City Council - Regular Meeting

I don't need it, I'll just keep doing the bathroom. All mics are live.

The chair will call the June 16th, 2026 meeting of the city council to order.

Would you please rise for the pledge of allegiance?

Clerk Redpath, can you please call the roll?

Alderman Cox? Here. Alderman Gregory? Here. Alderman Williams? Here. Alderman Rockford? Here. Alderman Purchase? Here. Alderman Eterano?

Here.

Alderman Carlson?

Here.

Alderman Connolly?

Present.

Alderman Donilon? Here. Alderman Hanauer? Here. Mayor Bushehr? Present. You have a quorum, Mayor.

Thank you. Can I get a motion for Alderman? Second. We have a motion and a second for Alderman Cox to join by phone. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Those opposed, nay. The ayes have it. Welcome, Alderman Cox.

Thank you.

You're welcome. The civility pledge in the interest of civility, I pledge to promote civility by listening, being respectful of others. acknowledging that we are all striving to support and improve our community, and understanding that we each may have different ideas for achieving that objective. This evening we have a couple presentations, so I'm going to come down to the podium, and I'm going to ask, we're going to recognize tonight the Yule Flip team from the Special Olympics gymnastics team, and I'm going to ask Coach Ann Wells to come up with me for a quick second before we bring the team up.

Good evening, Coach. How are you?

So tonight we are joined by the Yule Flip gymnastics team, which competed in the Special Olympics for the state of Illinois. This is their coach, and I would like Coach Wells to give you a little bit of background on what the team did. Coach, if you would, please.

Hello. It's a pleasure to be here tonight. Yield Flip gymnastics team has been in place in Springfield for the last 15 years, and this year we had three boys compete and Quite a few girls as you can see, I believe the total was 12 and we all went down to Southern, Illinois went to regionals and every single person received a gold on one or more events to qualify to go to state and some children chose soccer and Three of my boys chose soccer, and one of my girls chose soccer, and another one of my girls ended up on vacation on a west trip. But I did take six gymnasts, and they're here today, most of them, to state this past weekend. They had a wonderful time. We were in the Gossamer Arena, and it was a lot of fun. We had a great time, and they all enjoyed their experience with Special Olympics.

Now we would like to invite the Olympians to come up and join us at the podium. Can the Olympians come up and join us? I promise I won't ask you to speak. Good evening. This is Hannah. Hi Hannah. So I have Hannah, and then who's next to Hannah?

Me. Andrea.

Andrea. I'm going to put them, because I have more certificates than Olympians, so I'm going to get these out. What's your name, sweetheart?

Princess.

Princess. Not sweetheart, but princess. Got it. And your name? Marissa. Marissa?

No. Clarissa. Oh, Clarissa, because we do have a Marissa, too. Gotcha. And what's your name? Lexi. Lexi, and there's Lexi. And I'll give the extras to you, coach, to take back with you if you're okay.

So this evening, we're going to acknowledge the Olympians that were able to join us here this evening. And when I say your name, if you could raise it so the crowd knows that it's you. Hannah Anderson, Andrea Hirano, Princess Duckworth, Clarissa Ferry, Marissa Deheave, and Lexi Blank are joined with us here this evening. And tonight, the mayor and the city council who will have come down and stand with you for a photo in a minute, want to recognize you for your hard work, your determination and your perseverance. You each earned one or more gold medals, qualifying you for the 2026 Special Olympics State Competition. Your accomplishments in gymnastics earned you the opportunity to advance to the state games. Oh, it's okay. Where you chose to represent your community in Special Olympics soccer. Your dedication, your versatility, your sportsmanship are all something we all to admire from the community in your actions. So today we all proudly want to compliment you and congratulate you on your achievements. So can we all give them a round of applause? And what? Congrats. Does the council want to come and so we can take a photo? And ladies, I'm going to have you step back a little bit by these stairs. The council's going to be on the stairs. We'll just come back a little bit further. We're going to take a picture together.

Parents, come on up, take photos, whatever you want to take.

We got some high fives.

Ready, everybody, look right here. I'm going to push you up here so we're all in one. Ready?

Take a couple.

Some amazing work there Now I would like to ask chief sumo to come up chief sumo is going to Have a little presentation about the events of last week chief sumo from the fire department, please Good evening everyone good evening chief

So before we kind of go over the timeline from last Wednesday, I just wanted to kind of go over the criteria of the outdoor warning system. Uh, the Springfield activation criteria are as follows tornado warning issued by the national weather service for the city of Springfield reported sustained winds of 70 miles an hour or greater reported hail measuring 1.75 inches, which is basically golf ball size hail. Or a visual confirmation of a tornado by trained spotters and public safety personnel Unfortunately, there is no national standard for the outdoor warning system activation criteria and It does vary greatly from community to community Springfields activation criteria has been in place since at least 2019 and it's generally consistent with practices used by many of the Illinois communities and When it comes to the decision-making, one important principle guideline is all siren activation decisions, they must be made using information available at the time of the event. Decisions are based on real-time conditions, National Weather Service information, and verified reports available at that moment, not information that may become available after the event has concluded. That principle is important because the information available during the involving weather event is often different from what is learned post-storm assessments. So with that framework in mind, I'd like to walk through the timeline of June 10th and the information available. So pre-storm monitoring. Springfield Fire Department staff chief, the staff chief assigned on-call duty officer was in communication with the city EOC supervisor on the severe weather developing in the region. Weather conditions, radar information, and the National Weather Service products were actively monitored throughout the day and into the evening. The area had been identified by the Storm Prediction Center as being a level two slight risk for severe weather, indicating that scattered severe storms were possible. Based on the forecasted conditions and information available, at the time, the city's EOC was not activated. A SIMILAR ASSESSMENT WAS MADE BY THE COUNTY EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY WHICH ALSO REMAINED IN A MONITORING POSTURE RATHER THAN ACTIVATING ITS EOC. MONITORING REMAINED CONTINUOUS THROUGHOUT THE DAY AND INTO THE EVENING LEADING UP TO THE EVENTS THAT I WILL DISCUSS IN GREATER DETAIL. SO THE FOLLOWING TIMELINE CONTAINS SELECTED EXCERPTS FROM THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE CENTRAL ILLINOIS LIVE CHAT SYSTEM. IT'S OUR LOCAL PUBLIC SAFETY COMMUNICATION. The National Weather Service Central Illinois Live Chat serves as a primary real-time information sharing platform during significant weather events. Participants in the chat include the National Weather Service, IEMA, State Police, IDOT, County Emergency Management Agencies, 911 Centers, Fire Departments, Law Enforcement Agencies, Broadcast Meteorologists, and other public safety partners throughout Central Illinois. The live chat provides a common operating picture by allowing participants to share warnings, spotter reports, observed conditions, damage reports, and other critical information in real time. The timeline that follows reflects the information as it is being received and communicated through that system along with information documented through local public safety communication during the event. So June 10th, the weather event, I basically start at 1058. The National Weather Service in Lincoln issued a tornado warning for portions of Logan, Macon, Menard, and Sangamon counties. Some of you may have received a text alert. And just a show of hands and a curiosity, who received the first text alert at 1058 notifying that there was weather in the area? And I'd like to highlight that as the major problem that is very spotty. So text alerts were issued to cellular devices within portions of the monitoring area. At 1059, a minute later, information shared among weather monitoring personnel indicated that a tornado warning had been issued for small-scale circulations near Athens, which is 15 miles north of Springfield. Additional information shared at that time indicated that the circulation near Athens was moving east, tracking towards Williamsville, also 15 miles from Springfield. At 1104, Five minutes later, Athens activated its outdoor warning sirens. 1109, five more minutes later, information is shared by WCIA meteorologists indicating multiple lower flashes towards Williamsville from the Elkhart area, also 15 miles away from Springfield, and that a tornado was visible. Additional information shared by WCIA indicated he was observing a tornado at that time. That was 1109. At 1112, the National Weather Service in Lincoln issues a tornado warning for portions of Christian, Logan, Macon, and Sangamon counties. This warning was generated a second wireless alert. I'm assuming the same people got that one at 1112. Information shared from the WCIA meteorologists at that time indicated additional flashes near the Elkhart exit and that a narrow funnel was visible. At 1113, the Springfield Fire Department was dispatched for a structure fire at the Northfield Center. During radio communications for the response, dispatch advised responding crews that reports were beginning to come in that possible power lines were down along Sangamon Avenue. This was the first indication of reported storm-related damage within Springfield. 1114 p.m., information shared from IEMA indicated reports of momentary power drop in Springfield. Information shared among weather monitoring personnel indicated the latest tornado warning had actually shifted to the Riverton area and was leaving Riverton moving east out of the area. National Weather Service in Lincoln issued a tornado warning indicating the radar showed that circulation leaving Riverton and moving east. No text alert was sent out. 1121. The county sent their storm spotters out finally. 1121. 1124, Springfield Fire Department was dispatched to Tanner Road for lines down. Responding crews confirmed that there was damage at that location, at the APL. 1125, Sangamon County Emergency Management reported it had received no tornado reports within Sangamon County at that time. 1125 also, reports of wind damage and power outages were starting to be received. 1127, storm spotter reported a pull down on North 5th Street and started the rest of the evening where they started to sign in and report damage around Springfield, especially on the north end. 1132, also in Caded, power outage in Ameren had lost power to Riverton. That's just kind of a snapshot of how the time progressed. So the key findings. National Weather Service ultimately determined that post-storm damage assessments that an EF1 tornado had occurred within Springfield area and estimated the tornadic activity may have begun as early as 1104. The review also found that several indicators commonly associated with outdoor warning signing activations were not present during the event. At no time was there a tornado within Springfield that was identified and communicated to the National Weather Service. During the event, the storm was not identified and communicated as a tornadic threat until the circulation was reported near Riverton and moving east out of Riverton. No confirmed reports of tornadic activity within Springfield were received and communicated from storm spotters. No reports of sustained winds exceeding Springfield's 70 mile an hour activation threshold were received. reports of hail meeting or exceeding springfield's 1.75 inch activation local television stations did not even interrupt regular programming to bring you any special information information in real time differed significantly from information developed through post storm damage assessments conducted after the event The timeline presented tonight reflects the information that was available and communicated as event unfolded. Based on that information, the on-call chief officer evaluated the situation using the city's established outdoor warning system activation criteria and made decisions consistent with the information known at the time. Emergency decisions must often be made within minutes using information that is incomplete, rapidly changing, and sometimes conflicting. While post-event analysis provided a clearer picture of what had occurred, Those findings are not available to the decision makers in real time. As part of the after action review process, the Springfield Fire Department is also looking into an automated siren activation system. While a specific system has not been selected, the concept would allow sirens to activate automatically when predetermined criteria are met. But as with any automated warning system, this approach may result in siren activations for storms that ultimately do not produce severe impacts within Springfield. That trade off will be considered when all options are evaluated. I'd be more than happy to answer any questions.

Alderman Rockford.

Yeah. So what's what's talk about your explanation to the news media? About the same in county and Springfield. You said it. The sirens were for Sangamon County, not for Springfield, Illinois. And we're Springfield, Illinois, located.

What I had initially said was the 1058 text message that went out said for Sangamon County. It did not specifically indicate Springfield.

So still no sirens. So what were the sirens for Thursday night?

Winds in excess of 70 miles an hour.

70 miles an hour. Went right off. Sirens.

We had reports of 85 mile an hour winds.

Nobody was looking at a radar on Wednesday night? Wednesday night, nobody was looking at a radar 1058, 1045. I'm sure the National Weather Service was. Like Larry Rockford was. And I seen a white spot on my radar. And yes, Channel 20 did cut into their television programming because I went to that once my telephone went off. So we spent a whole day listening to our sirens, testing our sirens. For what? For what? It did us no good. You're lucky nobody's dead. I said it the other night, and I'll say it again. You need to be put in a new position, Chief. And I'll continue to say that. You let us down. It's discouraging. It's disheartening. And still, you take no responsibility for what happened. You're in charge of this stuff.

I'm standing here representing the fire department. I am taking responsibility for everything. Okay. Thank you, Mayor.

Uh-huh. Alderman Gregory. You know, I... I share some sentiments. So in the timeline, you said at some point in time it did go off in Athens and it did go off in Riverton, you know, and, you know, a part of that automatic siren thing or our thinking has to be that close to us that it could, you know, come our way any part of Springfield very quickly as tornadoes go. You can't really do that.

I believe the thought process was with the Athens that it was. I hear you, Chief.

Yeah, I'm I'm talking about my thought process. Y'all's obviously was different. Um, so, so lost my train of thought. So those, those two things to me, I mean, you know, I, I know I said, we, we talked about the sirens working early, um, late April. They were tested in, in, in May. Cause one of my constituents on a storm felt like they didn't hear him when we had to put them off prior to that. Um, and we tested them and everybody heard them. Um, so they definitely work. Um, So obviously, you know, we have to talk about solutions. Obviously, Mayor, you put out a statement about reviewing things. So obviously, we as a city feel that there's some things that we could do better to alert our citizens. And I would rather a siren go off and it don't come and everybody's safe than nothing come. And I don't know what our relationship or what our dependency is on the National Weather Service. I'm sure they're very good at their job, but that can't be our only indicators, especially when our surrounding communities get that, knowing the north side, that's near Athens and things of that nature. Those should have, in my opinion, went off. If that has to set off everyone in the city. you know, for those citizens. And then of course, you know, the next day, uh, we had some good wins throughout, um, our entire city. Um, so, so, you know, for me, I think, you know, solutions and making sure that this never happens again. Right. We'll go have some storms tomorrow. We need, you know, we, we have to be prepared and our citizens have to be prepared. We talked about shelters, public shelters earlier, and you're not aware of any public shelters or anything like that?

Yeah, we've been looking into it a little bit. We don't have any pre-storm. I know that we discussed like Red Cross and some people will set some up post-storm, but the Springfield area that I'm aware of doesn't have any pre-storm ones. And what's our plans for tomorrow? What's our plans? Yes. The EEOC opens up, I forget, I think at 5.30, and...

In the morning.

Yep. 5 30 AM.

Okay.

And we'll have people that are monitoring. All right. And we plan to really watch that and make sure that, that, yeah, as of right now, the storm system is a level four, so quite significant risk. So yes, uh, all department heads and the mayor and everybody will be there.

Okay. And if we could put our hands together, just, just in case it gets rough like that, we know we have, um, unsheltered people. I got a guy standing, uh, shed on Carpenter Street, those things need to be thought about. I don't want to have to think about them tomorrow. I want to think about them now before it happens. Thank you. I appreciate you.

Before I call on Alderman Donlan, Alderman Gregory, to your point that you just made about citizens that you may know of that aren't in housing or take our shelter for like helping hands. If you have an address of places that you know people are choosing to just hang out under a roof or something. If you would get those to us, because we could send public work zone managers out quickly to check on them if something does happen. If you don't mind getting those addressed to us, that would be great for any alder person. Thank you. Alderman Donlan.

Yeah, thank you, Mayor, and thank you, Chief, for coming up. I know that these weather events are extremely stressful. I appreciate the efforts of Public Works, Police, Fire, all those entities involved. People did ask me, because I represent areas some of the areas on the north end like the airport where there's some damage and so forth was there a tornado wasn't there and so forth i think you've addressed that this evening but you did touch upon something that uh is near and dear to my heart i can't believe it's been 20 years ago 20 years ago we were faced with a city-wide tornado that damaged a significant portion of this community the entire community i believe was out of power it was ugly and we had a strong emergency operations center at the time i know we have one again which is wonderful The fact that that's in operation is the reason why we were able to get through. I know it doesn't seem that way to a lot of people that didn't have power, because there were pocket areas that didn't have power, even as recent as today. But we were able to get on those issues, and I know Public Works crews have been out and doing a tremendous job. But at that time, we learned that the administration at the time, Mary Davlin, learned that the alarm system, the siren system, was 30 years old. Right. And at that time, we initiated a dollar fee per CWLP customer and purchased a new system. And you alluded to another new system. I thought, well, how old is it? It's 20 years ago. Does the automated detection or alert system that you referenced, does that include replacing the actual units that are out throughout the community?

No, that would be more just the software that runs it. The software we have now has the ability to have that added in. which would be the easiest way to do it. There are other options out there that also include social media blast, text alerts, emails. So it just kind of comes down to how how deep we want to get into it, if we choose to do that.

I would bet, even if we have that automated system in place, that the process that we have presently, where an individual or individuals, plural, are down in the EOC monitoring things, meaning there's still going to be a human component to this, needless to say, right?

Yeah, absolutely. And you could still override the system, too, and do it manually if you so choose. Yeah, I mean, there's always going to be a human element, whether it's on the National Weather Service end, identifying something, a spotter's end of getting that information in in time, just kind of that lag that takes place, I would call the main human element.

Well, Chief, I've seen it in action in my career down in the EOC, wee hours of the night when the decisions had to have been made. And I know you take it seriously. You wouldn't be here tonight talking about it. I appreciate your willingness to improve things, always willing to improve things because it sounds like there might be an opportunity for us and whatever we can do as a council to help.

Thank you.

Alderwoman Conley.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Chief. Yeah, and I do. I also I appreciate you coming in and speaking to this. I've also had people ask about, you know, what happened with the sirens and Alderman Gregory. I, you know, One thing I want to take is I my day job deals a lot with with emergency operations. We have that parallel paths. And the one thing that always gets that fine line you have to walk is notifying. So everyone is safe and not over notifying. So people become numb and immune to those sirens. And that's that's my other concern. And I do appreciate I mean, I'll be honest, my office, my building was skipped by the tornado, but we had damage to part of DNR's property immediately adjacent to, very close to APL. I understand that difficulty. We also need to make sure that we're getting the word out to people, be aware, be careful. Those sirens aren't an automatic. I very rarely hear them at my house, just because they're not everywhere. I do want to talk to you, and we've kind of discussed this before briefly in the past, and I think it's time for us to really re-examine as we're facing some very significant weather tomorrow. What we're seeing tomorrow does not have the question marks or the hesitancy around what we had earlier earlier last week, um, the last call I was on before I came in today was they were getting more confident about the degree of risk. And I'm sure you know that too. Um, so it's a recovery. Um, I had, um, a lot of residents without power for quite a long time. Um, one of the things that we've talked about before, and I think it's time for us to maybe kind of after this week, um, reexamine is that citizens emergency response teams, those cert teams, that the Illinois Emergency Management Agency supports those. We actually have a retired Springfield firefighter who is a contact person for that. It's a way to give training and resources to residents so that we can also support each other. And I saw a lot of that this week. I had one guy who was putting caution tape up across the street where a branch had taken down some lines. He wasn't an official. He was just trying to give people another visual cue that they're, you know, don't come down this road. So I understand that fine line you walk. I would also, I think it's really important that we look at alternatives. I'm not opposed to an automatic system that triggers when we hit our criteria. As long as we do, like you said, keep that human element in there because One thing I don't trust are automatic warnings that we don't have people on the ground for. We can all make mistakes. And I know that we understand that happens. I'm very grateful we didn't. I mean, it sounds like APL didn't even lose an animal, which is a blessing. If I can just real quickly right now, put a shout out to Jurassic's and everyone who drove there for their sandwich yesterday. It was crazy getting in and out of work at lunchtime. But this community shows up for each other in times of need. And and that's really impressive. But I think I'd like to see us have a discussion about formalizing that with actual training. So after the event and again before the event, I don't know how you prepare for a tornado other than, again, Alderman Gregory. Let's let's let people know who are unhoused. This is the time to be going to those shelters. This is not the time to be roughing it. Tomorrow night looks rough. Tomorrow looks bad. And it's two cells coming in with a very small break. So we need to make sure that people are aware today, charging things up, having those conversations, checking on your neighbors, checking on people who might be more fragile, and really having a more formalized response for after the fact. But thank you for coming in today. Again, I get complaints both ways. You put the sirens off too much, you put the sirens off not enough. We want to make sure that we have the biggest impact, and that is a very delicate balance. So thank you for coming in and for taking the time. And I know your team will be looking at this more closely. How do we improve? That should always be the situation after something like this. How do we improve better for the next event? Unfortunately, our next event may be tomorrow. Thank you.

And two things that you said. Alerting fatigue is a real thing. I mean, we think back to the whole Code Red incident that we went through a few years back with the news agencies and how that began to give a negative impact to the surrounding.

Well, it almost became a little bit of a joke. I mean, people were kind of laughing about, oh, it's a Code Red every time you turn around.

Unfortunately. So you do have to, there's a very delicate balance there. Another thing that you said that I want to kind of Define or cause it's a misconception is you've said you can barely hear the sirens in your house. They're not designed to be heard in your house. They're designed to outdoor warning sirens. They're designed to be heard while you're outdoors to, to notify you to take shelter. So a lot of people will say, you know, I didn't hear them, whatever, you know, whether it be the Tuesday that we're testing or whenever. They probably can't hear them in their houses. So that is, it's something that's just kind of misunderstood, I think with the system.

And I will say, actually, you pointed out something. So I checked. I didn't get any weather alerts, nothing at all. I went into my phone, and I actually didn't have those weather alerts enabled. So I'll just say, as a general kind of PSA, if you're probably smart, most people are smarter with their phones than I am, I will fully acknowledge that. But go in and enable those weather alerts, because when the phones go off, that's usually right next to you. That that that will shake you out of bed in this you also need to have your GPS on yes location services.

Yes.

Thank you. So yeah We got to do that too. Thank you mayor. Absolutely alderman Rockford.

Yes So chief is there a cost when we run these sirens? Is there a cost it? How does this work you talk about sitting in this? This room the space, you know, you're monitoring these storms. How many people are involved? I

Yes, when you're monitoring is there 50 people's or 10 people is there are we on fall phone calls turns on the the amount the EOC is open to There's there's like light activations where it would be like police fire. Usually the mayor CWO There's got to be somebody from national weather all the time, right? No, that is a like a chat room that we go on over the computer

Okay, so so what I'm saying is you you you're on in communication with national weather and correct? Okay, so the storms in Athens and in in Elkhart Okay, move it to Williamsville. Is that is that not enough to? We were my understanding there was numerous tornadoes at night that were spotted now this is just hearsay and probably very very true hearsay and and so I So we get a tornado go through the north end of town. The phone goes off. Channel 20 has it on. But there's no sirens. So wouldn't it be better safe than sorry than to sit there and maybe poke your head outside a window and take a peek? Because I got video on a camera off my porch. It's crazy. And at 11 o'clock when I yelled up to my wife, you know, hey, I think something's going on, you know, and then it starts raining and blowing. You know, so I don't know why, you know, it takes the human element part. But we don't sound a siren, man. You could have looked outside and seen that something was going on on the north end of town. Now, maybe it wasn't wherever this room's at, you know. I just don't. I don't know. For the life of me, I can't understand how a siren didn't go off. And then the next day when I talk to you, not 15 minutes later without a tornado warning, the sirens go off. So I'm confused, man. I don't know the process. And again, it's water under the bridge. I praise God that nobody was hurt. and a protective, the people at the airport, the people who knows that didn't have power in the north end of town that was living on life support. Yeah, I don't know. But you know what? Hindsight's 20-20. But I just hope moving forward, moving forward for the next 10 months, as long as I'm still alderman, that it gets better. Because I tell you, it really sucked that night. OK, it really did in the next day trying to answer to people without knowing. I can't answer the question. So again, you hear on media some of the answers and it doesn't make any sense to me. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor.

Alderman Notriano.

Thank you, Mayor. Chief, I appreciate your explanation and your presentation. I'm curious as to why your presentation isn't going to be followed up by Director Rogers. to explain CWLP's response and preparedness for tomorrow. So I really have questions more for that side than you. But I would like to, in your defense, remind everybody that a year ago, more than that, when the leadership in Washington changed, they decided to cut severely National Weather Service personnel and resources. So you can be sure that we didn't get alerts because those trained spotters probably weren't in our area and they probably didn't see what you saw on your porch, Alderman Rockford.

Those people are trained they're trained where a storm is gonna occur and this storm had been built brewing for a day or two So these train spotters they travel the country they they go where the action happened So if you want to go to Thursday and look in no Triana has the floor.

I'm sorry Respond

Well, I mean, we wait our turns, Alderman. And this isn't a dig at you. I'm literally saying that our federal government has cut manpower to where there may have not been a spotter in our area. And we all need to realize that that's a potential problem. You had mentioned that you didn't get the updates that you thought you would get from the national weather service that's not your problem that's not your fault uh so it would it be okay to have director rogers come up and we're not later we need to finish this part first okay okay