City of Winchester City Council Met Dec. 21.
Here is the minutes provided by the council:
The Winchester City Council met in a special council meeting, December 21 at City Hall. Mayor McIntire called the meeting to order at 6 p.m. with the following council in attendance: Ron Bell, Lawrence Coultas, Terry Gregory, Bill Jacquot, Sandy Long, Jeff Pittman, and City Clerk Brenda Robinson. Also, in attendance were Wanda Cody, City Treasurer; and John Paul Coonrod, City Attorney. No members of the public were in attendance.
McIntire told Ron Bell he had received a letter from Benton's on the Emergency Water Crossover. They have requested bids from four (4) different contractors. The crossover will consist of 110 lineal feet of four (4) inch ductile iron and PVC watermain to four-inch tapping sleeves and bows, precast mass meter vault control valve meter and associated piping and valves to provide emergency interconnect between city of Winchester and SMD water to Walker watershed. Bids will be submitted to the City of Winchester up & until 2 pm, prevailing time on December 29, which is a week from tomorrow.
McIntire said we had received the bill from Pehlman & Dold for preparing our audit. The final bill is $18,655. Last year the bill was $23,000. Hopefully next year it will be cheaper. Bill Jacquot stated he hoped the new girls would be able to get things up to snuff when it comes to accounting, checkbooks, transfers all that should be taken care of ASAP. Amanda would like to get a new filing cabinet to start out fresh and then later when they get used to the system start going through all the files in the vault. Rick from Locis will be back on December 28 to do more training and help Jozy get started. John Paul Coonrod, City Attorney addressed the IMRF issue. It was decided to appoint Wanda Cody as the administrator to the IMRF and Amanda and Jozy will be web assistants. Cody has been working with Randy Stevens & he will help her with anything she needs. Stevens said there would be some training in January, and they could sign up. If they could make it that would be fine if not they could watch at their convenience. John Simmons had some problems with IMRF recently. He was wanting to add more to his retirement. It was being taken out then for a few months nothing was taken out, then they started up again. He thought he had lost around $8,000. He finally got ahold of Randy Stevens and got it taken care of.
It was stated we needed to got through everything to make sure all fulltime employees are enrolled in IMRF and on the insurance plan. Right now, Matt Watson does not have an insurance card. Jacob Bettis is on IMRF. IF Matt had gotten sick and need the health insurance and didn't have it, we would have been in a pickle. Watson has been employed for over a year without health insurance.
MOTION: Terry Gregory moved, and Bill Jacquot seconded to appoint Wanda Cody as the Authorized Agent for IMRF and Amanda Howerton and Jozy DeGroot as web assistants. Roll call resulted in all yeas. Motion carried.
Cody said Randy said another good reference to talk to would be Mark Ford. He is well versed in it.
McIntire asked if anyone had heard people talking about their gas bills be high. He just wants to make sure the girls are using the right formula to calculate the bills. It was stated that once it is entered into the system how you can get three (3) different rates. When Rick from Locis comes on the 28 he will show the girls how to calculate it. We have been short-changing the city and not the customers. It was suggested the gas committee could meet with Locis Rep as well. When Sandy and Lawrence looked at the tax rate it was .24 when it was supposed to be .024. John Simmons sent some bills to Lindsey from USDI and they were off 90¢. There are several questions for Locis when they come up.
Mayor McIntire and Lawrence Coultas were requested or invited to attend a meeting at the EMS last Wednesday, December 16. There were several members present from the community. Andy Sellars, representing the farming community; Pat VanDeVelde, Economic Development; Attorney for the EMS and Marcy Renner. They discussed what we can do to go along with what we did at our meeting a while back. It was concluded that the EMS attorney would write a letter stating that first of all, we want to see if the ordinance that was originally discussed and originally the commissioners all agreed to add the taxing district for the ambulance was still n place. They need to check everything out and see where they are. It if it dead, then they have to go all the way through same rigmarole they went through back to that point. McIntire said he thinks they need to be better represented. McIntire said he was told the EMS was not to say anything at the meeting. Supposedly the commissioners told the EMS not to speak, it made them look suspicious. Coultas said the most interesting aspects of this is that you don't really have to have a referendum on this. I guess it would be a resolution to make this taxing body right. IF the commissioners make the resolution to do that, then people have 60 days to file a petition against it. And it has to have over 50% of registered residents and property owners. If they don't get a petition against it with 50% of people then automatically goes with 4%. So a $100,000 house your taxes would increase $133 a year. Right now they don't know if they will have to start from scratch.
The new girls need to be drug tested at MOHA. Brenda will set up the appointment for them. We mentioned it to them at interviews.
John Paul Coonrod, City Attorney stated as part of the stopgap funding to the tune of say $50,000, the USDA wanted a public hearing for the public library funding. The meeting had to be rescheduled because the notification date was his mistake. So it was rescheduled to today. There are no members of the public in attendance, and we've been here for thirty minutes, we can discuss it amongst ourselves, but we are not under any further obligation to discuss the matter further..
Terry Gregory said she saw where the library got $4,000 from Secretary White to purchase books. It was on WLDS News where several towns around received money.
McIntire talked to Ameren and they plan to put up the new lights are each entrance of Douglas Park before the end of the year. They plan to leave the steel poles up until after the first of the year. It was asked if the city was going to sponsor the Christmas lighting this year. The Civic Group is doing something. We kicked it around and didn't agree to anything. MOTION: Bill Jacquot moved, and Terry Gregory seconded to adjourn. Roll call resulted in all yeas. Motion carried. Meeting adjourned at 6:55 pm
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