Machesney Park stays busy as new fiscal year dawns on Friday

By Bob Balgemann

Reporter

The 2020-21 fiscal year will begin Friday, May 1, and despite being surrounded by uncertainty, village officials are taking care of business on a variety of fronts.

Here are some matters that were taken care of at the April 20 village board meeting, the last one of the 2019-20 fiscal year:

* Replacing first-term Village Treasurer Bradley Robison, who resigned effective May 1, because he is relocating to Loves Park.

* Hearing recommended committee appointments being made by Mayor Steve Johnson for the coming year.

* Getting some updates on issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic from Village Administrator Tim Savage and Community Development Director James Richter II.

The village board will vote Monday night (May 4) on Mayor Johnson’s recommended nomination of Deborah Alms as treasurer, to serve the balance of the current term ending April 20, 2021.

“I have enjoyed working with him for the last three years and wish him well in all future endeavors,” the mayor said.

Of nominee Alms, he said, “She is a very active community volunteer, who most recently served on the successful Machesney Park road (referendum) campaign. She has served with the Northern Illinois Training Board since 1984, has been executive director since 1997 and oversees a successful financial budget. I think she will be an excellent addition to the Machesney Park team.”

If approved Monday night, she will take the oath of office at the same meeting.

Board committees

With a new year typically comes changes in committee assignments and Mayor Johnson has made his choices for the next 12 months. Here are the proposals:

Planning and Economic Development, chairman, Trustee Terri Bailey; vice chairman Erick Beck; and member, Trustee Jake Schmidt. Trustee Aaron Wilson is the current chair.

Public Improvement and Safety Committee, chairman, Joe Seipts; vice chairman James Kidd; and member, Trustee Bailey. Trustee Beck is the current chair.

Administration and Finance Committee, chairman, Trustee Schmidt; vice chairman, Trustee Seipts; and member, Trustee Beck. Trustee Schmidt is the current chairman.

Liquor Commission: The mayor automatically serves as the liquor commission, or chairman, so Johnson remains in that position. Members proposed for reappointment are trustees Kidd and Seipts, with newcomer, Trustee Wilson.

Those proposed appointments will be voted on May 4.

COVID-19 reports

Administrator Savage reported on a letter sent by the village and five other municipalities to Gov. J.B. Pritzker, asking him to amend his current executive order after today (April 30), in order to “provide some relief to our retailers, other than big box stores, to get them open.”

The feeling among those municipalities is their retail communities – small, medium or large – have the ability to put protective measures into place for the public who comes to visit their stores, just like our big box stores have done, he said.

“We know retailers are suffering all over, but this is a common sense measure that would help in that regard,” he said in reference to the letter.

The second request in that letter, he said those municipalities want the governor to grant them more authority regionally to implement measures for store openings and venue openings. That would be done “based on our region and the experiences we’re having in this region versus the one-size fits all approach to the whole state.”

Grant program

Director Richter said that on April 17, village staff sent out a second wave of letters to the Machesney Park business community announcing the Downstate Small Business Stabilization Grant Program. This program offers grant funding of up to $25,000 to cover 60 days of verifiable working capital for businesses with at least three years of operational history and employing 50 people or less.

Applications will be administered by the village, with funding awards going through the village to local businesses. “The program has a $20-million cap statewide and I hope the folks in Springfield consider adding to it,” he said.

Also, the Destination Machesney Gift Card Giveaway has gone extremely well, he reported.

“We know that information about Destination Machesney and our businesses reached 35,000 viewers,” he continued. “We’ve had over 1,000 entries in the giveaway and are in the process of drawing winners for $1,700 in gift cards. Our goal was to support residents and businesses by helping to put sales in the cash registers of essential businesses, which were primarily restaurants.

“The program has been well received by our business community and it has created something positive during these unprecedented times.”

He added that the village has received some additional bonus gift cards that were matched as a donation by several of our businesses. There is a second-chance contest for those who post photos of themselves on social media with their gift cards, just to continue to promote Machesney Park businesses and our program, he said.

And he provided some construction updates. Among them were Spider Company finishing construction of its new facility in the former Menards complex on North Second Street. Equipment is being installed and a sign will be painted over in the coming week.

Both Hennig Inc., 9900 N. Alpine Road, and Pig Minds Brewery, 4080 Steele Drive are continuing to make progress on their additions, he said.