Kudos to Matt Penar, Adam Milczarek, and Patrick Issel for being the first three people to read the last edition of What's Happening!
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Welcome to What's Happening! |
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Our goal is to provide you with useful information so that you know what is going on the many departments throughout the City.
To make it easy to scan this email for key info, there are two sections - Need to Know and Nice to Know.
As always, if you have suggestions for ways to improve this email or content you'd like to see included, please let us know!
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If you only have a few minutes, scan this section for key takeaways. |
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Human Resources
Submitted By: Human Resources Generalist, Brina Diaz
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Save the date-Recognition Dinner & Holiday Party: Friday, December 1, 6 pm! |
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Innovation and Technology
Snow Operations and Cartegraph
The seasons are a changing! It feels like we just finally got into Fall, but Public Works and IT and are well underway in preparing for our snow season. With the recently implemented Cartegraph system, Snow Operations is in the process of moving away from paper forms for each snow event and moving towards utilizing mobile devices to track the work involved with each snow event. Cartegraph will automatically log, store, and organize the data in a way that reports can easily be generated real time during and after an event.
We are hopeful to see process efficiencies with the amount of time it takes for our snow staff to submit their information as well as our office staff to process the information. Due to the nature of snow events occurring at all hours of the day and night, the more time we can save our employees in the long run, the quicker they can get back to bed!
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Office of the City Manager
- The Community-Wide Survey Results are in! Good news - residents have a very positive perception of the City. Some highlights:
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98% of respondents rated the quality of life in the City as “excellent” or “good”.
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94% of respondents rated the quality of services provided by the City as “excellent” or “good”.
- Satisfaction with City services is much higher in Lake Forest than other communities. The City rates above the US average in all 25 areas assessed and significantly above the average for similarly sized communities in 23 of the 25 areas assessed.
- Thanks for the work you do to make Lake Forest such a wonderful place!
- Last month we provided an overview of the workload analysis that would be conducted by Baker Tilly and we’re happy to share that this project now underway. As a reminder, the impetus for this project came from the City Manager conversations and feedback received from our staff that teams within the organization are feeling stretched thin. Beginning next week, the project team at Baker Tilly will be meeting with the respective department leadership teams to conduct interviews with goal of learning more about the departments’ operations, team make-up, and perceived challenges each of them face with the respect to their operations. This is just the beginning phase of the analysis, but our goal is to produce a report by the end of the year. We will continue to provide pertinent updates as the work progresses.
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These submissions are still important, but they’re not as critical if you’re scanning for the key information. |
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Office of the City Manager
- Reminder: We're working on the Winter Dialogue, which contains a cover story on Finance, details about the community survey results, and more. The draft will be sent for review to contributors in early November.
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Don't forget to visit Lake Forest Love and let us know if you have ideas for new stories!
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CROYA
Things are ramping up at CROYA this fall and we are hosting multiple youth meetings per week. A few highlights include:
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CROYA’s annual Poinsettia Sale begins Wednesday, October 18. Order forms are due Wednesday, November 15. Pick up dates are Friday, December 1 and Saturday, December 2, just in time for the holidays!
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CROYA is hosting the LF/LB Artisan Guild French Market on Saturday, November 4 and Sunday, November 5.
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CROYA and Lake Forest Police will play in the 25th annual Donut Bowl Flag Football game on Wednesday, November 8! Afterward, youth and officers will have dinner and discussion to break down the stereotypes between the two groups.
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Dickinson Hall
Submitted By: Administrative Assistant/Transportation Coordinator, Tara Purtell
- Dickinson Hall is hosting a Poetry Luncheon November 3, titled “A Dip in the Lake” with Lake Bluff author Kathryn Haydon and her poetry inspired by Lake Michigan
- Dickinson Hall will have a Veterans Luncheon on November 8 with author William Hazelgrove who will give us a play by play on Theodore Roosevelt’s final years, Veterans are free for this event!
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Finance
Submitted By: Assistant Finance Director, Diane Hall
- A big Thank You to all of those who submitted Capital requests for the FY25 budget. Finance is in the process of reviewing these requests and preparing for the November Finance Committee Budget Workshop to be held on Monday November 13.
- Just a reminder the review of current fees for the FY25 budget are due Friday, October 20. If you have any questions, reach out to Diane Hall ext. 3614.
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Innovation and Technology
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Warehouse Direct Print Services. Warehouse Direct is the company that we contract with to help maintain all of our managed print services. They provide printer toner for all of our printers across the City. Most of the time, they send out replacement ink automatically based on the usage reports that are sent to them, but sometimes there are misses. If you need additional toner refills please reach out to Warehouse Direct via the information that shows up on the silver and red sticker affixed to the printer.
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Parks & Recreation
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Recreation staff attended the annual National Recreation and Park Association Conference held in Dallas, TX, from Oct. 9-13. It was a great educational opportunity and networking event with solid programming sessions, new information, and creative ideas in parks and recreation. Stay tuned to see what they learned in action!
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This November, staff will head east to Vermont Systems Inc. for their RecTrac Software Symposium. The goal is to dive deep, learn as much as possible, and implement this new knowledge and information in our Field Management of Deerpath Community Park and across the entire Rec department.
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Police
- PD won the Buns and Hoses Burger Challenge at The Peanut Gallery with proceeds going toward our PD Breast Cancer Awareness Campaign (from left: Ofc. Matt Jakob; Dom Zumpano, The Peanut Gallery; Liz Klimavicus, Posey Krehbiel Breast Center at NWLF Hospital; Nick Dovel, LFFD.)
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Building Maintenance
Submitted By: Building Maintenance Supervisor, Erik Huston
- Installing the warming walls on West Park and Northcroft.
- Going through buildings turning on heat.
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Annual fire alarm testing coming up.
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Deerpath Community Park Improvement Project
- The Deerpath Park field turf system installation has been completed. Concrete work is progressing throughout the park and to include the walls for north and south building are complete. The focus for the next few weeks will be installation of both roofs for north and south buildings. The installation of the needed various building utilizes and mechanicals will follow which includes electric, plumbing, HVAC and the fire suppression system. Playground and fitness station installation is substantially complete. Excavation for pickleball and new parking lot is complete; associated concrete and asphalt work will begin soon. Stay tuned for more information on a soon to be scheduled November ribbon cutting ceremony.
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Engineering
Submitted By: Superintendent of Engineering, Byron Kutz
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Deerpath Road Sidewalk Extension Project is scheduled to begin Oct 17th. This project will be installing new sidewalk on the north side of Deerpath from Westmoreland east to the existing sidewalk. Two-way vehicle traffic will be maintained on Deerpath during the work.
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The Bluff Slope stabilization project along Forest Park beach started with work extending to the end of December. The Forest Park Bluff Stabilization Project includes installing three retaining wall segments, wick slope drains for sub-surface drainage, surface drainage improvements, bio-swales, and restoration of any impacted areas with native seed and plant material. Although there are ongoing fundraising efforts to replace the boardwalk, it is not currently included in the scope of this project.
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Forestry
- Parkway Tree Planting and Rt 41 Ramp Planting.
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Parks
- Winterizing Boats.
- Blowing out irrigation.
- Getting equipment ready for leaf collection.
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Streets
- Asphalt repairs.
- City snow operations pre planning.
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Sidewalk repairs.
- City fall street sweeper program.
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Water Plant
- We are providing extended coverage for Highwood Water Plant Operations, so their primary operator can take some time off.
- Wrapping up the Distribution Flow Sensor project and beginning to observe the data the new stations provide us with.
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