We're going to go ahead and get started with the meeting of the Administration and Legal Affairs Committee, Wednesday, May 13th, 2026 at 5 p.m. 2.0 prayer, if I can do that.

All right. Dear Heavenly Father, we just thank you for a beautiful day. We just ask you to help us navigate through these issues on the agenda and come up with the best solutions for everybody in the county.

And we just ask you to help the farmers and those working outside in this wonderful weather and have a productive planting season. And just thank you.

3.0 approval of agenda. All right. All those in favor say aye. All right. And 4.0 approval meeting minutes from April 8th. Make a motion. All right. I'm going to go right along and and all those in favor say aye.

Aye.

So moved and approval of claims.

Under here, I guess, $22,504.70.

It's gonna be bad.

All right, election must be over in a little bit.

Do we need to sign those?

We do, we have to approve them.

We have to approve them.

We have to approve them.

And I will sign it.

All right, all those in favor say aye.

Aye.

So moved.

Let me sign it real quick.

Let's move on to 5.0 Approval, or excuse me, Comments, 6.0 Publish Comments.

You've got three minutes, you want to state your name and when you do, then I'll start the clock.

So we'll also go first, you can come on up somewhere up here so we can...

Good evening, my name is Karen Fletcher and I'm here to voice my concerns and objections regarding agenda items 9.2 and 9.3 under the business regarding the earning ordinance language changes. 224.3 giving any business owner in Stevenson County the right to burn landscape waste and that question is that's really what you want to capture every business owner.

224.4 changes are more concerning because the proposed language is allowing waste to be hauled in and it is removing the restriction of obtaining the appropriate EPA permits.

The proposed language that states in accordance with the same regulations and restrictions are applicable to other landscape waste generated on or off the property?

What exactly are the same regulations and restrictions applicable to other waste is my question.

And that language should be better defined and made much clearer to the reader and what the intent is.

I also question the 224-4 language that reads all ordinance or parts of ordinances in conflict with this amendment are hereby repealed to the extent of such conflict.

Again, what exactly are the other ordinances that are being referred to here?

That should be spelled out much clearer to the reader.

The proposed changes seem very broad and vague in general, especially when it's applied to all business orders and it's a burning ordinance that considers people's health and safety.

My understanding is that county code may be more restrictive than state code and the proposed changes appear to be much more lenient and that is a huge concern.

Specifically asking and respectfully asking you to the following questions.

What is the county's intent with these proposed changes?

And what does the county gain from these proposed changes?

What's the benefit to the county by doing this?

And have the implications and ramifications of passing these changes been thoroughly considered and thought through?

How's the county going to enforce it to the Ag and General Language and who is going to police it?

And are there resources to police it?

My concerns is the negative impact the citizens of Stevens and county have that will be subject to the liberal burning ordinances, especially in my neighborhood's case, where we all know the quarry owner will be burning hauled in waste.

Is he already hauled in such waste yesterday?

And he has already burned where we smell chemicals and the hang time of smoke pollution, and we cannot freely open our windows in our homes or go outside.

The quarry should be operated as a quarry and not as a burn pit or landfill site.

Respectfully requesting that these agenda items to be tabled with you today and laid over to a future meeting where more research thought and collaborative discussion can be held.

And when we can all research the Illinois EPA standards that we have not received a copy of and not been able to locate.

It just seems like these have been pushed and rushed through and I'm at a loss as to why we would want to rush through such an important importance of burning that affects all county residents.

Thank you for your time and the work you do as a board member.

Thank you for working on that. And I also have at least like eight people that are not attending tonight that are in agreement with, you know, what I'm saying and our objections and concerns.

Great. Thank you. Anybody else?

and if anybody else.

Do you think I can begin my time now?

All right.

My name is Jack Zaznowski and to the members of the Administration and Legal Affairs Committee regarding agenda items 9.2 and 9.3.

We respectfully urge the committee to postpone, delay or dismiss any vote of these proposed ordinance changes until additional research and public discussions can take place regarding the potential impact on surrounding neighborhoods and residents through Stevenson County.

The proposed amendment to chapter 224-3 would expand the current ordinance language and allow landscape waste burning, not only on the sites where the waste is generated or at sites supervised by the local government, but also by quote unquote business owners.

This is a significant change with potential broad implications county wide.

As a nearby resident of the Quarry property owned by Zach Jeffrey, We already experienced concerns about burning activities at the site.

Fires have been left unintended, unsupervised for extended periods of time, raising concerns about safety, air quality, nuisance conditions, and the overall impact on the neighboring properties.

A quarry is not intended to function as a large scale burning site.

We believe additional reviews are necessary before adopting any language that could substantially expand burning permissions for businesses across Stevenson County.

Residents who may be affected deserve the opportunity for further transparency discussion and evaluation of long-term consequences for these changes.

We respectfully ask the committee to delay or dismiss these actions until more research is done.

Thank you for your consideration.

And I would like to have all of our notes entered into the public record in the meeting notes.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Doreen Rogers, 532 York Street, Freeport.

It is.

I just, I'm sorry.

Can you start my three minutes off, please?

Thank you.

Doreen Rogers, 532 York Street, Freeport.

Myself, along with nearly 100 nearby residents, I suppose the change is recommended by members of the Planning and Zoning Board.

As the current code states, under purpose and context is to manage waste disposal and burning in a way that protects public health, safety, and the environment.

The proposed amendments do quite the opposite.

The Illinois burn ban rules, exemptions, and penalties spells out that even in counties where landscape waste burning is legal, local ordinances can impose additional restrictions or ban it entirely.

It does not suggest a County Board taking upon themselves to dismiss the seriousness of the ban by creating ordinances that are less restrictive or changing definitions to avoid IEPA permitting requirements.

Open burning is generally illegal in Illinois.

The IEPA has a very limited number of exemptions to this.

There are clear conditions for obtaining a permit, which include hours, wind requirements, and continuous and coordinated supervision by a government agency and the local fire protection district.

This is for safety and accountability.

It does not put the Fox in charge of the hen house by suggesting a business owner be granted this responsibility.

My case in point is Zach Jeffries.

As you know, he's the new owner of the once non-operational, a...

non-operational abandoned Fairview Quarry.

He has blatantly ignored the laws and EPA requirements.

You as our County Board have allowed him to do so.

Good thing we don't live in Tree City as he's been bulldozing all the trees on his property then openly burning them.

This trade waste was conducted without a required EPA permits or use of an air curtain destructor.

The flames and smoke could be seen from our home.

and continued for weeks on end.

And I have photos from the evening of February 26 and March 3rd.

This activity affected our quality of life as we had to keep our windows closed and had ash on our patio furniture and vehicles.

More importantly, this burning was highly illegal because it was unattended burning.

While Zach left, the massive fire went to his home in Dakota.

We had to worry whether a spark or air and cinder would start a fire causing any or all of us to lose our homes.

This activity only stopped when a concerned neighbor contacted the sheriff.

This is the business owner your proposed provision would protect.

This leads me to my next question.

In addition to the fines and penalties imposed by the IEPA, a person experiencing property damage or injury can file a civil lawsuit.

Can the County assure us that Zach has insurance to cover this?

or is the County assuming the liability as you choose to allow this?

The IEPA reminds us that even every exempted activity still triggers a violation if it causes air pollution.

What you are considering here tonight is not in the best interest of many residents living in close proximity to a snowy created pandemic.

Thank you.

Do you want to submit that for- I certainly would.

Would you also like the pictures of the birding, these photos were taken after Zach had gone home for the evening from my property and we can clearly see there's a fire in the woods.

and Karen Rivers.

My approach is a little different, but I agree with everything they've said.

At the April 6th, 26 planning and development meeting, I spoke reference ongoing concerns of Zach Jeffries not abiding by legal requirements and procedures.

For the last year, it is quarry located at 466 West Fairview Road.

One topic I mentioned was the burning he'd been doing with the most recent fire burning 24-7 nonstop and unattended for two and a half weeks.

At times the heavy smoke lingered throughout the neighborhood, putting local residents with asthma, allergies, COPD and other medical issues at high risk.

The next day on April 7th, that one Amazonian director began working on a new county burn ordinance and within two weeks was requesting it being put on tonight's agenda for approval.

Citizens were not made aware.

We only found out due to FOIA's done by the secrecy.

I've tried to obtain a copy of the new state law.

The proposed ordinance has been said to be based upon in a FOIA return.

Mrs. Williams denied me info regarding her references stating the regulations are available online.

She did not mention the statute or chapter.

As of last night, even her supervisor, and County Administrator, Georgie Newfomer, cannot locate it.

For Ms. Newfomer, Beth Williams, based her new ordinance on info received from an unknown source within the EPA.

I spoke again at a PNP meeting two nights ago, 5-11-26, expressing continuing concerns.

Yesterday morning, Zach Jeffrey, obviously a retaliation, spent quite some time building an extremely large pile of Loggs, approximately 20 to 30 foot from my lane.

It's about 25 to 30 foot high and 50 foot in circumference.

Should he light it, we would not have ingress of egress and that's a major fire hazard.

I scoped with Zach at the bottom of our lanes yesterday.

I asked why he's building the burn site there and not in the pit area.

I requested he work with the neighbors.

Again, the EPA has cited Zach Jeffrey multiple times for violations.

The county has done little to force him into compliance for a year now.

The lack of an occupancy permit should have shut him down, but realistically, he never should have been allowed to start operating without one.

The prospective burn ordinance as written without coefficients or exceptions being added to ordinance 224-6 is detrimental to not just our neighborhood, but the county as a whole.

please come take a look.

So you're fully informed prior to voting.

I've had to keep my gate shut.

So if you call first, I'll let you up.

You won't see much from the road.

Where exact gate is open, consider driving down and speaking with terms of it.

Thank you.

Adam.

I'm going to take a picture of this with my phone and then I'll give it to you, all right?

Yeah, let the rest of us.

When this part?

Well, when you send the picture, we'll put it in these.

I'll give you this, I don't have a computer.

I'll give you this, but I need a copy for myself.

Okay, thank you.

Certainly, there you go.

My name's Kevin Soka.

I live just north of town, Fairview Road.

I'm here to discuss my displeasure with the rapidity in which the changes to zoning ordinance is 224-4 and 224-3 are being requested.

In looking at the ordinances, definitions are definitely lacking.

I don't know who can do what, when, or for how long.

And it's just kind of a blanket, wide open permit to burn whatever some guy wants to burn wherever, whether it's Zach Jeffries Quarry or anywhere else.

I cannot tell what a business owner is.

By definition, my wife is a business owner.

Could I haul commercial or landscape waste into my property and start burning just because I'm a business owner?

Nothing is really defined that way.

Could a person in Stevenson County, like Jack Zephyrs, haul waste in from Rockford or from Freeport or from anywhere else?

there are no limitations on what is proposed to be happening over there, which means that he could fill that quarry with landscape waste and burn it because it doesn't say how he's going to extinguish that fire in the evening.

The coordinates only says from dusk or from dawn till dusk but if you're burning big logs, they burn for weeks.

He was burning over there for weeks at a time with unattended fires.

My mom had COPD.

She could not breathe with oxygen.

That residence area is about a half mile.

There's at least a hundred residences over there.

And I'll bet you any amount of money, there are people with breathing disorders that burning large amounts of landscape waste would make very difficult for them to be outside.

There's no way on earth that that should be allowed.

Freeport doesn't allow.

Are we going to haul all of our stuff out of Freeport out there to burn it out there?

I disapprove of the way that this is going on.

We haven't had enough time to even evaluate what's proposed in extreme detail.

Permits, what permits are required for a business owner to perform this kind of waste burning?

What restrictions are in place other than the dawn till dusk?

Am I getting close? 24 seconds. 24 seconds. Monitoring and enforcement. Who's going to do the monitoring? That when he's burning something, it's not within the agricultural, commercial or landscape waste. He could be burning anything out there and nobody would ever know because there's been no monitoring what's been happening at that point forever. And then the enforcement is a big deal. So I respectfully request that you guys delay voting on approval of this until after we've had time to evaluate it clearly.

And if you would put a transcript of my comments into the minutes.

I appreciate it.

Get it there.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thanks.

I didn't mean to speak loud, but that's okay.

It's just for the, I was, it's for the new team saying, but it's fair to speak fast.

No, that's okay.

I'll get it.

Is there anyone else? Thank you everyone. All right, let's keep moving here. We have 7.0 departmental reports and 7.1 county treasuries.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and you're welcome.

First thing I just want to mention, and you did say- you did say that the claims were markedly less this month.

I would like to point out that mine totaled all of $10 of interest in this case.

So when you see later the bills from when the tax bill rolled in, just kind of recall this moment.

So I'm assuming everybody who's had chance to review the financial alert or sent the link, I believe Friday, May 8th, referencing the cover page with the sales and income taxes.

Again, very steady, very reliable.

And as the monthly report indicates, the aggregate receipts increased by over 23,000 from the previous month.

And then last month was 33,000 from the previous month.

So we're doing fairly well there.

If you flip to page five, you will see that as of the end of the month, Total County Funds were down just 1.68% compared to March's month end, which is well below what you would expect in any month where there's no such accuracy.

So again, holding more than steady.

Back to the page with all the yellow.

There's more yellow this month.

We had eight investment vehicles insured in April.

Pretty decent interest this time over 82,000, primarily due to 9-1-1 CDs a year.

So there was a lot of over $59,000 of that was for 9-1-1.

So, and they have since, the Board has since asked me to reinvest two more in additional CDs for another six month term.

So as of the end of April, we have 17 investments in place across 10 different County funds, maturity days between now and next April.

This week, I placed another 2.7 million in short-term investments.

Rates are pretty steady between Treasury bills and federal home loan bank items.

So I'm trying to skim as much interest as I possibly can for as long as I can.

So, because everything is chugging along well, unless you have any other questions about the report, I'm just, yes, Jeff.

Um, so you said 9-1-1 is really taking advantage of this.

Um, I know in the past, other departments have tried to get in where they could.

Are you having much success now since it is open at a pretty good home?

It is, everything depends on cashflow.

And so previously I would ask Tony and Township Motor Fuel if we could really call theirs in.

And now we can't do that because we're into, you know, their season, but sometimes with townships, there's a little, you know, there are a lot of township road supervisors.

So getting some consensus from them is a little difficult.

Even though I manage money, I still would like to have their input.

So that's been a little bit trickier, but for the most part, it's pretty easy to get people to participate, but getting the rates that I do requires a larger balance than some of those funds carry.

So at that level, it's not really doing better than the insured cash flow accounts that I have at the moment, right?

I'm trying to get them in the best possible account that I can so that if they're not invested, at least their regular interest is better than most.

Good question. Thank you.

Thank you.

All right. And then I'm going to move on to the collection side.

Tax season is fully underway.

Yeah.

So I received the final proofs, verifying those right now, got them today.

Anticipated mail date is a week from today.

They will be mailed directly from our firm.

The tax bill redesign, which I gave you all each an example here, allowed us not only to satisfy some new state requirements as to what must be on the back side.

So here's the back side of the bill.

Oh my.

Yeah, there's a lot happening there.

The larger size gave me additional space to include the answers to some pretty commonly asked questions and or to help us avoid some of the verbal abuse that we've had before.

So we're hoping that these things spelled out clearly make it easier for people to understand.

I'm really excited about being able to print in full color.

So for the first time I could include that pie chart that we've had on our website in a while so people can really get a better feel for where their tax dollars are going. And the former example I gave you, I think for some people is shocking.

If you look at where 70% of this person's tax bill, she didn't even realize it until she looked at that. So it's, it's a little shocking. So but I think, you We've always had the verbiage above, but it's such small print, nobody really wants to read it.

I think that pie chart really gets someone's attention so that they do actually look up and read the fine print. Okay, electronic notices for the bills will go out on May 26th, which is the same day that I'm posting the bills online. I do that so that anybody lost your bill, if you want we want to directly go right ahead and do that.

We're again, utilizing invoice cloud for electronic payment options.

Includes all credit cards, debit cards, PayPal, PayPal credit, Venmo, Apple Pay, Google Pay, EFTs.

If you can use it to pay anything, we'll take it.

And on the backside of the bill, you'll notice down here, each installment is a QR code that will take people to invoice cloud so that they can make any one of those payments they choose.

And then for people who aren't as savvy, there's a phone number on the back that you can call them and do the same thing.

First installment, these are the big dates, June 26th, first half is due then, second installment September 4th, last day to pay taxes will be November 9th, followed the next day by the annual tax sale.

Annual information to banks went out today, next will be the 100 plus taxing districts receiving their distribution information from me.

Any questions about that? It was a lot, let's go quickly.

Nothing really has changed other than the bill format itself.

Our due dates are literally a day off of where they were last year only because I always keep them on Fridays.

So we're trying to maintain as steady a ship as we possible to them.

And just let me know, I'm going to be out of the office all next week.

then I'm going to UCCI Leadership Academy to present on the tax cycle which everybody is fascinated by. Mr. Moderow witnessed it last year. It's a great presentation. So I'm just like really really jealous. So but my staff will be there should you need anything in the meantime.

Yeah it looks great. This looks really great. I love the four color. And you know the switching to the company, I think I mentioned this before, switching printers allowed me to go from a black We're pretty pleased with how they turned out. It was a little bit of, there was some heavy lifting to get there, but pretty pleased with the results.

is there a walkthrough of the new format on the website not yet i did not want to put the cart for the horse there so i kind of do that with how to pay the bill i have one of those two but kind of a arrow here's what this is here's what this that is in the works good as clearly as it is laid out a how-to is always i think you know your your eyes are used to looking at a different and so now you have to look somewhere else.

So I think it's absolutely in the works.

All chance.

But that is all I have.

Thank you.

All right, so let's see here.

County Clerk, she got a resented report next month here.

So I don't think there's any...

Okay, yes, single one.

and basically what they've been doing in here. So like I said, we're between elections. So it's all quiet time over here. And then the other one to think of was the supervisor of assessment, seven points range. And he'll also send in a report that's pretty much standardizing. He's has a new employee, he's learning fast and fitting into the office very well.

And she's doing the same work she can.

They've got seven townships that need to be reassessed, including Jefferson, Warren, Aaron, Kent, West Point, Bottoms, and Winslow. And then three or four townships will be reassessing We're building properties in the city and we have to do a few things to help it down.

You should kind of know what you're talking about.

You can move along here.

7.4, County Administrator, I've got a report to... There's the attachment on the agenda.

Okay. If I could find it. I sent his down on that one. Thanks, Adam. There it is. No, that's why it wants to be there. Um, let's see what she's got here.

Stevenson Nursing Center, the court continued to tune for the night, R1 Land Bank, Unplanned meeting schedule for 518, sick at Sean site 420, 430 and 56. It's in the packet, but was this for the YouTube folks, I guess. Step up program for the walk with program and then and May 10th. Solid Waste Program, Tasman, Kerry, and Isaiah, and put together updated I got department head meetings for the drawings and discussion for next year, and the shredding services will roll out within percent pretty much in an open year, and we're up to 7.5 IT

managers.

Just an FYI, I have a meeting at 545, so if I step out after this, I'm not leaving for the final reason.

Just wanted to update everybody, I think we finally got everything ironed out on the new STQL 1 server.

Been working with some vendors on regards to that.

I had some DevNet issues in regards to the KAMA approval that you guys are going to approve here later this meeting, I believe, or at least discuss.

Cus, that's the software for Angie in her department, things that they need.

So there were some issues there.

I had to do some backend work on the server to get that up and working.

And then when I got it up and working, I found out they don't even have their full install done yet.

So I'm not for sure.

Maybe they foresee not a problem in the future.

So we got that taken care of last night.

I installed a new gal PC box in the circuit clerk's office for the public.

and for you guys that basically is what communicates to Judici that everybody goes and looks at online from all the court cases and the records and such that needed an upgrade.

So I did that last night, did some testing to make sure that it was filtering through out to Judici.

So everything's getting updated and such.

So that is done as well.

Just moving into a lot of this is kind of the season where I start re-upping our contracts for the next year, as far as the ticketing system or Microsoft office.

We'll go off for the quote and see what that's going to come back.

They have given me a heads up that has increased obviously.

So I don't know what that price is going to land by the time we get there.

Um, but, uh, so I'm working on those, uh, basically, um, for the next year.

Um, outside of that, uh, just taking care of the normal break fix.

And then we have some upgrades with certain switches throughout the network that we plan on getting upgraded, just trying to be proactive, you know, and get ahead of stuff.

So I'm always busy, but I will say as of right now, it's not too stressful.

I mean, it's good.

Oh, one other update, County Boardroom.

Courthouse network has just been a mess from the beginning of time.

We had trouble with a few County Board meetings where things would just cut out and things would happen.

Traced a bunch of wires throughout that building, found a bottleneck along in the network.

Believe I removed that bottleneck, did a bunch of testing and last month's meeting finally went off without a hitch.

Everything worked, it was like it was supposed to be.

We didn't really have any interference.

There was nothing that crashed.

So again, I'm going to knock on wood.

I do believe that that problem is fixed and we will see how this month goes.

But so for all the testing and everything looks good and last month's meeting was fine.

So outside of that, does anybody have any questions?

Well, thank you for your service.

I know there's a lot going on and I'm sure there's more I'll say issues that they weren't out yet.

Yeah, it's just trying to undo years of multiple IT companies being in the building and one didn't report to the other what they were doing.

And sometimes you find connections you didn't even know were there.

So that's kind of been the fun part of tracing things out and following things through the Beehive that is the network over there.

So.

Well, that's all.

Let's jump on that 8.2 quickly here so we can see that.

The AI usage policy, we're going to table that again.

I don't know if our liability insurance has gotten a bunch of these at the reviewing, but it's kind of in a backlog there as far as like their final approval on what I, they made some requested changes to our last one and I re-sent them what they asked for and I was just asking for final approval I haven't yet to get that.

So until we do and we know that they're signing off on it I would say that we don't rush it and get there.

The approval of the revised ADA upgrades I would say we can take that off the agenda for now.

Chairman Helms passed along a company that I looked into and they don't deal with government agencies so they kicked me to someone else.

but in the meantime, the mandated date for this has been extended a year.

So now we are out till April of 2028.

The plan is to be done way before then but we have more time to really dig into this and get as many companies as we can to figure out what's the best fit cost-wise and for what we need.

So as of right now, I'm going to continue to do the homework on that and continue to have the meetings but that we're pushed out right away.

So we'll, we'll get to that in a timely manner.

There's the addendum for now.

And then, uh, if it doesn't look like the AI thing is going to get that off there as well, just bring it back.

I believe he's here.

So, Oh yeah.

Um, I've followed up with them and I'm just not, I've kind of just, they're not requiring as fast as they used to.

So just let me know before next month.

Oh, absolutely.

Absolutely.

All right.

All right.

Let's keep moving here.

9.1, approval of addendum to agreement or TAMMA with Edge License Maintenance and Support Contracts or DevNet.

Angie, the Supervisor of Assessments, headed bottom of her report. It is the contract addendum for DevNet.

I need the upgrade in order to use my system.

You'd ask him to get approved the extra funds for the upgrade for the 2012-6 budget.

As you can see, the extra money is on charge.

One year, excuse me, one year over four equal payments.

So, that'll be there talking about.

The bottom here is the numbers now.

It looks like we have four payments here, approximately 900 in January, and then 48, 55, 48, 55, 48, 55, up until October 26, if I remember right, the increase on, actually next year is even lower.

Huber. So that's a good people. And then 2028 was basically no increase either. So, and then 2029 was no increase either. Oh, that's just sad. That's okay. Yeah. Oh, I got it.

So yeah, since there's no increases for the next, I'm going to say three years here, that's what it appears to me and she's going to need this.

So I'm going to make a motion to approve it.

No, second.

And a second.

I have a question.

You do?

Okay.

I do.

Was this part of her budget?

Yes.

What did she say?

They did a lot of this?

Yeah.

Yeah, she did.

Okay.

Oh, you have her report.

Okay, got it.

Okay.

I mean, they asked, can you approve the extra funds for the upgrade from 12.6?

So yeah, that's in her budget.

If I remember right, she kind of gave us a warning this would be happening.

Yes.

Oh, yeah.

I think she got it.

This wasn't a surprise, it's just we had to get it in this way.

What was necessary up for you, thanks, bro.

Okay, so we got a motion.

Okay, so we got a motion and a second? Yeah. Can you hear their conversation? Yeah. Okay, all those in favor say aye. Aye. So, we're just... Okay, let's go to 90.2 approval code amendment to chapter 224-4, commercial trade waste.

I just want to start off. This is not a zoning code. This is an administration. It's been stated that it's zoning. It's not. Zoning has no skin in this game. I am referring to to an email that I received from a Corey Jacobson with the IEPA.

I did receive a complaint at Planning and Development last month.

I checked with Mr. Jeffrey.

He told me he was okay with IEPA.

You don't always believe it.

I contacted IEPA, emailed, I emailed Brooke and Corey.

I didn't say his name wrong, I'm sorry.

Brooke Schumacher and asked if we needed the state here I said reaching out with another current question.

Currently we have in our code commercial trade waste, illegal burn commercial waste in the state of Illinois except for landscape and agricultural waste generated on the property.

And then B is landscape waste for the purpose of clearing land.

New development business is a trade waste and they only be burned with an air curtain incinerator after and after obtaining the appropriate EPA permits.

I was informed that this language may be outdated and we have a quarry owner that is clearing trees on his property and burning them.

The adjacent landowner stated he is required to have an air curtain incinerator and update EPA permits.

Could you confirm this or leave me to the updated EPA language?

So, Brooke said to me, I believe, I believe, but we'll let Corey let you know, confirm.

So then Mr. Jacobson did reply back to me and stated, if the county has less than 50,000 in population, a company can bring landscape waste to their place of business and burn.

His understanding is that the place of business must be registered with the Secretary of State.

This was passed at the beginning of 2025, so our office was not aware of this until the 4th court.

Back in 2024, the zoning department went through the ZBA and we removed business owner from that portion of the code because the EPA stated at that time, business owners were not allowed to haul in.

They were only to burn what was generated on the property.

So after receiving this email from Mr. Jacobson, I went ahead and changed it back to what we had as business owned.

It has been reviewed by council.

Nothing came of it.

And then the section that says all ordinances or part of ordinances in conflict with this amendment are hereby repealed to the extent of such conflict.

That means any other preceding ordinances in the past.

So those are all null and void.

this would be the ordinance.

There was a question about a business.

The business has to be licensed within the Secretary of State.

You can go right online and look up businesses.

I do for property owners that call me and say, hey, does this person have a license?

We know Stevenson County does not require a license.

I'll do that for them.

And we go from there.

So that is that.

Um, what questions do you have on it that I could possibly answer?

Something for future.

I have a lot of questions.

And I'd like to make a motion just to table this until this.

I agree.

There's just too many, too many what ifs, too many undefineable things at this point.

Oh, I'd like to table it until next month.

I agree.

Hold a second though.

Is there still a session or not?

We can have this going before we roll around and ask this.

That's the person who might, I think it should be.

I just wanted to point out this.

We have landscape companies that are in violation currently.

If, you know, if someone receives a call, then they have to enforce, I'm assuming.

We have a lot of companies.

I have a gentleman in my area that has a business and brings landscape waste to his property and burns as well.

I have asthma, severe asthma, and I close my windows when my husband burns out in the yard.

I can't even sit around a campfire.

And I understand, I do understand.

It's not geared at one specific area of the county that many people seem to think.

We're doing this as a county as a whole because we did have it.

I know it doesn't look like that, but it's just a county as a whole.

Whatever we decide on next month, if we do make a change, it affects the whole county.

It does. And so these landscapers who are already in violation, who is the governing body to come in and find them?

Any office of the county. Our code states that any environmental health could write a ticket.

My office could write a ticket of city, so please animal control.

I am not aware of- The sheriff's department.

The sheriff's department, yes.

I have asked the sheriff's department to have a citation written for an illegally burned house and it has not been written yet.

So that's the issues we do have.

I understand it's a big deal.

It's not something to be taken lightly and I don't take it lightly either.

We just have to, I just wanted to make the point but there is no air-curtain incinerator that's required by the EPA anymore.

Yeah, I did some digging as well with the new stuff that is, I think I found it on the EPA thing and then I found some older verbiage.

Right, I can find these back to 1982.

So they have an updated thing, so it's confusing for anybody.

Yes, that's why I reached directly out to the gentleman in Rockford.

Do we have an EPA representative for this area?

Yeah, Corey Jacobson and Brooke Schumacher over in Rockford.

Okay, so these are the two that you will converse with.

Maybe they need to come out.

I don't know if they will.

Well, maybe they need to come out and answer.

I mean, we have a lot of questions.

We have a lot of concerns.

I mean, I myself have half a lung.

I can't sit anywhere, you know, where there's fire.

So I get this, you know, other than the city though.

so there's ordinances. Right. And we do currently allow the city to burn in the unincorporated areas of the county. The city takes all their leaves out to the airport and burns and we can't do anything about it. Yeah, I think I agree with me to kind of get this over. I was trying to put some language together that might work but maybe there's some other issues. Right. I can reach out to Corey And if there is a requirement, because of changing state policies, that we have to adhere to, I want that to the T, what we specifically need to do, because the email does it, right?

We don't have to change our policies.

and that's where I think some of the confusion is coming.

Right, right.

No, we don't have to, but to keep businesses in Stevenson County, you know, I mean, yes, I understand.

Mr. Jeffrey is bringing in, that's the question.

How do you know where it's coming from?

It could be coming from Rockets.

If he's burning something other than landscape waste, if he is burning appliances, my neighbor burned appliances, we called the sheriff.

I don't know what that time, if anything was done, I called the EPA and he was cited and find a hefty fine, because they can go on a property.

Yeah.

So if there's chemical smell, I advise them to call the EPA and the Sheriff's Department ASAP.

That will keep the really bad stuff going, sure.

At that point, it's already in the air.

Well, I get it.

I mean.

Right, okay.

Well, I think we're all in agreement.

Let's hold on to tabling this till next month.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

That one, Ms. Hayes first.

Mr. Proctor.

Yep.

Okay.

We still have the 9.3 on our agenda here.

That's the pleasure of the committee's motion to table and concoct that case.

I'll second that one.

So I think that both of these, we'll get the understanding and the actual legislation or the rules that they put in place also it appears from what I found that we can also impose some other restrictions as well but we gotta be realistic till it doesn't doesn't get somebody out of business or do something like that, but we also want to be fair and try to try to make everybody happy, which is probably impossible.

So we'll keep you.

Thank you.

Well, if you're burning chemicals, should you use this?

No, chemicals, obviously.

Or appliances that have all the...

That's not what we're talking about.

Well, but...

We're talking about...

Well, if a business is doing that...

Commercial waste and landscaping, that's what we're talking about.

Right.

And that's why it's there.

So anything other than that is EPA and Sheriff's Department right away.

That's...

Yeah.

That's definitely illegal right now.

So...

Yeah.

Okay.

and Matt is EPA and Jairs are right away. That's, yeah, that's definitely old equal right now. So, yeah. Okay, so we got a motion in a second, right? All those in favor say aye. Aye. So that's tabled till next month or until we have, we'll talk about it next month as well. We have some kind of understanding where we need to go with this. Okay, thank you everyone. All right, let's go on 1-9.4 approval of engagement letter with Lowenbaum's law.

I have that contract as well as there's an email from Georgia, if I can find it.

Basically Mr. Lowenbaum has gone on his own and it's a renewal of a current service.

So council said we didn't have to send this back out for like bid or everybody.

And I think the rates, I can find this, the rates that he's charging was I think actually less than what we're currently dealing with, now that he might not sell.

So I think it's kind of a no brainer to prove this, but we can have more conversation if need be.

So this is to retain them for council.

And there's scope of services and is already raised by 100 and some other things that I believe that's been reviewed as well.

So.

And has Carl again, thank you?

Yes.

Yeah, we didn't need, Carl said we didn't need I'm going to make a motion to approve this one.

Second.

Second.

Mr. Rodero, do you need further compensation?

All right.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

All right.

So moved.

All right.

10.0.

Comments from committee members, see anything?

I'd just like to say, kind of reflecting on the past few months, for being the paperwork committee, we're getting a lot of interest from the community.

I think that's really interesting, really good.

That's just for the record.

I think that's great that we're getting engagement on what on the face of it are some pretty mundane things.

But they do have an important impact, an important ramification, and the people know that.

That seems, given our past three or so meetings, that seems worth pointing out.

Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, I'll just comment.

I was thinking about saying something Thursday night, too, I mean, we had several tornadoes go through, you know, we had one or two city and then Lena and it was just amazing with all the people that came in and helped.

And as part of that help, believe me, I was out there helping quite a bit, but there was a lot of trees and things getting hauled out and getting burned and that was under the emergency order that allowed that burning and stuff.

So, I don't know if any of this material that came from Lena was taken out of that quarry or anything.

I don't know any of those details, but there was a lot of good hands and good people out there helping us the last few weeks, and they're still working.

I know that, so we'll try to come up with a thing that works for everybody if we can.

I'd like to just thank you all for coming out tonight.

and Nate. It's wonderful to get a perspective like Adam said. I mean, we don't, we sit here in the paperwork committee and we don't get a lot of feedback. So, thank you for coming out and sharing your thoughts on this. We appreciate it.

Sounds like we need a t-shirt today. Paperwork committee. Take it out of Nate's bucket.

All righty, let's wrap this up. 11.0 adjournment.

All right, make that motion.

In a second, all those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Okay, thanks everyone, appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Lou Ann, do you have a minute?

I do.

Can I just talk to you?

Maybe.