Village Board of Trustees - Regular Meeting

Can you hear me okay out there? Hello, everybody. Welcome to the Village Board of Arlington Heights. This is our board meeting for October 5th, 2026, and I'm calling this meeting to order. And the first order of business is the Pledge of Allegiance. If you could please all rise and join the board.

Thank you, everybody. Monica, if you could please call the roll.

Here. Thank you. We do have a couple of minutes to approve, and the first one is from 9-22-26. Are there any board members that need to see corrections made or have comments made or recuse themselves? Trustee LeBetz will be registered for a pass. Anybody else? Is there anyone in the audience that has questions on those minutes? Seeing none, is there a motion to approve?

I move approval of the minutes for 9-22-26.

Motion made by Trustee Zik, seconded by Trustee Santa Maria. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Minutes are approved. We have one more set of minutes, and that's from the closed session on 9-8-28.

And are there any comments, questions, or passes from anyone on the board?

Changes, anything? Anyone in the audience with questions or comments from those minutes? Seeing none, looking for a motion to approve.

I'll move approval of the closed session minutes of September 28th, or September 8th, 2026. Second.

Motion made by Trustee LeBed, seconded by Trustee Dunnington. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? None. Motion carries. And we do have an accounts payable warrant registered that needs to be approved, so I'll call on Trustee Bertucci.

Thank you, Mayor. I'll move approval of the warrant register for the check date September 30th, 2026 in the amount of $3,809,359.70. Second.

Motion made by Trustee Bertucci, seconded by Trustee Schwingbeck. Are there any comments or questions from anyone on the board? Anyone in the audience, comments or questions on the warrant register? Seeing none, this is a roll call vote. Monica?

The motion maker and the second. Yes. Go ahead.

Yes. Very good, that takes care of all nine of us. All right, motion carries and it's passed. There are no recognitions or communications that I'm aware of, correct? Correct. So we'll move on to citizens to be heard. And citizens to be heard is on, it is an opportunity for residents to speak on anything other than what is already on the agenda. I have a stack of blue cards here for one particular item that most of you are here for. But I do have a handful of others on other items. So I'm going to call on them now. If you're here for some other reason and would like to speak, you can raise your

OK, thank you Norbert. Next is Brian McHale. Brian, are you here? I'm sorry? Okay, I'll move you up to the other list then. Ronald Stolberg.

Ronald, I'm going to have to ask you to please wrap up. Is that it?

You can hand it to our clerk over here, and we'll have it distributed to the whole board. Thank you for your thoughts. Next is Meg Thompson.

Okay. So we'll put that over there as well. And the last one I have is Cheryl Brown. Cheryl, come on up.

All right. We will definitely. Thank you. All right. Thanks for the information. And then I have one more here. James Chafin? Schaefer? Chafin? Is this for something not on the agenda?

Well, do me a favor and hand that to our village manager.

All right, thank you. Thank you for your time hand that right to our village manager Randy He'll give you his business card and collect that information for you. Thank you. I Have no other blue cards for any other topics other than what's on the agenda and planned Is there anyone else that wishes to be recognized for a separate topic? Just raise your hand. I'll call on you All right seeing none. We're gonna move on in the agenda. I from citizens to be heard to the consent agenda. But before we do that, I would like to make an announcement and take a minute to thank our entire village, our whol

Thank you, Mayor. I would like to remove consent agenda item G.

All right. Item G will be removed to be discussed separately. Is there anyone else on the board that wants to remove an item between A and F?

I don't want to remove an item, but I would like to recuse myself from item A.

Okay. It shall be noted that Trustee Santamaria will be voting pass on item A.

Is there anyone in the audience that would like a trustee to move one of these items to be discussed separately? I see no hands. Okay, so we're gonna look for a motion for items A through F. I would move that we approve the consent agenda items A through F. Second. Motion made by Trustee Schwingbeck, seconded by Trustee LeBetz. Is there any further discussion from anyone on the board or anyone in the audience? Raise your hand. SEEING NONE, THIS IS A ROLL CALL VOTE, MONICA.

TRUSTEE All right, that is carried, but we're going to go back now and discuss item G. Trustee Dunnington, you have the floor.

Thank you, Mayor. When I reviewed item G in our packet, I was really surprised and disappointed when I saw the landscaping plan for the basin. It shows that 62 gold pillar Japanese barberry shrubs and 61 burning bush plants will be planted, and both of those are invasive species. In both of those instances, birds eat their seeds and spread them to native woodlands and natural areas, and then it crowds out native plants. So I think it would be irresponsible and contrary to our new sustainability plan to approve the planting of those plants. We would be introducing 123 invasive plants into our c

Is that it? Okay. Manager Reklaus, is there anything that we need to discuss further if Trustee Dunnington's perspective is, as she has it there, what will be our

Is that a separate process going in for permit for that?

Okay. Is that sufficient, Trustee Dunning?

Do we need a motion for that, or staff will just take care of it?

All right, very good. Well, then we just need a motion to concur with the resolution of item G, if someone wants to make that motion.

I'll make that motion. I move that we concur with item G. Second.

All right, motion made by Trustee LeBeds and seconded by Trustee Santamaria.

I move that we adopt the resolution approving the final plat of subdivision for 1515 South Douglas Avenue. Thank you. Second.

Okay, motion made by Trustee LeBed, seconded by Trustee Santa Maria. Any further questions or comments from the board? Anyone on the audience? Seeing none, roll call vote.

Yes. Thank you. Okay. Now, we are at the point in the meeting where at all several hundred of us are here together for. And if you look around, I think you'll see a lot of friendly faces, both for and both concerned. And I wanna make sure that we all understand a couple of things. This is a village board meeting, and we're here to hear a presentation under a preliminary act. This is called an early review. What that means is the petitioner is here to share their thoughts, their concepts with this board to get a reaction from this board. There will be no vote taken tonight. There is no final ac

And it's not necessary. What's necessary is to be good listeners, share thoughts, and then this petitioner will take home what they hear and consider what all that means. And they're gonna hear us. So what we're gonna do first is we're gonna hand this off to staff and they're gonna give a little briefing on it. And then the petitioner will speak and share, and then staff will speak and share. And then we will share thoughts. And then I will go through this fairly large stack of blue cards, call on everybody who's on here, and you'll all get your chance. But I'm gonna ask you a couple things. N

invite the uh whoever is going to be the speaker for saint viner to take the podium and before ryan does that what what i'd like to make sure everybody here is loud and clear too if at 11 o'clock tonight if i still have 20 cards of people who want to speak we'll continue the meeting to another date i don't think anybody in this room wants to be here till one in the morning If we have only a couple of few cards, we're going to trudge through and try and wrap up the meeting today. But just to be aware that we're going to try and be expeditious about it and make sure everybody gets a chance. But

Thanks, Ms. Rodman. Can you go back one slide? Should we be seeing between two and three, should we be seeing a neighborhood community open meeting in there like we have for most large projects?

Okay. Based on what happens in the coming weeks with their design concepts, that may or may not be something worth doing is what you're saying, basically. Okay, all right, well that concludes the petitioner's presentation, our staff's review presentation. What we're gonna do now is we're gonna open it up to the village board for some initial comments for any board members that would like to weigh in on some of this. Then I'll start going through the cards. If you haven't filled out one of these and would like to speak, please do so. They should be in the back along the wall back there. Just br

Sure, I'll start. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And thanks to the petitioner and staff for those presentations. I appreciate everyone being here. This is clearly an issue that people care a lot about on both sides. And I'm going to start with my conclusion and work back and try to be very brief, because I know we have a lot of people that want to talk today. The thing I think that resonates most from everything I've heard from residents is what staff said, intensity of use. And right now I can't support the project as it is currently scoped. When I look at other high schools, as was mentioned, that ha

Thank you. Anyone else on this side? Trustee LeBetz.

Thank you. I too am concerned about the intensity of the project. When I look at the plan, it's basically the whole piece of property is covered with some use. And one of the things that I don't understand, and perhaps you can explain, is the two practice competition fields. Why are there two? And if there are two, does that mean there will be games at both, and therefore there will be more people coming to the site because there'll be other schools? And I would appreciate if... there could be some explanation about that. Because that really seems a lot to me.

Manager Rakos, will you take a list of questions so that when we're done, we can ask the petitioner to address all of them at one time?

Okay, thanks. I am also really concerned about the traffic in the area. That's been a problem for years. I'm not an immediate neighbor, but I'm close enough that I use Dryden and I use Oakton and I use Euclid, and so... with all the students or whoever are parking along the streets, it makes it difficult for people to go safely through the area. One of the residents showed a child. First of all, I guess I should say, I really appreciate everything that everybody's done, what staff's done, what the petitioner's done. all the comments and things that we have received. And we've also received som

Thank you, Trustee LeBetz. Anyone else? Trustee Zik. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, everybody, for coming here tonight. Thank you for St. Vita for the presentation. Thank you for all of you citizens that have come out here, too, and all the emails that you sent, too. I've read every one of them. I've tried to reply back to all of them. If I haven't, I apologize. But thank you for everything you sent. This is an interesting... conversation for us to have, because one, you've got two groups here. You've got one, an institution that's been here for a long time, for 65 years, providing something to

A lot of the comments from the emails and people that I've talked to, and I'm sure if I get this wrong, you'll correct me, but it seems like the tone of most of the things I heard that people that were concerned with this wasn't so much that they wanted to say, don't do anything, but to tone it down. And the word intensity of the project is something too that I think is concerning a lot of people. It sounds like the people in the neighborhood want to work with St. Vita to help you accomplish the goals that you're trying to do, but how can we turn down the intensity of what's going on there? So

Thank you, Trustee Zik. Trustee Gilbert? Thank you. I'd like to reserve comment until after the citizens to be heard. That's fine.

Thank you, Mayor. Well, I probably also would like to reserve a lot of my comments until after I hear the residents. I do want to say that there's work to be done here, Mr. Aiello and the other members of St. Vider that are here. There needs to be a little bit more of a win-win between the residents and St. Vider based on the emails that I've received and based on, I think, the emails that all of us have received. There's a gap. And I think people will be much happier if you, I don't want to use the word settle out of court, so to speak, but come up with something or some type of a compromise

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you to the petitioner and staff. I know that a lot of work has already been put into this project. For the petitioners, I definitely understand your desire to have a sports complex on your property for your students. But I feel like right now, as this is presented, that this project will overwhelm the neighborhood and that there's just too many elements and it needs to be scaled back. Right now, I think it would be too disruptive on the neighborhood. And I think before we can consider a project like this, that there's some, the existing issues in the neighborhood need t

All right. Thank you, Trustee Donington. Trustee Schwingbeck.

Thank you, Mayor. I agree with everything that's been set up here so far, so I won't go into that. I guess some of the questions that I would have as this project moves forward is when you look at the size of St. Vider compared to our other local high schools, there's a big difference there, and I, too, understand the importance of sports. To Trustee Zick's point, why eight tennis courts? Because there's three single matches and four double matches going on, all at the same time during a tournament. So you need the tennis space there during tournaments to have those events. So that I understan

Thank you, Trustee Schringbeck. Trustee Santamaria?

Sure, thank you, Mayor. Thank you to Ryan and to St. Viator for your presentation today. I understand why St. Viator wants to make this investment, and I see a real value with the students wanting to be there. My nephew actually played football at Viator, and I hated driving to Forest View for it. And I am supportive of the dialogue and the project going through the process moving forward, but I also think that we really need to acknowledge the problems that all of us have talked about today. I see it, again, as the intensity of the land use is an issue for me, specifically when we're looking

Thank you, Trustee Santamaria. Anybody else on the board here that wants to weigh in briefly? I will share just a couple of really brief thoughts. For 65 years, the school has been there. I went to school here in town at the old Arlington High School, and back then, St. Viters was a boys' school. And Sacred Heart was the girls' school. And sometime... after i graduated in 1980 that changed and everybody got together at saint fighters and it's been a wonderful neighborhood school but it's also a commuter school there's a lot of cars that come in from other towns if there were no neighbors anywh

You want to ask Ryan maybe to come on up and maybe Ryan can answer a couple?

Quite a few more than, I think you showed a number of like 40 would only be impacted where they had to go off-site. Sure. I mean, you've got swimming, and you've got softball, baseball, golf, hockey.

Mayor, could I ask one follow-up question? Absolutely. So, you know, we saw some figures about parking and the deficient spots. I think it was, Ms. Rodman, it was somewhere up around 200, wasn't it? Correct. So I know there's 800 students now roughly, but I think if I've heard correctly over the years, you have a capacity there of maybe going up to 1,100?

Yeah, so I guess my question is, with this project going forward, I'm assuming that you'd like to maybe increase your enrollment. So some of those figures that we maybe see on parking are going to change dramatically. quite a bit if all of a sudden you start seeing more students come to your school.

Mayor, can I ask another question? Yes. Okay, so Ryan, I've been on your end where I had to ask for the world and then negotiate as a petitioner. So I feel you. So thank you for doing that. And I really thought that you were going to beat my latest, my record of being the latest village board meeting, but I guess not if we're going to be out by 1030. But have you as a staff already thought about what potential concessions you could make now and how you could possibly grow into this project pending some relationship building and community buy-in? Like, do you have a plan B, C, D? Yeah.

Is that it for now? Manager Rick, anything else? Okay, Ryan, thank you. Thank you. Get yourself comfortable there. Yep. Like I said, I've got a couple more cards that came in, so let's call it an hour and a half or so. What we'll do is I'll call the first name on the first card and the next name as on deck. So what I would appreciate is if the first person would come up to the podium, the second person I call stand in the back by the doorway so that we can move this along fairly quickly. Please, as you're speaking, pay attention to the little numbers up there. We're gonna try and get through a

All right. Thank you, Chad. Appreciate it. So, Thomas Smith, you're up. On deck is Michael Fettus.

Tom, thank you. Michael, you're up. And on deck is Catherine Anderson.

It sounds like you've got a lot. Just please pay attention. I won't. Okay.

Catherine, you are up, and on deck is Shannon Ann.

Thanks, Kate. Up is Shannon Ann, and on deck is Doug Godfred.

Doug, you are up, and on deck is another Doug, Doug McKenna.

Thank you. Thank you, Doug. So up now is Doug McKenna, and on deck is Carrie Sukup.

Thank you, Doug. Up is Carrie Sukup, and on deck is Brian McHale.

allow us to continue to be servants to this community thanks Carrie Brian you are up and on deck is Meg Thompson good evening

Appreciate it. Meg Thompson, you are up. And on deck is Megan Flanagan.

We've- Do me a favor, get closer to the mic so folks at home can hear you.

All right. Megan Flanagan is up, and on deck is Michael Cerrone.

Thank you, Megan. Michael, you are up and Barry O'Neill is on deck.

Thank you, Michael. Barry, you are up. And Carolyn Selka is on deck.

Thank you, Barry. Up is Carolyn Selke, and on deck is Tom Gala.

Thanks, Caroline. Up is Tom, and on deck is, I'm gonna butcher this last name, I'm gonna try, Doug Dzerzky? Anything close?

Thank you, Tom. Doug, you are up, and on deck is Thomas McAndrew. Let me have it, Doug. Yeah, Doug Duszynski. All right, there you go.

Thomas McAndrew, you are up. And John Sluga is on deck.

Thank you. John, you are up, and Rodero Warren is on deck.

Thank you, John. Rodero, you are up, and Terrence Sherwin is on deck.

Thank you, Terrance. Lauren is up, and on deck is Steve Burnett. I think I said that right. We'll find out.

Thanks, Lauren. Steve Burnett, you're up, and on deck is Sidney Gala.

Thank you, Steve Bernay. Sydney, you are up and Kevin Kuhn is on deck.

Thank you, Sydney. Kevin, you are up and on deck is Rick Hughes. Do we have a Kevin Kuhn? If he shows up later, we'll call on him, but Rick Hughes?

You're in here, Ned, but there is a Rick Hughes also. Oh, okay. That's okay.

Who are you, sir? Tell us. I am Rick Hughes. You are Rick Hughes. And we're still, but we don't have Kevin in the room apparently, so we'll wait on him. So Rick, you're up. On deck then is, I can't read this one. Sean Molina, sorry.

Thank you. Thank you, Rick. Sean, Melina, you are up, and on deck is Julie Formanski.

Thanks, Sean. Julie, you are up and on deck is Grace Smith.

Thank you, Julie. Grace, you are up and on deck is Steve Denton.

Thank you, Grace. Steve, you are up, and on deck is John Castagnoli, and I'm gonna take a second here to let you all know that I only have More cards, so if anybody wants to speak where you guys are doing excellent. I can't tell you how happy I am Everybody getting this done if there's anyone who wants to speak Please grab a card get it over here to our clerk so we can get you up here John you are up on deck is or no Yeah, John is up on deck is Ned Hughes Can I speak first? I'm Steve. Did I? Okay. Sorry, Steve. No problem. Steve, you're up. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'm John Castagnoli. I'm gettin

Thank you, Steve. So, John, you are up. John Castagnoli and Ned is on. Did I screw it up on you?

All right, thank you. All right, thank you. Thank you, John. Now, who did I screw up before? Is it Ned?

Why are you holding up the show here? Let's go.

Ned, you're up. On deck, let me get this out. On deck is Edward Trio.

Thank you, Ned. Edward, you are up. On deck is Christopher Gordon.

Thank you, Edward. Christopher, you're up. On deck is the last, almost last, I'm sorry.

So, next to last is Bill Stanczyk, and then on deck is Kevin McCarthy.

All right, thank you, Bill. These people are trying to make a liar out of me all night here. The next to last card is Kevin McCarthy. You are up, Kevin, and on deck is... Scott Thunes.

All right. Well, I'm going to echo that, but I'm going to flip it around. You guys have all been awesome and tremendous, and I think I can speak for all of us up here. Thank you to all of you. All of the St. Viters families that are here, all the residents in the neighborhood that are here. This has been... pleasant surprise I think if you asked staff and all of us I think we're all a little bit concerned with how this might turn out tonight but speaking for me I can tell you that I I have heard really clearly both sides of this thing and in my mind it's a very Focused solution that has to be

Yeah, happy to. I just really wanted to thank all of you for coming out. I think this is the most crowded we've ever seen a boardroom, at least that I've ever seen. And it's hard. It's very difficult to get up and talk in this room. And I tell people all the time, if it matters to you, come to the village board meeting. Say your piece. Everybody gets three minutes, regardless of what your opinion is. And regardless of what our opinions are, you know, we work for you guys. And it's important that you come and you talk about this stuff. So I applaud you all. I think you're all very brave individ

Thank you. Anybody else on this side? Anybody on this side? Trustee Bertucci.

So, again, I want to thank everybody in the room also. You guys all did us proud. I think to the St. Vider people and the parents, I think your students would be proud. Take it one step further. Be an example. Show them how to collaborate. The only other thing would be towards staff, and Randy, I think we were challenged here on Dryden Avenue, and I think we need to maybe, we're not doing the school or residents a favor by not monitoring parking, maybe determining where there should be no parking along there. And somebody kind of pointed the finger at us and said, you could be part of, you're

That's it, right? Okay. Anybody else? Trustee Santamaria?

All right. I have one more question. George, it might be a question for you. Is there a way to... experienced the lighting that is being proposed, how do we, how do I as a trustee see what that might look like? I just wanted to give you some face time. I thought I was gonna make out with, not having to say anything tonight.

So, if we wanted to see that, we could contact you or Ryan or someone from Viator to just see. Yeah. Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Mayor. First, thank you to everyone for your very heartfelt comments. It's really appreciated. I just want to push back on a couple of things before we end. I know that we, that the administration really wants to have sports at Sam Fider. I understand why. And we've been comparing it to some of the other schools that do have that opportunity, the local schools. But what I wanted to push back on is a couple things. For example, the lights. On our proposal, there's 12 lights. When you look at Hersey and Prospect, they have four. When you look at the speakers, how close they are, this

Thank you, Trustee Donington. Anybody else before we wrap up? Trustee Zik.

Actually, I do, thank you. Something that Trustee Santa Maria said kind of sparked a question in my mind. First of all, yeah, thank you everybody for all your comments, and thank you for proving me right. I had earlier made a comment that it seemed like most of the emails that we had received, it was concerns. were not that you didn't want something to be developed here and for St. Vita to approve. It was just the intensity and what was going down there. But talking about the lighting, Director Rodman, in the pack of the information you gave us, talked about the lighting, Just real quick, a co

Thank you. I do want to thank everybody for the very respectful meeting that we've had tonight. And it's, I think, works both ways that we appreciate it and you appreciate it too. I just want a couple things back to the the two stadiums or practice fields or whatever. I just would like more understanding as it moved forward whether there would be games simultaneously on each one. You mentioned one. is for lacrosse and soccer and other things, but would there be games on both fields at the same time? That would be a question that I would want an answer to. Because if it's just practice, your st

Last call, anybody else? Manager Raklaus, thoughts?

Very well, all right, then at this point, Thank you again for everyone's participation. Looking for a motion to adjourn.

Motion made by Trustee Schwingbeck, second by Trustee Bertucci. All in favor say aye. Aye. We are adjourned. Thank you everybody.