VILLAGE OF NORTH AURORA
OPERATIONS COMMITTEE MEETING MINUTES
NOVEMBER 4, 2019
CALL TO ORDER
Trustee Guethle called the meeting to order.
ROLL CALL
In attendance: Trustee Mark Guethle, Trustee Laura Curtis, Trustee Mark Carroll, Trustee Mark Gaffino, Mayor Dale Berman, Village Administrator Steve Bosco, Community & Economic Development Director Mike Toth, Finance Director Bill Hannah.
AUDIENCE COMMENTS – None
APPROVAL OF MINUTES
1. Approval of the Operations Committee Minutes dated October 7, 2019
Motion for approval made by Trustee Carroll and seconded by Trustee Gaffino. All in favor. Motion approved.
NEW BUSINESS
1. HR Manual – Travel Expenses
The current policy regarding travel expenses provides a per diem limit on a per meal basis based on the location of an event and based on the federal GS rates. If a seminar is in St. Louis, it would be a different rate allowance than if the seminar were in Chicago. Staff suggested building in some flexibility to the policy where an employee would be provided a certain amount for meals and have the flexibility to spend that up to the daily amount based on meals. If an employee has a certain amount for breakfast and then skips lunch, the employee would have a certain amount remaining to spend for dinner.
2. Moka TIF
Mike Toth said that staff has received an incentive request from Moka coffee shop for $232,758 over a 5 year period.
Moka business owner Scott Miller addressed the committee. The architects looked at what the costs were to build the Moka stores in Wisconsin. The two most similar stores are located in Lacrosse and Onalaska, WI. An assumption was made that construction costs would be similar to the other stores. However, building and site work costs were quite a bit more. Basic costs were double if not more for plumbing, signage and electrical.
Trustee Curtis said that the economic and political and cost to build climate is different from state to state and asked why the owner would purchase land based on an assumption. Miller said that the architect they used was one from Wisconsin, basing information off of costs from those stores. Miller said that if he could do it again, he would use a local contractor.
Miller said they made the assumption that they would be able to figure out what an estimated cost would be for the building. However, learned that they could not get a construction company to provide a good bid until there was a commitment for land and drawings.
Miller noted that being in a TIF district, assumed there would be some expenses that would be potentially reimbursable. Miller added that some of the other stores in Wisconsin and Minnesota did not take long from start to finish, however this project took a long time just to get all of the drawings completed.
Miller said he met with 6 different builders and went with Paramount Construction with a bid of $560,000. When it was finally completed, it was $677,000. Total cost for building, land, attorneys cost, etc. came to $1.1 million. Out of the $677,000 construction costs, $413,000 was in the TIF eligible category. Miller said he was looking for some relief in that area in the amount of $232,000 over a 5-year period.
Trustee Gaffino asked, if the business owner had asked for this TIF reimbursement before, if it would have been a 50/50 match through the TIF. Toth said the 50% is for the TIF façade program. Under a TIF request, a developer can ask for any amount at any point.
Trustee Guethle said that the Village should come up with some TIF funding since it is all site related. The only question is how much. Gaffino asked if the village would be establishing precedence with this situation. Toth said that whenever we do something like this it would establish precedence.
Trustee Carroll said he was in favor of the request and did not feel that it makes any difference if they were asking for the TIF request now or ahead of time. The cost of building is the same before or after the fact. Carroll added that it is a good looking building and the improvement is exponential compared to what was there previously.
Village Administrator Steve Bosco said this would go to the Committee of the Whole for further discussion.
OLD BUSINESS – None
OTHER INFORMATION – None
TRUSTEE COMMENTS – None
ADJOURNMENT
Motion to adjourn made by Trustee Carroll and seconded by Mayor Berman. All in favor. Motion approved.
Respectfully Submitted,
Lori J. Murray
Village Clerk
