City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening and welcome to the June 16th Naperville City Council meeting. Roll call. Worley.

Here. Gibson.

Here.

Poltower. Here. Jane.

Here.

Kelly. Here. McBroom. Sayed. Here. White. Here. Wilson.

Here.

Please rise and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. OUR FIRST ITEM TONIGHT IS PUBLIC FORUM. I'D LIKE TO REMIND EVERYONE OF THE CITIZEN PARTICIPATION RULES AND THE CITY'S MUNICIPAL CODE FOR SPEAKING AT CITY COUNCIL MEETINGS. SPEAKERS ARE ASKED TO PRESENT THEIR COMMENTS IN A RESPECTFUL AND COURTEOUS MANNER. SPEAKERS SHOULD BE OR SAY ON TOPIC AND BE COGNIZANT OF THEIR WORDS. PERSONAL ATTACKS ON COUNCIL MEMBERS, STAFF, OTHER SPEAKERS OR MEMBERS OF THE AUDIENCE ARE NOT ALLOWED. IF INAPPROPRIATE LANGUAGE OR COMMENTS ARE EXPRESSED DURING THIS MEETING, YOU WILL BE ASKED IMMEDIATELY TO STOP COMMENTING. ALSO, FOR AUDIENCE MEMBERS, THERE IS NO CHEERING AND NO JEERING. Actions such as applauding or any other noises during or at the conclusion of any remarks made by any speaker are not allowed. If this occurs, you'll be asked to stop immediately, and if it continues to persist, I will recess the meeting until the audience abides by the rules in our city code. No speaker should ever feel intimidated by the crowd. Audience disruption is meant to intimidate those speaking, and I will not allow it in the chambers. Audience members with signs, the signs must not block any other audience member's view. And speakers will be given three minutes to address the City Council. To help speakers stay within the three-minute time frame, we have a timer on the side dais to your right. It will give the visual cue when the three minutes are expiring. This helps speakers conclude their comments in a timely manner without being cut off. The timer will buzz when it's zero, and we will alert the speaker that their time is up. If a speaker's name is called and they are not in the room, we will move on to the next speaker, and we will not go back. SPEAKERS ARE ENCOURAGED TO REMAIN IN COUNCIL CHAMBERS UNTIL THE CONCLUSION OF PUBLIC FORUM IN THE EVENT COUNCIL MEMBERS WANT TO ASK ANY FOLLOW-UP QUESTIONS. ALSO, WHEN YOUR NAME IS CALLED, PLEASE COME AND HAVE A SEAT IN THE FIRST ROW THAT WILL KEEP US ON TIME WITH ALL OF OUR SPEAKERS DURING PUBLIC FORUM. MS. SHOTTS, PLEASE CALL THE SPEAKERS.

THE FIRST THREE SPEAKERS ARE DERRICK ADAM HOOVER, FOLLOWED BY JOE HUSSE AND JAMES VILLAR. Joe Huss.

And Mrs. Schatzfeld, they're getting set up. How many total speakers tonight?

We have eight speakers in public forum. After James Filar will be Robert Gies.

Good evening. My name's Joe Huss, and I'm a 27-year resident of Naperville. And I'm here tonight on behalf of NEST. I want to share some good news. For the first time in US history, solar energy at 12.8% is generating more electricity than coal. You can see that crossover on this chart. This meaningful reduction in air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions is a concrete step toward addressing climate change and the damage it causes. We expect those trends to continue, as solar was 60% of the electricity added to the U.S. grid in the first quarter. You can see that batteries are also being deployed at record rates. And some of that battery is because the majority of the solar fields are installed with battery, allowing solar-generated power to be deployed when customers need it. As Illinois' residents, we're also supporting this trend because the Sergio Law went into effect on June 1st. requiring a gigawatt of battery storage to be procured immediately. And we don't have to look far to see this trend playing out. Just south of here in Will County this year, we've added over 900 megawatts of new solar projects were approved. Construction will start on the fields this year and is expected to go online in 2028. They'll generate enough power to power 110,000 homes. And fortunately, we're seeing that same trend globally. As renewables took over fossil fuels in EU electricity generation, 70% of the EU's electricity will come from clean sources that don't emit greenhouse gases. And you can see on the chart, there's a steep increase right after the start of the war in Ukraine, as the EU sought more reliable domestic energy with lower price volatility. And similar to the US, we expect those trends to continue. As you can see, solar exports were consistently growing. But when the war in Iran started, exports doubled in a month, as consumers around the globe want to avoid the price volatility and the supply constraints of natural gas and oil. Overall, the good news is that this trend will help slow the pace at which the Earth is warming. and the damage it'll cause. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker.

The next speaker is James Flaher, followed by Robert Giese and Tim Ferrito.

And if you've heard your name called, please move to the front row.

Good evening. I'm here to urge you to consider renewing the city's contract with IMEA, but from a new perspective. Renewing is a practical move that will maintain our reliable and affordable power past 2035, while positioning us for Illinois' nuclear future. Global energy demands are unmistakable. Advanced nations and major companies are turning to nuclear as the backbone of an all-of-the-above strategy for electricity generation. For example, France has 57 reactors generating 70% of its power. China has 60 operating reactors, 37 under construction, and remarkably, over 140 more in planning or approved stages. Here in the US, data center operators and big tech are pouring billions into nuclear because it is the only scalable, low-carbon source that can run 24-7, regardless of weather, fuel prices, or location. Nuclear is so compelling, there are three shutdown nuclear plants currently being restarted. Federal tax credits under Biden's Inflation Reduction Act were retained for nuclear, promoting this movement. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is now actively working to speed up approvals and remove old barriers, a 180 degree change from their past practices. Illinois is exceptionally well positioned to benefit. Not only is it at home to the largest nuclear fleet in the United States, Illinois has lifted its nuclear moratorium and is actively encouraging new development. Constellation has already announced plant expansions, including 30 megawatts at Clinton, and 135 megawatts at either Braidwood or Byron, which, by the way, would supply all of Naperville's annual power requirements. Governor Pritzker's executive actions target at least two gigawatts of new capacity. Illinois is following a similar path to New York, which is seeking four to five gigawatts of new nuclear generation. IMEA's existing portfolio provides a solid bridge to a nuclear future. Its two coal plants will continue to deliver low-cost electricity and valuable capacity credits until the day they retire. Their planned retirement dates line up well with the expected build-out of new nuclear in Illinois. It's easy to envision IMEA's future integrated resource plans, including nuclear power purchase agreements, once the state's expansion is in full swing. Renewing the contract gives Naperville and IMEA the scale, financial strength, and importantly, the time needed to make an orderly and economical transition to our nuclear future. Thank you. By the way, Mr. Hassan, I don't disagree on everything. But one thing we do agree on is this microphone is way too short.

Thank you. Next speaker.

The next speaker is Robert Gies, followed by Tim Ferrido and Ashley Penick.

It's not too tall for everybody. Good evening, mayor and council members. My name is Robert Giese. I'm with Affordable Naperville. I moved here in 1972 after earning my PhD in physics from Stanford University and spent 26 years at Argonne National Laboratory, much of that time studying electric utilities and energy storage. Back in the 70s, Gilda Radner's character, Emily Littella, became famous on Saturday Night Live for ending her misunderstandings with the phrase, never mind. I was reminded of that phrase when I read the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change summarized as IPCC announcement on April 29th. For years, much of the public discussion about the climate policy has been based on the IPCC's most extreme emissions scenario, known as RCP 8.5. That scenario was widely used because it protected the largest impacts from climate change. However, the IPC has now acknowledged that the RCP 8.5 is implausible and shouldn't be treated as a realistic representation of the future. Yet the public narrative built around that scenario continues, even though the underlying assumptions have been rejected. To understand why this matters, it's important to recognize that climate science remains a work in progress. The climate system is extraordinarily complex. Scientists continue to stutter interactions among the atmosphere, oceans, land, and clouds. Climate models are useful tools, but they are not perfect representations of reality. Earth's climate has always changed. During the age of the dinosaurs, temperatures were substantially warmer than today. 10,000 years ago, much of North America was covered by massive glaciers, and climate systems included natural processes and feedback mechanisms that scientists are still working to understand fully. My point tonight is not to debate climate science. My point is that major policy decisions should be based on realistic assumptions, not worst case scenarios that even their creators no longer consider plausible. That brings me to Nest and our electric future. We already have a bird in the hand. our IMEA contract. We need IMEA far more than IMEA needs us. Meanwhile, ComEd has just announced the 12% rate increase beginning June 1st, and many analysts expect additional increases in the future. You would owe it to the citizens of Naperville to pursue renewal of IMEA contract if that opportunity still exists. Delaying that decision may have put at risk a valuable asset for our community.

Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker.

The next speaker is Tim Frito, followed by Ashley Penick and John Doyle.

Thank you. Tim Ferrito, Naperville resident and leader of Affordable Naperville. I'd like to talk to you tonight about anthropogenic climate change theory. The way I look at it, I split it up into three different parts. Greenhouse effect, or scientifically called radiative forcing, climate feedbacks, both positive and negative, and attribution of observed changes and predictions. Tonight, I'm just going to talk about greenhouse effect, because three minutes is not enough time to cover everything. I do want to make a key point right off the bat that scientific debate is not whether greenhouse gases absorb infrared radiation, but rather the magnitude of climate feedbacks and how much observed climate change can be attributed to human activities versus natural variability. With that, I'd like to talk about greenhouse effect. Greenhouse gases absorb and re-radiate infrared energy. However, this changes with concentration, especially for CO2. Water vapor is the most dominant greenhouse gas by far. Carbon dioxide receives the most attention because it's tied to human activity. A lot of times, CO2 is labeled as carbon emission or carbon pollution. This is to invoke division of black soil, but it's anything but. Carbon dioxide is colorless, basically inert, non-toxic at atmospheric levels, and essential for plant growth. So I'd like to get back to the warming effect of CO2. The important thing to understand about CO2 and warming is logarithmic. That means the incremental impact of increasing CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere, the incremental impact on temperature, diminishes greatly. This leads to what they call a doubling effect. The best way to describe a doubling effect is by this little chart I put together. So if CO2 concentration goes from 250 ppm to 500 ppm, you get 1 degree C impact on temperature. To get another 1 degree C temperature impact, you have to double the CO2 concentration. You have to go from 500 to 1,000 ppm.

And if you want another one degree, you have to double that from 1,000 to 2,000 ppm.

In the year 1850, the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere was around 280 ppm. Currently, it's around 420 ppm. If you do the math, that's about 0.6 degree C impact on temperature. The summary point I'd like to make is that direct warming from CO2 is relatively mild. The debate is with climate feedback amplification. I will address this more in the future. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker.

The next speaker is Ashley Penick, followed by John Doyle and Daryl Hansen.

Are you able to hear me? Good evening, council. Ashley Penick here again with Affordable Naperville, a group of private citizens who are looking for pragmatic solutions to keep costs in Naperville affordable. According to the Random House Dictionary, affordable is that that can be afforded to be within one's financial means. That it's a rather simple definition. During recent meetings, I've heard public comments regarding the definition of affordability, and found I was confused by the logic. I wondered, who would be a good resource to answer that question? So of course, I remembered my favorite economist, Thomas Sowell. He wrote this book, Basic Economics, A Common Sense Guide to the Economy. Reasonable or affordable prices is one heading. Soul rights, a long-standing principle of political rhetoric, has been the attempt to keep the prices of housing, medical care, and other goods and services reasonable or reliable. Let me add the price of electricity. Sall continues, but to say that prices should be reasonable or affordable is to say that economic realities have to adjust to our budget or to what we are willing to pay, because what we are not going to adjust to the realities. Yet the amount of resources required to manufacture and transport the things we want are wholly independent of what we are willing to or able to pay. It is completely unreasonable to expect reasonable prices. Price controls can, of course, be imposed by government, but we have already seen what the consequences are. Subsidies can be used to keep prices down, but that does not change the cost of producing goods and services in the slightest. It just means that part of those costs are paid in taxes. Often related to the notion of reasonable or affordable prices is the idea of keeping costs down by various government policies. But prices are not costs. Prices are what we pay for costs. Our Naperville City Council is elected by nonpartisan elections. That means voters should be able to gather information without political rhetoric and basis and bias as much as possible and be able to come up with logical conclusions. My personal library includes books such as Einrein's Atlas Shrugged, Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto, George Orwell's 1984 Etc. Always write by me to reference when I have a question about a subject. People that know me might tell you that I'm very rigid and don't change my mind easily. With sound logic and a scientific method, I've changed my perspective completely within the last 10 years.

The speaker's time is up. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Next speaker.

The next speaker is John Doyle, followed by Daryl Hansen.

John Doyle, Naperville resident. Thank you. A change of plans, and I'm actually going to continue last session's topic and talk a little bit more about subsidizing each other's energy costs. Not everyone seems to realize this, but our current rate design already has hidden subsidies built right into it. The problem is we are subsidizing based off a load profile, not based off a need. As you know, the logistics and economics of the electric utility are complicated, and three minutes is not enough time to get into the math and methodology behind this presentation. But if anybody wants a copy so they can review any of my statements or findings, please email me at rates at johndoyle.org. I'd happily welcome an open discussion about this. So let's dive in. Generation, transmission, and distribution costs scale with demand. At the time of the last rate study, those demand-based costs represented 24% of the total cost for the utility. This is why UFS recommended a demand factor be part of the residential rates. It's why our GS2 rates have a demand component. And it's why batteries for peak shaving are so attractive to the utility. The residential and GS1 customers were stuck with a flat volumetric rate to recover both energy and demand costs. As a result, everyone with a non-average load profile is participating in a subsidy program one way or another. This is my info from 2025 courtesy of Empower. I have a very atypical load profile. I use a lot of energy, but my demand is relatively flat and even throughout the day and throughout the year. Because of this, I estimate I paid at least $360 above my cost of utility last year, $160 of that in capacity and $200 of that in distribution charges. My problem isn't with the $360 subsidies. The problem is who is going to because it's not going to a family who is struggling to pay their bills. It's going to a family with a more expensive load profile than me. This is a simplified version, but anybody can calculate this on their own. They can calculate your non-coincident load factor. using NPower data and these formulas. And if that number is higher than 15%, chances are you're already paying the subsidy. If that number is below 15%, well, you're welcome. And to top it all off, it's not even an effective rate. We were short of fully recovering costs by about $13 million last year, so it's no wonder why our rates are lower than ComEd recently. From what I can tell, the utility is sitting on less than $10 million in cash, far below both UFS recommended minimum reserve and the city's own 30-day cash on hand requirement. If you go into the 2027 rate study looking for a flat rate again, all of our problems are just going to get worse. You already know what I'm going to say. These are solved problems. UFS even recommended some of those solutions last time around, and you didn't listen to them. Please don't make the same mistakes this time. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker.

The final speaker in public forum is Darrell Hansen.

Good evening. Darrell Hansen, 21-year resident of Naperville. We live on South Columbia between Porter and Prairie. Naperville has an ordinance, and I got to say, my topic is not as interesting as the last few. You have an ordinance that allows beekeeping in the city of Naperville. On a city lot, quarter acre, you are allowed three hives within five feet of the property line. I'm currently dealing with a neighbor who has them five feet from the property line. It's not functional to be in our yard at any given time during the day. I realize this may not be significant to you, but everybody in the family has been stung probably once a month when we get into the summer months. Not sure where the common sense came through that five feet a bee was going to stay on his side of the property. If he smokes out the bees, you're talking 1,000 bees, and he has to smoke them out once a week. I've had code enforcement out. The gentleman didn't want to get close to the hives because there was too many. Kind of laughed at that. State enforcement came out yesterday to say that he's in compliance because he is five feet from the property. He has three hives and they're not killer bees. It's a nuisance. I would invite you, and this is a bit of a slap and joke here, but Come on over. Come stand on my driveway. Come stand in my back patio. You couldn't finish a cocktail without having a bee in your hair, in your face. It's a complete nuisance. And it's now getting to a point where service workers, whether it's landscaping, are complaining about it. I have a roofing crew coming in a couple of weeks. That's a danger to them. A real estate agent just said, this is a detriment to your property value. Who's going to walk your property and not be swinging it It's hundreds at any given time. Clearly, they're not out during the rain. They're not out in the cold. But the summer months when we're trying to enjoy or at least sit on our property, I can't function. You can't be outside. It's that simple. So I'm just asking the city to review this policy. I'm told that if I lived north of Chicago Avenue, they're not allowed. But south of Chicago Avenue, for some reason, beehives are allowed. But on a 55 by 160 foot lot, that's just not tolerable. That's not common sense. And I'm not sure if this was ever put to vote, but somehow it did pass. So again, just asking the city to review it. Everybody that we've talked to in code enforcement has said, please come to a city council meeting. So just wanted to share that with you and appreciate the time.

Thank you. Next speaker.

That was the final public forum speaker.

All right, next is City Council Public Forum. As a reminder, per the code, council members have three minutes to speak during public forum, can speak up to two times. I wanna start us off by thanking our professional staff for their continued work after last week's storms. Our police, our fire, public works, electric, and even our emergency management volunteers, they worked really hard over a multi-day period to prioritize the health, the safety, and the resilience OF OUR COMMUNITY, AND I WANT TO ASK MR. KRIEGER, OUR CITY MANAGER, JUST TO PROVIDE SOME DETAILS ABOUT THAT STORM AND WHAT WE ARE ANTICIPATING FOR TOMORROW'S EVENT.

ALL RIGHT, WELL, THANKS, MAYOR. YEAH, SUPER PROUD OF OUR TEAM'S RESPONSE, REALLY ACROSS ALL DEPARTMENTS. STORMS LAST WEEK BROUGHT 80-MILE-AN-HOUR WINDS THROUGHOUT OUR COMMUNITY, CAUSING SIGNIFICANT POWER OUTAGES AND TREE DAMAGES. THE ELECTRIC OUTAGE BEGAN WEDNESDAY AND INITIALLY AFFECTED 3,000 CUSTOMERS. THAT WAS ABLE TO BE REDUCED DOWN TO 1,000 WITHIN A FEW HOURS BECAUSE OF OUR DISTRIBUTION AUTOMATION. OUR ELECTRIC TEAM HAS BEEN USING A RESTORE AND REPAIR PHILOSOPHY AND THIS STORM CAUSED A LOT OF DAMAGE TO OUR EQUIPMENT AND WIRES AND CABLES ACROSS OUR SYSTEM. All system repairs were completed by noon. Our special brush collection started yesterday. On the Public Works and Tree side, Public Works had over 600 service requests out of the storms from last Wednesday and Thursday. Our crews will continue to work throughout through June to clean up from these storms. And as for tomorrow's predicted storms, we are once again focusing on health and safety of our residents and community. OUR PUBLIC WORKS, POLICE, FIRE AND EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT TEAMS ARE PREPARING AND WE ENCOURAGE OUR RESIDENTS TO DO THE SAME.

Thank you, Mr. Krieger. Councilman Holzer.

Thank you, Mayor. With regard to Mr. Hanson's comments, first comment was that his topic wasn't interesting. I actually found the beehive thing very interesting. But I was curious if Mr. Krieger could provide some insight into the city's history of dealing with this issue and maybe if there's a way we could look at this again. Mr. Krieger.

I'VE BEEN AROUND A LONG TIME, BUT I HAVEN'T BEEN AROUND THAT LONG. NO, THE CITY DOES ALLOW BEES. I REMEMBER THE DISCUSSIONS, BOY, I THINK MID-2000S, MAYBE, WHEN AROUND THE SAME TIME WHEN WE TALKED ABOUT CHICKEN COOPS. BUT IF DIRECTOR LOUDON, SHE MAY HAVE SOME ADDITIONAL DETAIL, BECAUSE I KNOW SHE HAS BEEN POKING AROUND IN THAT SECTION OF OUR MUNICIPAL CODE.

Thank you. Yeah, so we do have a provision within the animal control ordinances in our municipal code that outlines the requirements for beekeeping. Actually, the speaker's comments were pretty much accurate, although I don't see any limitations based on location. There are limitations based upon the zoning of the property. So there are certain ZONING AREAS WHERE YOU WOULD NOT BE ABLE TO DO THIS. SO, YOU KNOW, IT'S A FAIRLY STRAIGHTFORWARD SECTION THAT DOES REQUIRE REGISTRATION THROUGH THE STATE. SO IF THERE IS INTEREST IN MAKING MODIFICATIONS, STAFF COULD TAKE A LOOK AT ANY AMENDMENTS DIRECTED BY THE CITY COUNCIL.

THANK YOU. GO AHEAD. THANK YOU, MAYOR. YEAH, JUST A COUPLE OF GENERAL THOUGHTS ON THAT. It strikes me there's some competing policy interests there. Bees are good pollinators. Some of them are. struggling to survive in our increasingly developed area. So I get that. But also the thought of having a number of beehives five feet from my property line is a little bit troubling. So I'm wondering, and I'm totally open to the mayor or anyone else's comments here, I'm wondering Mr. KRIEGER, MAYBE IF STAFF COULD LOOK AT THIS MORE CLOSELY, LIKE WHAT OTHER COMMUNITIES ARE DOING, AND I DON'T KNOW IF THAT COULD COME IN A MANAGER'S MEMORANDUM OR REPORTED TO A FUTURE CITY COUNCIL MEETING OR SOMETHING.

MR. KRIEGER? YES, ABSOLUTELY. WE WILL POLL OUR COMPARABLE COMMUNITIES AND GET A REPORT BACK OUT TO CITY COUNCIL.

THANK YOU.

THANK YOU, MAYOR.

Councilman White.

Thank you. That was my point as well. I was curious what some of our other communities' best practices in that regard. And maybe even look at if we are in line with what the best practices are, we may need to put some type of caveat from a nuisance standpoint. Because until someone brings it to our attention, we may not even realize that it's an issue. So I think that's something we should definitely look at. Also, I had a question as far as the storm's impact and so on. Currently, we have, I want to say, 94% of our lines are buried. WE HAVE THAT EXTRA 6%. CAN YOU OR SOMEONE FROM THE ELECTRIC DEPARTMENT KIND OF GIVE US AN ASSESSMENT OF THAT, IF WE HAD HAD THOSE LINES BURIED, WHAT WOULD HAVE BEEN THE IMPACT, IF ANY DIFFERENT THAN WHAT ACTUALLY OCCURRED?

MR. KRIEGER? I WOULD BE GUESSING AT THAT, BUT I'LL, I THINK THE IMPACT WOULD HAVE BEEN POSITIVE, BUT I THINK DEPUTY DIRECTOR MANN MAY, HE WILL CERTAINLY PROVIDE A BETTER INSIGHT THAN I COULD.

DEPUTY DIRECTOR?

Councilman White, in the underground areas of our service territory, we experienced no storm-related outages. So I think the performance is significantly higher with underground. You said we're at 94%, 94.5%. And right now, we are committed to doing more undergrounding, but we're spending more money in the substations because that's where the need is right now.

OK. That's something I know we're going to get into the budget here soon. Once we get into the fall, maybe it'd be interesting to see your thought on that, Mr. Krieger and the Electric Department from a budgeting standpoint. Thank you.

Councilman Wilson.

Thank you, Mayor. Just a quick note on the book. Ashley Penick brought up basic economics. It is, he so intentionally wrote it to be directed at the layperson, so it sort of avoids the more advanced math that you might see in advanced economic courses. But you can also listen to it on YouTube or audio. But as far as the bees go, I do purchase honey from a Naperville resident who DOES BE KEEPING. AND FROM MY RECOLLECTION, HER KIND OF TO YOUR POINT, COUNCILMAN HOLZAUER, IT WOULDN'T SEEM GREAT TO HAVE IT FIVE FEET FROM MY PROPERTY LINE, BUT HER SEEMS FOR NOT AS CLOSE TO THE NEIGHBOR'S PROPERTY LINE, BUT I'D BE HAPPY TO CHECK IN WITH HER TO SEE HOW SHE HANDLES IT AND IF IT'S as much of a nuisance to her neighbors as it is to yours, or as it is to you, I should say. But I'm happy to check in with her, Mr. Krueger. Thanks.

And Mr. Hanson, I appreciate the email from your residents over the weekend with the video and everything else. It does tell a story, and I was surprised when I read the ordinance to see that the five-foot rule was in place. So I think our professional staff has heard direction to investigate different options and bring back something to the council that we can take further consideration. So thank you for being here and for offering your testimony tonight. One last thing. I do want to reiterate IT'S REALLY IMPORTANT FOR OUR RESIDENTS TO CHECK IN WITH THEIR NEIGHBORS AND CHECK THOSE STORM DRAINS OUT ON YOUR STREETS AND MAKE SURE THAT THEY ARE KEPT CLEAR FOR THESE STORMS. A LOT OF OUR LOCALIZED FLOODING WE HAD IN THE STORM EXPERIENCE LAST WEEK WAS DUE TO CLOGGED STORM DRAINS. SO IF YOU CAN JUST GO OUT THERE, TAKE A RAKE AND CLEAN THEM UP AND ADOPT THE DRAIN, THAT'S ONE OF OUR PROGRAMS, WE REALLY APPRECIATE IT, AND IT MAKES A BIG DIFFERENCE IN YOUR NEIGHBORHOODS. SO THANK YOU IN ADVANCE FOR EVERYTHING YOU DO. OUR NEXT ITEM IS THE CONSENT AGENDA. MAY I HAVE A MOTION TO USE THE OMNIBUS METHOD TO APPROVE THE CONSENT AGENDA? COUNCILMAN WHITE.

I MOVE TO USE THE OMNIBUS METHOD TO APPROVE THE CONSENT AGENDA.

COUNCILMAN KELLY. SECOND, KELLY. ALL THOSE IN FAVOR, SIGN AYE.

AYE.

OPPOSED? MOTION PASSES 8-0. MAY I HAVE A MOTION TO APPROVE THE CONSENT AGENDA REMOVING I-11, I-12, I-13, I-27, and I-28. Councilman White.

I move to approve the consent agenda removing items I-11, I-12, I-13, I-27, and I-28. Second, Kelly.

We have a motion and a second. Mrs. Schatz, please read the consent agenda, removing I-11, 12, 13, 27, and 28.

Approval of the May cash disbursements for a total of $42,841,680.75. Approval of the June 2, 2026 regular city council meeting minutes. Approval of the city council meeting scheduled for July, August, and September 2026. Approval of the appointments to various boards and commissions. Receiving the year-to-date budget report through May 31, 2026. APPROVAL OF THE AWARD OF THE COOPERATIVE PROCUREMENT FOR PICKUP TRUCKS TO CURRY MOTORS FOR AN AMOUNT NOT TO EXCEED $186,472. APPROVAL OF THE AWARD OF COOPERATIVE PROCUREMENT PICKUP TRUCKS WITH UTILITY BODY AND PLOW TO SUTTON FORD FOR AN AMOUNT NOT TO EXCEED $401,060. APPROVAL OF THE AWARD OF THE COOPERATIVE PROCUREMENT POLICE EVIDENCE ROOM MOBILE SHELVING SYSTEMS TO BRADFORD SYSTEMS CORPORATION FOR AN AMOUNT NOT TO EXCEED $133,960. Approval of the recommendation by Alliant Insurance Services to award property, cyber liability and pollution liability insurance coverage through the Alliant Property Insurance Program for an amount not to exceed $996,847.65 for a one-year term. Approval of the recommendation by Alliant Insurance Services to award excess liability insurance coverage through Alliant National Mutual Liability Program for an amount not to exceed $483,142 for a one-year term. APPROVAL OF THE AWARD OF THE BID FOR 2026 MUNICIPAL PARKING LOT MAINTENANCE PROGRAM TO EVERLAST BLACK TOP FOR AN AMOUNT NOT TO EXCEED $876,551.21. APPROVAL OF THE AWARD OF THE BID FOR 2026 MICROSURFACING PROGRAM TO AC PAVEMENT STRIPING FOR AN AMOUNT NOT TO EXCEED $359,119.70. ADOPTING THE IDOT RESOLUTION IN THE AMOUNT OF $346,241.55 TO ALLOW THE EXPENDITURE OF STATE MOTOR FUEL TAX DOLLARS TO FUND A PORTION OF THE 2026 MICROSURFACING PROGRAM. APPROVAL OF THE FIREWORKS DISPLAY APPLICATION AND ISSUING A PERMIT FOR THE NAPERVILLE COMMUNITY FIREWORKS SHOW ON JULY 4, 2026. ADOPTING THE RESOLUTION APPROVING THE RENEWAL OF THE INTERGOVERNMENTAL AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE CITY OF NAPERVILLE AND WILL COUNTY REGARDING LICENSE PLATE READER CAMERAS AND AUTHORIZING THE CITY MANAGER TO EXECUTE THE AGREEMENT. Adopting the resolution, approving the appointment of Electric Utility Deputy Director Raheel Arshad to the Illinois Municipal Electric Agency Board of Directors. Passing the ordinance, approving a variance to allow a deck to encroach into the required rear yard setback at 501 Larkspur Court. Passing the ordinance, approving a preliminary final plat of subdivision and an owner's acknowledgement and acceptance agreement for 1180 East Chicago Avenue. Passing the ordinance approving the payment of $135,669 to Costco Wholesale Corporation for upgrades to traffic signal improvements at the intersection of Ogden and Iroquois Avenue as part of the Costco development. Passing an ordinance to establish temporary traffic controls and issuing a special event and amplifier permit for the Naperville Sprint Triathlon on Sunday, August 2nd, 2026. Passing an ordinance to establish temporary traffic controls and issuing a special event amplifier permits for St. Peter and Paul's Catholic Church Homecoming Fest on Saturday, August 22nd, 2026. Passing the ordinance authorizing the issuance of general obligation bonds series 2026 for an amount not to exceed $41 million. And passing the ordinance authorizing the defeasance of outstanding general obligation bonds series 2018.

We have a motion and a second to approve the consent agenda. Minus I-11, I-12, I-13, I-27, and 28. Roll call.

Worley.

Yes.

Gibson. Aye. Holzhauer.

Aye.

Jane. Aye. Kelly. Aye. Syed. Aye.

White. Aye. Wilson. Aye. Motion passes 8-0. I-11.

Item I-11 is recommendation to approve the award of change order number three to the contract for fire engine replacement and maintenance AGREEMENT TO MCQUEEN EMERGENCY GROUP LLC FOR AN AMOUNT NOT TO EXCEED $13,778.81. THERE IS ONE SPEAKER, JOHN DOYLE.

MR. DOYLE, WHEN YOU'RE READY.

JOHN DOYLE, THANK YOU. I WANTED TO PULL TONIGHT'S CHANGE ORDERS OUT OF THE CONSENT AGENDA JUST SO THEY COULD GET SOME EXTRA ATTENTION. It seems like there's been a large number of change orders this year so far, so I looked into it, and by my count, 31 projects have had change orders so far this year. Those projects have had 69 changes in total between them, adding over $7 million to budgets and 19 combined years to project timelines. Before approving these three change orders tonight, I would really appreciate it if you could let us know if this is typical for Naperville. Is it typical for other municipalities like Naperville? And if not, is anything being done to rein this in? Thank you, and I yield my time on the next two items.

Thank you. Councilman White, may I have a motion?

I have a question. Councilman White? For Mr. Krieger, can you... MAYBE ANSWER MR. DOYLE'S QUESTION TO THE BEST OF YOUR ABILITY.

MR. KRIEGER. THANK YOU, MAYOR. YOU KNOW, A CHANGE ORDER IS OBVIOUSLY SOMETHING DESIGNED OR ACCORDING TO PLAN, WHETHER THAT IS A CHAIN OF CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS THAT NEED TO WAIT. WE HAVE HAD A SIGNIFICANT NUMBER OF THOSE, A LOT RELATED TO THE DELAYS ASSOCIATED WITH WASHINGTON STREET BRIDGE. I THINK EACH INDIVIDUAL CHANGE ORDER NEEDS TO BE LOOKED AT WITH ITS OWN CIRCUMSTANCES, AND THAT'S REALLY THE ANALYSIS. WE DON'T REALLY OR I'M NOT AWARE OF KIND OF LIKE ANY METRICS AS TO WHAT WOULD BE KIND OF A NORMAL CHANGE ORDER METRIC. WE USUALLY DO SEE MORE IN THE SUMMER THAN WE DO IN ANY OF THE OTHER SEASONS JUST BECAUSE THAT'S WHEN CONSTRUCTION IS HEAVIEST.

I'VE NOTICED AS WELL THE WASHINGTON STREET, THE RIVER WALK PROJECT SEEMS TO BE, I'VE HAD A FEW.

COUNCILMAN GIBSON, DO YOU HAVE A QUESTION RELATED OR FOLLOW UP?

COMMENT RELATED TO THIS.

GO AHEAD.

ALL RIGHT, THANKS. I DO JUST WANT TO ADDRESS MR. DOYLE'S CONCERNS AS WELL. EVERY CHANGE ORDER I SEE AND I BELIEVE ALL MY COLLEAGUES SEE ON THESE, WE LOOK AT, READ THE MEMO, OFTEN GO TO CITY MANAGER KRIEGER. YOU KNOW, CITY MANAGER KRIEGER, YOU AND I HAD QUITE A DISCUSSION ABOUT THE CHANGE ORDER FOR 430 WASHINGTON. AND A COUPLE MEETINGS AGO, I REQUESTED STAFF TO SEE IF WE CAN KIND OF KEEP TABS ON IF THERE ARE VENDORS THAT CONTINUALLY COME BACK WITH CHANGE ORDERS TO SEE IF THERE'S ANY SORT OF PATTERN THERE. you know, as an additional data point when we're making these decisions up here. So I recognize your concern about change orders. I definitely, they raise red flags for me as well. I think, you know, sometimes that's just how things happen. You know, when I do work on my house, there always seems to be something else wrong. We do our best to get it all in the original contract, but, you know, I know we do our best to keep an eye on them and make sure we're asking the relevant questions. So I appreciate you calling this out.

And Mr. Doyle, this is a unique situation on the I-11. We have a original contract, which was with a provider that provided those maintenance services for fire trucks. They were acquired, and we're now extending that agreement into future years. But one of the things from an economic standpoint that's really compelling is the price of fire trucks and apparatus not only has delivery extended into years, but the price of that equipment has almost doubled over the course of several years. So it's a very expensive thing to go out and buy new fire apparatus. So making sure we have excellent preventive maintenance in place and repair services in place to make sure that serviceable equipment we have is safe for our firefighters, safe for our community is one of the reasons I'll be supporting this tonight. And Chief,

MARK PUCKNIGHT IS FIRE CHIEF. I JUST WANT TO SAY ONE THING ON THIS CHANGE ORDER. SOMETIMES, MOST OF THE TIME, CHANGE ORDERS ACTUALLY CAUSE AN INCREASE TO THE BUDGET. THE REASON WHY WE'RE MAKING THIS CHANGE ORDER IS BECAUSE WE ARE CANCELING A CONTRACT THAT WE HAVE THE ABILITY TO DO BY BRINGING THE WORK IN HOUSE TO OUR FLEET SERVICE. SO WE'RE PAYING THE REMAINDER OF THIS SO WE DON'T HAVE TO PAY THE ADDITIONAL COSTS GOING INTO A YEAR. WE'VE DONE THAT WITH ANOTHER VENDOR AND NOW WE'RE DOING THIS WITH THIS VENDOR BECAUSE WE HAVE THE AVAILABILITY TO DO THIS. SO THIS IS ACTUALLY GOING TO SAVE THE CITY OVER $100,000 ON A CONSERVATIVE ESTIMATE OVER THE NEXT 12 MONTHS.

OKAY. COUNCILMAN WHITE MAY HAVE A MOTION ON I-11.

I MOVE TO APPROVE THE AWARD OF CHANGE ORDER NUMBER 3 TO CONTRACT Number 17-086B, fire engine replacement and maintenance agreement to McQueen Emergency Group LLC for an amount not to exceed $13,778.81 in a total award of $776,963.81. Councilman Kelly? Second Kelly. We have a motion and a second on I-11. Roll call.

Gibson. Aye. Holzhauer. Aye. Jane. Aye. Kelly. Aye. Syed. Aye. White. Aye. Wilson.

Aye.

Worley.

Yes. Motion passes 8-0. I-12.

Item I-12 is a recommendation to approve the award of change order number four to the contract for 2024 downtown streetscape, Washington Street to Copenhaver construction for an additional 530 days. There was one speaker, John Doyle, but he has ceded his time and there are no other speakers.

Okay. May I have a motion on I-12? May I move to approve?

I move to approve the award of change order number four to contract 24-026. 2024 DOWNTOWN STREETSCAPE, WASHINGTON STREET TO COPENHAVER CONSTRUCTION INCORPORATED FOR AN ADDITIONAL 530 DAYS.

COUNCILMAN KELLY. SECOND, KELLY. WE HAVE A MOTION AND SECOND ON I-12. ROLL CALL.

HOLTZAUER. AYE. JANE. AYE. KELLY. AYE. SIAD. AYE. WHITE.

AYE.

WILSON.

AYE.

WORLEY.

YES.

GIBSON. AYE.

MOTION PASSES 8-0. I-13.

Item I-13 is a recommendation to approve the award of change number one to the contract for North Central College Riverwalk Park, 430 South Washington to Baumgartner Construction for an amount not to exceed $75,000. There is one speaker, John Doyle, he has ceded his time and there are no other speakers signed up for this item.

Okay, members of council, I will be recusing myself on this vote due to a perceived conflict of interest as a trustee of North Central College. And Councilwoman Jane.

I, TOO, WILL BE RECUSING MYSELF AS AN EMPLOYEE OF NORTH CENTRAL COLLEGE.

I WILL HAVE COUNCILMAN KELLY WILL BE THE ACTING MAYOR PROTEM, AND HE WILL RUN THIS ITEM, I-13.

COUNCILMAN WHITE, COULD WE PLEASE HAVE A MOTION TO OPEN THE AGENDA ITEM OF I-13?

SURE. I MOVE TO APPROVE THE AWARD OF CHANGE ORDER NUMBER ONE TO CONTRACT 26-015 NORTH CENTRAL COLLEGE RIVERWALK PARK 430 SOUTH WASHINGTON STREET TO BOMB GARDENER CONSTRUCTION INCORPORATED FOR AN AMOUNT NOT TO EXCEED $75,000 AND A TOTAL AWARD OF $2,124,192.32.

DO WE HAVE A SECOND? I SECOND. DOES ANYONE HAVE ANY QUESTIONS OR DISCUSSION? OKAY. ROLL CALL, PLEASE.

KELLY. AYE. ZAYED. AYE. WHITE. AYE. WILSON.

AYE.

GIBSON. AYE. HOLZAUER.

AYE. MOTION PASSES 6-0.

I-27.

ITEMS I-27 AND I-28 ARE RECOMMENDATIONS TO PASS THE ORDINANCES APPROVING THE FIRST AMENDMENT TO THE BLOCK 59 BUSINESS DISTRICT PLAN AND THE FIRST AMENDMENT TO THE BLOCK 59 BUSINESS DISTRICT REDEVELOPMENT AGREEMENT. THERE WAS ONE WRITTEN COMMENT THAT WAS SUBMITTED AND POSTED TO THE WEBSITE. THERE ARE NO SPEAKERS.

SO WE HAVE NO SPEAKERS. IS THERE A COUNCILPERSON THAT WANTS TO SPEAK ON THIS? COUNCILWOMAN GIBSON?

SURE. THANK YOU, MAYOR. I PULLED THIS IN. I ACTUALLY BELIEVE I HAVE A QUESTION FOR THE PETITIONERS.

QUESTION FOR THE PETITIONERS? COULD YOU STEP FORWARD, SIR, AND STATE YOUR NAME FOR THE RECORD?

GOOD EVENING. MY NAME IS RICH. I'M WITH BRICKSMORE PROPERTY GROUP.

THANK YOU. SO I WAS NOT ON COUNCIL WHEN THIS ORIGINAL BUSINESS DISTRICT WAS PASSED. SO I DID SPEND THE MORNING GOING BACK AND WATCHING I BELIEVE ALL SIX MEETINGS THAT SPANNED IN EARLY 2023. IT WAS QUITE THE DISCUSSION. AND A LOT OF THE DISCUSSION FOCUSED ON THE AURORA AVENUE PORTION OF THE BUSINESS DISTRICT, YOU KNOW, AFTER THAT INITIAL ONE IN JANUARY, AND WHETHER THAT AREA WOULD BE INCLUDED IN THE BUSINESS DISTRICT. AND IT WAS. THE ORIGINAL CAP FOR THE ORIGINAL BUSINESS DISTRICT IS 13.4 MILLION AND INCLUDED THAT AREA OF OF THE PROPERTY, CORRECT? SO I GUESS I'M WONDERING, WHAT HAS CHANGED BETWEEN NOW AND EARLY 2023 THAT NECESSITATES TWO MILLION ADDITIONAL TAXPAYER SUBSIDIES?

YES. THANK YOU FOR THE QUESTIONS.

WE PUT TOGETHER THE- MR. DIPLITO, COULD YOU RAISE THE MICROPHONE? YOU NEED TO REALLY TALK INTO IT SO WE CAN ALL HEAR YOU. IS THAT A LITTLE BETTER?

So we originally put together the business district. We made some assumptions on the sales projections along the Aurora Avenue side. We actually originally had intended on having the entire Westridge Court and Block 59 shopping centers. And that was scaled back. And we were still able to make that work. But the original intention was to backfill the existing spaces. And that requires a lot less capital. There is a lot less investment in infrastructure, demolition, things of that nature. And that was one of the original intentions of the business district for Block 59 was because we were demoing an existing shopping center. There's just a lot of costs that go in. before you even come up out of the ground. They're taking down buildings, replacing all the infrastructure, tearing up existing infrastructure. So there's a lot of excess costs that go into redevelopment. And that's occurring here. Because what we're doing, we are leaving. There's an approximately 50,000 square foot building. It's 49 and change. We're able to reutilize the vast majority of that building. We are taking down one of the walls that we hadn't planned on originally. But then in order to make the space fit for this particular tenant, we are demolishing, I may not have the numbers exactly right in front of me, about 26,000 square feet of existing space and then putting back a 50,000 square foot building. So we hadn't planned on demoing all that. We have to replace a lot of the utilities in order to do that. And we have existing tenants we need to work around. We have to replace all of their utilities because they get impacted by this demolition work. So it's just a lot of excess cost that we hadn't originally planned on when we did all our projections.

Okay. So excess costs based on, I mean, a new opportunity for a new tenant. Is that correct? Yes. Okay. I think it's great that new tenants are interested in the business district. I'm not sure I can support $2 million extra being paid by the Naperville taxpayers on private property. You know, affordability is obviously... SOMETHING THAT WE ARE CONSIDERING CONSTANTLY HERE ON CITY COUNCIL AND IN OUR COMMUNITY. SO I WON'T BE SUPPORTING THE ADDITIONAL TWO MILLION ASK OF THE TAXPAYERS.

MAY I ALSO ADD, MAY I MAKE AN ADDITIONAL COMMENT? GO AHEAD. I'M SORRY? GO AHEAD. ONE OF THE REASONS THAT WE'RE EXCITED ABOUT THIS PARTICULAR TENANT IS WE BELIEVE THAT IT WILL GENERATE A LOT OF INTEREST. We've included in the package of information to you the sales projections. So we anticipate those sales projections to go up quite a bit, which actually will, in turn, provide a lot of additional sales tax to the city of Naperville. So I think there is a big public benefit from that standpoint. But I certainly understand your position.

Councilman Holzer. Thank you, Mayor. There was at least one speaker tonight who cited Ayn Rand and her work. She's a little bit of a different ideological flavor than me. BUT I HAVE READ HER WORK. I THINK ONE OF THE THINGS SHE WARNS AGAINST IS KIND OF THIS EXACT SITUATION WHERE GOVERNMENT GETS IN THE BUSINESS OF APPROVING PRIVATE PROJECTS AND PRIVATE BUSINESS RISKS THAT WERE MISALLOCATED GET ABSORBED BY THE PUBLIC TAXPAYER. SO I WILL ALSO AGREE WITH COUNCILMAN GIBSON I WILL NOT BE SUPPORTING THIS. THANK YOU MAYOR.

Thank you. Councilman Kelly.

Thank you, Mayor. Question for the petitioner. When we considered the first, the original business district on this, one of my questions was, what is the alternative? You know, at that point in time, what was the alternative? If we didn't prove it, would the development have happened or not? What if we didn't include the portion to the north, which we ultimately didn't? Would it still happen? And the answer is kind of a begrudging yes. And that's what we wound up, you know, the compromise we reached in the project. AND SO FAR IT SEEMS LIKE IT'S BEEN A SUCCESS. SO I GUESS THAT'S MY QUESTION FOR YOU ON THIS PIECE, WHICH IS PART OF THE EXISTING BUSINESS DISTRICT. JUST TO CLARIFY, THE PARCEL YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT IS INCLUDED IN THE EXISTING BUSINESS DISTRICT WE ALREADY PASSED, IS THAT CORRECT?

IT IS INCLUDED, YES. YES, WE'RE NOT MODIFYING THE BUSINESS DISTRICT. ASKING TO MODIFY THE TOTAL BUDGET.

THE AMOUNT THAT WOULD BE ULTIMATELY COLLECTED. CORRECT. SO, AND WHEN I HEARD YOU DESCRIBING WHAT YOU'LL DO, I THINK THE TENSE ON WHAT YOU DESCRIBED CHANGED A COUPLE OF TIMES BETWEEN WE'RE DOING OR WE WILL DO. SO JUST FOR CLARITY, ARE YOU ALREADY DOING THIS WORK? IS IT HAPPENING AND THE TENANT HAS SIGNED? OR IS IT ALL CONTINGENT UPON THIS ADDITIONAL Two million or so what I want to know is basically is this already happening And you're hoping to recover some of the costs that you're already committed to incurring Or is that only going to happen if this were to be approved?

Yeah, we we have not Committed any we've we started working on soft costs In an effort to move the project along and we're negotiating a lease, but we have not started any of the construction so we're waiting to sign the lease, depending on this outcome. So if we don't get approval, I'm going to have to go back to our investment committee, our internal investment committee. And they'll need to make a decision at that point whether they want to move forward or not. But at this point, I don't have approval to move forward without this additional funding.

OKAY. AND THAT'S A LITTLE TRICKY BECAUSE IT'S KIND OF CHICKEN AND THE EGG, RIGHT? BUT THAT'S WHAT I'M INTERESTED IN BECAUSE I WANT THE PROJECT TO BE AS SUCCESSFUL AS POSSIBLE. WHAT THE AGENDA ITEM AND THE STAFF WRITE-UP SAID IS THAT, YOU KNOW, THE OVERALL BUSINESS DISTRICT COULD BE PAID OFF FASTER, ACTUALLY. IT'S KIND OF AN OXYMORON, BUT IF WE INCREASE THE AMOUNT THE TIME PERIOD WOULD LIKELY SHORTEN, AT LEAST THAT'S OUR CITY STAFF'S OPINION. SO THAT IS APPEALING. THAT WAS PART OF THE TRADE-OFF WHEN WE APPROVED THE INITIAL DISTRICT AND EXCLUDED THE PORTION TO THE NORTH WAS THAT IT MIGHT EXTEND THE TIME PERIOD, WHICH WASN'T IDEAL, BUT THAT WAS THE RIGHT OUTCOME IN MY OPINION. I WOULD LOVE TO SHORTEN IT IF WE CAN. I JUST DON'T WANT TO DO THAT AND HAVE TAXPAYERS PAY ADDITIONAL MONEY IF THE DEAL IS GOING TO HAPPEN ANYWAYS. SO IT SOUNDS LIKE MAYBE WE JUST DON'T KNOW THAT WITH CERTAINTY YET. THAT'S KIND OF ALWAYS THE QUESTION ON INCENTIVES, WHETHER THAT WAS COSTCO ON OGDEN OR THIS INITIAL BUSINESS DISTRICT. SO I DON'T KNOW. IT SOUNDS LIKE YOU'RE NOT TOTALLY CERTAIN. SO I'M KIND OF TRYING TO WEIGH THAT. IF YOU HAVE ANY OTHER THOUGHTS, I'M OPEN TO IT. BUT THAT'S THE KEY QUESTION THAT I'M CONSIDERING RIGHT NOW.

Well, like I said, at this point, I don't have approval to move forward on it. So are there ways to try to salvage it? I don't know. But what I don't want to do is say, there's absolutely no way it's going to happen. And then we get turned down here, and then we figure out a way to make it happen. I don't want to do that because I You know we have a great relationship with the city and I wouldn't want to give you an absolute and then You know something happens. We're able to figure something out I'm concerned that without the additional funding not only will it not It doesn't pencil currently so it doesn't financially work We're gonna have to cut out a lot of the design aspects of it that would make it more appealing. So then, ultimately, what winds up happening when you really start to strip the budget is you strip out the bells and whistles. And you wind up with something very bland and very simple. And we're trying to do something really special adjacent to Block 59. So we consider this part of that project. So I'd hate to cut the budget so thin that we're not happy with the result.

Let me ask about the inverse. If this were to be approved, is the lease ready to be signed? In other words, do you have an agreement and it's contingent upon this happening?

Yes, we are very close to getting the lease signed. And we're waiting for this result. And the intention is to sign the lease at the end of June, and then the tenant plans to make an announcement shortly thereafter. I apologize we haven't been able to disclose who that is, but they have asked us not to do that.

and maybe one last follow-up for city attorney, if this were to be approved tonight and that lease does not come to fruition, would this not take effect? In other words, is the approval of this contingent on this particular lease being signed?

Mr. DeSanto. No.

THAT'S AN INTERESTING QUESTION. SO IN 2023 THE COUNCIL ESTABLISHED THIS BUSINESS DISTRICT WHICH APPLIES A 1% TAX FOR 23 YEARS IN ORDER FOR THE DEVELOPER TO RECOUP $13.4 MILLION IN COSTS. THE PROPOSAL TODAY IS TO AMEND THAT BUDGET TO ADD AN ADDITIONAL 1.85 IN THOSE RECOVERABLE COSTS, BUT IT IS CONTINGENT UPON THIS BUILDOUT BEING COMPLETED AND THE TENANT TAKING SPACE THERE AND BEGINNING TO GENERATE BUSINESS DISTRICT TAXES. THOSE ARE THE PRECONDITIONS IN ORDER FOR THE ISSUANCE OF A SECOND PROMISORY NOTE TO RECOVER THE ADDITIONAL $1.85 MILLION IN COSTS WHICH ARE BEING REQUESTED AS PART OF THIS BUSINESS DISTRICT. I THINK IT'S IMPORTANT THAT COUNCIL REALIZE THAT THIS IS NOT EXTENDING THE TIME OF THE BUSINESS DISTRICT THAT'S IN PLACE, NOR IS IT INCREASING THE TAX THAT'S ALREADY IN PLACE. IT'S ONLY INCREASING THE AMOUNT OF RECOVERABLE COSTS FOR THE DEVELOPER DURING THE 23 YEARS. IF FOR SOME REASON IT DOESN'T PRODUCE THE TAX GENERATION NECESSARY TO REPAY EITHER THE ORIGINAL NOTE OR POTENTIALLY THE SECONDARY NOTE, THERE'S NO COST TO THE CITY. THEY JUST WOULD NOT RECOVER THAT. IT DEPENDS ON WHAT THEY RECOVER WITHIN THE 23 YEARS. SO THERE'S NOT A SPECIFIC CONDITION SAYING IT HAS TO BE A PARTICULAR TENANT, BUT IT DOES SPECIFY THE PROPOSAL THAT MR. DIPPOLITO HAS DETAILED AND INDICATES THAT IT'S A PRECONDITION FOR THE ISSUANCE OF THAT SECOND NOTE THAT THAT TENANT TAKE PLACE IN THAT SPACE. SO I WOULD SAY THAT DOES HAVE SOME SECURITY THERE THAT THAT'S GOING TO GO FORWARD BEFORE THE ISSUANCE OF THE SECOND NOTE.

ALL RIGHT. THANK YOU. If I may, we'd be comfortable with tying it to this specific tenant. And that's the intention of this, is just to get this one particular tenant in place. So if that didn't move forward, which I'd be shocked if it didn't at this point, provided we get the funding. But we'd be happy to tie it to that if that was critical. One other thing I did want to add is that time is of the essence on this. So there is the risk, too, that if we don't get the additional funding that we're going to have to go back. It delays the tenant. The tenant is very sensitive to timing on it. That could cause the whole thing to unravel as well.

Mr. DiPolito, I understand we can't reveal the tenant information due to your agreements there, but can you identify the sector that the tenant is in?

Yeah, it is a home goods and furniture type use.

Okay, so Naperville's retail sales tax revenues are leading in a lot of different areas, but we are lagging in THAT PARTICULAR SECTOR. AND IT'S NOT BECAUSE WE DON'T HAVE CUSTOMERS IN OUR TOWN. I THINK IT'S CLEARLY BECAUSE OUR CUSTOMERS ARE SHOPPING IN OTHER CITIES THAT HAVE THESE TYPES OF STORES. SO AFTER WE'VE RECEIVED COMMUNICATION FROM SUPERINTENDENT TALLEY FROM DISTRICT 204, WHO'S VERY EXCITED ABOUT THE PROSPECTS OF HAVING MORE REVENUE BE DRIVEN ALMOST IMMEDIATELY FROM THE OPENING OF THIS STORE, I THINK IT'S A VERY COMPLEMENTARY RETAILER TO AN AREA THAT'S PREDOMINANTLY RESTAURANTS RIGHT NOW. AND I THINK THAT RETAIL FOOT TRAFFIC IS KIND OF THE MAGIC COMBINATION THAT YOU WERE ALWAYS ANTICIPATING. MAYBE YOU DIDN'T ANTICIPATE THAT YOU WERE GOING TO HAVE TO KNOCK DOWN A BUILDING FOR A RETAILER, AND I THINK THAT'S WHERE YOU'RE AT TONIGHT. IS THAT CORRECT?

That's correct. Yeah, we think this retailer is a great merchandising opportunity for us, for the shopping center. So it goes really well with the other retailers that we have there. I think it will also go well with Block 59 and what we have going on there, to your point. We have a lot of restaurants there. So to have some more retail activity immediately adjacent to will be really good for the overall shopping center.

And if it doesn't happen here, would they go across the street?

Yeah, that's a risk. And that's why we're trying to move quickly and get this resolved. There's an opportunity. There are other places within the market that they could potentially go. So they might go over to Aurora. I DON'T HAVE A LIST SPECIFICALLY, BUT, YEAH, THIS IS ONE OF SEVERAL LOCATIONS.

INTO POTENTIAL AREAS THAT ALREADY HAVE TIFS IN PLACE?

I DON'T KNOW THE ANSWER TO THAT, BUT POTENTIALLY, YES.

OKAY. ANY OTHER QUESTIONS ON I-27? SEEING NONE, MAY HAVE A MOTION COUNCILMAN WHITE ON I-27.

I move to pass the ordinance approving the first amendment to block 59 business district plan.

Councilman Kelly.

I WILL SECOND THE MOTION, BUT I DO HAVE A PROPOSED AMENDMENT IF COUNCILMAN WHITE WOULD ENTERTAIN IT. IF OUR CITY ATTORNEY COULD POTENTIALLY OFFER SOME GUIDANCE, I WOULD PREFER TO HAVE SOME CONTINGENCY LANGUAGE. IT SOUNDS LIKE WE CAN SAFELY ASSUME THAT THIS PROPOSED LEASE WILL COME TOGETHER IF THIS IS APPROVED, BUT I HATE TO ASSUME ANYTHING WHEN WE'RE TALKING ABOUT $2 MILLION. CAN WE EXPLICITLY MAKE the approval of the First Amendment to the Black 59 Business District Plan contingent on the execution of the lease that has been proposed by the developer and reviewed by city staff.

Mr. DeSanto?

Yes, I think that you can do that. And if that were the case, we would reserve the city's signature on the documents, the executing documents, until we see proof of the lease having been signed. Does that satisfy council?

That would satisfy me. Is that acceptable to the developer? Yes, it is.

So I think at that point it would be a motion in substitution if you wanted to add that. Or Councilman White could amend his motion. I can amend the motion.

Yeah, because you didn't second it yet. I thought you did. Did you second? I did initially, but requested an amendment from his motion. Technically, then, if you seconded it, then you should do a motion of substitution. Either way is okay with me.

Either way is okay with me, too. Okay. I can make a motion of substitution. That's fine. All right.

I WILL MOVE IN SUBSTITUTION TO PASS THE ORDINANCE APPROVING THE FIRST AMENDMENT TO THE BLOCK 59 BUSINESS DISTRICT PLAN CONTINGENT UPON THE EXECUTION OF THE LEASE BEING PROPOSED BY THE PETITIONER AND REVIEWED BY CITY STAFF.

COUNCILMAN WHITE, IS THERE A SECOND?

SECOND, WHITE.

WE HAVE A MOTION AND A SECOND ON THE AMENDED MOTION. I'M SORRY, ON THE MOTION OF SUBSTITUTION. ANY DISCUSSION? COUNCILMAN HOLZAR.

THANK YOU, MAYOR. I DON'T WANT TO BE A LABOR OF THE POINT, BUT I WAS ACTUALLY LITERALLY JUST HAVING A CONVERSATION WITH A LOCAL RESTAURANT OWNER ABOUT A MONTH AGO ABOUT HOW HARD IT IS GOING TO BE FOR HIM TO PAY FOR THE ROOF REPAIR ON HIS RESTAURANT, AND I BET HE WISHES HE COULD COME TO THE CITY COUNCIL AND ASK FOR US TO DO THAT PROJECT. HE NEEDS TO KEEP HIS BUSINESS IN BUSINESS. YOU KNOW, THIS IS SOMETHING WE'RE TALKING ABOUT AS BELLS AND WHISTLES, AS THE PETITIONER'S WORDS, USING $2 MILLION OF TAXPAYER DOLLARS. I JUST THINK WE HAVE HIGHER PRIORITIES RIGHT NOW.

THANK YOU, MAYOR.

WE HAVE A MOTION AND A SECOND.

ROLL CALL. Aye. Sayed? Aye. White?

Aye.

Wilson?

Aye.

Worley?

Yes.

Gibson? No. Holzhauer? No. Jane? Aye.

Motion passes 6-2.

Item I-28 is recommendation to pass the ordinance approving the First Amendment to the Block 59 Business District Redevelopment Agreement.

Okay. Councilor, I'm gonna recognize you first.

By virtue of council's approval of the first action, which was contingent on the execution of a lease, I would recommend that this item also be contingent. They're really hand in glove and it's important that they both have that same contingency.

Councilman White, can you put forward that motion with that caveat?

I MOVE TO PASS THE ORDINANCE APPROVING THE AMENDMENT TO THE BLOCK 59 BUSINESS DISTRICT REDEVELOPMENT AGREEMENT CONTINGENT ON THE LEASE AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE DEVELOPER AND PROPOSED TENANT FOR THAT PARTICULAR AREA.

SECOND, KELLY. SECOND, KELLY. WE HAVE A MOTION AND SECOND ON I-28 AS READ.

DISCUSSION? Roll call. Sayed. Aye. White. Aye. Wilson. Aye. Worley. Yes. Gibson. No. Holzhauer. No. Jane. Aye. Kelly.

Aye. Motion passes 6-2. J1.

Item J1 is recommendation to concur with the petitioner and open the public hearing for the Bower Road duplexes and continue the case to the July 21st, 2026 City Council meeting.

Public hearing for the Bower Road duplexes is now open. Anyone who wishes to speak may come forward. GOING THE OTHER WAY. SEEING NO ONE, THIS CASE WILL BE CONTINUED TO THE JULY 21, 26, CITY COUNCIL MEETING. M-1, COUNCILMAN WHITE.

I MOVE TO APPROVE THE AWARD OF BID 26-110, ENERGIZED TREE TRIMMING, TREE REMOVAL AND DISPOSAL OF DEBRIS TO Ash Plum Tree Experts LLC for an amount not to exceed $1,518,172.40 and for a three-year term. Councilman Kelly. Second, Kelly.

We have a motion and a second on M1. Any discussion? Seeing none, roll call. White.

Aye.

Wilson.

Aye.

Worley. Yes. Gibson. Aye. Holzhauer.

Aye.

Jane. Aye. Kelly.

Aye.

Sayed.

Aye. Motion passes 8-0-1.

ITEM 01 IS RECOMMENDATION TO RECEIVE THE ELECTRIC UTILITY PRESENTATION REGARDING MARKET PARTICIPATION WITH ASSET OWNERSHIP. WE HAVE EIGHT SPEAKERS SIGNED UP TO SPEAK, AND THEN THAT WILL BE FOLLOWED BY A PRESENTATION BY CITY MANAGER KRIGER. THE FIRST SPEAKER IS JOHN DOYLE, FOLLOWED BY JOE HUSS AND WILLIAM OSASKI.

JOHN DOYLE, NIPPERVILLE RESIDENT. THANK YOU. THIS WILL BE THE LAST TIME, I PROMISE, TONIGHT. So last time we had one of these presentations, I expressed my disappointment with the lack of public meetings and opportunities for open engagement on this topic. Since then, we have had not one, but two such meetings to discuss the kinds of trees to plant downtown, but still no meetings about the electricity plants. If any of you have any thoughts on that, I would really love to hear them. Thank you.

The next speaker is Joe Huss.

Thank you, Linda.

I am Joe Huss, and I have three concerns with today's presentation. First, I'm concerned the council and public aren't getting a complete picture. The state's major climate law, CEJA, isn't mentioned in this presentation, and I marked four options constrained by CEJA. These assets would likely be retired well before their end of life. Additionally, three of these options aren't likely viable as they generate well under 1% of the U.S.'s electricity. That information is critical context for the council and for the public. The second concern is with the rubric, which appears to be inconsistent with real world data. We continue to ask the city to share the sources of the data for these presentations. For example, small modular nuclear reactors are listed as low risk and high performing, but there's not a single SMR operating in the United States today. That's not mentioned. how a technology that has never been commercially deployed is low risk. Meanwhile, wind and solar are listed as high risk, poor performance, despite being the most popular new electricity generated sources. We have real solar projects nearby that could power our city. Why is that listed as high risk? My last concern is the timeline. On page 31, it says we need to, quote, immediately act for this option. That contradicts the timeline the city presented just two months ago and is inconsistent with available public information. On the left side of the slide is federal data on deployment timelines for various technologies. You can see that the most popular sources of capacity can be deployed in under three years. In the top right is a link to the solar farm I mentioned earlier, which took three years from initial permitting to become operational. In the lower right is another article about a field that begins construction this month and will come online next year. Beyond that, and probably most importantly, if we want to sign a PPA or development stage assets, we're usually talking about resources that are already well underway or in service. so we don't need nine years to arrange one. In fact, looking for assets this far in advance limits our options and increases our risk. Hastily moving forward on a purchase of this size isn't necessary or wise. In closing, NEST looks forward to the Electricity Strategy Workshop so Council can align on requirements for the next energy contract. Once we have the requirements, we can evaluate the alternatives using a consistent framework, which will allow us to create those timelines. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker.

The next three speakers are William Osowski, followed by Tim Ferrido and Rich Sternell.

Good evening. My name is William Osowski, 1255 Brookline Court, Naperville. My company name is Kick Bass Company. I'm a resident for over 33 years. I absolutely love this town, and I love the people, and I consider this my chance to contribute to the community. Recently, I've designed a solution that could satisfy the Naperville electrical needs. The system is called a 24-7 solar skin water battery network, patent pending. It's a 100% closed loop energy system running at 75% energy efficiency. It uses solar power exclusively as the primary source to charge water batteries. It uses secondary and tertiary systems to generate and store energy. It pulls known working technology from three separate disciplines, the turbine, the solar, and the concentrated solar systems. It has a seven-day backup built into the system. So if there's no sun for seven days, it still continues to work. Daily excess energy can be sold or used to melt up to seven miles of sidewalks and roads. The footprint is comprised of 24 buildings each with these specifications. The height is 140 feet. The basement's 20 feet deep. The base is 90 feet around, similar to a water tower. The moat wall is 10 feet. There's a moat that goes around it. It's 10 feet tall. It has a beveled inner core to direct blasts upwards. Each building is made of prefabricated concrete. 680 steel pressure tubes. Approximately one acre of solar panels is installed around the external surface of the walls, taking up no extra room. Two million gallons of water are stored in each building. What it does, it generates 160 megawatts daily base load. It generates 320 megawatts max engine capacity. It can handle over max peak demand of 343 megawatts. From my understanding, that's the peak. It's able to handle that with built-in processes. The backup is built seven-day continuous power reserve backup. There are wildlife considerations. Birds and insects will be considered in the external wall design. Each building would contain at least one peregrine falcon roost at about 100 feet. Certain coatings can help prevent bird strikes. The aesthetics, the glare protection applied.

Thank you, sir. Your time is up.

OK.

Next speaker. The next speaker is Tim Frito, followed by Rich Sternell and Laura Hoy.

Tim Frito. I want to talk to you about install capacity versus actual capacity versus accredited capacity. Install capacity means very little. It's really about actual capacity, especially when it comes to renewables. Install capacity or nameplate capacity is a capacity at ideal conditions. And typically, that doesn't happen very often for solar and wind. To get the actual capacity, you have to look at the capacity factor. So what I have listed here on the table is In generation type, I have nuclear, coal power based on Prairie State, nat gas combined cycle, wind, and solar. In the first column, I have the installed capacity. I chose 600 megawatts because that is new for the Will County solar project. That is the nameplate capacity that they're using. The capacity factors are applied. And what you can see is a resulting actual capacity. Nuclear is on top, as expected. At the bottom, you have solar. And for this, it's solar tracking. And I use numbers from, for the capacity factor, I use numbers from Lazard. At the right side of the column is accredited capacity. That's accredited capacity is what's needed for peak capacity requirements. So your obligated capacity that entity has, they have to acquire enough accredited capacity. If they don't have it, they have to go to the wholesale marketplace, which is very expensive. To put this in graphical form so you can clearly see it, the first set of bars are installed capacity. Second set, or the middle set, is actual. And the last one is accredited. You can see a big drop off for solar and wind between installed capacity and actual capacity, and accredited capacity as well. This reflects that they're low density, intermittent resources. And that's why their credit capacity is so low, because it's intermittent. So I wanted to run a scenario here. I wanted to see how big of a solar farm would be needed to replace Prairie State Power Plant. If you do the numbers, and using Will County Solar Project as a proxy, which has a nameplate capacity of 600 megawatts and is taking up 6,100 gross acres, If you apply that, you have to replace the Prairie State coal power plant. You would need an installed capacity of a solar farm of 7,500 megawatts. This would take up a gross area of 119 square miles. 119 square miles. That's huge. Now, that won't be all panels. The panels will be around 89 square miles. But that's infeasible. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker.

The next speaker is Rich Journal, followed by Laura Hoy and Larry Kolosh.

Good evening. My name is Rich Sernal, and I've been a Naperville resident for 25 years. The state has told us that we have to have zero carbon for electrical power generation by 2050. And that means no natural gas and no coal. Next vision then would be that we would have just nuclear probably and solar slash wind, unless I'm missing something. This is a view of the prairie we have out here that we so much enjoy. In order for a solar station to power Naperville, it would take approximately 5,000 acres, or about eight square miles. Naperville's city is 40 square miles. So 20% of Naperville would have to be used for solar if you're going to have it based close to Naperville. So here's a picture. In red is the Springbrook Prairie, and yellow is an approximate outline of what a solar farm would take up in that area. So instead of having that nice view, you would have solar panels throughout the whole park. and hopefully the trails will be open. I don't think there will be any foliage underneath the solar panels, though. Also, I want to remind you about what happens when a tornado goes through a solar panel farm. I don't know what's happened to this farm. It's one that was out in northern Indiana, and I don't know if it's back online or not, but I know that they've had quite a bit of activity trying to get it back online is what I heard. So let's talk about practicality. It all sounds nice to be able to cut out all the CO2, which we found out now that the UN is no longer recognizing CO2 or the studies they had were too extreme by a previous speaker. Land requirements are pretty high. Transmission infrastructure, from what I understand, is not even in place for a lot of these areas. That would have to be considered to the cost. So affordability, which is becoming an overused word, I think, but definitely a factor here. Reliability. Well, with all the AI coming online, dependency Artificial intelligence is going to be more important to have reliable power source. And then electric grid stability is another factor. And this is the breakdown of what we have now in Illinois.

The speaker's time is up.

Thank you, sir.

The next speaker. The next speaker is Laura Hoy, followed by Larry Kowalsch and Katherine Clarkin.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. My name is Laura Hoyce. I am a Naperville Central graduate, a Downers Grove resident, and a candidate for State Representative District 81, which includes Southeast Naperville. I'm working with the Affordable Naperville Group. And I'm speaking on behalf of Naperville rate payers tonight who, for the past 15 years, have enjoyed lower electric rates. This council has voted not to extend IMEA to 2055. We're past the deadline. Other municipalities have secured the 20-year extension that I believe Naperville needed. I offer two compelling reasons to reopen discussions with IMEA. First, affordable, reliable nonprofit provider. And second, compliance with the Illinois statute that's applicable and the Illinois Constitution protecting equal rights under the law. Item number one, affordability. IMEA member costs are shared equally among customers. IMEA has consistently and reliably delivered proven results at lower costs. ComEd is 20% to 30% higher, and there's another 12% increase coming. IMEA promises to comply with CEJA, but energy transitions will take time. They have pledged to meet the requirements by 2050, and I believe IMEA is the best case scenario for Naperville based upon what we've heard tonight. This is the slide from the IMEA presentation on sustainability principles that it's promised to adhere to. NEST, on the other hand, is a volunteer organization that pushes towards clean energy no matter what the cost and prioritizes political gains, perhaps, over reliability. To keep everyone's electric costs at 3% of income, John Doyle has suggested on April 11 that Naperville should pass an ordinance to mandate higher income residents pay for lower income neighbors' electricity costs. Forcing some customers to pay for others' electricity costs is a tax. It's not a choice. Imagine your neighbor running an extension cord from your house to theirs, knowing that you'll pay the bill. I don't think customers will be happy about that. Socialized costs may seem equitable, but they're not fair. Residents will be unhappy if that should happen. They deserve to be treated equally. Not only do they deserve to be treated equally, the law allows them and requires them to be treated equally.

The speaker's time is up.

Thank you. Next speaker.

The next speaker is Larry Kolosh, followed by Katherine Clarkin.

Hi, my name's Larry Kolesh. I'm a Naperville and Will County resident of 30 years. I live in that part of Naperville. It's a third of Naperville that extends into Will County. I'm also a NEST volunteer. So Will County had to decide something earlier this quarter. How are they going to address their shortfall? They've just retired two coal power plants. And one of the decisions they had to make was on two projects that were presented to them. And one is called the Plum Valley project. It's 250 megawatts. The other one is Pride of the Prairie, 600 megawatts. So I think this is relevant for this case, the issue at hand, because we're considering options for providing our own power supply. And one of the things I've noticed in option two that's conspicuously missing is the solar PPA. I'm not sure why it was left out, but if you consider that solar PPAs are possibly the most widely used today, most growing, expansive capability that is available. It took them, they project, Earthrise projects, it's not going to take seven years or ten years to install. They're going to complete this project in 18 to 24 months. And that's sufficient amount of power to drive our city. Why don't we consider that? So how is that decision made by the board of Will County? They considered a variety of things, and they decided, based on the Illinois state law, HB 4412, which mandated that they could not apply any local regulations beyond the state regulations, and also the time limit for the decision was constrained. They decided because for affordability. They see data centers coming online and the events around the world that are driving costs and the price of fossil fuels rising as a commodity. They also respect farmers' property rights. They want to lease their land to harvest solar energy, which is an order of magnitude or more powerful than generating a corn ethanol per acre. So at the end of the day, they decided for solar. And I think we should too, because as sure as the sun comes up tomorrow, it'll be raining pennies. Thank you.

Next speaker.

Thank you. The final speaker who signed up is Catherine Clarkin.

Good evening. I'm Cathy Clarkin, a 17-year resident of Naperville and a strong supporter of taking action on climate change. After reviewing the slides for the upcoming presentation on market participation with asset ownership, I noticed an important gap behind the meter opportunities, which have the advantage of avoiding transmission and capacity costs. These fall into three main categories. One, utility ownership of assets such as solar panels, batteries, and heat pumps installed in homes and businesses. Virtual power plants, where the utility can ramp up and down electric appliances or draw electricity from home batteries and car batteries as needed. And three, policies that incentivize peak reduction, such as time of use charges and demand response. Of these, only demand response is discussed. If you live in Vermont and have Green Mountain Power as your electric utility, you can lease a home battery for $55 a month. less for low-income households, rather than paying over $5,000 upfront. Through software management, those batteries can be charged with electricity when it is cheap, the time of use rates being the signal for when to charge and discharge back to the grid or to the home with a net metering benefit. when peak use is high and electricity is more expensive. The customer wins because they save money. Taxpayers win because they are not subsidizing the construction of a new power plant. And the climate system wins because lowering peak energy usage lowers greenhouse gas emissions. Another example is Ann Arbor, Michigan, where residents voted to start a city-owned sustainable electric utility. From a Fast Company article published on April 30th of this year, quote, a new city program is starting to install city-owned solar panels and batteries at homes, a move that could save residents hundreds a year. The city realized it could quickly create a distributed network of rooftop solar batteries and geothermal power throughout neighborhoods. And by buying equipment in bulk, it can negotiate lower prices. Sounds much faster, more affordable, and more realistic to me than a small modular nuclear reactor. These types of innovative solutions are homegrown, creating local jobs and keeping money in our community. In a city that values local control, these are the types of solutions to put on the table. Thank you.

Thank you. Any more speakers?

That was the final speaker.

Okay. Council's going to take a six-minute break. We will be back at 8.41. Mr. Krieger's presentation, if everybody could return to their seats. So to recap, we are on 01, and we are now at the point of the city's presentation. City Manager Krieger will be presenting tonight on behalf of the Electric Department. Mr. Krieger.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and good evening. In April, we began a series of presentations to review our options for procuring energy in the future. We provided an overview of where we are in the process, key terminology, some of the important considerations associated with energy, and the key dates coming up that impact our decision-making. In May, we reviewed option one, joint action agency participation. Tonight, we'll be focusing on option two, market participation with asset ownership. And as we did last month, we'll summarize with our approved components of evaluation. This graphic should look familiar. It shows all the points we are going to cover. Before we dive into this option, let's first define the various types of generation available. Historically, it's been largely fossil fuels like coal or gas and traditional nuclear plants. And in recent times, advanced nuclear such as small modular reactors or SMRs, renewables, and fuel cells are the emerging generation sources. The goals of energy generation are to provide safe, reliable, affordable, resilient electricity to meet society's energy needs. Of course, with each different generation type, there are important considerations. Depending on the choice, there is site selection as well as other regulatory requirements and the economics to consider. Also important to consider, how this generation type will fit within the grid and impacts other environmental factors as well as other operations and risks. Natural gas generation, starting out, it's an efficient fuel choice because it's reliable and abundant. Lead time ranges from 18 to 36 months, and cost is subject to fluctuation since it's significantly impacted by gas prices. There are constraints for natural gas generation, such as access and availability of the gas lines with sufficient capacity. And there are zoning regulations and noise mitigations to consider, as well as EPA regulations. And as Mr. Huss brought up before, CEJA will shut some of these down. I believe the limit is 25 megawatt. and above that's impacted by CJ, I believe below 25 megawatt is not impacted by CJ. And we weren't envisioning a very large one here. Next up, combined cycle gas turbine, one of the most efficient, widely used technologies for natural gas power generation. Combined cycle gas turbines, two-stage plant, combining gas turbine is stage one, and a steam turbine is the second stage. Such a plant is significant financial investment and primarily used for base load and intermediate generation, not just peaking plants like the previous. Turbines have similar constraints as regular natural gas reciprocating. Access to gas line and the turbines will require actually larger gas sources. And there are zoning regulations as well as noise mitigation that need to be considered as well as EPA and wastewater regs. Something else that needs to be considered for really for all the generation sources is really downtime for maintenance, operations, overhauls, and in some cases such as battery actual replacements, also a critical factor there. Next up, wind generation. We have very little open land for utility-scale wind farm here in Naperville. However, as an alternative, we could buy the energy output via long-term contracts from a commercial wind farm. These contracts typically run from 15 to 25 years. And next, solar generation. We currently host a one megawatt solar plant at Springbrook water reclamation site. We have very limited open land for additional utility scale solar installation. I would agree that a purchase power agreement for an offsite solar farm or field would be an option for us. From the graph, you can see that residential solar installations keep growing at a very steady pace and are currently producing about 16,000 megawatt hours annually. All right, traditional nuclear and small modular reactors. Leave time for traditional nuclear, 20 years. They built Vogtel in Georgia, $34 billion. That's not something we're going to be doing. Small modular reactors, also very new. DOE did throw $400 million at the Tennessee Valley Authority to build one, and they also, well, I guess they didn't throw it, but they granted it. They also granted $400 million to Covert Michigan for a small modular reactor as well. For North America, the The furthest along we have, and right now there are no commercially producing, is with Ontario Power. And I think they're still about six years away. SMR is going to be a great technology. It's upcoming, but still very early stages. Next, natural gas fuel cells. It's an emerging technology that we're researching. It does not make a lot of noise. Everybody likes that. However, they do have very specific constraints related to siting. They will require feed gas that would typically be pipelined in, most common really being natural gas in a case like this. And finally, battery storage. Now, this is not technically an energy source, but an energy storage technology that stores electricity for later use and helps balance supply and demand on the grid. We're exploring options on what's the best way to utilize battery storage within Naperville's grid. Earlier this month, we submitted an application to IMEA to consider Naperville as one of two sites for an up to five megawatt energy storage system. We're planning to issue an RFP to have a consulting company evaluate other opportunities for battery storage within the city properties. Battery is probably the one that over the last couple of years has changed the most significantly from a cost-benefit standpoint. Benefit has stayed relatively steady. However, the cost and availability Well, the costs certainly have plummeted. And as new manufacturers come in, there is availability out there as well. Next, kind of for the behind the meter options, demand response. Software deployment, six to nine months. This also is not a true generation asset. It's administered through specialized software that could be standalone or connected with our existing SCADA. We currently have a demand response program through IMEA. And we're planning to have a demand response module in our new SCADA software. The implementation phases for that are SCADA in 2027, Outreach Management System in 2028, and then the Demand Response Program in 2029. So what's key for demand response? Customer outreach and participation are the most critical to make for a meaningful grid demand reduction. Each type of generation asset supports different goals. Some assets best support our goals of cost reduction, while others are better suited for carbon emissions reduction. So let's look at these goals. When considering the assets for cost reduction, we consider demand response, which supports energy demand reduction during daily peaks. We also need to consider generation. This is the production sold on the market and the revenue used to offset energy purchases. Battery storage, also another tool used to reduce energy bills if implemented during peak shaving or if you use it for frequency response. Assets for carbon emission reduction. Demand response, also great to reduce demand on the grid during peak generation times. renewable assets like solar installations, decrease the amount of electricity that has to be purchased, and environmental emission arbitrage or buying and selling RECs. That's another tool that can be utilized to reduce carbon emissions. And also on the arbitrage front with batteries, charging them up during low cost, low emission times, and then discharging them during high cost, high emission times. Next up, resiliency. Obviously, any local generation or battery storage makes us better prepared for a total or partial grid blackout or brownout. We estimate that Naperville has about 80 megawatts of critical load across the city. Having local assets independent of the grid and located in diverse locations around the city improves local resiliency in cases of grid failure or some local equipment failures. SO WHAT ARE CRITICAL LOADS? EXAMPLES WOULD BE EDWARD HOSPITAL, SENIOR LIVING FACILITIES, OR EVEN GROCERY STORES. I WAS NOT INVOLVED IN THE SELECTION OF THE CRITICAL LOADS, OTHERWISE BENNY'S WOULD HAVE BEEN ON THE LIST ALSO. BEFORE WE MOVE ON, ARE THERE ANY QUESTIONS?

ANY QUESTIONS FROM THE COUNCIL? COUNCILMAN WHITE.

I LIKE YOUR SELECTION THERE, CITY MANAGER. I WAS THERE AT LUNCHTIME. OKAY, VERY NICE. I NOTICE WHEN YOU'RE LOOKING AT THE, YOU'RE DISCUSSING SOME OF THE SOLAR OR WIND, AND WE'RE LOOKING AT ASSETS THAT WOULD BE PLACED IN THE CITY, BUT DID WE CONSIDER ANYTHING THAT, FOR EXAMPLE, IF WE WANTED TO DO SOLAR, COULD WE DO OUR OWN SOMEWHERE DOWN STATE? IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE IN NAPERVILLE OR WIND OR SOMETHING ALONG THOSE LINES.

YOU ARE CORRECT, IT WOULD NOT BE. WE'RE NOT REALLY WELL SUITED FOR THAT, BUT FOR BOTH WIND OR SOLAR, OR ACTUALLY ANY OF THE GENERATION TYPES, WE COULD LOOK AT WHAT WOULD BE PURCHASED a PPA in which we're basically contracting ownership. Some of the challenges with that, obviously, the closer you can get, the cheaper you're going to have from line losses and lower transmission costs. However, if we were to decide to go with wind, wind is not going to be commercially feasible WITHIN NAPERVILLE, BUT YOU TRY TO GET IT AS CLOSE AS POSSIBLE TO KEEP THOSE TRANSMISSION CHARGES AS SMALL AS POSSIBLE AS WELL. BUT THAT IS ABSOLUTELY AN OPTION.

THANK YOU.

COUNCILMAN WILSON. THANK YOU, MAYOR. I GUESS THIS MIGHT BE MORE FOR LIKE A FOLLOW-UP, BUT WOULD IT BE POSSIBLE, BECAUSE I KNOW SOME OF THE COSTS HAVE BEEN OUTLINED HERE. possible to have some sort of a follow-up as far as how many megawatts we would need in conjunction with like a market participation and what those scenarios might look like and as well as try to get like a total cost of that. I mean I say this and Like in the back of my mind, through an email exchange I was having with Mr. Huss previously, just from looking at like Lazard's presentation he had cited before, based on theirs, it was like 74 megawatts, for example, or per megawatt. for solar, and then combining that with battery, it was to get peak capacity equivalent to what we have with IMEA. It was like 142 megawatts. Or sorry, 142 per megawatt. So just trying to look at getting actual numbers with total cost at peak capacity. and what that would look like with some sort of market participation. Does that kind of make sense?

It does, and that's something that we can do. Because the electric market is so volatile, people really won't hold prices. We do have some indicative pricing from the RFP we issued last year. But kind of the nice thing about the generation is really you can kind of dial in how much you... would like to purchase. Obviously, if we can cover 100% of our generation, we are totally insulated from the market and are covered. If we cover 10%, basically you're hedging 10%, or if you try to get it up to like 50%, you could hedge up to 50%. IT'S KIND OF SIMILAR TO THE MDR DISCUSSION WHERE WE WERE TALKING ABOUT THE 10 AND 20 PERCENT AMOUNTS, BUT WE'LL BE ABLE TO WORK SOME COST INFORMATION IN THERE.

JUST AS A FOLLOW-UP WITH THAT, TOO, WITH REGARD TO SOLAR, I DID LOOK INTO THE CITY OR THE SOLAR PROJECT MR. HUSS MENTIONED WHERE IT TOOK LIKE A YEAR. THAT PARTICULAR PROJECT WAS LOCATED NEXT TO AN EXISTING SOLAR FARM, SO THAT WOULD CERTAINLY SEEM ADVANTAGEOUS, WHEREAS I DON'T BELIEVE WE ARE RIGHT NOW. ADDITIONALLY, MAYBE MR. MUNCH WOULD BE ABLE TO ANSWER THIS, BUT LAST TIME DIRECTOR GROTH HAD TALKED ABOUT THIS, OUR LEAD TIME FOR TRANSFORMERS WAS QUITE It was very difficult to get them.

Yes, about two years in some cases.

Yeah. So I guess kind of my point here is that we would need transformers to do our own solar generation. Would that be accurate?

It would, but that would actually be part of the solar field. The big question and kind of cost challenge is if there's adequate transmission nearby the solar field to get it distributed to the rest of our network. Sure, sure.

But I guess I'm also questioning how long it would actually take I guess part of that follow-up would be to see what the actual time it would take to get something like solar and the cost that it would go into that at peak capacity.

Yeah, and, you know, for kind of utility-scale solar, you usually want to get in early. Usually the companies doing them will seek investors before they even put a shovel in the ground, you know, and... OH, BOY, I THINK B-HOLLOW, WHICH IS PROBABLY THE MOST RECENT FOR IMEA, I WANT TO SAY IT WAS LIKE SIX OR SEVEN YEARS FROM THE INITIAL DISCUSSIONS TO, HEY, YOU KNOW WHAT, WE'RE ACTUALLY SENDING THE ELECTRONS.

SURE, SURE, BECAUSE YOU HAVE TO ACTUALLY GET PLAN LEASE AGREEMENTS AND THESE SORTS OF THINGS, TOO, ASIDE FROM JUST BUILDING. THANK YOU.

MR. KRIEGER, DO YOU HAVE AN IDEA OF WHAT PERCENTAGE OF OUR LOAD WOULD NEED TO BE handled through these generation assets if we went down this road and also were part of some sort of joint action agency to handle the other piece? I mean, are we talking about 200 megawatts of the load or what's your target?

You know, we're actually probably looking a little smaller than that. And this is actually asset ownership or market participation with asset ownership. And what that means is if we own zero assets, you are 100% exposed to the market. I don't think we would ever want to go above maybe like 150 megawatts. Because after that, during our off-peak hours, we would need to be selling back into the grid. And you don't get a great, I mean, the best deal you get is if you generate it and you use it. When you send it back to the grid, somebody else is going to have to mark it up with transmission charges. And it's usually a little bit less cost effective. And I apologize for kind of rambling on this. For some of these, they could, you know, it's not really kind of a one or the other. You could do several of them or kind of in the instance of batteries, you could say, you know, we're going to do a 10 megawatt at this substation. We're going to do a 10 megawatt at this substation. You know, hey, we can piece together a solar PPA. It's all really just kind of part of our portfolio. And for our electric demand that is not part of the portfolio, that's what we would consider to be the market participation piece in which we would typically be buying on the day ahead market.

So you're either participating in a joint action agency who would be handling the other purchasing for you for that product that you don't generate, or you'd be standing up your Naperville Energy office and staffing it and doing all those things that go along with it. Is that accurate?

That is accurate. With this market participation with asset ownership or market participation without asset ownership, which is going to be our topic for next month, we will need to have an energy management office basically that will provide all the scheduling and purchasing into the market, likely day ahead market, and taking care of all of those ancillary services that currently we have done by joint action agencies.

And your estimates on these different potential generation assets do not anticipate any of those costs for standing up an energy management office or the additional personnel for that? No, sir, the cost... Purely based on the equipment itself is what you're...

Yes, the equipment itself. It also does not include the operations staff and also the maintenance staff. They're not going to be the people in the trading room actually buying and selling energy. They're going to be the people out there maintaining the equipment and keeping it running.

And just lastly, when it comes to us going out and potentially purchasing the energy generation equipment, I mean, what's the right budget number for something like this? Is it hundreds of million dollars? Are we in the billion dollar category? What are you seeing here? There's a lot of different options, but I don't see any true calculation of those options at the end.

Yes. Well, for some you can dial in, kind of like batteries. And I think some of it you just kind of do by process of elimination. You know, the last nuclear plant, Vogtel, that opened, $34 billion. You know, we're not going to do that. There would be too much energy created. Small modular reactors, I don't think that's really feasible. I mean, they're super, super early, and they certainly wouldn't be, you know, stood up by 2035 following any timelines. I would say the gas turbine is also... NOT ALL THAT FEASIBLE EITHER, BECAUSE IT WOULD LIKELY REQUIRE SOME ADDITIONAL PIPELINE WORK FOR THAT. FROM A TRUE GENERATING ASSET, I THINK YOU'RE REALLY GOING TO BE LIMITED TO EITHER KIND OF LIKE THE WIND, THE SOLAR, OR THE RECIPROCATING GAS.

SEEING NO OTHER QUESTIONS, THANK YOU, MR. KRIEGER.

ALL RIGHT. WHAT SLIDE AM I ON? 19, all right. Look at option two, market participation with asset ownership. We're going to review all of the components, beginning with an overview and timeline. First, we need to identify which assets are feasible to procure and install, as we just kind of discussed. Next, we need to secure capital funding. If we are going to be sending energy back to the grid, an interconnection study will have to be initiated. Zoning and permitting exploration will be required, both local, state, as well as on the national level. Initiated review by the EPA. So, you know, depending on asset, we really kind of need to start or start to make these decisions now. Next, we'll look at key financial considerations and the level of autonomy we'd have in the power supply choices. The nice overall theme with asset ownership is if you own it, you control it, and you've got some pretty good autonomy. All right. In terms of financial considerations, we'd have to determine energy hedging, the extent of it, and the return on investment of assets that we're planning to acquire. Capital funding. We'll need capital funding. We'll need to identify funding to be able to increase city staff. I'll get into the energy management office in a little bit. And as I mentioned before, we'll have a high-level autonomy with these decisions. Next, we'll take a look at financial risk for this option. A lot of risks with the asset ownership. Risk of market exposure with insufficient hedging if the market turns against us. We may not achieve our predicted return on investment. Maintenance risks. We're subject to commodity pricing fluctuations. For generating assets, we're subject to planned as well as unplanned outages. With generation, we would typically offset it with capacity sales into PJM. If we cannot perform, there could be penalties associated with that. We would need to increase city staff for the energy trading work team. AND ALSO THERE'S RISK OF FREQUENT RATE FLUCTUATIONS WITH OUR CUSTOMERS AND RISK OF UTILITY BUDGET UNCERTAINTY WITH THE ENERGY COSTS. NEXT WE'LL LOOK AT THE EXAMPLE COMMUNITY AND FEASIBILITY FOR NAPERVILLE. TWO EXAMPLE COMMUNITIES THAT OPERATE WITH ASSET OWNERSHIP ARE DENTON, TEXAS AND PASADENA, Market participation requires the creation of a new section within the electric utility the energy management office The emo will have to conduct our energy trading Example for dent for Denton. They're similarly sized as we are They have the utility staffed with front office mid office and back office staff totaling 14 additional staff members All right, next we'll look at carbon-free resource availability and the cadence of decision-making for council. The amount of carbon-free resources will be determined during the assets feasibility study and or bidding process. This option requires frequent city council decisions on electric rates, going back to Denton, Texas as an example. They bring their changes to their electric rates to their city council every three months to adjust rates, just to assure the financial stability for their utility. And then finally, looking at kind of a summary for this option. So market participation with asset ownership requires immediate action to start evaluating with feasibility, cost, funding, return on investment, and market hedging level. Market participation requires creation of a new section within electric, the Energy Management Office. And this section is the one that would conduct and manage the energy trading. TO MOVE FORWARD WITH THIS OPTION, WE WOULD RECOMMEND CONDUCTING AN ENGINEERING STUDY OF BATTERY STORAGE TO DETERMINE RETURN ON INVESTMENT CITING SO WE COULD CREATE A FIVE-YEAR PLAN. AND WE ALSO NEED TO CONSIDER A FORMAL GENERATION STUDY TO DETERMINE NET COST TO THE RATE PAYERS, INCLUDING CAPACITY INCENTIVES AND PROCUREMENT OF FORWARD COST CURVES FOR RENEWABLE RESOURCES. All right, I'll address some clarification on this one that was brought up earlier. The high performance, low risk does not mean both of those. It means one or the other. In order to keep it not overly busy, we did not break those out. So like for amount of power, the traditional nuclear SMR and the natural gas turbine all got green because they could produce a lot of power A little bit less than that would be the natural gas reciprocating in turbine and fuel cell as well as battery. And then demand response would have the kind of smallest impact. So it's not both high performance and low risk. It is either high performance or low risk based on each of the individual categories. But what this chart does is it really kind of summarizes all of the different assets that we talked about here. Assuming these were Naperville located assets, The only reason I bring that up is when you look at wind and when you look at solar you'd say red Yeah, you know what if they're gonna be in Naperville. They're gonna be small. They're not gonna produce much However, if we did extend that through a PPA and purchase something off-site We could move those up to up to like a yellow All right Our option for next month is market participation without asset ownership. This is the Energy Management Office, and it's basically the same thing as we have presented tonight with zero hedging and being entirely exposed to the market. We'll talk a little bit about what that would look like and what we would need to change internally. WITH THAT, REALLY JUST WANT TO THANK EVERYBODY FOR THEIR TIME TONIGHT, AND I'D BE HAPPY TO ANSWER ANY REMAINING QUESTIONS.

THANK YOU, MAYOR. FIRST OF ALL, EXCELLENT PRESENTATION, MR. KREGER. ALSO WANTED TO THANK DIRECTOR GROTH. WE'RE ALL THINKING ABOUT HIM, PRAYING FOR HIM. I KNOW HOW MUCH WORK HE'S PUT IN OVER THE YEARS TO GET US TO THE POINT AND GET YOU TO THE POINT WHERE WE ARE TONIGHT. ACTUALLY, THIS IS PERFECT THAT THIS IS THE SLIDE THAT'S UP. MAYBE YOU ANTICIPATED MY QUESTION.

Well, this is my favorite slide. It's the only one that I did, so that's why.

So one of the things that I really caught my interest in, actually the last conversation I had with Mr. Groth and with you, was our discussion around batteries. Would you mind sharing kind of some of the changes that happened over the last few years with battery and where you and Mr. Groth's thinking was on those?

Yes, absolutely. You know, to recap, two, three years ago, we were meeting with battery vendors and showing kind of like 15 to 17 year payback periods. All the capital would need to be fronted. Right now, that industry has evolved tremendously, and costs have really plummeted, where we've got like two, three-year paybacks, but basically an immediate return on investment. Once you can light it up with some of the companies who will finance them, our early analysis shows that we can actually receive more in capacity credits and market credits from peak shaving and frequency regulation than the actual cost. So it would actually be, it would actually lower costs day one it goes online.

Mayor, may I ask a couple follow-up questions to that? Go ahead. So that's really exciting news to hear. Just to be clear, we would have to work with IMEA to get them to allow us to put our battery storage online.

Is that correct? We would. And, you know, if my guess is, I actually think that... Where we would save the most money would be to have them involved in the control as well as ourselves. If we just controlled it ourselves and tried to time our peaks for discharging the batteries, that's going to be helpful because they have a broader scale and many more users. It's going to be of a greater benefit to them system-wide to say, hey, you know what, Naperville, we're going to discharge your batteries for the next four hours. That's going to save $500,000. It's your battery. You get the $500,000.

Sure. And to be clear on that, potentially we could build batteries. Potentially this could be negotiated with AMIA that we were to build batteries. You know, the 2035 question may not be resolved yet, but those batteries would still be our asset either way.

You know what? If we decide, if council decides to go the course of batteries, I would recommend starting immediately. If we're getting an immediate payback, it does a couple of things. One, it improves your financial position, will help you lower rates. Now, we're going to need to kind of pressure test some of their numbers and obviously work with IMEA. But two, it also positions us very well for the future, really depending on where we go. You know, if we decide to join a different joint action agency, we are going to be much more attractive if we've got a fleet of batteries to bring to the table than if we're just, you know, just, hey, you know what, we're 350 megawatt load and we don't have a very good load factor.

Yeah, and just to kind of put some of my thoughts on this, I think this is actually a great opportunity to bring value to really all the stakeholders that have come forward, right? So Affordable Neighborhood, many times it brought up the cost certainty that is potentially available with coal. this is an immediate return on investment, provides peak shaving, does a lot of things that really stabilize rates. From the other side of the debate, there's a concern about carbon, but also if you're able to capture energy at better times of the day, that can lower our carbon footprint. With the dramatic reduction in the amount of time it takes to recover your investment, actually to the point where you're sort of profiting off of it on day one, I think it can be a win for all parties, kind of regardless of how the rest of our energy puzzle is solved. And I guess my final question is, Mr. Krieger, is this something you're looking at in the CIP in the coming really year or two to be moving us in the direction of exploring this?

I would say no to the question within the coming year or two. I would say yes to the coming year. Absolutely. Yeah, for 2027, it makes financial sense. I don't know of anybody in this room who's going to say, oh, gee, batteries. That's a terrible idea. It's kind of the one. Want to make sense financially and to everybody seems to like it. It's also very scalable So you know you can you can build and actually you're better off if I mean we would be better off with 10 10 megawatt separate 10 megawatt batteries located around Naperville then just one single 100 megawatt battery and because we are limited with our own internal transmission lines.

I wanted to thank you, Mr. Krieger. I mean, sometimes progress happens in surprising ways, but I actually think this might be the biggest energy story we've had in a decade here in Naperville, and thank you for the research and the hard work you've done on it. Thank you, Mayor. Councilwoman Gibson?

I think Councilwoman Jane may have been before me.

Thank you.

Councilwoman Jane.

Thank you. First of all, Mr. Krieger, thank you so much for your presentation. I never get to do this. I appreciate that. You don't get to do this. I just want to appreciate you. You guys don't want to listen to me, though, do you? No, we do. We like seeing you. And I know you're taking on additional work, so I just want to thank you for your work and for your presentation. I just wanted you to speak to the point you had made about We put in an application to IMEA to be a potential destination for storing batteries. Is that separate from what you're discussing with Councilman Holthauser?

It is, and it's kind of not. IMEA currently also sees the value in batteries. They've seen that the market has changed. So they actually went to all their members and said, hey, would you have a location where you could house an IMEA up to five megawatt battery? They want to do two of those projects. They want to do one of those in the PJM, which is the one that we submitted the application for. And then the second one they want to do down south in the MISO grid. So that would be separate. That would not be owned or controlled by us. That would be owned by IMEA in its totality.

Okay, good. That was my second question. So then what would happen should we be chosen in 2035? What would happen to that?

At that point in time, I believe, and I will verify this, I believe the title of the assets would be turned over to Naperville.

Okay.

All right, thank you.

Councilwoman Gibson?

You can get back to me.

Yeah, we will verify that.

Okay, thank you.

Okay.

GOOD? YES. OKAY. COUNCILWOMAN GIBSON.

AWESOME. THANK YOU, MAYOR. CITY MANAGER KRIEGER, CAN YOU EXPLAIN HOW, IF WE EXPLORE THE BATTERIES, THEY FIT IN WITH OUR CURRENT CONTRACT WITH IMEA AND THE FULL REQUIREMENTS CLASS? IS THERE ANY, DOES THAT IMPACT OUR OBLIGATION

You know our intention would be that We would we would likely need to enter an agreement with them You know batteries a little different it's full requirements, and you know they're still feeding us full requirements and IT'S SOMETHING THAT KIND OF WASN'T REALLY ENVISIONED WHEN THE ORIGINAL CONTRACTS WERE INKED BECAUSE IT DIDN'T EXIST. BRIAN HAS HAD A NUMBER OF CONVERSATIONS WITH THEM ABOUT IT. I HAD A CONVERSATION WITH IMEA EARLIER THIS WEEK AND THEY'RE VERY EXCITED ABOUT IT. WHEN SOMETHING FLIPS FROM A COST TO A SAVINGS, YOU KNOW, EVERYBODY KIND OF WANTS TO JUMP BEHIND IT. BUT IT WOULD REQUIRE A SEPARATE AGREEMENT.

OKAY, THANKS. A COUPLE FOLLOW-UPS. OUR LAST PRESENTATION IN MAY, WE TALKED ABOUT JOINT ACTION AGENCY PARTICIPATION AND, YOU KNOW, JOINING AN EXISTING ONE OR CREATING OUR OWN. AND ONE OF THE QUESTIONS I HAD WAS WHETHER THERE WERE OPTIONS FOR A JOINT ACTION AGENCY THAT WASN'T FULL REQUIREMENTS. AND TODAY, WE'RE TALKING ABOUT you know, asset ownership and market generation. But there also would be the option for asset ownership and joining an existing non-full requirements joint action agency, correct?

Yes, there would, yes.

And that would maybe alleviate some of the burdens of all these additional positions that we would need to create if we were going to market participation.

That's correct. You know, the real kind of manpower hog with this is really the trading desk. And there's very little margin for error there because you make, you know, you can have someone make a multimillion dollar mistake just either buying or selling too much. But yeah, in the case of a joint action agency, there would likely be A SEPARATE AGENCY WHO WOULD DO ALL OF THAT TRADING FOR US.

SO ESPECIALLY IF WE HAD SHORTER TERMS FOR THE JOINT ACTION AGENCY PARTICIPATION THAT WAS NOT IN FULL REQUIREMENTS WE COULD THEN RAMP UP OUR ASSET OWNERSHIP OVER TIME AND DECREASE

We could, yes. You know, the challenge with kind of the shorter term is it limits some of the asset generation ownership options because they want, like for a solar PPA, they want a 15-year or, you know, same as, you know, the wind farms. They want longer term. BUT YOU CAN ACTUALLY KIND OF STAGGER THOSE CONTRACTS SO THAT, YOU KNOW, WHEN ONE EXPIRES, YOU CAN LOOK AT REPLACING IT. SO, YOU KNOW, YOU CAN KIND OF MOVE WITH THE MARKET.

OKAY. THANK YOU.

COUNCILMAN WILSON.

THANK YOU, MAYOR. JUST A COUPLE MORE FOLLOW-UP QUESTIONS. AGAIN, THANK YOU FOR THE PRESENTATION HERE AND THE STAFF THAT'S PUT ALL THE TIME INTO IT. Yeah, I guess just looking at this option, I know we're going through a comprehensive evaluation and then the summary at the end. But in order to look at, I guess, this option or doing a combination of asset ownership with any sort of NONFUL REQUIREMENTS THROUGH A PPA, I'D SORT OF WOULD LIKE TO SEE ALL THE COSTS INVOLVED WITH THOSE, YOU KNOW, JUST BECAUSE WE'D LOOK AT EITHER WAY NEW STAFF HANDLING THESE, WHAT ALL THE DIFFERENT COSTS WOULD BE INVOLVED IN THESE SORTS OF ASSET OWNERSHIPS, PARTICULARLY IF THEY'RE FURTHER AWAY, WHICH WILL OBVIOUSLY INCREASE THE COSTS, AND WHAT DIFFERENT SORTS OF PPAs WOULD EVEN LOOK LIKE. THAT'S JUST MY FEELING WHILE LOOKING AT THIS SECOND PRESENTATION AND THINKING ABOUT THE VARIOUS OPTIONS IN TERMS OF NUMBERS AND IF SOME OF THOSE WOULD EVEN BE FEASIBLE. AS DIRECTOR GROTH MENTIONED IT'S HARD TO GET INTO ONE NONFUL REQUIREMENT PPAs OR MAYBE IT DIDN'T MENTION BUT IT WOULD SEEMINGLY BE TO ME THAT THEY'D WANT YOU ALL IN OR IF YOU'RE NOT FULLY IN THEN WHAT EXACTLY THOSE CONTRACTS WOULD LOOK LIKE SO YEAH THAT'S KIND OF WHERE I'M AT ON THIS THANK YOU COUNCILMAN WHITE THANK YOU

Great job, by the way, on the presentation. I appreciate you stepping up and taking this on. I love the idea with the batteries because it gives us so much flexibility and efficiency. And also, it should save us money because we can charge it up when the rates are low. spend it when we need to, when the demand's high. The one challenge, one thing I'm looking at, however, though, charging the battery, we're still under the coal-fed IMEA, you know, Prairie State plant down there as far as charging the battery, the battery's up. So that's somewhat of a challenge for me, unless, like you said, I mentioned before, if we can do something maybe downstate as an example, if we're going to look at solar and then, I know we got transition, I mean, we got to send the, the electrons somewhere. But I don't know, is it possible that we would actually just put the electrons into the grid and we would continue to purchase like we currently are doing?

Our full requirements contract with IMEA will remain intact through 2035. The electrons we are going to be charging the battery with are really going to be the electrons that are coming from the closest generating plant. Whether that's Dresden or Braidwood or the of natural gas plants out at Eola. So unless you have it on site, you can't really pick and choose what you charge it up with. However, what you will find is that a lot of the utility scale solar is being packaged with battery. And in those cases, you know that it's 100% clean.

OK, and I get we're not, and we hear this thing where we're really not buying coal or what we're using isn't coal. We understand we're getting it from whatever is closest. But for us to buy into the system, we're buying coal down in IMEA to put into the system. So I guess I'm really looking at maybe for the future, maybe post IMEA, unless IMEA comes on board to do this, PUTTING STUFF, PUTTING ELECTRICITY INTO THE GRID THROUGH OUR OWN POTENTIAL, POTENTIALLY THROUGH OUR OWN ASSET, WHICH COULD BE LOCATED SOMEWHERE OFF I-80 SOMEWHERE THAT GOES INTO THE GRID POST-IMEA. ANY THOUGHTS AROUND THAT?

THAT'S ABSOLUTELY A POSSIBILITY. Yeah, I mean, the kind of battery-solar combination is real, and the financial math on it has just improved tremendously over the last couple years.

Thank you.

Mr. Krieger, I want to just clarify a couple things and then caveat off of something Councilman Gibson brought up. So there's two battery proposals that we're really talking about here. One is the application to IMEA, WHERE YOU ARE LOOKING TO BE A POTENTIAL IMEA BATTERY SITE WHERE WE WOULD HOST A BATTERY THAT'S FULLY ENDORSED AND IMPROVED BY THEM THAT WOULD ALLOW FOR FREQUENCY REGULATION AND PEAK SHAVING.

YES. THAT'S ACCURATE? YES, THAT IS ACCURATE.

SO WITH OUR CURRENT REQUIREMENTS CONTRACT THAT'S IN PLACE THROUGH 2035, HOW WOULD YOU GO OUT AND PROCURE AN ADDITIONAL BATTERY ON THE CITY'S BEHALF and basically peak shave and do frequency regulation without violating current language in the Fulmer requirements contract. I understand you say, well, We would just use less electricity, but isn't it the same deal that you would have to negotiate into a contract with them?

We would need to negotiate. And they have been very open to this. I don't want to get in an argument with them down there saying well geez if we shave it We're still honoring our peak requirements. You know we want to be a good partner and It would require continued discussion with them and also to determine What's most financially advantageous? I mean it could be most financially advantageous that you know We'd just buy it and turn over all of the reins to IMEA and say, hey, you know what? At least until 2035, you guys charge it up and discharge it as you see fit. We haven't gone through that math yet, but we would need an agreement with them.

So what action would you need from this council to actually negotiate with IMEA since the council's voted not to negotiate with IMEA?

Well, kind of our current plan, and we've been working with a couple of different battery consultants, is to look at, is to head down that path a little bit further and kind of in parallel with them The way I viewed, you know, the fact that we should not be negotiating with the IMEA, that was on the renewal. You know, every, not every day, but I mean, you know, every week and every month we have interactions with them just from a, you know, a customer vendor. And this would, I would put this kind of in that category.

So more to come.

More to come. Yes, sir.

All right. Any other questions? Councilwoman Gibson?

Thanks. Probably just a quick question. The interconnection study that you say we're hoping to send out an RFP for, for the batteries, would that cover both the IMEA battery discussion and this other battery discussion we're having?

The interconnection study is needed if we are not going to use all of the battery discharge. if you look at kind of our interconnection points, if we're never sending power back to the grid, but we're using it all ourselves, you don't need an interconnection study. But if our batteries become so large that they're actually having to send it back to the grid, that is when we would need the interconnection study. Does that make sense?

Yeah, so it would be applicable to both situations, whether we're chosen by IMEA and or if we pursue battery storage that could send back to the grid?

Yes, it would. You know, IMEA was up to 5 megawatts, and our team did a great job saying, hey, you know what? Here are the siting locations you can put where we will never have to send it back to the grid. And the other work we've been doing, looking at, you know, possible 10 megawatt solution, we've identified a couple of substations that say, hey, you know what? At 4 a.m., when demand is lowest, because that's where you need to look at it. You know, will we be able to use all of this? And we do have a couple of substations, Indian Hill and Raymond, where we could put a 10-megawatt battery and never have to send it back to the grid.

Okay. So we're still doing this. We're still sending out an RFP for this regardless, or we're going to...

Yeah, we're still examining, yes.

Okay, thanks.

Councilman Syed.

Thank you, Mayor. So I'm happy to see that it took four years for us to come to the batteries. So this discussion is great. I'm enjoying, I'm liking it, and great ideas we are sharing it here. So my thought is that why only IMEA can we have other consultants who can provide us the costing and other details so that we can again compare and see what is best.

smart way of you know charging yeah now for kind of for IMEAs for their battery RFP they're paying for it So they can control it. For ours, IMEA would not be the supplier of the battery. They're just a current partner who we would need to coordinate with. So they wouldn't be, I can't imagine they would be bidding on it. There's a handful of current providers, third-party providers, who would be responding to it.

So what will be the difference cost-wise and...

THE DIFFERENCE COST-WISE, WELL, YOU KNOW, IMEA'S COST WILL BE SOCIALIZED, SO, YOU KNOW, IF THEY PUT SOMETHING OUT, THEY SPLIT THE COST AMONG ALL THEIR MEMBERS. FOR OUR OWN OWNED BATTERY, YOU KNOW, THAT COST WOULD BE ENTIRELY ON US.

OKAY. RIGHT.

THANK YOU.

THANK YOU, MR. KREGER. NO FURTHER QUESTIONS FROM THE COUNCIL, I SEE. OUR FINAL ITEM OF THE NIGHT IS NEW BUSINESS. AS A REMINDER, NEW BUSINESS IS FOR ITEMS THIS COUNCIL IS ASKING STAFF TO BRING BACK ON A FUTURE AGENDA OR FOR MOTIONS TO RECONSIDER PAST CITY COUNCIL VOTES. DOES ANYBODY HAVE ANY NEW BUSINESS? SEEING NONE, MAY HAVE A MOTION TO ADJOURN.

MOTION TO ADJOURN. IS THERE A SECOND?

WE HAVE A MOTION AND A SECOND TO ADJOURN. ALL THOSE IN FAVOR SIGN AYE. OPPOSED? WE ARE ADJOURNED. THANK YOU.