Latest / WIXN AM 1460 - Shaw Local Radio / Talk-Line: Glen Hughes, Dixon Mayor

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Talk-Line: Glen Hughes, Dixon Mayor · WIXN AM 1460 - Shaw Local Radio

0:00
Speaker 1: We are quarter past the hour, and don't forget exciting
0:02
Speaker 1: Dixon Duke basketball, I should say Dixon Duchess basketball. Both
0:05
Speaker 1: the Dukes and Duchesses are playing tonight. We had to
0:07
Speaker 1: make a choice. Well, the Duchesses are into playoff mode,
0:10
Speaker 1: so we are following the Dixon Duchesses to Freeport for
0:13
Speaker 1: their game against Rockford Boiling tonight. Good luck to the
0:15
Speaker 1: Dukes and their game against Gerard. We'll have, of course
0:17
Speaker 1: reports here at AM fourteen sixteen FM ninety five one,
0:20
Speaker 1: but we'll be covering the Duchesses in Freeport tonight as
0:22
Speaker 1: they entered the regional championship game against Rockford Boiling. That
0:25
Speaker 1: game starts at around six o'clock tonight here at AM
0:27
Speaker 1: fourteen sixteen FM ninety five one w IXN. As I mentioned,
0:31
Speaker 1: we are quarter past the hour. This is Thursday. It's
0:33
Speaker 1: February twenty the year is twenty twenty five, and it's
0:35
Speaker 1: time for another informational edition of talkline. Here at AM
0:38
Speaker 1: fourteen sixteen FM ninety five one, w IXN. Good morning,
0:41
Speaker 1: I'm Steve Marco. Your Mayor's open line numbers are eight
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Speaker 1: one five two eight eight three three four one and
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Speaker 1: eight one five sixty two six three zero nine one.
0:48
Speaker 1: If you haven't city issue, a city concern, a city
0:50
Speaker 1: question that you would like to post to the City
0:52
Speaker 1: of Dixon, here's your springboard to city Hall. Here is
0:55
Speaker 1: our spokesperson, The Honorable Mayor of the City of Dixon
0:58
Speaker 1: is live with us for another edition of the Mayor
1:00
Speaker 1: Open Line for February of twenty twenty five. Mayor Glenn
1:03
Speaker 1: Hughes joins us from the City of Dixon today here
1:06
Speaker 1: at am fourteen sixteen FM ninety five one. Good morning, mister.
1:09
Speaker 2: Mayor, Good morning Steve.
1:11
Speaker 1: This is the first face to face it's last year.
1:17
Speaker 1: Last month you were by telephone. You were away from
1:20
Speaker 1: your desk.
1:20
Speaker 2: Yes, I was, so would you make it sound like
1:23
Speaker 2: it's been so long.
1:27
Speaker 1: It seems that way, but it's only been a month.
1:30
Speaker 1: We did chat with the bear, but we chatted with
1:31
Speaker 1: it by telephone last month in January, if you remember,
1:34
Speaker 1: here at am fourteen sixteen FM ninety five one. We've
1:37
Speaker 1: got lots on the table today and most of it
1:39
Speaker 1: has to do with the city budget. The City of
1:43
Speaker 1: Dixon has been working on the budget extra meetings, right
1:48
Speaker 1: y y. The City Council through the period.
1:51
Speaker 2: We do some we do special meetings, you know, sometimes
1:55
Speaker 2: it's before the council meeting, sometimes it's during the week.
2:00
Speaker 2: But on average this probably for the last three weeks,
2:04
Speaker 2: we've been probably meeting twice a week on average. We've
2:09
Speaker 2: got another not this week. We have a city manager
2:14
Speaker 2: out on other business and one of our council people
2:19
Speaker 2: is tied up with some other stuff. So next week
2:23
Speaker 2: we've got meetings on Monday and potentially Tuesday. Maybe we
2:32
Speaker 2: can wrap things up on Monday or the general we
2:36
Speaker 2: may have some more things to discuss to pin down.
2:41
Speaker 2: But quite honestly, the department heads departments have been keeping
2:48
Speaker 2: their budgets pretty tight. Most of what we're seeing is
2:54
Speaker 2: regular payroll increases, insurance increases.
3:01
Speaker 1: Go.
3:02
Speaker 2: Moving over to the capital side of the budget, we're
3:07
Speaker 2: we've got things planned out. The city doesn't just decide
3:13
Speaker 2: it needs a new truck or a new you know,
3:17
Speaker 2: piece of equipment in a particular year. We actually kind
3:21
Speaker 2: of look forward as to what those capital expenditures are
3:27
Speaker 2: going to be. Hopefully we put it. We kind of
3:31
Speaker 2: estimate at or project out as much as five years,
3:37
Speaker 2: so even that capital spending is kind of kind of
3:42
Speaker 2: planned out so we can keep that under control. We
3:46
Speaker 2: can keep we can keep our equipment in a in
3:51
Speaker 2: a regular cycle. For those who were listening at the
3:57
Speaker 2: I think it was I don't think it was the
3:59
Speaker 2: January media. It might. I think it was the first
4:01
Speaker 2: meeting in February talking about replacing a roll off container.
4:11
Speaker 2: That's not a you know, that's not a big piece
4:13
Speaker 2: of equipment like a dumb truck or anything. But on
4:16
Speaker 2: the other hand, that I think that went into service
4:20
Speaker 2: in the nineties, ninety four or something like that. You know,
4:24
Speaker 2: it's been welded together. I just use that as as
4:28
Speaker 2: a recent example. You know, we looked beyond. We look
4:32
Speaker 2: beyond the normal where and tear time we maintain our property. Well,
4:39
Speaker 2: we get a lot of use out of our vehicles
4:42
Speaker 2: and our equipment, but we also plan ahead for when
4:49
Speaker 2: we might be looking at the rotation. People may think
4:54
Speaker 2: about two years ago, when in twenty three we ended
4:58
Speaker 2: up picking up I think it was five police vehicles
5:01
Speaker 2: in that year. That wasn't the intent. You know, we
5:05
Speaker 2: kind of got pushed into that because of the supply chain. Yes,
5:10
Speaker 2: But the other side of it is we had planned
5:12
Speaker 2: for those expenses. We had we had monies in the
5:15
Speaker 2: capital fund because of that planning that we could absorb
5:20
Speaker 2: that type of expenditure in a single year. So it's
5:27
Speaker 2: it's pretty well thought out. At this point. We're keeping
5:33
Speaker 2: we're holding the line in terms of department expenses. We're
5:38
Speaker 2: dealing with some things that we don't have any control of,
5:42
Speaker 2: some things that are contractual, like you know, like salaries,
5:46
Speaker 2: and you know, so the the expenses have been help
5:52
Speaker 2: held pretty tight. Occasionally we'll get it one time thing
5:58
Speaker 2: we got to update it, equipment or something like that.
6:02
Speaker 2: That kind of makes something look a little skewed, But
6:05
Speaker 2: that's all. That's all it really is. And I want
6:08
Speaker 2: to remind the city or the constituents, the taxpayers that
6:15
Speaker 2: in fact, over the last several years, the tax rate,
6:19
Speaker 2: I know, your taxes have gone up, but the tax
6:22
Speaker 2: rate itself from the city has actually gotten down. Yes,
6:26
Speaker 2: we're at a rate below twenty thirteen. I mean last
6:29
Speaker 2: year we were gone, you know, and continuing this year.
6:34
Speaker 2: So but for the last several years that that rate
6:38
Speaker 2: has maybe not fast enough for the taxpayer, but it
6:42
Speaker 2: has gotten down.
6:45
Speaker 1: And obviously there are other factors into that that that
6:50
Speaker 1: the taxpayer, you know, kind of zeros in on the city. Well,
6:55
Speaker 1: you know, my taxes went up this year. We're zeroing
6:59
Speaker 1: in on the city. As the response, that's not the case,
7:03
Speaker 1: as you just talked about. There are other mitigating factors. Yes,
7:07
Speaker 1: with this particular situation, it's not the city that's doing this.
7:13
Speaker 1: It's mitigating factors that you have to take into account
7:16
Speaker 1: in order to make up.
7:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then the biggest single one, because I think
7:21
Speaker 2: the county overall has done a pretty good job of
7:24
Speaker 2: controlling expenses and even looking at their tax rate, they
7:28
Speaker 2: might have moved up and down a little bit more
7:30
Speaker 2: than the city has, but kept it in a fairly
7:35
Speaker 2: tight range in the I would say, in the last
7:38
Speaker 2: eight to ten years. And you know, I believe the
7:43
Speaker 2: overall tax rate, despite the fact that assessed values went up,
7:51
Speaker 2: the overall tax rate actually may have gone down. I
7:55
Speaker 2: think it went down last year for the county. But
7:58
Speaker 2: I can't I can't swear that. I know it's been
8:00
Speaker 2: in a fairly tight range. And contrary to popular belief,
8:05
Speaker 2: they aren't even even they aren't jacking the you know,
8:10
Speaker 2: the taxes up. Okay, So it's you know, it's been
8:13
Speaker 2: a it tends to be more because of the assessed
8:17
Speaker 2: the increase in assessed value, you know, and quite honestly,
8:22
Speaker 2: I don't think you want your house to be the
8:24
Speaker 2: same value it was ten years ago, exactly bought.
8:27
Speaker 1: It exactly exactly right. And let's basic it. You know,
8:30
Speaker 1: cost go up, fix, I mean, that's just a it's
8:33
Speaker 1: a human nature. Costs are are They're always going up,
8:36
Speaker 1: they always do. Uh. But with our with our work
8:40
Speaker 1: in progress, as you just mentioned, Mayor, uh, you know,
8:43
Speaker 1: keeping tight range. I think I think you know, the
8:46
Speaker 1: city Council and the city has kept you know, good
8:49
Speaker 1: rains on our on our budget. We don't like to
8:51
Speaker 1: talk about you know, total budgets. You know, you don't
8:54
Speaker 1: talk about those. You don't talk about those, you know,
8:56
Speaker 1: in total you know figures anything like that through the years.
9:01
Speaker 1: We just don't because there's such a breakdown all of
9:04
Speaker 1: these areas. You can't really you put it all together
9:07
Speaker 1: and say, well, here's your budget, you know, because it's
9:10
Speaker 1: broken down so much.
9:11
Speaker 2: Oh yes, yeah, I mean yeah, the very line item
9:14
Speaker 2: and yes, and that's that's the thing that even happened
9:20
Speaker 2: during Mayor Lee's term, in part because of in part
9:28
Speaker 2: because of RITA, but just as importantly as a matter
9:32
Speaker 2: of controlling expenses, being able to have a better handle
9:37
Speaker 2: on on what costs. We're pretty dedicated to line item issues.
9:43
Speaker 2: And in this last meeting, there was some changes that
9:47
Speaker 2: happened in Public Works, but no new money, so that
9:53
Speaker 2: you know, just because there's a pot of money there
9:55
Speaker 2: doesn't mean we're gonna we're going to spend it. So
9:59
Speaker 2: even even though there was no increase in the public
10:03
Speaker 2: Works budget, the department still had to come back to
10:08
Speaker 2: the council and make them and the public aware of
10:14
Speaker 2: changes from the intended budget. So money moved from one
10:19
Speaker 2: area because we weren't having quite the same expenditures that
10:23
Speaker 2: we expected, and we were having other areas that we're having,
10:27
Speaker 2: you know, higher cost than had been anticipated. We're working
10:32
Speaker 2: within the same budget. There's no new money. We're just
10:36
Speaker 2: we're just shifting those funds. And based on the way
10:40
Speaker 2: we handle our finances right now, even just those shifts
10:45
Speaker 2: are brought those departments are accountable to the council and
10:50
Speaker 2: the public to make them aware of those shifts.
10:54
Speaker 1: Absolutely, and again it is through the work of the
10:58
Speaker 1: City Council and their budget EFTs, and again these are
11:00
Speaker 1: public meetings. You know, you can tune in online or
11:05
Speaker 1: you know, visit council chambers if you want the lowdown
11:09
Speaker 1: on you know, your city at work, your council at work.
11:13
Speaker 1: This is an annual activity. These budget meetings are scheduled
11:16
Speaker 1: annually again to map out the plans for the future
11:21
Speaker 1: of our community. And again the mayor and city Council
11:24
Speaker 1: and those entities involved have been the hard at work
11:28
Speaker 1: to again formulate you know, there push ahead into twenty
11:33
Speaker 1: twenty five. We're going to take a break for news
11:36
Speaker 1: first at the bottom of the hour eight thirty, but
11:38
Speaker 1: when we come back, we're going to focus maybe on
11:40
Speaker 1: a couple of those areas that Mayor mentioned that you
11:43
Speaker 1: know again are our pinpoint You mentioned the public works area,
11:46
Speaker 1: and I'm sure there are others that maybe are pinpointed.
11:49
Speaker 1: So Mayor will have that information plus some more information
11:52
Speaker 1: from the City of Dixon. It's the Mayor's open line
11:54
Speaker 1: today with Dixon Mayor Glen Hughes. We're meeting with the
11:56
Speaker 1: mayor today. It's our Mayor's open line fored U of
12:00
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five on the Honorable Mayor of the City
12:02
Speaker 1: of Dixon. Mayor Glenn Hughes is liab with this this
12:04
Speaker 1: morning to again take us through the budget picture. That's
12:08
Speaker 1: what we're doing today with the Mayor on AM fourteen
12:10
Speaker 1: sixteen FM ninety five one. As Mayor mentioned, meetings are
12:13
Speaker 1: set to come our way end of February, possibly first
12:16
Speaker 1: of March. But again we're proceeding along as we should be.
12:19
Speaker 1: This is the regular routine at the city Council again
12:23
Speaker 1: puts itself in when it comes to figuring out moneys
12:27
Speaker 1: to be spent, moneys to be looked at, organizations and
12:32
Speaker 1: entities to be funded through the City of Dixon and
12:36
Speaker 1: Mayor again, thank you very much for spending the extra
12:38
Speaker 1: time with this explaining to us about the budget procedures.
12:40
Speaker 1: In the first portion of our talk line today, thought
12:43
Speaker 1: we'd kind of concentrate maybe on a couple of those areas.
12:46
Speaker 1: You know you've had visits from organizations from those that
12:52
Speaker 1: you know share as they do annually. Again, this is
12:55
Speaker 1: an annual presentation that these you know edities put forward
12:58
Speaker 1: to the City of Dixon, you know, needing money is
13:02
Speaker 1: for their areas. Is there anything that kind of stands
13:04
Speaker 1: out any of these areas Mayor that you know are
13:08
Speaker 1: are are you know, uh in that budget fray that
13:13
Speaker 1: maybe you are in need, you know, or or asking
13:16
Speaker 1: you know for help.
13:18
Speaker 2: Well that that's a that's a tough question. I think.
13:23
Speaker 2: I think all of the entities that come to us
13:26
Speaker 2: need help. Sure they're they're not just coming to us
13:31
Speaker 2: because we're an we're an easy touch. There's there's some
13:37
Speaker 2: thought that needs to go to that. I think you're
13:39
Speaker 2: probably looking more at some of the things like the
13:46
Speaker 2: next picture show, the Dixon Historic Theater, you know, stage left,
13:52
Speaker 2: some of those, some of the other entities along that line.
13:58
Speaker 2: I think the impacts another one of them, All of
14:04
Speaker 2: them very good and approximately. It just a matter of
14:09
Speaker 2: when we're looking at the budget and we're looking at
14:11
Speaker 2: available funds, how much we can commit to those projects.
14:20
Speaker 2: And it's not just about today, because we might have
14:25
Speaker 2: the funds to do that in the Community Development Fund
14:28
Speaker 2: for example, or the Arts and Culture Fund. But if
14:35
Speaker 2: just because we've got the money there, it doesn't mean
14:37
Speaker 2: it needs to all get dispersed at once. You have
14:40
Speaker 2: to be able to look at the long term. You know,
14:43
Speaker 2: what's our sources of replenishing those monies. If we distribute
14:48
Speaker 2: most of that fund, you know, how much have we
14:51
Speaker 2: gone through in the last few years does that give
14:56
Speaker 2: us a gauge on what we need to be prepared
14:59
Speaker 2: for for the the next few years. We even at
15:04
Speaker 2: the last meeting, we even had some request from Buddy
15:08
Speaker 2: Bags very good cause, absolutely, absolutely a very good cause.
15:16
Speaker 2: I was. I had had some contact with people from
15:23
Speaker 2: Buddy Bags previous to that meeting. I did not try
15:29
Speaker 2: and dissuade them from coming. There's probably nothing that we'll
15:36
Speaker 2: be able to happen in this budget year, but it's
15:42
Speaker 2: based on a couple of factors, both statutory and our
15:51
Speaker 2: policy driven basis. So one, we need to find a
15:55
Speaker 2: statutory position where we could possibly donate to something like
16:04
Speaker 2: Buddy Bags or Shining Stars or Hope Cancer, But then
16:10
Speaker 2: we also have to change the city's policy on what
16:17
Speaker 2: we're giving in terms of the not for profits. Right now,
16:21
Speaker 2: it's very clear from a statutory standpoint that we can
16:24
Speaker 2: donate to third parties for economic development purposes. There may
16:33
Speaker 2: be some ways that we could approach those other donations,
16:40
Speaker 2: but we need to clarify that, and upon clarifying that,
16:46
Speaker 2: we also need to address the city's policy. Concern I
16:51
Speaker 2: have there is that are we opening a can of worms?
16:55
Speaker 2: There are a lot of deserving and I just named
16:58
Speaker 2: off for probably, you know, very quickly sure that are
17:03
Speaker 2: not relative to the the economic basis. I think the
17:09
Speaker 2: United Way gives to about twenty eight or thirty of them.
17:15
Speaker 2: So there's a lot of good causes out there. Out
17:19
Speaker 2: of that twenty eight or thirty, maybe there's some more
17:22
Speaker 2: that the city, you know, we could narrow down a
17:24
Speaker 2: group that the city could find worthy of being donated to.
17:31
Speaker 2: But on the other hand, that opens a whole can
17:34
Speaker 2: of worms in terms of decisions that we have to
17:38
Speaker 2: make we have to make on that budget for multiple
17:46
Speaker 2: entities like that. Quite honestly, having been on the United
17:52
Speaker 2: Way board, being a strong, you know, believer in what
17:55
Speaker 2: the United Way can do, and knowing the process that
17:59
Speaker 2: the United Way goes through to make its determinations, I'm
18:08
Speaker 2: not sure how realistic it is for the city to
18:12
Speaker 2: get that involved in those not for profits. And we
18:16
Speaker 2: have avenues within like the United Rights or personal donations
18:24
Speaker 2: to address people's particular concerns. I don't want to. I
18:32
Speaker 2: don't want to try and start picking and choosing, sure
18:35
Speaker 2: between ten or fifteen different agencies if we if we
18:41
Speaker 2: open that floodgate.
18:43
Speaker 1: Sure, what I'm saying is too Mayor is that. I
18:45
Speaker 1: know that the city makes every effort, I mean every effort,
18:49
Speaker 1: every effort to address and you know, uh, to to
18:53
Speaker 1: look at these organizations that make presentations that but I'm
18:58
Speaker 1: sure that's there's probably you know, has to be you know, uh,
19:02
Speaker 1: there's probably a cut off life there are probably obviously
19:04
Speaker 1: there is, and you don't like it. You don't like it,
19:07
Speaker 1: but it's necessary because because you know, it's it's not
19:12
Speaker 1: feasible right need to to you know, yeah, take care
19:17
Speaker 1: of everybody you want to. But but it's tough, and
19:21
Speaker 1: I'm sure you're finding that out, you know, with presentations.
19:24
Speaker 2: Like I said when I was on the United Way Board,
19:26
Speaker 2: I understand that process exactly.
19:28
Speaker 1: You know, budgets you know, are are are very delicate,
19:32
Speaker 1: They're very you know, and you have to you know,
19:35
Speaker 1: you have to address needs assessments and the and the
19:38
Speaker 1: city is doing that right now in their in their
19:40
Speaker 1: budget meetings, as Mayor mentioned. But again, uh, you know,
19:45
Speaker 1: there are a lot of presentations that have been made.
19:47
Speaker 1: I know that a lot of entities have you know,
19:49
Speaker 1: come forward to speak to the City Council and make
19:52
Speaker 1: their presentations and you know, to make their causes and
19:55
Speaker 1: you know, so, uh, you know, it's it's an interesting
19:58
Speaker 1: I'm sure it's an interesting deal process that the city
20:01
Speaker 1: looks at every year. This is the routine as we
20:04
Speaker 1: talked about earlier, that the city goes through in order
20:07
Speaker 1: to plan. You know what moneys can be dispersed obviously,
20:10
Speaker 1: you know, taking care of business first. You talked about
20:13
Speaker 1: that during the first portion of our talk line here
20:15
Speaker 1: at a fourteen sixteen FM ninety five one. Mayor were
20:17
Speaker 1: approaching the end of our talk line time today, I
20:20
Speaker 1: know that there was some ceremonies held at the most
20:23
Speaker 1: recent Dixon City Council meeting that we want to address
20:26
Speaker 1: once again.
20:26
Speaker 2: As you oh, absolutely with February being Black History Month,
20:34
Speaker 2: not that that should have any restrictions, but I think
20:37
Speaker 2: it you know, when you celebrate people in your community,
20:42
Speaker 2: it can happen at any time of the year. But
20:45
Speaker 2: with back Black History Month, we make a point of
20:50
Speaker 2: addressing the Ike Mercer Award and that went to Gerald
20:55
Speaker 2: Lot this year, and then as of last year we
21:01
Speaker 2: did there was a first uh Lifetime Achievement Award, so
21:08
Speaker 2: this is the second one and this award went to
21:12
Speaker 2: the Black History Month Lifetime Achievement Award. Went to James Dishman.
21:18
Speaker 2: Mister Dishman, I don't believe is with us anymore, but
21:22
Speaker 2: his family was represented there and.
21:25
Speaker 1: And and good uh you know, a former commissioner, uh
21:28
Speaker 1: you know with the City of Dixon ward, you know,
21:30
Speaker 1: with with the City of Dixon ed So again a
21:34
Speaker 1: very uh, you know, worthy choice I think for the
21:38
Speaker 1: Lifetime Achievement Award. And Jill Lot you know what he's
21:41
Speaker 1: done with, you know, Stuck Valley Voices of Recovery. Good
21:43
Speaker 1: choice for the Commercer Award as well. Yeah, because he's
21:47
Speaker 1: done so much, you know.
21:49
Speaker 2: And actually that's not I want to say, this is
21:53
Speaker 2: not These are not awards that the city in particular evaluates.
21:59
Speaker 2: These These are done by the Mercer family and in
22:05
Speaker 2: particular prior Ike Mercer Award winners' good. So it's bringing
22:13
Speaker 2: in those who have won the award who understand the
22:17
Speaker 2: significance of the award, along with the Mercer family who
22:20
Speaker 2: are making these decisions on those both for the Ike
22:26
Speaker 2: Mercer Award and now the Lifetime Achievement Award.
22:29
Speaker 1: Congratulations to the recipients honored at the most recent Dixon
22:32
Speaker 1: City Council meeting held recently as a matter of fact
22:35
Speaker 1: this past week right here in our community, So congratulations
22:38
Speaker 1: to those recipients. Mayor, we're out of time. I know
22:41
Speaker 1: continues on the budget. We'll obviously have that to talk
22:43
Speaker 1: about in the next portion in the month of March
22:46
Speaker 1: as well. But again work continues on budget proceedings, and
22:50
Speaker 1: again we'll get updated by the Mayor and by our
22:53
Speaker 1: officials right here on A fourteen sixteen FM ninety five
22:56
Speaker 1: one as we move forward into twenty twenty five. Hall
22:58
Speaker 1: was a pleasure having you on board, sir. I enjoy
23:00
Speaker 1: being here and it is always a pleasure having the
23:03
Speaker 1: honorable Mayor of the City of Dixon, Mayor Glen Hughes
23:05
Speaker 1: join us for the talk line today here at Wixen.
23:07
Speaker 1: That's the Mayor's open line for February twenty twenty five.
23:09
Speaker 1: Sports versus Next