the end of September.

Director of Human Resources 

Mayor Harvey reported the following in Tonita LeShore absence:

i. We are in the process of hiring for numerous positions. We hired an administrative assistant, finance accounts payable/receivable. Posting positions for cashiers. We have been hiring Community Service Officers in the police department. Chief Allen is the man that does all the background checks for new hires.

BOEM - 

Mike Sabel reported the following:

i. We assisted Joe with his car show.

ii. Melrose with their Taste of Melrose Park & the Hispano Parade.

Village Clerk - Per Mayor Harvey & Attorney Castaldo, the clerk will no longer give a report and Attorney Castaldo removed it from the agenda and the Clerk was not asked to report.

Mayor 

Mayor Harvey reported the following:

i. Thank the trustees that came out to the autism awareness event. It was a wonderful event. They had well over 400 people. I got to meet my favorite news anchor of all times Val Warner. They honored Tyreese Alexander who is in the autism program and employee of the village comes to us through Gay Chase and George Stone.

ii. Went to the Maywood Fest to show support. We went to the Taste of Melrose Park last weekend. I received a call from a resident today. She said she was at the Maywood event and said, "I gotta tell you, ya'll do it right. She's a vendor in Bellwood. She said that everything was right in Bellwood, and I went to Maywood just to see theirs and you guys are on a whole different level in Bellwood."

iii. The Proviso Township mayors had an opportunity to go to Proviso schools to welcome the young people back to school. Later that afternoon they had a back-to-school bash that we attended as well. They gave us an invite to come back as much as we wanted and hang out at the school. 

iv. Saturday, we went to PT Man Proviso Township Ministerial Allegiance Network. Danny Davis was there we talked about what was going on. We went to Proviso Baptist Church, which is on 5th and Legend. It was Bishop Porter and his wife 51st Pastor Anniversary. Pastor Harrell is the pastor. 

v. For all the department heads and all the trustees, we keep getting a bad rap that we in the village of Bellwood don't do anything for our senior citizens, which people don't understand that everything we do is for our senior citizens. We need to make sure we go above and beyond for our senior citizens to let them know that we are here for them. We're supposed to have some symposiums for our senior citizens even though they are part of our citizens, and we try to do for all of our citizens. I don't know where the negative press comes from about the village of Bellwood only cares about the seniors at Georgina Lane, Senior Suites and now the Bellwood Senior Apartments. People need to understand that those apartments are affordable income seniors and for affordable income and low-income seniors we have to do a little bit more digging and a little bit more. So, when people compare regular income to low-income seniors it's kind of a travesty to do those comparisons. We will continue to push forward and do as much as we can.

New Businesses 

Attorney Castaldo reported the following:

Several items that will appear on the agenda for next Wednesday. A bunch of the items are already in dropbox for your review, and I plan on getting the rest in by today or tomorrow.

i. Item A - along with a couple of other items that will appear as well. There were several issues that the public works department had to tend to regarding the lift stations and collapse of the sewer/pipe, those repairs had to be done quickly. There will be three items included with A. 

ii. Item B - is the agreement with Cook County for a grant. Climate Resiliency.

iii. Item C - is Proclamation which I believe is October 3rd is going to be wear orange day for prevention of bullying.

iv. Items D & E - The village is looking to dispose of a vehicle and will be purchasing a vehicle. 

v. Peter already touched on Item F.

vi. Item G - Provides for amendment to village code. It allows for food trucks. Mr. Stock is working on that.

vii. There will also be an agreement with Cook County Public Health, which is something we approved for health inspections.

viii. Already have the 2023 pavement patching.

ix. Still working on the insurance renewal. Tonita is working with our broker.

Unfinished Business 

None.

Public Comment 

Mayor Harvey requested a motion to open the floor for Public Comment. Trustee Ciavattone made a motion and Trustee Boston seconded to open the floor for public comment.

All Trustees were in favor of opening the floor for public comment. Upon a voice vote, the motion was carried unanimously. Mayor Harvey declared the floor for public comment open.

Hearing no Public Comment. There was no public in attendance. Mayor Harvey asked for a motion to close the floor for Public Comment.

Trustee Delgado made a motion and Trustee Boston seconded to close the floor for public comment.

All Trustees were in favor of closing the floor. Upon a voice vote, the motion was carried unanimously. Mayor Harvey declared the floor for public comment closed.

Adjournment 

Mayor Harvey requested a motion to adjourn the Committee of The Whole. Motion made by Trustee Delgado seconded by Trustee Ciavattone to adjourn the meeting. Upon a voice vote, the motion was carried unanimously. Mayor Harvey declared the meeting adjourned, with no further business to come before this Board, this meeting stands adjourned at 3:57p.m.

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