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Logan County Board
August Regular Board Meeting
[August 20, 2025]
On Tuesday, August 19th, the
Logan County Board met for their monthly meeting. This meeting was
held in the first-floor courtroom of the Logan County Courthouse
starting at 6:00 p.m. Ten of the twelve board members were present
for the meeting. Present members included Chairman JR Glenn, Vice
Chairman Dale Nelson, Lance Conahan, Kevin Knauer, Michael DeRoss,
Jim Wessbecher, Hannah Fitzpatrick, Joseph Kuhlman, Kathy Schmidt,
and Bob Sanders. Keenan Leesman and Gil Turner were not in
attendance.
The meeting began with an invocation, given by Duncan Smith of Park
Meadows Baptist Church. Smith said a prayer over the meeting. Next
was the Pledge of Allegiance, followed by the introduction of
guests.
The first item on the agenda was the approval of the consent agenda.
Items in the consent agenda included use of grounds requests for
Walk for Recovery, Touch-a-Truck, and Daughters of the American
Revolution. It also included several appointments, including Sal
Pollice to Regional Planning, Randy Awe to the Broadwell Special
Drainage District number 1, and David Welch to the Union Drainage
District number 1. There was also an approval for a raffle for the
Mt. Pulaski Township Historical Society, as well as fee and expense
reports for the county. Nelson asked to amend the consent agenda to
add the appointment of Kurt Becker to the Logan County Housing
Authority. The amendment was passed unanimously, as was the amended
consent agenda itself.
Next was a time for public comments, of which there was one this
month. Terry Casey of the University of Illinois Extension Office
got up to present some “good news.” Casey shared with the board that
the future of the 4-H program is bright. This year, 461 animal
projects were entered into the county fair, as well as 359 general
projects. She also shared that 37 Logan County kids got to go to the
state fair. Casey continued, sharing that Deanna Voyles was recently
conducted into the
4-H Hall of Fame for her 40 years of service. Casey stated that
they were able to hire Hunter Buchanan as a Local Small Farm Program
Coordinator. Additionally, she shared that they lost three employees
tied to the SNAP program due to federal budget cuts.
After Casey’s comment, Glenn moved
the board on to the first committee action items, that being
Building and Grounds. While Building and Grounds did not have any
official action items, Committee Chairman Conahan did have some
updates to give. He stated that a meeting was had yesterday
regarding the courthouse’s geothermal system. According to
information garnered at the meeting, some of the problems they are
having with the courthouse HVAC system may be due to a lack of
maintenance with the system. The county is going to be entering into
a contract with Henson Robinson to help maintain the system. Conahan
then shared that the tree trimmings at Latham and Scully Parks are
finished, and that some work was done at the Logan Building as well.
The next committee brought up was Executive and Personnel. There was
an item to update the Ethics Ordinance, but Nelson took that motion
back to committee. During this time, it was also shared that newly
hired Administrative Assistant Maddie Hinton would be taking a
position at the State’s Attorney’s office. While Hinton will still
be working in the courthouse, she will no longer be associated
exclusively with the County Board. There is no set start date for
her new position, and Hinton stated that she would help with the
transition to a new hire.
The next committee was Finance. Committee Chairman Schmidt had much
to bring forth, starting with something that was not on the agenda.
Schmidt brought up a request for funding that Finance had received
from Marcia Cook of the Lincoln Art Institute for $500 from the
Community Benefit Fund. This money would be to help them set up some
things for the Balloons Over 66 festival this weekend. Fitzpatrick
stated that, in past years, these things were usually activities for
kids outside of the institute. This item was approved unanimously.
Schmidt’s next item was about getting fraud protection on all of the
county’s bank accounts. According to Logan County Treasurer Penny
Thomas, the county has had fraud protection on four of their
accounts for free. They would need to pay for four additional
accounts worth of protection, at $15 per month per account, in total
amounting to $60. This item was also approved unanimously.
The next item on Finance’s list was the funding for the Logan County
Tourism Bureau (LCTB). This item, which has been in the works for
several months and has proven to be very contentious, got some
resolution. The city of Lincoln recently entered into a contract
with the LCTB stating that they would give them $30,000 per year, in
monthly increments. The County Board was previously going to give
the same amount but in one lump sum. With the fear that Lincoln may
back out of funding, Lincoln refusing to enter into an
inter-governmental agreement with the county, and the possibility
that the county could be out $30,000 if the city did back out and
the LCTB failed, Finance decided to make a change to the motion. The
change states that the county would pay their $30,000 in quarterly
amounts of $7,500.
Glenn shared that, even though there was going to be no
inter-governmental agreement, he worked very hard with Lincoln Mayor
Tracy Welch to make sure that both of their contracts with the LCTB
were nearly identical. The only major difference is the time periods
in which each organization will provide their funding to the Bureau.
With that, a vote was taken and approved unanimously.
Schmidt’s next motion was to approve the reappointment of Jennifer
Bryant to the Supervisor of Assessments position. Bryant was given a
moment to address the board, stating that she had been in her
position, and hoping for another four. She stated that she felt that
she had done a good job, and that her employees did their jobs well
also. She was praised by several of the board members before the
vote was taken. Her reappointment was approved unanimously, with
several members doing so very enthusiastically.
What followed was individual votes on eleven separate tax sales. All
of these tax sales were approved unanimously also.
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This then brought
the board to the Transportation committee, whose Chairman is
Wessbecher. The first item was to approve the appointment of
Maddie Hinton as the program Compliance Oversight Monitor (PCOM).
Wessbecher stated that he was going to bring this back to
committee seeing as how Hinton would be taking a new position
soon. This was followed by a discussion of whether or not that
was the best idea. It was stated that the county may be in
violation if they do not get someone in this position, as they
were supposed to have two months ago. Nelson suggested having a
board member fill the position. Glenn then suggested trying to
pass it as is, with the contingency that they would work with
State’s Attorney Brad Hauge to make sure that was okay. Hinton
agreed to this, stating that she would not want the county to
lose out on their grant for Show Bus, something that could
happen if the position is not filled soon. A vote was taken and
this motion was passed unanimously.
Transportation’s next item was a
motion to move $144,00 from the County Bridge Fund to act as a local
match of 20% for a bridge that is being built on Highway 24 near San
Jose. Highway Department Officer Bret Aukamp spoke on this item,
stating that this is a part of the county’s agreement with the
Illinois Department of Transportation. He also stated that the
project should be finished next year. This item was also unanimously
approved.
The final item from Transportation was to approve a budget request
for the Logan County Soil and Water Conservation District. This item
was unanimously approved without any discussion.
The final committee was Zoning and Economic Development. Committee
Chairman DeRoss had two items, as well as some updates. The first
item was for the creation of a permanent entrance by Top Hat to one
of their wind farms. This permanent entrance would be on Route 121
and would be used to move in large equipment. This motion was
unanimously approved.
The second action item from Zoning was regarding a siting approval
permit application for a new solar farm. This farm would be placed
near Emden, about 1,000 feet off the main road. Nelson brought up
that, while the term “community solar” is used for projects like
this, the energy produced by these solar farms goes into a larger
grid that is used to send the energy to homes across the country,
not necessarily to the homes nearby to the project. Nelson also
stated that he is in disagreement with the decommissioning plan,
stating that the plan would not provide the county with enough
capital to pay for a contractor and the equipment that would be
needed to tear down the farm at the end of its life. Zoning and
Economic Development Officer Al Green stated that, when the official
permit comes up, they could add a condition onto it that the
decommissioning plan would need to go through the Zoning Board of
Appeals and the County Board one more time for individual review and
approval. A vote was taken on this motion, passing by an 8-2 margin.
Schmidt and Conahan both voted ‘no.’
DeRoss then had an unfortunate update for the board regarding the
county’s application for the Viper Mine grant application. He shared
that, when the application was scanned and sent into the state, it
was scanned single-sided. The issue was that the document was
double-sided. This meant that a page of the application was missing.
This is something that DeRoss took full responsibility for. At the
moment, DeRoss stated, the state has denied their application, but
they are trying to get them to reconsider.
Next was a short discussion over the broadband project the county
has been trying to get done for some time. The company that was
going to be doing the construction for this project WANRack has
pulled out of their negotiations with the county. According to
Glenn, they were going to act as a business partner, paying for a
portion of the project’s cost so long as they would be able to share
in some of the profits once the project was done. Without another
business partner, the county will not be able to afford this
project, even with the grants they have received. According to
DeRoss, as Leesman was not present, Leesman was told by WANRack that
they wanted money from the county each month once the project was
completed until the end users were all set up. Leesman stated that
the county could not agree to this, and thus they decided to pull
out of the talks.
Glenn then gave his Chair’s Report,
starting off with a special Executive and Personnel meeting that is
going to be held this Thursday, August 21st in the Blue Room of the
Logan County Safety Complex. The main discussion of this meeting
would be to discuss insurance. Glenn and Schmidt also shared a
conversation that they had with CRESCO recently. Schmidt had been
working on getting in contact with them regarding donations they had
agreed to make to the Community Benefit Fund for operating in the
county. These donations stopped, and they were able to get a hold of
someone after a couple of months. According to Glenn, they were
informed that CRESCO overpaid the county, as they were only supposed
to be paying for medical marijuana usage, not adult usage. Glenn
further stated that he was told the county was “lucky they did not
claw the funds back.” After some discussion on what to do next, it
was decided that they were going to see what CRESCO’s official
justification is before they take any further action.
The last item discussed was about increasing permit fees for solar
and wind projects in the county. Green stated that he would likely
have something for the board next month regarding this matter. A
motion was then made to adjourn.
[Matt Boutcher]
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