Kenny Hargrave is getting a Class G liquor license for his business, 5th Street Market. Carmi City Council heard his request at Tuesday night’s meeting and unanimously approved creating a new license for him. Hargrave says they’ve owned the market the last 3 years and is interested in adding video gaming. He says that’s his main interest.
We’re requesting a liquor license. We’d like to put gaming in the store. I have no desire to sell liquor. We’re interested in the gaming. As far as I’m concerned, I don’t want the liquor, but that’s what you have to do in order to be able to do it.
In May of this year, Carmi’s 11 current establishments and 55 machines saw players pour in more than $735,000 into those terminals. The machines only paid back out $512,431.53 leaving more than $223,000. After the 35% NTI (Net Terminal Income) tax takes it’s $78,065.01 cut, the state gets $66,584.88, and the city of Carmi receives $11,480.13. That leaves just under $67,000 for the terminal operator and the establishments to share based on how much money was played and lost by individuals at each business.
Doug Hays would make the motion with Mark Blake seconding and the council voted unanimously to move forward. Council will have to take the matter up at the next meeting to effectively alter the current ordinance creating the new liquor license before they can officially grant Hargrave the license.
Also Tuesday evening, Arlynne Davis of Botsch and Associates presented the annual audit. As far as recommendations, she had a couple.
We still have an ongoing problem, I talked about it last year, with what I call the buckets; the buckets for sewer, water, and electric. I still don’t believe the buckets are correct. We’ve got this ongoing issue basically that we need to get those buckets in order. So I’m suggesting a reconciliation on a monthly basis of these utilities. Billing versus Collections.
Additionally, Davis says the city needs to set a good policy on collections for accounts and she’s struggling with the fuel adjustment issue.
I have not addressed that fuel adjustment, probably until about 3 years ago when I started having this bucket problem. But this year, when I was trying to do a calculation, I couldn’t determine that fuel adjustment. And again, I looked to the policies and I couldn’t find a policy that actually establishes when are we gonna change that rate, when are we gonna pass that along to the customer. So, again that’s just another way to strengthen and tighten things up a little bit.
Other highlights from the City Council meeting included discussion on allowing more than one TIF agreement every two years and council members also heard from resident Dortha Thackery who was on hand to ask the city to make a request to the Illinois Department of Transportation for a stoplight at the Main/Commerce/Sunset intersection. While the prevailing thought was it’s highly unlikely the state of Illinois will move forward with that request, and even if they did it would be years before they took action, council did agree to make the request.
The Council recessed into executive session at 6:33pm and spent about 22 minutes discussing litigation. When they returned, a motion was made by Doug Hays, seconded by Jeremy Courson for the City of Carmi to enter into a PFAS litigation agreement if the city qualifies. Greg Knight, Hays, Courson, and Jack Bradshaw voted yes. Mark Blake, Tracy Nelson, Lacey Bradshaw, and Mike Knight all voted no. The tie vote required Mayor Bill Stendeback to vote and he voted yes.
City attorney Greg Stewart says it was a law firm in Chicago that prompted the discussion. He says fire departments used a foam years ago containing per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances in certain efforts and it was later found that product had cancerous causing properties. The city needed to decide if they wanted to participate in that litigation which may give them access to funds.
