Monday night, DeKalb City Council discussed approval of mayoral appointments, construction progress on Locust Street, the DeKalb Public Library’s purchase of the neighboring clinic building in a closed session and the Greenwood Acres Retirement Center.

Eleni Nikolas-Krause and Christina Peddle were appointed to the Plan Commission.

“Eleni Krause is appointed to a four-year term,” said DeKalb Mayor Kris Povlsen. “She is a resident in the community, had a private business overseas in Greece for many years, as well as now working out of the Aurora area. Christina Peddle has been a member of the Zoning Board of Appeals for the past four years and has been a long-time resident.”

David Conlin was appointed to the Finance Committee. Conlin works for Castle Bank, and although he doesn’t have much municipal finance experience, he has spent roughly 30 years working in the banking business.

Projects and construction on Locust Street are on schedule and below budget.

“We have completed almost all the work on the south side of Locust Street, which was the major portion of where the utility burial was at,” said Special Projects Coordinator Jennifer Diedrich. “We are now on the north side, so we have complete traffic control change now. The public was used to coming in from Fourth Street, and you now enter Locust Street heading eastbound from First Street.”

Mac McIntyre, member of the Finance Advisory Committee, said the DeKalb Public Library board voted in closed session, on May 12, on the purchase of the neighboring DeKalb Clinic.

“In doing so, they broke the law. They also broke the law by not publishing that they were going into closed session or give any reason for going into closed session,” McIntyre said. “There was $1.8 million of public tax dollars that were approved and levied in closed session in three meetings of the Library Board…That $1.8 million is roughly equal to their annual operating budget.”

According to the Illinois Open Meetings Act, voting on appropriations of public funds in a closed forum is prohibited. McIntyre called for the postponement of the DeKalb Clinic purchase proposed on Oct. 25 until an investigation by the city council was made and it issued a public report of the findings.

Finally, the rezoning request of the Greenwood Acres Retirement Center was postponed until the Oct. 25 city council meeting. Petitioners had asked for additional time to amend their preliminary plans and provide further information about Revere Healthcare’s commissioned market analysis study.

“One of the things that most bothered me about their presentation was their claim that 31 parking spaces would be enough,” said 6th Ward Alderman David Baker. “Using the number of bedrooms…the number is close to 148, and I think it would be outrageous to consider any project with roughly half the parking.”