City Council - Regular Meeting

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Heat. [Music] Hey, Heat. [Music] We'll call the committee of the whole meeting, special committee of the whole meeting for the Elgen City Council for November 19th, 2025 to order. Will the court please call the role? Council member Zaro.

Dixon present. Good here. Martinez here. Ortiz here. Powell. Stefen here. Thorne here. Mayor Captain here. Approval of the minutes of the previous meeting of November 5th, 2025. Move for approval. Second. Moved and seconded for approval. Any corrections or additions? Hearing none. Court, please call the role. Council member Dixon. Yes. Good. Yes. Martinez. Yes. Ortiz. Yes. Stefen. Yes. Thorne. Yes. Mayor Captain.

Yes. Motions approved 70. Uh do we have any uh public comments this evening? That brings us to special presentations and discontinued deliberations of the 2026 budget and the three-year financial plan. Okay. Wait, I think Yep, there he is. Entering from stage right is the city manager. I see he's on Chris Beck time today. Boy, the cheap shots keep coming. He beat you by 10 seconds.

All right, there it is. That's okay. Well, it's not like we're looking for ways to fill up the day. Good evening, everyone. How are you? So, tonight begins the third evening of deliberations regarding the 2026 proposed budget in three-year financial plan. This evening, double computers here. All right. Want to remind everybody about the online budget book information on the city's website. City of Elgen. Wait, elgenil.gov/budget will bring you there and we'll be able with other the presentations. You'll be able to follow around with the information that Devon Nuraki is using from the city's online budget book. Um meeting agenda overview for this evening. We're going to begin with follow-up items that were presented to the staff by the city council last week. After that, we will go into a discussion about the utility fund that will be led by Deb Naraki with additional information provided by water director Norah Bertram. After that, an overview of the central area tiff. I will be providing that presentation assisted by community development director and economic devo guru Mark Malot. Um after that, we will have discussion about the city council's motion for the truth and taxation law. And if there's any follow-up questions that or not follow-up questions, if there's additional questions that we need to address after that, we will begin putting those on the list for discussions when we come back to the next uh meeting and deliberation on the budget on Wednesday, December 3rd at 5:00. On that evening, we'll finish up any wrap-up items at 6:00. The truth and taxation hearing will occur. And then later on, it's the seven o'clock meeting, the public hearing on the proposed 2026 budget and three-year financial plan will occur. This is all

anticipation of uh having what we hope will be unanimous approval of the proposed 2026 budget and three-year financial plan on Wednesday, December 17th at 7:00. So beginning with the followup items, the first item we will discuss is council member Al Farro had questions regarding the categorization of other charges in the various funds. Chief Financial Officer Deb Naraki is going to walk through a number of those areas and explain why all of these incidental items have that wonderfully descriptive term other charges but just what is comprised in most of those areas. Good evening Deing. The other expenditures category in the budget um depicts expenses expenditures that are unique in nature and do not fall into other categories such as earning and benefits or contractual expenditures. While some of these expenses you might see yeartoear, many of them are unique and maybe you only see them in one given budget year. For example, this category in the general fund includes the historic rehabilitation grants, which you will see from year to year. Um, an item that you would maybe only see in one particular year would be something like um the funding that was approved for Judson University for the PNC building. That funding was paid out in 2025, so you will not see that in the 2026 budget. As far as the general fund goes, the two most significant expenditures in this category are um the economic development

incentives in the 2025 budget and before um most of the economic incentive payments did come from the general fund, but the riverboat budget, as we discussed um last week, um still house the payments for the auto mall. those have been moved into the general fund this year which makes up a big part of the increase in the budget line item. Um, additionally in this category are the payments to the um, Lexington Hotel. Other than those type of items, there's the um, PSAs with the convention and visitors bureau and the EDG which was moved from the um, river boat also for 2026. um exterior paint grants, uh the Elgen Art Showcase, uh funding for the Elgen Public Museum, funding for the Cultural Arts Commission, um some sustainability initiatives, and the contingency fund for the general fund is contained in that category. In the recreation fund, there was $18,000 and it's for the city's contribution to the youth scholarship fund. In the riverboat budget in uh 2026, the conting the other expenditures category is the contingency fund and the sports uh capital improvement grants. that um budget line item dropped down significantly um in 2026 because of the items we described last year that moved over from the river boat to the general fund such as the uh economic incentive payments. Any questions?

Okay, questions Rocky.

Thank you. Good. Okay. Thank you, Deb. The next questions came uh with respect to property tax bills. what the impact of the current levy is, how that affects the typical Elgen home that management analyst Gio Hungo uh described to the city um last week. So Gio is going to come up to the podium today, provide a greater breakdown of the property tax bill overview. He'll also use a representative sample of a Elgen residence that hits in that 253,000 or so median household uh assessed valuation threshold. He'll tell you how he got there and we will show what that what that household would be paying in property taxes from Elgen's levy this year and what they would be expected to be with the uh proposed 2026 budget. Mr. Hung, good evening, Mayor, City Council. Let me just get to the right slide. All right. All right. So last week we talked about the impact the average homeowner would have based on the proposed 13.2% property tax levy increase. Um so this week I wanted to follow up and present a real example of an elgent property so you can see exactly what that looks like on an actual tax bill. Before I move on to the next slide, I do want to mention I'm going to hide the address and it's a property on the west side of Elgen 60123 neighborhood. Um, and the other thing I

want to mention, it does not include any other type of exemptions. It's just your typical homeowner occupied property. All right. So, when you go online, this is typically what King County looks like. This portion of the of the tax bill shows a summary of where your taxes essentially go. So, this particular property that I chose, it's in my neighborhood and it's actually worth 253,722. Well, it was assessed at that price. Um the other thing to note is that it was for that's the bill they paid this year. So it's the tax year 2024 but as we all know taxes are a year behind. So we want to focus on the city of Elgen's side. As you can see there are many taxing bodies. The total bill was 6,28 with 10 cents and 18% of that went to the city of Elgen which is a total of, 108 with 41 cents and the remaining amount went to the the other taxing bodies. Moving on. So like I mentioned last week, you can go on Zillow on Redfin onrealtor.com and it's going to show a market value for your property. And like I said, but what matters for this is the assessed value of the property. This same property, it's saying on Zillow that it's worth almost $39,000. And you might say, well, the tax was for 2024. And that's right. And Zillow estimates that in 2024, this house was worth $299,000. So it still doesn't equal the $253,000 that the property was assessed. And this property is your typical Elgen property. Three beds, two bathrooms, 1300 square ft, 9,000 foot lot. So, I do want to point out that discrepancy that like I mentioned last week, the assessed value and what still they all point towards the same direction, but it's hardly rarely the same number. So, keep that in mind. So, what you're seeing on this image

now, everything that's on white and highlighted with yellow, it was taken from that property's tax bill. So once you open up the actual tax bill, it's broken down into further pieces. So for this essential property, this current year, this property paid $661.14 to the general portion of the city of Elgenville. And then there's the pension side of the bill, which they paid $447 with 27. As you know the general portion which is the top one that covers uh core services for the city such as infrastructure, streets and other core services. The pension side obviously covers public safety pensions and IMRF pensions. So this year like I mentioned they paid a down $108 with 41 cents to the city of Elgen portion of the bill. Now with the proposed uh 13.2 property tax levy increase that property will now pay essentially 7 $146 with 98 to the general portion of the tax bill for Elgen and 511 93 to the pension side. That's uh a difference of $8484 on the general side and $6466 on the pension side. That would bring hypothetically that new bill for that property in 2026 to a down $258 with 91 for a difference of $150.50 or $1250 a month. Um I do want to say even without if we kept the general fund uh flat the pro the overall property tax will still increase on the Elgen portion due to the pension obligations. So people might see that say or have seen the headlines. We kept it flat but we kept the general one flat for over 11 years which covers the core services. The pension side has been going up because of pension obligations. And that one regardless if we keep it

flat or not your property tax bill on that Elgen city portion is going to go up. And like I mentioned last week as well, um, Elgen is just a portion of the bill and Cook and King County will use for 2026, they will use 2025 data. What I have right now is 2023 Cook County data and 2024 King County data. And I'm also going based on 2023 uh uh medium home value based on the census. But another thing to notice since I'm working with that old data, the total assessed value that I'm working with Kane and Cook counties essentially it's slower and I'm showing the increase of the city's portion of the side tax levy. So to keep it clean and simple, basically think about it as imagine if the these are going to be fake numbers, but think about if the total assessed value for Kane and Cook County was 100 million and we increased our portion by 10 million, but I'm using 2025 numbers for the city of Elgen 2023 numbers for Cook and King County. So if those numbers for 2025 for Cook and King County went up to 150 million, our 10 million portion becomes only a portion of that 150,000. Instead of being 10% of that 100 million, now it's only a portion of 150 million. So just to keep in mind because people will say yeah home values have risen which is correct but overall what it is used the total assessed value everything else has risen as well which means there's more money in that pot that essentially that pot of of money there and our percent that went up will essentially decrease by a little bit. That's why these are ballpark numbers. So, hypothetically speaking, this should essentially keep up with the inflation rate, but we know that the rates of the market has have been um they've been inconsistent in the last couple of years. Like, they they've all risen, but they've risen at different levels. So, just to keep that

in mind that these are all hypothetical numbers, but like I said last week, these numbers have been off. I do this every year. I've been doing this for the last four years uh behind the scenes and they're typically off by anywhere from 10 to 40 bucks um on the actual tax bill and it all depends on the market and how it's going to move. Um other than that, I believe that's it. So, I don't know if there's any questions. Questions for Gill.

Okay, Mr. Ortiz. Good evening, Mr. Hungo. Appreciate the followup. I don't remember if it was you or city manager Koso, but to re to correct me if I'm wrong. Even if the market goes up and down, we have a flat levy. Like we ours doesn't fluctuate with the market. So like when you say it's been flat for 11 years, that means we've been taking the same money all 11 years even though the market's been going up and down. Correct. We've been taking just the 27.8 million. Okay. ours has kept flat even though the market has obviously inflation has since 2014 it's risen well over 30%.

Okay. I just want to make sure I understood that. So if somebody asked me if it's going up and down our our rate might move but the money we're taking is staying the same. Correct. It's still a 27.8. Yeah. All right. Thank you. Yes.

U one quick note. Uh you know the uh county clerk is opening a new office in Elgen. uh to make it more convenient and if people have questions, it's a good time to ask those questions and they're going to have full staff there. So, it uh should be handier for the people of Ela. Yes. All right. Thank you. Thank you.

Thanks, Council Member Ortiz. Another way of answering your question, too, is you're correct. During the past 11 years, while the value of residences and businesses have been increasing their assessed valuations, the city has been collecting a smaller percentage of the value of those properties by keeping the levy flat at $27.8 million through all those years. So, correct, more wealth in the assessments, but the city has held the line at that same lower level. Um, there are two other uh follow-up items that assistant city manager Karina Nava is going to address. The first is the savings that are realized from some of the personnel recom from a personnel recommendation in the department of cultural arts and special events. And then she's also going to talk about a initiative or or an item brought up by council member Powell regarding LRS's green initiatives funding.

Hello. Hi. Good evening. All right. So for the DK or Department of Cultural Arts and Special Events um personnel savings. So um the role was created as part of our succession planning because our beloved um cultural center director is retiring after 39 years. It'll be 40 next year. Um and so this was an opportunity to um also support the department's growth uh and kind of reorganize a little bit. So by transitioning from cultural center director um to an operation um operations manager role, we are saving uh $42,585. Okay. Any questions on that? Okay.

Okay.

Moving on to the LRS green initiatives funding. So, as part of our contract with LRS, they provide us with uh $25,000 um for green initiatives funding a year for each year of our contract. So um this year the sustainability team um along with um the department of special events and also the sustainability commission um have been talking about um the water tap which essentially um it's a mobile water tap trailer for our special events and it's it would allow attendees to refill reusable bottles helping reduce single-use plastics and directly supporting the climate action and resiliency plans goals around water conservation and waste reduction. Um, so this aligns with the community feedback we got on our waste and recycling survey, uh, which called for stronger waste reduction options at events. And so this would be used at our festivals and major gatherings throughout the year, giving us a very practical way to improve sustainability at our events. And you might see there's a screen in the middle. So we'll be able to put city information on there or um, more information on events. And it's a pretty neat option. So, and this will be coming to the council for consideration at a later time. We're not sure if maybe next month, but if not, first quarter of next year.

Okay. All right. Any questions? Miss Powell. Thank you, Karina. So, I'm assuming it will this this little trailer will have um like Elgen water or something for people to kind of tap into and refill their bottles with. Yes, I'm assuming that it it's does not uh require electricity. That's one of the things that um I remember reading on it. Um but yeah, it would be able I mean, it's got a few different levers there. So, yeah.

And so, obviously, and and I really like this idea. This is nice. Um, obviously it's part of our education and and u advertising with our special events. This will be a new aspect in terms of encouraging people to bring their reusable water bottles because typically we don't allow people to bring in, you know, like outside drink, you know, to certain events. So this this will be a whole new education process around hey bring your your refillable water bottle so that you can refill it here. That this is this is really nice. I like that.

Yeah. And uh the sustainability team in collaboration with the um department of cultural arts and special events. That's a long one. DK's they've been working together to try and find creative ways and just to make this work and to also educate the community. And so I'm sure um they'll come up with something pretty neat. So the annual funding would be used to offset whatever the total cost and I know you said that this will come before us. So we'll we'll get all of those details. So yeah, we'll deal with that then. But this is ne Thank you. Yeah, no problem. I will pass it on to city manager. Oh Mr. Dixon. Yeah.

Uh thank you. Appreciate the uh presentation, Karina. Um, one quick question. Will this also be available to those who are awarded um, grant funds from special events when they do community events? Is or is it or are you thinking that it's only going to be for city-led events versus community-led? I can look into that and we can address that when we bring it forward to the council. Yeah. I'm not sure what the conversations have been behind the scenes. We haven't flushed it out completely yet. Yeah. Okay. cuz I think we can connect this with Dustin's party machine in the neighborhoods. I think that would be pretty cool. Party machine. Yeah. Yeah. The party in a box.

The block party in a box. I know logistically that could be challenging. So, we'd have to take a look at staffing and everything, but yeah, we'll we'll look at the different options and where we could use this and really maximize um the uh the water tap. Yeah. Anything else? Okay, thank you Karina. Thank you.

The final follow-up area also brought to you by council member Powell is a discussion of the revenue alternatives short of increasing the general fund levy. The revenue alternatives that you see on the screen here is what we talked to the revenue diversification initiatives that the city council put in place back in 2012. these well for most of these with the exception of the municipal use tax. But if you run for the first one, two, three, four, five on that list. In an effort to maintain that flat property tax level, these additional revenue streams were put in place. And I would argue that after 11 years of a general levy, it was effective in finding a way to but to reduce reliance on the general property tax levy on the residents and find ways of bringing in revenue that just doesn't impact solely Elgen residents and businesses. So we have the home rule sales tax to talk about the local motor fuel tax, the alcoholic beverage tax, the municipal electricity use tax, the municipal utility tax, and the municipal use tax. To make you feel a little bit better, I'm not going to talk about the bottom three. In each of those instances, the city adopted legislation that puts us at the maximum level of return on each of those initiatives. So, there is no additional revenue that the city could derive by making amendments to either of those three municipal utility taxes. So, for the purposes of this evening, we'll be talking about the top three. Uh the information was compiled quite quickly by Gio Hungo and Karina Nava and what they've done for us in these three areas that we're going to talk about is they've analyzed what we call our comparable communities that we use for collective bargaining purposes. But importantly and significantly, I think the column on the right in all of these instances is what's most significant because these are our neighboring competitors. And many of these potential revenue streams have the ability to push people to neighboring communities if

they're looking for a way to save some money. So this is the home rule sales tax comparison for again our comparable and surrounding communities. And if you look to the left side, you see that Elgen is a bit on the high side with Joliet only being a little bit higher with the 1 and 3/4% home roll sales tax. When you move over to the municipalities on the right side, Carpentersville is a bit of an outlier, one of our neighbors, but Elgen remains closer to the top of its neighboring communities looking down at St. Charles, Hoffman Estates, the Dundes, and Streamood West Dundee. So, we feel that we're competitively positioned at 1 and a.5% home rule sales tax, particularly as it relates to communities where other persons might go to try to get a reduction on the price of goods or sales. Now, we run some alternatives with increasing the numbers in these figures to a 1 and 3/4% sales tax and a 2% sales tax. And I can tell you that I was not the one who made those calculations. It was chief financial officer Deb Mari. So the estimated increase if the city was to raise its home rule sales tax to 1 and 3/4% from 1 and a.5%. The increase would amount to um we would the the total let me back up. Our home rule sales tax when we implemented of that 0.25% of that goes to the capital improvement fund. We still derive that revenue, but it's used dedicated to make those improve those capital improvements to the city. But I'm just going to give you a total number without having to back that out. Right now, we derive about $21.6 million at the 1.5% level. That's based on the um 2024 actuals. If we were to increase the home rule sales tax to 1 and 3/4%, that 21.6 would go up to 25.2.

That's about a 3.6 6 million increase. If we were to raise the home roll sales tax to 2%, it would essentially double that. We would derive an additional $7.2 million and our combined sales tax based on 2024 sales revenue would be about $28.8 million. So, the easier way to remember, we raise it by a quarter of a point, that brings in an additional $3.6 million in revenue. We raise it by a half a point, that doubles it, we bring in 7.2 2 million in revenue seems like an easy fix, but for anybody who was here in 2012, there's no shortage of retailers that will be very conscious of the impact that this additional tax will have on the sales receipt of people shopping in their stores. Um, if it's a proposal that the council wishes to pursue in this instance, it's something that we should decide on doing now to provide those retailers with an opportunity to weigh in on what they believe the impact of that may be. I don't expect that it's something I like anybody else, you want to remain competitive with your neighbors, but while it seems like a small difference that quarter percent in that quarter percent increase or half percent increase, people who pay attention to the bills at an Ace Hardware in Elgen versus South Elgen, it can or Home Depot in South Elgen versus Elgen, it can make up for difference particularly on bigger item purchases. So that's a quick snapshot of the impact of potentially raising the home rule sales tax. Anything further discussing that or go down the line?

Yeah. I'm sorry, ma'am. Mr. Ortiz, uh, city manager for you said it was so 3/4 of a percent was 1.75. 1.75. Yeah, that's Yeah, that's a $3.6 million increase. Okay. annual based on 2024 sales figures that Miss Naraki is using. Okay, that's a wrote it down. All right, thank you.

Okay, I'll move on then to the local motor fuel tax. Uh, currently the city charges 4 cents a gallon for um for the purchase of gasoline within the city. This is in addition to the state motor fuel tax that we know that was also raised this year to plug holes in the in the uh state budget. Once again on the left you can see a comparison of our comparable communities. Those are the communities that we use for purposes of comparing wages and collective bargaining agreements. And you can see once again Elgen I don't know whether you want to call it in the middle. We're down at the lower end of our comparables in terms of imposing the fee at 4 cents where Arlington Heights, Walkagen, and Rockford don't have a local motor fuel tax at all. Once again, I believe it's the chart on the left that that Gio and Karina put together that show how Elgen compares to its neighboring municipalities. And in this instance, you can see that we're the highest. Elgen has the highest local motor fuel tax of all of its neighboring communities. And so to run through revenue estimates of increasing the gas tax from 4 cents a gallon to 5 cents a gallon, that going to 5 cents a gallon would bring in an additional $420 $260,000. Let's call it $420,000 to raise the local motor fuel tax by one penny. And oh, and so you know, the combined revenue from that is about $1.7 million. We derive 1.7 million annually for the 4 cents a gallon. If we raise it to 5 cents, that would add $420,000 to it. And if we raised it to 6 cents a gallon, that would bring in an additional $840,000 to that $1.6 million. Once again, this is something where I can absolutely be certain that there will be retailers. We know if there's any one area where people shop literally

by the pennies, it's with gas stations. And we we heard some very valid comments at the time when we imposed the local motor fuel tax. And if this is something once again that the council wishes to pursue, it would make sense to provide staff with that directive now so that we have an opportunity for the retailers, the impacted retailers in the communities to share their concerns.

Any questions? Miss Paul? Yes, thank you. Um, manager Kosel, I notice that one of our directly adjacent neighbors is missing from both of these charts. What is the home is there a home rules home rule sales tax in South Elgen or a local fuel tax in South Elgen? If they aren't on this list though, I can confirm my guess is that they don't exist. Or is it something gio's not in don't exist home not home? They don't exist. So there's a comparison.

Okay. So they might have a low under the if you're a non- homerew municipality, you can impose up to a 1% fee, but we were comparing with with home rule municipalities that have the ability to go higher. You seem puzzled. I know because it looks like Anthony had pulled up something that might indicate that South Elgen might have a 5 cents say 5 cents motor fuel tax. Yeah, but it's just the AI Google, so it could 100% be wrong. Who knows? I would just it would be helpful to just I mean

I I I appreciate the the difference between the the comparables and then our surrounding communities because obviously sometimes those are different but I just noticed you know one that's very close to to us you know was kind of missing. So they're checking their work again right now. But again, what I'm hearing is when they went through that check, they didn't see any indication and I know that they were going to the websites not relying on a Oh, here's Joe. Sorry. You're probably looking at the King County rate. So non-home rules many times they apply the state rate apply the state. So they're non home rule. That's why we didn't add them on on here. The only one we added on here because they had a charge on the previous one was Geneva, but we put an asterisk saying that they have a nonh home rule. Yeah. Got it.

Yep. Okay. So, Council Member Ortiz was wrong. No, no, no, no. Google was wrong. No, I appreciate that clarification. Um, because I mean, as you brought up the points, especially when, you know, folks are looking to make major purchases, TVs, you know, apply, you know, major appliances and they're, you know, looking at the sales tax difference. I mean, that is something that definitely comes into play. um and and folks like to shop gas as well. So, uh definitely appreciate those those caveats. Could you repeat the the numbers again in terms of um if it was

Yes, these are reliable numbers because they come from Debrai. At 4 cents a gallon, we bring in about $1.7 million in local motor fuel tax. Okay. If we were to increase that to 5 cents a gallon, that would bring in an additional $420,000. So, put it about $2 million in revenue. How's that for adding on the fly? All right. And then if we added if it was 6 cents a gallon, that would bring in about 850,000. No, $840,000 in additional revenue. So, about 2.4 million total. Got it.

That's helpful. Thank you. Okay, Mr. Dixon, that was my question. We're good. Okay, Miss Martinez. Thank you, Mayor. Um, looking at the right hand side where we are at 4 cents and everybody else is under. Now, the motor fuel tax is used to um go ahead and fix our roads. Is that right? It's also general fund revenue though that comes in to pay for the regular expenses. Some of it may go for that, but it all goes into the general operating fund

because the difference too is uh the mileage of how many um miles we have as opposed to the other towns. Um, my reasoning at that time for saying yes to adding this tax or or going up on the tax was because it's it's a user tax and like I would say I'm the only one in my household that drives, but maybe my neighbors, they might have like um the wife, the daughter, I mean the wife, the husband, and their kids. So there could be up to four people. So, I think that the more people that use it, you know, in the household, the more they should pay. So, I kind of like that going up at at five. Um, and comparing it with this, I thought the disadvantage is just the difference in what we use our uh MFT tax. I just wanted to point that out. Thank you.

Okay, Mr. Thorne. Thank you. Well, one thing to note is that as you have given these projected increases in numbers, that is only if the same amount of gas is purchased. That is correct. Right. Which obviously might not happen with the tax increase. That is correct. Yes. If it drives people to other areas to reduce the cost. That is correct. I thought you were talking about EV vehicles and I was you threw me for a loop over there. So we don't have enough time for that. Okay. Thank you. That's all. Anything else? Okay.

So the final area that we analyzed relates to the city's alcoholic liquor tax. I need to provide a caveat with the comparables in the neighboring municipalities that are shown on this screen because there's a mixed bag amongst municipalities and how they impose their alcoholic liquor tax. For Elgen, we have a 3% tax on the sales of alcohol consumed on the premises. We don't tax package sales. Many of these other communities may have a combination of tax for liquor consumed on the premises, package sales, but also what you hear is a food tax. Many instances you go to a municipality, you see it's a food and beverage tax. And if you see that 3% amount, it's not just for the liquor tab of the dinner bill, it includes the food as well. And so we really don't have the ability to provide a true, you know, the proverbial applesto apples analysis in this instance because they're all over the map in this. Needless to say though, part of the reasons that Elgen alone is unique in imposing the tax only on the sale of alcohol consumed on the premises is once again during the time period in 2012. The information that the city received from its restaurant service community was that this would put them at a competitive disadvantage. And at that time, the city council made the determination to limit the tax to alcohol sales only and not impose the tax on food. So again, when we're looking at the comparable communities and those next door, keep in mind in Elgen, it's just in most instances on the alcohol. In many of these others, it's a 3% fee that may also include food and also package sales of alcohol. So,

the analysis that Miss Naraki was kind enough to to run for us this evening, uh, 2024, under the 3% uh, current rate that we have, the city brings in about $1.8 million in alcohol liquor tax revenue. Increasing that to 4% would bring in an additional $600,000, putting us to about 2.4 million annually. And at 5% the city would bring in an additional $1.2 million. So that that puts us almost up at doing the math right, $3 million annually, thanks on on the spot if we were to raise it to 5%. And so again, with the exceptions of like Hoffman Estates nearby to us in Evston as well, that definitely puts Elgen up at the top of the list in terms of that, at least for alcohol. At least for alcohol sales. Okay, questions on the alcohol.

I think an important point here is that, you know, when we talk about uh uh doing increases here, uh a number of these increases wouldn't be enough to do us much good and that becomes a problem. You know, we're looking at property tax or sales tax. That's our biggest revenue uh providers. So, that's where the biggest bang for our buck goes. And uh we talk about people moving uh if we do some of these other taxes, alcohol tax, gas tax, sales tax. Well, people are going to shop uh other places. We know that homes are going to be permanent here and that's why it's more stable and uh it's more of a of a fixed number for us.

I I don't disagree, mayor. Again, we're looking on an annual basis if we want to do something with the property tax. It's a $4.2 million nut that we have to crack. And so right

these are the potential ways to do that. But again we also know though too we know that again fuel tax has been going up again at the state level. We certainly know the inflationary pressures that exist in any of the retail environments. There has been an increase in property values and that that's I think another part of the equation for reluctantly recommending the property tax increase because our house the housing stock in the property values have increased marketkedly since the pandemic. And so while the numbers are going up, the increased value of anybody's home or business still means that this increased levy, they're still probably paying a much smaller percentage than what they were doing at the beginning of our 11-year run with the 27.8 million general levy.

And you also intentionally did not include uh electric utility and gas utility because those things are really getting problematic for people and we are maxed out on those. When this when the city passed the revenue diversification ordinances, we are imposing at the 5% uh maximum at the 5% maximum fee authorized under state statute in those instances. Correct. Okay. So, uh the next round of discussions pertains to the utility fund. Chief uh financial officer Deb Naraki is going to run through the numbers and water director Norah Bertram will be here to highlight a particularly interesting capital project that's included as part of the initiatives.

No, you're fine.

Good evening again. Um, as we begin the um, review of the utility fund, I don't know if most people realize, but the utility fund is the single most complicated fund we have in the city. As um, as you know, it's an enterprise fund and the revenues generated from user fees are um, expected to cover expenditures. Um due to the capital intensive nature of this fund, you um know we are uh do a lot of debt funding. So this fund truly is one of the more uh complicated ones. And um I apologize now it's a lot of numbers, but it's the only way to do it. Okay. If you're following in clear gov under enterprise funds utility fund and you scroll down to the financial plan 2026 to 2030. I wanted to start out by um looking at the 2025 budget and where we expect to end the year in comparison to that budget. The utility fund receives um revenues from about five or six different sources. The first one you see at the top of the chart is charges for services and these are um primarily sewer maintenance fees along with some um service and connection fees. Sale of commodities reflects the sale of water to residences and businesses. Intergovernmental revenues are grant funding. The proceeds from the IEPA um loan are exactly that. And in addition to that, the fund receives investment income and some miscellaneous sources from time to

time. The 2025 budget planned for $42 million in revenue and we are anticipating $54 million. The uh increase of about 12 million is primarily due to the IEPA loan proceeds. When the budget was written for 2025, we didn't know what funding we would receive through the IEPA. Um so the general revenues increased about $2 million um throughout the course of the year. The um charges for services category as I mentioned which is the sewer revenues increased 4% over 2024 for the um rate increase in 2025. The sale of commodities or water revenues increased 9 and a half% over 2024 again for the 2025 rate increase. Intergovernmental revenue was budgeted at just shy of $2 million and that's where we expect to be for the year. Uh we received four grants for lead service line replacements. One uh was the EPA grant for just under a million dollars um with the funding we received from Congressman Krishna Morphy. In addition to that grant, we received two Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity grants for lead service line replacement at a half a million dollars each. And the um IEPA um loan proceeds, we received two loans this year. One of them was $2.9 million. That's a 30-year loan uh with a 0% interest rate. and another loan for $6.7 million, which $3 million of that is categorized as

principal forgiveness, so we don't have to pay that back. But the other 3.7 million will also be a 30-year loan at 0% interest. The utility fund also expects to receive about a million dollars in investment earnings, exceeding budgeted expectations just due to the fact that uh the interest rates uh stayed higher than we had anticipated that they would. Under miscellaneous revenue, you'll see about um just shy of $800,000. What that is is um settlement funds we received from uh PAS litigation and um since the time that we prepared the estimates and the budget um near the very end of October we received another $1.3 million in um litigation fees from the P PAS situation. Um, based on some documentation that corporation council received in the the coming years, we should probably receive one to $200,000 a year each year. Um, so we have received the bulk, but there's a little bit more that could be coming in than certainly uh helps fund all our initiatives in the utility fund. Okay, moving on to the expenditures uh for 2025. They were budgeted at 47.1 million and we expect them to be able to be 58.5 an increase of 11.4 million over the budget. Again, that is related to the IEPA uh loan proceeds for those projects and is offset by the revenue in the earnings and benefits. category. We budgeted 11.5 million and we um expect

to be about $700,000 under budget coming in at about 10.8 million. This is the result of four positions that were vacant for a portion of the year and two new positions that were not filled until later in the year. In the commodities category, um we're expecting to spend about $6.7 million, which is consistent with budgeted expectations. Um this category is predominantly water treatment chemicals and um you may recall from our budget presentations last year that um in 2025, we really started to see those chemical costs escalate. So, we planned for that um in this year's budget, but for comparison purposes, this category was $5.3 million in 24. So, it's up 27% due to those chemical costs. The um contractual services were budgeted at 10.7 million and we're anticipating 11.6 million, about $900,000 over budget. This is due um to engineering services that were um for projects that began in 2024 but carried over into the new budget year. Debt service payments on our general obligation bonds and going forward on our um IEPA loans. This includes principal and interest payments. We're budgeted at $ 8.9 million and we're anticipating 8.5 about $400,000 under budget. Um this is due to the fact that the plan included making our first payment on our 2024 IEPA loans this year. But since the project has not been wrapped up,

no payments are going to be due this year as they're they're they're coming to a close now and we'll pay our first payment in 2026. And uh the capital category um budgeted at 6 million 6.0 million at anticipated at 17.4 for that is also those IEPA loan pro uh projects funded projects. So overall the budget planned for expenditures to rece uh exceed revenues by 5.1 million and we estimate um doing a little bit better than that and expenditures exceeding revenues by 4.4 million which will draw cash reserves to 23.6 6 million which is 40.4% of annual expenditures which is above our minimum target of 25%.

Okay. Anything on 25 before I move on? Okay. Anything on the water on utility fun? Miss Paul, thank you. Um you you said something that I think was uh pretty profound in ter you always say something that's very profound but uh the 27% increase in chemical cost that's significant.

Can you think not trying to put you on the spot but just offhand can you think of any other areas of our budget that have seen increases of that amount because that's pretty significant. It is very significant. I know in a lot of our capital projects we've seen some pretty big increases, but offhand I can't think of anything specific at that level. That's a lot. Um Okay. I was just curious. It just caught me. Yeah.

Because I'm just I mean I think just from a household perspective, well probably most of us have seen like car insurance costs go up significant. they've probably gone up by 27% or more. Um, that's probably one thing that I think a homeowner can somewhat relate to. But our our car insurance doesn't cost what we pay in chemicals for our utility. Thank goodness. It feels like it though. So, um, Yep. Okay. Thank you. Anything else? Anything else?

Okay. So now we're going to move on to 2020. The 2026 proposed budget. The 2026 budget and five-year financial plan incorporate the recommendations of the utility fund comprehensive water and sewer master plan rate study. The financial plan incorporates the required water and sewer rate increases necessary to operate the utility and make essential capital investments in infrastructure. The revenues um budgeted for 2026 are um just shy of $45 million, which is less than you saw um for the 2025 estimate, but again that goes back to the IEPA funded projects. the charges for s service uh services which is again the sewer revenue um increased 4% over 2025 for the rate increase per the master plan. Um water sale of water is budgeted at $36.1 million which increases 9.75% over 2025 again for the um rate increase um projected by the master plan. Uh there are no um intergovernmental revenues in this budget at this time. We we have not been awarded any grants and there's no IEPA loan funding because as I described um when we're preparing these budgets, we don't know what we're going to be eligible for. That'll probably be coming to us sometime early next year. Interest earnings um decre have decreased slightly due to the um decline in the interest rates we're just now starting to see.

And new to the utility fund revenues um in 2026 is um the addition of $1.2 million um for the grocery tax that's being transferred from the general fund.

Okay. 2026 expenditures are budgeted at um 48.5 million. The earnings and benefits category increases from 10.8 in 2025 to $12 million next year, an 11% or $1.2 million increase. The reason for the increase is the um collective bargaining agreement um cost of living adjustments and the new management pay plan. And um as you heard in our discussion of the general fund last week, um our medical insurance premiums are increasing 11.2%. Also, those VA uh positions that were vacant for some portion of 2025 um are expected to be filled and budgeted for the entire year in 2026. The commodities um category is um budgeted at 6.7 consistent with um the 2025 estimate. And again, as we just discussed, that's where our chemical uh costs are recorded. Contractual expenditures increase from 11.6 million this year to 12.8 million next year, an increase of 1.2 million. This is for increased engineering fees for lead service line replacement uh projects. The debt service category is expected to be $8.5 million this year and increase to 9.8 million in 2026, an increase of uh $1.3 million. Um this increase is due to the fact that the payments on our new debt are exceeding what we've paid off on prior

issues in the past year. And as I previously mentioned, we're going to start making payments on our IEPA loan in 2026, and that's going to be about $315,000 estimated. In 2025, we incurred additional debt of $22.4 4 million which was a combination of the general obligation bonds that we issued in the amount of 15.8 million and the um IEPA loans in 2026. That combination of those two sources um is going to go up to 40.5 million which is you know playing into the increase in this category. the um transfer administrative and financing transfers remains flat at 3.3 million. The um capital outlay and again this the capital that you see in this category is is operating capital things that the water department has to do every year. Replace valves, replace pumps, buy new vehicles. These aren't are generally not items that we would bond for. or we cover them with operating revenues. And that's budgeted at $3.9 million. Pretty consistent with prior years. So overall, we expect in 2026 for expenditures to again exceed revenues by $3.5 million, drawing cash reserves down to 20.1 million or 41.6% of annual expenditures. any 2026 question.

Okay, Mr. Stefan.

Yes, thanks. Thank you very much for presenting this. Back to the debt service category. It just struck me that looking at the 5-year budget, we're anticipating, we're projecting that that cost will nearly double over the five years from 19 or 9.7 million to 18 million at the 2030 year. Is there an explanation for that? Yeah, and I'm going to get into the strategic initiatives in a minute, but um yeah, as the master plan um incorporated all the um infrastructure improvements that needed to be made that, you know, potentially weren't being made. So, um as we move forward, we are going to see our capital investment increase.

And that's the negative side of what the master study showed us, which is we need to start increasing our rates to cover these capital projects. Okay. Exactly. Good. Okay.

Now, if we could just look briefly at the rest of the five-year plan here, 20 uh 27 through 2030, revenues um increase an average of 8% per year in each year of the financial plan. water um rates increased 9.75% in 27 28 and 2029 and that increase drops down to 8.3% in 2030. Sewer rates increase by 4% each year in 2027 through 2029 and that increase drops down to 3 and a half% in 2030. You'll see um interest earnings decline each year in the plan. And this is um due to our declining uh cash reserves as we're we're drawing on them to um finance operations. And you'll also see that the transfer from the general fund for the grocery tax cons uh continues on an annual basis. This is expected to continue through 2036 when the uh lead service line replacements would be completed at which time that money could return to the general fund. Looking at the expenditures, the expenditures increase about five and a half% on average each year. The earnings and benefits, commodities, and contractual services all increase about 3% per year on average. The debt service payments um increase from as low as 11% and on up to almost 27% in a single year with an

average of about a 21% increase um per year. again due to the increasing investment um in infrastructure per the master plan and when we look at the strategic um initiatives chart I can give you some more information on that the transfers remain consistent throughout the plan and the operating capital investments also remain consistent at about $3.2 $2 million per year throughout the plan. Each year of the plan, expenditures um exceed revenues and we draw on our cash reserves. By the end of the five-year plan in 2030, the cash reserves will be 15.4 million or 25.6% of annual expenditures, just right at our minimum target. Then if you're following along in clear gov, if you scroll down to the utility fund strategic initiatives chart, we can look more closely at um the funding for these um projects that are um normally funded by by debt service. If you look in the top section, you can see that we have several sources um for funding in this category. If we just look at 2026, um we anticipate $45.3 million in capital initiatives which are are detailed below. But the funding uh for this these initiatives will come partially from a general bond um obligation bond sale and we hope partially from some more IEPA loans. The

combination of those two categories is $40.5 million. This chart depicts $10 million from the IEPA loans, but if they're less than that, then that will increase the amount of the bond sale. In addition to these two sources, um, every year we look at our water development funds and our sewer development funds. And if there's funding available and the expenses are appropriate, we um, attempt to offset some of those, um, projects with those funds as opposed to increasing the debt. Um, in 2026, we're going to fund two projects, the uh river intake modifications and the PAS treatability study from the water impact fees in the water development fund. From the sewer development fund, we anticipate um utilizing $777,000 for um sewer lift station rehabilitations. In addition, um, as you know, the capital improvement fund, uh, receives a portion of the home rule sales tax, and a portion of that funding is dedicated to combined sewer separation each year in the amount of $3 million. Okay. As we um look out into 2027 to 2030, you can see that those um capital investments do significantly increase and we're up to 69.7 million by 2030. And the the funding sources for those um again are very similar to um 2026 where we're looking at um general obligation bonds, continuing to use impact fees

where we can the um funding from the capital improvement fund for combined sewer separation. And you'll also see that starting in 2027, we're anticipating being able to use some of fund reserves to pay for some of those projects rather than um increasing the debt. And you can see it's a million dollars in 2027 and by 2030 it's it's $2 million. And those um funds are available partially because of the transfer of the grocery tax and also those um rate increases are starting to generate reserves that we can hopefully issue less debt in the future. Any questions?

Questions? Good. Okay. All right. Thanks, Deb. That was a lot. Um, thank you everyone for this opportunity to present. Um, our budget includes many of the same initiatives that you kind of see year after year. Lead service lines, water mane replacement, combined source separation. And I'm not going to talk about any of those tonight. If anyone has questions, I will talk about lead. I will talk about the river. Um, but I'm going to talk about tonight on one of the initiatives that hasn't been discussed much previously. Um, the topic for tonight is per and poly fuo alkal substances otherwise known as as POS. Um, in next year's budget, as Deb talked about, we have included a request for funding for a POS treatment feasibility study. Um, POS, you probably heard of them, are contaminants known as forever chemicals. Their properties make them resistant to nearly all common methods of degradation, deconstruction, and remediation. These compounds are highly persistent throughout the environment, including in ground and surface water. The US EPA recently developed standards to regulate PAS in drinking water. Um, these standards are set to take effect in 2027, although recent discussions have talked about pushing that out till 2029. Um the city of Elgen has not detected POS in any of our groundwater wells. Um that is probably because they're all deep wells and POS generally affects the shallower wells. Um however, we do have detectable POS in the Fox River. Um which is likely due to wastewater effluent and surface runoff. the water that is produced after treatment by the city of Algen um

currently meets all proposed uh maximum contaminant levels. So we are in compliance. We sample quarterly um since 2019 and we have consistently been in compliance. So we're not in danger right now of being out of compliance. However, in order to be proactive and to provide um potential we could and provide the optimal level of POS removal, we have decided to look at potential modifications to some of our current processes to see if we can improve the removal rate of these compounds. Um one of the proven meth methods for PAS removals is utilizing carbon compounds to absorb the POS. The Riverside Water Treatment Plant utilizes carbon at two locations in our treatment process and we have noted that there is a significant level of removal already obtained using our car our current carbon products. Um, one of the first chemicals that we treat our water with is powdered activated carbon um otherwise known as PAC and this is uh the original intent for PAC was taste and odor compound removal. However, it is effective or somewhat effective in removing some PAS compounds. Um, and then the one of our final steps is a granular activated carbon filter, otherwise known as Gak. We're really creative with those. Um, which is also a proven method for P PA POS removal. So, in the proposed study that we're talking about, we will look at different types of carbon for both processes. There have been several recent studies um particularly on Mississippi River water communities um looking at carbon that is produced from different materials including coal, wood, and coconut. These studies have noted different rates of removals with different carbon sources. In order to maximize the removal that we can achieve utilizing our existing processes, we plan to study alternate carbon materials and measure their PAS

removal potential. This feasibility study will potentially be the first step in a series of studies which will evaluate alternate alternate PAS treatment strategies. And with that, I would welcome any questions on this proposed initiative or any of my other initiatives. Questions? Good. Uh, Mr. Ortiz. All right. It's a little over my head with the whole thing, especially the big words you just used. That's why I like the acronyms. I understand those. So the carbon is once it absor the carbon absorbs it, it's easier to pull that from the water then before it goes out to our community. Right.

Right. So the carbon settles out. Um when you were at the treatment plant recently, we have those big basins outside. We put stuff in them that helps um collect uh all the particles together then settle down to the bottom and we collect that sludge and then that is removed from the facility. Okay. So that helps settle all the Yeah. It absorbs and then settles down. All right. Thank you. Mr. Dixon. Thank you. All right. So, this PA study, um, are there other PAS studies that have been done and what did they essentially come up with? If so,

um, yeah, there's a lot of POS studies going on right now with all the the upcoming regulations. Um, so I just watched a presentation recently about um some of the Mississippi River and they showed with different types of carbon and it's all dependent on your source water as well. Um, which is why you have to you can't just say this one will work for us. Um, but you know they use different uh percentages and different makeups of the carbon and then there would be removal rates of you know different levels. So running our own with our own water um would would be the way that we we would have to do that to change our treatment process. So essentially, we have to come up with our own balanced concoction that works for our water supply in order for it to be effective and Yes. and clean. Gotcha. Okay. Thank you so much. You're welcome.

Okay, Mr. Stefan. Yes, Nora. Thank you for this presentation. I I wanted to take us to the new well installations um because I see that is a quickly mushrooming expense in the out years of the five-year plan. I missed the water study presentation. So, this question may be a result of missing that. But my understanding is we're taking we have five deep water wells at each of the two treatment plants. Yep. Um well, actually Slade, not Nelson Medical to Riverside. Yeah. Close there. And then Airlite. And we're the intent is to take those and spread those out. Yes. Wider a wider

Yeah. the the wells themselves, the slade wells are really old, like early 1900s old. So, they're also really close to each other. Um, like way too close. So, 100 feet of the bike path. I see them all the time. Yeah. And the groundwater as groundwater draws down um they interfere with each other and so we lose capacity. So, and then some of them are also just like really old. So we we are talking about abandoning some of those, keeping some of them, abandoning some so that we don't have that interference, and then moving um out further so that we have, you know, they should be mile a half mile apart so that they're not interfering with each other.

Great. Okay, that's what I saw. and similar to Airlite. Um and then adding more well capacity um in case we had a whole conversation about the Fox River and but adding more well capacity so that we're not you know there if there is something that happens to the river some kind of contamination event. Currently we don't have enough well capacity to supply the city at all. Um and if we add more wells we'll have just a little bit more backup. Got it. Thank you. Okay. Nora, I'll have a question for you.

Yep. Um the uh uh the process you're talking about the study is going to be looking at removing the pas from the water. Uh what about the disposal of the uh carbon and uh so we go cradle to grave. I know we use uh we use significant activated carbon now for taste and odor um to make sure that the water tastes good for everybody and smells good in the summertime.

And that creates all this creates extra sludge. We have lime sludge as well. So uh what's the long-term plan for disposal? It's a good question. Um there's a lot of regulations going on right now circla um as far as disposal of PAS containing substances and who is responsible for that. Um because we're getting it from wastewater treatment plants. Um we're we're having to treat for it and then we're going to be stuck with the disposal. So that's going to be part of what we have to look at is concentrations and sludge and what we're going to do with that. So that's definitely that was a question I I was expecting. Um and I don't really have a good answer for that right now because the regulations are still evolving as well.

Yeah. And this is a um this is something that's evolving for us in the and water. I have a meeting tomorrow with the Northwest Water Planning Alliance and for uh uh water use in our area and uh just read an article today that uh they're looking at the millions and millions of pounds of pas that are being used in the Imperial Valley in California. They're mixing it because it helps the pesticides adhere to the fruits and vegetables when they spray them. So we saved in one thing but we created another problem out there

and those that that stuff comes back and you think about well why does that affect us? Well those vegetables come back here get washed and elgen and that stuff goes down in the goes down a drain. So we're really working hard at this and this is something that's going to be going on for uh decades. Yeah. This is not going to go away. No. No. We have to start really looking at this as a long-term plan. Yeah. All right. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. [Music] Thank you.

Otherwise, we would go dark. You got to teach him how to use a computer. I've tried.

She has. So is Aaron. All right. um central area tiff as everybody knows the tiff was extended additional 12 years this year until 2037 the financial plan that Debrai has prepared is estimating annual tiff increment at about $7.4 4 million through the life of the plan based on our current revenue streams. As many of you are aware, the city will be sharing 10% of that increment over the next 12 years on a prata basis with each affected taxing body. So that means $740,000 or whatever that number may increase to is going to be coming off the top and be distributed with the taxing bodies that that assisted the city in getting the extension of the tiff. Initiatives leading into the following year include the Dundy Avenue rehabilitation project. This remains the largest tiff redevelopment project in the city. Um fortunately though, you can see in this instance that oh sorry um thanks to the good work of Mike Pubinc, we're bringing in just short of $7 million to defay the $12 million in those costs and so through KCOM and Cap. So that will be pumped through that project and it frees up additional revenue for the city. As you maybe remember a little from the discussions a little bit earlier this year, we're leaning a little bit heavier in the 2026 budget for capital projects that are tiff eligible as it relates to city properties. We're doing the center city streetscape, the sustainable city parking lot, the Elgen, the Edward Shock Center of Elgen streetscape redesign um out on front on Symphony Way. Center of Elgen renovations, redoing the space that formerly was occupied by Advocate Sherman. We're repainting the Fulton Street parking deck so that all three parking decks will be in tip-top shape at the same time for the first time in a

long time thanks to the work of land management superintendent Greg Hulky and his crews. Retaining wall repairs at the southwest corner of Grove Avenue and Chicago Street are taking place so we can potentially activate that area in conjunction with the prominade for more festival related um activities. Heman's interior upgrades to bring the rest of the Hemans on par with that incredible addition that went into place this year are contemplated. And through every year in the TIFF uh plan, you see a $150,000 initiative for regular downtown streetscape maintenance. This will conduct the work on the on the pavers, the um the uh planting beds, the iron gates, and all of those types of things to keep it looking well. Finally, we have a smaller initiative for the Hemens Cultural C Center's downtown marquee replacement. Current economic redevelopment initiatives include the work at 11:15 Douglas Avenue. I know the proprietor of that uh or the developer for that initiative is here this evening. Um Aean Moran. And um there's also an allocation for a half million dollars for Side Street Studios as it continues work on the rehabilitation of that great project. So going back up to the strategic initiatives, you can see um in the um in the current chart that I have up on the screen, what I want to draw your attention to is the expenditures in 2027 of $12,600,000. When we shift over to the initiatives, um, if you look back in that 2027 year, you see that 12609 down at the bottom and up on top of that is the number 11.7 million. It's attributed to mis miscellaneous economic development uh, agreements and special projects. That's unallocated funding. So, after all of the recommendations that are coming through in the proposed 2026 budget for the city-owned property initiatives,

we're still looking at beginning 2027 with just short of 11.8 million in revenue that we can use for various economic developments within the city. And in the out years, you can see what Deb is doing in this instance there. We're allocating every year we send the $740,000 over to the taxing districts. And you see that regular expense for the $150,000 in streetscape maintenance. And in the event that we don't spend 11.8 million in redevelopment projects in 2027, that number will continue carrying over for the years. So this gives you a snapshot of the cash available to make further investment in the tiff eligible projects in the city. As we know, there are prime redevelopment opportunities for multi-story residential rehabilitation and construction both within the downtown, but most importantly at the recently approved concept for the North Grove redevelopment area that contemplates a mix of 350 dwellings with a combination of two multi-story apartment buildings, detached single family residences, duplex quads, and live work space. More importantly, I'm going to ask community development director Mark Malot to come up and give you a snapshot of the type of work that he regularly engages in, the types of projects that he is always that he's always considering. Some move onto the radar, some fall off of the radar, but Mark's going to provide a snapshot with what's currently the plates that you have spinning in your office right now trying to get to the finish line on redevelopment. How are you, Mark? I'm

well, thank you, sir.

Good evening, everybody. Uh we have 10 to 12 different downtown projects that are various stages in the pipeline right now that would or could request some form of development assistance at various times over the next couple of years. Uh one of those you'll get to consider later tonight. Uh the 26 room boutique hotel at the McBride building. A very exciting project. Uh another you've already received communications about not necessarily from staff, but that's Kevin Etche's mixed juice rehabilitation project at 61 South Grove. former Rancho Vargas building. Uh a pro proposal for that could come as early as next month, but most likely be in January. Um either I or senior planner uh Deir Latinovich uh have meetings with developers that include discussions about downtown properties available for redevelopment probably at least once every couple of weeks. Even if those developers request to meet meetings uh with us about something seemingly unrelated, we're always taking that opportunity to see if there's any other interest. Um for example, about a year ago, we had a meeting with an industrial developer and our tangential conversations turned into a concept plan for a 12story mixeduse building for the Crocker Theater site. It had more than 140 dwelling units with groundf flooror commercial. But as the budget continued to increase exponentially in large part because of tariffs, the developer had to take a step back. That's just one example of the way in which we're always talking with people, exploring what their interests are and what their expertise may be. Uh notwithstanding, we've we're having active conversations with developers about proposals for the pit. Uh that's the uh sister companion site to the Fountain Square project for the former Chase Bank building. That one was someone who had reached out to Mayor Captain and even a piece of property in the North Grove redevelopment area. Uh, new development does get a little more complicated as tiff assistants can't directly fund new construction, but state statute does provide several

categories of eligible expenses that can help a project pencil such as demolition costs, infrastructure costs, engineering and architectural studies, etc. Uh, and we're also having conversations about the degree to which tiff assistance can help several existing buildings. Uh we have some on Chicago Street, Spring, Douglas Grove, and on that may be on every street in downtown. Uh focusing either on adaptive reuse, rehabilitation, andor improvements that will help bring those buildings up to code even either with their mechanical systems or life safety systems, fire sprinklers, and fire alarms. Um again some projects are further along in their development others are still early some are very early but all develop but it's important to uh emphasize that all developers andor properties are advised and regularly reminded that tiff assistance comes in the form of an economic development agreement which can only be approved by city council. Be happy to take any questions if you question for Mr. Malot.

Mr. Ortiz. Uh good evening Mr. Mat. Good evening. I don't know if this is for you or Mr. Koso. Uh for slide 19 for the I lost it on here. Oh, number six for environmental remediation. That's a rollover of 225. What were we cleaning up? If you could remind me, please the former Crocker Theater site. Okay. Okay. Remember that. Sorry, I was distracted because Mr. Malot's tie is just so cool and I was looking at that when you were talking about it. Thank you, Mr. Dixon. sure likes your clothes at the same time. Thank you for the overview, Mark. My pleasure. Sure.

If I own a piece of property downtown and uh I'm interested in tiff funds, wanted to learn what is the process by which um I should go through. It's easy. Call me. It's it's that easy. We we we and well, let me back up then. Sure. Okay. So where where on the website can I go to see like what's available like the application because everyone don't doesn't I mean this you might not realize this but everyone doesn't know you Mark. What have they not seen my time? Yeah. Exactly.

No. Um we we try and make this as easy as possible Councilman and I and I and I appreciate the question and I don't I don't make light of that. Um we don't have a formal application because not every development is the same. Um we're again we're regularly engaging with developers. We're regularly engaging with building owners. We're talking with the downtown neighborhood association. We're talking with the Elgen Development Group and we're making those people aware of varieties of different uh levels of financial assistance. be that tiff assistance, be that uh uh development fee waivers, be that including property and and so what we're trying to do is use this overarching mantra of how do we get to yes, what do we need to do to make that project pencil and and and no development is the same, no project is the same, no request is the same. So we try to maintain flexibility so that when we do bring you something it's uh it's something that is uh is is economically viable. It's strong. It's got the financial foundations behind it and more importantly it's going to contribute to that economic vitality of the of the downtown long term.

Okay. So what normally happens with an organization that may not be tapped into those organizations um maybe maybe they're trying to expand. They're in another community. they're interested in looking around and they want to move into the downtown or you know one of the other t district doesn't matter uh and they you know how do they know like where you you get what I'm saying like you know we we want people to come to the community because we have tiff dollars and that's kind of a selling point but if you can't there's no application there's no information on the website where we can get to it that difficult we do have I shouldn't I shouldn't say that there isn't information on the website. First of all,

there is there's there's PDFs, right, of a lot of the stuff. Yeah. And and everything and and and underscoring everything about the TIFF is is online. Full transparency, all the economic uh reports that are filed with the state, the minutes of the joint review board, the agendas, that that's all available online. But I would I would offer that if uh that by covering those groups either be it through the city, either through my department, through the Elgen Development Group, through the Chamber of Commerce, or through the DNA, we've probably got most most of it covered. If someone is looking to bring a business to it, they're going to be reaching out to one of those sources. So, I I I think we've got it covered. Okay. Okay. Okay.

Thank you. You're welcome. All right. Okay, Mr. Stefen. Mark, thank you. I just a question comparing the two slides on the central area TIFF in the presentation and comparing what I see there to what the comments you said. Um, I know Kevin Ataria is going to come forward with a tiff request and I think Aean has other buildings downtown that um I think he has some projects that are working through the system and may come through. So

on that first slide, it looks like there's a little over $5 million that's left after all the expenditures in next year's budget that if doesn't get spent will just get carried over into 2027 and it goes on through the second slide. But there is like $5 million available should projects come in 2026 that we would consider worthy of of uh funding. Sorry. No, that's okay. It's it's actually 12. It's 12.6. Uh, sorry. There we go. Just lose the whole thing here.

So, we want to Yeah, I know. Just want to f uh council member Stephen. Um, the It's 11 You see the balance at the bottom there? It's 11.7 point 11.7 is what I'm reading the wrong I'm reading the wrong year. Okay. So, nearly $12 million that's available. Okay. Got it. Thank you.

Sorry. Well, and and and not with and notwithstanding that the the other thing that adds to the the how do I say this? The other benefit of having these relationships with our downtown developers, with our downtown property owners in having these conversations rather than something that is purely formulaic, is that we can then structure those agreements to one help make sure that their projects do pencil, but also are respon are responsive and respective of of our fund balances. For example, the proposal that you have tonight contemplates a 50% payment in 2026 and then the 50% payment out in 2027. So, we're able to work with those. You may remember also when we were contemplating the additional payment for some of the extra costs incurred by 40 dupage court, we had to make sure that the economic development agreement was beyond it was factored for a payment in 2025 because at the time we were concerned that we weren't necessarily going to get the the extension. So we had to make sure that the funds were available. So, we're constantly checking in with finance, making sure that we're not overextending or overpromising or or, you know, asterisks and caveats and things like that. So,

thank you. Any other questions? Good question. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Merlot. My pleasure, sir. Thanks, Martin. We have one last order of business. Yes. And so to make it easier for the council, um we have as part of the legal process, there's a requirement that the city council make a motion to advance this to the truth and taxation hearing that I told you is scheduled for December 3rd at 6 p.m. And to make it easier, we provided the language for a suggested motion in your packet or it's on the screens. And so I think that Mr. Beck and Miss Noraki would be most pleased if there was a motion to second an approval. so we can continue with the process.

I'll make a motion and move that the city council have determined that the amount of revenue necessary to be raised by the taxation upon taxable property in the city of Elgen tax year 2025 for the proposed 2020 2026 budget is 65,611940. Second. It's been moved and seconded. Any discussion hearing? None. Clerk, please call the role. Council members Dixon, yes. Good. Yes. Martinez, yes. Ortiz, yes. Powell, yes. Stefan, yes. Thorne, yes. Mayor Captain, yes. The motion is approved. 8 Z.

Ready to proceed with item B. Mayor, council members. Okay. Item B is the boutique hotel conversion at 5363 Douglas Avenue for commonly known as the McBride building. This is a redevelopment agreement with Chicago Reality Ventures Incorporated. This proposed redevelopment agreement with Chicago Reality Ventures contemplates converting the top two floors of the three-story McBride building from a mostly vacant office use into a 26 room boutique hotel. The proposed name of the hotel is the Elgen House and first year room rates are expected to average about $132 a night. That number is a for is forecast to rise to more than $160 a night by the fifth year of its operations. Total redevelopment costs are about $4.3 million. The hotel lobby and small cafe will occupy the two northernmost groundf flooror spaces. Chicago based Atira Hotels will be the joint owner of the hotel and provide management assistance, training, oversight, analysis, and input regarding sales and marketing. Aira operates 21 hotels in 12 states, including the award-winning independent boutique boutique hotel lodge on the desert in Tucson, Arizona. At also approved operator for all major brands, including Hilton, Hyatt, IHG, Continental Hotels Group, the IHG, Continental Hotels Group, and Marriott. Aean Moran, president of Chicago Reality, purchased the McBry building in October 24 from Coming Holdings. Mr. Mr. Moran is currently converting the one apartment at 11:15 Douglas into four units and that work will be complete this February. Mr. Moran has made other substantial investments in the city's downtown including the purchases of 23 Douglas, 209 through 211 East Chicago Street, 213 East Chicago Street, and 225 through 229 East Chicago Street. Obviously, Mr. Moran is here to answer any questions, but I have to tell you this is something that we've been waiting for for a long time. Okay.

Move for approval. Second. Moved and second for approval. Any discussion or any questions for the developer? Okay. Everybody's pretty happy. Well, congratulations, Mr. Dixon. No, I I just wanted to say thank you for for this project. Um, as city manager Kosa was just saying, this is something that we've been looking what we've been wanting for a very very long time, decades even, uh, in our downtown. and so uh near downtown. So, we appreciate uh the project and the effort and uh we're going to we really look forward to making it a success. So, thank you. Please call the role. Yes. No, I'll pass.

Council members Dixon, yes. Good. Yes. Martinez, yes. Ortiz, yes. Powell, yes. Stefan, yes. Thorne, yes. Mayor Captain,

yes. The motion's approved. 8 Z. Item C is a lease agreement with MTK Properties LLC for the Elgen Art Showcase. The Elgen Arts Showcase has served as a performance and exhibit space for area artists and arts organization since 2007, operating from the top floor of the Elgen Professional Building at 164 Division Street. A lease for a new performance location for the art showcase in the lower levels of the lodge. The recently rehabilitated three-f flooror building at 18 Villa Court is being recommended because it offers better amenities, more flexibility, and an overall better experience. The lodge offers a larger, more versatile space for performance, a more reliable elevator, better loadin, loadout access, easier setup of space, a centralized box office and bar area, larger dressing rooms, improved technical equipment capacity, a large shop area, and even more. Rental costs will increase next year by about 30% to defay the higher cost for this greatly improved facility, but Elgen Arts Showcase renters are excited about this new iteration of the performance space and what it means for the future of arts in Elgen.

Move for approval. Second move and second for approval. Any discussion? Mr. Ortiz. Uh just one for the city manager. Is uh Miss Harris okay with moving that to a new building? This is her recommendation. She's absolutely on board with that. This is heritage. I don't want to make her mad. Okay, Mr. Stefan. Yeah, I just um I had some questions and I sent them to Marissa and she answered them about some of the practical steps of making this transfer. And the other comment I wanted to make is I'm glad that we reached out to the groups that rent the current one and they were all enthusiastic even with the proposed increase in the rentals. So, that's all great. And I see Amanda walking in the back, but she's trying to

she's just pretending. All right. Thank you. That's all. Okay, Miss Paul,

thank you. Um had the opportunity to tour the the new venue um along with um several of our um arts and culture um organizations that typically utilize the Elgen Art Showcase Space. And um as the memo indicates, people are excited about the new space. It has some wonderful amenities. um really really looking forward to um making this move. Um I I think it's really going to be good for um our art scene and uh provide a more reliable uh space and more usable space for our users. So uh definitely looking forward to supporting this and definitely encourage uh folks here on the dis and in the community to come out to uh any of the new performances that will be held at this new site. I think you'll be um really pleased. Thank you.

Anything else, Miss Martinez? Thank you, Mayor. Uh yes, I also agree with uh what's been said and um the fact that it's a nicer place. Um it has an um an elevator that we we didn't we had a a place that the elevator wasn't always um consistent. This has an I'm sorry. That's a nice way to put it. And um

the other thing is um what I heard from people, they're really excited and impressed that it has a stage that actually moves around. It's circular and that helps a lot for a lot of props. So I I'm excited and again I thank uh the owners of the lodge for coming here and for being able to uh collaborate and be open for everybody else. Thank you.

Okay. Uh just a comment, you know, the uh uh about the art showcase. It served us well for a number of years. It was a real challenge when we first uh uh went into that type of business and to do and pick that location. Uh it has served us well for many years and uh like a lot of things, it's time for us to move on. We're taking things to another level and that's good for downtown. That's good for everybody. Okay, we have a motion. Clerk, please call the role. Council member Stixson, yes. Good. Yes. Martinez, yes. Ortiz, yes. Powell, yes. Stefan, yes. Thor, yes. Mayor Captain, yes. Motion's approved. 8 Z.

Item D is the acceptance of public improvements at 70 Airport Road within the right of way. These public improvements include storm sewers, sidewalk, and parkway trees. Move for approval. Second move and second for approval. Any discussion? Mr. Ortiz. Uh, this might be a little bit off topic, so you guys can take me off. Is Dun was Dundee going to give us any kind of like help maintaining airport road with their semi-truck traffic from the parking lot over there?

Unfortunately, not. And the corporation council's office when this agreement came did the research that was necessary. Municipalities can't prohibit the access to their own streets and those adjacent municipalities. We did what we could to provide limits on that. We might be able to provide some speed limit regulations, things like that, but we can't ban another municipality from doing that. There were other proposals that were rejected that would create traffic in other areas, but yeah, once again, we can't we can't bar them from coming onto those otherwise public streets. Oh, and I wasn't looking to borrow maybe a little bit of dollars help fix the road, but same difference like we don't Yeah. All right. Thank you. Mhm. Anything else? Clerk, please call the role. Council member Stixson, yes. Good. Yes. Martinez, yes. Ortiz,

yes. Powell, yes. Stefan, yes. Thorne, yes. Mayor Captain, yes. Motion's approved. 8 Z. Item E is the storm water management easement acceptance for the property at 956 Bluff City Boulevard. Move for approval. Second. Moved and second for approval. Any discussion,

Mr. St. I just want to thank uh staff for working with this property owner to get this hopefully help with some of the um water standing water that ends up on this part of Bless City Boulevard during heavy weather events. Um it was for many years my way to Bartlett High School when I had a child that was attending there and I would often have to drive around standing water here and uh I'm anticipating this will help. It was a little further east than where this property is, but I think it will help. So, I appreciate that. Thanks.

Yeah, understand the the redevelopment prompted the need for that storm water management under the Kane County storm order management ordinance, but I know through community development and engineering, a little bit of work in order to to get what was necessary for this development. Thank you for that recognition. Anything else? Court, please call the role. Council members Dixon. Yes. Good. Yes. Martinez, yes. Ortiz, yes. Powell, yes. Stefan, yes. Thorne, yes. Mayor Captain, yes. The motion is approved. 8 Z.

Item F is a purchase agreement with Peterson and Matts for high service pump at the Leo Nelson Riverside Treatment Plant. The water treatment plant, as you can imagine, has many pumps through both both Leo Nelson and the airline facilities. These pumps serve a multitude of purposes involving the flow of water or chemicals throughout the treatment process. This purchase is for the replacement of one high service pump at the Leo Nelson plant that can no longer be repaired. Move for approval. Second. Move and second for approval. Any discussion? Mr. Ste,

just just a quick question that doesn't have to be answered tonight, but um anytime these come up to us where we're basically um going around the regular procurement because in this case we're replacing a specific pump with a the exact model. The question I always have is, will this company be there long term? Do we know that we're going to be able to get these pumps in the future? Are they going to go out of business? And nobody can provide that guarantee. When we make these recommendations, I know that that that is part of that analysis. I have not had specific discussions with Miss Bertram on her recommendation in this instance, but they know that when they're doing something like this, it's for the longevity.

Got it. Thank you. Clerk, please call the role. Council member Dixon, yes. Good. Yes. Martinez, yes. Ortiz, yes. Powell, yes. Stefan, yes. Thorn, yes. Mayor Captain, yes. Motion's approved. 8 Z.

Item G is change order number one for the bid relating to the Summer Hill Park enhancements and playground replacement. When this project was initially bid, site conditions did not suggest that the depth of the top soil would be so extensive. To ensure the basketball and pickup ball courts maintain their integrity and longevity, additional top soil must be removed and additional drainage added to create a solid surface to install the asphalt for the courts. This additional excavation will greatly improve the quality and longevity of those courts. Move for second. Move the second for approval. Any discussion? Clerk, please call the role. Council member Dixon, yes. Good. Yes. Martinez, yes. Ortiz, yes. Powell, yes. Stefan, yes. Thorne, yes.

Mayor Captain, yes. The motion is approved. 8 Z. Announcements from the council. Mr. Thorne. Thank you, Mayor. I would like to uh publicly congratulate my comrade here uh Councilman Anthony Ortiz for today being awarded the Elgen Hispanic Network Member of the Year uh award. Uh [Applause] Mr. Ortiz.

All right. Well, I got something better than that. Uh two but I appreciate what EHN did. Uh, two weeks ago, I forgot to say something, but it was Mayor Captain's birthday. And then a month before that, I forgot also that it was Mr. Stefen and Miss Martinez's birthday. So, I just want to say happy late birthday to all three of y'all. Still want to remember. Yeah, we all quit counting. Anything else? Mr. Mr. Dixon, I didn't even go down the line to say happy birthday to all of us. That's all.

Okay. Uh just me from me I happy Thanksgiving to everybody and please at this time um we all been reading in the paper about people struggling to eat and having food. Um there are uh donations that can be made to food for greater Elgen for every dollar that you give buys $8 worth of food and uh it's better to give cash than give cans. I think that's uh something for them to do and is most coste effective for everybody. But let's think of the people that are uh really struggling at this time of the year. Announcements from staff. Hearing none. Entertain a motion to adjurnn. So moved. Second. Moved and second to adjurnn. Clerk, please call the role. Council member Dixon, yes. Good. Yes. Martinez, yes. Ortiz, yes. Powell,

yes. Stefen, yes. Thorne, yes. Mayor Captain,

yes. We are adjourned. will reconvene at the regular council meeting at 700 p.m. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]

[Music] [Music] Heat. Heat.

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hey, hey. [Music] [Music] [Music] Heat. Heat.

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Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] the regular meeting for the Elgen City Council for November 19th. 2025 to order. Please join me in the pledge of allegiance.

I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. The clerk, please call the role. Council member Alfaro. Dixon present. Good here. Martinez here. Ortiz here. Powell here. Stefan here. Thorne here. Mayor Captain here. Approval of the minutes of the previous meeting of November 5th. Move for approval. Second.

Moved and second for approval. Any corrections or additions? Hearing none, clerk, please call the role. Council member Dixon, yes. Good. Yes. Martinez, yes. Ortiz, yes. Powell, yes. Stefan, yes. Thorne, yes. Mir Captain,

yes. Motion's approved. 8 zero. We have no communications this evening. We have a number of people signed up with for public comments with a number a variety of issues. First person to sign up is John Laflur. I'm uh John Lafleur. I'm a 16-year resident of Elgen. I live in the GPA neighborhood uh across from the history museum. Um I wanted to address uh actually sorry I'll set my timer. I did set my own timer for three minutes to keep it concise. Um, so I wanted to address the DNA eviction, which I think is just very illogical at this time of year. Uh, you've been up here talking about supporting downtown, talking about supporting small businesses. I'm here um this is collateral damage for me personally. I've worked on a um an adult themed Krampus event for the last nine years. This was the year I was turning it over to the DNA. So, come to find out that they're being evicted from their space. Um, we actually expanded it to a two-day event to take advantage of art space. So, we're having a um in between the um treelighting weekend and the pop-up holiday market, we're having a more adult themed Krampus event at Artspace um Friday night, Saturday afternoon, segueing into um what we've done for a number of years at the martini room um hosting local band Alpine Thunder. Um, and this just comes at a really inconsiderate and thoughtless time in my opinion. I mean, I can't believe that um, at this time of year, you would you would undertake uh, an organization that has three back-to-back holiday events and get them ready to move out at the end of the year, particularly for space that you

have no plans for because if you had renewed their contract, they would have been there. So, um, I'm curious to hear how the discussion goes tonight. I wanted to express my support for the DNA. I've done that in emails to you. I also want to hold them completely harmless. The agreement that you um backed them into, they never should have signed. And I say this as someone who actually works with nonprofits full-time. I oversee a grants budget of $30 million all across the country. I work with a number of similar grassroots organizations. what you've done in terms of um not even representing to be uh fair um what you were you were asking them to do. You gave them a two-year agreement but yet you clawed back $90,000 of it and I calculate that as follows. The the SSA consultant, the audit, and then staff time. You have no respect for staff time that was spent on either one of those. So effectively in year one, while you're giving them $180,000, you're clawing back $90,000. That was never discussed publicly. I'm here to discuss it publicly so the public understands what you're really forcing them to do. I think it was very unfair and given their recent accolades at Illinois Main Street. I just, you know, I've heard from some of you that this is uh personal and political and I think it's shameful, frankly. Uh I also think that you know that the the what I interpret as misogyny in terms of telling three women led organizations that they have to work together formally um by mostly men on the council. All right, I guess my time is up. Um I think you've you've experienced my displeasure um I know other people feel the same way and I hope that they um I hope that you know

this gets the attention that it deserves. Thank you, Lynn Hutchkins. Good evening. My name is Lynn Hutchkins and I am a longtime resident of the Oakidge subdivision. In May of this year, we were blindsided with the notification that the property adjacent to Oakidge had been sold two years ago and was to be used for a gated and walled temple complex. Expected additional traffic in the form of worshippers and tourists is estimated to range from several hundred to several thousand per day, 7 days a week. This will seriously impact the traffic on Lake Street, which is already designated 505 critical status. The IDOT reconfiguration plan in place for Lake Street, Shales Parkway and Lambert Lane is expected to increase the traffic flowing through the area and that is without the additional burden of traffic from the temple. Oakidge is a landlock subdivision. Lake Street is the only method of ingress or egress and there is no possibility of a secondary access. The only access to the Oakidge subdivision and the proposed temple is from from Lake Street is Lambert Lane, which is a small arc of a road just twice the size of the Everclean car wash that it wraps around. It ends at Hilliard, which to the north is the access to the subdivision and continues west as G Boulevard into the proposed temple area. The major problem is that this small road is shared by both the subdivision and the proposed temple complex. The residents of Oakidge would be fighting for access against all of

this additional traffic as would any school buses, emergency delivery or utility vehicles that need to access our subdivision. If you look at similar institutions, whether smaller or larger, like BAPS or the Wheaten Bible Church, none of them share an access road with a residential area. In June, the sheer size of the proposed development as well as the number and extreme nature of the variances required to complete the project had the Elgen zoning board denying approval. The Umaya group and their attorney have since met with the city to downsize part of the development. However, even with the changes, this development is simply not appropriate for the area and does not fit the goals expressed in Elgen's comprehensive plan. If this project is allowed to proceed, it will have a significant deleterious impact on both traffic in the area and on the safety and residential quality of life of all the surrounding residents as well as impacting the resale value of our homes. Our community has already shown its opposition to this development in the form of petitions with more than 200 signatures. I want to emphasize that our objection is not because of religion. This is solely because of the traffic issues, safety concerns, and the impact on our quality of life. We already live there and have for decades. In this economic environment, most of us will not have the luxury of moving, nor should we have to. When this matter comes before you, please remember not just those of us who live there, but all the people who must travel through the area, please vote in opposition. Thank you for the opportunity to speak.

Thank you, Charlene Hernandez. Caroline Hernandez. Okay. Good evening everyone. I stand before you. um as an attorney and a resident of Elgen. I have lived in Elgen for more than 20 years now. And um I have begun I have documented um systemic violations of the constitution and federal and state laws by Elgen's highest officials. This evening, I formally announced the intent to bring federal civil rights litigations under 42 USC section 1983 against Chief Anna Lai, city manager Richard Kosal, city attorney Christopher Beck, and Mayor David Captain. as I've reviewed all of the violations that we're seeing with regards to um federal civil enforcement of immigration detentions in Elgen. I have observed a pattern of six duties that are that the Elgen Police Department is required to provide um all of the citizens and residents of I I don't mean to use the word citizens but all of the residents of the city of Elgen. The Elgen Police Department has a d a duty to serve everyone equally and answer all 911 calls. They have a duty to verify the identity of everyone present at a call when they respond and verify all warrant documents. They have a duty to intervene against all law enforcement misconduct, including federal law enforcement. They have a duty to document everything by body cam and by incident report. They have a duty to report any misconduct by any and all law enforcements, including federal law enforcement. And

they have a duty to protect everyone. The last time I was here, we certainly heard a lot of citizens talking about the fact that this Elgen Police Department does not serve and protect everyone. And what that has created is a two-tier system where if you're not Hispanic, the Elgen Police Department will respond to your 911 call. But there is a possibility that if you are Hispanic and you call 911 and they perceive you to be Hispanic based on your appearance, based on your um language, and not actually on immigration status because they're not allowed to ask about that. Um, Latinos are treated then differently from other 911 callers. And this is in violation of the equal protection clause of the constitution which is also incorporated into the Elgen constitution. So Latino people are being treated ba differently than other residents of the city of Elgen based on race, based on ethnicity or national origin and that violates the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment. This policy that was instituted of nonresponse is a major issue and it is going to be litigated in federal court. Um, the evidence is overwhelming. Public comments, social media, credible news sources have extensively documented the real harm to the Latino community. I have shared envelopes which are the um legal notice and although it's not required, I have attended it to all the city council members because I urge you to act. There is a clock that begins to run um with regards to the notice of a 1983 action and I strongly encourage you to meet with independent legal counsel. Thank you.

Thank you. I believe it's Tom Ho Hoa.

Okay. Hi, my name is Tom Hopinson. Um, downtown business resident, downtown business owner of a co-working space and part of the DNA's sub economic committee, uh, working on the retail incubator space. Uh, bringing back the DNA topic. Um, obviously we're disappointed in the way the process played out with the contract, but I'm here to talk more about the future and specifically what the relationship between the DNA and the city is going to look like going forward. After all, we are all on the same side over here. And I'm talking coordination, collaboration, sponsorship, and whatnot. Um, and that said, in my opinion, SSA is still something that is probably going to happen with the DNA. Um, so, you know, just looking to the future, you know, as a funding source to help the DNA out to set this up. Is the city willing to step up and work with the DNA, including TIFF allocation funds, uh, to make this happen?

Thank you,

Pedro Castile. Pedro Castile. Can I start this? [Music] Thank you, Joseph Van Dyke. Hello everyone. My name is Joseph Van Djk. I've been a lifelong resident of Elgen. Um I've worked in healthc care for the past 17 years. Probably cared for the loved ones of people in this room. Um today I wanted to talk about ICE. Uh my parents worked hard, taught me to stand up for others, and raised me to be a good person. A good person doesn't sit by sit by or look away while their neighbors are being kidnapped. No amount of economic promises would make this okay. We have to stop being tolerant of intolerance. Terrible things are happening outside. Poor, helpless people are being dragged out of their homes. Families are torn apart. Men, women, and children are separated. Children come home from

school to find that their parents have disappeared. Anne Frank, 1943. If you're quiet now, you would have been quiet in 1940. Right now in 2025, there are children hiding in atticss, probably here in Elgen right now, praying that their parents are not going to be taken. Same way Anne Frank was. Currently in America, masked men that do not have to identify themselves in unmarked vehicles can come pick up any brown person that speaks Spanish if they don't happen to have their identification on them. They can get locked up in a concentration camp with dozens of others in the same room. There's reports they're not getting clean food or water. Lights are kept on 247. You could get deported to country you've never been to. Chicago land ICE detention centers were recently ordered to release over 600 people for warrantless arrests. It's weird seeing flags saying, "Don't tread on me." But those same people are suddenly quiet when the worst attack on our rights is actively happening in front of our eyes. Some say they need to do it the legal way. Legal rights, legal routes are being cut. It's like changing the speed limit, but arresting people that were speeding years ago. Legal avenues are even more difficult. For some, it can take 10 years and tens of thousands of dollars to get citizenship. Considering the majority of the country is living paycheck to paycheck, that's not realistic. Undocumented immigrants also commit less crime than citizens and have a higher high school graduation rate. These are people that help make America great. Help your neighbors. Resist. If my job was to protect the public and I was told to stand aside and allow it to happen, I would refuse. My job was to protect the public and my coworker was posting places for ICE to kidnap immigrants. I would do everything in my power to keep

him from getting his job back. To the people that say protesting is a waste of time. Every resource ICE uses on protesters means fewer resources for kidnapping people. Every second ICE is distracted by me following them is a second that little girl has to escape. When my grandchildren read about this time, I want to be able to say, "I didn't stay quiet. I resisted." And I want to end by asking everybody, where is your line in the sand? Thank you. Thank you,

Linda Cersi. Good evening, mayor and city council members. I'm Linda Cersi. I live at 1223 Robin Hood Drive. Sherwood Oaks is an older, wellestablished community. There's never been a homeowners association. Instead, covenances were in place which govern certain aspects of acceptable property maintenance and appearance. Therefore, communication through any organized method is non-existent. On November 4th, I received an invitation to attend the November 17th Q&A, which would address changes proposed by the temple group and was hyped as a gesture of neighborliness. The households receiving this invitation were to reside within 250 ft of the temple group's property line. A postcript added that all members of our subdivision were welcome to attend this meeting but would not receive notification implying we have no HOA to disseminate the information. Therefore, it would be up to us to get the word out. Not one to shrink from a formidable challenge, I put together a flyer and walked the five plus miles around our subdivision delivering this neighborly gesture. The meeting room was packed the night of the Q&A. Not a single person who asked a question or made a comment spoke in favor of the resoning or revisions. Traffic was again a big concern, but a new twist surfaced. If rezoning is approved, what will happen in the future to the newly proposed green space? Will the condos they are proposing to

eliminate return? Will the parking lot increase in size? No assurance was given us, leaving much speculation as to its real future intended use. We were talked to and talked at. There was no indication of neighborliness. It was obvious that this was simply a mandatory meeting, no two-way conversation as per Elgen's comprehensive plan for fostering a potential new neighborhood. The justification for a proposal to return to planning and zoning once it has been voted down is as follows. The new plan has to mitigate the impact on the surrounding neighborhood or neighborhoods. The traffic, environmental issues, or a lack of conformance with the general comprehensive plan. They don't get to pick and choose which aspects they'll address, but they have. Therefore, I respectfully request if your response is less than favorable to vote to please vote against reasonzoning changes at the 890 Gulbart. Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Karen Leech.

Hi, good evening. Um, my name is Karen Leech and I'm a longtime resident of Elgen and a business owner and we're I'm actually here on behalf of several of the neighbors in our neighborhood, a few are that are here. Um, we're asking for the leaf rakeout program. We live in a culde-sac and when we've reached out to the city asking why we don't have that program in our area, we were told that they don't do culde-sacs. Um, we were out, somebody else in the neighborhood had also called and they said, "Well, you get free leaf bags." Well, we get 10. And I didn't know how to let everyone see these pictures, but I did bring pictures of um just our leaf bags in October and November of this year of how many we're up to 60 um that we have to bag h handbag on our own. Um and our neighbors also the same. and there's 10 out of 13 homes that the people that live there are over 55. So, this is difficult for them as well. Um, so when I talked to the city of Elgen um last week, they told me to come to the council meeting tonight and they said that all we need to do is ask for that to have that program and that we need to ask from the council. So, I don't know if this is accurate information, but I'm doing what they suggested that we do and hoping that somebody can tell us maybe how to go forward with to get this done because we really need it in that area.

Okay, Mr. Manager,

unfortunately, that's not accurate information that you received. Um the leaf rakeout program is a combination of the city's agreement with its waste hauler and then also the capacity of its public works staff. The city has not expanded the leaf rakeout area essenti even in the 25 years that I've been working here because we don't have enough employees to to include the additional work. If even if we were to add additional employees, we would then have to go back and renegotiate with our waist hauler to provide for the additional cost for the leave pickup. That's not to say that end of discussion, but I'm giving you insight into the process that would be involved to expand it into other areas. I'm sorry that it doesn't provide that quick solution.

Okay. In response to that, I would like to be able to figure out a way to request this because with the property taxes going up the way they are, we pay more where we're at than some of the places that have the leaf rakeout program. And I my me as a business owner, I have the leaf rakeout program and I pay $5 a month on my water bill. And I would hope that maybe with the cost of the property taxes that keep going up that this might be something that we might be able to do. But I just need to know how to do that going forward. Okay.

Right. Thank you, Jessica Estrug. Good evening, mayor and members of the city council. My name is Jessica Astra, and I'm here tonight to speak about the proposed Umaya Temple and Town Home development at 890 G Boulevard. Two days ago on Monday, the development group hosted the Q&A that you just heard about. They stated they downsized their plans in response to the concerns raised by all surrounding neighborhoods during the June 2nd 4 and a half hour planning and zoning meeting. However, prior to this past Monday's Q&A, there have been no open discussions with any of the neighborhoods that will be directly impacted. Despite the adjustments made, it was clear during the Q&A that there remains no community support for this project. The changes do not adequately address the traffic or safety concerns. As mentioned previously, the reconfiguration of Route 20 and Shells Parkway is already expected to increase traffic in this area. Adding this development would only worsen an already challenging situation given that the stoplight at Lambert and 20 is already at a critical status five out of five per ID dot. At the same Q&A, someone asked whether additional buildings or parking lots might be added in the future should this project be approved. Their attorney responded that such additions would require permits and they did not intend to pursue them. However, in a conversation I had earlier this month with the city planner, I was told that if the development is approved, the group could make additional changes as long as those changes meet the conditions, setbacks, etc., and those changes would not require notifying nearby residents. Given that the closest neighbors, myself included, in Oakidge community, was not notified before or after the land was purchased, it is very reasonable for us to have concerns about

what may come next should this be approved. Holiday celebrations were also discussed during the meeting. The only event mentioned by the group's representatives was their New Year's celebration, which they said would draw a few thousand visitors. A comparably sized Hindu temple in Bartlett that has its own ingress and egress posted on its own Instagram page of 12,000 visitors for their recent New Year's Delta celebration. An Oakidge Oakidge member who is Hindu and opposes the development pointed out several other holidays that would specifically be celebrated by this development that can last multiple days, run until midnight and attract large crowds. These holidays have never previously been mentioned to any of us and the representative for the Umaya group stated, "Yes, these are also holidays that are celebrated. These concerns should not be dismissed. All of this will impact our quality of life, our safety, and yes, our property values. The development does not align with the guidelines in Elgen comprehensive plan. It is a leapfrog development. And even with recent changes, it still does not meet standards of the Elgen's comprehensive plan. The application submitted by the applicant states that visitors will arrive from the east and depart to the west. I already see the traffic happening again from that. These visitors are not coming to engage with Elgen, our events in Elgen, our businesses or its downtown. They are coming solely for the development and then leaving. This is not a benefit to the city's commerce or to Elgen as a whole. The residents of Elgen have been clear. We do not support this development. I do invite you to come to the planning and zoning meeting on December 8th when this will be presented and hope to see you there. I ask on behalf of of myself and many other constituents that if this project does come before the city council that you please vote in opposition. Thank you.

Thank you,

Deborah Rubble. At least I can see over this. Here we go. Good evening, mayor, city council members. My name is Deborah Rubble, president of the Elgen Watch Neighborhood Association. Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you tonight. Um, I'd like to begin by saying that I appreciate and respect utmost respect and and trust in all of you and all you do for our city. Sadly though, I am here tonight to express my deep disappointment and dissatisfaction with what has transpired with DNA's contract and their office space. As a neighborhood leader, I have had the pleasure and fortune to work with DNA through its neighborhood outreach program. Myself and all the neighbors I represent have found DNA's services to be invaluable, especially this program and the farmers market, one of our favorites. I've lived in Elgen for 35 years almost to the day. I have witnessed the positive impact DNA has made on our downtown area and beyond. Before I would never spend time in downtown Elgen. I was always in Geneva or St. Charles. Um it is through DNA that I have become more involved in my city here. I feel DNA is an important connection between our neighborhoods, downtown area, and the city. The tie that binds, so to speak. Isn't that what we are all working towards? All of you, all of the neighborhoods, all of the community volunteers, neighborhoods working harmoniously, creating communities for

the betterment of our city. I believe this is what we all work for and want to happen for our city. That said, along with many other dissatisfied and concerned community members who haven't who couldn't be here tonight, we would like to know what is the next step. Is this a done deal? How is this going to transpire and fix this problem that we have with DNA? Is there a plan? Because at this point, it's not only DNA that is affected by this decision. It affects the whole downtown area, all the neighborhoods, all the progress that has been made here in the city of Algen. So, I would really like to know um if there's a plan that we can help DNA out and keep them in our city. I believe you all have my contact information, so I would really appreciate a response and um would really hope to hear from you. Thank you.

Thank you, Kevin Zeldavar. Hi everyone. Uh if I have time, I'll probably speak about the budget. Uh I think it's very clear about the anti-comandeering laws that uh the state you know uh the federal government can't uh commandeer the state property to carry out their tasks and uh they're here not to be citizens or to be regular people. They're here to enforce the federal government and their policies. uh thereby we can see that their representation is of work and not of as people existing here. So I'm really disappointed that we picked a resolution over an ordinance uh especially like with a neighborhood that like what our makeup of our neighborhood is like what what kind of uh what do we send out to the world with that message? Uh the com the community came here last time to talk about accountability. So where did we get the expectation that police were going to be asked to do more that they can't? By now we've seen videos of ICE agents pulled over for being drunk, switching license plates, and pointing guns at citizens. And we are talking about those who break laws and not carry them out. This is clearly articulated and very simple to understand. The police need to enforce the local laws and protect our constitutional rights and not protect or excusing the ability for federal agents to continue with their misconduct and allow them to retreat as an offensive strategy. Dustin, I just want to uh I know you might have misspoke, but these are very important times right now. Uh but there's no such thing as blurring the lines between community and government.

And including on our budget proposals that we're witnessing, Elgen community is above the Elgen City Council. Uh so now uh why are we looking at proposals to use AI spyware to monitor social media posts uh for protesters and festivals? Now that uh that's come to the attention uh I know the police are going to present that in 2020 we had a mass uh interest in community members to help support and tackle issues and while government and institutional practices continue to harm our economy and our diversity community. and now we want to surveil that same community. The city went ahead and instead of listening to the community hired one of the most well used almost a quarter million dollars to hire a very incompetent consulting company and uh what happened there was that almost half of the people that participated originally and it quit. uh it felt really staged and these were people who are interested in protecting the pockets and organizing a local community response that we could have really used today. This this failed because the city did not side with his residents and now four years later we're asking where can we cut which was the same question in 2020. I can start off by saying that $36 million in pre preventative patrolling is a great start. Uh it's also an oxymoron because police don't prevent crime and that is a belief. The government is a belief. Uh, and I want to just commend uh Corey and uh I believe uh uh Al Faro uh Council Member Alaro for just kind of uh the way that they carry themselves because uh during this time that matters and these are people who are speaking because we belong to communities where responses are violent, taxes are violent. We saw what what's happening in Englewood now in Chicago. Uh, my three minutes are up, so I I'll

respect that. But thank you for listening to me, guys. Thank you. Okay. Uh, we have no bids this evening. That brings us to other business. The first item is a resolution authorizing execution of a successor collective bargaining agreement with local number 439, International Association of Firefighters. Move for approval. Second. Moved and seconded for approval. Any discussion? Hearing none. Clerk, please call the role. Council member Stixson, yes. Good. Yes. Martinez, yes. Ortiz, yes. Powell, yes. Stefan, yes. Thorne, yes. Mayor Captain,

yes. The motion is approved. 8 Z. Item two is an ordinance reclassifying territory in the planned area business district established by ordinance number G6998 as amended by ordinance G14-07 of uh to a new PAB planned area business district at 860 Summit Street. Move for approval. Second. Moved and second for approval. Any discussion? Hearing none. Clerk, please call the role. Council member Stixon. Yes. Good. Yes. Martinez, no. Ortiz, yes. Powell, yes. Stefan, yes. Thorne, yes. Mayor Captain,

yes. The motion is approved. 71. Item three is authorization for payments to the downtown neighborhood association. Move for approval. Second. Second. Moved and second for approval. Any discussion? Hearing none. Clerk, please call the role. Council member Stixson, yes. Good. Yes. Martinez, yes. Ortiz, yes. Powell? Yes. Stefan? Yes. Thorne? Yes. Mayor Captain?

Yes. The motion's approved. 8 Z. Item four is a discussion regarding notice of intent not to renew the commercial lease agreement with the downtown neighborhood association of Elgen for the proc for the premises located at 31 South Grove Avenue initiative from council members Powell and Dixon. And before we start that, I'd ask uh Mr. Beck uh to update us on the status and what the uh process is has gone through so far. Uh sure. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So, the original lease with the DNA was entered into in 2020 and it was a provide for initial one-year term um from January 1st to December 31st, 2020. And then the terminal lease would be automatically renewed for successive one-year terms thereafter unless either party provided notice um not less than 60 days prior to the end of the initial term or any renewal term of an intent not to renew the lease. So um as that indicates it's um each year it's one-year term. There's um no guarantee that there's going to be successive terms, but it would automatically renew unless there was a notice served. Um given the negotiations and discussions with the PSA and the fact that we're unable to reach an agreement with the DNA uh for their purchase of services agreement. Uh late October we got notice that um in addition to not agreeing to the city's terms um there are issues with hiring consultant for the SSA and regardless that's been discussed um wouldn't reach an agreement. It was determined that uh given they're currently occupying space under this lease and no rent to the city that uh the city would not renew the lease for a successful

one-year term. So given the timing that had to be sent within 60 days of the end of the year. So that notice was sent to the DNA on October 30th, 2025. So uh it's not an eviction. I mean it's been called an eviction or termination. It's not terminating. It's just not renewing the lease for another year. Um, so currently they're still occupying the space and the current lease that lease uh term ends December 31st, 2025. And that's I haven't had any further communication with the DNA regarding this matter. Okay, Miss Paul, Mr. Dixon, yes, I'm going to defer to Councilman Dixon and I'll speak later.

Okay. All right. Thank you. So, tonight we are discussing DNA's uh lease agreement or the extension of them being able to um to continue to stay in the space that they're currently in. Um right now, as the corporate council has already uh said, they are uh expected to leave the premises uh by December 31st. Um, we recognize or I recognize um that that's a a very difficult time to try to transition while DNA is continuing to add value to our city. They are having events and things of that nature. So, we don't want to uh or I don't want to disrupt this. Council Councilwoman Pal does not want to disrupt this and I think other members of this body and city staff uh don't want to uh interrupt this either. Now, I will say that I hate that we're here. Um, I don't think that we should be here. Um, but we are where we are for a number of reasons that we're not going to necessarily get into at this time. And the the focus tonight is to give DNA that space um so that they can vacate the property um in a way that does is not too disruptive to their business and to their flow and so that they can continue to provide the value that they've been providing for years now. Um and so that's just the opening. Uh with that, I'm going to go ahead and pass it over to Councilwoman Pal.

Thank you. Um, I I agree with everything that Councilman Dixon said. Um, I hate that we are in this situation. Um, I've been on the city council since 2011. I've lived here since lived here in Elgen since 1999. So, I remember um when the downtown neighborhood association was formed. I know John Stefen was a founding member um as was Ruth Mson um and several other folks um here in this community. some of whom unfortunately are no longer with us. Um I do believe that the downtown neighborhood association provides uh value um to not only uh our downtown but to our community. Um and I see folks here that are from you know uh DNA or um business owners, shareholders, some of you spoke tonight. Appreciate uh your words. Um, I'm assuming at some point we'll have to have a discussion about how some of the work that was being done by the DNA um will be um how will that work be done moving forward since we don't have an agreement. Um, but that's that's for another conversation. I'm more concerned with a orderly transition out of the space. Um, while I don't agree with evicting them from the space, I think this is where we are right now. Um, I think they um are are ready to leave and have found, you know, an alternate site. Um, but I would like to give them a little bit more time. Um, seeing that it's the holiday season, there's a lot of activities that are going on downtown and it's it's just kind of a bad time to try to make a transition. So, um I I

want to make a motion to uh extend the uh the lease by up to another 60 days to give the downtown neighborhood association time to vacate the the space. Second. It's been moved and seconded to extend the lease for 60 days. Any discussion, Mr. Stein?

Yeah, I'll jump in. I was surprised when I saw this come to the council that this was happening. Um, my first question is, and I guess I'll throw this out to whoever can answer it. Um, in this building particularly, we have organizations that occupy that space rentree under leases that we have with them that don't have PSAs with the city like the Symphony, like Alignment. So, I'm wondering why the memo that we got said that we had to have a PSA or they had to leave. So, I guess that's a question I'll throw out to somebody. Mr. Manager,

there's nothing in the memo that said that they had to leave. It was simply a matter when DNA chose not to continue its relationship with the city. Every other organization that's in the city's property, there is it's own there's a PSA with everyone except the ESO. And so, sent the email to the city council. There was no objection for over a week and a half with the plan to pay DNA for the money in which we were out of contract and proceed with the non-renewal of the lease. And it wasn't until council member Powell about a week and a half later indicated disapproval for that and that's why we put it on the agenda for this discussion. Thank you. That's all I have.

Okay. I think that uh a couple things. the uh uh symphony years ago uh we had an agreement with them because the city could not provide a box office at the Hemans. We didn't have space, we didn't have people to do it and the request was made for a a space to do that and that's how the agreement uh came for them as I recall uh to use the space uh near the at that time the chamber and in the city facility down there. Uh so that and they do pay uh significant rent um as a tenant at the hemans. So there is a connection there. uh initially um eight or eight or nine years ago uh when this process started uh DNA was renting for uh the uh space above the blue box and we thought at that time well this is kind of kind of they had a purchase of service agreement and the discussion was made well we can provide them space uh through the with the purchase of service agreement um and allow them free space it would give them a little bit extra money they'd save on the rent and it would be a win-win for everybody and uh that purchase of service agreement no longer exists. So that's where the uh issue becomes. I guess my preference here is um I'd like to leave it in the hands of the manager and give some flexibility so he can work with the DNA and see when they had time to move out. I don't think we can put a time limit on it and uh uh don't want to certainly don't want to be the uh the Grinch here at Christmas time. And I fully understand that this is a busy time for them and it's not practical for them to move right now. I had the discussions with the manager that at his discretion if they uh uh end up going to the beginning of next year that would be fine. And uh I think that's uh uh certainly I guess my opinion here. I think it provides some flexibility for him to see how they're moving along and

uh um make sure that they have an opportunity to get their uh uh place uh uh in their location, new location or whatever their plans are going to fruition. Okay. Um Mr. Thorne, I'm sorry. Thank you, Mayor. I just thought I'd remind everyone that we're still at a stage where if they chose to sign their agreement, they everything's done. They're they're there. They can stay. Um their president right at that podium said, "Give us three years and we'll do those things." We gave him three years. And he changed his mind. I mean, this is on on recorded tape. it's on even a chain of emails. Um, you know, I I don't know that I agree with a lease extension, but I certainly agree with giving them more time. And uh, as Mr. Beck stated earlier, we never stated that we were evicting them. We just weren't renewing their lease. their lease ends at the end of the year, but to enforce that uh is certainly something I wouldn't go for either. I know that they're doing a good job and they're doing a job and very busy in December and I would be inclined rather than a uh a motion to extend their lease by 60 days which is a time frame as the mayor said what if they uh have complications and it's 70 days. I mean, it's to me uh allowing them ample time to stay uh and do things after the first of the year.

We're not ogres up here. We're not trying to to uh be mean. I mean, it's um I would be inclined to uh give them the time they need to be able to uh move to a different location or rethink their opportunity here because uh they could stay. All they have to do is sign their agreement. And I also just kind of remind everyone it all started with uh a councilman that councilwoman that pulled each one of us, talked to each one of us, came up with the contract. The contract, they knew what it was. We all knew what it was. All of us knew what it was. But it was headlined by two years and they wanted three. And then that's when the things on there that weren't favorable to the president, he said he would do if they got three years. It was changed to three years. They could still sign it and everything would be done.

That's all.

Thank you. Um, there was so I'm not trying to get too far off track because this can really turn into something else, but there was so many things wrong with what Councilman Thorne said. It's so inaccurate. Um, there was some changes made. Um, that did throw this all for a loop. I'm not even going to try to go back and forth and go into all of the details of what's wrong and right. I don't want to sidetrack this conversation because this is simply about allowing DNA to have the space, the time that they need in order to transition into uh their new location properly. Now, I have a different viewpoint from uh from mayor captain as far as how this process should go. Um the city manager is our only employee and as council people we give direction to the city manager and not the other way around. So to take a process that our own city manager gave to us as a council, right? As was just detailed, uh, Councilwoman Al Farro, uh, did a lot of groundwork in speaking with each one of us and speaking with city staff to develop the, um, the first draft of of contract. And so, the process is ours. It's been said publicly multiple times. We understood that. Um, so at this point, um, when it doesn't go right, it's still ours and it's still our decision as to what direction, um, what happens with this lease agreement or what happens with them staying at the property. Um, so we don't need to pass the buck at the 11th hour. We need to finish the job. So, um, you know, I've

spoken with city I've spoken with the colleagues up here, uh, many of the colleagues up here. I've spoken with city manager. Um I've also spoken with DNA. Uh 60 days is what they're they're good with. They can get they can you do what they need to do in that in that amount of time. Um they don't foresee needing to go past that because they've already secured the new space. Um and so they're going to begin transitioning shortly after the holidays. Now, if they come back and, you know, something does happen, I don't see, you know, us saying, "Well, you got to go anyways." Um, if they need a few more days to vacate the property. So that's So I just wanted to kind of put some of this in perspective and and speak to uh speak to some of the the incorrect statements because um you know I can speak a lot about the speak a lot about the process and and what transpired but DNA the organization over the years have done a lot of great work in our city and our community and they continue to do so. um and they're still continuing to do that work. So, you know, you know, being disrespectful towards an organization that had that is a volunteer-based organization um that doesn't get paid, you know, millions of dollars to do the work. You know, I I think it's just not becoming um of a of a professional council. Um so, I would stay steer clear of that. While I do respect everyone's opinion, I I definitely will steer steer clear of that. Um, so I just wanted to respond to some of that.

Okay. Thank you. Okay, Miss Martinez.

Thank you, mayor. I also want to clear some things uh up here. You know, the mayor alluded to eight years ago. Actually, um, the DNA existed way before that. And at that time, the contract that we had uh with DNA, we were uh paying the DNA $30,000 to $35,000, you know, and um in agreement, the DNA then um did like 10 different events for the city. Okay. and they paid for their uh rent as well as the mayor said. Uh it was um top of the the blue box. And so the events that the DNA did at that time with volunteer bases was the Fourth of July. The Fourth of July parade is uh an expensive parade for us now because the city does it. And when it's a holiday, a federal holiday, and city employees have to work on that day, we're paying for that. And it's not straight time. Okay. I remember when the DNA used to do it on a volunteer basis and they used to have like a party before the parade and a party after for the people who volunteered because that's really a lot of work. It really it really really really is. Another thing is you know I remember enjoying gallas. I remember the DNA at that time was so so active you know um and you know we're all witnesses to um in the September meeting that we had the DNA stated that they have a quarter of a million dollars um and

they're very um good with their money because they also stated that they have 12 months of reserves you know which is great and Um it it kind of bothers me that we're being we're being looked at or or people are saying that we are evicting them. We are not. You know, as it's been said already, they would have just gone ahead and agreed to an um this um agreement. You know, we wouldn't be here right now. And you know to to be clear too uh Miss Alvado I think did a very good job in um polling all of us and when she did that that's how we came up with a two-year plan. Okay was agreed upon by the majority of us. That's why we did it. Okay. Um, and the things that we asked in that uh 2-year plan was also, you know, for an audit and um, you know, to add some people on. I'm not going to go into that. We've already heard about this. And like it was said, you know, he had a signed agreement. They said, "Okay." Okay. But then when they agreed, well, why don't we go ahead and expand it for three more uh for for three years from two to three, they were willing to do all these things, you know, but then when it came time to sign the contract, they said no, that they weren't uh that they weren't in agreement, you know, and you know, that's fine, but in that agreement also is um the rentree, you know. Uh I I get it that they're very busy right now in in December. We all are. You know, if somebody wants to propose to um go ahead and and um give them that location that they have

right now, you know, um I would go ahead and say we could rent it to them. You know, uh they're doing well. Nobody is disputing that the DNA is is terrible, is bad. It's business. You know, this is a contract. This is what we expect to happen and either it's a yes or no. And it happened to be a no. So, thank you. Okay. I think anybody else, Mr. Stefan.

Oh, I'll pipe in because a lot of this is kind of nonsense, but um I'll repeat what I said. when the lease when the PSA was amended from three years to two years and all the additional issues piled on and that is that all of this is for personal reasons has nothing to do with their PSA and whether they're performing and whether we should give them another three years as we have in the past and in the same vein this movement to not renew their lease or evict them or whatever you want to call what the same result entails, which is we're forcing them out of a space. Um, I also think it's for petty reasons, has nothing to do with their performance or whether they deserve it. So, um, I've heard numerous mischaracterizations. The original attempt to fashion an agreement was three years and that was cut to two years. So that was one of the major reasons why they refused to go along with that amendment because it shortened everything and made many of the provisions unrealistic including an SSA which should have would have required if they had signed it a consultant by the end of the year which is highly unlikely even when if we had done it in September. So, as has been mentioned, I was a co-founder of this organization 1998. I guess I was less concerned about what was happening because when we were running this organization, we had to rent space and move around downtown and I personally had to fix up spaces with some of the former board members. So, I am very familiar with the prior spaces. There's four or five of them around downtown that we have been in over the 35 or so years that we've been

ex or DNA has been in existence. So, but I, you know, I certainly will support giving them 60 days because I think that is only reasonable in the circumstances. Um, I appreciate the fact that it's been brought up by several council members to do that. I hadn't talked to anybody, but now that I've heard what is proposed under this agenda item, I will support it. So, thank you. Okay. Anything else? Okay, Miss Martinez.

Thank you, Mayor. Um, Councilman Stefan just reminded me about the SSA. The SSA actually, as it's been said, was done by the previous DNA board. And so that was really the hard thing to do to get all those pin numbers right and um to identify who belonged to what um pin number. That's the hard thing that's already done. What we were asking the DNA to do was to pursue it. And in doing that it's just updating what's already been done. It's just updating it. That's all because the pin numbers they don't change. So that was already done. And second is um whether and oh and what we were asking as well is just to go around and ask their stakeholders, you know, um what do you need from us? What can we do? How can we serve you? That was all. Whether it was going to pass or not, that's not part of the DNA's um uh purview. That's not what they um were supposed to do. It's just that was the ask that was supposed to happen is you know go ahead with the SSA the SSA that was already worked on. Um like I said the hard part was already done and it was just to follow through with that as for that and and that's really it. Um so I just wanted to clarify that. Thank you.

Okay. Anything else? Okay. We have a motion. Clerk please call the role. Motion motion to extend the lease for six month for two months. Council members Dixon, yes. Good. Yes. Martinez, no. Ortiz, pass. Powell, yes. Stefan, yes. Thorne, yes. Mayor Captain, yes. Motion is approved. I haven't voted yet. You have it pass. Okay. Come back to me. Okay. Okay. Four.

Yes. Motion. Motion's approved. Four two. Correct. I think it's 71. 71. Yeah. 71. Okay. All right. Consent agenda. Move for approval. Second. Miss Martinez. I I asked for um item number nine to be uh removed from the cons consent agenda. Miss Martinez has requested a number item nine be removed from the consent agenda.

Okay. I'm going to put it right here in front. Okay. Okay. Afterwards, M. Martinez has asked that item nine has been uh removed from the consent agenda. We vote on one through eight and 10 to 12. We will um uh we'll vote on yours first.

Okay. The reason why I asked to remove this um is I was looking at human relations commission in April 6, 2025. And then just recently and um what I noticed and you know let's understand that we just changed how we are going ahead and um picking or choosing um the recommendations. Okay. We have a commission and uh people apply and we used to have the mayor and uh the senior councilman approve these uh recommendations. That has changed now where we don't have that constant with the mayor and um it's changed where it's not the senior person. What we did now is we are revolving on on uh who who recommends now and you know and you know that that's a great idea but we were never given any type of metrics you know there's some people who have never done this process before and so I was just asking if we can pause on this you know um I appreciate that people are applying and you know they're not getting paid for this And uh the reason why I bring up uh April and now is because what I I do personally, I always look and see whether people have attended meetings or not. And if they haven't, um I'm kind of hesitant to recommend them because this is why we have poor attendance in commissions because what happens people did not attend it. they don't know what they're getting into and it's over their head, you know, and to prevent that either they should come and

attend. Uh I think that's a good thing. So I kind of like mark people off on that if they don't because honestly they don't know what they're getting into. And then uh second is you know there's people who have applied and here I see where somebody applied in in April uh 2024 and um you know have applied before I think the the one who applied the longest was uh December 18th of 2023 but he doesn't have any interest in this. So, um, people that we had apply were all in in April of this year and then we had somebody I mean of last year of last year, excuse me. And we've had people apply this year. And so, what caught my attention is we have uh somebody who went ahead and and applied last time and the last I heard was he was not interested in um in serving, you know. But then I see the list this time and it seems like now he is and and thank you for doing that. I appreciate it. But I think that um I think his new his new application date is October 13th. The last one he had was uh March 13th. Either way, he is the newest applicant that we have. And all I'm saying is that there's other people um who have applied prior and have been waiting. And uh I'm just asking for pause because like I said, we were never given any metrics. We're never given any um uh instruction on how to do this because it's been so long that the mayor and the senior council member has done this. And um that's why I'm asking this to be taken off the uh consent agenda.

So your motion is to uh remove it from the consent agenda and and revisit it. Revisit it and revisit it at a future time. Okay, that's her request. Well, there Mr. Beck, there doesn't have to be a motion to remove it from the consent agenda. So it's already been removed. So I guess the motion is to table it or postpone it. That's what I'm trying to get at. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, that's okay. So, the motion is to table it or uh is that Yes. Okay. It's a motion to table. Could please call the role. Wait, was there a second?

It doesn't need a second. No, this it would need a second. A motion to table needs a second. Yeah. Who seconded it? No one. No one. Second. It's been seconded. Clerk, please call the role. Oh, that's good. Do you have a question? Yeah, I just wanted to Okay, I'm sorry, Mr.

And sorry, I wasn't more obvious, but um just to provide some more context to the community, to my colleagues, to staff. Um in the rare occasion, government actually moved pretty quick on this one. Um we updated our council rules and what had been a long-standing tradition changed. Um and I would admit that, um there was also the dynamic of what transpired at the previous meeting. Um there were uh conversations about um the Martin Luther King subcommittee within the committee um and so the applicants that applied and are here tonight um were part of all those discussions. So, um, as I went through this this process, uh, you know, getting up to speed with what we do on, uh, you know, city email, you know, we get emails from staff, we share them with colleagues, we have conversations. Um, and, you know, there was some discussion about like, well, the way that the last meeting went, we didn't know uh where everybody still stood. So, in talking with the applicants and finding out that people still want to serve. Um, that's that's how I moved forward in the process. But in hearing some of the concerns from my colleagues, I I do agree that um it was a little abrupt because when I typically would review uh applicants, I would go through their application, read their background information, and that would largely be how I would weight it in my head. Recommendations come forward and that we approve or uh or we don't. And so I guess I think what I'm hearing is that you want to have more structure. I think for me it's okay, now what are we waiting against? Is it the uh how long the application's been submitted for, how many meetings they've been for, etc. Um, and so without running through all those metrics right now, I guess we're seeking to table this to to I guess delay until there's structure in place that we all agree to.

And then so like for me, I don't want to delay this any further because it's already been a process. again for me from the outside looking in as a new person um this one seemed to be getting getting a little bit uh more uh messy than others. So I guess before this this vote gets called, I wanted to throw that I was like this was my experience the first time in this new process where um you know we were assigned to review applications um as part of that process you know it was indicated that hey there there's another applicant that caught my eye. So now how do we convey that to staff to make sure that when the next time this subcommittee comes up um that there is input there. So that was just one of my first acknowledgements that the process as it stood didn't establish any room for us. So say the next time HRC comes up and it's two other council people. You know what's that handoff from say us to the next group. Um so I I'm in agreeance that we need to put in more structure I think or at least to have a st a starting point of a rubric. Um, what I don't know is I if we table this is it till I guess till when? Like what's timeline? Because I don't want to I mean we've got a an applicant that is is here tonight. Um, so I don't want to

Yeah, I acknowledge the process was messy, but I also don't want to prolong what we're currently

I think that uh obviously we're all uh everybody that now is doing this has a different learning process. I've been doing of these for a number of years and uh how it's going to how that transition is going to be how do you pass that information on uh is going to be a challenge but I think this one has been sitting here for a long time and we need to we need to move on that uh move this forward um but that conversation can be had as we as we all get a chance now every everybody's going to be voting on people on plumbing commissions and things like that so we're all going to have those discussions and how do we do that I I think that's something that we'll find as a challenge as we go on. So that's my just just my thought from here. Miss Powell,

thank you. Um I I agree with you, Mayor Captain. I think you know some of these positions have been vacant for a while. We need to fill these. Um we went through um a a very thorough process to even get the process that we have right now established. Uh we talked about that extensively. Um I think uh our city clerk Kim Dwis did an excellent job. She you know sent out an a very thorough email with the procedure and how the rotation would take place and and and how we would be bringing people forward a whole lot faster to fill these vacant board and commission positions. So, I'm excited to see that we've got three people on our agenda tonight. Two for Human Relations Commission and one for Planning and Zoning. Um, folks that are volunteering their time and want to share their time, energy, and expertise to to help better this community. Um, so I'm not in favor of tableabling this. I think that there um there is a mechanism if you want to have input the next round. I I think as as Councilman Good mentioned, you know, even though there there'll be two new people obviously the next time around, when that comes up, I would just reach out to those two people and say, "Hey, I I have some ideas. I have some thoughts, you know, will you please maybe consider this person or I whatever." I think that there's opportunity there. Um, I don't think anyone took advantage of um the opportunity to reach out to the the two council members who um who are in charge of bringing forth the appointments this time around that

to to my knowledge, you know, to oppose or recommend someone else. Um, Councilman Dixon, did you hear from anyone? Okay. Um, so I I I I guess I I find it suspect and I'm going to use that word because if if it if the problem is with the process, Councilwoman um Martinez, then we should be tableabling um item nine and item 10. Agreed. We should be we should be tableabling appointing uh members to the human relations commission and we should also be tableabling appointing anyone to the planning and zoning commission. Um but you you you're singling out human relations commission. So that's why I said this sounds suspect to me.

Um but my I'm not in favor of tableabling either of these. We these are vacant positions that we need to fill. We've we've established a process. We've gone through that process. And now if you don't want to vote in favor of the people that have been recommended, you are more than welcome to do that. Final thing I want to say is it's not a first one in guarantee that you're going to be appointed. Just because somebody applied first doesn't mean that they automatically get appointed to a seat, right?

When we run for these positions, just because you're at the top of the ballot doesn't mean that you automatically get a seat, right? The most qualified people move forward. So, at least during the time that I the 14 years I've been on on the city council, we look at the applications, what people bring to the table, their experience, you know, where do we have gaps on some of these boards and commissions, and how if for me in particular, how do the people that we want to bring forward help kind of fill those gaps that exist on that board. So, I I think that the folks that we are recommending for uh both of these boards um are qualified. I think they bring energy and enthusiasm and help fill some gaps that we need to fill. So, um I'm in favor of of going forward with the vote tonight. I hope that the majority of the board is not in favor of tableabling this because we we we need to to have a full human relations commission in particular where these are two two seats we're trying to fill here tonight.

Thank you. Uh Miss Martinez was your

Yes. I I agree with uh Councilwoman Pow. We should go ahead and to stop on on the two that we have tonight. which is the human relations board and the planning and zoning. And you know, you're you're right. Just because people applied first doesn't mean they get it. I look at the list and I had already knocked out two of them because like I said, they never uh have attended a meeting before. Uh the other thing that I noticed, I don't know if anybody else noticed, but on the applications that uh we have for people to fill out, there's some that do ask the question, have you uh attended? And there's some that don't. And I know that um each commission is different. Maybe not all of them need to uh have that, but I think the majority should. And that's something that we should look into that when somebody applies and fills out an application, the application should be the same for everybody. So, I don't know if it's an old application, a new application, I'm not sure, but to me that helps that guides me. And I did um reach out on one of the commissions to the person who was appointing and I asked why did you go ahead and appoint this person? They told me why. And then I told him why I wasn't in favor. This other one, um, I missed the date on it. You know, it's my fault. I did go ahead and reach out to Miss Dwis, but it was already after the cutoff. I'm just explaining. Thank you.

Okay, Mr. Stefan. No, I just I I wanted to just quickly say I agree with everything that Councilwoman Pal said, but it's been mischaracterized several times and I think it was part of the confusion with this current process of trying to get some human relations commission appointees and that is the recommendation doesn't mean somebody is appointed. It's just a recommendation that brings the person to the entire council for a vote. And I think as Councilwoman Paul said, if you if you don't think that person should be appointed, then you can vote against them. That's it's a two-step process. The recommendation doesn't confer anything. It's just a way to get somebody to us and then we get to vote on it. And um I also want to say that I if if people think that this new process needs more details, that's fine. But I don't think it should hold up this the voting on everybody today. I I disagree with taking one or either of these two resolutions appointing members to the these two commissions off the consent agenda or not voting on them tonight. I think we should just keep going.

Okay, Mr. Dixon and we'll call the vote as soon as I say something.

Yep. Thank you. Um so I I certainly realize well I'm not in favor of table in this. Let me just say that first. But um yeah I was a liazison for the HRC for a number of years and probably about six to seven of those years um I would handle the appointments uh in partnership uh with Mayor Captain. Um, so I'm familiar with the process. So I can certainly appreciate if someone isn't familiar with the process if they haven't been doing that on a commission. Um, uh, but I can tell you like anything else, you know, the first time is a little weird. It's a little wonky, right? The second time it's a little easier. Third time it's a little easier. And it's really not a complicated process at all. Um, and let me just say this too, the applications stay on file for I think two years after the application, right? So they they don't go away. Um, so a flag system, which I think Councilman Good brought up as to, you know, maybe an application that rises to the top, some type of filtering system, I don't see a problem with it. Uh but to do that on the fly in order to not make appointments, that wouldn't be right. Um we need to move forward and make these board appointments. Um and and also too at the last meeting um where this was discussed and this applicant uh in in particular Tyrell was was discussed. I believe at towards the end of that um Mayor Captain said like hey it didn't work out this time but there'll be future vacancies so you know like pretty much like keep at it and that's what Mr. Tyrell did. He kept at it and he applied again and and so happened there was some openings that weren't available at that time. So he

did as he was instructed to do. Um and then lastly, um Kim sent out an email on November 5th to the entire council saying, "Hey, if you object to these appointments, which myself and Councilman Good made to respond and to let her know by November the 10th, you didn't do that. You didn't say anything to Kim." According to Kim, I did two days later. I mentioned that and it was my bad because I missed the date. Okay.

So, so you know there was a clear process. Everybody had the information. I can appreciate I don't catch everything either. So, I'm not going to, you know, uh, you know, condemn you for that. But the process is the process is the process. And November 10th was the date. We heard nothing. I was inspecting nothing. I talked to uh talked to Terrell, talked to you know um Mr. Good to as well and you know and so this should move forward and this should be done because it's the right thing to do and he followed the process. So let's not complicate this more than it already has been. Let's not cast any uh cast anymore cast any more excursions or um place any more clouds around this situation. Let's just get it done and be over with. And if you want to create a process in the future, I'm all for it. So, it's not like I'm against it, but I would be against doing that and and waiting to make appointments so that we can start putting together a process that you probably don't even know what it looks like right now. So that's my comments

ju just to add to that, you know, um I I I get it, but I think we kind of

we went ahead and we said that um we were going to do the the rotating. I think it would have been easier if we had either the mayor or the uh city councilman, you know, constant to be there. And so once this process started, I'm like, "Oh, wow." You know, we didn't think about this and we didn't think about that. That's all it is. It's nothing against anybody, you know. Uh I I was just stating how um we had eight people who applied and we still have eight people, but this is something that occurred to me. It's like, wait a second, you know, the process of going ahead and and uh talking to people and and I did state that it was my mistake for not getting there sooner. And then when I noticed also that the applications were different, you know, it'd be a good time to do it. That's why we're taking it for a vote. Either we table it or we don't. It's fine.

Okay. One last thing, I'm going to call a vote. I'm happy to see this. Um, you know, I've been doing this, like I said, a long time. And Councilman Steph and I have been doing this um uh the two of us have been doing this for a couple of years now. And we had a lot of criticism. How come you're not getting these done? I think it's because we take it seriously. I read these things. I look at these applications and I try to do the best I can to to try to make a fit. And not every commission is the same. There are people that uh are better served on a commission. I want them to be happy if they get uh if that's their choice. And also they have to fit in and there are sometimes there's a need on a commission that we need a certain perspective and uh human relations is one of those. And uh I think that's uh um uh just the way this process is is going to work. And I think everybody now that you're working with different partners as this goes on and you're going to be uh uh it's going to be a little bit of a challenge, but take your time and I am happy that uh the conversation's being had and I think we're uh moving in the right direction here. Uh there's a motion to table. Clerk, please call the role.

Council members Dixon. No. Good. No Martinez. Yes. Ortiz. No Powell. No Stefan. No Thorne. Yes. Mayor Captain. Uh, no. The motion fails. Seven to two. Okay. Um, uh, six to two. There's only eight of us. Oh, that's right. I'm sorry. Forgot Miss Far is not here. I'm not counting too well. Six to two. Okay. That brings us back to the consent agenda. We still need a motion on number nine. A motion to approve. Motion to approve. Yeah, I'm sorry. A motion to approve number nine.

So my uh so moved. Moved and seconded to approve number nine. Clerk, please call the role. Council member Dixon, yes. Good. Yes. Martinez, yes. Ortiz, yes. Powell, yes. Stefen, yes. Thorne, yes. Mayor Captain, yes. Motion's approved. 8 Z. Now for the entire consent agenda. So moved. Second. Moved and second for approval. Any discussion? Clerk, please call the role. Council members Dixon. Yes. Good. Yes. Martinez. Yes. Ortiz? Yes. Powell? Yes. Stefan? Yes. Thorne? Yes. Mayor Captain. Mayor Captain. Miss No, go ahead. Keep going.

Uh, yes. Miss Navvice coming up to talk about uh the last item. You can finish the vote on the consent agenda. I'm sorry for interrupting you. Okay. Yeah, you got I'm off already off track here. We got the consent agenda. We got the vote for that. We just need miscellaneous miscellaneous. Mayor, I'm sorry for interrupting you. I'm suggesting before we move to miscellaneous business, assistant city manager Karina Nava along with public works director Erin Neil are going to talk about the city's next actions following its adoption of the resolution prohibiting the use of city property for federal civil immigration enforcement. Thank you, Miss.

Yes. Hello again. Um so following the adoption of the resolution, uh staff is ready to be po start posting signage tomorrow morning. Um so uh Aaron and his team will be taking care of that. Um, and we the signs are in English and Spanish and they have a QR code on them. So that QR code will take them to um a website that we built um a web page, sorry. And that web page can be translated into Spanish or any other language just like um any other pages on our website. But that web page um has immigration resources. So know your rights um as well as the resolution in English and Spanish. It's got a summary of the resolution as well for those that don't want to read eight or nine pages. um just to give people a high level um overview and an idea of what's included in that resolution and also how to um the process on uh where to call if they uh see um any u federal immigration enforcement happening on city property. Um we as part of the resolution as well, there are signs available um for private property owners who wish to put um a sign on their yard and these will be available beginning tomorrow uh tomorrow morning at city hall. Um and during regular business hours, so Monday through Friday 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. And those are also available in English and Spanish. And I will invite um public works director Aaron Neil to show you the signs. Here we go.

If I can, Erin, you'll also provide information on the plan for how we're going to be dep those initial deployments. Indeed. Thank you. Indeed. Uh Mr. Mayor, members of the city council. So, as assistant manager uh Karina Nava shared, we have two sets of signs. Uh we'll start one at each end. This is the sign for private property. It's on what is considered a campaign sign. All these signs res official.

So from the information that we heard on November 5th, there were some concerns about the timeline that was initially provided for installation. What we have done, we have signs. We have 500 of the corrugated signs for private properties and we have approximately 500 signs for city properties. Uh we are going to begin tomorrow. I I held a meeting yesterday with representative departments from public works, land management and building maintenance. And we will begin installing signs at high priority locations tomorrow. So that's going to include all of the parking lots within the central business district, all of our facility parking lots, all of our parks uh and all of our city facilities that have public access. Uh during that meeting yesterday, we shared or I asked the staff to use their professional judgment in what are those high priority areas of the city. We have 76 park properties that go from our regional parks at Wing and Lords Park to the Burn Bernage property which is a parks property that is all woods. Right. So, we're going to start at Wing Park and Lords Park. Public works crews are going to start with signs at city hall and all of the parking lots within the central business district as we expand out to city facilities. And Glenn Deman and his building maintenance team is going to start at internal signposting at facilities like the rec center. So, all of this is going to start over the is going to start tomorrow uh by Thanksgiving break. We will have signs in all of the obvious and um forward- facing spaces and we will then continue installations through the end of the year at some of those kind of ancillary spaces outside of um you know those those priorities.

Yeah, that's the real deal. Mr. Ner, Mr. New, I appreciate you guys showing us these. Uh how long is it going to take? I got two questions I ask both at the same time and whoever wants to tackle them. Uh, I scan their QR code and all is showing what the sign looks like, whatever language. So, mine set to Icelandic or Islanic, whatever it is. Uh, so when is the website going to finish getting built? Is it going to be before the signs go up? And the second one is, which I'm not concerned about, but did it stay within the budget of what the resolution said that we approved or do we go under or over since it was so fast that you guys got these printed?

I'll answer the first question. Um, yes, the website is not live yet, but it will be tomorrow um before the signs go up. Okay. And as far as the budget councilman, uh the resolution included a number of $47,000. The procurement of the signs was well under that initially. There are going to be some ancillary costs that um for you know installation hardware or signpost, but we believe we can stay within the budget that was uh approved November 5th. All right. Thank you,

Miss Pow. I just want to say thanks to staff for moving so quickly um because I know one of the concerns that several of us had was the original timeline that was given. So really appreciate um moving quickly to get the signs procured and to I and I know the original email did say that the prior we were going to start with you know the priority location. So I'm glad to hear that that's still the case. Um my question with the two signs, so obviously the the one for city property is a metal sign that you're going to be mounting either on existing poles or you're going to have to put new poles in the ground. Is that the

Yeah, a little bit of both. I mean, we will use existing infrastructure where we can, existing poles. Um we will use street light poles, which is a typical sign installation. So maybe coming into the keyhole here at city hall, we got it's lined with street lights. We'll put a sign there. Um, in some of the parks there are existing signs that say park hours, dust to dawn, things like that. So, we will use as much existing infrastructure as possible, but we also I also advise all of the folks who are going to be doing the installations to use their professional judgment as well. So, if there's a pole that has seven signs on it, you know, we're not going to put the immigration sign on the bottom. We would then in that instance put it on its own freestanding poll. So, um, it's a very fluid installation. in order for us to get out into the community and get these up. You know, we're going to run into things that we haven't, you know, we don't have the answer to, but we are going to, you know, make the best out of this to ensure that these signs are prominent at entrances and at locations where the public gathers.

Great. And there will be a a media release on the website with the information that we can share. I I guess my question with the um private property signs some of the ones and I appreciate I mean my concern is that for some properties that don't necessarily have lawn space to put like a yard sign in like like you said it's a like a campaign sign. Do we have like smaller signs that they can just like put on their door or put in a window?

Yes. So, um on the website, which the press release and everything is going to kick off tomorrow morning, uh there will be a um a sign that um private property owners can print so that they can put on their window on their door in case they don't have a yard.

Got it. Perfect. Thank you. Um and I also want to thank Chris Beck, our our corporation council. I know um you worked diligently to put this whole resolution together and and worked with us back and forth to to get, you know, something in place. Um I know that, you know, not everyone's in the community may be happy with what we have, but to me, this is a start. And I think it shows um our intent and our commitment as a council and as a community to um help protect um those in our community from what's happening. So um so thanks thanks a lot Chris. I really appreciate that. Um that's that's all I have. So thank you for for sharing those signs tonight. It was on that was on my list to ask about after the meeting. So,

all right. Thanks. Thank you for the signs. There's a whole pile of them downstairs. Okay. Miscellaneous business. Move for approval. Move for approval. Second. Second. Move and seconded. Any discussion? Hearing none. Court, please call the role. Council member Dixon, yes. Good. Yes. Martinez, yes. Ortiz, yes. Powell, yes. Stefan, yes. Thorne, yes. Mayor Captain,

yes. Motion's approved, 8 zero. Announcements. The next committee of the whole meeting will be Wednesday, December 3rd, 2025 at 5:00 p.m. Again, 5:00 p.m. in the city council chambers. The next regular meeting of the Elgen City Council will be Wednesday, December 3rd, 2025 at 7 p.m. in the city council chambers. Uh before we adjourn, I wish everybody a happy Thanksgiving and again think of the people that are less fortunate in this community and do what you can to help them out. Entertain a motion to adjurnn. So moved. Second. Moved and seconded. Clerk, please call the role. Council member Dixon, yes. Good. Yes. Martinez, yes. Ortiz, yes. Powell, yes. Stefan, yes. Thorne, yes. Mayor Captain,

yes. We are ajourned. [Music]