City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening. Welcome to the first workshop for the proposed 2027 budget. Councilman Syed will be participating by phone tonight. Councilman Syed, can you hear us?

Okay. Tonight, our professional staff will focus on the preliminary capital improvement program. As a reminder, no final actions are being taken at this meeting since it is a workshop. Also, all the rules of the city council will still apply. Speakers are asked to present their comments in a respectful or in curious manner. SPEAKERS SHOULD BE ON TOPIC AND BE COGNIZANT OF THEIR WORDS. SPEAKERS ARE GIVEN THREE MINUTES TO ADDRESS THE CITY COUNCIL. AND TO HELP SPEAKERS STAY WITHIN THE THREE-MINUTE TIME FRAME, SPEAKERS SHOULD BE AWARE OF THE TIMER ON THE SIDE DIAS TO YOUR RIGHT. THE TIMER WILL BUZZ

If you've heard your name called, just please proceed to the front row. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker. Next speaker is Johas.

Thank you. Any council members have an item for the public forum portion? Councilman Holzer.

Thank you, Mayor. I had questions for first Mr. Doyle, and then I was going to ask some questions to the last three speakers as well. Probably easy answers from staff, so I'll turn to Mr. Krieger. And I know Mr. Doyle said that the city last took on debt to support the electric utility in 2011. And he was just wondering what the change in philosophy was that we're starting to do that again. Would you mind answering that, Mr. Krueger?

If I may with a follow-up mayor um no need for you to have an answer tonight unless you have one ready, but one thing I would like to know maybe at a future presentation would be what kind of impact it will have on rates to be taking on the first debt that we've taken on in 15 years. Is this going to cause an increase in rates? Just to be clear, this is not the general fund is not going to pay down that debt later. That's the electric fund will pay it, correct? Correct. 100%. OK. The last thing I wanted to ask as a follow up to Mr. Doyle's points was he had stated that about 2 thirds of the el

ALL RIGHT, THANK YOU. AND THEN, MAYOR, IF I MAY ASK MS. WOOD. but some questions. And then anyone else in the group who spoke about the parking deck, feel free to say anything that's responsive to what I'm going to ask about. So as I understood it, the asks were keep Nichols design moving forward, readjust priorities of the streetscape if necessary, and reconsider our use of the downtown parking dollars to the municipal deck. Is that correct?

Okay. And I will say generally, I'm fairly sympathetic to those three asks. I mean, a big thing that I've I'VE VOTED ON NUMEROUS CIP'S IN THE LAST FEW YEARS WHERE THIS WAS KIND OF ANTICIPATED AND IT SEEMS LIKE THERE'S A LOT OF LAST MINUTE CHANGES. MUNICIPAL DECK HAS BEEN PRIORITIZED. I WILL SAY THOUGH THAT FROM MY PERSPECTIVE THERE WAS A SIGNIFICANT NEW ASK IN THE LETTER THAT I SAW AND MAYBE IN SOME OF THE DISCUSSIONS WE HAD AT DNA WHICH IS THAT WE'RE NOW LOOKING TO HAVE THE HIGHEST CAPACITY GARAGE POSSIBLE. CAN YOU PROVIDE ANY MORE COMMENTARY ON WHAT THE THINKING IS THERE?

That's extremely helpful. So I would just, for my one council member speaking for myself, like I said, I'm sympathetic to the three asks. They're in line with what was in the CIP before in prior years. A couple of things that are just kind of must-haves for me are bikeability, walkability in downtown, right? Because if we get a customer in downtown on a bike path or, you know, feeling more safe to walk, that is just as valuable as having someone park downtown. We want shoppers downtown or, you know, people downtown, not just drivers downtown. So that's one thing that's like we absolutely have

I know Chris might have had a. IF YOU ASK ONE QUESTION, IT'S OKAY.

SURE. CHRIS, DID YOU HAVE FOLLOW-UP TO WHAT MS. WOOD JUST SAID?

Okay, Councilman White. Thank you. And a few comments, and thanks for everyone in the public coming out to speak on this. You know, I kind of look at are downtown as the anchor to the city. It's almost like putting in a Walmart at a big shopping center, and then Walmart becomes the anchor. And I say that because I get some pushback. I live in South Naperville, and I get people in South Naperville that, well, why aren't we doing something in South Naperville? And trust me, there's all areas of the community, north, south, I think should all be considered. But I think with the downtown, it tends

OKAY. NOW I KNOW WE DID A FEW improvements down there. Like a couple years ago, I know we painted the entire flooring on the deck and so on. So I'm hoping that all that didn't go to waste because now we're going to have to go through and do all this construction to have what we have already.

Okay, so all that work we did before won't go to waste, correct? Okay, good. Thanks. And a couple of other questions on the battery that Mr. Huss got up to discuss earlier. ANY UPDATE ON THAT, MR. KRIEGER?

I mean, I'm just looking at it just in the simplest of terms. we would charge, we're going to use IMEA, what we currently use, to charge the battery. So we're already using that contracted energy. So once we store it in a battery, why, I'm just kind of dumbfounded why they even have a say so in what we do it the energy that comes out of the battery at that point because we've already bought the energy from them to fill up the battery.

AND ALL THAT TAKES INTO CONSIDERATION IF WE WERE TO PUT IT BACK INTO THE MARKET THROUGH PJM, BASICALLY, Is it PJM that was given the, I don't know, a REC or bonuses to communities that have the batteries?

OKAY. AND JUST ONE MORE QUESTION. Talked about what Mr. Doyle mentioned about the finances and the borrowing and so on. And maybe he was being more specific towards the electric utility from a borrowing standpoint. But I do recall during COVID when the rates were like really cheap, we were looking at taking advantage of borrowing at that time just because the rates were so cheap. Can you kind of fill us in on that?

Thank you, Mayor. If I could pose a question to Mr. Krueger for the battery question again. If my understanding or memory is correct, around this time in discussions with Director Groth, he had mentioned that batteries were more affordable right now and that this was the time to make those purchases. So, given that, I guess, how might we use this opportunity, or is there a way for us to work this in?

OK. Another question I had was for Mr. Malone regarding the parking deck. You had mentioned that we may have started with an estimate of $18 million for that parking deck and that we have moved towards $37 million, about, or $36 million. Is that increased due to materials and labor costs, or are there other aspects that changed?

Yeah. I just wanted to clarify if that was the key difference, or was it the design differences to... to ensure, based on the feedback of the residents in that area? Could that be also part of that?

THANK YOU, MAYOR. FIRST, JUST TO My experience on the Financial Advisory Board, just to add a little bit of context, it maybe relates to this debt discussion as it revolves around the utility. For many years, and Mr. Creager, you can maybe highlight this, but Mayor Chirico was here, there was a big debt reduction move. There was a big, there was a concern that the, city had too much debt and went on a campaign and used a lot of cash to really kind of clean things up, and to the point where maybe there was an argument where some infrastructure was neglected that we could have used cash on, and

So concept design in this budget That's quite different than getting full engineering designs, right? Correct. And the number's a lot bigger, right? The difference?

OK. But what's changed is the timeline of construction INSTEAD OF 2027, 2028, WE'RE TALKING 2031.

Okay, so in the extending this timeline, is this a staff capacity thing or is it logistics?

Thank you, Mayor. So we had the PYB board meeting this past Thursday, and the discussion around rates was brought up. We got the report from the finance department looking at it. Sorry if this has already been talked about, but with the... RATE RECOMMENDATION CHANGES THAT WERE BROUGHT SEEMED TO LINE UP WITH THE ELECTRIC CHARGES AT LEAST YEAR-TO-DATE AND FROM THE VARIANTS FROM 2025 FROM LAST YEAR. OBVIOUSLY, SAMS, THE DEBT THAT WAS OCCURRED, BUT THEY SEEMED TO LINE UP. The question was brought up to Mayor. I don't know if, Tracy, if you have any comment on this either, but the question as far a

All right, I'm gonna reserve my comments regarding the parking garage and the funding source for the municipal parking garage for the actual presentation a little later on in the slides. But with regard to the battery technology, I mean, we're in a full requirements contract with IMEA. Batteries are for peak shaving and frequency regulation. If the city goes out and acquires a battery and it does anything that would trigger a peak shaving interpretation by the IMEA, their membership is likely gonna say, okay, thanks for subsidizing us because you can't peak shave without our being a party to t

You can put it on the screen. How about that?

Yep, they do that back in the booth also.

Councilman Kelly. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you for the presentation so far. Just a couple questions on the water items. You know, there's not really much we can do about any of these. We don't see them, but things we essentially have to say yes to. I'm just curious if you look at slide 10 and 11, just so we kind of keep track over the years, I'm just curious if the estimated totals were at 198 for Springbrook Is that the estimated total from when we started the Spring Book projects about five years ago, or is that as of today with inflation, or are they the same? And do we expect that to be wha

And is it fair to say, based on this chart we're looking at, are we about halfway done with the actual work, but we've only spent about 20% of the dollars? Is that accurate on both of those?

MAYBE ONE QUICK FOLLOW-UP FOR DIRECTOR BLENTIS. IF YOU COULD JUST TELL US FROM A SUBSTANTIVE PERSPECTIVE, ARE THE PROJECTS GOING WELL? IS IT ABOUT HOW YOU THOUGHT AND HOPED THE SPRINGBOOK PROJECTS WOULD GO? AND ARE YOU HAPPY WITH WHERE YOU'RE AT RIGHT NOW?

THANK YOU, MAYOR. I'D LIKE TO START OFF BY SAYING THIS SLIDE 10 IS AN AWESOME GRAPHIC. REALLY HELPFUL. I KNOW I SENT THROUGH A LOT OF QUESTIONS KIND OF IN A Q&A FORMAT. And this sort of holistic view for projects is just really helpful going forward. And great question by Councilman Kelly about projected changes in cost. I hadn't thought of that. Just in general, I like this slide a lot. I was hoping we could level set about water main replacements. If you could just remind me, kind of standard is the goal of, what, 7 to 10 miles a year is what we've been hoping for?

Okay, thank you. And Director Blanis, what's like the lifespan of a standard 75 to 100?

OK, thank you. Because I do notice, I don't know if we can go to slide 13. This looks like a lot of water main replacement, and it absolutely is. But I also noticed that it's not a whole map of our city. Lots of areas to the south, to the west, and this is covering six years of plans. So I'm just throwing it on our radar that there's a lot of the city that this is coming up when we're talking about maintenance and increasing. And then on the next slide, slide 14, probably a very dumb question. Sewer main is different than a water main, correct? So this East Highland sewer main, 1990s, that's a

Okay, so presumably the neighborhoods that have been built later, say in the 80s and 90s, further to the south, are better sewer materials and won't need to be replaced?

Okay. All right. Thanks. That's really helpful.

Councilwoman, were you referring to neighborhoods in the southern portion of April, like Maplebrook and some of those older neighborhoods when you said the south?

Yeah, just in general, looking if we're replacing sewer main replacements that had been fixed in the 1990s at $4.3 million. There's a lot of new sewers that were put in around that time, too, and I'm concerned that that means we're going to have to start replacing those soon as well.

Thank you, Mayor. Along the same line of questioning regarding the water distribution, are there any external factors that might interfere with our timeline, like weather or material access that we should be aware of?

OK, thank you. And a quick question, and I apologize. I'm going back to slide number five. Just if someone could explain the drop from 2028 to 2029 in our CIP budget of roughly 50 million. Like, is that due to anticipated upgrades that we have in the coming years, but we don't necessarily anticipate that starting 2029? Just seems like a substantial drop.

Yeah, that makes sense. I just wanted to make sure there was something that I might be missing that might be coming up. So thank you for clarifying that.

Councilman White. Thank you. A question on the slide number 10, if you can go back to that one. Now, is everything here based on the phosphorus, or is there other items on here that deal with other aspects of the revitalization?

I ASKED A QUESTION BECAUSE WHEN I WAS FIRST ON COUNCIL, I THINK MY FIRST BUDGET WAS PROBABLY 2018'S BUDGET. AND I WANT TO SAY THE PHOSPHOROUS PLANT WAS ESTIMATED TO BE $50 MILLION AND WE HAD TO COME UP WITH ABOUT 25. AND YOU'RE TELLING ME WE'RE AT 200 MILLION RIGHT NOW?

So it's OK. And that's kind of where I was going.

So it's essentially doubled. Yes. Compared to where, I don't know who was that. I think it may have been Neil. Mr. Malone was talking about how much things have increased. Correct. With the parking deck. So the longer we wait, the more expensive it gets. And it's a lot. So thank you.

Yeah, thank you, Mayor. The tollway substation upgrades, how does the amount of work we've put into that substation compare to the substation at the other 15 around the city?

As a follow-up, would you say most of that works to meet current need or expected increased need in the future?

Thank you. And just one quick follow-up to that. With what we're spending for the boring and the underground, we were at 94%. How much closer does this get us to 100?

Right. I mean, 94% is awesome. But I know with the recent storms we had, and I want to say they hit your neighborhood. Your neighborhood lost electricity for some significant period of time. I have some friends that live over there as well. It does bring it to light, that little extra 6%. Let's see if we can take care of it. Thanks.

COUNCILMAN HOLZAR. THANK YOU, MAYOR. ANOTHER QUESTION FOR DIRECTOR MANN AS A FOLLOW-UP TO COUNCILMAN GIBSON'S QUESTION. I KNOW THAT ONE OF THE DEVELOPMENTS THAT WAS CONTEMPLATED LAST YEAR WOULD HAVE BEEN A MAJOR POWER USER RIGHT BY I-88, SO THE CARUS PROJECT, AND THAT ENDED UP NOT HAPPENING. Had that gone through, how would that have impacted the I-88 substation and what changes now that it's a residential neighborhood there that's using a significantly different amount of energy?

Councilman Kelly. Thank you, Mayor. Just want to follow up on Councilman White's point about the undergrounding, which I think he's right on the money on that. We saw this past summer how important it is. Two things I just want to follow up on that I heard from staff. One, from Mr. Krieger, I heard we're doing a lot less than 27 because of the lack of the federal grant. So the first question is, will we still plan to do the same amount of work just over an extended period of time, or is that going to impact the long-term scope of what you plan to do?

All right. And then the second question for either Mr. Krieger or Mr. Mann. I think I heard you say that right now we're in the hardest part of it. And I always thought the hardest part was going to be if and when we got to the backyards that you mentioned, which my understanding is we're not there right now. And that would be a decision for a future council whether to proceed with that phase, which would be a separate phase than this phase one. Do I have that right? That's right. Yes, that is correct.

Okay. When would we reach a decision point for the city council to decide whether or not to proceed with, I don't know if it's phase two or phase three or some other phase number, but essentially the potential backyard situation?

And what we're doing, tier one right now, we'll do that regardless of what a future council decides, whether they decide to do that additional work or not.

WE'RE GOING TO TAKE A SIX-MINUTE BREAK. WE'LL BE BACK AT 737. Okay, it's 737. We're going to go ahead and reconvene here. Can we confirm that Councilman Syed is still with us on the phone? Councilman Syed, can you hear us? Councilman Syed? We'll just confirm that the line's still open here.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right, Mr. Krieger, you want to go ahead and proceed with facilities, transportation, technology, vehicles, downtown projects?

Yes, thank you, Mayor. Just a question regarding, well, I'm looking at slide number 21 at the top. It says capital investments total 13.6. But the amounts listed on the slide don't add up to that. So what am I missing?

That's fine. No, I just needed to make sure my math skills were still in check. It definitely does not add up, yes. Yeah. Thanks, Dad. My dad helped me with my math skills. So I just want to make sure about that. The second question I had is still on slide 21. Just if you could give a little bit more of a background to the Naperville Neighbor Settlement Feasibility Study, the need for the study, and what we hope the study will inform us about.

Ms. Calabrese, could you state your name and position for the record, please?

And the $145,000 for the feasibility study, can you just elaborate on what you think that study will show or what will be done for $145,000?

Okay, yeah, thank you. And I have one more question. That's regarding the cameras that we hope to discuss more in detail in November. I just wanted to clarify by approving the 5.1 million, do we have room to make different decisions afterwards? Meaning like does this lock us in with that amount?

Thank you. As far as the transportation goes, is there any way we'd be able to, just from hearing feedback from the community and just sort of projects all over the state, city this year as far as book road. And I mean, you know, a lot of this is out of our control here. You know, 59 for various things have happened, Washington and Ogden. Is there any way to delay or push back some of these projects here? You know, I don't know, the site, South 40 site development at 130, 103rd and 59, I could see that being just a sort of a major inconvenience for people dealing with construction at 59 or, I

Thank you. Similar question to Councilwoman Jane. I know you're only hitting the major projects up here, but I'm looking at the transportation, $41 million. And what I'm seeing, $75,000. $75,000 is a lot of money, but it doesn't seem to compute for $41 million. In fact, what you're showing is less than half of what you're asking for. Anything else you would want to mention that we should know?

OK. That answers my question. Thank you. Councilwoman Gibson.

Thank you, Mayor. I wanted to go back to the neighbor settlement feasibility study. The $145,000 for this year and the neighbor settlement CIP, which is in the agenda for next week's settlement meeting, there's an additional $223,000 for a feasibility study. So if we just speak, is that next year's expense necessary to make this year's expense useful?

PRESIDENT CALIBRIS, YOU WANT TO COME BACK?

Okay, so the feasibility study is two separate studies, one for 145,000 and then in 28, a second part of the feasibility study for 223,000? Or it's a larger feasibility study for 372,000?

Okay. So if we spent the $145,000 this year and next year we decide not to spend the additional $227,000, does that make the first $145,000 useless?

So even if this expense is just at $145,000 and next year's is foregone. I'm sorry, because I said useless, and you said absolutely. So I just wanted to make sure we.

So it will still be useful even if we don't allocate the $227,000. And then the following $600,000 for the design development, will that be necessary? as well, or will this $145,000 still be useful without?

And do we know the shelf life of feasibility plans? Do we know the shelf life of these plans? Say we do these plans and then decide it's a project we want to tackle in five years. Much like with the downtown parking garage, will we need to redo them in five years if we decide to postpone the larger project?

OK, thank you. That's really helpful. And then just to staff, it feels to me like the feasibility study is spread out over two years. So knowing that when we're looking at 145, it's kind of paired with an additional 227 in the following year would be helpful when we're making the decisions on these. Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor. Deputy Director Morocco is Is it possible to get a project by project breakdown? And do you think that would be useful for us to see? And I assume these numbers come from some spreadsheet you have, and maybe it's an overwhelming amount of information. Is that something that council could?

Okay. Yeah, the reason why I ask, I'm going through this for several years now. You know, the CIP sometimes can be hard for people to get their arms around because it's not like the operating budget where it's like we have to pay for these things. It's meant to be flexible and high level and we may not spend all this money and we may go through an economic recession and have to, but at the same time, kind of going like Councilwoman Jane, Councilman White, sometimes we look at these numbers and it's like, what am I missing here? Here's what we think is coming in and this is what we think we're

And is it correct there's $40 million or $50 million that's unfunded out of the $211? Is that right?

Is there a portion of the capital, the CIP, that's unfunded, like that we don't see revenue for or that we're going to have to borrow for?

Hit the button again to turn the microphone off. Yeah, no, I guess to Councilman McBroom's point, I'd certainly appreciate it. I guess to talk about the transportation point again, I know the roadway improvements, I guess I always forget about those until they happen. But I'd certainly like to look at them more in detail, just sort of to beat the dead horse. But I know I've complained about the roadways projects in the past. And we don't typically obviously get a whole lot of bids, I should say obviously, but we don't get many bids for them. And certainly to credit you guys, the roads here are

That's all for the questions on this one.

Councilman Holzar. Thank you, Mayor. First of all, I'm going to ask Mr. Kennedy to come back up. And Ms. LaCloche, I was hoping that you could put up his presentation. ACTUALLY, YOU KNOW WHAT, I'M GOING TO ASK DOUG IF YOU COULD GO BACK TO THE RIVERWALK SLIDE AND THEN AS SOON AS WE GET THROUGH THAT I WANTED TO GO TO MR. KENNEDY'S SLIDES. OKAY. SO ONE THING I WANTED TO MAKE SURE IS REALLY CLEAR IS A FEW YEARS AGO THERE WAS DISCUSSION OF THE PRIVATE DONATIONS OR OUTSIDE DONATIONS BEING ABOUT HALF OF A $3 MILLION SPEND ON THE TRAIL. to be really clear about is that was the trail. What's being talk

Sure. And just as background, Pat was the chair of the Riverwalk Commission, great chair for a number of years. I have been on the commission since the beginning of my time as a council member. And the concern I really want to bring up tonight is with regard to process. So when, first of all, Mr. Kennedy, when did this strip of land between Edward Hospital, roughly, and Dunkin' Donuts, like when did that become land for the Riverwalk? Could you repeat that?

And then can you flip to the slide that shows the overhead view of the map? Okay, so if you can see the Dunkin' Donuts on the right side of that screen. Okay, correct me if I'm wrong, but Dunkin' invested funds in building a retaining wall with that Riverwalk Trail, basically the city made them do that for the Riverwalk, correct?

Okay, so just to be clear, we're not just talking about FUNDS THAT EDWARD HAS INVESTED IN THIS OR THAT REPRESENTATIVE YANG ROAR HAS SECURED FOR THE CITY. BUT PRIVATE BUSINESSES RELYING ON THE CITY'S MANDATE ALSO INVESTED FUNDS IN THIS RIVERWALK EXTENSION. SO I JUST WANT TO MAKE SURE THAT THAT IS CLEAR. AS FAR AS PROCESS, AND YOU CAN CORRECT ME IF I'M WRONG ON ANY OF THESE DATES. IT'S BEEN A LONG TIME ON THIS COMMISSION. BUT IN 2022 AND 2023, Our consultants, architects, civil engineers came together. And we had months, if not years, of refinements to this map that came up with this final align

Thank you. I appreciate that. Also, I would add, if it's, hey, let's cut the ADA accessibility, or let's cut the safety with the distance to Washington, or let's no longer collect to the hospital, or let's waste the improvements that Duncan did in reliance on the city, I just don't see any of those as good options.

Councilman Kelly. Thank you, Mayor. A couple of different topics I'd like to ask about and talk about. I guess maybe I'll start with the Riverwalk since we're on it right now. A couple of questions, one from Mr. Kennedy, one from staff. WHEN YOU SPOKE IN PUBLIC FORM, I THINK, UNLESS I MISHEARD, I THINK I HEARD YOU SAY THAT WE ARE ASKING FOR THE FULL PROJECT TO MOVE FORWARD, AND I JUST WANT TO KNOW, WHO IS WE? ARE YOU ON THE COMMISSION STILL? IS THAT JUST YOU? I AM NOT ON THE COMMISSION. IS THAT THE ROYAL WE?

I JUST WANT TO BE SURE. AND THEN FOR STAFF, I GUESS, So what I heard from Councilman Holzhauer just now is that this was a potential, well, a variety of alternatives was not in front of the Commission at their most recent meeting, or it sounds like at any point. So where, I'm trying to level set in my head, where did, and I don't even see it on the slide, but in your presentation you mentioned the consultant potentially bringing back alternatives. Who is it that asked for that to happen?

Okay. I think that answers it, other than I heard that there's been some discussion with the chair. So I guess what I'm, maybe my last question for now is, has the commission, our advisory commission as a body, have they taken any sort of a vote to either recommend that we do the full project or that we should seek alternatives? Or I guess, where are they as a commission?

Okay. And will that happen before, like, I guess I'm trying to figure out how this is going to play out for us then. Is this going to be part of the decision-making matrix at workshop three and we'll have input from the commission between now and then? Or what is your plan on what we're going to do with this?

OK. And then if I could, Mayor, on a different topic. Go ahead. So some questions and thoughts on the Nichols Library deck. And there was some discussion early on in public forum. And I, like the mayor, I kind of held my thoughts. I wanted to see what staff had to say in this chart, which was helpful to see how everything's kind of fitting together. You know, it's interesting. That's a much larger project now than the streetscapes. Only a few years ago, the streetscapes were kind of the monster project. And the question was whether we would do them or not and when. And I'm glad that we have an

So my last thought, Mayor, if I could, is just I would really ask that we get that data and I would suggest it should be a council meeting agenda item where the public would be aware and it's not just something as part of the budget process that we're just gonna say 40 million is approved by a show of hands at a workshop. I think we should have that data, have a full meeting, have the neighborhood aware, have the business owners aware, have everybody come to a meeting and really discuss it before any final decision is made. Thank you. Councilwoman Jane.

Thank you, Mayor. I, too, will be talking about the parking decks, not making any comments in general about where I stand. But I do agree with Councilman Kelly on data being important and helping us make these decisions. And so I do appreciate, Mr. Krieger, your reasoning behind the shift in the timeline and the projects that you proposed. I would like to also see the results of that survey before we make any decisions, including the municipal center deck. For me, I guess you may have spoken to this earlier, but if you could clarify the urgency, or if there are structural needs that need to be

Thank you, Mayor. Going quickly back, just briefly back to the Riverwalk, I appreciate Councilman Kelly's questions. I was a little confused on what we were talking about. Just for my own clarity, Director Hines, the full projects in the CIP budget, what's the concern that we're talking about here, that we think that a bid may come in higher than what we're budgeting for and by a million dollars or... Is that what we're talking about?

Okay. Doesn't seem insurmountable, but okay. Thank you for that. As far as the parking deck goes, I agree with Councilman Kelly on the transparency and the data. I GUESS THE COUNTER TO THE NEED, I HAVE SEEN A LOT OF DATA FROM DNA AND CHAMBER OF COMMERCE AND I THINK IT'S, the people that these business owners want in those parking spots aren't necessarily in our Naperville survey. They don't live here. And I look at it as what, 380, 400 new shoppers. And I just think we should keep that in mind. It is very expensive to run a city. And in order to keep that property tax levy low comparatively to

Thank you, Mayor. Didn't turn off the microphone this time. I guess similar thoughts, and thank you, Councilman Holzauer, for the background on the Riverwalk, some of which I guess I wasn't aware of or needed to be reminded by. But I guess... similar to getting data for the Nichols Library parking deck. I mean, maybe this is just a counterfactual, but I would be curious if it, I don't know, no idea possible to see how much utilization that small stretch of, I guess, a block would actually be used. I don't know. To me, it's just, and again i guess kind of going back here to the theme of you kno

Mr. Krieger, I'm going to start with just a couple questions about the history of the Riverwalk in this particular extension. You've been around for this entire discussion going back to 2015, I believe, when it first started. Was it your understanding that there was some sort of fundraising expectation from the Riverwalk Foundation and the city would do a match, or what's your recollection?

So right now we're at the two donations, the $700 and the $800, the grant from the state and the $700 donation from Edward, right? Yeah, that's correct. And that's basically the extent of all private donations at this point for this project?

DIRECTOR HINES, WHEN IT COMES TO THE 6.8 NUMBER YOU'VE GOT IN HERE, WHAT DO YOU HAVE FOR PADDING THERE? I MEAN, WE HAVEN'T HAD A RIVERWALK PROJECT IN THE LAST THREE AND A HALF YEARS I'VE BEEN ON THE COUNCIL THAT'S HIT BUDGET. THEY'VE ALWAYS GONE OVER The last one we had was over seven digits in change orders. So is it 6.8 or is it 9.8?

And is there funding established in this number for the continued care and feeding of the new addition to the Riverwalk? What would that look like on an annual basis?

Okay, with regard to the downtown parking garage project, I think Councilman McBroom brought up a very good point. Ms. Connors stated very earlier on the record, 60% of the visitors to the downtown for shopping and dining are estimated to be from out of town visitors. And I'm not aware of any of our data capture THROUGH THE NATIONAL COMMUNITY SURVEY PLAN THAT WAS ONLY MAILED TO NAPERVILLE RESIDENTS, A SELECT NUMBER, AND THEN THIS NEW OPT-IN PLAN SURVEY. THEORETICALLY, SOMEBODY DOESN'T HAVE TO LIVE IN NAPERVILLE TO FILL THAT OUT, BUT THEY HAVE TO HAVE THE INITIATIVE TO FILL IT OUT. WOULD THAT B

I'm talking about the special parking survey that is currently in progress. National community survey was absolutely Naperville residents only and only a portion of them.

AND MY UNDERSTANDING IN DIFFERENT PRESENTATIONS I'VE SEEN IS THAT WE ARE WELL BELOW THE PARKING RATIOS FOR Number one, a downtown with the number of stores and square footage dedicated to retail and restaurants as compared to other cities and our true competition. Is that still accurate?

OKAY. AND WHEN IT COMES TO THE STREETSCAPE IMPROVEMENT PLAN, HOW MANY SPACES ARE WE TAKING OFFLINE DURING THAT PROJECT?

That will be gone through the duration of the project or when the project is over?

Okay, and Mr. Hines, do we know how many would be out of service at City Hall? Or one of you? Mr. Randolph?

So theoretically, we're taking 200 spaces offline at the same time? Yes. Without any sort of replacement for those spaces, correct? Correct. So you can kind of see where I'm going with this as far as the concerns. One way or the other, we're going to have parking challenges with that project. We're going to have parking challenges if we decide to build a parking garage. there's something more and beyond that. And that is by the end of this year, we're estimated to have about $16 million in a downtown parking fund that was dedicated for more parking. And if we're not going to build that more pa

THANK YOU. COUNCILMAN HELZER, YOU GOT A FOLLOW-UP? THANK YOU, MAYOR. JUST HAD A COUPLE OF FOLLOW-UP QUESTIONS FOR MR. KENNEDY. HE LOOKS EXCITED. I THINK YOU SAID IT EARLIER, MR. KENNEDY, BUT JUST WANTED TO VERIFY, HAD THIS PROJECT BEEN APPROVED IN THE, I'M SORRY, IF IT HAD BEEN, YEAH, APPROVED IN THE CIP IN THE ORIGINAL YEAR IT WAS PROPOSED, NOT DELAYED, HALF THE FUNDING FOR THE PATH WAS COVERED BY PRIVATE DONORS, CORRECT?

IF THIS HAD BEEN APPROVED IN THE YEAR THAT IT WAS FIRST PROPOSED. you had half, $1.5 million was half of the then cost. That's correct. We've had inflation in the cost of materials and construction. And now the Hillside Gateway has been added in, but that's tossed that out. But the actual cost of the path, the issue we now have is the inflation and the cost of goods and construction, correct? Or that's a major issue? OK. Is it fair to say it's a hard sell to go back to the donors and say we now want to maintain one half private donations and a reason for that is that we delayed the project for

Okay, and then just as a, you know, following up on Councilman McBroom's point, he talked about the $1 million being, or sorry, the cost being $1 million more than anticipated. I just wanted to make sure that it's clear on the record that that means $6.8 million is $1 million more than we had hoped. We had hoped for more like $5.8 million if we were using last year's numbers. But yeah, I just want to make sure that it's clear. It's not we're talking about $7.8 million or something like that. And then final QUESTION, IS FAIR TO SAY THAT IN OTHER RIVERWALK EXTENSION PROJECTS OR EXPANSION PROJECT

YEAH. AND THE FINAL QUESTION IS JUST TO VERIFY, THERE WERE $3.5 MILLION OF OTHER RIVERWALK PROJECTS THAT THE COMMISSION CHOSE TO DEFER INTO THE FUTURE TO PRIORITIZE THIS ONE, CORRECT?

COUNCILMAN KELLY. THANK YOU, MAYOR. A COUPLE OF FOLLOW-UPS ON THE FUNDING ALLOCATION THAT HASN'T GARDENED A WHOLE LOT OF DISCUSSION, BUT ONE THING I WILL AGREE WITH YOU ON, ONE I MIGHT DISAGREE, AND THEN A QUESTION FOR STAFF. FOR THE FUNDING SPLIT ON THE MUNICIPAL DECK, I WILL SAY I WASN'T SURE WHAT STAFF WAS GOING TO PROPOSE THERE. FROM MY PERSPECTIVE, WHEN I SAW 50-50, I THOUGHT THAT MADE SENSE, ACTUALLY, BECAUSE, GRANTED, IT'S USED BY CITY AND SETTLEMENT EMPLOYEES DURING THE DAY, BUT THEN IT'S, OF COURSE, ALSO USED ON THE TOP DECK DURING THE DAY FOR RESIDENTS. for shoppers and diners at nig

And we'll receive that use estimate from staff before making final decisions on this? Yes. All right. Thank you.

Councilman White. Thank you. Just a quick question. You mentioned the motor fuel tax. I've been asking this when you probably knew it was coming. What are we doing with the electric vehicle registration, getting some of that funding to come back to the city?

Yes, and the whole point being they're charging us for when we register our cars, but we're not getting any of that back to the city like we would be if we were actually spending gas, money on gasoline. We'd get that money back. And it seems like, I don't know how many years I've brought this up, and I've still seen no action on it.

Councilman Holzar. Thank you, Mayor. I was curious why grocery tax revenue wasn't listed as a revenue source on here. Did I miss it?

Got it. Thank you. And then just a final thing I wanted to I THOUGHT I HEARD THAT YOU SAID IT DIRECT TO MOROCCO, BUT THERE ARE NO BONDS BEING ISSUED FOR ANYTHING OUTSIDE OF UTILITIES THIS YEAR, CORRECT? OKAY. SO IN OTHER WORDS, BALANCED BUDGET FOR THE CIP STUFF OUTSIDE OF UTILITIES.

ALL RIGHT. WELL, FOLKS, THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR ALL YOUR WORK ON THIS TONIGHT. Our workshop is now concluded, and we will wish everybody a good night.