Very both for the public legions.

I pledge allegiance to the five of the United States of America and through the Republic for which one nation under God individual with liberty justice for all you madam clerk roll call please.

Finch present present schmidt.

Present.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

We do have remote electronic attendance tonight.

I would like to make a motion to approve the remote electronic attendance of Mayor Riot Petty at the city council meeting of April 14th, 2026 due to employment purposes or other city lessons.

Roll call.

Yes, all right.

Finch.

All right, can we that is eight eyes, no names?

Welcome, Mayor Ray Hide.

She might just be listening in tonight, not participating, but if she wants to I'm here to center rental and I forgot my headphones, sorry, right?

Oh no problems on.

Thank you.

Next we have public comment sheet called your honor.

Thank you.

Do we have any questions on the agenda tonight?

Hearing none, we can go with 7.1 solar farm update.

We have Sean and Jazzy online.

Hi, good evening, everyone.

If you hear me okay, yes.

Yes, hear you well, Sean.

Oh, thank you.

Um talk about the uh current status of the community solar program with community power group and kind of what's uh what's the trajectory of the program, what's been kind of going on, and then um kind of key dependencies and then um you know what next steps potential.

So uh community power group is continuing to explore all available options with Mid American.

Umerican Energy doesn't currently have a traditional community solar program as in other utility companies like Comet and Amber throughout the state.

Uh Community Power Group has been working uh directly with Mid American to explore uh different types of options that are available through both the uh program that administers the community solar program of Illinois Shines as well as direct uh participation with Mid American residents.

Um the goal is to determine um what is the best path viable structure that can be implemented uh under the existing state and regulatory framework that both uh the state has and what Mid American uh can agree to.

Uh key points here for Mid American is that we're looking to confirm that they can support the billing mechanisms and crediting structure that are required for community solar.

Uh there is a discounted rate for the subscribers under the program.

Um, the Ellinois Science Program, which is the program administered by the state.

Uh the confirmation that the project can meet with participation and both uh eligibility requirements uh can be administered throughout the Mid-American territory.

So as both parties, uh community, I'm sorry, all three parties, Mid American, um, Ellinois Science Program and Community Power Group are uh meeting on a consistent basis um and looking at and reviewing uh the different type of path and looking to obtain specific clarities for both programs.

The what's the past best path for the community solar project for the city of Ballin?

Um community power group has also engaged uh subscription companies because there's not a current program for community solar mid-american.

They do have to work with some third-party vendors to administer credits, and those providers then have to sync up with Mid American to ensure billing can be proper as well.

So there's multiple conversations that are going on at time with different stakeholders throughout the whole project.

Uh we anticipate in the seamlessly kind of the the process going along is we have uh working on the lease options, except for that effect of the city's uh attorney, and we're you know, once we have the full defined path, we'll look to finalize those and bring forth those to the city uh four.

So currently um, we're still having conversations with Mid American as well as the state administered administrative program to ensure you know what the best path forward is for the city of Mullins project.

Um, you know, I don't have a full timeline because these are regulatory conversations to provide at this time, but uh you know we're continually progressing forward for the project.

Sean, are any of these regiments?

I was gonna ask, are any of these are any of these regulatory conversations slowing us down to the point where we might miss deadlines for federal uh reimbursement, you know, some of those that seller deadlines that are in place?

Yeah, so yeah, so a lot of the developers have saved hardware, much of the materials and kind of put together the path forward for uh the parameters for the tax credits that are available.

So there hasn't been any indication that due to the first of a kind nature of the program within Mid-American, that there's uh non-clarity for the tax credit.

So at this time, that that is not uh key point to uh that we're concerned with um because they're they have met the criteria of safe harboring materials and the parameters that the uh federal government has put into place.

That's good.

Talk a little bit about the lease between the city, Sean, and uh community power group and the effort where that is at because it's a pretty complex lease with many, many red lines.

I can probably speak to that better actually.

Okay, uh, I am scheduled to be speaking with uh the attorney for CPG on Monday.

There have been many uh red line versions of this passed back and forth at this point, all but maybe one or two issues.

I think we have a solution to it's really more about just the attorneys arguing about the language.

Um I've got preferred language that I've sent to them, uh, which is different than the language they preferred.

So hopefully uh by the end of uh Monday morning, uh Monday afternoon, we should have it down to one issue, which has to do with the um the type of information that we want them to give us regarding their funding sources and the type of information that they want us to give to their funding sources in order to make sure they can secure that funding.

Uh that is gonna be a higher level.

Basically, it'll be all of you or Bob making the decision with regards to that.

I'm addressing more uh how is it that we structure potential liability and things like that?

So it is a very lengthy lease.

It deals with a number of different issues uh ranging from access to the site in order to determine uh where they can build appropriately.

They know about the size that they're gonna need, but uh the exact location within the site is still gonna need to be determined based on uh a variety of things they're gonna look at with regards to uh how easy it will be to access the site, construct on the site, etc.