North Cook News

Village of Bartlett Committee of the Whole met Nov. 5

Here are the minutes provided by the committee:

1. CALL TO ORDER

President Wallace called the Committee of the Whole meeting of November 5, 2024, of the President and Board of Trustees of the Village of Bartlett to order on the above date at 7:50 p.m.

2. 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, Assistant to the Village Administrator Sam Hughes, Economic and Development Coordinator Tony Fradin, Human Resources Director Janelle Terrance, Finance Director Todd Dowden, Assistant Finance Director Matt Coulter, Director of Public Works Dan Dinges, Assistant Public Works Director Tyler Isham, Public Works Engineer Nick Talarico, Planning & Development Director Kristy Stone, Head Golf Professional Phil Lenz, Deputy Chief Will Naydenoff, Village Attorney Kurt Asprooth, and Village Clerk Lorna Giless.

3. TOWN HALL: None

4. STANDING COMMITTEE REPORTS

A. BUILDING AND ZONING COMMITTEE, CHAIRMAN GUNSTEEN

1. Downtown Property Discussion

Trustee Gunsteen stated that The Village received a technical assistance grant from the Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) in 2015 to develop a downtown transit-oriented development plan. The TOD Plan was adopted on October 18, 2016.

He stated that Planning and Development Services Director Kristy Stone will give a presentation on opportunities that could make transit-oriented development a reality in downtown Bartlett.

Planning and Development Services Director Kristy Stone stated she would provide a brief overview and go over sites A at Oak and Western and Oneida, Metro lots which is their site C in the Tod plan as well as Site D which is north of Flexonics and Site F which is also part of the Flexonics Metroparsel.

Trustee Gunsteen asked who owns Site F, Planning and Development Services Director Kristy Stone stated it was Metra.

Trustee Suwanski asked who owns Site D, Planning and Development Services Director Kristy Stone stated it was Metra. Trustee Suwanski asked what they wanted to swap Site D with. Planning and Development Services Director Kristy Stone stated that it was yet to be determined but that they are willing to relinquish it. 

Trustee Suwanski wanted to confirm that Metra is saying they don’t need as many parking spaces as we have. She also wanted to confirm that they’re saying the amount of people using transit isn’t as high as they had anticipated. She asked what percentage of our lots for transit are regularly full. Planning and Development Services Director Kristy Stone stated about 2/3rds of those spaces are regularly used now.

Trustee Suwanski also asked if the current TOD plan is still accurate based on this information. Planning and Development Services Director Kristy Stone stated that she believes that our current TOD Plan is the right path forward for the Village for transit-oriented development.

Mayor Wallace stated that he likes the future Village Board actions that have been recommended. He went on to say that’s the direction that he would recommend.

Trustee Gunsteen asked if Site C had a part of that lot. Planning and Development Services Director Kristy Stone stated that they did, and it belongs to ComEd. Trustee Gunsteen asked if it was feasible to acquire. Planning and Development Services Director Kristy Stone stated they would have to start those discussions to find out.

Trustee Gandsey asked if we have an agreement with Metra that states they have to sell to us versus someone else. Planning and Development Services Director Kristy Stone stated previously there was no interest from them in selling that property, they have since changed their view.

Trustee Gunsteen stated he liked all the Sites minus Site A. He went on to say that he feels they’re missing an opportunity at Site A to expand development further down the line by the bank and the pharmacy. Planning and Development Services Director Kristy Stone stated that property owner has expressed no interest in selling.

Mayor Wallace stated that at one point he had a meeting with a potential developer who was interested in putting in a U-shaped building with retail on the bottom and condos on top in that lot. They wanted a square in the center and that’s something he sees working within the current TOD Plan.

Trustee Suwanski stated that currently we have better opportunities for the C and D areas. Planning and Development Services Director Kristy Stone stated that it was correct. She went on to say that if we worked out the agreement with Metra so that the site could be marketed, and the spit platform is eliminated, it would make sense to start having those conversations with Metra.

Mayor Wallace stated that once that happens and we have a concept of a mixed-use parking garage, we will have an idea of how much it costs.

Trustee Gunsteen wanted to confirm that in order to acquire Site D, we would have to trade. Planning and Development Services Director Kristy Stone stated that we don’t know at this point what that trade is. Trustee Gunsteen asked if the trade has to be within a certain area of the train station. Planning and Development Services Director Kristy Stone stated that their interest is in some of the Village owned commuter lots. 

Mayor Wallace asked when we can expect the train station to be moved. Public Works Director Dan Dinges stated Metra stated the split platform will be completed by 2026-2027. He went on to say that they plan on coming in to present what their plans are soon.

Planning and Development Services Director Kristy Stone then presented about some of the Village owned properties in downtown Bartlett beginning with the South Oak Avenue parking lot. 

Trustee Gunsteen asked if the appraised value different than what market value actually is. Planning and Development Services Director Kristy Stone stated it's comparable, but that we’re looking at it for a house or a multi-tenant building.

Trustee Hopkins asked if there was a reason that a value or a range wasn’t included in the packet. Planning and Development Services Director Kristy Stone stated the appraised values were done back in like 2015, and they would need to get new appraisals for that.

Planning and Development Services Director Kristy Stone moved on to the Bartlett Municipal Center subdivision in 2004 which was prior to the Village construction of the current Village Hall. She went on to say that it created three lots at that time and staff discovered that a portion of the fire barn is located on Lot 1, and a portion of the South employee parking lot goes into the South where the pump house is.

Trustee Gunsteen asked if the pump house was owned by Volunteer Fire. Planning and Development Services Director Kristy Stone stated that it’s on our property so it’s Village owned. She went on to say that they’ve been discussing moving that property line S so that the site to the South where the pump house is now would be able to be developed in the future with the property to the South.

Mayor Wallace stated that it’s kind of a gray area now and something needs to be done as we can’t leave it like that, or we risk never being able to do anything on those lots. Planning and Development Services Director Kristy Stone agreed and stated that’s why we're trying to find all these small things that we can do now so that when development happens in the future, we kind of are ready to go.

Trustee Gunsteen asked who owns the Fire Barn. Planning and Development Services Director Kristy Stone stated that it is organization owned but by making changes, the Village would still have ownership of what is ours. She went on to say that we’d create a lot and if the Fire Barn develops in the future, we can put additional property within in.

Planning and Development Services Director Kristy Stone then discussed the Main Street Municipal Parking lot. She stated the village currently owns lot 15, which is really only this portion of the property. She went on to say that we only own a portion of that parking lot. She went on to say that the sanitary sewer runs through the entire S portion of LOT 16. Because of this, the site is very limited to redevelopment in the way that it stands now. She stated that we had talked before about possibly demolishing the building to the South and adding more parking there to move the village vehicles. She went on to say that they think based on looking at the layout of the lot, it makes more sense to keep the employee vehicles on the other side of Main Street because there’s not that much room for it. 

Planning and Development Services Director Kristy Stone concluded by stating that the Village Board next steps is identifying which opportunity sites should be prioritized in conjunction with the platform along with staff recommendations. She went on to say that we would need to have a plan prepared for the Bartlett Municipal lot, as well as make sure this is something that the Board is thinking about as we move forward in working on the capital budget.

Trustee Suwanski asked how long it would take to re-sub divide. Planning and Development Services Director Kristy Stone stated it would just have to go through the Village Board process and Zoning approval which would take approximately four months.

B. PUBLIC WORKS AND GOLF COMMITTEE, CHAIRMAN DEYNE

1. Asset Management Presentation

Trustee Deyne stated there would be an asset management presentation and turned it over to Assistant Public Works Director Tyler Isham and Civic Engineer Nick Talarico. Also present remotely was Calvin Coles from Waterworth. Public Works Director Dan Dinges started off the presentation by discussing budget planning along with a Capital improvement program.

Trustee Hopkins asked what prompted this presentation. Village Administrator Paula Schumacher stated that last year there were discussions about asset management. She went on to say that this was a good introduction to capital budget since we’re headed into the capital budget process.

Mr. Calvin Coles then began his presentation to discuss a projection of an annual asset replacement schedule.

Trustee Suwanski asked how they were breaking this between water and sewer on the same slide. Public Works Director Dan Dinges stated these are showing the life of the water mains and sewers and the growth that Bartlett had in the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s that eventually will need to be replaced. He went on to say that the discussion today is to start preparing now so that we can try to stabilize sewer and water rates so that we don't have to make major increases when we hit that growth period. He went on to say that the point behind this is do a little bit of planning now because 2030 is not that far away and that's when things will really ramp up, and if we don't start doing something now and we can expect either to have to do more replacements, or we should expect more main breaks or sewer issues. In other words, this is preventative maintenance for the future.

Assistant Public Works Director Tyler Isham presented the levels of service. He went on to say that by levels of service, they’re referring to a goal or a standard set by village board that states what we want our roads to be like and/or discussions about replacing water or sewer mains at this level.

Trustee LaPorte asked how much money this would entail and where the money was coming from. 

Mayor Wallace stated that it’s almost 3 million a year to get the baseline because we have to get the delta correct.

 Public Works Director Dan Dinges stated that they are only focusing on three of the main ones. We've got all those other facilities, but it's just to get you thinking about. He went on to say that we do have a lot of assets that we need to maintain and that the residents of Bartlett have expectations of levels of service. He stated that this sets the level of service that is acceptable to the Board and the residents.

Trustee LaPorte asked what our maintenance budget is. Public Works Director Dan Dinges and the Mayor stated that it was the purpose of this presentation. It sets a baseline for how much we need to budget and where we need to be.

Trustee LaPorte asked Finance Director Todd Dowden about his thoughts regarding this and putting together a plan. Finance Director Todd Dowden stated that what Public Works Director Dan Dinges presented, is what the annual cost average is. He went on to say that 1.9 million right now is what we’re spending and 3.5 million every two years, which won’t be able to keep up with the projections. He said the same was true regarding maintaining the roads at the same level.

Mayor Wallace wanted to reiterate that this presentation is in preparations for capital improvements as well as capital budgeting. He went on to say that lately there have been a lot of questions from the board regarding water main breaks and why they’re all breaking down. He stated it is explaining what’s going to happen in the future and to help us to be prepared for those things.

Trustee LaPorte asked how we can prevent raising the water and sewer rates from rising to keep our residents happy. He stated we need almost double in terms of revenue for these future anticipated needs. Trustee Hopkins stated that we might have to make cuts in other areas of our municipality and then focus one key department to take those resources and use them to fund something else.

Trustee Gunsteen asked Public Works Director Dan Dinges about a process called heat scarification and asked to explain what it is and if there’s cost savings to the Village if we use that. Public Works Director Dan Dinges stated that it’s a process where they use a train type system where the process is grinding the existing pavement up. He went on to say that there's another process that is heating it up and adding basically asphaltic oils and materials back into the material after which they put it back down. He stated that it’s a process that they’ve been looking at and other towns are doing it more. He stated that the one downside is that residents complain about the trees burning down which is something to be aware of.

Mayor Wallace and Trustee LaPorte both discussed looking at numbers moving forward and working on not raising water or sewer too much but also working on a combined effort of making sure residents understand why this work needs to be completed.

Public Works Director Dan Dinges also mentioned the price increases on just maintenance for water main work and sewer work. He also talked about other funding sources such as applying for various grants to complete some of these much needed projects. 

2. Bartlett Wayfinding Signage Plan

Trustee Deyne introduced Planning and Development Director Kristy Stone who stated that the Bike and Run Plan Advisory Committee has been working with planning and public works staff on creating a Wayfinding signage plan for the bike PATH network. She went on to say that since they were already looking at the major corridors in the village, they also included Wayfinding signage for major roadways that they will incorporate at a later date. She went on to say that the Bike and Run Advisory Committee reviewed the final draft at their October 17th meeting and recommended that the village board adopt the plan. She stated that they decided to incorporate the blue that matches the village branding that we're using, and that they wanted to go with something that was standard for our bike sign while also advertising Bartlett’s bike signage as well.

5. ADJOURNMENT

Mayor Wallace moved to adjourn the Committee of the Whole Meeting to Executive Session. Trustee Deyne moved to approve; the motion was seconded by Trustee Hopkins.

ROLL CALL VOTE TO ADJOURN

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

NAYS: None

ABSENT: None

MOTION CARRIED

The Committee of the Whole meeting was adjourned to Executive Session at 8:47 p.m.

https://www.bartlettil.gov/home/showpublisheddocument/15037