North Cook News

Village of Bartlett Committee of the Whole met Dec. 6.

Here are the minutes provided by the committee:

CALL TO ORDER

President Wallace called the Committee of the Whole meeting of December 6, 2022 of the President and Board of Trustees of the Village of Bartlett to order on the above date at 7:19 p.m.

ROLL CALL

PRESENT: Chairmen Deyne, Gandsey, Gunsteen, Hopkins, LaPorte, Suwanski, President Wallace

ABSENT: None

ALSO PRESENT: Village Administrator Paula Schumacher, Assistant Village Administrator Scott Skrycki, Sr. Management Analyst Samuel Hughes Management Analyst Joey Dienberg, Finance Director Todd Dowden, Public Works Director Dan Dinges, Assistant Public Works Director Tyler Isham, Planning & Development Director Kristy Stone, Grounds Superintendent Matt Giermak, Police Chief Geoff Pretkelis, Village Attorney Bryan Mraz and Village Clerk Lorna Giless.

FINANCE AND GOLF, CHAIRMAN DEYNE

2023-2027 Proposed Capital Improvement Program

Todd Dowden stated this is a five-year plan with a total of $113,307,137 which includes the estimated 2022-2023 year we are in and the next four years. The coming five years will see a shift from water projects over to more sewer projects and increasing in the streets area. We are focusing on the 2023-2024 year and is referred to as the capital budget which is equal to $41,471,000. We will bring this for approval, then it will roll into our operating budget which will begin in the spring. The reason why we do this is to give public works a chance to prepare for he projects, go out for bid etc. before the fiscal year starts in May. That way the projects can start when the construction season begins. Also listed on this page are two new projects we are adding this year. The first is the cemetery columbarium and we also added a project for municipal building improvements. He noted that we did review water/sewer rates in the spring and increased them both. We are proposing rates to continue to increase so this budget works within those perimeters for the increases we proposed. We will be reviewing rates and fund balance projections during the operating budget process.

Public Works Director Dan Dinges stated this capital program does not factor in any of the asset management items that were discussed last month.

WATER:

He stated he will touch base on the key projects moving forward and some of the stuff coming for 2023-2024 and anything in that 5-year period. This year’s big project was the water main replacement project which was on Oneida, North and Western. This was the first project where we replaced water main and lead services. We had 11 lead services that we replaced all the way to the meter. You will see in 2023-2024 that the watermain project is $300,000, then a big number the next year of $2.7 million. We have been looking at the projects, how many we have and trying to do some of those in-house. We are looking at alternating so one year we might do a big watermain project and the following year we will do a street program which will allow us to reduce a project that we have to put out to bid but allow us to do a big project.

One of the big projects coming forward in 2024-2025 is the North Ave. and Oak Ave. water main replacement. We are trying to get that done during the summer. We were looking at doing that during this coming summer but watermain and ductile iron pipe still has a 6 month to 1 year lead time. We are at a point where it would be unclear if the pipe would come in time and it is a short window from the end of May until the middle of August to get that done so we pushed both of them to the summer of 2024. The reason we are pushing to get that done is we have money to get through the Northwest Municipal STP program to resurface North and Oak Ave. in the summer of 2025, so we want to get that watermain done before the resurfacing. We have water tower paintings coming and the Stearns Road Reservoir that is going out to bid this winter. Next year we have planned to do the Schick tower.

The big thing under infrastructure improvements is the Stearns Road Pump Station which is with the reservoir we are going to paint. We are renovating the pump station to be able to utilize the 500,000 gallons of storage we have so we can incorporate that into the system. Another item in the 2024-2025 year is a future water tower and we would be able to eliminate the Oneida tower and add this new tower to a location to be determined.

President Wallace asked the price of a new water tower.

Mr. Dinges stated it is about $5 million and it is up higher right now, so we are hoping it goes lower later on.

President Wallace asked when the Oneida tower would come down.

Mr. Dinges stated that would need to build the new tower first. We would potentially build a new water tower at Kent Circle and remove the old Kent Circle tower and Oneida. We need the storage in place before we remove the tower though.

Village Administrator Schumacher asked Mr. Dinges to elaborate on the reasoning behind replacing the Kent Circle Tower.

Mr. Dinges stated we Kent Circle is the best centrally located tower, but it is too high and too small. That location seems to be the best centrally located area for a new tower though.

Chairman Hopkins asked if you get water pressure data from any of the modeling. Mr. Dinges stated it is theoretical, but yes, we do.

Chairman Hopkins asked for some of that data to review.

Mr. Dinges responded yes. He continued that we have talked about the water meter change out. We have been looking at the different meters out there. The next meeting on the committee we will be discussing the water meter change out.

Chairman Gandsey asked if we have chosen the type of meter yet.

Mr. Dinges stated no, that will be discussed and then finalize a contract with them. Chairman Hopkins stated there are a lot of choices out there for water meters.

Mr. Dinges stated there are, but we focus on the main ones that are out in the industry but there are a lot of them. We have looked at a lot of them and have narrowed the list to the ones staff thinks are the best options.

He continued that we have an application to the EPA to try to get some IEPA loan funds to replace all of our lead services with the hope that we can get some loan forgiveness. It sounds like if we can get this funding we might be able to receive 50/50 matching.

We continue to work on infrastructure improvements. We removed wells #1 and #2 which are the wells in the parking lot, so we will be looking at demolishing that building which will allow us to get rid of the building to the south of village hall. We have also eliminated and capped well #5 and well #8. The ones we are not going to use in an emergency we are eliminating so we no longer have to do any type of sampling with the EPA. Wells #4 and #6 which are the wells down at Stearns Rd. were our meat and potatoes wells and we are going to try to keep those in place for emergency use only.

President Wallace asked what it costs to keep those wells open.

Mr. Dinges stated it is pretty minimum, because all we have to do is run them monthly, sample them and keep them fresh. If we have a well go down or some major improvement then we would evaluate whether it is worth repairing or abandoning it.

President Wallace asked if we use any water from them now and if we have a contract with a neighboring town for emergency water.

Mr. Dinges stated right now we have a contract with Streamwood, we have a contract with Elgin we could utilize and he wants to finalize an agreement with them on that. Next year we are hoping to get an interconnect with Hanover Park as well.

President Wallace stated as long as it doesn’t cost a lot for all of the emergency wells when we have other options for emergency water.

Chairman Gunsteen asked about the $50,000 and $2.6 million for lead service.

Mr. Dinges stated the IEPA loan right now is $2.5 million so that is assuming we take the entire loan, but we are hoping to cut that in half.

Mr. Dinges continued that we had a successful hydrant painting program “pump up the art”.

SEWER:

Mr. Dinges stated we do not have a lot of new projects, but we have some big ones that will continue for years to come. We have the Bittersweet treatment plant, the Devon excess flow facility and force main, we continued lining with the sewers, services and manhole lining.

Chairman Deyne asked what work was being done by the AT&T building the other night.

Mr. Dinges stated there was a water main break. It was an old lead service that went to the old building across the street, that sprung a leak so we ended up removing the lead service and patching our main.

Mr. Dinges stated we just completed the Herrick House force main and now we are just waiting on the pumps and controls to come which won’t get here until February/March and then we will wrap that project up.

STREETS:

Assistant Public Works Director Tyler Isham stated the street projects are a lot of the same. First off are the MFT, where we are going to go every other year with next year being a slightly smaller resurfacing drive, then take a break from it and the year after we will do a larger resurfacing job. Things like the concrete program, pavement preservation, crack sealing, etc. are all going to be every year, but we will see how this goes and tweak as needed. In the IDOT intersection improvements, the hope is that the Rt. 59 and W. Bartlett Rd. intersection gets started next spring. The North Ave. and Oak Ave. resurfacing is being done through surface transportation funds and it is a 70/30 match with Oak Ave. on the contingency list and we will have to reapply, but North Ave. is scheduled for federal fiscal year 2025. That will be completed in the summer of 2025 and the hope is to get Oak Ave. on that as well.

President Wallace asked what the estimated time was for the intersection at W. Bartlett Rd. to be finished.

Mr. Dinges stated they are thinking one construction season right now, but they are still working on utility relocates, so hopefully they get that done this winter and the road improvement part can get started in the Spring and have the vast majority of it completed by the fall.

President Wallace asked if theses funds we are getting from Rebuild Illinois and the American Rescue Plan Act are guaranteed funds that we are going to receive.

Mr. Dinges stated the Rebuild Illinois money has already been received.

President Wallace stated the only one that seems new this year is the American Rescue Act Funding.

Mr. Dinges stated we have received that already as well.

Ms. Schumacher stated we have to do some additional reporting for that, but we have the funds.

President Wallace stated we are using a lot of sewer and water funds, so are we okay with where the fund balance will wind up in 5 years.

Mr. Dowden stated with every other year progress with MFT funds through the 5 years, we have enough MFT funds to meet those needs. Going on from there, we will not have enough money to do that. Right now, we are receiving about $1.6 million in MFT funds per year so after this program, the MFT program would need more sources of funding including grants or something else.

President Wallace asked if we are able to use LGDF on those types of projects. Mr. Dowden stated yes, that money is not restricted.

President Wallace stated so if they changed the legislation in the next year or two, that would make a big difference.

Mr. Dowden stated it would.

Ms. Schumacher stated with the new General Assembly getting sworn, in January, we plan to have a resolution about MFT funding and restoring that on an upcoming board meeting so we can send it to our new legislators to start the year off right.

Mr. Isham stated we are looking to do the S. Bartlett Rd. trail with a partnership with the park district and that will probably begin in the spring. We will continue to use in-house crews for the Newport trail.

He continued that right now we are working on the Ruzicka parking lot design with DuPage County and ComEd.

Chairman Suwanski confirmed that we have $900,000 here for 2024-2025 for Ruzicka. She asked if we are helping ComEd pay for that.

Ms. Schumacher stated technically that property is not in the Village of Bartlett. We are working with them to allow us to make those improvements. The parking lot is a mess physically and bureaucratically, but we are chugging our way through it.

Chairman Suwanski asked whose property it is.

Mr. Dinges stated it is unincorporated DuPage County so if we can’t get ComEd to annex to the village, we will have to go through the planning process through the county.

Chairman Suwanski suggested that we ask the county for assistance.

Chairman Hopkins confirmed that the reason to do this is because you are not allowed to use MFT funds outside the boundaries of the village.

Mr. Dinges stated no, this is just to get it built. We have to go through a zoning process and all that stuff. We had a meeting with DuPage County and they recommended annexing the property so we can just go through our village process. We are talking to ComEd to see if we can make that happen because it would be simpler to go through the village process vs. DuPage County. We can use MFT funds for the project.

Chairman Gandsey asked what the improvements were.

Mr. Dinges stated right now it is gravel so it would cover a storm sewer, curbing, asphalt, and lighting, similar to what is out at Koehler.

Chairman Gunsteen confirmed that just the parking lot is unincorporated, not the park.

Mr. Dinges stated that is correct.

Chairman Suwanski asked why the park district does not have this park.

Mr. Dines stated he thinks the plan is to give the park and parking lot to the park district after it is complete.

Chairman Suwanski confirmed that we are going to put in a $900,000 parking lot then give it to the park district.

Ms. Schumacher stated we looked at this a number of years ago and that was the message from the park district, they would not take it, in its current condition. She thought that it was one of the first ball fields that we build as a village. It goes back to those overlapping early days.

President Wallace stated he is wondering if we are going to be going through this if it makes sense to redesign the whole park since the layout is awkward and nonfunctional. Instead of messing with this parking lot, there is plenty of parking on the other side of the park.

Chairman Hopkins asked if the park district is open to more grants and funding for redesigning parks.

Ms. Schumacher stated she thinks she would have a conversation with the park district since they have greater access and better knowledge about what is available. In terms of redesigning, they may have some thoughts on that to coordinate with their park system and future plans.

Chairman Hopkins stated he liked the idea President Wallace suggested about redesigning it and maybe the $900,000 would go further if we turn it over and they get some grant money to do the work.

Mr. Isham stated we are waiting to receive the Build Illinois funds for the downtown cross walk so that will be on hold until we receive the funding. The Oak Ave. parking lot is being designed right now and the hope is the once MORE Brewing is ready to go, we will start construction on this parking lot. We will also combine it with resurfacing Banbury and the Oak/Oneida parking lot. Metra area landscaping and sidewalk improvements are scheduled for next year with the Metra partnership.

President Wallace asked if that was when we had to decide what sidewalks we wanted again.

Ms. Schumacher stated that will be on the next meeting.

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT:

Mr. Dinges stated we have the Brewster Creek Business Park and Bluff City. As you know, the Brewster Creek is going to be expiring and the village has work we want to have completed, so we are trying to do a partnership with them where we would resurface the roads in the business park and the bike paths, in addition, we are looking to add a bike bath along the west side of Munger from Brewster Creek Blvd. down to Stearns. We found an odor eliminator that the City of Naperville installed. Once installed, the complaints about smells from the sewer went away.

Chairman Hopkins asked if it would be paid with TIF funds.

Mr. Dinges stated that is correct.

President Wallace asked about the on-going maintenance of the odor eliminator.

Mr. Dinges stated there will be ongoing maintenance, but it will eliminate a lot of the chemicals we are using, so in the long run, he thinks we will be ahead.

GOLF:

Grounds Superintendent Matt Giermak stated for golf, we have the construction of a new irrigation system. The most important part of a golf courses operation is the irrigation system. We have roughly 14 miles of PVC pipe and 700 irrigation heads on the course currently. The current system was installed in 1998/1999 and over the past several years, staff has been repairing the irrigation system on a daily basis to keep it functioning okay. Every morning he drives the course to locate heads that have not turned on or turned off. Basically, if the head is on, you are running 89 gallons per minute, per head for 3,4,5, or 6 hours. To determine if the heads ran, he has to look at trees and cart paths. We have been very fortunate to not have a main line break, but we have had many lateral breaks and if you have a main line break, you have to turn off the irrigation for 1-4 days to fix and if you lose your irrigation for 3-5 days on a golf course, you are going to lose greens and fairways. If your grass is dying, you’re going to have issues with golfers complaining, the hole needs to be shut down, etc. The new system we are proposing would be HDPE Pipe which is High Density Polyethylene Pipe. PVC has a life expectancy of roughly 10-30 years depending on how well you maintain the system. HDPE has a life expectancy of around 50 years. HDPE piping system is leak free because the joints are butt fused together. With the PVC system, all your joints use couplings to connect which can leak. With HDPE, it is fused together so your lateral lines could be 200’ with no opportunities for a leak. We will also have more control of where the water goes and how much is applied. The golf course does not dry out evenly. Every night when I am scheduling irrigation, I am not just running half an inch around the whole course at night. For example, hole #1 gets more water because it dries out on the slope and #2 gets less water. Hole #10 I may only need to run half the fairway, but we cannot with our current system. The new system would allow you to run only one head at a time.

Chairman Gandsey asked when would we do this and when would it go out to bid.

Mr. Giermak stated ideally, we would go out to bid and then work would begin in fall of 2023, go as long as they could and then finish in the spring.

Chairman Gandsey asked if it would impact the 2024 golf season.

Mr. Giermak stated it would not impact the summer and they could go one hole at a time. Chairman Deyne asked where our water comes from.

Mr. Giermak stated we have a well.

Chairman Hopkins stated he thinks it is a well needed project, but he has some concerns as to how it will be funded. A golf course is not an essential service of the village and these funds could be better spent to lower our sewer and water rates. This project could be funded with bonds and pay for it with user fees which would be better suited to lower our water and sewer rates for all the residents of the village. He would like staff to put together what that would look like to see how much user fees or banquet fees would go up or anything to do with the golf course and fund it with bonds, like what we make he 42,000 residents pay for when there is a capital project in the sewer or water departments. He would like to see what that would do to water and sewer rates.

Chairman LaPorte asked how many rounds of golf we typically do. Assistant Village Administrator Scott Skrycki stated around 35,000 rounds. Chairman LaPorte stated it would be about $55 per round for one year.

Chairman Hopkins stated that would be paying for it in one year. He asked how long an IEPA loan is typically.

Mr. Dowden stated they are typically 20 years, if you are looking at a 50 year life, 20 to 30 year bonds would be reasonable.

Chairman Hopkins asked about comparable golf courses and see what their users fees are.

Mr. Skrycki stated we do that now and we are comparable.

Chairman Deyne asked about including additional projects at the golf course that can be incorporated into this bond.

Ms. Schumacher stated we do have some serious issues with the fire suppression system out there, so it may be something we want to roll into that.

Chairman Suwanski stated if we look at bonds, isn’t that paid back by all the residents in the village.

Chairman Hopkins stated he wants to look at the statistics and the facts before I decide, but he thinks its important we look at that before we decide on how things are funded.

Mr. Dowden stated the reason we are not proposing to issue bonds right now is because the golf course right now is covering its operating costs, but it does not cover capital costs. We look at comparable rates based on still having people come play.

Chairman Gandsey asked how much we received in ARPA funds total.

Mr. Dowden stated we received $5.7 million total in ARPA funds. Through this budget, you have seen $4 million so far.

Chairman Gandsey asked why we decided to put a million here.

Mr. Dowden stated we are splitting it between developer deposits funds which come mainly during the building boom years in Bartlett. We basically split it between developer deposits and recovery money. Another thing we can look at it an interfund loan which would be easier to manage than bonds and then we can see how that goes. We have been looking at the project for a few years, he thinks we need to keep moving on it though.

President Wallace stated he thinks we need to keep moving and make sure we find out if there is anything else that needs to get fixed out there.

Ms. Schumacher stated we try to use one-time money for one-time expenses which is why you see a lot of that ARPA money being used as capital expenses.

Chairman Gunsteen asked about additional ways to increase revenue like a family friendly driving range and perhaps deals for a bucket of balls and hot dogs.

President Wallace stated there is some room out there where we can maybe redesign a few things.

Chairman Gunsteen asked Todd to include the continual labor and operational costs to the analysis he does on the rate review.

Ms. Schumacher stated we adjust the rates all throughout the year and with Golf Now, I believe we have a lot of flexibility on pricing.

Mr. Skrycki stated the rack rate is really only on Saturday and Sunday mornings. If we have a day where the weather looks ominous, we will go in the system and adjust the rate to fill tee times.

President Wallace stated he thinks we had 100 people golfing on Thanksgiving Day.

Ms. Schumacher stated we had 20 people golfing when it was 21 degrees. If she recalls correctly, we are $50,000 ahead of where we were last November.

OTHER PROJECTS:

Mr. Isham stated the storm system improvements is one project. It does not have a utility and comes out of the general fund. Additionally, the Country Creek stabilization and restoration project we are going to bring forward early next year. The Munger Road culvert replacement is currently in the design phase and we are hoping to get that streamlined and the same with the Newport Blvd. culvert replacement. We are looking to get STP funding for the Schick Road bridge which would be an 80/20 split and that is probably projected out to fiscal year 25-26 or the following. The really exciting one is the columbarium.

Ms. Schumacher stated this is her most favorite project in the whole capital budget. It is an above ground expansion of the cemetery and is basically little areas to place cremated remains. It is a way to expand capacity which is something we get requests for all the time at Bartlett Cemetery. It is also a way to meet the demand with the number of cremations exploding. So much so, the State of Illinois has raised the fees for cremations. It is something that is in tune with the market and the demand from our residents to remain in Bartlett.

Mr. Dinges stated we visited Wheaton and since they started, the demand is so high, each year they are putting in another columbarium.

Chairman Gandsey asked if we should sell them first so we know how big to build in case demand is much higher.

Ms. Schumacher stated there is a limit because you don’t want a giant wall.

Mr. Dinges stated we are thinking 60 at first and as those are selling, if we get more demand, there is room, and we have a layout where we can drop another one.

Chairman Gunsteen asked how much they sell for.

Mr. Dinges stated we are surveying to see.

Chairman Gunsteen asked if it would exceed the $240,000.

Mr. Dinges stated if we match Wheaton’s, yes it would.

MUNICIPAL BUILDING IMPROVMENTS:

We are looking to replace the roof top units here at village hall. They have surpassed their useful life and along with the data room for our servers and the link tower unit. This is also where you will see the fire sprinkler system for the clubhouse and the salt dome roof as well as the front doors here at village hall.

Chairman Gunsteen confirmed that the fire sprinkler system could be moved over to golf depending on how we fund it.

Ms. Schumacher stated yes it could. We are working with the fire marshal on how quickly that needs to be done and getting costs form other vendors.

Chairman Hopkins asked what the issue is out there.

Mr. Dinges stated they did an inspection of the inside of the pipes and there is a bunch of sediment that is pretty much blocking about half of the capacity of the sprinkler system. The problem is, they have had a bunch of leaks in the system and they recommend not flushing it because you could create more leaks. The pipe is in a condition where they are recommending it be replaced. The fire marshal thinks the system probably is not operable at this point because of the reduced capacity. Part of it is looking at how to redesign it and have it last longer in the future.

Mr. Dowden stated normally we would bring this back and have the full amount approved. He thinks we agree we need to do these projects but we need to work on the funding.

Chairman Deyne moved to adjourn the Committee of the Whole meeting and that motion was seconded by Chairman Gunsteen.

ROLL CALL VOTE TO ADJOURN

AYES: Chairmen Deyne, Gandsey, Gunsteen, Hopkins, LaPorte, Suwanski

NAYS: None

ABSENT: None

MOTION CARRIED

The meeting was adjourned at 8:18 p.m.

https://www.bartlettil.gov/home/showpublisheddocument/12893/638072052012830000