City Council - Regular Meeting

I aliance 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. Thank you, clerk. Please call the role. here. Here. Herby here. Brennan absent. Brimis here. Bellinger here. Shenko here. Hill here. Bram here. Jensen here. Tudo here. Baker

here. Nudira here. Virgil absent. 12 present, two absent.

12 present, two absent. We have a quorum on item two on the agenda. Uh this evening we have a presentation. Last year the community launched its first participation in the National Community Survey as part of our continued efforts to listen to our residents and better understand community priorities, perceptions, and opportunities for the future. This survey was mailed out to a statistically valid random sample of households throughout Elmerst and we appreciate the residents who took the time to participate and share their feedback. Um the results provide valuable insight into how residents view the quality of life in Elmherst, the services the city provides, the areas that matter most to our community. Overall, the survey reflects a very positive picture of Elmer's, particularly in areas such as public safety, parks and recreation, education, mobility, and the overall quality of life while also helping identify important topics for ongoing discussion and future planning. Tonight, we're pleased to have Jason Newmire, the director of survey research at Palco, here to walk us through a summary of the findings and provide additional context uh on how Elmer's compares to other communities nationwide. The presentation and full survey results are posted on board docs. Um and if council members would like to follow along with the presentation this evening, Jason will be happy to take questions after the presentation. Um Jason, you're up in the little corner of the screen. Uh and we have your screen uh in front of us. Thank you for being here this evening and the floor is yours.

Excellent. Oh, can you hear me? Okay. Just want to make sure um I'm not sure we're getting the best sound here. Let me try one other thing. I'm sure we're not getting the best sound here, but uh let's see what we can do about it. Yeah. Can you not use speaker phone and see if that works? Yeah, let me try it this way. Is this better? Yes.

Okay, perfect. All right, then let's jump on in here. So, thank you for that nice introduction. Uh I am happy to be here tonight to present a summary of these findings from the Elmharst National Community Survey. Uh before I begin, on behalf of myself and my PCO co-workers, I would like to extend a thank you to Kent and Michael who were our primary contacts throughout the survey development and implementation process. Uh they provided thoughtful and detailed feedback from start to finish on the survey instrument itself, the report that's been shared, and the deck that we'll go through here tonight. So before we dive into these results, I would like to share a brief background on PCO and the national community survey. So here at PCO, we provide hundreds of local governments with stakeholder priorities, advanced analytics, and trusted AI, all to help leaders make informed decisions that can build more connected communities. Back in 2019, Pulco merged with the National Research Center. NRC is probably best known for these national benchmarking surveys that we conduct, including the National Community Survey, the National Employee Survey, and the Community Assessment Survey for older adults. PCO also partners closely with uh ICMA and the National League of Cities and many many other local government and academic leaders like the Alliance for Innovation and the American Association for Public Opinion Research. Now, I do want to emphasize that as we're reviewing these results, there are a variety of ways that they can be used. Most commonly, the jurisdictions that we work with will use their survey data to monitor trends and resonant opinion over time and to help inform budgeting processes and strategic planning. Our results also allow you to benchmark your

community specific characteristics and services against communities using our national benchmark database. The hope ultimately here tonight is that as these findings are presented, it's going to spur some ideas on where you might want to dig a little bit deeper. So, the National Community Survey or the NCS is a standardized five-page comprehensive survey that allows municipalities to assess resident opinion about their community and their local government. NCS focuses on the livability of Elmherst by categorizing survey questions into the 10 main facets of community livability you see on the slide here. These facets have been identified through extensive survey research as those that are most impactful to residents overall quality of life. And finally, and I think maybe most importantly, these facets tend to also align with municipal departments, making it easy for city staff to find the information that's most important to their daily work in the final report of results. So all households within Elmherst were eligible to participate in this recent survey. A list of all households within the zip code serving Elmherst was purchased based on updated listings from the United States Postal Service. And then using GIS boundary files provided by the city, any addresses located outside of Elmherst boundaries were removed from the list of potential households to survey. So from that list, 2500 addresses were randomly selected to receive the invitation. The 2500 randomly selected households received mailings beginning on October 20th, and the survey remained open for 6 weeks. The first mailing was a postcard inviting the household to participate in the survey online. The next mailing contained a cover letter with instructions, the five-page survey questionnaire, and a postage paid return envelope. Both the postcard and the

cover letter also included a web link and a QR code to give residents the opportunity to respond online should they so choose. A total of 488 completed surveys were received from these efforts, providing a response rate of 20% and a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points. We then compared the demographic profile of survey respondents to that of all adults in Elmherst using the most recent Census and American community survey data and we waited the final survey results. Now, in addition to this randomly selected probability sample of households, a link to an online communitywide open participation survey was also publicized by Elmerst. The open participation survey became available on November 17th and that survey remained open for 2 weeks with 202 responses received. The presentation here tonight and the report are based on the 488 responses random sample mail-based survey, but all of those responses to the open participation survey are provided in full in the report of results. So, one of the advantages to local governments in participating in the National Community Survey is the opportunity to compare ratings given by your residents to those from communities around the nation. NRC was the first organization to conceive of this idea to create benchmarks for local public opinion. This allows you and other jurisdictions to compare ratings of services to similar services from other communities. And as you can see on the slide here, there are currently about 400 communities in our national database that you'll be compared against. All right, so with that, we'll turn to an overview of survey results before we hit on some key findings and custom questions added to this survey by the city. So in the NCS, we have two questions that ask directly about those 10 facets

of community livability we saw a few slides back. This first question asks residents to rate the quality of each of these 10 and you can see the results in comparison to the national benchmark in the shading on the chart. Now, each of these tents for community livability are important. Uh however, highlevel results do reinforce the city's 2022 strategic priority areas, particularly when we're looking at community engagement, community connectivity and safety improvements and diversified recreation and cultural options or amenities. Residents reported, and we'll hit on some of these in our key findings in just a few minutes, exceptionally high satisfaction in quality of life, public safety, community pride, and mobility throughout the city. The second question focuses on those same 10 facets of community livability, but this time it's centered on how important residents think it is for the community to focus on each of these areas in the coming two years. Here once again, the survey results highlighted continued opportunities tied to the strategic plan's focus on residential development and housing options and strategic and cohesive commercial development, particularly in areas around affordability, housing availability, traffic flow, and sustaining a vibrant downtown. So we asked both about the quality and the importance of each of these 10 facets and we use those answers to create the quality importance gap chart that we can see right here. So we use this chart which is also included in the report to help determine those areas that are of relatively higher importance and lower quality to residents. So those items with the largest gap when future importance is rated higher than current quality. Here we see two facets economy and utilities where the gap between

importance and quality is about 10 to 20%. Now in inflationary times that we're in today, it's very typical to see these two items at the top in terms of those most important areas of focus. What is not typical is seeing that the remaining eight facets receive higher quality ratings than important ratings. Typically, we take this to mean that the city is meeting or exceeding future expectations in those specific areas. So this chart is just one of many ways to interpret your data and it can be used to help identify key findings or to determine which areas may need additional focus or resource allocation in the coming years and which others are performing well by comparison. Now, of the 109 survey items for which residents could provide evaluative ratings, 62 items received ratings that were higher than our national benchmark averages. 47 received similar ratings, and we did not have any that received lower ratings. Ratings are considered similar if they're within 10 points of the rolling national average and higher or lower if they're more than 10 points different from that average. So, we'll hit on some of these higher items as we move into the key findings. Speaking of, uh, we'll turn to our key findings next. I do want to point out a few items that stood out to us as survey researchers. I do want to point out also that there is a lot of additional data in the full report that we won't cover today, including demographic comparisons, complete data, but ultimately today's presentation will focus on a few areas that we found to be most noteworthy within Elmherst survey results. So, key finding number one, numerous quality of life items received ratings higher than the national benchmark.

About nine and 10 residents expressed satisfactions with uh Elmherst as a place to live, the overall quality of life in the city, and the overall image or reput reputation of Elmherst. Each of those three items on the left hand side of our slide did score higher than national benchmark comparisons. About nine and 10 residents also indicated their expectations for remaining in Elmherst for the next 5 years, while nearly all residents would recommend living in Elmherst to someone who key finding number two. Residents reported feeling safe throughout Elmherst and gave high marks to safety services in the city. Once again, nearly all residents expressed satisfaction with safety in their neighborhood during the day, while 96% reported feeling safe in the downtown and commercial areas during the day. Nearly all residents also felt safe from violent crime and from property crime in the city. You can see with the shading on the chart here that both of those items scored higher than the national benchmark. And then finally about nine and 10 reported feeling very or somewhat safe from fire, flood or other natural disaster. Safety services also received high marks from respondents. 98% expressed satisfaction with fire services and 97% positively evaluated ambulance or EMS in Elmherst with the latter rating scoring higher than the national benchmark. About nine and 10 residents favorably viewed fire prevention and education, crime prevention, and police services. And as you can see here, each of those three also scored higher than national averages. Key finding number three, most local economic items were positively evaluated, but affordability measures received mixed ratings. So more than eight and 10 residents expressed satisfaction with the overall

quality of business and service establishments and Elmherst as a place to visit. Around eight and 10 residents also positively rated Elmherst as a place to work. Uh an an item scoring higher than national benchmarks. About 8 and 10 also gave excellent or good marks to the availability of affordable quality health care, a rating that was higher than national averages. While about 2thirds of residents indicated satisfaction with the availability of affordable quality food, only about one in four residents positively rated the cost of living in the city and less than one in five express satisfaction with the availability of affordable quality housing. Now although these scores are lower than others you can see in this facet they did score in line or were similar to national benchmarks indicating a general trend of dissatisfaction with increasing prices especially in housing areas. Key finding number four ratings for mobility services scored higher than comparison communities. So more than eight in 10 residents expressed satisfaction with the ease of walking in the city while about seven and 10 residents positively evaluated the ease of travel by bicycle. About 2/3 of residents favorably viewed the ease of travel by car and the ease of public parking while more than half of residents indicate satisfaction with the ease of travel by public transportation. Now, just as we have with safety items, the NCS also includes a battery of questions related to mobility services in the city. More than eight and 10 residents expressed satisfaction with street lighting, snow removal, and street cleaning in the city, while seven and 10 residents positively rated street repair, and sidewalk maintenance. As you can see here, each of these items scored higher than our rolling national averages. And then finally, key finding number

five. All items related to education, arts, and culture within Elmherst scored higher than national benchmarks. So nearly all residents expressed satisfaction with public library services in the city, while about nine and 10 residents positively evaluated K through 12 education and the opportunities to attend special events and festivals. Around eight and 10 gave excellent or good marks to the community support for the arts and the opportunities to attend cultural arts and music activities. And then finally about threearters of respondents showed support for adult educational opportunities while more than half of residents valued the availability of affordable quality child care or preschool. As indicated by the title on the previous slide, every item in the education, arts, and culture facet scored at least 10 points above our rolling national averages. Now, before we wrap up, I do want to point to a few custom questions that were added uh by the city, and we'll hit our first one here, which focuses on city communication. So residents were asked to indicate how much of a source, if at all, they considered each of the following to be for obtaining information about issues, services, and events in Elmherst. The highest rated source was the city website with over nine and 10 stating it was a major or minor source, followed by the front porch newsletters and text messages or alerts. The bottom five sources of information according to respondents you can see here on this slide were city staff or offices, local newspapers, social media, and then community meetings or public hearings. Now, the next question unique to Elmherst survey asked about walkability in the city. Specifically, how important, if at all, do you think that each of these items would be to help

improve walkability in the city? You can see our highest rated items here. More or safer pedestrian crossings, improved safety, and better sidewalk conditions leading the way. And our bottom four of nine included improved street lighting, improved accessibility, lower traffic se speeds, and finally benches and resting areas. Elmherst officials also included two questions about the Elmherst trolley. First, residents were asked to indicate how familiar, if at all, they were with the Explore Elmherst trolley. You can see those results in the left panned pie chart. 45% said that they were familiar with the trolley and have used it. 43% said they were familiar with the trolley but have not used it. And just 13% were unfamiliar with the trolley altogether. Of those who said that they had used the trolley, 73% gave excellent reviews of their most recent experiences, while another 23% said that their experience was good, indicating very broad satisfaction for trolley riders. And then finally, residents were asked to evaluate different aspects of downtown Elmhurst with the overall atmosphere, dining options, and the appearance of streets and sidewalks receiving the highest marks with over eight and 10 providing excellent or good ratings. And those aspects of downtown with the lowest ratings included new developments, entertainment options, and downtown planning. However, I would point out here that even these lowest items received excellent or good marks from over half of all respondents. So, finally, as overall summary of our conclusions, our key findings are takeaways. First and foremost, numerous quality of life items received ratings higher than the national benchmarks. Residents reported feeling safe

throughout Elmherst and gave high marks to those safety services. Most local e economic items were positively evaluated but affordability measures received some mixed ratings. Fourth ratings for mobility services scored higher than comparison communities. And then finally all items related to education, arts and culture within Elmerst scored higher than national benchmarks. Now I will point out here that with PCO the city can continue engaging residents to learn more about the community opinions outlined here today. So over 100 Elmerhurst residents already subscribe to Elmherst PCO profile creating an opportunity for ongoing feedback. The engage module that you see on the slide here is part of your current subscription and in supports quick polls, surveys and live events and questions within these tools can include maps, images, videos or links to better inform residents. You also have a dedicated customer success manager who can help support survey design and engagement efforts as needed moving forward.

So with that, uh, I will catch my breath here and I'd be happy to answer any questions that you might have on survey development, implementation, or the presentation we just went through here together. Thank you so much for your time. All right. Thank you for that. And I'll ask members of the council if you have any questions or comments to direct at our speaker. Alman Bram.

Yes. Thank you. And thank you Jason. Um my question is really in the beginning I think it's page five talking about how many households were selected and our total or overall response rate of only being 20%. Is that what you typically see? because to me that is very very low to only get 20% or I believe it was 488 total responses out of 2500 sent out.

Yes. So the 20% response rate is actually uh pretty far above our rolling average. Typically response rates are between about 10 and 12% for overall quality of life surveys like this. Uh ultimately the goal is to receive at least 300 responses so that our overall margin of error can be under 6%. So here because we randomly selected and we waited those survey responses, we can be confident that if this um survey was repeated multiple times under similar conditions, our responses would fall within plus or minus 4.4% of what you see here or what we shared in the report.

Followup Okay, thank you. That 10 to 12% being typical actually is very disappointing to me. But um the 2500, how did you come across sending out to 2500 households uh at a community that's I don't know 48,000 plus.

Yes. So again, this all relates back to the overall margin of error. So we assumed we would receive 15 to 20% response rates based on demograph and other factors in and around Elmherst and that would give us at least again that 300 response number would get us to the 6% margin of error. The fact that we're up at 488 gives us a smaller margin of error which is great. However, if we would have gotten 800 responses, our margin of error would only be plus or minus 3%. This is why again the industry standard is somewhere between 3 and 6%, some people are saying 7%, uh we don't say that here, but uh that's why we're aiming for that number. And utilizing some of the demographic and other trends in your area, we anticipated we would get enough responses with a randomly selected sample of 2500 households.

Thank you. It was pointed out it's out of the number of households which is 15,000 not Yeah, because it's Yeah, I realize I threw out that 48,000 number, but I was not talking households, I was talking population, but made us sound more important. Thank you. Um, all right. Uh, did someone have their hand up here? Alderman Hill,

thank you. Um, can you Apologies if you mentioned this already. I must have missed it if you did. But what's the interval that you conduct these surveys typically for communities? Yeah, that really depends on the community themselves. Uh, most of our communities though will do this by annually. Some will do it every 3 years. A few do it every year, but most people try to align it so they have a trend line by the time their next strategic plan comes up, but I would say two years is the most typical. Thank you. And that is we do it every other year. Alderman Tudo.

Uh, thank you. Since this is the first year that we've used this uh company for this, um I don't know if city manager could speak a little bit and also the presenter about how we can bridge between our past survey results and this new survey approach which I I like. I'm not complaining at all, but I just want a little context for that. Thank you.

And I'll start if that's okay. Um so we um we have gone about uh the citizen survey in different ways. Um 10 years ago we were doing it in house um and collecting the data and then as we have um uh we've come across other companies that are more expertise in it. We've turned towards that. Uh so this company has been doing this for years and years and not only can they compare our trends but they can compare it to the national as Jason said. Um, so I I I would ask Jason to opine on how we can compare year-toear, but I think it's obvious if we continue with them, we'll be able to trend that over the years.

Yes, certainly moving forward, should we do this every two years or three years, uh, you'll get statistical significance uh, thresholds year-over-year. So, you'll be able to see which items had a statistically significant increase or decrease utilizing the same methodology, you know, this time and next time. I would have to dig into your past survey results uh to take a look. We may be able to reverse engineer uh some of those trends for you uh depending on how the questions were asked, what scales were used, how the sample was selected without knowing more about the methodology. I I don't want to um promise uh overpromise. Uh but we can certainly take a look at that for you. Sure. Well, I have a question. Um, one of the the under the economy it says availability of affordable availability of affordable quality housing 17%. So just to make sure I understand that uh what is that 17% represent exactly?

That is the percentage of respondents who gave an excellent or good rating to that item. So 17% of the people were are concerned about it or 17% think it's affordable. 17% think that the availability of affordable quality housing in Elmherst is excellent or good. All right. The remaining percentage said fair or poor to that item.

All right. That's why I was reading I just because this is a topic of uh current event right now both at the local and state level. And so I was wondering um if that is similar to other communities according to this chart. So these 400 other communities are they largely rural are how do they compare in terms of population um to Elmherst?

No, there's a very good mix. Um, I would say that the Elmharst is rather typical to the items who are in our or I should say the other communities that are in our database. Often it is um suburbs of major um cities around the US. We have a number of Chicagoland villages, cities. Uh we also have over 30 communities around the Twin Cities just north. Uh so I think you're pretty well aligned. Uh, one thing I will say that we can do moving forward should you wish is we do offer uh, custom benchmark comparisons where you can actually select from a smaller cohort in that national benchmark uh, database so that you can say I want to see our comparisons to a certain income level, a certain population size, a certain region of the US. Uh the national benchmark is to all 400, but we certainly could do that moving forward as well.

All righty. Thank you. Any other questions? Alman Tudo, just a followup to that. Did you also ask on the importance of that issue and what did it rate uh the importance of available quality housing? Correct.

Uh let me hop back if you can still see my slide. Just want to see if we asked that in a custom question. I don't believe we included it in a custom question, but I will say we do have overall uh ratings for the local economy in terms of importance. So as you can see on this slide, 92% said that the local economy which included uh development, downtown vitality uh what received essential or very important items. Uh whereas community design and housing was around 75% in terms of importance. Uh so although we didn't ask directly about affordable quality housing, we do have some proxies here with these overall facet of livability ratings.

Okay. Anyone else? Aldermanby. Uh thank you, Mayor. Uh appreciate the the uh comments on on all this. Jason if you would pull your microphone. Microphone come down. Move this over. Apologize. Is that better? Yes. Yes.

So on the report, we have two items on our board docs and one of them is your report. It's uh 38 pages PDF and page 2 or page 12, sorry, uh gets back to the mayor and alderman Tudo's question about cost of living in Elmherst. And it's uh it's couched under quality of life in Elmherst. And then at the bottom of that page, we have cost of living in Elmer's 25% rated similar. I'm curious how do you word the question uh because I'm I'm trying to understand how you would get the response of a quality or cost of living related to quality. Can you kind of give me a feel for that? How that question reads or how do you get that out of the respondent?

Yes, of course. So, if you actually go to the end of the survey itself, uh, or I'm sorry, of the report itself, you can actually see the survey in its entirety. And cost of living should be under question seven. So, you can see it's just asking to rate each of the following items in the Elmharst community. And this is where the run of availability of affordable XYZ as well as cost of living comes into play. And then it's the percentage who said excellent or good to those items. Okay. So, question number seven is the

Yes. So, on page 35, I'm on here. Gotcha. All right. Appreciate that. Uh I'll I'll take a look at that. All right. Anyone else? Nardini.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So I I was looking as we're talking about these things I if the economy issues uh Jason are represented 92% of the respondents consider them important and the um affordable housing is considered uh excellent or good at 12% and or uh 17% and cost of living at 25%. Those are damning, but those are absolutely in line with the rest of the communities surveyed. So that just represents the affordability crisis that's in the nation. That is not Elmer specific. These are consistent with the remainder of your samples. Correct.

You've got that right. They're within at least 10 points of the rolling national average of 400 communities over the last 5 years. So really looking at page 10, the thing that is Elmer specific are the columns or are the uh line items where the importance ranks substantially higher based on respondents opinions of the quality. Yes, you've got that right. Which would be economy and utilities. Understood. All right. Anyone else? All right. Thank you, Jason, for taking the time to be with us this evening. And I think you just terminate on your end and we'll be terminated here.

Right. All right. Okay. Perfect. Thank you so much. And if any other questions come up, we're here to help. Thank you. All right. We'll go on to item three on our agenda, the receipt of written communications from the public. Is there any member of the public that has a written communication that he or she would like to deliver to the council? If so, please raise your hand. Seeing none, we'll move on to our public forum clerk. Has anyone signed in for public forum this evening? The first one is James Henry. All

right, Mr. Henry, if you're here, if you'll step to the back microphone, state your name. Um, address is optional. Helps us get back to you if there's some issues that you raised tonight. Uh, and you have three minutes to make your public comment. I note that this is the opportunity for members of the public to address the council. We It's not a two-way conversation the way we run it here, but please be assured that all of us are listening and paying attention. Please proceed.

Good evening, Mayor and members of the city council. My name is James Henry. The rewrite of the zoning ordinance contains many good ideas, too many to thoughtfully evaluate all at once. That is not a criticism. It is a reason to give that work the serious thought and attention it deserves. A zoning ordinance is not a policy memo. It is law. Once adopted, its embedded choices become the rules that govern neighborhoods, business districts, industrial areas, public process, and the city's future development decisions for decades to come. Those choices deserve to be seen clearly and decided deliberately. There are important choices embedded in the rewrite. Should Elmherst authorize accessory dwelling units. Should it create new residential and commercial districts? Should warehouses be permitted in more zoning districts? Should wear a warehouse be better defined so it is not a standin for speculative industrial buildings with an unknown use? Should more variation authority be delegated away from the city council? Those are not all the issues embedded in the zoning rewrite, but these few examples show why a polished document with worthwhile ideas still needs detailed scrutiny. The city does not have to choose between doing nothing and doing everything. Another choice is to adopt the rewrite piece by piece in an orderly process so the city can preserve the best ideas, make real progress, and still give each significant policy decision the consideration it deserves. In a written submission, I have provided a reorganized version of the current chapter 22 that adopts the article captions of the rewrite. This captures

much of the rewrites organizational approvements immediately while preserving existing law. I have included distribution and derivation tables to show how a step-wise process can remain transparent, traceable, and orderly. I am not against modernization. I am for responsible modernization. The council's role is not merely to receive a completed product. Its role is to decide what becomes the law in Elmherst. That responsibility should not be delegated to the drafting process. However thoughtful it has been, the presence of many good ideas in the zoning rewrite does not prove that every embedded policy choice is ready for enactment without careful review by the city's policy makers. I ask the council to protect the quality of this work and the quality of Elmherst by resisting the temptation to treat speed as a substitute for judgment. Elmherst can and must move forward, but in a way that leaves no doubt that the council itself has carefully understood and affirmatively chosen the law it adopts. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. The next one is Mark Dulli.

Good evening. I'm Mark Dulli again from W 7. In 10 days, the Alliance Arco Murray warehouse proposal will be deliberated by the zoning and planning commission. Team Southwest Elmharst believes that there are several major questions outstanding after three long hearings and a ton of public commentary and testimony. One big concern is the unknown operational intensity of this warehouse. The applicant continues to maintain that this project will operate within the spirit and confines of the I1 zoning district and will not impact our general welfare. But we do not believe that this has been demonstrated, certainly not by repeated, softly delivered verbal assurances. The applicant's position has largely been that the site itself limits intensity because the building is smaller and has fewer docks. But we have documented specific examples from Bensonville, Wooddale, and Addison that have shown that modern infill warehouses like this are operating at higher intensity despite those kinds of limitations. Allianc's circular reasoning on this is simply a logical fallacy. Traffic and circulation also remain major concerns. Residents don't believe that the applicant has adequately shown that this project will not worsen congestion around the route 83 bulb intersection or through Butterfield Highlands. The pro the project might proceed or overlap with the bulb reconfiguration, but a better idea would be to wait until after the bulb is fixed. There are also environmental issues remaining unresolved such as remediation sequencing, water quality impacts, operational planning, acoustical analysis analysis, swept path analysis, and long-term oversight. Plus, the applicant has yet to receive

approval from the Illinois EPA on their remediation plan. Given a proximity to the Salt Creek wershed, these issues are of real concern. We contend that far too many of these issues are being deferred until after approval, which carries real risk for our neighborhoods and the city. And we do not agree that deed restrictions are a cure all. Our team does not believe that this application provides the level of certainty, completeness, and enforceable constraint that a decision that a decision of this magnitude needs to receive. More more broadly, the case has started to feel less like a rout routine zoning review and more like a stress test of the city's current planning framework. Throughout these hearings, there have been recurring uncertainty around operational intensity, future use, circulation, environmental oversight, and corridor compatibility. Much of the tension between the commission and the applicant has centered on how much can reasonably be left to future regulatory processes after project approval. We greatly appreciate the time and seriousness that Chair Rose and the commission has given this and we confidently trust that the committee and the council will do likewise. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. All right, that's the end of those who have signed up to make public comment this evening. Is there anyone in the audience that would like to make public comment but did not have the opportunity to sign in? If so, please raise your hand. Seeing none, we will close public forum. Thank you all. Item five on the agenda is announcements. Are there any announcements this evening from the disast?

Thank you, mayor. Um, obviously we've talked about many important topics tonight. We have important business ahead of us. I hope you don't mind me taking just a few seconds to say that on behalf of the alderman, uh the city clerk, city treasurer, and all the staff, uh happy birthday to you, mayor. Thank you. Thank you, Alderman Basto. Um any other announcements? All right, we'll move on to the consent agenda. Um, did you have uh Alderman Shenko, did you have an item you were going to act on tonight? Yes.

All right. Um, item 6.9. All right. I would like to pull that back to committee. All right. 6.9 will go back to committee. I'm going to remove 6.8 until the next council meeting. So 6.8 8 and 6.9 will not be part of the consent agenda that we'll consider. Is there any other item on the consent agenda that any alderman would like to remove either to vote against or for further discussion? Just point of order. Um can anybody remove a consent agenda item because you just said that you want to remove 6.8. I

is the chair. I control the agenda, so I'm pulling it back till the next meeting. Okay. Never just never seen it done before. Thanks. All right. Um, so can we have a is anyone else? And we have a motion to adopt it. Read the consent agenda first.

Pop. I feel like I'm new. All right. Clerk Malone, read the consent agenda. Item 6.1, minutes of the regular meeting of the Elmherst City Council on May 4th, 2026. Item 6.2, accounts payable, May 18th, 2026. 1,394,783.89. 6.3, reappoint of Richard Riker to the Economic Development Commission. Item 6.4, Reappoint of David Noatne to the Veterans Commission. Item 6.5, referral request for the review of black party policy. Item 6.6, referral request for the review of zoning and land use regulation for detention center facilities. Item 6.7, referral request for review of crosswalk at Cottage Hill Avenue and Church Street. Item 6.10, report 2026 aggregate material supply contract. Item 6.11, report professional engineering services for Addison Creek stream bank stabilization. Item 6.12, report 2026, agreement for removal of excavated materials. Item 6.13, report 2026, storm water cleaning and televising. Item 6.14, report, Illinois Route 83, storm sewer cleaning and televising. Item 6.15, Elmherst zoning ordinance granting a variation from the interior sideyard setback requirement at the property commonly known as 447 South Hawthorne. Item 6.16, an ordinance granting an amended conditional use permit for the property commonly known as 1033 and 1037 South Illinois Route 83. Item 6.17, resolution approving and authorizing the execution of an agreement with Leardo

Construction, Inc. for the reconstruction services for the police station. Item 6.18, a resolution authorizing the purchase of 1226 Polaris UTV for the city of Elmherst Fire Department. Item 6.19, a resolution authorizing the issuance of the notice of award and authorizing the execution of a contract for the 2026 Asphalt rejuvenating program. Item 6.20, a resolution authorizing the issuance of a notice of award and authorizing the execution of a contract for the 2026 concrete pavement patching project for the city of Elmherst, Illinois. Item 6.21, 21, a resolution authorizing the issuance of a notice of award and authorizing the execution of a contract for the 2026 crack sealing and seal coating program. Item 6.22, a resolution rejecting all bids for the 2026 pavement striping program in the city of Elmherst, Illinois. Item 6.23, 23 resolution approving and authorizing the execution of the fourth amendment to the contract for bioolids removal and land application services with Steuart spreading 8.

All right. And I would just like to state for the record on item 6.5 the referral for the review of the block policy block party policy. I was not a referer on that. My uh due to administrative mixup my signature was attached to it. I'm not saying it shouldn't be referred, just I was I got some calls from people over the weekend and was appropriately ignorant because I didn't know anything about it. So, with that uh note for the record, I will ask for a motion to approve the consent agenda minus items 6.8 and 6.9. Alderman Shank with a motion. Alderman Bassto with a second. Clerk will please call the role. Nardini I. Bidto I Herby

I Brennan absent Brimis I Bellinger I Jenko I Hill I Bram I Jensen I Tudo I Baker I Nudira I Virgil absent I have 12 eyes two absent

12 I's zero na two absent The consent agenda minus items 6.8 and 6.9 passes. Item to item seven, reports and recommendations of appointed elected officials. Mayor Le um uh this is uh National Public Works Week, May 17th through the 23rd. And I want to thank all of our public works employees for every service they provide to our residents, and they are many. Um, it's also EMS week, so thank you to all of our paramedics who provide um services to our city. Uh, last week was police week. Everyone gets a week. Thank you to our police department staff and sworn officers um for we appreciate everyone, but this week we we mentioned them specifically. Um, two more items. Uh, I think all the aldermen uh had an opportunity to visit McMaster Car, one of our two largest employers in the city. And for those that did, and I think it was just about everyone, it's an amazing operation. Um, they're a credit to our city. Uh, they provide a lot of support tax-wise and for prestige for our city. So, I thank them for taking the time to uh accommodate all of us. And lastly, the Memorial Day parade is this coming Monday, May 25th at 9:30 a.m. And I hope in addition to the public coming out that our council members will join us as we march and not only se uh honor Memorial Day, but celebrate the 250th anniversary of our country. So, it's sort of a joint parade this year. That's all I have. City manager.

Thank you, Mayor. Uh I would point out that uh on the uh under reports is the uh as the code provides uh a report on referrals and we changed it up a little bit this time. I asked I've received some questions from alderman about uh certain u referrals that maybe weren't on there but what the code provides is that it's 90 days or older are the ones that are required to be reported. So, what we did is highlighted those in in like a yellow and then put other ones on there that still remain at committee just so everybody knows. Other than that, I have no report. Thank you.

All right. Thank you. Uh any other reports, Alderman Bram? Thank you. Um in regards to that um agenda item or that announcement or report um we had a brief discussion in the public works committee last week in regards to pending items and just so there's clarity hopefully across the dis and the public we do have the pending items list on board docs. Um my new understanding is that the pending items list is not updated on a daily, weekly, monthly basis, but it's updated on a quarterly basis um on board doc. So if you don't see it, it only gets updated within or due to the code, it's only updated on a quarterly basis. Is that what all committees do?

Correct. Thank you. That clarifies a lot. Alman Tudo. Uh yeah, I just wanted to point out that there is an updated uh referral document that was attached um shortly before the meeting tonight with which gave more information on the finance uh committee pending referrals. There's a little miscommunication in the process between myself and staff. Um so there is additional information there related to the finance committee. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else? All right. Um, is there moving on to other business? Is there any other business to be brought before the council this evening? Seeing none, may I have a motion to adjurnn? Alderman Nardini with a motion. Alderman Nuda with a second. All in favor say I. I. Any oppose say nay. Thank you. We're adjourned.