City Council - Regular Meeting

you please rise and join me in the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Clerk Tamer, please call the role. Toudo here. Baker here. Nuda. Virgil here. Nardini here. Bastido absent. Herby here. Brennan here. Vimis absent. Bellinger here. Shenko here. Hill here. Bram here. Jensen here.

12 present, two absent. 12 present, two absent. We have a quorum. And uh obviously we had to start we're supposed to start at 8:00 because of the fact that this is a polling place for early voting and we had executive sessions. So we're getting starting about 8:15. So I'm sorry if any have waited. Um I'm glad you waited. I should say I'm sorry you had to wait. Uh we'll move on to uh item three. Does anyone have a written communication that they would like to deliver to the council? That's right. If you'll deliver it to the clerk, we'll have it copied and disseminated. And there's another one posted. And we have one posted. These are copies of Floyd's from you guys. Thank you. Information. Thank you.

Thank you. All right. Um, we'll move on to public form. Clerk Tamer, has anyone signed up for public form? I didn't know there was a sheet to sign. Well, we'll get to you in a minute. That's fine. Who has signed up? Bill Perch. Mr. Perch. Uh if you use the back microphone, uh please state your name. Address is optional. You have three minutes to talk on any topic you like. When you get close to three minutes, I'll remind you and if you could bring your remarks to a close end, welcome and proceed.

Great. Thank you. My name is Bill Perch and I live at 960 South Hillside Avenue. My wife moved to Elmherst when she was 12. I was 17 when I started at Elmer's College. We remain highly involved with the park district, Ewan, and other local groups. We expected to celebrate 20 years of living in our modest home this year. In 2006, Hillside Avenue had one tear down and four expansions that kept the look and feel of the block. There are no new expansions and 10 tearowns in the last 6 years. Two more are likely. For more than 600 consecutive days, we've been living in the middle of an active construction zone. Heavy machines, crews, tree removals, construction materials dropped off, and our house shakes. five or more vehicles parked on the block, often in the no parking zones, which limit ours and our neighbors ability to get in and out. We've had plenty of decorations on our property, survey flags, orange fence, utility spray paint, etc. Not to mention the view of portaotties from our living room a foot from the property line. We don't need an alarm with work starts at 7:01 a.m. The demolition of the house directly across the street began in June 2024. The trees started falling at the house south of us in autumn 2025. Demo starts in June for the house on the north side. That is 1,000 days, almost 3 years of constant construction at or on our property lines. In addition to losing our sense of peace, we have limited views of trees and blue skies. The two-story home next door is three and a half times that of the previous home. Some comments to the builder who said that 956 must be torn down because no family could possibly live there. There's a family living at 960. To the builder who followed me into my backyard to ask to borrow power to run the sump pump and to compensate us, he was more than willing to tear down our fence as a favor as it would be easier to install new vinyl wall fence. To the realators who tell us it's great for your property value. We only get increased property value when we sell. We don't want to

move, but we will still get the increased property taxes. we would have had to buy in the late 1990s or early 2000s to get a substantial profit. To those who suggest we buy the properties if we don't want to live in tear down alley, so pay a half million dollars or more to see trees and skies. This is not just an unlucky coincidence. This is a result of city policies on how often and how quickly a neighborhood can change. A housing commission should be created to focus on how Elmer should change and evolve to incorporate all types of housing and budgets. These new homes that loom over the block are $1.5 million, four times the average home price in the US and out of the realm for almost all. I'm sure we will have fine new neighbors. They should make sure that the drywall is installed. 964 has deep backyard flooding that often backed up into our yard. We have plenty of pictures of Lake Hillside over the years that we'd be happy to share with them, including the rain from last night's storm. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. All right. Is anyone else signed in? All right. And uh I need to go talk. Is there anyone who has not who did not sign in for public comment that would like to have the opportunity to do so? We have one. All right. Sir, if you will proceed over to the microphone. Again, state your name, address optional, and you have three minutes.

Sure. Uh my name is Brian Moran. I live at 553 North Michigan Street in Elmherst. Area 7 traffic study. I'm a double patient, a double cancer patient. I haven't been feeling well lately, so I don't know. I think I missed the discussions about that. Anyways, but I gave you some papers right there. Um, we live on Michigan. Michigan is uh one of the streets that uh has excessive speeding on it. Lake Street. Also, I called Alderman Jensen in uh 20 January of 2023. We went to two meetings in front of my house, five meetings here. Nothing was ever done. You'll see in the FOs that I just did for you that in the last six months from June 1st of last year to December 31st, you didn't write one ticket for 6 months didn't write one ticket on Michigan. 2,000 cars a day are speeding over, you know, over excessively. We have no sidewalks. Okay. In September of 2023, a car cut through the um shopping center parking lot, which is another one in there. a hundred cars a day are now cutting through illegally. So, a car cut through illegally early in the morning, most likely an employee of McMaster car because they're the ones who cut through early in the morning. And then a car was speeding down Lake Street. I hit one of the cracks in the street, ended up on my face, ended up having to have my right knee replaced while I was but I was going through chemo at the time. So, I had to wait 7 months. So, the pain was incredible. And all this because, you know, because of the traffic, we come and complain all the time. You know, Alderman Jensen, you know, the first time he came in January 2023, I told him, you know, I can't believe you came. You're going to hate me. In no time, you're going to wish you never answered that phone call. And if you ask him right now, he probably he'll say the same thing. He wishes he didn't answer that phone call cuz you guys won't do anything. All you have to do is build a sidewalk from from Emery all the way

down Lake Street and around to Glattis and then everybody can walk from the south side of 290. You could walk and go to all the shopping centers and everything. And then we could all our people could walk to field school or something. My son never got to walk to school, never got to ride his bike to school. All because of this traffic on Lake Street and stuff, you know. I got hit last June. The car hit me in the elbow, cutting through the shopping center, speeds north on or west um east on Glattis because you can go four blocks to Van Hawk and without a stop sign. The mirror hit me in the arm, you know, and I got all stressed out. I don't remember where I was for 7 hours. I called Alderman Jensen and left a very inappropriate message that I apologized for. I don't know where I was. They I think my wife thinks I drove the car. I could have killed somebody. If you ask my psychiatrist down at Rush. I go to Rush for my oncologist, you know, I have acu whatever. But anyways, I have a psychiatrist. He told me it's some blackout thing. But anyways, we've come to Alderman Brennan I don't know how many times and he's done nothing about this meeting and stuff. So, thank you. We need some help anytime you're anytime you can. Thank you.

Thank you. Uh I believe no one else had their hand up for public comment and if anyone does please raise your hand. All right we will close public forum at this time. Move on to item five announcements. Uh are there any announcements from the das clerk tamer?

Uh just to let everyone know obviously tomorrow if you don't already know but tomorrow is election day for the primary election. Uh, city hall council chambers is continuing from our early uh voting into election day and uh polls are open till 7 pm. Um, also I wanted to say another announcement that if you are 17 years old, but you'll be 18 by the general election. I did hear from the election commission that you can vote in the primary if you're 17 years old. Um, and I don't think a lot of teenagers knew that. So, 17 years old, you can vote in the primary election if you'll be 18 by the general election in November. Um, and then a youth commission plug on Wednesday, this Wednesday, uh, after school from 3:06 to 6:00 p.m. Our job and volunteer fair will be at York High School.

Is the youth award nominations closed? The nom No, they're open. Sorry. Youth award nominations are open and they can be found on the city website uh, until April 1st. So, please feel free to go on to the city website, exemplary youth service awards. Those nominations will be taken till April 1st. All right, that's it. Thank you, Alman Virgil. Uh, I just want to remind folks about the uh ward town hall meeting uh for Ward 5 that we're having um in this room next Thursday, uh March 26th at 700 p.m. Um it's a chance for folks from the residents from the the public to come and uh you know, hear what's going on with the city as well as ask questions. So, um, anybody ward five, uh, hope to see you next week on Thursday. Thanks.

Thank you. Other announcements. All right, we'll move on to the consent agenda. Clerk Hammer, please read the consent agenda.

6.1 minutes of the regular meeting of the Elmer City Council on March 2nd, 2026. 6.2. Accounts payable March 16th, 2026. 1,389,371.99 6.3 report case 26 PO2 amended conditional use permit by pylon sign 20 I'm sorry 217 East Butterfield 6.4 report neighborhood traffic study area number nine 6.5 report ADA transition plan sidewalk self-evaluation services contract 6.6 6 report no mow until Mother's Day program. 6.7 report GPH County gasoline and diesel procurement joint purchase 6.8 Eight. An ordinance to approve and authorize the execution of a market license agreement buying between Bon Bons USA Inc. and the city of Elmer 6.9. Ordinance approving and authorizing the execution of a non-exclusive license agreement by Dan Gibbons Turkey Trot Foundation NFP in the city of Elmer's Dup Page and Cook Counties, Illinois for the 2026 2nd annual Dan Gibbons Turkey Trot Foundation Twilight Trot 5K event 6.10 10. A resolution approving and authorizing a distribution of funds from the special tax allocation fund for the North York Street Tax Increment Financing District of the City of Elmer's DuPage and Cook County. 6.11 A resolution authorizing the issuance of a notice of award and authorizing the execution of a contract for the street light controller upgrades project. 6.12 A resolution to approve and authorize the execution of a professional engineering services agreement by and between Clark Deetsz, Inc. and the city of Almer for the 2026 water main improvements project 26-01 construction phase services 6.13 a resolution authorizes issuance of a notice of award and authorizing the execution of a contract for the 2026 water main improvements project number 26-01 6.14 a resolution approving and authorizing the execution of a professional resident engineering

services agreement with Engineering Resource Associates Inc. for the 2026 street resurfacing program. And 6.15, a resolution authorizing the issuance of a notice of award and authorizing the execution of a contract for the 2026 street resurfacing program project 26-02 for the city of Elmerst, Illinois. Thank you, Clerk Tamer. Is there any item on the consent agenda that any alderman would like to remove either to vote against or for further discussion? All right, seeing none, clerk tamer, please call the role. Oh, sorry. A motion to approve the consent agenda. Alman Nudair with a motion. Alman Virgil with a second. Clerk Tamer, please call the role. Toudo. I. Baker. I. Nuda. Hi. Virgil.

Hi. Nardini. I. Best absent. Herby. Hi. Brennan. Hi. Reus. Absent. Bellinger. Hi. Shenko. I. Hill. I. Graham. I. Johnson. Hi. 12 eyes. Zero nays. Two absent.

12 eyes. zero nays, two absent. The consent agenda passes. Onto reports and recommendations of appointed elected officials. Mayor 11. A few announcements. Uh there will be a blood drive at city hall uh right in this room, I believe, on Wednesday, March 25th, between 900 a.m. and 2:00 a.m. 2:00 p.m. rather. Uh you can schedule online or you walk-ins are welcome. Um, the police station design second open house will be next Monday between 5:00 and 7:00 p.m. again in this room at city hall where the public can come and see some of the concept designs and offer your opinions on the proposed designs and indicate to us which ones you think are best. And last, I want to thank Jim O' Conor and the uh St. Patrick's Day parade committee and the hundreds of volunteers literally from uh Elmer University and everyone else who made uh again one of our premier events, the St. Patrick's Day parade successful and enjoyable for many people in Elmerst. City manager. Thank you, mayor. Just one tonight uh and that's an update on the annual spring cleanup that's coming in a month and it will again take place on three consecutive Saturdays. However, uh after given some feedback from the residents and some of the aldermen, uh we are adjusting the collection days so that the first Saturday, April 18th, it'll be residents with Thursday collection. Saturday, April 25th, will be residents with Friday collection and Saturday, May 2nd, will be residents with Wednesday collection. We're going to continue to rotate those each year um because that's the feedback that we've uh we've received. Uh there's information on the website and we're pushing it out on social as well. So if you can share that on your Facebook and all your other social that would be wonderful. Thank you, mayor.

Thank you, city manager. Any other um reports by elected officials?

City, you know, real quick, I I think we have to throw a congrats out to Coach Dunn and the uh the York Duke boys team that made it down to state this year. They they finished um in the final four, best um finish in school history. Also, you know, I watch all these I have young children, so I can't make it to a lot of games. I watch a lot of stuff on the York Sports Network. I'm always impressed by by the job that these students do on the broadcast. So, um Luca DeSanto, I think, is the the president of the club. I want to say he's a senior this year, but you know, great job uh Luca out there. And finally, I got a March Madness theme here. Finally, um, former York point guard AJ Lavine plays for for Penn College, uh, Penn University, and they made the NCAA tournament. I don't know if we have a lot of residents that have played in the NCAA tournament, but but AJ made it with Penn. They play Illinois on, uh, on Thursday evening. So, congrats to to AJ and and Penn.

And you want them to beat Illinois, you're saying the hip. Okay. I hope he has a great game, but uh you know uh and you know, thank you for the reminder about our York basketball team. Uh that was quite a showing and I was remiss in not doing that. All right, we'll move on to uh item eight, ordinances. Uh 8.1. Clerk Tam, please read the ordinance. An ordinance reszoning map amendment and granting front and rear yard setback variations and a minimum lot area variation for the construction of town homes on the property commonly known as 240 Northwest Avenue, 241 Northwest Avenue, and 245 Northwest Avenue and 503 West 3rd Street, Almhurst, Illinois.

Thank you. Can I have a motion to approve uh 8.1? Alderman Jens with a motion. Alderman Nardini with a second. Alderman Jensen. Thank you, Mayor. This is the ordinance for the report that we passed two weeks ago. Um, not much more to add other than uh we pass this and uh hopefully with your support and uh uh the project starts. All right. Um and that I think one of the there was a written communication posted from the developer on the on our website. All right. Uh thank you Alman Jensen. Discussion. Alman Irby. Uh

thank you mayor. Uh let me start out with um saying that the my I want to first express again that I'm in favor of the town home concept uh on these four uh four parcels. Uh right

staff says that DPZ only looks at the four corners and uh others and either agrees or disagrees with the report uh from ZPZ. Uh I I think we need to go beyond the four corners. Uh that's what council is supposed to do. Uh last meeting I did not elaborate on the many problems that gave me the great comfort in my no vote. Uh tonight I will elaborate on six of those problems and wrap it up with a wish for council staff and all of Elmerst. Please indulge me to now with uh finish up the final portion uh with the four corners and beyond. Number one of the six. What do 75, 54, and 4.3 all have in common? They are the variations. Utilitarian ethics of the ends justifies the means has never been ascribed by this alderman. Number two, plat of subdivision to combine or not to combine the separate parcels was never addressed. Number three, the code protection of the no blockade or the public or I mean uh planned unit development for PUD of 99.9% of residential permits and basically we've had four warehouses over the last five or six years uh and four commercial PUDs not being medical education or religious institutions outside of the CBD. So, it's been a very rare occurrence for us to be in a PUD. This project probably should have been uh considered uh as a PUD, but we can't because it wasn't above one acre. So I would suggest maybe in the future we look at some options to make our code a little bit more um PUD friendly for both commercial and especially the large residential

properties that are uh that uh have a whole lot of permeable surface differences. Number four, uh if we did have a PUD at that point, we would have had storm water mitig mitigation strategies known before we hit the ZPZ meeting. Since we didn't have a PUD, we didn't know what the the storm water mitigation is. Remember, this is 13 town homes sitting on two separate pieces divided by a road. And the reality of that is we don't know what those storm water items are when they come up if they're not in a PUD and it's just a normal uh permit process. That doesn't come up. We have no idea when we agree up here to that meeting or if it's administratively done. We don't know until after it's built. Hopefully engineering has got it all worked out and we hope we do. But as you know, we're staring at a $48 million worth of storm water projects and maybe another 50 million to go in the next 20 years. Number five, would we have potentially known the state permits for the sewer, storm, and water when we're at the limits with the Lake Michigan water allocation or exceeding our wastewater treatment permit on a majority of the wet weather event days? We won't know whether this will impact it or not. I don't think it'll be a favorable impact because we're already at the limit with our water. Number six, map amendments. These were two separate zoning map changes, 01 to R4, C2 to R4, and also two legal protest letters. R4 was apparently chosen to accommodate the lot coverage above 30%. Normally, we don't have over 30% lot coverage with R1 to R2, R3. Our four goes to 40%.

We weren't in a PUD either. Obviously, we've as we all we all know at this point, whether we like it or not, could the town homes um have fit less than 13 and not have the variations? Probably. bill the two lo the two legal protest letters uh I honor and respect the legal nature and ramifications of those protest letters they will require the vote tonight to sustain an affirmative twothirds vote and I will reserve comment on the same requirements two weeks ago for the report uh per the code it does not say that it's ordinance only I'm looking at it right here Uh final part of map amendments. Zoning map changes are 99% gifts from council. We have no requirements or expectations as we do with variances and other issues. We are the gift that gives the zoning map changes. When someone comes into this town to buy property, uh, live in a house, whatever they're doing, whether it's commercial, residential, they're expecting the zoning maps to be static, non-changing, and you buy a house, and before you know it, your neighbor is now either uh been reszoned, and now you're facing up against a a new zoning fence, virtual of course, but the point is they're not virtual with a fire, uh, insurance, etc. Those things change when you change a zoning map and that's why they are meant to be given as a gift. So finally to wrap it up, I wish more uh sustainable ethics framework for all of those in Elmer's including council. I hope that you will all honor the Elmer zoning ordinances and vote no with me. Thank you.

Alman Jensen, I stand by the work of ZPC and DPZ and certainly our ethics. Thank you. All right, Alderman Nardini. Thank you. Um, I uh disagree with the notion that uh map amendments are gifts. I think that that's absolutely going to send a wrong message to uh a public who is unfamiliar with the process and um the dedication and time that the commission put in to putting this together uh is valuable. The committee took that work and reviewed it and is standing by it.

All right. Anyone else? Aman. Yeah, just uh some finer points on that from what Alderman Nardini said is um when you read the preamble to the map amendments, it clearly says there's no expectation and we're supposed to look outside the four corners of the document for doesn't say four corners of the document. That's a concept. But um when you go back to ZPZ, there was a very rare dissenting vote with the variances and I am not comfortable handing out a 75% variance because the ends justifies the means.

Thank you. All right, Alman Nardini. Thanks. Um, one other thing that I forgot to say earlier. Uh, I I don't think he means it, but if he does, I strongly uh defend the ethics of my chair and of the committee that uh voted to put this to council. Thank you. All right. Anyone else? Clerk Tamer, please call the role. Chudo,

I'm sorry. Let me say this before we vote. Um there was a protest. So this takes uh a supermajority and in this situation uh the clerk will call for the mayor to vote uh which is required under the ordinance even though there's not a tie or seven votes in going one way or the other. So I don't think it's unusual when I vote. Julo I Baker I hi Virgil I Nardini I Best absentby no Brennan I brieent Bellinger I Shenko I Hill I Graham

I Jensen I mayor Leven I 12 eyes one nay two absent 12 eyes's one nay two absent 8.1 1 passes. Thank you. All right. Is there any other business to be brought before the council this evening? Seeing none. Yes. Alman Dera. Sorry, we should have been in announcements, but to piggy back off of uh city treasurer, uh IC Catholic Prep had won their second straight class 2A wrestling championship a couple weeks ago. And uh they also did it by having four individual state champions. I'd like to congratulate the IC Catholic Prep wrestling team, the coaching staff, and all their wrestlers.

Thank you. And they will be honored before our council uh either the next meeting or the one thereafter. So, we will recognize them as do always with our state champions. All right. Uh may I have a motion to adjurnn? I think I had one from Alderman Hill and a second from Alderman Virgil. All in favor say I. I. Any oppose say nay. Thank you all. We're ajourned. Okay.