City Council - Regular Meeting

to order. Will the clerk please call the role? Council members Alaro here. Dixon here. Good here. Martinez here. Ortiz here. Powell. Stefan here. Thorne here. Mayor Captain here. Approval of the minutes of the previous meeting of uh November 12th, the special meeting. Move approval. Second. Moved and second for approval. Any corrections or additions? Hearing none. Mayor, sorry, Miss Alaro.

Yeah, I just wanted to note on page five or the last page of those amendments, it should um indicate that there on the discussion regarding Fiesta the Elgen that there was a discussion regarding the inclusivity of various Hispanic groups in Fiesta the Elgen. So, if you could just add that

we have an amendment to the to the minutes. Move for approval with a with the amendment. Move for approval with the amendments. Court, please call the role. Council member Zara, yes. Dixon, yes. Good. Yes. Martinez, yes. Ortiz, yes. Stefan, yes. Thorne, yes. Mayor Captain, yes. Motions approved. 80. Uh, approval of the minutes of the meeting of November 19th, 2025. Move for approval. Second. Move the second for approval. Any corrections or additions hearing? None. Court, please call the role. Council member Zaro, abstain. Dixon, yes. Good. Yes. Martinez, yes. Ortiz,

yes. Stefan, yes. Thorne, yes. Mayor Captain,

yes. The motion's approved 70 with one abstension. Brings us to public comment. We have uh six people sign or five people signed up this evening. First person is Tracy Hollow. Good evening, um, city council. Um, I'm here because I've heard rumors that there's a concern that we're putting a, um, target on our head here in Elgen. And I wanted to address that and say that Elgen's already been made a caring example on the national stage when the Blackhawk helicopters brought ice Barbie and her flying monkeys at 5:00 a.m. to disrupt our peaceful city residents. Volunteers have been working tirelessly doing courageous work to protect our innocent neighbors from the unlawful ICE invaders. I was disappointed in the tone of the last conversation we had about the police and what they would do. It was assumed in that conversation that ICE was acting within the law. What are you, Mr. Mayor, and the Elgen Police Department going to do seeing as there is an overwhelming evidence that ICE is purposely acting outside the law? We all agreed these are unprecedented times during that meeting. We need unprecedented solutions. No one is asking for EPD to break the law. However, no law enforcement department should turn a blind eye to another law enforcement department. That is corrupt. It ruins your reputation. How are you all showing that you value us as residents? This should have never been an us verse them. Police used to be held in very high regard and that is when they engaged with the residents and built relationships. Right now we are repeating a very

dangerous history. First they came for the communists and I did not speak out because I was not a communist. Then they came for the socialists and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they um came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. I would like to add then they came for the immigrants but I am supposedly not an im immigrant. Then when they came for me there was no one left to speak out for me. It is time to redefine how we want life in Elgen to be. We need leaders who can do what needs to be done for the people. If you are unable and unwilling, then step aside and let those who can and will do. Thank you.

Thank you, Kevin Zeldavar.

Hello. Okay. Hi. So, I wanted to talk about the the budget because I didn't get to last time. Uh, I specialized in economics. I studied that here in the United States and I took some master level courses in Hong Kong because when I was younger, I was really interested in joining the World Trade Organization because I couldn't fathom how countries with rich resources were always uh considered third world countries. I think today we understand the dynamics pretty well thanks to the internet on how that comes to be. Uh after college I became a software engineer. Uh so while my culture taught me things that school couldn't teach me as a software engineer I learned patterns and economics I learned how money works. And uh I want to say that real quickly that inflation and is really just a transfer of wealth. Um they try to indoctrinate this to you that supply and demand is something that is uncontrollable and that it's free to the market but it's really not. Um while I was gone I actually uh became a professional advertiser. So I specialize in digital sales. um I could help a lot of businesses in Elgen and uh I found myself in a full circle position actually being able to create supply and demand, right? Supply and uh working with businesses and getting their products across to everyone and demand uh by creating commercials by creating uh billboards by working with people to get their brands across and and what that messaging really means. So when I am uh observing the budget and I read the you know the the budget proposal for for the city I started realizing that there are some fundamental things that are missing in this budget and that is when we talk about the future. How do the things that we do in this city invest and affect the residents every day? This is a city of workingclass

people and I think that we're starting to realize that workingclass people get taken advantage of. Um I want to generalize a couple things here. Um that the cities their investments often mimic uh what we see uh private equity firms do where they put a bunch of money into a place and you know we expect outcomes but in reality we're just going to raise the rent and the price of the goods and you know cause what we call inflation uh to the residents here. And I started picking up on things talking about tourism and uh attracting other people from the city. The demographics uh in our budget uh don't look like a demographic that needs that is struggling to make money. I mean, we're composed of families and a medium income of about $80,000. But what we do see is a failure to connect with the residents of Elgen and their money and how they want to spend it. That being said, I think with the voter turnout of 10%, the city could do a lot better. I don't have time to further evaluate, but you'll be hearing more about me. Thank you.

Thank you. I believe it's Edith Palcastro. Um, good evening. I'm here representing and speaking on behalf of the many residents who for their safety not here uh choose to not be here today. Uh this week a group of parents de developed a fiveyear community vision and the vision the most important thing is family safe peace and sense of belonging. This vision is supporting network to make this a reality and for the network includes all of you and our representatives whom we whom we we trust and have the power to vote for an ordinance to protect our families in Algen. We know the city in Elgen is already a target where we are having attacked and terrorized in recent months. We know that Bino and his officers will be returned more aggressive and tactics and the least that you can do for our families is pass this ordinance today. For some of you passing this ordinance may not be have significant impact but for us it means everything. It means believing our representatives, believing in justice and feeling free for working together for a strong, more inclusive and equitive city. The trauma these rates are inflicted on children's parents with irreparably and will have a responsibility to prevent this from escalating further. I hope tonight they show

us that they truly do a lot for us, the residents of the Elgen. Um, last month, I mean a few months ago on October, the city of Algen was experiencing a total of 20 246 uh sites and more than 105 residents were adopted. In November, the city of Belgian experiences a total of seven 70 uh sites and 25 people were adopted. So, um I'm here today and for be the voice of those that may come, maybe you can do something about it, help our community and tell us how we can help so we can be together and be better. Thank you.

Thank you, K. Gamble.

[clears throat]

Good evening. Um, I'm here as for the ordinance for immigrants. And I don't know if you've heard of Tom Hartman before, but he uh said this recently in one of his columns. He's a writer and uh has a podcast. He said, "Democracy survives on shared reality and shared humanity. It survives when government understands that it works for the people and must be accountable to the constitution to due process and to basic human dignity. masked agents, ICE agents, violently kidnapping, jailing and deporting people does not abide by the constitution or due process or basic human dignity and I am definitely for the immigrants in this community. Thank you.

Thank you, Corey Stanley. Okay. Okay. All right. Turn it over to the manager. Thank you, mayor, council members. The first item this evening is the truth and taxation public hearing. The purpose of the truth and taxation public hearing is to provide transparency and allow taxpayers to comment on the city's proposed increase to its aggregate property tax levy, which does not include the debt service levy. when that increase is more than 5% over the previous year's um property tax extension. Chief financial officer Deb Naraki is has a statement prepared that is a preface to the hearing that you'll be conducting. Mayor,

good evening. The truth and taxation law establishes the procedures that taxing districts like the city of Elgen must follow when adopting their property tax levy. Whenever a taxing district proposes an aggregate tax levy that is more than 5% higher than the total amount of taxes it extended in the previous year, it must publish the required notice in a local newspaper and hold a public hearing. The notice was published on November 24th, 2025. Anyone who wants to present testimony at the public hearing must be given the opportunity to do so, and after the hearing, the city may adopt the tax levy. Allow me at this time to recite into the record for this public hearing the information required by law. And when that has been completed, the public comment period can commence. The corporate and specialurpose property taxes extended for 2024 were 55,983,629. The proposed corporate and specialurpose property taxes to be levied for 2025 are 63,648,790, a 13.7% increase from the previous year. The property taxes extended for debt service for 2024 were 1,985,161. The proposed property taxes to be levied for debt service for 2025 are 1,963,150, a 1.1% decrease from the previous year. The total property taxes extended for 2024 were 57,968,790.

The proposed total property tax levy for 2025 is 65,611,940, a 13.2% increase from the previous year. Each taxing district must certify to the county clerk that it has complied with all truth and taxation publication, notice, and hearing requirements when it certifies its levy to the county clerk. Mayor, the public comment portion of the truth and taxation hearing can begin.

Okay, we'll declare the public hearing open. Does anyone wish to speak to the uh truth and taxation and the property tax levy? Does anyone wish to speak to the property tax levy? Uh

please come up to the podium. Hi, just more of a question. Uh, was there considerations of uh sliding income scale for uh property taxes? And I pose uh were there any uh uh conversations about taxing businesses in the downtown area that may operate just as a landlord and maybe contributing to uh the businesses coming in and out and uh stake in the city. I

I don't think we did not review a a sliding scale for property taxes. That would be something that would be beyond the city's um purview. The taxes are extended by the county. Okay. Anyone else wish to comment? Anyone wish to comment on the property tax? Seeing no one at the podium, I declare the public hearing closed. Mr. Manager.

Thank you, mayor. Item B is a resolution in support of a Cook County Class 6B property tax incentive for 301 Ramona Avenue. Vital RE LLC has signed a letter of intent to purchase 301 Ramona Avenue contingent upon receiving a Cook County Class 6B commercial property tax incentive. Vital RE will then in turn be leasing the property to its related entity, Vital Truck and Van, spending about a half million dollars on improvements to the existing vacant building and grounds. The purchase price of the 5.5 acre parcel is about $2.9 million, and it contains two industrial buildings totaling about 24,500 square ft of floor area. Vital Truck provides professional upfitting solutions for fleets, vans, and trucks, and it's going to be moving its Illinois operations from Betavia to Elgen along with seven full-time employees. It also plans to hire another 10 full-time equivalent employees upon the completion of the improvements at the site. Vital Truck has been in business since 2002 and has locations at two places in in two municipalities in Colorado. Vital Truck requires this incentive to make its relocation to Elgen economically feasible. It will not be purchasing the property without the incentive. Cook County provides a class 6B commercial property tax incentive to minimize the financial burden associated with investments in vacant industrial properties. The estimated Cook County taxes generated for all taxing bodies during the 12-year period of the class 6B incentive is approximately $1.4 million. The tax burden on vital truck without the without the 6B incentive would be just over $3 million. Should the property remain vacant, Cook County and its other taxing bodies will only be deriving about $820,000 in revenue. Uh city council members are familiar with this incentive. As you know, it's ultimately upon Cook County to approve the 6B incentive, but they will not consider applications without support of the underlying municipality.

Move for approval. Moved and second for approval. Any discussion?

Mr. Steph. Yeah, I I wanted to make a comment uh having been on the council I think the longest except the mayor of anybody up here on the dis as uh the memo has laid out for us and therefore want to make the point to our residents the incentive if we approve it which I support uh would result in a tax revenue venue from a Cook County property such as this one that would just be slightly less than the King County. And so, I mean, the point I'm trying to make is this will generate taxes that it would have if it were in Cane County. And as the council has learned, having been up here, that we see these petitions frequently because our city straddles Cook County and King County. And we have this um dynamic going on where um the county taxes are so different in the two counties and we're trying to give an incentive to make sure that businesses don't use that as a way to consider other towns. So, um I just wanted to make that point. I I appreciate the memo and the explanation of uh the different levels of taxing that could occur, could not occur if we give the incentive or not and if the part property remains vacant and what it would have been in King County. So, I will be supporting.

Okay. Anything else? Yep. We've uh enacted this a number of times and it's been beneficial for us in in uh attracting businesses and keeping businesses in the city as well. also offers my support as well. Mr. Thorne, you have Yes. Thanks, Mayor. Also of note that it's uh going to generate uh 17 jobs. Yeah. So, that very well could be that 10 are new. It could be uh people moving into the city or at least people that need work. So, good compliment for that. Okay. The clerk, please call the role. Council member Zaro. Yes. Dixon, yes. Good. Yes. Martinez, yes.

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

Item C is the change order for the Wing Park Family Aquatic Center longevity and safety renovations. During the initial bid process for this project, site conditions did not indicate the depth and extent of the existing concrete, caul deterioration, gutter wall damage, and exposed bare surfaces would be as significant as what was ultimately uncovered. This project is modernizing the facility by completing necessary concrete removal and replacement, restoring gutter walls, removing and replacing deteriorated caul, and applying it protective epoxy paint to exposed gutter surfaces. Also, we'll be replacing the outdated toddler boat slide with a state-of-the-art playup toddler slide. The new slide incorporates interactive elements, general water, water play, and shaded areas, ensuring a safer and more enriching experience for the young families. Um, this $33,000 change order is necessary so the contractor can begin work during [music] the off season.

Move for approval. Second. It's been moved and second for approval. Any discussion? Hearing none, please call the role. Council members Alfaro, yes. Dixon, yes. Good, yes. Martinez, yes. Ortiz, yes. Powell, yes. Stefan, yes. Thorne, yes. Mayor Captain, yes. Motion's approved. 9 Z.

Item D is an independent fitness contractor service agreement. Independent contractors play a critical role in delivering highquality and cost-effective fitness services at the Edward Shock Center of Elgen. Their specialized skills, professional certifications, and flexible schedules enable the city to offer a wide range of fitness programs without the financial burden of adding full-time staff. The model supports strong community engagement while generating meaningful revenue. In 2024, group fitness and personal training produced approximately $60,000 in net revenue. In 2025, that uh revenue is expected to end up at $65,000. The center currently partners with about 11 independent contractors who select who collectively support the city's goal of offering accessible, diverse, and high-quality fitness opportunities. Approving this 2026 service agreement for one contractor is needed because the project compensation exceeds the $25,000 procurement threshold.

Move approval. Second. It's been moved and second. Any discussion? M. Thank you, mayor. I have a couple of questions. The first one is it did say approximately 60,000 net revenue. There's about 11 or 12 um independent contractors uh fitness contractors. So is that for all of them or is that per It's for all of them? For all of them. Okay. Um and then the second was the copy of the contract. Um, is this just a sample of what was given before? Because it says not to exceed 30,000 and then the end date is December of 2025.

Mr. back. Yes, this is copy of last year's contract that was um the there's been a legal request for an updated contract for uh next year's services which uh I believe has been reviewed since the agenda has gone out but it just uh the request did not come in um sufficient time to get this the revised agreement on the before the agenda but the final agreement will be updated. So it will be 26,000 be listed just to confirm just if that's the amount. Yes, it'll be not to exceed amount as approved by the council here.

Thank you. Anything else? Please call the role. Council member Zelf Faro, yes. Dixon, yes. Good. Yes. Martinez, yes. Ortiz, yes. Powell, yes. Stefan, yes. Thorne, yes. Mayor Captain,

yes. The motion is approved. 9 Z. Item E is an engineering services agreement with Troder and Associates for sewer infrastructure projects. This is amendment four to that agreement. The utilities department water and sewer infrastructure requires regular maintenance to ensure its operational stability. These maintenance projects require dedicated management oversight to ensure their success. Rather than hiring additional staff to maintain an effective workload balance, the city uses professional service contracts to provide oversight for the necessary maintenance projects identified in any given year. The fourth amendment to the existing engineering service agreement with Troters being recommended to provide engineering services necessary to continue maintaining the city's sewer infrastructure. This amendment includes ongoing support for the sewer lining program, ensuring timely and appropriate rehabilitation of the sewer system to maintain its long-term reliability and performance.

Move for approval. Second. Moved and second for approval. Any discussion? So far, thank you, Mayor. Uh, in the contract it says the end date is December 31st of 2025. Are they getting it done this month? I just want to confirm that end date was correct.

Again, so when these contracts get submitted and attached to the committee, the whole um memorandum, they have not been u some cases gone through the legal review process. They are all uh reviewed by the corporation council's office before they're on the agenda for final approval. So uh this uh particular agreement that was for amendment agreement number three is for December 31st, 2025. I I won't be able to give you an answer offand, but this is not the final draft of the agreement. It will be finalized and have the proper end date. Okay. I just want to make sure cuz it sounded like it was pretty fast to get it done with them by the end of the month with weather and stuff.

No, that's amendment agreement number three and this is amendment agreement number four. So, I think it's for a one-year additional one-year term. Okay. Looks like so that probably be December 31st, 2026. Okay. Thank you. And actually, it says that in section two on page two, it says task order completion services to be provided pursuant to amendment number four by December 31st, 2026. Yeah, I saw that. But with the other one, I just wanted to make sure to make sure consistency. So, appreciate it. Thank you, Mr. Manager.

If if I can add, council member Alfaro, this is a this is a common practice and it's a it's a it's a concession actually that the corporation council's office makes to the organization so we can continue moving our work forward on a regular basis. And rather than waiting two weeks for this contract to be absolutely finalized, we can begin. It's essentially we're working concurrently with advancing it through the legislative approval process while the corporation council's office is pulling together everything in the background so that within the next two weeks you always have an agreement that's signed ready button down with both parties for approval. That's the method to the madness behind the scenes.

Yeah, I I do appreciate that. I just want to make sure like numbers and dates are like correct. Everything else I get like gets fluctuated and stuff, but appreciate it. Okay. Clerk, please call the role. Council member Zero? Yes. Dixon? Yes. Good? Yes. Martinez? Yes. Ortiz? Yes. Powell? Yes. Stefan? Yes. Thorne? Yes. May captain? Yes. Motion's approved. 90.

Item F is a is the year five ledge service line replacement program with the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency's public water supply loan program. Um, the city's been working with its engineering consultant, [music] Engineering Enterprises, Inc., commonly known as EEI, to acquire a just about $2.5 million loan that will be forgiven by the IEPA under its public water supply program. Additionally, the city is currently qualified to borrow an additional $16.5 million using zerointerest loans. The city intends to borrow a total of $15 million from the IEPA in 2026, which includes that $2.5 million in principal forgiveness loan. Staff and EI have identified a plan for the program in 2026 that will be replacing lead service lines in areas in advance of planned roadway reservicing projects and moving forward with the program of lead service line replacements citywide. There are two requirements for the city to require this funding. The first is to approve the instant resolution authorizing the city manager to sign the IEPA's public water supply loan program documents. And two, approving a debt authorization ordinance to borrow funds from the IEPA's public water supply loan program.

Move for approval. Second. Moved and second for approval. Any discussion hearing? None. Clerk, please call the role. Council members Alfaro, yes. Dixon, yes. Good. Yes. Martinez, yes. Ortiz, yes. Powell, yes. Stefen, yes. Thorne, yes. Mayor Captain, yes. Motion's approved. 90. Item G is a welcoming city ordinance discussion. Council member Dixon with Council Member Al Faro is the second is requesting an agenda item to discuss a welcoming city ordinance. Okay, Mr. Dixon.

Thank you. I appreciate everyone coming out tonight and for all of the emails um that have been sent in to council. We really appreciate it. Um, Councilwoman Al Faro and I uh found it fitting to have this conversation publicly um so that everyone can hear what's happening um especially you know because of the times that we are currently living in and and everything that's happening. So, um, let me start with, uh, on November 5th, uh, we conducted, we completed, um, and approved, um, a ICE-free zone resolution, which was great. We wanted an ordinance. We got a resolution instead. I voted in favor of it. I was happy that we had something um, and that we've done some work. Um, on November 11th, Greg Bovino, um, head of the area for ICE, um, was quoted in the Chicago Sun Times saying that they were taking a a break from Chicago land, but that they would be back in a few months. And I have always been the one been one to uh, be proactive and not reactive. Now, ICE is still operating uh in our city and throughout the Chicagoland area. They just have scaled back with the promises of coming back four-fold. Um so, they're going to ramp up their operations supposedly from 250 to 1,000 uh ICE agents um is what was estimated and and quoted in the Chicago Sun Times. Now, why do we need something on the books and what is the difference between what we've done and what we're looking to do? So, first let me just start with the the baseline. So, here in Illinois,

there are numerous things that we already have in place. We have the Trust Act. We have the Voices Act. Um these things prohibit uh law enforcement uh and also sets um uh structure for how we conduct um our business as a city as a as it pertains to the the immigrant community uh immigrant population. Um so in being proactive um what I ended up looking into is the welcoming city ordinance. Now, the welcoming city ordinance is not anything new. Uh, it's been around in Illinois at least since the 70s. Um, and [clears throat] they've been around since the 70s, but in Illinois came around around 1986 uh to the uh to the state of Illinois and which was the the first community that that brought that forward. So the welcoming city ordinance does not work against all of the existing things that we've done being the ICE free zone being all the acts that the state of Illinois has passed and even recently passed through the governor's office. It actually acts as an umbrella and it doesn't just focus on protecting spaces but it focuses on protecting people and also provides supportive services to a community. So this is um an an ordinance that would provide the framework for future councils and even us to modify as we go forward. Now, every time that we need to do something when it when it comes to this subject, we are creating an ordinance under this being a welcoming city ordinance, we would would have the ability to change and alter as we need be as time goes on. And that framework and the practices that we put in place for that will be

available to the community and future councils going forward. So, that's just the opening for for the welcoming city ordinance. Um, that's just a brief overview. And from that to for tonight, what we want to do is just have that conversation publicly and to get the rest of our city council colleagues um thoughts on this subject. And from here, I'll pass it over to Councilwoman Alfaro. Just to add what council member Dixon has mentioned, a welcome singing ordinance is a broader ordinance and it's a more about inclusivity and the sense of belonging. We heard about sense of belonging during public comment. This is a way to make sure our community always feels belonged here regardless of immigration status that our entire community feels included. This is something I think is important to make sure that we have it by authority in law that this is how we as a community define our way of doing things, how we operate and how we support our local community. And so I think this is an opportunity for us to take a step forward as council member Dixon was saying is being proactive, but also in reality I think personally this is something we should have done a long time ago, right? This is something that we as a community have have a large immigration um population. This is something that we should continue thinking about and as we are having this discussion with our fellow council members. There's different ways of of things that we could put in here. We could put a language access um plan in here which we've heard when we had our Norah rights training. We asked something that they want. They mentioned Spanish translations during council meetings etc. So there are different pieces that we could add in add in here and we could go above and beyond with this as a community as we've done with our other resolutions etc. And so I before going further in I will open it

up to our fellow council members to hear their thoughts on this welcoming city ordinance. Okay. Um Mr. [clears throat] Ortiz, excuse me.

Yeah. Uh I think Mr. Dixon alluded to it. We got a bunch of emails last night. izing about 13, three or four more this afternoon. So, I appreciate everybody that reached out. Uh, when I get a lot of emails for like one particular item, what I do is I'll get an Excel open and I'll copy and paste all those emails in and then email everybody back at once so the message well my message stays clear and I don't mess stuff up. So, all I'm going to do is just read the email I sent back to the 15 or 16 so people. I also shared it today with the Elgen Area Immigration Alliance group. I think there's about 80 so people in in that email thread. So I'm gonna read that and then this more or less be my my remarks on the on the topic. Dear neighbors, thank you for reaching out about the welcoming city ordinance on tomorrow night's agenda for your and thank you for your advocacy for our immigrant community. I want to answer the main questions that came and to be clear where I stand and why. I'm supporting community-based immigration advocacy and legal assistance programs. I wish the city could create a legal assistance fund, but in reality, this is not feasible the at the government level. A program like that is best run and managed by a nonprofit outside the city's control. In this year's budget, the city needs to raise a property tax levy for pension obligations and general fund oper operations. means a little over 13%. For the general fund, this is the first time in over 10 years that we've had to raise this part of the levy. That should tell you how expensive it has become to keep the core city functions running at a high level and and keep our residents happy and get what they what they expect. I'm preventing city officials and contractors from inquiring about immigration status or coordinating with federal civil immigration authorities. This has already been in practice in the city of Elgen for over a decade. Our administration and staff do not disclose immigration status to federal a federal immigration officials. In most cases, Elgen police and city staff don't even

know a person's status because we do not ask. When a officer pulls someone over, they don't ask. When somebody goes and signs up for a gym membership, the at the center of Elgen, we do not ask. This is because Elgen welcomes everybody and we do not discriminate. on maintaining the city council resolution and prohibiting federal immigration officials from using city property. The resolution was passed by the council 90. This means every council member voted yes. There is no intention to bring this back for reversal or tell the city manager to stop following it or to remove the signage on city property that was recently installed. We are committed to keeping that in place. I also want want to let everybody know there are signs available at city hall for free for pickup. you are welcome to come grab one and place one on your property in ensuring access to all city resources and services regarded in regardless of ethnicity, nationality or immigration status. This is also another thing the city has been doing for over 10 years. A good example is the work the Elgent Police Department was done has been doing. EPD alone hosts over 17 different public events every year. They do not care about a person's immigration status or their ethnicity or their religion. This is because our police chief has built a culture of accepting everyone as they are. Events like Talk About It, Fiesta Mexicana, National Night Out, EPD Elves, cheap for a day are open to everybody and they're free. The department has done a strong job in showing the Hispanic community and everyone else in the city of Elgen they are here for us and they will not discriminate. City also hosts uh events like concerts in the park where band and Spanish music is played. movies in the park. Well, movies are in Spanish. Fiesta the Elgen in September with the honor of Mexican independence day. I also want to acknowledge concerns about an incident that recently was recently involved with an officer. We did have an officer do something that in my opinion he should not have done. Our police chief and city manager took quick

action by placing the officer on paid administrative leave, which we have to. While the investigation moves forward, I have faith that as in the previous case, the process will result in accountability. We we all need to be patient and allow the outside investigation to be completed. And I believe once it is completed, the arbitrator this time will be less likely to force the city to give this officer his job back. I'm providing translation services for official documents interpretation at city council meetings. Our council meetings are translated in Spanish on YouTube and while they are live streamed and during playback if you want to watch it later. Yes, it is true we do not currently have a in-person translator in the room with us right now and usually one or two people show up to a council meeting that always speak English, but that is not an excuse. I know we need to do better. We have been working on technology options using AI or other other forms for in-person translation. For example, Elgen Police Department is getting new body cameras. the city council approved to do live translations in the field for when an officer encounters someone who speaks another language. We have been discussing similar systems and technologies for city council meetings where a person can wear an earpiece and hear the in the in live translation for whatever language they speak, not just Spanish. We have not yet found the right product or suitable vendor, but I'm certain there is something out there that can help us all and documents are translated in Spanish. on the overall welcoming city ordinance and the comments uh President Trump has made in his 60 Minutes interview. In the interview, he said ICE enforcement has not gone far enough and indicated that he is comfortable with the tactics ICE has been using. He suggests that he might use the Insurrection Act to send the Army, Navy, Marines, and National Guard into American cities. When he is asked about icebreaking windows, using tear gas in neighborhoods, and tackling

young mothers, he said he is fine with those tactics and the enforcement has not gone far enough. He also talked about in the past of going after welcoming and sanctuary cities that like to label themselves as such. With the with these comments and given that the city of Elgen, Elgen police department and our council are already doing everything a welcoming city ordinance calls for plus more. I worry that a passage of a formal ordinance would put a bigger target on our community. If federal im federal government decides to crack down on these cities labeling themselves as such, I do not want Elgen to be at top of that list or top of that list when our practices already reflect the values of a welcoming city. In reality, I share this as someone who has family, friends and community members who are undocumented. I have said this from the DAS during a council meeting before. I understand the struggles, fears, and worries my aunts, uncles, and my cousins live every day. I often feel helpless because I am an elected official and there is limits of what I can do. This is why I cannot support this ordinance. I truly believe that it could cause more harm than good, given that everything requested in the essential emails that we have received are things the city already does. I know this may be disappointing from some of you to hear from me, but no, I stand with my Hispanic community, my Mexicans, and everybody and every other migrant and undocumented individual in our city. But doing this believes the best for our community. I am not interested in political points or being able to point at a law saying I did that. I'm here to keep our community safe and as possible avoiding putting us on an unnecessary radar, especially when we are already living the welcoming values that people are asking us to adopt. So I motion to postpone this indefinitely.

Second. It's been moved and seconded to postpone this item indefinitely. Uh further discussion,

Mr. Mr. Good.

Uh well, thank you, Mayor. Um I would just like to share my thoughts on this as well. Um, so we can hear from the audience there actively booing the comments that just came from my colleague, uh, Mr. Ortiz. Um, so part of the process that we go through whenever we get an agenda item, uh, depending on what type of item it is, we do X amount of outreach to the community, um, outreach to stakeholders that have expertise in the area. And so, um, my colleagues brought this forward today and we're having the conversation now publicly. Um, typically something like this has stakeholder engagement involved. And so part of our responsibility every time we make a decision like this is to consider who's not in the room. Um so as you can see this is a small group of people here tonight. Um my guess is it doesn't accurately represent the makeup of Elgen. Um, and in my the amount of time I had to do outreach into the community, um, and speaking with community leaders who interact with, uh, undocumented community, um, and having opportunity to speak with people who are undocumented, um, and people who have made a varying level of degrees of decisions, um, what my colleague, Mr. Ortiz, just shared is is shared by other people in the community. So, I just wanted to say that kind of broad overview real quick. Um, what we're dealing with here, we heard a little bit of public comment tonight. We have reports in that there's 246 uh appearances, 105 apprehensions, detentions, kidnappings, however we want to frame that and term that um in October and November that number went from 70 to 25. So those are real numbers. Um how we got to those numbers, we typically like to do some background to check for those, but I think I understand the mechanism. There's reports, they're confirmed, they're verified. Um and so something I want to share in this conversation of um increasing the surface area of attention for the federal government. What we've seen from them is that they've done things like um put a list together of states and municipalities that are welcoming and or sanctuary cities and

and did it haphazardly. They went they posted on a federal website. They ended up getting scrutinized for it because they had inaccurate information on their like listing entities that do not even exist as municipality. Um, but it just gives you insight into maybe how they're looking at things behind the scenes. Um, so at that point in time, Illinois was listed on there and seven communities were listed on there. Elgen was not one of them at that point in time. Um, what does that mean? No. To my understanding, I've not spoken to anybody who knows that. So, there's a lot of unknowns and we're trying to do our best working through that. But what I'll share with you is a real story from a real person that lives here in Elgen that is looking at the circumstances in front of them and they're deciding to to leave. And what they're hoping for right now between now and February is that that plan to bail on that future that they had built, the future that the the marketing campaign this country has always pushed forward, they are now bailing on that and hoping that nothing happens between now and February. So, we just heard that the feds, which mind you, ICE was operating here, and then they brought border patrol. So, Bino is border patrol. He was applauded for his tactics in Chicago. They want that in other communities throughout the country. So, we're dealing with multiple different agencies. They could have bluster and they can say what they want. We do not know what they're going to do. They could say March, it could be January. We don't know what they're going to do. So, I'm saying this right now to say I do not have that experience other than why I can live by talking to people that are my family over the holidays. Uh, friends, community members who have reached out and have said that this is an incredibly challenging topic to discuss because we do want to do the courageous thing. We want to be bold. Elgen has a history of that. But in trying to look back, there was a comment that was made here by a member of the public recently. It was a few meetings ago and we kept using the word unprecedented. and they ended the meeting coming up here and saying, "I understand why you're saying that, but

this is that's not true. Things like this have happened in the in the history of this country and other countries." And so that really stuck with me because this is unprecedented for my lifetime. But in trying to appreciate what other communities have done in moments where people, their neighbors, their loved ones are being attacked because of how they look, what they believe. The evidence points to operations that were grassroots. It was non-compliance. It was stealthy when they decided to be very public. It was very intentional. It wasn't a haphazard approach. And so we've seen that in this country where there is ways that you can change the narrative and you can do something very intentional. And so when we make these decisions, that's what I want us to be doing. So the underlying elements that are being discussed as part of this umbrella of a welcoming community, um I think we've seen that the city is living up to x number of those items and I think we had acknowledgement that there's room for improvement and I believe that this body would do those things. But what I've heard from the community as well is that they want the community partners to be thoroughly engaged. They want the people who are not in this room right now, the people who are going to be most exposed to be part of the conversation. and and those are hard conversations to get to because people are hesitant to speak at least to to myself in trying to do outreach. I can imagine why they wouldn't want to speak to a government official. But that's the work that needs to go into this because there is a [clears throat] possibility that nobody I've talked to can dispel of what does this mean for the people that are most vulnerable. And so then my question is how does this protect more people in our community? So that's what I that was my thoughts thinking about this over the weekend conversations I've had um is again I think what was laid out the timeline of the the actions that this group has taken um paired with some of the reactions that we've seen that

were shocking that the feds would come here with Blackhawk helicopters that they would send their secretary here um and that that just so happened to coincide less than a week after an action that this body took. U those are things that do have the public concern. I talked to people in the public that said this is retribution and they're going after places that are blue voted blue and whatever indicator uh or tag that they want to apply to that. So um part of me is is happy that we're having this conversation. Another part of me when looking back at what other um communities have done in different times where they were able to work through an awful period of time doing it organically and um kind of through quiet resistance. Um I just hope we're not taking some of that optionality off the table with what we're saying tonight. So I I we're here we're having the conversation. Um, and I just really encourage us to go full circle with this conversation with who we're involving in the community when we make these decisions. So, I'll I'll stop there. That was a lot. Thank you.

Okay. Anybody else? Mr. [clears throat] Stefen?

Yeah. I just wanted to make a couple quick comments. Um, I will not be supporting the postponement and I will be supporting the welcoming city ordinance concept. And I I think the discussions have gotten a little ahead of themselves. the the agenda item is talking about a discussion and there really isn't anything to vote on specifically yet. Um I would assume if it is supported by a majority of the people up on this dis that it would come back in some kind of a concrete form for us to consider. And at that point I think if people have objections or feel [clears throat] that we're doing things that a welcoming Sydney ordinance would lay out in other ways then they could vote against it. But I think it's too early to start picking apart something that we don't have in front of us in a concrete form. So, uh, to summarize, I I'm not going to be in support of postponing this. Uh, and I'm hoping there is a majority on this council that will want us to bring something back for more concrete consideration and a possible vote, uh, at the next meeting. So I I will be in support of uh the concept of having this come forward.

Else anybody else? Miss Powell.

Thank you, Mayor Captain. Uh thanks to uh Council Member Dixon and Council Member Al Faro for bringing this forward. I know we've had some conversations regarding this. Um I I echo Councilman Stefins's uh statement. I'm I'm interested in seeing, you know, what a concrete ordinance um would look like. I think it's it's premature to say we're not interested in doing this. Um and and just listening to some of the comments, um I I guess I'm trying to figure out how does this put us as a community at bigger risk for retaliation, for lack of a better term than what we just passed a couple weeks ago. I mean, to me that makes no sense. I mean, we've the head of homeland security has already been in Elgen. Um, we we've already had multiple people, you know, kidnapped and removed from our community from ICE using their terrorizing tactics. Um I I just feel like um well for one in terms of looking at you know pointing out the things that we are doing as a community which have been good and and I definitely agree with um you know I think council member Artiz pointed to some of the things the police chief has done and some other members of our staff. staff changes, so does council. Um, that's why we enact policies so that regardless of who's in office, regardless of who's the police chief or who the city manager is, there's a policy in place and that policy is in place until it is changed by the folks

at that time that are sitting up here on this dis. So I I I want us to understand that yes, the police department under Chief Lai, you know, some of the things that have been brought up here tonight, you know, have made improvements. Um but putting a ordinance or a policy in place as a welcoming city um supersedes all of that. Um and I think that's important because some of these people are going to be leaving at some point. people up here are not necessarily going to be here in the future. Um, I'm definitely in in favor of seeing something come forward. Um, I I I'm not of the mind that we need to back down because it's going to bring more scrutiny or additional retaliation on us because I it's it's already happening. Thank you. And uh bottom line, bottom line,

Miss Paula has the podium, not the audience. Please. Bottom line, Elgen needs to be on the right side of history. We need to be on the right side of history when it comes to what is happening not only in our community, but in this country. So, um I support uh directing staff to bring forth um a draft welcoming city ordinance for um our review and consideration. Um I will not be v voting in favor of tableabling this indefinitely. Thank you. Anything else? Mr. Thorne.

Thank you, Mayor. I thought uh first of all, I want to compliment Mr. Ortiz on his uh uh details. Uh but one thing that I did in learning about this ahead of time was that I called uh some uh respected community business leaders in the Hispanic community and spoke with them and uh they are not in favor of this ordinance. I thought I would share that uh highly respected people. Um I compliment uh Anony's uh details and uh uh I will not support the ordinance.

Thank you, M. Martinez.

Yes. Thank you, Mayor. I just uh would like to say that uh I also have spoken to people in our community, you know, leaders and um neighbors, families. Um the sentiment is that uh in our community, what has happened is horrific. Nobody's disputing that. I never in my lifetime thought that I would see this. And some of us up here either know somebody or related to somebody that's been affected by that. Uh and it's being looked at not only just by uh adults. The mayor and I went to uh speak to an elementary school and there's fear. There's fear. Even people that are documented, people that live here, that were born here, there is fear. Okay. This is why I think that we need to be careful because when we are trying to do something sometimes it's called uh unintended consequences and um I believe that something like this will probably affect that and I'll tell you why. Um, I um got an email from a resident and well I got a lot of emails and what I noticed on in those emails they're always quoting the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant Refuge um refuge rights and what it's asking you know uh we're very clear in highlighting limiting collection of information about immigration status you know sharing the personal information limiting cooperation with ICE requests. And I think about that that Alden has always done that. Um has done it since since I

I've been on. I remember with our previous chief, I was invited with um uh Elisa Lada, you know, we went and we spoke to churches. I spoke after uh after the masses and spoke to people telling them and explaining them what their rights are. The police department has a right to stop you and what's expected from you is a driver's license. What's expected from you is insurance. But they can never ever ask you what your status is. Nobody has a right to do that. And we we ensured people that this is what happens. um this happened with the previous police chief and now with this current police chief, we can all see how um the the police department interacts with the community. Um I can name uh some events that have happened where our community comes out. our community comes out. And what I mean by that is uh we've had for a couple years and um some events out in Festival Park. If you don't know Festival Park, you're not aware of many things that happen because it's really really hard to fill that park up. It's huge. And these events that we had um were geared for our Hispanic community, for my Hispanic community. And I never imagined that um these events would happen that could fill a park like that. And it did last year. And I'll be honest, I thought this year it was going to be affected because of what was going on. But it was a relief and it made me feel good that people felt comfortable to come out and participate. We had more

people than we did the previous year. You know, we just had at the symphony and the other mutos very successful people from our community are coming out. um what um ICE does, you know, they're acting on behalf of what President Trump um has them do. And in that same interview that Councilman Ortiz was talking about, you know, it's um an interview with um Nora Odano and she was interviewing the the president and he did say he did say when they asked him, you know, to make comments about what's happening to to uh immigration in regards to immigration and he said it he was very proud to say that yeah, that's happening and still we're not doing enough and he plans on um exchanging more money uh needed for a lot of us to go ahead and invest in immigration. You know, this is more with technology. This is more when they come, it's I think it's going to be even uh worse. You know, this isn't over yet, at least while this administration is here, you know. Um I also feel that um you know um I I understand people want things to be done but the reason why we say there's a target you know just on Thursday on Thursday I'll read this a little bit of this it says a federal judge on Thursday blocked the Trump administration from yanking funding from 16 cities and and counties across the country because they have laws designating to protect undocumented immigrants by prohibiting state and law

enforcement officials from helping federal agents. Okay. And the headline is federal judge blocks from yanking funding from 16 sanctuary cities counties uh in ruling that bolster Chicago's efforts. This was the article that I saw. So what it means is that, you know, if we are already doing if we're already practicing where we're not asking these questions as as a community, you know, but I I get it. Some people say, "Well, you need to have an ordinance. You need to have um a regulation that says this." And I'm saying that is not good because what's going to happen, somebody already mentioned it before. They go down a list and if you're on that list, you're going to be affected. You know, I I understand what the council members that proposed this are trying to do. They know and they believe they said that Elgen does a good job, but we can do better. Right? We always say we can do better. And I think that uh we've always been open to this. I I feel that um if we had time and staff can look at this, you know, of course we can do better. I'll give you an example of what happened to me one time. Uh, I was um out and about in the community and I heard some people speaking in Spanish and one of them was really upset because they came to um to the center and they wanted to register their child um for um an event for sport. And th and this lady was very upset, very hurt because the person who was inquiring or asking the questions made her uh a question that said, "Are you a

resident?" And she was so offended and she said she walked away. You know, how could the city do that? But then I had to interfere and I had to explain to her, you know, you misunderstood and maybe the question was asked wrong. they're asking if you're a resident of Elgen because if you're not then they charge you more for being a resident of somewhere else. And then she laughed and she said that never occurred to me. But I right away came back and I came to that um director and I said you know um we have to train we have to be more sensitive and train our employees that when they ask questions the correct question would be do you live in Elgen? Do you reside in Elgen? You know, because meanings, you know, uh I think I would have been offended, but she was just, you know, we were insensitive in how we asked that. That's an improvement of what we do. But if you look, we have um a lot of programs where people participate, you know, and that's what I'm saying. Um people are participating because they feel comfortable, because they feel safe. You know, are we limited on what we can do? It's been said we are. And um it's something that as far as uh immigration, it's something that's been broken at a federal level. And um at this local level, we can only do what we can. and I applaud uh the police department for not going and stepping out of bounds and asking for other things. Uh my personal story um when I went to get my benefits at age 62 for Medicare and they were denying them because even though I'm born in Elgen, they said my status says waiting to be deported. Okay. Well, you know, I kind

of was like, you know, that's wrong. That can't happen. Well, I thought they cleared it because I did get my benefits. Well, thank God that this last uh November 26 on on Wednesday, I finally got something that states that they looked through my records and that that finally that status was finally removed from my records. Now, I have to look to see if maybe with the IRS, maybe somewhere else. But can you imagine if I would have been stopped? Of course, you know, uh it's like they do things and then ask questions later, you know. So, I was in fear. I understand. But I'm saying that if we put this if we put an ordinance on this, it's really going to put us in a different category and it's unintended consequences. Thank you, mayor.

Okay. Um I just a couple comments for me. I think that um I've been calling uh uh not in the same sense, but I've been calling Elgen a welcoming city. Um going back to my state of the cities address probably five or six years ago from a different context that we welcome anybody to come here. We welcome people to live here. We want to make it be as comfortable as you can. We want people to be safe. That's the job of the city council and that's what we try to do. uh many of the things I saw on the list um uh the bullet points uh we are have been doing for a number of years maybe over 10 years and uh uh it's continuing policy for us a lot of things are policy issues we can deal with that um uh is there room for improvement as everybody says I don't think there's any question about that we're seeing things that uh become new for us every day and we're dealing with federal government that does things differently every day so we're we're really working against a moving target. I think that uh uh this is something that uh additional time and discussion is important for. It's important for us to look at this as a council, important for the city to look at it as well uh to get as much input as we can to find people's thoughts. Uh interested about the comments from businesses. We kind of forget about them as a part of their they may not live here, but they do business here and they deal with customers that are here. So, they are important to us as well. Uh, I think there's, uh, uh, room for improvement. There's room for discussion here. There's room for uh, us to go out into the community, talk to people, talk to the neighbors, uh, talk to my neighbors, and see what they think about it. Um, anything else here? We have a motion on the table right now. The motion is to postpone this item. Uh, discussion indefinitely. Uh, from Mr. Ortiz, second by Miss Martinez. Is there anything else at this point? Miss Far,

I just want to state that um Council Member Dixon and I put this on a judge as a discussion and as you saw after we spoke, the very first council member shut it down, didn't even allow the discussion to go all the way through before making a a call for a vote to postpone it indefinitely. Right? That tactic was so wrong in my opinion. allow everyone to speak and then we could have just came with an ordinance ourselves. But we were like no let's feel out let's feel because of the open meetings act we can't all talk together we can only talk in pairs if more than two of us are talking there has to be a public meeting. So, we were like, okay, in order to have a discussion with everyone, let's have it at a meeting, open it up. Let's not bring anything. Let's just hear everyone out and figure out what is the game plan, what makes sense or what doesn't make sense. So, it really does bother me that someone would try to shut it down right away without even having discussion with everyone. In addition, the welcome ordinance, it's a broader thing. As I mentioned before, going back to people not in this room, that's what the welcome standing ordinance is about. It's about civil engagement in two. There's a component in there where we could put in that. So, we are engaging people who are not in this room. It's to further increase that engagement to make sure that everyone has a voice at the table. We're talking about we're already doing it. We're already doing it. Well, then let's be more intentional about further doing it. Why can't we be more intentional? We need to stand up for our community. The resolutions that we've done, that was great, but that is just the beginning of continuing to make sure that we stand in solidarity with our community. Why can't we take it further? What are the solution? What other alternatives are there then to continue supporting and making sure there is a sense of belonging and inclusivity? We have a diversity, equity, and inclusion

plan in the city. This is what this welcome center is also tied to. It's about inclusivity is there, that sense of belonging in our community is there. We could take this further. It's also making sure our LGBTQI plus community feels included. This is not just limited to what we want it to be of just immigration. We can make it much broader. And I don't understand if we are everyone's claiming we're already doing this, we're already doing it. Why not put it all together? make sure it's in a local law to what councilwoman Powell mentioned that then it cannot change unless this council itself votes for that change because a lot of other things that we have are in policy which means staff can change things at times. So why can't we have this as something that is in local law have a further discussion and not just shut it down? If we're talking about why not make sure then why are we not trying to engage more people? Why are we just trying to shut everyone up and be like we're going to sit in this corner in the dark? I don't believe in sitting in a corner in the dark. We need to stand in solidarity with our community right now more than ever. Anything [applause] else for the Ms. Martinez?

Yes. I was kind of surprised that this was brought up the way it was because normally what happens um if I have a a proposal, if I have an idea, I would go to staff and I would explain to them and um then that gives an opportunity to staff to not only look at what we have here, but what's happening everywhere else and it's more of a preparedness, you know, like for me to just find out when um this agenda comes out that this is going to be a discussion Yeah, I hurried up and I talked to some people, but I would have liked to have uh more of an opportunity. You know, normally when we talk to staff, uh they're the ones who look at everything full circle and see what what we can what we can do. They would bring back and say, "Hey, this community does this, that community does that, and then what we can do is put all that together." To me, it just seemed kind of rushed. Thank you.

Okay. Anything else, Mr. Dixon? Thank you. I just want to speak to a few points and I I'll just start from Councilwoman Martinez's last points. I want to let you know I did that. We did that. We went to staff first. We met with um we met with corporate council Chris Beck. Um we had conversations uh and made city manager uh aware of those. That was the first thing that we did and that was a month and a half ago and nothing came forward after the conversation after it was agreed upon that we would have some type of working draft ordinance. And so it [clears throat] was agreed upon that we would have something come forward in December at this meeting uh and the meeting that Councilwoman Alaro and I had with with Mr. Beck. uh and that didn't seem like it was happening which is why we said you know what let's just have a broader conversation and we can discuss that as a city council so I did want to let you know we went to city staff first we didn't bring it here first go ahead

yeah thank you can I just say that you went to staff and didn't you know I didn't know that you went to staff you know but I'm sure that if we go ahead and we run it out like it should staff comes back with stuff, but I would like to have the city manager uh speak if he Mr. Manager,

council member, there was a request to have an ordinance produced by December 17th, but there was never agreement. We had discussions talking about the amount of work that would be required by council member council member, excuse me, corporation council Beck to complete that work. We never you and me had a conversation about you coming back with something a pairedback ordinance that was never completed with what components would be able to be removed. So while there were initial discussions, there was never a promise from me or corporation council back to produce something by December 17th. you were supposed to come back with a reduced welcoming city ordinance that did not have some more of the extensive components that didn't just involve drafting an ordinance, but work with the staff to figure out how the components would be working through the city. I'm sorry, but that's my understanding discussion. So, we have two different understandings and that's okay because in the meeting that Councilwoman Alfaro and I had with Chris Beck, the we had an agreement between the three of us that an ordinance would be drafted and would be brought back to us for discussion and then we would then bring that forward to the rest of city council to have that broader discussion here publicly. That was the conversation that we had, the first meeting, a conversation that we had internally. Um, city manager is correcting that we in our discussion he suggested that it be scaled back. I never agreed to that. I said no. What we had discussed in that first meeting is what I would like to have produced. I never agreed to that. Did he suggest that we do otherwise? Yes. But I never agreed to that. So I so maybe we were talking past each other but we did not have the agreement that we we would not um move forward. So that's how it went to staff and then that's how we we're ending up here now. So but but long story you know short on everything else that has been discussed

here this this evening. Um we figured it there would be a shutdown tactic. We knew it in advance because the conversations that we have up here as a council um are very different from the ones that we have behind closed doors. And let's just be honest, some things need to be said publicly and some things need to be shown publicly. If you're not for having a conversation as an elected official publicly in front of people about a subject, what are we doing? [applause] You'd rather you'd rather shut down the conversation about an important subject that more than 50% of our community is affected by. It's just a conversation. If you don't have any ideas, say you don't have one. If you don't like an idea, say you don't like an idea. But for this item to come forward as simply a conversation, you say, you know, I don't want to talk about it. Yeah, you elected me, but I don't want to talk publicly about something that may make me uncomfortable. Oh, I don't want to talk publicly about something that politically may be uncomfortable or that I think uh won't be expedient. That ain't right. Let's have the conversation. So, we'll see how how things land, but me, myself personally, I'm having conversations throughout our community and they want this or something like this. We don't know what this is yet because nothing's been created necessarily, but they they want to have this conversation. They want us to do more. So if you have ideas about what more we can do, we can codify

that in an ordinance. It doesn't mean that we erase everything that we did. No, it works in conjunction with it. It supports it. If you want to do more, this is the opportunity to do so. If not, that's just talk. That just sounds good. But that's not effective. That is not governing. That is [music] not policymaking. That is not leadership. [applause] That's just a lot of jawjacking and no action behind being elected to represent this community. Now, I'm someone since I've been on city council eight years now, going on nine years, I have advocated for every demographic in this community. I'm obviously a black man. I just don't advocate for black people. Have I? Absolutely. I advocate for my Latino brothers and sisters, my Hispanic brothers and sisters. I advocate for the elderly. I'll advocate for uh for veterans. It does not matter because I was elected to serve everyone. So, you don't just have to I don't have to be affected personally in order for me to be an advocate for that subject. When I grow up in this community and my kids go to these schools, the same schools that I go to, and my daughter goes to a school on the east side that's probably 80% plus Latino and Hispanic, and she's coming home crying to me because her friends aren't showing up to school because the parents don't want to send the kids to school because they're worried about ICE enforcement because the kids are afraid of what's going to happen. That's a problem. Yes,

that's a problem.

So, don't have a conversation if you want to, but the problem ain't going away and it's going to get worse. And there's nothing that we can do that is going to that is going to stop the federal government from doing whatever they are going to do. So, the target, if there's if there's a worry about the target being on our back, the target is already there. It's been there. It ain't going anywhere, and we're just getting started. He hasn't even been in office a full year yet. He's just getting started, y'all. So, we can sit back and say, you know what? We just want to fly under the radar. We don't want to make the orange man mad and have him come at us. We could do that if we want to, but that's not going to work.

So, I'll rest my comments there for now. [applause] Um, anybody else down here? Mr. Mr. Good.

Thanks, ma'am. [clears throat] So, um, as you can see, we don't agree on everything, um, or or how to get there necessarily, but, um, I would like this evening to to conclude with everybody in Elgen feeling like we are united and making sure that we're protecting everybody in Elgen. Um, agree with a lot of what's been set up here. Um I think there's some things that we've heard whether it's through email correspondents or even this evening where we we just don't know. Um and so I I I appreciate that there's a sentiment that you know they're already here. Um being present is not the same thing as intensity. Um and so I think what you're you're seeing up here is a group that has evidence on the record that we support everybody in Elgen. Um, I think the reason why there's any friction at all tonight is because there's people in the community that have heard different things from different groups that are impacted by this. Um, and so that's that's been my experience when I reached out. Um, you know, for those of you who who might not know, you know, my my wife and I had to go through the immigration process from start to finish. Um, so we have people that are very close to us, friends, family that are impacted by this deeply. And that's where I think this is coming from where we're s questioning how this is happening, who was involved, um how is this going to unroll? And so what we have right now in front of us is we have a conversation was brought forward um by part of the council that's incredibly worried about what's happening and trying to take action. We have part of the council that's hearing from the community that community members that are exposed and vulnerable are concerned when it is talked when is discussed and laid out. They have concerns about it. And I've heard them say everything from absolutely no to not now to not like this. Um so in the spirit of trying to keep momentum going, you know, what we have here in front of it sounds like it's going to be a pretty close vote on postponement. It sounds like we also

have agreement that there is more that we can be doing. Um, and it sounds like from my conversations, there's a lot more people in the community that wanted to be more deeply engaged on this. And there's also individuals that have just not been spoken to yet that we need to speak to. So, um, I think in that spirit, I just want us to all remember how does this help protect the community? Um, what are we doing to help protect the community? Um, and even to Miss Al Faro's point, how what do we do to get more people engaged in it? because right now we're dealing with something that's acute, but we want to make sure that the entire social fabric, the civic fabric of this community is strengthened by things that we do. Um, so you might not have the list in your mind right now or in paper in front of you, but there's a a pretty uh common set of components that make up a welcoming city. And so for the sake of trying to tie this all together, um I I think I will be um supporting a postponement vote, but I would like us to make a motion to move forward on an area that we we can make a difference on that's tangible and direct staff to um come back to us with something to improve improve the live translation services um at city events. And so I'm not making that right now because there's a motion on the table that we have to vote on. Um but in this for the sake of having this conversation yield action that's positive for the community um while also respecting that there are individuals in our community that are concerned about this current approach and that and I again I I hear the words like being on the right side of history um to my council member who brought that up. That was part of the leg work in doing this is looking [music] back at what did communities do in this situation. And the criteria for looking at is which communities were most successful at protecting the most people in terrible instances like this. And the what yielded to me was it was groups that were more stealthy and had an organic grassroots network that helped people. So taking in consideration everything I've heard from my community members taking in consideration that reality that I

learned from looking into this that's why there's any level of hesitation on just going full boore with this right now because honestly I think all of us up here had we not heard these things from the community if we had heard yeah go for it absolutely we have no concerns I think you unanimous conversation right now but that's not the case and so I just don't I just don't want us to have this body look like we're disjointed in how we want to approach or about what we actually want to do. I think it's a matter of approach. Um, and that's in my mind maybe a middle ground tonight that we can make some action happen in an area that we know we can improve on. Um, so with that, I'll step back from the mic. U, Miss Paul and Miss Martinez, then we're going to have to vote here.

Okay.

Yes. Thank you. Um, I just want to point out there's nothing that has been proposed that would eliminate or prohibit us from incorporating and seeking out input and feedback from the community that I'm assuming is would be part of this process. I think the goal of having this discussion is to hopefully be able to move forward with directing staff to draft an ordinance that [music] would come back to this council for final approval in conjunction with getting that feedback from the community, from the stakeholders in this community. I don't think I what I'm hearing makes it seem like we're not trying to take that into consideration and I think that's not accurate. I just want to point out at least from my perspective and I'm quite sure from my conversations I've had with my colleagues that brought this forward, I don't think that's their intention either. But there's nothing in front of us to vote yay or nay on. So kudos, Councilman Dixon. Kudos Councilwoman El Faro for doing the leg work on this. Um Councilman Dixon, you're absolutely right. Like what what are we afraid of? This is a conversation. So to try to shut it down before we even have an ordinance to vote on or a document to review and if if you don't like it at that time, vote against it.

But to say we don't even want to put something together for consideration, I I just think that's very shortsighted. Um, so I I I think I've made it pretty clear about where I stand. You know, I'm interested in directing uh staff to move forward with bringing something forward for us to consider. Um, and I'll just say yes, I definitely want to engage stakeholders in that process. I I I have no problem doing that. I think that's important to engage stakeholders in that process. and I I don't think that that was ever not the case with with anything that's being proposed here. So, um look forward to seeing how this vote goes. Thank you,

Miss Martinez. Thank you, Mayor. You know, I I've always been asked, "What have you done for the Latino community?" And my response has always been, "What I do for the Latino community, I do for the whole community." And um when I make decisions or I vote on something, I want to be informed. I don't like to do um votes and not be informed. One of the uh quotes that I just heard is, you know, we don't know what this is going to look like. I don't know what this is going to look like. I don't like that. I want to know what it's going to look like. So that's why I'm going to support to postpone it. Thank you.

Okay, we have a we've had uh we have a motion and uh mayor, can I just add just something real quick? Everybody gets a Yes, this is your third chance. That's the most A lot of people went over there three minutes, so I just want to add No, no. Three chances to speak. So,

thank you. I just want to add that um the reason for the discussion was to talk about what we wanted in the ordinance. That was the discussion was about so to say like oh I can't vote because I don't have the informed the informed was to have it as a discussion here we want language language access we want civil engagement we want this etc as an ideas to then direct back to staff to come and draft something for us to review so I just want to indicate that that this was a discussion for us to talk about what we would want in there if there was interest to have this Okay, we have a motion on the table. The motion is to postpone the item indefinitely. It's been moved and seconded. Clerk, please call the role.

Council member Alfaro, no to postponing. Dixon, no. Good. Well, sorry. I was having a sidebar conversation. Um, just for accounting of what's transpiring right now. So, we're voting on a postponement and if this vote passes conversation for Okay. So, um the other item that's on the table is discussion to direct staff to We didn't get that far because we got shut down right away. Yeah. This is a

the very first was shut down right away. We didn't got that far into discussion. So, if this if this motion passes, we don't even get to the second point. Right.

Dustin, you can if you want to do your technology with the AI or uh translations. Once this motion's done, whatever which way it goes, any council member in Robert's rules can make put throw a motion on the floor. It's new business. And you can call that for a vote to to direct staff. So if you want to do your translation how you mentioned once this if this passes then how uh Miss Afaro Miss Pow said this this conversation dies but if you want to move forward have staff move forward with the translation portion of it with technology you can do a whole new motion once this is done to direct staff to do that or you can vote in favor of this and just incorporate that into a welcoming ordinance good brief

and and so I apologize to everybody who's here and everybody who's watching this is the first time I've I've jumped into procedure like this and broke up a vote. Um I was just really trying to make sure on what I was voting on after that conversation. Um and it again this is uh [snorts] I

well it's so again it's not the the issue of killing it, it's the the way in which we approach this. And so um I I I don't want to shut this conversation down. Um, I don't want to encumber our ability to to move forward in meaningful ways, but I also don't want this to be something that um goes around some of the concerns I'd heard from the community. And so I I think again we're working with the council that's I think all pulling in the right direction. Um, so for for that reason, I'm I'm I'm going to vote no on postponing this. Martinez, this right here I'm sorry.

Can you um please repeat what we're voting for? Can you repeat to postpone the item indefinitely? To postpone it indefinitely.

Yes. Ortiz. Yes. Powell. Hail no. Stefan. No. Thorne. Yes. Mayor captain. Yes. The motion. Five. Five four. Five nos. Four yeses. Um so I'll make a motion to direct corporate council to move forward in developing um I'm just going to loosely call it welcoming city ordinance.

Second. It's been moved and seconded to uh develop a welcoming city ordinance. Um any further discussion, Miss Martinez? This is how I think it should have been to begin with. Uh that's why I had voted no. Thank you.

Anything else from Miss Paula? So now would be the time, Councilman Good or anyone else up here if you have ideas because this is a discussion. If you have ideas that you want corporation council to incorporate into the draft that is going to be brought back to us for review and further discussion, now is the time. Now is the time to throw those ideas out here so that they can be incorporated. Now, if you think of stuff later, you're not prohibited from emailing those to him as well. But again, th this is a discussion. We're just asking, we wanted the majority or needed apparently the majority of the council to agree to direct staff to put this together. So, thank you for those council members that voted in favor of us getting to this point. Thank you.

Okay, Mr. Dixon, thank you. Um, I actually need to amend my motion and remotion it, I guess, if I can get that second again. Second. Okay. Um, well, the the amendment is the naming of a welcoming city ordinance. I'm just going to say BR of staff bringing back an ordinance um that reflects the conversation that we have here tonight and and so second I think that's pretty appropriate. Okay. Say that to reflect the conversation as it's gone. Right.

And it's because it's been all over the place and I think that I'll gives Mr. Beck time to go back look at the look at the uh uh the video and see what was actually said here. And I think that's an appropriate thing to give us something to work on when it's brought back. Right. And and the the reason if I may speak um [clears throat]

tonight we had a lot of conversation but not about the actual subject and the meat and potatoes of the com of the topic. So, if you didn't come prepared with points of things that you feel like we could um improve on uh as a city, you know, I don't know where you're going to get those points from, but what I what I would just like to to have here is just a a honest open conversation about how we can improve, you know, a language access [music] policy or translation services or um you know, or the way that we operate, you know, as far our municip our employees operate um in a municipality or whatever it is whatever the ideas that now is the the time to do that. So I I'm not taking any offense to you know things that transpired earlier. This is a part of the process. It's a democratic process and let's just you know have the conversation. So

okay down here. Hey M.

Thank you. Um, in this ordinance, um, Council Member Dixon already talked about a language access plan. If we could put in there also an economic component to it, as um, to ensure that we're being inclusive to the community and doing intentionality outreach and helping our immigrant owned businesses and all businesses, etc. And there's intentionality component and also a civil engagement component as we have talked about engaging those that are in this room. Thank you for being here with us tonight. Um those that are watching at home, but also engaging those that are not watching and are not here as well. So we could have the civil engagement component as well.

Thank you. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. My thoughts were going. Uh Miss Powell,

that said, um I would like to have a supplier diversity component added to this ordinance. You talk about being a welcoming city and talking about some of the things that are involved. Um, supplier diversity is something we've we've talked about um on and off a lot here, but have really yet to really enact anything. So, um, it's something I really want to see incorporated into this ordinance. Um, I know we ask certain questions of our contractors in terms of like their employee utilization, but I'm more interested in who are we actually doing business with? Who are we spending our money with? Um, so that is something I would like to see included in this.

Mr. Mr. uh,

thank you, mayor. Um it's it's [clears throat] so as this is all transpiring. I'll tell you where I'm at currently still. Um the concerns I had heard from the community are still I think potentially bubbling up here. Um you know and that was the individual components everybody agrees upon and enforces and wants. Um I know we've had the uh articulation of you know an ordinance does some uh official locking in. So depending on who's on council or who's on staff it's there. Um, but for me, I support the individual underlying elements that build this to be what it is. The concern I've had from the community is putting a name on it. Um, so again, I this is an area to your point about, you know, we're elected officials, we have uh conversations in public. Um, we're having this tonight. I think in a perfect world, you know, add a little bit more input from folks around the community. Um but I just the attempt I made earlier to say like hey I feel this is going a certain way um and let's do something actionable because it seemed like we could all agree upon uh the item that there is the ability for us to provide translation services not just in Spanish um that that was something that we could rally around. So, I guess that's where I'm trying to get clarity now is um are we throwing out individual items and components for staff to consider and come back with variance of this is a policy change, is a an ordinance change for the individual components or are we moving forward right now with this as being under the official umbrella of a welcoming city. Um and with all that being said, you know, the official move, the suggestion here would to direct staff to come back with something to ensure um more language access, which has already been said, but

yeah. And I I think I can I can speak to that a little bit and but then council councilwoman I'm sorry manager what's the manager respond. Okay.

Part of the difficulty is is there is no one welcoming or sanctuary sanctuary city ordinance and what was presented to me and corporation council back in the first instance had a lot of components that involved analysis that that impacted multiple departments in the city. creating the legal defense fund, creating the municipal ID system, creating translation for all city documents. There's analysis that's involved with that that takes time and as I told you, we wouldn't be able to do the work that was necessary to provide meaningful information to the council by December 17th as you planned. So, I don't believe that it's fair to simply drop on the corporation council's lap, come back with what you think is your best idea of a welcoming or sanctuary city ordinance because no different than the divergence on this council. There's no shortage of variations that are out there. I think that those disc I thought that we were on the path for these discussions as we had that so that the council can instead of dealing with concepts have concrete items to review and discuss instead of just pulling ideas out of the air. I don't believe that that opportunity is passed but it's the type of thing that I think involves work behind the scenes. Yes, sometimes talking with your council members two by two so that a document can then be presented to the council as a whole to begin having that that discussion. Again, it's the council's prerogative at the end of the the day as to how it wishes to proceed. But I think that you're putting staff in a tough situation now of saying come back and add this because I never would have included supplier diversity. Never would have considered that for a moment as part of a welcoming city or sanctuary city ordinance and I don't want Mr. back or anybody on the staff to be criticized for falling short on those issues. Thank you, Mayor.

Yeah. And if I can just respond because I I think you know, city manager was was speaking to me directly on this. Um I'm open. I'm not sold to any one area just like you know um Councilman Good. He said, "You know what? Probably should stay away from giving it a title at this point." Not a bad idea. Let's call it as an ordinance. It's going to reflect what it the conversation that we're having here today. So, I'm not against it. I did try to have those conversations in advance and again I wasn't married to any one idea. I was complete I was completely open and I remain open. I just want what's best for our community as a whole and specifically the community that's being affected the most. So we could go about this a couple of different ways. Uh in my mind, um we the idea of tonight was to have a discussion to see what if any ideas existed individually amongst council people to have the conversation to possibly go forward to develop an ordinance. That was the that was the thinking. That was the thought process of of what should have happened tonight. The plan didn't lane didn't land and get there, you know, completely right. Um, so at at this point we could have that conversation and people throw out ideas, but I also do appreciate having community feedback. Now all of us are representative representatives and we get here because we're elected by the community. We all hear different things. We speak to different groups. Um, and so we all are providing the feedback that we hear from the streets, so to speak. Um, so we could go forward and provide a few things, but we also could say, "Hey, we're going to move this forward for future conversation at the next city council meeting. We're going to solicit

some feedback from the community, continue to have conversations with not only residents, but business owners that, you know, as was pointed out, we can do a myriad of things, but to just do nothing and not have any conversations, just shut things down like that. That would just be wrong. We we owe we we owe more to our community. as as a as kind of a starting [applause] as kind of a starting point here, why don't we classify this as a policies discussion, policy discussions in the vein of creating an ordinance. So, we create policies. We're talking about policies. Miss Powell brought up a policy that's not part of a of a of a a welcoming city ordinance. So, if we want to talk about those kind of things, how do then how do we incorporate those? So, that would be policy discussions,

but with the with the intent of of creating an ordinance. Okay. Just wanted to make clarification. So because like policy is different staff can change that at any will whereas ordinance have to come through the city council. Exactly. So we create a policy and now this policy from the city council becomes an ordinance. Okay. Um thank you for that clarification.

And and if I just want to say I I I don't want this conversation to become convoluted with all the things under the stars and get then get diluted down to be something that it's not originally meant to be. The topic of the conversation tonight was welcoming cities. How do we support um and protect our immigrant our immigrant population here in this community that all policy discussions all you know ideas should be geared towards helping that population and not all things that are policy. So I just want to be clear on that ordinance is not the end all and be all for everything. That's every problem facing the city.

No it's we have a subject. Yes. Right. Okay. Okay, Miss Martinez, I would also uh would like to include where uh it's explained to us what are the pros and the cons of the things that we are uh proposing or doing in this um resolution in this conversation. Thank you, Mr. Ortiz. I want to add that EPD continued the policies that Chief Ley instilled and she put into the Elder Police Department because she only has a short fews left, maybe a couple years. So I want whatever she has in her policies to continue with the next chief and so on. So things to include.

Okay. We have a number of things to work on. We have direction for Mr. Beck. Correct. Sort of. We have some broad direction. You're giving me a kind of a high roll here. So yeah, broad direction. But um I don't know if this can be done I doubt if this can be done by the 17th. No, that's not possible. So, I think it's something that we'll take over into uh next year. And uh to be honest for people, uh that's a low time for us as a city council. Uh January and February are kind of slow times. What we do is pay bills mostly. So, it's a good time to become um to Well, that's not such a bad thing, but uh that's so that would be a good time to have this discussion.

Yeah. And just I I think that makes sense. And just as a point of information from my perspective, the more specific direction I have as to specific policies and then it's just a matter of me putting those ideas into words that are specific that that can be done fairly easily for me to kind of go out there and take a survey of the best practices and try to come back with what I think is the best ordinance takes considerably more yes time. So again, the more specific direction with respect to specific things the council would like to incorporate into an ordinance, I can put those to words fairly quickly. Okay. Okay. Mr. Dixon.

Yeah. Just some clarification on what uh staff would like. Um I don't know if all the ideas are going to come up here tonight. So uh city manager Kosal, you know, uh what do you think about setting a deadline to receive feedback from council members? Um maybe that's a you know the month of December and and then that's incorporated you know come January February we have those conversations. I I thought that the input from the council was done now and it was coming back to Mr. Beck and then there where there would be the review. I mean he didn't seem to think that uh he had enough clear direction. That's why I was asking.

Well but but but then again I think it becomes more difficult if it becomes a moving target. If you just call with direction, there's no clarity as to whether everybody else is in agreement with that. And so he might be required to spend a lot of time on something that doesn't have the support. So unfortunately, this requires the discussion with a broader council to make sure it's not just an initiative that's supported by other than the majority.

Mow. All right. He got the ICE free ordinance done without a lot of input. So my guess is he he has enough in this instance to get something to talk about in a month or so. Yeah. Well, and and actually sent out a couple of examples of um of ordinances um that have a a council manager form of government, right? So there's always already tons of precedent for it. Uh and there's probably about nine communities in the state of Illinois that that have some type of working ordinance. And they're not all called welcoming city. They're, you know, there's various, you know, different things. So I think there's enough framework, enough precedence. Sure. So that you if I direct you like an ordinance like Evston has or the city of Chicago, I mean that could be done in

okay number of hours, but I I'm getting a lot of things about a civil engagement component, a supplier diversity component, a economic component. I I don't really know what those mean. So, if there's like a specific policy or if you just want Evston's ordinance, I can, you know, we can come back with Evston's ordinance or any other cities like But that's that's what I mean about being specific. If that's specifically what you want, I can get that done very quickly. I can share the economic one that I've seen.

Okay. Okay. Are we good here for the moment, Miss Paul? that and that's actually what I was going to say that we might want to give um corporation council some specific direction around um use maybe Evston's ordinance as a base to build on. Um I think that would be proper direction which it sounds like that's already kind of happening. So, okay. Um, if there's an ordinance that we at least want to use as a base and incorporate some of the things that have come up and, you know, I I'm fine with,

you know, I mentioned supplier diversity and I think I personally think that there's a a a component of um a welcoming city ordinance that kind of ties into the economic piece that um Councilwoman Al Faro said. Um, I mean, and that's kind of like where I was going down. So, um I'm not trying to convolute it. If we need to deal with that separately, I'm fine with that. Um I don't want to over complicate this because I do want, you know, staff to be able to do this and bring something back, you know, that that that we can that we can uh review and vote on. Okay. Okay.

I believe staff has direction and we can uh we can kind of move forward here. Sure. I Okay. I just wanted to add just timelinewise for transparency to the community. Are we thinking then because I think the 17th is too soon. Um are we thinking the first meeting in January, second meeting in January? You tell me. What do you think? Um second say February. Chris, you know how that's how much time you need. Yeah. No, I I I feel comfortable I'd be able to come back in the second meeting of January. I mean, if the council's preference is something sooner, I mean, and I I'll make it work, but second meeting in January, I think I seriously

I think that's fair with the holidays and everything. Okay. Thank you. And if I'm understanding correctly, you the more direction the better. So, I'm I'm trying to help. And if I was to give a to amend my motion for the second time to reflect what you were just saying, say um amending the motion for you to develop a an ordinance u that is reflective of Evston's ordinance which also includes the things that we discussed here. Second that would give you a little bit more framework. Yeah, I'm asking if that's the direction of council then that that where I would start. Well, I'm just trying to make sure that I that you have enough to work with.

I think I have a problem. How do I know uh what Evston's ordinance is? I'm going to vote I'm going to vote on uh an amendment that's going to follow Evson's ordinance and I don't know what that is. No, it actually uh I had it sent out to the entire council. Yeah. But I had and and we're we're not voting to do that before I would vote on that. I think we're not we're not voting on the ordinance. This is just he says he just needs more framework in which to develop something to bring it back. So we're not voting okay on an organ like like maybe like but even that is might be a little stretch. Okay.

So I wouldn't amend. Yeah,

the motion is to What's the motion now? Is that to use a a guideline Evans as a guideline? I second that motion.

Okay, Mr. Good. Um, so I I thought we had come to like an agreement that we're going to focus on the underlying individual components and make those ordinances and codify it that way rather than looking to Again, my whole issue this this meeting has been because I've gotten feedback from the community that they're worried about being uh in a community that has a label welcoming city and it draws more attention. They're already here. We understand that the intensity getting worse. Again, the example that I tried to give to make this as real world as possible is that we've got people in the community who are now trying to proactively leave this country by February. And so we we don't and so that's my that's been my concern this whole time. So now I I I feel like I felt like we were getting there. And then now if we're giving uh direction to follow another municipality's example of a welcoming city, I just want to be clear right now that I don't disagree with that necessarily. I just want to be really clear that we're not just foregoing that entire conversation that just happened and we're going to come back in the second weekend of January and we're going to be voting on a welcoming city.

What is a what is a motion that you would feel comfortable with

to direct corporate counsel to bring back uh suggestions that make up that account for the underlying elements and components that actually make up a welcoming city and see where we can do better. address those individual components and keep doing uh you know what the good work that the city's been doing uh work with the community members who have been creating the organic support networks go that route I just don't want this fixation to be on this label that was expressed to me by constituents that that's the concerning point of everybody agreed on the underlying elements of it there might be some back and forth maybe on a couple of them but I feel like a lot of them it's slam dunk and so the concern about it not being codified and being an ordinance. I understand. So that's what I was under the impression we were giving direction to was that he was going to go back, he was going to take into consideration, watch the tape about all the different items we we discussed, potentially offer a window of time for us to bring additional items forward for consideration and that we would then handle it in that way. That's what that's what I was under the impression of.

So it it seems like it was the original motion then, right? That was your original motion was I thought I thought corporate council was asking for more frame. Yeah. So it's the original motion then that to create a type of ordinance with some kind of name we don't know what it is maybe sense of belonging and inclusivity whatever right that includes this language access plan the civil engagement economic component that also ties in supplier diversity procurement um as well as um continuing EPD policies that's what we had so far y that was the original move Okay. We're not going to make Well, that's your motion. That's my motion. Make it again.

That's right. You just said a second. Okay. Okay. Clerk, please call the role. Council members Alaro, yes. Dixon, yes. Good. Yes. Martinez, yes. Ortiz, yes. Powell, yes. Stefan, yes. Thorne, yes. Mayor Captain. Yes. Motion's approved. 90. Okay. Was a torturous route. [applause] Announcements from the council. Mr. Ortiz.

Uh I was talking to Mr. Thorne on before Thanksgiving, I think, and he told me that his birthday's coming up on Saturday. He's going to be 132 years old. So, I just want to say happy birthday to uh Mr. Thorne. [snorts] Okay, Mr. Good.

Um, it's a I guess I could have said this in the previous conversation, but just really want to give a shout out and thanks to everybody who has been doing uh the the challenging work in the community. Um, so from the rapid response team, the school observers, um, the legal support networks, food pantries, uh, for better or worse, we've seen a really successful food pantry pop up, but that's never really a great thing. You know, you always want to have the need be at zero. But um just wanted to give a call out to everybody that's been doing that work, volunteering their time, canvasing, um distributing know your rights, mutual aid. So all those things build up what's going to be the strongest part of this. And so I just want to give a shout out recognition to that. Anything else from the council, Mr. Dixon?

Yeah, I echo those words. And I and also just want to say thank you to all the residents here and everyone here that really stood in with us tonight and and sat through this meeting. Um, and I also want to say thank you to um to city staff in advance uh for the work that you're going to do in writing this ordinance and say a special thank you to uh my city council colleagues um for giving us an opportunity um for us to have this conversation and for us to build something that's for Elgen that's going to help us and protect our residents and bring us forth. So, thank you to to everyone here tonight. Hey. Uh, Mr. Stefen.

Yeah. I I wanted to because I had a chance to think about it and you just asked for council announcements. Tomorrow night, there is a do-it-yourself Messiah. If people want to get into the holiday spirit, it will be at Second Baptist Church. It will include the Elgen Symphony Orchestra, the Elgen Master Corral, and solist from the Midwest Opera Theater. takes place tomorrow night, December 4th, 7 pm. Proceeds will support Wellchild [music] C Center's food pantry for families. If you haven't seen it or toured it, uh it's always good to do. Um it's over there on Wing Street and Route 31. Tickets are $5 per person. Children under 12 are free. Uh, I don't have a website, but if people are interested, um, I would say join them at Second Baptist Church tomorrow night at 7 p.m.

Miss Martinez.

Uh, yes. I, um, recently attended the Scouting of America, the Three Fires Council. They had a a good scout uh, breakfast and I'd like to congratulate the honores. Uh Lori Baker uh she is the president and CEO of aid and um if you look at the building that's next to the DMV that's something that aid did. I I invite you to please look at that. Uh Kyla Britain was the other one and Kyla she has built a career around uh deep commitment and philanthropy and community impact. And then um the third one was Elisa Lara. Elisa is a seasoned and dedicated health uh professional and she's almost like our MC for the city. And then finally, Mr. uh Mark Seagull. You know, Mark uh Seagull, his family, they're committed to um the Elgen community that has been uh defining part of uh his life and career and he's been very generous with um what he has done for our city. So, I just wanted to congratulate all four of them. And then, uh, lastly, um, I wanted to announce, but I didn't write down the information. There's going to be, um, information given about people who want to give inputs on sidewalks. City manager, do you

what is it? December 11th. December 11th. And, uh, what exactly is it? It's a survey. It's a survey. So, if you have ideas or something that you want to come and um let us know about it, there's going to be um this event at um the center on uh Thursday the 11th. Thank you. Okay. Uh one announcement for me. Uh I have a sign on in my yard that says no trespassing, ice not allowed. There are hundreds of them downstairs and where are people to come pick them up? Let's get them. You guys are out in the audience. Let's get a sign in your yard. [applause] Okay. Announcements from staff.

No announcements, mayor, but I just want to give a shout out to the city snowplow drivers who worked through the majority of this holiday weekend. Unfortunately, the record snow for this year has cut short by one week. The planned leaf rake uh leaf pickup in the rakeout areas. And given the amount of snow that we have on the ground and with the facilities being closing up, we are unfortunately not going to be able to make supplemental pickups. The plows are on the uh the paw blades are on the trucks for the remainder of the season. However, we will be exploring supplemental pickup in the spring if that's possible. Also want to give shout out to the cultural arts and special events department who did everything they could to try to complete the tree lighting and with the Santa activities. We pulled the plug late in the afternoon, but we will be back bigger and better next year with the tree lighting and those festivities. Thank you.

Thank you. I entertain a motion to adjurnn. So moved. Move and second to adjurnn. Clerk, please call the role. Council members Alfaro, yes. Dixon, yes. Good. Yes. Martinez, yes. Ortiz, yes. Powell, yes. Stefan, yes. Thorne, yes. Mayor Captain, yes. We are adjourned. We'll reconvene at the regular council meeting at 8:15.

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Hey y'all. Hey, hey, hey.

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So for December 3rd, 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.

Will clerk please call the role. Council members Alvaro here. Dixon. Good here. Martinez here. Ortiz here. Powell here. Stefan here. Thorne here. Mir captain here. Approval of the minutes of the previous meeting of November 19th. Approved. Moved and second for approval. Any discussion or corrections? Mr. Faro. Um, from page well from the complete packet. So, forgive me. I'm doing from the pages of the complete packet 13 to 31. Um, it lists that I voted yes when I wasn't at the meeting.

So, if we could just take my name off um given I wasn't present. Thank you. Motion to approve is amended. Please move to approve as amended. Second. Been moved and seconded. Clerk, please call the role. Council member Alaro, abstain. Dixon, yes. Good. Yes. Martinez, yes. Ortiz, yes. Powell, yes. Stefen, yes. Thorne, yes. Mayor Captain,

yes. Motion's approved. 8 Z with one abstension. We have no communications this evening. We have a few people signed up. Uh, first person to sign up is Elijah. Elijah Stein.

Go ahead.

Hello, I'm Elijah Stein. I have lived in Elgen for 10 years now and I would like to bring a new take on an oldstanding problem which is healthcare. Healthcare is a basic human right. I really don't feel that I need to argue that. If you really don't think that it is, you're just lucky enough to not need it right this second. Most politicians would like you to believe our health care system is broken. However, I would like to present the opposite truth. Healthcare in the USA is operating exactly as intended. It is an industry bound by ridiculous regulation with the sole purpose of gaining profits and dividing it amongst the select few. How then does one fix a system that's functioning against its own customers? Many answers have been posed, but I prefer the simple and effective approach the American public has to say on, albeit the unpreferred one. Deprioritize their bottom line. Deprioritize their incentives. Deprioritize their ravenous pursuit of profits over your own well-being. Let me be very clear. This is not an advocacy for avoiding responsibilities economic or otherwise. In practice, it is the opposite. It is you taking responsibility as a stakeholder and reminding them of their responsibility as a business. If the healthcare industry wants to operate as a business over a human right, it's only fair to treat them as such. If a restaurant serves you tainted food, you walk out. If a store sells you a defective product, you get a refund. In the same vein, if a health care service charges $1,000 for a $10 treatment and your funds are at their breaking limit, choose to prioritize your human needs first. Choose to pay for the food your family need to live, the transportation you need to work and the things your children need to give them a brighter future. Prioritize what really matters and remind healthcare companies that they've forgotten their priorities as a service provider. In business, the only service worth paying for is a good service. Gabe Newell, the CEO of Steam, said it best. Piracy is not the result of people wanting to steal. Piracy is the result of bad service on the part of

G bad game companies. Using that same logic, Steam prioritized creating better services for their customers, and now they're the biggest platform in the world. Healthcare companies don't improve services purely for the fact that they have no incentive to and they fully understand just how much of a need medical services are. As such, they sit pretty as politicians funded in part by healthcare industry dollars claim it's too complicated a process to solve. Meanwhile, other countries have solved it decades ago. We cannot wait for a hero to fix our problem for us. If we as the American people wish to see better value for what we pay for, then we need to be the reason for change, we need to remind these companies of what it is we pay them for. And if they try to tell you that they're wrong for treating them just like another business while they tried to take your money without giving the service that you have paid for, feel free to remind them. That's just how business works. Thank you.

Thank you. Uh Dorothia Pulis, did she stick around or did she leave? I believe she left. Kevin Zaldavar.

Hey guys. Um, I wanted to continue on with the the comments that I mentioned earlier uh in the last meeting uh about economics, but I first want to say um that was like a major like filibuster moment. Um I think what would look like well moving forward is like if people disagree with things and policies [snorts] and parts of what we uh you know are presenting like we need to understand how to talk that out like what do we disagree about? Why are we disagreeing about this? Like you guys are lawmakers, right? We're supposed to be hearing you guys make laws or be dictating how you're making laws, not necessarily whether you come here to just agree and disagree. Like I think a lot of the push back that you see from the residents uh is because like we come here and we vote and that's it. Like we don't understand why. So back to my economics comment earlier, why are we funding the things that we're funding? How do we forecast the things that we fund and who is it going to impact? The mayor said something the other time. He said, uh not everything is for everybody, right? And so that's the importance of these discussions, right? Um, I'm kind of mentally exhausted from that filibustering for that hour ago. Um, because, you know, I'm trying to keep track of a lot of things that are happening here. Couple points about the ordinance stuff. I think we also need to just like realize that like if there's a problem with writing the ordinance for like anti-comandeering laws, let's just we write it plain and simple. Like we don't want ICE to comeander our property. Like that's as plain as simple as it gets. and then you leave that open to interpretation which is pretty like not open to interpretation. It's like at face value. That being said, um I do want to uh highlight something that happened very that is happening right now and we're finally discussing public safety without the presence of police here. I think that's a major accomplishment because forever for four

years ago even we've been talking about how public safety does not just exist in the realms of police. It exel it exists also in the realms of healthcare, right? uh it exists in systems and a cooperation between community and government outside of the realm of police. I also wanted to point out then the city budget like whose idea was it to put city services and not like divide police services and what the city is spending on like things like the rec center and XYZ like city employees. Um also I tried leaving a public comment. I didn't really want to come in today, but uh digitally I don't I don't know who to email anymore to I don't know if you guys are still doing that, but reading public comments by submission via email. I don't see that online anymore. Um economics crap, I ran out of time again, but maybe we'll Yeah. Well, maybe we'll discuss this. But, you know, it's just how we deliberate, how we talk, and like how we express this. And I think it would really help moving things forward from here on out. Thank you.

Thank you, Matthew Willis. Okay. Okay. That brings us to bids. First item is a Bose Creek a bid number 25-036 Bose Creek Golf Club uh entrance sign. Move to award the bid to Aurora Science Company in amount of $72,60 for Bose Creek Bose Creek entrance sign. Second. It's been moved and seconded. Any discussion hearing? None. Clerk, please call the role. Council member Alaro, yes. Dixon,

yes. Good. Yes. Martinez, yes. Ortiz, yes. Powell, yes. Stefan, yes. Thorne, yes. Mayor Captain, yes. The motion's approved 90. Item two is bid number 25-056, uh, 2025 traffic signal capital improvements. Uh mayor, I'll move that we award this to Power Link Electric uh in the amount of $424,996. Second. Move and second. Any discussion? Clerk, please call the RO. Council member Zaro, yes. Dixon, yes. Good. Yes. Martinez, yes. Ortiz, yes. Powell, yes. Stefan, yes. Thorne, yes.

Mayor Captain, yes. The motion's approved 90. Item three is bid number 25-057 2025 sewer cleaning and lining project not to exceed $584,000. Mr. Mayor, I recommend that we award this to Ho ErrR Construction Incorporated. Second move and seconded. Any discussion hearing? None. Clerk, please call the role. Council member Alaro, yes. Dixon, yes. Good. Yes. Martinez, yes. Yes. Ortiz. Yes. Powell. Yes. Stefen. Yes. Thorne. Yes. Mayor Captain. Yes. The motion is approved. 90.

Brings us to other business. The first item is a resolution regarding the determination of the amount estimated to be necessary to be raised by taxation for the year 2025 upon taxable property in the city of Elgen. Move for approval. Second. Moved and second for approval. Any discussion hearing? None. Clerk, please call the role. Council member Zaro, no. Dixon, yes. Good. Yes. Martinez, yes. Ortiz, yes. Powell, yes. Stefan, yes. Thorne, yes. Mayor Captain,

yes. The motion is approved. 81. Brings us to a public hearing. Public hearing on the 2026 uh proposed city of Elgen budget. I declare the public hearing open. Uh discussion from the council at this time. Seeing none, uh, anyone in the audience wish to comment on the 2026 proposed budget?

Anyone in the audience wish to comment on the audience? Mr. Ortiz, what's the comment? I just want to I want to say thanks to city staff, all the department heads, city manager's office, and corporation council for putting this budget together. I know they starting I think quarter two. Is that correct, Mr. Manager? When you guys start doing this, or you already starting for next year? The chief financial officer starts then. I I come in a little bit later.

All right. Well, Mr. Naki, I appreciate you for uh keeping us balanced, keeping us not in a deficit, and keeping us as a lean organization and only spending money on what we need to spend money on. And I appreciate you for that and keeping us in line when we spend too much money. So, thank you. Uh, anyone else in the audience wish to comment on the budget? Mr. Dixon,

thank you. I um I just wanted to say that um you know, raising taxes, property taxes is never anything that any elected official wants to do. Um, but here in this community, uh, because we've had such great city council members and city staff for so many years, this in 11 years, this is the first time while everything else around us is going up. Um, and so this is is not an act of um, you know, negligence. Um this is um financial stewardship really at its best and is a reflection of our um our financial director um and Mr. Naraki who I'm looking at right now and also the wonderful city staff that we have uh throughout our community um and continue to do the work every single day and stretch themselves thin, you know, work many hours, not have a lot of staff. And so we um I I I appreciate it and uh and I recognize that. And so it was not it's not easy to raise, you know, taxes, but under these circumstances, given what we've been through and how we've been punching above our weight for so long, um it's necessary at this point. So

Okay. So anything else, Miss Paul?

Thank you. Um I also want to thank staff for their work. Um I I know that this is not easy. Um, similar to what Councilman Dixon said, um, it's never easy to raise taxes and there's never a good time. Um, I will say that Elgen's not unique or alone being found in this situation right now. Um, several other communities around us are faced with the same challenge. I won't call any of them out. Um, but in my day job, I not only get to come to obviously our city council meetings, I go to other community city council meetings and I've sat through their meetings where they've raised their um home rule sales tax right now. Um, another community is in the process uh similar to us of raising their general fund uh property tax levy after having not done so in over 10 years. So, I think that's important for our residents to hear that this is not just unique to Elgen. um we really do our best to try to contain fees and taxes and and how we're spending money. Um so um I think it's important for people to understand that, you know, we're we're not unique right now. This is something that's facing several other municipalities in this area. Um, so, uh, I will be voting, uh, in support of this. Um, not because I want to spend more money or I want to take more money from people. Everything that we do as a city costs more. And it has costs more for a long

time. Just like at home, everything that we buy at home costs more. But imagine for a a city the size of a the size of Elgen 115 120,000 people. So magnify what you buy at home by probably 300 or 3,000 or 5,000 or more. That's what the city of Elgen is facing in terms of additional cost. Um, I also want to point out and and we dealt with it a little bit on this this um agenda tonight. We are doing a massive amount of lead pipe replacements that is impacting um our budget significantly, but it's work that needs to be done. Not just because the federal government says that we have to do it. It's work that we have been doing as a community, but we've had to speed that up because of the new laws. Um, but it's important work that has to be done. And, um, this council supports that work. It's important for our community. It's important for the health of our community. Um, and that is not cheap work. It's not cheap work at all. Um, another shout out to staff uh for working diligently to identify grant funding and the loan programs that we've um identified to help offset the literally millions and millions of dollars that we are spending on lead pipe replacements in this community. So, thank you uh for the hard work. Uh thank you to uh my colleagues up here for supporting that work. Um, and those are those are my comments.

Thank you. Okay. Anything else? Anything else from the public? Anything else from uh anybody in the audience wish to speak? Okay. Seeing nobody at the podium, I declare the public hearing closed. Brings us to item three is consideration of a petition 30-25 for 451 North Mlan Boulevard. plan development as a map amendment to allow construction of a larger than permitted monument sign and a refuge collection area in uh enclosure in the uh street yard at Kimell Middle School. Mr. Malot, thank you.

Check. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Good evening, members of city council. This property is located on the east side of MLAN Boulevard between Demon Street and Lawrence Avenue. Here is Mlan. This is Demond and this is Lawrence. Melrose is along the east side of the property. This is Paul's Family Restaurant, Autozone, the Sheridan at Tyler Creek and the south end of the Wing Park Shopping Center. U46 requests approval of a larger monument sign in a new refuge collection area enclosure within a streety yard at Kimell Middle School. The proposal is part of the Kimble Middle School expansion and renovation project that otherwise conforms to the zoning ordinance and is expected to be completed in time for the start of the 2026 2027 school year. The new monument sign along North Mlan would replace the existing sign. The zoning ordinance allows one 10-ft high, 40 ft monument sign with a 20 ft electronic message board. The proposed sign would be 7 1/2 ft high, just under 100 square ft, and the electronic message board would be a bit more than 27 square ft. The new sign would match the monument signs recently approved for the new middle school on Morrison Road, which was just named Legacy Middle School and for Hilltop Elementary School. The new refuge collection area is proposed on the east side of the school. Because this side of the building fronts Melrose Avenue, the area east of the building is technically a streety yard where a refuge collection area is not allowed. U46 requests that the refuge collection be appropriately located next to the school kitchen. It would still be more than 400 ft from Melrose and enclosed with an 8ft high masonry wall that matches the masonry of the building. The applicant is present. Should you have any questions, staff and the planning and zoning commission recommend approval subject to conditions outlined within your packet.

Move for approval sub condition. Second. It's been moved and second for approval subject to conditions. Any discussion, Mr. Ortiz?

Get my stuff out of the way. Yeah, I just uh want to continue appreciating you 46 for putting more money into the schools here within the city of Elgen. And uh this is a huge improvement. I was talking to Miss Pow that the sign that's up there now over on North MLAN. That thing's been there since I was a kid. So, I'm glad they're improving it. It's probably a little bit bigger than uh obviously it is bigger than we allow. So, but I'm okay with it cuz that thing right there I think looks dope. So, I appreciate you 46 for putting more money into our schools here within the city. Okay. Anything else, Mr. Dix? Oh, I'm sorry, Mr. Manager. Go ahead.

Oh. I was just I've had the privilege of being able to work with Deputy Superintendent Dr. Anne Williams who's in attendance. The amount of work that you echoing what council member uh Ortiz is saying, the amount of work that U46 is putting forth and the cooperation and effort that you've worked with staff has been incredibly enjoyable and thank you for the partnership and the investment in the city. It's truly commendable and I don't know when you sleep. [laughter] Okay, Mr. Dixon.

Yeah, I I want to say thank you, too. And this is the second edition for this same school because there's a new addition being added on to Kimble and there was a groundbreaking I don't know, I don't know, 6 months ago or so, something like that. So, um just really happy about what's happening and and honestly like I would have took anything over that ugly sign that's out there right now. So, this is absolutely a huge improvement. So, good job and keep up the good work. Okay. Anything else, Miss Paul?

Thank you. Um, as Councilman Ortiz said, we were just admiring the the nice new sign and trying to speculate on how old the the current sign is. Um, but thank you for all the work that because you guys are doing a lot a lot of capital work right now. Uh I I'm sure it's not easy, but I can't wait to see um the final product uh the investment in our community uh in Elgen in particular, but throughout the district that that serves our families is um huge and is going to pay dividends in this community and throughout the district for decades to come. So, thank you for um all the work that you're doing. And just a point of clarification if you can Mark go back to the uh slide. Yes, that one. Just because I'm a garbage girl. It it does. Is there room? [laughter] Garbage girl, not trashy girl. There's a difference. [laughter]

Yes. Two two different things. Um, does that allow for the truck to that white part, is that sidewalk or is that where they can drive upon the property? Across that. Yeah, they can drive. Okay. All right. Good. If we look at the site plan, you see the circle right there allows them to come right up to the Let me get you a pointer. Uh yeah, the left the right yellow the right yellow circle off the new driveway. They can come right in. Okay. But then the but the garbage containers are going to be in

enclosed. So they will just have to wheel them out and that's a and that's a requirement of city code. You can't have dumpsters out in the Right. Okay. Just curious. Yep. All right. Thank you. Okay. Anything else, Mr. Ortiz? Oh, I forgot to clarify. I'm an Abbott kid, so I'm always gonna be an avid kid, but I will support my uh my rival over on the North MLAN Boulevard. Okay, clerk, please call. Well, Mr. Stef, I'm sorry.

I just wanted as a graduate of what was then Kimble Junior High, I am appreciative of the changes that are being made. Um, the biggest one that's causing the dumpsters to be moved to the west side there is the fact that they're taking the cafeteria out of the basement, which is where it was when I was there. and now it's going to be on the ground floor in the back and that's also where the auditorium is and that's being turned into principal's offices and other things. Um, but I that was one comment I made wanted to make. The other one was I appreciate the um planning and zoning commission for asking the questions that I always turn to when these petitions come to us and got clarification on the times of the garbage pickup and the reason why they're it's now going to be next to the where the kitchen is going to be located which is where all the trash is going to be generated. So, um that and the fact that the sign is as has been pointed out is definitely overdue. Um, that's why I'm supporting this and appreciative of that work that is done at that lower level. So, thank you.

Anything else? Okay, Mr. Dixon, real quick, I was just going to say abbot TT. I was the Abbey kid too as well. That's probably the only thing that myself, me and uh, Councilman uh, agree on tonight. So, and Lin's better than Algen, but you went to both. I went to both. So that's right. I was kicked out of one. I don't know if you want to count that. Court clerk, please call the role. Council member Zaro, yes. Dixon, yes. Good. Yes. Martinez, yes. Ortiz, yes. Powell, yes. Stefan, yes. Thorne, yes. Mayor Captain,

yes. Motions approved 90. Item three is a consideration or item, excuse me, item four is consideration of petition 31-25, a zoning ordinance text amendment to allow murals uh in the AB districts, esta establish regulations for traditional housing facilities, allow accessory package liquor sales as permitted use in the CC-1 district and other miscellaneous amendments. Mr. Malot and Mr. Malot will lead us through these one at a time. Yes, sir.

For a vote, each one will get an individual vote. Yes, sir. Thank you, mayor. Staff in the planning and zoning commission are recommending for your consideration tonight five amendments to the text of the zoning ordinance. I'll stop after each amendment for any questions or comments you might have. And if city council is so inclined, we could entertain a motion for the specific amendment at that time. Moving right along then. The first amendment would move accessory package liquor sales from the list of conditional uses in the CC1 Center City District to the list of permitted uses. Accessory package liquor sales allow businesses to sell a limited amount of beer, wine, and or alcohol in their original package for consumption off premise. In addition to the primary purpose of the business, accessory package liquor is not the same as a liquor store, which would remain a conditional use in the downtown zoning districts. The conditional use process here is really a belt with suspenders because the liquor commission, which consists of sitting city council members, still retains full discretionary authority to determine whether the business receives a liquor license. The conditional use process in this instance only adds time and cost for certain downtown business owners. Notwithstanding, this amendment takes an incremental approach. It only includes properties in the CC-1 district or the core of downtown. The CC2 center city district and or other zoning districts could still be considered at a later date. Again, the CC-1 district is a core of downtown highlighted in red on the map. It's about 40 acres generally extending from Symphony Way on the north to Prairie Street on the south and from Center Street on the east to Riverside Drive on the west. The other set center city district consists of another approximately 150 acres radiating out from the CC1 district. The city has been working with a tenant to occupy the ground floor of the newly renovated 40 page court building called the bottle shop. They intend to provide about two dozen beers primarily from Illinois brewers, non-alcoholic beer, pre-batch cocktails and craft sodas, all on draft for on-site consumption. They would also have standing coolers containing 300 to 400 other bottled and canned beers, non-alcoholic beers, premixed cocktails, and craft sodas that they could open and pour in a glass to the consumer with a corking fee. The bottle shop would like

a customer to be able to purchase from this wide selection of bottles and cans to either take home and consume later or perhaps take to a restaurant that has a Bob Corkage liquor license. The bottle shop also intends to offer wine and cocktails for on-site consumption and prepackaged wine and a curated selection of liquor to [clears throat] go. The bottle shop will also allow persons to bring outside food into their establishment. If the zoning amendment is approved, the bottle shop would not be required to go through the conditional use process. Instead, only request approval of a liquor license from the Elgen Liquor Commission. I'd be happy to answer any questions that you might have. The operator of the bottle shop is present tonight. Staff and the planning and zoning commission recommend approval.

Approve. Do you want to do that now? Do one at a time. I'll I'll make a motion to approve the text amendment as second. It's been moved and second for approval. Any discussion, Mr. St.

I I'll just jump in. Uh as one of the five council members that's also on the liquor commission, we just had a meeting earlier and the applicants were present at that. Um, I can verify or or support the uh statement by our development director, Mark Malot, that the liquor commission is very much on top of this. We're trying to work with the applicants on making this work uh without the need to go through this conditional use process. Um, so I I just wanted to make that comment and if people had concerns that they shouldn't because I think as you had pointed out the liquor commission has that fully under is aware of it and under control. So

Mr. Dixon. Yeah. Um, thank you and thank you Mark for the presentation. Um, when I read the materials on this I was kind of shocked a little bit um, initially because we had had issues over the years. not in recent years uh as much, but this kind of seemed to I thought like, you know, take us back a little bit initially, but once I, you know, continued on and read through the materials, I'm like, "Oh, okay. This this probably could work, but it was a little shocking. It was a little jarring initially." Um, but um I'm willing to try it and uh and I look forward to it um you know, succeeding. So, thank you.

Okay. Uh we need a motion. We have a motion on this a motion and uh vote. Uh, clerk, please call the role. Council members Alfaro, yes. Dixon, yes. Good. Yes. Martinez, yes. Ortiz, yes. Powell, yes. Stefan, yes. Thorne, yes. Mayor Captain, yes. Motion's approved. 90-0. Congratulations. Okay.

The second amendment would allow property owners in the AB area business district to put a mural on their building. Murals are currently only allowed in the CC1 and CC2 center city districts. The zoning map shows the AB zoning districts in red are generally applied to major arterials like Randall, Larkin, MLAN, Dundy, and Summit. No other changes are proposed to the mural regulations. Buildings can have one mural. Murals cannot cover major architectural features such as doors, exit, and windows, and murals cannot include more than 3% text. Eker Center on Larkin Avenue would like to put a mural on the front of their building as a key part of their strengthen the community initiative celebrating 70 years of service to the Elgen community. If the amendment is approved, Eer Center is hoping to begin installation next spring. Be happy to answer any questions you might have. A representative of the Eker Center is present. Staff in the planning and zoning commission recommend approval.

Move for approval. Move the second for approval. Any discussion? M. Martinez. Thank you, mayor. Um, I was looking at your zoning map in the northeast area. Okay. And um it's kind of hard to to see, but I kind of like blew it up a little bit. Okay. And um I was questioning an area that is considered NB. Mhm. And I believe uh the street is God. I knew what it was. It's on on Liberty. Yes, ma'am.

It's uh where the American Legion is at. It's Chester. Chester. That's right. Chester. Uh that one there where Chester is and then you go uh to the other side which is uh Slate. Mhm. That area there. Um how can can it be included into that or how how do we do that or what happened? I can cue up another text amendment similar to what I presented but we can't do it tonight because the notice for this amendment was for AB only but we can certainly look at that and bring it back to you. Would you please? I would appreciate that. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. Okay. Anything else? Mr. Thorne.

Yes. Thank you, Mayor. Uh, I spoke with Jennifer earlier from the Ecker Center and I think she has an example with her of what this mural would look like. Would you be so kind as to bring that up and show us? Come up to the other podium over there. It would have Oh, you don't have the the previous picture had the side of the building on it. So, this is one panel on the on the left and this is one panel on the right.

I love it. Great. Are you going to paint it? I might I might take a brush to it. [laughter] No, it's a professional mural artist and um Okay. Anything else? Uh, Miss Powell,

thank you. Thanks for showing the mural. Um, obviously as the liaison to the Cultural Arts Commission, I'm I'm really excited about this. Um, I'm glad to see that we're moving forward with making some text amendments that will allow um more murals to go up throughout the the city. Um, in addition to um what Councilwoman Martinez mentioned, uh sounds like there's some interest in maybe doing something at the Legion potentially. So, I I I think this is a positive thing. had a chance to talk to Jennifer about uh this mural. I think you said it was designed by one of your staff members daughters who's

a board member's daughter board member's daughter who's a professional muralist and who we who will be painting the actual mural um probably sometime in the spring when it's when the weather is is more conducive. So um I I look for I I go past this this building a lot based on where it is. So, I'm I'm really looking forward to seeing this there. I think it it's a it'll be a welcome addition. So, we'll definitely be supporting this. Thank you. Anything else? Anything else, Mr. Dixon?

Yeah. Um I I just want to say it's a it's a beautiful mural. Um I love the color scheme um and location. That's a pretty busy road there, uh at Larkin Avenue, and I drive past it uh pretty often, too. And I just want to uh you know say thank you for staff for being reflective of um of the needs of this community when it comes to you know the art. I for a long time we've relegated not relegated is the word but I mean a lot of the art was concentrated downtown and there are so many artists all around the city who don't live downtown and we have so many opportunities to like really show our character as a community and um that's reflected in art pieces like this and so I would just encourage those who are listening um who have other buildings you know that fit inside of the city code is how we've uh changed to encourage you to also do murals. Um, it really adds um a certain, you know, kind of character to our community that I really enjoy and I know that others really do too as well. So,

Okay. Thank you. Can I say something? Sure. Oh, I was just Please state your name for the I'm joking. Go ahead. Oh, no. I just wanted to say thank you to um everyone who's supporting it. And this is a way for us to show um our clients and our staff that we care about them and um you know it's it's intended to be uplifting and to show um you know resiliency in our community. So that's great. Mr. Thorne.

I also wanted to uh commend Jennifer and the Eker Center for going about this properly and coming to the city rather than just thinking they could put it up and do it. So, uh good job on that and uh I'll be supporting it. Thank you. Anything else?

Uh just a comment for me. One of my hobbies after uh uh dealing with the uh uh long discussions on freight trains coming through Elgen uh is sitting at the uh crossroads and looking at the freight cars coming by and wondering why we can't find artists that can draw on the side of a freight car and uh uh makes a whole difference on what a freight car looks like. So uh I'd love to see murals and more of them in downtown be excellent. Okay, clerk, please call the role. Council member Zaro, yes. Dixon, yes. Good. Yes. Martinez, yes. Ortiz, [clears throat] yes. Powell, yes. Stefen, yes. Thorne, yes. Mayor Captain, yes. Motion's approved. 90. Congratulations. Thank you, Mr. Thank you.

Thank you. The third amendment tonight would remove the arterial road corridor overlay district designation from the a small portion at the northernmost end of Dundee Avenue north of I90. Several factors effectively disconnect the north thousand ft of Dundy Avenue north of the interstate from the two-mile long commercial corridor that starts on the south side of the interstate. The map on your screen gives you a sense of that scale. The orange line is the two-m long commercial corridor of Dundee. The major left right or east west road on the screen is I90 and the small red north area was the northern 10,000 ft at the end of the ark. Dundy Avenue is separated by a substantial width and grade change of the uh Dundee Avenue overpass. This aerial photograph looking south gives you a sense of the nearly 900 ft of horizontal separation that the interstate imposes. And this street view looking south shows the vertical change in grade that also separates the north and south sides of the interstate. This is taken along the side of the industrial buildings on the east side of Dundee and the crest in this distance of the picture is about 8 to 10 feet higher. Also, the Dundee Avenue entrance gateway to the city has long been on the south side of the interstate at the single point entrance and exit ramp to the interstate. Here's the raised center median and landscaping enhancement Dundy Avenue south of the interstate ramp. This feature was installed in October of 2007. The request comes from one of the Dundy Avenue property owners north of the interstate. PLY property management owns the three industrial buildings at the at605 and 1625 Dundee and has suggested to staff that the land use and site design restrictions of the ark make it difficult to lease vacant space in their buildings primarily when trying to consider logistics and transportation companies that would take advantage of the access to the interstate and the capacity of Dundee Avenue. City has other examples where the character along a portion of arterial street is different enough from other segments of the street to warrant including only a portion of the street within the ark including National Street between Villa Street and State Street. Congden Avenue,

but only those properties east of State Route 25 are in the ark. Summit Street, but only those properties east of Dundy Avenue in the ark and State Route 20, but only those properties west of Weld Road are in the ark. Be happy to answer any questions you might have. A representative of PLY property management is also present. Staff in the planning and zoning commission recommend approval for approval. Moved and seconded for approval. Any discussion? Um, Mr. Ortiz. Uh, you you touched briefly on the uh gateway sign we have right at the stoplight right there coming off a 90. Mhm. I've always wondered what's the stadium and why is it pointing south on 25? What stadium is it referencing?

I don't think there's any text on that sign anymore. on the brick on the on the brick monument sign. Actually, it might be in front of it on one of those brown signs and it says stadium with the arrow pointing south on going south on 25. That might not be one of our signs. I could I'll check for you though. But well, if it's not ours, that's fine. But I was always wondering what stadium is it talking about. Okay. I'll I'll have to I'll have to do a little deeper dive for you. I appreciate this, too. That's Thank you. Anything else? Clerk, please call the role. Council member Alaro. Yes. Dixon. Yes. Good. Yes. Martinez. Yes. Ortiz. Yes. Powell. Yes. Stefan. Yes. Thorne. Yes. Mayor Captain.

Yes. Motion's approved. 90.

Mr. Mayor, the fourth amendment for you tonight would allow businesses along Arterior Roads to have a small commercial operations yard if that yard was generally not visible from the street. Currently, commercial operations yard are not allowed in the Ark. A commercial operations yard is most often an outdoor space enclosed by a solid fence in which a business stores vehicles, equipment, or materials necessary for an accessory to the business. It cannot be a junkyard or motor vehicle wrecking yard. A commercial operation yard has setback screening and landscape requirements. The amendment would allow commercial operation yards subject to site design requirements intended to ensure that the yard was not visible from the street. specifically only allowed behind a building on a property greater than four acres back from the street by 200 feet or more and not larger than 15,000 square feet. The amendment would also wave the 10-ft setback requirement when along a railroad track and allow the development administrator to count existing trees and shrubs toward the landscape requirement rather than tearing them out and starting new. Habitat for Humanity Restore on State Street needs a place to temporarily store items outside their building. The items are typically associated with a shipment of donated building materials, furniture, and fixtures, and other goods that are then sold from the building to raise money to support Habitat's efforts to provide affordable housing for incomequalified persons in the Elgen area. The area highlighted in red on the screen immediately behind the building is not visible from State Street and meets the criteria suggested within the amendment. This street shows, or actually doesn't show, the location of the yard driving north on State Street. Be happy to answer any questions you might have. Representative of Habitat for Humanity is present. Staff in the Planning and Zoning Commission recommend approval.

Move for approval. Second. Move the second for approval. Any discussion, Mr. Thorne? Thank you. Um, curious. Obviously, you're you want this to be aesthetically pleasing. Uh, to put it bluntly, it's not visible from State Street. Is it visible from all those passengers on the train? So that's why we didn't necessarily wave any of the landscaping or screening requirements. Still has to be screened with a fence. Still have to have landscaping. But in this particular instance where there's existing landscaping, we can count that towards the requirement. So it'll still maintain a degree of aesthetic quality. Good. Thank you.

Mhm. Okay. Anything else, Miss Al Faro? So, just for clarification to that note, um there's all that the trees of the other side to the parking lot will have a fence then. Yes. Okay. All right. Cool. Okay. Clerk, please call the role. Council members Alfaro, yes. Dixon, yes. Good. Yes. Martinez, yes. Ortiz, yes. Paulo, yes. Stefan, yes. Thorne, yes. Mayor Captain,

yes. Motion's approved 90-0. Congratulations. The fifth and final text amendment would create a new land use category for transitional housing facility and make it a conditional use in the GI general industrial district. Transitional housing facility would be a long-term residential facility intended to facilitate the movement of homeless individuals and/or families to permanent housing within a reasonable amount of time, generally 24 months. A traditional transitional housing facility could include various program elements for the benefit of the residents such as a kitchen and meal service, child care services, supportive services for mental health, housing, healthcare, vocational training, recovery and education, andor retail sales and/or services to provide vocational training andor funding for the facility. A transitional housing facility could also include emergency sheltering for a transient population, rapid rehousing, permanent supportive housing, and or permanent residential accommodations for staff or other like persons who helped to operate the facility. Supplementary regulations would require that a transitional housing facility must always be adequately staffed and that individuals and families within a transitional housing facility enter into an occupancy agreement with the facility provider for at least one month. The supplementary regulations would also require that a transitional housing facility could only be operated on not for-profit basis. The proposed amendment would allow Wayside Cross Ministries, a long-standing not for-profit in the community that provides most of these services at 1730 Berkeley Street, now shown on the screen, to request a conditional use at 890 North State Street and expand their capacity to help address homelessness in Elgen. About 15,000 square feet of the approximately 20,000 square foot building shown here on Berkeley is dedicated to helpless homeless individuals and families. Wayside operates in about 7,800 ft of the space pads in the other 8,200 square ft. Two other tenant spaces make up the remaining floor area of the building. The building on State Street is about

42,000 square ft. If approved, Wayside would consolidate all Elgen operations on State Street. The conditional use for an emergency shelter on Berkeley was approved by city council in December of 2006. This amendment would update the definition of that use to also reflect how pads and Wayside currently operate on Berkeley Street, primarily by not requiring persons to leave the facility every 12 hours. It would require the shelter to be run by a not for-p profofit bas on a notfor-profit basis and give a shelter operator the flexibility to provide other forms of assistance to their population. Emergency shelters are only allowed by conditional use in the GI district as is proposed for a transitional housing facility. Wayside also works to prevent homelessness before it happens by providing the above described accommodations and services for individuals who are identified as on the verge of homelessness. Be happy to answer any questions you might have. The Wayside team is present. If this text amendment receives favorable consideration, I'll next present Wayside's formal request for a map amendment and a conditional use. for this text amendment though staff in the planning and zoning commission recommend approval.

Move for approval. Second. Move the second for approval. Any discussion? Hearing none. Clerk, please call the role. Council members Alfaro, yes. Dixon, yes. Good. Yes. Martinez, yes. Ortiz, yes. Powell, yes. Stefen, yes. Thorne, yes. Mayor Captain, yes. The motion is approved. 90. brings us to item five is consideration of petition petitions 33-25 and 34-25 890 North State Street amendment to plan development conditional use to allow adaptive reuse of an existing four-story office building for a transitional housing facility. Mr. Malot,

thank you, Mayor. This property is located on the west side of Route 31, just south of the bridge that crosses the Canadian Pacific and the Metro tracks. Here's Route 31 or State Street. This is SKF Ceiling Solutions and some other smaller warehousing and logistics companies. This is Public Storage and this is the Habitat for Humanity Restore and the Fox Valley Flea Market. Wayside Cross Ministries requests approval to convert the existing fourstory office building into a transitional housing facility. The 42,000 square foot building is about 80% vacant. Wayside is a faith-based charitable organization with nearly a century long history of providing residential facilities, meals, spiritual guidance, and life skill training to the most vulnerable populations. Since 2007, Wayside andor PADs of Elgen has been operating emergency shelter for up to 60 persons at 1730 Berkeley Street. While PADS will continue to operate on Berkeley, Wayside would consolidate their operations at the proposed facility at 890 North State Street and provide housing and compassionate services for up to 126 persons. The proposed facility would be modeled on Wayside similar facility in Aurora. Facility would provide housing and a residential and recovery program for both men and women. Wayside's five-step program guides and transitions residents through a series of activities and actions positively affecting their growth and transformation. The basement would include a shared kitchen, dining room, and laundry facilities. The first floor would be used for common area and include a variety of programmatic support areas to facilitate skills and job training, counseling, and spiritual and motivational support. Dorm style living quarters for women would be provided on the second floor, and similar dorm style living quarters for men would be provided on the third and fourth floors. Facilities expected to have about 10 professional staff plus a fluctuating number of volunteers. We'll also have a person identified whose purpose is for security 247, be that a contracted security guard for at least the first two years of operations or a

trained resident staff member thereafter. The property has more than enough parking. The 156 spaces are more than two times the amount required by the zoning ordinance for 126 residents and 10 employees. Most improvements will take place on the interior of the building. Exterior improvements are limited to the installation of new wall signs on the building and a 5- foot high ornamental fence surrounding the north parking lot. In the future, Wayside may enclose the former drive-thru, adding a 3,700 foot addition for a donation center and a resale shop. The applicant is present should you have any questions. Staff in the planning and zoning commission recommend approval subject to the nations outlined within your packet. Move for approval. Second. It's

moved and second for approval. Any discussion? All I can say I've dealt with Wayside for a number of years and they are a very professional organization and they've exceeded my expectations every time. So I fully anticipate this is going to be a wonderful project. Crook, please call the role. Council member Zaro, yes. Dixon, yes. Good. Yes. Martinez, yes. Ortiz, yes. Powell, yes. Stefan, yes. Thorne, yes. Mayor Captain. Yes. The motion's approved. 90 consent agenda. Move for approval. Second. Moved in and second for approval. Any discussion?

Hearing none. Clerk, please call a role. Council member Zafaro, yes. Dixon, yes. Good. Yes. Martinez, yes. Ortiz, yes. Powell, yes. Stefen, yes. Thorne, yes. Mayor Captain, yes. Motion's approved 90. Miscellaneous business. Move for approval. Second moved and second for approval. Any discussion hearing? None. Clerk, please call the role. Council members Alaro? Yes. Dixon? Yes. Good. Yes. Martinez, yes. Ortiz, yes. Powell, yes. Stefan, yes. Thorne, yes. Mayor Captain,

yes. The motion's approved 90. The next committee of the whole meeting will be Wednesday, December 17th, 2025 at 6 p.m. in the city council chambers. The next regular meeting of the Elgen City Council will be Wednesday, December 17th, 2025 at 7 p.m. in the council chambers. I'd entertain a motion to adjurnn. So moved. Moved and second to adjurnn. Clerk, please call the role. Council member Zarro, yes. Dixon, yes. Good. Yes. Martinez, yes. Ortiz, no. Paul, yes. Stefen, yes. Thorne, yes. Mayor Captain, yes. The motion's approved. 81.

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