Legislative Committee - Regular Meeting

Well, then let's if it's not on here, so let's just do the presentation for all three, that'd be great. So we're gonna talk about three. Let me add on chapter 21 article. Oh, ten thirteen, governing the general use and accessibility of city square property, and ordinance adding chapter 21 article 11, offenses on public property. Anything else? Just go straight. That's it. That's it. Alright. So

ordinance that was created with the Joliet Police Department as well as every other department in the city to establish guidelines and procedures for use of City Square that opened this week in our downtown area. The purpose of this department to enforce our current code as well as state statute in that area. It aligns operations with City Square and the Joliet Municipal Code and state statute. And when we were drafting this ordinance, we looked at similar areas in surrounding communities like Naperville, Aurora, Elgin, Plainfield, and Chicago for how they govern their similar situated city centers. The first chapter of this ordinance define city square.

Excuse me.

Are those mics warm? Yes. Would you go over there? It's louder. Okay.

Is this better? Yeah. Much better. Not yet. Yeah.

It is. The first chapter of the ordinance specifically defines City Square as the red shaded area that's in the presentation in front of you. The area includes the square as you can see it outside. It also includes the access road that is in between the square and the parking garage that is behind the square. That access road is City of Joliet property.

It's a private roadway for us to use for deliveries, police and fire purposes, so that is included in the City Square property. What is not included just for note is the sidewalk surrounding the city square. The sidewalks are used for public access ways, so they are not included in the city square, not a part of this ordinance. The first chapter also establishes clear operating hours and rules and it centralizes authority with the city manager or their designee with flexibility for closure or maintenance. So if something is to happen at City Square and one of the city departments needs the square to be closed for construction purposes, maintenance, or public safety, that department can go to the city manager and ask for a closure and she would be able to do that.

Chapter two of the ordinance governs hours closure and operational policy. The standard proposed hours are May 1 to September 30, 7AM to 10PM, and October 1 to April 30, 8AM to 9PM. These would be the open hours for the City Square to be open to the public. There would be extended hours available for city sponsored events or other permitted special events in the area. Those events would need a permit so the city would be aware if there's hours.

We spoke with the state's attorney's office as well as the police department and the park district to determine the standard operating hours of City Square so that the open hours are more clear for the police department and the state's attorney's office if they need to remove individuals or establish any other or fix any other issues within the City Square. Those exact hours are more helpful for the state's attorney's office. Chapter three includes restrictions on conduct.

I was gonna ask you so many questions because I have to put more. What are we charging charging for these permits? The proposed amount for the social district permit would be $500. For any of that? The $500 will cover for the season. So Oh, okay. And what about individuals if they wanna do special events? If they wanna nothing will change with the special event fees. What we currently have on the I would have to look that up to see what it current the current charges are, but this is not proposing any changes to this special event application. That's gonna stay the same.

Alright. Thank you. So, Krista, you were saying the $500 is for anybody that isn't part of the social history? Yes. Anyone that qualifies would like to apply to allow somebody to leave their business with the 16 ounce. Okay. Yes. Okay. And that would include the first set of cups as well. So Chapter

three governs the restrictions on conduct within the square. So it incorporates the majority of our current code of ordinances as well as state statute and it's just giving our police department the authority to enforce all of our codes and state statutes and gives the police department clear operating guidelines within the city square. Examples of restrictions on conduct in this section include fighting, assault, trespass, possession of open alcohol, controlled substances, weapons, fires, fires which would include the ban on all pyrotechnics within the city square, which was asked for by the fire department, as well as the ban on grilling in the City Square unless there's a permit and preapproval by the city. Animals are not permitted within the City Square. Panhandling, begging, begging, and similar things are limited within city square.

There are places, specific restrictions for those things handled in chapter three. And then sleeping within the square is also not allowed.

As

proposed, it's not allowing dogs at all or any other animals, obviously, the caveat of service dogs.

That was my next

question. There's a caveat for service dogs. All of the ADA requirements as well as service dogs in the white cane law is addressed in there.

So is that anywhere the

City Square, is

that across so for example, restaurants are on the East Side. Okay? And then you have the road, and then you have City Square. So people are allowed to walk outside of that perimeter? Correct. So Okay. Just double

the information. Right. So the proposed definition of City Square doesn't include the sidewalks. So we can people can still walk their dogs on the sidewalk. They just can't enter into City Square with

their animals. And are we putting a restriction on leashes and what type of animals on the other side or we just let them go like they are now?

We are just addressing within City Square within this ordinance, so there are no animals within City Square. We haven't addressed anything outside of City Square. So dogs are allowed and Correct.

Next

chapter of the proposed ordinance is vehicles parking and traffic control. So like the section that we talked about beforehand, it incorporates our current code as well as state statute. It gives our police department the authority to adequately enforce within the square. It does give deference and significant protections to pedestrians. So there are things like skateboard scooters and rollerblades are not allowed within the City square.

The purpose is to encourage foot traffic within the city square, encouraging people to walk around the downtown area and not be affected by people on wheels, for lack of a better term. There are also FAA guidelines for drones. We've limited it so that no drones can take off or land within 300 feet of City Square. This is directly in line with FAA guidelines and what we can and cannot regulate with FAA. Chapter five of the proposed ordinance governs permitting, permitting of the use of City Square for special events will go through the process delineated by the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events and that department will ensure that there are collaboration across all of the city departments so that there's adequate safety measures, licensure and cleanup so that we're protecting the space and the community is able to use it for a long period of time.

That is the first ordinance in front of you all. If there are not any questions, I can

move on to the second.

Move on. Okay. The second ordinance on the agenda today is public property offenses. This ordinance came to fruition when we were talking with the police department about City Square and how to ensure that City Square remains safe and that there are no community hazards within the square. Unfortunately or unfortunately, Illinois has a safety act, so an arrest like most people believe it to be does not happen anymore in Illinois.

If someone is arrested for a battery or assault or something similar, they are no longer put in handcuffs, put in a squad car, and taken to jail. Instead, they are placed under arrest, but they are given a paper citation and just asked to leave. The legislator has limited the police department on what they can and cannot do. So in line with that, we are trying to give our police department more tools to make sure that the City Square remains safe and enjoyable for our community. What came out of that was a property trespass warning and ban procedure. The police department is already working with both the Joliet Housing Authority and the Joliet Park District and enforcing their ban procedure

do do not going going includes

all that. City owned property. This ordinance is proposed to allow the police department to ban individuals for specific offenses on any city property, which would include Bicentennial Park, City Square, or parking decks in City Hall. The caveat being that a banned individual can still enter any city owned property for a legitimate government purpose even if they are banned. So for example, if someone is banned from City Hall, they can still enter City Hall to pay their water bill, attend council meetings, obtain any permits that they may need as long as they have a legitimate government purpose they can still be within our properties while banned.

The first ban would be a proposed six month ban. Again, these bans are only for the specified property where an offense occurred. A second ban would be for twelve months and a third would be a lifetime ban. In propose in drafting this ordinance, I also police department to create the property trespass warning form. So this warning form is in front of you.

This is what an individual would receive from the police department if they were banned from a specific area. It would explain why they were banned, where they were banned from, and certain things that they could do to appeal that, what the ban timeline is, things like that, so that they have all the information they need. I also worked with the state's attorney's office when drafting this. The state's attorney's office is ready and willing to prosecute individuals should they need to with this ban and the ban form would help them do that because it gives the individuals notice of the ban. And and then just for record purposes, that ban form would be kept by the police department as well as the legal department and we would have an updated list shared between the legal department and the police department on who is banned from where and what length of time that ban is for.

So it just specifically, if someone had a six month ban and then they showed up on a six month, would that automatically trigger a twelve month ban? Yes. So Thank you. How do we know?

We would have we're keeping a list between the police department and the legal department of who was banned, where, and for how long. That's why they'll be sharing the property trespass forms with us so that we can all keep track.

Any other questions?

Any questions on that ordinance? Okay. The agenda for today is a proposed social district. The proposed social district is a pilot program. It's a proposed six month program which would begin on June 1 and would end on December 31.

The proposal is to allow businesses on Chicago Street to sell one alcoholic beverage to go. The it it does only include the specific Chicago Street corridor which is defined as Chicago Street from Jefferson Street to Cass Street, would only include sidewalk level businesses with the Chicago Street address. Those businesses, there are about five businesses that land within the Chicago Street corridor. We chose the Jefferson Street and Cass Street boundaries because those are both state routes and we do not want people crossing over state routes with open alcohol. The proposal would be that there's a social district from 4PM to 10PM, May 1 to September 30, 4PM to 9PM, October 1 to April 30.

That's in line with the closing hours of City Square as well. We followed City Square's hours in drafting this proposal. The businesses that would be eligible to be part of the social district must have a full kitchen and 40% or less of their sales can be from alcohol. So this is to encourage restaurants to be able to sell one beverage to go per person. It's not encouraging bars or pop up shops to be able to do this.

So this just pops in my mind. I understand what your your concept is. But say, whatever, they had a special drink that they really loved from one of the restaurants. Can they take one drink? Could they go back into that restaurant and get another drink singularly?

Yes. So it's just one drink to go at a time, I guess would be a better way to say it. They would have to buy another cup, things like that. So like on this side, there will be to go cups that would have the city square logo and a place for the businesses to write the date time of the beverage sale. I spoke with the police department as well as the state's attorney's office in this.

Those the date and time of the beverage sale is to help the police department to ensure that people are not abusing this and to give them more information if they happen upon problem individuals. Again, it's a six month pilot program so that during those six months we can ensure that there's compliance by our businesses. We can address any growing pains internally. We would have monthly meetings with all of the necessary departments to address any council concerns, public concerns, or business concerns so that so that at the six month ending, if council chooses to renew this program, all of the issues would have already been addressed. Two additional safeguards for this is that it can only be renewed at the six month period with council vote and the liquor commissioner is able to end the program early within the first six months at any point if there are significant issues with the program and the liquor commissioner deems that the city may not be ready for it.

More of a comment. I think that yeah. I think I like the the fact that you got the date

Richard since he's able to be a part of the social district, he has a Chicago Street address. We confirmed. I I think within the six month pilot, we'll be addressing looking into all of our options for the cuffs and pricing and how we're going to address that with the businesses.

Any other questions? I think you got double. Okay. So we're gonna do this individually. Do it once both. So I'm looking for a motion for the ordinance TMP ninety eight thirty, TMP ninety eight thirty one, and TMP ninety eight thirty two.

No public comments. So now we have the adjourned. Motion to adjourn. Five second. All in favor on that one. Alright.