City Council - Regular Meeting

You ready? This meeting of the Aurora City Council. This meeting of the. This meeting of. This.

Check, check.

This meeting of the Aurora City Council for September 8, 2026 is hereby called to order at 6.01 PM. Will the clerk please call the roll?

Alderman Barrero? Here. Alderman Garza? Here. Alderman Maciakos? Present. Alderman Nunez? Here. Alderman Franco? Here. Alderman Seville?

Here.

Alderman Benuelos? Here. Alderman Smith? Here. Alderman Buck?

Here.

Alderman Bade? Here. Alderman Larson?

Here.

Alderman White?

Here.

Mayor Lash is present.

Is there a motion to approve the Sergeant at Arms for this meeting? So moved.

Second.

Motion made by Alderman Smith, second by Alderman Seville. All those in favor?

Aye. Any opposed?

Motion carries by voice vote. Tonight, I'll ask, are there any aldermen who wish to lead in the Pledge of Allegiance? Alderman Franco? Next, we'll move to the mayor's report. I know we have a few people to recognize tonight. Take it away, John.

Thank you so much, Mayor. It is another night of recognition here in Aurora. As we begin tonight with a special proclamation for Friends of the Fox, they're going to be working with the Mayor's Sustainable Aurora Advisory Board and the Aurora Public Library for a Fox River cleanup event on September 19th. A round of applause for our great partners cleaning up the Fox River. This event is going to be part of a set of 12 gatherings along a 200-mile span of the Fox River, raising awareness of the Fox River watershed and the importance of keeping the river clean. So at this time, we're going to invite up the operations director of the Friends of the Fox, Caitlin Shields Johnson, to accept the proclamation from Mayor John Lash.

okay welcome thank you for all your work in the community and without further ado this proclamation it's our fox river day september 19 2026 whereas the fox river was central to the lives of native americans inhabiting the fox river valley in wisconsin and illinois for millennia providing an abundance of food and water to wildlife and those native populations And whereas the Fox River was the central to the lives of early settlers to the Fox River Valley, providing a source of water and power to mill the grains to feed those settlers, saw the lumber to shelter those settlers, and drive the early machinery which formed the commercial and industrial base that gave growth to the city of Aurora. And whereas the Fox River, once a fine fishery and source of public water, became burdened with the uncontrollable discharge of industrial, commercial, and municipal wastes, with the resulting pollution threatening the health and welfare of all populations of the Fox River, including human and wildlife. And whereas sustained and increasing diligent and effective efforts have been made over the past century to reduce and eliminate pollution and change to our river's natural shorelines. Whereas the Fox River has been largely freed from its burden of pollution and once again has become a safe source of recreation and reliable public water supply with its fish and wildlife population in clear recovery. Whereas the City of Aurora recognizes the historic present and future value of this unique and precious natural resource to our community and all other communities within and beyond the Fox River Valley. Now, therefore, I, Mayor John Lash, do hereby recognize Saturday, September 19th, as It's Our Fox River Day in the city of Aurora, Illinois, and encourage all residents to support events, public and private, to honor and celebrate the life and well-being of the Fox River for us to share now and with generations to come.

Thank you.

John will shoot tonight, and then we'll...

on behalf of friends of the fox river thank you uh thank you to the mayor the council members and the city of aurora for adopting an it's our fox river day proclamation it's our fox river day held the third saturday in september is the largest watershed-wide celebration and it unites the communities around the river that connects us. Adopting this proclamation acknowledges the value of the Fox River and its watershed and shows your commitment to celebrating and protecting this shared resource. We are grateful that our presence and our relationship in Aurora has grown over the last few years, and it's our Fox River Day represents that continued growth and collaboration. We welcome further conversations about ways that we can involve our Aurora community in protecting the Fox River. Thank you for being friends with the Fox River, and you can check our website, fotfr.org, for events for It's Our Fox River Day. We hope to see you out there on September 19th celebrating. Thank you so much.

Give it up again for It's Our Fox River Day in Aurora. Thank you to everybody who continues to keep our river safe and clean. Appreciate you coming out. All right. So as we talk about safety, our street maintenance division has pretty much done it all this year. They've been at the forefront of recovery efforts within the city, especially during the rounds of severe storms that we've had here during the summer. And tonight they're here to accept a significant recognition from the mayor in helping other communities recover as well. A host of severe storms hit both Crete and Downers Grove in late July, prompting widespread damage to both municipalities. Through the city's partnership with the Illinois Public Works Mutual Aid Network, which helped Aurora recover from storms back in 2025, multiple members of our streets team went down to both areas to help residents clean up and recover. Round of applause for our hardworking Street Maintenance Division here in attendance tonight. We'll invite them up now, all of those who played a big role in helping Crete and Downers Grove recover. They're back online. They're going to accept a special award from the mayor.

All right, so everybody by now knows we've depended on this network when we were hit last year in 2025. We had other municipalities come help out the city of Aurora, and we tend to be the bigger brother that goes out and helps other people when they get hit, especially I know our fire department is always bailing out Naperville. There you go, a little chuckle. But thanks especially to the Public Works Department that responded and traveled to Downers Grove, the Illinois Public Works Mutual Aid Network, to help the community recover from severe storm damage. Your dedication and willingness to help those in need make the city of Aurora proud. You guys represent us well in our city, and you represent us well on the road. And we definitely, myself, the council, and the community appreciate all your service that you do. You did when there's an emergency. It's always nice to know that we can count on you to stand up and clean up when it's time. I'm going to give the microphone to Adrian, who may or may not have been prepared to say a few words about the people in this program and what it means to the streets department.

Thank you.

I want to thank the mayor and city council. It's a great honor to be up here. I know I spend some time talking about SALT usually and the safety components of that nature, but I'm very proud of our street maintenance staff. That's not to take away from the other staff that usually helps pick up Some of the slack in our whole public works team. Special huge shout out to EMA. They are a great support team. They're the ones that really emboldened this program to us. And this is the reason why we go out. But we're public servants not only to the citizens of Aurora, but to other people that do need our help. And I'm very, very proud of the guys. I mean, they were pushing 16-hour shifts, then to go out and help other communities that do the same work. And just to be able to manage a bunch of group of people like that speaks a lot to their character. And hopefully we can keep fighting these storms, and hopefully there's just less of them. But I'm just very proud of our team. So thank you.

All right, here we go. Ready? One, two, and break.

A round of applause again for Aurora's, Crete's, and Downers Grove's heroes, the Street Maintenance Division here in Aurora. Thank you for all you guys do for Aurora and beyond. Finally here tonight, just a reminder that Fiestas Patrias 2026 returns this weekend at River Edge Park. A diverse lineup of bands and entertainment is set to perform. An appearance from Banda Carnaval is going to be headlining on Saturday night. Tickets are on sale right now at riveredgeaurora.com. Proceeds from the event will go toward funding scholarships to assist college-bound students of Hispanic descent who reside in Aurora. So again, tickets on sale now at riveredgeaurora.com. This is going to conclude my portion of the report. We have a couple of other staff presentations. We're going to start out with one about the Warming Center from our Chief Community Services Officer, Nicole Mullins. Thank you.

So before Ms. Mullins gets started, there was a request from the Alderman to find out what the changes for this year's warming center are going to be. So this is just a short presentation with some general information. And a heads up that at the next meeting, September 15, we're going to be going into a much more detailed and lengthy presentation About what's to come with respect to online in the city's fiber network. It'll be pretty healthy Presentation with a lot of information more questions, but we want to give the whole council awareness before the agenda items start coming through so with no further ado, I'll let Chief Mullins take it away

Good evening, Nicole Mullins, Chief Community Services Officer. Again, this is, as the mayor mentioned, just a quick overview of the changes. And at the end, if you guys have any questions, feel free to ask. Just a reminder of what council approved last year. That was a contracted, operated model. The city provided the building. We relocated staff that was in that building to another facility so that the shelter could operate out of that facility. $136,000 was allocated for the 25-26 season which covered not just this past winter but the start of this upcoming winter as well before we hit 2027. It was threshold was expanded to be 32 Fahrenheit for six hours or more through the night. 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. operations with light snack and water, overnight security, and the expectation was that it would follow ADA and safety standards and that this was ultimately a gap fill need for those individuals who could not attend Hesed House for various reasons or if Hesed reached capacity. Just a reminder that this was an initiative and an expansion that was spearheaded by this administration and supported by city council. So we do appreciate that. And I do want to emphasize that this is a continuation and an expansion of that model not to disrupt what was evolved over the last couple of years. to go over the history of the warming shelter just to refresh everybody's memory quickly um a few years ago it was at the transportation center until there was an incident and it was deemed that as not really an appropriate location at that site there was not uh cots there also was not allocated staff that was specific for the shelter it was community services department staff that stepped up and filled the need in addition to their regular daytime and the threshold was much lower than the 32 degrees Fahrenheit. Once that incident occurred, Wesley Church pivoted and stepped up and the city ended up providing them with some funds to meet the need for the community. Last year, ahead of the start of the season, we put out an RFP for a contractor to run it at another site because Wesley was unable to meet that need. And so then that brings us to this year where we are proposing and working towards a city-run operation. key lessons learned this past year and really the previous year as well. And so I want to preface everything that we're going to address as it really being an inherent structural incompatibility, the needs that the city has as a government to have accountability to taxpayers to have documentation to make sure we're not duplicating services that is it's a challenge when you have a people-centered organization wanting to meet the need because they see all the need and they want to meet all the need and it's not always realistic or appropriate for the city to fill all of those things and so that really was at the root of a lot of the the issues that arose in the last season And also Wesley Church and Becoming, so the previous two operators, both of them had advocated against the RFP process. They agreed that it was inherently not conducive to meeting the need. And so this model pivots away from that. What worked well, it was very helpful to have an administration that was supportive of expanding the model and of course city council also who agreed with that. The emergency shelter activation had an improved threshold, that was an improvement. There was a lot of really dedicated and engaged volunteers and staff and community organizations involved. And the guests really spoke to how that need was met and how much they appreciated people that were passionate and caring overseeing the model. Model challenges, as I mentioned, the needs and expectations and obligations of a city were challenging. Having the scope of the contract adhered to and not wanting to do additional. activities or programs internal and external confusion there were in the presentation I gave with becoming in June I believe it was of this year we overviewed what was done above and beyond and under the scope of becoming as a separate entity not as the warming shelter operator or When you have the same group kind of wearing both hats, it became confusing. So there was staff, departments, public, even some aldermen that were not really clear on where the warming shelter operations and contract and funding ended and where Becoming's contribution began. The procurement process was an issue because we were limited in the number of applicants. If you recall, there was a request or an expectation that whoever applied had a facility for this need. And we only got one applicant and they did not have a facility. And so that's where the city had to pivot and find an actual site. The reimbursement process was challenging because of the needs for documentation adhering to the finance schedule. We did try to mitigate that by doing advances and we did do a couple of special check runs, but that poses a hardship on the finance department and it's not ideal. And then public safety. When you have a group that is wanting to follow a trauma-informed protocol, but we as a city in a city-owned building have an obligation and a responsibility to have a different model, that became a challenge on some evenings. The next two slides are what had been emailed to you guys previously, so I'm not going to get into all of these unless you really, really want me to. But this just goes over the pros and cons, the advantages and disadvantages of each of the models, one being the contractor-led model and the next being the city-led model. And most of these again speak to the inherent challenges of having a people focused organization and the boundaries and limitations of being a city funded program. So as mentioned, we recommend, community services department recommends a 20, 26, 27 model where it's city managed. Facility management and policy enforcement, there's a lot of overlapping with other departments that we did anyway this past season with facilities because our facilities team helped manage, helped with access. There's a lot more oversight. There's a lot more ability for us to ensure that different policies are being followed. And ultimately, the city will have some consistency in training and onboarding. There will be a projected 15% increase in the cost. That's hard to really quantify. It's really a challenge because there was so much time spent by staff, both by Chris, Ragona, and myself in helping mitigate some challenges. There was a lot of assistance from central services with cleanup and things like that. So being able to put an exact dollar amount on how much it cost us this past season versus what it could cost us for this upcoming season is a challenge because of this. There's also possibly still a reimbursement request that Becoming Oswego is going to submit to us, although at this point it's unlikely. And again, this gets back to the confusion between what was a contracted scope, what was within the contracted scope, and what was not. And so I don't think we will see another reimbursement come through, but we may. We will not anticipate any budget amendments for this year. So whatever was budgeted for this year, we should still be well within that. And the 2027 projected cost would go through the decision package process for the 2027 budget. The staffing plan, this is, it should really help with a lot of burnout that was experienced the last couple of years with the previous contractors because they were heavily reliant on volunteers. This distributes the workload and oversight by one manager, five team leads, and 10 shelter aides. At any given time, we will have at least one of the leads and one of the shelter aides in addition to volunteers. and always contracted security. We will also have volunteer opportunities. And so this is just to help distribute the workload. There was a significant amount of burnout from the last two contractors. And so this really should help with that. Interviews have started. Just last week, I believe, we started those interviews. We have a lot of really great candidates. This model allows for people to do this on a part-time basis. Previous volunteers and staff did the entire overnight. This breaks it down into smaller shifts, which makes it a lot more manageable. a lot safer and we're getting a lot of applicants that work as case managers and social workers during the day. And so this allows for them to have part-time jobs and they're really skilled and have that background already in working with a lot of diverse populations. Contracted services, we have currently RFPs open for meal service providers, security, custodial will go through central services again. That was a hired worker. And all of these individuals, staff, and contracted service providers will be accountable directly to the city if there are issues with them. We'll be able to address it in real time rather than having to go through a third party. Here's some of the benefits of the city-run model, which is also in the previous table that I presented. The biggest ones are clear accountability and consistency, improved documentation, making sure that people that are eligible for HECD are being routed to HECD or other shelters, better safety coordination, facility stewardship, eliminating conflicting messages. Again, because of the previous contractors, passion for the work and going above and beyond, there was a lot of times that community thought that the shelter was still operating in other capacities when it actually wasn't. And so this would eliminate that conflicting messaging. If any groups are doing services above and beyond, it would be very clear that they're doing it in their own capacity. And then sustainability and reliability with staff and mitigating that burnout. Any questions?

Are there any questions from the council? Alderman Franco.

A couple questions. So city run, does that mean we're going to be paying our staff to work over there?

We are hiring a specific staff for that temporary seasonal employees, so yes, they're not currently employed. We're going through the hiring process now.

So when you said a 15% increase, give or take, kind of around that, so that puts us at $156,000. Will that cover everything you're talking about? Yes. Okay, I just want to make sure that there was not a cost that we're not foresaying because we had to pay employees. Becoming Oswego. Mm-hmm. I remember last year they said, we're going to have something, I mean, I asked them directly, we're going to have something in Oswego this year. Do we know where that is? Because obviously we would like to spread the resources out there. Other communities, you know, step up to the plate and do their fair share. So do we know where we're at with that?

I am not sure what their plans are. We can follow up and get back to you, but I am not aware of what their actual plans are with doing that.

Okay, that would be good because they, it's on record they said they were going to, so I just want to make sure. And then I have another question. Were there any instances last year where APD came to the facility and they were not allowed to enter?

yes they were they were called from inside the building um by guests who were either in a mental crisis or some i think one of the incidents was that an individual felt somebody stole from them um in all of those instances i was notified by becoming oswego after the police had left and i followed up the very next day with a pd directly and body camera footage and things like that to help mitigate. There was challenges, and again, this model will help with that. A lot of social service providers in that field feel that a trauma-informed responsiveness is critical because of how um people feel about the police department as a city department and a city-run model in a city-owned building that was a concern of ours from a risk management and a liability perspective and so it was not addressed in the immediate because those officers that responded to the calls did not try to escalate it all of those officers did have my direct number and I did receive phone calls overnight in those instances, and none of them requested that I interfere and impose that they be let on-site.

So with it becoming a city-run facility as opposed to the volunteer, does that mindset, philosophy change at all?

We were intentional about our questions to staff that were, or potential staff that we're interviewing to get an idea of what their stance is on that. And so we are making sure that that is not an issue that will be revisited for this coming year.

This is one of the reasons that we're shifting over to this model, is it gives us better control of access to it if there is an emergency to make sure first responders have the ability to get inside.

And also, just to add, our department has been in communication pretty consistently with APD in what processes are best practices for us to do for this coming year, because we do want to acknowledge that there are some instances where police presence could escalate an issue, but also it could be a problem if they're not allowed on site. So we are working collaboratively with the police department to address that.

That's all I have, thank you. Alderwoman Smith.

Yes, thank you. Nicole, thank you. You've worked, I know you worked hard on the process we went through last year and it looks like you've even worked harder this year to get this new process up and running, so thank you for that. Two questions for you. It appears that there's a little bit of an issue on knowing the exact budgeting from last year to this year.

but will you be able to have some type of a written budget summary for us next time we're together yes I apologize I was gonna try to have it in time for this presentation but it was late in the week in the holiday weekend and I didn't want to stress Chris or the rest of my staff out by asking them to get it, but yes, we definitely will have that for you.

The mayor said you'd be back again, so obviously that's okay. And then the second question is about the staff. You showed that one manager, five team, and ten aides. How is that different? Number one, some of those are broken down into part-time. How does that differ from what last year's, last winter looked like?

So last winter, it was kind of whoever is able to step up. They would put in open positions into a sign-up portal, and then there was also a group chat where they would kind of put in, hey, we need to fill this need on this day and this time. This, we will have set schedules for people where even though, you know, it's weather dependent, if people know, okay, my shift is Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from 6 p.m. to 1 a.m. and I may get called out because of the weather, it's a lot more reliable to plan for. So we'll have smaller shifts. The team leads will be split into a I want to say 6 p.m. to 1 a.m. shift or a 1 a.m. to 8 a.m. shift. Sorry, I'm getting my a.m.s and p.m.s mixed up. So the leads will be split into two shifts each night. The aides, I believe, are split into three shifts. So it'll be either an opening, an overnight, or a cleanup in the morning shift. Okay. And then the manager role is because of the difficulty in documentation, ordering, and things like that, that's why we wanted to have that role separate from the team leads. So it's more positions, smaller shifts, more consistency.

And will we still be using volunteers?

Yes. Yes, we will. All right.

Thank you. Thank you for this presentation. It's really been helpful. I appreciate it. You're welcome.

Any other questions? Alderman Nunez.

Do we have any proposed dates as to when the warming center would open?

Last year it opened the first week of November, I believe. Our goal is to have all of the staff through the hiring process in early October so that we can begin training, going through the protocols and all of that stuff so that we're ready to go if we do need to be activated that first week of November. first week and then uh what was this year's end date week do you recall i think it was the first week of april if i'm not mistaken it's we did extend it a couple of nights because of the flooding there were some dates where days where it was like very bad flooding um plus cold but i want to say it was the first week of april i can get you guys the exact uh activation for 27 as well aim for that first week april are we It's probably just gonna be through whenever this last cold day is. I don't think we identified an end date in the contracts for staff. I'll have to double check.

It'll be weather contingent. If you get an April 5th, it's 32 degrees.

Yeah. Last year's, I think we ended it May 30th or someday where we knew it was going to be warm for sure, unless we get weird Chicago weather. But it was the first week of April.

And so with the employment model, I mean, you mentioned part-time, so is it almost like an on-call employment model where – they're given a 24-hour notice, 40-hour notice.

Yeah, wherever possible, if we're able to tell from the weather projection forecast what dates will be open, we're going to give them that notice. But they also are being told in the interview process that it is contingent on the weather. So they will be notified if they don't need to come in. We're not going to just have people there.

Sure. And then just from our phone conversation that we had, just to clarify, you and your team, are you all okay in canvassing the area, speaking with residential neighbors, business neighbors, as we did last year with the fish? Yes. Okay. Just wanted to double check. Great. Thank you.

Alderman Barrero.

Yes, Nicole, thank you for the presentation and putting together a new plan. My question is, are we going to have a relationship going forward with Becoming? Are we going to use any of their previous staff and volunteers to support our efforts going forward?

There are some volunteers and staff from this past season that have applied. So they've been interviewed. So it could be that they are. And certainly, if any of their volunteers want to come back, they're welcome to apply. but they will go through the same training and onboarding and learning of the processes for this year. I don't believe becoming a SWEGO as an entity will be involved, just the individual volunteers and staff.

Sounds good. Thank you. Alderman Bugg.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you for this presentation. It's very informative. I was the one who requested it through the mayor, so I was looking forward to this information. Thank you for your answer to Alderman Franco's question. I want to elaborate on that because, of course, the city council has put funds forward for social workers that work with our police department. So in the particular instance that Alderman Franco was discussing, and many of us learned about, did we, was a social worker available for that evening, or did they also try and go to the site, or were they not available?

I don't believe any of the social workers were called. I know this CIU, Crisis Intervention Unit, has their social workers working only a specific schedule. And I don't believe any of those instances required a CIU. One was that they thought someone stole from them. I don't know, maybe you have more information.

Shannon Cameron, Chief of Staff. Currently, the social workers just work until 7 p.m. So a lot of the knee and the warming center opened at 7 p.m. So unfortunately, a lot of those things, they did access the crisis team through AID. This year it will be through FSA Elgin, who has taken over the lower King County contract. So I know they did work with them in the past.

Okay. And it was a 911 call. Yeah.

OK. Samira?

We'll be able to discuss that further during the budget. Yeah.

Yeah. And APD leadership can speak to that, too, because they were very involved in follow-up for those things.

OK.

Thank you. Alderman White?

Question regarding staffing. So there's one manager. Is that manager full-time or part-time?

All of the positions are part-time.

Okay, so then the manager, from what I'm hearing, would be responsible for overseeing the evening as well as the administrative reporting as well? Or how much of that is going to be with the part-time and how much of the administrative reporting will fall under your team?

So the team leads for the shelter are going to be the ones that are hands-on at the shelter overseeing as supervisors at any given moment. The manager's role is going to be overseeing those individuals. So there may be times or will be times that the manager will be on site at the shelter, but they will not be the ones doing check-in, they will not be the ones heating up meals and things like that and the reason why we kept it separate intentionally is because the documentation and reporting and all of that type of work is easy to bypass when you have tasks that are you're dealing with guests and they're dealing with crisis or

or things of that nature so we really were intentional about keeping that separate so that that way the focus could be on reporting and things of that nature got it second question regarding security it seems like security will still be there as was last year correct correct okay so will security uh work in tandem with the police at all or will security be separate and then uh or i guess would will the security come from somebody from the police

So the security is going to be hired through RFP process. So I'm not really sure who that will be. We did send it out to the people we're purchasing did. So that's to be determined. I do anticipate and have asked APD if they would participate in a meeting ahead of the season with our security and with our department to help come up with some of those protocols and best practices.

Thank you.

Any other questions from the council?

Thank you, Chief Mullins.

Thank you.

This concludes the mayor's report. Next, we'll move to public comment. Madam Clerk, do we have any members of the public wish to offer public comment? There's one more thing. There's one more presentation.

Nicole Mullins, Chief Community Services Officer. I so forgot to mention that this Thursday is Suicide Awareness and Prevention Day. And so Simply Destiny will be joining the city over at Millennium Plaza to do a vigil at 6pm this Thursday.

Thursday.

Great. Sorry to interrupt and make you all have to sit here for longer before continuing on. I'm Allison Lindberg, Director of Sustainability. I will try to be short, but what I am going to talk to you today about is some door knocking that we are going to be providing to certain wards that will help residents in Aurora save money on their utility bills. So we just wanted to make you aware because I know that there are always concerns about things being scams. And so we want to let you all know what is legitimate about this so um go to the next slide and i have props um so we received a grant from the metropolitan mayor's caucus at the end of 2025 in the amount of 22 000 basically to promote energy efficient practices and let people know about utility programs that are out there that can help them save money on their utility bills This is directed specifically to income-eligible, specifically low-income households so that it reduces their energy burden. Our outcomes for this project are to engage at least 1,000 income-eligible residents, to increase participation in these low-income programs by 20% among the residents that are reached, and to reach at least 1,400 households through this street team. we have already begun some of this outreach we've been tabling at different events like green fest the education board first fridays and we're already doing really well on our outreach goals so this is probably the piece that you're going to be most interested in so for the grant specifically we need to be targeting homes that are 80 percent AMI or average median income which here is $93,633 and that is actually about 48 percent of the City of Aurora population is at that level or below. So the black spots are actually dots and those are all households that meet that 80 percent AMI. If you look at the smaller map on the lower right, you'll see some red boundaries and those are different tracks that are actually defined as low mod areas. So we can't meet all of these households. We can't go to every single one. So our amazing GIS team actually helped us crunch some of the numbers here to help us come out with a plan of attack to make the most out of these canvassers that we're going to be using. So if you look at the green and kind of purple map, the green is basically 80% AMI. And then as you get more to the gray and then the purplish blue, you're getting into really low income. And so what we are doing is we're taking concentrated areas that are in the lowest income brackets. And they're defined by these object ID numbers that are over on the right. And I know this is all very jargony. For those of you that are interested, we have all of the information here. I have it printed out. I didn't want to just burden you with it, but if you want it, we can get it to you. But this is actually the locations that we will be going to. So technically, there are 65 of these low-mod defined areas in Aurora. Most of them are in Kane County. This grant is going to cover us going to 12 of those low mod areas. So the ones that have the orange or I'm sorry, the red markings around, that's where we're going to be targeting. And again, it's a concentration and it's serving the lowest income areas. So that's where we're going to be going. It's mainly Ward 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7. And I will show you what we're going to be bringing around. So what we will be doing is giving handouts to people that actually answered the doors. We will be giving them a bilingual in English and Spanish booklet on King County recycles that explains to people how they can recycle, what is recyclable, where to recycle it. And then we are promoting two utility programs, and this is, again, part of this grant. So the first one I'll explain is over on the right, and that is for a free energy audit. This can be for both multifamily and single-family homes. Low income, if you're income eligible for this program, then they will do a very robust energy audit and they may even make some changes while you're there. You can also get discounts on some of the bigger items if you need to do weatherization, for example, through this utility program. If you're not one of the income eligible people, you can still participate in this program. It will just be a less robust free energy audit. In the middle there is free energy saving kits for income eligible people. And I'll show you just a couple of things that are in here, but it's basically water saving and energy saving measures. The food pantries also have the ability to have these there. As long as you are a utility customer, either with ComEd or NICOR in the Aurora region, then you can get access to these. So this is a hot water insulation pipe. We have some weather stripping. There's a water sense shower head. There's a faucet aerator. There's all kinds of other kinds of weather stripping. There's a nightlight. There's a shower timer. There's a lot of stuff in here. So anyway, these are a good deal. They can be for free if you're income qualified. And moving on, we also have door hangers that we will be leaving. We are not soliciting. This is not a program where people have to buy anything. We also, the door hanger is going to have a QR code that goes to this website. If you haven't been here yet, the city of Aurora now has a website that specifically explains residential energy programs and some of the opportunities that residents have to save money on their energy bills. There is also a section just on solar as well. So the schedule for this outreach, we're going to have 270 total hours, likely be starting this Friday. It might be starting next week instead. It will be daily for about the next six weeks until we get the amount of hours that are needed. They'll be working in five hour shifts and we have two canvassers. One of them was with the census and one of them was previous with our solar canvassing. So they will be identifying themselves as a city of Aurora employee. They will be driving a city of Aurora vehicle and wearing a city badge and a city t-shirt. And they will just be directing people to the websites and have the flyers on hand. And the door hangers will have a city phone number that they can call or text and the canvassers will be bilingual in English and in Spanish. then last but not least um this is separate but i know we've been getting a lot of questions about the legitimacy of some of the solar programs that are around so we talked last week about the community solar program this is legitimate if you are a city of um aurora resident and you participate in comed then you can participate in the community solar program There is also a program where you may receive a letter in the mail, and it will have City of Aurora letterhead from Mayor Lash and the Citizens Utility Board, and it is for the Switch Together program. It's basically a group buy. So if you wanted to, for example, get EV charger add-ons, you could participate in this group buy and get that for a discount. Same thing with solar panels and same thing with battery storage. And then also, we've been getting questions about Alderman Will White's program. And as far as I know, there's still some money available there for both solar and EV charging. And then last but not least, if you're interested in learning more about community solar, there is a webinar on, I cannot read that, September, is it 16th or 18th? September 16th at 1 p.m. Thank you. September 16th at 1 p.m. being held by Choose DuPage. So with that... This is the QR code that takes you to that web page that I explained about before that is from the city of Aurora. We also have a direct phone number that you are able to call if you have any questions.

Questions or comments from the council? Alderman Franco.

So we're getting a grant for $22,000, right? Yes. Does that $22,000 cover the man hours that we're going to be using city staff to go door-to-door, or is that going to be an additional expense?

It covers it covers all of that. Yes No, we've been using and we've been already been using staff hours And that grant to pay for that and then basically what is left over is going towards the door knocking And then the kids are funded by NICOR and ComEd, correct? Yes, the kids none of the utility programs are the kids. We don't pay for any of that. I

Alderman White.

Yes, Ms. Lindberg. First, thank you for plugging my solar and EV grant. I appreciate that. From the town hall, I believe I got four of the applicants, so there still is money available. I do have a question regarding the canvassers. So there's two canvassers, and then you mentioned energy auditors. Are the canvassers doing something totally different?

Yes. Great question. It's totally different. So the canvassers are just there to provide information about all of these different programs to people. And I should also just mention that they will only be going to single-family residents and places that have an outside door, they will not be going to apartment buildings. However, a lot of these programs actually do apply to people that are in apartments. So that's another reason why we wanted to come here today, just to spread some awareness. But yes, the energy auditors will be paid for by the utility company themselves, and they will have to, a resident, if they are interested, they will have to go to the website and then sign up to be part of that program.

Okay, so then to that point, Do you know if any of the energy auditors will come from the CEJA program that we have?

That's a great question. I do not know the answer to that. Just wondering. Yeah, that's a great question.

Alderman Nunez.

Thank you. Will there be any full-time city staffers that are going to be accompanying those canvassers, or is it solely the two canvassers that are going to be covering all those properties?

A great question. We will be having our sustainability coordinator will be with them some of the time.

For training purposes.

And then regarding the energy audits, single family versus multifamily, I know you mentioned no apartment buildings, but if we've got a home that was remodeled into a three unit, they would still be visiting those?

As long as they can access their door from outside, and remember they have to be in that 80% AMI or less.

And then just for the sake of efficiency and time use, have we considered looking at the registered rental property owners that we have within the city to see if they fall within any of these areas, maybe make it easier to contact them?

No, we have not, but I think that's a great idea. We were thinking that by bringing this in front of council that hopefully we would hear from some of the apartment owners and businesses that are doing property management and maybe they would reach out, but that is our next step once we get done with the canvassing.

Thank you.

Any other questions? Okay. Thank you, Ms. Lindberg.

Thank you.

Okay, now we can move to public comment. Madam Clerk, do we have any members of the public who wish to offer public comment?

Yes, we do.

Outstanding. Will you please read the rules of public comment?

Pursuant to the Open Meetings Act, all persons shall be permitted an opportunity to address public officials under the rules established and recorded by the council. Under our rules, any person may address the city council for up to three minutes with a maximum of 30 minutes allotted for all public comment. no person other than the timekeeper or the chair for the purpose of maintaining order may interrupt a person recognized for public comment during his or her comments members of the city council shall not engage with nor respond to a speaker during the time set aside for public comment staff is directed to follow up with members of the public with respect to any concerns raised during public comment within the scope of the city's authority following the adjournment of this meeting thank you madam clerk will you please read the name of the first person wish to offer public comment rick lawrence

Rick Lawrence. Is Mr. Lawrence here tonight? Can you please read the name of the next person to wish to offer public comment?

Peter Lara.

Mr. Lara, please feel free to step up to the mic. You have three minutes beginning now.

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Peter Lara. I am a Chicago community activist. The city of Aurora is a chaotic catastrophe. This city has such a great culture. If it wasn't for the egregious politicians and policies that have been put into law in this fine city. This city has growing debt. In the preliminary funds so far for 2027, it is around $14 million in debt. It is projected in about four years to double. What is the plan to fix this, Mayor? We need to have a plan in order to circumvent that before it becomes a problem for this entire city and for the community to burden on. And also noticing as driving into downtown here as well that ICE is prohibited from doing certain activities here in the city. They are immigrant law enforcers. Why should we have to restrict what they can do in a city? I mean, not only in this city, but throughout the state, there's been so many things that have been allowed that it just blows me away and blows a lot of people's minds, you know? And also, what is not being talked about is the development and construction of data centers. There are currently four data centers in the entire Aurora region. What people don't seem to realize is higher utilities will come to play if we keep building them, less accessibility, to resources, energy resources. Stop the development of data centers. It's affecting people. Look throughout the nation. There are so many people that don't have fresh water right now, or not that much electricity, because of the strain that's being put on their grid. The days of Aurora being ridden with such vile conduct And even in the state are over. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Lara. I'll ask the clerk to please read the name of the next person. We'll start for public comment.

Angela Collier.

Welcome, Ms. Collier. You have three minutes beginning now.

Good evening, Mayor and City Council. I want to say Aurora is doing great things. I don't know what other people see, but I just want to thank you all tonight, Alderman Barrero, for suggesting the soul food event we just had with the fashion show. He suggested it 10 years ago, and I've just been faithful to it. and the people have enjoyed it in our community. I do want to thank Alderman Nunez, also Alderman-at-Large Keith Larson, Alderman Will White for being in the fashion show, of course, and Alderman Mike Saville for providing the rental fee for the Prisco Center. Thank you. Alderman Benuelos, I can't get your name right, but I want to thank you and your family for attending. It was a surprise to see you. I also want to thank Alderman Barrero and Walmart on Kirk Road We did a back to school event there. So I want to thank station 14 and 13 and 14 for being there. The kids enjoyed it, the paramedics. We just had a great time out there. The face painter, the nail techs. I just want to tell you, God is doing some things in this city. I know you can't see everything that I do, but we just put out 8,000 pairs of socks from Bombas. I have underwear, T-shirts. October 3rd, we're putting out about $10,000 worth of merchandise, which is Halloween, and costumes. So I know the families in this city are being blessed. You do not have to do anything but ask. The Bible said you have not because you ask not. And your support provides free services for this community. I'm a soul food cook. I'm a licensed chef. So, I mean, the time that I spent providing the free meals, you all were part of that. And the community enjoyed it. So I do plan to do a women's conference in March of 2027, which will be a free conference for 300 to 400 women. And we also are providing 25 women in that fashion show. Women are suffering with some things, and we need to talk about some things. So I'm going to take my time to do that. But coming up, I want all of you all to pray for me. I just accepted a position as a cook. at the Royal Hollywood Casino. So I plan on going in there and doing a great work for this community. And Alderman Barrero, again, I want to thank you. And I also want to thank Hugo. He was out there with us this weekend. We raised money and supplies for the children with special needs. I just really enjoy what we do. So I ask you to keep me and my husband Fred in your prayers. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Collier. I'll ask clerk to please read the name of the next person wishing to offer a public comment. If you could give it to the police officer, you can distribute it. Welcome, Mr. Bartosik. You have three minutes. I'll let you get to the microphone. Three minutes beginning now.

Two weeks ago, I emailed Jim Levicki, the public safety media manager at Aurora Police Department. I asked him who was accountable for flock and axon cameras in Aurora. He said department policy and state laws safeguard the collection and use of data, and that ALPRs were valuable tools to police work. I then asked him questions, like what flock, axon, and the PD did with the data collected, and if their systems had been abused. His response was to regurgitate that policy and safeguards were in place without citing any public policies or laws and stated they were working on a public information page and that he has nothing else to add. Are you kidding me? Your answer to simple questions like has your system been abused is, well, it works good for us, so up yours. That is an unacceptable response and disgraceful to the PD and by extension the council. It sets a dangerous precedent. We can do whatever we want with your money and you deal with it. These are the people who are supposed to protect us. They don't even know or tell where our data is going and who has access to it. We, the taxpayers, fund the police department. They are public servants. They work for us, not themselves or private companies. Well, I did some digging in Flox Policies, and their public policy states that ownership of data stays with the customer. So our taxpayer money is going to a department that is buying into contracts that they either don't understand or refuse to be truthful about. And why would they be? Because if everyone knew the truth about how this technology is being used, what it's capable of, there wouldn't be a single camera left standing by tomorrow. Some final statements. We are your constituents. Vote to end all government contracts with ALPRs or get voted out. To the police, find somebody who actually knows what's going on and is not afraid to speak to the public. And to everyone else in this room and those watching, let's get these cameras out of our town one way or another. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bartoszak. I'll ask the clerk to please read the name of the next person who will start for public comment.

Brenda Lee.

Welcome, Ms. Lee. You have three minutes beginning now.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. My name is Brenda Lee. This is my fifth City Hall town meeting. I am here independently on my own, speaking for me and my family. I am here to read the exact words sent to me in an email by Ryan Dowd of Hessett House. He cc'd Deputy Mayor Casey, Ricky Rogers, Karen Whitney, and AID. You all read this email. Your silence makes you complacent. Ryan Dowd wrote, and I quote, if in the future Brenda would like to engage the services of Hesed House staff again, she would need to sign a behavioral agreement agreeing not to speak abusively to staff other than Ryan or attempt to publicly shame staff other than Ryan. Then he went on to write, if in the future, Brenda would like Hesed House staff to assist her in obtaining housing, I would need to agree to get a credit check and accept any legally acceptable unit, regardless of location or condition. Look at the hypocrisy. Ryan Dowd runs a company called Empathy Studios, LLC, spelled E-M-P-A-T-H-Y. People pay him thousands of dollars. to teach compassion, but he showed my disabled family zero empathy. He tried to strip away my free speech and told me I must accept a home regardless of condition, meaning severe code violations. Rye Yield Investments, LLC, R-E-Y-I-E-L-D, which is linked straight to their board member, Rodna Kapoor. When I asked the city for help, Deputy Mayor Casey gave me a so-called advocate named Noah from the Neighborhood Project, an organization that partners directly with the Hesed House, just for him to tell me that I should not speak out publicly. He told me my family was in a very vulnerable and fragile position and advised me not to speak out. Me and my family will be here every second and fourth Tuesday until we receive justice. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. I'll ask the clerk to please read the name of the next person we'll share for public comment.

Christopher Lee.

OK, real quick before Mr. Lee begins, Christopher Lee has submitted a request for reasonable accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act to extend his public comment to five minutes. Is there a motion to approve this request? So moved. Motion made by Alderwoman Smith, seconded by Alderman Nunez. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries by voice vote. We'll give Mr. Lee five minutes, beginning now.

Thank you. Hi, my name is Christopher. I am 21 years old, and I'm autistic. People look at me, and they think I'm autistic, and I do not see what they're doing or why I do not understand the pain you are causing my family, but I see everything. I see my mom staying up all night fighting for us. I see my sister trapped in fear inside a shelter where a worker there corners her JUST BECAUSE WE USED OUR VOICE. I AM AUTISTIC AND I NEED SAFETY, QUIET, AND ROUTINE, BUT INSTEAD, YOU MOVED US THROUGH FOUR DANGEROUS SLUM HOUSES AND LEFT US STRANDED IN A HOTEL ROOM ON ROUTE 59. BECAUSE OF MY AUTISM, THE SEVERE CODE VIOLATIONS IN THOSE HOUSES AND THE CONSTANT CHAOS OF BEING MOVED AROUND making the world feel incredibly loud and terrifying. I cannot escape the stress, and I can feel the heavy fear in my home every single day. We were isolated in a hotel room, and it feels like the powerful people in this room are punishing us for wanting a safe, quiet place to live. It breaks my heart to watch the people I love get treated like that, They do not matter. We are not just names in a housing file. We are human beings and we demand justice. Mayor John, please stop the retaliation and help my family. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Lee. I'll ask the clerk to please read the name of the next person we should offer public comment.

Yusuf Ahmad.

Welcome, Mr. Ahmad. You have three minutes beginning now.

As-salamu alaykum. My name is Yusuf. I'm here to hopefully clear a few misconceptions in hopes of us becoming less divided than we are today. The phrase I started my speech with, as-salamu alaykum, is an Islamic greeting which means, peace be upon you. This is also how Jesus, peace be upon him, greeted his disciples, as mentioned in Gospel of Luke, chapter 24, verse 36. Some of you might think that Islam is a relatively new religion that was created by Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, 1400 years ago. Actually Islam, which means to surrender and to submit your will to God, was there since the time man set foot on this earth. Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, did not create Islam, but was the last and final messenger. Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him said that there were 124,000 prophets that were sent on the face of this earth. All of the prophets that were previously sent, like Prophet Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, peace be upon them all, were sent only for their people and their message as a whole was meant to be followed only for that specific time period. Since Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, was the last and final messenger, he was sent as a mercy to all of the worlds. It is mentioned in the Holy Quran, in Surah Al-Anbiya, chapter 21, verse 107, we have not sent you except as a mercy to all of the worlds. It is also mentioned in the Holy Quran in Surah Saba, chapter 34, verse 28. We did not send you for all mankind except to bring them glad tidings and to warn, but most people do not know. Some of you might think that God of the Muslims is a different God because Muslims say that their God is Allah. Well, if you look in the Arabic Bible, used by over 10 million Arab Jews and Christians, you will find that the word God in English is translated as the word Allah in many places in the Bible. For example, it is mentioned in the Old Testament, in the book of Genesis, chapter 1, verse 1, in the beginning, Allah created the heaven and the earth. I end with the following verse from the Holy Qur'an that answers the question, who is our Creator and God, Allah? It is mentioned in Surah Al-Ikhlas, Chapter 112, verse 1 to 4, where Allah says, Say he is Allah, the only one and unique. Allah, the absolute, the eternal, who is in need of none and of whom all are in need. He neither begat nor was he begotten, and there is none comparable to him. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Ahmed. I'll ask the clerk to please read the name of the next person which is our public comment.

Mateo S.

Welcome, Mateo. You have three minutes beginning now.

Good evening, everyone. My name is Mateo, and I'm a resident of the Ward 6. I'm here to continue the conversation regarding the 92 Flock and Motorola automated license plate readers tracking our residents' movements. When the Flock system was approved in 2024, it was pitched as a local tool for local safety. The data proves that it has instead been functioning as a massive, unmonitored, nationwide dragnet. In 2025, over 3.9 million searches were conducted on Aurora's camera network. External agencies across 45 states accounted for over 99% of these searches, leaving APD responsible for not even 1% of those searches. Worse, this open network violated the spirit of the Illinois Trust Act thousands of times in 2025 alone. U.S. Border Patrol executed over 3,000 searches on our network in 2025. Out of state agencies like Amarillo Texas PD and Michigan State Police and even local departments like Madison and Darien used our cameras explicitly flagged immigration and DHS searches. Furthermore, Louisville Metro Police in Kentucky executed over 47,000 searches on our cameras in 2025. During their peak activity on our network, a Louisville detective illegally shared his flock login with a federal DEA agent, who then ran unmonitored immigration lookups in February and March 2025. That is a documented fact. You can look up an article about that. APD's ALPR policy 427.7 allows out-of-state agencies to access our data without a signed privacy declaration, relying instead on a vendor self-attestation. In response to public records requests, APD could produce no signed agreements, only a blank template. INTERNALLY, THERE IS ZERO OVERSIGHT. POLICY 427.6 REQUIRES REGULAR AUDITS, YET APD OFFICIALLY RETURNED A NO RESPONSIVE RECORDS TO A FOIA REQUEST FOR 2025 INTERNAL AUDITS. THEY'RE NOT EVEN REVIEWING THEIR OWN LOGS. I EMAILED APD, I EMAILED THE CITY, AND CITY COUNCIL A MONTH AGO WITH A SAMPLE OF SOME OF THESE SEARCHES AND MY CONCERNS. ASIDE FROM THREE OF YOU, THE SILENCE HAS BEEN DEAFENING. I am bringing this up publicly because residents need to be aware of the action by many of you, including APD. None of this has to be taken on my word alone. The full public records and raw audit logs have been published openly on the Muck Rock website for anyone to inspect. I encourage council members, reporters, and every resident in this room to look at the data yourselves and see the scale of what has been happening. I'd also like to ask for an independent public forensic audit of the 2025 and 2026 ALPR logs to identify policy violations and systematic abuse. It is time for APD and the city to take this seriously, close the vendor loopholes, and bring transparency to the community. I'm glad you got a response because they haven't been responding to me, so thank you.

Thank you, Mateo. I'll ask the clerk to please read the name of the next person we'll show for public comment.

Alexis Gordon.

Welcome, Ms. Gordon. You have three minutes beginning now.

Hi, everybody. I'm Alexis Gordon. I am back. I know you guys have seen me before. I'm here to talk about Mini Markets Children's Business Fair and Talent Show. We are super excited for our September 19th event that is coming right around the corner. We've been working really hard, and so have these kids. Mini Markets Children's Business Fair and Talent Show is going to be happening at 1721 Town Center Street next Saturday, September 19th, between noon and 5. We had a goal of 50 youth entrepreneurs for this event. this market. The ages range in between ages 5 and 18 years old. We have locked in 42 youth vendors for this market, so we're super excited. They're going to be cutting the ribbon on their businesses. Some of our OG Many market participants are going to be coming back, and they're going to be practicing their public speaking, building their confidence, standing on stage, telling us what they sell, how they came up with their products, and things like that. So I just wanted to come up here and, one, let you know that we are doing very, very well. I wanted to thank some of the aldermen here for their sponsorships and donations to our event. We have a mini market minion now. We have bounce houses. We've been able to feed our youth participants. We've been able to provide tables and just Even some kids that don't have donations or decorations, we've been able to help them secure some event decorations so that we all have a standard, everybody looks good, we're all super confident and proud of what we're doing. So I just wanted to come up here today to thank you all for your your help in posting our event on your social media pages. It's really helped us reach a lot of families that we wouldn't have been able to reach before. We do have a week, so if you guys want to post us again, that would be so awesome. And thank you. I would hope that you guys will be able to make it next week on September 19th to support these kids. Shop in real time. Show them your face. Tell them who you are because they are the future. They are future leaders. So we hope that you guys can make it. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Gordon. This concludes the public comment portion. Next, I'll ask the clerk to please read both the consent agenda and the direct to council consent agenda in full.

260377, a resolution authorizing the director of purchasing to execute an engineering services contract with Strand Associates in the amount of $173,000 for the design of HVAC and building modifications at the city's CSO treatment facility. 260446, an ordinance amending chapter 8, article 8-4, division 8-4-1, division 8-4-3, and 5, pertaining to the definition of amusement device and pool rooms. 260483, an ordinance annexing property being vacant land located at 5 South 171 Yellow Road to the city of Aurora. 260485, a resolution establishing the maximum number of Class C specialty on-site consumption liquor licenses unofficially related to the application from JH Foreign Exchange located at 110 Cross Street in Ward 4. 260496, an ordinance granting a conditional use permit for an above ground communication and electric utility facility use on the property located at 10 North Agilon Drive. 260510, a resolution authorizing the city of Aurora to accept a grant award of $160,200 under a grant agreement with the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency. 260530, approval of the minutes of the Tuesday, August 25, 2026 city council meeting.

Okay, before moving to questions, there's been a staff request to remove item 260446. It will be moved to unfinished business and be dealt with under unfinished business. Are there any questions or motions to remove any other items from the direct to council consent agenda or consent agenda? Is there a motion to approve items on both the direct to council consent agenda? Consent agenda is read. Motion was made by Alderwoman Smith. Second. Is it? Second by Alderman Benuelos. Are there any other questions? There being no questions, will the clerk please call the roll on both consent agendas?

Ferraro? Yes. Garza? Yes. Masiakos? Yes. Nunez? Yes. Franco? Yes. Sabell? Yes. Benuelos? Yes. Smith? Yes. Bugg? Yes. Bade? Yes. Larson? Yes. White? Yes. 12-0-0.

Motion carries. The consent agenda and direct counsel consent agenda are both approved. Next, we'll move to unfinished business. We'll be taking item 260502 out of order and considering that item first under unfinished business, as Alderman Benuelos would like to recuse himself, it's my understanding. OK. The record reflect that Alderman Ben Willis has stepped away from the dais. Next, I'll ask the clerk to please read the next agenda item, 260502.

260502, an ordinance establishing a conditional use plan development and approving the challenge to change plan description for the property located at 818 East New York Street.

Is there a motion to adopt this ordinance? Second. Motion was made by Alderman Smith, second by Alderman Garza. Are there any questions or discussion regarding this ordinance? Okay. There being no further questions, will the clerk please call the roll?

Barrero?

Yes.

Garza? Yes. Masiakos? Yes. Nunez? Yes. Franco? Yes. Savelle? Yes. Smith? Yes. Bugg?

Yes.

Bate? Yes. Larson? Yes. White? Yes. 11 yes, 0 no, 1 abstain.

Motion carries. This ordinance is adopted. I'll ask the Chief of Staff of the Alderman's Office to please retrieve Alderman Benuelos. Let the record reflect that at 7.18 PM, Alderman Ben Willis returned to the dais. I'll ask clerk to please read the next item under unfinished business.

26 0 4 0 3 a resolution authorizing the use of funds not to exceed seven hundred and twenty thousand dollars for furniture fixtures and equipment for new fire station for fire administration headquarters and emergency man There motion to approve this resolution a motion was made by Alderman Smith second by Alderman Franco.

Are there any questions or discussion? Alderman Masiakos

Thank you, Mayor. This item came through committee. It was discussed about items that are identifiable, FF&E packages. One of the words that was described to us that they wanted 10% contingency because they did not want to burden us in case they needed a couple extra dollars. So with that said, I don't mind to be burdened one bit whatsoever. Overall package that exceeds $69 million plus a $2 million contingency already. I'll make a motion to remove the 10% contingency from this resolution.

Okay, there's a motion to remove the contingency and there's been a second. That's a motion to amend the ordinance as read Discussion will begin with Alderman Masiakos if you want to get an opportunity to present your case.

I just did.

Okay, fair enough Any other questions or discussion? The motion to amend all the woman Smith I do I do have a question

Can I ask Alderman Masiakos a direct question? Is that appropriate?

It's protocol to ask the mayor the questions and we have staffer.

And you don't have to answer if you don't want to. I've been sitting with you for nearly eight years, and every time we've had some financial IT, whatever committee I've sat on with you, you've always been in favor of adding that extra, what did you call it, padding in there or inconvenience. And I'm just curious to why this particular item, you don't want to add that in there, the contingency.

I appreciate the question. I appreciate the question. The reality is we found ourselves a $34 million deficit last year, and it's about policy, the policy of how do we move forward. If we keep telling staff now that for FF&E packages that it's okay moving forward across the city that you're going to put a 10% contingency, You have $75,000 here. You have $100,000 there. The money starts adding up. We have budget discussions coming up very soon as well. And everybody's always asking me, a handful of older persons are asking me, how are we going to pay for everything in this? I go out in the community, do we really have a deficit? A lot of people in the community don't believe we have a deficit. They think it's made up. So at this point, based on what I know, FF&E, we should know right now, the family department should know what they need. Very simple. Give us the hard number. And the reality is the mayor can always approve an extra up to $50,000 if need be. If there's an uncommon Murphy's Law kind of situation.

Are there any other questions or discussions on this agenda item or on the amendment, Mike? Alderman Smill?

Yes, I'm just curious to hear the other side of the situation here from either staff or the department to explain this and the need and give us more information.

Good evening, Alderman, Assistant Fire Chief Mike Hoffman. The basic need for the thought process of including a 10% contingency is that we have quotes in hand where the dollar amount comes to a certain number. But when we go to place orders, that could potentially change by hundreds, thousands of dollars here and there a small amount. So if it goes up a small amount, then we suddenly don't have the money we need to pay for the items that we need. There's also the fact that when you move into a new fire station, let alone a fire station, but this is a fire station admin headquarters as well as EMA, inevitably going to be items that we need to operate that we haven't thought of. We've done the best that we possibly can to think of everything, to make it as transparent as we can be. But that's just not the reality of moving into a new home anywhere. You're going to get in there, and you're going to need items here and there. It was the same thing for Station 9. Same thing for station 13. So that's why we put in a little buffer of money there. We came in under budget with that buffer. And that's kind of where we're at. And I also look back at different contingencies in the city. There's been 10 approved this year by council, all of which went to consent at COW. I think the most clear one that I looked at was the IFB for River Edge Park. was approved at $300,000 with a 10% contingency. That's all we're asking for. We're not using it to buy luxury items, items we don't need. It's operational items so we can get the building up and running.

Any additional?

There is Jolene Coulter, Director of Purchasing. This is a move. We are moving from Station 4, moving things over to the new Station 4 as much as we can. There is the hope that everything we anticipate to move will fit, will transfer, will make the move correctly, won't break. We just need to make sure we're prepared for that.

Assistant Chief Kaufman, I know on station 9 we were used a lot of the furniture and moved it from old station 9 to new station 9 what percent of the FFNE is going to be coming from old station 4 to new station 4

Well, what percent of the furniture, I guess, is the question. So most of the workout equipment that is movable will get moved from new station four to new station four from old station four. Anything that we can still use and salvage, we'll use in those spaces. But the spaces are dynamically different. They're different size and that type of thing. So there'll be pieces to fit the spaces as well within that station.

And do you anticipate using all of the budgeted money as is for the equipment, the new equipment that you plan to buy for this space? No.

For the whole station? Are you talking about the contingency money that we're asking for? Not the contingency, the base. Yes, the base we plan on using because those are just basic quotes that I've submitted, and everybody can see those. All the aldermen can see those quote numbers. So the base is about... 650 something, 54. That is all spoken for money. Now, like I said, where the contingency comes in is fluctuations of when I place orders. Obviously, we get quotes way ahead of time. Those orders could fluctuate a small percentage. But the short answer is yes. We plan on using the base money. We plan on using only what's necessary for the contingency money to get us operational. The same thing we did at station 9 and 13.

And then if this amendment passes tonight, you would have to come back to council if you anticipate going over the budgeted amount and using that contingency. What sort of timeline would that involve for you?

So if this passes with the contingency, we won't have to come back to council. We'll be able to buy what we operationally need without constantly coming back to council. If it doesn't pass, a contingency does not pass, and prices, say, go up a couple thousand, well, now I'm over my $654,000, whatever it is, threshold, so I will have to come back to council and say, hey, I'm over this amount. Can you approve that amount? Unless there's some kind of $50,000 buffer, which I'm not sure how that works. I'd have to talk to purchasing about that.

Well, and purchasing director does have that ability when there's a need. However, we have shown you in the presentation, you can see we did not do that in the other building. In the other two buildings, we were under budget. That's our intent.

And Assistant Chief Kaufman, the question I asked was about the timeline. How much time would it take to come back to council? And assuming you're going to put this out to bid, you're going to get some responses and make a decision, and at that point you'll know, will there be enough time to come back to council?

Yeah, so the bids have pretty much all gone out, the bids that have been put out. The biggest delay in receivables, once we put the purchases in, is from our furniture IFB. It's going to be five to six weeks. So we move forward a week and get POs from purchasing, put those orders in. Then five to six weeks later, we receive that furniture, and we're able to open the station at that time. We're hoping to get that station opened early November. But anything that, yeah, we potentially could have to come back to council, and, you know, it could potentially delay us from opening the station, worst-case scenario.

Any other questions from the council, either for Alderman Seville?

For anything under $50,000, you don't need council approval, is that right?

Technically no, but we would want to recover just like we've recapped it for you this time for 9 and 13 in this presentation We had we would want to make sure that we're transparent with you of what was spent and we would show you those dollars And that's not a good feeling to come back and say yeah, we were over. We didn't we didn't guess enough.

That's just a horrific feeling any other questions, I'll amend Barrero I

Yes. The furnishing, FF&E is a small portion of the overall project. Where are we with respect to the construction cost for the facility? How is that looking to end up?

Can we pull up? I actually have a presentation. I have a slide on that.

Is that what you said? It's up right now.

Oh, is it? Do you have the remote?

That's it.

This is going to be a challenge because I can't really see from here. Oh, now it's up.

OK, perfect.

So if you guys take a look there, we kind of broke it down into contract amounts. And you can see the Cordigan Clark is our architect. The construction provider is Leopardo. There's a IT contract amount in there. And then our built-in FF&E was $654,559. We wrote it in there with the city contingency. There was an original city contingency of $1.475 million. That's for construction costs. And then we wrote in that $65,456 for the city contingency of the FF&E. So you can see the total award column is $35,381,000. Year-to-date spend, $26,625. And right now we have about $8.75 million left within that account. It is also notated at the bottom, the only part of that owner contingency we had to use was $125,000. It was due to weather conditions early in the project that Leopardo had to dig into that. So that's where we currently stand. Alderman?

The remaining amount, are you saying we're not going to spend those funds in the remaining column?

That is not what I'm saying. We have a lot of bills to still be paid.

We are trending, at this point in time, construction has informed that we are trending to be under budget dollar-wise. I don't want to say a dollar. I don't want to jinx it. We still have another month and a half left. But we are trending to be under budget for this project, so.

Any other questions? That would be helpful to know how much under we're going to be.

If you flip back a couple of slides, I think you can look at station 9 and 13, where we kind of just barely came under budget, but still need to recognize that we did.

Kind of, I believe, at the start of the presentation.

That's just the FF&E savings. But construction for both projects have been about $800,000 under budget. So that's $1.5 million, 1.6. So I think that's pretty good. And this is a large complex. So I don't expect us to spend the 8.7. But we are trending under budget. That's much I can guarantee.

Any other questions, Alderman Burrow? Alderman Masiakos?

The reality is about fiscal transparency. This project has been a conundrum since it first started, and we first voted on it. And the city council voted to approve the expanded scope and cost to the taxpayer. So this is not a typical project. I know people are looking at it, and Alderman Saville wants to maybe know a little bit historically. But Ms. Jolene Coulter, it's all about fiscal transparency. The reality is I don't mind being burdened. It's not my word. It was a word, quote unquote, provided to us by the fire department at INT. So it's not the same world right now. That's all I can say financially for the city.

Any other questions or discussions on the amendment that is before us? Alderman Bugg?

Yeah, thank you. So the number's at $654,000. and as the mayor explained you can go up to $49,999 over that and you will not need approval from the city council well first it would go to finance committee but then through the city council once you reach $50,000 as every other department in the city at that point in time you would need approval from first the finance committee then the full city council if we don't put in the contingency I understand Alderman Masiakos' point here. We are coming into a very, let's just say.

Challenging.

Challenging. That's a good word. Challenging budget. So if your number is tracked, you're probably going to come in under. definitely within $50,000. you won't have to come to finance anyway. But if you get over $50,000, that's where you meet the threshold if we don't put in the contingency. So I don't think that's unreasonable. We ask other departments to come back if they go over to $50,000. If you're tracking to go over to $50,000, just basically coming to finance and saying, this is where the money's going. We're at 52,000, and we're not under 50. So I would support Alderman Maciaco's amendment.

Questions or discussion?

Mr. Mayor, question. Alderman White. So my only concern about not having the contingency is the timeline it would take to come back to get approval. So it sounds like would go through finance get approved there then go back to cal and then back to council is that the current is that how the process would work yes that's how that would work that would be the process and if four to six weeks four to six okay so then in that four so then in your opinion that four to six week time period if you're in the middle of making purchases and then you have to pause for that four to six week period how does that impact your ability to move forward

Yeah, it would absolutely depend on what the purchase is. Personally, I would hope that all of our immediate operational purchases could be done within that $50,000 range. Can I guarantee that? Absolutely not. But do I foresee that? Absolutely. So I'm hoping it would have no effect. I would hope if we had to go from $48,000 to $52,000 on a purchase, it wouldn't be an operational purchase. It would be something that we need but not to operate. Do you know what I mean? So that's kind of how I feel about it.

When do you plan to get the bids back so you'll know what the number is of the lowest responsible bidder? Absolutely.

So we have the bids back. The biggest one out there is IFB, the furniture bid. And that was the biggest one that we worked on. It originally came in at $625,000. We all got together. We did the best we could to be economical about it. We got it all the way down to $505,000. So we cut $120,000 right off from IFB, myself, EMA, and the purchasing department. So, like I said, that's the biggest one. Now, the fluctuation, we should have no fluctuation on that bid because I believe the dates are good. Yes. And we should have the PO before the order. And that's the biggest concern. But it's the other items that could potentially fluctuate. Just based on how long when you get a bid, that quote is only good for x amount of a month in some cases, six weeks in other cases. But do I think it's going to be any large amount of money? No. I'm just saying. We need a little bit of a buffer in case it's a few thousand dollars or whatever. That was the purpose of the contingency.

And a quick question for legal. If need be, just to cut back on a timeline, is this something we could bring if they were at $52,000 instead of $49,000? Could we bring it direct to council to expedite that timeline? That was a yes. I'll just make sure everybody can hear. Sorry.

Anything can go direct to council.

Alderman Franco, your light's on.

It is that so you know I always like to look at reality comes in at $49,000 you don't have to come to us comes in at $55,000 it goes to finance what are the chances we're gonna say no I mean that's the reality of it if it comes in at $55,000 we're gonna say yes so I think this 10% contingency as we've done historically as is a good way to do business as other cities and Kane County does the same thing I think it's a ballpark that we've always used and I think We have shown that we are fiscally responsible, that we do what we need to do, pay for only what we should pay for. So I don't know that this is a necessary thing to get rid of this contingency in this case because I can only talk for myself, I guess, with my vote. But if it came in at $55,000, I'm voting yes because we're not going to nickel and dime something and not get what we need for the fire department. So that's kind of what my take is on that. It just works. We've seen it work. And I understand we're in a budget situation, but if we're going to approve it anyway, and I believe we would, that's my opinion, then I don't even know why we're going through this extra protocol.

Any other questions or discussions from those who haven't spoken? Final comment? Okay. Hearing no further questions or discussions, this is just on the amendment. To remove the 10% contingency, I'll ask the clerk to please call the roll on the amendment that's before the council.

Guerrero? Yes. Garza? Yes. Maciakos? Yes. Nunez?

No.

Branco? No. Sebel?

Yes.

Benuevos? No. Smith? No. Bugg?

Yes.

Bade? No. Larson? Yes. White?

I feel like that puts it on me. I will vote to support the amendment And we will move forward understanding that I can approve up to 50,000 additional and any need to expedite a Decision can be brought direct to council and skip finance and COW OK, that moves to the main motion that is before the body, which is to approve the $720,000 with FF&E minus the contingency of 10%. Any further questions or discussions on agenda item 260403? Hearing none, I'll ask the clerk to please call the roll.

Herrera?

Yes.

Garza? Yes. Maciakos? Yes. Nunez? Yes. Franco? Yes. Sebel? Yes. Benuelos? Yes. Smith?

Yes.

Bugg? Yes. Bate? Yes. Larson? Yes. White? Yes. 12 yes, 0 no.

Motion carries. This resolution is approved. House clerk, please read the next agenda item under unfinished business.

26 0 4 8 8 a resolution approving the reduction number one for Harvest Point subdivision southeast corner of Morehead Drive and Redden Road It's your motion approve this resolution Discussion motion made by Alderman Franco Second by all the woman Smith questions or discussion?

Mr. Mayor? I have a question. I don't know if Jason has an answer. So this was removed the last meeting because there were some issues with the retention pond. So is there an update, good news on that?

Yeah, good news on that. Jason Bauer with the Department of Public Works. Yeah, I got back to you earlier today on that one. You probably just haven't seen it yet. But yeah, they were able to determine what the problem was. The contractor fixed it, and everything is functioning properly now. There was an issue with the restrictor pipe.

OK, thank you.

Any other questions or discussions for Chief Bauer? Any other questions or discussions on the agenda item as presented?

Hearing none, I'll ask the clerk to please call the roll on 260-488.

Barrero? Yes.

Garza? Yes. Maciakos? Yes. Nunez? Yes. Franco? Yes. Sobel? Yes. Banuelos? Yes. Smith? Yes. Boggs?

Yes.

Bate? Yes. Larson? Yes. White? Yes. 12-yes, 0-no.

Motion carries. This resolution is adopted. I'll ask the clerk to please read the next agenda item under unfinished business.

260492, an ordinance granting a conditional use permit for a hotel, limited service use on the property located at 1350 Corporate Boulevard.

Is there a motion to adopt this ordinance as read? Motion made by Alderman Franco. Second. Second by Alderman White. Are there any questions or discussion regarding this ordinance? This is, again, the Hotel 1350 Corporate Boulevard. Alderman Bugg?

Yes, thank you. Yeah, I'm going to be discussing this matter at 26-0508. I want to thank both Tracy Basic, Ms. Lindberg, who I spoke to this week. I tried to reach out to Mr. Debo. He has some personal things going on right now. He's not able to respond. So we discussed this at our last meeting. Some information came out. Basically, this is for a new hotel facility. It would be a budget hotel, an extended stay budget hotel pretty much south of our new casino. My questions were just about the whole corridor and where we're going in that corridor. If you're not familiar with that, the city council It took action about nine to ten years ago. We purchased the land on Farnsworth and purchased two properties. which happened to be extended stay hotels, to the tune of $7 million coming out of the TIF. We purchased them, demolished them, and gave ourselves a clean slate so we could have land to develop the area on Farnsworth and that corridor. And now we have a new casino there. So presently we have the outlet mall on the east side. We have an award-winning outlet mall, of course. We have the new casino, which is doing fantastic, and we're looking forward to great things out of them. And going forward, we're looking at what we're going to do next in that corridor. What is our next step? We have an outlet mall. We have a fantastic casino. What is our next step? And that's what I was asking about, what were the plans, if we had a plan, a full corridor plan, a master plan for that area. And some of the information that came back, it looks like the There was possibly a study by the last administration, although they're still looking into that. We believe that that plan was not shared with city council. So given that and where really the fact that this is a very important step, We cannot make a mistake at this point. Bringing in the wrong type of business, the wrong type of hotel or other at this point could be detrimental to what we already have there, both the outlet mall and the casino. So given that, and I'm going to give our staff more time to look for that possible plan I'm gonna make a motion to send this back to committee Alderman Burrell had some questions about some of the traffic and feasibility to make turns which looked difficult so we can address that back at committee but I'm going to make that motion to send both of these matters back to committee and take a look at what master plan we have and how we can go forward.

So there's a motion to, just to clarify, move agenda item 260492 and agenda item 260508 back to the B, Z, and E committee. Is that correct? Yes. Okay. And a motion made by Alderman Bug and seconded by Alderwoman Smith. Does staff have any? Good. Thoughts that you'd like to share on this? I'd like to maybe at least discuss a little bit about the extended stay hotel. What is the exact name of it? Do we know the price points? Maybe go ahead with a little bit of history here.

Yeah, the petitioner is here. They do have a presentation. If we would like to have them do the presentation, at least that gives them a little background and we can kind of, they did do a feasibility study. It is not in your packet. I will make sure that it is in your packet for BZE if it is sent back to BZE. And I'm sorry, Tracy Basic, zoning and planning director. But I would ask that we bring up the petitioner and have them do their presentation. Please.

If you could just approach the mic and state your name and who you're representing. John, can we get the center screen working? I can't see it, so I won't know if we get it or not.

It looks like it's starting up. My name is Guy Pisani. I am here representing Holiday Properties, the developer. We are seeking conditional use approval for a hotel, 1350 Corporate Boulevard. Thank you, mayor, council members, for letting me speak on this subject. I do have a, is there a, it's over here, sorry. Do have a brief presentation. I'll skip over some of the stuff. But basically, Holiday Properties, we've been around for almost 75 years. We do a lot of development, primarily in the Midwest and the East Coast. We build multifamily. We build industrial. We build storage. I'm on the hotel hospitality team. And we have 30 hotels in our portfolio spread out mainly through the Midwest. So hospitality makes up about a third of our portfolio. And then you can see Chicago, Northwest Indiana, about a third as well. So we're present here in the western suburbs. We're present in the Chicagoland area, Northwest Indiana. But the product. So I heard it described as a budget motel or hotel extended stay. Those are two incredibly different products. categorizations. Budget Motel is a Super 8, Motel 6, and Econolodge. I'm probably missing a bunch of others. A Red Roof. This is an extended stay. This is not a budget hotel. In Echo Suites, this is a Wyndham flag. I just lost my screen again, so I'm sorry I'll turn. These are four-story, 124-key buildings. They are meant for a longer-term stay guest. Think about corporate travelers. Think about people coming in for training. Think about families needing a true suite to stay if they've got sports in the area. We do have transient guests, meaning nightly. Transient can sound weird and odd, but that's how we use that term in the hotel industry is people that stay one, two, three, four nights. Typically, extended stay starts becoming extended stay six-plus nights. These are set up for the extended stay traveler, traveling nurses, families coming to the area to maybe visit folks in the hospital for a long term, maybe folks in a senior care facility, families coming in to visit. So this is set up for folks coming in, staying typically more than one or two nights. This is the product, as you can see. It looks anything but budget. These are different representations of the building. These are our real buildings. These are ours. This is the one that opened up in Indianapolis about a year and a half ago. Here's our hotel in Gallatin. This is outside of Nashville. And then what does the inside look like? So again, these are set up for the room is the amenity. I'll put it that way. So limited service. We do not have a restaurant. We do not have a conference room. We do have Fitness center, we do have guest laundry. We do have a meeting space. We do have a coffee bar in the lobby area, but that is it. These are set up so that the room is the amenity. You can see there's a dishwasher, a sink, a little two-top stove area, microwave, and then a place for people to work. More depiction of what the room looks like. Again, this is not a budget hotel. This is an extended stay hotel. I just want to make that distinguishing fact because those are two very, very different things. Site plans. So what I'm going to do here, and this was thrown together right before this meeting, so I apologize. It looks a little crude. One of the requirements by the city of us, the petitioner, was to go out, spend money on a hotel feasibility study from a third party. It's an extensive process. It takes about six to eight weeks for the third party to do it. HVS is who did ours. There's a few companies that do these. HVS is nationally renowned. This is really all they do is look at the hospitality sector and then determine, is this a good place? If the city didn't require this of us, we may have done this anyway, just as a market study. My job largely depends on the success of that I'm picking for our hotels. We've had our eye on Aurora for a very long time. We had a different property under contract. We let that one go and we flipped across the street to Corbett Boulevard. But what the study found is that the demand already exists here for extended stay. And so what it did is it looked at eight, it picked eight hotels that was considered competition for us, okay? 72% of the nights spent at those eight hotels were longer than six nights. They were extended stay guests staying in older facilities. I think they've got something in here that says, you know, the product's older. I think the newest one of the eight was maybe built in 2010. So people aren't coming here and building new product. It's aged product. Some of the products is outside of city limits. It's in Naperville. It's in Warrenville. It's further west. So we viewed this as a really good opportunity we have for a long time, Aurora, to plant a flag here of a brand new product. Talked to Dave Debo about it for years and years and years. He knows holiday properties well. He's been saying, come on out here for years. He's been wanting to introduce us at the casino because apparently the casino is excited about this for overflow for guests and just another option for guests. They like to that we don't have a restaurant, so we're not competing. But this study went through extensive market review of Aurora for this product type. And the reason why we're here is because there's a demand. for this product here. If there was a demand for a different type of product here, we'd consider building that, but there's not. And so when you look at this data, and I know that this hasn't been shared with all the members here, it will strongly show that This hotel, Echo Suites, will be successful here. I think people, maybe somebody asked about, hey, what's the rate? What are they going to get? A budget hotel is $30, $40, $50 maybe. I don't even know anymore. The stabilized occupancy in ADR, ADR is average daily rate. The study showed us at 85% occupancy, the comp set was 75%. The ADR for us, it's showing at almost $105 a night. It was about $90 for the comp set. And the comp set, and so now you're saying, hey, well, what's the comp set? Comp set is here. So it's the hometown, Extended State of America, Town Place Suites, another Extended State of America, a Sonesta, a Residence Inn, a Candlewood Suites, and a Hyatt House Chicago in Naperville. The supply of these hotels was built between 1970 and 2010. We're proposing a new amenity for the city, a new amenity for Aurora, certainly a great amenity for the I-88 Farnsworth corridor. We've done a lot of study on our own. This validated what we've been looking at for years and years and years. And the product is fantastic. It is not a budget hotel. And I think if you go back and look at the hotel, you'll see that it is not. I'm happy to answer questions regarding traffic. We've done multiple traffic studies at other hotels. It was part of our process for entitlements. I looked at Libertyville. Downers Grove, and these hotels are similar. They're not exactly Echo Suites, but the number of rooms are similar. So 122 versus 124. And then we just opened up a hotel outside of Jacksonville that is an Echo Suite two weeks ago. Those three reports, when you smash them together, almost say the exact same thing from a traffic standpoint. They don't generate a ridiculous amount of trips. On average, with those three ports, those three reports and those three locations, About 500 trips per day, but only about 40 were at peak hours in the a.m. and in the p.m. So I'm not sure from a traffic standpoint maybe what folks are thinking, the comings and goings. Because of this is an extended stay, it generates less trips because people are typically using their room a lot for work. It's no different sometimes than maybe an office for the people that are here training. They're leaving in the morning, they're coming back in the evening or afternoon.

I'll just clarify real quick. The traffic concern has to do with the use. It's getting off of 88 and then crossing over to Corporate Boulevard. I think that was the only thing that was brought up. Whether you're there or somebody else there, that's an existing concern.

And it is for any business in the Farnsworth Business Center. The good news is there is a reroute, right? So if you can't make that left, it's not an, oh, my gosh, some kind of crazy U-turn. You're just going to Bilter. You're taking left. You're taking left on Church. You're coming in the backside. um so there's an alternate and just to be clear can we wrap that issue up i think we discussed last time about you know telling google maps that that would be the preferred thing and ways and all the others so i am so google maps automatically does that if you miss a turn i'm trying to figure out if google masks can do that there's a way if we can tell them to do that when you plug it in a direction hey you're not turning here you're going up the builder making a left and coming to the back side so But I'm here to answer questions, additional concerns. I thought it was important to show you all the product. I thought it was important to share some of the data that's in this third-party report. Again, this is not my data. The city required us to go out and get this report. I'm just reciting what the report, what it says.

And then in your market study, I'll just start off a few questions. I'm sure there will be some from the older people. Sure. Did your market study look at the casino at all as a potential for filling a few nights a week? I understand that's not your primary clientele, but did it play a factor in the decision? And if it did, I mean, this doesn't look like a real strong competitor. Is it complementary in that if the casino's hotel has a large convention and is sold out, does it help? Fill a few rooms, or do you anticipate being full anyway because of?

I anticipate being full anyway. The casino only helps. If the casino weren't built and weren't here, we're still coming. We're still coming to this Farnsworth I-88 corridor. The casino only helps us, though. I'm not going to say that it doesn't. It does. And it sounds like the casino is eager to. David had said, hey, let me set up a meeting. You can meet. And I just said, let me get our conditional use approval first. so I wanna make sure we have a project. But it sounds like whoever he's talking to at the casino, at the Hollywood Casino, they're very excited about this product and us coming.

Okay, I'll let some of the older people ask a few questions, but I'm just gonna ask if we do delay this, take it back to BZ&E and then bring it to the next council meeting directly, what does that do for your timeline? Just so we're all aware.

The timeline gets screwed up with dates for in contractual dates, right? So we have a due diligence period in our purchase agreement, right? It's 150 days. Well, that's up September 25th. I would have to somehow negotiate an extension because I don't think we'll hit that date. I would have to reach out to the seller's representative and see if they're willing to extend.

Quick question for Ms. Basick. You're probably, I'm not familiar with the plan Alderman Brugg is because I wasn't here nine years ago. I assume you're familiar with it. Does this product as described fit into the plan study that we did years ago?

I know Economic Development did do a plan. I think that there obviously is hotels that we were looking at in this corridor. extended stays versus a higher end hotel obviously we'd be looking for higher end hotels but that doesn't mean that higher end hotels couldn't come if I was looking for a higher end hotel I would be looking on the the tollway so probably a long I-88 would be my preference for a higher end hotel, not necessarily where they are looking. This is off the tollway a little bit. So I am okay with this location where they picked because it isn't along the tollway. I would prefer that if we did get a higher end hotel that it would be along the tollway. So if that answers your question.

Have we got any other applications for properties near here? I haven't seen any in any update meetings. I'm just asking if there's anything in the pipeline.

We have not. And honestly, we've had another extended stay reach out to us. So that's what we've been getting.

Okay. I'll let Alderman Bug go first, and then I want to hear from the first ward alder person.

Yeah. First of all, no. The plan that I was discussing was not a plan from nine years ago, I said. That is when we removed the extended stay hotels, which were a blight on Farnsworth. That plan that was put together, and I don't want to go too far afoul because I don't have all the facts. They were looking at putting something else near Corporate Boulevard. They did some studies. The past administration, an announcement was made, but it never came before city council, and thus it never went forward. But we never got that information from the studies that possibly took place. So that's what we would be looking for.

Yeah. I believe that.

I take the gentleman.

I apologize. I believe that was also looking at the built-to-road properties that we own, so the 50 acres, too. So I think it was an overall kind of master plan of kind of the whole area. So it wasn't just this area, too. So I think there was kind of a master planning of kind of a concept of the whole area. So I just want to put that out there, too.

Okay. So in my comment earlier, I'm very familiar with Wyndham. I stay exclusively at Wyndham's. So this is from the Wyndham website. Yes, sir. Echo Suites Extended Stay by Wyndham. And I misspoke. It doesn't say budget. It says economy, which to me is about the same thing. Economy, extended stay, new construction. It's a nice product. I just want to take a look at. our plan and our scope and what we're looking at in the future. We know the situation that we were in nine years ago with those types of hotels. Hotels in that realm that maybe have a lesser name or a lesser footprint bring certain things when you're along the highway. And I'm gonna let our police department talk about that. And we don't want that in this corridor. This corridor, we have to do it right. We only get one shot. We have an outlet mall. We have a casino. And what comes after that is going to be very important. The next project will be very important to the project after that. And we have to keep building. We can't go backwards. Like I said, we spent $7 million to clear that area where the casino is and to have kind of that corridor open. And so we want to get it right. You only get one chance to get it right.

I hear you loud and clear. I'd just like to mention that I'm not sure what the two hotels were that were blighted, and you guys took away what flags those were. I can only state that this is an extended stay, as you know. Hotels is only as good as the people operating it. I will say that as well. You can have a high-end hotel create a whole bunch of problems for police and fire and whatnot if it's mismanaged and not ran well. We own, we operate, we have 30 hotels in our portfolio. We have a third-party management company. We visit our properties every week. And if there is a problem guest, they're gone. They're not here. So I would say that It's hard to not wrap all these in the same box, but I will tell you they're not in the same box. The flag is the flag, but the operator is the operator, and those are two incredibly important things, distinguishing things, the operator being the biggest distinguishing thing. You can make arguments that, hey, I can pull FOIA on the Four Seasons downtown Chicago on the Mag Mile. I'm going to see a lot of drunk disorderly type things because they're coming over from Russian State Street. You know what I'm saying? So I've heard this before. It's not founded with us. I would say bad operators give folks like us a very bad name. Take that for what it's worth. And I would say the casino, the same thing. Some people hear casino and they automatically think, potential crime and unsavory people and people that can't afford to be at the casino at the casino, living out of a car in the parking lot, that can happen too. But again, that casino is run very well. It's a great company. They wouldn't tolerate that there. We don't tolerate that at our hotels or any of our properties. It doesn't matter if it's a hotel or other. So I would say the operator is very important when you think about that statement that you made. because the hotel is only good as its operator and management team. And we are A plus.

Any other questions, Alderman Berg? No. Alderman Smith?

Tracy, is there a plan that you would be able to be presented to us?

So I have to talk to Economic Development. They were the ones that had the plan. So I will reach out to Economic Development and I will see what we had. There was a concept plan. I do know that. I don't know how far they actually got with that plan. So I will reach out to them and we will... We will have something for you guys. With that being said, I will say that the two hotels that were there were more motels than hotels. I do not think that this hotel is anything like those motels, I will say. And I do not think that they will be run like those motels. So I do want to put that on the record that I do not think that this will be anything like that. But I will, again, I will reach out to economic development and I will have that for, if this does go back to building zoning and economic development, we will make sure that we have something for you guys.

So as I look at the calendar the next BZ&E that it would come back to would be the 24th and beyond that the next council would be October 13th that would be it appears three weeks past your deadline do you feel that you would be able to I don't believe that anybody here saying no but I think it would be I didn't realize we had that type of plan

Is there, I apologize, is there not a BZE next?

The next BZE is tomorrow. We couldn't put it on the agenda. What we could do, and I don't want to take your time here, but what we could do is just hold it at this level, which the next council meeting I think is on the 22nd. maybe you could maybe you could answer the question how does that impact your timeline because I said I heard you say the 25th I'm wondering if the 22nd would still give you the clearance to give the council time to review the plan and maybe we can work through any questions or concerns from council members to Tracy to you and get answers in a timely manner does that impact your timeline

It doesn't. The 25th is kind of the critical date, because we either have to cancel the contract or tell them that we're moving forward. It has to do with earnest money going hard. So the seller is holding earnest money. We go past the 25th, it becomes theirs. If we don't have a project, we'd like to obviously not have that go to the seller. The 25th is when I need to really let them know. So the 22nd to answer your question works.

I'll amend my motion withdraw the motion and second and then we can just hold it at this level I think without it without a motion and a second if you're okay with that yes So Alderman Bugg has withdrawn his motion to send this back to BZ&E. Alderwoman Smith? I agree. Would you second? Absolutely, yes. Okay. Is there a motion to hold the item here for September 22nd City Council meeting? Second. Motion made by Alderman Bugg, seconded by Alderwoman Smith. Any further questions or discussion? Alderman Barrero?

Yes, can we have Dave Debo come and give us an overall picture of what's going on in the area, development-wise?

I don't know his schedule, but you're saying on September 22nd, ask for sort of a review and briefing of that plan. But I think the goal would be to get it sent to the council members so they would be prepared and have that in advance.

Yes, absolutely. We will make sure that you guys get that in advance, and we will make sure that we can try to answer any of your questions beforehand.

And can we get a copy of your market study just to make sure?

I will make sure that you guys get that in your mailbox by tomorrow.

Any other?

I'm sorry. Just so I'm understanding, questions from the council from the older men and women will flow to us. We'll have an opportunity to address those questions prior to the 22nd?

I would think so. What we'll do is... They can send questions to the third floor. We'll route them to you. You can get back in a timely manner. We'll get them to all 12 older people. And that way you know what's coming in the way of questions. If there's any additional questions about market research that's not covered in that report, perhaps, just as an example, they can do that.

And I am, we are opening up a hotel, an Echo Suites in Charleston. I am in Charleston the week of the 21st, but that doesn't prohibit other representatives and actually our VP, as we'll have come in and take my place. I just wanted to let you know it's going to be a different face.

Okay. Were there any other questions before we take a vote? I know we had several other aldermen with their hands up. Alderman Franco.

So I don't know that we got a concrete answer. Is there really an actual concrete plan? Because I know Alderman Buck said that, and he said, well, I think, you know, economic development has one because we may not be moving forward unless we see something real. So there is one out there.

believe there's a concept I just want to make sure because I don't want to delay this because we have a cost of concepts not good with everybody yeah I mean there's a concept but again it's nothing that has been approved by City Council so I just want to make that very clear there's been nothing that has been approved by City Council there has been a concept that is out there and I again don't know where that concept is I would have to make sure make sure that

it exists it exists well right and that's why i want my colleagues to know that we may be going on a concept that may or may not exist to go forward and not hold them up so i mean it's it was a little gray yeah it's just a little bit it's a little gray we may be doing going forward on the gray one that's number one number two candlewood suites candlewood suites is in my ward candlewood suites has a lot of problems with the kind of things you were talking about so i'm glad you talked about that because that's very important we cannot have

what i have out there like we fight with all the time with disturbances over there so i understand glad you brought it up because that's very very important well and we can't have that at our properties so um i i can't say strongly enough how important the management company is and the operator is of of a property it doesn't matter actually what property even more important probably with a hotel For sure, because of people coming in and out. We can't have people on our property causing other guests to leave or to not want to stay there or causing problems in the community, God forbid. Can I tell you that there's not going to be any incidences? No, I can't tell you that because there will be because we can't control guests sometimes. I can't control somebody coming from across the street or coming from the casino, creating a disturbance at our property. But it's how you handle it and address it. and also how you communicate with you all in the city when that happens and the police and fire as well.

Low tolerance, very low tolerance for that nonsense. Correct. Okay, that's what I wanted to hear because I don't know that happens all over, but I'm glad you mentioned that. I just want to emphasize that.

And I want to mention, too, that I talk about our hotel portfolio. We've had these hotels for some of them 10, 15, 20 years. So we're not someone that's coming in, building, flipping, leaving the community. We are in the community. We're here. I office in Clarendon Hills, which is off the I-88 corridor down the road. The operator is very important, and I just want to stress that. And again, I didn't know what the flags were of the hotels that were blighted. If they were a motel-type product, That is not what I'm trying to put in your community.

Alderwoman Bade.

Thank you, Mayor. Can we request for a presentation that Alderman Bug was mentioning about the comprehensive plan at the cow so we all know before city council?

I think the first step is going to be to find out if there is a document to send it to you. Certainly, I have to check with, there was a request for Mr. Debo, but sometimes doing those strategic plans was actually Alex Manil, I believe, who got stuck with a lot of that work. So we'll find out who is best prepared to present.

I believe it was Trevor Dick who was actually, yeah. I believe that's who actually did it.

Okay. So that person is going to have to become familiar with said plan and then present. And if the timeline works out to do it at COW, we can do it at COW. We have quite a bit to discuss at COW because we're going to be talking about online and fiber, and that's going to take some time. But if whoever is presenting to staff can get up to speed on said plan, and you'll know within a day or two if we even have it. Okay.

Thank you.

Other woman, Garza.

My question is, you mentioned NBC, so they want to have only six employees. So what is the positions in each one of those? Because in case of a problem, middle of the night, you're saying it's dependent on the maintenance or how they want to handle that?

So it's handled the same way. So yes, there's six. And then if there needs to be more employees, so six is the minimum. It can be up to 10. It can be 12 if they're needed. If we have more nightly guests, meaning not extended stay because it's just the property operates that way, which some of ours does, more employees will be brought in. But to answer your question, we have people on property. That's stay. It's 24-7. They are managers. They are general managers. They are assistant managers. They are housekeepers. And they are maintenance. Somebody who's on property at all times.

Are those part of your six employees? Or those are six full-time that stay on the property?

One, two full-time that stay on the property.

So the manager is going to be there, you say. Manager is going to be 24-7 in there.

Yes.

Any other questions or discussion?

So the property is not unattended.

OK. There's no further questions, though. We have a motion and a second to hold the item at the city council level till the 22nd. I'll ask the clerk to please call the roll on that motion.

Are we on 260492 first and then 260508? Is that correct? Correct.

Well, the motion was to hold both items.

There's a motion to hold both? Yes. Okay. So it applies to both items. Yep. Okay. Barrero? Yes.

Yes.

Garza? Yes. Maciakos? Yes. Nunez? Yes. Franco? Yes. Sebel? Yes. Venuevos? Yes. Smith? Yes. Fogg? Yes. Bade? Yes. Larson? Yes. White? Yes. 12 yes, 0 no.

Motion carries. Thanks for coming and answering some questions. And if we can facilitate quick conversation, that'll probably improve our odds. Are you available for COW, which would be a week from today?

Yes, I will make myself available.

OK, if we can make that happen, then we'll reach out to you and try and do it all. But it's going to be a long, busy night.

I understand. Thank you.

Thank you. OK, the next is the final item under unfinished is the item that we removed from direct to council agenda item 260446. I'll ask the clerk to please read that item into the record.

260446 an ordinance amending chapter 8 article 8-4 division 8-4-1-3-5 pertaining to the definition of amusement device and pool rooms Okay presentation or quick explanation as to why we removed this from consent agenda and are now voting on it

Tracy Basic, Zoning and Planning Director. I apologize. I removed this from consent to unfinished. We did have a condition that the RAP committee did put on there. I accidentally did not add the language to the one that went to COW I did now add the language to the one that went to COW so the new language is in there so I just wanted to update you guys that the new language is in there so it's all good and ready to go now are there any questions or discussions on this agenda item all the woman babe Can you read what was changed? Yeah. So as the condition, you guys asked for there to be a maximum of 10, and then you wanted you a maximum of 10 but you did want the ability for someone to have their discretion to allow more so we put each establishment and that's on page 7 lines 17 18 and 19. so each establishment can have no more than 10 pool tables unless otherwise approved by the city treasurer as um as his or her discretion so those are that's the language that we added questions or discussion yes thank you mayor thank you for presenting this why would the treasurer have the permission to say yes or no they are the ones that approve the pool room um

License?

License.

It wouldn't come before a rep committee or one of the other committees?

No, it would not. It would be their discretion.

There's a thought behind that? I'm sorry.

Is there a thought process behind that? There is. So with the pool room, they need to get a liquor license. So they do need to have a full service liquor license. So the full service liquor license or the full service restaurant license does need to come before city council and does need to come IT DOES NEED TO COME BEFORE CITY COUNCIL, DOESN'T IT? YES. IT DOES NEED TO COME BEFORE CITY COUNCIL. SO YOU GUYS WILL BE LOOKING AT THIS FULL SERVICE LIQUOR LICENSE. SO WE FEEL THAT YOU WOULD BE HAVING, YOU WOULD HAVE YOUR KIND OF, YOU WOULD BE LOOKING AT IT AT THAT POINT. SO WE JUST FELT THAT IT WAS KIND OF REDUNDANT TO HAVE ANOTHER LOOK AT IT FOR THE LICENSE ALSO. SO AT THAT POINT, WE'RE DOING KIND OF BOTH OF THEM AT THE SAME TIME USUALLY.

All right, thank you. Because my mind goes back to a very successful pool hall, or I should say restaurant establishment in Fox Valley.

Pockets, I used to go there plenty of times. We all went there in our 20s. I attended there a lot of times.

We probably run into each other.

It was very popular back when the Bulls were on their winning streak. World champions. Yeah, when they were on their winning streak, so.

Alderman Barrero yes so so I understand the when the restaurant comes in full-service restaurant comes in it's approved at this this level but it's not always known if they're going to be having a pool room

Correct.

And so to Alderman Masiakos' point, then five years down the road, they can just come in administratively.

They could have come in administratively.

And get beyond the maximum without any input or any knowledge from us. And then we get approached by residents, why did you let this happen? Yeah.

I mean, they didn't have any, or before this, there was no limit. So we felt that you guys put a limit on there to begin with. Um, so we felt that if they were going, if they had a liquor license and they have, they have met all of the liquor requirements and they've been in good standings at that point, and they're asking for more than 10, then I feel like the city treasurer at that point probably can make the decision on if there, we were going to allow more than 10.

So at what point does the council find out about this being approved? If they'll say they come in and say, we want 20.

I mean, I think it's at that point, it's the discretion of the city treasurer. I mean, right now, right now, they you guys wouldn't know if how the the pool room right now how it works there is no limit on the number of pool tables at all so we're limiting it to 10 and then now we're just saying that if if they're going to have more than 10 it would be the city treasurer's there is the liquor license so now we have a standing on kind of you know the full liquor license so i think the city treasurer has at least some some background that they can see if they have a you know been in any violations of the liquor license or if they're coming in together you guys will be you will know that they're coming in at the same time so i think that there is at least some you know catch to this where they can at least contact the city clerk's office to see if we've had any issues or any problems through the liquor you know liquor commission or in the liquor license

Alderman Burrow the legal wants to add something yeah I just want to clarify something so under I'm sorry oh okay okay I just want to clarify something why the the city treasurer was was chosen and if this council wants to have a little more control over that you know obviously we can amend it accordingly but under section 25-16 licenses in the city are either issued by the city clerk such as the liquor license and there's a handful of others but anyways or the city treasurer in all cases other than the licenses issued by the city clerk handles everything else so everything from I mean there's a really long list of the types of license we do so anything from you know from tobacco to adult uses to pawnbrokers to raffles to tattoo to mobile food units all of that is handled by the city treasurer and so that's that's why this fits underneath the city treasurer is because that whole chapter is all licensing that fits under the city treasurer and that's all any exceptions to the rules any license questions on whether or not someone qualifies for a license doesn't qualify for a license That all falls under the city treasurer's authority under the ordinance. So that's why it is left to the treasurer's discretion. RAP did not specify, the RAP committee did not, they said they wanted to limit it to 10, but with discretion to go above that. But they didn't specify who they wanted for discretion. It made sense to Tracy and me to put it under the state treasurer. because that's what this entire section of the ordinance does. If the city council wishes to retain that power or put it to wrap or wherever, that's fine, but that was the thought process behind it.

And if there's a problem, probably the first people that are going to hear about it is the ward alder person, the liquor commissioner, the police, and the mayor. That's probably who's going to hear if there's an issue with any increase or whatever. I mean, I don't know if you're familiar with any institutions in your ward, but OK. I had Alderwoman Bade. OK, you had your light on. Sometimes, Alderman Franco.

So what we have done in the past with similar situations is we made sure when something went along those lines where somebody else is approving it, a notification was sent to the ward alderman just to keep them on board. That seems to work out pretty well. I think what you're talking about, having them approve it is fine, but notification to the ward alderman is a big deal. So I think if you could put that in there somewhere, I think that would make sense. I think they just want to be appraised of what was going on.

Does the council want to add that language right now with a short amendment that says with notification to the city council of any changes, just add a short sentence?

That's fine.

Friendly amendment? Yeah. Yeah, that's fine. Do you want to pop it up, pull the language, find the right place? Take just a minute to find the right place in the ordinance.

I think it would just go after that section.

It's page 7, line 17.

I don't have the Word document.

Do you want me to read it? Or do you want me to just hand this to you?

Oh, that would be easier. I'm waiting for it to load, but yeah. That's fine. That would work. Okay, so this is exhibit A to the legislature item 260446. So everyone's on the same page. So page seven, line 19. So let me start with line 17, part B. It reads, each establishment can have no more than ten pool tables unless otherwise approved by the city treasurer at his or her sole discretion. um and then i was just um i can just add there um with notification provided with uh with notification yeah with notification provided to do you want ward alderman or council if i'm in the fifth ward yeah it happens in the eighth ward i couldn't say well i don't really need to know you know but i want to know what my bad guy so i don't know that that would be necessary i think the ward alderman at large

we can just make it we can just make it with notification to all the aldermen and and some will act and some won't and probably the word all the person is probably gonna hear about it first if there's a problem okay with notification provided to the City Council so so can we read please read it is there is there a motion to adapt

So the added language will start on line 19, so get rid of the period, with notification provided to the city council, period.

There's a motion to amend the language of this ordinance made by Alderman Smith, second by Alderman Seville. Are there any further questions or discussion on this motion to amend the item before you? Hearing none, I'll ask the clerk to please call the roll on the amendment.

Herrera?

Yes.

Garza? Yes. Maciakos? Yes. Nunez? Yes. Franco? Yes. Seville? Yes. Van Weyels? Yes. Smith? Yes. Bugg?

Yes.

Bade? Yes. Larson? Yes. White? Yes. 12 yes, 0 no.

Is there a motion to, OK, the amendment is adopted. And is there now a motion to adopt agenda item 260446 with the friendly text amendment? Motion was made by Alderman Franco, second by Alderwoman Smith. Are there any questions or discussions? I'll ask the clerk to please call the roll.

Barrero? Yes. Garza? Yes. Masiakos? Yes. Nunez? Yes. Franco? Yes. Simmel? Yes. Ben Huevos? Yes. Smith? Yes. Bugg?

Yes.

Bade? Yes. Larson? Yes. White? Yes. 12 yes, 0 no.

Motion carries. This ordinance is adopted. That concludes unfinished business. Next, we'll move to returned items. Agenda item 26447. I'll ask the clerk to please call the roll. Or to please read the agenda item into the record.

260447, an ordinance amending chapter 2, article 2-4, section 2-277, pertaining to residency requirements for department heads for the police and fire departments.

Is there a motion to adopt this ordinance? Motion was made by Alderwoman Smith, second by Alderman Franco. Are there questions or discussion regarding this ordinance?

May.

Alderman Van Willis.

I'd like to propose an amendment. I'd like to move to amend the motion by revisiting exhibit A. Page, so it would be exhibit A, line 13. after the word city. I'd like to add for located no more than 15 miles from city hall measured by Euclidean miles or distance.

Just one moment.

Let's back up just a little bit. Which? Exhibit A. Exhibit A.

Page and line number. Page one. Line 13, after the word city. And so I would like to add, we're located no more than 15 miles from city hall, measured by Euclidean mile of distance.

Which exhibit is this?

A. Exhibit A, chapter 2, page 1, line 13. Line 13.

paragraph three I'm not seeing that it's not in there it's he's he wants to add it yeah do you see on line 13 on mine reads be a resident of this city

at the time of the appointment and confirmation by the city council.

So he wants to add between city and at the time. He wants to add or located no more than 15 miles from city hall measured by distance. Is that how you pronounce it?

OK.

Is everybody clear on what the motion was made? Can I ask why? And is there a second?

How is this changing it?

Well, let's see if there's a motion, a second, and then discussion.

The motion was made by?

There's been a motion. Is there a second for the sake of discussion? Second. Motion made by Alderman Ben Willis. Second. Second by Alderman White. Discussion on the amendment. First, I'll give Alderman Ben Willis an opportunity to present his rationale for the motion. Point of order.

And maybe there's a misunderstanding. There is a separate agenda item still at RAP with that exact language. So what happened, those items went back. They were split into two separate agenda items. This agenda item, as the title says, only deals with police and fire. There's a separate agenda item. which is still in RAP, which deals with the other department heads. So possibly we're duplicating, yeah, I don't want to duplicate what we're doing. We still have the agenda item four, the rest of the department heads still in RAP. Totally different agenda.

Understood. Alderman Ben-Willis has the right to amend it as is. I'll let him present his case.

I mean, in reality, what that was for is to give the city of Aurora the ability to hire specialized positions. But if it's In RAP, that's, I mean, for me, it's as long as we were able to put that in there. I mean, if we can do it now, we'll do it in RAP.

And the future of what happens in the RAP committee on the other item is uncertain.

Correct. So, I mean, if we can...

Alderman Franco. So what are you trying to achieve with this as opposed to the way it's written right now? What is the goal?

So the goal is basically to allow the city to be able to hire without having to have the residency requirements. So it basically allows the city to hire specialized positions. outside that fit within that 15 mile radius or Euclidean distance.

Well, we do have a 15 mile radius in there. You know that.

Well, it's not there.

There is a 15 mile radius in there. That's what you guys approved to wrap.

He's adding it to this section of the amendment. Yeah, that's what I'm adding to the debate.

So my question is, what are you trying to achieve by going from City Hall It's opposing a boundary. What is the goal there? Because we do have 15 miles. It's from the city limits to the next city limits.

Well, with that, I mean, the fact that my concern would be is if you're If you're not doing it from the point of City Hall and you're just kind of saying, hey, if you're within a certain city, right, then that individual could live on the far east corner of Joliet, let's say.

Right.

Right? And so then that gives them the ability to, you know, just time, just time to be able to get to whatever emergency they're at or whatnot. So, I mean, the fact that we can pinpoint or give them an actual distance, I mean, I think it matters.

So are you suggesting we go from a point in Aurora to a point in another town?

That is the amendment. Correct. No, no, he's saying a point from City Hall.

To a point where? To the boundary of a, because the way it's raised right now, we go from the boundary of Aurora to a boundary of another town. Once you hit the boundary of another town, it encompasses the whole town. So are you trying to take a point in Aurora to another point, or are you taking a point in Aurora to a boundary of that town, which encompasses the whole town?

No, it would be from a point to a point. So if we would take the point of City Hall, 15 miles out,

So if I live in Jordan. Hold on one second.

I want to clarify something. Are you proposing a radius from City Hall, 15 mile radius?

It would be a straight line, basically. It would be 15 miles from City Hall to.

To a person's house. Well. Well, I mean, we went through this. And the reason we went through this is because it's so hard to determine that. That's why we tried to make it easier. So, I mean, if I live on Oak Street and Joliet and one block over, I'm 15.1 miles. I'm no good if I would live one block closer. So we're trying to get away from that. So if you live in, we'll say Joliet, you're good in Joliet. And it was just cleaner and easier. And that's kind of why we got to that. So I think what we're trying to do is go backwards and reinvent the wheel. But we already had discussion, both in the PHST on that particular point and RAP. So I don't know why we're. we're going backwards and making it difficult to determine because that's really difficult to determine. You live in Joliet, you live in Plainfield, you live in Winfield, you're good to go. If you live in a certain block in Winfield, you may not be, but a block over here, that was the conundrum we were trying to get away from. So that's kind of why we got to where we got. So I'm just throwing it out there because I want people to know the thought process of how we got to this document city.

Right. I mean, I don't think if you're applying for the position and, I mean, I don't think, HR would take more than five minutes to determine your actual distance from it. I'm also trying to avoid the fact that you're just encompassing that whole city. You can be at the farthest corner of that city and take forever to get to it.

Well, I understand what you're saying.

I'm going to move on. I understand you've made your point. Any other members who wish to weigh in on it? Alderman Buck?

Yeah, just for clarification, if you accept that amendment, in that place for all the chiefs, you need to remove it on page two, line nine and ten or else you're going to have conflicting information.

What exhibit are you working with first, Alderman Pugg?

Exhibit A, page 2, the actual wording that was passed out of RAP. So now withstanding the requirements, subparagraph 3, chief police and city fire chief must reside within the city limits or within a municipality which is located in part no more than 15 miles from city limits. If you accept that amendment, that makes this move, they would be contradictory. So you have to have one or the other. You can't have both.

Legal counsel? One second.

Yeah, so I think there's a couple of things. So Alderman Bugg, I don't think it's contradictory because it's notwithstanding. So given that paragraph four starts with notwithstanding paragraph three and only applies to fire and police chiefs, I think that that's a standalone. So I don't think it's an actual contradiction. But also, you know, to the extent that there's a potential, you know, confusion or whatever between the 15 miles by, you know, Birdseye or 15 miles from city limit to city limit, I mean, it's up to Alderman Bernuelos if he wants to, you know, use similar language in his amendment versus the you know, what Alderman Franco proposed for the police and fire chiefs. That's something that can be corrected so it's consistent throughout, or paragraph four can be read independently.

I'm OK with amending it so that it's similar to what's more than 15 miles from the city limits. That's fine.

To be clear, what is it you were trying to do? So instead of the Euclidean distance, it would be 15 miles from ..

So is that just withdrawing your motion?

He's amending it, I think. Yeah, amended. So he's not withdrawing the amendment. OK. So let me get the language right, and then we'll work on the procedure. So for paragraph 3, so we're on page 1, line 13. So each department head shall either be a resident of the city or How about, or live within a municipality which is located in part no more than 15 miles from city limits at the time of appointment and confirmation by the city council, correct? Yes. OK. and is your I don't know who your second is wait I'm sorry okay thank you is your second willing to accept that amended language as well yes and I was actually going to ask if John's a ghouls over there and can um help put me it put this on the screen that would probably be helpful you want your computer put on the screen or you want his computer put on the screen with the item probably easy editable item but okay john is it possible to put uh corporate counsel's computer he just sent me a note i'll i'm gonna send this over to him all right just a second um Give me just a second to send this to him, and then I can read it to you again.

Well, can I ask a question while we're waiting?

Alderman Franco.

Do we have a list of what cities that now encompasses? Alderman Wood and Wallace, do we have a list of that? Do we have a list of what this amendment encompasses as far as cities?

I mean, it would be similar to the one that you have.

Well, I know, but when you go, all right, we have a list of boundary to boundaries. You're going from the middle of City Hall, I guess. You're going City Hall?

We went with City Limits.

Pardon?

We went with the City Limits.

I can't hear. I'm sorry.

We went with City Limits, so it would be the same information that you're – do you have a list of the cities? Well, no, we do.

We have a list of all these from boundary to boundary. So we're going from City Hall to a boundary, which would be an altered list. So I'm just wondering, do we have the information what that altered list would look like?

No, I do not.

He's saying it would be the same list.

It would be the same list that you would have.

He just changed it, which is why we're trying to get it on the screen, but he just changed it to reflect the same language that you had.

It would just apply to paragraph three. All right, so let me ask you a question geographically. If you're on the west side of Aurora, and you go from City Hall, it goes 15 miles to a certain point. If you go from the west side boundary.

He's withdrawn the 15 Acadian miles, and that's why it's important to get the language up on the screen, I think.

All right, so is the starting point City Hall? No. Oh, we're boundary to boundary? I'm sorry, I missed that. I thought you were going from City Hall to a boundary as opposed to boundary. Okay, you're right. I'm clear on that. I just thought it was different. My fault.

Basically, what he's trying to do is extend it for all city department heads to be the 15 mile radius around the city. Correct. With a simple text amendment. Am I accurate, first of all, in restating that?

Correct.

okay John John first let's let's let's John can we get the computer up I think it'll be easier once we have the way to look at this I agree but as much as I would love the IT stuff to be instantaneous it's not

Mr. Mayor.

Alderman Bugg. While that's coming up, for clarification again. Because in one iteration when this came back to wrap, The language did not include those positions with special licenses. And forgive me if I'm wrong, attorney. And then we had to go back. and change it like it wasn't on the books we passed it but it wasn't in the wasn't uploaded or something at least that's what I was told but it is added back in now but we need to know if this amendment is going to apply to those positions so basically attorney Chief of Finance and Public Works. The three licensed positions. I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. I've lost the train there.

What he said, I'll try and restate this and correct me if I'm wrong, is that prior to you taking this seat, we amended our residency ordinance to become in compliance with state law, which allowed licensed Positions to live outside of city limits if I heard you correctly you said that we added that to this initially didn't add that to the city code, but I've since added that to the city code and You want to know would this amendment Apply to those three positions as well, or is that a separate?

Yes, that is exactly my question

Or is that a separate question? So first let's try and change, let's look at the actual text and type it in there and if we could highlight it, that'll make it easier for everybody to understand.

Okay, so the paragraph three, line 13, the red text there is what Alderman Benuelos has, if you can take a look at it too and just make sure that I correctly typed it. is the amendment that you requested. So, or live within a municipality which is located in part no more than 15 miles from city limits at the time of appointment. Yes. And confirmation. Okay. And then that is what Alderman White seconded. So that's the amendment that's considered. As for Alderman Bugg's question, let me look at the, as we're doing this, let me take a quick look at the statute I think that you still need the language for the professional licensing because that's part of the state statute.

You could probably say with exception, begin that sentence on line 12, with exception of license positions, each department head shall- Well, if you just scroll down, it's already in there.

Okay, understood. The stuff about the- The caveat's already in there? The caveats are all in there because of the residency set forth in the paragraph shall not apply. Oh, that's the grandfathering. If you scroll to the next page, there you go. The residency does not apply to department heads whose duties require a professional license.

Does that answer your question, Alderman Budd?

So it doesn't change any of that.

Okay, so it will not impact those three positions.

Yes.

May I ask a question?

I think I had Alderman Seville first.

Yes. And I'll go second.

OK. Alderman Smith. That's fine.

All right. So I'm just trying to get a clear understanding what we're doing. We sat down here this evening. We were looking at police and fire only. with the amendment as it had been at wrap twice and PHSNT once. So everybody's had an opportunity to make these amendments prior to tonight. So I don't know why we're sitting here tonight making amendments. But even so, my question is, is this amendment you are making still for just police and fire? That's my first question. Is this amendment still for just police and fire? Because if so, we've gone completely off kilter, but that's okay because that's what we do. Is this still for just police and fire? It's your amendment. You need to answer it.

Well, yeah, it would be for department heads as well.

So police, fire, and department heads.

Correct.

Does that eliminate what's at wrap now for department heads? Does anybody have that answer?

I think it would be redundant but I would leave that for other members And then can I ask one more question I'll answer that yes if we pass this amendment it will virtually make what the engine item at WRAP right now moved Okay then my last question is is the 15 miles

the same as it was when we did it at PHS&T and when you did it at RAP twice? Or have we now changed the 15 miles? It's now been changed? So 15 miles from here, and I'm going to Oswego. I can only go 15 miles. I can't live in Oswego past that 15 miles? I'm asking.

Boundary to boundary. Boundary.

That's what I just asked and you shook your head now so that'll be for department heads and then the sentence at the end would Applying to police and fire would remain the same as of as of right now if this amendment goes through So we're changing and I'm not trying to ask question.

I'm trying to understand so we're changing the mileage is different for department heads than it is for police and fire no it's the same mileage but it's is that correct it's the same mileage I just copied and pasted So we've taken the police and fire one, and we've put it into department ones. Other than that, this is the same. Am I correct? Am I correct?

I'll let corporate counsel answer that question.

So we've taken the police and fire one that was here tonight. We've added department heads into it. But we've kept the same. limits of boundaries that we had before we sat down. We didn't change the boundary limits.

Okay, so the... No, no, no. I think I understand. I just want to be clear because... I'm trying to be clear because I am not... No, no, that's fine. I don't remember because this has been bounced around a lot. I don't remember when we settled on the language of no more than 15 miles from... City limits. City limits. I don't remember when we settled on 15 versus, I think, 20 was floated for a while. I don't remember when that was resolved. But this, besides what has been added to line 13 and 14 on what's on the screen. So, John, if you scroll down to the paragraph 4 on the next page, this language here is what came out of RAP less week I think I believe that this was not changed from the last City Council meeting where it was sent back to wrap on the rule of two and return to City Council I don't believe there was any changes to this language so this is what City Council saw two weeks ago this is what came out of wrap last week and all I did for the amendment that that that Alderman has asked for was to copy the must reside within city limits or within a municipality which is located in part no more than 15 miles from city limits. I just copied it and put it in paragraph.

So I'm going to ask my question again for a yes or no answer. Sorry. No. So if we, 15 miles from city limits, Takes you to Oswego, which we know it takes further. Yep. That means whomever it is we're talking about here, whichever department heads or police or fire, they can live anywhere in Oswego. That's the way it reads. If 15 miles takes you to Yorkville. Anywhere in Yorkville. Okay.

Okay.

Thank you. I'm sorry to be so dense, but I do believe some of you.

I had Alderman Seville, then Alderman Bate.

Well, apparently I must be a little dense, too, because I need a clarification on the mileage as well. The original mileage was city limits to the next city limits, so to speak. It wasn't from city hall to where they're living. So we're keeping it as the language that came out of PHS&T and RAP. Is that correct? And the only thing that we're adding is department heads, which is really still in committee. Is that correct?

So we're going to nullify that. OK.

And is the reason why we're not waiting for a committee recommendation? Were you not going to be recommending something?

He just made a motion.

He made a motion to bring it forward and do it here. But nothing happened at WRAP to prevent that legislation from being considered at some point? No, it's over. Okay, thank you.

Alderwoman Bate.

So two weeks ago, The original ordinance, which is 0447, which is titled as Police Chief and Fire Chief, that went to committees. And two weeks ago it came to city council where there was an amendment making it for all the head of the departments. At that point, that particular ordinance was sent back to RAB so that this and that ordinance is separated and we keep it separate because they're two different things. So I know the general idea is to have 15 miles for all the department heads. But this particular ordinance, we are doing the same thing that we were trying to do two weeks ago. It is titled as Fire Chief and Police Chief. And in between, we are going to make an amendment for all the department heads. That particular change is being addressed as part of another ordinance at RAP. Are we going to still discuss that ordinance? I'm confused because we are still discussing that at RAP for all department heads, and that particular rule will trickle down to all the department heads. So why are we discussing all department heads as part of this? Because two weeks ago, we were stuck here, and that's why they were split into two appointments.

You could call it government efficiency and trying to get it done in one meeting, but we're not known for that.

I understand, but the title is misleading. So in future, if we see it is fire and police, but under that umbrella, we are actually addressing all the department heads. So what is the use of the other amendment? That's what I'm trying to understand. I mean, another ordinance, not amendment.

In theory, you could drop the other ordinance, or you could do whatever you move that ordinance as it's currently written.

Just to clarify, Shannon Cameron, Chief of Staff, it's the same ordinance for both pieces. Understand the title issue for sure, but because it's the same ordinance, you can bring amendments regardless because it's the same. I know that there's some wishes to separate the two, but it all falls under the same ordinance number.

So can I say something? As part of the other ordinance, I had made an amendment at the RAP committee. And we had several discussions and Alderman Maciacos had brought up amazing points. So based on that, the amendment that was discussed and is still being discussed at RAP for all the department heads, I can read it here, which would be appropriate to read here because it is with 15 miles and conditions. So that will make it complete if it's OK.

So I guess if you have further amendments to the one at At RAP, you can discuss and make those there.

So I will be OK if that amendment runs and it is attached. I think was also there at RAP, and he's also aware of it. So if he or I, if we add this, then it makes more sense, because that is part of all the department heads' amendment, along with 15 miles. It's an and condition.

Well, right now we've got one amendment on the table to discuss. Can I read the amendment that is being discussed? I suppose if you want to address it after we discuss this amendment and make your own amendment, we can do that.

I'll be able to vote on basis of this amendment. So I don't know if I can read it. And if it makes sense, then I will wait and we can go through first amendment. And then I can make an amendment. What was being discussed for all department heads, that's what I want to read.

It's what's on the screen right now. Yeah.

So I'm just going to read what I was proposing at RAP. The person taking the office of chief or any head of the department has worked for the department for at least five consecutive years. So 15 miles and this. So in that amendment, we are trying to promote all our city employees who have had experience and they know the city culture, they know the whereabouts of the city, and we are encouraging people working for the city to look forward for future higher positions and work towards promotions.

OK, so right now there's a motion to amend. Are you asking to, I guess I just, I want to understand, are you asking Alderman Benuelos if he is willing to accept that amendment? Yeah. OK, Alderman Benuelos.

And if anybody has any questions, I'm available to answer.

Or are you going to wait for one amendment to go through and make a second amendment? It would be a lot cleaner.

If it makes sense to him for adding this, I don't mind.

I think we should wait for the amendment to go through and then add. If you wanted to add your amendment, we can then vote on that.

OK, any other further discussion on Alderman Ben Willos' amendment? If anybody who hasn't spoken, Alderman Larson.

Thank you. Yeah, I guess a couple questions about this. Since this is basically taking the language that we have in paragraph four on the second page from what is already in exhibit A, Since we're basically copy pasting that to apply to all the department heads, is there going to be a need to get rid of paragraph four? I guess it's redundant. It's not really doing any harm, but it's saying all city department heads need to meet these criteria. But for the police chief and fire chief, they have to meet the exact same criteria. It's just redundant.

Is that a question for legal?

Question for me?

Yeah, is that something that we should remove?

Well, let's put it this way. Redundancy in statutes and ordinances is not uncommon. Should we remove it? Probably. Do we have to? No.

Okay, and then I guess one other small detail here with the language that was copied over, I see, or live within a municipality, so on. Right before that it says within the city limits or within a municipality. Is it important to copy that language over?

we we can do that i was trying because it said resident of the city or live within i was actually thinking or reside should have been so it was consistent with the language live and reside but i was typing fast so that also seems redundant to me so yeah yeah i i i just think it's it's not really redundant i would just change live to reside because it would be consistent with the residency language rather than But that's more stylistic than anything else.

I have a question for Alderman Buck.

I want to get Alderman Masiakos to give him a chance to speak on this amendment, and I'll come back after everybody's spoken.

Thank you, Mayor. Just an off-the-wall question. What if they're an unincorporated area? Do they just start wiggling around the county?