The Oswego Village Board Committee of the Whole met on May 26, 2026 at 6:00 PM to discuss downtown overnight parking permit fees and receive a first quarter financial update for 2026. The meeting began with public comments from two residents.
Welcome to our committee of the whole meeting. Roll call, please. President Coppin. Here. Trusty Cooper. Here. Trustee Hughes. Here. Trustee McCarthy Lang. Here. Trustee Novi. Here. Trustee Torres. Here. Trustee Koenig, absent. All right. First up, we're going to open the public forum. If there's anyone wishing to address the board in the public, please feel free to come forward now. Good evening. You gotta press the button, you're not on. There you go. Good evening for those that don't know. My name is Chris Kearns. I'm the commander of the Swego American Legion. Um I just wanted to take a few minutes of your time this evening to make sure that you heard from me and not anything that may eventually be coming out. But the Legion is looking to rebuild and relocate. We've been at the current facility for 79 years, but the building is over a hundred years old and it's really just not working out anymore. Obviously, Oswego is in our name, so we are not planning on leaving the village, but we know we're not going to be able to stay downtown. So we uh recently opened up uh an account for a new building fund. We're gonna start working on some fundraising. Um, but I wanted to make sure that as a resident and a partner here in Oswego, the Legion wanted to make sure that you guys heard it from us first because we definitely think that there's something that the village would be able to to help out with at some point and continue the partnerships that we've had for so long, um, whether it's working with your development people and helping us try to find some land. Um, our ultimate goal in the new facility would have a minimum of a 250 person banquet hall. That way we can keep some of the business that we've seen going outside of the village in the village, and within that would have a divider wall so that we could also then break it down into two rentable units at 125, which we have been researching a lot and finding that a lot of wedding venues and things like that or conference venues, 250 to 300 is about a norm. So we're thinking that depending on cost-wise, if we could do a 250 to up to a 300-person venue hall, um, it would not only benefit the Legion, but it would also benefit our community and not have some of the activities leave our village. Um so that's where we're at right now, very preliminary. Um, really just getting started. We have been making some serious changes with the new officer board that we have at the Legion. Um in the next couple weeks, we'll be going to a point of sale system, which for most people that should have been done in the 19th century. Um, but we're trying our best to get things up to the 21st century. Um in the next 30 to 60 days, we will also start taking credit card, which still blows my mind that up to this point we've maintained being cash only. So there are definitely some changes already taking place, and that's really about it. All right, awesome. Thank you very much, Chris. Appreciate that. All right, is there anyone else wishing to address the board? Sir, please. Oh, no problem at all. Just please uh state your name. My name is Anthony Bridges. I think you gotta hit the button to get the red light.