City Council Acts on A-1 Food Mart, Koerner Agreements

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Published on February 20 2018 9:20 pm
Last Updated on February 21 2018 7:19 am
Written by Greg Sapp

Effingham city council members Tuesday finalized agreements with three local developments.

The Council finalized an agreement with A-1 Food Mart at Fayette and 4th. The business has decided to renovate the exterior of the original part of the building, and the Council agreed to split the cost of that work. The City has a program in place to help existing buildings update their exteriors.

Also approved was an amendment to the development agreement with Koerner Distributor. The new Koerner facility in the City business park is in both a TIF district and the City-County Enterprise Zone. If the facility is in a TIF district, though, they don't get the tax break available to those entities in the Enterprise Zone. The Council agreed to amend the TIF district to leave Koerner out of the district so they can qualify for the property tax break from being located in the Enterprise Zone.

The Council also amended the liquor license that had been granted Effing Brew Company since the State has granted the establishment a brew pub license. The city license was amended to conform with the state license.

Council members heard from Assistant Fire Chief Matt Kulesza on a proposed ordinance regulating mobile food service establishments such as food truck vendors and festival vendors. A vote on the ordinance could come at the next Council meeting.

The Council amended the zoning for property owned by Ralph and Martha White at 702 South Park from single-family residential to multi-family residential, got a third quarter of the fiscal year report from librarian Amanda McKay on activities at Effingham Public Library, and heard from City Director of Public Works Steve Miller it's time for another study of water rates for the next four years.

City Police Chief Jeff Fuesting presented Chief's Accomodation Awards to Telecommunicators Danielle Flowers, Jordan Ping and Pharabe Norman for their work on new training manuals for the TCs, and City Administrator Jim Arndt presented the City Employee of the Quarter Award to Jane Miller of the City Engineer's office. Miller is retiring after a long career with the City in May.

For the second straight meeting, the Council completed their work with only three of the five members present. Mayor Jeff Bloemker and Commissioner Don Althoff were not on hand.