City Council - Regular Meeting

indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

And the roll.

Balzac?

Here.

Gustafson?

Here.

Kenney?

Absent. Loganski? Absent. Schauer?

Here.

Stompanato?

Here.

Sullivan? Here. Five present, two absent.

We have a quorum. It takes us to questions and comments and announcements of a general nature. This is on the agenda. to allow anybody who's in the audience to come forward and address the council on any issue. It doesn't have to be on our agenda. It could be something that they just want to present to the city council, a concern that they have, and they can do that now. Now would be the time we would do that. Just come forward and state your name.

Good evening. My name is John Jurczyk. I live at 700 Somerset Lane here in Darien. I've lived here my whole life. What I'm looking for is on Farmingdale Drive. Obviously, it's one of the busiest streets that go north and south in our community. I've talked to Jerry Leganski about this, about providing a sidewalk. on the west side of Farmerdale Drive, which connects addresses 7622 Farmerdale and 7726 Farmerdale. Those sidewalks are there, but there's a lot of grass in between there. I don't want to throw my wife under the bus, but she has one of those that fell through and one of the holes there between those sidewalks that are not connected. I know there is a, obviously we know there's a Farmingdale condominium about back of their place, so it's not the front of theirs, but just like on Nantucket, we have a connected sidewalk that way. Going to now, paying for this, my main thing is street enforcement. I've seen a lot of the same cars on Farmingdale Drive just south of 75th Street between 75th and Walnut. There's a pickup truck that's been there for two months. I go up and down Farmingdale Drive probably five, six, seven times a day, four o'clock in the morning, five o'clock in the morning on my way to work. I never see a ticket on these cars. Now, I understand you have, you can call in advance, you know, the three days, just like we've been doing this for the last 33 years since I've been living here. But it's just the same car. There's just no skin in the game when it comes to these apartments. They don't care what's on the community. They're just sitting there parking on the streets. There's plenty of spots in their parking lot. They have landscaping. If they need more parking spots, they can cut into that. And we've seen it in January when we're doing the snow plowing You got snowplow guys our streets and sanitation's Fantastic our police enforcement fantastic. I think we get the best bang for a buck in any community our communities in My businesses are in Hinsdale and Western Springs, and we don't get the services that we get here So I want to thank you guys for that but Going back to, one, the sidewalk is what I'm looking for. It's been vacant there for many, many, many years. And I would think getting more people off the street of Farmerdale where it's very busy would be a good idea to at least get them on the sidewalk.

I'm trying to get a picture in my mind of what you're talking. You're not talking about Farmerdale Drive to 79th Street. You're talking about the other, towards 75th Street.

I'm looking, no, it's between, it's just on 79th Street. Between 79th Street and Walnut.

It's actually Walnut's, the first couple hundred feet on Walnut's south. And I can comment on that, Mayor, if you'd like.

Is that in front of York's house? Yes. Okay, all right. Is that where we redid the bridge?

Yes, yes. This is on the western side of Farmingdale Drive. And if I may, the area is very, it's a flood way. Okay, so there's a lot more that goes into that floodway, putting the sidewalk in. So it's not your typical just put a connector in there by today's regulations. That one also would have to be okay by the Army Corps of Engineers, believe it or not. Again, our policy has been. That's if they're neighborhood sidewalks. In other words, we did one on Clare Nils Road on the east side from 67th Street up to Plainfield Road. There was a quadrant there. The entire eastern edge of town all the way up to Route 83 did not have a place to get to a primary sidewalk. So while that is in place now, and Clarendon Hills Road is obviously a highly traveled road, whereas Farmingdale, there are the opportunities to be able to cross within 100 feet of that missing link there. So unless the policy has changed or the practice has changed, that sidewalk would be eligible for resident reimbursement. What is the neighborhood? I don't know. We would probably take a petition and see how many people would be interested. Is it $50 per person or is it $2,000 per person? And who is the audience? There's nobody right there. I know there's nobody right there. I understand. I'm saying the sidewalk would have to be paid by the people that have the interest. So whether it's that block or it's a petition from 50 people. Gotcha. All right.

Dan, I knew you'd have a good explanation.

And I appreciate what you do for the town. And I could follow up. Yeah, I could follow up with you if you want to leave me your number and all that good stuff. All right.

I appreciate that. Dan, how much sidewalk are we talking about? Because there's sidewalk there, but then there's disconnects of sidewalk.

It's about 300 feet. Easily 300 feet without not pulling it on Google or on my GIS. but it's easily at least, yeah.

Are people walking in the street because there's no sidewalk?

Yeah, well, at times there is, yes. There's some people that stop and some people that just keep walking through the grass.

But there is a sidewalk, excuse me, but there is a sidewalk on the east side.

Correct. And which is very nice that they actually just now put a...

a little jet way through that goes now we've been looking at connectors that's one thing we've been concentrating on is connectors now and eliminating connectors just due to leading residents nowhere across the street so and if there's anywhere that is a flood area which is that area which there is a sidewalk this part that's not a sidewalk is actually a higher ground 100 correct

By the way, I like your shirt.

I agree with that.

Life is great, actually. All right, I appreciate you all. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

You're very welcome. Anyone else?

I was just going to make a comment on that. I've walked on the other side of the street, and some of those streets are not really, I mean, sidewalk is not really level. I went flying with this thing up in the air and landed because of a bump. So, obviously, as a side, I'm curious how they determine whether or not the sidewalk's in Derry. And I know every once in a while they come along and they straighten them out. But how do they decide if it's still level?

Let me have the address, and we will take care of that first thing in the morning and get back to you. So I'll tell you what. I'm going to call you, and I'm going to let you write down your name and number, and I will follow up with you tomorrow morning to what we're going to do about it. Okay? Okay.

Is there anybody else who would like to address the council on a non-city council issue agenda item? Just state your name, sir.

Hi, my name is Jim Kamek. I live at 1102 Henswood Drive, the Henswood Park Condominiums. In front of our condominium is a ditch that runs through Darien, and it ends on the west side of our property. There's like five huge cottonwood trees there, which if we have another windstorm, it'll come down on our buildings. plus there's smaller trees along. There's a fence that blocks off through the ditch, and there's smaller trees along the other side, and they're actually pushing the fence down. So I don't know who, if that's Darian or if that's...

There you go, sir. Let me get your name and number, too, and I'll give you a follow-up on that one as well.

Everybody pick on Dan.

Use the answer map.

Can I ask Chief a question about the parking on Farmingdale Drive? People can't just keep re-asking for the three-day, right? Isn't there, like, you can only do it so often?

So if someone can... If it's there, we will take a look at it.

I'm sure. Okay. Right. So if someone can't just keep going back in and say, you know, I need another three days, I need another three days. I mean, right. Okay. So if there's vehicles there that.

And do we ever tow vehicles? No.

So what happens if there's a vehicle and we keep ticketing it and ticking it and they don't pay the ticket? Like in Chicago, they put a boot on your car and they tow you.

Collections.

Collections.

Also, the ability to revoke license plates for nonpayment of fines.

So you can revoke license plates.

Okay.

But we won't tow it. Correct. Is there a reason why we wouldn't tow it?

WE'LL GO THROUGH AN ADMINISTRATIVE PROCESS IF YOU WANT TO. NO. YEAH.

THAT'S NOT SOMETHING WE...

THERE'S NO ORDINANCE FOR THAT.

AND THERE'S NO ORDINANCE FOR THAT. OKAY. THANKS.

ANYTHING ELSE? ANY OTHER QUESTIONS FOR...

THE LADY'S HOLDING UP HER HAND OVER THERE. YES, MA'AM.

THE ONLY OTHER ISSUE I WANTED TO BRING UP, AND I DON'T KNOW IF IT'S ALREADY BEEN DISCUSSED OR WHATEVER, BUT I WANT TO GO AND STATE THAT I DON'T WANT ANY DATA CENTERS IN DERRIAN.

Don't worry about it. We won't get them because we don't have room for them.

We have no land for it. Well, that's good. But, I mean, they're a nightmare. So, it's good.

They don't have room.

Okay.

Anything else?

State your name, please. My name is Thapan Biswas, and I came here to raise the issue of In Gale Avenue, which is in between Plainfield and that area, when the heavy rain happened, and there's an accumulation of the water, even in the backyard, front yard, at least like an hour and a half or maybe one hour is build up. And sometimes that create the problem of the flood in that area. And if I look at that landscape, basically this side is a cache, like this. Other side is a, I don't know the street, that is basically both side is high and this side is the low. And my understanding, I'm not a mechanic, I'm not like engineers, but my feeling that happens because the water from there, here, when the heavy rain comes, drainage system cannot just remove that and all the water come there. And because of the high, sometimes we indicate poke in the lakes and frequently happening. So that's why I raise sometimes to the city and city they don't know exactly, they don't know the money or how to actually, Dan I mentioned actually, Ryan I mentioned, this is not our department. So I'm just wondering, That area, they can take a look and can make more efficient the water drainage system.

Mr. Grandin. Thank you. Topal, with all due respect, we've been out to your property several times. I personally have been out there as well. I've told you in the past that your grading needs to be regraded. We made the opportunities for water to be accepted from your backyard and Cass Avenue out to the front, the side yard. has no pitch from the back to the front. So unless you're gonna help yourself at this point, we can't help you anymore.

Okay, so not only that, but other houses in that area.

I have no complaints from any other houses.

I'll check that, because they mentioned to me, then I check with them.

Those are tenants of yours?

No, that is another, I don't know their tenant or someone.

Your house on Gale is a tenant's house, correct? You don't live there?

I don't live there.

Right, okay.

But the next two other houses, they told me. Again, I have not heard that at all.

I'll see. Have them call me.

If nobody has a problem, then that is my problem. And if the other people have some, I can ask them.

Just have them call me. I don't need you to ask them. Just give them my number, and I will deal with them directly.

Thank you. But other question happening, that who in the back, that whole area. Next time I'll take a photo of it. it is the water that is in the backyard, but not only that house, many other houses. And that is, is it Dennis' problem or not a problem?

It's not Darien's problem. We have programs in place as well, pending on what the criteria is. In your specific case, it's not eligible because there is no grading, and all the grading basically affects the back of the house to where it has the opportunity to have I'll call it minor flooding or flooding period or saturation within the foundation.

Okay, that might be the case then. Yeah. But all the things is happening because of this issue. I think that both, water coming both sides.

Again, they have the same answer.

Yeah, okay. So compared to the other drainage system, this one is more robust drainage system. No, it's not. Okay, thank you.

Thank you. All right. Receiving of communications, all the people have communications they want to share. Mr. Gustafson.

Yeah, I had a conversation with the grandmother that lives on Wakefield Drive. Her 13-year-old grandson riding his friend's e-bike ended up in the ER due to him using the front brakes and flipping over the handlebars with no helmet on. The friend actually switched the brakes to which side's left and which is right and how to flip, so it confused the kid. So he hit the wrong brake and went over the top. He had a mild concussion, and I spoke with the grandmother, and she wants laws to prevent the younger children from riding the bikes altogether. I think, Chief, is there something going on with the state of Illinois now with

Yeah, there's legislative changes that come out July 1st, and Deputy Chief Jump, when he has an opportunity to address the council, he's going to address the e-bike updates and what needs to change in our ordinance to be in compliance with the new state law that comes out July 1. And he'll also talk about the monitoring of traffic volume and speed when he has an opportunity.

So he'll update you. Yeah, because the young man was pretty seriously hurt when he flipped over the handlebars.

How old was he?

Thirteen. Thirteen. Thirteen-year-old.

Anything else at all?

That's it.

Anyone else? Okay, takes us on to the mayor's report, the original mayor's report. Takes us to the city clerk's report. Jessica? How about city administrator's report? No report, Mayor, thank you. Okay. Takes us to the department head, information and questions. We have the May report there. Does anybody have any questions regarding the May report?

I just have to comment. The Police Civilian Appreciation Week was last week. We have a police week in May for sworn, I think, The week or two weeks before that is 911. I think a couple weeks after that is individuals that worked at jail. And I appreciate the opportunity to thank our non-sworn personnel. A lot of times they're unsung heroes. You see the monthly report that's put together by a records clerk, the data that goes into putting that MOVED TO REPORT TOGETHER IS CIVILIAN EMPLOYEES. THE DATA THAT COMES OUT FROM THAT, REGARDLESS OF WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE, WHETHER IT'S CRASH DATA, CRIME DATA, ALL THOSE DIFFERENT TYPES OF THINGS THAT DEPUTY CHIEF HAS AN OPPORTUNITY TO LOOK AT AND RESPOND TO, OR A SERGEANT HAS AN OPPORTUNITY TO LOOK AT AND RESPOND TO, THAT'S ALL THERE. ADMINISTRATIVE MANAGER, SUPERVISING RECORDS, MAKING PURCHASES AND OTHER DUTIES. WE HAVE A CIVILIAN PROPERTY HANDLER, SO THAT TAKES CARE OF ALL THE EVIDENCE WHETHER IT'S COMING IN OR ALL THE PROPERTY, WHETHER IT'S COMING IN AS EVIDENCE OR SAFE KEEPING. HE MANAGES THAT, AND OBVIOUSLY THAT SAVES A LOT OF SWORN OFFICERS TIME HANDLING THOSE THINGS, CSOs, SOCIAL WORKER WE'VE ALREADY TALKED ABOUT. SO WE'RE VERY HAPPY AND APPRECIATIVE OF THE NON-SWORN PERSONNEL. I have a couple other things, not in the monthly report, because it occurred on Saturday, June 6th, and I think a couple aldermen attended the Cops and Bobbers events. I had a wedding that day as well as a high school graduation, so I couldn't make that, but I'm told that 30 kids and their families came out. The least amount of fish caught was five, and most caught was 17, so it must be a good lake to fish in. Our officers volunteered for that event, so we're very appreciative of the officers. Our social worker came out for the event. The feedback from people that attended was extremely positive and grateful. The poles were furnished by Bass Pro Shops, so I'd like to give a shout out to Bass Pro Shop. Our Officer Pasek, who's an avid fisherman, related the bait, so thanks to Officer Pasek. Like I said, the other officers that showed up for that day. The giveaway items were a big hit as well, and obviously we come to you every budget year and ask for yourselves to fund a community fund. REUSE THOSE EXPENSES, AND THIS IS ONE OF THOSE TIMES TO REUSE THOSE EXPENSES THAT YOU AUTHORIZE. SO THANK YOU TO YOURSELVES AS WELL. THAT'S IT FOR THE MONTHLY REPORT AND MY UPDATE. IF THERE'S NOTHING ELSE, THEN I'M GOING TO KICK IT OVER TO DEPUTY CHIEF JUMP WHO HAS A COUPLE THINGS TO TALK ABOUT. ONE IS THE E-BIKE LEGISLATION, AND YOU'LL KNOW THAT A 13-YEAR-OLD IS REALLY EASY FOR HIM TO RIDE. BUT LIKE I SAID, DEPUTY CHIEF JUMP WILL TALK ABOUT THAT. AND THEN THE OTHER ONE THAT HE'LL TALK ABOUT IS MONITORING OF TRAFFIC VOLUME AND SPEED. Dan's been talking a lot and doing a lot of work, but if he needs to, he can jump in and talk about CLOA and how his duties may be reduced because of this program.

Deputy Chief Jump presented this to Brian and presented it to me. Brian actually saw the program. Austin actually described it for me. I think you're going to be real impressed with this. This is AI at its best.

I THINK THEY'RE ON. DAN VOLUNTEERED TO ACT IT OUT. I CAN'T TELL IF THEY'RE ON.

IT'S ON. THEY'RE ON? THAT ONE'S OFF. THAT ONE'S OFF. NOW IT'S ON. THERE WE GO. THAT'S PART A. YEAH, THAT DOESN'T MATTER.

IT'S ON.

Is your laptop on share screen?

This is the first thing they have to learn before they can become chief.

Very talented.

Dan has a report while Austin's fixing that. Dan?

Yeah, man, recent storms. Just real quick, a couple things on recent storms. Obviously, we were very, very fortunate. Minimal impact, whereas around surrounding areas had some major impacts. So we did not authorize a special brush pickup. And we do understand the need for brush pickup. So residents, you can start bringing your brush out there due to, you know, some unique circumstances everyone may have had. Other than that, questions on concrete. We're working with concrete currently. Roads are being resurfaced. We're putting a schedule together for grinding on sidewalks. Some rear yard drainage projects, a couple bigger projects that we're in the works. So that's all we have going on this week. But, yeah, if there's any other questions, be more than happy to entertain you.

I had a woman call me on Friday. She wanted to know if I could come out and remove the branch that fell into the street. I couldn't do that, but I did let Regina know the woman's address, where she lives, lived on, out in Pinehurst, and from what I understand, Public Works went over there, and they picked up this large branch from her backyard.

My wife was back, coming back from a storm on Walnut, and she goes, there's a branch in the road, so I go, take it off the road, what do you want me to do? I'm sure a little on that one.

Obviously it didn't work out too well.

Dan, when do you think Calment is going to start moving stuff? Well, I just had a conversation with Adriana prior to the storms. And prior to the storms, supposedly we were supposed to be in next week, next week, next week. Now, due to the storm, we're going to be back to a July 1st schedule. So it's... Really disappointing, that's all I can say. I mean, I understand everybody needs power and that's a priority, but it's just a shame that it takes so long for certain things.

Once we do get the power lines moved, that'll get things moving a lot quicker, though.

Definitely, because we have to, where the lines are or where the poles are right now, we have to do some ground stabilization at those exact locations, and obviously we just can't skip... those locations because it's a pattern that needs to be followed for the wall itself.

Gotcha, gotcha. And when do you think the shell station will be completed?

Good question. I think they're behind right now. I'm going to say at best August. Because they're doing a lot of remediation over there. There's remediation. They have a lot of fill that's coming out of there. It's a lot of clay that's being hauled out. Gotcha. Cool.

All right, Steve. taught yours us.

The Chief had asked a couple other things before I get into this. One, Senate Bill 3484 on electric micromobility devices. So that's going to pertain to our ordinance that we currently have. Right now, our ordinance just follows the state law. State law is changing and updating, so we're going to have to update that. There's some provisions that go into effect July 1st, and then there's some others that will go into effect January of 2027. We started working on a red line of our ordinance to get that to the city council as soon as possible with it. Some of the notable changes, it's just mainly definitions for the most part that they're categorizing this. You can see for scooters, they have changed that. They moved that from 18 years of age to 16 years of age now. They also lowered the speed from the maximum speed to be 15 miles an hour to now 10 miles an hour for that. That is difficult for us, I will say. They are not marked that they go 15 or 10 miles an hour, whereas the e-bikes, they're marked as classifications one, two, and three. There's a lot of different rules when it comes to the e-bikes and the e-motorcycles, that we'll call them. In the sense of we already were under the impression of the rules and regulations with that, it just codified it better to stipulate exactly what the state law is and the adherence to that. thing to also note that the state law identified that e-scooters shall not be written on the sidewalk so that is a provision that we are allowing the state is trying to mandate that to make that uniform along the municipalities and that even applied to home rural cities too so A lot of little tweaks in there. We will get that information out to the public and be able to update that as soon as we can as this goes in effect. The Illinois Municipal League just updated this end of May. So, again, we're trying to keep up with this as quick as we can, too, as the law goes in effect. And we sent out a direct connect earlier today. This month, if not end of May, our school resource officer has been making several presentations to the various middle schools and the high school explaining all the laws with this. The principals, the superintendents have been extremely receptive to inviting us to speak to the students about this to get this information out. So it is getting better. We haven't seen all the issues that we were having last year, not to say that they're gone, but it does seem like we're getting the word out at least on how to operate these safely and within the law. So thank you all for pushing that message out too.

Austin, with the state law then obviously taking over any local laws, what will be enforcement then? I mean, obviously we'll enforce on a local level, but WILL THAT CHANGE, LIKE, FINES OR ISSUE? I MEAN, HOW IS THAT GOING TO CHANGE?

THERE'S NO VARIATION TO THE FEE STRUCTURE, SO IT JUST CHANGED WHERE IT IS KEPT IN THE STATUTE. THE STATUTE NUMBER CHANGED OR THE STATUTE DEFINITION CHANGED, BUT THE FINE SCHEDULE AND ALL OF THAT IS IN THERE. IT DID APPEAR TO ACTUALLY identify that we can tow these vehicles when necessary and impound them. And that is something that we've already been doing. We believe that the state law had allowed us to do that. And it identified that even further for even scooters and bikes.

Right. And I just, you know, once again, I'm stressing to parents who are the ones purchasing these devices for their children, That, you know, many of them are way beyond, way below the required age. And I mean, it's just and as Eric shared with us, Alderman Gustafson earlier, you know, people getting, you know, very much hurt. But, you know, most of the youth I'm seeing operating them. are probably well under age 14. And so these have been bought for them for Christmas, for birthdays. They're not going out and doing it. And I'm just begging the parents, that needs to stop because your children are at risk. And then we as drivers of vehicles are at risk of hitting them when they don't follow the rules of the road.

I've got a pack of at least 10 that go up and down my street all the time doing wheelies and stuff, half of them have helmets on and half of them don't. What's the rule with helmets?

There's no law in Illinois for helmets.

So they don't have to wear a helmet either? Correct.

Even motorcycles. There's very few states that we're aware of that have helmet regulations for bicycles.

Yeah, I mean, you can see them going up and down my street constantly, and they're all seeing who can do the biggest wheelie. And it's just scary to watch them.

There were some good things also to bring up for the youth in this. It does identify what a toy vehicle is. So we're not trying to ticket someone that's driving their Power Wheels car or a scooter that goes below 10 miles an hour. It identifies a race or scooter specifically in the statute now. So for parents that are worried about that, that is not the goal of this. They can still take... their kids out in the power wheels car on the bike trails or with them on their walks and that's fine. So again, to your point, it's the parental responsibility. We have charged that on numerous occasions now and been successful with those prosecutions. So when warranted, we will utilize that.

These kids are going 30 to 40 miles an hour.

And there are several of the motorcycles, e-motorcycles, e-motors that are out there. It's no different than a Tesla. If you wouldn't buy a kid a Tesla, you would not buy a kid an e-motorcycle to be running around the neighborhood like that. uh speaking of some of the tools that we use for these v motorcycles where we've caught juveniles or adults that have run from the police on these motorcycles we've used our drum we've also used our lpr system for other vehicles that have fled from us we did put out a community alert recently in the Direct Connect about the LPRs, and we just want to report one. Deering has 10 that are operational right now. We have six that are pending in permits. Right now, DuPage County has over 560 LPR cameras that are out there. State Police have over 580. You can see on the various websites right now where they are. They are gaining a lot of attention, both positive and negative. So we work to address a lot of the concerns that were voiced by not only our own community, but others. One, Darien Police Department is not quietly installing these. We come to the city council to get the approval of them. They've been around since 2024 now. Another claim was that cameras record every car every day, even if you're not suspected of a crime. A license plate that drives by one of the cameras in the 10 positions that we have right now, yes, it does scan the license plate. There is an Illinois Supreme Court law that allows that. Also federal law allows for that. It is not an unreasonable search or seizure. This is not us trying to identify anything other than criminal activity. Someone came in, did a burglary, a hit and run. We've also used it for non-criminal things such as missing persons cases, and they've been extremely effective. helpful for us, the manpower hours that this saves is absolutely phenomenal. There was a recent case in San Francisco that gained national attention. It was an armed robbery for Pokemon cards, and they were able to get the license plate scans immediately, put their drone up, follow the suspects as they went into another business. They came out and they were able to apprehend them immediately with what appeared to be no issue. So there's been countless cases that we've been able to. We had a burglary at a commercial business in town. We were able to identify where that vehicle was. It was in southern Cook County, and we were able to tow that vehicle within 48 hours of the burglary and recover that vehicle. So it has been absolutely a game changer for the department.

So what's the negative against these cameras?

A lot of people believe that it's just big brother watching them or what? Yes. And watching that one of the claims was this. What next? We're going to put microphones out there. Illinois is a two party consent. We can't spy on conversations. We need a warrant for that. There's several things when it comes to that, but a license plate in public view, such as Cass Avenue, 75th Street, Plainfield Road where these are, an officer can run that license plate. It's no different. We don't have traffic cameras, speed cameras, or anything like that. They're not out there to issue citations or take enforcement action. Once there is a scan that registers as a wanted subject or a stolen vehicle, it gives us an alert. We have to look to confirm that to make sure we can't just take action based on that. We have to confirm in the system that it is stolen, that the entry is a legitimate hit for that vehicle or that subject, and then we can start building our case to take enforcement action to stop that vehicle to confirm if that's the vehicle or that's the driver. So, again, just wanted to address some of the things that have come up in the community and let you know where we stand on that and address any concerns that you have. Is there anything else on that? This is a system that became or a platform that came to light after the budget year unfortunately for us. I've been working with the company on proposal for the city and was able to get this to Dan and the chief earlier in the year. They liked what they saw with it. We were able to do a test or a pilot program of it, which I can show you here tonight. So what I would like to propose is subscribing to a traffic intelligence platform called Urban SDK. This is being utilized by over 200 law enforcement agencies, Lombard, Hinsdale, Wheaton, Bolingbroke, just to name a few in the area. What happens, When we get a speeding complaint or a traffic complaint is either it goes to city hall, comes to the police department, or goes to public works, and Dan will field that out to the police department whether to act on this. So when we get these, in some cases, Dan will put out physical counters out there to monitor the traffic, speed, traffic volume. Also, the police department will generate directed patrols, and you've seen this in the monthly reports or the annual reports that the chief completes. In 2025 alone, we had 29 separate directed patrol campaigns across 27 different locations throughout the city. That was roughly 194 hours of time that the officers logged on that. And what we found was about three-fourths of those, if not more, it turned out to be unfounded or more of a perception issue that there was speeding going on. There was one traffic study in particular that Dan was requested to do that he did and it resulted in the 85th percentile for the speed which is the metric that is nationally recognized was below the speed limit. So here that was hours that he had to take to put the system out to have one of his employees spend the time and effort to put that out, monitor for two weeks, and then extract the data. All for nothing that we could simply use a system like this that can analyze it immediately and be proactive about it so that the police department can see it, public works can see it, and now we know where there are hot spots in town, where are there problems, but when someone comes up in the community and says, I have a speeding problem on my street, we can get into the numbers of that. It could be a perception issue based on size of the road, size of the vehicles, time of day. It could also be that there is truly a problem that we need to take a traffic calming measure figure out what's going on. It could also just be one or two individuals that are the problem that we need to address it just with those. Or peak times, days, rush hour, things like that. So this is the system. They've granted us access just to one month's worth of data and the data that they can give us is up to 13 months. We can extract it for Days of the week, we can extract for one-day segments all the way out to that 13-month segment. So if we want to pull just a month, we can do that too. So some of the hot spot areas. So For the city of Darien, here are all our roadways, and it will allow us to access any of the streets in here. So one in particular, Manning, that we get several traffic complaints on for speeding, it will run the analytics for us right away. And we're able to pull up what the average speed is, the 85th percentile. and then also the traffic volume for there. In the reports that it runs, it also breaks it down through time of day in about three, four hour segments, allowing us to be able to see exactly is this a rush hour issue, is it Saturday Sunday a weekend issue of people traveling to go to Walmart or other commercial businesses in town Allow us to pinpoint for that We've had great success with this and again, this is just the January data we've had Multiple complaints Farmingdale Drive carriage greens Manning Bailey Ripple Ridge just to name a few while we had this system and we were able to run the analytics and send this back to Public Works and also the resident to let them know what the issue is on their street when it comes to traffic. I can't speak to necessarily the public works side of the house. So Dan, you have anything when it comes to the measures that you have to take for this and the impact that this has on your side?

Oh yeah. So all I can say is this is really a system that, I mean, instantly if a resident calls today, We can tell you what their speed was two weeks ago or up to 13 months ago. Whereas it would take us, okay, we get the work order in another two weeks. We analyze it, send it back to the police department. This is instant information. We all know that there's always this perception of speeding. just by visualization. And at the same time, they're really unfounded. And when they are founded, they're basically residents within that quadrant. But this is instantaneous.

What I like about it is that you could have a resident who calls and says, on Bailey Road, people are speeding. Let's say the speed limit is 30 miles an hour, and you click onto this, and it shows you that 80% of the people who travel that travel at 32 miles an hour. So you really don't have speeding on that street. So it's a perception issue. You save the cost of Dan putting down the equipment.

We probably save easily on the whole operation, five to eight hours per time, you know, per event, right?

And then you're sending an officer out there sometime to monitor that area as well. Like you said, there's a hundred and something hours that you spent doing that. This tells you right away.

What's the cost on this per year? It is $24,000 a year.

Okay. Just out of curiosity, is it $24,000 for Bolingbroke, or is it $24,000 for Darien, or is it based on population? Roads. Yeah, road size. Road size, okay.

So the $24,000 is based on our numbers with Darien? It would be essentially the data that you're getting. Okay, gotcha. We'll say a student with AI, the amount of tokens that they need to go through with this.

So it does pay for itself then.

Gotcha. Cool. So talking to the other communities, that was one of the problems that they had with it was they were getting these complaints and they had a lot of residential areas and they were putting up the traffic counters, the speed monitors, the speed trailers and things like that. And it was just never ending for them. So they were able to go to this system. They've been with it for a couple of years. And they said that the data is lining up completely with it. Dan had one that he was monitoring. He did his actually in the May, I believe. This is the data from January. They were very, very close. Gotcha.

Arson, could you do a registrate?

I cannot. You cannot? Just the area? Yes. So you can see the system only lets me go into where the areas are purple to orange. And that represents any speed issues. Can you do the more recent one we just did on... Holly?

Yeah.

I don't know if you could or not. I didn't mean to interrupt. No, it's...

So I have... Dan had one. It was right here in the 1800 block of Holly. So the system runs that. It will pull the data. And... It'll generate this report for me. So it's kind of hard to see right there on the computer, but it'll pull up this report. And I was able to send this to Dan right away. Since we only had the data for January in here, I reached out to the company and said, we're trying to showcase this. Can you send me the more recent one? They were able to send the data for the last two weeks. of May when he received this, and we were able to act on that. So this is the report that it generates. speed limit 25 so there's the 85th percentile was 21 miles an hour the average vehicle speed was 17 miles an hour so again that would have been an area where Dan would have had to take his measures to put the date or put the physical trackers out there and his technology and then officers we would be asking them for a two-week period to monitor area for speeding vehicles and whatnot. The one thing that was interesting with this when we were able to run it, that I was able to act on, it has the average 85th percentile breakdowns. So if you notice, one of these periods is 33 miles an hour. Friday and I believe that is the 4 a.m. to 6 a.m. 7 a.m. timeframe so now I was able to tell patrol I need you to go out here from 4 to 7 on Friday and tell me who the one or two individuals are that are driving this number off right now because that you Fair enough. In that time period, we were able to see the traffic volume two, which was a very small number of vehicles traveling on there. So there's one or two people that for some reason on Friday, they're getting out of bed late or something to that extent. It will get eastbound or westbound traffic or northbound or southbound. So we can identify traffic. the flow of that. It will not identify the individual vehicle. All I can do is get a one-day shot, but it monitors the data of all the vehicle traffic out there.

Austin, you started talking, the map itself has different colors. It gives you an indication of hot spots. Could you just talk about that for a second?

Correct. So the system itself would give us a I believe it is a weekly update, weekly or monthly, that would be sent out, emailed to us on where there's issues within our community. There's the legend that's up here that's giving us where the... biggest violators are. If you look, it's actually I-55 that people are traveling at the highest speeds. After working midnights for several years, yes, I can testify to there are a lot of vehicles going over 90 miles an hour on I-55. But remember, this is over the speed limit, and generally it is, it's actually Cass Avenue is one of our biggest offenders. with it and Clarendon Hills Road was another one. Cars going the 85th percentile were over, 10 over the posted speed limit. So, especially with construction traffic going on on Cass Avenue, We could see an increase of traffic volume on Lamont and now because of that we can deploy our resources to go monitor that better because Cass Avenue has been slowing down and their traffic volume is less or it's pushing cars to side street that they're trying to cut through on 79th Street or on Bailey, all of a sudden our traffic volumes have peaked because of some kind of road construction going on. Now we know how to monitor that and where to deploy our resources.

Austin, if we purchase this, how do we utilize it? Is someone going to be assigned to monitor this once a week, twice a week, or only when somebody calls and says this is happening or that's happening? How does it get utilized?

So the system itself will send us a report via email, so it could go directly to me. I can also have it go to the sergeants or any of the users on here. I would like to just have the patrol supervisors have access to this so that they can monitor that and they get that report to actively follow that so that we can be proactive and not reactive when it comes to these speeding issues that's last question for me

Does this send you an email or alert you of hotspot areas that may pop up?

Oh, really? It gives you essentially this report, but it would give you it for Darien. So I have very limited access in this training site. I can't run it per day. I can't run it anything outside of January. Okay. That's the only data they'll allow me to have for this thing.

But you can get it?

Yes, and that's the same thing. I can go out to 13 months. I can go out to... There's been speeding just over the summer months. We used to get it during Darien Fest because Clarendon Hills Road was shut down. That 67th was a cut through and some of the other streets in there, obviously. So during school year could be another thing. If Dan puts out a traffic calming measure, did this actually work? What was the before, what is the after, and what's the analysis with that? Cool. Gotcha.

Now, this is a package that every year you're paying $25,000? Correct. Okay. And we didn't have this in the budget, so what would we need to do, Brian?

Well, I would suggest that it would go to probably the police committee. And they could do a closer look at everything and make a recommendation back. I don't know, Chief, the forfeiture funds, if there's enough to cover this the first year. So it would just be an addition to the budget. In the scheme of things, it's not a large number. And it would probably take another couple of months, I would say, maybe to go through the committee back to council.

The forfeiture funds, I think there's about $7,000 there. Mind you, body-worn cameras, extremely expensive, well over $100,000. Fleet cameras, over $100,000. tasers and evidence.com and some other purchases. So we saved a tremendous amount of money out of the well over $300,000, but that money has been depleted. They're not very fast on getting their release of SEIZED FUNDS INTO FORFEITED FUNDS.

I THINK WE'RE CHASING GOOD MONEY AFTER GREAT, TO BE HONEST WITH YOU WITH THIS. IT REALLY DOES.

WE'RE IN THE PROCESS OF THE AUDIT NOW. JULIE HAD A PRETTY GOOD IDEA. SOME TENETED DRAFT NUMBERS TYPICALLY WERE OVER You know our fund balance increases again. This is a small amount of money for something. I think it's tremendous That's why you want to bring it to the council now, so it would just be an approval by the council It's a good service to the community, so yeah really have to counsel.

We would go through we will go through that Yes, well, I just got that same piece of the recommendation of the police I would say it's really you know the money's is pretty black and white we either have it or we don't but operationally I think it's really interesting to go

And then obviously anybody can attend the police committee meeting, but I would suggest they go there.

How does the council feel about it? Do you think it's a worthy purchase?

I mean, the man hours we're going to say just is unreal over a long term.

Austin, do you have to ask them to extend the period where it's live if you want to show it to the police committee?

I would just ask, and I don't anticipate an issue, so they've been gracious enough for me to have access to this for about a month already. I've been able to respond to citizen concerns and assist Dan with concerns that he has been given, and it's been a worthwhile just in this brief amount of time. And now we're coming up on summer months where people are going to be out seeing vehicles and perceiving whether they're traveling at a higher rate of speed or not. We want to get this data as soon as we can so that we can act on it.

I'd like to see us get this to the council ASAP. We have two members of the police committee here that have seen it. Alderman Kenney could certainly watch it on YouTube, this particular part. I'm suggesting it go to police committee, but if the council's interested and feel they have enough information, there's no reason to go to the committee. But actually, the police committee might meet for the next city council meeting. That's their normal date, so we're not losing any time.

We don't have another council meeting, though, until the third Monday in July. I'll wait that long. I mean, the summer months, this would be very valuable to have for the summer months. Correct.

Yeah, it's absolutely crucial. We can't prove it tonight.

No, we couldn't prove it tonight.

You'd have to have some special meeting, but there's probably some paperwork ordering, time lags, I would imagine. And again, to save time, if you wanted to go to the police committee, you can go that same evening at police committee and then on the same night for city council.

I'd like to see that.

Yeah, me too. I don't think we should wait, to be honest with you. That would be great.

Yeah, I'd like to see it. Like I said, you have two or three people on the police committee who saw it tonight. So, like you said, Alderman Kenney could be brought up to date on it by watching tonight's meeting, or he can meet with Austin and see a presentation like I did and like you did and get it on the council agenda for the third Monday in July. Okay. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, Austin.

Austin, thank you.

Any questions for Austin?

Thank you, Deputy Chief. Appreciate it. All right. That takes us to the warrant. Treasurer Corrin.

Thank you, Mayor. I know you'll all be disappointed that we only have one warrant this evening, but it's because the auditors have finished their field work. The audit is not completed yet. They're pending the actuarial report on the police pension fund, which is obviously a big number that will be going into there.

Question.

This evening, I'm requesting council's approval of warrant number 262704 in the amount of $1,393,909.38 from the listed funds. Payroll for the period ended June 11th in the amount of $362,486.39. Total will be approved $1,756,395.77. Motion to approve. Alderman Balzac, Alderman Schauer, any questions or comments?

On the roll.

Belzac. Aye. Schauer. Aye. Gustafson. Aye. Stompanato. Aye. Sullivan. Aye. Five ayes, two absent.

It's been approved. Any committee reports? Any of the chairs have reports? Alderman Belzac.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. The Municipal Services Committee will be meeting or scheduled to meet next Monday, June 22nd at 6 p.m. in council chambers. Thank you very much.

Alderman Belzac.

The police committee meeting tonight was canceled due to lack of quorum, and we are scheduled for July 20th, which will be that third week in July, at 6 o'clock across the street. Thank you. Alderman Sullivan?

Since the first meeting in July is canceled, July 6th, the next Edmund Finance Committee meeting will be on Monday, August 3rd, at 6 p.m. in the City Hall Conference Room.

And the Darien Action Committee met a week ago Saturday when the minutes of that meeting have been compiled. We'll get back to you. We had a very good meeting. We had a good turnout. We talked a lot about what each of the organizations are going to do to help celebrate the 250th anniversary. I also wanted to note that one of the things that we talked about at that meeting was the new mural that's over by the clock tower. Dee Mothers, who's a Lions Club member, got a group I believe, Downers Grove South High School. And we approved the design. They went through the design stage, what they wanted it to look like. Home Depot donated $200 worth of paint and materials. They painted it over at the East House. John Carr picked it up about a week ago, and he put it over by the clock tower. So if you've got a chance, take a look at the 25th, 250th anniversary mural that's right in front of the clock tower. With that, then, are questions and comments agenda-related? Any questions regarding our agenda? If none, we move to old business. There being no old business, we move to the consent agenda. And just as a reminder, item A under new business has been made item E under consent. Bear with me. Item A, a motion to approve the purchase of an HP color laser jet printer for $4,900 and a one-year maintenance agreement for $720 from CDS Office Technologies Inc. in an amount not to exceed $5,620. Item B, a motion to approve the expenditure of budgeted funds, line item 0140-4325, consulting professional services for one year law enforcement policy manual update subscription from Lexapol LLC in an amount of $12,184. Item C, an ordinance amending various sections of Title IX Traffic Regulations, Chapter 5, Vehicle Code of the City of Darien, City Code. Item D, a motion to adopt a memorandum of understanding regarding social worker services between New Page Communities, formerly NEDFYS and the Darien Police Department. And item E, ordinance amending section 3-3-7-3, Class C license of the Darien City Code. Motion to approve. Alderman Stampinato, seconded by Alderman Sullivan. And the roll.

Stampinato. Aye. Sullivan. Aye. Belzac.

Aye.

Schauer. Aye. Gustafson. Aye. Five ayes, two absent.

The consent agenda has been approved. It takes us to questions and comments. Again, announcements. Any announcements anybody has for the council? Alderman Sullivan. Aye.

Thank you, Mayor. The City of Darien is going to have their first summer concert, which I'm very much looking forward to, on June 25th, which is a week from Thursday. The location this year is Carriage Grains North Parking Lot, so please note that. The concerts go from 6 to 9. The June 25th concert will be the Band Fuse. They are a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame artist, Carlos Santana group, And they will entertain us, I'm sure. Everyone can enjoy food from local restaurants. Please bring your family, friends, and bring something to sit on. You are in a parking lot versus there's less grass at Carriage Grains to sit on compared to Westwood Park. So you're going to want a chair. And they are collecting cleaning supplies and canned goods. to donate to the Our Lady of Mount Carmel Food Pantry. The Darien Women's Club is helping advocate for that. And then the following two concerts, July 30th, is Dick Diamond and the Dusters, and then August 27th is Heart to Heartbreaker. Very much looking forward to the cat service.

And just to piggyback on that, our annual Daring Fest will be held on the 7th, 8th, and 9th of August. This year it's going to be held on Clarendon Hills Road between Elm and 75th Street. Jessica and April went over there today to look at possible layout, where the tent's going to go, where the stage is going to go, where the vendors are going to go. And last Friday, we had a meeting between Tom Pantone from the Durian Lions Club and I believe her name, Wendy Koziel. and Chris Snow from the Women's Club to talk about how they are going to be able to coordinate liquor sales. The Women's Club is going to sell the seltzer, the truly, and the wine, and the lines are going to sell the beer. And so we had to work together. We're going to coordinate how that's going to happen, ticket colors, who's going to do this, who's going to do that. And we currently have 26 women who have been trained, Bassett trained, We have 30 lions who have been BASA trained, so heaven knows that we have the staff. As Tom would say, if I've got 30 lions who are trained, he said I may have 15 of them who show up to work. Tom was great because he was able to tell Wendy what could go right, what's going to go wrong. But it was a good meeting. And again, Daring Fest is going to be very exciting this year because, again, it's the 250th anniversary of the United States. And we're going to have a couple of things that we're going to showcase. The other thing before I forget, and I thought maybe Tom Belzac would mention it, but we have the July 4th parade coming up. We only have 38 entries so far. And from what I understand, I was the only elected official who filled out a form. So that's why I sent it out to you guys. Again, Mary got back to me. Tom, I did send you a new copy of it. It would be nice to have quite a few elected officials involved, but hopefully we'll get more towards the end. But July 4th, starting at Jewel, down – KFC Avenue to 71st, 71st, all the way down to Clearing Hills Road and Clearing Hills Road over to Hinchdale South High School. That's all I have. Anybody else? If none, motion to adjourn. All in favor? Seconded by Alden Stampernato. All in favor?

Aye.

Thank you, everybody.

Thank you.