City Council - Regular Meeting

Heat. Heat. We'll call the regular meeting for the Elgen City Council Committee of the whole for March 11th, 2026 to order. Will the clerk please call the role?

Council members Al Faro, present. Dixon, present. Good. Martinez here. Ortiz here. Paul Stefen here. Thorne here. Mir captain here. Approval of the minutes of the previous meeting of February 25th. So moved. Second. Moved and seconded for approval. Any corrections or additions? Hearing none. Clerk, please call a role. Council member Zaro? Yes. Dixon? Yes. Good. Yes. Martinez, yes. Ortiz, yes. Stefen, yes. Thorne, yes. Mayor Captain.

Yes, the motion's approved. Uh 8 Z. Uh we have uh brings us to the public comment portion. We have three people that signed up this evening. The first person to sign up is Mike Lago. Good evening, council. Uh thank you for your time this evening and more generally just thank you for your time. Um, while I may occasionally disagree with about half of you on some stuff, uh, I do appreciate that you come, you deliver, um, you know, your time and your perspective to try to steer Elgen and Elgenites in the direction that you think is best for the community. So, I do appreciate your thoughts. Um, I wanted to share my thoughts on the reoccurring topic from the last few meetings, uh, the welcoming city ordinance. Uh, one of the objections that was noted in the last meeting was that proceeding with the ordinance uh would invite greater attention from ICE uh and that presence is not the same as intensity. Uh I do wholeheartedly agree with that sentiment. Uh ICE has not set up checkpoints throughout the city. They're not doing doorto-d dooror searches. Uh they've not imposed a curfew, confiscated any infrastructure to make uh makeshift detention facilities. Uh their presence here is real. Um but in comparison to other cities around the country, it is light. Uh to disagree that open resistance to this administration could exacerbate the ICE situation for Elgenites is to disregard the plain and obvious fact that this administration is led by petty, vindictive, insecure, small-minded, racist, demagogues, wararmongers, and pedophiles who would eagerly jump on any opportunity to punish disscent. However, for the five years that I have lived in Elgen, uh I have heard this council time and time again promote policies uh that elevate Elgen as a standard bearer uh for neighboring communities to model. Uh banning plastics, rehousing the homeless, promoting cultural diversity and

inclusion, eliminating lead service lines, social, environmental, environmental, and economical. Uh the list goes on. Elgen through its policies presents itself as a model for other towns to emulate. Why then should this issue be any different? Why shouldn't Elgen show our neighbors that it's okay to stand up against tyranny? There was a man who came up here and spoke a few meetings prior and he quoted a passage from a book that went something like never obey in advance. And there's a reason why that's such a crucial form of resistance. There are only so many goostepping Nazis for ICE to recruit in this country. And I guarantee it is only a sliver of the 340 million Americans who live here. So yes, passing the ordinance could potentially invite a greater ICE presence. But with cities like Evston, Chicago, Berwin, Oak Park, and Skoi already passing similar ordinances and more likely to join in, ice will be spread thin, attempting to apply pressure to more and more municipalities across the country. And as we all know, when ice gets thin, it cracks. Thank you.

Thank you, Hank Romero. Hank Romero. Sorry. Here we go.

Government was made to help the people. If the government don't help the people, not even God can help the people. uh agencies by the government that their locations are empty. They don't make themselves useful. First Tuesday of the month in uh computer center between 1 and 3 at Gail Board Library. Maybe they should be there every every day Monday to Friday. Um I got the the thing over here for them. I gave it to Dustin the uh the computer to get themselves in. Um the government during the depression, you know, 1932, whatever depression, young people put together to uh build parks. Part of their paychecks went were sent home. A good working man is a good soldier. You got to work in the battlefield to stand a chance. Okay, how much time we got? Okay, good. Put young people together to clean up America on the sides of the road. Pick up the garbage. The plastic is there all over the place. Um, you know, make America look beautiful. Uh, the these people in the homeless centers look like they uh have no hope and they are young. They're young. I know you you got to make an effort to get off the ground. Look look for life. Um Oh, there's a like one guy was telling me from the homeless, there's a place you can stay in St. Charles, but there's no churches with food. So, he lives homeless here in in uh Elgen because

there's no food in uh St. Charles. And uh I wish everybody the best and see what you can do. Thank you,

Elijah Stein. Good evening. My name is Elijah Stein and I will be a bit of the voice of frustration today. So if you need preparation, I'll give you that today. Um, what I want to talk to is about the local issues as far as the diversity ordinance is going. And I heard before that there was considerations as far as whether or not it would take 6 months in order to hash out that ordinance. That is too long. That is twothirds of the time in order to make a baby. And people are already dying to ICE. There are people on the our streets that have gotten pepper-sprayed and beaten and teargassed on Elgen streets. This is not a thing where it's a concern whether or not they're going to act anymore. They already are acting. We can't just sit around and wait and expect that they're not going to do something else. They are already doing it. By signing that, it at least puts into precedence a legal framework so that we can act in a situation like that. And if you can't fix fix something like that within less than six months, then we don't need any sort of representation. Representation is there so that action can get done quickly and swiftly. That's my point on that. Secondly, as far as the primaries are concerned, for the people who don't want to vote for the primaries, I urge you to do it. I know that a lot of people are saying that they don't feel that it's it has any point that their voice is going to just get thrown aside. They're going to pick whoever they want to pick. That's not going to happen. Or at the very least, it is a guarantee that that is going to happen if you don't cast your vote. That is a guarantee. At least if you take the

chance with the primary, you are deciding on who it is that is going to represent you, who it is that you want to be representing you instead of all these people who we already have behind the scenes who are not saying a single thing about the war that we that they decided to get in. You don't hear a single peef about it. And yet that's the people who are deciding that it's just okay that we get into an illegal war. At least with the primary, you are deciding that you want different people to represent you. I'm not going to say who to vote for. I know that there are various resources in order to find people that you want to vote for. There's Ballopedia, there's Ground News, there's plenty of different resources to research. So, I'm not going to tell you who to vote for. Just please do some research. Make sure your voice is heard. And as far as the third thing in this last little bit, as far as to the penin, I mean, president, the creature, as far as all of the things that you have done, as far as the people you have killed, including all of those children in the school in Iran, which we didn't need to bomb, I have a little thing to show to you. Okay. Don't [ __ ] with Illinois unless you get the clap back, [ __ ]

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Manager. Thank you, Mayor. We have one item this evening on both agendas and that is a uh five-year agreement with for electronic citation services with Dacch LLC. The city's administrative adjudication division manages electronic citation software used by both the police departments and neighborhood services department. The DACAR tech is a cloud-based software platform that streamlines, automates, and organizes the city's local ordinance violation enforcement process by managing violations from the initial citation all the way through the collection of any unpaid fines. Again, this item is on both agendas.

Any questions for the manager at this time? Faro, thank you. Um, I had a question. On page 13, it says the software is compliant with the Criminal Justice Information Services or CJIS, also known, um, overseen by the Federal Bureau of Investigation Investigations, which ensures safety and security. I just want to ensure because I'm not super familiar with the Criminal Justice Information Services that this system isn't sharing information to the FBI than is shared with ICE. And and that's exactly correct and why that that provision is in there. And there's another software agreement that we the city council will be considering later on that similarly complies with the sieges the sieges um components. Okay. So we're not sure. I just want to make sure.

Absolutely correct. Yeah. Good question. Thank you. Okay. Items on both agendas. Moving on. Mr. Manager.

Thank you, mayor. Uh the second item is a purchase of services agreement with the Elgen Area Chamber of Commerce. The city and the Elgen Area Chamber of Commerce have been partnering in economic development initiatives since 2010. Is the Elgen Development Group. The city formerly budgeted more than a half million dollars annually for economic development services provided by in-house staff and its private sector consultants. By eliminating in-house staff and creating the ED EDG, the city has been able to substantially reduce its economic development budget without any diminition in economic development services. The proposed purchase of services agreement enables the city to continue leveraging the services of the EGD EDG which consists of a full-time president, one full-time economic development specialist, Mr. Lenenko, a web master for economic de for its economic development website, plus administrative support staff. The first agreement with Elgen Development Group in 2010 established a $275,000 annual payment. The proposed three-year agreement for 2026 through 2828 in the amount of $355,000 contemplates 3% increases for EAC services during the second and third years. This evening we have Madame President Carol Gizki presenting on behalf of the EDG along with Tony Lasenko, the economic development director. And that looks like Rolando Guerrero. Is that the current EAC chair?

No, passed. Passed. All right, we've got it all. All right. Thank you, Miss Gizki.

Good. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor Captain, City Manager Kosal, City Council members, and community. We're just very excited to be down here to talk to you today about the extension of our contract, our public our purchases service agreement with the city for uh our public private partnership for economic development. Before we get started though, I would like to introduce uh many of our board members who were able to make it today. So, as uh council uh as city manager Kosel said, our uh past board chair Rolando Guerrero with the Grand Victoria Casino, our current board chair, Steve Mgala with Lavell Law, uh Jennifer Wong, attorney here in town from Hampton Lensini and Renwick, Ryan Livingston, our board treasurer, Gabe Grescowitz with Porty Brown, Mike Warren with Ricky and with his own uh car washes, Mr. Thomas is here. Ross Thomas with Culver's, the owner of Culver's on MLAN Boulevard, and Carrie Klene with Flender who flew in from Houston just for this. Right, Carrie?

Carrie got stuck in Houston from last night's storm. So, um, yeah, we're really glad to be here. So, uh, we're going to start it off with Rolando Guerrero.

Hello. Good evening, everyone. Uh, Mayor Captain, city manager Kosal, distinguished uh, city council and staff. Uh thank you for allowing me the opportunity to speak before you on behalf of our ELG development group, but certainly as the past chair, I've had the wonderful experience and opportunity to kind of work with uh what is and has been and continues to be a very talented uh team uh at the Elgen Development Group, but also the chamber and certainly colleagues that I work with uh that are offering up their discretionary uh time and service to uh this larger effort. And uh so for me, I just wanted to express a couple items and uh my appreciation for uh Tony Lenenko, the Elgen Development Group as it uh continues and uh operating. But for us uh we pick up month over month over month the wonderful work effort that is happening through uh Tony and that larger uh Elgen Development Group. uh I call it energy and effort because again a lot of positives certainly coming out of that. Uh personally for me uh through the experience obviously I've uh engaged with Tony he's really been terrific in the way of uh facilitating connecting with uh various officials throughout the city as we uh at the casino work through uh certain projects obviously all in an effort to enhance uh the casino but this downtown area the larger Elgen uh cityscape if you will. So, uh, again, whether it be simply, uh, pointing us in the right direction tied to permitting, uh, helping us in the way of closing out projects, uh, that have been very, very successful for us, uh, and getting the

inspections done and, uh, completed thoroughly, but, also his insight uh, tied to the city uh, very very solid for us in the way of how important that serves us. But uh again, just wanted to share a few pieces there tied to that. But further along, uh the networking opportunity that certainly I've enjoyed over time uh allowing to connect with uh some terrific uh terrific folks. Uh but again, all through Tony's, uh terrific hand, steady hand there. So, thank you for the opportunity. Appreciate this. We know you have a full agenda tonight, so we're going to go quickly through the presentation, but please stop us if you have any questions. Uh, we're really grateful to the city council, to your professional staff for the ongoing partnership. We've built a stronger, more vibrant community as a result of our Elgen Development Group relationship with the city of Elgen and the shared vision and commitment to economic development. The Elgen Development Group acts as a concierge for business if you will opening discussions and streamlining the process for businesses who are starting in the community who are locating, expanding, investing in Elgen. So it's what this onetop shop or this one step. We provide guidance in many areas that you see on this chart from how to start a business to site selection and permitting working with Mark Malad and his team on permitting in the the community on workforce and connectivity in the area. We connect businesses with the right resources, partners and opportunities supported by a vast volunteer network of professional advisors who are across many of those sectors of business. This busy slide just shows some of the volunteers who work with us as um throughout the year. They help to strengthen our program, amplify the community impact, and make Elgen a better community and a place where

businesses can thrive. And through your leadership, that's very evident that the mayor and the city council support businesses in our community. It's my pleasure now to introduce my colleague Terry Tony Lusenko to talk about uh Elgen Development Group. Tony, thank you.

Mayor, members of the city council, um I wanted to first of all thank you very much for having the confidence in our organizations to continue the contract for three years. And uh as we move forward, I would uh hope that you would consider uh renewing our contract for an additional 3 years. Um basically uh we are a accredited economic development organization. When I started here three years ago, we were only one of 75 in the United States. Now we're one of uh 92. And uh problem with that is I actually now sit on the International Economic Developments Council Accreditation Committee and accrediting other communities throughout the United States and North America. So uh whatever it's worth, we are um respected by other economic development organizations and it lends credibility to our organization. uh our purchase of service agreement that you have before you uh calls out four specific goals and all of which we work on in different ways and we'll get into the details but each one of these are are very important um to us and uh it is our guideline for how we work and how we uh interact within the community. These are the core services that are mentioned in your um packet for our economic development effort including business retention and attraction. Retention is the number one key to our organization because most of the growth that happens happens within existing with existing businesses. And so we'veworked ourselves with existing businesses by reaching out last year just to over 300 businesses um by either meeting with them or surveying them or asking them or through people contacting us uh for assistance. Uh business attraction is another thing

that we do. um people on our board. We have uh Gabe who works with Port Brown for instance has introduced us to a company which we um and the mayor met with a couple weeks ago and uh they are currently looking at moving into Elgen and we've helped them meet with the Elgen Township assessor to talk about assessments. We met with community development this morning so that they could understand what's required of them and we'll be meeting with organizations such as forward and others so that it their transition to Elgen is as easy and as smooth as possible. This is our service area which is the entire city of Elgen. I just uh some of you have seen this before. Our um we have 5200 businesses approximately within according to Dun and Brad Street in Elgen. We have about 44 million square feet and you can see the breakdowns of the different types of uh commercial developments in the community. There's actually 11 types of commercial properties within um Elgen. They're not all shown there, but these are our three largest. Wanted to mention also that when it comes to our vacancy rates, not only are we below what is the 10-year average for Elgen, uh the historic we're also below the historic 40year average for Elgen in our vacancies. We're pretty much except for office, we're full uh commercial real estate. This is the breakdown of the of the vacancy rates um which I just mentioned. Also wanted to point out that um with regards to the labor force in 2020 when COVID hit we'd peaked at 18.3% um excuse me um unemployment rate and since then we've been coming down. Not only is our labor force increased um but the number of people employed has increased and the number of people who are unemployed has decreased. Currently

in 2025, the final numbers aren't out, but we are probably around 5.6% unemployment for 2025. So that's shows that, you know, our economy is stable. It's diverse and it's holding its own. Try to get this. Oops. Button here is a little tight. and Carol, I'm going to turn it over to Carol and she's got a uh Elgen image awards and a few other things she'd like to talk about.

Thank you. So, uh you know that we convene and we collaborate with many organizations around town to leverage what's happening in the community and this is an example through our Elgen image awards where we collaborate with many different players in the community. Uh we we work with city staff certainly your staff is very important in our Elgen image awards. Uh we work with Elgen Community College, School District E46, Downtown Neighborhood Association, Explore Elgen or the Tourism Bureau, Gailburn Public Library, uh the um museum, Elgen History Museum and others that sit on this committee. We started with um we revived the Elgen image awards three years ago and many of you have been at those celebrations where we've been able to celebrate um recognizing excellence of many people in the community who have done things and organizations and businesses as well. So um we revived it, we reimagined it after the city and its um image commission I think at that point in time had run this program for years and years and years. It is growing in popularity. We outgrew the Gailborn Public Library pretty soon. I'm afraid we might be um uh filling up the center as well. But what a wonderful problem to have. It's so exciting always to be recognizing those people who are making such a positive impact on our community. So our um Elgen enhancing Elgen committee this year has taken on a new challenge which is very exciting. We are celebrating Elgen's own uh semiquincentennial celebration. Right? We all have to learn how to say that semiquincentennial. We'll we'll um go ahead and charge you at the end of spelling it as well. But um as a result of the Elgen enhancing Elgen committee, we through um the talent in our office, Terry Gfski, who has been with us for 32 years, uh designed a brand new website. So if you're interested, go to Elgen L250

or you'll find Elgen's celebration of the semiquincentennial. Lots of things are happening with this very creative committee, uh, including the local celebration of the milk wagon being at the library. Have you seen the butter sculptures yet? There's four butter sculptures. Uh, obviously going back to the history of our community. Um, we're working on an art contest that will soon will be happening with Sid Street Studio Arts. I'm sorry I forgot to include them in that. Uh, time capsules. will be introducing time capsules that families can buy from or design their own um as part of the 250th celebration and many other themed items. So, if you go to elgenil250.com, you'll find lots of history of our community as well as the celebrations that are going on. We'll be posting programs from many, many different folks. And um if you have recipes or those kinds of things from your heritage, we'd love to include that as well. Uh, also with um our bridges program which supports the black and brown businesses in the community. Um, we're working pardon me.

Hi, I'm Jessica, owner of

I had too many. Sorry. Sorry, we had to change how this works. Um, we are working uh we're providing workshops and uh networking community partnerships with some of these businesses so we can help them grow and thrive. We work with a lot of different small businesses. An example um we want to show you today is uh Barbara Roa uh a local uh business that um came to us as a result of the Elgen Mall closing a couple years ago not knowing where to go. Uh we worked with them uh through Elgen Development Group and found them a location at Clock Tower Plaza. So I'd like to introduce to you Jessica Benvitas who's the owner of Barbara Roa. Hi, I'm Jessica Venavid, owner of Barbar Roa Barber Shop here in We are very proud to be an Hispanic home own business. For us, our shop is more than haircuts. It's about family, culture, and creating new opportunities for the next generation. Moving from the Algen was not easy. The Algen Development Group helped us through the permit process and help us find the right location for our business. Because of their support, we're able to open our doors and serve our community. We're thankful to the Elgen Development Group and the city of Elgen for supporting a small business like us because when a small business succeed, the whole community succeed. Thank you.

Well, we appreciate Jessica speaking with you tonight. She is just a prime example of the small businesses that we work with. often we um are are um active in the in the community or the community publicity surrounds large projects with uh our footprint on it as well as the city's footprint. But um most of the time we're working with very small businesses like this and appreciate their uh the ability to work with them and work with the city staff who helped facilitate them uh um setting up their shop down at uh clock tower. So we're uh our team is bilingual. It has been for decades actually. We have multilingual staff within our office. We want to make sure that we can ensure all businesses are feeling welcome in our office and that's important to us and important to the community. So, um we want to make sure that we can break down those barriers in the community and provide the kinds of services that we need to small business. Tony,

as Carol had mentioned, when we heard about the Elgen Mall closing, we walked over there and introduced ourselves to all the businesses and asked them if they needed any assistance. And Jessica and I worked closely to try to find her a new location, get her open as quickly as possible. And like Carol had mentioned, we have a number of people on our staff that speak multiple languages, including myself, Joe Portuguese, and I also speak Ukrainian. So those are a couple in Spanish, of course. and we always use our staff and we have people come in who are um who don't understand English so well. So this is another um um indicator of some of the work we've done over the last nine years. Um basically uh the key there is that we've brought in about 1.42 billion in uh gross domestic product. It's probably a little bit more than that but that kind of gives us a conservative estimate. I wanted to say one thing that none of this stuff is done in a vacuum from the very beginning of of any project. Um, we rely on a lot of different people from you to the city staff to the brokerage community to accounting firms to the businesses themselves. We just happen to be facilitating some of those discussions. But at no time do Carol or I, you know, do this on our own. We we we try to partner with people. We try to work as closely as we can with everybody in the community and and do it respectfully. Uh this is tonight uh one company that we had worked with in the community. I'm going to go through this real quick. Uh there was a company by the name of Peak Construction that I had met in 2017 here in Elgen because they owned a building and needed some assistance with permitting. Mike Sullivan, the president and CEO, um, and I became friends and in the meantime, he was looking to do another project in the community. And so I identified a parcel of land and introduced him to the property owner. Since that time, a company moved in

called Priuses. Uh, Prius took a the entire half million square feet, which was about the size of uh, five Walmarts, and they moved into town and started operations in the middle of last year. Um the slides are really small, aren't they? And um basically that company today um is they're doing business and um they make these um these paper bags. You may have seen some of these uh they're um they're going towards a net zero in terms of their operations and they're using wind energy, solar, and they've eliminated plastic and they're making these. And in Algae, they employ about 500 people and bringing quite a bit of um spillover effect. They make 2.5 million of these packages each and every day here in Elgen. They consolidated their Elgrove Village, Carol Stream, and Bensonville facilities. Over a billion of these are being made here in Elgen each and every year with Elgen's name on the package. But they're all net zero. They're heading that way with their company trying to eliminate plastic and and use uh um different types of energy sources. This is the financial impact that the company has on the city of Elgen and the different taxing jurisdictions. Going back to one of those four um goals that are set out within our PSA, which is to try to bring additional revenues to the different taxing jurisdiction. As you can see, in 2020 two, is that what it says? The property was vacant and was, you know, creating about $40,000 in property taxes. A year later, once that company was there and the the building was built, they're providing about $4 million in property taxes. Now, this is just one project of many that we've brought to the community and that's like a annuity. It's in forever. Uh as long as that building stands there, uh that kind of money is coming to the different

taxing jurisdictions. You can see over $2 million is being brought to um U46 and about I think it's 700,000 to the city of Elgen each and every year. This is another project back way back when 2015. Uh Motorola came to me and we organized a meeting. City manager Kosal was present. Uh the mayor Carol and I sat down. They wanted to know what Elgen was all about. At that time, the city had guaranteed a fasttrack permitting process and they got it. Um, basically inspectors were out there on Saturdays and Sundays getting the work done and they were in the building with all their equipment going and operating within a 4-month period. Today, just a few weeks ago, they they signed a new lease for another 10 years in the building that they're in. And what they cited within those meetings today was the fact that 10 years ago they were treated so well by the city and the city staff that that was one of the key reasons that they signed a new lease and decided to stay here in Elgen. Property taxes went up, employment went up, the net benefit to the community continues to grow and these kinds of projects are going on every day.

I could add to that. If I could add to that, um I remember the conversation was that the city acted faster than Motorola acted and it really is a testament to what city manager Kosal and the mayor was able to achieve through the many professional departments within the city that made that happen. So John Talkington is the general manager of Motorola, sits on our board of directors, couldn't be with us tonight, but Motorola obviously plays a vital role in our community. We have a strategic partnership with them and um they bring in thousands of domestic and international guests, customers every single year as a part of what we do through Elgen Development Group is we form associations and relationships. And so we uh went to uh Motorola and said, "Listen, the Holiday Inn Northwest here in the community has just gone through a multi-million dollar renovation of the facility. you know the one I'm talking about on Route 31 and Airport Road and um we said let's take you out there and make sure your folks are comfortable because they were staying at hotels outside of the community. So we took some staff on a tour of the hotel. They were um very impressed with the services and the hotel also stepped forward and said we have a shuttle. we'd be glad to work with you on bringing your customers over to the um to Motorola and as a result of our opportunity to work with them now uh you know the impact of those guests staying here in Elgen at a local hotel supporting our community supporting economic development is pretty striking. We also took the opportunity to design uh Terry helping again on this opportunity a um virtual explore Elgen um magazine where once they were done with the day they knew what kind of resources were there for

afterwork hours. So that relationship is really important to our community.

I wanted to talk to you about one company. We're not always successful in economic development and what we do because we can't control the eventual income in certain instances. You may have heard a couple months ago a company by the name of Print Pack was uh packing up and moving out of the community. Uh I initiated a phone call to the company and um asked them if I could participate in um an event that they were going to be holding that included the Illinois Department of Commerce and the unemployment office. and they were gracious enough to let me come and I spoke in front of all of their employees and what I was able to offer them. We have an HR committee that represents about 75 businesses and about 35,000 employees within the city of Elgen was 15 companies that were interested in hiring them. So, in the meantime, we've been getting resumes from folks and we've been distributing them to these folks uh these other these these businesses within the community. And subsequently through our relationships with the state of Illinois, I had got a gotten a phone call um from the inter Illinois Economic Development Corporation and uh they said we they had a buyer for the company. I got in touch with the buyer out of South Carolina. Um the buyer was interested in not only buying the building but all the equipment and hiring all the employees. Contacted the um president of Printac and um they're currently still in negotiations. We couldn't prevent the company from falling apart, but we tried to do the best we could to try to at least keep the their employees here in Elgen. These are some of just a kind of a sampling of some of the businesses that we work with or have worked with in the last three years. This is kind of some of the different things that we do in the community. A lot of these committees Carol and I sit on um representing the business community, whether it's uh through the King County traffic impact fee, uh working with Elgen Community College and introducing them to uh businesses, we take them on tours, we go

down and show them around. Um all kinds of different types of things. I'm not going to read this. You can look at it yourself. Um, one of the key things that we did in this past year, um, we created a strategic economic development plan. This is private sectordriven economic development plan. It's different. It's unique. It looks at economic development, not through the the prism of um of local government, but through the prism of the business community. Um, I'll tell talk a little bit about this. Um basically we initiated a u a company um called RW ventures. RW ventures is a um firm that is uh worked on what is known as the Chicago regional growth initiative strategic economic development plan which is a 7count economic development group um that was formed to try to bring regional economic development thinking to all the counties within the area. This group also did the strategic plan for World Business Chicago. And as you've probably heard, King County is looking to organize this economic development organization and wrote their strategic plan. And um they've written ours. And this plan basically um takes a look at these kinds of factors um which is they look like what you're typically used to seeing, but they're really a little bit different. Just to give you an example, governance. Governance doesn't mean governance of the government. It means governance by each institution. So businesses within themselves have to govern themselves. The health industry has to govern itself. Those institutions look at things just a little bit differently with and are not looking through the your prism. This is basically the result. Um it's kind of real generic. I could go through

details. I've got it here. It's dozens of pages. We would actually entertain, we would like you to entertain maybe having our consultant come talk to you about this in more detail, but it's a private sector driven economic development plan. And what it really is focused on to be to give you an idea are these three factors you can see here in front of you. And I wanted to just briefly touch on one and that is the idea of creative destruction. Right now in our economy, we have never seen so much change because of technology and because of AI and because of things that are happening out there in the world. And right now there are companies, more companies are failing and starting than ever before. And we need to be ready for that. We need to take advantage of it. And our companies are poised for that. This community is rock solid when it comes to manufacturing. It is rock solid because it's diverse and it adds its act together and the business community um is being organized to meet those future needs. U I could talk about details but we don't have a lot of time. So anyway these are the four clusters that were identified. Business services kind of takes in all the different sectors which includes healthcare, education, law u everything else. Um and uh metals and machinery is big transportation distribution and logistics. I can go into detail but this is the eventual uh next steps. We leverage, we launch, we build, we identify, develop and strengthen. I'll give you one quick example. The mayor and I went over to Middlebe Marshall and um we we went on a tour and the company um as we were walking through said, "Oh, you know, we use these conveyors here." And they didn't realize that there was a company in Elgen that builds conveyors. There's a company that builds nuts and bolts. There's a company that does sheet metal, you know, and they're going all over the world and all over the country to buy

these products. So, one of the things that our group has in the strategic plan has identified is creating a internal um marketplace for businesses to buy locally. And so, those are some of the ideas. And that's all I have. I I wanted to thank you again um for the last three years and I wanted to request that you take a look at that contract and renew it for an additional three years. And Carol, go ahead. Thank you. Thank you. So, I'd like to reintroduce to you our current board chair, Steve McGallo with Lavell Law. Steve,

thank you, Carol. Good evening, Mayor. uh city manager and council members. Thank you to those who attended our annual meeting last week. During my remarks then I mentioned that the Elgen area chamber values its relationship with the city. That is no more evident than an Elgen development group's role in helping the city fulfill its economic development function. We thank you for the trust you have placed in us today. This renewal is really a question of of momentum. Does the city want to build on the momentum that it has experienced with EDG? Tonight you have seen our slide deck showing what EDG has accomplished in working with the city in terms of attracting and retaining businesses and residents and growing and diversifying the tax base. We think the evidence clearly and convincingly supports renewal of our contract and sends a strong message to our community and to neighboring municipalities that Elgen is open for business. Because make no mistake about it, whether you like it or not, the city is competing with its neighbors to attract and retain companies. Renewing this contract elevates the city's profile in this competitive landscape. We hope you agree it is in the city's best interest uh for you to vote yes on this renewal. Thank you,

Steve. Again, thanks to some of our board members who were able to join us tonight and thanks to each of you and if there are any questions, we'd be glad to answer those tonight. Okay. Any questions for Miss Gizg or Mr. Losenko at this time? Mr. Ortiz,

I appreciate the presentation, your board, Mr. Lenco, and Miss Gizki for being here. Um, I was going to ask a question, but Tony, Mr. Leno did such a good job. He answered it, but I was going to ask like that one business that was moving out of town, what like what's it what do you guys do to help the employees? And I'm glad to hear that you reach out to them and you went to their I hate to bad say it bad way to say it probably but they're laying off party cuz they're losing their job. But

you guys stepped in and had your network of businesses and helped them find new jobs and then found a new buyer that could possibly come in and gave them their jobs back. So I appreciate you guys doing that because that was one of my questions that when a business does leave because not everything is always perfect. Yeah. How do you guys step in maybe and help alleviate some of the stressors that an employee might have that that might be the only source of income? And yeah, we get right in the middle of it. Even today, I got two resumes from some of the employers. We you know, we're not sitting around. We're pretty quiet in the background. Sometimes we just got too much going on. We don't have time to really express everything we do. So, we just got to we just do what we can. So, appreciate it.

And then, uh the other one was the what interested me was the internet market. the last thing you said how we have a bunch of businesses and manufacturers in Elgen and some of the other businesses are outsourcing from out of the country or out of the state and we have the same thing here. So I appreciate you guys trying to put that web together and connect everybody nuts and bolts and just you know it's like wow everything in the factory you could probably leave buying Elgen. So and then the biggest one that I appreciate is the Elgen Mall because I remember when

that saga was going on with those vendors not knowing where they're going. Some of them went to East Dundee, some of them scattered throughout the city. And I'm glad you guys went over there, introduced yourself to every vendor, and uh helped the uh I know she's a barber, but hair stylist, but you helped her find a place to stay in business and continue what she likes doing. So, yeah, I appreciate you guys doing what you're doing. The the only thing that I'm going to hit you on to give you one bad thing is Sure. I thought we were going to get hamburger samples from Culver's. Wait a minute. I think they're butter burgers, aren't they? No. No. No. No. What is the flavor of the day? Yeah. What? Ross, what is it? Uh oh. You might just hold on. Oh, I don't know. Oh, they can pull a hamburger out of there, man. It's not Yeah, there you go.

Well, I was just complaining to him. We were there Friday night for a fish fry, and he wasn't there. He actually took a day off, which is unusual for a retailer, especially a small business like that one. So, we appreciate Ross who drives from Jainsville every day. That's where he lives. And here is his um his business is in Elgen and we would very much appreciate that. Oh, after your vote. I was just playing my just to be clear. I'll just leave them here in case anyone would like money.

But uh you know, I appreciate you guys and you've shown that you've been successful, especially with the property tax going 40,000 to 4 million. That's the money is going to everybody in the taxing bodies, not just the city of Elgen. So, thank you guys. Y Mr. Good.

Thank you, Mayor. Um, so I appreciate the presentation. Um, as somebody who is on the strategic plan committee a long time ago, I feel like you buried the lead to the end. So, it's exciting to see this strategic plan process kick off. So, um, as soon as you're ready to share that with us, would love to see that. Um, and that actually, um, touches on a couple of areas requests for this partnership. Um, on item four, it's uh the language in there is basically we could ask Rick for you to give us a report every day if we wanted to. I don't want to do that. Okay. Um, but I would Or do we? Yeah. I I I mean, but I would be curious to see if the rest of council um would be interested in potentially seeing a bianual report, maybe something brief that just kind of gives us an update on general economics or the strategic plan advancements.

Yeah, Councilman, we're glad to come anytime and talk to you about what's happening. Absolutely. And I I would take even something written. Oh, okay. So, if anybody's open to that, I would like to throw that out to the group. Um and then the the other one is on item 23. Um there's just some language in there. I'd be interested if we'd be willing to change that. Um it's laying out uh it's typically we see in contracts that's just laid out for people who are legally able to work and legally authorized to work in the United States. Um it's line seven in item 23 that's it's declaring that um everybody that's associated with this has to be a legal resident. So, um, I've seen in past contracts that we've had wording that just says legally authorized. We would defer to city manager Kos that way. Those are my two items I throw out to

You can blame me for that oversight on that pulling together an agreement from before. I'll talk to the corporation council. That's something we can change. I apologize for that. Thank you. Um, other than that, that that's all I have. Thank you, Mr. Thorne.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. So, excuse me. Thank you so much for the presentation and thank the board members for coming down here. I compliment you uh not on the program itself but on all of your achievements and you have made Elgen such so inviting for new businesses. I've had the pleasure recently of sitting in on some of the new business orientation programs that you specifically do and run yourself. and it's so uh comforting and you make everyone feel so good. Uh then you highlight some of those businesses with a personal interview on WRN once a month as well as always announcing to the public on that show your achievements and new companies that have joined. Uh I just I can't compliment you enough on all that you've done and the fact that uh you sit on all different boards. So I think that's great. So hats off to you. Keep up the good work.

Thank you, Councilman. Mr. Dixon. Uh thank you Tony Carol. Uh wonderful presentation and thank you to all the businesses that have taken some time to show up this evening. um board members um really appreciate the work that you do. I often tell people that I'm a product of the chamber. You are. Probably about 10 years ago. I went through the leadership program. You did? Right. And uh we actually we have one going on right now. We have the play happening which I'm volunteering for. You are. Yep. So I didn't know you were a thesian on top of everything else.

I Yes. I I tell people I'm a thesbian too, you know, just to let you know. Just so you know. But um you know I I love you guys like my good luggage. You doing an excellent job at in every area. Um the creation of just multiple events that allow for networking um that allows for resources to be tapped into by community members. I know so many business owners, small business owners, large business owners who tap into your resources. family, friends, and everyone knows um how to find the chamber. And so, you're one of those organizations that are inviting. Sometimes I just randomly walk into the office, right? And you have the receptionist there and they're always warm and welcoming. And I think the last time I just walked in, um Tony right there, he was right there in his office and he told me about the business that unfortunately was relocating and he was Johnny on the spot saying this is what we're doing and trying to help the situation as best as we can. And that's really all that you can ask for uh from a chamber is that you guys do everything that you can and even even more. I mean, I was at a Northwest Hispanic Chamber of Commerce event and you guys are are are there supporting other coms um chambers of commerce. So, and that's not the only one. And so, it's just you guys just do so much. And so, um I'm not going to bury the lead. I'm absolutely going to be supporting this tonight. Um and I I think I said this at the last contract. I don't think we can actually pay you enough for what you do. I mean, the billion dollars that you

Did you hear that? The billion. We're we're we're tired. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Rick, are you shaking your head for some reason there? The billion the billion dollars that you've brought in over the you know nine or 10 years. I mean that's that's amazing and that you're able to track to track that. Um but let me get a couple of things out of the way that were actually mentioned by my colleagues which I'll I'll second which is the uh the report. I think a bianual report would be great because every three years isn't good enough for me. You know, I I want I want to, you know, if you you write it out or if you come every other year, that would be wonderful. Going to write it. So, look at me. Oh, okay. Okay.

All right. Well, uh, you know, however you all want to figure that out, but I think that would be actually an excellent move at least to at least have something in writing. Um, that would be great. So, I would I would second that if we and maybe we don't need to make that change with the actual contract. We can do that in the in the background. Sure.

Yeah. Um, also too, I love the internal marketplace idea um that you were really um talking about and trying to flesh out in the in the economic plan uh for the future. I think that's crucial uh where we can create um our own ecosystem um where our own businesses can support our own businesses where we can circulate the dollar more times here than in other places because of all the groundwork that has been done. So I I so I absolutely love that too as well. Um just that line of thinking. Um city manager, how much was our contract? How much was that contract previously? The previous contract again?

Um they're finishing up this year at about 340,000 $344,000. Yeah. So again, 344. You're asking for 355 again. I mean, you're giving us a bang for our buck. You don't even ask for much. So I the real one though they started again back in 2010 at 275. It's been a $5,000 increase for for close to 20 years. So

yes. Yep. I was going to point that out. So thank you for that. So um I mean it just continues you just continue to provide great value knowing that we're a municipality and not trying to rake us over the call the coals and really partner with us. So we we really appreciate that. Um, I do have a couple of questions and maybe you guys can answer this or if you have a business that wants to answer this. In the materials, it talked about the transitional, how was it phrased? Transitional economy, right? Um, we know that this economy is transitioning. That's how it was, you know, described. But, you know, can you on the behalf of the businesses maybe talk a little bit about what they're experiencing because there was a slide there where we could see that there's a little bit of an uptick in unemployment. Now, we're not hit as hard here in Elgen as some other places because of what we have in place, but can you talk a little bit about what businesses are experiencing in this current economy?

All of them. All of it.

Yeah. I think what we're going, you know, we don't even know the the real answer to that. When you talked, I was at a show called Fabech. There was 55,000 people representing the Fabricators Metals Association. When you go around and you ask them, "How is AI affecting your particular business?" You would get different answers depending on their technological savvy, eventually it's going to hit us all. I don't know if it's going to affect employment or not. We, you know, we're trying to do the best we can to understand what the effects are on everyone. Um, probably Dustin could answer the question better than I, but um, we're in a in an economy where transition is the norm and we better get with it. You know, you look at college kids these days, they go into computer science their freshman year and they're already obsolete by their second semester, you know. So, it's it's that kind of economy. So,

I'd like to also add it depends on what business you're talking to and with 5200 businesses in the community, they're all impacted differently. And I know Carrie, I don't want to put you on the spot, but Carrie Klein's the CEO of Flender Corporation making the gear drives for wind towers. And you're Germanowned. And what are the the conversations that I remember you talking about is what Germany is saying to you is let's get some stability. And that's not available right now. Is that correct? Yeah. It's just Do you mind coming up to the microphone just for just a moment? I'm sorry to put you on the spot, but it's I mean you're just you're the perfect example.

Uh so what we do is is highly skilled but all manual labor and just always training the people keeping them inter entertained interested even in the business because quite frankly manufacturing is old and ugly and you know most people want something more exciting uh aerospace something like that. Um, so we're always trying to challenge ourselves to figure out how do we make the job more interesting. Uh, we are always asking the question, how can we use AI? We've actually got a team, I think at corporate, we've got a team of about 12 people actually assigned just to asking that question and trying to figure out where that could be integrated in the company. And to Tony's comment, nobody really even knows. I mean, yes, it can be done, but where you're doing it, how you're doing it, are you doing it in the right places, the wrong places? We actually bought a dog robot um just to see what it can do in at corporate again. So um it's it's just always evolving, always challenging yourself to see what you can do to make your your company more interesting to the employees. That's it's really I would have to say I've been in the business for 40 years. It's really the shoes on the other foot where the company's kind of dictated what they want out of the employees. It's now really the employees kind of telling the companies here's what I here's what I expect out of you and and quite frankly we've got an answer to that.

That's wonderful. Thank you for that. And you know I'm asking out of curiosity you know what are the top things that you're hearing and um from different businesses you know so that's um so that's very helpful. So I appreciate that sir. Um I do have some questions about the PSA um three compensation. It looks like, and this question is for city manager, um it looks like we're saying to them that we'll pay them what, you know, what they're contractually um obligated to receive, but it doesn't give a pay schedule. Am I am I reading that? Is there a pay schedule? Is there no need for it? I'm just curious.

So, I'm looking at paragraph three, and it talks about the quarterly payments that the city's going to be making. It identifies all those for the three years of the agreement. Okay. I was overlooked that. Okay. All right. Perfect. Thank you.

Um the next thing I wanted to ask about see confidentiality. In the confidentiality statement, it says that the um prospect information shall solely uh go to the mayor and city manager as representatives. Um and so I'm wondering um why city council would not be included in that.

Part of the benefit of the city's agreement with the EDG is there are entities in the private sector that recognize everybody can read our email. So by limiting the discussions particularly during those preliminary negotiations, it gives us a leg up with organizations or private with companies in the private sector that don't want their competitors to know what they're doing. Gotcha. And so when we come to those preliminary negotiations, I don't I can't purport to be an expert any longer on open meetings uh law and and uh freedom of information act requests, but typically preliminary um negotiations regarding a contract or economic development agreement are exempt from disclosure. But by limiting those discussions to the mayor and manager, it makes it easier to make sure that that information while negotiations are proceeding remains confidential to the businesses that are trying to do a deal with us.

Got it. Thank you. Thank you. Uh item 28, substance abuse program. Um which is great by the way, right? Um but we also live in a in an age where you know people have mental health issues and so um and I know Carol you serve on the alignment collaborative for education board with me. You know we have a committee that is focused on mental health for for the youth. And so I'm just wondering um you know where the chamber falls on that. Why would that not be included um you know as a combination piece even? And so that's my that's my question.

This is boilerplate from city from agreements with cities with the PSAs. It's part of policies that we have in place for the vendors that we want to operate with. So this isn't unique to the EDG EAC agreement. Okay. With that being the case, that's fine. Yeah. I don't have a problem with that. Yeah. Yeah. I don't have a problem with I'm just asking like why would we not include that type of um service too as well inside of the contract. Do you get what I'm saying? I'm sorry. Okay. I what this is saying we're hoping that they have a program in place so that their employees who might need that assistance have that available to them. Right. Okay. I get that.

Okay. I was just asking if we could provide other I mean if they could provide other s services mental health services and if you don't have that bandwidth or that ability then don't worry about it. I'm asking I'm sorry you you're asking them to expand their benefits to I'm I'm sorry we can amend that language uh city manager um certainly in our human resources uh activities that would be included in our our process. Okay. Absolutely. Yeah. Thank you for bringing that up. Right. because with mental I mean with substance abuse or whatever uh mental health is right there with it. So

that's all. Um I think I had one more question, a couple more questions. I know that you all are really busy with other boards and organizations and so I see you everywhere. So I really appreciate that. Um, and but I do have a question um about that. We're not I you know I believe in equality in multiple ways and you know so this is not for for you guys at all but maybe just for um my colleagues up here on city council uh and the city manager um we had a previous discussion with the downtown neighborhood association concerning their cooperation with other economic related boards and agency or just organizations throughout the city. and we were going to require them to um accept other organizations to sit on their board. And so this language does not have that same requirement. And so I'm curious as to to why, you know, with another PSA we are doing it a little bit different from what from the way that we were just trying to do it. It was the council's decision to change the the board membership of the DNA, but the EDG has never had that requirement because it's recognized as being the umbrella organization, the top of the tripartite arrangement that did include the DNA in the EACB. So with the chamber being up at the top, it was more important to have representatives at the lower, for lack of a better term, the lower level organizations porting up. there wasn't any need for the smaller organizations to be part of the greater orbit.

Okay. And would you say the same thing for the auditors for the audit not requesting not requiring at least an audit? We perform an audit and have for decades. Um and that's available a copy is sent to the city manager's office every year. So um Gabe, I don't know if you want to say anything about that. We're undergoing our audit right now with a firm called Edison and um we look forward to hopefully in the next 30 days having that audit coming back to us. It's something that the chamber's always done without the provision of a contractual requirement. So yeah, and we will always continue to do that. Absolutely. Okay. And I and I wasn't saying that you guys don't do an audit. I understand. Just want to make sure.

Right. Right. But again, it was just different from how we handled the previous um PSA contract conversation. So, just wanted to point out that language. Um, but you know, that was all my those are all of my questions. Uh, you guys are doing an excellent job. Continue doing that and uh I can't wait to see the bianual uh report. Thank you. So, thank you. Anything else? Mr. Ste,

just just two quick comments on what you presented. And first of all, thank you to everybody who's come and done this. um to Dustin's comment and others that followed up on wanting a bannual report. I would support that because I think that's important to have it presented here where the community can see it. But I would just like to point out that it comes from Carol's email. So I'm going to give Carol the credit, but I think it's a team, but it's a Friday fact. Yep.

Comes every the stuff that you just presented us is the unemployment rates, the vacancy rates, the that kind of stuff is all there. So, we are getting that weekly and I appreciate that because I think it's important. Um, the only other comment I would make is to piggyback off of what Councilman Dixon say. I'm I appreciate that in this and I guess it's been disclosed that this is boilerplate language, but for this PSA, we're just requiring you to allow us to see your books if we want to see them. You have your audits. Uh that seems to me much more reasonable and realistic in a PSA within an organization like yours. So, absolutely appreciate it. Thanks. Those were my comments. Thank you.

Anything else, Miss Martinez? Thank you, Mayor. I really appreciate everybody that came out. I know you have your businesses and busy uh busy days, but um what I like what I love about this organization is the input from different entities. Um Culver's I remember we had to go to Wisconsin to go get those, you know, that they're here in town. Um I I love the fact that uh like let's say Caesar's Casino, you know, that's a national thing. we have it here in town and um people who go ahead and one that comes to mind is NTN

that have expanded and have I don't know how many buildings

these are um companies that you know could have moved somewhere else. A good example is Pregis who went ahead and had it in three different towns. And I remember uh going to their um opening their um ribbon cutting and they were calling Elgen a gem. You know that they this is the the place to come. Um, not even long ago, um, this is kind of like a little on the side, but U46 had something similar where they had the teachers, they went ahead and got the the buses and had the teachers come and see Elgen and um, see what Elgen had to offer. And I remember at the end they told the um, retired teacher who organized this, they said, "Uh, are you trying to trick us to move into Elgen?" you know because you know really um a lot of people don't realize everything that we have here. I appreciate that. Uh in your annual medium there was uh an individual who um received an award and can you talk about that Carol that was very interesting about the pencils. Um I I'd be happy to. and Antia Sim uh is the CEO of Fabra Cassell Cosmetics here in the community and she was planning on being with us but she caught that bug that everyone seems to have so she didn't have any voice left and regret she couldn't join us tonight received our eligent development group development award uh uh again the mayor city manager Kosal Tony and I met with um the family that owns Fabriccastell have uh have any of you used a pencil before? Well, if you have uh it's probably likely that it was a fabricel pencil. Um the firm is in Germany and was founded in the 1500s and it is owned by the countest and her family. And the countest came to our Elgen Development Group chamber office with uh Tony and

the mayor and city manager. And we talked about three locations that they were looking at to expand into the United States for a domestic manufacturing location. uh and the mayor and uh city manager did a wonderful job because the countests and their accounting uh firm and their consultants chose Elgen subsequent to that and they're a neighbor of Car's uh out on the west side of town. Um they moved into a facility of about 60,000 square feet and Tony is now working with Antia and her team to expand. uh they before uh had uh assembled pencils, eye pencils, eyeliner pencils for some of those very large companies that we know as Maybelline and L'Oreal and others. Um and now they're going to be doing bulk manufacturing at the plant in Elgen. So Tonyy's working with the development community development team to facilitate that buildout that just kicked off two weeks ago. So, I'm sorry.

I want to just say one other thing. Uh, the company actually makes three billion number two pencils, own 20% of the Amazon jungle, and um are in their 10th generation of this company. So, it's kind of stable. They were also the fifth comp uh company in the United States at the very beginning of this nation's founding. So,

and on top of that, Antia said they don't expect at all that their business will slow down because uh uh cosmetics are important to consumers and social media uh is very important and they have their products on social media and they are just expanding wildfire. So, very interesting product. Thank you for for uh letting us tell that story about a local Elgen company. You're welcome. Uh I also belong to the transportation committee. You do?

And that's very interesting because we're here from the county, the state. Um we have education, businesses, um and those are like my favorite meetings. Not that this isn't of course, right? But um those are my favorite meetings because um we're um like a hub here, you know, for all these things. and it makes you understand why this road here um we can't clean it because it belongs to the county or to the state. And so those are very interesting. I just wanted to point those things out. So, thank you very much. Thank you, mayor. Okay. Anything else? I think everybody's had a chance. Uh Carol, I have one question for you. Yes, sir. How many members do you have?

Uh we have uh just about 582. 582 members. a mix of small and large people working out of their homes, mayor to cities on the school district which has 5,500 full-time employees. So, we have quite a a range of businesses that we work with. Absolutely. And

but through let me just clarify if you wouldn't mind, I'm sorry, but through Elgen Development Group, we work with everybody complimentary. There's no fee associated with working with these businesses. So, we work can work potentially with every business in the community. And I I very much appreciate your uh uh uh organization's ability to uh uh anticipate problems and to uh work on both sides. For people that uh uh businesses that have left,

there's still a heart there to help the people that uh have worked in Elgen and give them some hope. I think that uh it's a reflective of a a a good management staff and a great board that has it and a mixed board that brought talent and brought opinions and uh that's what a board is supposed to look like. Absolutely. And uh have those discussions and sometimes have those hard discussions absolutely as to what have to be done.

But I I I also just want to reiterate that it's a partnership that we have. You as the city council set the tone and the tenor in the community and we hear very often, Tony, don't we, from developers that Elgen is a great place to do business because everyone's aligned and welcoming businesses into the community. And that's not necessarily what uh developers find in other communities. Well, we we always tell them um we all play well in the sandbox together, but we don't like sand kicked in our face. So,

well, I don't worry about that because my cat plays in the sandbox, too. just be careful with that. Um, and I I'll I hate to say this again because it's been said already, but I think at $355,000, uh, the return on our investment is extraordinary. And I think that's something important. And that's what we should that's what the obligation of this council is to do for taxpayers is to make sure we get the best uh, return we can for our money. And I think we've done that in this case. And congratulations on a on a good year. At this point, I think we need a motion. So moved. Been moved and second for approval. Uh clerk, please call the role. Council members Alaro, abstain. Dixon, absolutely. Martine good. Yes. Martinez,

yes. Ortiz, yes. Stefan, yes. Thorne, yes. Mayor Captain, yes. Motion's approved 70 with one abstension. Thank you. Congratulations. Okay, at this time we're running a little bit behind schedule. We'll entertain. We'll entertain a motion to adjurnn and we'll reconvene at the regular council meeting in about 5 minutes. So moved. Second. Moved and seconded. Clerk, please call the role. Council members Alfaro, yes. Dixon, yes. Good. Yes. Martinez, yes. Ortiz, yes. Stefins, yes. Thorne, yes. Mayor Captain,

yes. We are ajourned. Heat. Heat.

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

for a meeting for the Elgen City Council for March 11th, 2026 to order. Uh please join me in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Please call the role. Council member Zaro, present. Dixon, present. Good here. Martinez here. Ortiz Powell. Stefan here. Thorne here. Mayor Captain here. Approval of the minutes of the previous meeting of February 25th, 2026. So moved. Second. Been moved and seconded. Any discussion or corrections or additions? Hearing none. Clerk, please call the role. Council member Zaro, yes. Dixon, yes. Good. Yes. Martinez, yes. Ortiz, yes. Stefan, yes. Thorne, yes. Mayor Captain,

yes. Motion's approved. 8 Z. Uh, we have two communications this evening. Will Jenny Phillips, Kathleen? I have a soft spot in my heart for 311 because I pass all the problem people on to them and they do a great job. uh when I start uh uh having some issues with people and uh issues that are going on in our community, uh they usually do a great job of solving things and people ask all the time, uh they uh send an email to the mayor and have a complaint and I always have the same uh line that goes back out. I said, "I'm going to transfer you to the person that can answer best answer the question and solve your problems and these people do a great job doing that for me." Whereas 311 is the non-emergency telephone number established to provide residents with easy access to city services, information, and resources. And whereas the 311 contact center enhances Elgen community by providing a streamlined and accessible way for residents to report by phone, email, and mobile app with concerns such as potholes, graffiti, street light outages, and other service requests. And whereas the dedicated 311 professionals who answer calls, respond to inquiries, and coordinate with other city uh departments demonstrate daily professionalism, patience, and a commitment to exceptional public

service. And whereas these staff members play a vital role in ensuring that resident concerns are heard, documented, and resolved efficiently, strengthening trust between local government and the community. And whereas National 311 day provides an opportunity to recognize both the importance of accessible municipal services and the individuals who make those services possible. Now therefore, I David captain, mayor of the city of Elgen, Illinois, to hereby recognize National 311 day on March 31st, and extend ex uh sincere appreciation to the city's 311 department and the 311 CI citizen advocates for their dedication to serving our community while encouraged all while encouraging all residents to utilize 311 to keep our city safe, responsive, and well-maintained.

Congratulations, So, I promised myself I wouldn't get emotional about this, but uh 311 is uh been around for uh quite some time now, and I had the honor and privilege to help the organization develop the uh 311 contact center. So, Mayor and City Council, City Manager Kosal, Assistant City Manager Karina Nava, thank you for this proclamation this evening and your unwavering support of the 311 Department. Back in 2014, our city launched the 311 Department, giving our residents in the community a direct line to our organization. Since then, 311 has become so much more than a phone call and so much more than a phone number. On the other end of those calls are the incredible staff members who we call our 311 citizen advocates. They're the first voice a resident hears when they need their help or the support from the city. What makes our citizen advocates so special is they're not just answering questions or inserting service requests. They're solving problems. And many times when 311 gets a call, the advocates in the 311 contact center are handling these calls and doing first call resolution, which is huge. And that's affording our residents the opportunity to engage with us through that first call resolution. Beyond their knowledge and their efficiency, what really stands out is their professionalism. Every interaction is handled with patience, genuine care. They listen and guide and make sure that every resident has a voice. I also want to thank Kathleen Chantry. Kathleen who serves as our 311 manager. Kathleen joined the organization several years ago and actually sat in the seats that she leads today.

Kathleen is a tremendous leader. She is a cornerstone of the 311 department, consistently ensuring that her team is wellprepared and supported. Her ability to balance daily operational demand showcases her high levels of professionalism and commitment to customer service excellence. The 311 citizen advocates and Kathleen are truly an invaluable part of our organization. They represent the best of customer service excellence and community connection. So today I say thank you to Kathleen for all you do. the 311 citizen advocates for the work they do, the problems they solve, and their support of our community day in and day out. And I'll just give you this little teaser before I conclude. In this year, probably in the next couple months or so, we're going to have our 1 millionth phone call.

Wow. So, thank you. Thank you all very much. Um, it's just an honor and a privilege to serve the Elgen community. Thank you, Miss Phillips. At this point, I'd like to ask Counciloman Stefan to come down, read the next proclamation,

especially Jan and Reed. So, first of all, I'm somewhat heartened that I'm not the only one sending Jennifer all the all the problems and issues and things that needs to solving and uh also to hear that uh everybody else is getting as great service as I know that she does when I do that because she follows up and make sure everything gets resolved. So, thank you. Um, I am here to read a proclamation to honor somebody that I've had the privilege to get to know over many years. It's been kind of hit or miss on again offagain city relationship. Uh, missed opportunities maybe is the best way to put it. Um, so I wanted to first of all I want to inter stop there and introduce everybody who's up here. Then I'm going to read the proclamation. And then I'm going to use that to kind of jump off into something that's happening this year, which is the 50th anniversary of one of the things in this proclamation. We'll talk about it a bit more. But first of all, this is Reed Lewis. Reed Henry Lewis, his wife Jan, Kathy Palmer, who was part of this reenactment that we're going to talk about in a bit, Sher Blazer, and Judy Hayner from the Elgen Public Museum, executive director, board chair. Am I getting that all right? Okay. um they're all here to help me uh read the proclamation and talk about what's coming. So for Reed, this is a proclamation from the office of the mayor. It says, "Whereas Reed Henry Lewis has devoted his life to education and to promoting French history and culture, inspiring generations of Elgen students to see learning as an adventure. And whereas in 1976, this is the part I'm going to come back to. During the Nason's bicesentennial, he led the Lasal Expedition 2, a 3,300 mile

eight-month reenactment of the 1681-1682 voyage of Renee Rober Cavalier, Sur De Lasal, guiding 16 students from Elgen and Larkin high schools and seven adults to travel by handmade canoes from Montreal to the Gulf of Mexico in authentic 17th century attire, bringing national and international attention to Midwest history. And whereas the expedition demonstrated Reed's belief in the extraordinary potential of young people and resulted in a lasting educational legacy, including the permanent Lasale expedi exhibit and handcrafted canoe displayed at the Elgen Public Museum in Lords Park. And whereas Reed is a founder and director of Avanchure France, Inc., a total immersion immersion French language school that offers weekend and summer programs for students and adults using engaging real world activities often outdoors to teach the language. And whereas throughout his career as a French educator, Reed strengthened French American relationships, fostered French Illinois exchanges, supported French business connections, and educated thousands in the richness of French culture and history. And whereas for his international contributions, Reed received the order despal academic and numerous honors including lame dor I'm going to ruin this French. The solidarity advocance fron delegation in the United States. I think I got through that. And whereas Reed Henry Lewis continues to enrich the Elgen community through his preservation and public engagement and a lifelong commitment to education, including recently this past May, accepting a mayor's award for preservation on behalf of the Elgen Public Museum for its

encounter exhibit. Now therefore, I, John Stefan, on behalf of David Captain, mayor of the city of Elgen, Illinois, do hereby recognize and honor Reed Henry Lewis for his extraordinary achievements and lasting impact in our community. In witness whereof, I have here to set my hand. It's the 11th day of March, 2026, signed by the mayor. So I am going to give this and as you heard me or heard in the proclamation early on, this is the 50th anniversary of what was called Lasal Expedition 2. Reed was a a French teacher at Larkin High School and he and Jan I think Jan had no had no say in it but decided to

be surprised.

Okay, good. All right, I'm glad decided to take an idea and recreate this expedition that Lel, the original Lasale did in 1681. And as you heard, he took it was actually 15 out of 16 students were from Larkin and Elgen High. Those were the only two high schools in U46 at the time. Took two years to train. Took two years to create all their own clothes, moccasins, carve their own canoe paddles, build the canoes. Kathy is the le this is the liaison team. Hold that thought. We're going to talk about that, too. And from August of 1976 to April of 1977, started in Montreal, went up the St. Louis Seaway, they were going against the that was that's a river. They were going against current around the Great Lakes down past Chicago through Indiana, Illinois, and all the way down to New Orleans and then the mouth in the Mississippi. So, not only did they do that, they had it was 16 high schoolers and seven adults. They all had to play a specific role. They all had to learn that role. They all had to learn French. They all had to learn French songs. And they all had to do this for eight months. And and I I didn't mention the liaison team, but I want to now because they had what was probably a harder job. They had to guess where this six canoes were going to get off the river or off the lake based on the conditions and the weather and race ahead and get there and try to set things up and get ready for them and whatever the evening performance or program was going to be. Had to arrange that. Often was missing each other. So that and that was a lot of women and a photographer. Can't remember all the names. And I want to point them out because you heard in

the presentation from the chamber in EDG there's a 250th anniversary celebration this year. We're celebrating America's 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. And communities all over this country are trying to figure out how they're going to celebrate that, how they're going to recognize that. And we have something that no other community has. Everybody would probably struggle to have something as unique as this. So, this happened 50 years ago. We're going to try to celebrate, we're going to try to have a float in the Fourth of July parade to kind of promote this and honor this. And more importantly, uh this also coincides with the 50th high school reunion for the 15 students and the women that were in the liaison team. So they're all coming back from all we're all wherever they are all over this country and so we're aiming for a lots of workshops and panel discussions. There was a film done on this expedition that we're going to try to screen. A lot of this is going to happen at the public museum. People are looking at me like what are you talking about? I see in people's eyes. Come and see the exhibit at the public museum. There's a couple books on this. It's something that I regret that I think as a community we've kind of lost memory of and I'm so glad that I can be here to recognize Reed and give them some recognition. We're going to try to do more of this over the summer and be part of that 250th celebration that Carol mentioned. So, I don't know if anybody wants to talk. Read, do you want to talk? G

I'm gonna um I would like to read wrote this and um he would like me to read this for him. Okay. Um he says, "My sincere thank you to this Elgen City Council for this wonderful proclamation, which is indeed such an honor. It is 50 years. Is Is it possible? We we 50 years. Unbelievable. Uh since 17 students and seven adults embarked on the SAL expedition to a reenactment that spanned 3,300 miles and lasted for over half a year. I conceived this undertaking to prove a point that young people of that generation were capable of meeting the challenges such a journey would present. And I'm most proud of the Elgen youths who eagerly and determinedly met each day with optimism and enthusiasm. Indeed, despite bad weather, it was the one of the coldest winters or maybe the coldest winter. The the lakes the rivers froze over. They had to portage their canoes, carry them through towns, you know, with all their equipment. It was it was really tough. Um and a horrific accident that badly injured three of the uh young students um when they were portaging. they were hit by a truck and uh despite all of that, we all ended up at the Gulf of Mexico on the prescribed date, the date that they said they were going to be there eight months earlier. I know that I speak for all of us when I say that we are so grateful and appreciative for all the support and encouragement we received from the city council, the chamber of commerce, the school district U46, and groups such as the Kuanas Club, which made generous contributions to the expedition. We are also indebted to the hundreds of people who turned out to cheer us on when we originally left Elgen. Then again when we visited Elgen during our paddle through Chicago and finally when at long last after so many months away we returned to our wonderful hometown. You have all had a part in making this tribute to the explorers of our part of the country uh a reality. And here's a special shout out to Sher Blazer and the Elgen Public Museum who did such an amazing job with the Allesal display in the museum. And as John

mentioned, go see it. It's it was really wonderful. Again, thank you. Or as the French would say, there you go.

Oh, wait a minute. I got one more thing. You got one more thing. Actually, this is a uh Mariah magazine. Uh Reed's brother Ken was is a writer and he did an article for Mariah magazine which doesn't exist today but was a a outdoor living kind of magazine and so I'm have a copy of the article here which tells all about the expedition and I'm going to leave that with John if anybody's ever interested in reading.

Yeah. On behalf of Elgen Public Museum, I'd just like to say how proud we are to be the permanent home of so many artifacts from Lel Expedition 2. It was always Reed's intention that the ultimate and lasting result of his Lel project should be educational. Using the props of their epic journey, the museum's most popular field trip for school students is The Encounter, showing how the world was changed in ways both good and bad. As trade between Europeans and indigenous peoples developed a half century after Lel 2, its lessons are more than ever expanding young minds. Thank you, Reed.

All right, I think that's everybody who wanted to speak. So, watch for our events. We're going to be part of the 250th anniversary and hopefully August 22nd, which coincides with Elgen High's class reunion. Larkin can't get their act together. I can say that as a Larkin grad, they haven't figured out when their class reunion is. We're going to tie it with Elgens and try to pull something off. So, watch. Thank you.

Thank you, John. brings us to the portion where we allow public comments. We have one person signed up this evening, Elijah Stein. And Mr. Stein, I'm going to ask you to watch your language.

All right. My name is Elijah Stein, and I would like to discuss um I would like to discuss a social movement that I would like to uh that I would like to impress. I believe that throughout a lot of what I have been hearing from various parts of the um the situations involving the uh the Epstein files as well as various victims. a lot of people who have went through various traumas and uh just various situations where they've been impacted by other people and have kept their voices silent. I think one of the biggest problems with why there hasn't been a big response as to all of the different all of the different situations that have been occurring is that we have focused too much on the situation itself as opposed to creating a culture of accountability. I believe that in order to see the response that we want to see when it comes to all of the different things that have been occurring, we need to start making our voices known and sharing our different stories as to what we have experienced. Whether that is directly as a result of what we have seen in the Epstein files, what it is with the war in Iran, what it is with just people that we have in our various daily lives. We need to start speaking up more as to the things that we have experienced. I know that a similar thing had happened with the Me Too movement and that was very successful in bringing a lot of light to all of the various things people had experienced that nobody had

ever decided to discuss openly and once it was out there then we started to finally see a movement towards um action and accountability and making sure that the victims were taken care of. We need to start doing that again. that movement never truly died and it needs to have a resurgence. Um, I would say that if you have something that you have experienced, whether it be from this administration, whether it be something in your life, do yourself a favor, if nobody else, and speak out to what it is you've experienced. What you have experienced matters. What it is that you have went through matters. And people need to know that you've experienced it before anything will be done about it. You have to share your experience to make it known that this is what you've went through. Uh that is all that I have to say on that. Thank you. Brings us to other business. We have no bids this evening. First item is a resolution authorizing execution of a master software licensing agreement with DACA LLC for the purchase of electronic citation adjudication management system.

Move for approval. Second. Moved a second for approval. Any discussion? Mr. Stefen.

I uh wanted to piggy back off of comments made at the committee on this item regarding the the data and uses of the data. Um, it's something that I've commented on other software purchases in the past. Oh, sorry, didn't have my microphone on. Um, and that is with with this software and I think item G, which we haven't gotten to on the committee. when we get back to it. And related things, we we as an organization collect huge amounts of information and data on people when they go online and fill out a permit or a liquor license application or get a ticket or a citation as will happen with this software. So I think the questions that were directed at this item from committee the whole regarding possibility of having the data leaked to DHS or ICE or those kinds of uses. My concern is more broad than that. I just want to make sure that we as an organization are keeping this confidential and safe. As I pointed out in the past, these um agreements that we are reviewing in the packet used to be all the the confidentiality and propriety was all kind of went one way towards the vendor because as you can imagine they are providing us with what they've developed to use and they want to make sure that stays confidential and secure. And I'm happy to see in this agreement and we'll look for it in future agreements in these areas that we are also protecting the data that is generated that it will not be leaked or sold or harvested or whatever especially with AI and the and the demand for you

know large amounts of data to create those LLM. So th those are my comments. I am pleased and we will be continuing to look at that making sure that we kind of secure our data. Thank you. Anything else? Okay, Mr. Dixon.

Uh, thank you. I I do have a question about the um total cost, the fees specifically. Um the materials the materials were stating that um there's a licensing fee and usage fee and I think every month we receive like 500 free usages. Um but is there is there also a licensing fee per user um that's associated with this?

No, it's the terminals that they have on that. There isn't anything that goes up with that. There's a there's a terminal that's used for this in the adjudication process and then whatever the agreement is for the police officers and the code enforcement officers to write the citations in the street. Okay. Okay. All right. That's all. Thank you. Anything else? Clerk, please call the role. Council member Zaro, yes. Dixon, yes. Good. Yes. Martinez, yes. Ortiz, yes. Stefan, yes. Thorne, yes. Mir Captain,

yes. The motion is approved. 8 0. Item two is an ordinance amending section 1 n 1 195090 of the title 19 of the Elgen municipal code entitled street graphics. Move for approval. Second. Move the second for approval. Any discussion? Hearing none. Clerk, please call the role. Council member Alfaro. Yes. Dixon. Yes. Good. Yes. Martinez. Abstain. Ortiz. Yes. Stefen, yes. Thorne, yes. Mayor Captain,

yes. The motion's approved 70 with one abstension. Item three is an ordinance amending the Elgen Municipal Code to provide for a new chapter entitled retail singleuse bags. Move for approval. Second. Move the second for approval. Any discussion? M Faro, who made the motion? Was that you, Council Member Ortiz? Okay. Um, I would suggest an amendment because on page 37, the small retail um description doesn't say that it has to be full-time employees. It just says 250 or fewer employees. So, to be consistent with the rest of the language in there, if we can add in that description that it's full-time employees.

You want me just resend mine and you can do it. So, so you Oh, yeah, I can do that. I just resend my motion. Okay. So I make a motion to approve this ordinance with a minor change on page 37 indicating that the 250 and 250 or fewer employees um indicates full-time employees. Second. It's been moved and seconded to amend the ordinance to include uh the wording that this is 250 full-time employees. Moved and seconded. Any discussion? Second. Okay.

And I want to make sure Yeah. Well, I just want to clarify. You're talking about the definition of a small retail merketail establishments. Is that Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So, that's in the section 6.05 uh 010 the definition of small retail market establishments. It's in the definitions. So, 6.05.010. It's towards the end, right before the 2020. Yeah. So, and then employee is a defined term and it it's it's defined as person who's employed on a full-time basis. So, um

Oh, you're saying it's already in there. It's integrated in the definition of employee. Um that was added to the ordinance. So, um I think it's already covered, but I mean it if you want to provide additional clarification, it's it It's consistent with what's already written, right? No, I think it'll just be helpful that way if someone didn't read all the definitions, if they read just that one, they would know it was full time. But I see your point. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Okay. We have a motion in a second. Anything else? Clerk, please call the role. Council member Alfaro, yes. Dixon, yes. Good. Yes. Martinez, no. Ortiz,

yes. Stefen, yes. Thorne, no. Mir captain, yes. The motion is approved. 62. Okay. So, item four is uh building up Illinois developments or the build act, House Bill number 5626, an analysis and discussion of proposed state legislation by community development director Mark Malad. Mr. Malott.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Give me one second if you could please. Just making some last minute adjustments here. There we are. Work. Excellent. Thank you, sir. Uh staff was made aware uh last week of legislation released by Governor Pritskar's office aimed at implementing house housing and availability and affordability goals that he made during his state of the state address last month. Now, the need for more housing at various price points is well recognized, but several of the proposed amendments in the nearly 40 pages of legislation called the Build Plan, which stands for buildup Illinois developments, have the potential to fundamentally alter single family neighborhoods by significantly limiting local control over land use decisions, would restrict local authority over parking and impact fees, and would impose rigid review timelines without flexibility for operation. generational realities. Now, while his comments did recognize some financial assistance, specifically IDA's next generational capacity building initiative, which is designed to provide capital, training, and technical resources that allows affordable housing developers more access to lowincome tax credits. The state is still facing significant national economic headwinds that significantly reduce housing availability. For example, elevated interest rates have created the lock-in effect that let limits housing turnover, and construction and labor and material costs remain high and more troubling, unpredictable. This chart from the Associated Builders and Contractors released at the end of January shows that inputs to multif family construction decreased from November to December, month over month. Yet, they were up nearly 3% year-over-year, but more concerning, up more than 43% since February of 2020. If you look, there's uh highlighted there, if you look at the 12 month change for copper and wire and

cable alone, you can see the increase is over 70% to that particular input on construction costs alone. So, let's start with some of the six primary elements of the build plan and then we'll turn our attention to the specifics of each because you'll start to see where some of those concerns come into play. First, the build plan promotes middle housing. These are the buildings less commonly built in new residential developments like duplexes, quads, small apartment buildings or flats are typically found in our older, denser neighborhoods. Next are accessory dwelling units or ADU. These are commonly thought of the small apartment above the garage or even a standalone building in the backyard perhaps for an older child or a grandparent or a caregiver. The amendment proposes universally waving and reducing parking requirements for certain land uses. The amendments would create a statewide system of development impact fees. The plan would impose strict time frames for local governments to complete plan reviews and building inspections and if not met, allow builders to get their own thirdparty plan reviews and inspections. And finally, the amendments would allow only one exit stair for new multif family buildings where the current code requires two. Now, let's dig in a little deeper here. Let's start with the middle housing. The proposed amendments would allow between four and 8 unit apartments on small existing single family lots in established ne single family neighborhoods regardless of the city's zoning designation. You could have an 8-unit apartment building on any single family residential lot larger than 7500 square ft subject to the same setback requirements or other size considerations as a single family home. So let's have some context. What's a 7500 square foot lot? Most single family lots in Elgen's far west subdivisions are larger than single 7500 square feet. Highland Woods, Tall Oaks, Bose Creek,

Providence, Randall Ridge, Waterford to name a few. Coming in closer, most single family lots in the Valley Creek subdivision West and Mlan are larger than 7,500 square feet. and even many older uh many lots in our older uh primary neighborhoods uh around the central downtown like Nenah, Gford Park, and Swan are larger than 7,500 square ft. Now, where those lots might be even smaller, like where a back of a corner lot was subdivided off of a larger lot, the state's changes would allow four or six flats on a lot between 2500 and 5,000 square ft or 5,000 square ft and 7500 square f feet, respectively. Equally concerning, these amendments are not limited to just new construction. they would permit the conversion of existing single family homes into multi-unit buildings with the same unit allowances. Many on city council remember that we've spent more than 20 years and significant financial resources to eliminate dwelling units in our older, more crowded residential neighborhoods like Nenina, Gford Park and Swan. Each dot on this map represents a property where at least one unit was removed. Such multif family buildings would be permitted uses eligent could not require any extraordinary zoning review such as by the planning and zoning commission or by city council as a conditional use or a plan development. So you can start to see how the support for middle housing here while a lofty goal could come at the cost of our existing single family neighborhoods. The state amendments would override local zoning and eliminate the concept of the traditional single family neighborhoods in the city. All this even though the city has already thought of and planned for locations where different housing types are appropriate by our zoning designations with either the TFR two family residence districts or MFR multif family res district designations. The

city has more than 1,000 acres which are zoned uh as such. Here for example is on the west side of Elgen along South Street between Long Common and Nestler Road where the Providence, Copper Springs and Shadow Hill subdivisions all come together. Here's well planned neighborhoods of duplexes and town houses surrounded by single family homes and open space. The orange is two family zoning and the brown is multif family zoning. Here is a bird's eye view of that same image. Lastly, staff actively encourages various housing types in new and infill developments where potential impacts can be thoughtfully accommodated during the planning stages. Here is one example that staff prepared for consideration for the owner of Simpson Electric property off of Dundee. It includes 85 mixed dwelling units ranging from apartments to town houses to starter single family homes with accessory dwelling units. Conversations with that owner even included ways in which the city could consider financial assistance to promote these more traditionally and more affordable housing types. Here's another example that staff worked with uh that everyone is more familiar with, the Larkin Center. This threetime award-winning 48 unit development on three and a half acres is a mix of apartments, duplexes, and four flats within a walkable, mostly single family neighborhood. The 12 new buildings resemble single family homes that would have been built around the time of the original Larkin Center, but are actually four-unit apartments on the left and two-unit town homes on the right. Next, the state amendments regarding accessory dwelling units or ADUs as they're more commonly referred to are better described as universally allowing second dwelling units anywhere in the city already allowing single family residential homes. Again, we're all

familiar with a nostalgic concept of an ADU, that second subordinate dwelling unit, most often at the back of a residential property occupied by a relative, so perhaps persons in the main house can keep an eye on an aging parent or even a caregiver. ADUs are often thought of as standalone buildings or built above a detached garage. The state proposal would allow an ADU either attached or detached of any size on any single family lot as long as the ADU complied with setback requirements and other sizers considerations. Any ADU would be subject to the same site design and aesthetics of the single family home. No additional parking would be required. In other words, on the right lot, you could have a second dwelling unit in any of the following configurations: detached, attached, above the garage, in the basement, in the attic, or after converting the garage. The state would also not require any familiar relationship between the occupants of the single family home and the ADU. Now, it's generally accepted that residential ownership in neighborhoods leads to stronger neighborhoods than ones in which persons predominantly rent. And there is no requirement for a familiar relationship. And if there's no requirement for a familiar relationship for persons in the principal dwelling, then landlords who are already renting single family homes in Elgen may be some of the first to either construct new or remodel the interior of and create a second dwelling unit as a means to secure additional income from an existing property. Uh thanks to research provided by neighborhood services director Jenny Phillips, Elgen has nearly 2400 single family homes that are rented. Some considerations for parking should be provided, especially if no familiar relationship is required. Unrelated persons are unlikely to share cars. And if a person and a family in such an ADU has a need for transportation, wouldn't

that be the same as someone living in the main house? Minimum lot sizes or perhaps keeping detached structures sized similarly to other already allowable accessory structures like a detached garage should also be considered. Third, the state's amendments wave any parking requirements for a house less than 15 uh 1500 square feet, sorry, any IDA project, an assisted living establishment, ground level non-residential spaces and mixeduse buildings, and buildings changing from non-residential to residential. It also caps the parking requirement for multif family residential uses at 1/ half space for every dwelling unit. The concern with these amendments is their universal application. These types of land uses, except maybe for assisted living units, don't generate generate less parking in and of themselves. Less parking happens when persons have access to alternative forms of transportation and/or where common parking facilities are currently available. Persons living in a small house or a large house still generate cars as do persons that are low and moderate income. Apartments on Randall Road are going to need more parking than in downtown, where the city already waves its parking requirement. A somewhat more palatable amendment would be like those within the recently adopted state of Illinois people over parking act. Effective June 1st, the state already eliminated parking requirements within 1 half mile of transit stops or within 1/8 of a mile of a transit corridor. While the frequency of our bus service along Elgen's major routes don't meet the threshold for a transit corridor at least demonstrates considerations for the availability of alternate forms of transportation as a reason why fewer cars are necessary. But even those are not neat simple solutions especially when coupled with some of the amendments that are currently on the table by the state of Illinois. The

orange radius on this map is 1/ half of a mile from the two downtown metro stops. And with the amendments we're currently discussing, that means anywhere you see an orange circle overlap a uh a land parcel in yellow, which is our residential zoning, could have a multi-unit building with no parking. Here's the big timber metro stop with a soon to be half mileile parking exemption. Everything on this picture would be exempt from parking, which is fine for the underlyutilized industrial property immediately to the east of the metro station, but there's no way to cross the tracks. Potential developments that will soon have will soon have to no longer provide off street parking include the Valley Creek townhouse development, which is we've had several people coming and uh uh trying to propose different configurations for that land. an apartment complex on the Nolles property at the southeast corner of Big Timber and Randall and it would have exempted Gford Crawing. Gford Crossing, sorry. Fortunately, most lending institutions will require some amount of off- streetet parking unless they feel their investment may be at risk where tenants don't come simply because there's no place to park. Elgen already waves parking requirements out of downtown, has reduced parking requirements for certain types of land uses, including assisted living facilities in efficiency dwelling units, and commonly supports departures to parking requirements where documentation is provided to substantiate the true parking demand and/or the availability of alternate forms of transportation or common off- streetet parking facilities. Next, the amendments no longer allow local governments to determine what are appropriate development impact fees. Instead, the city would be required to use a model formula created by the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity to produce its impact fee schedules. Certain adjustment factors or variations would be available

to account for higher land and construction cost, among other things. It's impossible to determine the financial impact to Elgen because the model formulas have not been prepared. About 200 dwelling units paid various impact fees in 2025. The city received about $280,000 for parks, $300,000 for public safety, $575,000 for water and sewer, and 270,000 for roadways. The city received and remitted to area school districts U46, 301, and 303 just under $1.2 million. And we uh did the same uh about to the tune of about $30,000 to the Gail Bordon Library District. Interestingly, the state amendments do not appear to authorize future impact fees for library districts, but not all houses pay all fees. The city works with developers to balance the impact of development against the resulting cost to the housing. For example, of the 200 homes that we that uh paid impact fees in 2025, only 111 paid park uh paid parkland impact fees and only 30 paid park capital fees. That's because most developers choose to provide some form of parkland or open space in their developments and make their own parks improvements. Those are things that the city works through with developers on a case-by case basis. These amendments appear all, however, to exempt existing developments that the city has already approved. It's also unclear whether the city would have been able to increase its water system capital connection fee as it did in 2024 to help offset the documented attributable cost to the larger water system. DEIO would have 18 months to develop the program and then municipality would have 12 months thereafter to adopt the local ordinance mirroring the state. Until that time, we would collect impact fees

as we do today. Fourth, the state wants to allow developers, builders, contractors, and even homeowners the ability to seek third-party plan reviews and inspections if the city does not conduct their initial plan review for a single family home or duplex in 15 days. in 30 days for multif family, mixeduse or commercial or in 10 days for the re-review of any plans. Inspection results must be honored within two business days after the receipt of a request. Now, the community development department, I will say, typically falls under these time frames, but the amendment offers no grace period to account for staffing issues such as illnesses, vacations, vacancies, or even a peaked demand period. The amendment also does not consider that the state of Illinois only allows plumbing inspectors, plumbing inspections to be conducted by certified, licensed plumbing inspectors, even if a building inspector has expertise with plumbing. We often contract with our own thirdparty companies to help with inspections during such times. And perhaps the amendment should allow local governments to establish the pool of thirdparty plan reviewers and building inspectors. Otherwise, the amendments may result in the need to hire additional technical staff to ensure that either time frames are met without fail or to verify that builder submitted third-party plan reviews and inspections demonstrate compliance with city building and life safety codes. The amendments do spell out what it means to be for a third party to be qualified, but I can tell you that plans submitted to our plan examiners often misapply building a life safety codes and those persons submitting those now are the same ones that would be qualified under these definitions. The amendment does give the city the right to ensure that the review demonstrates compliance with applicable building

codes. Same for inspection results. I'm afraid that the resulting approach to staffing would be like the big box retailer's approach to parking when they build enough parking to accommodate the peak holiday rush and then otherwise it goes largely underutilized. Finally, the state amendments would relax model building and life safety grow code requirements by only requiring one exit stairwell for multif family buildings with less than six stories and with no more than four units per floor. Current building and life safety codes illustrated on the left require two exit stairs. Staff has been reviewing such considerations from other cities and states and believes the amendment may help, but only if the entire building is sprinklered. Current model building and life safety codes require full fire sprinklers in these types of buildings. And the amendments appear to suggest that only the stairwell need be sprinkled. I've had extensive conversations with Chief Sagen to ask him if he could come up and explain why this this technical element is important.

Good evening everyone. So I appreciate the opportunity to talk on this a little bit because to me this is a significant issue. So the idea of the sprinkler systems only in the stairwells does not make any real sense. So, one thing I think the general public doesn't understand about sprinkler systems because it's always depicted poorly in movies and on TV is that when one sprinkler head goes off, that's the only one that goes off. So, you'll see in movies where one sprinkler head will go off and then they all open up. That's not what happens in real life. So, the scenario that I want to present in the picture that Mark just had up on the on the screen does not necessarily mean that the stairwell the single stairwell would be in the middle. We don't know where they're going to require the stairwell to be or if there's if if there's going to be a requirement. It's just going to say there's one. But the concern is we don't get that many fires. As a national fire service, we don't get that many fires starting in a stairwell. Stairwells are typically a low fire load environment because the code also requires you to keep uh essential equipment out of there, debris. You you you have to maintain your stairwells. The challenge is that if you have even just four units in one on one floor, imagine yourself in an apartment building, you're on the third floor, fourth floor, and there's a fire in your neighbor's unit. What happens in that environment, whether the door is open or closed, can have an impact, but you're still going to create high smoke conditions, high heat conditions, and toxic environment conditions in that hallway. So you the fire alarm goes off assuming that we have fully alarmed building here. Fire alarm goes off. The tenant leaves potentially leaves the door open. Maybe they don't have an automatic closer on the door. And now you start to get smoke, hot gases into the into the

common space, the hallway. You come out of your unit. I can't explain to you standing here today the impact that you would have when you open that door to your apartment and you're faced with high smoke. I mean heavy smoke, high heat and these toxic gases. Now what this is saying is it's okay for you to get into that environment and make your way try to make your way to the stairwell. People die in fires not typically because of the flames. They die because of the smoke conditions, the high carbon monoxide conditions and the toxic gases. So when we find people typically when we have have people caught in involved in fire events, we normally find them remote from the actual fire room. They're trying to escape and they're overcome by the smoke. What we're looking at, what Mark and I have talked extensively about is the need. I I have other concerns about aspects of this, but and I had this conversation with the city manager the other day. If we can get these buildings with single stairwells fully sprinklered where when that fire alarm goes off or that sprinkler head goes off in the apartment building, though it may not put the fire out, it buys time for us to get there. Keeps the fire in check. We can put out the f the the rest of the fire, but it allows all the occupants to get out safely. Imagine come while opening your door and having all this smoke and gases in the hallway and you're seeing a stairwell right down there that has water flowing and that's your safe haven, but you have to get to that. That's where the challenge comes in from a fire safety and a life safety standpoint. So the the need is absolutely there to have I I think it's an easy thing for the general public to say my stairwell sprinkler this is a

great thing that that's enough and I'm I'm here to express my concern that it absolutely is not enough these buildings to do what they want to do with a single exit way need to have a fully a fully a full sprinkler system throughout the building and hopey in add in addition to that fully be fully alarmed. So those are the the six items. I just want to just kind of wrap up how Elgen looks at this and give you some other considerations. The city's approached housing affordability and availability by balancing our local considerations against broader albeit discouraging trends. those. We've talked about high housing costs, we've talked about labor costs, uh we've talked about interest rates, but the city has taken significant steps to to do what it can at the local level. As mentioned earlier, the city regularly encourages developers to consider smaller single family lots and various building types that produce a higher density like the accessory dwelling units, duplexes and quads, town houses, and multifamilies. But that promotion doesn't come with a negative impact on the to the expense of others. The city allocates significant resources of its federal CDBG and home funds to building new affordable housing of various types and to maintain existing homes of low and moderate income persons. The city works cooperatively with developers that bring lowincome housing tax credits to the city, often suggesting various properties for them to even consider. The city regularly reviews its impact fee schedule to balance the costs added to housing against the need to fairly cover unique and attributable cost of development. For example, the water system capital connection fees that we

were just talking about were increased in 2024 to help fund necessary cost to the larger system. But then city council also waved impact fees in 2025 for single family homeowners and any affordable housing developer wanting to add bedrooms to an existing single family home. The city also waves impact fees for any development in a tiff district. And the city periodically evaluates the land cost to ensure that fees paid in lie of school and parkland donations are at or below market rate. The city approved amendments to its parking requirements just in 2023 that allows administrative approvals of parking reductions for EV charging stations, accessible parking spaces, and where necessary for new tenants and existing shopping centers. staff commonly encourages developers that must already go through the development review process. Remember that's anything that goes to planning and zoning commission and ultimately comes to you to request a reduction to their required parking if the city's generally applicable parking requirements are simply too great and unnecessary. We actively encourage creating land banks for unnecessary parking. And since development review processes are often required for our larger developments, granting these parking reductions in this manner doesn't add any time to the process. at the state level. More concerning, none of the language that's that's put forth in the 40 page nearly 40 pages of the of the Build Act references the statemandated studies that are required by IDA to encourage local governments to incorporate affordable housing into their communities. Uh in 2003 the state passed the affordable housing planning and appeal act and required IDA to evaluate the approximately every 1300 one of 1300 communities in Illinois

every 5 years to determine which of those communities had less than 10% of housing defined as affordable. The communities were then designated as non-exempt if they didn't have 10% or more. and that included both rental part uh housing as well as owner occupied and they were declared then non-exempt. A non-exempt community had to e develop its own affordable housing plan to either get 15% of all new development or redevelopment as affordable or the 3% increase in total number of all affordable units. The plan had to identify land in the community suitable for affordable housing and list incentives for affordable housing that the communi community could provide. In 2018, Illinois had 50 communities that were below 10% in terms of affordable housing. And in 2023, that list list was reduced to 48. Uh this is a map that shows Elgen at 62% affordable compared to our neighbors. The percent uh in uh parenthesis below the percent indicates the change from 2023 to from to 28 2018 to 2023. So you can see in Elgen we increased our affordability by 4%. We were at 58% in uh in 2018 the 2018 report. I will give a shout out to the village of Gilbert's. They increased their affordability by 32% from 2018 to 2023. Good job neighbor. So it would be uh possibly something to consider then that instead of perhaps imposing on our ability to make our local decision, perhaps directing state resources andor directives to those communities where the state has already determined that more affordable housing

is needed would be a better incremental step. Finally, at the federal level, uh last week the National League of Cities, uh reported on progress on a substantial federal housing initiative. The US Senate combined their Road to Housing Act with the US House's housing for the 21st century into one big bill, the 21st Century Road to Housing Act. And it was unanimously approved by the Senate Banking Committee. Not going to give you as deep a dive into this, but simply to say that according to the National League of Cities, the bill has support in both chambers and from both parties. It aims to boost housing through improving existing programs, reducing federal regulatory barriers, and unlocking private capital. Importantly, it does not preempt local land use or zoning authority and as such has the support of the NLC and the US Conference of Mayors. It reauthorizes the home program which is the primary federal f federal source of funding for affordable housing and it expands the use of the CDBG program to cover new housing construction for low and moderate income persons. This is going to be this will be a huge change for Elgen. Authorizes a series of new grants and programs. Streamlines federal requirements such as exempting certain environmental reviews. provides several incentives aimed at private capital like increasing uh the federal housing authority multif family loan limits and it limits uh includes limits on build to rent developers. I think it would be difficult to find someone who says we don't need additional and more affordable housing but the causes for our current circumstances are complex. We just want to make sure that when we reach for solutions, however good intention those may be, and that helping housing availability and affordably housing availability and affordab getting getting to the end. Let's drive it home here. And that helping housing

availability and affordability isn't at the cost of something else equally important. Happy to answer any questions you might have.

Uh, at this point, there's no need for a motion at at this point. We're not uh sending anything to the state, but we have had a request from uh Metro West and I talked to Leslie uh Melendi this afternoon and they are consolid they are looking at uh gathering information from the 31 members and uh the state has asked for that from the council of governments to provide them with feedback from the communities and that's what our job here tonight can be. So, I would recommend that uh uh we propose to staff that they they consolidate our comments and Mr. Malot's comments and present those back to uh Metro West Council of Government uh for their uh use and for their uh distribution back to the state of Illinois. So, they'll represent us as part of the uh uh entire community. And so, at this point, Mr. Malot, uh questions for him and for Chief Saga. Mr. Ortiz.

Uh Mr. appreciate the uh the contrast of what the bill is saying and what we already do and how the bill can maybe possibly help us in some things and also a great tie. I was going to give you a compliment tie. Uh I got a bunch of notes here so I might be going out of order from your slides. Okay. So going to the money we've been given for years for the deconversions and like our older neighborhoods like Swan Nina and whatnot. How much money over the going on for 20 years have we given in grant money or non-interest money? I don't know how we give it out to the homeowners to decon convert those units. Yeah, those are they're grants. Okay.

Uh so we did our best to go back to the to 1995 when the program started and and count how many units were eliminated and and what was the ultimate cost of that. Some records were a little fuzzy, but I can I can safely say that we paid for the elimination of more than 300 units at a cost of at least $6.1 million for like the whole project. Okay. 6.1 million. And this new well filed bill that's been has it been filed already or has it just been proposed? Do you know? I I believe it's been filed.

Okay. That would allow the current owner to reconvert them after us spending to deconvert them.

I would have to go back and look at the specificity of the grant agreement whether there was any termination clauses or any sort of contractual obligations for them to maintain it. But absent that, you know, their neighbor could their if their neighbor had a single family home and was on a a normal lot could have put a unit a unit or two in the basement, a unit or two in the attic. Um, you know, our size requirements for for rooms going with a dwelling unit are are dimminimous. It's it's 70 square feet for one person in a bedroom. If you have more than one, it's 50 square feet. So, a 10 by 10 will get you two persons in a bedroom. Throw in a dining room and you can have a couple hundred square feet constitute a dwelling unit.

Yeah. and the halfcar parking requirement. Like I know my neighborhood will go in an uproar if that happens. And my mom used to live back here behind the police department. I don't know if that's Gford Park or a different neighborhood, but they have huge parking problems. That's a lot of the deversions were in her neighborhood. Mh. And if they go as a half car parking per household or however you described it, like

I think their streets are going to be flooded with cars. And then we're going to have public works not be able to plow streets and pick up trash. Well, and and equally important, they would have to try and make those accommodations on the lot itself. So whereas you might have had at least an enjoyable backyard, they're going to be looking to pave that area to provide the required parking. Yeah, I do believe I don't know if I may have misheard you or it's probably misrepresentative what you said, but when you talk about infill, I think infilling and putting like multi-unit homes with like a new construction would be better because then you can actually plan the building to have multi-unit instead of trying to convert old school houses that we already have into multi-unit houses. Agreed. And that's

so I believe in infill and doing stuff like this for like an infill project, right? A thousand%. That's why we take great care when we when we work with the owner of Simpson Electric to to try and lay out something that would create a transition going from Dundee to the east and blend in with the neighborhoods but still provide a lot of opportunity for a lot of different people to have housing. And my other one's for um Chief Sagen when you when you mentioned like full sprinkler systems and then you gave the like the the vivid I wanted to clap after your speech. I felt like I was you gave like an awardw winning speech. appreciate that. Thank you. So, it was really good

cuz I was picturing it while you were saying it. The when you said like a full sprinkler system and then I'm assuming the stairway would already be running once the unit went on and then you said you open your doors. I'm assuming you want them in the hallways also so they have their escape route kind of like lights saying go this way. Well, ideally they'd be throughout the entire building, the hallways and the units themselves because if the unit has a fire in it and that sprinkler head goes off, theoretically it's designed to help control that fire. Maybe not extinguish it. That's what we end up coming in. But if it does that, no other sprinkler heads may go off in the whole system. As long as it because it will contain that fire, it'll reduce the amount of heat, toxic gases, all of that to that unit. you're going to walk out of your unit and you're going to have I won't say a clear hallway necessarily, but it'll be far more inhabitable for you to make access to that stairwell. So, so if we have a fully sprinklered building, perhaps only one sprinkler head in the affected apartment will actually be going off.

Okay. But the ones in the hallway and the stairway might not be going off. Correct. Okay. I thought you thought the way you said it that the apartment goes off then like the exit route would also go off. No, not at all. I misunderstood every sprinkler head in this in in a building that like these types of buildings and a residential building, every sprinkler head operates independently. Okay. All right. And uh and that's what the code says today. It's just a it's just the language in the in the proposed uh uh amendment gives the impression that they're only requiring sprinklers in the stairwell. We just want to make sure that that

Oh, so you use that to the entire entire building. Okay, I got you now. Thank you. And then the 15, 30, and 10 day like windows that they're giving your staff, you say you mostly meet those. Um, do you know like the people that we may contract out or you say we contract out some stuff sometimes in high volume? Like we do that for building inspections only inspection.

Just just inspections. We've not had we've not had to do it for uh for plan review. uh city council was gracious enough to give community development department a second plans examiner about two or three years ago. So that has significantly helped the volume. So we normally get out our our plan our initial plan reviews within within 10 to 15 business days on on that first go anyway regardless of the project. Okay. Yeah, because I was going to ask if you know any companies in the area that do stuff like that if they're even credible, but we don't do that. Right. And and there are there are but you know the

the thing about model codes is then each municipality can go in and make their own amendments. And so to to have someone who's simply a licensed uh architect or other design professional and has other qualifications doesn't unilaterally mean they're going to know our codes. We have architects that work with us all the time and they come back to us because they get familiar with our codes and they can get through our processes that faster. But when we have new folks coming in, you know, we'll have we've had people come in and and want to propose uh storm water regula, storm water requirements in uh in accordance with Cook County when we're completely required with King County. You've got to know the municipality. And then I'm not going to talk about the fees, but there might be a lot of impact fees that we could lose, but there's uh since it's kind of like a legislative review, uh city manager with since we could possibly lose fees with this one, the governor also said that he wants to lower the LGDF funds for the city I think like a quarter of a percentage with that proposal. when you when you spoke about this one, how much money, if you know, can the city lose if it lose if he lowers that tax or that revenue stream?

So, I don't know, but Deb Naraki, the chief financial officer knows and based on her calculations, based on the 25 revenues, we expect that that would be in the range of about $600,000. All right. So, if he So, if the governor gets that and then this passes, we lose impact fees in here, we lose Well, to to be fair, we don't know if we're going to lose them. We just don't know what they're going to be. Yeah. I'm saying that if it goes through and they get what they want and then it comes back to the council and then we have to try to find a way to supplement the money that we could possibly it could come back substantially lower and then all of a sudden we're left with the bag holding the bag. Yeah. In the bag like like a grocery tax. That's it. Thank you. Any other questions, Mr. Mal? Okay, Mr. Steph.

Well, I don't know if it's a question, Mark. Thank you. Um I guess I'll start off with a with a comment and a story. um before this proposal by the governor kind of forced the issue and made you put this all together and make this presentation to us. You and I have had this conversation specific specifically about how you and previous planning departments have always made an effort to have a variety of housing proposed in any development. I lived here my entire life. I my parents for South Eagle Heights which has that range apartment buildings duplexes

single family homes country nles valley creek I can think of numerous developments where we have done that and I think it reflects in the numbers you put up regarding the 2003 act about affordable housing where we are leaps and bounds above everybody else around us cellular communities.

So to the mayor's I think question and prompt is how how do we what what how do we want to respond to this proposal uh specifically back to the council of governments so that they can put something together and respond as a group. My thought in in hearing your presentation, looking at this is ask them to exempt people above a certain threshold. I'd say 50%. That would clear us completely out of any of this. And below 50% have the the effects phase in as you are worse with your affordable housing. Um I you know to me that sounds like a reasonable response

to have this affect those communities that need the effect and we don't need this effect. So um that's my thought. I'm kind of answering the prompt that uh the mayor gave us.

Yeah. And I think that uh uh uh my understanding is that when they get all the information gathered that we'll get a report back from them before they send it to the uh to the governor's office. I have two questions. Uh one is a comment. Uh I read the documents very interesting by the way. Um uh they they seem to uh um have uh intertwined uh municipality and home rule municipalities. And I think that's something that's uh important as well. I I assume that this would uh mean this ordinance would be in effect for everybody no matter what size of community. So that needs to be home rules are over 25,000 people for u uh size-wise. So that needs to be clarified. And I'm going to ask you this question. You've read it. I've read it. Uh uh Dave and Sandy Captain live in a house uh that's in a development that was our house was built in 1962. Okay.

And uh we have a we have a lot that's larger than a half acre. What would prevent me as a a homeowner from demolishing my house and building an 8-unit apartment building on that lot in this ordinance? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. So that's a concern for me

and that's we talked about mansioning and things like that in communities where uh we have ordinances that we want to have homes that look similar to the homes that are there. This really flies into the face of that and I agree that the uh discussions that uh as we build these out we try to make sure that we have these types of things but to go back in and uh try to fix the problem that way uh creates other problems. Yes, sir. And I think that would uh um I would see that as a as a as a huge as a as a big issue.

Um the fire issue, of course, are very concerned about that. And the number one job here is safety uh for people. And we've had people lost while we have a uh changed our ordinance a few years ago and looked at basement apartments that had only one exit and people couldn't get out even the windows didn't allow and we had to change ordinances around uh the whole city for that. So, uh, staff has a direction and we'll consolidate those things and try to do the best they can do to, uh, bring it forward. Mr. Dixon, you have a comment. Yeah. Uh, when by when do we need to provide feedback to National League of Cities or wherever else

they requested it last week. The governor has reached out and asked and and again didn't want to be presumptuous and speak on behalf of the entire council. So they asked for the governor requested solicitation last week. We're a little bit behind but they want it sooner rather than later. Okay. So we we have not provided any feedback as of yet, right? No, that that's the purpose of this evening with the preliminary work that Mr. Malot and Chief Sagen have provided and then presenting the information to the city council. And again with the recognition this is the beginning of a process. This doesn't mean that we can't add later on, but it's to get something to Metro West sooner rather than later.

Okay. All right. That's that's fine. Um I would I would like to to hear what um some of the neighborhoods maybe they can um chime in on this. Um you know, we can send in recommendations, but I I think this would change, you know, significantly um how we operate. So maybe neighborhoods can weigh in um you know around the transportation hubs uh businesses or uh residential areas can just weigh in in general. That would be my only ad. I don't think you know with your recommendations there's anything crazy there. Um it makes sense. Um so I'm on board with all of that. But if we since this is going to be a long process, nothing happens in Springfield overnight. Um maybe we can figure out a way to to allow others to weigh in as well. Okay. Anything else?

Okay. Thank you, Mark. My pleasure, Mayor. Good luck. All right. Consent agenda. Move for approval. Second. Moved and seconded for approval. Any discussion? Hearing none. Cler, please call the role. Council member Zaro. Yes. Dixon. Yes. Good. Yes. Martinez, yes. Ortiz, yes. Stefan, yes. Thorne, yes. Mayor Captain, yes. Motion's approved. 8 Z. Miscellaneous business. Move for approval. Second. Moved and seconded for approval. Any discussion? Hearing none. Clerk, please call the role. Council member Zaro? Yes. Dixon? Yes. Good. Yes. Martinez, yes. Ortiz,

yes. Stefan, yes. Thorne, yes. Mayor Captain, yes. Motion's approved. 8 Z. Uh, announcements. The next committee of the whole meeting will be Wednesday, March 25th, 2026 at 6 p.m. in the city council chambers. The next regular meeting of the Elgen City Council will be March 25th, 2026 at 7 p.m. in the city council chambers. I'd entertain a motion to adjourn back to the committee of the whole. So moved. Second. Moved and seconded. Clerk, please call the role. Council members Alfaro, yes. Dixon, yes. Good. Yes. Martinez, yes. Ortiz, yes. Stefen, yes. Thorne, yes. Mir captain, yes. We are adjourned. I entertain a motion to reconvene. So move. Second.

Moved and seconded. Clerk, please call the role. Council member Zaro, yes. Dixon, yes. Good. Yes. Martinez, yes. Ortiz, yes. Stefen, yes. Thorne, yes. Mayor Captain, yes. We are back. Mr. Manager, I believe we're on item C.

Yes. This is an intergovernmental agreement between the city and the village of Pingry Grove. Pingry Grove is reconstructing its substandard roundabout at Ryan King and Damish Roads. Damish Road northeast of the roundabout is actually under the jurisdiction of the city of Elgen and hence requiring this intergovernmental agreement so that the village can perform reconstruction and related improvements that will be partially conducted in Elgen rightway. Elgen as the council knows is scheduled to start construction on its roundabout at US20 this spring. That roundabout is about 1,000 ft southeast of this Ryan King and Damish Road roundabout. The US 20 roundabout should be largely completed before Pingry Grove starts its work in 2027. The Ryan King and Damish roundabout is estimated to cost that village about $3.8 million and will take about a half year to complete.

Second. Moved and seconded for approval. Any discussion? Hearing none. Court, please call the role. Council member Zaro, yes. Dixon, yes. Good. Martinez, yes. Ortiz, yes. Stefan, yes. Thorne, yes. Mayor Captain, yes. The motion's approved 70.

Item D is the adoption of the official zoning map for 2026. Illinois law requires municipalities every year before March 31st to publish their official zoning map. Um the city um every time that there's a zoning change updates electronic map um adopting this resolution formally comports with the outdated statute. Move approval or for municipalities that don't make the electronic changes the way that the city does. Right. That's a better answer. Second. Been moved and second for approval. Any discussion? Clerk, please call the role. Council member Zaro? Yes. Dixon? Yes. Martinez, yes. Ortiz, yes. Stephen, yes. Thorne, yes.

Mayor Captain, yes. Motions approved. 70. Okay. The next two initiatives, items E and F, are coming from the Department of Cultural Arts and Special Events. The first item, item E, is a routine approval that the city council sees every year with the Cultural Arts Commission providing its 2026 grant award recommendations. Um, so unless well, so we know that this year the recommended awards total about $62,000 and are going to be distributed through uh among 10 area not for-p profofit organizations for projects including visual art, live entertainment shows, and children's theater performances. On the next initiative, we're going to hear a little bit more from the Department of Cultural Arts and Special Events. Move for approval. Second.

Moved and second for approval. Any discussion? hearing none. Cler, please call a role. Council member Zaro, yes. Dixon, yes. Good. Yes. Martinez, yes. Ortiz, yes. Stefan, yes. Thorne, yes. Mayor Captain, yes. Motion's approved. 8 Z.

Okay. Item F is a bit of a blended initiative. It's entitled um the approval of the Encore Awards for 2026. This is the uh department of cultural arts and special events outdoor event incentive program. So the technical component is there are three items that exceed the procurement threshold approval for the city manager. Those three items total $84,000. So that's technically what the city council will be voting on. But Amanda Harris, cultural arts and special events director, Selena Tapia, the special events manager, and Chris Holling, our community event coordinator, will be pro providing information this evening on the incentive program that's being initiated this year. Also, uh provide information on the 2026 special events lineup. And before they go into all that, I think you're going to do a recap on all the good stuff you did last year. Correct.

Correct. There's Amanda Harris. Thank you for waiting so long. I appreciate it. It was so terrible. social events again this evening. Yeah.

Uh yeah. So it has been a long evening so we will try to keep it uh quick. Um all right. So tonight we will talk a little bit about 2025 and what the department of cultures and special events did. We'll look into 2026 and we'll hit the few things that you see there. uh notably the Hemans cultural center, movies and concerts in the park, the outdoor event incentive program which is the item in front of you, the large events, and then we'll we will be providing an update on the dowel project. So, talking about 2025 um a few things that were most notable. Uh obviously, we we uh had our ribbon cutting for the Hemet Cultural Center. That was wonderful. Um that was in May. Uh we invited local arts organizations to come. We had several hundred people. Um NBC picked it up and that was wonderful marketing. Um and also we started the return of the Hemans presenting season. So that it was kind of a half season in 25 and 24 into 25. Um so moving into our full season was 2025 and 2026. Um so far that has included nine shows that has dance, live music, comedy and more. There are four shows left in the season. Uh, so that is Step Africa, which is coming up next in March. Style Thief, The Greatest Piano Men, and Mariachi Divas. All of these shows are coming up to kind of round out the season. So that will come up next.

Um, another thing that uh we grew and changed in in 2025 was uh sponsorship and partnership outreach. Um, we did a ton of that. We have Peter Tmatchko as well as really the entire DK staff to thank for that. Uh the most notable partnership that we secured last year was uh Paramount Pictures, their division Paramount Scares for Nightmare Chicago Street. Um movies and concerts in the park grew significantly last year. Overall attendance was was up. Uh some of these events had several hundred people, four, five, six hundred depending on the event. Um and people continue to love them. Uh I often joke a few years ago, this was one of the things we thought, oh well, everybody does these. Why should we keep doing them? Um, and we heard from the community that this was one of their most beloved things, and I'm glad we kept it because they really, really love it. So, let's talk about what that impact was. Um, in 2025, there were 42 DKES events. Now, that really is only taking into account the outdoor things. That doesn't really include anything that takes place at the Hemans. Um, we permitted 120 events. That is everything from block parties to 5Ks to the giant events like Mitchell Fest. There were 10 co-sponsorship events. Um overall attendance to all DK specific events was about 65,000. That is slightly down from last year. Uh last year we ant we approximated the attendance overall to be about 70,000. We attribute that to both uh some weather issues um and then uh some fear of the increased ice activity. at some of the events. Um, and then the economic impact. I'll just uh quickly note that again in 2022 from 22 to 23 the city participated in the arts and economic prosperity six study. Um, and that showed that just for the nonprofit sector alone in the area uh

for the arts and culture sector drove $ 8.5 million in economic activity. The other thing that's important here is we have seen and I have seen working with the arts organizations those that are visiting the website are utilizing this economic impact calculator and it is returning to them more funding which is pretty great because it's a direct data point of what their economic impact for their events and organizations is. Okay, so moving into 2026, the first thing I want to introduce you to um is our DK's mascot. We're still fighting about the name. So if you have recommendations, you can certainly email that to us. Um but some of you may know that every year we have a different theme. Uh this year we came up with the theme of the summer of imagination. Um and it spiraled out of a muck as we often do. Those of you who know me and these folks know that we do that. Um, and our new marketing specialist drew this goofy little duck and we fell in love with him. Um, and instead of coming up with a new character every year, we've decided this is going to be our our DK's mascot and every year he'll have a new costume that represents what our summer theme is going to be. Um, so this uh this is him. We're really excited about him. So, big picture moving into 2026, the focus points are formalizing partnerships and residencies. Um that comes in the form of continuing to work with those organizations that we're already working with and making sure that we are meeting their needs, but they're also meeting ours. Uh we will continue to increase those sponsorship efforts and outreach staff has already had many meetings with folks. Um nothing is is penned yet, so I can't announce anything yet, but we have wonderful new marketing uh materials for sponsorship that are both online and we have print copies. I I handed some of those out. Um and they are they're working. Uh, and I'll tell you a little bit more about that later. Uh, marketing efforts are

continuing to grow, too. For the last few years, we've done a citywide mailer, and people look forward to this every year. Actually, just today, I got an email from somebody in Geneva to ask if we had our comprehensive document ready for the year yet. Um, so we know that those things are working. Um, we have uh new things coming in with our marketing though. We have uh planned new avenues such as WBEZ uh spots, radio spots, um and some additional uh signage that you'll see. So, one thing that we heard from the neighborhoods in the community was it would be great if you could put a sign up a couple weeks in advance so we can plan. We thought that's a great idea. So, that's what we're going to do. Um and we'll see how that works. Um and bettering communication with businesses and residents. Um this is something that we always strive to do. Uh but last year what we noticed and continue to notice I say we didn't do it these two wonderful people did most of it uh we send a letter for every single time that a special event whether it is sponsored by the city or otherwise right if it's a co-sponsored event um closes a street for an event if there is an impact to that area a letter goes out we send thousands and thousands of letters and at some point right it becomes you get blind to it it's like the traffic signal boxes um So, we're working with the commu uh communications team in the city manager's office to find another avenue to communicate with people. So, in the letters that folks will be getting this year, we're trying to slim those down, but also we've created a QR code so that we'll let people know, hey, sign up here and we'll start sending this to you an email instead, you know. So, it's another another way to keep um doing that. And we also do a lot of uh beating the pavement. We call it door knocking. uh especially uh Peter, Chris, Selena, we all know the downtown and many of the neighborhoods very very well. You can't go grocery shopping here. Um and then one more thing just to

provide some scope. Um Chris was just saying we have our next community engagement committee meeting this week. Um and that agenda is already three pages long. So it's not just us that are continuing to produce events, it's the community. Um, for example, from the beginning of May to the end of September, there are three weekends that do not have some kind of programming taking place, whether that is cityr produced or a part of the outdoor incentive program. Three weekends. It It's a lot. Moving on to the Hemans Cultural Center for 2026, uh we are really leaning into those new spaces. People, the renters and people coming into the space are really loving that flex space. um and they're using it different ways. We're still learning how to use it um and figuring out the best ways to get people into the building because the important thing is right the Hemens is a community building and so we want to make sure that the community feels safe there um in every in every way possible right and sometimes that just means opening the door. So in addition to using the flex base, we're also using going to be using the box office in a more consistent manner, I will say. Uh and that comes in the form of bringing ticketing inhouse. Um and so you'll hear more about that later in the year. Um and we're also doing more small space programming that comes in the form of uh the green room improv downstairs, the Daryl Nits program downstairs, and we're utilizing those kinds of spaces. So, not everything is taking place on the main stage, but rather thinking about the building as a whole space. Um, the 26 27th season is currently being planned and I can't tell you too much about it yet because contracts are still being negotiated, but right now we have 11 shows planned. Um, the two that I can tell you about uh is um Hollywood Revisited, which is currently slated for September 25th. Um, it has performers coming in and reenacting songs and

dances from favorite movies. And this is a program that is put on in partnership with the Gilboard Library um that are that is doing a a costume display which they did once before and it was really popular and so that was a a great collaborative opportunity for us. The other one I can tell you about is October 30th uh we'll be showing Rocky Horror Picture Show um with some live components and that's as much as I can say about that one right now. Um, yeah. So, uh, formalizing partnerships, again, it really is expanding how we're using the whole building. So, we're looking at things like additional open mic nights and that kind of thing. Um, and then the two other pieces are the operations manager and the front of house supervisor. Operations manager um is uh was approved by city council in the budget. This is an effort to continue our succession planning as longtime Hemen's director Butch Wilhham seems to think he gets to retire this year. Um, and our front of house uh, supervisor, which uh, we actually just hired and we'll be starting very soon and we're really excited about that, too. All right. Now, we're going to talk a little bit more about the special events portion. Um, with the removal of the end of summer bash, movies and concerts in the park, they're not really we're not adding more. Instead, what we're doing is really deepening the intentions of those. Um, and that is a direct response to the community. So, to talk about that, I'm going to invite up community events coordinator Chris Holling, who is just the best. I'm really tall, so I'm going to have to um duck down a bit. Thank you so much, Amanda. I really appreciate it. Um, you can send the invoice to me later for all those wonderful comments you made about me. I'll make sure to pay it. Um, good evening, everyone. It truly is an honor and a privilege to stand before you. Um I'm very excited to talk about um two um event series that um are I'm a little

bit biased but are my favorites um that I am very fortunate to stand at the helm at um with with my team as well. So um starting with movies in the park um so we are we have been very intentional um with curating very um community- centered experiences um when it comes to movies in the park and concerts in the park as well. Um we are truly driving the neighborhood access and community reach. Um we have uh 10 movies uh planned for this season um more than in prior years. Um and then we will be going into eight different parks um focusing on the community increasing accessibility um and neighborhood engagement for families. Um also with this series comes expanded programming beyond the film. Um so we create a very well-rounded theatrical experience. Um but with that um and the theatrical experiences due in part um to the generosity of council um approving the projector a couple years ago. Um that truly has enhanced um the movie experience and has allowed us to be able to excuse me allowed me to be able allowed us to show movies earlier um in the day. Um but with that what kind of sets us apart is that we are able to offer these premovie enrichment programming which um is a variety of different things that can include performers, props, visual arts and different leisure activities um that really um drives forward um the family experience. Um we also have responded to the community demand. So, we truly elevate a lot of the feedback that we receive from the community and make sure that we incorporate that into our planning process for a lot of these experiences. We can't do anything without the community. Um, they truly are the backbone for a lot of our experience. So, we definitely bring a lot of what they want to see um at our different events to the forefront. Um, attendance has steadily grown amongst these events. Um, the program expansion is in direct response to that. Um, as Amanda mentioned, with the removal of

End of Summer Bash, that allowed for re re resources from that event to be reallocated um to these different um movie experiences to really strengthen um that uh pre-enrichment programming initiative. Um we also bring on community partners. These are nonfor-profit entities that drive um concession sales. Um so very fortunate um to partner with a lot of different groups that are able to elevate and expand their fundraising initiatives and efforts. Um partnering with us um speaking to concerts in the park next uh concerts in the park um truly uh uh unites the community through music. Um we bring in a lot of different a variety of different entertainment acts. Uh we have uh 10 uh concerts um in our series for this year um split between the Wing Park band shell and the pavilion at Lords Park. Um we've been partnering with uh parks and recreation um to ensure the usability of these different facilities and they truly serve as a beautiful backdrop um to these special events um which we're very excited about. Um the conference conference in uh in the park series emphasizes diverse entertainment acts. Um, like I mentioned, um, this truly drives a stronger event atmosphere, um, while supporting local organizations and businesses. Uh, for each concert, we bring out a food vendor. So, they are able, um, to sell on site, um, at our respective locations, um, to really, you know, allow them to get access to the community and um, drive some of their business as well. And then at uh concerts in the park again we uh partner with different vendors um to really elevate the programming that we have planned for those experiences. Um and as a Amanda mentioned we um have restructured our movies on the lawn that formerly took place on the Hemans Cultural Center South Lawn um to Bruise

and Views um which um will create kind of an elevated experience um for I won't say old but a seasoned more mature demographic. um that really allows them to experience a very unique um kind of viewing experience. It'll um you know have ticket sales and be able to create a very comfortable setting um for guests. And next I will bring up my colleague our special events manager Selena Tapia.

All right. Good evening everybody. So I'll be dipping and waving here as uh we talk about different things coming up in the slides. So uh the Fourth of July parade and celebration returns this year with an expected combined attendance of over 25,000 people. Um as this year event coincides with the nation's celebration of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. So staff expects the attendance to be a much larger crowd um this year. Some great things to come um with all of that is that our grand marshall this year is the YW.CA which is celebrating their 125th anniversary. The pep parade returns with a few new twists and partnerships that we're really excited about and our part- timerrs have been working really hard on. Um the showstoppping Mid American Air Force Band will be joining us in the parade this year which is a really cool snag that we've been trying really hard at for a couple years. Um, DKS will also be adding to the fun as we always do with a few floats into the parade this year to showcase the year's theme that Amanda mentioned earlier, summer of imagination. So, you may see some dinosaurs shaped clouds or a life-size ice cream and perhaps even a pirate ship. We we make things happen. you know, our team. Um, fan favorite performers uh will come back to the parade as well in that include the Jesse White Tumblers and um I think Sam the Big Wheel is coming back. So, a couple of cool ones that people enjoyed last year. Following the parade, the fun continues at Festival Park with the celebration. So, the tabletop games are coming back, the pie eating contest, uh food and drinks, all are returning this year. Uh, three amazing bands will grace the stage before the night concludes with the spectacular fireworks display that we always have. Um, new to the celebration will be an interactive uh,

butterm exhibit and activity um, to coincide with some of the 250th celebration. So, folks will be invited to the table to turn cream into butter in just a few short minutes. This was tested by Amanda. Um, and then they can enjoy their homemade treat with a tasty breakfast snack or pancake. So, that'll be really fun to watch the kids do. Um, and then I think Amanda's back up to talk about the 250th a little bit. Yes, she's right. We tested it because they didn't believe it was possible. It was yummy.

It was good. Said, "I'm from the South. We do this." Stupid. Um, okay. Yes. So uh work working forward the Elgen is participating in the semiquincentennial uh anniversary. So the 250th uh anniversary of the signing of the declaration of independence which is too many words to say. Uh and in doing this we are working with the enhancing elgen committee. Uh Carol Gizki who was up here earlier spoke a little bit about it. It's an amazing group of people um that we're really we've been working with with for several months and we're really excited about all of the different things that they're doing. Um the public art efforts are one of the things that I wanted to mention. You'll see in this picture um one of the things that we're doing which is uh carving butter. Uh so Elgen has a deep history of milk and butter and I've had this idea for carving butter for probably eight or 10 years. Um, and we never figured out how to do it. And I pitched it to this room full of people and immediately everyone started finding solutions. And now we have butter sculptures that are live at the Gilborn Library right now. Um, our amazing uh, part-time special event coordinator, Kim Alvarado, was able to contact a whole bunch of different local businesses and get the butter donated by Prairie Farms. Um, and there are a few additional partnership partnerships and inind sponsors she's sourced as well. Um, we haven't completely inked them, so I'm not going to tell you who they are. On top of that, uh, Sid Street Studio Arts, U46, the Illinois Arts Council, um, and the city are all working together to create and issue, um, a call for art that will go out, if not today, probably tomorrow, uh, for both 3D and 2D art. Sid Street was invited by the governor and the Illinois Arts Council to apply for a grant, which they were awarded. Um, and we're really excited to see what it is. The theme is the future of America and kids from K through 18, K through 12, 18 and under, it's late, um

are allowed to apply. Um, and Fred Whims, who is our artistic project manager and creator of Nonsense, hence pirate ship, uh, is going to work with his artistic group, Your Neighbor, to turn a 2D drawing submitted by a kid into a 3D sculpture, which will be installed on the corner of Riverside where it turns into Prairie for the next several years. We're really excited about that. Um, the 2D images will be on display on the Elgen IL250 website for the next several weeks after they're done. Um, and if we're able to get it done, what we would like to do as well is take a winner from that, uh, and have fabric printed and that fabric will then turn into pet bandanas for our pet parade. Um, every child that submits will also get gift certificates to Buffalo Wild Wings and a few other sponsors that U46 was able to source. So, it really is truly a deeply community effort when it comes to the public art efforts. Um, the butter sculpture and exhibit, like I said, it is currently on display at the Gilborn Public Library. Um, I spoke with uh several of their staff over there and the response has been pretty phenomenal. Uh, and so they've asked to keep it a little bit longer. Uh, we've had sculptors from Go Rockford. They do an ice sculpting exhibit out there. They've contacted us and want to participate. And so now we have additional sponsors coming in. And so we're adding a second one. So, you'll be able to see a second display case of butter at city hall in the coming weeks. Um, which is very exciting. Uh, we're also working with Chris Murphy at Explore Elgen Area and the Illinois State Fair about a potential partnership to get some of these sculptures down to the state fair in August. How? I don't know. That's a August problem. Um, and then lastly is the website which Carol also mentioned. Uh folks are invited to submit recipes um which hopefully we'll be able to print into an Elgen cookbook at the end of the year. Um and then Selena was able to source some time

capsules. So those will be available for purchase at many of the enhancing Elgen partners. Um and we're working with the history museum to get a DIY sheet and a one sheet on how to get those done. So, we're really excited about all these crazy bananas ideas and a way to celebrate the 250th that is specific to Elgen and makes it feel like it's a community effort. Um, and so with all of that craziness, I'm going to hand it back over to Selena. I'm back. All right. So, La Fiesta, the Eldren returns to celebrate Mexican Independence Day at Festival Park on September 12th. Um, this is building on the success of previous years. Uh this event marks the city's third largest event of the year um behind Nightmare on Chicago Street and only slightly behind uh the 4th of July. So Saturday begins with the return of our car caravan sponsored by the Friends of Masons in the morning while the afternoon and evening events take over Festival Park. Um it truly is beautiful how it transforms into a little version of Mexico City. um even complete with our own replica of the angel of independence um which stands right in the center of the park. Um, some additional touches include the piatas, the kayon, and the elgen papel picado. Um, obviously there's food and drinks. Everybody loves those. Um, and so they'll be there for the duration of the event. Um, and this year's event will see the angel of independence. Um, will be adding the base to the sculpture, which I'm really excited about. Um, and that's thanks to the funding from the city council in the 2026 budget. Uh, live music is certainly the star of the day at Fiesta. Um, so we'll have some internationally known bands hosted by MC DJ Eddie P. Um, and then the evening is finished off with a second traditional GTO um, just before a

fireworks display. And I think you're back up. All right, moving on to Nightmare on Chicago Street. Just a quick recap of 2025. Uh, 2025 we had some new partnerships. I've already talked about Paramount Scar, so I'm not going to beat that dead horse. Uh, we had some new fun props because it's a Fred show thing. Uh, we had a revamped CIRC area, which is displayed here in this image, and it was the most amazing part of the event for me. Um, because I don't like scary things. Uh, but it was beautiful. Uh, so much so that it was the thing people talked about, maybe the most, and so we'll be bringing that back. Uh we had a new undead pile that was built and led up to the plane crash that people loved uh and created several new um photo opportunities and we partnered with a few of the downtown businesses to create pop-up bars which were really successful. Uh the event was uh what is technically called a functional sellout. Uh what that means is that if we hadn't reopened the previously capped tickets, so we had pre-sales in June, we allow a thousand of those. We did not sell those out, but those are set aside so that we continue sell the regular tickets. Um, if we had just sold those regular tickets, the event would have actually sold out. But rather than not get as many people in the door as possible, we we opened up all the tickets. Um, and ultimately we sold 14,270 tickets out of 15,000 available tickets and all of the VIP was uh VIP parking was sold out as well. Um, a massive growth in sponsorship, merchandise sales, and profit shares also, uh, was great for 2025, and we're looking forward to more of that in 2026. So, let's talk about 2026. Uh, the biggest thing, uh, biggest change is certainly the Friday night concert. Um, we are so close to being able to tell you who the bands are. Um, they're really, really, really, really good. Uh,

and we're very excited about it. Uh so much so that Peter Tesco, who is the major events coordinator, has some incredible sponsors on on board uh that are national uh and looking to not just write us a check, but actually collaborate with us, which is how we like to do stuff, and we're really excited about that. Um the Friday concert was approved as part of the 2026 budget. Um it will take place just on Chicago Street. Uh and it features the main stage with three bands, um and some sneak peeks of nightmare flavored things because it is still at nightmare. Uh food and drinks will also be on offer for Friday. Moving into Saturday, uh nightmare perimeter remains the same while some of the things on the inside of the zone may shift a little bit. Uh the return of the themed streets which is going beautifully. This is uh an image from the Plaza Milan Street which is on Grove. Um if you haven't been to Nightmare to see this, this is worth going for. Uh the Kingdom Plantai, the safe zone, and many more. Uh, we will also have the Plaza stage and the DJ stage coming back. Vendor applications for Nightmare will go live soon. Um, and musical artists are being finalized now. Pre-sale tickets will go on sale in June for those early birds. Um, as usual. Um, so the next thing that we're going to talk about is the outdoor incentive program. Uh, this is in relation to the item that's on the agenda tonight. Um, and for this I'm going to bring up Chris and Selena. They are the leaders of this program. They are the architects. They are the people who deal and handle and cajul and handhold all of the folks um that that manage it. So they will take it from here. All right. Um so based on the co-sponsorship program is the newly revamped outdoor event incentive program um which provides funding for businesses and organizations to produce outdoor

events in Elgen. The program was revamped this year to expand what was previously offered um to provide additional guidance to potential applicants and increase and diversify award levels and options. Um so there are four um Thank you Chris. There are four program options uh for producers to select from. Uh there is active Elgen which is your 5Ks, runs and walks. Um some that come are coming through this or have come through this are Elgen Foxtrot um Elro the one that's hosted by the Gilborn and Library. Uh there's market makers uh which is um farmers markets uh art fairs things like that fall under this one. launch programs are uh folks wanting to do new events in Elgen. So, new program producers. This one's my favorite out of the four um because it just brings in new events and new community leaders to do stuff in Elgen. Um and then the last one is the Encore program um which is your larger outdoor festivals um which can include like Elgen Pride, Love on the Lawn um things like that. Only the launch and encore programs provide a financial component in the form of a one-third payout um of the total award and then the rest of them are all only in kind. So active and market are in kind. Um a total of 15 applications were received in 2026. Um and that's up from six applications in 2025. Um so it is great to see how many events are coming through this program. Um it's been awesome to see. events are increasing uh but the bucket of funding remains the same. So this means there's more competitiveness among um community groups and the type of events that are coming to Elgen and finding greater efficiencies for this program. Is there anything you want to add?

Ditto to everything Selena said. Um but I just want to highlight that it truly has been a rewarding process being able to empower these groups through this um program. We get to work with um a lot of different um diverse um event producers and truly helping them make their event operations more successful. Um kind of again giving them the freedom and autonomy to produce these unique experience within the city of Elgen, but also allowing us to amplify some of the resources we have that you know rather might not be accessible to them. So, um it really is great to be facilitators facilitators of this program um and really um partner with these different entities and putting on their experiences. It's been really magical for us. So, thank you. And to round it out, I'll just provide a very quick update on the Dow project. council may remember uh in 2024 uh it was approved to partner with Eric Dow Studios to create an original folk art drawing a painting image um of Elgen which will then also be turned into a puzzle um working with them the image has been finalized um it's fabulous we will have our unveiling with Eric um which is actually called no missing piece it's a beautiful ceremony where the community is invited um we're looking at late spring, hopefully sometime at the end of May. We haven't finalized the date yet, just based on his availability. Um the puzzle sales will take place at a variety of the city's partners um as well as some of those uh businesses and locations that are actually depicted in the puzzle. Uh we are looking forward to that. Those will happen in conjunction with the unveiling um and uh will also be available at the Hemans uh through the DKES department. Um, another big piece about this is I guess I could change to the actual slide. That'd be helpful.

Another big piece of this is uh the city also purchased an 8 foot by 10 foot 10 foot version of the image. This is just an example of his work. Um, that is puzzleized uh and is coming as well. It will be at the unveiling and that 8 foot by 10 foot puzzle will actually be displayed in the Fourth of July parade for people to see as well. a little bit of a little bit of Elgen uh in a different way. So, we're excited about that. After that, it will be displayed at the Hemans Cultural Center. Um and it's a traveling wall, so who knows where you'll see it after that. Um so, with that, that's that's all we have. We tried to be quick. I'm sure it wasn't as quick as you wanted. I apologize, but um

any questions for Amanda and the uh Chris and Morrow? Thank you. Um, thank you for that information. I have a couple of questions and a couple comments. Um, can you share with um, I know uh, Amanda, you and I met recently and so you guys share some information that I think it's beneficial for the public. Can you share a little bit of like the technical assistance that your office does when people are looking to apply for a grant and how you walk them through? Can you share a little bit of that?

Certainly. So, uh, the very first thing we do, um, is one of the things that most people know about our team is we're ridiculously available to available. So, you can call, email, you can stop by, um, and one of us will get you to the right person. Um, outside of that, everything that we provide in terms of uh, assistance is always online. Um for this year's um program, Chris and Selena actually hosted an online session uh because there were some changes and we wanted to make sure that it was available to people to, you know, ask questions. Hey, this is slightly different. What about this? What do you recommend here? That kind of thing. And while Chris and Selena don't sit on the voting and the scoring, they are the ones that are making sure that the application is complete, that is it is as tight and and fully fledged, fully fleshed out as possible. Um outside of that, their application itself is incredibly detailed. Uh it provides uh direction on which place, which of the four programs you can apply for online. Uh as well, there is a matrix that helps you determine at least as a as a base point, what kind of staffing you would be looking at. Uh there are some things that we know for sure require specific staffing. So, for example, if your event is going to have alcohol, you're absolutely going to have to have police. So, that kind of information is also online. But that said, at any point, any person, whether they're applying for this or whether they're just looking to host an event, can contact um Chris, Selena, and or myself, and they'll walk them through the application. The kinds of questions that we get are everything from what kind of what street do you think we should close or what about this? And because we work with every department in the city, we have just enough knowledge of every piece to to provide some starting direction.

No, thank you for sharing that because I think many times um when people apply for grants, specifically government grants, um it could be burdensome, hard, and not sure who to go to to for assistance. And so I appreciate that your office is providing that assistance and being that, you know, welcoming and and open to the public. So thank you for sharing that. Um, I do want to ask a question that I know council member um, Paul has asked in the past and just wanted to follow up. Um, you we brought up the updates to the Hemans. When could we see a credit card use? That's in pro in we have that now.

Oh, it's in there already. Yeah. Okay, perfect. Thank you for sharing that. No problem. I haven't been over there since they had the credit card. Um, and thank you for sharing on the slide that the uh Lor's Park concerts are coming back because as an eastsider, I really appreciate that. So, I don't have to go all the way to the west side for that. Uh, so thank you. Um, and then my other comment is, um, and I know this is a comment I've brought up several times in the past before, if there's a way that we could find a showcase more of Latino heritage beyond the Mexican culture, and I say that as a Mexican. um to figuring out how we can, you know, uplift other ethnicities. Guatemalans, Colombians, Salvadorans, Venez Venezuelanos or um uh oh god, I'm thinking in Spanish now. Okay. Um but like different ethnicities, right, that live in our community now and their numbers have grown and so seeing how we could figure out and how to incorporate them during Hispanic Heritage Month or sometimes throughout the year. So, um, can you explain maybe some plans you might have to be inclusive to those demographics?

Sure. Um, I can tell you as a starting point when when Lafiesta first started, it was actually Konuyo. Uh, and that started as a all-inclusive Hispanic Heritage Month celebration. Uh, we opened the doors because that's who we are as not just an organization, but as a community and as individual people. um and had everybody who wanted to be at the table at the table. Um and it didn't work. Uh people were the feedback that we got was overwhelmingly that it was too watered down. Uh this is similar feedback to what we have what special events in general receives when uh an event isn't specific enough. This has happened at a few other locations and a few other events. And so moving into the next year, we altered it and made it much more specific to Mexican Independence Day. And the idea there was to kick off Hispanic Heritage Month. And what we did instead was to partner with those other entities, other community groups who were already doing that program rather than duplicating it. One thing that we always try very hard to do is collaborate with things that are already happening rather than recreating the wheel. That's an efficiency especially because as lean as we are and you I mean you saw the calendar we don't have any availability. Um so we did that with the library with a few other organizations. Um and that has worked incredibly well. Um, beyond that, as we moved into the outdoor incentive program, I know I had several meetings with a few of the other organizations in the community, um, about how to engage with them and how we could meet their needs and pointed them to some resources in the same way that I would do with anybody. Um, and that's really how Lafiesta started as well. Lafiesta started from the community um, and has grown for that purpose. So moving into the next year, I'm assuming you meaning like 2027.

Yeah. Because I'm assuming, you know, it's 2026. A lot of the bands have been contacted, things are contacted, right? And I've mentioned in the past like

as we use Fiesta as a kickoff to Hispanic Heritage Month, showcasing just one Latino culture is not inclusive to Hispanic heritage, right? And so trying to figure out how we could do another event that encompasses some of the other Latino cultures, right? um if we're going to utilize Fiesta as a kickoff uh to Hispanic Heritage Month, right? And so like going beyond that, so figuring out what that might look like maybe in 2027 there's Right. And as you mentioned, you like u partnering with community organizations, maybe there is a call out for something specific that this is what we're looking to partner with if someone has the capacity to do this to to uplift additional Latino heritage in the community. So, some of that's actually already happening this year um via the outdoor incentive uh outdoor event incentive program. Um which is how we want to see these things grow, right? It's about empowering the community. It's a it's a you know with not for it's a with not you know it's it's not everything comes from us and it and it shouldn't. And so with this program, we're able to empower groups that are bringing Baroque Fest and Vivivala. And you know, as as they mentioned, we had 15 applications up from six. And many of those are doing exactly that. And so from my perspective, and I think the staff on my team would agree, rather than the city producing it, it's about creating space so that those who are doing it in their communities have the ability to do that and connecting them to resources to do so. That's what I was saying that like maybe there's a call out for that, right? Um the additional demographics I know uh you had mentioned sharing and and the organization did come publicly and shared in public comic that there's buriqua fest in August etc. Right. Um but if we're utilizing Fiesta um the Elgen as a kickoff and saying it's a kickoff of Hispanic Heritage Month, then as a community, as government, as taxpayer dollars, and as

we are committed to a diversity, equity, and inclusion policy, we should be inclusive to all as much of the Latino heritage that we represent in this community than just one. I understand, council member, and we did remove that language from the website as requested. The event is Lafayette, Elgen, a celebration of Mexican independence day. Yeah. And so if there's a way that your office can work in finding a way to be more inclusive next year to additional demographics and that's what I'm saying, right? For this event specifically

or no, no, no, no. Just it could be it's separate event. I'm not saying it has to be tied to Fiesta, right? It could be some other kind of event which that's what I'm saying is you had mentioned partnering with other organizations. Maybe there is a call out. This is something we're looking to do in the future in 2027. We're looking, we're seeking organizations who can showcase the culture of various different Latino cultures in the community, right?

What that might be an Aurorio Latino or something, right? Latino proud. And this is what that looks like, right? And so I'm just saying to find a way to be more inclusive as the taxpayer dollars is for everyone in this community, not just for Mexicans for Fiesta. just for for clarification. So, we know there are two additional Hispanic related events that are being recommended for approval in 2026. Correct. Right.

Correct. Okay. Right. But I'm talking about just uplifting additional demographics of Latino events. Right. So, one is focused to the Puerto Rican culture and then the other one is more of just a Latino. We don't know all the additional demographic to that, right? We don't have all the details to that event. And so I'm just saying if we could find a way to be more inclusive to ensure or even during Hispanic Heritage Month, we as a city trying to find a way to uplift other Latino cultures.

I think there's a few issues. Um, having done that before, it would definitely not be my recommendation to add an additional event that is not as focused. Um, and especially not one produced by the city. Uh, I definitely believe and would recommend that that stuff come from the community and I think that that's where we're moving right now. Um, I think the other piece comes down to capacity. We don't have capacity anymore. There's not a free date on the calendar from May to the end of September. When you start talking about Hispanic Heritage Month, right, we're talking about the middle of September to the middle of October. That's our busiest time of year. And so it is trying to figure out, okay, if we can't do it, how can we provide opportunities for others, but it sounds like what you're requesting is for the city to produce another event.

What I'm saying is find a way to partner up with community organizations. I said that we could do an RFP or something. I'm trying to I'm not super creative. So, I'm asking that the office go back and try to figure out what that might potentially be. But that's not just to that like trying to figure out how we can engage the Asian community more and how do we uplift the Asian community and do an event that showcases the beautiful cultures of the Asian community, right? And so trying to figure out how we can live up to our diversity, equity, and inclusion policy and trying to find how we could diversify our events a little bit more with culture. So maybe that's going to the grant and giving points extra points to a demographic that we are not seeing events from, right? Or or something. I'm trying to ask the office to come go back and brainstorm and try to figure out a way to be more inclusive and to draw more from our community. Understood. I would also just offer that the Lafiesta event happens because there is a huge portion of the community that comes to that. Uh we work with a extremely diverse population that represents the community in many other ways. That comes in the form of the artists that we work with, the vendors that we work with, the people we showcase in the parade. Um just because it's not a huge event doesn't mean that that effort is not being made. And I'd be happy to provide you with those statistics and that information if that would be helpful.

Yeah. But I'm just still asking, can your office look into trying to find a way? It sounds like you're you don't want to. I'm just not sure how to facilitate it, I guess. Okay. But I can certainly go back and look and see how there's a way that we could try to find a way in 2027 to be more inclusive to additional demographics. That's what I'm asking. Is that it, Miss Alaro? I'll leave it there. Okay. Miss Martinez.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you very much. Um Amanda and Chris and Selena, thank you. Um, you know, Amanda, I'd just like to say that I've been working with one of these groups precisely that, um, Councilwoman Alfaro is speaking about, uh, Borika Fest. Borika is something that is a community that, um, was very strong and then it kind of faded out and now they're coming back. And so I attended uh one of their uh events and it was um well uh attended at the library.

Yes. And so I spoke to you and we're trying to do something where it could be a little bit bigger. It's not something that the city's holding, it's something that they are holding. Correct. I know also with the Asian community, I've been to ECC where they also had uh it it wasn't an ECC event, but it was the community event. And uh I understand I love how when we first did um the the first event for uh the 16th of September and we did try to include everybody, you know, it's just that um it it was I don't know uh it wasn't attended as well and the people who did attend was because they had the their kids, you know, grandma and grandpa were there and uh I remember it was um Elgito and then after that we had um the concert and it was very very successful. Now uh the second time that we did it we um did it with uh the Mexican flare but what happened is we had different genres and even that didn't work. You know, I think the most popular were probably the Kumbia and the Vanda, you know, and you know, I I'll be honest, I'm not a Vanda girl because I think that's like a younger group, but um you know, I welcome it. Whatever brings people to Elgen, I think that's what we should concentrate on. So, I want to commend you and your group for doing that. And um I have seen events where um like let's say I believe it was um the Indian community where they brought um the difference between uh India and um Pakistan and there was another one Bangladesh and that was very interesting because they were very focused on it and this is what people were looking for and not only did I see the Asian community

but also different communities and I think that the library did a good job in diving into that. Uh I know for a long time too something that was really big was uh Somos Colombia, right? And so we we did things with them as well. I know they did things at the ECC and um you know, but I think it depends on the community and I think we've always been welcome to that. Uh thank you for doing a good job. But I lately have not heard much about um SOS Colombia. So, you know, it comes in and out. So, I get it. So, thank you, Mr. Dixon. Mr. Dixon. Hello. Hi. Butter.

Butter. Pretty awesome. That's an inside joke. But, um, thank you for the presentation. Thank you to the team um, for continuing to do a wonderful job with these community events. I always hear positive feedback about them. Um, and then I hear not so positive things sometimes. And so I don't mean to, you know, to hearken on the negative. Uh, but we have to sometimes have difficult conversations. And that's the one that I want to have. Absolutely.

And you and I had this conversation earlier, full disclosure. So I just want, you know, everyone else to to hear, you know, what I, you know, things that I hear. And I want to uh I want everyone else to hear what Amanda has to say. Um with the uh incentive program that's been in place now for a couple of years,

right? Um I've been approached, as I was saying earlier, by a number of different organizers, event organizers who complained um about what they the bill that they received at the end of the event, you know. Um, and you and I talked about it and you kind of, you know, walked me through it and, um, it seems to be a headache in some instances and not all instances for you guys. You know, you know, some event organizers are better than others as far as like the process is concerned and not to cast any shade on any one of these event organizers, but it just is what it is. And so I pose the question of is it worth it? you know, sometimes, you know, to have the program if it causes so much confusion, um, if it ties up your resources, your time, um, of course, and just, you know, your desire to do it some days. So, that's where I'll just start and, you know,

uh, yeah,

I know. I know. No, it's a it's a good question. Uh, and I welcome it. I welcome the difficult conversations. Look, we work in a field where not everybody values the stuff that we do because it's it's squishy, right? It's not a road. It's not a tree. It's not a building. Um, and we also work with so many different people in the community. We're never going to make everybody happy. And we live with that every day. And that's 100% okay. As long as we're within that majority, right, where where most people are happy with what we're doing, that's a success. And if we get complaints, we try to address those as they come. In relation to uh the outdoor event incentive program, this is a program, as I told you earlier and as we've discussed a few times here, that is has shifted right over the years. Um and that's due to several factors. Uh the majority of which comes back to the producers needing more guidance, needing more information, needing more help. Um, it comes down to some of their feedback, right? They said, "This part didn't make sense." And so Chris and Selena have sat with them. For every event that is on this list, each of these organizations probably has six to 10 meetings scheduled, not just with these two, mostly with these two, uh, but also with all of city staff. It's significant the workload. Um, and it starts sometimes at the very base level. What do you want to do? how do you want to do it? Right? And it's picking through those things. Um, some folks have been doing this for years and they're professionals and they want to bring their thing here to Elgen and we're really here to say great and we get out of your way. The intent of this program was never to provide programming support but only logistical support. That remains the the core of it today. Um, and that's been a very strong line that we've always drawn. Now that said, moving into this year, based on how things have gone over the last three, we

created the four categories. Part of this is because we saw growth, right? More people are doing runs and walks and all sorts of outdoor things. I don't understand it. It is not my thing, but a lot of people enjoy the outdoor stuff. And so we saw this increase in those activities. So we created this program specifically for that. We understood that they really what they're needing is more of that inind support. So that's how that program was built. Same with the makers markets, right? We saw more of this happening. More of these small b small tiny businesses who they don't have a storefront yet, but they see a market in Elgen and they want to come here and try some stuff. They don't necessarily need cash, but they need a place to be and they need some support to get here. So we created that version of it. Again, all inind. But then we had a few people come to us and we had this one big pile in previous years. But some of these folks were much smaller, right? They were your they were your barfests, right? They were these smaller groups who they didn't need the great big thing. They're starting small. They need more help. Not to pick on Barfest. They're great. We love them. But right, those smaller organizations, that's where the launch program came in. And so it does start from the bottom. And some of these folks needed that help, right? It was Chris and Selena sitting with them and saying, "Okay, here's how you do your budget. Here's what a budget looks like. Here's what we think you're going to need." Um, and then there's there's your encore group. These are people who have been doing things here for years, right? They have a higher expectation to meet. There's accountability that goes with this because at the end of the day, this is taxpayer money. This is city money and the accountability has to go along with it. And so this year we were moving into really trying to be strategic in implementing what those expectations are. Um a lot of these folks we've worked with for years um and have had the same conversation many years. And so

at the end of last year when some hard truths and difficult conversations were had there was some hurt feelings and and some feelings which is fine. Feelings have a place but facts and figures still matter, right? Um, and that's I think a little bit of what you're alluding to. Um, now that said, there are people who they are doing this and they say, "I'm going to do A, B, and C." And they show up on the day of their event and they do A, B, and C and they're going to do an extra thing here and an extra thing here and they're going to show up and volunteer at these other events and they're going to be a real community member. Those people, this program, we don't meet with them 10 times, right? they know what they're doing. The goal eventually is to potentially try to partner some of those people with some of the people who maybe need more help because again, it shouldn't all be us, but we're not there yet.

Okay. Can I something? I spent last Wednesday with the three of these individuals with a group of three individuals. We're trying to put on two events for the first time

and the patience. Well, first the expertise, the knowledge, but most importantly the patience that the three of you displayed while trying to work through something that's seemingly so easy as let's have a party on the prominade. What does it take to do this? It was three hours and we're nowhere close to completion. So that's three individuals there plus me plus the individuals over there. The amount of time it takes to put this in is there. And I get it that sometimes people miss. You can talk it's no different with Mark Malot in community development. You have all types of skill levels with developers that are coming in. Some are great at it, some aren't. But the sense that this staff should be judged by the by those who

Oh, I think you Hold on, Rick. I I think you um I think you missing where I was going. Well, because I wasn't because I wasn't criticizing staff. Like I said, I had this conversation with Amanda earlier, so I'm I'm not criticizing staff at all. I think they do an excellent job. What I what I'm speaking to is the miscommunication. I and I hear it from from both sides, too. So, it's so it wasn't me saying on the behalf of organizers that I've heard that, oh, city staff is doing terrible. That's not it at all. This is just this is an an open line of communication and I made Amanda aware that we would have you know that I would you know that we would have this conversation.

It was the best intentions but it's it's again it would be like me saying I'm ready to do something on the prominade. I think that I have it all figured out and I don't know anything. So I don't know if miscommunication suggests that there's something missing on both sides. I think at least from what I saw that night, there is a whole level of detail that many people who are diving into this in the first instance don't comprehend and they make their best efforts to get to the finish line. But I haven't seen any indication because of any lack of trying. That's

No, no, no. I don't I don't doubt that. That's that's not what I'm saying. I don't doubt that. Um, so, uh, you do everything that you can to make these events happen and you probably and you go above and beyond to do everything that you possibly can do to make these events a success, right? But it always doesn't work out the way that we had hoped, right? So, um, so the the next phase of the conversation was it's two years into the program or this is going into the third year. What if any tweaks could we make to make it an easier process? I know we implemented some things this year, but just thinking about it going forward next year, you know, after that, what other things can we do to continue to tweak this to make it to make it better and more streamlined and more straightforward so that we can kind of, you know, cut out as much of the confusion from the community as possible. That's the And you I'm not asking for the answer right now, but that's just the mindset.

Sure. Um, you know, part of that comes down to we're here all the time. Um, we're always willing and able to answer questions. I do think that there often times is a sentiment that when we come back and ask you 10 more questions that it's us putting a roadblock in your place when in actuality we're trying to give you a clearer path,

right? We're trying to get you to the correct application to to the correct humans to contact in those different departments. Um, and so in in In recent history, in our experience, it has been more positive than not. Um, it really in our experience has come down to funding and accountability to be honest. And so this year, this focus for staff is about resetting what a partnership looks like. It is about resetting what an expectation of a partnership is and understanding that at the end of the day, we do answer to the community. Um, and accountability does have to have a place here. Um, and so we are spending a lot of time doing that with with these members. Um, and we're looking at a few other things. You know, we purchased a mapping software and we're trying to figure out if there are pieces like, okay, how can we unify? What tools can we provide? That sort of stuff. Um,

okay. But we're not quite there on those pieces yet. Okay. All right. Um, can I ask you a question about um, it's actually it was actually agenda item E. Um, and it was concerning uh, Shamberg on stage. Sure. Right. So Shamberg on stage they're doing programming in Elgen even though Shamberg and stage on stage right? Yes. Okay. And um in their in the in their questions it seemed like they were kind of vague in answering some of those. Does that you recall it?

What piece are you referring to? I'm sorry. um like you you provided like some of the feedback um from each of the applications and it was you know they weren't exactly they Oh, you're talking about the minutes maybe. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So Shamburgg on stage is uh the the organization that just recently bought and has renovated 18 Villa. It's where the showcase is relocating but on the other side to 220. Um

and and yes, they have they're one of these organizations that we've been working with with for years. So, you know, years ago, their original applications were not great. And so, I've spent years kind of developing that. Um, and it's not that their application wasn't good, it's that it's hard to describe what a new work series is, right? And so, that's really what those questions kind of related to. Um, and in terms of item E on the agenda and um, those organizations are not given the opportunity to answer ask and answer questions when these are scored. Gotcha. So, it's what's in your application is how you have to tell that story. Gotcha. Okay. All right. That's cool.

That's the That's the Cultural Arts Commission that's making those determinations in item E, not Amanda and her staff. That's that's different than what we were talking about in F. That's a different group of individuals. Yeah. Yeah. No, I know. That's why I said jumping back to agenda item E because we moved on. I did try to ask a question about it, but I wasn't seeing, so that's why I jumped back. Okay. Give me one second. Another question. Um the difference in the amount available

Mhm. Um awarded, I'm sorry, there was an amount set aside of $332,500, but the amount being awarded is $211,000. And I should say I'm jumping forward to item D now. Okay. Or F. F. I'm sorry. F. All right. um the difference in between the two. Um we kind of talked about that. Can you explain what that difference is used for?

Sure. So um every year there is an amount that we award, but there's also amount that is essentially set aside. Um that is to replace equipment. Um equipment gets damaged every year. Tents blow off in the wind, table legs break. Um and that's something that this this funding helps to replace. That equipment is used by all of these organizations. um and it saves them a ton of money. So that's that's one of those pieces. The other piece is for um overruns in staffing that some of these organizations shouldn't be responsible for. So if something happens um this is a bad example, but I'm going to give it to you. Uh a few years ago, the during Pride, there was an FBI alert uh that there was, you know, some potential activity. Um and so there was a huge increase in staffing. And so we met with the police department and the fire, you know, department because it was an office of emergency management conversation um and made the determination at that point that if something like that were to occur during an event, that cost should not be put on that event organizer because it's not part of their event. Right? This happened and this h this event happened to be taking place. Um, and so that funding helps to cover those overruns. Um, as well as provide grace for some of these organizations if and when needed.

Gotcha. Gotcha. Okay. Well, thank you. Appreciate the presentation. Okay, Mr. Ortiz. Miss Harris, Miss Tapia, Mr. Holling. Appreciate y'all being here so late. Just want to let everybody know Miss Martinez lost her bet. She said we'll be out of here by 9:30. She took the under. It's now 9:47, so she owes me $5. Perfect. Um, so I appreciate the pres presentation and everything. I had a few questions. Wanted to go with what Mr. Dixon said about the extra money thing

and some of the equipment that might break throughout the year cuz uh things happen in life. Is that equipment the stuff that you you recently like educated me on that this box trailer that has like a bunch of equipment? Is that has replaced that stuff? Yes, some of that. Mhm. Yes. Okay.

Um, but it's also the additional equipment. So, uh, what council member Ortiz is referring to is we have a special event trailer. Um, so when one of these larger events takes place, one of the ways that we reduce the cost of staffing is we put all of these equipment pieces into a trailer. Um, and a land management or public works person drops the trailer and then the event organizer can then just pull all the stuff out, right? It's an efficiency we put into place, but that equipment gets damaged. Uh, but then there are other pieces. So, uh, bicycle fence for example, you would not believe the amount of bicycle fence that it takes to enclose festival park and when you create q- lines and so it's it's to purchase those things.

Okay. Um, I was going to ask about the projector, but Mr. Hing addressed that, seeing if it was working good for you guys. the out of the 15 is 15 or 16 uh awardes that we're giving money to today or tonight if it's I'm assuming this thing is going to pass. Uh how many of these are like Hispanic events? I counted six is is what what Hold on. The one below the Fiesta Patrias one is that the one from St. Joe's Church. Uh yes, Fiesta. No, fiestas papiestas. St.

Yeah, they they were on the uh they applied but they declined the money. So, we're not awarding them, but their event is still taking place. Their event is huge. Fiestas at St. Joe's. Yeah. Oh, because it's still on our list. They're on the They're on this, but they're not in the Okay. Okay. I'm looking at the little spreadsheet thing you have here on colors. So, um I do have colors. Rick makes fun of my colors. All right. I was just wondering about that cuz uh I was wondering if it was the church that applied and we're helping them out. Three. I mean, I would say four. Who? Oh, Elro. Yeah. Five. That's the library one, right? 46.

Yeah. So, five of the 15 is what I would say. Not that I'm eagerly putting groups into those types of boxes, but yeah. Okay. I would say And then uh this image reminded me I know we uh we killed the end of summer bash for staffing capacity. We're killing the drone show completely this year, correct? Or I didn't hear you that in a preview. We are not. The drone show will be joining fireworks at the 4th of July. Yeah. How do you let Mickey Mouse allow you to do that? Supposedly, he's the only one that could do stuff like that. I mean, we're DK's. We can do stuff. All right. Well, I'm glad to see you coming back cuz what you had for three years, I think this last year with the 3D and the dinosaurs. I think that was the best one.

Even though this is the best image that we've This became the signature image. Yeah. And the the butter making, Mr. Howling said it was for kids. I'm a kid at heart. Can I do it? Absolutely, you can do it. I encourage you to do it. It's really fun. The internet will tell you it takes 10 to 15 minutes. It doesn't. It takes four to five. Okay. It's amaz And you did try. I did. I was like, it doesn't take 15 minutes. Uh you we've got the little containers and local dairies are providing some cream and Yes. Please do it. It's going to be so fun. And then yeah. Yeah, that's it. And then your tie is better than Mr. Malots. Thank you.

All right. I know he's watching, so uh I'm going to throw a little jab at him. And then my very last one is I was looking at on your slide. It's on page on slide number. It's the one in the butter right there. It's slide 14. I thought that was Mr. Thorne in that cabinet and I had to zoom it in and I realized it was George Washington. Yeah, it's George Washington. I was like I wonder how you got his sculpture in there. But that's it. Thank you. Okay. Anything else? Mr. Thorne.

Thanks, Anthony. Uh, I just want to compliment you because being the historyoriented person up here, uh, valuing Elgen's past so much that, uh, some people might not know this, but Elgen was for over 40 years dubbed the butter capital of the world. And even the board of trade set their times by the Elgen butter market. Mhm. And the quarter stick of butter, the way we're used to now, when you buy the pound of butter and it's in four sticks, that was invented here in Elgen and used to this day. The Elgen cut. Yes. Yep. That's what it was called, the Elgen cut.

If you if you zoom in on our on our picture here, that's a picture of me. the the bottom of our display case. Uh a local artist that we work with um works in vinyl and he designed the bottom of this to look like a butter stick and it actually says Elgen cut on it. Great. Kudos to your history. Yeah, it is. Okay. Anything else for Amanda? Okay, we need a motion. Motion to approve. Second. Moved and seconded. Clerk, please call the role. Council member Zelaro. Yes. Dixon, yes. Good. Yes. Martinez, yes. Ortiz, yes. Stefen, yes. Thorne, yes. Mayor Captain,

yes. Motion's approved. 8 zero. See how easy that was? You guys get to go home now, right? Okay, Mr. Mr. Manager.

Thanks. Um, item G is a purchase from Urban SDK Holdings for traffic monitoring software. Urban SDK moni traffic monitoring software is a geospatial analytics platform that provides traffic speed, volume, congestion, and safety risk data across the city's roadway network without the need for any physical sensors. The city seeking to purchase this software to use objective data to better inform traffic enforcement strategies, traffic safety initiatives, and roadway planning. The data generated by this platform will be used by multiple city departments including the police, public works and engineering departments to prove operational efficiency and public safety. Move for approval. Second. Moved and seconded for approval. Any discussion?

So far I had a question for staff. It mentioned that um where is it that there was a free 60-day trial for workflow models and it starts after the first implementation call. I was just curious, have we started that or is that after this passes and then we haven't started that. We need the city council approval for that afterwards. Yes. And even with that 60-day period, um, corporation council, uh, back typically includes what we call a, I call it the get out of jail free clause. There's typically something that allows us to exit any agreement for 30 days without any cause. Okay.

Um, more importantly, this is a potential three-year agreement, but the city is is recommending just trying it for one year to see whether it actually delivers. Thank you. That works. Thank you. Okay. Clerk, please call the role. Council members Alaro? Yes. Dixon? Yes. Good. Yes. Martinez, yes. Ortiz, yes. Stefen, yes. Thorne, yes. Mayor Captain, yes. Motion's approved. 8 Z.

Item H is an agreement with the Kane County Child Advoc Advocacy Center Investigative Services Division for sensitive crimes involving children. The Kain County Child Advocacy Center, commonly referred to as KCCAC, is a division of the Kane County States Attorney's Office that investigates and prosecutes serious crimes involving children. KCCAC has been providing investigative services to the city since 2000 at an annual cost of $35,000. Council may recall that in 2022, the police department also assigned a part-time detective to KCCAC due to the number of cases originating from Elgen. That part-time investigator um or detective investigated 42 Elgen cases in 2025. KCCAC in 2025 completed a total of 90 Elgenbased cases. Given the significant case load, staff is once again recommending the agreement with KCCAC.

Move for approval. Second. Moved and seconded for approval. Discussion. Please call the role. Council member Zaro, yes. Dixon, yes. Good. Yes. Martinez, yes. Ortiz, abstain. Stefen, yes. Thorne, yes. Mayor Captain, yes. Motions approved 70 with one abstension. Item I is a purchase agreement with Striker Corporation for a power load ambulance stretcher. Fire department this year is taking possession of a new ambulance that was ordered in 2023. The city delays purchasing ambulance stretchers from Striker to maximize the warranty period waiting till the ambulance delivery is imminent so the city benefits from the longest period possible. In this instance, it's a seven-year term. Move for approval.

Second. It's been moved and second for approval. Any discussion hearing? None. Clerk, please call a role. Council member Alaro, yes. Dixon, yes. Good. Yes. Martinez, yes. Ortiz, yes. Stefen, yes. Thorne, yes. Mayor, Captain, yes. Motion's approved. 8 Z.

Item J is an amendment to the existing agreement with Thomas Engineering for design and construction engineering services relating to parking lot and alley maintenance in the 2026 program and finishing up some work that we were not able to complete in 2025 because of earlier weather conditions. So, the city annually budgets for engineering services necessary to complete its annual parking lot and alley maintenance program. Again, I stated due to the weather, the colder weather coming earlier in the year last year, the 2025 program was designed but not constructed. This amendment agreement enables the engineering firm to conduct inspection services necessary to combine the unfinished 2025 program locations with the proposed 2026 program locations. Services under the agreement include design engineering for the proposed 2026 locations and construction engineering for both the 2025 and 2026 locations.

Move for approval. Second. Moved and seconded for approval. Any discussion? Clerk, please call the role. Council member Alaro. Abstain. Dixon, yes. Good. Yes. Martinez, yes. Ortiz, yes. Stefen, yes. Thorne, yes. Mir Captain, yes. The motion's approved 70 with one abstension.

Item K is an agreement with the RGN Group Incorporated for lime residual disposal line inspection services. Many of you may or may not know that the Riverside treatment plant has a long pipe that transfers lime residual sludge to the lagoons at the Highlands Golf Course. This agreement is hiring RGN to um employ a device that will travel the length of that pipe, a tennis ball-shaped device to determine whether there's potential blockages or where we need to increase the flow of the pipe. Um blocking up the sludge transmission affects the city's ability to complete making water. So, this is a proactive investment, a little bit under $100,000 to take care of problems before they happen. Move for approval. Second.

Moved and seconded for approval. Any discussion? Clerk, please call the role. Council member Zaro, yes. Dixon, yes. Good. Yes. Martinez, yes. Ortiz, yes. Stefen, yes. Thorne, yes. Mayor Captain, yes. Motion's approved. 8 Z. Item L is the acceptance of public improvements and easement for the development that occurred at 1425 through 1435 Summit Street. That's the Markland property. And I know that many of the council members were there for the grand opening when that occurred. Move for approval. Second. Move in. Seconded for approval. Any discussion? Clerk, please call the role. Council member Zaro, yes. Dixon, yes. Good. Yes. Martinez, yes. Ortiz, yes. Stefan, yes.

Thorne, yes. Mayor Captain, yes. Motion is approved. 8 Z.

Item M is an amendment to the existing agreement for construction materials, testing, and inspection services at the sports complex expansion. As the sports complex marches towards an opening hopefully in June, we need to amend this contract because when it was initially issued, the amount of testing necessary based on the plans that was estimated fell short. This estimate was for the initial round of testing but didn't include retesting or possible extending testing intended to that was only uh identified on a preliminary basis. Since the initial construction work has been completed, more testing is required to ensure proper construction and stability standards have been met. The project, as I've said earlier, is now in its final stages with anticipated completion in June of this year.

Move for approval. Second. Moved and second for approval. Any discussion? Hearing none. Clerk, please call the role. Council member Alfaro, yes. Dixon, yes. Good. Yes. Martinez, yes. Ortiz, yes. Stefen, yes. Thorn. Yes. Mayor Carton. Yes. Motions approved. 8 Z.

Item N, more work at the sports complex. This is design and engineering services agreement for um updates to soccer fields seven and 8. Uh the city partnered with Upland Design in 2025 to develop plans and drawings to renovate these two soccer fields. Park uh park staff is continuing to work with Upland to develop renovation plans for soccer field 8. and will be using Upland design for the simultaneous bidding and construction of the proposed improvements for soccer field seven and then ultimately eight. The proposed agreement outlines Upland's design role in providing comprehensive services for the project that include architectural engineering uh designs for the soccer field along with assistance for the bidding process and construction management. Move for approval. Second.

Moved and second for approval. Any discussion, Mr. Ortiz? Uh, city manager, the two fields to the south of that, are those going to get redone also at a future date because all four of them need some TLC. I will take your your your um your observation to Miss Hermanson and and get back to you with a response on that. I'm I'm not doubting that you're saying that they need some work, but I don't immediately know if those are planned at this time. Okay. Anything else? Clerk, please call the role. Council member Zelf Faro. Yes. Dixon. Yes. Good. Yes. Martinez. Yes. Ortiz. Yes. Stefan. Yes. Thorne. Yes. Mir Captain.

Yes. The motion's approved. 8 Z.

All right. Moving over to Wing Park. This is an amendment to the existing engineering services agreement with Upland Design. Um, as we know, parks and recreation staff back in 2024 began working with Upland to create a parks master plan that uh contemplated an inclusive playground design as part of the application for an Oslad grant with the department uh the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. City received $600,000 towards improvements at Wing Park in 2024. The initial agreement with Upland was approved in March 2025. includes architectural and engineering design services, additional public outreach, permitting, bid assistance, and construction management. The city council approved additional funds in late 2025 to cover the newly identified scope items for the wing park improvements, and those were based on resident feedback from the public outreach meetings. This amended agreement encompasses all the additional fees necessary for Upland to both oversee the original and updated scope of this project. and um parks and recreation staff on page three of this particular memo did a great job um highlighting the additional scope of the work following what was additionally approved with the original scope of work have the maps with the blue and gold colors

move for approval second move and second for approval any discussion Mr. Ortiz. I like that uh G at the north end of of the park is added cuz I used to I used to live over on Mark Avenue growing up and we used to go through those woods and have to hop over that creek. So adding that foot bridge knowing the kids already do that. That's uh I think it's a good improvement adding that in there. You took that metal one out. Well, when I went there was all rusted and you didn't want to touch it. But I I that that community, that part of the neighborhood is going to like it if they actually have a walking path to get into the park from there. So, thanks. There you go. Okay. Anything else? Clerk, please call the role. Council member Zaro, yes. Dixon, yes. Good.

Yes. Martinez, yes. Ortiz, yes. Stefan, yes. Thorne, yes. Mirc, yes. Motion's approved. 8 Z.

Moving south in Wing Park. We're going to the new uh golf course clubhouse. This is bid 255034, alternate 4 for food service equipment. When the city solicited bids for the improvements to the Wing Park Golf Clubhouse, four bid alternates relating to the proposed kitchen on the facility were solicited. The city waited until it identified the preferred vendor that would be operating the kitchen facilities in the food truck at the um at the new clubhouse. And bid alternate 4 was selected as the um equipment package that um was identified to best suit the needs for the proposed services we'll be providing at that facility. It's about $156,000 in kitchen, refrigerators, faucets, and everything that's needed to um kit out a commercial kitchen.

Move for approval. Second. Moved in a second for approval. Any discussion? Clerk, please call the role. Council member Zaro, yes. Dixon, yes. Good. Yes. Martinez, yes. Ortiz, yes. Stefen, yes. Thorne, yes. Mayor Captain, yes. Motion's approved. 8 Z. Item G is a renewal agreement for mowing services. Uh, Q, excuse me. Thank you.

For property maintenance code compliance. Um, as many of you know, when property owners do not cut grass in excess of 8 in or weeds on their property, the city will take action to hire a third party to go and cut the weeds or grass on that property and lean the property for that amount. Before that happens though, um, Miss Phillips and Code Administration as part of the Department of Neighborhood Services give multiple instances for the property owner to come in compliance. Um, in the event that the grass is not cut, the fee for cutting the grass is leaned on the property, a $50 citation is issued and if necessary, the action will proceed to collection in order to get the fees. Uh, the fees for cutting the grass along with the citation are designed to make it less cost effective for the city to cut your grass rather than fire contractor to do it for you.

Move for approval. Second. Moved and second for approval. Any discussion, Mr. Thorne. Thank you, Mayor. Um, while I so compliment this, uh, you know, it makes me wonder, um, $50 fine, you know, if it's a fairly big yard or big lot, that's might what it might cost them to pay some guy to do it. No. Oh, but but that's in addition to the hourly rate of $185 to $220 an hour, depending on what the work is. So, when you add that to it, it's not worth paying the $50 fine to have the city come out and cut your grass. Thank you for clarifying that. I know uh that's all I had. I was gonna stop cutting my grass.

I thought you were planning to get your grass cut for 50 bucks. Anything else? Mr. Mr. Dixon. Yeah, I was going to make the same point is that I didn't I didn't get that part and I'm like Jesus like you know this is you know but um you know 185 uh to 200 plus dollars I mean that's a lot to cut some grass. So um if let this be your warning cuz you you have a $300 Yeah that's uh that's that's hefty and that's just cutting your grass. It's not, you know, cutting your bushes, your hedges, you know, dealing with your plants even, you know. So,

you got and that's by design. And for those that may recall the information in the memo, um, Miss Phillips did a great job outlining about how neighborhood services has been more effective in convincing people to get their grass cut before we have to go to these extreme services and and impose these hefty rates to get the weeds or the grass cut. Yeah. And so what we pay in this contract, we we we recoup we recoup much of it, right? Yeah. Okay. That's all. Anything else? Yeah, just to keep uh Rose here a little bit longer. I already got my five, so No, that's all. That's all. Okay. Clerk, please call the role. Council member Zafaro, yes. Dixon, yes. Good.

Yes. Martinez, yes. Ortiz, yes. Stefan, yes. Thorne, yes. Mayor Captain, yes. The motion's approved. 8 Z announcements from the council tonight. Yes. Oh, Mr. Dixon. Yes. I want to thank uh community member Mike. What's that? Lacer Lgo for staying the whole entire meeting. And uh so really appreciate you coming out. You're the only person in the audience. I know people at home can't see that. And uh I appreciate your words too as well. So thank you. Anything else, Mr. Mr. Ortiz?

All right. Uh, baseball starting up. Don't watch that many games. There's too many. But the Socks have won as many What? Don't Don't get mad because doing better than the scrubs right now. But, uh, the Socks have won just as many games now in spring league as it did last year. So, we're on the up. So, we had to win one more and we beat last year's record. I don't know who's worse. Uh, socks fans or Dallas Cowboys fans? Oh, no. They got us be I don't know, man. You They're America's team, but I don't know which America they're talking about. Both of you are delusional. I think coach fans are more annoying. Okay. Anything else? Better cheerleaders. Okay. Announcements from staff.

None. Mayor, thank you. Entertain a motion to adjurnn. So moved. Second. Moved and second to adjurnn. Clerk, please call the role. Council member Zafaro. Yes. Dixon. Yes. Good. Yes. Martinez. Yes. Ortiz. No. Stefan. Yes. Thorne. Yes. Mir captain. Yes. We are adjourned.