Polo City Council issues bonds to help pay for new city hall

POLO — Financing more than half of the $2 million cost to build a new Polo City Hall/Buffalo Township Hall required a slight change in plans.

On March 4, Polo City Council members unanimously approved issuing general obligation bonds not to exceed $1.25 million to finance capital improvements, “including, but not limited to, the construction of a new city hall and paying for costs related thereto.”

Alderman Jim Busser was absent.

The building, which will be located at 118 N. Franklin Ave., will house city of Polo and Buffalo Township officials. Both municipalities are contributing to the cost of the project.

“It’s designed so it’s sufficient for any future needs we may have,” Mayor Doug Knapp said at the City Council’s Feb. 19 meeting. “I know it’s going to be a lot of money, but it’s going to be a feather in our hat. We didn’t put any bells and whistles on it.”

City Council members accepted a $1.93 million construction bid from Irving Construction Co., of DeKalb, during their Feb. 19 meeting. At the same time, they hired Fehr Graham for construction engineering services related to the project for $139,000.

Buffalo Township is putting $250,000 toward a downpayment, and the city is putting $500,000 toward that, Knapp said.

The original plan was for the city get a 30-year loan from a bank to cover the remainder of the cost, but a state statute brought to city officials’ attention within the last few weeks made that impossible, he said.

“There was an Illinois statute that wouldn’t allow us to borrow $1.25 million for 30 years; you would have to pay it back within 10 years for any of the banks we went to visit,” Knapp said. “So the only alternative was the bonding service, which was actually about a 4.6% [interest rate], and the other was 4.9% and a couple were 5%.”

Aldermen Randy Schoon and Tommy Bardell questioned why city attorney M. Thomas Suits had not alerted them earlier of the statute, and expressed their displeasure with the situation.

“How is it that we got this far into the process before we realized we couldn’t take out [loans] that we were shopping around with the banks for?” Bardell asked.

Suits said the Feb. 19 Polo City Council meeting was the first time he had heard that the city wanted to do a 30-year loan.

“I knew that it was going to be at the banks, but I didn’t know we were going to get 30 years,” he said. “So I thought, ‘I’d better check on that.’ So I looked up the statute … and I did call to let you know the next day.”

Bardell and Schoon disagreed, and said the 30-year loan had been discussed before the Feb. 19 meeting.

“I got approached today and told we all made ourselves look like fools, because we did not know this,” Schoon said. “We’ve been talking about this for five years now. For five years, we’ve been talking about that amount of 30-year loan debt.”

Also on March 4, council members unanimously voted to bypass the first reading of the ordinance issuing the general obligation bonds.

Ordinances usually must be presented at two separate meetings, with the vote taking place at the second meeting.

A public hearing on the $1.25 million general obligation bonds is set for March 18 at 6:30 p.m. in Polo City Hall, located at 115 S. Franklin Ave.

Fraudulent check stopped

Someone from Delaware attempted to write a $5,000 fraudulent check from one of the city of Polo’s bank accounts, City Clerk Sydney Bartelt told council members Tuesday. The bank noticed an inconsistency on the fake check and did not allow it to be processed, she said.

Bartelt said she will be working with the bank to get a new account set up and new checks for the city’s use prepared.

Other business

Also on March 4, the City Council:

• Unanimously OK’d an intergovernmental agreement with the city of Dixon and the Dixon Police Department to purchase $2,344 worth of excess ammunition for use by the Polo Police Department. The Dixon Police Department had excess ammunition after purchasing new firearms that use different ammo, the agreement states.
• Unanimously approved buying $12,300 worth of paint from Clearview Pools Inc., of South Beloit, to repaint the Polo pool at Keator Park. Bardell noted that, prior to painting, the pool will be cleaned by sandblasting it.
• Consented to Polo Town & Country Days’ use of city property from June 12-16 for the event. There was no vote on this matter.