City Council - Regular Meeting

Heat. Heat. Hey. Call the committee of the whole meeting

for the Elgen City Council for January 14th, 2026 to order. Will the clerk please call the role? Council member Alaro, present. Dixon, present. Good here. Martinez here. Ortiz here. Powell. Stefan here. Thorne here. Mayor Captain here. Approval of minutes of the previous meeting of December 17th. So moved. Second. Move the second for approval. Any corrections or additions? Hearing none. Clerk, please call the role. Council members Al Faro, yes. Dixon, yes. Good. Yes. Martinez, yes. Ortiz, yes. Stefen, yes. Thorne, yes. Mayor Captain,

yes. Motion's approved. 8 Z. We have a few people that signed up for a public comment this evening. First person, Josh Brockway.

Thank you, mayor. Hopefully, everybody's staying warm today until we got here.

I want to thank the mayor and the council and the staff for hosting the community forum and for the privilege of serving as its facilitator. It was a humbling experience, especially as so many community members, I don't know if you felt this way, looked directly at me as they shared their anger, fears, and frustrations. I'm not sure if you all are like me, but I'm still struggling to hold several of the stories, especially from the young people who were there. Their nervous breathing, their tears, and their short, direct sentences have stuck with me for days. It's clear that you all have divided opinions about policies related to the immigration enforcement. Yet you've all signaled at various points that what is happening in the community is both wrong and unlawful. I recently heard that a polarized society over prioritizes agreement. The ideological climate of our country today demands 100% agreement on values and policy. And if there is not agreement, the vitriol flies to discredit opponents. So what do we do when we actually agree on the values but not on the policy? My hope is we listen to one another to find a solution that brings together the best of our policy proposals while setting aside the negative and unended consequences. This kind of dialectic listening where we synthesize our positions without attacking each other is so rare in our current culture and it's what I think we need now more than ever. So I ask please find a way to work from the shared understanding and values rather than stake positions hard in the ground and attack others who disagree but might have another solution. And finally, as a friend of mine reminds me constantly, underpromise and overd deliver. We're inundated with a kind of overworked rhetoric that's designed to entertain us with takedowns of the

opposition and soundbite emotional releases. I've read too many press releases about policy and then looked at actual language only to find that the rhetoric did not match the substance. So, please do not use what was shared with the fierce vulnerability of last week to gain the campaign material, but I hope that it empowers you to find practical and effective outcomes. Thanks. Thank you. And thank you for uh doing the fine job you did at the uh public meeting. Uh Peter Bezos. Mayor and council members, thank you. I'll keep it brief. I've been working uh with the wonderful representatives of the Hindu Temple since October of 2021 when they first identified the site that you'll be considering tonight uh and as their site for hopefully establishing a place of worship. Over the last four plus years, I have I can honestly tell you I've come to appreciate this petitioner as having the highest integrity and moral character. Perhaps the best evidence of this is that when the neighbors so strenuously objected to the first site plan and the PNZ recommended against it in June of 2025, uh the leadership of this uh Hindu temple did not elect to charge forward and come before the council hoping that you would say something different. Instead, they took what they heard from the neighbors in the PNZ to heart, and they directed their design team to prepare a greatly downsized proposal involving a 63% smaller uh temple building and 225% increase in uh open in green space. This should speak volumes as to the character of this petitioner and allay any concerns over the quality and the

suitability of the project, particularly given that the land currently is zoned uh GI general industrial and could be developed today with industrial buildings with no public hearings and the the Hindu plan is much more aligned with your comprehensive plan. Uh we thank the staff for their work, thoughtful guidance and assistance over the past several years and for their recommendation of support and we very much appreciate the time that I know you have all spent and not only reading all of this but entertaining calls and reading emails. The approval of this project will be a great credit to the city and clearly demonstrate what a welcoming place Elgen is. our team is present with me uh both here and will be at the 7 o'clock meeting to answer any questions. Um we're going to try and keep it brief because we know will be a busy night. Thank you.

Thank you, Chuck Hanlin.

Thank you, Chuck Hanlin with JSD Professional Services. Uh here on behalf of the same petition with uh with Peter. Again, I'll try to keep it brief but just want to make a few comments. Uh Elgen certainly and I know you all know this has a history with the founding the the original downtown where religious institutions are embedded and certainly just part of residential neighborhoods and that pattern uh continues on as Elgen has developed out east and west and on uh the west side certainly there's many examples of uh newer religious institutions being embedded again in residential neighborhoods in our newer uh development areas. So the tradition that it starts in the downtown and you know most downtowns in the country start that way has continued in Elgen to include these institutions embedded within residential neighborhoods. Just speaking from a from a land use um standpoint. Uh in this case uh as Peter uh mentioned uh taking into account the comments from the neighbors uh at the public hearing and other comments that we received there were significant uh changes to the plan. And I would agree uh with Peter. We've both been in this business for a while and have had few clients that have honestly taken it that much to heart and made this magnitude of significant reductions and changes uh and some detailed uh in the plan based on feedback and comments from the neighbors who live uh and some of those neighbors of course adjacent to uh the property at the common uh property line. Uh we reduced the amount of town homes by five units. We are putting like kind residential two-story town homes adjacent to the existing two-story town homes that are on the west side of the existing neighborhood. So, we're putting like kind units to like kind units. Uh their setbacks are required to be 30 ft for the rear yards. Our first plan, we included 40T. We heard comments about concerns for wildlife. Uh we had included a 6 foot tall continuous fence

uh thinking that was a good idea. They they did not really like that. They were concerned about the movement of the wildlife and even the views of the fence and even the installation of a straight line fence would remove more trees which is true. So we've removed the idea of the fence. We pulled that out. We also added 10 more feet to our rear yard setback. So there's our required at 30. Most of their towns are a few feet beyond that. Ours are minimum required at 50 feet. So that's going to put 80 feet from, you know, back door to back door of the town home. 30 on their side roughly. Uh 50 on our side at least from a minimum standpoint. uh and a reduction of units. We've uh greatly reduced the magnitude uh you know of the main generator of of the site uh which is the temple complex itself from 231,000 square ft down to 86,000 square ft a 63% reduction in the total interior square footage of the temple complex uh building and I mentioned I say it in terms of a complex it includes a a prayer hall dining facility community hall ancillary uses office spaces bathrooms maintenance areas and storage and etc. So, it's it's entirety that's broken down into smaller uh components within the building itself. Uh the reductions uh to that including the removal of a three-story condominium building that was in the original proposal have significantly reduced the amount of parking uh from,284 spaces uh down to just checking my notes uh down to 536 spaces 58% reduction in the total parking. That reduction, that field of parking in the plan also allowed us to then insert a sixacre uh green space outdoor recreation area that was not previously in the original plan. So, we we've taken that most of that uh benefit of the reduced parking and created a a solid rectangle for open space at the northern end of the plan, which actually further buffers some of the single

family neighbors to the north and and to the north and and west. Uh so with that I could go on with some more detail but I think I'll uh leave it at that. The main point is uh we really feel like uh the client in this case listened and made significant changes reductions to the project to hopefully fit in uh better with the neighbors concerns. Okay. Thank you Lynn Means. the traffic.

Uh you'll have a chance at the regular council meeting. All right. Okay, Mr. Manager.

Thank you, Mayor Mayor. Item A is on both agendas. This is a phase three engineering services agreement with Hampton Lanzini and Renwick for the Kimble Street traffic signal interconnect project. That project will be modernizing and coordinating traffic signals along Kimell Street from Dundy Avenue to North Grove Avenue. The project is supported by a federal congestion mitigation and air quality commonly known as CMAC grant which funds 80% of the eligible project costs. The engineering services agreement is similarly eligible for that same 8020 split, meaning the city will be reimbursed almost $40,000 at the end of this project for this $50,000 contract. HLR is being recommended to be hired as the city's engineering consultant. It will be providing construction engineering services for the traffic signal project that include uh field inspections, design interpretation, administering the construction contract, and coordinating project activities to ensure the work is completed properly, on schedule, and in full compliance with federal and state requirements. As I noted, this is on both agendas, so we can discuss the matter now or you can push that over to the regular agenda. Okay.

Uh any questions at this time? Okay.

Item B is a software subscription agreement with Box Incorporated for cloud-based data storage and business product for the cloud-based data storage and business productivity platform. Rather than me providing the introduction to this initiative, I'm going to ask for Chief Technology Officer Erin Kazantino to come to the podium and talk about one component of this initiative, the AI platform. Mayor, I know that you talked about the desire to have the city become more engaged with the business community and AI. And beating you to the punch, Mr. Kazantino brought this forward, this initiative for the agenda. So, we want to talk about what the city is planning to do as it relates to AI. Thanks for being with us, Mr. Kazantino.

Thank you. Good evening. Um, yes, purely coincidental that the state of the city address was yesterday and uh this is on the agenda today. Um, it is it's a it's really exciting. So, I wanted to thank you for letting me have the opportunity to come out here and talk a little bit about what this proposal is. Um, and then also, you know, give a chance to the city council and for the community to understand sort of the city's approach to AI because it can have a divisive sort of uh impact depending on the audience that you're talking to. But it's exciting. Uh, and AI means a lot. Uh, it means something different, I think, to everybody. Some really like it, some really dislike it, and a lot of us are in between. Um, but I think none of us can kind of deny the fact that it's here. Uh, it's a force to be reckoned with. Um, Time magazine's person of the year were a group of people who created something that is decidedly not a person. Uh, so if that tells you how impactful AI has become. Um but yeah, it's it's a huge force and I think none of us can deny that it's it has a very large impact or can have a very large impact on sort of how we do work, how we get our day-to-day work done. There's also a potential downside to AI. uh and I wanted to provide you the background so that you and the community can uh be be confident that the city's approach to AI tries to reap those benefits that AI can provide us while mitigating the risks that I think a lot of us may see with AI. Um so we've been looking at AI for quite some time within the city within um sort of how we can use it here to provide city services to the residents. We

conducted an AI survey internally for our si for our staff. Those respondents the vast majority had used AI in some form or fashion. Um they've likely they've used those tools like chat GPT uh or name any other large language model that you like to go to. Um however a lot of them hadn't received any formal AI training and they also expressed some concern most of them in fact expressed concerned about accuracy about the ethics of using AI about the security of using an AI tool and then also about job impacts. So what that survey tells us is that we have a lot of folks that responded to the survey at least uh that are using AI uh and are continuing to use it. So the question for us really became how can we as the city administration particularly it uh how can we sorry let me get this cord how can we meet that demand for our city staff and address those concerns at the same time. So, fast forward to today with the the memo that you have in front of you and what we're looking at with when we're given these choices on which direction to go with quote unquote AI. There's a lot of directions. All of our vendors are coming at us nowadays with AI this, AI that. Um, any number of tools that you can use and a lot of the tools are very helpful. Uh but after looking at the options that our that our cloud providers were providing us um looking at what we're doing internally already what the appetite is within our staff as well as what they can reasonably adopt without getting overloaded with technicalities or having it be overly technical to the point that they're not

interested in using it. Taking all of those into consideration is what led us to recommend moving forward with Box AI. Um, and I'm pretending as if Box AI is the only thing that's at play here. It is really not. Box is foundational to the everyday work that the city does. It is where I'll give you an over brief overview. It's where we house all of our documents. So, all of the city's what's called unstructured data lives in Box. It's a cloud storage at its very core. It's a cloud storage provider that allows the city to instead of a network drive upload all of its documents into Box. The benefit there is those in those documents are available at any time any place as long as you're logged in and you properly you know put your credentials in. Um you can access those documents. It makes it easy to share documents. It makes it easy to uh provide sort of a centralized location. You all use Box on a bi-weekly basis to access your agenda packets. Um, so Box has that very basic foundational usefulness to us. They also have a number of other productivity apps that we use on a daily basis as well. Box notes, it's a place you can take notes with people alone, by yourself, or um, collaboratively. You can embed images, videos, links into those notes. So, it's a way to continually keep that. It's like a a running word document that you can share and in real time. Uh Box canvas is a diagramming platform, diagramming solution for uh ideiation and creating different workflows. Boxhubs is another piece of the platform that allows you to create centralized landing pages which becomes very important in boxai. And then box sign is kind of like our docuign platform. It allows us for those digital signatures. So the box AI piece

is just that one piece. It's really important for this evening's uh upgrade, but but Box is actually much more than that. And the AI overlay, which we'll talk about, actually enhances all of those products and it enhances all of the way that we use Box. Um, so again, fast forward to today, what are we talking about? We're talking about upgrading Box to a level that Box offers called enterprise advanced. So, our current agreement with Box had been for 5 years. It started in 2022. It goes through 2026 all the way to 2027. We are looking to renew it early to lock ourselves in for a three-year commitment. The first year of which would be the same amount of money that we're paying last year that that we're going to pay this year. No increase. However, we get access to Box AI right away. And then in the next two years after that we would see an increase for those remaining two years of the agreement which uh we which we would also then have box AI. So that is what this proposal is actually asking for. Uh it's it's to renew our box uh relationship for an additional three years with the enhancement and the addition of box AI. Um so what does box AI actually get us? Um, right now the way we use Box AI is largely conversational. Uh, the city council has access to it on Box. So, uh, if you go to Box and you go to your agenda packet, there's that little squiggly Adam looking sign and you can click that and you can interact with the document that you're looking at, right? So, you can talk, you can ask it questions, you can ask it to summarize uh, the document, you can say, give me some speaking points on here. um you can interact with that singular document and that's and that's useful. That's kind of not unlike interacting with an LLM uh on the internet going to

chat GPT and just asking it some questions. However, chat GPT doesn't have that document, right? So, um Box AI right now is really conversational. The upgrade that we're talking about would give us the ability to create agents. Um, and agents can mean a lot of things to different people just like AI in general. But for for the way I'm sort of talking about agents is it's an LLM partner or helper that is highly tuned to doing something repetitive for you as an assistant that can be then shared with others and deployed in a scalable way. So right now I think if if you go to chat GPT and you create an agent or a uh they call them GPT you go there you if you have this level of chatgpt you go there you can give it a name and you can upload a bunch of documents for it to reference when it's at when it's helping you when it's giving you those responses. um that uploading of the documents, that knowledge base that you're creating for your agent when you're doing it on chat GPT, that's what we're trying to avoid having happen on a very wide level across the city. We do not want people fragmenting their approach to AI, uploading all sorts of internal city documents to god knows what LLM, creating their agents that way, and doing it in an ad hoc way that the city has no oversight over. we have no security uh restrictions around. Um that's what we're trying to avoid with this. And so with Box AI, we do avoid those pitfalls in that the documents are already there. They're already bound within the security parameters Box sets up for us. Uh they have people have to identify who they are through our other identity engine OCTA. So we know that

we're not getting intrusions uh from bad actors looking at this documentation. So so when you're setting an agent up in something like chat GPT, you have to provide it that knowledge. Um Box AI already has that knowledge. So when we're setting up agents in box AI, we can cultivate specifically where we want that agent to be able to look to gain that knowledge and to ground its its responses in very accurate and real documentation. our documents, the ones that we provided. The benefit there is that when you use other LLMs or you're creating other agents, they will reach out to the internet, the public internet, which is full of inaccuracies. And I mean, that's where these these hallucinations come from that you hear about. It's reaching out to somewhere. It's grasping to give you a solid answer, and it's using all kinds of reference material that may or may not be accurate. um that that is sort of where the accuracy piece comes in. So Box AI does not reach out to the internet at all. It only utilizes the information that we provide it. It utilizes the LLM. The LLM is housed within Box's servers and we choose from any number of LLMs. they list 20 or 30 um that we can choose from that range from you know Claude Anthropics Claude or Gemini or um you know the the the Open AI's you know various models so we can choose which one whichever you know is suited for the task that we're trying to build the agent for but it it it's using that LLM not in like an internet way but in a way that it's just reaching out to that and and I think that's where Box really helps us in that it does all of that backend infrastructure and it builds

that connection and integration to literally any LLM we want without us having that overhead and that technological debt to continually need to maintain that. I liken it to when my family and I went camping, we rented an RV. Now I don't have to own the RV. I don't have to tow the RV. The RV literally just ends up at the campsite. They set all that stuff up for me. I can just benefit from the use of the RV with my family in a very easy way. It's easy to go and it's easy to leave. So, that's sort of what Box AI gives us. It sets up the parameters for us to take advantage of AI for our entire staff, even those that might even not even realize that they could benefit from an agent. uh it gives us the ability to set that up, scale it out and make it available in an unlimited way. We could create as many agents as we would want um for our staff. And Box AI does that in a way that we can be very confident that we control the information, we control the accuracy, we control who sees it, and we control the lifespan of those agents. They're not just proliferating out into the into the world. So, um what are some examples then of like how we can use this? Well, how is this going to even benefit the staff? Li, I mean, this is where it can get fun and really long, so I'm going to be cognizant of the time. But, uh, any topic or any any function you're doing in your job that you find yourself doing often, you can find a way to have an agent augment that or do it completely. Um, I liken it like I use the example of a bid review in the in the memo. So, a bid review is a very standardized process, which makes it perfect for an agent to be able to help us with because our proposals that we're receiving for bids, regardless of of

what the project is, go through a standard standard process. We know if bids are um what's the word? I'm blanking on it. Like responsive or not, right? So, and they're responsive if they hit all of these little check boxes. As a human, it takes us a long time to review those documents. But as an LLM and an agent built in Box, once we tell it what to look for, it does that vastly faster than we could ever do it as a human. So, literally what could take our purchasing manager many hours to review a bid that has, I don't know, 12 responses to know if even five of them are responsive. the agent will know what to look for and it'll say this is responsive, this one's responsive, this is not responsive because it doesn't have this. That would go from an hour, let's say on the high end, you know, 2 hours to maybe 5 minutes. Then the agent, we could use the same agent or a different agent because they're an agent. You give them very detailed instructions to say, "Look for this." And then once you find that, ask this question or then look for this. So then once we do that uh once he knows what's responsive then the our purchasing manager could conceivably begin querying or talking to that agent about like well based on you know xyz conditions or based on this constraint which vendor um g give me a matrix of the of the vendor's responses based on this this you know quantity of x construction piece of equipment or what have you, like it it can kind of go through and do the rating for you, right? Uh it would rate it in a way that would help you make a decision or get to a decision faster than you normally could. You could use this in hiring. People will do it in hiring. Uh and this is again, we talked about those downsides. This is

sort of where we get to some of the downsides potentially. Um but think about evaluating for, you know, hiring. You get a packet of 200 pages between C CVs, resumeumés, attachments, affidavits, what have you. 500page document. Easy. You can have the agent look through those and say based on these parameters, do you see any standout candidates? Um those candidates can then you can obviously then review those yourself. And that's where the human in the loop piece comes in. What we don't want to do is rely overly on AI and go straight from AI agent to publication without any human in the loop. You want to have someone there at least from an accountability standpoint. Um because there's research that'll tell you that sometimes human in the loop makes less of an optimal result than just straight up AI. But I think for government use cases, it makes a lot of sense to have human in the loop, especially from that accountability standpoint. uh my my brain immediately goes to the police department who are already using draft one. I mean and their policy is very well written and thorough and they're not just going from acts on draft one policy or police report to publication. There's a lot of safeguards built into that that ensures that we're looking at that before it goes anywhere that's any anywhere that is of consequence. So, Box AI gives us the ability to do just that. It sort of preliminarily can go through do these highly repetitive tasks that would normally take a really long time or a lot of effort in a very fast way and it doesn't get tired. It doesn't complain and you can really fine-tune those agents to be able to do exactly what you want in the tone that you would want. So, city council members, you will and can have an agent that looks through our agenda packet. Lots of pages in those

memos. very boring. But what you can do is have the agent review those and say, and we can build this for you once we if we get this. Um, it would say, "Give me three bullet points on each memo. Give me a pro and a con for it, and give me one question to ask Steph." The agent would go through and do just that for you. So, what becomes maybe what used to be several hours reviewing agenda materials could be, you call it a council meeting, a council prep agent. um you you do it on this agenda and it spits out exactly what you need for the meeting and you're prepared and then maybe you go into detail about one or another one memo or another if it kind of piques your interest and you can ask it more you know more in-depth questions about that and it'll respond. Um, privacy is a potential downside with with AI, right? People get very uh they'll share a lot with AI. And so there's a concern about what's kept, what's there, what's queryable for the admins, us, the city side of the the house. What can we see? Box AI doesn't let us see anything. The interactions you have with an agent are completely unavailable to box as well as the administrators. So the conversation you have with the agent or the output that it provides you it exists only within that instance that own that that one interaction you have with it. Now if you then copy and paste the outputs and then use it in a subsequent wherever of course then it's captured but for the overarching like privacy concerns you might have around how are these interactions um being used they're not um they simply exist. We benefit again from Box's investment in partnerships with all of these LLMs and that's also likely a reason that it's very expensive

um or more expensive than you may that you may be able to get commercially um is because those partnerships are there, the integrations are there. We get to benefit from the millions of interactions that you all have and I have and we have with chat GPT as it trains on those responses and it trains on what everyone's feeding into these models every single day. We get to use those models. We're just not training it. Um so we kind of reap the benefits of every LLM and all of the work that these tech conglomerates have put in and we're able to use those for our own, you know, selfish purposes. we have to pay for that privilege, which is the reason for the increase. Um, free LLMs are out there and they're really powerful, but they are using those interactions to fine-tune their models because they give you that little thumbs up or thumbs down. Was this a good response or a bad response? That is 100% how they're refining their models over millions of interactions. You know, they train it initially and that's the big energy use. That's the big consume um consumable and that's the expensive part. But then these millions of little interactions every day that these models have with you, that's where they're getting, you know, hyper refined and and and much better. So because we can then tap into them on the back end, we we kind of reap that benefit um for our enterprise use. Uh, and that's why you'll see other LLMs when they go to the enterprise level, it is not a free or a cheap endeavor because they're they're they're not getting the training data from us. We're just literally benefiting from it. Um, so that kind of goes into the accuracy um piece because we're not hitting the internet. It's only using those LLMs. Um, it goes into the security part. We're bound by the existing security that Box has already for us. Uh, and then the job impacts was another concern

that some of our staff had. Uh, I think from our approach, every conversation I've had with the city manager, um, AI is not here to literally redu to find ways to reduce our staff. Um, I think a AI is a supplement and a complement to our staff to be able to focus on larger quality control, other customer service issues. I don't think it's going to replace humans. It may find a way for us to hire fewer humans in the future because we're able to do more, not unlike email or any other instant communication method has done, you know, for for efficiency and and what we're able to do on a day-to-day basis. But I don't think it's going to be replacing anybody. So, I don't think people need to have a huge uh concern around job impacts. If anything, it'll just help you be a better whatever you are, better clerk, better attorney, better CTO, better city manager, better better council person. It's a it's an assistant that never gets tired and I think that's a huge huge benefit for us. Um, so again, I think just overall, I'll wrap up here. Several benefits with this proposal. Um, it's a centralized very controllable and secure AI that we can scale across the entire organization and make available to all of our staff, not just a core group that is techsavvy enough to make their own chat GPT GPT. Everyone's going to be able to benefit from this because we can help them create these agents to help them undo those repetitive tasks they're sick of doing. Um, it prevents us from having that fragmented AI approach where everyone in every department's uploading knowledge bases into the internet. Keeps our documents internal. Um, it allows us

to benefit from all the different models that exist. We're not locked into Open AI. We're not locked into Google's, Gemini, what have you. We have our pick. And then it also, like I said, because of the different platform and productivity apps that Box gives us, this renewal prevents us from going and finding those additional apps that can do things like diagramming or do things like notetaking or do things like docuign. Um, so those are sort of the overall benefits of it and I would be very happy to take any questions, concerns that you might have around that.

Okay, questions for uh Erin. We got a lot of them. Okay, Mr. Ortiz, go ahead. I'll work my way around. I appreciate you, Mr. Constantino. Uh, I got a few, mostly from your speech, so hopefully you have answers for them. If not, no worries. Uh, so this is a three-year deal, but I think you mentioned that the current one we have ends at the end of this year, end of 2026. Y. So, are you going to come back then? Like, why don't we merge these together so they both end and end and start at the same time instead of have overlapping contracts? Well, this would replace the existing contract. Okay. Okay. So, you So, then you won't come back in 26 asking for more. No. Okay. I won't be back till 2028. Okay, that makes sense.

And then, uh, the cost of users in the memo said 370. So, it's going to go about up about $9 then once we they start charging us for it per user. Yes. Yep. And then, uh, about nine bucks. Yeah. I I know that business model cuz I just got the Axon version of AI for the state's attorney's office and that's how they sell it to you. They'll give you quote unquote the first year free. First year free to to lock you in there then. Uh I seen that we have 98 terabytes of storage and box. Yes. Yes.

Is there a retention period on stuff like that or does is it like a running a runaway train where it just get keeps getting loaded and loaded with more and more stuff?

Uh it's it's up to us. We have so a lot of what is in box like I is that unstructured data. So it's not necessarily bound by the retention schedules that Kim has and has to abide by with like correspondence or you know whatever. Usually it's seven years but we can pick. I mean, we can let this continue to grow, uh, which is fine, or we can, you know, purge things if we want. I mean, we can delete documentation, but like the reason I ask is in one of your paragraphs, it says it's like unfeasible and realistic to move to a different product because we have so much stuff in there. And if we need an exit plan to download everything we uploaded, yeah,

if it turns into a runaway train, it's going to be a it's going to be an impossible task. won't be have enough servers or disk space to stuff. Yeah. And and that that sentence was speaking more towards like in the short term of like the the time we have between like now and when the contract ends. Like we can't reasonably go to a new vendor. Could we could we extricate ourselves from Box? We absolutely can't. I don't want it to seem like we're we're uh locked locked in with them for the forever future. Um, it's just files. Okay. You can download them and put them wherever you want. Yeah.

And then, uh, I look at our PECAR statement every month in our dispersement, and you mentioned that maybe this will help keep staff from getting their own chat GBT account. Mhm. So, will your policy then be for cyber security, those those staff members can't have their own chat GBT account. They have to use Box

cuz I'm assuming that they're downloading a document. putting in there and asking to write a memo or give them ideas or that's what we will not allow. So this this is a good this is a this is a piece we need to fully round out the AI policy that we want to do in the strategic plan for this year because I didn't have a good answer for how staff can utilize agentic AI. This provides that good answer for that. So what we can now definitively say is that if you're creating something using city knowledge and city internal documents, you cannot use external tools like that like chat GBT and upload them to that. You need to use box AAI for that. But there is still a very useful place for those web- based LLMs because you know the way that we all kind of use them now is like

tell me about this g give me more information about this person this not person this vendor you know what have you research not on like a Google search there's still definitely a place for that um not necessarily for the internal documents though that's what I'd like to avoid and then my last one is I think if I understood you right it's not a learning model where if I ask it the same question over and over, it'll learn that I'm asking that question. So, it automatically surface that question. So, I got to start the chat over every time I enter into the program. Yeah. Because those persistent chats like the way that chat GPT has it, it's because they're storing that whole conversation. Yeah.

Uh a a very nice thing with Box AI, I mean, is it wipes that conversation, so it doesn't have access to your previous chats. So yes, in on some cases you would need to like ask that same question. However, that's maybe where the agent comes in and and then you can provide it a level of knowledge so that it references that document instead of having to look back at a pre at your previous conversation interactions with it to understand the context of the question.

Okay. And then my last one is from your from your presentation or the packet. It's the cost savings for staff. Hold on. I have it written down. I'm trying to find the page here. Oh, here it is. So, it say So, it shows like like the clerks will save the most money potentially of 74,000. So, how are you going to get the city manager's office and go go from neutral to actually save some money for us? Maybe that's a Rick question here. I guess I'm like city manager it says I want to pull that attachment up. Yeah, city manager off says zero.

So would this not help them with their work processes?

So yeah, it it will. This is an example that as our conversations with Box throughout the year we're just kind of brainstorming potential use cases for Box AI right when we kind of get going here. uh they then applied metrics for if this saves two hours a day across a standard rate of pay for a department, that's where those savings would be. It's more in it's not necessarily like these departments won't benefit from it or this one will benefit the most. Just in our sort of examples we've gone through over the years or over this year, uh that's sort of their estimate for what we could save. Okay. All right. That's all I have to do.

Yeah. I'm never going to be able to say like here's the $74,000. Yeah, I know it's estimated, but I thought at least we have a dollar in there like they predict that some kind of savings from this workflow would help them, but All right. It's just because we didn't identify any very specific use cases within the manager's office that Box could point to for this document. Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. Erin, I thought you said you were going to create an agent to meet with council members for me. You're right. That Mr. Dixon, you had your hand up.

Yes, thank you. Uh, thank you for the presentation, Aaron. Um, uh, great job as always. Um, I really like Let me first talk about what I really like. So, um, I I like Box as it is right now. Um, it's it's really great. Um, I actually toyed around with some of the current AI tools that that are on there. It does have its limitations, but I'm sure that'll be, you know, updated. Um, here. Um, I also do appreciate that you um talked about the alternatives. Um, with this system, there's just one system and that covers everything versus, like you said, having multiple systems and having everything everywhere and not being able to control things and not being able to provide proper security. So, I really um uh I really appreciate you providing the alternatives and the cost associated with those um because some of the alternatives are significantly um more expensive and just wouldn't work for us uh as well. So, you talked a lot about what the this new system will be able to accomplish, what it'll be able to do. Um but um in my experience with AI like there's always some drawbacks right because it's it's not a perfect system. Um it's always a work in progress. So are there any limitations that maybe you've identified at this stage that you say you know what it's not perfect here or it's not great here and you know but this is a whole and but we do have a workaround or we're going to figure this part out.

Yeah. So I think um there's there's I'll I'll talk about two. Okay.

One is and this isn't a full contradiction of what I said before, but I do like web enabled LLMs. I think that's valuable. Okay. And so I would I would like there to be an option within a certain part of box like you know have your like your web lm so you don't have to leave box to query something that you kind of need the internet for cuz I mean there's still a very complimentary relationship between something like chatgbt and internal box AI like I'm still going to be using chat GBT for certain things it doesn't completely remove the ability and the need for me to go to the internet So that's one shortcoming like I think that there would be a benefit for Box to have some in a different place within the platform a web enabled LLM. I think that would be helpful. Um a second one is part of this uh enterprise advanced tier gives us the ability to have forms and so we can create forms and push them out into the web and then it it collects those responses. What it can't do is it can't then take those immediate responses uh and then plug that data into another workflow right away uh to use further down the line with the agents. So in another example like what the agent provides in its output it's box can't like take that excerpt of why a bid is not responsive and then put it right in a memo for you. It can't like make that leap from the AI chat box to then the document generation piece of what box has. It does require human intervention to take that output and use it in somewhere else you'd like to use. Now what it can do which is cool is that it can review a document and extract key metadata like vendor name,

identified price, um you check box that it you know hit the sexual harassment policy. It can then put that somewhere in a matrix and say it hit all these things but it can't then take that extraction and put it into a document and then give you a finished document. So, like in an ideal world, our purchasing manager could have an agent review the bids, extract the non-responsive bits from different um responsive responses, put that in a letter, and then have that letter formatted and ready for us to send out with a one click of a button so that we could reach out to those vendors that are non-responsive with a literal button press. the way that it is today is it can review the it can review the bids. It can tell you what's not responsive. He then has to take that information and insert it into um either a template that we have or into like an email or what have you. So it doesn't take it all the way. It's it gets us most of the way there, but there's still that little bit of human, you know, cut and paste. So, yes, it's not

it's not, you know, like you're saying, there's downsides and there's limitations. Now, I've t we're talking with box about this and this is one of the reasons that I think a three-year agreement is appropriate versus a five-year because this landscape changes so fast. I think it's more prudent for us to do a shorter agreement so that we can maybe pivot in three years when the world is totally different and some other company comes out with some amazing thing that that could do all those things.

Yeah. And it's moving so fast it may not even take three years to get there. It may be two years or even a year as quickly as it's moving. So you're certainly um right about that. Um the memory on the in the current iteration of Box um isn't the best. It re it forgets things really quickly as far as um marking documents or the things that you've asked or talked about inside of the chat.

Um the next iteration of it um I'm wondering is it going to have a better memory since it's going to be since the information is going to be enclosed with just that that user. So if you take an example of like a cow if you're looking at a cow memo and you ask it questions about that cow memo like it's always going to be referencing that cow memo and derive its answers from that. Now the benefit with the upgrade is that we can now have it reference every cow memo we've written in the last three years to be able to populate its answer and give you context in that answer. So, it's only going to remember

what it's like information from what it's looking at. It's not going to remember that you asked it this question a week ago. Got it. Because it doesn't store that conversation, which for us is actually a benefit because of the privacy concerns and, you know, the way that we interact with AI. It's it's it's good that those interactions are sort of ephemeral.

Okay. And my last question um is concerning uh work product accountability as we are thinking about the um our plans going forward and how we use AI and how we implement it and what our expectations are for city employees. Um you know I'm not going to put you on the spot with that. I think that's like a ever evolving thing. But that you know is one of the topics of concern as it pertains to AI being integrated into large systems you know which is what we have. So just want to put that out there.

Yeah. And I think that human in the loop is a very important part. And then ultimately our AI policy will have a similar if not the exact statement of you know employees are responsible for the content that they produce and they would take full responsibility for its accuracy. So it's on us as people to say to actually read what the AI is writing and then decide whether or not it's it fits what we need and if it's accurate. Yeah. So it comes down to the people at the end of the day anyway. So yeah. All right. Great. Thank you this way. Miss Paul.

Thank you. Um a quick question and thank you for the the thorough overview of um Box and the AI functions. Um, my only question is if the app isn't storing the info that's being put into into it uh with with the agents, how and we can't access access it, how do we ensure that employees are not violating rules um and and using it ethically and and using it appropriately at work? The when you create the agent, you give it its instructions and its instructions can be very explicit around what it can do, what it can't do, like what it should be answering, what it shouldn't be answering, topics it it can't talk about, topics it can talk about. You can be very granular when it comes to this. So that's why when you're interacting with chat GPT, it's like you can't ask it about certain things. And I'm not going to go into details on that, but it will stop you. And those are those guard rails that you can put in place

uh when you create that agent. So we have ways to control that. Yeah. That was my only question. Thank you. Questions have all been answered, Miss Paul. Okay. So far I am. Thank you. Uh so bear with me because I have eight questions. Uh the first question is in the memo it had indicated that the AI AI policy is not done yet. So I'm assuming the AI policy will be done depending on like what happens today etc. So I just want to confirm the AI policy will be completed and rolled out before this is implemented if this passes.

Uh not before it's implemented. No, cuz in in reality, this will be done if all goes according to plan, it'll be done on January 28th. Um, we will then have access to all of the things that Box AI offers us. Now, end users can't create agents. It needs to create the agent. So we can control like the agent creation, but the Box AI and the new features outside Box AI will be turned on the day that we issue the PO to the to Box. So we'll have access to everything on April or I'm sorry, January 29th conceivably.

So my followup question is that when is the AA policy estimated to come out then? Because people should know going back to Councilwoman Powell's um question on ethics and how it should be utilized etc. um that should be indicated to staff. In addition, that ties into my second question. What is the training for staff on this?

Uh so question one, question the first the AI policy. We have a draft. Um so really it would just involve the the e level of effort between myself, senior staff, city manager's office, the legal department to say, "Yep, this this hits all our boxes." Uh I if it's all we worked on, it could be done relatively quickly, but I I don't I'm kind of cautious to give a like exact date, but it's I mean I I don't know. I don't really know. I don't want to uncomfortable having something implemented that doesn't have a policy, right? And so if that could be done soon, shortly after, which it could,

yeah, then then I'm okay with that because I understand timelines and this credit needs to be done sooner in the right. So I get that as long as that policy also ties in a training program. Yes. For staff. Yes. Thank you for that. So

in addition to implementing that and the policy, there's there's definitely going to need to be training. I mean we can't people need to understand what an agent is. People are going to need to understand the policy in and of itself, what they can do, what they can't do at work. So that had that that'll take the form of tutorials, in-person meetings, documentation that can be shared with enduser staff and then sort of like office hours or open forum type of times when people can just ask kind of any question they'd like type of thing. So yeah, it this would be a sizable training effort. Okay.

Yeah. Uh my next question is so the info that's going into this AI agent um that's not being shared with not even with box the like the the interactions that you're having. No, they can't they don't see it. Okay. Yeah. Um and we've and we've tried I' I've literally had to go through the process with Box. I'm like I need to see what someone put in here and they and they didn't have it. Yeah. But I meant like box ownership is not seeing that either, right? So, okay. So, I just want to make sure like no one's having access to that. No one has access to it. Perfect. Um, so not all staff have the same level of accessibility to different forms and documents. Correct.

So, are there different agents being created for different levels? So like if you're asking like write me a memo on something and that there's a document where that person shouldn't have access to that AI is not using that document to help them put that information together. That's correct. So there's going to be different levels of Yes. Okay. So it and that's the other nice thing. We don't have to control that. We don't have to set up those permissions for an AI to do it. There's a commercial running around with Octa and AI and they're like stopping the little bot from going in the conference room. like we don't have to deal with any of that because Box's permissions are already set. It's only going to access what you have access to. So, there's going to be all kinds of different agents and that's why we can create as many as we'd like.

Okay. Um, will someone be able to use the AI in Spanish? It's a good question. I don't know the answer to that question. Okay. Um, my follow-up question to that was another question. Is box forms also going to be allowed to be used in Spanish? it it'll be translated. The box forms can be translated, but just like if someone's thinking about like sensitivity, sometimes things should be created in Spanish versus an English verse. Um, and so just seeing if staff could also use it the other way around if they could be like, help me write this in Spanish, right?

Like, I'm responding to this um community member in Spanish. Can you help me draft this X, Y, and Z? Um, so if it if we could look into that, that would be great. Um, it does. I just asked it, can you write in Spanish? And it said, So, thank you for that answer. Sure. Um, and thank you for practicing your Spanish.

La last question I have is um there has been research that shows that AI um depending on how AI is created etc it could be discriminatory and racist etc. So what kind of protocols are we putting in place into this AI agent to make sure that we are combating it from being racist or discriminatory against like potential candidates if it's doing staffing or um at me other things. Yes. So one again human in the loop. Well, humans can be just if not, you know. So, well, I'll I'll table that piece. But, um, that's another benefit because we

use the LLMs that these large tech companies are continually refining to avoid those biases. We don't have direct control over how the LLM um, may or may not have a bias, but we have choice of many different LLMs. I mean, and so a lot of them sort of have that built in. However, we can also then in the instructions for the agent itself be very explicit around do not take candidate name into account when you're reviewing any sort of resume. Do not um assume, you know, do not assume heritage based on uh location. You know, we can say all all those kinds of things. And I think that frankly AI would probably help us figure out which instructions and which things to steer it away from to help avoid those biases more so than even I could think of, you know, sitting down over an hour. So I think that there's a lot of ways that AI can help us avoid the downfalls of AI.

Thank you. Those are my questions. Okay.

Well, I had a bunch of questions for for you, Erin. Um, but I think they all just got asked and you and I have had some conversations prior to the meeting on some of the data and security and privacy and I think I've had my questions answered and I just also wanted to say thank you for in the memo trying to break down kind of the alle cart what would these would cost if we tried to buy different tools from different things and showing us that while it's a large it's a big ask it's a big contract but it's certainly worth it when you try to break those down and try to see what you would get if you try to get those individually. So, thank you.

Yeah, as I was writing the memo, I I kept thinking, well, this is a really good deal. I'm like, this is great. Yeah. Hey, Mr. Good.

Thank you, Mayor. Um, so appreciate all the questions from everybody up here. They've been more than I expected. Um so in terms of the convergence of the coincidence of this presentation and the state of the city um there's also another component with everything that was just set up here as we could tell this is quickly evolving. Um so a while back we reached out to an organization called US digital response. um they provide pro bono assistance to uh government entities and so we uh made contact with them recently in the end of 2025 and we'll be kicking off a relationship with them in 2026. Again, that's of no charge to the city. Um hats off to staff for proactively engaging with that organization. Um and so they will be coming in to help us explore use cases um firm up best practice uh offer policy um suggestions if we get to this point where we explore use cases and we find some that are bumping up against something that might not be uh responsible deployment of it. So um I this is what I do for a day job and it's always interesting in talking to people because there's so many uh firm positions formed on this but essentially the way I I look at it this is like electricity um there's a lot of ways we can use it some of them are good some of them are not good um you know some of them you need a right size for the deployment and so I really applaud this effort to get the organization into one ecosystem that we already have deployed um to get training uh going for workers Um ultimately all the organizations in the private sector that are deploying this are saying the savvy winners will be the ones that upskill and see that they can do more with the staff that they currently have. Um we've seen across the board though there are problems there are organizations that have gone and you know for me as a developer they have just started slashing developers. Um we've seen issues with certain models that um you know I have my bias. I have a certain

lab that I like and that's because they do extensive research. Um they try to call out the errors of models as proactively as they possibly can and put those guardrails in place. And so I think as we go through this uh you've already set the guardrails up for the ecosystem. Um as we start testing I'm assuming there's going to be certain models that are better for certain use cases. Um we'll be able to document that, share that. Um we'll be able to refine the prompts that are specifically used within the organization. And so no matter what uh if the person's brand new or if they've been here for a year, they'll have access to the same expertise that was crafted by all the institutional knowledge that exists here. So um I think this is setting the the ecosystem for US digital response to come in and help us uh stand up use cases and best practices. So um you know this is a rare moment where I think things have converged um kind of organically but also in this case intentionally Erin. So I appreciate all of the effort you've put into this.

Thank you. No, I really appreciate that. Thank you. Okay, Mr. Thorne.

Thank you, Mayor. Thanks, Aaron. Uh, eye opening for me. Uh, learned a lot. Basically, my questions that I initially had were asked and answered by you from, uh, uh, Mr. Dixon and Mr. Ortiz. Um, curious, uh, how your plan is in your department of managing it. So to know about our employees that maybe misuse it. Well, that's going to be that's a more difficult one because as they interact with it, we're not seeing those conversations. The output of how they're using it potentially, that's where the policy will help guard against some of those misuses, but no policy is going to be bulletproof. Um, so there's going to be probably some there's something will go wrong, you know, and uh then you need to adapt. But yeah, I mean, as far as managing the the quantity of agents and what have you and refining those results, like we have a we have staff that are going to be very highly attuned at that. Um, we have our web developers, we have our process improvement, uh, analysts, so we have we have staff that can do that. But as far as like yeah, someone using an agent and then getting an output that was inaccurate or was used then in a way that maybe they shouldn't have, that's something the policy can guard against, but probably not always prevent.

Part of that's going to be a learning curve, I would think. Yep. And yeah, there's always more to learn with AI as well. So by no means are am I the the expert on this. And with it being proprietary, uh, as you use this and we get near the end of the contract, should you choose to go another direction to a different company, per se, all the information is obviously transferable and and the ease of you everything will be consistent

and and let's say we we find that Open AI's GPT 5.2 2 mini is like really good LLM for us to use for XY for most of our use cases. We can use that LLM anywhere and we can use that and we'll just take take the instructions we gave the agent and we can download those documents and put it wherever. So it's fully transportable. Great. Thanks so much. Okay, Rose, did you have anything? Okay. Um Mr. Manager, I believe we need a motion. We need a motion. Move for approval. Second. Moved and second for approval. Clerk, please call the role. Council member Zaro? Yes. Dixon? Yes. Good. Yes. Martinez,

yes. Ortiz, yes. Powell, yes. Stefan, yes. Thorne, yes. Mayor Captain, yes. The motion is approved. 90.

Item C is a design engineering services agreement with HR Green Incorporated for the National Street Bridge Rehabilitation Project. The bridge receives bianual inspections as part of the city's ongoing inspection program to ensure it maintains a structural integ integrity level sufficient for safe usage by the traveling public. While the bridge meets the requirements for safe travel, a comparison of recent inspections indicates increased deterioration in the overall bridge's condition. Staff is recommending a preventive rehabilitation of the structure will extend it that will extend its useful life 10 to 15 years during which time planning efforts may begin for a future bridge replacement project. This agreement allows for engineering analysis and design required to prepare construction plans and bid documents necessary to complete the rehabilitation in 2026. Due to the bridge's proximity to the two railroad crossings between National Street Bridge and Illinois Route 31, State Street intersection, staff will be using this opportunity to investigate concerns over rail crossing safety, pavement markings, and advanced driver notifications for those crossings.

Move for approval. Second. Second. Moved and second for approval. Any discussion? Hearing none, clerk, please call a role. Council members Alaro, yes. Dixon, yes. Good. Yes. Martinez. Yes. Ortiz. Yes. Powell. Yes. Stefan. Yes. Thorne. Yes. Mir Captain. Yes. Motion's approved. 90.

Item D is an honorary street name designation for Pastor Jose Luis Hildalgo. This is on East Highland Avenue between Center Street and North Geneva Street. The city received this application which was endorsed by council member Rosia Roso Rosa Maria Martinez to designate a segment of East Highland Avenue in honor of Pastor Jose Luis Hadalgo. Pastor Hadalgo served as pastor of at Eglacia Charismatica Puerto Desion for nearly 40 years starting his ministry in Elgen back in 1982. The church was originally located on Villa Street before it moved to its current location at the southeast corner of Highland and Center Street in 2000. Pastor Hadalgo built a network of local resources to help those in need. Hundreds of people are better off today because of his efforts which were previously recognized by a proclamation from former mayor Ed Shock in 2007. This proposed segment of East Highland Avenue between Center Street and North Geneva Street um uh comports with the provisions in chapter 3 13.27 of the municipal code for honorary street name designations. In addition to council member Martinez endorsing the application, every property owner abuing the street supports it as well. The city's application review group is similarly recommending approval.

And it's my understanding that representatives from the church are here in attendance. Yeah. Second. Okay. Moved and second for approval. Mr. Martinez, would you like to introduce the Sure. members of the church?

Thank you, Mayor. Uh, first I'd like to introduce uh Pastor Lily Sosa, she's in the back here. If you could please stand. Thank you. I I think this was important because uh Pastor Evalgo uh because of him, hundreds of people are better off today here in Algen. And uh it's because of his hard work, his humbleness, his truth and honesty that he willingly uh shared with his congre congre

congregation and and community. Sorry. Uh the only thing that I really regret is that um Pastor Adalgo did pass away in March of 2024 um suddenly but uh I wish he was here and um right now um the congregation is asking if they can please uh have an honorary drink. Thank you. Okay, we have a motion. Any further discussion? Clerk, please call the role. Council member Zaro, yes. Dixon, yes. Good. Yes. Martinez, yes. Ortiz, yes. Powell, yes. Stefan, yes. Thorne, yes. Mir Captain,

yes. Motion's approved 90. At this time, I'll entertain a motion to adjourn and we'll reconvene the uh uh with a regular council meeting at about 7:25. We have uh people uh everybody in from the uh hallway or is there still people out there? Okay, we'll be we'll reconvene at about 7:25. Need a mo I have a motion to adjurnn. We need a motion. So moved. Second. Move in a second to adjourn. Clerk, please call the role. Yes. Council members Alfaro, yes. Dixon, yes. Good. Yes. Martinez, yes. Ortiz, yes. Powell, yes. Stefan, yes. Thorne, yes. Mayor Captain,

yes. We are conjured. We'll reconvene at the regular council meeting at 7:25. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. N. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat.

Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Hey, Heat.

Hey, hey, hey. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Hey. Hey. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat.

Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat.

Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat.

Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. N. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat.

meeting for the Elgen City Council for January 14th, 2026 to order. Please join me in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance 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. You have to get 29 people signed up. I know. Okay. It'll be a while for three minutes. Yep. Will the clerk please call the role? Council members Alaro present. Dixon present.

Good here. Martinez here. Ortiz here. Powell here. Stefan here. Thorne here. Mayor Captain here. Approval of the minutes of the previous meeting of December 17th. Move for approval. Second. Moved and second for approval. Any corrections or additions? Hearing none. Clerk, please call the role. Council member Zafaro, yes. Dixon, yes. Good. Yes. Martinez, yes. Ortiz, yes. Powell, yes. Stefen, yes. Thorne, yes. Mayor Captain,

yes. The motion's approved. 90. Will Jamie McCutchen join me at the podium? This is a pretty special uh uh year for the uh Martin Luther King event. Uh there have been some major changes. Uh we're going back to the way it was a few years ago. Uh we had some changes after COVID and uh dropped some of the events. We're bringing them all back this year. So it's been special. Jamie and a number in the committee have been working on this uh all summer and it should be very special uh for the for the city of Elgen for this year. So it's great pleasure for me. Whereas Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. born in Atlanta, Georgia, attended Morehouse College in Atlanta and Croser's Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania, was a student thereafter at Boston University and the University of Pennsylvania, and who following his studies became a spiritual leader of his church. And whereas Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as a spiritual leader not only of his own congregation but of millions throughout the world espoused the philosophy of nonviolence to all mankind and in recognition of his teachings was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and whereas Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in his campaign for civil rights extended his work for the benefit of all humanity and especially for the poor and was a leader in the cause of world peace. And whereas the city of Elgen is a blessed and compassionate city, priding itself on its diversity, welcoming its many immigrant groups and its many communities of faith. And whereas the city of Elgen through its human

relations commission and the Dr. King celebration committee has honored the legacy of Dr. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for 41 years, reflecting our commitment to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s vision of a nation committed to a nonvi to nonviolence and love in our cities. Now therefore, I David Captain, mayor of the city of Elgen, Illinois, to hereby proclaim Saturday, January 17th and Monday, January 19th, 2026, as days in honor of the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Thank you, Jamie. Say a few words.

Thank you very much, uh, Mayor Captain. On behalf of the MLK subcommittee, I would like to thank the city council and all of those that made this possible. We are very excited to come back and give a weekend of celebration. Because of Dr. King's sacrifice, we are all better off. Thank you very much. brings us to the portion of the council meeting where we recognize uh persons for up to three minutes to discuss issues that uh are of great importance to them. And uh we have a number of people signed up. I believe there are 27. So I'm going to hold you to the three minutes and uh please be courteous and uh observe that time limit. There's a timer up here for you to see. We'll start out with uh on the agenda for items on the agenda. Um let's do the items on not on the agenda first. We'll start with that. We have number about 20 people for on the agenda like Dennis Hicks. Dennis Hicks. Hello everyone. Um, I'm up here because I felt I was racially profiled by Elgen Police. Um, I was stopped in my driveway in my home. Um, there was a search done

on my car. It was basically for a rolling stop was the original call. Then the K9 using came and they said that it was for a rolling stop. Um, I didn't consent to any of that at all, but I was embarrassed. I was insulted because my three-year-old son was in his car. um went on for about half an hour. Um I did talk to the officers after that to uh find out why this was done, let them know how embarrassed I was and how insulted I was um that my three-year-old son had to see all that and had to be taken out of the car in the cold for something that was told that was a rolling stop. Um and that's why I want to be here to address that situation, see how we can make sure this doesn't happen to any other brown and black people. I have filed a complaint for this situation. So, I do want to see how this goes. And um

my friend want Demetrius Smith.

Yes. Um the racial profiling with uh EPD um is guaranteed been proven here and along with proven with me. Um I was looking for Chief Anna Ali um years ago. Same thing with me where they just see me go by them, jump behind me, said improper lane usage. Um, K9 units, same thing. Um, but I wasn't with no child. So, um, the officer name is Jay Taylor. I believe his bad number is 469. And the way he called me about what happened with that situation, it just the way he described it about how the officer locked eyes with him and he said the officer that was behind him, he bust a U-turn to get him, but he said the way he locked eyes with him, he knew he was going to get pulled over. And the officers trailed and and chased him around Elgen so much that he couldn't catch him the first time when he went turned to his friend's house to return a g a joystick or something. He told me the officer ended up coming by a few minutes later, saw him, turned around and waited for him, then followed him home and pulled him over. It's the racial profiling of certain individuals. I can't say the whole police department because when I said that last, I said it vaguely and Jim Lai laughed out on me when he seen me, but there are officers that still using his racial profile and what's I don't I remember his name. Uh what was his name? Corey Vasquez. The one you made us meet with officer Vasquez. Whatever. The point was the camera proved that he never there was no lanes to be in in proper lane usage. It was a side street. Number one, two, he wrote many more tickets because I was going off on him about him stopping me. and allowed them reviewed the camera, threw all the tickets out because they agreed that there's no

improper lane uses because it was a side street u with cars parked on both side of the road. Um but it's just a racial profiling that we bring in notice about Jay Taylor, bad number um 469. The humili the humiliation he calls for this guy. I'm going to make it my business and I'm praying that you city council people's address the complaint uh with this guy because I'm going to follow his career for his entire career here in Elgen. That's all we want to say. Okay. Thank you. So, I'm sure somebody will be in touch with you. Oh, yeah. I know. Okay.

Okay. Brings us to items that are on the agenda. Uh Peter Bezos. Mayor and council members, good uh good evening. Our team is here uh to answer any questions you might have about the Hindu petition, our land planner, our civil engineer, our traffic engineer. Um if if there are no questions, they they won't be addressing you. Um the uh chairman of the Hindu temple, Dave Patel, is also sitting over there and um has elected not to come up and speak unless you have any questions about the church's oper or the temple's operation um out of respect of your busy schedule tonight. Um over 310 people have signed a petition in support of the petition and that petition is in your packet. Um, the temple has worked very hard to gain your trust and support. Uh, and we certainly hope you will welcome and invite this temple into the Elgen community. Thanks so much.

Thank you. Mr. Handler chose not to speak as well. Okay. Uh, Jessica Aug. Good evening, mayor, members of city council. My name is Jessica Astro and I'm speaking tonight in opposition to the proposed development at 890 Gulp Boulevard. 890 is Gul boulevard is not the correct location for a development of this magnitude. This development is continually compared to the Baps Temple in Bartlett that brings crowds of over 12,000 people per their social media and several local news outlets. Um's own social media shows several events held outdoors with music and smoke flares. The disruption to the everyday lives of Oak Ridge, Sherwood Oaks, Castle Creek, and every person that travels on Route 20 is astronomical. I personally have spoken to IDOT. Not only were they completely unaware of this project, they stated that this stretch of Route 20 is already a delicate infrastructure. The Umaya group will be required to file a permit with ID do which at the very least will require them to pay for the reconstruction of the light at Route 20 and Lambert. I do indicated this starts at half a million dollars. Every aspect of the Omaya application states that builds happen when money is available. What how can you allow for a reasonzoning of this size when funding isn't even present? In their application, they are also asking for any other departures as may be necessary or desirable to construct the entire development. By allowing this, you are setting a landmark precedent for all future developments as well as current developments. I have also spoken with two individuals at the IDNR and the US Army Corps of Engineers. They have both confirmed, independent of one another, that based on aerial photography dating from the 1930s through today, that the northwest corner of this lot is wetlands. The Umaya application includes

a storm water management plan that expired on November 20th of last year and a Cain County storm water management permit application which begs the question, why is King County any part of this development when the land per the assessor's office is located in Cook County, Hanover Township? Your own planning and zoning commission has now denied and rejected this application without recommendation during two meetings despite the changes made by the group. You have petitions of your residents totaling over 220 signatures that still stand in opposition. Your taxpaying constituents don't want this development built in this location. Despite the Omaya group bringing forth a religious expert, we have stated time and time again that this opposition has absolutely nothing to do with religion. This is an AI rendering from the perspective of a two-story home on Pimmen Lane using Omaya's schematics. It is the view from the street. We all understand that the land is zoned light industrial and we are all prepared for light industrial. Light industrial as outlined in the consent decree is nowhere near as negatively impactful to our quality of life as a development bringing thousands of people to our neighborhood several times a year. If you vote for the resoning, you are telling us that our voices, Elgen's comprehensive plan and the council's voices are of no matter in protecting your residents quality of life. When you were each sworn in, you took the oath to act for the benefits of Elgen's residents. You are legally and ethically bound to listen and represent our concerns. So, please do so by voting in opposition. Thank you, Linda Cersi. Since November of 2022, we have been told that it's in our best interest to reszone 890 Gulf Boulevard so that an

exclusive community could be developed as opposed to another construction. We said no to resoning. Two proposals have gone before planning and zoning with no recommendation to reszone. They said no. Now we respectfully come before you to decide this matter. If a person is only as good as their word, their reputation and trustworthiness depend entirely on keeping those verbal affirmations. Any breach severely damages trust. We were told unequivocally in November of 2022 that the property would not be purchased if it was not reszoned first. The Temple Group went ahead and purchased the land a year later without zoning changes, without the consent decree being amended, without any positive feedback from Sherwood Oaks and without Oakidge residents knowing anything about it. Were assurances somehow given or perceived? In 2022, we were also told that hundreds of Chicago Temple members wanted to move into this proposed exclusive community. So why eliminate the multifamily building with its 81 residential units, amenities, and parking so easily? If we believe that there will be so few visitors and even fewer celebrated holidays, then why the need for a temple of this size even after its revision? or will the current proposed green space be resurrected by way of that existing clause in their proposal which allows for any departures they deem necessary and desirable and thus the structures return without needing your futural approval or knowledge. Elgen's most upgraded growth plan, excuse me, Elgen's most updated growth plan, section G, entitled growth strategy and new neighborhood design guidelines, state in part that any zoning change made by an applicant may need to show that the zone change will not significantly impact

traffic. They have failed to do that. We know that traffic information has been under reportported. ID dot will attest to this via the changes already made as well as future changes along the Route 20 corridor and Shaes Parkway. Ask anyone who lives in the Oakidge or Castle Creek subdivisions. Ask anyone who has to travel down Route 20 or use Lambert Hillard as an entrance or exit onto Route 20. Traffic will be significantly impacted and it will continue to cost individuals their lives and well-being because misinformation has continued to show up in both of their printed documents and presentations. Integrity and trust have been totally negated. On behalf of your constituents here tonight and those unable to attend, know that we stand united and opposed to this resoning and ask that you stand with us and vote no. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Paul Achmark.

I believe it's Paul Achark. Sorry, Mr. Mayor.

Okay.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor, council members. My name is Paul Akammonic. As a matter of cander to this tribunal, I'm not a constituent nor a resident of the resident communities next door to this development. I'm a partner at the law firm of Kobit Shift for Nesbbit. We serve as corporation council to the Oakidge Towns Homeowners Association as well as the Oakidge Community Association. These properties have been in existence for approximately 25 years. There are in excess of 100 homes at these two associations. There are a number of residents and constituents that reside there daily. This is their primary residences and this is not heavily populated by apartments or landlord tenant usage. The ownership objects to the application variance and plan going forward for the following reasons. Number one, this is a nuisance. This is not a matter of the residents moving to a nuisance asking the nuisance to stop. This is a matter of a nuisance moving to an established community. There is significant light issues with the apartments being built so close to the neighboring town homes and there was a representation from one of the applicants earlier during the initial 6:00 meeting that a fence was being removed. The fence removal impacts the light significantly as well is the noise. The noise being from first construction traffic for a number of years then residential traffic moving about. In the zoning and planning committee meetings, there was talk of in uh individuals being brought in to assist with traffic and movement. Their direction, their noise, their amplification through devices that will cause further noise to the residents of the Oakidge communities. Here we have one means of ingress and ingress to this development. If there is an accident, fire emergency personnel, everything's going to have to be rerouted to the north end of the property, which takes all uh residents and patrons of the

temple into the association property. That presumes emergency personnel can get to and from that property and that no one is blocking the gate through an improper parking. There was comments earlier regarding funding and we ask if this application was for the temple alone, would it be granted? If the application was for the residents alone, would it be granted? The owners object, and you'll hear from them later regarding their objections to the property as a whole, but would even worse for the city as well as the neighbors would be if the project started and then could not be completed. Now you have a blight on the community which is incomplete and potentially unsafe. The owners and we offer that this development detracts from residential desiraability. This is not a plan and abstract nor a piece of paper. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this corridor, we invite you to visit the street and see how traffic, both construction trucks, heavy machinery that are laying concrete, rebar, plans and development, raising the ground to change the water. I see my time has concluded. May I briefly have one second to conclude?

Go ahead. Thank you, Mr. Mayor and Council. Uh, for those reasons, the owners object, and we appreciate the council's time and attention to this matter. Thank you. Thank you,

Lynn Hutchkins. Good evening. My name is Lynn Hutchkins. Over the past several months, residents of the Oakidge and Sherwood Oaks subdivisions have brought our concerns and objections to you on the egregious impact that the proposed temple complex at 890 Gulf Boulevard will have on us specifically and on the surrounding area. We hope that you have listened carefully to what we've been saying, done as we urged, and took a few minutes to drive the area to see what we've been talking about. The lawyer for the temple has stated that there would be no or minimal impact on traffic on either Lake Street or on the tiny access road that would be shared between Oakidge and the proposed temple. He would have us believe that the several hundred to several thousand daily temple worshippers would all politely spread themselves across the entire day and that there would be no time when a festival or any other event would have them descending on the area in large numbers. We would have to be truly gullible to believe that uh at all. You only need to search online to see the huge crowds that attend temple events. There has been no consideration on the part of the temple to the impact on the people who would be their neighbors. But then a huge walled and gated complex that we would not be allowed into does not exactly speak of neighborliness. I truly feel sorry for the temple group because I feel that they were deceived when they were shown the property. It was probably a bargain price considering how long it has been vacant. I wonder if they were even warned about the consent degree covering the land. But that still

does not excuse the total lack of consideration or concern for what their project will do to those of us who have lived in the area for decades. It is already difficult and dangerous to get in and out of the subdivision. The increase in traffic caused by the temple will just exacerbate that. It will also impact the resale value of our homes and even our ability to sell our homes because who is going to willingly buy a home next to a humongous, noisy, gated, and walled complex that will cause so much disruption to the area? And because we are concerned about the disruption this will cause to our lives, we have been labeled religious and even racial bigots. But this is not about religion or race. This is about our desire to preserve our safety and our quality of life. Please consider what this will do to those of us who live there and to the surrounding area and vote against the project. Thank you.

Thank you, Allison.

Hi, I'm Allison Ozag. I live in Bartlett. I'm right across from Lambert and Lake, so I will be impacted by all of the traffic that is coming out of that intersection. I'd like to start off and say the current proposal does not take into account ID do's project to eliminate the proposed street. The temple plans to use the service as traffic on days of worship. They plan on doing these roundabouts and the first intersection that'll be available for light will be at Lambert. So that exit is no longer going to be there. There's no current traffic study or analysis that takes in account the elimination of the primary method of ingress and egress. It would be irresponsible to move the project forward in light of the significant and material change to the traffic pattern. The elimination of the primary method of ingress and egress by ID do leaves Lambert Lane to serve as the existing car wash, the residential home, and the temple. Given the anticipated attendance on days of worship and traffic on non-worship days, an accident at the intersection of Lake and Lambert, which happens almost weekly, would be a significant and dangerous obstacle for emergency vehicles attempting to reach the homes, car wash, or temple. This is in addition to the inconvenience and congestion a non-emergency would have on the intersection. The proposal states the surrounding roadways have adequate capacity to absorb the additional traffic even during the busiest times. I would have loved to know what time of day that these studies were done. The original proposal traffic study was done close to the co times when everybody was staying at home. I walk my dog at all hours. I hear accidents. I see traffic. This statement is completely false. If Lambert is the primary method of ingrass and egress, a new traffic study would be commissioned to study the impact on the residents lining Lambert, including the Castle Creek town homes and single family residencies, the dog park, the children park, and the

playfield that is open to everybody to use. Currently, patrons on the parks are permitted to park their vehicles along Lambert Road, which narrows the street down to one lane. I have contacted Bartlett police to try to get this change and they cannot. So I don't know how this is going to help with the traffic pattern coming out. Additionally, the commercial recycling business at the intersection in Lambert and Spalding that has an Eldren address parks its flatbed trailers on the street while they are waiting to pull into the yard. This also narrows Lambert to one lane. Recently to yet another fire at this recycling plant. Lambert was closed completely going north. The traffic pattern is changing in the light of IDOT's project and new traffic studies must be commissioned. To do otherwise would be a reckless and will endanger and inconvenience the surrounding communities. I hope you have taken the time to drive these intersections and see all the congestion that is already there. Hence why ADOT is ID do is trying to change it. If you have not, you should not be voting yes. Thank you.

Thank you. Lauren Iverson. Good evening, council members. Uh, my name is Lauren Iverson. I live in the Castle Creek subdivision which is on the southern side of uh Route 20 at Lambert and our house butts up against the retaining pond which then hits Lake Street. So we have a clear view of that intersection and I can tell you I've lost count of how many times there's been accidents at night during the day. There's been cars involved, there's been trucks involved, there's been property damage. They've taken out the stop lightss a few times in the 20 years that we've lived at this location. ID do previously has declared that this is a dangerous intersection. Today, I'd like to ask that you consider this with a temple proposal. We already know this is a dangerous intersection. It's been declared that by I do DOT in the past. to put a temple in there is going to add a lot more traffic and a lot more cars and a lot more people in that intersection. Combined with there's discussion of adding a gas station right across the street from our home. I'm fine with the gas station. It's just extra traffic in the intersection. So now we've got all these different sources for more traffic going into a dangerous intersection. To make things safer, we need to address the intersection before we do these additional projects. That's my opinion. Kind of common sense that type of thing.

I realize that I do DOT controls that intersection. It's not your purview. So, I get that. But that doesn't mean that we go and dump a bunch of more traffic in there until I do DOT declares they're going to make a change. So, for me, it's a common sense thing. If it's dangerous, don't put more traffic into it. Get it fixed and then you can add more traffic. I guess that's all I got to say. Thank you very much,

Barbara Canno. I didn't realize how short three minutes was, so I wrote way too much. So, I'm sort of going to wing it here a little bit. But um uh my community here and I have been now to two zoning meetings and tonight's meetings to express all of our concerns about the proposed temple project, including safety um concerns, which you've heard about the traffic, the impact of all the people, the all the celebrations throughout the year, the emergency access, the overcrowding of our neighborhood when the parking spaces for their thousands of people coming aren't enough, and the negative changes to the character of our neighborhood. ood and the risk of declining property taxes. I know that this board has the final decision-making authority, but the zoning committee that we went to the first meeting, we went well over midnight. So many people were speaking and the other one was about 5 hours and the zoning committee voted it down two times. The first time a 4 to one vote and the second time at first they didn't even want to make a motion and then they made a motion it was split. A woman on the the board, the zoning board even said, "I used to take my car to the Toyota dealer right there. I drive all the way to St. Charles because I'm so scared to drive that close to where you guys are talking about. It is that dangerous." So, um, the the the church had asked for the moon and the stars the first time when they went into the zoning board, and it was just way way too big and way so many variances. They scaled it down. Now they're just asking for the stars. It's still way too big. It's still way too impactful to our community. So, um I just hope that um you guys hear you what we're all

saying how it's going to impact our community that you trust the zoning board and what their recommendations were. And um when you're deciding how you're going to vote, please take the concerns of our community into effect. If you're um facing those concerns where you live, how would you want to vote if it was about your home? And if you're on the fence with it, air on the side of safety. We don't need more people getting killed out on Lake Street. Thank you. Thank you,

Charlotte Miller. Good evening, mayor and city council members. My name is Charlotte Miller, and I'm a resident of a subdivision located approximately 500 ft from the proposed Hindu Temple site near Route 12, also known as Lake Street here in Elgen. I want to be clear from the beginning that this is not about religion or culture. Our community respects religious freedom and diversity. My comments tonight are strictly about zoning, traffic, safety, neighborhood compatibility, and fiscal impact. The variance being requested would place a large assembly extremely close to an established residential subdivision using the same single entrance off Route 20 that residents already rely on. Lake Street is already a heavily traffked corridor and many of us experience congestion and safety concerns, especially during peak hours. A temple of this size will generate significant and reoccurring traffic, particularly on weekends, holidays, and during special events. This raises concerns about congestion, emergency vehicle access, pedestrian safety, noise, and overall quality of life for nearby residents. There is also a public safety concern cons related to the adjacent land use. On the west side of the proposed site is a com chemical facility safety clean. It

is my understanding that some celebrations may involve fireworks or open flame activities. If that is accurate, this proximity raises serious safety questions that deserve careful review. Even if such activities are limited or restricted, placing a high occupancy gathering space next to an industrial chemical operation warrants a thorough safety and risk assessment before any variance is granted. In addition, there is the financial impact to consider. Religious institutions are exempt from property taxes, meaning this land would be removed from the city's tax base while requiring city services such as police, fire protection, traffic control, and road maintenance. That ultim ultimate burden shifts to the taxpayers. Zoning regulations exist to ensure compatible land uses and to protect residents and the city of its unintended consequences. Granting a variance in this case could set a precedent that undermines that protection and permanently alters the character and safety of our neighborhood. We are not saying no to a temple. We are asking that the council consider whether this specific location given its proximity to the homes, limited access, adjacent industrial use, and fiscal impact is appropriate.

Thank you. for your time as elected officials of the city of Elgen. I trust that you will place the safety of the residents, taxpayers, and voters first as you consider the zoning variance. Thank you, Jocelyn Miller.

Thank you, Mayor and Council. I'm here tonight because the decisions made on this project will shape traffic safety and daily life for this neighborhood for decades. My concerns are not speculative. They are based on what has been presented, what has been omitted, and what residents already experience every day. At the last zoning meeting, it was disclosed that the applicant intends to retain their existing tempo while also constructing this new development. This raises a fundamental question of how will access be managed if both facil facilities operate simultaneously. It is not reasonable to assume that attendance will split and stay within the numbers that are being suggested. More realistically, the site will draw more people given that it is the new bright and shiny location, significantly increasing traffic volumes beyond what is currently being represented. The new proposed open space is being presented as an outdoor benefit. Yet, its location appears to be largely a result of where an apartment building was previously planned. When viewed alongside the developer blanket request for future approval of any use on this land, this raises legitimate concerns about future changes that may not align with today's representations. At theformational meeting, residents were told there will be no events held outdoors. However, public posts on the applicant's own social media show outdoor gatherings do take place. This creates a credibility issue. When statements made to residents conflict with publicly available information, it becomes difficult for the community to rely on asurances being offered as part of this approval process. Again, there is a blanket request for future approval of any use on this land. The council needs to think about what this will do to all future developments within Elgen. Turning to traffic, while revised numbers have been referenced, a new traffic study was never produced despite the zoning board explicitly requesting one. A new study would have accounted for the car wash being constructed after the original traffic study, as well as substantial residential growth west of this site, including Elgen, South Elgen, Pingry Grove, and Hampshire. As a result, the traffic figures currently being used to justify this project are misleading. Comparison to a residential complex the size of Oakidge understate the impact. This development will

generate more concentrated event-driven traffic than a standard residential development. A nearby example is West Ridge Community Church. Despite having lower Sunday attendance than this development proposes, police traffic control is still required to maintain safety. Why is this development proposing traffic control only for its largest holiday? And what is the contingency plan when attendance exceeds projections on major holidays? Will this development serve as the primary gathering location? If so, we're no longer dealing with the reduced or redistributed attendance. We are facing the originally estimated numbers of 4,000 plus visitors moving in and out over the course of those holidays. Under those conditions, the scaledown version of this project does not have the capacity to safely accommodate demand with only 536 parking spaces. This raises additional concerns of how overflow parking will be handled. Will the open field, which is currently protected by a conservation easement, be used for additional parking during peak events. A conservation e a conservation easement is meant to protect land, not to serve as overflow parking with no regard to for its intended purpose or long-term preservation. There's also serious operational concerns. Growth must never come at the expense of transparency, safety of established transparency, safety of established neighborhoods. And this council has both the authority and responsibility to to ensure that this does not. Thank you.

Thank you, Arthur Hosenki. Good evening, council. Uh, just want to bring up, you know, there's a reason why zoning brief used this project two times already. They studied the area, they checked the area, they looked at the area, they found it not well suited for the plans. If you ever visit the area, if you ever look at the area, you'll understand why. That's kind of the main reason. So, just want to bring this up and thank you very much. Thank you, Sylvia Young.

Good evening. I'm an Oakidge um resident. I just wanted to talk about um the opposition for this project. It's not only because of um the traffic, but it's the safety. My daughter's going to be driving soon and I have already been trying to teach her how to we have to pause on Lambert before she has to cross because so many cars go back and forth. Now with the shale's light parkway is going to be gone. Our light is going to be the first light that um traffic from 20 coming east is going to see and we have a lot of semis that go through that light all the time now. So I can't even imagine what's going to happen when Shales is gone. So, as just to re reiterate, we are just very scared and worried about the traffic and all the in um accidents that might be happening for our future children too. And if we wanted to go across to lake, that's impossible too without driving. So, thank you.

Thank you, Jeremy Carlson. Good evening, mayor, members of the city council. My name is Jeremy Carlson and I reside about 50 ft from the proposed development in one of the single family homes to the northeast of u the boundary of this project. I want to ground my comments tonight in the city's own adopted comprehensive plan which the council is obligated to use as a decision-making guide. The plan is clear that development must one protect existing neighborhoods, two ensure safe and efficient transportation, three maintain adequate emergency access, and four infrastructure capacity. These are not aspirational goals. These are criteria for evaluating proposals. Our subdivision, as previously mentioned, has one single point of egress. There is no redundancy. There is no secondary outlet. There is no alternative emergency access route. The proposed development materially increases the traffic volume, specifically surge traffic, which other types of facilities would not generate. The traffic would be consistent. It might be significant, but not surge traffic. um that directly conflicts with the plan's transportation and public facilities policies which require that growth not degrade safety, mobility or emergency response times for existing residents. This is not a theoretical concern. A single access neighborhood is by definition a single point of failure as well. When congestion increases, emergency response slows. When emergency response slows, risk increases. The comprehensive plan repeatedly emphasizes, and I quote, protecting

neighborhood livability and public safety before approving intensity increases. That means safety issues must be resolved prior to approval, not deferred, not conditioned, and certainly not promised later. I'm not asking the council to oppose development at this location. I'm asking the city council to apply its own adopted policy faithfully. No development should be approved if it knowingly reduces the safety margin of an existing neighborhood. One of my closing thoughts is this. Economic opportunity can always be revisited. And when this plan was established, unemployment in Elgen was so poor it was compared to the Great Recession. This would lock up 35 acres from ever generating new employment and as mentioned would take up half in uh eliminating taxation ability. So what I'd also like to say is if safety concern were truly insignificant, it would not require mitigation at all. And the fact that mitigation is promised is an admit is an admission that the risk already exists. Mitigation promised after approval is not mitigation at all. that is damage control and public policy does not allow risk to be approved first and addressed later. Please consider this in your evaluation tonight and again I I suggest you vote in opposition to this project. Thank you.

Thank you Pat Basic. Good evening, council. I have nothing planned to say, but if I may approach you and pass out these photos and um just share it um among yourselves, you've you've heard a lot about the traffic problems and I thought maybe a visual of what we've been going through might help. And I just printed a few instances of many that we have been going through. One in particular um was on this past Thanksgiving and the the uh accident was so bad. It was a fatal accident and I was having my family and friends over for Thanksgiving and a few of those people couldn't leave. we couldn't get out of the our subdivision because of this accident and they were headed towards other celebrations for Thanksgiving. So, I just want to build upon what my neighbors have, excuse me, have been saying about what we're going through. And if you look at those pictures, that's without temple traffic coming out of that little street that they're proposed to build on. if the temple was there and that uh the accident that you see the pictures there, they wouldn't be able to get out of the subdivision either. So, besides safety concerns, um the the proposed building that they're going to do does not fit our subdivision. I've I've lived there since the beginning of the uh subdivision 2005

and traffic has increased so much on Lake Street. When we first moved there, it was tolerable. Now it is not tolerable. And like many of our my neighbors had said, the the uh the light at Lambert um cars are constantly cars and trucks constantly blowing the light and we have to wait until we visually see that there are no cars going east or west that are going to ram into us when we're trying to get onto Lake Street. So, um I'll make it short and sweet. I hope that you look at those photos and see what we're going through. And like some other of my neighbors have said, please come and see what we're dealing with because if you don't see it in person, it's hard to describe if you don't live there. If if you haven't experienced what we're going through, um I I ask that you all come and see and I hope that you all choose not to approve this project. Thank you.

Thank you. Michael Cronin.

Good evening everyone. I live at 824 Beach Drive. I'm an original owner. Built the property. It backs right up to the proposed temple. You guys have heard everything about the traffic. I just wanted to bring out some other points that maybe we're not considering. If you haven't been through our subdivision, it's all culde-sacs. It's deadend streets. Our kids play in the streets. They ride their bikes in the streets. We don't have a park. When we built the subdivision and bought into it originally, there was plans for a park. There was plans for extending, you know, more town homes where the temple property is. There was supposed to be a park back there. Our kids ride their bikes in the street. They play ball in the culde-sacs where there's dead ends to allow a project that's going to be six years in construction with bombers and heavy loading equipment and everything. I'm in construction. I did the bridges up and down Lake Street. We all know how long 31 took to build. Now we're now we're talking about Shells Parkway overpass. That's going to be an eight-year project from what I understand to coincide with the Temples project. and with their own numbers. 70% of their people are coming from the east and they're going to force them to exit west. Where are they going to turn around at? They're going to turn around at their first opportunity, which is going to be in the middle of a construction zone at Chiles Parkway. When we head home tonight, we're going to pass eight crosses, four from the Thanksgiving accident, and it took me 40 minutes to leave my subdivision. And that's horrible for that family. And then there's four more just east of that by the car wash. Two on the north, two on the south. This going to just repeat this ain't the place for this. Our subdivision is landlocked. We're a close knit community. Our families have been around quite a while and this is going to destroy our community. Just having that type of construction project, this ain't the place for it. So, I hope you vote

no. Thank you.

Thank you. Sarah Sadiquay. Good evening everyone. My name is Sara Sadiki. I've been an Elgian resident for almost 25 years. For 20 years, I've lived at the Oakidge community at Lake Street and Hilliard. Um I'm also an original owner and I'm in opposition to the proposed temple on G. At the entrance of this neighborhood, there's a temple wants to be built whose community is about 500 people from what I understand, but on many occasions, they'll be bringing in thousands. Our entrance cannot handle this load because this is our only entrance or exit to our entire subdivision. Also, this entrance literally looks like a byway if you've driven through our neighborhood, known as Hilliard, which leads to Lake Street. The three traffic lights that are immediately surrounding us, which are Neapville Road and Lake Street, Lambert and Lake, and Shells Parkway and Lake are all very recently at the highest critical level given by ID do. This Temple project will bring more traffic congestion and add to the danger of Lake Street. And just as Sylvia had mentioned, I also have driving kids who are driving and that was our number one thing is to make sure you stop and wait until everyone is stopped. And I know everyone says that to their kids, but at our intersection, if you don't, you will be hit. I mean, we've had neighbors whose kids were in accidents through the years. Um, the Temple project was not approved by the Elgen Comm zoning commission twice and the members who voted not to approve this project have been in our neighborhood. They said that they were familiar with our neighborhood or they drive in the vicinity of this neighborhood and are familiar with the traffic concerns that are already dangerous. Um, so if you haven't come to our neighborhood, please make sure you see it before you do vote if you do think that this temple belongs here. Um, the maps don't represent the

neighborhood correctly. And I would like to point out how Hilliard is not a road but a byway that leads our neighborhood to Lake Street or G um, which is also called Lambert. And how the Lambert and Lake traffic light is dangerous and that trucks on Lake Street run the red light constantly due to the curve of the road. I honestly think they can't stop and because of that curvature they end up having to go through it. Um and and that's what I believe because I've seen it over, like I said, the past 20 years. So, please support your Elgen constituents who have who pay taxes and will continue to pay taxes in the Oakidge community. I love living in our neighborhood. As others have said, this is not about, you know, any kind of racism or not wanting a temple there. It's if you I've lived in Elgen and I've stayed in Elgen because I love our community and I love the acceptance that we have. As a minority, I can tell you that I've always felt accepted there and I don't think any of these people have that in mind when they're when they are speaking. We are strictly thinking in terms of logistics and safety. So, thank you very much for your time.

Thank you, Tanya Suo. Uh Sufo the lufo. Thank you. You were so welcome.

Hi. I just um I'm going to keep this super short and sweet. You've heard a lot a lot about everything. One, people keep bringing up if you've never been there. And I got to think that if you haven't, that would be the first thing that you'd want to do before voting for something so significant. And second, or third or fourth or fifth or sixth or seventh or eighth. Um I have no new news for you. I can't believe we've gotten to the fourth meeting. This is crazy. The first one went till midnight. The second one went to 11 and all of the same. Oh, hi honey. This is John. He lives there, too. Okay. So, the development's not going to benefit our economy in any way, shape, or form. We have an outdated traffic study. We've had multiple accidents is only January 14th. You've heard enough about traffic. Period. Quality of life due to the inevitable overflow of that traffic is horrendous. This morning, in particular, was treacherous. a normal commute, which is normally 20 minutes, was an hour and 10. So, please, if you haven't come, come visit. Um, and there's just so many more points, but I mean, lastly, if it goes through, we'll move. And, and that might not be a big deal to any of you, and frankly, it's probably not a big deal to the community, but at the end of the day, there are people that cannot do that. These are their homes. They've been here for 25 years. I've been here for four. And to have them lose everything they've worked hard for. And for us to say if this happens, we leave is a tragedy. And so I mean the last thing I'll do before we move is vote. And so that's what I'll continue to do.

Thank you. John, is it okay if I speak? Sue. Yeah. You're he's next on the docket.

Yeah. Good evening. Good evening, mayor, council, residents. How are you today? As you know, we live in Oakidge. Uh is definitely here is speaking of the proposal. We are here not to support this temple. I am here to say let's use some common sense with the fact that there's only one way in and one way out in this community. Route 20 is a war zone. There's so many accidents where we live. Um, I just want to say let's use some common sense and make sure we do for safety reason reasons and our community. Thank you.

Thank you, Joe. This is it.

Good evening, council members and mayor. I am a disabled veteran. I moved here in 2004 for the peace and contentment I have sitting on my back porch. I look off my back porch and I see the deer playing out in the field. I see the coyotes barking with my dog. I have so much fun sitting there that it takes the pain of my disability away. Now, I know there are veterans in this room, and I know plenty of veterans that have moved out here for the peace and contentment of living in a community where there's only one way in. Now, that little parcel of land where those animals live, they're beautiful animals. There's no plan to eliminate the protected species, and there are two of them. I don't see that anywhere in these notes. I don't see what they're going to do with the deer and the coyotes and the raccoons and the bats. I don't Well, I know what one person's going to do with the bats, but I'll tell you, we have to consider the beauty of this. The only reason this temple is being planned to build there is because they got it for peanuts. They got it cheap. There's no other reason. There's plenty of other spacious places that they could build on, but they're picking this place because it's cheap. That parcel of land should have been donated to the county. And if I'm not mistaken, it should have been Cook County Forest Preserve. I believe it's Cook County, not not Kain County where that parcel exists. I may be wrong about that,

but it should have been donated. It should have been purchased by the county. It shouldn't have been left for somebody to make a little profit by selling it and destroying the quality of our community. These beautiful neighbors of mine, you can tell how many of them are elderly. They live there because it's peaceful there. This is going to rip the peace right out of our hearts and right out of our homes. It won't exist. When the traffic studies were conducted, nowhere in any of them was it ever mentioned. There's only one intersection that all the temple community and all the community where I live in Oakidge, all of it has to pass through one single intersection. Now, I know Jeremy mentioned it, but it's a big point. all traffic. There's no alternative. You can't construct an alternative. All traffic has to pass through one single intersection. Now, that's not including the car wash. That caused enough traffic out there as it is. The stoplight did help a little bit. I'll admit that. But when you get past that, when you get over by Hillyard and G, you'll see that all traffic has to go through one specific spot. That's insanity. It doesn't make any sense. Why would anyone allow that to occur? I propose that you I don't know. I don't know what to say. I I just feel

I I know you listen to me because the last time I spoke I said we should salute that flag. I fought for that flag. Under that flag we served our country and tonight you honored that request by having a pledge of allegiance. I appreciate that you heard me the last time and you honored me today. Honestly, I I'm grateful for that. But honor me with this request. Don't consider this temple being in our backyard. It's 20 ft off my back porch. Please start wrapping up your comments.

Thank you, Samantha Parkhurst. Samantha Parkhurst. Don't run.

The one behind me is gonna speak first and then I can stand next to me. That's okay. Hello, my name is Margaret. I live in a Kessle Creek subdivision and uh we are here to oppose the uh temple construction. Um, today I as well as other residents of the Castle Creek subdivision are here to strongly oppose the proposed temple development on the north side of Lake Street at Lambert Road next to the car wash due to many safety concerns. There have been numerous accidents on Lake Street in the in the recent months almost on daily basis, one as recent as Thanksgiving Day, which resulted in fatality. the speed at which the cars travel around the corner either direction disregard any and all speed limits and many times completely disregard traffic lights at Lake Sheet and Lambert Shales Parkway redevelopment eliminating lake and shells intersection intersection plans for shales to go under upcoming Lake Street excuse me overpass as most of you already know making lake and Lambert the first set of eastbound traffic lights for many miles of buildup speed that many motorists already ignore. Between the car wash and the proposed temple development with 536 plus additional cars planned on leaving and entering that intersection, the congestion and accidents rate will um will only quadruple at the very least. Again, something the residents of the Castle Creek were never prepared for. Now, for Kessle Creek subdivision itself and Lambert and Lake Street intersection, that section of traffic already handles not only residential traffic, but also commercial semi-truck traffic from SS and MSD trucking

companies. And yes, getting out of Kessle Creek subdivision can become challenging at times. Please keep in mind that school buses use the same roads and are forced to wait until it's safe and move forward or turn around when possible and when possible and reroute to get our kids to to the respective schools on time. As for the opposite side of Lambert Road and Spalding Road, where the freight trains run and frequently cause delays or flatout close for repairs, impede traffic and cause issues with EMS response and school bus traffic. As recently as two weeks weekends ago, Global Auto Car Recycling located in Lambert has its fifth fire completely shutting down Lambert for 6 hours. The addition of 536 plus um cars onto Lambert and Lake Street intersection will literally ent trap our Castle Creek residents should an accident on Lake Street or other in or other incident at the train track and or Global Recycling happen at Lamberance Bowling again. Finally, at any end um at any time an accident happens in the area, whether Lake Street, Neapville Road, Bartlett Road, Shales, even Route 59, all traffic gets rerouted through Castle Creek subdivision and yes, through Lambert and Spalding, which also affects our Ember Grove residents next door. You know what's coming. Castle Creek residents were not prepared for frequent occurrence. Bottom line, 536 plus car development, including its construction traffic to and construction traffic to come, does not belong in this already heavily traffic intersection before any more developments are even considered that heavily involve Lambert and Lake. A current ID study is an absolute must. Lives of our residents depend on it.

Thank you, Samantha. Hi, I'm I'm Samantha Parkhurst and I live in Amber Grove, which is the next subdivision um just south of Castle Creek. And so Lambert will hit up as a t-bone to Spalding. Spalding road is 7/10en of a mile. I will run it from time to time. Takes me long time, but I run. and running that um has taught me how much traffic has gone through there to the point that when I am um trying to get out of my subdivision with the current traffic that there is there right now, Spalding then will come to a tea or cross over um Neighborville Road. Neighborville Road has um how do you say it has collected more semis than you can count and those semis have found that is a quick way to get to the industrial section in Bartlett. So, I waited 6 minutes one day to get out of my subdivision, to turn left, to go north, to be able to get to Lake Street, to go on to where I was going. Uh, 6 minutes is outrageous. So, I called um the village of Bartlett and then I was put in touch with uh two people, Justin and I think Tom at the Cook County um commissioner for the the roads and well, they they can't really help us out. So, I was like, well, we need something to fix this. And now, I learned that this this temple wants to be bought there and they say, build it and they'll come. Well, they're going to come and that's fine. But the amount of traffic, our neighborhood cannot absorb that. And when we have to wait so long to now get out of our neighborhood because of semis that go up and down the the main road there in Neighborville. And if we have this extra traffic and they're going to find ways to snake through, we've only got two entrances to our neighborhood. And we've got 250, I think, houses in our neighborhood. So, two to three cars per house. You got 750 people traveling and now you're going to have all this extra traffic. We cannot afford that. We can't we can't have it. And the one thing that Tanya said struck a chord and I just so happened to to be wearing this is yeah, Alzheimer's sucks. My husband is 54 when he was diagnosed with it. And

so I'm not going to be able to afford to move out of my house to, you know, to get anywhere. And if I have to move out of my house to take care of him and wind up being in a smaller house or something more affordable, our neighborhood, if the if the um value of the neighborhoods go down, I lose. And I'm not trying to win a race here, but it's going to affect me. It's going to affect my husband. It's going to affect everybody in our neighborhood. So, there's so many things that this is going to affect. It's not just a temple coming in. But, you know, like they said in that movie, um, Field of Dreams, build it and they'll come. Somebody mentioned Hampshire. Find a place in Hampshire. They have farmland out there. Find blank space. Don't take these little pieces of neighborhoods that might fit. Find a place that you can grow. Grow bigger, but get on bigger land where you have room. That's all I have to say. Thank you, Elizabeth.

Elizabeth,

Mr. Mayor and the council members, I'm Elizabeth Shamansky and I live in Oakridge subdivision from day the builder started digging the land. So, I'm the original owner and everything has been said, all the details have been said today. So I'm not going to repeat all my pred speakers. I wanted to say one thing that it was just said a second ago for this venue. This piece of land is not appropriate. This is not the piece of land for such a huge project in a small very locked subdivision. We have one road. It was it has been said so many times. We have one tiny road that cannot handle any more traffic as we have now. So please kindly save us against accidents, save our lives and vote no for this project. They can find much mo wider much better place for themsel with ingress and uh egress easily um affordable. We cannot do it. We we don't have place to build another road. We wish we had the road another road to earwing park but we don't have it. We are landlock. So please consider our requests and our um we we really ask you um consider our uh concerns and vote no against this project in this particular spot. This is nothing about religion. This is nothing about about whatever people say. This is just safety our lives. Safety against save us against accident and save our lives. This is what we're asking for. Thank you.

Thank you Ri Patel. Mr. Patel Ray Patel. Hello everyone. My name is Rico Patel. Um, didn't really have a lot of prepared comments, but I will not repeat a lot of the stuff that said, but just wanted to give you some insight on supporting the temple. Traffic, parking, and noise will be managed using established event management practices already familiar to the community. Similar to how traffic increased traffic is handled during events like Fourth of July and other community events, higher attendance days will be planned in advance with traffic coordination, shuttle services, and on-site management. And I know you guys had mentioned or we had mentioned um the Baptists Temple Baps which is a similar religious and a spiritual congregation out in Bartlett. Um they also it's a great example of how such facilities can successfully manage traffic and parking without ongoing neighborhood disruptions and other regular day-to-day traffic uh will occur outside of peak rush hours and remain minimal. The other thing is um I've also gone to I want to go off script here just kind of tell you guys what's in my heart here. I also go to other um non-Hindu congregations. I know this is not about religion like Willow Creek and South Bington. And my friends always call me I'm a coconut. Um brown on the outside, white on the inside. I've been here pretty much all my life. Raised here, born here. Not born here. I was five when I came here. And the other

thing I want to just say is that this would be more of a place for, you know, for kids and for other generations, more of having community events, um, and not just a religious place. Um, just like how other community other churches uh, have that. And I'll just on a lighter note because we're all into the whole uh Bears kind of you know if Arlington Heights can consider having the Chicago Bears move in and their games are limited to maybe eight plus a year and whatever modifications that they have done. Um the amount of traffic that I think is being over overestimated for a lack of better word. Um and that's all I would have to say that this would be more it would gener it would operate far less frequently and any major events which is just a handful would be managed via shuttle services and things like that. Um so to not have disruption uh in the community. So that's all I have to say. Thank you.

Thank you Tony. Uh I believe it's Crackusel Cricell. I apologize. Either my uh your handwriting is not good or my eyesight's not too good. Tony,

thank you. Thank you, mayor. Thank you, councel. I'll make it brief. You guys have heard a lot about traffic and safety. I think it's super important. and I live at 800 Beach and really I rise to really congratulate uh the opposition and our neighbors coming together and really devoting themselves to what is right for us. Uh I I'd like to respond as well. They mentioned BAPS. BAPS is not planted next to a neighborhood. They keep making these comparisons to other there is no parallel. There's not another temple plop next to a whole residential area. So please keep that in mind. I mean, the traffic is a real I mean, we've beaten it to death. I understand. I think you guys get the point. If you've all driven there when they put the car wash in, it's gone exponentially higher. By the way, the cycle time on that light, you're lucky if you get four cars through there. So, that would have to be addressed. There's lots of questions that I don't think have been addressed. So, um I would I rise in opposition and I hope uh that you uh see it our way, and we do appreciate it. Thank you.

Thank you, Mustafa. Thank you for having me. Um, I'll tell you a bit more about myself. Uh, my name is Mustafa. I just moved to this location 5 months ago from Michigan. And the first thing that I was really troubled with was um, and by the way, I live at 879 Oakidge, right? So, I'm a resident of this location. I I be I'm an immigrant from Pakistan, but I became a citizen 5 years ago. And one of the things that really attracted me was how uh welcoming the community of Elgen was my son goes here to school as well. The first things that really bothered me was the someone mentioned right now the psy the cycle time on the light as you turn left on Lambert right and I think so I just want to like just vehemently oppose this right I've I've lived in many countries I've lived in Japan I've lived in Pakistan I've lived in uh Hong Kong I've lived in many states Connecticut Michigan I've lived so many places right one of the things I really like about the US as I became a citizen was that I could come here and raise my voice and can talk about the issues that matter to me that matter to my family and so I really vently oppose. Like I say, like everyone said, this is not about religion. I am a religious Muslim. If this was a mosque, I would still be thinking about the traffic patterns here. I know there's a mosque adjacent to Shell's Parkway. When I go for my Friday prayers, I see Lake Street, how crowded that is. That that when I go exit on Lake Street and I turn right and I go to uh Bluff City Boulevard, the normal time is 3 minutes. It sometimes takes me 15 minutes on Fridays when we have community prayers there. So, I know how difficult it's going to be, especially with this temple coming in. Someone said, um, they'll move. I will most likely move as well, but I don't want to do that. This is the first time I've purchased my house 5 months ago, and I really want to establish build my roots over here, but the but this is going to be uh that's why like I oppose. Thank you. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Okay, that ends the public comment. It brings us to bids. Um, the first bid, first item is bid number 25-059, hydrant sand blasting and painting. Mr. Mayor, I recommend that we award this to uh go painters not to exceed $266,250. Second. Have been moved and seconded. Any discussion? Hearing none. Clerk, please call the role. Council member Zaro. Yes. Dixon. Yes. Good. Yes. Martinez. Yes. Ortiz.

Yes. Powell. Yes. Stefan. Yes. Thorne. Yes. Mayor Captain. Yes. Motion's approved. 90. Item two is a city clerk's office renovation uh job order contract. Move to award the bid to Leo Par Leo Parardo. If I said that right. Company's Inc. in the amount of $89,996 for the remodeling of the city clerk's office space. Second. It's been moved and seconded. Any discussion? Miss Saro,

I had a I had a question. Um, so is there a lobby or is that is the door now becomes a window and so people if they are coming to the clerk's office, they stand in a line in the hallway? I wasn't 100% sure when I was looking at the plan. So, I was trying I saw the window at the door and it looked like that people come up to the door, they ask their questions or stuff. There is going to create more of a lobby space and it's going to be more accessible. Oh, can you um turn on your mic? It's going to create more of a lobby space um for people to come up to the to a window. So, there'll be a lobby in the hallway.

No, it it's just creating more of a space that's already there. It's kind of small. So, they're going to try to create a bigger space for people to come in to have that accessibility. So, you enter the clerk's correct space and then that window is correct in there and there's a lobby. Okay. Perfect. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Anything else? Clerk, please call a roll. Council member Zaro, yes. Dixon, yes. Good. Yes. Martinez, yes. Ortiz, yes. Powell, yes. Stefen, yes. Thorne, yes. Mayor Captain,

yes. Motion's approved. 90. Brings us to item one. This consideration of petitions 42-25 and 43-25 8.90 G Boulevard. A preliminary plat of subdivision and plan development is a map amendment to construct a religious and residential mixeduse development with an 86,000 ft temple, 536 parking spaces, and 33 town homes and five buildings. Mr. Malot.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. The 34 acre property is located on the north side of US Route 20 west of Lambert Lane and Hillyard Drive. Here is Route 20. This is Lambert Lane and this is Hillyard. This is the Sherwood Oaks residential subdivision and uninorporated Cook County. This is the Oakidge subdivision in Elgen. This is Everclean Car Wash, SD's Express Lines Trucking Services, Copart Vehicle Auction Company, Safety Clean, and Regious Packaging. All of which are also in Elgen. Um, Mataja Sasha, Chicago Midwest. Did I pretty close on that one? Okay, not bad. Is requesting approval of a religious and residential development on the vacant property. To better show the details of the proposal on the site over the next several slides, we've turned the orientation so that north is to the right and US Route 20 is on the left. The applicant proposes an 86,000 ft temple with 536 parking spaces, 33 town homes in five buildings, and an approximately 6 acre private recreation field with 1 and a half to 2 acres of tree preservation area buffering the single family homes in the Oakidge subdivision. The detention facility at the north end of the property provides a similar buffer for single family homes in Sherwood Oaks. The proposal has been substantially scaled back from a previous proposal reviewed by the planning zoning commission in June of last year. That previous proposal called for a 231,000 ft temple, a four-story multifamily building with 81 dwelling units, 823 parking spaces with an additional 461 parking spaces banked, and 38 town homes in six buildings. The benefit to no longer providing the four-story multif family building and reducing the size of the temple and decreasing the amount of required parking is an increase to the amount of open space for temple visitors

and members. A quick aside, the four-story multif family building could not be later constructed without amending the plan development in the same manner as this application before you. The public notice of an application, a public hearing at the planning and zoning commission, and a decision by city council. The reduction to the size of the temple was not limited to just its floor area but also its height. Here is the front elevation of the temple as now proposed. And here is the former front elevation superimposed behind to show the difference. The current temple would be at a height of 90 ft high and with a 5-ft flag. The original height of the temple was 125 ft with a 25 ft high flag on top. Here are the side elevations of the temple as proposed and again superimposed behind are the elevations of the previous temple. The applicant prepared lines of sight exhibits from various vantage points about halfway along Oakidge Boulevard. Oakidge Boulevard is here. The temple is on the left. The top exhibit is looking from the back of the western most townhouse town houses in Oakidge. The bottom exhibit is looking from the second floor of the back of those same westernmost town houses. And this exhibit shows the line of sight also from Oakidge Boulevard from the second floor of the town houses on the east side of that street. Access to the development would be through the construction of G Boulevard as a private access road constructed to city standards, including sidewalks, street trees, and street lights. The development would not have regular vehicular connection to Oakidge to the east or Sherwood Oaks to the north. one gated emergency access would be available for police and fire at the end of Pimonum Lane. The applicant submitted a traffic and parking study and the study concludes that surrounding roadways can absorb the additional traffic from normal temple operations and will continue to function within acceptable and desired ranges during

special Sunday services, the 9-day new varati festival and the Hindu New Year celebration, the details of which are provided in your packet. The applicant is proposing to implement a traffic and parking management plan. The plan uses on-site volunteers assisted by Elgen police officers to guide the traffic and parking movements. The exact nature of that assistance would be be determined by the Elgen Police Department. All outbound traffic from the temple would head west via a right turn only lane at Hillyard Drive and Route 20. All traffic exiting Oakidge would be given priority over any Temple traffic and directed to the signalized intersection at Lambert Lane and Route 20. With the traffic and parking management plan, the traffic study establishes that the surrounding roadways have adequate capacity to accommodate the additional traffic even during the busiest times. The study also compared the projected traffic to that generated by a typical industrial development that could arguably be constructed in conformance with the existing zoning and a mixed residential development similar in unit type and density to the Oakidge subdivision. The industrial development would generate substantially more traffic during the AM and PM rush hours and on Sundays before temple service would start, but less traffic on Sundays after service. A residential development would also generate more traffic during the AM and PM rush hours, but less on Sundays. One of the recommended conditions is that the temple would make the improvements to the Route 20 and Lambert Lane intersection that were contemplated in October 2022 for a Thornton's gas station at the northeast corner of the intersection in so long as someone else doesn't come along come along and make them first. The owner of the Northeast corner has advised staff that they're still hoping to attract another gas station, but nothing has materialized at this time. Those improvements are also detailed in your report, but generally include dedicated turn lanes on Lambert Lane, protected left turns, and extended stacking space on Route 20. IDOT is also

preparing to make improvements along Route 20 at Shells Parkway. Their plans include improvements to the Lambert Lane intersection as well as a barrier median in Route 20 from Lambert Lane West to Safety Clean. The pros project meets the city's parking requirement. 518 parking spaces are required for the temple and each townhouse must have four spaces. The temple would have 536 parking spaces and each town home would have two garage spaces and two on the driveway. The study also concluded that the amount of parking provided satisfies the unique parking demand generated by the proposed development. Finally, the property is subject to a consent decree issued by the Circuit Court of Cook County in 1967 following litigation by the then residents of the Sherwood Oak subdivision. The consent decree limits the type and intensity of a select number of light industrial uses on the property. It also prohibits residential land uses. In addition to this application before city council to reszone the property, the applicant must petition the court to either vacate or amend the consent decree to develop the property as proposed. The applicant is present should you have any questions as it's been described before. The planning and zoning commission recommended that the original proposal in June of 2025 be denied and the applicant requested that the plan not proceed to city council so that they could respond to the concerns that were raised at the public hearing. The planning and zoning commission reviewed the current proposal on December 8th but has no recommendation. A motion to recommend approval with conditions did not pass with three votes in favor of the motion and three against. Staff recommends approval of the application subject to conditions outlined within your packet.

Move for approval subject conditions. Second. It's been moved and seconded for approval. Before we start discussion, I'm going to call on Mr. Beck to make some comments about uh uh the consent decree.

Uh thank you, Mr. Mayor. Just briefly, I just want to make sure the council record is clear. As uh community development director Malot indicated and as set forth in the uh January 14th, 2026 development application review and elsewhere in your packet, there is the subject property is subject to a consent decree that was entered in 1967 by the circuit court of court Cook County in case number 66 CH5096. So the motion to approve in addition to be subject to the conditions and departures set forth in the development application review um is also subject to either the modification or vacation of that 1967 descent decree as that would allow such that it would allow the city to enact an ordinance or ordinances for final approval of the petition. So that's also an express condition of the motion to approve. I just want to make sure the record is clear on that.

Okay. this time. Are there any questions for Mr. Mad or the uh petitioners? Mr. Ortiz. All right. I'll uh take a crack at it first. Um I have a five questions.

So uh for the one of the speakers talked about unlimited departures. So you have the five list of the main five and then in one of the pages it said that for the town hall I think it was the town home development that they could have minor departures on staff approval and doesn't come back to the council. What besides like moving the corral of a dumpster a foot to the left and a right? What other like small departures would you be allowed under this to just ride off and not ask the council again?

Sure. The that guidance is actually provided in the zoning ordinance. The development administrator is afforded a little bit of discretion in working in under the guidance of still substantially compliant with the overarching approved plans. And the uh some of the things include uh the location of streets, parking lots or buildings by 20 ft or less, decreases in density or floor area, increases in open space, landscaped area or screening and substitution of comparable plant materials in the landscaping plan or aesthetically comparable exterior building materials. Those are spelled out in the zoning words. Okay. So, a random billboard just won't pop up because they need that. Correct. Okay. Right. Or a or a four-story uh condominium building.

Okay. Uh you mentioned this in your opening, but I just want to just highlight it. So, the green space that's the north of the parcel, that's going to be like the the athletic fields. They originally in the summer they wanted to put the a condominium or apartment building there. Mhm. Even if we approve this, how you said in your opening, they still have to go through the entire process all over again if they want that building back. Yes, sir.

All right. And for the there's other questions from the public comments about the storm water plan and the flood plane. I'm assuming you guys went through the Cook County uh to do like the storm water sewer maintenance to make sure everything flows correctly and doesn't go backwards. Well, so the city ordinance says that the the entirety of the city is regulated by the Cane County storm water ordinance, right? But you still call them and make sure everything worked perfect. All right. I'm I'm almost positive you guys just wanted to say it. And those are the five. Thank you. My pleasure. Oh, wait. I like your tie. Thank you. Can you put this back on? All right. I I like your tie. I'm Bears fan.

Go Bears. Hey, Mr. Thorne.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Mark, for the presentation. You know, I listen to all the people here in the audience. But I think that uh one thing that is important, I want everyone to know that I did drive it. I went over there. I looked at the neighborhood. I drove it. uh and I tried to envision the issue of the traffic issues at that intersection at those intersections hearing that ID do even states it's a delicate infrastructure which was more than obvious to me one way in one way out uh it's already a problem area for traffic and I am not one to help a traffic problem get worse. A few other points that I noted that Mr. Bezos commented that 310 people signed in favor of it. Where are they? They're not here talking to us. And I wonder how many of them live there. These people live there. One person made a comment in Fort and he makes a reference. If Arlington Heights can have the Bears stadium, look at what that traffic will do. Well, there's roads are a little bit different, but it'll also bring millions and millions of dollars to this state that'll help you. This is not going to bring any money to help you. The main thing is the traffic

concern. That that's my number one issue and I will not be supporting it.

Okay. Now, Mr. Faro, bear with me. My list is pretty long. Okay. All right. Um, so I'm gonna start off here and then I'll work my way through. Um, so what is there's proposal for town homes and I understand that the entity is a nonforprofit. The town homes will not be covered under the nonprofit. So they would be paying property taxes. Correct. That's my understanding. Correct. So the organization will not be trying to cover it at all. That's my understanding. Correct.

Okay. um those town homes um have four parking spots, the garage and the two in the driveway. Is parking going to be allowed on the street? Because people have visitors, people have parties at their homes, and so where are those additional cars going? So, most likely those will be allowed. It's going It is going to be a private street, so ultimately that decision. Do you mind going to the edge of the city?

Absolutely. Absolutely. One second. There we go. That's a good one. So, so this stretch here is all going to be private street. So, the decision to as to whether or not they will allow parking on that street will be will be entirely up to them. The reason why I asked is because it doesn't look necessary it would be private because the parking is also off to the side, right? There's the lawn parking um and then there's additional parking that comes out. And so if there's parking on the street,

um then it's going to end up being like a oneway, right? Um if there's all these cars parked on that street. So unless they put the street large enough, right? I think it's it will be designed to a residential street subdivision that would allow parking and the passage of vehicles. So like three cars. Yes. Okay. So if there's cars parked on both sides and I and I don't have the exact number, but my recollection is that it's 30 feet back of curb to back of curb. Okay. Um because even in my subdivision sometimes it gets backed up when people have parties. Sure. And then so I'm trying to figure that piece out there.

Okay. Um, where should I go now? So, um, there was questions. Um, I think you you answered that already. Chris answered that one. Uh, so somebody asked during the public comment and I also wrote this. Uh, those the other proposal the 81 um dwell like why isn't that no longer being proposed? Just out of curiosity, u let's have we can have the applicant come forward and they can talk about why they decided to take that particular element of the plan off the table,

the condominium building. Yeah, if you want to come up. Councilwoman Alaro, the um the decision to not, as I think I said, charge ahead with the uh the larger plan after the

uh negative recommendation by the PNZ on June 2nd was a decision by the temple not to try and fight their way into this community. And they decided to to they listened. They they listened. They they heard one of the council no I'm sorry one of the planning and zoning commissioners say words to the effect this feels like 10 pounds of development in a 5B bag. and they decided to reduce the um the size of the development and come back um in a much more uh what what they hope would be a much uh a much more accepted fashion based on the comments made by the plan commission and uh the objections of the neighbors.

Okay. Okay. Thank you. Um it says it's going to be open to the public. Is there a potential cost that will be going for this for the public? A cost for what? To enter as a visitor if they're not a member of the religious faith. A cost to attend the temple. Oh, no, no, no, no.

Okay. And then bear with me. So, that was answered. Um, so someone brought up a a comment during a public comment about when accidents happen, it blocks the street and then there's no other way if there is an accident on that street. Um, entering the the area of the development. Let me get you a better sight. Sorry. Hold on one second. Bear with me. Here we go. Yeah. So, um if there is an accident on um is that G Boulevard?

Um the other entrance to my understanding is only for um like police and fire. Yes, ma'am. And so is the traffic just going to be held up so now that people can't get out until the cars are removed if there's a major accident? So because my understanding that gate's not opening unless it's only for fire and police. So that gate to my understanding won't open for no other reason. Correct. That's that's is for emergency access only in the event there was some circumstance that caused this access to be like blocked for some reason.

Blocked for some reason. Right. And and again keep in mind it's going to be a wide street 30t at least. Uh but again we we never want to make assumptions right in if that was to happen then emergency responders would have the alternate route to come up Oak Ridge to Perman and this gate would open and they could access whatever they needed to get to in here and and and similarly vice versa if there was something in you know that was blocked up here then then alternate routes are are available. So th those cars that are parked there that are trying to leave would have to wait. Yes ma'am. And so it's cut um taken out. Mhm. Okay. Um,

yes. No, I now I now I understand your question. My apologies. This if this was blocked because of some emergency, this wouldn't be opened to allow people to come out because No, this is this is expressly for the use of emergency vehicles only.

Okay. Um during public comment, some people mentioned that certain street lights are being removed in the near future per I do DOT's um planning. Um the Shells Parkway light was mentioned. Uh another light was mentioned. Uh do we know if that's accurate or not? Um I can uh if you'll bear with me I do have an image of what ID do is contemplating along this stretch. This is the shells. This is better. This is the uh the recommended improvements for shales and there is a light but let's see if I can blow this up. Uh, present from current slide. There we go. That's a little bigger. Uh, this is shales right here. And their current plan has Route 20 go over uh the shells, but there is still a light underneath there. Uh, the plans at Lambert still include a light, and to the best of my knowledge, although I wasn't paying as much attention further east, my my understanding is there still be a light at at Neighborville Road.

Okay. Um, and then, um, I know you I think you're the person that's in charge of traffic, right? Um, so I am very torn on this development. And the only reason why I'm super torn is that one way in, one way out. Like, if there's an emergency in that area, everyone's is is locked in. if that if something goes wrong with that one way um if this development had a second entrance to 20 I think I would be fine with it um right away just so can you give me more clarity on that piece because that's my major concern is that it is one way in one way out and if something happens the entire community and that development is trapped

sure um Lynn means from BLA um we did prepare the traffic study for this development. Um so G Boulevard, that pink section in there is the typical in and out on your um during typical weekdays as well as okay. Um additional time frame. So that section there would be your your in and out. um they have access on typical weekdays to Hillard Drive as well as um the ability to come out G um and to Lambert to the signal. So there's the two access points during typical weekday and Sunday operations. It's only those very special occasions where we implement a traffic um management plan where we would have police control and have developed a plan which would um direct most traffic out to Hillard. Um oops, sorry about that. Just so um the impact wouldn't occur. Um, just to give you an idea again about what the tra t typical traffic generates during your typical weekday, morning and evening peak periods, it's minimal traffic from the temple development. Um, it's less than or approximately a 1% increase in traffic um to to route 20. there's a negligible increase um to delays and to queuing along that roadway during your typical morning and PM peak periods.

Can I just ask a followup question before you continue? Is that um just the temple itself or is that including the people that live in the the town homes?

Including the town homes as well. Um the proposed town homes um the increase in traffic. Um, route 20 has the capacity, as I mentioned, um, to accommodate that additional traffic without delays during your typical weekday AM and PM time frames. The unique component of the temple is that its services its highest attendance is on Sunday when traffic along US Route 20 during the Sunday afternoon into evening periods is about 35 to 50% less than your typical weekday time frames. So you have significantly less traffic coming in and out during those time frames. Um and our traffic study um assumed um general growth within the area. We projected out traffic 10 years um from when our traffic counts were conducted. We coordinated with the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for planning um got their 2050 traffic projections and assumed a 8% per year compounded growth rate on US Route 20. Um that is higher than historical ID do traffic counts along US Route 20. Um the count periods that we did comparably to um recent traffic counts um have were the highest that they have been. Um, as a traffic engineer, I've done studies in this region, um, spanning multiple time frames, and for some reason, historically, that 2022 time frame in the Chicagoland area, those counts are higher than what I've seen um, during any other time frame. Um, we also, as part of our study, um, did include traffic from the Thornton's development, which may or may not occur. Um we

included traffic um generated from the car wash development. Um we also compared what the applicant had provided from the car wash development and used higher IT rates for it to be conservative. Um so our traffic volumes are sound based on the projections. We also considered you know safety is a huge component. I am for a professional engineer and I do hold safety to the highest standards. I have um professionally licensed um and have a certification as a road safety professional. Um so as part of um my studies and my in my um work that I do um I try to consider and do consider the safe system approach um which looks at ways to um improve safety and understanding that humans make mistakes. So, we look at ways to um provide improvements, understanding that crashes may occur, but to try to find ways to mitigate those serious and fatal crashes. That's part of I do study um with that raid separation with the interchange at Chales Parkway. um as well as the improvements that were considered as part of the Thornton's development which um we included as part of our study and as part of the condition that those improvements be implemented as part of the study. Um they are including protected left turns um from US Route 20 onto the signalized intersections. So that is at sh at um Lambert as well as intersections further to the east um at Neapville Road and such. Um those protected left turns help to mitigate the angle type collisions which produce the highest levels of injuries. Um, also there's the great um

the barrier median at Hillard which helps to eliminate a lot of the crashes that are due to head-ons and to sideswipe type collisions. So I know I gave a lot more answers to the depth of the study. Um there like I said it's there is G um but that intersection there has um minimal amount of traffic right now and they do have access to the signal at Lambert and to the access at Hillard but there's only one way in one way out on Gilbert then pink section of G and then there's the emergency access but that access to G um

it is designed to accommodate that graphic and we did observe um three existing temples as we noted in our study. One of them being BAPS which is a very larger development than this and that temple has one access in and out onto Illinois Route 59. I've been there. I've been there. I've been to to the one in Bartlett, but the one in Bartlett once you enter there is nothing else. It is the temple itself, right? There is no subdivision or residential area,

right? And so that this access 2 has then not there is two access then you know there is G is the one access but then you have two access to route 20. You have the right in right out on Hillard and as well as via Lambert um down Lambert and out to you. So, following up on that, um when Mark when you were talking, you showed like on certain days when it's really busy, they're going to um have volunteers um Sure. directing traffic, right? So, everyone leaving the development would be asked to go to right. Those that live in the subdivision have the option of going left, right? Um

sorry, how is that going to like function? Like, are there going to be volunteers there at all times? Um, etc. because I've been to the temple in Bartlett. It is also brings in tourism. Like we've had family come from other places to come see the temple in Bartlett, right? It's a beautiful space. And so I'm trying to get a better picture of traffic because I am really concerned. I know you're saying there's two entrances, but those both entrances also impact the subdivision, right? There isn't one entrance straight into the temple. And so that's where my concern is.

Right. And that their their traffic was included. um as our base conditions and as our future conditions and in the analysis. So that traffic was never removed and it was considered as part of our um analysis. Um Oh, and then Oh, go ahead. I just want to add something. Oh, can you speak in the mic so people at home can hear? Thank you.

Yeah. So there's a condition for approval in the in the uh draft in the staff report which we agree with which says that on these particular days of high attendance and they're not 4,000 by the way but uh spread out over the day but on those days we must engage with and com and uh hire the Elgen Police Department to and I'm going to have to step away from the mic to show you to give uh to direct our traffic down the right in right out and allow the uh residential Oakidge preference on either going straight or right in right out. The police would function here to force us here and would if somebody wanted to go here from the residents. I mean there'll be let's say there are two or three cars and six or seven they'll stop our cars and let these cars go through or these residents can go up and go out to G signalized intersection. That won't be just vol our volunteers will pretty much stay on site. I mean they have no authority offset. So, are those volunteers on site then like all the time or are they just there for those design dates? Because in the packet it said those um designated dates,

right?

So, we're anticipating problems only not problems but traffic only on those designated days. But if if it turns out we would have no problem with the uh with the uh council stipulating this that if it turns out that there's traffic problems more than just on those days, we can hire the Elgen Police Department on more days or on you know I I think though what Lim mean said and and and you know for those of us that are not traffic professionals, me included, this traffic is spread out. It's not all, it's not like a movie theater or a Bears game letting out, but we're prepared to have the uh the city uh zoning administrator instruct us if we need to have more police in attendance. Um, yeah, follow-up question is, did you all meet with ID do, the Illinois Department of Transportation to talk about potentially having another entrance off 20 that goes directly into the the the development space versus going into a shared space with the subdivision? So unfortunately they're they have limited access onto Route 20 and it's very close proximity to the the railroad crossing there which precludes um the ability to have another access. Um if it was ideal conditions all that they could have potentially would be a limited access or write in and write out just given right

um access requirements. Um, but unfortunately it the current conditions preclude the ability to construct an access in that location. But did you talk to ID do to confirm all that to make sure there isn't something that they might see that you don't see? Um, I haven't spoken directly with ID do but I know other staff members of our team have. Okay. Would you like would you like our civil engineer to address that question? Yes, they had spoken at ID do about potentially having another entrance. Mr. Theakor Patel.

Hi, Takor Patel from Advantage Consulting Engineers. We did talk to Jonathan. He's a permit manager up there because of uh legit going over the bridge. It's an approach. So, they won't allow other access cuz grade difference is too much. So, so I said no. Okay. Yeah, they says no. Okay. Thank you for clarifying that. Um, and something that the community keeps saying is the property values have uh will go um potentially down in the work that you've done and and in the feedback that you received in both planning and zoning. Has that something you've looked into to ensure that property values would not go down?

You Chuck. You Chuck. So I'd like Mr. Hanland who's a land use expert to answer that. But thank you in the in the context that there's industrial zoning there now. So, right. Go ahead. So, I'll qualify. Well, this works too, doesn't it? So, maybe works better. Thank you. I'm certainly not an appraiser from that perspective, but just from a uh a land use perspective, um I don't see why this would bring property values down. I would say from a land use perspective, if this property is developed industrial, which it's currently zoned for, I would suspect that the property values could go down within with industrial development.

So, I I also just want to point out that uh from a distance standpoint, I don't know if you can bring that last exhibit up. Uh just the one, which last exhibit? One that shows the whole site plan, the one that's got the the more colored site plan. Um comments were brought up earlier about views and other things that could be a negative impact. Um the distance um from their subdivision. Take the mic. Take the mic. Take the mic. But yeah, we want to make sure people are here. Thank you.

That's there's it's almost from the shakar or the tower the height the the taller part of the building. It's and since I guess the bears have come up a few times, it's 580 feet from the center line of that residential roadway to the Shakara, you know, that's nearly two football fields in length, which was why Prince and the Bears again. So, almost two football fields of length between there, plus trees, buildings, their buildings, our buildings, there would only be obscured and predominantly maybe in the winter uh when the when the leaves are gone. Um there could be some other views in the summer, but the distance and the view of the temple of Shakara is not prominent at all. It's it's really discreet through the trees and over the buildings and the distance alone at almost 600 feet away. So I just want to mention that since I've got the mic.

No. Yeah, that makes sense. And I'll just uh just a couple of quick things I've heard through public comment and other things. Um fireworks. I I watched the planning and zonings, both of them. U people were asking questions about fireworks. They're not doing well they can't do fireworks unless they have permission with them. Exactly. They don't.

So just want to just um I just want to debunk some stuff I heard or just um provide another insight is fireworks I've heard come up a bunch of times um uh economy and stuff like that. Developments like this do bring tourism um and it brings people into the community. So that is something else. So there will be potentially a positive impact maybe for the local economy. Um but I still have that major concern on the one way in one way out to be honest. Um ma'am um no you can't um like to go back to your one of your earlier questions on the parking for the town homes.

Oh perfect. Thank you. Um, from that standpoint, from the previous proposal to this proposal, we did widen the roadway, okay, to allow for parking on one side of the roadway.

Okay. uh something. In this case, we only have town homes on one side of the roadway and driveway curb cuts on one side of the roadway, which means the entire length we'll park we'll have the parking parallel parking on the opposite side of the roadway from the buildings and the driveways, which mean the entire length of that roadway is open for parallel parking, which typically in a subdivision you have homes on both sides and it's all chopped up by driveways. Not to mention, I can't imagine it would be necessary, but if somebody had a graduation party or something that you know got beyond, they can certainly park in the temple parking lots as well. I can't imagine that'd be necessary with the length of that roadway all being parallel parking. So, it's one side parking.

It's one side parking opposite the homes without any interruption from driveways. So, continuous parking all along that roadway. Okay. Thank you. And then I'll yield back. I think I've taken enough time. Okay. Any other questions? Miss Powell.

Uh, thank you to staff, the petitioners, and thank you to all the residents that have come out tonight and have come out um in the past for all the planning and zoning commission meetings. Those meetings have been long. Uh, we've heard a lot of comments. We've gotten um numerous emails. I've spoken to um to residents um over the past few months about uh concerns that have been raised. I personally travel this roadway at least of Route 20 uh to and from work several times a week. So I I I know how how busy it can be especially in the in the evening during the week uh trying to get home and trying to get to city council meetings on time. So, um, a a number of my questions have been answered or, um, addressed regarding the fireworks, uh, that have been, um, were mentioned by some of the folks. Um, you know, that would require a permit from the city. So, that that is not something that the temple could arbitrarily do. Um, I think we addressed the issue of I think some folks were concerned about what could potentially happen with the open space. Could the temple um um or the applicant just arbitrarily build or put something there after um you know if if if this uh were approved tonight, I think the answer we heard was no, that would have to come back before the planning and zoning commission and ultimately come back before the city council. Um and that's important. Um one a couple questions that I have for staff. Um there were some questions brought up. Sorry,

before you go away. Well, you want you want your pointer? You might need that for my question. U my question um pertains to some of the sustainability and um environmental components of the proposed plan. Sure. Um I know that there's um a detention area that's planned. Uh there's some trees that are planning to be removed, but some that are planning to stay for a buffer. Can you kind of walk us through that?

Absolutely. So at the northern end, and remember again to the right on your image here is is north. This is where the proposed storm water management would go and the Kain County storm water regulations would require uh the wetland plantings so to provide the national natural filtration of storm water materials coming through the appropriate release rates. And so again, that's all regulated by the Cane County storm water rags and then any sort of tree line that is up against that would would be preserved. The area that is uh made a condition for approval is right along here, right along the single family homes. There is a stand of trees that are there that uh one of the recommended conditions requires those to be saved, which is why you see the path along the proposed recreation area and the recreation area kind of have that offset there. There's a stand of trees that would be preserved in there. And then, as Mr. Hanland described uh earlier by virtue of having the larger rear yard setbacks for the town houses. They did that as a way to not provide then a fence which was one of the original uh items in the development proposal, a fence that was almost all the way around the entirety of the of the development. But there is an existing tree line that is along that east property line. And as you know, trees and fences kind of when you jig and jog don't necessarily align. And so by uh by providing a greater setback, they've taken the uh the fence out of the proposal, separated the buildings to a greater degree, and then that won't require any removal of those trees along that along that uh fence line there,

providing like a natural fence line and and buffer. Okay, that's helpful. Um, I heard I think a a resident brought up some endangered species and wetlands on the site, but I didn't I didn't see anything about endanger not aware of anything of of anything like that. No, no endangered bats, raccoons, deer or endangered deer. Not much.

Okay. I just I just wanted to make sure. Okay. Um, Oakidge subdivision was platted um, according to the information that we have in 2005. Um I think the only people that may have been on council during that time perhaps mayor captain in 2005. So this so this was platted prior to any of us being here. Um so my my question to staff is based on um our requirements and and regulations right now as they stand. Would we build another subdivision similar to the way Oakidge subdivision was built with the oneway in one way out situation?

I'm not going to stand here before you and tell you that will never happen. But I can tell you we would make every effort to not lay out a subdivision like this again. Okay? It's it's s it's for this exact same reason that we've talked about is access um connecting neighborhood streets to to collector streets, collector streets to arterial streets and having the that connectivity allows traffic to disperse. It creates for a greater network and a greater network is ultimately safer.

Great. That helps answer a question. Um uh they had a question about whether about the emergency access being able to be accessed um like if there was an accident. It looks like the question or the answer to that was no. It's the it's the intent that that would be limited to emergency vehicles only because they're the only ones that are going to have keys,

right? Um, and I think there was I think we already answered the question in terms of was ID do um consulted? Um, and the traffic study at least that it's dated November 10th of 2025 and the improvements are I saw somewhere in the the documents that all of the improvements are still subject to be approved by IDOT. Correct. uh to make those improvements at Lambert Lane, they're going to need a permit from ID dot. And so, in as much as ID do blessed the plans that were provided for Thornton's, I would certainly like to think that no positions would change, but they will have to go through the permit process with IDOT.

And and if I could go back to the question about the emergency access, sure. I'm I'm standing here before you telling you what the intent of that access is. I'm certainly not, however, going to be one that says if the police department says that they have to open that up for some other reason for some other emergency situation, I'm certainly not going to say that that that that's inappropriate. That would be a decision made by them at that time. They've got the key.

Got it. Um, I think the other only other question that I had or or actually probably statement would be because I know that some folks um had a question about why wouldn't I do DOT allow like another access um to this property? And this has come up on a lot of different development projects, not just on um Route 20, but along Randall Road. Um, and for uh those of you are familiar with um Sammy's Mexican Grill, one of my favorite places to go. Um, on Route 20 um near uh what is that intersection?

Nestler.

Nestler. Thank you. Getting old. Um but that is a unique access trying to get in and out of that property. And and I know people always ask me, well, why was that set up like that? Why couldn't there be a way if you're heading westbound on 20 for you to just be able to turn left and get into um Sami's Mexican Grill and all of those other restaurants in that in that strip mall? King County is very restrictive on allowing access and and and that's not a that's not a city determination. That is a Kain County determination. Another great example is Nick's Pizza at the corner of Bose and Randall. Again, a very unique and rather odd configuration. being able to get in and out of that property. They actually take you all the way through that neighborhood, which I I I live not too far from there, but that is a that is a King County um decision and and determination. So, um I I just want to point out some other situations where it logically would have made sense probably to those of us who live in the area, drive the area to allow additional access, but it was denied by the county for any number of safety reasons. It's too close to an existing intersection. and it's too close to I think in this case they had mentioned the the railroad or any number of different reasons why Kain County who controls the several of these major intersections including this one um would not allow that

access additional access and egress. Um, I I hear the concerns. Um, and uh I hear the concerns about the the traffic. I I I definitely hear the concerns about the traffic. I want to applaud the the applicant for going back after the initial proposal um was done and listening to all of the feedback that came from residents that came from the planning and zoning commission and making some very substantial um modifications to the plan. Personally, I would have loved to have seen the apartment complex stay um only because well for a number of reasons. There's a housing shortage in in our community and and throughout the whole region. We we need those units. But I I understand that removing that allowed for this the the use of this property to be a little less intense, which was one of the the concerns that came um from from residents. Um I'm inclined to vote in favor of of moving forward with the application. Um, but I I do have some concerns and I want to see um and understand well not understand because it's it's been explained but I I really want to make sure that whatever traffic um modifications are going to be made by the applicant. like in the in the U materials it says if uh the gas station comes later

they have to make those those modifications and obviously those are going to be subject to ID dot.

Um I also want the assurance that the Temple uh property is going to be a good neighbor to the existing homeowners that are here um because we've heard their concerns. They're concerned about um traffic and safety primarily. I I hear what's being planned in terms of using um Elgen Police Department on very busy weekends or a couple of times a year. Um and I understand that. I think someone said that it's not like a movie theater where everyone gets out at the same time and comes in at the same time. It's it's it's it's more staggered. I've I've been to Willow Creek Community Church when everyone's getting out and coming in at the same time. It doesn't sound like it's the same situation. I've been at Harvest Bible on Randall Road and and both of those have um traffic assistance by Elgen Police Department and even uh Councilman Dixon's church at uh Second Baptist along um Summit. Um, again, another mass exodus and mass entrance at the same time where we do have public safety officers out there helping to direct traffic. Um, so I I think that gives me more assurance around those very busy times. Um, but I still I want to make sure that I do DOT and their future plans for this area do a better job around making sure that we improve the safety along Route 20 and managing the traffic along along Route 20. Regardless if this gets approved or not, it's needed.

So, thank you. Let me jump in just one second. Um, Mr. from a lot. You had a diagram uh showing uh uh the entrance and exit onto uh uh Route 20 with a yellow line showing the uh people going down Hillyard going to the Oh, sure. Right. Uh right out only. Mhm. Correct. And so you uh redirect people uh from the subdivision from the subdivision will go to Lambert.

Correct. And in the in the future plans, I I use that um uh the I don't know what the future is for ID do, you know, I don't know what their schedule is and they uh their schedule changes uh will provide a barrier in the middle of Route 20 all the way to Lambert. So that means that people going eastbound on Route 20 will not be able to turn into that development. They have to go to Lambert. people leaving the leaving the the temple uh at the end of service will have to go uh west sir on route 20. So, it does change the traffic flow. And I think that one of the things that you we hear it all the time, well, why doesn't I do DOT fix that? ID dot never fixes a road in an anticipation of a development. I've been doing this for 20 years. We're going through the same struggles out on Route 20 at Providence. That subdivision and that development's been there for well over uh a decade. And the traffic flows there has been bad. Um, I've had discussions with them with uh acceleration lanes to get people to be able to merge. Uh, a couple of issues that that always come up and we uh, Mr. Mallet, just for a second. Sure. Give us five or six examples of what would be uh, allowed here to be no sir. Of types of businesses that would be uh, uh, uh, available to go here under uh, uh, uh,

sure just a general industrial. Sure. I happen to have that. And I know warehousing is one of them and that's a big concern of warehouses are a concern of mine. Uh public utility electric distribution centers, printing establishments, supply centers, uh research laboratories, office, um that's uh uh various electronics assembly businesses. Uh and the reason is is it's not subject just entirely to the underlying zoning, but you also have the consent decree coming in which also specifies those land uses. So it's a light industrial manufacturing office types of of allowances that could go there as of right

and they could just uh come in and say we want to build that and there would be no uh restrictions from Cook County

that uh uh all of those offer traffic. the problems with the uh uh with the uh the entrance on Lambert and Hillyard would be the same. Uh I looked at I just looking at the schedule for the temple and their prayer services and primarily uh for the whole for the week there will not be much traffic coming out of the temple. It's going to be on for prayer services. The people that live in the uh uh the homes that are there are going to be there anyway. They're going to be there every day. And uh so you're looking at a very very small window of time that we're going to have to have traffic control and that will be up to the obligation of the uh the temple of the city with the police to provide that. And I think uh I do will also take a look at that. When the time comes for the final work to be done on Route 20, they'll take a look at that as well. Uh I live near Randall and uh and uh I watch the church out there. I live off Royal Boulevard. I watch the churches. As Miss Powell pointed out, I have police there uh every had police there every Sunday to direct traffic. Randall is as bad or worse than Route 20 is there. There were numerous accidents there. Uh they did light controls. Those are things that uh uh they can uh monitor the uh the uh the lights. I think these are issues that that can be dealt with. Uh change is always difficult. Uh we have been uh looked at a number of places where we've had uh construction work done. We always talk about construction. You're going to have construction on Route 20 that will last out there for 2 years when that happens if if you're fortunate. And uh we always have to deal with those kind of things. We deal with that as a city council. I we deal with that as a as human beings to see changes in our neighborhoods. And uh we try to do the best that we can do. So we modify it. I want to tell you I'm

going to be supportive of this. I'm going to support this. Uh but it's up to the obligation. It's an obligation of the city of Elgen. It's an obligation of IDOT to make sure that we try to mitigate these problems and we'll do that and uh we'll try to do it as best as we can do and we'll work with uh uh I' I've seen the uh proposal from uh the temple. I think they tried to mitigate when they made some really really dramatic changes in their original proposal. So, um I think this is a a use that is something special. I think the neighbors would be uh uh I've had I've had developments come in when we put in apartment houses and uh uh a large residential and the noise and the um traffic becomes much worse uh uh than what this is going to be. So I think that uh uh we work to we'll work to do uh the best we can do to make that this is a um a transition that is going to be as if it does go from us and I think that's one thing that we have to uh uh work with Mr. Malot that this will come back uh to this council if it goes through the uh the through the uh through Cook County and is uh uh accepted by Cook County as a as a decision. It will come back to the city council again for final approval. And that is something that we can all talk about this again and we'll see things and maybe we'll discover things but in between then. But for this this is a zoning issue for me and it's accepting the zoning. It does not give you a final doesn't put paint colors on anything. It doesn't put final parking spots into anything. We'll do that when we come back for the second time. So at this point I'm going to I'm going to vote in favor of uh uh the zoning for this uh proposal. Okay, Mr. Dixon.

Uh, thank you. Uh, I want to say thank you to the community members for coming out on multiple occasions. Um, I was at the original planning and zoning uh meeting back in late September, early fall that went into midnight. Um, I also attended uh the community member a me community meeting at the Heritage Ballroom. Um, that was given by the applicant. I also took the time to go into your neighborhood. Um, I actually met with your residence. I actually brought my family uh with me after a Friday night Friday evening dinner and uh got a tour and was able to stand in the backyards facing where the development was or you know is is trying to be. Um so I I take this um I take I I don't take this decision lightly. um you know uh it it is uh it does affect and it will affect um everyone's way of life in in that entire area and I go up and down 20 you know probably every other day um I actually go in and out of that neighborhood. I um frequent some of those businesses over there. So um so again so just thank you and thank you to the applicant too as well um for your patience and also you know making some revisions and and hearing everything that was that's being said.

Um so I have a few questions and I'll just start with you Mark. Okay. Some of these may have been asked so I hope I'm not being redundant at all but I'll try I'll try not to be. um the the traffic study that was spoken of. Can you confirm the time span in which that was completed? Yeah. Let's have if I could have the please. Yeah. Miss Means come forward and kind of go over that again. Yeah. Based on the materials, I see the year, but I'm just concerned about the time.

Yeah. So the traffic study um was com started um in 2022. So we first compiled traffic counts at the study area intersections in 2022. Um and it was not I'm not sure on the exact date it was submitted um to the city for review, but it's gone through multiple iterations with the initial development being analyzed. Um, I believe before it went before the plan commission, the date of the study was in um, March of 2025. Um, and it has been constantly revised based on the development plan um, and its year of um, opening and the future year of development. Um just as I briefly talked about what we analyzed um we take the existing traffic conditions and then we project out to an anticipated opening year of the development. So we coordinate with the Chicago Metropolitan Agency of Planning to determine um what the anticipated growth is on the adjacent roadways during that time frame. So we can account for growth in the area from when you start the traffic counts to when um the development opens. And then um since it's an ID dot roadway, ID do requires there to be five years beyond the opening year. So you can get um the full anticipated design of um what the traffic would look like um after the project has open been opened for 5 years. So we looked at 10

years beyond that opening year. So yes, the traffic counts were done in 2022 that we um based then our future year projections on. Um but as I mentioned we considered um a general background growth rate which considers growth um within that study area. So it counts non-specific development growth. Um then we coordinated with the city to account for what specific development traffic beyond the general area. So we knew that the Thortons may come in and so we included traffic specific from them. um as well as the car wash was under construction. So again, we included traffic specific to that. Um I don't know if that addresses your question, but we also then compared um you know, why wasn't an additional, you know, count done? Obviously, um it was, you know, an iterative process when we first started the project, um going back and adjusting the development plan. And it's not uncommon for um the traffic counts to not occur in the same year as your development. That's why you project out to the future. Um to look to see, you know, the validity of those counts. Um I compared the counts that we conducted to traffic counts that were done historically um before COVID conditions in 2019. I compared them to traffic counts that were done after in 2023 and our 2022 volumes were higher. Um why wouldn't I wouldn't suggest counting even right now because I would need to from my perspective go and make adjustments because of the current road construction along US Route 20. Um that

during a time frame has impacted typical traffic operations. I know residents had talked about folks seeking alternative routes due to construction patterns. That happens. Um so I would honestly if I counted right now I'd probably look at the 2022 volumes and make adjustments. Um my company did a project um further west of here um west of Randall Road on Route 20 um where we did count in 2024 just for a frame of reference. um comparing that 2024 volumes to 2023 I do numbers the 2024 volumes were actually about a half percent lower just from a perspective so um as a professional I have confidence that the volumes and the projections that we've used in our analysis um are appropriate

okay and the reason why one of the reasons why I asked that question because there was some misunderstanding about when the actual uh study took place and if it was if it accounted for the new construction that eventually ensued. And so the the short answer on that is that the short answer, yeah, I know I gave a a lot more details, but yes, we um the traffic study that was done for Thornton's um we had a copy of that and included their traffic volumes um specifically for that as well as as I mentioned the car wash and then general growth within the area.

Okay. And Mark, do you have a a timeline? And I know this is a shot in the dark almost, but do you have a timeline of when ID do, you know, the plans of

reconfiguring and making some changes, upgrades, etc., etc., is going to occur? I can tell you that the study the the imagery that I showed you for the study that is part of their phase one engineering and they were intended to wrap that up late 2025. That's the best I know. But then you go into land acquisition, property acquisition, easement acquisition, uh securing the rights for for any necessary land, uh design, construction, funding allocations, councilman with, you know, reasonably I it could be it could be five to seven years.

Okay. All right. Miss Means maybe in if I can just add um while we don't have the definitive um date as those items are still in progress um ID do has a highway improvement project and they allocate funds and scheduling of certain projects during certain time frames. Um that project and its improvements um were part of the five-year 2025 to 2030 improvement projects. You know, could it stretch longer? Could it be done sooner? You know, that's obviously, but it is it is um a project that's currently slated um within um a fiveyear design period.

Yeah. But it's a state. So, it's a state, right? 10 years from now, 20 years. that you know and as as noted you know um the improvements that Thornton had committed to um that this development you know has also indicated that they're committed to while ID do may do them if the thor you know some other gas station come may do ones at Lambert otherwise this development would need to do them that it's important for those um improvements to come in and they are committed to as part of um this development project. Okay. And my next set of questions is for Mr. Bezos. Okay.

Mr. Bezos, thank you uh for being here this evening again. Um can you at the beginning in your opening, you kind of went down um you gave a very quick overview. you didn't go go into any great detail about the changes that were made um after the first um planning and zoning commission meeting. Uh can you give a little bit more of a of a of a detailed history of what those exact changes were? Yes, I can. And if if I miss anything, um development team, let me know. I'm going to

Mr. Bezos, the image is behind you as well, too. if you want to use your walking microphone and point to things. Okay. So, from a kind of a macro perspective, this 200 Wait. Yeah. Yeah. This 20 what? 31,000.

31,000 square foot uh temple, cultural, and uh inside recreation center building was reduced down to 86,000. Um, this 81 unit 4story condominium building uh was completely eliminated and replaced with the green space. Um, the 1, two, three, four, five, six town home buildings were reduced down to five. Um the the tree uh

is preserved here. Um what else? Uh just go going back to um the setback that we had at 40 ft. Again, the neighbors are 40t minimum. We had 40 feet. We increased ours to 50 feet uh for a couple reasons. by eliminating uh the other thing that's connected is a huge elimination of a larger field of parking coincides with the reduction obviously of the temple uh complex as well as the elimination of the 81 units. Uh and this field in particular and that building is completely almost turned into all green space now when this was all pulled out. Um, but that reduction also allowed us to move this road a little bit further away, which helped us get to the a larger setback in the rear yard to 50 ft. We also widen that road. It was not previously wide enough for the parking on one side opposite the driveways, but now it has been made wider. So, as I mentioned earlier, the entire stretch of roadway is available for parallel parking. So it increased open space overall, created a larger town home existing to proposed town home rear yard combined setback of a minimum of 80 ft from where it would have been uh allowed for more parking allowed for more green space. So just I think in a nutshell that's that's the changes. Mr. 284 parking spaces. Councilman Dix Dixon on the lower plan uh 56

36 which is 58% reduction. The Shakara which is the Hindu name for the steeple 125 ft in the first plan um to 90 a 38% reduction. Um yeah I think we've hit I think we've hit them. Okay. And since the last planning and zoning commission meeting, um, have there been any other additional changes?

No. No, there have been no additional changes, just clarifications and discussions with staff that may have gone into their uh, conditions for approval that we're absolutely willing to and will hire Elgen PD to direct traffic. Um, I can't think of anything else. Mark, can you No, we've talked about the improvements at Lambert Lane. We talked about the traffic management plan. Those are those are the big uh operational conditions uh recommended in the ordinance. Okay. And that green sp that green space is that designed to be accessible to the neighborhood?

No. So, it's a it's a commu it's a Hindu K H kindu PUB park.

Um and it will be available for the can't reset. I the town home residents and the Hindu temple um u participants um by the way nobody's asked maybe it but the these um town homes will be offered for sale to anybody um I guess uh tradition shows that where there are homes close to temples uh most of them are often purchased by uh participants of that uh temple, but there's no requirement of that and nobody will be turned away.

Okay, those all my questions at this time. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, anything else, Mr. Stef?

Yeah, I I want to jump in. I was letting other people go and all my I hope all or most of my questions were answered. Um, I also want to thank everybody that the team, the development team, Mark and his staff, all the people from the residences that came out and went to other meetings. Um, it was a long weekend of digging through the 530 plus pages in the memo and all of the emails that came since uh this package came out, including this week. Um, I just want to touch a couple things because I think clearly from the comments and the questions and the explanations, traffic is seems to be the most important thing here. Um, I want to make sure I've got this right, and I think Mark, you and I have had this discussion, but I heard it tonight as well. There are improvements that Thornton was going to make to the intersection of Lambert and some of the other um Route 22. Um and those are not if Thornton's doesn't go, those are going to be required. That's a condition in this proposal that the temple is going to have to perform those or or make those improvements to Lambert and Route 20. Correct. because I I I think that was uh something that I wrote down and uh noted um not only from Oakidge residents but Castle Creek across 20 and then the subdivision south of that down Spalding Drive. It seems that intersection really needs some improvements and that's what is going to be required of this proposal if it gets approved. Is that correct?

That is correct. Okay. Um, I think one of the things that I saw in there that really caught my eye and it's a I what would you call it? A term of art. They're going to increase the lane storage in the left turn lanes to so that there's more space for cars to get out of the travel lanes. Yes, sir. All right. Stacking space.

I heard the mayor talk about ID do how they never move. I'm going to date myself, but um the entire of Route 20, the bypass, even through Elgen, never had a median until a classmate of mine was killed on Route 20 by a driver that crossed the center line. Uh he was at Illinois Park School when I was there, Mark Seako. So, I guess I call it the Mark Seako median, but that was ID do moved uh at that time relatively quickly and put that median in the entire stretch of bypass 20. um from Villa Street to some point west of MLAN Boulevard where it separates into with an eye with a median in the middle, a grass median because I I point that out because that's what caught my eye in the memo and I think you've been asked this question. ID dot is supposed to put a median in the rest of route 20 through this section particularly at Hilliard or Hillard sorry because um currently it has a right out right right in only I call it the kidney the island that forces people you can't go but the median would eliminate that anybody who thinks that they could try to you know overcome those directions and try to turn left out of Hillard or turn left off of 20 into Hillard if they're going eastbound. So, yes, sir.

That would be important in my mind to have that happen. Um, and I think all of my questions have been answered. I I I appreciate I mean the thing that struck me in reading this memo and reading all the materials and all the comments is how this project was really the intensity was lowered. It was as has just been described by their council and uh their engineer. You know, condo buildings were eliminated. The whole building of the town houses was eliminated. The street was widened. Green space was brought in. Um the fences removed. I think I had that wrong when I read through the first time. The fence is not going all the way around. It's just going to be on the railroad side. Um so I appreciate that. So I guess I don't really have any questions. I just wanted to make sure that those things that I had heard and had read were actually going to happen, particularly with the intersection at Lambert because that seems to be a huge concern of uh the residents uh on both sides of Route 20 trying to use that intersection. So, thank you.

Yes, sir. Okay, Mr. Good. Thanks, Mayor. Um I don't really have any questions. I'll just provide some comments since I think am I the only one that hasn't spoke yet?

Okay, so there's a couple of us. Um, so first I guess compliments to everybody involved in this. I mean, if you're into civics, it's been interesting. Um, from planning and zoning to the consent decree, um, to the organizing of the community to the work that uh, city staff has done, you know, we encourage staff to be creative and find a way to do infill, which this is infill. Um, so just across the board it's been really impressive. Um, to date I don't believe I've ever um not taken guidance from planning and zoning. Um, I understand there's a lot of dynamics at play uh in those meetings as as they are here. Um, but when I was reviewing this, you know, it's I'm trying to put myself in the shoes of somebody who bought a property in like 2017 because it's the 2018 plan's always being cited. um you know, the consent decree was challenged in court in 1999 uh and and it lost. And so the then the the group purchases the property um and as it stands, you know, the the strategy that's being taken is, you know, they're bringing it to council to see if they can get a affirmative vote, then bring it to Cook County, which could happen in a few years. Um and then ultimately come back here. Um, and I guess that's one point I would like to call out is I think it's been said that, you know, for the original plan, the four-story building, like that couldn't happen. Like that I just wanted to clarify that could happen because if this is being brought to council tonight and if it's voted for in the affirmative, this is going forward to Cook County and Cook County approve it and then they could come back and it could happen again. So there could be a four-story building here with that green patch being developed. So I just want to say that's down the road. Um, All of those things are theoretically possible. And we did just highlight that if we were to design this uh subdivision or design a subdivision, um there's things that we would do differently with this design. Um and so for me, somebody

who yeah, I've grown up around here, uh similar experiences that people have shared here and in the community, uh it's a nightmare, right? Like that part is just brutal. Um, so with with everything that's being said about traffic, uh, I I I just I don't know if I've heard enough tonight to skew me away from my, I guess, historic pattern of not voting in the affirmative of planning and zoning. Um, so I it sounds like a lot of my colleagues have thought this through deeply um, and have made their positions, I think, known. Um, so, uh, yeah, again, I just wanted to I'm not I know I'm kind of like burying the lead here, but I just wanted to say thanks for everybody who contributed because it is impressive the way you've conducted yourself with the original plan, bringing it back, staff. So, I'll leave my comments there.

Okay, M. Martinez.

Thank you, Mayor. First, I'd like to go ahead and thank everybody. It's after 10 o'clock and you're still here. Um there's five of us that started at 4:30 with a liquor commission meeting, but I love the fact on how involved you are. Um I'm similarly involved uh in my 11 almost 12 years that I've been on the council. I have attended about 120 um PNZ meetings. And I do that purposely because I want to sit over there and see your reaction as um the petitioners because even though they go ahead and they record them, we never see that part. We only see this part over here. And um I think out of all these meetings um there's been three times that I can remember where the planning and zoning commission went ahead and um went one way and then we went another you know but um just for perspective uh there's a lot of things that were covered. I I appreciate that this land that we're talking about is 34 acres.

Yes, ma'am. Okay. And the first houses that um were built in the Oakidge um sub in the subdivision, they started in 2005. That's my understanding. So on the west side, was there also initially going to be more uh homes there or not really? I've seen concept plans, but not no but I can't find any formal petition that was ever submitted to to the plan commission at the time. I you know it was kicked around but nothing ever formalized. Okay.

And initially the 231 23100 square ft that was reduced we've already said to 86 ft. Yeah. 86,000 square feet.

86,000. Okay. Um, it sounds like all the concerns in the meetings prior to this in the planning and zoning, the petitioner or I'm sorry, the developer and their team really listened because they made a lot of changes. And I know people don't like changes, especially in their subdivision. I get it. But when we're talking about I90 and Route 20, um, in my lifetime, I've seen more changes on Randall Road than I have on I90 and 20. Uh, I'm not saying there isn't any changes, but there's been more. And I get it because the difference is that I90 and 20 are owned by the state and that's been discussed on how slow they are. and Randall Road. There's been a lot of changes because that's owned by the county and the changes have been made uh because there's more people obviously. Um let me see. I see that um you listen by making um G Boulevard a wider street, right? And if you look at that street, it's really going to be used more by um the developer, the temple more so than um the subdivision. Okay. Um the police, we've already discussed that if the police is hired, it's paid for by the temple. Uh let me see. Another thing I'd like to point out, there was one time where um the planning and zoning went ahead because honestly the the biggest problem that we're always talking about is

traffic. Mhm. When planning and zoning went ahead and okayed a car wash on the corner of Lillian and McClean Boulevard, the um northwest, no northeast corner. Mhm. Okay. After a couple of weeks of being open, it was a total nightmare. There was a line on uh North and South Mlan. There was a line on Lillian. And I was like, "How could we be so off?" That was really like, "How could that happen?" Because you just can't undo it. Thank God. What happened was the car wash had free car washes. Yes, they did. And that's why everybody was going to take advantage of that.

Yes, they did. And um normally you you always get it right. I mean, uh we've been lucky. I know. Um staff, you've been great about it. Um, this is going to be really hard for me to um uh not go with uh with uh your recommendation. Um I know some people are not going to be happy, but um I think we have to do what's right. So those are my comments. I just wanted to point those a few things out and um uh that's really about it. Thank you. Mhm. Okay, everybody's had a chance.

Okay, just two quick questions. I just want to follow up on something that was said during public comment. Um, Mr. Rico Patel mentioned a shuttle service during his public comment. And so I wanted to get clarification on what you meant by shuttle service or if if anyone from the temple could clarify what it means with the shuttle service or if that was something that was not accurate from public comment.

Yes, please. Thank you. Uh, Miss Al Farro, the the shuttle service was discussed in the context of the bigger project in the event that the uh the traffic was uh that this was our first public hearing and and everybody was saying it's going to be overwhelming and and and it's true that a shuttle service could be arranged for, but that was back when we had 1,200 plus parking spaces and a much larger expected Hindu new year attend dependence. Uh, and even then we didn't know if we would need it. We simply said we'd do it if we have to. That stands we'll do it if we have to. We don't think we'll have to at all.

Where would you do the subtle service? It would have to be arranged from some corporate facility somewhere up or down Route 20, but it's not in the plan for now. It's not. Okay. And then um I had a question on regards to um why why this space um when the entity was purchasing the property did they look into zoning and did they were they aware that this wasn't zoned for the temple and then did they reach out to the city right away to have discussions?

We we were aware that it wasn't uh zoned properly. We were also aware though that the city's comprehensive plan doesn't support what it currently is zoned which is GI. So we were optimistic that we could uh come up with a plan in this case a transitional land use plan with industrial that's west on the top to an institutional use close to the railroad tracks and then town homes to town homes on the east. Um, so by the way, and I I just think that you might find this interesting. Oh, please take the mic so those at home can hear you. Thank you.

The gentleman that sold us this land, I mean, his entity named Jack Sorenson of US Shelter.

Um, he bought it from the people, well, there may have been intervening people back in 1967. There was supposed to be gravel mining occurring here and that's when the Sherwood Oaks residents went to court and got protection in the consent decree and that consent decree still stands there today but it's been amended more than a couple of times and in fact Mr. Sorenson had the consent decree amended so that he could plat and develop Oakidge. So I just thought you might find that interesting. It's uh but but as to your zoning point, I mean this seems to be a a site ripe for uh a change of zoning.

I'll just say like I'm I'm still very concerned with the one one entrance. I I know some of my colleagues have mentioned that um you know they want some certain things in place to make sure that the traffic is um I live in the east side. I avoid 20 as much as I can um because the traffic is really bad over there. Um, and so with the oneway entrance in and out, I'm super concerned. If if that wasn't the case, I would I don't know. But thank you for answering all my questions today. Okay. Anything else? Okay, I have a motion. Please call the role. Council members Alaro.

No. Dixon. Yes. Good. No. Martinez, yes. Ortiz, yes. Powell, yes. Stefan, yes. Thorne, no. Mir Captain,

yes. Motion is approved. 63. Okay, brings us to item two is a res resolution authorizing execution of a local public agency engineering services agreement with Hampton Lanzini and Renwick for construction engineering services in connection with the Kimble Street traffic signal interconnection. Move for approval. Second. Moved and second for approval. Any discussion? Hearing none. Clerk, please call a role. Council members Alfaro, yes.

Dixon, yes. Good. Yes. Martinez, yes. Ortiz, yes. Powell, yes. Stefan, yes. Thorne, yes. Mayor Captain, yes. Motion's approved. 90. Consent agenda. Move for approval. Second. Move the second for approval. Any discussion hearing? None. Clerk, please call the role. Council member Zaro, yes. Dixon, yes. Good. Yes. Martinez, yes. Ortiz. Powell, yes. Yes. Stefan, yes. Thorne, yes. Mayor Captain, yes. Motion's approved. 90. Miscellaneous. Move for approval. Second.

Moved in a second for approval. Any discussion? Hearing none. Clerk, please call the role. Council members. I'm sorry. What are we voting on my miscellaneous business? Oh, miscellaneous. Yeah, that was fine. Yes. Dixon. Yes. Good. Yes. Martinez, yes. Ortiz, yes. Powell, yes. Stefan, yes. Thorne, yes. Mayor Captain,

yes. Motions approved 90. Announcements. The next committee of the whole meeting will be uh Wednesday, January 28th, 2026 at 6 p.m. in the city council chambers. The next regular meeting of the Elgen City Council will be Wednesday, January 28th, 2026 at 7 in the city council chambers. Entertain a motion to adjurnn. So move. Second. Moved and seconded the court, please call the role. Council members Alaro, yes. Dixon, yes. Good. Yes. Martinez, yes. Ortiz, yes. Powell, yes. Stefen, yes. Thorne, yes. Mayor Captain, yes. We are adjourned. A motion to reconvene uh committee of the whole. So moved. Second.

Moved and seconded to reconvene. Court, please call the role. Council member Zaro. Yes, Dixon. Yes. Good. Yes. Martinez. Yes. Ortiz. Yes. Powell. Yes. Stefen. Yes. Thorne. Yes. Mayor Captain. Yes. We're back in session. Mr. Manager, I believe we're on item E.

I agree. This is a site remedite remediation program services for the city-owned property at 96 through 122 South Grove Avenue. The city owns this property commonly known as the Crocker Theater site. It was formerly occupied by the Crocker Theater and a coin shop. The buildings have since been demolished and the site is currently improved with a parking lot and is al that is being used for municipal parking. City council approved an agreement with Ramble America's Engineering Solutions in April 2024 providing for environmental services related to the site remediation. Ramble conducted additional remediation in 2024, but the IEPA disapproved of the supplemental site investigation remedi remediation objectives report due to the lack of recent soil samples. This proposed change order includes tasks such as preparing phase one environmental site assessment, developing a work plan to collect soil samples, and further environmental investigations and reporting to the IEPA to advance towards obtaining a no further remediation letter.

Move approval. Second. Moved and second for approval. Any discussion, Mr. Ste? So, I I just want to make sure I got this clear. We just kind of let this go too long. Now, we got to get an update. No. No,

that's right. We got a notice in 2023 that the property was going to be removed from the program from the IEPA. So, at that point, we entered in this new agreement to uh resubmit and try to get the no further remediation letter. Uh when our consultant submitted the report, the IPA uh unfortunately determined that our soil samples were not recent enough. Um, even though soil samples technically change over time when there's really been nothing done at the property, they're making us resubmit. So, we're going to do some additional samples and we'll have to then uh take any further actions necessary to get to no further remediation. But the first step is to get do this further investigation. Got it. Thanks.

Okay. Anything else? Clerk, please call the role. Council member Alaro, yes. Dixon, yes. Good. Yes. Martinez. Yes. Ortiz. Yes. Powell. Yes. Stefan. Yes. Thorne. Yes. Mayor Captain. Yes. The motion's approved. 9 Z.

Items F and G are related matters relating to bulk road salt. The first item is a purchase agreement with Morton Salt Incorporated and Compass Minerals for road salt for the 2025 through 26 season. City council in January of 2025 approved participating in the state of Illinois's annual bulk road salt purchase program. Um, in early November, the state notified the city of the bid results for that season. Elgen salt allocation is split between these two vendors, Morton Salt and Compass Minerals. The city may increase or decrease its order with each vendor to between 80 and 120% of the requested amount depending on its actual needs this year. Move for approval. Second.

It's been moved and seconded. Any discussion? All right. Is that move for both items then? It is. Okay. Oh, any questions? Please call the role. Council members Alfaro, yes. Dixon, yes. Good. Yes. Martinez, yes. Ortiz, yes. Powell, yes. Stefan, yes. Thorne, yes. Mayor Captain, yes. Motion's approved. 90.

Item G is a purchase commitment with the state of Illinois for bulk road salt in the 2026 through 27 winter season. City uses the ill state of Illinois Department of Central Management Services joint purchasing program to buy its road salt. CMS every spring requires government agencies to commit to purchasing a quantity of bulk road salt for the next coming winter season. Approving this commitment authorizes the city's part participation in the bidding for large statewide supply. Committing to this program will generate the city's annual per ton pricing during the latter portion of 2026 at which time staff will present a final agreement for B uh for salt purchasing approval. Move for approval. Second.

Moved and second for approval. Any discussion hearing? None. Clerk, please call the role. Council members Laro, didn't we just vote on that? We No, we just voted on. Yeah, but when I asked you said that both motions were together. Oh, I I'm sorry. I misunderstood both motions for both vendors and the sol. So, we did vote for them separately. Okay, then this is Yes. I'm sorry. Dixon, yes. Good. Yes. Martinez, yes. Ortiz, C. Powell, yes. Stefan, yes. Thorne, yes. Mayor Captain, yes. Motion's approved. 90.

Item H is a fire department administrative vehicle purchase. This is seeking authorization to purchase a Ford Explorer by the chief off by a chief officer in the fire department. Um, this is a nonp police interceptor vehicle. It's an Explorer that any one of us could purchase off the lot. In this instance, we're hoping to purchase from Elgenbased uh Ford dealer, Ron Hopkins Ford. Move approval. Second. Move the second for approval. Any discussion? It's nice to see a carbo with a local guy. Mhm. Council members Alfaro, yes. Dixon, yes. Good. Yes. Martinez, yes. Ortiz, yes. Powell, yes. Stefan, yes. Thorne, yes. Mir captain,

yes. Motion's approved. 90. Itemiz is a software purchase agreement with Magnet Forensics LLC for the Grey Key mobile forensic access software. This is an annual renewal by the police department. Graykey is a state-of-the-art tool that extracts encrypted or inaccessible data from mobile devices running either the Apple iOS or the Android operating systems. Police department has been using this software since 2017 and is seeking to continue using this important and crucial forensic tool. Using grey key importantly is predicated on legal authority granted by a search warrant or the owner's consent. Move for approval. Second. It's been moved and second and any discussion hearing none. Clerk, please call the role. Council members Alparo, yes. Dixon,

yes. Good. Yes. Martinez, yes. Ortiz, yes. Powell, yes. Stefen, yes. Thorne, yes. Mayor Captain, yes. Motion's approved. 90. Item J is an initiative requested by council member Al Farrell with council member Stefen as her second. Um they are both requesting an agenda this agenda item to discuss the comments and information conveyed during the city's community forum on immigration enforcement conducted on January 7th at the Heritage Ballroom in the Edward Shock Center of Belgium. Thank you. Okay, Miss Farrell.

Yeah. Uh so thank you all very much. I know it's super late. Um but we wanted to make sure um Council Member Stefan and I that we're following through with the community. We heard what the community has said. um not everyone got to speak at that community forum. So, we wanted to give an opportunity to our council members to speak, but also like we could start strategizing on some of the items that they talked about. Like one of the things I'm thinking about and I'll just get I would wait to hear everyone, but I know it's we're short on time, so I'll just get to the point is could we do a report every other month to and have a discussion for the community? How many ICE calls have we received? How many did we address? are we being currently sued or not, which currently we are not being sued for anything regarding um immigration law enforcement? Um and any other things to help with that communication that the community was saying, they wanted us to say more. Um and so maybe there is some things that we could do in having this report that's done every other month um that we go over just to be transparent to the community of like yes, this is what's happening in our community. Yes, this is how we're addressing everything. So, that's just one idea I had to address some of the things that was stated at the community forum and then I'll hand it over to council member Stefen.

Well, so much for picking a January uh council meeting due to lack of any business going on. Timing is everything.

Yeah, I thought that would actually be a good idea, but so here we are after 10. I I don't want to belittle this. So, I will do what Diana did and just go right into some ideas that I had and also um have had given to me and I've actually shared one of these with the chief and that is um setting up a medical station more than just having first responders show up and check to make sure everybody is okay. Um but then that's with a big caveat and I think the chief and I have talked about this. Um, ICE has declared and I've heard it uh conveyed in rapid response Zoom meetings that they intend to be in and out of any incident that they're involved in within 4 minutes or less. So, this is not something that can apply to most, if not any incidences that they're going to be involved in. We just happened to have one that had a standoff on Maple Lane uh that lasted long enough where maybe a medical first aid station could have been set up. So, that's an idea I've had given to me and I've passed on. Two others that I uh am going to throw out there and these are just ideas. Actually, I think there's a fourth one that I've come up this week. Um and I'm glad Jamie, you're here. I see I saw you walk in. Thank you for being here because otherwise this would get to you secondhand. Um we've had shown us that the federal government's not going to cooperate in local investigations as they have demonstrated in Min Minneapolis and not only not cooperate but actually try to shut them down. So, um, what can we do, meaning mostly the police department, uh, for for the city of Elgen to make sure that our information, the

facts that we gather, the investigations we do can go forward, uh, regardless of what the federal government's going to do, which apparently is to try to thwart and impede and not investigate instances. Um the other thing the other idea and uh this is unfortunate but I think uh it was made clear by the comments at our community conversation a week ago. Um there were people who said that they've repeatedly challenged us in the city and unfortunately that falls on Chief Lai as the police department face. um what are we going to do if somebody gets killed or seriously injured? And that was all hypothetical until the incident in Minneapolis. So that's a question I would pose to everybody. What what plan do we have if and when that happens? Because I think we have to be ready for that. The last thing that I um that came up just because I think it came out yesterday, the day before is the state of Illinois and I believe the city has joined them, city of Chicago and not the city of Elgen, um is suing the federal government for violations of people's rights. Um and I noticed in the complaint that I reviewed that several of the instances that are the basis for that lawsuit or things that happen in eligance. So I I have asked to see what it would take, what it would cost us and resources and staff time and other things to actually join that lawsuit uh as the city. So those are some ideas that I have and I'm again I'm just because of the time I wanted to talk about December 6 because I was there what I observed the lack of professionalism and I would say that in contrast to our department because it was so blatant to me as I

consider myself a lay person despite having done some ride alongs and some training that the police has provided me. I was just shocked at the lack of professionalism by ICE officers uh when I went out and visited. So, um I'll stop there. I just wanted we I wanted to second this uh motion to have more of a conversation. I will respond to Diana's suggestion that I think we do need updates. I think um the uh banning of ice from public facilities, part of that ordinance was a six-month review, but I think you maybe more on to something that I would support as a more frequent update on what's going on. Um just one more comment because I thought of it and I didn't want to let it go. Um there's been some positions taken that I can't agree with personally and one is that we should not actively resist actively respond to what we are seeing. Um I think the cost of being silent in this instance is way higher and way worse than the cost of putting up some sort of a resistance or some sort of uh response to what what we're seeing. Um, the other thing is some some community members at the conversation a week ago to try to summarize their position at the risk of maybe oversimplifying it. They were they were basically saying that two wrongs make a right. That their people were subject to injustice and cruelty by the government for centuries. and even treated his property sold and bred like livestock. And now that a different segment of the

community is feeling that they were fine with letting ice do that. Um I certainly cannot support that and would never support that. Um that is exactly the response I think the federal government wants. They want people if you're not subject to them right now, they want you to look the other way. I think it's borne out that that is the wrong position. First of all, by the recent actions in picking on the Somali population in Minnesota and using that to smear the black population generally. And then it's just come out in the last day or two that they are arresting Native Americans in Minneapolis because they happen to look Hispanic. So apparently this idea that the what you look like is a basis is a valid basis for arresting you, detaining you, disappearing you, whatever they're doing. Certainly shows that they're not picking on any one specific group and they're willing to keep going. So, um, I just wanted to throw those out, too, because I thought of them. So, I'll I'll shut up and let other people talk. Okay.

Anybody else have a comment? Mr. Thorne.

Thank you, Mayor. Well, uh, last week at the forum, gentlemen stood up in the audience and said, "We want the chief to talk. Please relinquish your time, other council members." We all agreed to that. Then I found out later that some other people in the audience had expressed disappointment in the fact that some of us didn't speak. We didn't say anything. And whether we had anything to say or not, uh, we're representatives. I'd just like to compliment our police chief and our police department for doing the job that they are doing and the way they're doing it. I think we're very fortunate to have Anna Lai as our chief. There's a reason why Elgen's crime rate is at an all-time low. We have great leadership there. But for some of the comments that were made that night that seemed negative towards our police department, I think that's unfair. Don't get me wrong, I I think this ICE is terrible. But there's contradictory statements that seem to be made and people don't know what they want, but they want something done. You know, I put it in the hands of Anna for knowing what to do and how to do it, when to do it, and what not to do. So, my compliments to you, Chief, for how you're handling everything.

There's a reason why she is chief. We all believe in her and I certainly do. That's my statement for this evening. Anybody else? Mr. Good.

Thank you, Mayor. Um, so I for those who are watching, uh, and for those who are still in the audience, um, in the last month or so, we had, um, well, we've been having ongoing conversations. One of our council meetings, um, had folks show up that were very passionate and essentially shut the council meeting down. Um, this has happened in other communities. Um I've talked to other elected officials in other communities and they're struggling to figure out how to handle um these interactions and so we're as we're all navigating this I I don't have the best answer to it. Um I don't know if we're as timely as we could or should be but I do want to say you know hats off to to everybody who showed up at that community forum to where people could vent and they could uh to their hearts content communicate in however they they felt. And I know staff I believe stayed even longer than we stayed. So, I appreciate that. Um, and so I just want to say to again, it's not that this is a civics lesson. Um, but for for meetings like this, we we have so many things going on that we obviously have public comment. Um, but staff reacted, council reacted to provide an additional space to have these conversations. And so, it's ongoing. I don't want to sit up here and u necessarily like try to formulate anything. I just want to say thank you to everybody who's here tonight. Um, thank you to everybody who showed up at the community forum. um everybody who's supporting their anybody in any way that they can. Um, and so I I I know for myself, um, and I can guess a lot of people up here, um, you know, lots of sleepless nights trying to figure out how we can make an impact, whether it's here, uh, locally, as my colleague just mentioned, uh, you know, the state is taking action. Um, you know, I read reports this week of different, uh, tactics that they're using. And so, um, beyond know your rights, it's kind of knowing, you know, what you're carrying around in your pocket that's being used not just for geoloccation, but, uh, data brokers. There's there's no laws around that except for in the state of Montana. And so, that's something that, um, I'm personally looking to pursue. There's some legislation at the state house

right now, but it looks like it's it's stalled. Um, but we're we're trying to scratch everything that we can to see what we can do to make an impact. So, um, I guess, yeah, that's that's going to be my comment for right now.

Okay. Else, Miss Powell. Thank you. Um I I want to start off by saying I really appreciate all the folks that came out um and literally bore their soul to us last week. Um their fear, their disappointment, their frustration, their anger, u people that were there um that were subject to to pepper spray. Um it it was it was heartbreaking. um that should have never happened. And it's it's so frustrating to be in this situation and not being able to do more to have been able to a prevent that from happening, but to also protect people. But I'm interested and well, more than interested. I want I want us to be able to protect people and to do more. Um I support um Chief Lai and um King County States Attorney Jamie Maser. Thanks for hanging out with us this late tonight. Both of you, all of you um that are here um in terms of looking at proposing changes to the Illinois Trust Act that will help us do that better. Uh, so I definitely support that. Um, my colleague, uh, Councilman Stefen mentioned the possibility of us joining in, uh, the lawsuit that the state of Illinois is currently suing the Department of Homeland Security. I I would definitely be interested in in looking at doing that. uh because the the use of excessive force, lack of due

process um and and just overall unhumane treatment of people uh by ICE officers, not only in Elgen, but what we've seen happen across the country is abhorrent and unacceptable and something has to be done. I think the cognitive dissonance of what we're seeing right now is that we at the local level are trying really hard to follow the law, but our federal government is breaking it at every single turn. So, just try to understand that that's that's hard. It's it's maddening. And I honestly I think it's being done on purpose um to try to goat people into um becoming violent and and I I hope that that doesn't happen. But at some point people are going to be fed up enough that they're going to take action that is going to make the situation worse. But I I I understand. Um I hope it doesn't get to that point. Um I' I've been at just about every protest. I was at the protest this weekend. I went to uh the prayer vigil um last Sunday because I do believe in prayer. Um I'll I'll piggyback on something that uh one of my other colleagues said. You know, I know that there's some folks that feel like maybe we should do less because the more we do, the more we invite or or um encourage ICE to come into our communities. Uh maybe we should just be silent. That's not an option. That's not an option for me personally, just knowing who I am, and I think

anyone who knows me knows that. But I'll just pose this to folks um people in our community, people on this dis where would we be as a country if Martin Luther King Jr. were silent? Where would we be as a community or I'll say me as a person of African-American descent, where would my family, my ancestors be if Harriet Tubman were silent? Where would the Latino community be if Caesar Chavez were silent? If Dolores Horta, who came to Elgen a few years ago and was probably one of the most dynamic speakers I have ever seen in this community, where would we be if all of those leaders that I just mentioned were silent? I I want to be on the right side of history. I hope that the rest of my colleagues want to be on the right side of history. Our community is demanding that we be on the right side of history and I'm committed to doing that. That said, um a couple of things I would like for us to potentially pursue. Um and some of this appears to already be going in that direction in terms of getting maybe some weekly reporting. I know that there's been some things that EPD is starting to put on on the um transparency portal. Uh definitely appreciate that. Um I I would like to maybe see us do some weekly reporting on ICE activity and where some things stand

um on a weekly basis on the portal. Um I would also be interested in understanding because I I'm not clear on this myself. At what point could or would our police department intervene? I I I think we need some clear understanding of that, especially in light of what happened in in in Minnesota. And as brought up during uh the sess uh the the session that we had last week with the public, what is our plan if someone is killed in our community? I don't think we can just assume and pray and hope that that doesn't happen because it very well could. So, what is our what is our plan? Um, I'm I'm also quite honestly interested in seeing um some more oversight uh verification and documentation taking place by the police department at these incidents where ICE is present in our community. um using body cameras, using command staff being there, taking um uh using getting body cam footage uh and documentation that can be used um later on to report to the accountability commission or or or whatever um body is in place for us to be able to pursue action after the fact, unfortunately, because that that's the only I thing right now that seems to be an option for us unfortunately and I know that's not what people want to hear and if and if that's wrong I want to know I want to find out if it's wrong

because if there is more that we can be doing I am definitely interested in us doing it but I am interested in getting having some more on-site presence during during the entire incident and verification of who's there, marked uniforms, vehicles, um identification of of officers, who's there because I've I've consistently said I we don't always know if these are actual off ICE officers. Um so those are some of the things that I'm interested in seeing um and definitely interested in hearing from the rest of my colleagues. um about what uh they would be interested in in having us pursue as well. Thank you.

One thing I've been saying from the beginning uh when this first started is that we'll follow the law and the law of the state of Illinois uh uh dictates the direction that we take and federal law. Uh what this what the what the federal government does and what the ICE officers do is uh beyond uh my control and your control. uh if they violate the law, that's what happens. But uh uh I'm not willing to do that. Willing to follow the law. Um we have people that their job is to enforce the law as I've talked to Chief Lai about. That's her job. She enforces the law. We in a limited capacity can uh make some ordinances and make some laws. Uh Miss Maser interprets the law and tells us what's legal and what's not. So I think that's uh uh the point we're at. You know, you're asking some things here that are pushing the trust act, and that's where we always end up is back. What does what does the trust act say? And there's some gray areas there. I was at a uh uh legislative breakfast with Metro West and talked to some state legislators about this and said there's some there's some discussion amongst police chiefs and Miss Mosser about doing something to modify uh what the trust act does to maybe give more flexibility. But uh that's usually one of the things that you try to find out is if this is not working for you well how do you how can you make it better? And uh I think that's the next step is that uh where we go. Let's try to fix this so that uh uh things can happen. But right now the uh police are uh following what the law says, but we're very specific about it. And uh we're stuck within those confines that it uh uh becomes difficult for us as a city to do that. It's frustrating for everybody. Said that I don't know how many times. And uh all we can do is keep saying that and hope people start to listen. say where are you at? What can

you do? And we can only reiterate the same position. The best thing to do is have the same position and everybody say the same thing. So people finally get the message from us. If we start talking disjointedly and well we can do this or let's try this. Sometimes you can't do that and all you're doing is making it worse. All we do is make it worse. So, I think that's something as a council we should be uh uh concerned about is finding a a direction. And I think that uh uh we've taken that we've taken that course up to this point. Uh what's going to happen I can't say if someone's killed in uh in Elgen in one of these I uh I've been following just like everybody else what's going on in Minneapolis. I don't know if they know what they're doing. I don't know what I don't know if we do any I don't if we do any different. And then when you find out that uh uh typically when we have a incident like this uh in Elgen with a a shooting like that, we have state police come in, we have other authorities come in to help us uh do those investigations. It gets beyond us and our capabilities pretty quickly to do that. So we have to get some pro some outside help. Uh that would probably be one place we'd go pretty quickly. But uh uh Miss Moser's here if she's got a comment uh can talk about where this the chief is here uh where the trust act takes us. What's uh what's the comment about the police being at the uh at the site? I see it as everybody else does. Do they uh we have that authority? Can they uh observe these things without violating a trust act? Can they intervene? Those are questions for you.

Sure. And uh thank you for having me. It's been a whole week since I've been here talking about immigration with all of you. A whole week.

So, when you look at the trust act itself, it um never envisioned what we're going through now. And I think that's the biggest problem. There is this it puts in very clear rules for what the police cannot do. And then it does have some rules for what they can do only when presented with this federal criminal warrant. And that's when they can assist. It has then this subsection that says that nothing within that act is to prevent local law enforcement from being able to work with federal authorities when they're doing criminal investigations or for matters of public safety. And that's where this is, in my opinion, being misinterpreted. The whole legislative intent behind that was to make sure that local law enforcement can still work with the federal agency. For example, when we have human trafficking investigations, often times our local police will ask HSI or Homeland Security to come in to work these investigations with us because they're much more complicated than a regular criminal investigation. That was the purpose. The purpose was to make sure we can still do the investigations that we've done. So then you go to the second portion of what is public safety? When can they come in and help? Again, the legislative intent behind that was if we had a big situation such as a riot that happened and both federal authorities and local authorities were here to try to maintain public safety, that was the intent behind it. I don't think anybody who wrote the Trust Act thought to themselves that they were going to have an administration that went this aggressive in terms of immigration enforcement to the poor to the point where it appears that they're overstepping the bounds of what they're supposed to do. So, what does that mean? Now, if a police department or police officer were called out to a scene where there is in fact protesters and ICE enforcing whatever they're enforcing, they can be there. Nothing in the Trust Act prevents them from being there. The problem is no one can account for what situations are going to happen. You

don't know what an ICE agent is going to do. Are they going to order the police officers to leave the area to get out of a certain way? are they um going to see things that are happening? What puts that officer in a trick bag? And that's the thing that I have been advising legally to the sheriff's office. And I come here to relate that because it's going to be the same thing for law enforcement anywhere they go. And you have to be careful about that because you're putting there them there or asking them to be there potentially as documenters. That's not what their job is. What happens when an issue happens somewhere else and they get called away for it? There's all these different things that put these officers in this situation because this trust act didn't envision what was going to happen and those are the changes that we need to make. As I said before, um, at the request of your chief, I am working on writing that that would allow for them to be able to be there, especially to put up a perimeter. If anyone has been at these protest sites, you are going to see that there's all the individuals there who are lawfully protesting and somehow the ICE agents are walking amidst all of these individuals. That is not proper law enforcement. And you don't see that when Elgen goes out to deal with situations because they make sure that anything that they're doing is secure for the protection of everybody, the people who are there as well as themselves. And so that's the problem that we have. we have all these individuals coming in not doing what lawfully we've seen in proper law enforcement. And so that's one of the things that we're going to request a change about it. We're also going to request that they be allowed to do traffic enforcement or details to make sure that we're diverting people from this to not make the situation any more volatile than it already is. Those are clear things that are put into a statute that gives clear direction to law enforcement officers of what they can do. When it is silent about what it means for public safety, then you're

putting them in the position of setting the officers up. Are they there and then I somehow thinks that they're obstructing the investigation and then they're arresting officers? Or on the converse side to that, are they there and somehow somebody sees that and believes that the Elgen police is working with ICE and then they're reporting them to the attorney general's office for trust act violations? We need clarity in our laws and the problem is right now we lack that clarity and so that's part of what we're really trying to move forward to assist all of our law enforcement throughout the state of Illinois. The bottom line um mayor captain as you have said this is difficult because federal government is going to be able to override what it is that we do here. I think there was a question asked that what can law enforcement do if they believe that somebody is exceeding the force in which they're supposed to use. In Illinois, we have the duty to intervene. And that's if a law enforcement officer is exceeding the authority of what they're supposed to do physically. If an officer doesn't intervene, then they would be charged with law enforcement misconduct here in the state of Illinois. And if they see an ICE agent who is exceeding the authority, they can legally intervene in regards to that. But I caution everybody with that because the ability to arrest and charge that ICE agent, that federal agent is very limited because of federal law. Federal law is much different in terms of what their authorized use of force is. And federal law also has a case that basically says that unless that officer would have no objective or subjective reasoning to do what they did, that's the only way that we can charge them in a pandemonium type of a situation. If the officer believes that they had to use that force, federal case law says they're allowed to do so and state

action can't happen. And even if I do charge them with a criminal offense, and this is assuming I even know their identity because the federal government does not have to give me their identity. So let's say I do learn the name of the individual. If I charge them under federal code, they have every right to take that into federal court. I lose jurisdiction over it. Am no longer the prosecutor over it. They decide what happens with that case. That's just the sad reality of what we're faced with right now in regards to this conflict between state law and federal law and because of the actions that are happening because of the federal administration. And I give you all a lot of credit because you have been absolutely proactive in trying to be a part of this with the community. And I cannot say that that's happened everywhere in King County. I have gone to many other uh municipalities. I'm going to go to St. Charles next week to have the same conversation with them. but you've been out there listening to them and trying to do something. So that's a kudos to you because I feel like you really have tried to be there for the community.

Okay, any question? Mr. Dixon, got a question. Thank you. Um um states attorney Monster, can you for the public detail um how it works when you want to make a change to the trust act? I think that when people hear that they're like, "Oh, there's it going to be tomorrow, you know." So, can you detail what that process looks like?

Yes. So, what I have to do is I have to basically redline the trust act, what I want to take out, what I want to add in. Then, what I have to do is find a either representative, a state representative, or one of our senators who's willing to put forth that legislation. And so, right now, we're in a deadline because Friday is supposed to be the final deadline for what's happening now. So, we're working really hard to do that. So, the bottom line is I also have to find legislators who are willing to do this. In the conversations that I've had with some legislators, it's looking like that may not be possible because there is this lawsuit with the federal government suing because of the trust act. So, right now, they don't want to do a lot. And I think this may be on the advice coming from the attorney general's office because if they're in active litigation about a law, you don't want to change law because that affects the litigation. Um, with that being said, we're still pushing forward to do it. Once somebody accepts it and files it, then it has to be assigned to a committee. When it's assigned to a committee, it doesn't mean that it's called out of the committee or even called up for any type of discussion for it. If it eventually is called up for discussion, then it has to be voted by the majority of people and then it will go to either the full um House of Representatives or the Senate, whoever carried the bill to start off with, assuming they call it again because even if it gets out of committee, it doesn't mean it gets called. If they vote, it goes to the other side and then they'd have to vote on it. And if any amendments are made in the meantime, it goes back and forth. It is the longest, most frustrating process that I have been involved in and I'm in politics and that frustrates me because a lot of great ideas just get killed because of somebody not even wanting to call it. So, it's not quick.

There you go. Thank you. I appreciate that detail. And you know this well. You went through this with the safety act just a few years ago. So, um, which also isn't perfect still, but I digress. All right. That was my last question for you. I was going to go ahead and make a statement. Sure. Um, and chip in. Um, so just to clarify, well, thank you for all that information, by the way. Um, just to clarify, it's not illegal for the police department to show up. No.

Right. Um, so for some reason, this is not going to be touched in the general assembly. I think, you know, I would be in favor of seeing if we could create some kind of guidance of if we're asking our police officers to show up, which I think they should, um, what their role would be there and and like potentially when to intervene in that kind of thing. Um, I don't know how all my other council members feel about that. Um, but since it's not illegal, right? Um, I agree. We should only be asking what is legally able for our police department to do. Um, following the rule of law. Um, so if it's not illegal, I would be in favor of creating some kind of guidance of this is what we're asking when our police officers go out.

And I understand that. I think the problem is we can never create guidance that's going to cover every situation. And that's the problem with it. So I think you have do have a very strong chief of police here who provides guidance. I know that on that December 6th on Maple Lane, she was in the office making sure to know what was happening and was providing that guidance to her officers. I think the problem is that the trust act really makes a trick bag for every single person around especially for law enforcement because I really do believe that sometimes just showing up they could be damned if they do, damned if they don't do.

I think one thing that's important um I've said this that I not I will not order anybody to violate the law. So, I have to have a 100% certainty that the trust act is that we're not violating the trust act because if you do that, you violated the constitution. It's illegal that it's illegal to direct any employee to uh to violate the law and they have constitutional rights and you just stepped into something that's even worse. And I I have uh uh as much as I believe in the in the system and I've had the conversation with people, I believe in this country. I believe in the system that's here and I believe in those guys that wrote the constitution 250 years. They're way smarter than us because that lasted that's a law is laws that lasted for centuries. Um but we have to be careful here and that's that's that's my point. I want to make sure that uh what we do is legal and I don't want to I'm not going to order a police officer. I'm not going to say we should create something that orders our police officers to do something that's uh illegal. So until we get that certainty, and I think that's the problem. To your point, I talked to to some of the legislators down there and they voiced exactly the same thing. Well, we have a lawsuit, so we don't think we're going to do anything

right until that's uh until that's uh completed. So that's one of the issues that those are the issues that we're facing and that's just the the reality of this. Yeah. And and I was just asking a question. I actually have more to say. So unless someone else has a question for the state's attorney, I'll go and say what I need to say. Okay. That's okay with everyone. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right. You can sit. Yeah, you can sit down on back.

All right. Thank you. Uh, so I u want to thank the community for coming out last week. Um, for my colleagues for, you know, listening to the questions, to Chief Lai and EPD for being there and for participating in that conversation. There's obviously a a disconnect in the community. um there are different factions around this subject and everyone doesn't see um what's happening obviously the same way and quite honestly I think that we as a council have not done a great job in speaking the same language and talking to the community in a way that ensures and and make sure that and make sure that They know that we are that we fully hear them and feel them. And people are so angry that they don't know really where to put that anger, you know.

Um, and I understand that because when you when you are upset, when you feel marginalized by by the government, um, when you feel or or the system, um, when you feel like you um like no one is listening to you, you lash out. So, I'm never upset with community members for raising their voice or um for, you know, just generally just being really upset because that's a that's a pain that you can only really identify if you've been on that side of the coin in life. Um, so, um, so with all that being said, I probably a few months ago, um, I had asked for to get some immigration stuff up on on our city's website and I and it was a conversation that I, you know, think something I brought up here on the Diets and I spoke to city manager and and Chief Lai about. Well, it was already brought up, but I want to give kudos to Chief Lai because yesterday we all received an email um with that, you know, with that with that landing page on the um on the on EPD's site um portal um what's what's the name of it?

Transparency portal, sorry. um with that information and she gave all the information that was requested of her from the community. Um there are images of the badges in particular. There is policy on there. There's also third party information on there that I had asked for. Know your rights information is on there. Um, so I I really want to say thank you, Chief, for not just listening and shaking your head like, you know, but actually doing exactly what the community was asking you for and also what I specifically had asked for. You know, you really delivered on that. Um, what I would like to add to that is we passed a resolution here. I didn't see that listed on there. I think that the things that we do should also be listed on there. Um I'm I'm in agreement. Uh so thank you to Councilwoman Deanna uh and Councilman John um for bringing this forward. So I'm in I'm in favor of the things that you all were saying um specifically the weekly reporting um and that being available on the on the portal too as well. Um, I think that Councilwoman Pal raised a good question of, you know, what if something terrible and tragic happens? What are we going to do? Now, I know that's something internal that we have to put together and that may not, you know, go on the go on the portal, but I think it's something that we definitely need to probably plan around because we're we're in this for the long haul at this point. We have another three years to go, uh, if not more. Um, and this EPD staying at the scene, it sounds like we just sounds like we're going to try to get clarity through this trust act before a final determination is made, right? Um, and there seems to be some,

you know, I think some divergent voices on that. Um because as was already pointed out by the state by the states attorney, it's going to be a while before we see those changes to the trust act that are being discussed. Um but meanwhile, ICE is here right now and they're doing things right now. So we so what so the question was raised was raised what if anything can we do or can EPD do um to not intervene but to stay within the limits of the law that that that they know it to be um I think that's a really difficult question to ask right now but I would just say to the community um you know we we we as a city we've come a very very long way And if you've been here for as long as I have and as many of my colleagues have, this is not the same community. This is not even the same police department. This is not the same chief. I mean, we've been through some stuff. I mean, some some really pretty dirty nasty like it could have ruined us stuff and it didn't. And in every instance where we could have crumbled and folded under pressure, city staff stepped up, EPD stepped up, Chief Lai stepped up. And so I I want to tell the community, you know, this hectic thing that they that we have going on, that's exactly what Trump wanted. He wanted to create this chaos and this havoc. He wanted me and you to be enemies, you know. He wants us to point the finger at each other and get the in and and get the attention off of him for everything that he and his

administration is doing. And in some part we're falling into that trap. But I just want to take notice right now that we don't have to. EPD is not our enemies. They're not. And your neighbor is not your enemy. They're not. We're fighting something that's much bigger than all of us right now. So, it's better that if we as a city, from resident to staff to employees, that we band together, that we do try to sing the same song, that we show up the way that we're supposed to be, that we do our job as representatives, that we were elected to be. and we just act in a manner that's appropriate for the time. Now, that's not going to be easy. It obviously um is not really just that simple, but that's my my PSA. And I also want to say something else, too, because there was a couple of people that came up and it honestly kind of pissed me off. and they came up during the meeting and these were my folks, black folks, and they said some things that were um distasteful, I thought. And I'm not going to repeat exactly what they said, but it was divisive in that they were essentially saying, and I'm not quoting, but they were essentially saying, "Well, let it happen. Don't get in. Don't don't do anything when it comes to ICE." this is what needs to happen. And there was a a guy uh in here in community by the name of Jeremy Hayes who stood up and was like here for the for the for the educated black folks or for the the black folks that are familiar with history um that is not the case and we stand with you. We're in solidarity. And

so I just want to I just want to call out that type of crap because that's not true and or indicative of of our community. And uh and so I just wanted to take a moment to to just call that out. So, um, so to all my Latino brothers and sisters, um, we stand in solidarity with you. We always will. Um, you know, we we care about you. We love you until the entire immigrant community, uh, as a whole. Um, we're not going to let what's happening nationally destroy the years upon years of relationships and um, and togetherness that this community has built together. this this will not destroy us. We're going to be all right. We're going to get through this. So, with that being said, I also would like to join the lawsuit.

Okay. That Thank you. down here. Um, anything else, Miss Martinez? I'll let them speak first. Go ahead. Okay.

No, I'll let they haven't spoken, so they'll let them go first. Uh I I truly appreciate everybody who came out that that night to speak and um to speak up for your neighbors and friends and strangers and you know I I promise I'll keep showing up as well. But um I know everybody has a difference of opinion and ideas that um that diversify is what makes our you know when we have ideas but they're they're different. That's really what makes us a thoughtful community. You know I would like to share my perspective on our uh challenges. I need to understand um I need you to understand that if I thought for a second that creating a statement, an ordinance or proclamation that would improve this nightmare, I would be the first to do that. However, the federal government is currently retaliating against entities that disagree with uh federal policy. you know, in in Elgen, Illinois, we could face unintended consequences for um the funding that we depend on for the state and federal governments. You know, this would negatively impact all of Elgen and I cannot take that action from the DAS that um especially if I believe will ultimately do more harm than good. um we must continue to speak up and I share uh information to you know I just want to make sure that everybody is heard and um referring to what Councilman Dixon said you know there we

probably didn't agree with what uh comments that were made you know and on that related note I was very surprised and I was deeply disturbed by the comments from the community member for Miss Ljulo uh Quigler who for the most part served as the Elgen Police Department task force as a chairman for that group. You know, I hope such sentiments are not driving policy within our commission or task forces. As a city, we must look out for all the the neighbors regardless of race, sexuality, and beliefs. And that is how I have always been and done things. You know what scares me more than anything? Um resistance. We all know it's wrong. You know what we see now is um there are a lot of people who have not resisted, who have not done anything, and um they've lost their lives. Uh they've been arrested. you know, Councilman Stefen said how there's groups that are being uh detained or um because they look um like I do, you know, because I mean they're American Indians. You know, what I have to say is that ICE, Lamigra, Homeland Security, INS, whatever you want to call them, is not the same one that we had 5 years ago, 10 years ago, or 60 years ago. What we have now is somebody who um has threatened to put he's already put $145 billion on ICE and they're going to do more and these are people who are not trained and you know it scares me when um we the community is asking the police to be there. you know, it many things have been said right now by our state's

attorney on why, you know, that might be a bad idea. Um, you know, I I know like there were all these questions, a list of questions and the community um comments on what they wanted. And what has worked for me and the word has got around that I will meet with people in small groups and and explain explain how our government works you know um that we're different from Aurora that we're different from Chicago or Rockford you know um the other thing is that um Chief Lai has a transparency portal that has been uh talked about and it covers a lot and I think it behooves all of us as council people to maybe take a class to maybe learn how that portal works because when you want reports um weekly monthly um sometimes you can't because things are being investigated but if you want to know what's really going on I suggest that that transparency port um portal is something that we need to be familiar with and also we need to educate the residents on how to use that. That's the fastest way and the quickest way to know things um when the investigation is over. You know, I think it's an educational tool and it has been said Elgen is very different from other communities. This is something that we take serious that's happening right now and I think that if we are going to resolve some issues, this is the way to to do it. Thank you.

Okay, Mr. Ortiz, that leaves you. Uh, best for last.

I'm just going to go mine be short cuz I spoke at the la at the meeting. So, everything I said then still stands. Uh, Chief's gotten a lot of praise today. So, I'm going to ignore you. And I want to give I want to give credit to her beat officers, the ones that are in the streets every day and trying to manage the best that they can. And I know you guys get put in tough situations at times and you may not know what to do because things are evolving and escalating so quickly. So I do appreciate everything the beat cop does, even the sergeants and uh lieutenants and even the commanders. But I've said it many times and our cops are doing the best they can. They get put in a really hard spot. I know at times community members and even myself I'm like well what the hell? Like can we do a little bit more? But then I have a genius of a boss that tells me that there's laws that we have to follow even though the federal government might be breaking them. So between her and Mr. Back and Mr. Stefan at times is like having three attorneys is a really good resource to have and get guidance from. So Anna, I do appreciate you, but I just had to give your beat cop some credit, too. And uh I I talked to city manager yesterday. yesterday's Tuesday about that lawsuit and talking it through him is I don't see a problem with us exploring the exploring the avenue to see how much it would be to hire an outside uh council. I don't know if Mr. Beck is savvy and uh constitutional law, but I I wouldn't mind uh exploring that opportunity. So, and I appreciate the gentleman here. I've seen him at many protests. He's I think he's the organizer or the grand marshal. I'm not sure what your title is, man. But appreciate what you've been doing for the city of Belgian. And that's it, man. Oh, and Mr. John Frank, I don't know why she drug you out here, but I appreciate you staying here till 11:30 and

get punished. So, don't end up going on vacation and you'll get this guy. So, I appreciate you being here. Okay, this far then we'll wrap this up.

Did you want to say something real quick? I I do I just wanted to say something really quick. Um and I wasn't going to say anything about this, but it was brought up I think by a couple of the council people when we had the forum last week um we invited all of the community come out to come out and and speak their piece. um and understanding and expecting that we personally might hear feedback from people that we don't personally agree with, but I respect everyone's rights as as residents of this community to be able to speak their peace and to be heard. So, I I want to make sure that we continue in that vein um and not discourage folks from coming out and being heard. And and the reason why I think that I I want to say that in particular about, you know, some of the comments that were referred were referenced here this evening that were made by members of the black community. I think we need to understand where certain members of the black community are coming from when we hear those statements. We can't ignore that there's a a a high degree of antilack racism that comes from the that has historically come from the Latino community and is still in place in the Latino community and people in the black community. A lot of folks in the black community have experienced that historically and continue to his uh experience that I personally feel differently and so I can only speak for me. But I'm not going to minimize what we heard from other members of the community that I may not agree with or

that Corey doesn't agree with or any of the rest of us may not agree with. because that's real. I've spoken to my friends in the Latino community about the antilack racism in that comes from the Latino community. That's real. That's that's a real thing. And that is I think what was fueling and has fueled what we heard from from those two individuals that spoke. And that is what perhaps is fueling um or or how other members of the black community feel that we haven't heard from. So I I'm just putting that out there. We We can pretend it doesn't exist. It does. It absolutely exists. Um, so I would love for all of us to be together on this. I think if things continue to get worse, we more of us will be together on this. I hope it doesn't come to that. Um, but I I just want to bring that up. We we can't ignore that. That's that is that's an issue. That is a real issue. It's sad. Um, like I said, I don't feel that way personally. I'm 10 toes down with the immigrant community here, but I think we have to respect and understand why everyone who looks like me may not feel that way. Thank you.

Okay, so far I think history has shown that they tried to create the other, right? They've put our groups against each other. They've they've intentionally have put black people against the brown people, brown people against Asians and LGBTQI plus, etc. They've historically the way our country has been has done everything they can to create this other and put marginalized groups against each other and fight for the same piece of the slice of pie versus for the entire pie. Absolutely. There's a whole one, right?

Um I just want to discuss next steps, right? So, we had the community forum. We we um indicated some ideas, etc. Um I would like to see if we could create maybe a subgroup. Hopefully, you don't care, Chief Lai. Maybe you're part of that subgroup since some of this ties into the police department. So, maybe myself, Chief Lai, maybe one other council member. Um that way at the next meeting um the January um 28th, we could have uh an agendum item called strategies for communication and community protection and we could report back a little bit about these items and what that would look like for the council to then approve if that's something we do want or not want.

Would everyone be okay with that? I'm not sure where you're going with that. So, we had talked about a monthly report, a weekly report, joining the lawsuit, um, setting up a medical station, etc. So, then just deep diving to what that would look like for the council to approve that. So, if we did go into someone, maybe Chris Beck or someone would have to tie into like the lawsuit, if we did, if we're able to join a lawsuit, here's that information, we're able to join it, this is what that looks like, or no, we're not able to join it, and that's what it is. So if it is we're able to join it, then that's something for the council to, you know, decide if they want to do that as a whole or not. It's just following up on these items. So we're not letting it fall through the cracks,

right? It's just exploring what this is. It's not saying that we're doing them. It's more to have something. If we're having a report, this is what that report will look like. So it's more in detail versus we're report we're making a motion on some report and not all of us have all the information. So we're not quite sure what's in there, what's not in there. So, just come back with a little bit more concrete information on each item for the council for the council to vote. They can vote on each one if they want, etc. Or there's nothing to vote on because it can't go anywhere. It's just ensuring that it doesn't fall through the cracks and we're following through. I don't know if I need a motion to do a subgroup.

Um, so that's my first question. Do I need a motion to do a subgroup? And then if so, there's one other council member since we can't have three of us. Okay, Corey will second. I mean, you could take a vote. There's no final action. There's no I I don't know that you need a formal motion. I mean, if you want some kind of consensus whether you and another council member Yeah, we're just going to look into the stuff and bring back information of what that would look like, right? And then the council to decide if that yeah, we want to do that. Yeah. Or no, not to do that. Some of these involve Chief Lai. That's why I was mentioning that we would have to pull her in. You know, some of this involves Chris Beck, um, etc. So, if one other council member wants to work with me,

let me ask this. Why wouldn't you uh just send us a report? Write a If you have a subgroup, write a report just like any other subcommittee would do and send it to us and we don't have to discuss it here publicly. Then we have time to look at it. Otherwise, you're just going to bring it here and we're going to sit here like this. Oh, no. But you would have to legislate from the dis and I'm not doing that anymore. We're not going to do that. So send it out so that we can see it and then we can talk about it. Yeah. Well, I think we all have different approaches to how things should be done, right? Yeah.

Um but what I was because I'm new to the council, so I wasn't sure if I needed an emotion to approve for a subgroup. So that's why I was just bringing that out just to make sure that we're following through to the items that the community is saying and we're not letting things fall through the cracks. That's fine. And I think but I think the way Go ahead. Let me Thank you. I think procedurally the way to do it is we should send us something so we have it we have it in advance so we have some material to look at

and not just bring it up at a council and expect we're going to do an ordinance or or create some legislation from here. It's not that simp. things don't come out. Oh, the other thing that I found out from Bob Gilliam is that when we get past 11:00, you got to be careful because stupid things start to come out. So, I might say something stupid, too. So, the stupid things came out. It's been a long It's been a long night. So, I just want to make sure we know that. Okay.

Say something. Thank you. Um I know some people are new to uh the council, but this happened before even Chief Lai was our uh our chief. This um this happened um with immigration. There was a lot of concern from the community about immigration. The concern was so big that we held it at the Zion church. As a matter of fact, it was the church from um Pastor Lily. Okay. And the church was so filled that we were worried that it had reached its capacity. And so when that happened, uh, we went ahead and, um, staff did basically what we did right here, you know, with what they did with all these questions and and they took notes and from there we worked on on what we are doing now. I don't know, chief, if you would like to add to that, if you remember when that happened. I'm sure you do. And it seems that ever since on many things, you know, it was a lesson learned from what happened uh at the time.

Okay. Good evening. It's going to be morning here in like a half hour, so I'm going to Okay,

I'm going to keep this brief, but um first I want to just say thank you to all the council members for your comments uh in regards to the police department. and I truly appreciate the support that you do show us and it does mean a lot to myself personally and also all the officers and the officers um and every member of the police department absolutely deserves all the credit. So um what Councilwoman Martinez is referring to I believe it was in 2016 roughly. I'm I'm going in the way back machine here. Um I was a commander at the time. We held a series of uh community uh forums um because there were a lot of questions as it related to immigration. So the community did come out uh there were a lot of great questions. Um it was reassurance to the community because immigration at that time had just started kind of um uh really starting up in Elgen and so it was necessary to have those community forms for the purpose of information exchange. Um, so you know, for that's the answer to your question and just for uh Councilwoman Al Faro, you know, I'm more than happy to sit down and to discuss uh you know, I took notes on a bunch of things that people were saying uh the things that you need. I'm more than happy to have those conversations and obviously uh working with um our corporation council, our city manager, and also our state's attorney. So yes, I'm more than happy to do whatever it is that you need me to do to have the conversations to see uh you know how we can uh continue to work together for the safety of both um the community and also for the officers.

So I guess I don't need a motion. So uh Tish has mentioned that she will be on that subcommittee with me and so we will report back.

Okay. All right. announcers from the council, Mr. Thorne and Mr. then Mr. uh Ortiz. Thank you, Mayor, and I appreciate everybody staying so late. First, I just wanted to compliment the mayor on his state of the city uh speech yesterday. I thought he did a a great job and it really answered a lot of questions and it it defended us raising the property tax wonderfully, but you did a super job. Secondly is a sad day yesterday. We lost somebody that was very important to the city of Elgen that has done so much for so many people. George Rollinsson passed away. He was the single person that was the one behind naming the city center the Edward Shock Center. He uh wrote countless books, published countless books on Elgen people. He was behind the uh first responders fest. He founded the tribute to the troops of which we won a mayor's award. Uh he just did so much. So uh very sad uh losing someone like that that it was a friend to everyone in Elgen. And then finally I just wanted to share this briefly. Pay attention to your health. Why do I say this? about December 9th or 10th, I had succumbed to notable itching all over my body, but I just didn't address it. And then we had the city council meeting here on December 17th. I was so uncomfortable, but I still wanted to spread a little joy. and I wore red and green outfit

thinking that was nice and make people smile only to be incredibly ridiculed on Facebook by someone. At any rate, the next day I went to the doctor. I had an appointment. The doctor did a blood test and then on Friday he called me and said, "I need to go to ER. I need to get imaging done of my abdomen. I talked with him and he says it's important. So I went I had imaging done and then the doctor at Sherman from that result said you need a CT scan right now. So I did that and then he wanted to admit me and this was on a Friday at 5:30. I said what could possibly be done over the weekend? Why can't I come back Monday? I argued with him and he finally agreed and said, "You just need to get in touch with Elgen Gastro first thing Monday and they'll review your chart." So, I did that, although I couldn't actually converse with them until Tuesday. They finally said, "We're going to give you some direction." They called me back late Tuesday and scheduled an endoscopy and that was scheduled for December 29th. He said, "You have a notable mass on your pancreas." So that's all I knew. How would you feel? How do you think? What would you think? You only think the worst. It's just human nature. I started thinking this is my last Christmas. People I'm talking to this last time I'm going to maybe uh see them. My friends

from Colorado visited celebrated Christmas with me. It's just the way the human mind thinks. And when you think of a mass on your pancreas, what do you think of the C-word? Finally, I didn't tell anybody and I just stayed with it except a couple people that saw me at the emergency room. One person kept calling me three times. Anyway, on the 29th, I went in, had the endoscopy done and a biopsy. Finally, I was in recovery, and the doctor came in, and he said the words that I was hoping to hear, but didn't expect to hear. He said, "It's non-malignant." I was able to do a biopsy and I was also able to put a stint in your bile duct of your liver which will cure your itching which I never would have thought of but it did. Next step they told me now you need to get an MRI and then we'll address our next course of action. But I want you to get as much sleep as you can. Try to get extra sleep and eat less meals more often. Smaller meals, but more often so you don't eat and get too full. Stay away from fried foods. So, so far that's all I know because tomorrow at 6:30 in the morning is my MRI, but I'm not going to get more sleep. All I know is that it's not malignant. I don't know

what the next course of action is, but uh rather than hear something from someone else, I thought I would share my story. It was a very strange Christmas time for eight days thinking the worst and pretending, but uh at least I got those words that it was non-malignant. But all because I paid attention and I went to the doctor because I was itching. Yeah. If you feel something different, address it. Thank you for that, Stephen. Uh, Godspeed tomorrow. Mr. Ortiz.

Yeah. Sorry to hear that, man. I was like, so I don't know how to follow up with that because I got to say something different, but yeah,

things like that. like I I I don't even know how you feel, but I'm almost positive it's a situation. You know what to think. So, sorry you're going through that. Um, well, something that might cheer everybody up. I talked to Miss Pow and we want to cancel the executive session. What I'm going to do is uh that wasn't a best segway, but uh what I'm going to do is I'm going to send an email to Mr. back and copy uh Miss Pal on it and explain what we were going to do in exact and then to send it to the send it to the council so you know what the schedule is for what we were planning on doing in executive session and then if you have any questions you can refer to me or Miss Pal. So,

okay. Thank you, Miss Paul. Just quickly, first of all, Steve, definitely praying for you and your health. Um, thank you for sharing that very personal statement. Um, that's that's um that's real and but the message about being aware of what's going on with your body and and and going to seek treatment and having it checked out is so important. So, thank you for for sharing that with everyone because that is very important. Um, but we're definitely all praying for you and um already claiming full complete recovery.

Um, I just wanted to announce um all of the different activities that are going to be taking place this weekend um honoring the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Um there's the prayer breakfast and there are still tickets left to the prayer breakfast. All of this is on the city's website. Um the the prayer breakfast is on Saturday morning at Elgen Community College. It starts at 8:00 a.m. and tickets are available. There's a food drive that's taking place um over the whole weekend. Um so if people are interested in donating to the food drive either uh canned goods or monetarily they can do that. Uh there's a youth event on Monday um at the center that people can sign up for uh youth can sign up for and there's a Sunday celebration at the Himmans um on Sunday from 4 to 6. Uh there's also a series of panel discussions at the library. Um so again, all of this is is on the city's website. I encourage folks to take a look and participate in the activities that they're able to. Thank you.

Okay, Mr. Mr. Take out. Um so similar, thank you Steve for sharing your story and I will also be praying that everything goes well tomorrow um with the MRI. I just wanted to thank um similar it kind of ties in is like there is so much mental health happening right now in our communities and so thank you to all the mental health providers. Thank you to everyone that's patrolling our communities who are trying to protect our community and so I want to continue thanking those that are doing what they can um grassroots level with nonprofits etc. So thank you and happy Martin Luther King Day early. Anything else Mr. Martinez.

Thank you, Mayor Steve. I'm so sorry. And um I'm sure everything will be well. You know, you remind me of our friend that you just mentioned, George Rollinsson, when he told us um almost 10 years ago that he had cancer and it was inoperable and he lasted so long because I truly believe that it was the will of wanting to live. Um it's just that recently things got out of control for him and we lost him. uh great person in our community who helped so so many people despite the fact that he was suffering and he was sick as well. The other um the other thing I'd like to say is I would like to thank our public works department for keeping us safe. Not only today, but um last year as we had uh ines of snow and the streets were um kept up um because of um our public works. Thank you very much, Erin Neil and your crew.

Okay. Anything from staff? None, mayor. Thank you. Okay. Entertain a motion to adjurnn. Second. Council members Alaro. Yes. Dixon. Yes. Good. Yes. Martinez. Yes. Ortiz. No. Powell. Yes. Stein. Thorne. Yes. Mayor Captain