Quincy Township wants to transfer extra $350,000 to city for Small Rental Rehabilitation Program

QUINCY — Quincy Mayor Mike Troup learned moments before Monday’s Quincy City Council meeting that a $350,000 cash balance accumulated by Quincy Township may be gifted to the city for its Small Rental Rehabilitation Program.

“Awesome gift,” he said after Quincy Township Supervisor Cindy Brink made a presentation to aldermen. “Anybody else here have extra money?”

Brink told aldermen that Quincy Township already has received more than $600,000 in personal property replacement tax dollars, and she estimates it will receive another $40,000 before the fiscal year ends March 20. 

“Township law changed in 2021, and we can’t keep more than 2.5 times the last three years’ average on hand,” she said. “We’re going to have too many funds coming in the next fiscal, so when we pass this budget, if we alleviate some of those funds by passing those through to the city, then that’ll keep us under that max.

“We would like to see it utilized in some form or fashion that pertains to what we do as a township. That’s kind of our goal, just anything that we can do to enhance the community.”

Aldermen voted Jan. 10 to establish the Small Rental Rehabilitation Program. It will mirror the Downtown Rental Rehabilitation program already in place. It offers assistance to developers who convert vacant upper floors of downtown buildings into apartments. The program offers a 50 percent match, up to $20,000, to turn vacant homes into rental units.

The city established a $1 million fund — $250,000 a year — available during the next four years.

“The alderman have to decide what we want to do with that,” Troup said. “Do they want to keep (the fund) at a million, then take $350,000 out of the million that they authorized (Jan. 10) and use it in some other fashion? Or do they want to make (the fund) up to $1.35 million or some other combination? That’s something that we will have the aldermen or the committee take another look at what they want to do.

“Wow, guys. What a great gift.” 

In other action, aldermen: 

Approved a fireworks display at the Hairball concert on Saturday at the Oakley-Lindsay Center.

Approved a raffle by the Quincy Boat Club.

Appointed Ben Uzelac, D-7, to the Two Rivers Land Bank.

Appointed Johnathan Hoover to the Quincy Public Library Board of Trustees.

Authorized the execution of the Rebuild Capital Grant agreement after learning the city had received $1,249,440 from the Illinois Department of Transportation to help redesign the municipal parking lot on the northwest corner of Seventh and Jersey to include an intermodal bus transfer facility.

Approved a resolution to enter into a vendor agreement between the city and Two Rivers Regional Council to assist eligible low-income households with payments of their water and sewer bills.

Assigned the rights and interests outlined in the solar contract Quincy Regional Airport has with Veregy, LLC, to Balance Solar.

Approved changes to the ordinance governing monthly meetings of the Human Rights Commission. The 15-member board was reduced to nine members, with three members scheduled for reappointment every year. Meetings were changed from monthly to bi-monthly. Katie Awerkamp, D-6, said the commission was struggling to get people to come to the meetings.