The Charleston City Council voted to pass three resolutions along with the consent agenda at a meeting Tuesday.

One of the resolutions voted on was about the revolving loan fund administration and coordinating services with the Coles County Regional Planning and Development Commission.

Charleston Mayor Brandon Combs said the revolving loan fund is a fund used for economic development.

“If someone comes along and needs a little bit of money to help them build onto their business, or they want to be able to hire more people, we can loan some money to them and then they pay us back,” Combs said.

The funds for the loan are money that is given by the state and set aside so the city can loan it out as needed.

Combs said the money gets loaned out and acquires interest, it then goes back into the fund to be loaned out again.

“I remember when I was coming back to town it was something that I was looking into possibly using to help start up my business, but I ended up not needing to do that,” Combs said.

The cost of the loan fund is $2,100, and it is billed monthly.

The second resolution was about entering into a contractual agreement for technical assistance services with the Coles County Regional Planning and Development Commission.

The technical assistance services provided to the city help them out with any services the planning department may need that they do not have the technology for.

Some of the services that are provided include budgeting assistance, tax levy ordinance assistance, personnel studies and water rate studies.

The sum of the agreement is up to $7,000 and it is used for the names services and the others on the list.

Luke Young, a sophomore finance major and Student Senate representative for city council, was not in attendance, but he left a message with Combs to be read during the meeting.

Combs said Young left a note saying that the Student Senate will be hosting a weeklong clothing drive the week after Thanksgiving break.

The last resolution that was approved was in regards to authorizing the contract dental insurance with MetLife.

The consent agenda was also approved by the city council, which included two raffle licenses.

One of the raffle licenses approved was for the Citizens Against Child Abuse fundraiser being put on at the Veterans of Foreign Wars, at 1821 20th St.

The event is being used to raise money to buy Christmas presents for children in need.

The other raffle license is for an event being put on at the LifeSpan center on Feb. 20 by the Children’s Advocacy Center of East Central Illinois to raise money to provide services to child victims of physical and sexual abuse in seven central Illinois counties.

The other approved items on the consent agenda were the approval of the Nov. 3 city council meeting, payroll for the pay period ending on Oct. 31, bills payable and the October comptrollers report.

A Charleston High School senior also gave a presentation about the speech and drama team through the high school at the city council meeting.

Katie Mueller, a senior at Charleston High School, CHS, has been part of the team for four years and the captain of the speech team for the last two years. She was asked to come speak during the meeting about her experience on the team.

Mueller said the legacy of the team is that it has been going on at CHS for over 35 years and speech has been a long-standing tradition.

Mueller also said the confidence she has gotten through the team goes beyond the confidence in herself.

“I’ve always been a pretty introverted person,” Mueller said. “Speech has really given me the chance to still be my introverted self, but be confident in my words and be willing to speak in front of audiences and believe in the power of my own words.”

Mueller presented during the time allowed for public presentations after all agenda items had been talked about and voted on.

Mackenzie Freund can be reached at 581-2812 or at [email protected]