City Council - Regular Meeting

Please stand and join us in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Sullivan I here. Stampinado here. Shower here. Leansky here. Kenny here. Gustoson. Belzac here. Six present and one absent.

We have a quorum. Takes us to questions and comments and announcements of a general nature. Uh this is on our agenda. It's been there for several years. It allows anybody from the audience to make a presentation to the city council on a nonaggenda item. Does anybody like to make that do that? Please come forward. Just state your name. Three minutes. Hello. My name is Henry Florentini.

Oh, that's it. All right. I'm here today because in my opinion, our police department has crossed a line. On April 7th, I noticed a interesting looking camera at the intersection of Planefield Road and Lynden Avenue. As it turns out, this is a Flock brand camera that works with other cameras to create a searchable database of every single car on the road. Uh allowing the government to track any driver's movement, regardless of whether they've been accused of a crime or are the subject of a police investigation. In my opinion, this is an unacceptable violation of our Fourth Amendment rights and a disgusting example of government overreach. The government has no right to track where we go, when we go there, or how often we do it if we are not suspected of any crime. This is not how a free society operates. It is how a surveillance state operates like China or North Korea. So, just to be clear, these cameras do not just look for criminals or only trigger when there's evidence of a crime, like a red light camera. These cameras record innocent people going to work, visiting friends, attending church, and going to medical appointments. They create a searchable history of our daily lives with no warrant, no probable cause, and no consent. Now, of course, if the justification for all this is that it helps catch criminals, which I'm sure it does, well, we could follow that reasoning. We could install microphones on every street corner to record every outdoor conversation. That would help. That would catch a lot more criminals. That would be wonderful on paper. It would just require a complete and shameless abandonment of our principles as a free society. This does not seem to be a gray area to me. It is not simply a disagreement on policy. This is a fundamental question of our values as Americans. Do we have a right to live our lives without being constantly monitored by our government? At this moment, our police department's answer is no. That should concern everyone in the

room. It is disturbing, unethical, and it is creepy. Darien is supposed to be a nice place to live where people are comfortable and free. And that is incompatible with a surveillance state that catalogs their movements. Frankly, Darien was a nice place to live and we can still fix it by removing these cameras, rolling this program back, and apologizing to the people of the city. We have to categorically reject this digital drag net that treats every resident like a criminal. That's all. Thank you. your response. Anybody want to make a response? Okay. Thank you. Takes us to approval of our minutes for April 6, 2026. Do we have a motion to approve? Alman Stampinado, seconded by Alderman Belzac. Any questions or comments?

On the roll. Stampinado. I. Belzac. Hi, Kenny. I Shower. Hi, Sullivan. I Leansky. Hi. Six eyes's and one absent. The minutes have been approved. Receiving communications. Do any of the alderman have communications they'd like to share?

Uh, thank you, mayor. Um, I received a very lengthy email from um, Andrew Kelly, a resident in ward um, five regarding the stormchasers and um, offering um, quite a bit of detail on suggestions on how we as a city can um, address the large surge of mostly roof repair people after our severe storm um, kind of repetitive severe storms and all the hail. So, um I did share that this email with um his suggestions and um ideas um with city staff which also then shared it with the police department um to try to you know just see if there's things that we could do potentially um differently or um explore moving forward. Um, I'm just going to remind um the city that once again, you know, we always say if someone is, you know, at your door and you don't want people coming to your door, whether it's about roofs or about, you know, um, anything, um, you need to get then a no solicitation sticker, um, which are available for free at city hall. Um people um if they're going to engage with you um at your front door, they should have a permit which needs to be secured from city hall. And if you're ever concerned about a stranger at your door or on your property, the best thing to do is to call 911. And the police have um responded to many many calls um and gone out and taken care of that um um right away. But um there are many many hundreds and hundreds of ro roofing permits that um have been um issued so far since March. 350 to be exact. So there is a need for um roofs to be repaired. But um we are taking um the

information that um Drew Kelly, Andrew Kelly shared with us um and um just you know seeing how it fits into our current protocols and if there's any tweaking that we can um do. Okay. Well, one thing I'd want to add, um, we have people who will call city hall. They will have a contractor in mind. They've decided to have their roof redone or some work redone, and they call city hall, and Mary Belandi is able to tell them the history of that individual, that that contracting group. I had a call today from a woman who wants to get a new roof. She knows she needs a new roof. It's very old roof. And she said, "Is there anyone the city might recommend and um I talked to Mary and Mary gave her the name of a company and an individual to speak to." So there is a reason for them to call sometimes and ask that question. And you know, I trust that these names that we do give them are I know that I asked Mary for that that question two years ago and she gave me uh a contractor who I utilize who turned out to be a wonderful contractor. So I would urge people to do that if they if they're going to repair the roof and they're not sure to check it out through our building department. Dam.

Yeah. Mayor, just to expound on your statement, when we provide these recommendations, typically we give we hand out three to four that have been in town working consistently for several years. So, it's not that somebody knows somebody. So, I just kind of wanted to put it put that out there. Uh, to date, we also have probably close to 375 now on permits. I anticipate that we're going to probably have close to 200 more easily. Um, so and and we do go through a vetting process just to expound on Drew's points, Andrew's points, and Mary, uh, your read on that. Um, a lights a roofer if he comes in here to solicit or anyone who comes in here to solicit has to come to the city hall and basically fill out an application. That application goes through a background check. And if I'm not mistaken, Greg, what is that? A 7-day process typically or do you recall?

I don't know. Okay. So, it is about a week. I'll call it five 10 days. Thank you. Uh it is a 10day process. Now, several times or I should say majority of time after we get these storms, these guys are out the following morning. All right. Residents need to be aware of do ask them if they have a solicitor's license. That's the first thing. If not, or if you don't know who it is or don't, you know, don't want to know who it is, call the police. Let the police determine whether or not they have a solicitor's license. I personally stopped one person uh the day after the storm, two days after, and I said, "Do you have a solicitor's license?" Introduced myself, so on and so forth. And he did not. I didn't know. That's the wrong answer. You know, all these roofers are vetted. you know, they know they need permits, they know they need licenses. So, and especially with these guys, and again, the best thing I could tell a resident, don't sign on the first uh um when they come out and because you you'll never get a proposal. Typically, you won't get a proposal or a quote from these guys because they're going to meet your insurance company and you will never know in some cases what the dispersements are. Can I make a comment about the solicitors? No solicitors. I put mine right where my bell is, right across my bell. It used to be on the bottom of my door and they don't look at the bottom of the door. So, when they're going to ring your bell, put your no soliciting sign right by it and they don't come.

It's It's worked. Thank you. We do hand those out. Yes, we do all the time. Yep. Anything else? Anything else, Joe?

Um, I've got I got a few here today. Um Bonnie Cacera to called regarding some curbs um in Darren or um in Norman Courts. Uh Jack Quinns on Summit Road um emailed me regarding the need of having four coffee shops from Fair View to KS Avenue and Dan will expound about that here shortly. Um got a call from Ron um Ray Milis on Worth regarding a gravitational um flooding of um down the curb line from 71st all the way to the middle of the block on on Worth. And then I got a call from John Arvis regarding um tenants leaving a property uh not in good condition on Sequoia. So I had a busy week. Anything else?

Now we'll move to the mayor. Sorry, mayor. Joe, I think you asked a question in respect to that for a statement with Mr. Milkus. Oh, with Mr. uh Milkus. Yes. Do you want me? Yeah. If you if you can if you can. Sure. And if just uh residents uh city council uh uh Alderman Kenny and myself had a conversation earlier in regard to this and what it's in reference to is uh gentleman reached out to Joe in regards to how many coffee shops do we need? You know, currently we have That's Mr. It's Mr. Quinn. Keep going.

I'm sorry. Um we have several coffee shops in town. Obviously, we can't we cannot regulate, you know, the types of businesses, you know, uh businesses that are allowed within the city where they can, you know, they're zoned in that district. They have the right and they have the opportunity. Uh this was in reference to the Dutch coffee that's up and coming now at the former TGI Fridays. Again, it it's it's good competition. It's healthy competition. And again, these companies are not moving into an area unless they've done their demographics. You know, you may like Dunkin' Donuts. I may like Starbucks. I may next person might like XYZ. It's a multi-billion dollar uh industry. Um so it's these companies really vet their process before they just come in and uh put up a coffee shop. You It's no different than a gas station, a bank. Um so it's along those lines. And the research I did prior to calling you is those were like three different I mean at least Dutch Brothers, Duncan and Starbucks were three different business models. Correct. So you're going to get three different sets of customers going into

correct. All demographics all depends what you know those demographics predict but YouTube's good.

Thank you. Anything else? Okay, we move to the mayor's report. Have a number of items I like to mention. Uh Kathy and I were invited to attend the multicultural fair held at Cass Junior High on Friday, April 17th. Uh this was the second year they've held this a multicultural affair. Uh this year they had 20 countries that were represented by a table where people had ethnic dress on, ethnic food, games, facts and figures regarding uh the countries. There was uh artwork done by the children which uh basically looks something like this where they were all talking about uh uh international cooperation, ethnic cooperation uh beautiful beautiful artwork and um I'm very happy to have attended that and met some people from from different areas. really disappointment. Of the 20 countries that actually had tables, Italy wasn't there.

So, we're missing some good food there. But, uh, kudos to, uh, Superintendent Mark Cross and his staff. This really speaks to the cultural diversity of the school. He indicated to us that there are 60 countries represented in district 63, which is uh, truly amazing. uh elected officials and the daring business alliance were invited to participate in a ribbon cutting at Chestnut Court's uh shopping center, the new Burlington store. Uh Burlington, in an expression of his commitment to community involvement, made a $5,000 donation to District 61. I would like to clarify that the city was not consulted by Burlington staff regarding this donation and the choice of the school district selected and the donation were not made known to staff and elected officials until the event. April indicated to me the only the first time she knew realized that a donation was going to be given was when she got out of her car and she saw staff members from district 61 there. We received a number of social media complaints from people from district 66. Uh one person even alleged that Darien was favoring uh certain public schools over the other which there was no truth to them. Uh I responded to an email from a board member from district 66 and I indicated to her that we knew nothing about it. We were not part of any recommendation as to who got that money and who didn't. So, I want to make that clarification.

Please thank them for their donation.

And yes, and and uh what was sad is uh a former alderman who now lives in Woodridge made the comment on social media that anybody any future business that would see some of the complaints uh might think twice about providing a donation if they were coming into Durian. So, it really didn't look good some of the things people said. We will be attending a ribbon cutting ceremony uh at the Brook Haven Shopping Center on April 22nd, this coming Wednesday to celebrate Earth Day. Celebrate Earth Day and the installation of the new chargers. The site is offering EV drivers the opportunity to charge their vehicles at 50% off for 2 hours between 1 and 3 p.m. at the Brook Haven Market parking lot. We'll be doing a ribbon cutting as well. Uh this Friday, April 24th, we'll be we will be celebrating Arbor Day at the Hinsburg Park beginning at 9:30. Two trees will be dedicated. One to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence and another one for Algerian residents who we lost last year. We will have participation by a number of community groups and agencies including children from our three local school districts. Following that event, the Durian Garden Club will conduct a tree planting at Birchwood Park beginning at 11:00 to commemorate the celebration of their 25th anniversary. Um, the Durian Lions Club will be holding its second annual meat raffle at St. Scholastica and Woodridge on Saturday, April 25th. Tickets are $5. The Durian Garden Club will be holding a celebration of its 25th anniversary on Monday, April 27th at the Durian Park District Community Center beginning at 5:00 p.m. And the Durian Rotary will be conducting its annual casino night at the Ashton Place on Tuesday, April 28th,

beginning at 6 p.m. And tickets for that event are $125. So, I just wanted to mention all these activities of late. We have a lot of things going on in the city and I wanted to inform the public of what all of our different groups are doing. That concludes my mayor's report. Move to the city clerk's report. Joan,

I I have one announcement. The ethics statements for the city of Darian and the statements of economic interest for DuPage County are due on May 1st. the people who need to complete those uh economic statements have been emailed by both the county and the city. So if you have not turned in your ethic statements yet, please do so as soon as possible. Uh city administrator's requirement.

Thank you, mayor. Just one item. Um I recognized Dan uh earlier with the city council, but there's item on the council's agenda tonight. a series of items regarding uh the work that uh retaining wall at Planefield Road in Cass Avenue. And I just wanted to give a really sincere thanks to Dan going back for working on this project. It's been two and a half years. It's been very very difficult. There's land acquisition. There's all kinds of engineering involved and it was been a very very difficult project and you know along the way I question if this was really ever going to happen because it was getting very very difficult. So Dan, again kudos to you and also big thanks to DuPage County. they've been a great partner in this and appreciate you working very very closely with them. But thanks Dan.

Yeah, definitely. And the residents all came together as well. So uh I thank you for that comment. Appreciate it. Uh we move to the uh department head report. U Thomas has a report to give.

Uh sure. Everybody's received the uh March monthly report which really looks at January, February, and March. Um just a couple of things, the headlines about prescription drug takeback. Uh durian environmental committee um had an event and uh they collected 36 pounds of um prescription drugs. Um been doing this for a lot of years and we've taken a lot of um prescription drugs back. We have the uh um box in the lobby at the police department in uh it says 2026, sorry, 2025. We took um 240 pounds of prescription drugs. So, a lot of drugs sitting in medicine cabinets that uh have been turned in and continue to take a lot of uh those prescription drugs back. uh telecommunications uh week was u last week and obviously we use Dukecom as our 911 uh call center. Very appreciative of all the work that they do. We handle about 7,000 um officer initiated calls about 6,000 citizen generated calls where they either call 911 or a 10 digit 10digit dial. And uh there's a lot to manage that. It's not just one call in and um a dispatch out. You know, they can arrange for the tow trucks at an accident, uh fire apparatus, um medical services, all kinds of different things that uh an officer may need on the scene to um handle whatever issue that's um at hand and uh then manage that and do all the stuff. So, hats off to them and appreciation. And then just uh um one of the things that was noted in the um annual report was seeing the um outreach and notifications that happened. You see

it in one block. Um it appears to be a lot when you you don't see them in those um uh once you do see them there there's a lot. And uh so it just added that in there as a a feature u about what's going on and notifications and community outreach and the like. And then uh obviously then it gets into all the statistical stuff. So uh if anybody has any questions, comments um that's great. And if not that's my report. Any questions for Chief Thomas? If not, uh Mr. Gbeck, anything you want to add? Not for this evening. Thank you, mayor.

Thank you. That takes us to our treasuries report. We have a warrant and a monthly report. Thank you, Mayor. This evening, I'm requesting council's approval of warrant number 252624 in the amount of $619,8.36 from the listed funds. Payroll for the period ended April 16th in the amount of $358,643. Total be approved of $977,72.79. Motion to approve. Alman Shower seconded by Alman Belzac. Again, any questions or comments. If none Shower, I Belzac, hi. Kenny, hi. Leansky. Hi. Sullivan. Hi. Stampinado. Hi.

Six eyes and one absent.

Warrants been approved. The monthly report. The monthly report for the 7 11 months ended March 31st, 2026 reflects general fund year-to- date revenue of 19,547,192. Expenses of 15,46,814 current balance $8,6,364. Water and water depreciation fund year-to- date revenue 7,325,39 expenses 7,823,278. Current balance $2,711,828. Motor fuel tax funded to date revenue $880,391 expenses of $699,818. Current balance $780,528 and the capital improvement fund year-to- date revenue of $93,255. Expenses of $2,917,660. Current balance $21,455,525.

Any questions for Mike on the monthly report? If now we move to standing committee reports, any of the alderman, any of the chairman have um information to share with the council. Mary, uh the next ad, excuse me, administrative finance committee meeting will take place on Monday, May 4th at 6 p.m. in the city hall conference room. Thank you. Alder County. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um, this evening, the police committee voted and passed the minutes for February 17, 2026, and we have submitted those to the clerk's office. Our next meeting, pending agenda items, will be at Monday, May 18th, 2026 at 6 p.m. across the parking lot in the police training room.

Bela,

thank you, Mr. Mayor. Uh, the next municipal services meeting will be a week from today, Monday, April the 27th at 6 p.m. in council chambers. Thank you very much. Takes us to questions and comments agenda related. There be no one in our audience. We move on to old business. There being no old business, we move to the consent agenda before we start. Item D currently listed under consent agenda has been removed from the agenda. Items A through I under the new business have all been moved to the consent agenda. And the loan new business item we have is the former item J, which is now the new item A. And Joanne's going to help me here if I screw this up. Item A, motion to approving the Darian Youth Club and the Darian Lions Club opening day parade on Saturday, April 25th, 2026 and wave the police department expenses. Item B, motion approving the release of executive session minutes that no longer require confidentiality. Item C, motion to enter into an agreement with Clark Mosquito for three years. Item D, motion approving a memorandum of understanding between the city of Darian and the Durian Lions Club for the 2026 Darian Fest and 2026 October Fest. Item E, motion authorizing the Planefield Road rear wall retaining project at the southeast corner of Planefield Road and Cass Avenue in an amount not to exceed $751,24 with a reimbursement from the county of DuPage as per the intergovernmental agreement on file and amount of approximately $381,484

pending final quantities. ities. Item F, motion approving authorizing the merit to entry into an agreement in a contract, excuse me, with land work limited for the plane road rear water wall project in amount not to exceed $422,52747 as per the schedule of pricing. Item G, motion authorizing the public works drainage project as part of the Planefield Road rear wall project to JC Landscaping in an amount not to exceed $86,200 as per the schedule of pricing. Item H, authorizing an expenditure for down lighting, electrical lighting components, comment, service, and insulation as part of the Planefield Road rear wall project and amount not to exceed $25,000 as per the schedule of pricing. Item I, approval of a motion authorizing an expenditure for the purchase and installation services of select trees, planting and mulching to Springrove Nursery supplier and Apex Landscaping Installer in amount not to exceed $17,288 in accordance with the schedule of pricing. and um

J. Item J, motion authorizing an expenditure for the removal and replacement of the curb and gutter through the city's approved 2026 concrete contact contract with suburban contra concrete at the contract unit pricing for Lynen Avenue and Planefield Road as the part of the Planefield Road rear wall project radius right lighting in an amount not to exceed $10,512 as per the schedule pricing. Um item K, motion authorizing an expenditure for the milling and resurfacing through the city's approved 2026 road maintenance program with builders paving at the contract unit pricing for Linda and Bane Planefield Road as part of the Planefield Road rear wall project radius widening in an amount not to exceed 25,000 as per the schedule of pricing. and item

L F L L correct motion authorizing a contingency and amount of 58,300 531,000 for unforeseen project conditions or additions that may be required motion to approve alman shower second by alderman Kennedy Shower I Kenny I Leansky I Sullivan hi hi Stampinado. Hi. Six eyes's and one absent.

Our consent agenda has been approved. We go to new business. We have a one item. Item A, a resolution authorizing the execution of a letter of intent for continued participation in a DuPage Police Records Management System. To approve to stop the second by Alman Shower. Any discussion? We discussed this um issue tonight at the police committee meeting and we voted on at 20 and it's basically taking the systems that we have currently and just tweaking them and improving them a little bit. Chief knows more about it than I do and he could do a far better job of explaining it. Okay.

Certainly.

There's uh several parts to the enterprise system. Uh so there's CAD which is the uh 911 center that um takes all the information in from uh either 911 call 10 digit dial or police radio or uh police um computer and then they manage that call using uh CAD. Um MPS is the part of the um enterprise system that allows for communication from the squad car and uh 911 center back and forth. allows for leads, NCIC, Secretary of State, all these different types of checks that you would want to do about a wanted person, a stolen car, uh driver's license, license plates, all those different types of things run through that that program. Those two are staying with um Hexagon, our current vendor. Uh there's a lot of dissatisfaction within uh police departments and um uh records clerks and county IT with the records management system where all the data flows into and uh field-based reporting the system that the officers use to type out their police reports and uh so uh the county authorized the um an RFP. So, an RFP went out and uh they did all their due diligence. Um all the uh police agencies were invited to see the um V vendors and what they can do and can't do and all those different types of things. So, um a vendor has been identified. What this project is is just to ask that the consortium, so there's um all the police departments in DuPage County with the exception of Aurora, Neapville, and um Elmherst uh were in this consortium. Downers Grove and um Addison left that consortium. Everybody else is currently in that consortium. They believe maybe

one or two more might leave depending. But uh Bob Berlin who obviously is the chief law guy in uh Dwage County would like it that everybody stays on the same system. Um but uh whether we stay with this system if not then we would have to go out do our own RFP and spend a whole lot of money doing that um project in order to we have to have a records management system have to have a field-based reporting system. So my recommendation is to stay with the consortium. From from what I read, I attended a meeting of the um of the group and I saw their discussion and they really went through an extensive study in terms of the three that they I think it was Axium um Mark

43 23 and um Motorola correct

and they um really went through an extensive study in terms of ranking I think we had a couple officers that actually participate in the um in the trial. So, this they've gone through a lot to get to this point. U Greg mentioned that we may have a few drop out. They if we have a couple more communities drop out and the cost to any of the municipalities hits 10% more in terms of cost, there's something that kicks in at that point from what I understand. Well, it all depends of when they leave the consortium and whether they're um still uh required to pay the hexagon amount and or the new vendor amount. And uh so that's um been discussed at the um PRMS committee which is mayors and managers and Bob Berlin runs that um show. I don't I never heard that 10% number. Uh but there is a a cost associated with it. Um the ugliness of this agreement is that they can give us an approximate cost but until they know how many agencies are going to stay in the consortium and what the agencies within the consortium want as part of modules. One that they asked about already was um whether or not we wanted to use um cell phones to write police reports and we said no. So, um, a lot of those are individual to the agency. So, we said no, but, um, another agency could say yes, and then they would have to configure for that agency or agencies that said yes to that. But we wouldn't be paying for that fee. We would pay the for the modules that we want.

Any other questions for Chief Thomas? Okay, we have a motion and a second. Stampinado. Hi, Shaw. Hi, Sullivan. Hi, Leansky. Hi Kenny. Hi. Belzac I. Six eyes's and one absent.

The item has been approved. Take sense to questions, comments, announcement of a general nature. Do any of the alderman have anything they' like to share? One quick I think I'd like to share is last week I got a chance to go to Mark Delay school um to the second to the second grade class that they were doing a career a career club and to hear second grade second graders asking questions about Alderman these kids were for seventh and eighth eight-year-old kids these kids were really sharp some of the questions they ask you know and then you know the asked the big the big how much money you make you those kind of questions. But no, it was it was it was it was real fun.

I I was a participant in that about a month or so ago. You are correct. They ask a lot of really good questions. I had a little girl in the front of the classroom looked at me and she said, "Have you met President Trump yet?" And I said, "No, I haven't." She looked at me and she goes, "Well, why in the world haven't you met him yet?" And I said, "We don't run in the same circles." That's right. But they are they are a for second graders. These kids really ask some good questions. They really did. I'm glad you did that, Joe.

Anything else? Motion to adjurnn stand by Alderman Kenny. All in favor. Thank you everyone.