The Galesburg City Council is being asked to impose a fee that City Manager Eric Hanson says hopefully never has to be collected.
Hanson is asking aldermen to consider charging $100 per call, after the 10th time in a calendar year someone calls the fire department wanting a lift assist not related to medical attention.
“Staff determined that continuing to provide assistance for these non-mobility, non-emergency services, up to ten calls a year without a fee, would be a sufficient number to accommodate the vast majority of the lift assist calls,” said Hanson.
Hanson says non-emergency lift assist calls can also end up delaying firefighters’ response to fires or other actual emergencies.
The city says more than 400 such calls are made per year — more than one per day on average.
The Galesburg City Council — just two years after moving to a ten-day warning for excessively tall grass and weeds before the city takes action — is also being asked to go back down to five days.
“Notices are sent when grass has grown to a height of twelve inches or more, and then we must wait another ten days before we can actually then bring the contractor on, resulting in excessively tall grass and weeds,” said Hanson. “It is recommended to revise the time period back to the shorter timeframe.”
Hanson says pretty much everyone on the city council has heard from residents displeased with the ten day timeframe.
In a fee schedule proposed for the 2025 fiscal/calendar year, there is also a proposal to implement a fee if someone schedules a home inspection and then ends up being a no-show — similar, Hanson says, to the fee your doctor will charge if you don’t show up.
Votes will be taken on all the matters in two weeks, as they were on first reading Monday night.
