Quincy City Council passes consent agenda with amendment; aldermen discuss road work

QUINCY — At Tuesday evening’s city council meeting, an ordinance changing the order of business of council meetings and adding the Consent Agenda passed with a new amendment.

The Consent Agenda will allow multiple items to be voted on at once, allowing items expected to have unanimous yeses to not require separate votes, freeing up valuable city council meeting time.

Saying she wanted to provide a higher level of transparency, Laura McReynolds (R-5th Ward) motioned to amend the ordinance to require that all items on the consent agenda are read aloud prior to the vote.

“I think it’s important to the public that we do read all those items,” McReynolds said.

Mayor Linda Moore agreed with this, adding, “I did hear from one person who has trouble seeing and asked that we read the agenda. So, I would agree.”

Moore said the plan is to build up to the consent agenda slowly to get comfortable with the new format, perhaps starting with petitions for a month, before adding reports, appointments, and eventually straightforward resolutions.

The motion to amend passed 8-6 and the motion to adopt the amended ordinance passed 9-5, with ‘no’ votes from Tony Sassen (R-4th Ward), Glenn Ebbing (R-5th Ward), Greg Fletcher (R-1st Ward), Eric Entrup (R-1st Ward) and Jeff Bergman (R-2nd Ward).

Aldermen also passed a resolution to move the city’s financial systems to NaviLine Cloud Solutions, a cloud-based storage platform.

Ben Uzelac (D-7th Ward) suspended the rules to open a discussion, voicing concerns over backup devices and what would happen in the event of a wifi-outages. He suggested tabling the decision until more information was present, even though the cost would increase by $18,000 if the contract was signed after June 1.

The rest of the council seemed to not share Uzelac’s concerns and the resolution passed unanimously.

Engineering Manager Steve Bange delivered an update on the Road Construction. He shared the following:

Active Projects:

• Broadway Water Main Replacement – 12th to 24th
  • April 11 – August 1
• North 22nd Reconstruction – Broadway to Oak
  • April 11th – August 1
• Harrison Street Bride over Curtis Creek
  • March 10 – September 12
• Prairie Crossings
  • April 8 – June 30
• South 18th & State
  • May 27 – June 20
• South 48th & State – Adams County Project
  • May 27 – August

Upcoming Projects:

• Broadway Water Main Replacement – 24th to 30th
  • July 7 – November 1
• South 18th Resurfacing – Harrison to Ohio
  • July 7 – August 22
• 2025 Lead Service Line Replacement
  • June 1 – Decemeber
• College Street – North 4th to North 8th
  • July – December

The Council acknowledged citizen frustration with the numerous traffic disruptions, but maintained that the work was necessary.

“What is the age of that infrastructure underneath the pavement?” asked Bergman, referring to the College Street project.

“Most of it, the water main, I’m pretty sure is from the 1800s,” Bange replied.

“If we slow down,” asked Uzelac, “would we ever catch up on the infrastructure improvements we need to do?”

“No,” said Bange. “There is more work than we’ve got money for.”