The Sycamore City Council held their regularly scheduled meeting Monday night. Among items approved and considered were the financial statements for fiscal year 2008-2009.

While the market meltdown did directly affect Sycamore’s key sources of revenue, the independent audit done by Dennis Hildebrandt and his audit team from Siepert & Co., 2380 Bethany Road, reported no findings in the city’s accounting.

City manager Bill Nicklas said the clean audit on top of the upgraded “AA” bond rating by Standard & Poor’s in early Sept. makes the council feel very good about the way they are managing the city.

“The bond rating shows good accounting practices even in a down year,” Hildebrandt said.
Nicklas said the city is not planning on the economy improving in this fiscal year and will budget accordingly.

“We certainly have not budgeted for this current fiscal year thinking that we’re going to see a boom in any way; in fact, we’re looking to more of the same,” Nicklas said.

The council also approved an ordinance amending the city code to prohibit parking on National Street from Republic Avenue North to Lindgren Road. According to the ordinance, this will allow the street to be open to the bus traffic of North Grove School, 26745 Brickville Road.

Some concern was expressed by council members about parking for school functions like sports practices and parents’ meetings, however Second Ward Alderman Pete Paulsen pointed out that the school has more parking than most schools, and prohibiting parking shouldn’t cause ill effects at future events held at the school.

In addition, council approved an ordinance amending an ordinance approved in April allowing Sycamore to borrow funds from the Water Pollution Control Loan Program.

Nicklas said this ordinance is not approving a new loan, rather it is promising to repay the no-interest loan extended by the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency to fund the first phase of the wastewater treatment plant upgrade.

“We just approved a new document that solidifies our relationship with the IEPA,” Nicklas said.
“[It] basically...promises that now we’ve taken on a new loan, but we’re not going to forget that
there are other IEPA loans outstanding from other projects that we’re paying off,”

The next Sycamore City Council meeting will be held at 7 p.m. on Oct 19th at the Sycamore Center, 308 W. State St.

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