Public Safety Committee - Regular Meeting

Welcome everybody to the city of Joliet public safety meeting today is Tuesday September 1st 2026 here at the council chambers at 536 p.m. Can we have roll call please?

Here here.

Oh, I'm sorry That's okay here Okay, everybody's here approval of the minutes from August 4th 2026 See that right there? Did everybody have a chance to read the minutes? Yes. Okay. Does anybody have any questions, comments, changes? Okay. Was that the correct date for that meeting? Okay. Very good.

So moved.

Do we have a first? Do we have a second?

Second.

All in favor to approve? Aye. Okay, citizens to be heard on agenda items. Is there anyone here? I do not see any citizens to talk on any agenda items. So we'll move on to agenda items, which we're going to go down. There are no agenda items. Ordinances, we're going to go down to resolutions. Chief Brown, I believe this is yours, right? Yeah. Resolution approving an intergovernmental police service assistance agreement between the city of Joliet and the county of DuPage on behalf of DuPage County Sheriff's Office. Chief?

Yeah, good afternoon. Yeah, there's just a resolution for intergovernmental agreement for the President's Cup in Medina Country Club in September between us and the DuPage County Sheriff's. where they will reimburse us for overtime for officers on the ILS team. I think we have about eight officers in ILS that will be going up here for mutual aid. We've done this before with Chicago and others.

Does anybody have any questions or comments for Chief Brown?

How's the new job going?

Which is something, I'm trying to box it up and then the phone will ring.

And I've called a few times already. A few times. And no phone number.

So it's good. It's a good workout.

If we don't have any questions or comments or anything for Chief Brown, can we make a motion of... move this to the full council which i believe it's time tonight so agenda motion to move it tonight second okay we have a first and second all in favor aye aye okay new business new or old business not for final action or recommendation does anybody have anything i just had one thing if you ladies do not have anything Chief Brown, sorry, just real brief. I know you just jumped in the chief spot. Just briefly, the flock cameras and department policy. I'm assuming we're going to start working on that or get that going.

We have already began that. We've been having meetings, including yesterday. We met for several hours to discuss flock cameras. We are updating our policy. We currently have a policy. We are updating it to make it more robust, more transparent. and a lot of accountability. We met with Flock, talked about the auditing, because we're seeing what's going around the country. We understand what people are concerned about, you know, civil libertarian. So we are definitely looking into that. Within the next few days, our policy will be updated Thank you. As things happen.

Thank you. And this will probably go to legislation, right, I'm assuming?

Yes. I'd have to see it. We'll discuss. I don't have any final conclusion on that, but we'll talk about it.

Okay. Thank you for the update. All right. Does anybody have anything?

about this so last week the governor signed public act one oh four oh eight five four um it's on uh e-bikes uh we were working on an ordinance for the city of joliet to regulate e-bikes um but the governor signed a public act last week it's fairly detailed in it there's a homeroom limiting language in there that we can't regulate some of this these bikes But it sounds bad, but the act is very specific. It's very lengthy. It's, I don't know if you can see it, it's 30 pages. He didn't write it. I don't think he did. You know, they talk about, they differentiate e-bikes for low speed, motor driven cycles. There's stuff on unicycles in there, toy vehicles, high speed electric scooters. Um, so I'm going through that right now and I can provide a further update. Um, it's not effective until Jan one. So next year there will be more e-bike regulations. Um, my first read through this, one of the things that I'll have to work with the chief on this is so the police officers are gonna have to know what each of these bikes are as they drive down the road, the differentiate between a certain wattage. And if they go over 28 miles an hour, the police officers, let's say there's a bike that can only go on the sidewalk because it's under 28 miles an hour. The police officer is going to have to know what that bike is as it's going down the street. And there are several categories on this. And just the registration sticker on the bike, which they're supposed to have, is going to be real hard to read from 50 feet away. We're going to have to have some training on new bikes every year, but I'll work with the chief on that. The e-bikes, at least there's something going to be on the books on the state level that we can start ticketing individuals. If an e-bike has to go on the road, I believe they have to follow our traffic code. You can get a DUI on an e-bike. So it's good legislation from what I've read, but it's very recent. So I can update as we go forward, but that's kind of the update I have at this point.

So in the future, we're looking to adapt the state law?

I don't, we already adopt the vehicle code. And a lot of this is that chapter of the vehicle code. So we've already done it, but it's not effective until January 1st. So I don't think we're going to have to pass any legislation on this. I think it'll already be on the books.

Okay. All right. You may have any questions or comments.

Well, I do, because a lot of these bikes, some are like, you can be on your regular bicycle, and you can be going fast on the sidewalk and hit somebody. So it doesn't apply to that.

It's not motorized. They talk about bicycles in there, but they differentiate between what an electric motorcycle is, or electric bicycle, human-powered, gas-powered. um whether it's got one wheel or two wheels um it's very very lengthy and they go through each and every category but we can't be more specific even though a home rule no there's home rule limiting language in this ordinance it says the whole municipalities including home rule cannot regulate these bikes and i think that comes down because some municipalities are trying to ban them all together and they don't want municipalities doing that

No, but you should be able to differentiate between manual as opposed to electric.

And that's what I'm saying. State law does that. Does it differentiate? Yeah, it does.

Okay, I didn't understand that.

Yeah, and I'm still going through it. I wish I could give, you know, it just came out last week, so I started going through it, but it's not complete yet.

Now, what about Segway? Are they still around? Don't we have one? Do we still have one?

Segway, yeah, we still have it. Those don't, they're not under that. Those are too, they're too slow.

I just wondered because they were all over downtown Chicago at one time, and now you don't see them anymore. And I know we did have one for traffic and for at the track.

Yes, we do have a few Segways still down there that we use for downtown. You don't see them anymore because everything is with the scooters and the e-bikes they took over. They're cheaper and they're faster. And like Todd said, it's hard to distinguish from bike to bike, because there's so many of them, so many different configurations. I mean, one of the ways you'll be able to tell on the street is if you're driving down the street and someone's going the same speed as traffic. That's not a bike that can be on the sidewalk. That's a bike right there that needs to be registered and insured. So those are the things where we say, once this comes out, There's going to be a lot of education where a lot of departments are going to have to say, hey, man, get off. Because people, they're not going to know. Some of them don't watch the news or anything like that. So we will do that. They just don't care. You're right. Some don't care. I mean, I've seen them where they pass me in a squad car. And right now, unfortunately, there's not much we can do. But they do have to go with the flow of traffic. So they do have to abide by that. The law, when it talks about bicycles, it talks about the power assistant or the battery assistant, because those are the ones we don't have to really pedal. And some of them are very fast. They will move over 40 miles an hour. Especially those racing bikes. Yeah. So yeah, the Secretary of State website does have a good illustration on there, and it gives you a breakdown of the different sized bicycle and what is required of those bicycle-like helmets or various things like that. So they do have it wrote down, but as far as So unfortunately, they're selling these things that now the legislation is trying to catch up to and kind of regulate it and all that. So that's where we are now.

So as the segue, I think they defined that

find that anything with these battery power system because again you see along with one wheel there's a guy from the courthouse right yeah he flies down the street right now that's the next thing that thing is doing 40 miles an hour you know so i mean i know state police regulated where you can't write it on the expressway because there have been people that tried it before yeah i don't know why but yeah it's wrong with these nutty people

Any questions or comments from the Chief or Tad? Just to illustrate how specific this is, they even define an adaptive electric bicycle as a bicycle with two or more wheels that is designed for use with a person with a mobility disability. There is a lot of definitions of the different devices in this public act.

Is not having a car mobility disability?

I'd have to look at the definition because they cite federal law, part 35, title 28 of the Code of Federal Regulations. So you'd have to go back to the federal regulations to further know what the disability is.

A lot of the cars are made for folks that have disabilities or special.

But I don't know about the bikes. So I'm saying this just to say that this public act is very thorough. There's a lot in here. And I think they wrote this so municipalities don't have to pass anything. I think it will cover it, but I will keep reviewing it. I'll let you know.

Okay. Now, are helmets mandatory?

Helmets are in this public act. I'd have to go through the whole thing to do a checkbox on each individual item. I don't know if, like, a Segway, they're going to make you do a helmet, but I don't know.

You should because you can go back and forth.

Yeah, you can hit your head.

I got on it for, like... Five seconds. Get me out of here. I didn't want to call. You have to have good balance, and you've got to, when going and everything, it's like, once you get used to it, because Goran, he used to go all over with it. Holy cow. But he always had it with all of us.

All right. Thank you. Any more questions, comments? Okay. We'll move on to public comments. I do not see anybody here from the public. And then we will have a first, second to adjourn. Tell them now. We have a first. I'll make the second. I'll am