Village Board of Trustees - Regular Meeting

And I'm calling this meeting to order. Our first item of business is the Pledge of Allegiance. So if you could please all rise and join the board.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

ALL RIGHT. WE HAVE A FULL HOUSE TONIGHT. IT'S FABULOUS. LOVE TO SEE IT. ROLL CALL OF MEMBERS, PLEASE, MAGGIE.

HERE. VERY GOOD. THANK YOU. UNDER MINUTES, WE HAVE TWO SETS OF MINUTES, ONE IS ITEM A, IT'S FROM THE APRIL 20th, 26th CLOSED SESSION MINUTES. ARE THERE ANY COMMENTS OR QUESTIONS FROM ANYONE ON THE BOARD? MAYOR, I HAVE TO RECUSE MYSELF FROM THAT ONE. WE'LL HAVE ONE RECUSAL NOTED FROM TRUSTEE GILBERT. ANYONE ELSE? COMMENTS, QUESTIONS? ANYONE FROM THE AUDIENCE, THOUGHTS ON THE MEETING MINUTES? IF NONE, WE'LL LOOK FOR A MOTION TO APPROVE.

I'll move approval of the closed session minutes of April 20th, 2026. Second.

Motion made by Trustee LeBed, seconded by Trustee Dunnington. Any further comments or questions? If not, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Seeing none, motion carries. And then the second item is from May 18th, which is another closed session set of minutes, are the same questions. Any recusals from anyone for anything on that? Any changes or corrections? Anyone in the audience have any comments or questions? Seeing none, looking for a motion on that as well.

I'll move approval of the May 18th, 2026 closed session minutes. Second.

Motion made by Trustee Manganiello, seconded by Trustee, sorry. LeBetz. Seconded by Trustee LeBetz. All those in favor say aye. Aye. And opposed, motion carries as well. And then next on the agenda is our accounts payable. And for that we'll call on Trustee Bertucci. Thank you, Mayor.

I'll move approval of the warrant register for the check date July 30th, 2026 in the amount of $4,759,792.85. Second. Motion made by Trustee Bertucci, seconded by Trustee Schwingbeck. Are there any questions or comments on the warrant register? Anyone in the audience? Seeing none, this is a roll call vote.

Yes. All right, motion carries on that as well. All right, taking care of business quickly here. Item number six is recognitions and communications, and we have two items. The first one is why many of us are here, apparently, and that is a recognition of the Hersey Cheer Squad, and they are, believe it or not, state champs this year. That is correct. Thank you. This is quite an honor for our board, quite an honor for our village, quite an honor for the school, I'm sure. I just spoke to the principal. Is she here? There she is in the back. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna come around out front

Hannah, we're going to try and get a picture with the coaches and everybody. So if we can kind of get in the scooching together here somehow, maybe two lines. Can we do that? I'm going to get to the end here with the principal. We'll get the flyers out in front. See, I know what that is. There you go.

All right. Before I let you off the hook, is there anything quick that you guys can do on television? I mean, I don't mean to put you on the spot or anything like that.

I think it's going to happen. I'm coming over here. Awesome. Very good. Thank you, everyone, for being here and doing this. You know, it's really an honor for all of us. There's a lot of work that happens in Arlington Nights, and some of it is not quite as exciting and not quite as fun. So thank you for being here and making it fun for all of us. Congratulations. Have a wonderful rest of the week. Now, if you would like, you do not have to stay here through the rest of this meeting. So if the families who, by the way, I didn't get to say this, we know that the families had a lot to do with thi

Okay, so while they're leaving, we're gonna go on to item number B of the recognitions and communications. And this is a very, very important recognition tonight. This is for someone who has been an outstanding contributor to the benefit and the growth of Arlington Heights for Ernie, how many years? 48. 48 years. And what I'm talking about is Mr. Ernie Bloomquist, who was our village prosecutor for all those decades, almost five full decades, doing it in a way that was respectable, honorable, and appreciative by all of us, the mayors before me, the boards before me, the staff before me. Is the

All right, very good. Ernie, would you please come up to the podium here? I'm going to read this to you.

On behalf of the Village of Arlington Knights, this proclamation recognize Ernest or Ernie R. Blomquist III, whereas Ernie Blomquist III has honorably and with great distinction served as the prosecutor for the Village of Arlington Knights since 1977, establishing a legacy of dedicated public service and legal excellence spanning nearly five decades. And whereas raised in Mount Prospect, Ernie attended Prospect High School and Western Illinois University and taught at Lincoln Junior High School and attended law school at Chicago-Kent College of Law. And whereas Ernie was inspired to pursue a c

Well, I know that there are some very special folks here tonight to help us celebrate Ernie, and one is near and dear to my heart, sat in his chair for 12 years, past Mayor, Mr. Tom Hayes. Where are you, Tom?

I think it's clear that, you know, the mark of such a great leader, you spent 10 minutes or so up on that podium there and you've spent most of the time talking about other people like Jack and other folks that you worked with. That's remarkable. You're here being honored and you're honoring everyone else. That's a testament to who you are and what you do and what you've done with your life. So thank you for being that way. I see a number of other faces that are from your past that are here. Is there anyone else who wants to come up and speak for any amount on this particular topic? Not to put

If anyone would like to address it, please raise your hand. I'll call on you. In the meantime, I know there's a couple board members that would like to speak. Trustee Bertucci.

Mayor, thank you very much. I just want to mention that what Ernie has done for this community goes beyond the legal side. Ernie has been a mentor, not necessarily on the legal side, but to community side to many of us over the years. In the 90s when I was a... young, career-orientated person, Ernie threw the hook on me and said, come here, kid. And one of the people that helped me to understand, if you wanna do well for this community, here's how you get involved, here's what you do, here's what you think. And I got to tell you, he has done that not just for me, but he's done that for many of

There you go. There you go. So Ernie, again, congratulations. Thank you for all the years that you've given not only the legal side of the community, but also the mentoring side of the community. And I look forward to our next glass of wine together.

Trustee Gilbert, the lone attorney on the board right now. And ironically enough, there's a story to that effect. I can thank Ernie for a lot of things, and one of them is getting me involved with the Village of Arlington Heights. I'm not sure if he remembers, but I want to say thank you. And I'll just tell the quick story. I showed up to a bar association event a long time ago, not knowing anyone, went to the event and found Ernie or Ernie found me. I remember sitting at a table by myself and he came and sat down and we started talking and quite honestly, before I knew what was happening. The

Anyone else on the board? There is one more person I want to hear from, and that is Chief Pecora, who absolutely works with Ernie probably the most out of anyone in this room. And Chief is so eloquent with how he speaks. I know he'll have at least one good story for us.

Very good. Greg, anything? Anybody else? I don't want to put you on the spot, but if there's anyone else, please. I want to say one thing. Please stand up and introduce yourself. Stand up. I recognize you. Is it Sam?

All right. Anyone else? If not, we're going to move on. Thank you everyone for coming and helping us celebrate a wonderful career and obviously a wonderful human being. So thank you, Ernie, for all that you've done. Appreciate it. Our best to you. So on to less exciting stuff. And if you want, we'll take a quick break here for anyone who needs to leave. The next item on the agenda is citizens to be heard. And I do have four or five cards here. If you're planning to speak on citizens to be heard, this is for items not on the agenda. And we do our best to keep it at three minutes or less for eac

Very well. Thank you. And I know that Chief Harris was part of that expedition that went out there to take care of it. So thank you, Chief, for handling that.

Trustee Zik, you were there at the meeting.

Yeah, it was. Really, just what I want to say is, it's kind of what Susan was saying. You know, when Randy found out about this particular issue that was going on with this neighborhood, He jumped on it, him and Chief Harris. They did some great work. They came out after hours to see exactly what was going on. Now, a lot of people get to see Randy and Chief Harris, you know, just maybe on TV or in the newspaper or things like that, don't really understand what they're doing behind the scenes. This was a clear example of how hard they work and how much they care about this village. to get this

Anyone else? Okay. Another blue card here is Rob Brodecki.

Thank you, Mr. Moons. There's a lot there that I would love to unpack and respond to, but I'm going to refrain, and I'll just ask our village attorney, Mr. Passman, a couple of simple questions. Are we okay, and did we perform our duties in appointing this task force, in your mind, appropriately? Yes. Thank you. Is there anything else you want to add to that?

Very good. Thank you. All right. We'll move on then to Thomas Bucaneri. Did I say that right?

Well, I'll suggest you do this. Our village manager, Randy Recklaus, is your perfect contact for trying to get to the next level.

Yeah, I don't disagree with you. Let's get some more information out and share your information with village manager Recklaus. Thank you. Thank you, Thomas. All right, that's it for the blue cards that I have on citizens to be heard, which are, again, items not on the agenda. If you're here for an item that's on the agenda, just hold until that item comes up. Is there anyone else that wants to speak about something else that's not on the agenda?

Thomas, before you leave, I think you left your phone behind. All right. Are we set to move on? All right, we're going to move on then to the next item, which is our consent agenda. And the consent agenda is a list of items from A through H. They're posted here that will all be taken care of by one vote. Is there anyone on the village board that would like one of the items to be removed or would like to vote no or pass on any of these items on the consent agenda? Seeing none on the village board, is there anyone in the audience that would like to ask a village board member to remove one of the

I'll move approval of the consent agenda, items A through H. Second.

Motion made by Trustee Libeds, seconded by Trustee Bertucci. Any final comments from anyone? If not, this is a roll call vote, Maggie.

Yes. All right, motion carries. Those items are all passed. So if you're here for one of those items, that has been taken care of. The last two items on our agenda tonight are under new business. And the first one is I think why everyone's here, and that's the appointment of Bridget Krause to the Performing Arts at the Metropolis Board of Directors. Maybe I mistook that a little bit, I'm not sure. Bridget, could you come on up to the podium? And I'll call on Trustee Dunnington.

Thank you, Mayor. I'll move, as I did in the Committee of the Whole meeting, to concur in the Mayor's appointment of Bridget Krause for appointment to the Performing Arts at Metropolis Board of Directors, completing the term ending September 16th, 2026, and fulfilling the next term ending September 16th, 2029.

Second. Okay, motion is made by Trustee Donington and seconded by Trustee Schwingbeck. Is there any further discussion by anyone on the board? Anyone in the audience? What this is is an appointment to our Metropolis board and I know that we do have some board members here and our president, Sue, would you want to stand up and introduce the board members that are here and the director and so on? Yes, go right ahead. Well, you know what, Sue, come on up to the microphone with Bridget. I want to give you some air time here.

Wonderful. Thank you, Sue. Bridget, is there anything you want to share real quick?

Wonderful, great. Well, let's go ahead and make this official. Do we, is just a voice vote all okay on this? Okay, so the motion was made by Trustee Dunnington and seconded by Trustee Schwingbeck. Any further discussion at all? If not, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? None. It's official. You are now board members. So thank you for stepping up and volunteering for us.

And so we are on to our last item for tonight, and that is item B under new business. It's 330 West Gulf Road, affordable senior housing development. And this is what we call early review. This is not a formal opportunity for commentary and a lot of detailed discussion. This is an opportunity for initial thoughts. And to give us better understanding of that, I'm going to call on Village Manager Reklaus.

Very well. Thank you, Manager Ricklaus. And just to try and reinforce that, it is an expensive, time-consuming task to go through this process of formal review. You go through staff review. for a long period of time asking for recommendations and commentary on your drawings and your concept your design then you go to the plan commission which is a public hearing then you go to the design commission which is another public hearing ultimately you land here at this village board after recommendations are made from the other commissions and the public is invited and well informed on all of those S

Thank you for that brief introduction. I think before we go to questions, we'll go to Ms. Rodman from our planning department and have a planning department review.

Is that it? All right, thank you, Ms. Rodman. I have a number of questions that I'll hold for the moment. Again, I'll remind the board this is really not about getting too deep into the project, but certainly asking important questions or sharing important perspectives. So we'll start on this end of the board for the beginning, and we'll work our way through. And I do have a...

Four blue cards that will call on for the audience to speak as well, so go ahead and we'll start with trustee showing back Thank You mayor I Guess my concerns for staff and as I've Publicly said I'm certainly in favor of supporting affordable housing affordable living We we went through this not too long ago with with another development We always talk about how important it is to take care of the seniors from our town, but if I'm not mistaken, we really can't guarantee that this is going to be helping our seniors, if that's correct, because this could be affordable senior housing for anybody,

Yeah, and I'm all in favor of not only affordable housing in general, but really looking out for our residents. And I just want to make it clear that that may not happen, that we could be seeing seniors from all over. When I look at this project, I guess a couple of things. Regardless of whether this was affordable senior housing or just apartments in general. I'm concerned about the two buildings, the three and the four stories. because when we were talking about the last proposal that we went through where the building is now being built, it started out as a three-story and when it was final

Thank you, Mayor. First, thank you to POA and to the Church of the Incarnation for bringing this project. I think it's a really good use of space that is not currently available. BEING WELL USED SINCE IT'S KIND OF JUST A PARKING LOT AND BEING WELL USED SINCE IT'S KIND OF JUST A PARKING LOT AND GRASS TO MOW RIGHT NOW THAT WAS GRASS TO MOW RIGHT NOW THAT WAS MENTIONED. MENTIONED. I ALSO THINK IT'S A REALLY GOOD I ALSO THINK IT'S A REALLY GOOD LOCATION FOR AN AFFORDABLE LOCATION FOR AN AFFORDABLE HOUSING LOCATION SINCE IT'S VERY HOUSING LOCATION SINCE IT'S VERY WALKABLE AREA WITH IT BEING CLOSE T

Thanks, Trustee Donison. Trustee Bertucci? Thank you, Mayor. Is it Julie? Yes. Can you come up, Julie, to the... Thank you. First, let me just say generally I agree with staff and their concerns and Trustee Schwingbeck with a lot of what he brought up and then with what Trustee Dunnington brought up about the location. I do think the location is favorable in comparison to the Goff-Arlington corridor. However, let me ask you, have you discussed anything with the surrounding residents yet?

Julie, I got to tell you, very important, and you'll save yourself a lot of time and aggravation. Are you familiar with Arlington Heights? Are you a part of this organization?

Okay, I would think that you might wanna look to a previous development that's in the process of being built now called Grace Terrace. And when it comes to three and four stories, I would not vote for three or four stories. I mean, you gotta come down to probably two, unless you could really come up with a favorable look with three stories. That's what we had them do, and I think they spent a lot of time and money trying to do this three-story thing that backed up to the residents. The residents weren't happy, and at the end of the day, it wouldn't pass without being at the proper... So if you

Because it may be related to... What we'll do is we're going to go through the whole board, and then we'll see about answering one or two questions afterwards.

Right. This is just giving me an opportunity to finish my comments. Yes, perfect. Okay. And then, Brandy, as far as property tax, if this was built there and it remained church property, would that building throw off property tax?

Right, okay. Because that's an important piece, and that shows you're willing to, you know, we know for a fact, in fact, we just received a report from staff talking about the amount of service calls to not only senior residences of, you know, multi-resident, but also low-income senior, and they have a higher amount of calls. Well, we know, you know, not a problem. We know we need to help take But we need to pay our bills otherwise that burden goes on to everybody everybody else so So setting it up so that there's property taxes. I think it's going to be very very important so Heights of build

Okay, great. Thank you. Thank you. And Julie, if you could come back. You know, my other concern, and I'll leave it for staff to give us more recommendations, but is the size of the loan from the trust fund comparatively speaking to the project and how many other projects might come forward. So to have a loan of that size and using that much of the trust fund for one project, that would be something I'd be concerned about, and I'd want to have staff drill down on that at some point. So those are my general concerns. I mean, again, not to put a damper on the project, because I think it's a grea

Thank you, thank you very much. Can I stay up? Oh, go ahead and sit. I'm happy to, okay. I think there'll be more comments. I do have a question first though for Director Rodman, and that is about the land banking comment that was in the staff report, because I too was surprised when I read it And maybe you can explain it further, because I know we've done land banking for other types of projects. Is there something about this particular project that means... it's not appropriate. I can think of certainly shopping centers where even the one right across the road on golf where we did land banki

So perhaps that's what we did. I guess you would have been there with me on quite a few of these. OK, thanks. Appreciate that. There have been a lot of great comments. When I look at the site, frankly, it's just an odd-shaped site. And it would be difficult, being R3, thinking about single family homes, even if it were to be sold for that, I think you could only do a cul-de-sac at the end and just a few houses. So I can see why there would be struggles with figuring out what to do with this. I do believe another organization might have looked at this, site at one time for some kind of a projec

Thank you, Trustee LeBetz. Trustee Gilbert. Thank you, Mayor. I think this is a really neat idea. I don't know whose idea it was, but I thought this was an excellent use of land. And knowing the size of your congregation, I just imagine, you know, 30 of you sitting in a room and somebody having an aha moment. Like, wow, we could really do this, you know? And so... It's clever. I hadn't seen anything like this before, and I'm sure that there's other churches in your similar situation with land that's available to use. So why not try to use it for a cause like this? It's just kudos to you. I don

I'll just start by saying broadly I support moving this project forward. I don't see anything in the concerns that we haven't addressed in other projects that can't be overcome through the process. We can't be in favor of AFFORDABLE HOUSING AND TRY TO LIMIT THAT TO ONLY ARLINGTON HEIGHTS RESIDENTS. IT'S JUST NOT FEASIBLE WHEN FOR ECONOMIC VIABILITY, PUBLIC SUPPORT IS NEEDED. THAT'S USUALLY GOING TO COME FROM THE STATE AND THAT TAKES AWAY OUR POWER TO REGULATE favorability for Arlington Heights residents and I do see it still as a priority that the board very broadly supports so I think we just

THANK YOU, MAYOR. Overall, when I first saw this, I loved the idea. Obviously, it's one of our strategic priorities, and you look at affordable housing from a couple different areas, you know, trying to make it, you know, inexpensive enough or affordable enough that those starting out in their life can move in, and those that are at the opposite end, you know, that are on fixed incomes that need something like this. So, I think it hits those priorities. Got a lot of thoughts here. Here's the thing, obviously this is a preliminary thing and there's a lot of areas that have to be figured out her

Okay, all right, thank you very much. And then the last thing I'll just say, oh, actually two things, I apologize. You know, we were talking about the parking. I think Trustee Dunnington, I think you said, you know, the last parking issue that we had with the other church, it was the same thing. They're not all there at one point and it's kind of coming and going. If all of a sudden you guys get a real uptick And more people, I'm sure you can put in more masses, more services, and be able to kind of work it out that way. So I think that's something that can be doable. It's interesting to me, s

Thanks, Trustee Zik. Now, I know that we have one trustee that is absent tonight, but she had some thoughts and shared it with Manager Reklaus, if you wouldn't mind sharing with the group.

Thanks, Manager Raklaus. All right, I think Trustee LaBette's had one more comment that she wanted to add to her.

Thank you, because I forgot, but Trustee Zik actually did say it, and as long as this isn't, should this move forward as not marketed as Arlington Heights, seniors will move in here to make it clear because that's where we've had problems before that people misunderstood that it has to be open to everybody when they went to this move forward and people come in they will be arlington heights residents and they'll They'll have exactly the same responsibilities and enjoyment and all that as we have. They'll spend money in the village and they'll utilize other like park district and things like th

Very well. I do have some blue cards, but I think what I'll do is I'm going to share a couple thoughts of mine first, and then we'll go to the audience. And the first thing I want to say is I think it's clear by past performance and history for as long as Robin and I have been on the board together that Arlington Heights has been a leader in these kinds of housing options. We really have. And I think that For the most part, we're very proud of all that. There's been projects come through here that took some time to get through. Changes were made, demands were made, conversations were had, and

Okay, thank you. You're welcome. One of my questions that I wrote down here was answered several times, and that is having to do with who gets chosen to be the residents here, so we know the answers to that. Land banking on the parking, 100% yes, in my opinion. It is a clever and affordable and beneficial tool. So I would ask this developer to do its research and determine what the number of stalls are that you believe are appropriate and come prepared to defend that one way or another. And at the end of whatever, studies are created. That'll be determined by this board if it's appropriate or

And Maggie's going to put that little timer on up there.

And now I have a fifth card. So let's start with Linda, Linda Wacey.

Thanks, Lynn. That's very helpful. Next is Cleo, Cleo Nyckel.

Thanks, Jean. And I was. I was actually the architect who worked on the Lutheran Village as a young kid out of college. And my boss nearly got run out of town because of that project. But it was one of those things people were just afraid of because they didn't know any better. So you're absolutely right. Next is Daniel Cruzius.

Thanks, Daniel. And the last card I have is Christina. Christina Cruzius.

Thanks, Christina. Well said. I see a couple hands in the audience. Come on up. Dr. Motto, go ahead.

Thank you, Dr. Mono. Another hand in the back, come on up.

Okay, thank you. Anybody else before we close this out? Yes.

Well, thank you. Thanks. Thank you. Well, I think, hang on, Gene. What I think happened here tonight is a little education, right? And I think that this board spoke pretty openly about all of our individual thoughts. Mostly good. And I think some concerns. So now the developer and ownership have to go back to the drawing board and determine their next steps along with staff's help and support to guide you and If you make all the right decisions and you listen and you end up convincing and you're going to wear a lot of different hats from teacher to student to salesman to everything else, how d

Okay, great. Jean, come on up. Don't always do this, but for you, I'm making an exception.

Do you live in the individual fourplex units or in the apartment building?

So that's owned by Charles Shaw, though. That's not owned by the Lutheran Home.

Yeah, so it'll be interesting how this works. I mean, there's always a new education around the corner, so this will be interesting to see how it works.

And you have the big guy on your team. All right, if there's nothing else here, is there anything else from the board? If not, we're looking for a motion to adjourn. Motion made by Trustee Schwingbeck. Yeah, well, here, seconded by Trustee LeBetz. Was there anyone in the audience that wanted to speak on something else that has not been covered here tonight? I didn't mean to omit that. Seeing none, okay. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Thank you all. We're adjourned.