William H. Scott Sworn in as Ward 4 Alderman in Savanna

By Michael Miller | For The Prairie Advocate News

SAVANNA – William H. (“Bill”) Scott was formally sworn in to the Savanna City Council on July 10th, replacing Robert David as Alderman for the City’s Fourth Ward. In his first official meeting, Scott (along with the rest of the Council) were treated to a very lengthy and detailed presentation on the new iFiber service coming to the area.

The meeting was attended by Council members Bill Grummitt, Lois Hunsaker, Jeff Griswold, Peg Haffey, Merle Long, Bill Robinson and Scott, with Tony McCombie absent. Also attending were Mayor Larry Stebbins, City Attorney Phil Jensen, City Comptroller/Treasurer Sheryl Sipe, Police Chief Michael Moon, Fire Chief Shawn Picolotti, Superintendent of Public Works John Lindeman, and City Clerk Paul Hartman.

Sewer Plant Financing News

Water/Sewer/Refuse/Streets and Alleys Chairman Robinson told the Council that other options were being explored to help finance the new sewer plant project. According to a first draft of a table drawn up by Sharon Pepin of Community Funding and Planning Services, the “best case scenario” in terms of possible grants and loans for the project would produce a situation wherein the minimum cost for a quarterly bill for sewer including the debt service charge for the new treatment plant would be $125.00, which would be added to all the other fees (water user fee, water system improvement fee, public ways and property improvement and refuse) resulting in a $231.46 bill for a minimum user.

Lindeman offered his input at the meeting, saying that these costs were prohibitive, and that since much work has been done with the sewer lining projects as well as preventive maintenance on the water towers and wells, this could allow the City to reduce those charges to help ease the increase that would occur from building the new sewer plant. Lindeman said that the cost of the plant construction will just increase as time passes and that the City may not get a chance at such funding opportunities in the future. The feeling of the Committee was that now is the best time to move ahead with the project, as far as funding possibilities, and after discussion it was decided to have Pepin continue working on this.

Robinson also said that Lindeman had researched the policy for city responsibility regarding private sewer backups. This code seemed to indicate in clear language that the City was not responsible for these backups, but Lindeman did add that Jensen would have to be sought out for consultation just to confirm this. The committee elected to interpret this finding as current policy and after Robinson made a motion to deny the two present claims stating that the City was responsible for these backups, the full Council agreed.

Lindeman told the Council that the recent water leak detection survey that was conducted indicated Savanna is probably losing an estimated 100,000 gallons of water a day because of leaks.

Robinson also updated everyone on the Finance Committee’s latest meeting. Two partial demolition reimbursements were on the table, one to Anthony Herrell for demolition of a home on Fifth Street, and one to Ron and Connie Nolte, for a house on Highway 64, both for $1,000.00. Both of these recommendations, and subsequent motions, were unanimously approved. Chief Picolotti approached the committee to discuss the wage posture for the Assistant Fire Chief. The conclusion was to combine the positions of Fire Marshall and Assistant Fire Chief and refer this to the Personnel/Safety Committee with the advice of Jensen.

iFiber’s Comin’ To Town?

Herb Kuryliw from Northern Illinois University, and the architect of the relevant iFiber grant, addressed the Council at length, detailing the rationale, impacts, costs and implications of a prospective iFiber partnership with Savanna. He said that his institution had been involved in broadband initiatives for quite some time in order to keep high tech jobs within the state.

According to the presentation:

IBOP (Illinois Broadband Opportunities Program Partnership) -NW is a statewide organization formed to “maximize dollars” that the government would bring into the area to “get the state working cohesively together all throughout the region”. This is a not for profit organization run by the three sub-recipients of the grant (LaSalle County, Rockford Greater Area, and Blackhawk Hills RC & D). The grant is for $68.5 million dollars, will include the installation of over 870 miles of fiber, and spans nine counties, including Jo Daviess, Stephenson, Winnebago, Boone, Carroll, Lee, Whiteside, Ogle and LaSalle. The project was started about a year ago. The grant funding ends in June of 2013.

Some of the benefits to the health care profession would include improving treatment outcomes, better access to specialists, increasing home care and support, and remote access to services. Small business could effectively utilize this type of broadband to help improve purchasing, shipment and tracking, banking, customer support, the selling and accepting of orders, training and inventory tracking. Businesses could use it for education and training via online research, live ‘webinars’, in-person seminars, online courses and classroom courses.

iFiber could also affect a tax base increase in the private sector, by supporting the local internet services providers and reducing the costs for transport for connection to the internet, and by providing a new level of service for local businesses.

Kuryliw also indicated potential public sector savings as a result of the service, including multi gigabyte access to local schools and other public entities, reduction of hardware and software costs, the ability to combine services or licensing for reducing costs by collaborating with other institutions, increased efficiency by the reduction of phone costs and increasing capacity of coverage for phone services and various innovations. He also mentioned various ways in which iFiber would partner with local communities to keep costs low, including housing network equipment in government facilities or partnering and selling fiber services to local businesses to sustain or lower costs of the community anchor institutions.

Two options were presented to the Council, in terms of partnership. One would be a single up-front payment made to the City for $30,000.00 in exchange for a 20 year co-location agreement. This amount could help Savanna offset the costs of iFiber and ISP services if the City chooses to participate.

The second option would have iFiber providing a gigabyte fiber connection into a City location, free of charge, for twenty years. Normally, per iFiber’s pricing policy the City’s location would be charged the subsidize rate of $1,200.00 per year. This would not include internet access; this access would be charged according to a participating ISP provider of the City’s choice.

According to the proposal and information, Savanna would be one of five “core” area locations for iFiber.

Stebbins will be forming a Citizens’ Advisory to report back to the City on this matter, which will report to the Contracts and Lease Committee with recommendations.

Ordinances And More

The Council unanimously approved a simplified municipal telecommunications tax ordinance amendment, which changes the rate at which gross charges for telecommunications received in the municipality, purchased at retail from a retailer will be imposed from one percent to three percent.

It also approved the granting of an intersection solicitor’s license for the Shaw-Leavens VFW Post #2233 for August 31st and September 1st of this year for Poppy Sales at the Route 64/52 and Highway 84 stop lights.

The first reading of Ordinance #2014, which would amend the language to the present ordinance which governs the City policy toward accessory buildings, structures and their uses, was read by title only and approved.

The 2011 Motor Fuel Tax Audit was briefly reviewed and approved.

At the conclusion of the hour and a half plus meeting, Scott remarked that “I forgot how much fun this was.”