|
Logan County Board
Workshop and Special Regular Meetings
[August 17, 2026]
On Thursday, August 13th, the
Logan County Board held both a Workshop and a Special Regular
Meeting in the rotunda of the Logan County Courthouse. The Workshop
meeting started at 6:00 p.m. Chairman JR Glenn, Vice Chairman Dale
Nelson, Lance Conahan, Kevin Knauer, Hannah Fitzpatrick, Gil Turner,
Bob Sanders. Keenan Leesman, and Joseph Kuhlman were present with
Jim Wessbecher and Kathy Schmidt absent.
The Pledge of Allegiance was performed, roll call taken and Turner
gave the invocation. After roll call, the previous month’s meeting
minutes were approved, and then Nelson, who was leading the meeting,
moved on to public comments.
There were several public comments speaking against the data center.
One cited biblical language for reasons the Board should oppose the
proposed Hut 8 data center. Another comment spoke to the need for
the county to come together as one. The third public speaker stated
that no one has the right to destroy property values or pollute the
air. She explained that she sent the board a 250 page impact study
and asked if they had looked at it. Several confirmed that they had.
A man spoke on an issue he and his family had with the Logan County
Sheriff’s Department. He claimed several constitutional violations
had been made by the Sheriff’s Department against their daughter and
that it was taken to the Illinois Attorney General (AG). A ruling
was made by Illinois AG on July 28th found the Sheriff’s Department
had made violations. He stated that five corrective recommendations
had been made, and he called on the Board to use their oversight
authority on the department.
The final commenters were against
the proposed data centers. The first called the data center a zoning
issue while the next spoke on water shortages across the United
States and the world.
With public comments over, Lance Conahan of the Building and Grounds
Committee gave his committee report. Conahan started with a use of
grounds request for the Walk 4 Recovery in Scully Park, followed by
chalk drawing in Scully Park during the Balloons Over 66 event.
There was a motion to approve an electrical aggregate from Stone
River Group with Direct Energy. Conahan shared that the contract had
been sent to State’s Attorney Brad Hauge for review.
Next was a motion to approve a gas card for the new part-time
facilities maintenance worker. Glenn asked if there was going to be
a limit on the card, and Conahan stated that either $1,000 or $500.
He will make an amendment at Tuesday’s regular board meeting.
The next two items were contracts with DHM and J Tech Water
Solutions in the amounts of $29,500 and $3,800 respectively. Conahan
gave an update on a decision made during their committee meeting.
The Building and Grounds Committee chose to buy a truck from the
Highway Department. He stated that the truck was initially purchased
through the Highway Department’s tax levy and that purchase was no
different from when the County Board charges the Highway Department
for IT services.
Conahan gave an update on a new meeting location, likely the
basement of the Logan Building. A chair lift would have to be
purchased and installed to make the space Americans with
Disabilities Act compliant, which is likely going to cost about
$2,500. He stated the money could be taken from the fund that was
budgeted for a roof replacement for the building, as they would
probably not have enough to replace the roof this year.
Nelson moved on to Turner with Executive and Personnel. There were
four items brought forward, with the first three being appointments.
There was a motion to appoint David Conrady as commissioner to the
Broadwell Special Drainage District 1. There were also two motions
to appoint Tracy Welch as commissioner to both Union Drainage
District 1 and Drainage District 1 East Lincoln Township. The final
motion was for a raffle by the Central Illinois Veterans Commission.
This brought the Board to Finance with Kuhlman. He had three items
to bring forward, the first being an increase in the Logan County
Tourism Bureau budget from $30,000 per year to $40,000.
Additionally, the motion stated that the contract would be renewed
for two more years.
Next was a Logan County Soil and Water Conservation District request
for $4,000, which would be paid from the farm account. The final
motion was to approve the state cost of living adjustment (COLA)
increases for the Logan County Sheriff and Public Defender.
Safety was next, and Knauer had one item to bring before the Board.
The item was a motion to approve proposed Animal Control contracts
with various cities, towns, and villages across the county, except
for Lincoln.
Transportation had three items brought forward by Conahan. The first
was a motion to award a contract to Otto Baum Company for $1,398,300
to build four box culverts in Mt. Pulaski. The second motion was to
take $20,000 from the County Bridge Fund to help Atlanta in
replacing a culvert. The final item was a motion to approve a joint
funding agreement with the Illinois Department of Transportation for
“preliminary engineering on an overlay project on County Highway
25.”
The final committee report was the
Zoning and Economic Development Committee. Turner began by giving an
update on the data center decommissioning ordinance that his
committee did not send through to Workshop. He shared that the
committee felt it was not needed until a data center ordinance could
be passed, and that the decommissioning ordinance was tabled.
[to top of second column] |
Turner next read a
very long motion. The motion would allow Kuhn & Trello to
prepare an application for the county for a grant that would
allow the construction of a bike trail connecting to the current
one that ends in Williamsville. The ordinance for this trail was
struck down last month when the Board was concerned that the
language was not specific enough about the county not being
fiscally responsible for paying for the bike path in an amount
that was not yet determined. This new motion clarified that they
have no fiscal obligations until the county approves the project
knowing what the amount needed would be.
Turner next spoke on the data center
moratorium discussed in the committee meeting. He said he and
Fitzpatrick met with Hauge and that he shared two pieces of
information. First, courts do not like moratoriums or ones that are
long. Second, the reasoning the county gave was too vague. Turner
stated that the reasoning given for the moratorium was to protect
the people of the county from potential negative effects of water
and air quality, habitats, and infrastructure. It was decided at the
meeting that Fitzpatrick would come up with a more specific
reasoning.
Turner continued, turning to the data center ordinance. After some
discussion, it was determined that the ordinance could be passed so
long as “substantial changes” were made to it. One of these changes,
Turner shared, was to the application fee, increasing it from $500
to $30,000, a number Green said he felt was reasonable given the
application fees for the solar projects the county has had recently.
He then worked with Zoning and Economic Development Officer Al Green
to add back some of the recommendations from the Zoning Board of
Appeals (ZBA) that had been made previously. Turner was sure to
point out that the ordinance was not a done deal, and that it would
still have to go through Regional Planning, the ZBA, and the Board
before it was approved.
People then began to ask questions of the ordinance, with one woman
asking if impact studies were still going to be able to be conducted
after the ordinance was in place. Green shared that they would not
only happen, but that they would be required. Another woman voiced
concerns on who would conduct the studies, but Green assured her
that the county would choose who was hired to do the impact study
and the cost would be covered by the data center companies. He
shared that, as of now, all data center companies must do to apply
in Logan County is fill out a three-page application. This ordinance
would make that process a lot longer and more difficult.
This ended Turner’s report. With no announcements and nothing for
the Chair’s report, Nelson entertained a motion to adjourn.
The start of the special regular
meeting followed several minutes after the end of the Workshop
meeting. Glenn, who had taken over for this meeting, skipped over
the Pledge of Allegiance and the invocation. Additionally, he
skipped over roll call, stating that they would adopt the roll call
from the first meeting due to there being no change from one meeting
to the next. There were no public comments.
There was only one item on the agenda, a bid from Heart IT on a
server replacement at the courthouse. The cost of this replacement
would be $54,554.92. Conahan shared that this meeting was called due
to the bid expiring the day after the meeting. Sheila Fiepel of
Heart IT was on the phone in case anyone had any questions.
Conahan started off by asking Fiepel to speak on what is being
replaced. She shared that one of two servers in the basement would
be being replaced. She gave some information and specifics on the
server that would be installed.
Glenn asked about a backup server and if this addresses that. Fiepel
stated that there might be some things that do, but that Heart
already backs up the county’s digital information and they are
“covered” when it comes to backups.
Leesman had several specific questions about the server and how it
functions. Fiepel answered all his questions on the server’s
functionality while being worked on, among other things. He had a
question about a specific part to the server, asking if that could
be added to the quote at no additional charge. This part would take
the server from one gig to ten. Fiepel stated that it could.
Conahan asked if that change would require the document to be sent
back to their manufacturer. Fiepel stated that she would send an
email about the part the next day, but that she did not want to add
this to the bill, especially since it expired the next day. She
would not want the price of the bill to go up. Conahan asked if they
would need to wait on signing the bill until they get confirmation
in writing that the part could be added.
While Fiepel was working, Nelson stated that he was concerned about
not signing it that night. He stated that they had not got this done
over a couple of months, and that the price had increased a lot.
Leesman stated that, so long as the price does not change, there
should be no issue.
Leesman made an amendment that stated the quote would be approved so
long as they could get the ten GB network card. The amendment was
passed unanimously. They then voted on the amended motion, and that
passed unanimously as well.
With no other business to attend to, Glenn entertained a motion to
adjourn.
[Matt Boutcher]
|
