Kankakee City Council receives detailed presentation on 2016 fiscal audit

By Lhalie Castillo

Dec 28, 2016

Kankakee City Council met Monday, Dec. 5.

The Kankakee City Council meets at 7 p.m. on the first and third Monday of each month in Council Chambers at the Donald E. Green Public Safety Center, 385 E. Oak St.

Here are the minutes as provided by Kankakee:

CITY OF KANKAKEE

CITY COUNCIL MEETING

DECEMBER 5, 2016 7:00 P.M.

MAYOR EPSTEIN: Good evening. I’d like to call the meeting to order. At this time, I would like to ask Pastor Scott Paisley from Calvary Baptist Church to come forward and lead us in prayer.

PASTOR PAISLEY: Let us pray together. Our gracious Father, we are thankful of the privilege we can come into Your presence through Christ. We are thankful, Father, that we can pray for our City. For the needs for this meeting. We pray for our Mayor. We pray for City officials. Each lady and gentleman that serves their ward. This is important what takes place here. We desire Your good hand to be upon Kankakee so we pray for them, for their discussion, for their decisions as we finish out this year and another year starts. The challenges that are always there, the new ones that come. We’re thankful that You’re the same and we can always look to you for wisdom and guidance. We ask Your blessing now on this time. We ask it in Jesus’ name. Amen.

MAYOR EPSTEIN: Thank you. At this time I would like the children from Bright Beginnings, ah, Miss Karen’s class, to come forward and lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance.

KAREN DANNENHAUER’S BRIGHT BEGINNING

CLASS STUDENTS FROM PROEGLER SCHOOL: Pledge of Allegiance

MAYOR EPSTEIN: Okay. Good. Okay, roll call.

CLERK DUMAS:

PRESENT: Tetter; Brown; Curtis; Baron; Wells-Armstrong; Tall; Faford; Swanson; Crawford; Osenga; O’Brien; Gall; Kennedy; Davidson (14)

MAYOR EPSTEIN: Department Heads.

CLERK DUMAS:

PRESENT: Regnier; Perkins; Kubal; Bohlen; Power; Dear; Cross; Bertrand; Yohnka; Schmitz (10)

ABSENT: Tyson (1)

MAYOR EPSTEIN: At this time I will entertain a motion to approve the minutes of the November 21, (2016) meeting.

ALDERMAN OSENGA: Motion to approve, Mayor Epstein.

ALDERMAN CRAWFORD: Second.

MAYOR EPSTEIN: Motion by Alderman Osenga, seconded by Alderman Crawford. Are there any additions or corrections to the minutes? Hearing none, all those in favor, aye. Opposed, same sign.

MOTION TO APPROVE CITY COUNCIL MINUTES OF NOVEMBER 21, 2016

MAYOR EPSTEIN: The minutes are approved. There are no communications from the Administration. We will move onto Communications. Tonight we have a very important presentation by our auditors for the City’s Fiscal Year 2016 audit. This is for the Fiscal Year that ended in April. We find ourselves every year at this time in a unique position because we are doing the audit presentation. We are in the middle of the current fiscal year and we are now starting the budgeting process for the next fiscal year, so we really a foot–if you had three feet–ah, in three different years. The audit tonight, we’ve coordinated our comments, so I’m going to be brief. This is a picture of the City’s financial condition. It is very important for the Aldermen. It’s important for the residents of the City of Kankakee and very, very important for the people who–the bondholders–who hold the debt of the City because this is what they look to in order to gauge the financial health of the City. In this audit, ah, and Rebecca will be speaking to this, you are going to see new rules, ah, that municipalities have to include in their audits as far as the pension liability that the City has. And, she will speak to that in greater detail. In addition, ah, the major interest to the Aldermen and the residents should be the Letter of Transmittal. Elizabeth will be speaking to certain items that are in that letter. It’s very important because it outlines not just the City’s financial health, but the accomplishments that have taken place in the last few years. In addition, you will note the largest expenditure for the City of Kankakee is Public Safety. That’s 51% of our expenditures are consumed by Public Safety because we hold as a high priority the public safety of our community. In addition, in 2009, when I started as Mayor, the City employed 262 employees. As of April 30, the year that the audit–the fiscal year that this contains, we are down to 216 employees, a difference of 17%. One of the items that we had to do in order to balance the City’s budget, but continue to provide the services that we do today. On page 44, Note 3 will be of significance as your evening reading later on because those pages that start on page 44 go into extreme detail on the City’s Police, Fire and IMRF Pensions. This is part of the new regulations and this information has not been included in this format in prior years. So, those conclude my comments. At this time, I would like to ask our Comptroller, Elizabeth Kubal. Her department is responsible for compiling the information that is in the audit along with our Auditing Firm of Groskreutz, Abraham, Eshleman and Gerretse and Rebecca Schatz is here tonight on behalf of the auditing firm and she will also have comments. Elizabeth.

ELIZABETH KUBAL: Good evening. I am Elizabeth Kubal, Comptroller for the City of Kankakee, and tonight I am pleased to be presenting the April 30, 2016, Comprehensive Annual Financial Report. Also, presenting tonight as Mayor said, is the City’s auditing firm of Groskreutz, Abraham, Eshleman and Gerretse who are here tonight represented by partner A.J. Abraham and Manager Rebecca Schatz. I will first highlight the different sections of the report and then Rebecca will give an overview of the Fiscal 2016 Audit and some highlights from the audit report and any changes that have occurred in the Governmental Accounting and Reporting sector. I know that this document, which for short is called the CAFR (Comprehensive Annual Financial Report), can be a bit overwhelming at first glance, but it truly–it represents the financial foundation here at the City and it is very, very important. This report is our public communication to anyone needing governmental financial information about the City. I would like to quickly go over the organization of the CAFR as a refresher for everyone. We will be going tab by tab through the CAFR at this time. The first tab section is the Introductory Section. It’s at the beginning and this includes the Letter of Transmittal written by the City which I will elaborate on closer to the end that Mayor alluded to. The second tab is the Financial Section. It begins on page one and with our Auditor’s opinion of our financial statements and also includes our Management’s Discussion and Analysis and all, ah, of those comments and graphs are included within that. The third tab is the Basic Financial Statements beginning on page 13 through 32 and the very informative Notes to the Financial Statements from page 33 through 88. The Notes are typically not given the proper time for review and they are so important to completely understand the inner workings of any agency’s financial picture. I encourage you to read them, ah, as time allows and to acquire those great details about the City’s financials. The fourth tab is Required Supplemental Information on page 89 where we take a brief look at actuals versus budget and starting with pages 91 through 104 are the Schedules of Funding, Required Supplementary Information and Employer Contributions for our pensions. The fifth tab is the Combining and Individual Funds Financial Statements and Supplemental Schedules on page 105 which is a breakdown of the General Fund versus Budget in more detail than earlier reported. And, starting on page 100 are the non-major fund statements of the City. Toward the end of this section, starting on page 127, you will see the statements for our two Component Units which, of course, are the Kankakee Public Library and Special Service Area #1. And, in this same section, finally, page 133 through 140, all of our bond schedules are detailed. Both the Revenue Bonds of ESU and the General Obligation Bonds payable for the City. The sixth tab is the Statistical Section which includes much of the information for you to share with your constituents regarding the City. This section has wonderful summary information and the trends covering the past ten years. And the seventh and final tab is the Single Audit Section which has the schedules reporting the details of the Federal grant awards that the City has received. At this time, I will turn it over to Rebecca to explain in greater detail from an auditor’s perspective Fiscal 16.

REBECCA SCHATZ: Good evening. I’m Rebecca Schatz. I’m manager with Groskreutz, Abraham, Eshleman and Gerretse and on behalf of myself and M.J. Abraham, Partner, our entire firm would like to thank the Mayor and the City Council for the opportunity to perform the audit ending April 30, 2016. Ah, we’d also like to thank, especially, Elizabeth and her staff and the entire City staff for their assistance during completion of this audit. Ah, I’m going to take you through a little more detail of some of the numbers and as the Mayor had said, a new auditing and reporting standard that had come into play this year. So, if you direct your attention to page 15 of the CAFR, this is the Statement of Net Positions. And, then, pages 16 and 17 is called the Statement of Activities. These financial statements are presented on an accrual basis of accounting which means that we record the revenue when the City has earned it and expenses are recorded when the City has an obligation to pay. This is despite the fact of when cash might actually change hands, but.which means that more closely mimics how businesses present their financial statements. Ah, the key thing when looking at these when you go back and look at last year’s audit, is the implementation of a new standard in regards to pensions this year. The governmental accounting standard for it known as GASB (Government Accounting Standards Board) issued a new standard requiring that actuarially determined pension liability be placed on the face of the financial statements. GASB issued this statement basically to shift its focus from a funding perspective to more of a reporting perspective which has been what they had been concerned about in the past. In the past they were more concerned about that funding focus. Ah, but they decided to make this shift mainly because of the overall perspective of giving everyone–the users–the complete picture of the liabilities that are out there in regards to pensions. Ah, GASB issued that statement. This allows you to increase your transparency and also gives you better information to make crucial decisions and do more long-range planning knowing that these liabilities are out there for the future. For the City, this accounting standard resulted in an additional pension liability of $74.4 million. The additional Police, Fire and IMRF pension liabilities were added to the Statement of Net Position, the Long-Term Liabilities which you can see on page 15. During FY16, the pension liability increased an additional $14.7 million resulting in a total pension liability as of April 30, 2016, of $104.3 million. Before moving onto another topic, I would like to direct your attention to pages 44 through 63 of the report. The Mayor had alluded to this before, but this is Note 3 in the financial statements. This note in particular is in regard to the three pension plans. This note gives you a good place to start to provide you with a condensed and consolidated presentation of key details about the IMRF, Police and Fire Pension Plans. Please note when you review these notes that the majority of the key details including the benefits paid, the contribution rates and other items are all set at the State level. And, without significant pension reform within the State of Illinois, pension funding crises at the municipal level will continue to grow. I’m going to ask you now to direct your attention to page 18 of the Financial Statements. This is the Balance Sheet for the Governmental Funds and this is the traditional presentation which you’re more accustomed to seeing. The General Fund is presented on the far left column and it shows a positive Fund Balance of $3.9 million. This positive Fund Balance is the result of continued effort of the Administration to properly manage its resources. I’m now going to have you turn to page 20 which is the Statement of Revenue, Expenditures and Change in Fund Balance. And, again, the far left column is the General Fund which, for this year, showed a minor negative change in Fund Balance of $126,000. This negative change can be attributed to decreased availability of Public Safety Grants available and along with the settling of the union contracts and the back pay that was required and reflected within these financial statements. So, all of that is reflected in these numbers. If you look at pages 22 through 27, this is the presentation of the ESU, Environmental Services Utility, and that will be gone over in greater detail at their committee meeting in the future. On pages 33 through 88 are the Notes to the Financial Statements. The Notes provide more detailed information about the financial information presented in the other pages. The financial statements and the notes present a more comprehensive picture of the City as of April 30, 2016. Pages 105 to 107 present budget to actual comparisons for the General Fund. And, I’ll just highlight a couple of larger deviations that were noted. In the Budgeted Revenue, the largest deviations came in the Intergovernmental Revenue section which includes income, sales and use tax. And, this resulted in additional revenue over what was budgeted of $1.3 million for FY16. That contributed to the overall increase of the $1.5 million in total which can be seen at the bottom of page 105 if you compare the budget to what was actual. That increase then also correlates into the expenditure side as well. One area that was a little larger, as well, was the sales tax incentive expenditures. It was budgeted at just over $340,000 and actually came in at $887,000. That contributed to the $1.5 million difference between budgeted to actual totals which you can see on page 107. The majority of the remaining difference in the expenditure total comes in the Public Safety area which again was in regards to the settling of the union contracts which are difficult to determine what that increase is going to be when you prepare the budget to actually when they’re settled. So, that’s what the majority of that remaining increase is. The overall make up of the government’s revenue and expenses can be seen in graphic form on page 9 of the Management Discussion and Analysis. The key revenue sources for Fiscal 2016 was sales tax and property taxes which makes up 55% of the revenue in which the City receives. And, Public Safety is at 51% of its expenditures for the year. In conclusion, you’ll find my firm’s Audit Opinion Letter on pages 1 through 3 of the reports. This, of course, through the course of the audit we perform procedures based on our judgement to determine that the financial statements for the City of Kankakee are herein stated as fairly presented in accordance with generally accepted accounting standards. Thank you.

MAYOR EPSTEIN: Thank you, Rebecca.

ELIZABETH KUBAL: Thank you, Rebecca, for sharing that information with the Council tonight and thank you to both Abe and Rebecca for all the efforts that they gave and their staff gave during this process. Thank you. We’re gettin’ close to the end. Next, I would like to briefly walk the Council through a few highlights of the Fiscal 2016 report. First, in the Introductory Section, the first document as we talked about earlier is the Letter of Transmittal. This letter serves as correspondence to all readers regarding general information about the City of Kankakee on a more macro level. This information is not always completely directed financially. Sometimes you share different pieces that are going on within the City in this letter. At the bottom of page three which would be Roman Numeral iii, under the City Government Operation and Finances, the last paragraph is the area that the Mayor spoke about regarding the 17% decrease in employees over the past six years, from 262 to 216 while also delivering City services in an efficient and productive manner. On page Roman Numeral V and VI, this is the fun section. I think this is one of the best sections. This is the City of Kankakee’s Economic Improvements by category and it lists out several of the new and exciting economic improvements and developments that have occurred in the City of Kankakee. New this year is the classification of improvements of recent time by categories of industrial, commercial, residential and infrastructure. Some of the highlights include the redevelopment of the Meadowview Shopping Center being boosted by the creation of TIF #9, the completion of new Dollar General stores and a Family Dollar and the expansion of Westwood Oaks Senior Living Facility with new housing starts. Also, as mentioned before in these meetings, the City is constructing a bike path and bridge over the Kankakee River to provide the final section of trail for the Riverfront Trail Initiative with a grant from the Illinois Transportation Enhancement Program. All of these projects entail years of coordination and hard work of many of the people here at the City and include many partners. All of those included in this deserve to be commended. Under the Future City of Kankakee Economic Improvement section on page six, the Roman Numeral still (VI), about half way down on the page the City added the future downtown development of the Fountain Square Apartment complex which, of course, will be constructed in 2017 by Economic Growth Corporation, otherwise known as GROWTH. Also, listed in this section is the advancement of the River Walk Bike Path along the Kankakee River and the development of the River Station Senior Apartments planning for occupancy in late 2017, both of which are located in the West Downtown Redevelopment area. 2017 will also bring the redevelopment of the new fuel/travel center with a strip center including retail at Exit 312, bring vital property tax and sales tax revenue for the City. Now, we will move to page four behind the Financial Section tab. This is the beginning of the Management’s Discussion and Analysis for the City. If you want to go ahead and move to page nine. These are the charts that we talked about before and I want to go into a little bit of greater explanation. The top pie chart shows that 42%, or $14.9 million of our revenues come from property taxes which have decreased a half million from Fiscal 15. Fiscal 15's amount of property taxes was higher at $15.4 million. Of that 42% of revenue, 33% went to our Bond Fund, 32% of it went to pensions, 17% went to other funds such as the Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund and Library and only 16% actually went to the General Fund. The pie chart on the bottom shows the breakdown of the City expenditures, here stating the 51% that has been spoken about on Public Safety. And, the other 32% is the next largest category spent on general governmental services. If you would flip over to page 11, Table 3 in the middle is the summary of the General Fund Budgetary Highlights table which shows the Fiscal 16 budget compared to actual ending numbers at April 30, 2016. The City did have higher than anticipated revenues, but also had higher than anticipated expenditures due to the items that Rebecca discussed, like the settlement of the union contracts and the retro pay associated with those and the greater sales tax revenue that was received. Expenditures exceeded revenues by $126,000 when the transfers to other funds are included. As far as the pension situation here at the City of Kankakee, I thought Rebecca did an absolutely excellent job explaining the complexity of the GASB related addition of the net pension liability that is now on the face of our statements like all other municipalities. It will continue to be a challenge for the City in the years to come to navigate through the future of pensions. Two more. The last section I would like to talk about is the Statistical Section which begins on page 141. As we talked about last year, this section gives a nice summary of ten years for the City of Kankakee. This allows the end user to quickly analyze the trends of basic financial statements, assess valuation of taxable property, or as we typically discuss at EAV(Equalized Assessed Valuation), property rates, ours and the overlapping districts, principal property taxpayers, tax levys, debt, utility revenue supported bond coverage, demographic statistics, our largest regional employers, our employees and operating indicators. All of these are excellent places to start when trying to glance at recent financial history and to share the City’s story. In conclusion, no one could possibly prepare any of this information alone. I would like to personally thank the Assistant Comptroller, Maureen Kambic, could you stand? Tamie Seedorf and Jeannette Holden from my department for all of their efforts on this audit and the work that they do all year long. Also, a special thanks to all the Department Heads and their staffs who helped us in any way that we needed. They are an absolutely dynamite team to work with. And, finally, thank you to the Mayor and to the City Council for all of your continued support over this past year. Thank you for your time. Are there any questions regarding this report tonight?

MAYOR EPSTEIN: I know you just got the report, but I would encourage you to highlight. I hope you marked the sections that we talked about so you have time to review it and we will certainly be available, either Elizabeth or myself, to answer any questions you might have going forward about this, ah, our audit. But, again, I think we completed another great year and some of the sales tax issues that Elizabeth and Rebecca talked about were really the settlements that we’ve had, ah, earlier and the money that we needed to pay back to the partners on the settlements that we did not anticipate. So, ah, they sort of skewed the final results, but we knew we are always close on our budget and I was pleased to see though that we had another good year and it becomes more and more of a challenge as we go forward. So, thank you to Elizabeth. This was.you know you see it all done and you don’t realize the hours and hours, ah, that it takes on the auditing company as well as the Comptroller to prepare this because as you know, and you can see it on the front page, we always receive a Certificate of Achievement for the audit and we’re very, very proud of that. So, thank you to the auditing firm. We appreciate your patience with us at times. And, thank you to our Comptroller.

ELIZABETH KUBAL: Thank you.

MAYOR EPSTEIN: Well, had it not been for the audit, we would have been home by now. So, there are no Standing Committee Reports. Moving onto the Report of Officers, do I have a motion to pay the bills?

ALDERMAN FAFORD: Your honor, I would move we approve the Report of Officers, place the money in the proper accounts and pay the bills in the amount of $459,307.79.

ALDERMAN TALL: Second.

MAYOR EPSTEIN: Motion by Alderman Faford, seconded by Alderman Tall to pay the bills totaling $459,307.79. Are there any questions? Roll call.

CLERK DUMAS:

AYE: Tetter; Brown; Curtis; Baron; Wells-Armstrong; Tall; Faford; Swanson; Crawford; Osenga; O’Brien (Although I abstain on two items, 71165 and 71168.); Gall; Kennedy; Davidson (14)

REPORT OF OFFICERS APPROVAL OF BILLS - $ 459,307.79

MAYOR EPSTEIN: Motion carries. There’s no Unfinished Business. There are no New Business items. Moving onto Motions and Resolutions, we do have a Resolution authorizing the Chief of Police to apply and to accept funds for a Department of Justice Grant. This Grant is in the amount of $18,382.00 and it will be used to upgrade or enhance the technology that is used in the police vehicles in the City of Kankakee. Do I have a motion to approve the Resolution?

ALDERMAN OSENGA: So moved, Mayor Epstein.

ALDERMAN CRAWFORD: Second.

MAYOR EPSTEIN: Motion by Alderman Osenga, seconded by Alderman Crawford. Are there any questions?

ALDERWOMAN KENNEDY: I have a question?

MAYOR EPSTEIN: Alderman.

ALDERWOMAN KENNEDY: The, ah, is there a City portion? Is there a requirement that the City needs to pay?

MAYOR EPSTEIN: There is not.

ALDERWOMAN KENNEDY: In addition to?

CHIEF REGNIER: No match. No.

ALDERWOMAN KENNEDY: Okay. No match. Thank you.

ALDERMAN BROWN: Is this the one that the County also gets part of, too, because of radio technology?

CHIEF REGNIER: They don’t get it because of radio technology. They get it because we’re called a disparate County with them. Or, we are a disparate County so they get half of what it is.

ALDERMAN BROWN: So this is what we had last year, too, right? Is it the State of Illinois?

CHIEF REGNIER: Last 15 years.

ALDERMAN BROWN: Fifteen years. Okay. Just wanted to make sure.

MAYOR EPSTEIN: Any other questions? Roll call.

CLERK DUMAS:

AYE: Tetter; Brown; Curtis; Baron; Wells-Armstrong; Tall; Faford; Swanson; Crawford; Osenga; O’Brien; Gall; Kennedy; Davidson (14)

RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE CHIEF OF POLICE OF THE CITY OF KANKAKEE TO APPLY FOR ACCEPT FUNDS FOR 2016 DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE GRANT

NO.2016-DJ-BX-0247

MAYOR EPSTEIN: Motion carries. There’s no need for an Executive Session this evening. Ah, we will move onto Public Comments. Gerry Kilbride.

GERRY KILBRIDE: Thank you very much. My name is Gerry Kilbride. Ah, I have been a building manager at Eastcourt Village for the past 31 years, but retired as of September 1. And, that is the entrance to the East side of Kankakee. And, I’m here tonight to thank the City of Kankakee, the Mayor, the Council members and all of the departments for their assistance in doing this job for the last 31 years. So, I appreciate greatly what you have done. There are two departments in particular that have been very helpful and I have spent quite a bit of time with them. The two departments, the first department is the Police Department. And, we have 133 apartments there and occasionally there would be a little bit of a, ah, session between the manager and a tenant regarding things that should be done or should not be done and occasionally either myself or the tenant would call.say I’m going to call the police. So, that would happen and typically it’s a civil matter and when the Police Department would come, they would indicate just that, but they would also give some very nice, quiet suggestions and for the most part that all got resolved and everything went on. The other department that spent more time with us over these many years was the Fire Department and over those years, they did a lot of, ah, programs at the building for different things. Ah, one of them was a program whereby, ah, tenants were hoarding and they said, you know, if 911 is called, it’s very difficult to get into your apartment. But, all of these sessions over the many years were well attended by the tenants and I greatly appreciated it and the Fire Department people were very graceful in doing that. The one thing that, ah, I was a little bit, ah, backward about was when the new hook and ladder truck came in, it came to the building and they did a session. They took it up to the top and it was about 12 stories and then afterwards– there were a lot of people that attended and then they said we’re going to go over in front of Mark Twain School and we’re going to raise the hook and ladder truck and if any tenant wants to go up on the ladder, they can do that. Well, wouldn’t you know, every one of them went up and then the part that was really kind of bad for me was they demanded that I go up on that and so I did and it was quite a venture. But, I have greatly appreciated the help from the City and the Council and all of the Department Heads and so I’m grateful to be able to come here and say that and my final comment is that, ah, fortunately, I retired September 1, before your current Fire Chief retired. And I told him that. Thank you very much.

MAYOR EPSTEIN: Thank you very much Gerry. Robert Ellington Snipes

ROBERT ELLINGTON SNIPES: Good evening to the honorable Mayor and to the distinguished members of the City Council. Ah, just two items I want to deal with. One’s a thank you, ah, Mayor I believe you responded to me via a letter to the County Board office to my office. They got it to me concerning the light issue that they had there or wherever and I gave it.I forwarded it on via email to the constituent in the 7th Ward, Mrs. Jan indistinguishable , she said I could use her name and she said to tell you all thank you because sometimes it does get a glitch and I guess that night it did, but you all made sure that it didn’t. I mean, that it was just a temporary thing and not a permanent or permanent aggravating circumstance, so I want to thank you as far as that’s concerned. Ah, and then, ah, in the 7th Ward I have received a, ah, I don’t know if it’s a complaint or a concern. Ah, but, ah, the individuals that have the G&S Convenient store. I believe that either G&S or G&H, ah, from their correspondence, stated that, ah, they were discouraged from getting a liquor license and they say they’ve been in this area for 20 years. They provide sales tax and the whole nine yards. I listened to their story, I believe it was under the Green administration and a couple of the Aldermen that he talked to they said that he would not get one and he thought it was because Indian and I told him that it since then we have a Mayor and I don’t know think talkin’ to Mayor Green personally or not ‘cause he stated Alderman, so, ah, whoever the Alderman was that he talked to, I guess they discouraged him as far as that was concerned. I told him that, ah, the Mayor or the Liquor Commissioner or the License Committee so therefore I told him you probably would, ah, it would probably be fruitful if you would reapply and, ah, take the chance because he says he keeps his property decent. And, I went over there for the last month or so to observe, ah, that I see the big bright lights and things is out. Ah, and I guess he usin’.he just wants to be able and they sell cold beer or whatever. I don’t drink so therefore, ah, I’m not a proponent of liquor license or whatever, but I do believe that if that is his concern I told him I’m not an Alderman, I’m a County Board member, but I am, but you’re in my County Board District, so therefore we do work together. Ah, so I told him I would convey that to you all tonight. Some time ago, ah, the Mayor had the opportunity to come to the County Board and address the County and, ah, she had some concerns or whatever and I think it’s a great day in Kankakee when, ah, the public officials can work interchangeably together so I want to thank you for that and then again, thank you for the, ah, taking care of the issue of the light for Mrs. indistinguishable.

MAYOR EPSTEIN: Thank you. Joan Liesenfelt. No? Okay. Steve Bertrand.

STEVE BERTRAND: Good evening ladies and gentlemen. Before I start on my little bit here that I was going to say, I want to say a word about Elizabeth. Ah, she is a person everybody knows is highly, highly competent, but something that doesn’t show in all the paperwork that she does and all the numbers that we look at, is how easy she is to work with. Whenever I call her and I need help, she always has concern that I be able to do my job to the best of my ability and I want to thank her for that. Ah, I want to talk about the Winter Wander and the Winter Market that’s coming up this weekend. The Winter Wander is an event that we have each year in the downtown area. Ah, eleven businesses participate and, ah, when you come downtown, if you visit six of those eleven businesses, you can win–you have a chance of winning one of three 7-inch AG Amazon Fire Tablets. Ah, this is just to get everybody thinking more about doing their shopping downtown for Christmas. As part of the Winter Wander, the library has the Winter Market and that is you, probably many of you have already attended this, but it’s on the 4th Floor in the auditorium and local vendors bring their wares to the market and you can, again, buy things for your, ah, Christmas list there. And, it’s very nice because it allows you to get things that are either locally made and even some of them have images of the local sites and so forth on it. There are 23 vendors there and we also have music. A, ah, harpist–a person who plays the harp–Isabell Napier is at 10:00 A.M. The Kankakee Valley Youth Symphony Orchestra Ensemble is at 11:00 A.M. and the Kindred Sisters is at 12:00 noon if you would like to hear those folks perform. Ah, and also, I would like to mention that the Kankakee County Chamber of Commerce is a partner with, ah, us and the City in bringing this to you. So, I hope to see you all there this weekend. Thank you

NANCY SMITHBERG: Steve, is that Saturday or Sunday?

STEVE BERTRAND: I’m sorry. That’s Saturday. I did say the time. From 10:00 in the morning until, ah, 2:00.

MAYOR EPSTEIN: Thank you. Dana Heitz. That’s correct?

DANA HEITZ: Good evening Mayor and Council.

MAYOR EPSTEIN: Good evening.

DANA HEITZ: I wanted to just come tonight to introduce myself. My name is Dana Heitz and I’m the new Director of the Kankakee Valley Park District. So, I look forward to getting to know all of you. Thank you.

MAYOR EPSTEIN: Thank you. Okay. Aldermen’s Comments. Alderman.

ALDERWOMAN SWANSON: There is not going to be an Ordinance meeting on December 27. There will not be an Ordinance Meeting.

ALDERMAN BROWN: Mayor.

MAYOR EPSTEIN: Alderman Brown.

ALDERMAN BROWN: Also, there will not be a License and Franchise Committee meeting on this coming Thursday only because I love you guys so much.

MAYOR EPSTEIN: Because you what?

ALDERMAN BROWN: Because I love my License and Franchise Committee members so much.

MAYOR EPSTEIN: Aww. You’re going to give them a break.

ALDERMAN BROWN: Give them a holiday.

MAYOR EPSTEIN: Okay. Motion to adjourn.

ALDERWOMAN WELLS-ARMSTRONG: So moved.

ALDERWOMAN SWANSON: Second.