City Council - Regular Meeting

Convene the City Council meeting for August 3rd.

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.

And the roll.

Sullivan. Here. Stampinato. Here. Schauer. Here. Leganski. Here. Kenney.

Here.

Gustafson. Here. Belzac. Here. Seven present.

We have a quorum. Normally, number five on the agenda is questions, comments, and announcements. We're going to deviate from our agenda tonight. We have three summer interns who we've been making a presentation to tonight. These young people spent six weeks with us here at City Hall. learning about local government. They spent a week with the administration, a week with public works, a week with the police department, a week with our planning director, and they spent probably a week and a half with me. And they prepared what's called a capstone presentation. And so tonight we will have Shivani Joshi, Anvi Krishnardula, and Leo Popovich who will be presenting on FOIA.

Hello everybody, my name is Andree Krishnardua and today we're going to give a presentation on FOIA. A little bit before we give a presentation on FOIA, we want to talk about the internship and ourselves first. Well, as I said before, my name is Andree Krishnardua. I'm going to be a senior at Downers Grove South and I'm hoping to double major in environmental studies, science, and policy, and then double majoring in political science. I hope to maybe minor in music as I am a dedicated music student in both our band program and our theater program at Downers Grove South. One of the most important parts of this internship for me was how it made me change what I want to do in the future. Originally, when going into this internship, I wanted to go into environmental law. this internship I learned that there are so many things that I'm passionate about and how the local government and government in general helps so many different places and I didn't want to lose the different parts that I was passionate about by just focusing on environmental law. So instead I'm deciding to go into policymaking with a focus on the environment. This is how it helps me but overall I would just like to thank everybody for helping us learn about government and helping us with our future.

My name is Shivani Joshi. I'm going to be a senior at Hinsdale South. In the future I want to major in public health and go on the healthcare track. I learned a lot this internship and I'm really thankful for all the people I met and all the experiences that I was able to get through this opportunity.

I'm Neil Popovich. I'm also going to be a senior at Downers Grove South. I'm involved in a lot of music. I was at Bahia before this. I also do short film and French Club. just all that kind of stuff I hope to in my future major in history somewhere because I just think it's so fascinating to learn about our past and this internship has really shown me how important it is like how there's just so many little intricate parts of city government that I never knew existed before this and it's really been helpful to learn about how the people who lead my city work.

So just a little bit about the internship itself. We had six weeks, as Mayor Marquez said. First week was with city administration with Mr. Vanna. We learned more about how every year there's a budget and different little things like that that make the system run in the first place. We talked about all the pre-planning and everything that goes into the system before and then how it's actually structured. Mr. Vanna, we learned, is Mr. Marquez's right-hand man. We learned about all the people that work under and with him and how it all works together. Our second week was with Public Works. We worked with Mr. Throm and Mr. Gombach, learning about how our city is kept well. We learned about the projects that they maintain and how they maintain them. And then we had week three with City Planning and Management with Mr. Murphy, and we learned about how bills and actual things are gone through the system, how they make them, and what is needed when talking about things like chicken coops, which we just heard about. But we also learned about public safety with Mr. Rumnick. And we continue to learn about how the police come through our streets and how they aren't all that they're seeing through social media and through everything else, which is a big part of our presentation is FOIA. And that has to do with, you'll hear about it later, but a lot with police and law enforcement. Week five was Q&A with business leaders and elected officials where we really learned about the behind the scenes and how everything functions together because they're more than what meets the eye. And then last week with Mayor Marquez we were able to develop this capstone project and learn about FOIA and we're hoping to educate you on the same thing. First we'll talk about what is FOIA.

So we all know I'm big into history. So FOIA is the public right to request records from any federal agency. There are nine exceptions and it does not apply to Congress. the federal courts or state or local governments. With FOIA, there's also a presumption of openness with the presumption that if you're requesting a FOIA and if you are the government giving out the FOIA, you have to be open. You cannot hide secrets from the people. There's also a foreseeable harm standard. So if releasing some of the information could cause damage or threaten someone's life or safety, there is ways that we can manage that to make sure that that does not affect people. Sorry, one second. FOIA was first born as a reactionary measure against the rise of government secrecy during the 1950s. There was the big Red Scare and the Cold War going on with Russia, so a lot of Americans were worried about how much they could trust their government. The United States had entered... Yeah, the Cold War. Sorry. So a Democratic congressman by the name of John Moss gathered support of newspaper editors and journalists to create FOIA, but it was originally met with a lot of pushback from literally every single government entity in the U.S. Still, Congress eventually approved the bill, and after some time, President Lyndon B. Johnson, he still had some limitations on it, but over time he eventually signed it into law. Before 1947, FOIA wasn't truly able to require government agencies to comply. However, after the scandal with the Nixon administration at Watergate, Congress saw the need to reform and update the act so it could better serve its purpose. Congress introduced many new requirements, timeframes, and sanctions to the bill. President Ford, who was present at the time, attempted to veto the bill once it came to his desk, but Congress swiftly overran the veto to enact the new and improved FOIA into law. From there on FOIA just kind of grew as time went on. President Bill Clinton recognized that as the digital age came in and people started using computers, the need to digitalize information. Similar things happened with the Open Government Act when they made it available for, they made records now cheaper for news and media to obtain. It also established the Office of Government Information Services which worked very closely with FOIA. In 2016, there was the FOIA Improvement Act, which enacted reforms and other updates, such as, as I just talked about, the presumption of disclosure, the presumption of openness. And what's happening now is FOIA is being greatly abused by a lot of people, specifically content and media farms.

Oh, I'm so sorry.

So why is FOIA important? FOIA is important because it holds the government accountable. There can be no secrets when information is readily accessible for people to access. It tramples secrecy and corruption, being back to Nixon and Watergate. With FOIA, that cannot happen without someone noticing. And it also supports investigative journalism, like the journalists who found out about Watergate and how it was happening. Now Andi's actually going to talk.

Agencies currently face many challenges in regards to processing FOIA requests. However, one of the largest ones is reaction time. This is because Illinois has made a rule that FOIA requests have to be completed at a specific deadline. However, as the amount of requests are increasing and the complexity is also increasing, it becomes harder for agencies to meet these deadlines. Along with that, to complete a FOIA request, city workers have to, for information, respond to emails, communicate with requesters, which can lead to a really, um, hardest mutually deferred instance. this. Along with that, since most government communication is not digitalized, city workers have to sort through emails, other electronic reports, and email accounting messages, which overall just take a lot of time and isn't the most useful way to allocate workers' time. Additionally, finding the right balance between transparency and between positions and security is difficult to find because FOIA wants to create a more open government and a more informed public. However, it also wants to respect the privacy and security of its people.

So as Shivani talked about, that there is a burden on local governments with this. The burden is because of the resource drain, primarily. The lack of staff to handle requests, the financial cost it costs to keep staff and to access the material itself, and then the time spent on document review. Although document review can sound simple, it's way more complicated. What we need to censor, where you need to find it, how much you need to find, and more. There's so much that drains the resources that we have as a local government. But that doesn't make it unnecessary. FOIA is still very much needed. As Leo talked about, there were many scandals before that wouldn't happen with FOIA. There is a transparency with FOIA, and it creates a connection between our community and our government when we have it. We're able to see on both sides of the spectrum what's going on. And so we have to talk about the balance between transparency and cybersecurity.

The balance between transparency and cybersecurity is one of the largest challenges I'd say that agencies are facing. So to balance cybersecurity, Illinois mandates that public bodies only open requests within the body of an email. That way they're not clicking on any external links or documents, which is a phishing or malware risk. However, to complete a successful FOIA request, sensitive and private information should not be permitted for public disclosure. So the agency should make sure this information is also being protected. In the future, to counter this challenge, the government could expand on digital tools to help agencies process requests securely, and it could continue investing in cybersecurity training and technology.

So with the new age, we have to talk about technology. The digital government impact on FOIA is outstanding. Well, first, we have to talk about electronic disclosures. There's a public library called Release to One, Release to All. When something's requested so many times, instead of restoring through every single time and sending it every single time, some places will put it on a website, so it's Release to One, Release to All. There are also troubles with technology expanding. We have an expanded digital footprint. Communication technologies increase the complexity of review, meaning that there are so many platforms which we communicate with, so many devices we communicate through, and that just builds how much there is to sift through. We talk about iPads, iPhones, laptops, monitors, anything that a message can be sent from is accessible. for FOIA. And that means there's so much for people to sort through. There's so many platforms. And it ends up having a very big drain on our resources. And lastly, we cannot talk about FOIA without talking about AI. And we cannot talk about the new age without talking about AI. We have to talk about bot requests. They put a complete strain on the government and on the resources that we have because they are just spamming requests that aren't necessary for anybody to use. Instead, just overwhelm the resources we have. We have to talk about algorithm mistakes and how some algorithms can redact too much or not redact enough, causing a concern with safety. And then lastly, possible data leaks. There is so much that comes with safety and people's personal rights in these requests and with everything that comes with the government, so possible data leaks are excruciating to deal with when it happens.

is put in place on commercial FOIA requests. One of them is that charges are sent to commercial requesters for revising time spent searching and duplicating records. This just alleviates the financial burden on taxpayers. Along with that, the time frame for agencies to fill commercial requests is longer than that is extended compared to traditional requests. This is because commercial requests are typically more broad and more complex and take more time to complete. Agencies also to do this, they must contact the requester and try to narrow the scope of the request. Along with that, for recurrent requesters, agencies can use queues that cross across a more staggered timeline. This allows to be backlogged and allows that multiple requests can go through instead of having delays. It also prevents a user from monopolizing agencies' resources. Limits are necessary because they are what ensure that this process runs smoothly. Many municipalities have limited staffs and governments, so larger FOIA requests would be more burdensome on these. Repetitive requests also overwhelm workers and exploit taxpayer dollars, as I said.

It also delays other requests from going through.

Limits prevent misuses, backlogs, and protect time, which just ensures that these workers' time can be allocated in the most efficient way possible. And also make sure that agencies are not being used as free data gathering tools for private businesses. A lot of people unfortunately use FOIA as a way to promote their own business or for entertainment purposes, which is not what it was intended to be used for. However, advocates for open government worry that these limits could be used as a loophole to hide information.

Okay, so.

is not all doom and gloom like what it seems. We have to talk about current legislation that is being pushed towards making FOIA a more reasonable thing. So we'll talk about, there are three bills that I would like to talk about. The first one being Illinois House Bill 2887. Illinois House Bill 2887 reduces the number of record requests that can be made for a person to be considered a recurrent requester under the Act. So basically it makes it to give more leeway to people to answer these requests. It gives 30 days instead of 21, to respond to requesters. So there's more time for people that are currently requesting and constantly requesting. Instead of burdening the government, it gives it more time, making it a more reasonable ask. Our second bill is 2881, Illinois House Bill. defines the term commercial purposes as when a requester or when the request was made on behalf of uses public record to further the commercial trade or profit interest. It basically just talks about how commercial purposes aren't what FOIA is used for. It shouldn't be what FOIA is used for. And now it defines it so we can help limit across that. And lastly, 351 Illinois House Bill sets stricter regulations on what is considered news media. News media does not include sites that post law enforcement videos for money based on views. It also says that after the first eight hours, public bodies can start charging for $40 per hour spent preparing responses. It gives it more thought to the people who are requesting. So they're not just spamming and requesting random things, but instead giving thought for what they need. And it gives it more reason for news media. News media is allowed to use law enforcement and these kind of videos to help them. So it helps define that term and allow that term and people under that term to have FOIA requests. And so, there is so much legislation going through, and with what we've learned, we want to provide some solutions of our own. One, there is hiring more staff. Obviously, this would help, but there are some pros and cons to it, so let's talk about that. Some pros is that it shortens the delays in response, it creates a smoother system for people to communicate through, and it creates more job opportunities for everybody. Some cons are the financial burden used to give the salary to the people we are promoting, so there is more allocation for those, which is a big con because of how much the local government is limited in what they have, and also bigger hiring processes. FOIA is so important to have, but there are so many safety issues with it, so we have to find people that we can trust with this information. Some legislation ideas we had is to limit commercial purposes further. Posting these fire requests on social media to make money off the number of views can be more than just hurtful to the system, but it can violate the rights of those who are involved in the situation. I know that if I was pulled over as a teen, I would never want this information out on the internet, not only for my future, but for my safety too. And with that, we have to talk about how things are requested. People can request anything in the government. And so to help people keep their privacy and to limit the requests, we can submit FOIA response only if you are directly involved or if you're requesting on behalf of somebody that is directly involved. This can help decrease the requests and keep people's privacy safe. In general, we just want to say thank you for everybody that helped us learn in this internship. We want to say thank you to everybody for each week and for all the people that helped organize this. We really learned more about the system than we thought we ever would. And it helped us learn about some problems and how we can fix them. It's important nowadays that young people have their voice heard. And not only have their voice heard, but are learning about what's going on in the system. So we want to say thank you to everybody that helped make this true. And we want to say thank you to everybody for listening to us, too. And that's all we have. Any questions?

Any questions, council?

Thank you, Mayor. Great job. We were just down in Springfield last month and FOIA requests in this whole topic is something that every municipality, city is talking about in this state. You brought up some really good points of I'm not going to mention the city, but we talked to other people from other cities. They have like four to six people full-time just handling FOIA requests, full-time, not just part-time, full-time, and it's growing, not just on the police side, but also on the administrative side too. And like you said, it deprives a lot of people of due process before they even have a chance, right? I mean, look at what's happened with Tony Romo, right? He got pulled over, and before he even goes to court, it's public opinions already judging him. And so I think you highlighted that really well, and great job. Thank you.

Thank you.

The House bills that they mentioned are all sponsored by Representative Marty Deuter. Marty represents part of Darien. She's got about 200 homes in Darien, but she's very active, and those were her three bills. Those have not been passed yet. Those were all proposals. But I'd like to comment on this. Last year we ran an internship program like this for three students from Hinsdale South High School. They did a wonderful job. This year we decided to expand it. We have two wonderful high schools in Darien. Downers Grove South High School services a large portion of Darien. And then we have Hinsdale South, which services the majority of our students in Darien. And this year we wanted to offer a program to both. And we wanted to go three and three, but we ended up going four and two. So I want to thank Ryan Altenberg from Downers Grove South High School and assistant principal Kyle Burrits from Hinsdale South High School. We have our principal of Hinsdale South High School here, Dr. Carrie Peranto. Carrie, you must be very proud of your students. They do their due diligence in terms of selecting these students. These students get a half a credit working with us. We fine-tuned the program this year to make it a little bit stronger. They actually met with State Senator John Curran, Representative Nicole LaHaw, Representative Marty Deuter, and they met with Alderman Mary Sullivan, Alderman Ralph Stampinato, and Alderman Joe Kenney. So they got a chance to talk to people in elected positions. They also met with eight business people who got to tell them what it was like in terms of their business relationship with the city of Darien. So they accomplished a lot. And I got to tell you something, as someone who worked with them, I am entirely impressed with these students. And I like to have more than just six students, but it becomes a little bit of a burden. So we're going to probably keep the number at six and offer the program. If Carrie lets me offer the program, we'll offer it again next year. And now they're going to make a presentation to the Board of Education for District 86. and District 99, so they're not done yet. But I'd like to also introduce Mr. Ryan Walheim, who is the president of the Durian Lions Club. And Ryan has something special that he wants to read or say, and he wants to give these students. These are for you, Ryan.

Thank you.

Thank you, Senator. All right. Well, just on behalf of the Daring Lions Club, we just wanted to say congratulations. This was very, very impressive. And that six-week program, you guys did a great job. And we really appreciate students like you that help out the city. And that's what we're all about as well. So we just as a little token of our appreciation, we wanted to give you a little check and a little cash to say thank you very much. So we appreciate you. Thank you.

CAN WE SCOOP BACK A LITTLE MORE? I'M TRYING. OKAY, I KNOW YOU ARE, GIRL.

ONE, TWO, THREE. ONE, TWO, THREE.

ONE, TWO, THREE. AND WE GOT IT.

THANK YOU. THANK YOU. CONGRATULATIONS.

You know, they say if democracy is going to continue in the United States, you've got to get young people involved. And this program, while there were only six students, we might consider doing something more along the lines of an adult program as well. Okay, we're going to go back on our agenda to questions, comments, and announcements of the General Manager. I know we have a large audience tonight. I would imagine we have people here for different reasons. How many are here tonight to present on the Castle Eden of the White House? Okay, we just have one individual. All right. We're going to have that individual come forward. Can we allow three minutes for presentation? Just state your name.

My name is Bill Lyons. I'm a 49-year resident of Darien. Very proud to be president of Darien. First of all, I just want to thank Public Works. Great job last week in taking care of all the storm damage. Again, great work. Regarding the Carmelites White House, also called Castle Eden. I think we all know where it's located. It was built in 1903. 223 years old, commissioned, built by U.S. Congressman Martin Madden. It's a scaled-down version of the U.S. President's White House. It is well-documented in Darien history. There's a book. I suggest every resident in Darien get one of these books. It's been around for a while. It's also been... There's a big section in the library. It's also even referred to in the Darien website. This is a page on the Darien website, but there is a reference to the White House in the Darien website. So that's the old history. One other thing, it is on Route 66. It's the 100-year anniversary of Route 66. In fact, it's in some of the guidebooks, historical guidebooks of Route 66. The current history, or recent history, City of Darien notified residents via Darien Direct on July 16th that a permit application was submitted by the Carmelites and the City of Darien approved permit to demolish the White House. Permit was applied for by the Carmelites on July 15th and permit issued on 16th, the same day as the Darien Direct communication was issued. I'm not aware that the Darien community and surrounding areas were advised of any of any upcoming planned demolition with the exception of the prisoner of Lady of Mount Carmel. It was noted in the bulletin three days earlier on July 12th as a planned demolition. Subsequently, last Thursday in the Darien Direct issue of July 30th, further explanation was provided by the city of Darien and the Carmelites. I think those are quotes of the Darielites. The White House or the Castle of Eden is a local landmark treasure of significant building, even though it is not formally listed as a historic building. It's my understanding that during historical society suggested it, but the Carmelites did not want to be a listed building. I am sure all the requirements by the Carmelites were provided to the City of Darien to properly issue a demolition permit. On the other hand, it is very disappointing that this local landmark and important building is scheduled to be demolished. It is also equally disappointing that the Carmelites did not advise and communicate to the local community of the upcoming planned demolition, and the City of Darien did not notify residents until the permit was issued. I understand that public hearings for this issue were not required, but I would hope that the City of Darien would have advised the Carmelites to communicate to the local community because of the importance of this building. If the Carmelites would not communicate, then the City of Darien could and should have. I believe this situation will occur for future buildings in the future In order to avoid this lack of transparency, I believe, in communication, I would recommend to consider adding a wait-hold period for only demolitions of large and old buildings. Um, for example, the city of Glen Ellen has a 30 day wait period for buildings between 1000 and 4,000 square feet. It's a minimum 30 days. Wheaton has a two phase demolition approval process. First 30 days, you have to notify the neighbors, adjacent neighbors, and then another 30 days after that for a wait period. The county itself has a 10 day wait period for all demolition permits. I would recommend that Darien consider adding a 30 day wait period the wait hold period prior to issuing after application for building permits are issued and before the permit is issued, any older buildings, say anything over 70 or 75 years old and or larger buildings over 4,000 square feet. Important buildings. Can you finish up? I'm almost done. To allow communication to inter... I guess my last question is I know two months ago the Roberts Road building that the Carmelites get approved was submitted and approved by the city of Darien. Did the Carmelites at that time communicate that the residents of the White House were moving into that that Roberts Road building, and then the residents' otherwise demolition could not have occurred because they had to vacate that building in their mind to demolition the building. I was just curious if that was part of, was that part of discussion of that approval. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else here that wants to address the council on Castle Eden? HOW MANY PEOPLE ARE HERE TO ADDRESS THE COUNCIL ON ANY ISSUES SUCH AS FLOODING OR ANYTHING LIKE THAT?

RIGHT HERE, WE CAN'T HEAR YOU. CAN YOU SPEAK A LITTLE LOUDER?

I'M SORRY?

YEAH, WE CAN'T REALLY HEAR YOU BACK HERE. I'LL TRY TO TALK AS HARD AS I CAN.

WHO IS HERE TO TALK ABOUT FLOODING? As you come to the microphone one by one, then state your name.

Go ahead.

I was first last.

Sometimes the cell phone might trigger that.

Oh, sorry. Okay. That was weird. We can all hear that. So, guys, I just have a Kyle Nicholas 716 Gale Avenue. We were affected by the flood on July 4th. I just wanted to request two things really quick. First is to address an immediate financial hardship on the flooding that happened. Will the village establish some sort of fund, whether that be a freeze on permits? Provide property tax credits possibly for the affected houses. Second question would be for any fixes that we have to do to our homes, is there a way that all building permits can be waived and expedited so that we don't have to wait for that approval process? That would be my two questions.

Mr. Conlon. Currently, we do have a building permit holiday for certain things. I believe administratively we'll take a look at the policy, what the policy reads in respect to the permits that you're looking for.

And you've helped me with the egress issue that we're having. Correct. It's been great on that aspect.

That wouldn't be a problem, but yeah, we'll just confirm that and we can get that back to you as far as the building permits holiday, if you want to say it's currently in place. So we could help with that. As far as any type of other financial assistance, there hasn't been anything that's been discussed internally at this point. We're still trying to find out if there's been a couple... Cook County, I believe, has, from the last previous storm, been looking for a fee. They've declared an emergency disaster. So it's my understanding that some towns within DuPage County are requesting that as well through the county. So I'm not sure where that status is at yet, but we've been in contact with the county to see if there's going to be any opportunities for the special type of funding. There is one available right now. I should say that the SBA. It's one mechanism, but they have not identified this area as an emergency disaster area. SBA basically gives loans. Again, you still have to be creditworthy, and there is some great opportunities there, but it hasn't been announced yet.

414 71st Street. There's two issues I want to address quickly. One is the 4th of July storm and I missed the last meeting when it was talked about and mainly in the Brookhaven area. 71st Street and the 400 and 500 blocks were decimated. Terrible flooding over there. I wanted it on record that there is an issue in that area It the city is aware of it I sent in videos So they could actually see what's going on Secondly was this last storm on Monday and On 71st Street again, Tuesday at 4 o'clock in the afternoon, we lost power. There were eight homes on the 400 and 500 block of 71st Street and eight homes on Maple Avenue in the 400 and 500 blocks. The houses back up to each other. We were without power for 108 hours. That's four and a half days. We went out Monday at four or Tuesday at four o'clock. We never got back online until Sunday at 4 a.m. It's ridiculous. ComEd kept referring to it as storm related. Then as they went on, It turns out that they changed their mind, and now they're blaming a lot of these issues on this MetroNet, if that's the proper name of the company that's doing these cables. They took my transformer, not my personal one, but the transformer in my yard, replaced it Saturday night. As soon as they went to flick it on, it blew. They had to send another crew out. They couldn't figure out why it was a bad transformer. Turns out the lines were nicked. They also, the crew told me that the line that goes to my house from the box was nicked. And I actually saw the nick in the line when they were digging it. They dug down four feet and then there was a gash in my line. comment, I said, are you going to fix this now while you guys are out here? And their response was, oh no, we don't fix it until you're out of power. Again, that's ridiculous. Why wait? You know there's an issue. I said, well, when's this going to be? He goes, could be one day, one week, one month, five years. I mean, we need to get and find out what's going on. We need to talk with this Metro man who's doing these cables that's laying there. They're nailing all of our power lines all over the town. And ComEd is telling me that they've got all kinds of calls to repair these. So what I'm looking for is more communication between the city and these companies that work for us. You know, the ComEd's, the MetroNet's. We need to find out what's going on. This is costing residents a lot of money. Most of us in that 16 group, which was not a priority to ComEd, had to go out and buy generators. We lost food. I mean, 108 hours is a long time to be without power. I mean, that's a very long time. I learned a lot how to survive again, too. But the expense. You buy a $1,000 generator. You're putting in over $150 worth of gas over that amount of time. The food you lose. You can only run so much off these generators. So I'm reaching out, looking. to the city to help us get better communication and better service from everybody that's servicing the community.

I'm a new resident at Darien Lane. I was there for the flood.

Darien Lane was under six feet of water, and when I tried to call somebody to just find out about the sewage system that wasn't working, who was responsible for that, the city of Darien said, it's the county's problem. And I called the county, and they said, it's the city's problem. But clearly, the sewage system did not work in this situation, big time. And I would like to at least request that consideration of an inspection of the sewage systems in these places that had really bad flooding and see if an upgrade is necessary or doable.

Can I ask you, sir, if it was the sanitary system or the storm sewer system? They are separate. Were people getting water through the sanitary or were they getting water through the storm sewers?

It was coming up through the sanitary system in the basement, but also the street was six foot underwater.

There are homes that suffered sanitary sewage due to the fact that they didn't have overhead sewers. And we have something on our agenda tonight to help deal with that.

Okay. Yes, and just inspecting the sewage, because the sewage system did not take the excess water to where it was supposed to go.

Did you get water inside your house?

Yeah, and through the windows. Okay. I'm sorry. I didn't hear you say that before. It was a lake. It wasn't just a little bit of seepage into the basement. It was... The neighbor next door had two feet of water going in through his basement windows. So it wasn't just our personal system.

So did you flood with this most recent storm or July 4th?

That was July 4th.

How about with the most recent storms we had? Last week. Last week. How did you fare during that?

There was some leakage in the basement, but it wasn't anything like the July 4th. But there was excess water on the lawn, like it had been the day before the 4th. But it eased off before it. But it was on the verge of. There's no doubt about that. Thank you. So anyway, I just was wondering to at least start kind of an inspection of the sewage systems in these areas where FLOW DOWN ENOUGH SO THAT THEY HAD SOME LAKES INSTEAD OF STREETS.

JUST TO CLARIFY, OUR SANITARY SEWER SYSTEM, PROBABLY 98% OF THE COMMUNITY, THE SANITARY SEWER IS OWNED AND OPERATED BY DUPAGE COUNTY. I KNOW THEY WERE OUT AND ABOUT THAT DAY AT A NUMBER OF HOUSES. SO THERE'S NO DISPUTE ON WHO HAS THE RESPONSIBILITY OR WHOSE SYSTEM THAT IS. IT'S VERY CLEAR. AND ONE OF THE ITEMS THE MAYOR MENTIONED ON TONIGHT IS DUPAGE COUNTY as a program where they help residents install and pay for overhead sewers. If you're getting sewer backup and you want to stop that, that's the program to get. And on the council's agenda tonight is a pilot program. The city will also add $5,000 towards that grant program for residents. So as soon as that's approved here by the city council and talked about this evening, the county is also talking about that tomorrow. And overhead sewers, depending on your property, can cost different amounts. But if you end up spending $12,000 or $13,000 on an overhead sewer system between these two grant programs, basically you'd get that virtually for free.

Where would we go to apply for the grant?

We will put information out. We did put it out last week, but if you want to call me afterwards or somebody here at City Hall, we'll be putting out anybody on the sanitary sewer system. The county is going to put out notices of the program. One of the requirements the county has now is a resident would have had to experience sanitary sewer backup at least once before. So, again, the county has the program. They run the program. And to ease the burden on the residents that have suffered from the sanitary sewer backup, that's what the council is looking at this evening, to again add $5,000 to help residents with the overhead sewer program.

We asked the county to raise their grant from $5,000 to $7,500. And in addition to that, once the resident pays that, then we would pay the $5,000 to the resident. And what is your name? I'm Brian Vanna.

Brian Vanna. Vanna with a V. Vanna, V-A-N-N-A. Yep.

If you see Ryan, I don't have a card. If you see Ryan, he'll write down my number and give me a call tomorrow. Okay. Okay, thank you.

Just to also expound on a gentleman's comments, Therian Lane is one of the locations that we are targeting for with Christopher Burke Engineering on the survey. And we have inspected. We're doing some additional inspections on the line itself. And I did personally visit several residents on that block. And if I'm not mistaken, gentlemen, if you're still here, were you on the southern end of the flooding? Yes. Yes, you were the last house then. So, yes, I'm very well informed. first in it, and we're looking at solutions there.

Anyone else on the flooding issue? Please come forward. State your name, please.

I'm Carl Popinski. I've lived in Darien for over 30 years on Darien Lane. Where I live is actually the lowest spot between Hickory and Timber. There's two sewers. I know Dan's been out there, and I am the The very low spot water comes from both sides. Dan just mentioned that, I was gonna ask if the engineering study about the flooding was gonna include Darien, because I watched the last council meeting, I didn't hear what areas were gonna be covered. So thank you that it's gonna be covered. Let's see. So I ask because whenever there is more than one inch of rain an hour, our street floods. And not just the street, it comes up past the sidewalk. I know you're talking about ponding and areas where it's supposed to pond, but I can never tell where it's going to go, how high it's going to go. This is the first time, the July 4th was the first time I actually made it in my house, both ways, front door, garage, and the sewer. And I have been in contact with DuPage County for that too. And this is a long-standing issue in my in the neighborhood. It's not just the July 4th one even the last Monday one We also lost power, but water coming up through the, and even this past Saturday, water coming up through the storm sewer. It doesn't seem like it can handle much. So I'm wondering if the study is also going to include anything with Jewel or their parking lot, because I know there is a connection. You can look in the sewer across the street from mine. and you see water coming from the west, and that's between the houses and that's Jewell coming in there all the time. Doesn't matter, you can go there any time of the day, there's water going in there. Do you know what the deliverables are going to be of the engineering report?

Basically, readings, type of storm event that it was, suggestions or recommendations, to determine what's the next steps. Okay. We're going to also be in contact with JUUL. I will be visiting JUUL and having conversations with corporates in respect to some possible projects that I'm considering.

Okay. Like underground, maybe, storage or something? That's it. Once the report is done, is it going to be published? Oh, yeah. Okay.

Again, when we say report, it's going to be a simple report. There's no water modeling studies. It'll give us the historical aspects of it and the probabilities of what needs to be looked at for future work.

Thanks.

And I just have one thing that I feel we need is a much better response in putting up the barricades. Because I know usually when the storm, when it floods, it's at night. Call the public works. It says call 911. So I call 911, tell them we're flooding. Basically to keep the vehicles off the street. Because there are people in cars, trucks, whatever, like to go flying through the water, create waves that just run all the way up to the house. And so, and also maybe when heavy rains happen during the day, if public works could come out and check some of the sewers. Sometimes they get plugged with leaves, and a lot of us are at work, so there's no one there to check them for that. This last Monday, the 27th, they were out there, but actually a lot of my neighbors helped with stuff too. Actually, water was still coming up from the storm sewer. And what else? I don't know. Just my own thing. I worry every time it rains because I don't know how much it's going to flood. And all my vehicles were affected on the July 4th one. Actually, I still have one in the shop. They're debating whether they're going to toll it or not. So I'm just hoping that with the study that there's some action that can be taken relatively quickly to alleviate the problem because storms aren't getting any. One last thing. Is the city open to buying any flood protection barriers for the homes on Darien Lane or any other ideas or present them to UNC?

That's going to be probably maybe a recommendation from the study. Okay. Thank you for your time. Thank you.

Hi, my name's Scott Delay. I'm at 7319 Darien Lane. I'm Carl's neighbor. I'm kind of probably just going to tack on to what has already been said about that street, but we moved in in March and now our garage, basement, Front entrance is destroyed. So it's been kind of a rough start to living in Darien for me. I know I talked to you shortly after on the phone. I didn't get to meet with you in person. I didn't prepare anything. I don't have anything new, but I was just kind of wondering. I know you mentioned the $5,000. I did actually meet with Dwayne from DuPage County. I forget his last name. I'm sorry, but... He did mention the overhead sewer system, and then it's good to hear that there's additional money resources that might become available, but we're already just cleaning up and tearing up our house. We're already well beyond what my insurance covered, and that doesn't even get into, like, additionally, like, had to get a new water heater, a new washer-dryer, get our furnace fixed, because we had about two feet of water sitting in our basement. So it was sewage backup. Probably from the county sewer system, like you said. It was gushing out of the drain in our basement. But on top of that, we had water coming in the front door and through the windows. And like Carl was saying, cars driving down the street. We were out there that night on July 4th, and there was a fire truck too that drove through and just pushed water. We wouldn't have had water come in our front door had those trucks not been driving down the street. So that's an issue I'm concerned about, especially with like emergency vehicles. I know they need to get where they need to go to, but on that small stretch of street, there are other ways to get around that area with that much water. The Jewel Osco water flooding and backing up the sewers is a major concern. So now every time I see rain in the forecast, I'm like terrified because it's We just went through all this stuff. We're trying to figure out how to move forward. My father-in-law moved in with us and was living in the basement, so virtually all his stuff is destroyed now. And we're trying to just figure out what to do next. The only question I had is when you talk about overhead sewer system, now I've met with a couple different people. I've had plumbers out. I've had waterproofing out. We did just get a new sump pump, so that wasn't the issue because we literally had water surrounding our house. So everywhere the water could potentially go was just useless. So everything started backing up. The money that is offered to help out, does that also include like having a backup sewage vault put in the yard to catch extra water? Is that like specifically for overhead sewer system?

For the overhead sewer. We have a number of homes that we visited. The damage came up through the sanitary sewers. And the county has this program already for $5,000, which they're going to move up to $7,500. They have a system of installing outside your house because a lot of people live in split levels where that bottom level is a family room or, you know.

Yeah, that's where ours is.

Yeah, well, there is a process where they do it outside so they don't have to further damage the inside.

I did meet with someone the other day and we went over kind of those options as far as overhead sewer system, which I was told doesn't always work that well with a split level where you're not completely underground, but also potentially instead of doing that, having a vault system dug into your into your yard to catch and back up extra water. So if we decided to go that route instead of an overhead sewer system, would that be included as well?

If the county of DuPage approves that as part of their program, our $5,000 would be contributed. So anything the county, since it's their program, anything they approve in terms of the construction or overhead sewers, whatever you might do, if they approve it, we would also contribute the $5,000. Okay.

Anyone else regarding flooding?

So my name is Mike. I'm on Gale Avenue. The neighbors over there spoke already. As far as the overhead sewer system, I had someone come out. I think Dan had the county come out, told me I didn't qualify for an overhead sewer because I have an ejector pump in my basement because I have a bathroom down there. And then he said I didn't qualify because my clothes washer didn't Dispatch out of there and I spoke to a plumber and he says no one has their clothes washer go to their sewers That's against the law So my question is if I don't qualify for the overhead sewers and then I had the irrigation from the county come out and they said there was no financing or no deals work through the Village the village. What is my next step?

Did we need to clarify first of all what's What and who came out from the county?

It was two gentlemen that you gave me their names. I think it was Dwayne, but I don't want to say it was him. We can double check. So Dwayne came out and says, this is a pass-fail test. And he walked in and he said, you failed. So I didn't qualify because I have the ejector pump in the basement. Then I was told that some of the problems is other people are tapping into the overhead system that are not supposed to be tapping into it.

Those are illegal connections, which basically, you know, I'm not sure. If your situation with the washer, for example, goes into the actual sump pump or does it go into the ejector pump? So that's the only thing that could be illegal about it. There are systems out there that still, they're antiquated, they used to be allowed for basements where water... Dishwash water would be expelled into the actual sump pump and discharged to a backyard.

And I was told that that should never happen.

Correct.

You're right. That should never happen. Why would I fail something that shouldn't be done legally anyway?

If you want, I'll let you write down your name and number here.

And then I've also had the irrigation people that you sent out, and they don't know anything about any of these programs. When I asked them, can I at least finance this?

Cash only. When you say irrigation, you mean the landscape?

The J.C. landscape. J.C. landscape. And that was a cash deal only?

And that was for basically drainage around the house. Correct. So, again, I'm not sure of the context of that conversation.

I wanted to run a line out front, and then he was going to run the back out to Cass Avenue. I live right off Cass.

And again, let me find out what happened because something's not right there. That's all I can say.

I've had both people come out, so I don't even qualify for the overhead. And I know you guys are going to discuss that a little bit later. So I didn't know if there was something I missed.

And on the rear yard drainage, I'll refer to it as a rear yard drainage program. Depending on what the situation is, I'd have to go back and revisit it. You may qualify where the city has opportunities to do rear yard drainage programs. Basically, the city covers approximately 75% of the rest of the costs on the residents. So what that 25% equates to. Without my job costing it, I could not tell you. But meanwhile, like I said, if you want to write down your name and number, I'll give you a call tomorrow, follow up with the county, and we can go from there.

Besides July 4th, everybody keeps saying July 4th. Every time it gets a heavy rain, I don't sleep at night and I get 20 texts in the morning. How's the basement? How's the basement? So this has happened every time we get a hard rain. The last time it rained, I really was not concerned because half my basement's missing. So if it floods, there ain't really much damage you can do. So every time it rains, the sewer system does not handle the water. I mean, I look out front and it pulls the water in my stream. Every rain on Gale Avenue. I don't know about other neighborhoods. I don't want to speak for them. Every time we get a heavy rain, it's a problem.

And we're also looking at that as well. That's one of the targeted areas for the survey. And the survey will be concluded roughly? Within a month and a half.

Month and a half more? Yes. All right. Thank you, everybody. Thank you.

Joe, my check. Farmingdale Village, Aylesworth Drive. I would like to know, I should ask Dan about, is Aylesworth Drive going to be included in this survey by Burke Engineering? That's one thing I forgot to ask you in the correspondence that we had, and I think a couple other members on the council also were included in the correspondence. So that's one question I forgot to ask. The answer is no. Am I sure why it would be? Well, because our area repeatedly floods. This has been over like 26 years. It's not the first time flooding.

Again, it's going to keep on flooding, number one. I did receive your email. Bigger pipes are not the answer. It's the same answer that I gave you several, maybe close to a year ago. I can pull that email out and resurrect that email, which I'll do within the next couple days. So the issue is your home is not taken in water. from the streets, correct? You are correct. And again, parts of that area when they were built was prior to the stormwater ordinance or pre-1980s. Stormwater ordinance came into effect in the 80s. Streets were also used as part of detention systems. So again, we've been through that exercise before and I can tell you that Project that we did there between the homes does work. You would have had, the whole block would have had water over the fire hydrants. It's about three foot in comparison to what it is now. It has lowered that elevation. And comment also has been- Not true.

I'm sorry, that is not true. Okay. The water has been over the fire hydrants, okay? And I'm not trying to be rude to you. I'm just telling you that it's a fact. And cars got stuck, okay, because the water was so high. And that trench that you built between two neighbors, between their houses, okay, that goes from the sidewalk. I don't know if the rest of the council is aware of this, but, you know, the trench that goes from essentially the sidewalk to this back former swale area. I'm going to call it a former swale because things changed with all the development there. that does drain the water, but it drains it too fast, and now it has increased the water in that swale area, and it now floods our backyards, okay? It inundates the, and this is part of the email correspondence, and I'm just repeating this for people who did not get the email. It now inundates that electrical transformer box distribution node, shorts out the components in there, and then there's a power failure. So water's coming up high. Electricity is off. Electricity is off. Stump pumps aren't running. If a person doesn't have a generator, they're in trouble. So my quick two questions, please. Has ComEd said anything about when they're going to get out there and either relocate or raise that transformer box?

Don't have the follow-up on it yet, but it was... basically expedited to the external affairs director. So she should be following up. Obviously, they've been badgered with more weather element from the tornado last week or semi-tornado, whatever way you want to look at it. So I'm anticipating that I should have an answer within the next 24 hours. But they are going to be raising it. They are aware of it.

Okay. So it did tell you that they're going to raise that transformer node? Yes. Sounds good. The other thing that I also said in my email is that that addresses the electricity outages, but it does not address the flooding, and that's very critical to a lot of the residents. You know, unfortunately, I don't have a basement. Neighbors up north to me, south to me, they both have basements, and they both have a lot of water damage, okay? So I was lucky.

Again, was the water damage from water entering the front door, window wells, or was it some pump failure?

Well, for their house, I can't say, but I observed water. Have them call me. Yeah. I did observe water going up to their garage, and it has entered their garage. I'm talking about my neighbors from the south. It has entered his property, his garage, from the street, flowing up from the street. And it has also entered from the, you know, that forms between my property and his. So I think that enters also his garage from the side there. And I don't know if it gets into his house from that location.

Joe, I'm sorry, your time's up, and I know some other people wanted to speak. But if you have questions for Dan, you could address those. One quick question. Just one quick question, please.

In that regards that storm source system that runs north to south, west property boundaries, okay, some major pipe, it's like four foot diameter, and that receives all the water that's like in the west half of our subdivision, so everything collects, ultimately collects in that, whether it's overground flowing through the swale, or flowing through the trench to the swale, or from all the inlets on the street, It eventually goes to that four-foot diameter pipe, okay? To the best of my ability, and I didn't pull up any grates or anything like that. I didn't want to get in trouble. I didn't crawl into anything. So just looking through some of those, the only drainage that I could see to that four-foot diameter pipe is a small 18-inch diameter pipe that goes west from like the storm grate that's behind my house, goes west to God knows where. I don't know what happens with that. But if you've got three-foot diameter, four-foot diameter pipes feeding into this system, and an 18-inch diameter pipe that's draining it, you don't have to be a civil engineer to know that it's gonna get overwhelmed. And when that happens, and I've mentioned this before, the water upwells from this four-foot diameter, the inlets to it, you know, supposed inlets, they're really outlets, And so that's a, you know, floods the swale. When that floods, that causes the intersection there at Aylesworth and Stuart to flood. So you can see how one thing is leading to another. So they're both related, you know. And I'm just trying to say that and I've alluded to this in my email, that something needs to be done about that four-foot diameter pipe. It has to have a better drainage system to it. You know, I think that what Darien did in the past, and I'm sorry I'm rambling here a bit, because I've seen this in other areas. It seems that Darien, you know, the design was to have the water go into, you know, up well from some of the storm sewer systems into what used to be prairies or farmland, fields, whatever, where I live. And so it percolated into the ground. And so it really wasn't a problem. But those areas are gone now. There's no farmland around here anymore, prairies. So water has nowhere to go. And it just collects in that swale. And that's the problem. So that's why we need to have something that drains that four foot diameter pipe. A better drainage for it. Because it's just going to keep happening. I'm sorry. I went a little bit longer.

I agree. They could fix that if they had money for drainage, not surveillance.

Anybody else here regarding the flooding? All right.

Mayor, can I have a question again? Dan, so I was out of town with the most recent storm. So how did, compared to July 4th, which we know was, how was these most recent storms? Because I know from the last meeting, it seemed like Aylesworth, Holly, My area and Glenn. Right. So how did, like, Gail, how did they kind of do this time? I just, as a comparison in my mind, because I was out of town, so I didn't see the flooding in my neighborhood, which, again, I get. It's not new because so much of Darien was built prior to 1980 that so many of our streets hold water. It's not, I see it on Sawyer, I see it on Farmingdale, I see it on Portsmouth, I see it on Honeycutt, Honeylocust, Nile River. So it's not, yeah, it's the way they were designed. So how did, like Gale flooded so much because of Cass, how did that...

In respect to the last storm event, the western side of everything west of basically Lamar Road, if you want to say, was more so intensely impacted. It was my understanding that the Woodridge Jewel on 75th Street was underwater, the parking lot itself. So from what I understood, parts of the... Local area got three inches. Portsmouth was flowing. It was flowing very well. But again, we have to remember that the upstream water basically cascades right through there, and we would expect that. But it was not that bad. But on the west side, inlets were clogged, definitely, just because of the winds that were generated and

Did Gale flood like it did last time? No. Okay, Gale didn't flood. And I think Aylesworth, I think the last time was, from what I remember, was more of a power issue because they lost power for so long and their sump pumps couldn't keep up because they had no power.

If anybody got inundated with water in the interior, that is correct.

So how did they keep, did they have power this time and were they flooded?

I did not hear of anything that the power was out. Right. And if Joe says the water was in the actual roadway, I believe that. But it would be temporary, and temporary meaning anywhere from 20 minutes to 40 minutes, 45 minutes, it would have subsided.

And how about, I know Holly, how did that turn out?

71st and Worth, I believe, had water within the streets. We expect that. That's a little bit of a frequent issue there. That's because by design, again, and all that water goes back into the Fairview Avenue storm sewer and or into Holly Park, which eventually goes back into Fairview Avenue. Thanks.

Thank you. Anyone else on the flooding? Is there anyone here who has anything they want to question or present to the City Council that's not related to the flock cameras? Anyone who want to address the City Council? Yes, please come forward.

Hi, my name is Lisa Kelly Schmidt. I LIVE AT 7522 STRANCE STREET IN DARIAN. ME AND MY HUSBAND HAVE LIVED THERE FOR 25 YEARS, AND WE HAVE RAISED THREE SONS HERE. AND MY SONS HAVE ATTENDED MARK DELAY AND LACE AND EISENHOWER. AND WE ARE IN A ZONE that sends all our children to Downers Grove South, which is four and a half miles away from our house, when Hinsdale South and all our friends in the community is less than one mile from our house. So what I want to know is if they could have an option for kids who graduated from Eisenhower Junior High School to potentially choose between Downers Grove South and Hinsdale South. YOU KNOW, 25 YEARS IN THIS COMMUNITY, ALL OUR THREE SONS, THEY HAVE A LOT OF BONDS HAPPENING WITH THESE CHILDREN IN THIS COMMUNITY. AND WHEN THEY'RE FORCED TO GO TO, BECAUSE OF DISTRICT LINES, TO DOWNERS GROVE SOUTH, THAT'S A SCHOOL OF 3,000 KIDS, AND THEY DON'T REALLY HAVE FRIENDS THERE. ALL OF THEIR FRIENDS ARE OVER HERE IN THE DARIEN, THE TOWN OF DARIEN. AND SO WHAT I WANT TO DO IS ASK IF YOU WOULD CONSIDER OUR PROPOSAL or our petition to give these children an option to either attend Downers Grove South or Hinsdale South.

That's it. You're presenting a very complex issue that involves school boundaries drawn by school districts. You're talking about real estate tax money that goes to school districts. And your question is, the area for over 40 years and it has come up over and over again by residents like you whose children are going to Downer South where all their friends are going to Hinchdale South High School. To be quite honest, That's something the city doesn't govern at all. We're not involved in that process. Today, I put in a phone call. I received an email from a woman who, for you, wanted to know, supposedly they heard there was going to be a discussion of the boundaries. Yes. And I think I responded and said, I don't know of any study or discussion that's currently taking place. Mary, have you heard?

Definitely not. District 86 is not entertaining changing their boundaries at all.

Well, I'm not asking if they could redraw the map for the boundaries. I just want to know if the children who are in this community could have an option to choose between Hinsdale South and Downers Grove South.

But they're completely two separate districts. If it was in the same district, like Downers Grove South and North or Hinsdale South, IN HINDSDALE CENTRAL, CHILDREN WITHIN A SCHOOL DISTRICT CAN PETITION THE DISTRICT TO GO TO A DIFFERENT SCHOOL WITHIN THE DISTRICT. BUT YOU'RE TALKING TO, IT'S LIKE INDIANA AND ILLINOIS. IT'S LIKE THEY'RE TWO COMPLETELY SEPARATE SCHOOL DISTRICTS, TWO COMPLETELY SEPARATE TAXING BODIES. I don't see ever there being a world where they're going to let kids pick and choose unless the boundaries change. And, you know, District 86 would have to basically change the boundaries in cooperation with District 99. Typically, schools don't want to surrender parts of the district because that means students and money to another district.

It wasn't that long ago that District 86 had a buffer zone down near 67th Street where students at that time had the choice of either going to Hinsdale Central or Hinsdale South. And the district ended that probably 10 years ago or so? Probably about eight years ago. Eight, yeah. SO, AND THEY WERE WITHIN THAT SCHOOL DISTRICT, AND THEY GOT RID OF THE BOUNDARY THERE.

SO CURRENTLY, I LIVE ON GRANT STREET, WHICH IS BETWEEN 75TH AND PLAINFIELD IN CASS. AND SO THIS LITTLE WEDGE People on the one side of 75th, they have to go to Downers Grove South. And on the other side of Plainfield, those kids go to Hinsdale South. And I'm in this one little pocket. And it's four and a half miles away for my kids to get to school where Hinsdale South is less than one mile from my house in the town that I live in. And my kids can't go to that high school. It just doesn't seem fair. They should have a buffer zone or an option for everybody to choose. You know, we establish relationships here in Darien, and we can't even go to the high school that's in our town.

I would recommend approaching the District 99 school board and see, you know, is there any possibility that they would entertain... YOU KNOW, ALLOWING THAT POCKET OF STUDENTS TO BE REDISTRICTED INTO DISTRICT 86, BUT YOU WOULD NEED TO START WITH YOUR CURRENT SCHOOL DISTRICT, WHICH IS DISTRICT 99.

WELL, I ACTUALLY DID HAVE A CONVERSATION WITH THE DISTRICT 99 SUPERINTENDENT, AND HE DID SUPPORT ME. HE SAID HE WAS WILLING TO SUPPORT ME IN ANY WAY, BUT HE DIDN'T MAKE THAT SUGGESTION TO ME.

THE SCHOOL BOARD IS THE ONE THAT ULTIMATELY MAKES THAT DECISION.

A school board meeting. We have two wonderful high schools. Donner's Grove South High School is a wonderful school. UCL South High School is a wonderful school. Regardless of where your child goes and the friends they might make or the friends that they're going to leave behind, they're going to get an excellent education at either school. I have three students standing back there who all go to Donner's Grove South High School, and I'm sure each one of them will tell you that it's a wonderful school. You have a young lady here who goes to Hinsdale South, and I'm sure she'll tell you the same thing about Hinsdale South. I realize where you're coming from, but in terms of the educational quality, the educational quality is there for both schools. It really is.

It's not about the educational quality. My son is 18. He just graduated from Downers Grove South. But before he even attended Downers Grove South, he told me we had to move across the street so he could go with his friends to Hinsdale South. And we're not in a position to move across the street. And I have twins. They are currently at Downers Grove South. But they are suffering. The majority of their friends are at Hinsdale South. And so they feel abandoned. AND IT'S JUST NOT FAIR FOR ALL THESE KIDS.

I THINK ALL THE WOMEN SULLIVAN MADE A GOOD RECOMMENDATION, AND THAT WAS TO TALK TO DISTRICT 99'S SCHOOL BOARD ABOUT MAYBE MAKING AN EXCEPTION FOR THAT POCKET. IT INVOLVES TAX MONEY, AND THOSE BOUNDARIES ARE DRAWN WITH THAT IN MIND.

THERE'S NOTHING THE CITY CAN DO. IT HAS TO BE THE SCHOOL DISTRICT THAT DOES IT. I MEAN, THERE'S ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WE CAN DO AS A CITY. IT HAS TO BE THE SCHOOL DISTRICT THAT MAKES THAT DECISION. AND THERE'S A STATE SCHOOL BOARD, THERE'S A LOT.

YEAH, I MEAN, WE HAVE SO MANY SCHOOL DISTRICTS IN ILLINOIS, IT'S REALLY KIND OF HARD TO MEET. TOO MANY. I MEAN, I LOOK AT, MY KIDS WENT TO CAS 63, RIGHT? AND ONE JUNIOR HIGH AND ONE GRAMMAR SCHOOL IS A DISTRICT. Think about that. You know, my wife was on the school board. We tried to, well, how can we maybe combine districts in order to, you know, maybe only have one superintendent for more schools. Yeah. And it's like, try to even get that done because there's different taxing amounts. It is not easy. Because you look at it, you say... We got 62, we got 66, we got 61, and we got three superintendents. And I mean, you have like 63 where my kids went, it's literally like a couple hundred kids. I mean, think about that. And so I hear what you're saying. But at the same time, even to combine school districts to try to get some economies of scale and have one superintendent handle multiple. When you go to other states, districts are huge. Huge. Huge. Not in Illinois.

Other consolidated districts.

State of Florida, 40,000 kids per school district.

I would recommend pleading your case to the school board.

To the school board.

But then anyone impacted by it would have to be in agreement, too. And you might get one person that doesn't want that change.

Because even when we try to combine, Mary's been so involved in our schools forever.

My heart goes out to you because it's challenging. And a huge part of academia is not just the school class work, but it's the social connections and it's the social emotional learning that's fundamental. It's a whole buzzword.

That's why we even do intergovernmental agreements with school districts to save money on things that they have to buy because there's just so many of them out there. So, yeah, like Mary said, Alderman Wood, Alderman Wood, Alderman Wood, Sullivan said you need to start with the school board.

Over 10 years ago. Alderman Sullivan's husband and I sat on a school consolidation committee. We worked one year with the state to equalize the pay. We went through every factor in terms of what it would save the taxpayers if we combined those two school districts together.

You're a grade school, though, not the high school.

Not the high school, the elementary. It was two of the three that currently exist. We spent a year on it. We did a lot of work on it. Alderman Podorowski represented one group. I represented the District 63 area. We made a presentation to both school boards. Both school boards. One said yes, the other one said no. He didn't want to do it. After one year of work. All the women, so when I became mayor, all the women, that was about four or five years ago, I asked Mary to talk to District 63. We had three superintendent vacancies. And we went to each one and said, now would be an opportune time to consolidate all three school districts because you're all looking for a superintendent. Form one district, have one superintendent. And the response was, we want our own school district and we want our own superintendent. That's the reality.

So your suggestion is I go back to the District 99 school board and find out if they can allow this pocket to attend the other District 86 school.

Is that right? They would have to basically release you to be redistricted, and then they would have to talk to District 86 to see if they're willing to take you. But you'd have to start first with District 99 because they're the ones that would have to basically give you up so that District 86 then could take you in.

The school board, not the superintendent. The school board makes the decision.

The school board is the elected body by you, the citizen, that makes those decisions on your behalf.

Let's go to the next school board meeting.

All right.

Thank you. Thanks, Wishes. Anyone else on that district? WANT TO COME FORWARD?

I AM NOT SURE IF THIS IS THE APPROPRIATE TIME FOR ME TO SPEAK. I AM ON NEW BUSINESS REGARDING MY RV VARIANCE.

IT SHOULD BE UNDER... ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT AN AGENDA ITEM? YEAH, THAT'S AN AGENDA ITEM.

YES.

PRESENT THAT NOW IF YOU WANT.

OKAY. I'M NOT VERY VERSED WITH THE PHOTO. GOOD EVENING. MY NAME IS CYNTHIA HANEY, AND I AM A DARIAN NATIVE. My parents purchased our family home in 1967 when the address was known as 78th Place in Westmont. Growing up here, I embraced Darien's slogan, a nice place to live. Although I later lived elsewhere, I chose to return and raise my own family in the community as it has always felt like home. My daughter who recently graduated from Hinsdale South grew up in Darien as well. Our family purchased our first camper in 2011 when living at 1002 Juniper Lane, where a detached garage, a side driveway provided an appropriate parking location. In 2019, I purchased my childhood home at 1008 Juniper Lane from my father and continued raising my daughter there as a single mother. Unlike our previous home, this property does not have those features, but it does have two mature pine trees that help screen the camper from view. My property presents some unique circumstances. It is a corner lot and the house sits at an angle to the street. When I received a citation for violating the RV parking ordinance, I sought a variance because I genuinely believed I was complying with the spirit and intent of the ordinance. The ordinance does not prohibit owning or storing an RV on residential property. It regulates where an RV may be parked. When I read the ordinance, I assumed its purpose was to minimize the visual impact of recreational vehicles on neighboring properties and public streets. Because of the configuration of my lot, the only ordinance compliant location would place my camper in full view of Juniper Lane. The location for which I requested a variance keeps the camper partially screened by two mature pine trees that are over 70 years old, significantly reducing its visibilities to neighbors and passing traffic. It has been difficult to understand why the location that results in less visibility has not received more favorable consideration. If the goal of the ordinance is to minimize the visual impact of recreational vehicles, then the location I am requesting appears to better achieve that goal. My request does not seek to circumvent the ordinance, but rather to apply its intent to the unique circumstances of my property. I would also note that this matter came to my attention through a code enforcement observation rather than a complaint from a neighboring property owner regarding the location of my camper. That appears consistent with the fact the camper's placement and existing landscaping help limit its visibility. I was also concerned by the repeated emphasis on setting a precedent. Variances exist because properties are not identical. A corner lot with an angled house presents circumstances that differ from many other residential properties. Ordinances are not a one size fits all, which is precisely why there is a variance process. Each request should be evaluated on its own merits and unique facts. I recognize and support the city's interest in preventing neglected, inoperable, or unsightly vehicles from being stored in residential neighborhoods. Those concerns are reasonable. However, my camper is licensed, maintained, operable, and serves a recreational purpose for my family. I understand that serving on the city council often requires balancing competing interests and making difficult decisions. I appreciate the time and consideration you have given my request through this process. Tonight I respectfully ask the council to approve my variance request and allow my RV to remain in the location that results in less visibility than the ordinance compliant alternative. Due to the unique characteristics of my property, the proposed location better achieves that outcome while still preserving the character of the neighborhood. My request is not to disregard the ordinance, but to recognize that flexibility is sometimes necessary to achieve a fair and practical outcome. Thank you for your time. your service to our community, and your thoughtful consideration of my request. I respectfully ask your support in approving my variance request and allowing my RV to remain on my driveway.

We'll be discussing that under our new business to new business.

Thank you. Hello, council. Hello, mayor. Hello, city officials. My name is Jeff Sturgeon. I'm here again to demand you end the mass surveillance of Darien citizens. At our last meeting, the mayor said there was no spike in crime and no demonstrated need for public surveillance before purchasing these AI government surveillance systems. If that's true, then Darien has no factual basis for keeping flock or expanding into cell phone tracking surveillance. You are building a larger government surveillance system where even city leadership has admitted there was no public safety emergency required.

Excuse me, I didn't say that. I said Darien is a...

This is also a question of mismanaged priorities. Darien residents are still dealing with the devastating effects of the July flooding. Families are living with damage, loss, and the consequences of longstanding drainage problems that the city is allowed to continue. We do not need more money spent on surveillance while basic public services and infrastructure are failing people. Govern responsibly. Help residents instead of spying on them. What makes this worse is that the public talking points from the police chief, council members, the mayor, and the city announcements online suggest either a serious misunderstanding of how the dairy and flock surveillance system works, or a refusal to describe it honestly. Flock is not just a camera that alerts on stolen cars or license plates. It can search historical movements, identify vehicles by characteristics, identify people by characteristics, and reach across a massive network far beyond Darien. And despite the city's pledge that Darien's flock system would not be used for federal immigration purposes, publicly released records indicate that a Darien police official accessed flock information, searched more than 20 1200 government networks and searched more than 18,000 flock cameras to locate a person because DHS was looking for her. This is in addition to the state of Illinois' report that Flock illegally allowed feds to use local government Flock systems despite the local governments having the sharing feature off. Both of these situations directly undercut the city's reassurances. It shows how easily the system can be used for exactly the kind of outside agency mission creep the public was told not to worry about. The promised public safety payoff is also not supported by the evidence. Reporting based on FBI data and analyzed via the Atlanta Community Press Collective found that Atlanta's network of more than 5,000 flock cameras had virtually no meaningful impact on the department's ability to solve crime. Some clearance rates, including homicide, have declined during the years the cameras spread. If that system hasn't delivered positive results in Atlanta, Darien doesn't need it. Additionally, more abuse has come to light since her last meeting. Across the country, officers are still being caught using license plate reader systems for personal reasons, including stalking. We have also seen settings expanded without local knowledge, unauthorized outside access, and vendor personnel accessing sensitive live camera feeds in places involving children. Children. These are not bugs in the system. They're the predictable results of building a mass surveillance tool and then trusting that everyone with access will behave perfectly. And I want to address one argument directly. We keep hearing police defend Flock and other AI surveillance tools by saying it makes our job easier. But your job isn't supposed to be easy. It's supposed to be restrained, heavy, and encumbered by the burden of proof, probable cause, and the presumption of innocence, and respect for civil liberties. A free society is not designed to make things convenient for the state. It's designed to protect the individual from the state. So my ask is simple. Remove these illegal cameras and stop expanding location surveillance in Darien. If you refuse, then at a minimum, adopt strict guardrails immediately. Retention to seven days or less. No outside sharing without a judge-signed warrant for a felony recognized under Illinois law. Use limited to felonies. Full public audit reporting and a warrant for historical database access. Darien does not have a surveillance emergency. It has a leadership problem. Normal police work, targeted investigation, and warrants can protect the public without putting everyone under suspicion. You said there was no spike in crime, Mr. Marquez. If there is no crisis, then there's no justification for building a system that treats every resident like a trackable subject. Remove it. Thank you.

going to quote me, quote me correctly, because I said Darien is a safe community and the cameras will make it even a safer community. That's what I said.

Absolutely. You admitted there was no reason for a mass surveillance system of citizens. I agree with you, Mayor.

Anyone else? Yes, ma'am.

Hi, I live in Darien, 7818 Stratford Place. I could also talk about the flooding, but I won't do that.

And your name?

Emily Palachuk. So my name is Emily Palachuk. I have worked in Darien at Hinsdale South for 25 years and moved my family here 18 years ago. because I love how diverse Darien is, diverse in population, but also neighborhoods. Some sections are brand new and some date back to the 1950s and this is why one size fits all ordinances are unfair. We all pay taxes and expect to have fair treatment and that's not what's currently happening with the RV debate. I understand the reason why there is an ordinance to minimize the view of RVs, but perhaps the ordinance needs to be changed. Not everyone can park their RV or boat in the allocated spots described in the ordinance. And thus, this is why there's the variance process. So Cindy, who lives at 1008 Juniper Lane, has followed the rules and filed the paperwork and stated her case on why she has parked her RV in her driveway. She has a unique yard. She has a valid argument based on the location of her house and mature trees. However, this governing body doesn't want to listen to this because of the precedent this might set for others. So I have an attempt to potentially, a solution to probably help with this. So a reasonable solution should be to instill a permit application and fee And then the city can allow for exceptions to the rule, not discriminating against a large number of homeowners whose houses don't fit, they're not the same. The attempt to block Cindy's variance seems like a perfect example of government overreach. We do not have an HOA. This seems like a valid way for having the permanent application fee to solve this conflict and have the city make some money too. This may be a better use of the city's compliance manager rather than investigating complaints from neighbors about basketball hoops and so on and so forth. Subjective eyesores. Having residents rip down mature trees to park an RV or boat is not what the city should ask residents to do. Again, the ordinance says you can park it, right? It's not saying you can't park it. It's just telling you where you can, and that's not the same for everybody. Everyone's property is a little bit different, and the way that it is. So... Yeah, so please respect Cindy. She has an older property and a valid claim. Don't turn her down because of what might happen in terms of a precedent. I ask the board to please do the right thing and accept Cindy's variance.

Thank you. Anyone else? Okay. We're going to move on and our agenda is receiving of communications to any of the Alderman have communications they'd like to share.

I gave Alderman Gustafson somebody in his ward for the alarms, the tornado alarms, not being able to be heard. And he's going to go take a look at it tomorrow.

I'll check with him tomorrow.

Okay. Thank you for that. I did get a communication during the floods last Monday from, I'm forgetting the resident's name. Tom, do you recall? You have to look it up.

Okay.

Larry and Warren on. Oh, my God.

Larry Kislicki.

Yeah. ON HICKORY, RIGHT? 1018 HICKORY. YEAH, THEY WERE, THEY HAD POWER ODDAGE DUE TO THE TREATED FELL ON THE LINES BEHIND THE JEWEL. YOU KNOW, SO HE COULDN'T GET A HOLD OF TIME, HE GOT A HOLD OF ME, AND THEN I GOT A HOLD OF TIME BACK. SO THOSE ARE MY COMMUNICATIONS.

I'VE RECEIVED MANY COMMUNICATIONS, LOTS OF VERBAL COMMUNICATIONS, BUT AN EXTENSIVE LIST OF COMMUNICATIONS FROM ONE PARTICULAR RESIDENT, ANDREW DREW KELLY, SUGGESTING MANY DIFFERENT TRACKS AND SOLUTIONS FOR THE CITY TO TAKE INITIATIVE WITH THE CARMELITE PROPERTY, THE CASTLE EDEN. I DID SHARE THOSE WITH CITY HALL. I ALSO SHARED MY COMMUNICATION DIRECTLY WITH THE CARMELITES ASKING IF ANYTHING MORE COULD BE DONE, CHANGED. THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY ALSO PUT TOGETHER SOME COMMUNICATIONS AND SHARED THOSE WITH ME ABOUT THIS HISTORICAL PROPERTY. BUT THE CARMELITES HAVE SHARED THEIR PLAN TO CONTINUE TO FORGE AHEAD AND AREN'T INTERESTED IN ENTERTAINING ALTERNATIVES, SADLY. I'M SAD TO SEE IT GO, BUT I DON'T FEEL LIKE THERE'S MUCH MORE EVEN WE'VE ASKED OUR CITY ATTORNEY TO LOOK AT IF THERE'S ANY LEGAL CHALLENGES THAT COULD BE MADE, AND THERE ARE NOT. WE DID RECEIVE, I THINK, MOST OF THE CITY COUNCIL AND THE MAYOR RECEIVED AN EMAIL FROM SYLVIA MCGARVER REGARDING THE FLAT CAMERAS. AND I DID RECEIVE FROM EMILY PALACHEK AND FROM THE HOMEOWNER ABOUT THE RV. that's on the agenda tonight about the exception, the variance. I also received an email from Yasmeen Patawala. She's a resident in the Kearage Greens neighborhood. She had concern about flooding and what was her property, explanation of easements and who owns the easements. And so Ryan gave her extensive information and overhead views and everything to help describe and help her through that information. And then lastly, with the heavy rains this past week and weekend, Ron Levin on Fox Hill Place was sharing videos and pictures of some of the issues that continue to occur in the Carriage Greens neighborhood.

Thank you.

Anyone else? Okay, that moves to the mayor's report. I know we had our summer interns present tonight. I just wanted to read a brief statement. It's with profound sadness that I share the news of a passing of a former friend and colleague, Sean Durkan. Sean and I were both elected as new aldermen for the city of Darien in 1997. During the six years that we served together on the Darien City Council, those of us on the council came to know him as a principled leader whose only motivation was to do what was best for Darien residents in the community he loved. Sean passed away this past Friday. He leaves behind his fiancee, Brenda, a 17-year-old son, Gavin, and a 13-year-old daughter, Avery. Sean went on to serve 10 years on the Donner's Grove Village Council. At the time of his death, he was serving on the Woodridge Board as a trustee. I kidded Sean the last time I saw him that he'll probably make the Guinness Book of Records because he served on three different boards on three different communities. Sean was a good person. He cared a lot about the people that he served. He was principled. He was ethical, and he, above all else, he cared about people, and he cared about his family first and foremost. Sean's death will be a loss to Woodridge, to Durian, and to Donner's Grove. The city will be putting out an announcement tomorrow in our direct connect that will deal with, will basically say some of the things that I just read. And his services will be this week, Thursday, at Modell Funeral Home. And it's, I believe, St. Mary of Gaston Church.

Yeah, it's 10 o'clock at St. Mary of Gaston in Downers Grove.

A number of aldermen were close to him, but I think Alderman Kenney wanted to say something.

So, Joe, go ahead. Sean was a unique character. He gave his heart to anything that he was doing. Actually, probably his biggest fault was always overcommitting, which I tend to do, and that's probably why he and I got along so well. I'm going to miss him. there wasn't, you know, we would, we would call, we would call each other up on the morning after elections to see who won and who lost. And, um, if I had any, if I had any questions or something like that, I'm actually, I'm actually sitting in Sean's seat for when he was, he was like, he was, um, is he, I, I live on the same block that Sean grew up on. So it's, it's an honor to be sitting in this seat and always, you know, Sean was, Sean was a mentor to me. So, and he'll be certainly missed.

Thank you. When is it at Modell?

3 o'clock Thursday. Yeah, Thursday, 3 to 9. 3 to 9. And you better get there early because it's going to be packed.

In fact, I need to talk to the chief and to Deputy Chief. Mr. Brunson, excuse me, Andrew Brunson called me from Modell. They wanted to know, because he was an older man in the city of Durian, if there could be a police escort facility I believe from the funeral home to St. Mary of Gostin. I'll let you guys make that decision and think about that, but he asked me to get back to him in case something like that was approved. Thank you. Takes us to a city clerk's report.

No report this evening, Mayor.

City administrator's report. No report, Mayor. Takes us to department head information and questions. Any questions for Police Chief Thomas or for Mr. Gunduck from the council? If now we move to the Treasury report, we have a warrant. Treasurer Curran.

Thank you, Mayor. Requesting Council's approval for number 262707 in the amount of $1,045,108.82 from the listed funds. Payroll for the period ended July 23rd. Amount of $375,515.21. Total will be approved $1,420,624.03. Motion to approve. Alderman Kenney, seconded by Alderman Schauer. Any questions or comments?

You can on the roll.

Kenney. Aye. Shatworth. Aye. Sullivan. Aye. Belzac. Aye. Leganski. Aye. Gustafson. Aye. Stampinato. Aye. Seven ayes.

The warrant's been approved. Standing committee reports to any of the chairs have reports they'd like to present to the council. Alderman Sullivan.

The admin finance committee met this evening and they will have our next meeting on Tuesday, September 8th. at 6 p.m. in the City Council boardroom since Monday is Labor Day that week.

Alderman Kenney. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. The Police Committee meeting is scheduled to meet on Monday, August 17th at 6 p.m. across the Parkland Police Training Room.

Alderman Dolezal. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Municipal Service had a special meeting earlier today, and our next regularly scheduled meeting will be on Monday, August 24th in Council Chambers at 6 p.m.

Thank you very much. We'll move on to questions and comments agenda-related. This is for the audience. We already have two people who presented issues that are on our agenda. Is there anyone else in the audience who would like to say something about one of our agenda items? NOT, WE'LL MOVE ON TO OLD BUSINESS. THERE BEING NO OLD BUSINESS, WE'RE MOVING TO THE CONSENT AGENDA. AND PLEASE REMEMBER THAT ITEM D IS NOW A NEW BUSINESS, EXCUSE ME, IS NOW CONSENT AGENDA ITEM F. PLEASE BEAR WITH ME AS I READ THE CONSENT AGENDA. ITEM A, AN ORDINANCE AUTHORIZING THE SALE OF PERSON OR PROPERTY OWNED BY THE CITY OF DURHAM. Item B, a motion to approve the expenditure of budgeted funds to purchase professional consulting services from Testing for Public Safety, LLC, to establish a sergeant promotional eligibility list in the amount of $14,800. Item C, an ordinance approving a variation from Section 5A7-2-6A of the City Code to permit an enclosed patio within the rear yard of 1623 Gulfview Drive, PZC 26-9. Item D, an ordinance approving a variation from Section 4-3-10-1 B-3 of the city's sign code permitted an electronic messaging sign instead of a manual changeable copy sign for a remodeled Culver's ground sign located at 541 Cranefield Road, PZC 26-10. Item E, a motion directing staff to research and prepare ordinance text amendments allowing electronic message boards on ground signs by right. AND ITEM F, A MOTION AUTHORIZING TO PURCHASE AND DEPLOY A WEB-BASED WORK ORDER MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE FOR THE MUNICIPAL SERVICES PUBLIC WORKS DEPARTMENT SERVICE PLATFORMS WITH BRIGHTLY SOFTWARE INCORPORATED IN AN AMOUNT NOT TO EXCEED $40,745.83. MOTION TO APPROVE. ALL THE MEN. STAMPINATO. SECONDED BY ALL THE MEN. BELZAC. AND THE ROLL.

STAMPINATO. AYE. Belzac. Aye. Kenney. Aye. Gustafson.

Aye.

Schauer. Aye. Sullivan. Aye. Leganski. Aye. Seven ayes.

The consent agenda has been approved. We move on to move new business. The first item, an ordinance approving a variation from section 5A-5-11 of the city code to permit a recreational vehicle within the front yard of 1008 Juniper Lane, PZC 26-11. WISHING TO APPROVE. ALL THE WOMEN, SULLIVAN. SECOND BY ALL THE MEN, SCHAUER. AND DISCUSSION. MARY.

SO I READ ALL THE NOTES. OBVIOUSLY PLANNING AND ZONING AND MUNICIPAL SERVICES DID NOT SUPPORT THIS. BUT THEN THE PETITIONER CAME BACK WITH A REVISED PETITION. AND I DROVE BY THE PROPERTY TODAY AND IT I mean, I looked at the pictures prior to driving by, but then driving by gave me a clear view of what exactly has been conveyed by the petitioner, more so than even in the pictures, with it being on a corner, it's like a sliver, and then the side yard, which would be, am I to understand, if the camper went to the side yard, that would be allowable, correct? Yeah, which is like wide open. AND THEN BY IT STAYING ON THE DRIVEWAY, IT'S BLOCKADED. SO, I MEAN, IT'S NOT LIKE WE DON'T ALLOW CAMPERS ON, I MEAN, IT WOULD BE A DIFFERENT STORY, IN MY OPINION, IF WE DIDN'T ALLOW CAMPERS ON THE PROPERTY AT ALL. BUT SINCE WE ALLOW CAMPERS AND RECREATIONAL VEHICLES PARKED ON PROPERTY, BUT JUST NOT ON DRIVEWAYS, I THINK IN THIS CASE, THE DRIVEWAY SERVES AS A BETTER SPOT AND IS MORE ISOLATED. AND THEN I NOTED, I SEE THAT AFTER THE revised petition documents were submitted staff again recommended that the council finds it reasonable to approve the petition following the conditions that the maximum length of the trailer parked on the front driveway shall be 25 feet so you can't go get a bigger one and if the mature trees are because they are very mature, petitioner already indicated that, and they look mature, but they look healthy, were to go away or, you know, God forbid, a storm, like my dad lost some very mature trees in the storm last week, then the petition would be null and void. So I think that that's why we have variances, and I think that's a good compromise because the allowable spot is more visible to everybody.

Anyone else?

Yeah, so I did a little bit of, I did the drive, same thing, and I did a little research in your ward at 902 Walnut. They had a, back in 17, they applied for variants. They were on a corner lot too, but for a boat. And their boat, you know, they were able to put, now they were able to put pine trees along between the wall and the pine trees to make a wall to hide the boat in there. But to me, that looks, you know, as big, you know, that looks prominent versus this trailer. or this camper, so I would sooner see the camper on a small little camper versus a boat hidden by trees. So I'm kind of along your lines with that, too. I did my homework as well. Anyone else? Alderman Schauer?

Mr. Mayor, everybody, and I kind of mentioned this before, and I empathize with you, I agree. This is, I've been on the city council since 2009. And the original ordinance, when it was passed in 2008, I was basically got called out in a homeowners association meeting by about 35 people. And I had no vote on this whatsoever. And that's neither here or there. But the point of the situation was, that they had opened up this fact about this ordinance for literally six months and they finally decided to pass it. Once it was passed, that first year, year and a half, we had more people come on back asking for variances and everything that goes with it. And it just was one basically denial after the next because anything that we were going to do, we were going to open up a can of worms on this. There is no, unfortunately, we're trying to put a square peg into a round hole. And the biggest thing that came up is right down the street from mine, at my old place on Greenbrier, a guy literally had to cut off the side of his roof to park his RV right next to his house that's literally one foot from the neighbor's lawn and it looked absolutely horrendous from the way it was instead of keeping it literally on the driveway. But that's the way the ordinance was under, you know, was written. My issue and my concern is that if we have one ordinance, we're going to have a precedent for a lot of other of these variances. I don't like it. I don't never like the ordinance. I thought, you know, I wish we didn't even have to touch base with it. It's kind of like the chicken coop situation. No matter what we do, we had a longer discussion than we need to. So I understand where the people are coming from. But again, this is just one of those things that We're going to relive every ordinance, every RV going forward. And I just can't. That's my issue that I have with this. So I'm going to leave it at that.

I would basically echo what Ted just said. I really wanted to be on the side of the petitioner. And I went by the house. The camper is clearly visible to me as I'm driving down. It's not particularly hidden. Probably will look better where it is than if you tucked it in the trees. But Ted's point, as far as I'm concerned, if we pass this, then anybody with a boat, with a camper, will have an open avenue as far as, okay, I'll put a couple of bushes here and kind of block mine, and how come I can't have it and other people can't? So that's the issue that I have. And I really, really wanted to go by and not be able to find it. And unfortunately, it's there. So that's the issue that I have. Anyone else?

I'll call the question.

Sullivan? Yes, for the variance.

Schauer? Nay. Belzac? No. Gustafson?

No.

Kenney? Yay.

Yes.

Leganski? No. Stapanato? No. I have two ayes and five nays.

The variation has been denied. Takes us to item B, a motion to approve invariations pursuant to section 7-5-1 of the city code to allow reduced setbacks and alternative screening measures permitting the structure to be located adjacent and within an existing accessory structure and screened through landscaping in lieu of a required privacy fence at 2208 Carlow Drive. Motion to approve. Alderman Belzac, seconded by Alderman Schauer. End discussion.

So my concern is, is this a fence? Because it is... appears to be individual units of different blocking. I'm in favor of it if it meets our fence code, I guess would be my concern. I don't want it to be movable.

The simple answer is yes, until we get the actual specifications submitted through the building permit process. And again, a fence basically means that it has to have uprights, uprights that are in the ground, not something that is portable. So that's the, I'll call it, meaning of offense, definition of offense. The panels themselves, whether they're stockade, whether they're pickets, do meet the actual spirit of the code.

So as long as it meets our fence code, I'd be in favor of it.

So just going back to the prior meetings about this topic was municipal services. And it was left that the owner, the resident was going to get a landscape architect. And I think what we were all left believing, most especially the neighbors near the home, was that arborvitaes were going to be planted.

That is correct.

And so that became cost prohibitive.

According to the resident, cost prohibitive, and he never submitted, he submitted something from a landscaper, but never a design from a landscape architect slash either a landscape designer or an architect per the conditions of the meeting that we had previously with the subject.

Yeah, because the neighbor who had voiced concern, you know, can't be here tonight, but had said, You know, if it's going to be true to what was agreed upon before, they wouldn't, you know, voice opposition. But I guess I'm just trying to figure, I mean, it's completely different than what was agreed upon and, you know, nothing was necessarily voted on. But you're saying because what Tom just asked Alderman Belzac that this would be like basically in line with the ordinance with the fencing.

Correct.

Alderman Legasco. Thank you, Mayor.

So I echo Alderman Belzac as well. So because we're going back to the original ordinance, the way it was written. So as long as this is a fence and it meets your fence requirements or whatever, and it's not movable, I think that needs to make sure that that happens.

It has to be anchored into the ground. That's the bottom line.

The coverage area, the height, all that fits in line with our fence ordinance for chicken coops. Yes.

So what if we vote on it tonight and they don't put the fence in? See, that's the problem. They don't put the fence in where it's solid. Right.

It was a violation of the code. I'm sorry, Jim.

Right. That's what I'm saying. What if we vote on it today and yet they don't do what they're supposed to do?

They'll have a code violation and they will be required to show up at courts.

The resident's here. Can we ask him to?

Is the resident here tonight? Want to come forward, sir? Do you have anything to add?

Can you put the fence up or not?

State your name, please. David McHale. 2208 Carlow Drive. And yes, after several conversations with the council here and the gentleman here, we will stake it into the ground. We'll make sure that the items meet up to the code.

And you'll do the funds? I'm sorry, sir? You'll do it? You alleviate all the... He's going to put the fence in.

All we can do is do a condition to the motion with the verbiage of securing... fence panels to a structure within the ground or to a supportive structure within the ground, something to that effect. No, the question is how deep, sir? Typically 32 inches is ideal. If you really want to be safe, 42 inches. So that's a basic defrost line. Yes, sir.

Any more comments?

I don't want to amend it. Dan's suggestion amending.

The condition of the fence be secured structurally within the ground.

Do you need to put the, do you need to put the, do you need to put the.

Next up to a 32 inches, minimal of 32 inches. ON THE ACTUAL POST.

I'LL AMEND MY MOTION TO REFLECT DAN'S SUGGESTIONS. DAN, BASICALLY THEN, YOU'RE AMENDING THE MOTION.

I BELIEVE WE HAVE TO VOTE ON THE AMENDMENT FIRST.

I CAN WITHDRAW MY MOTION AND DO A NEW MOTION.

NO, IT DOESN'T WORK THAT WAY. WE HAVE A MOTION ON THE TABLE NOW, AND WITH THE AMENDMENT, THEN WE NEED ANOTHER MOTION TO AGREE TO THE AMENDMENT.

Motion to approve the amendment. I move to amend the pending motion. Okay. I second.

I second. And a roll. Okay. Now, first, we're going to vote on the amendment. All right. Belzac. Aye. Kenney. Aye. Gustafson.

Aye.

Liganski. Aye. Shower. Aye. Stampinato. Aye. Sullivan. Aye. Seven ayes. May the amended amendment NO, NOW IT'S ON THE ORIGINAL MOTION.

THE AMENDMENT HAS BEEN APPROVED. YES.

NOW IT'S ON THE ORIGINAL.

MOTION TWO, THAT WAS APPROVED. WE HAD A MOTION ON A SECOND ALREADY ON THIS.

YES.

ALL RIGHT, CALL THE CALL.

BELZAC.

AYE.

SHOWER.

AYE.

SULLIVAN. AYE. GUSTOFSEN. AYE. KENNY.

AYE.

Stompanato? Aye. Leganski? Aye. Seven ayes. So both?

Both items have been approved, sir.

Robert's rolling over in his green right now.

All right. Item C, a motion approving an overhead sewer assistance pilot program. I just want to make a brief presentation on that. As you know, the July 4th rains created significant issues within the city of Durian. Following that rainstorm, Alderman Leganski brought forth a number of homes on Glen Lane. Water came into their basement or their split-level home. through the sewers. So there were clearly sanitary sewer issues. None of those homes had an overhead sewer system which protects against that. A lot of you probably have overhead sewers, don't even know you have overhead sewers. We discussed this at length. The county has a program where if you install an overhead sewer, they will pay $5,000 I wrote an email to our three District 3 representatives asking them if they would go to the County Public Works Committee and ask for an increase from $5,000 to $7,500. Mr. Vanna and Mr. Gombeck dealt with Sean Reese and the other gentleman's name?

Nick Kottmeyer.

Kottmeyer, who agreed that it was a good idea to raise it to $7,500. In fact, tomorrow their meeting and the County Board Public Works Committee should approve that increase to $7,500. With that, Mr. Vanna drew up a schedule of how the city could assist if a person who had a sanitary sewer problem from July 4th on they would qualify for reimbursement by the city. In other words, if they had the work done to install the overhead sewer, they would pay, the county would pay the $7,500, they would pay the balance, and then once they paid the balance, the city would reimburse them $5,000. So in other words, anyone whose insulation of an overhead sewer costing $13,000 or less would pay nothing. And the reason we wanted that is a lot of these people who have dealt with sanitary backup are already paying for the mess that the sanitary backup cost them. If it's as much as $15,000, they would be paying, I think if it's 13, they'd be paying 500. Correct, yes. If it's 15,000, they'd be paying 2,500. So tomorrow, the county public works committee is going to approve that. We have one of our district three reps on that committee, Carrie Galassi, and she supports it. Lucy Chang Evans, who's also our district three rep, will be at that meeting, and Lucy will be speaking on behalf of our Darien residents. And so the $7,500 change should take place. What they're voting on tonight, what the council is voting on tonight, is the approval of $5,000 that the resident would get if they had that new system installed. And there is a procedure where they could do it outside the house, and they don't have to damage the flooring or any of the current structure of any of those split-level homes. So that's really what we're talking about. And to qualify, you have to be someone who's had sanitary sewer backup. So that's just so people understand what we're voting on tonight. Any questions or comments from the council? Okay, we need a motion to approve. Alderman Leganski, seconded by Alderman Belzac. Now, any discussion?

Mayor, just a comment. The way this is proposed tonight is still very unique for the county. A lot of different municipalities own their own sewer systems and they have a similar program, but the county services probably 200,000 customers throughout the county with sewer. And at this point, if I understood the county correctly, we're really the only community that is adding to that grant that they have. So the county will pay the first $2,000 and... THEN SPLIT THE BALANCE, AND THEN THE CITY WOULD CONTRIBUTE $5,000. IT WILL BE FAIRLY SIMPLE ON OUR END. THE RESIDENT WILL GO TO THE COUNTY, THEY WILL APPLY FOR THE PERMIT, GET APPROVED THERE, GET EXPECTED THERE, AND ONCE ALL THAT IS DONE, THE COUNTY WILL REIMBURSE THE RESIDENT, WE'LL GET NOTIFICATION THAT IT'S BEEN ALL APPROVED, AND THEN WE WOULD RUN OUR CHECK THROUGH THE NORMAL PAYROLL PROCESS AND REIMBURSE AN ADDITIONAL $5,000.

Thank you, Mayor. Yes, I had multiple meetings with yourself and also with the county. I plan on going to the meeting tomorrow as well. And just so I think the rest of the council needs to know, especially in the area that was affected in my ward, it happened again with these last storms as well. not as severe, but you still had homes affected with sewer backup. So it wasn't even just from July 4th. It's still happening. So again, there's somewhere, you know, there's stormwater getting into these lines and And it's backing up in that area the way it's set up right now. They showed me a design. I was amazed how they track how much these sewers take in. It's way more sophisticated than I ever imagined. And I met them down on Frontage Road in Nantucket. and they showed me how the system works and how they can measure how much water is being taken into our sewer systems. So they see it, and it's pretty obvious to me why that area does get affected pretty hard.

I think we set a limit of 50. 50 people at 50, 50 incidents, $5,000 apiece.

Mayor, just to clarify, we estimate there would be 50 at the $5,000. There are a couple of cases on the metrics where the city's share, because the county would pick up on a smaller project, a certain amount. If there's anything at 10 or 11,000, we'd only we'd only have 4,000 or 4,500. But for the purposes of the 250, you're correct. We estimated at the end of the day there would be 50 residents applying.

And at least with the outdoor system, we're not having to demo and restore a lot of living spaces that are finished because they're split-level homes. They're just designed that way to have a family room, a bathroom,

On that level. But to qualify, just to reiterate, to qualify, the family would have had to suffer sanitary sewer backup any time from July 4th occurring, correct?

Well, the July 4th has to do with the new funding amount. Okay. But the program still applies, again, as I understand it, but you really need to contact the county. But just the increased reimbursement, I believe, is effective from July 4th. Prior to that, the county's had that program for a long time, just at a different reimbursement.

Which begs the question, in the event someone had this happen to them previously, and they qualified, but it wasn't on July 4th, Would we still be, so instead of it being 7,500, it would be 5,000 from DuPage. Would we also be matching that or only things that happened July 4 going forward?

I anticipate it would be at any point. If the county approves a program for our residents. Anytime, as long as you're approved.

Because there may have been people who had, because the rain came in weird spots. Some neighborhoods got soaked, some not so much. And they may have had a problem a year ago, and now they find out about this.

Or they might see there's more money involved, and this is a time they can afford it. So we would reimburse.

I just want to be clear that it's not limiting to that date.

Thank you, Mayor. Yes, Alderman Belzick. Exactly, because a lot of residents I know try to put in just a check valve system outside for $8,000 that failed. I mean, after last July's storm, someone put in an $8,000 system in October only to have it failing this July. And The ironic part is because there's been so much stormwater in the systems, a lot of the residents think it's been just stormwater because it's so diluted. So people were under the impression it's stormwater and I have to educate them and say, where is it coming from? Is it coming from a sewer? Is it coming from a floor drain? Is it coming from a toilet? Is it coming from a shower? If it's coming from there, that's sewer. And people were, I mean, residents did not know that. So they're like, because it was so diluted with stormwater. So, again, I think there's been an educational process, too, as well. Thank you. Anything else?

In the room? Leganski. Aye. Belzac. Aye. Gustafson. Aye. Sullivan. Aye. Stompanato. Aye. Schauer. Aye. Kenney. Aye. Seven ayes.

The motion has been approved for the overhead sewer assistance pilot program that takes us to questions and comments and announcements of a general nature. Is any of the aldermen have anything they'd like to share? ALL THE WOMEN.

JUST THAT TOMORROW NIGHT JUST THAT TOMORROW NIGHT JUST THAT TOMORROW NIGHT IS NATIONAL NIGHT OUT. IS NATIONAL NIGHT OUT. IS NATIONAL NIGHT OUT. AUGUST 4TH FROM 5 TO 8 PM AUGUST 4TH FROM 5 TO 8 PM AUGUST 4TH FROM 5 TO 8 PM AT PRAIRIE VIEW ELEMENTARY AT PRAIRIE VIEW ELEMENTARY AT PRAIRIE VIEW ELEMENTARY SCHOOL. SCHOOL. SCHOOL. THAT'S ON PLAINFIELD ROAD. THAT'S ON PLAINFIELD ROAD. THAT'S ON PLAINFIELD ROAD. AND I THINK IT'S ALWAYS A AND I THINK IT'S ALWAYS A AND I THINK IT'S ALWAYS A PHENOMENAL NIGHT WITH PHENOMENAL NIGHT WITH PHENOMEN see our police and all the other aspects of Darien tomorrow at Prairie View, Tuesday, August 4th from 5 to 8 p.m.

I'd just like to announce that this Friday, Saturday, and Sunday coming up is our annual Darien Fest. As many of you know, there's construction going on at Westwood Park. So District 86 has given us approval to run Darien Fest on Clarendon Hills Road. We'll be closing Clarendon Hills Road from Elm to 75th Street. The student parking lot next to the football field will be the carnival. And because it's such a large lot, there will be additional rides and activities by the carnival. There will be a stage closer to the Elm Street location. There will be... area for viewing the stage, and then there'll be a, I believe, a 30 by 90 foot tent under which we will have people have an opportunity to sit and eat and talk. And then we will have, we have 10 food vendors that will be on one side of the street, and we will have a business expo on Saturday and Sunday. We'll have a number of businesses that will be out there setting up booths. It should be the largest Darien Fest that we've had in years We're very happy to be working with District 86 in terms of being able to use Clarendon Hills Road. We'll have to take a look and see whether or not we want to do it again next year or if we're going to move back to Westwood Park. But I would urge all of you, if you have an opportunity, to come out to Innsdale South High School for our annual Daring Fest this Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. Anyone else? Yes.

I don't think it's ever been held before. Are the residents going to be, is there anything that's going to tell us where we can park? It won't cause problems for the residents in the area and where the business is. Park for Darien Fest.

When the Darien Fest was at the community park, you actually closed a street that affected residents. You're not affecting any residents along Elm. Elm is open to residents. If somebody made a left-hand turn onto Clarendon Hills Road from Plainfield Road and they wanted to get to their house on Elm or any of those side streets, that would be open for them.

I think he wants to know where people park who are attending Darien Fest.

It's what's currently the faculty lot on the north side of the building. You know, there's a baseball field, there's tennis courts, and then there's a parking lot. And that parking lot is open for parking.

Okay, thank you. You're welcome.

Anything else? Anybody else have any other announcements? If there's no other motion to adjourn, Alderman Schauer is seconded by Alderman Sullivan. All in favor? Aye.