Committee of the whole meeting for the Elgin City Council for October 22nd, 2025 to order.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Councilmember Zalfaro.

President.

Dixon.

Present.

Good.

Here.

Martinez.

Here.

Ortiz?

Here.

Powell?

Here.

Stefan.

Here.

Thorne?

Here.

Mayor Captain.

Here.

Um approval of the minutes for the previous meeting of October 8th.

Move approval.

Move and second for approval.

Any corrections or additions.

Hearing none, Clerk, please call the roll.

Councilmember Zalfaro.

Yes.

Dixon?

Yes.

Good?

Yes.

Martinez?

Yes.

Ortiz?

Yes.

Powell?

Yes.

Stefan?

Yes.

Thorne?

Yes.

Mayor Captain.

Yes, the motions approved 9-0.

Brings us to the portion where we open the meeting up for public comment.

We have a number of people that signed up tonight.

We have 10 on the list.

And I usually uh we usually people speak a little longer, but we're going to hold you to the three minutes tonight.

Otherwise, we'll be here till midnight.

First person to sign up is Gary Swick.

Hey y'all.

I'm here as uh Elgin resident and excuse me representing Friends of the Fox River.

Uh I really appreciate your work.

You're charged with making really important decisions that are expensive and impact a lot of people.

So thank you.

I'm really proud to be at Elgin resident.

And I know that some of your decision making comes from people you respect.

Uh like your staff.

And uh you know you have to rely on them.

And so I'm very excited to see the presentation tonight because I have a lot of questions.

Um but I'm also excited that we're moving forward uh with dam removal uh in a positive way every step forward, and that uh this is a step that's relying on science the scientific process and learning things.

And when I first started researching, kind of a juvenile researcher, really, comparatively, but I learned that what you learn out of doing your research is you need more data.

And we we maybe need another study.

So that's what I'm one thing I'm looking for because I know that we've gotten data uh and had studies in the past, and uh so I'm I'm not gonna interrogate anybody.

I'm uh interested in uh watching the show tonight.

So thank you for taking a deeper dive.

And again, the invitation's always open uh to host you at the Carpenter Dam site and to see what it looks like uh right here on the Fox River when that dams removed.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Leslie Porter Mayor, City Council, thank you for the allowing me this time.

Um there are a couple items on the agenda tonight that I think are emblematic of serious crises we're facing as a country and as Illinois.

The decisions you make with regard to the DACA firefighter and the know your rights agenda topics will be representative of this city's position during this hinge moment in history.

Powerful and unethical federal forces threaten our constitutional rights, those that define us as Americans.

As a country, we sleptwalked into a regime that is harassing, harming, and abducting our friends and neighbors, people who seek only to live in peace and contribute to our community.

What I've seen in the last few months is shaking me to my core.

I thought democracy was a given and the guardrails would always hold.

But I confess I feel very naive now.

But I've also seen a group of people, different ages, different backgrounds form a coalition dedicated entirely to the protection of the most vulnerable among us.

This comes at significant financial cost to them, yet they show no hesitation in the face of bodily harm or fear of arrest, just to give aid to strangers.

I would like to see the same kind of decisive stance from the city.

I plead with you for courage.

Courage to stand up for human rights, to uphold the rule of law, and to set boundaries to protect the vulnerable in our city.

I believe we must be clear in our message and in our decisions on matters like DACA and know your rights.

Because when a government uses violence or enforced disappearances to suppress dissent, it challenges every one of us.

So let's send a message to Elgin that we won't remain silent, thus condoning the unraveling of values we live by as Americans.

We have a responsibility and an opportunity to be on the right side of history here.

We have a duty to model compassion, resilience, and accountability.

Our actions or inactions send a message to our children about who we are when fear tests us.

If we show restraint in the face of injustice, we teach indifference.

If we choose moral clarity and compassionate leadership, we teach courage.

So I urge you to adopt a clear public stance that we support and protect DACA, and we are 100% in on guaranteeing that our Elgin family knows their rights.

Let's be sure that when this lawless constitutional crisis is over, our children can say with pride, our city protected the vulnerable.

We speak truth to power, and we refuse to normalize cruelty.

Please, let's set an example that righteousness and humanity are not negotiable in Elgin.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Sherry Liske.

Good evening.

The irony tonight is that in the same space we talk about the free flow of the river and what should be the free and natural flow of human migration.

Good evening.

My name is Sherry Liskey and I'm resident of Elgin.

The City of Elgin needs to ban in the strongest language possible the use of public property by the Department of Homeland Security to stage and carry out their unlawful abductions of the residents of our or any other community.

The elected leaders need to lead with courage and advocate on behalf of the residents and families who are literally being disappeared into the abyss of ICE detention and deportation.

This must end now in this room and on the streets.

Hi, my name is Jenny.

I am a double board certified registered nurse, specializing in addiction and psychiatry.

I want to ask this evening for ice-free zones to be implemented, but from the mental health perspective.

People are not going to appointments, they're not getting medical care, they're not getting medical procedures, they're not getting psychiatric procedures done.

Residents should be able to attend these appointments without isolation, without fear of being barricaded.

Sorry.

Staging and gearing up with large weapons out in public in your city.

These absurd actions by ICE undermine public safety for the immigration community.

A community hit hardest by these masked men brutalizing human rights.

They're gearing up in your lots to create a militarized atmosphere to exude power and authority in your city.

When these agents are gearing up in public lots in your city, there are workers present, day laborers.

This is being seen as lazy icemen jobs because they can just walk over and detain these people.

Elgin is not looking like a welcoming city anymore, and allowing ICE to stage in public lots to storm through your town stealing people destroys any trust that your city should be building with these residents.

It creates fear, it rebirths trauma, it undermines trust, and it shows nothing but abuse of power against a community that I love so dearly, but that we all love so dearly.

Please enforce ice free zones and give our neighbors just a tiny sense of belonging without isolation without isolation.

Every human deserves to feel like they belong.

And with that, I say the rights of a human being should be above any law.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Cheryl Brumba.

Cheryl Caeford.

Good evening.

My name is Cheryl Brimbach Hafford.

I'm a resident of Elgin.

I have been for more than 20 years now.

It's just adding it up.

I speak strongly with the most heartfelt concern in favor of item C and item H.

The deferred action for childhood arrivals, hiring eligibility, and the ordinance regulating city-owned properties to prevent immigration enforcement activities.

I have two questions.

One is does item C need to be expanded to allow for DACA hiring eligibility across city hiring platforms, not just firefighters.

I don't know where we are on that, but I would encourage a wider discussion if that's possible.

And then I have a question about the word certain under age.

Why would it not be all city-owned properties?

And I would in addition, I would I would urge that conversation to broaden as well because we are talking about our whole city.

We're not just talking about city-owned properties.

This is an issue for our whole city, everyone's property, everyone's street, everyone's sidewalk, everyone's school, everyone's business, everyone's hospital, everyone's doctor's office.

And the list goes on.

I commend you for this.

Step at a time, but let's think beyond tonight.

Let's think beyond this day's situation into what we're facing for the next several years and see what can't be done now to prevent further encroachment.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening.

Thank you to Councilwoman Powell and Councilman Stefan for bringing item H, the discussion of civil immigration enforcement on city property to this body.

I'm an Elgin resident, and I'm here tonight to join my voice with others who are imploring us to understand that ICE and the tactics they are using do not keep any of us safe.

And to ask that you take action to restrict their access and movement in our city.

Sidestepping due process, and in many cases, I do not know what other word to use other than disappearing individuals.

Because when someone is taken into custody and family and lawyers are unable to locate them for days, weeks, or sometimes longer, what else can we call this?

This is not an exaggeration or the work of liberal media.

There are many here tonight who have seen this for ourselves and on our streets.

And this reality should be alarming and frightening for all of us, regardless of status, color, or just how far back your family's American immigration story goes.

None of which, please note, did I earn or somehow gain through my own merit.

Therefore, I also stand here to say loudly that none of those things should be what determine the safety of an individual in our city or this country.

And that's why I'm asking our council to do everything in its power to limit the movement and efficacy of this agency in our city.

They do not keep us safe.

They do not represent justice or lawfulness.

They so further distrust in the systems that already struggle to maintain public safety.

They destabilize families by taking loved ones and breadwinners away from their family unit.

They disrupt all our children's ability to learn in classrooms free of fear.

And whether or not you are and your family are currently in their crosshairs or not, we should not be foolish enough to think that we could never be.

Please move quickly on turning the discussion tonight into a passable ordinance and consider what more can be done to protect our city and its residents.

My daughter made and held a sign this last weekend that said, no matter your heritage, you should feel safe here.

I saw other signs that day made by kids asking for safety for whole families for the ability to live securely and free of fear.

Please, let's do everything in our power to live up to these signs our children make.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Malachi Stanger.

Hello.

Uh I'm an ECC student currently living in East Dundee, but I grew up in Elgin for a time.

Some of my fondest memories with my late grandfather are the two of us going to Armondos in the nearby Latin music store, which is down the street from where I grew up.

I've always been proud to grow up in a diverse community.

I've had many friends, neighbors, and coworkers from Spanish speaking communities.

They are some of the most kind, honest, and hardworking people I have ever met, and my life would be worse off if it weren't for my Spanish speaking and otherwise at-risk neighbors.

A student was recently taken from ECC, and I was baffled.

My view of ECC has been almost exclusively positive for the years I've been there.

This event left me shocked and disgusted beyond words.

Of course, this is only one of the many examples, but it was the closest to me.

I don't want to see Elgin, Carpentersville, Dundee, or anywhere else around here become whitewashed communities, nor do I want my neighbors to be living in fear of a tyrannical government.

It is our moral duty to stand up against what is happening in this country right now, and I hope everyone here tonight realizes that and goes forward with creating an ordinance banning ice from city property, uh, as much city property as possible.

Chicago and recently Carpentersville have paved the way for other local governments to take crucial steps in protecting our communities.

In my eyes, this is only one step, but it is a meaningful step that will help many people.

I would hope we could expand this to include places of education, places of worship, and places where people get medical care in the future.

Uh, thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Elgin has always made the Latino community feel welcome and has always treated us very well.

I'm here today to speak for those in our community who have been impacted by the unlawful actions of the government entities known as DHS and ICE.

We have seen countless videos of mass federal agents terrorizing our community, putting people into vehicles without even having a judicial warrant, and in some cases, even detaining U.S.

citizens.

They are essentially kidnapping our neighbors.

Christy Nome even came to our city to do a publicity stunt.

Under the current political climate, anyone who shares my skin tone, who shares my tongue, or who shares my culture is at risk of being targeted by ICE.

This is regardless of their status in this nation.

I urge the city council to implement any protections you can to limit ICE's abilities to harm Elgin.

Establishing ICE-free zones is a good step towards that.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Thea Cornelius.

Hi, good evening.

My name is Tia Cornelius.

I am a resident of Algin, but I am also a pastor in Algin, First Presbyterian Church.

Um, and I want to speak a little bit on behalf of the religious community in Algin II, regardless of faith.

Um to said if you remain neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.

Um Martin Luther King Jr.

said something very similar in his letters from Birmingham Jail.

Now, granted, those who are in um situations of apartheid and civil rights, but this doesn't feel much different to me than those two.

And theologically speaking, this is not a political issue.

This is a moral and a human and a theological issue for us.

The Bible is extremely clear that we need to welcome the stranger.

We do that.

That all humans have a right.

In fact, Jesus himself was also a stranger and a refugee to a different land.

This neighborhood of Algin is full of friends and neighbors and families that have been living here for years or maybe for weeks.

I myself stand here as an immigrant in front of this public, the people in the public and in front of all of you.

I don't have to be afraid to go on the streets because I am white.

And what does that say?

That I don't have to be afraid, but so many others do.

What we do to our neighbors will come back one day to haunt us.

Please, I implore you.

What ICE is doing is not human or humane or Christian or religious like in any way, shape, or form.

Please stop them from using our public spaces to harm this community deeply, deeply deeply.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Okay, Mr.

Manager, item A.

Thank you, Mayor.

This evening, the first two initiatives involve presentations from existing consultants that the city is contracting with.

The consultants are going to provide information on work that they performed to date, along with information on what they propose to do going forward.

The first item this evening is the U.S.

Army Corps of Engineers, Fox River Connectivity, Connectivity and Habitat Study.

This is the consultation agreement with engineering enterprises.

And amendment two is proposed this evening.

For background, the Army Corps of Engineer preliminary report that was issued in 2023, recommended the removal of the Kimball Street Dam as well as the eight other low head Fox River dams from Carpentersville to Montgomery.

Hydraulic models indicated that removing the Kimball Street Dam will affect the water levels on the river so that the city's Fox River drinking water intake will be inoperable during low flow conditions.

It's part of the city's efforts to evaluate options to mitigate the effects of the lowered water levels, including the potential relocation of the Fox River intake.

The city's been working with the University of Illinois Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering to develop a two-dimensional numerical diagnostic study of the Kimball Street Dam removal and the impacts on the city's Fox River intake.

City Water Director Nora Bertram is at the podium and she'll be introducing the consultants who will be providing information on the study that has been performed and recommendations for the next level of analysis.

While we wait for that, do you want a motion, Mayor, to approve this?

No.

Approve the study.

Yeah.

No.

All right.

Okay, so we're good to start?

Okay.

So I'm here tonight with our team from University of Illinois, Andrew Waratuk and Dr.

Marcelo Garcia.

We also have Jeff Freeman over here, a familiar face to everyone.

So we're going to talk a little bit about our current model results and then why we are looking to extend and expand the model.

Andrew, next slide, please.

So why is this evaluation needed?

As Rick mentioned, we had the U.S.

Army Corps of Engineers, Fox River Connectivity and Habitat Study.

In September 2023, the draft report was issued, which recommended the full removal of the nine Fox River Dams, including the Kimball Street Dam.

Following the draft report, public comment period, the Army Corps is further evaluating the dam removal recommendation.

So we, with the Corps recommending that our dam is removed, knowing that the intake is upstream of the dam, we considered looking into this to see what the impact of the dam removal would be on our intake.

We've presented on this several times before, so this is an update.

Next slide, Andrew.

So this is kind of the core's new schedule.

This is revised since our last presentation.

Currently they're doing, well, not sure if they're working right now, but in fall of 2025, they were supposed to be doing sediment sampling and analysis, meeting with municipalities.

They have not reached out to us yet to meet with us.

Um so I'm thinking the schedule is probably going to be pushed a little bit.

In January of 2026, they are seeking the non binding, non-binding letters of support, um, which would uh indicate to them that we are still interested in participating.

It doesn't hold us to any commitment as far as dam removal.

And then they're expecting report approval in fall of winter of next year.

And then we need to make our decision if we want to continue with working with them on removing the dam, the Fox River or the Kimball Street Dam.

So that would be in January 2027 is when that starts.

So that's kind of what deadline we're looking at right now.

And then we have you know plans and specs and IGAs going forward.

Next slide, Andrew.

So currently we are in amendment number two of this agreement.

The original agreement was in 2022, and that was to monitor the study progress and findings and provide input on the study findings.

That was with our our partners over at EEI.

Amendment number one, which was in 2024, was to work with the University of Illinois to develop this model that we're going to be presenting tonight.

As a part of our comprehensive master plan, we had developed a 1D model.

They took the 1D model and now they're making it a 2D model.

This is all really techy stuff.

So we'll get into it a little bit.

If anyone has any further questions or wants to dig deeper, we can talk about it at length.

And then amendment number two is this one, which will be extending the current model, and we'll talk about why we need to extend the current model and analyze the river with a physical model, which is like an actual to scale model of the river with sediment in there and talking about what it would look like.

Prepare cost estimates and also do a CFD computational fluid dynamic model of the intake.

We're counting on certain levels at the intake, and we need to make sure that those levels are spot on.

We don't want to say it's going to work at this level and then find out it's not going to.

And with that, I will turn it over to Andrew.

Okay, one minute.

There we go.

Okay.

All right.

Thank you, Nora.

Uh thank you, uh Mayor Council members.

Uh yeah, we've been working for about the past year on a numerical model study for the uh looking at the impacts of potential dam removal on operation of the city of Elgin's uh intake structure.

Um we we we modeled this with a piece of software called Open Telemach.

It was actually developed by the French National Uh Electric Agency for specifically for looking at uh uh hydrodynamics and sediment flows around some of their intakes.

Um the model that we developed was really our our extents were based on availability of some very very uh comprehensive uh bath metric data, so in-river surveys that were done from about 1600 feet downstream of the I-90 bridge and then downstream basically to the West Highland Avenue Bridge.

Um in this reach, you know, near the city of Elgin's intake, we actually have Hyler Creek as an inflow.

Um this figure to the right shows you the basically the general plan form of the area that we modeled, as well as some a couple of uh landmarks that we're gonna discuss later in this this presentation, including the intake Tyler Creek.

Um we also have this is uh an indication of the bathometric information that we use to build our model.

And this this is important in terms of discussing some of the features that are actually in channel and often submerged, uh, being the the bar that kind of forms on the right descending bank upstream of the dam, um, the saddle, which is kind of a channelized area that's just immediately east of that bar and uh can actually act as a bit of a water service control, and then the narrows, which is kind of a narrower portion of the channel downstream of the intake, which also can serve to uh act as a control in terms of you know establishing what the water surface elevations are.

So for the study, we've done two primary types of scenarios.

One is a diagnostic scenario where we tried to determine the likely outcome of the dam removal with respect to changes in the bed morphology and the water levels.

Um we've also engaged in a mitigation assessment, basically, if there's been any problems that we've identified in the diagnostic studies.

Are there any engineering measures that we can take or recommend that will address those problems, both in terms of again bed morphology and and water intake levels?

Um needs to be kind of clarified or you know specified in this is when you're doing this type of modeling when you're doing bed, you know, bed changes, uh, erosion and deposition.

So, what we end up having to do is finding a flow generally known as the bankful flow, which is tends to give the largest changes in the bed geometry.

Um so what you end up doing is you model this flow for long period a constant flow at a long period of time, and it tend will represent a lot of the bed changes that will occur long term under the natural variability.

Um the core of engineer recommends that uh you use a flow rate of two with a two-year return period, which means the basically the peak flow that occurs on average every two years.

Um what I should kind of note is kind of going forward in this that all of the results that I'm going to be talking about are assuming that the can't can't pardon me.

Kimball Street Dam has been removed with the exception of the calibration validation runs.

I'm going to show right at the beginning.

Um also a number of the kind of water surface profiles and and longitudinal profiles I show in you know figures of I reference a Kimball Street Dam location.

That's primarily provided mainly to give you kind of a landmark in terms of the figure.

Um, it's not to imply that the dam is actually present in those simulations.

So as I said, you know, we've modeled a what we call bank full flow, the two-year flow, which in the Fox River at this location ends up being right up a little bit under 5,000 cubic feet per second.

Um, and that's important in terms of determining the bed morphological changes.

We've also simulated the 7Q10 flow, which is defined as the lowest seven-day average flow that occurs statistically once every 10 years.

Um, and this this is kind of the condition that is critical for determining whether the the water intake will remain operational at low flow rates.

Um boundary conditions, which are probably not you know too a little more detailed than you need for this meeting, is basically we end up using the existing uh adapted FEMA effective model to determine the uh basically the boundary conditions in the model.

So the first step in this model was to basically verify that the telemac model was doing a good job of representing conditions, and unfortunately, due to a lack of actual you know water surface measurements in the reach, we had to compare to that existing heck grass model.

So we did that with for two fairly large flow rates, both a two-year and a ten-year flow.

Um, in this case, basically the solid, the the bottom show the black line shows the uh channel bed, the the center line elevation, the solid blue and kind of green and cyan lines are basically the heck ras model uh water surface elevations, and then the dashed lines are the ones we have gotten recently with the telemac model.

Um there's generally very good agreement between them all.

Um we do see a slight increase in our modeling in terms of water surface elevations that are largely associated with the Kimball Street Bridge.

Uh, we feel that the 1D model probably underestimates some of the energy losses that are experienced as flow goes through that bridge, and you know that's something that's not necessarily very well represented in 1D modeling.

Um so very early on in this process, we were made aware that the uh there are plans to replace the Kimball Street Bridge, and that became important to us because obviously, as you change the bridge geometry, it can have a substantial effect upon the energy losses as the flow passes through that bridge, which therefore can affect flow velocities and ultimately scour and water surface elevations.

Um left is the existing Kimball Street Bridge as it stands now.

Um there's basically 10 piers that span the channel.

The new proposed design actually has five piers that are much more widely spaced, and they just uh a little you know shifted a little bit to the north.

So this had an impact in terms of basically again the energy losses through the dam.

So this is showing you the energy losses with the dam removed between the existing and the new proposed bridge for a two-year so the bank full flow condition.

Um you can see that basically in the vicinity of the bridge itself, there's a fairly substantial change in water surface elevation between the two conditions, with the new bridge having lower uh water surface elevations.

Um by the time you get up to the vicinity of the intake, um, so in this area here, uh there's a small difference, but it's actually relatively negligible on the the order of about 0.2 feet.

And when I was discussing earlier, basically the energy losses and the the that are experienced through the bridge.

This these are figures showing basically the velocities with uh the the colors indicative of uh a velocity magnitude.

Um so this is in feet per second, and then the black kind of traces are basically the flow path, so stream traces that show the direction that the water is moving at a point in time.

So for the diagnostic modeling, um, one thing that is very important to us are the the sediment transport rates and basically this the sediment conditions.

Unfortunately, this reach there's fairly limited information on the sediment transport rates within the river.

Um there's there's not been a strong effort to collect and determine how much sediment is actually moving down the river, especially in terms of bed load, and that's complicated by the fact that there are substantial number of dams on the river that impound and tend to collect these sediments immediately upstream of them.

What we had to work with was uh series of measurements that were collected in 1979, 2003, and 2004 as a parts of you know various studies, uh the 2024 being uh collected specifically for this work.

Um the right hand side, the figure kind of shows the location of those sediment measurements from the 1979 and the 2024 uh cases.

So, again, it's fairly sparse within this reach.

Ultimately, that is important to us because uh we've had to estimate sediment transport loads by using what's called an equilibrium condition at the upstream end.

What that means is basically the model self-adjusts so that no erosion or deposition occurs at that upstream boundary.

Um, this has the potential to over or underestimate scour depending on what the actual sediment transport is and the proximity of that upstream boundary.

You know, we're only you know, a couple, maybe a 1500 to uh you know 2,000 feet.

The intake is about 2,000 feet downstream of our upstream boundary.

So the fact that we're imposing a sediment transport rate can also lead to potentially inaccurate results.

Umknown is basically the fact that the sediment load and sizes are affected by existing dams, and the recent removal of that Carpentersville dam may change the sediment load that's coming into uh you know the reach in Elgin, the Kimball Street Ridge.

Um here is basically just the uh a simple grain size.

Well, you know, effectively this is a characterization of the size of the sediments.

The one thing that can be noted is that the one to the right, basically this line right here represents the material that's deposited on top of the bar.

Um it's substantially small or yes, finer and more likely more mobile than the sediments that are in the main part of the river and actually deeper within that bar.

So that's one thing we had to account for is that that bar itself is likely going to be reasonably easy to erode.

So for the bank year uh bankful flow condition, we we ran our model for the equivalent of probably about two to two and a half years of uh real runtime to try and reach some type of equilibrium condition where the bed stops changing.

These are kind of three substantial reaches of interest.

On the left is basically the area in the vicinity of the intake and the narrows.

Um in the middle is that that bar area and the saddle, which again is that kind of channelized portion to the east, and that the right-hand side is the um basically the morphological changes right around the vicinity of the dam and the uh the Kimball Street Bridge.

What we really note is that there's a you know fairly substantial amount of uh erosion that occurs in the narrows.

Um, we also note that there's a sediment bar that tends to form in front of the intake location, and this can be impactful uh for you know the operation of the intakes, especially for low flow conditions.

Um the right hand side is effectively that bar is built up high enough that the intake becomes isolated from the rest of the river.

Effectively, you have kind of a levee that forms between the main flow of the river and the intake, and obviously when that happens, it's then becomes problematic, and the you know, the you're unable to withdraw the the required flow from the river.

Um in that kind of bar and saddle area, you effectively get a fair amount of erosion that what it ends up being is kind of on the leading edge of the upward side of the uh the bar, but you get some type of uh some deposition, and you don't get a whole lot of change in elevation in this saddle area.

So some notable features is basically the uh bed tend as I mentioned previously, the bend tends to degrade in the narrows, you get about a three-foot drop in elevation.

Um you get the a bar deposition, um, you know, the forms in the intake area, and portions of the bar upstream of Kimball Street does erode, however, it's not uniform in some areas of deposition have been noted, and the bed material from the narrows appears to actually re-deposit within that bar, and ultimately the saddle is uh tends to be relatively stable, which can be you know modeling indicates that that's important for the uh for water surface elevations at the intake.

And one notable consideration is that there is a fair amount of erosion that's observed underneath the Kimball Street Bridge, which you know is to be expected with the removal of the dam, but the the amount of that erosion may you know may become impactful in terms of the design of the uh foundation for the new bridge.

So, after looking at kind of the morphological changes and running these flows for as I said, long periods of time, we then wanted to see what happened when you then run that 7Q10 flow, that low flow on top of the the bed that has been evolved.

Um so this is the you know anticipated shoreline after erosion of the uh of the bar and after removal of the dam.

Um effectively, what you can see that the flow tends to concentrate within the saddle area within here and kind of form its own new channel.

Um water surfaces kind of upstream of the narrows, so upstream of the intake, tend to activate the the current existing channel that uh narrows acts as a bit of a control that you know increases the water surface elevations there, so you're not going to see a substantial amount of the existing you know channel bed that becomes uh emergent at low flows.

But as I I did mention previously, there's potential for that intake to become isolated from the rest of the river in low flow conditions, and you can kind of see that in the the figure right here, the the kind of gap between the the blue areas with the intake structure being right here.

So we did want to then kind of compare how the you know what what the water surface elevations look like and the bed look like comparing the existing bathymetry, so basically the channel as it is now minus you know the dam and what it looks like after uh erosion, and this is basically a centerline profile.

Um this darker green line is the new eroded bed.

This slightly higher one is the existing bed.

The orange line here is the existing water surface elevation, so you can see near the dam, it's actually reasonably you know higher than the uh the water surface elevation for the evolved bed, but by the time you get through the saddle area and upstream of the dam, the the water surface elevation is not substantially different between existing conditions and the in evolved bed case.

So just some general observations that the basic the stability of the saddle seems to indicate that uh it will act as a water surface control that extends up to the the city of Elgin's water intake.

Um water surface elevations at the intake range from about five seven basically in the area around the area 706, uh depending on scenario for the the low flow case.

Um this elevation actually is greater than that 703, the the elevation that's been determined uh as kind of the minimum operating level for the the you know plant for the in-strake structure, but as you know, it has been noted, you know, even if that water surface elevation is high enough, if the you do get that levee effect and and the intake is isolated due to sedimentation, it still will be a problem in terms of operation.

Um, and another thing that should be noted is that basically, due to the amount of scour on the order of three feet within the narrows, uh the water district does have the Slate Avenue plant on the uh southeastern bank of the narrows, and depending on what type of you know shoreline protection is done and whatnot, if that scour gets too deep, it can you know result in potential widening of the channel.

So there must have to be some consideration put into how you protect the banks to ensure that uh they don't widen in that area.

So through our uh effort, one thing that's is kind of been of concern is again the the stability of the bar in the saddle.

As I mentioned previously, that material is very, very fine, very, very moisture laden, very well, I'll call it kind of fluffy.

So it's you know, a type of material that's expected to erode reasonably easy.

And as with these, you know, the the uncertainty involved in the model in terms of the incoming sedimentation rates, the sediment loads.

We we wanted to kind of look at a case where we imposed a worse case on the model to see what happened in terms of the intake.

So effectively did three scenarios where the we kind of assumed a constant slope from downstream of the dam, basically down here at point zero, and then carry that slope all the way to a point just immediately downstream of the narrows and a point immediately upstream of the narrows, and then finally, if you assume that you get some very, very extremely substantial erosion all the way upstream of the intake.

So, what I've got here is a line that kind of shows a cross section.

The blue is the existing bed, including the the saddle and the the bar.

The red line is basically the imposed bed that we've applied in the model to simulate again a worst-case erosion case.

Um, this is just kind of gives you an idea of how much scour that would involve in the area of the the bar that's upwards of 10 feet of material that uh scours away.

So, again, this is aims to be an extreme case to look at a worst case situation.

So this is the water surface profile for the existing, so effectively the bed as it is now.

Um, the blue line being the bed, the orange line being the water surface elevation uh for 7Q10 flow, so the low flow case.

Um here now shows basically kind of the that assumed water bed profile up through the narrows.

So effectively, like I said, you you get some extremely high erosion in the saddle area and in the bed.

Um, like I said on the order of about 10 feet.

So you see a pretty substantial decrease in water surface elevations, but um at the intake, the the top of this red line labeled as intake is actually that 703, that critical elevation.

So as long as we're above that, you know, there is at least the appropriate depth to maintain operation at the uh intake.

This is the case uh just coming up now with this uh kind of purple line and this uh lighter green line is when you have erosion continuing all the way past the intake and uh up you know upstream.

In this case, the water surface elevation actually does drop below that uh operational limit for the uh intake structure, drops down to about 702.

So in this case, the the intake is presumed to be inoperable.

So knowing that's the case, and although it is expected to be a rather extreme erosion case, we wanted to look like at are there any type of kind of fail-safe measures that can be taken to still maintain those water elevations at the intake.

Um, one idea that we've we came up with and examined is the idea of placing a series of uh dikes across the narrows that basically that have a gap between them, this gap on the order of about 30 feet.

Um, one of the requirements of the cores uh you know, dam removal effort is that you don't inhibit the natural uh passage of uh the the biota fish and whatnot at low flow cases.

So the idea was by having this gap, you're maintaining the natural channel at the low flow case, low flow situation where the flow is concentrated just within that gap.

So kind of look at what those would look like.

Um the the eight figures on the left are the existing channel as it is now, and then what those dikes you know those you know, presumed dike cross sections look like.

Um, so they're they're on the order of one to two feet in most cases, so not very deep.

Um so now we're gonna look at what the effect those had on it.

So again, this is the the existing condition.

This is basically the where you have the erosion up just you know, downstream of the narrows, you can start to see actually a little bit of a stair step effect, which is the impact of those uh various you know control dikes.

This is that extreme erosion case where again the purple is the the presumed bed and this light green is the uh water surface elevation.

Again, that stair step is actually a little bit more pronounced.

But what we do notice is that it actually does is able to increase the water surface elevations up to right where that uh you know critical value is for the intake.

So we're looking now at basically what the water surface profiles look like with and without those you know, spur dike structures.

Um purple is again without the structures, and the green is with the structures.

So it shows that they are actually you know fairly effective at increasing that water surface elevation.

And the way it does that is basically by causing a very kind of rapid expansion and contraction of the flow, which increases the the energy losses as you get pools and you get uh flow acceleration and deceleration.

So on the left is what the the flow would look like for a 7Q10, so the low flow case.

Um thing we did note for the higher flow cases, the bank hill case.

Um it really the the fact that these are there really becomes irrelevant.

Um the flow really doesn't notice it because they're small enough.

Um these streak lines are again show effectively what the the flow patterns look like.

So the other thing we did is to look at the effect of uh dikes on the you know sedimentation around the intake structure itself.

Um we've looked at basically nine different dike configurations to date.

Um all the various different colored or the different uh attack angles, the different lengths, the different spacings of of dikes we've looked at.

Um thing that should be known is that these dye dikes should, if they're you know designed or you know, implemented, they they've got two primary purposes.

One is to kind of minimize deposition in front of the intake itself, the other is to move the channel foul wag, so basically the low point in the channel, move it closer to the intake so that you don't have that uh isolation that we've noted previously.

So what we've really kind of seen is that the the flow training structures uh do increase flow velocities at the intake, which will act to kind of scour a little bit and hopefully mitigate some of the bar formation.

Um again, the streak lines, the the colors show the magnitude of the velocity in feet per second, and then the streak lines show what the flow patterns look like.

Um what we still noticed even with the dikes that we've tested to date, there is still a general tendency of the bar to form immediately to the south and west of the intake, um, indicated by this kind of red area right here.

Um, and this seems to be primarily driven by the interaction between this kind of slack area immediately to the west of the the intake and the flow coming down in the main channel.

Um so you can see that what we call flow separation, where basically the the flow tends to go in disparate paths that tend to seem to occur right where this bar is forming.

So we looked at another case where we actually put a couple of dikes across the river within that slack area to try and push the flow back.

Um it does create a more uniform flow pattern, but we do actually see still see some uh formation of this uh bar for this case.

So this is something we we definitely need to look at further to try and optimize and and improve the design and the recommendation for the design.

So ultimately, kind of summary the findings is you know, the the erosion of the saddle in the bar really should is not expected to drop water surface elevations at the intake below the critical levels, except for cases of extreme erosion, um, which again are are unlikely, and there's potentially measures that can be made to limit that erosion.

Um, in the event of extreme erosion, you know, or is kind of a fail stafe if the it should be desired, and then you know you can potentially install those spur dykes within the narrows to allow passage of the the low flows through the natural channel while uh you know increasing uh elevation water surface elevations.

Um installation of those dikes really does not increase water surface elevations or or velocities at higher flow rates.

So you know, concerns of increased flooding are are you know wouldn't it would not increase flooding levels.

Um we've really not looked at per se, but you know, the the results shows that if there was you know potentially the installation of some type of apron or stream bank bed protection at the exit to the narrows to prevent erosion from progressing upstream, um, would be potentially an effective way to maintain water levels at the intake.

Um and they may have the effect of again preventing the incision and potential widening of the channel uh within the narrows with the potential impact on the Slate Avenue facility.

Um what we have found is that flow training dikes on the south bank do seem to increase the velocities at the intake, but the designs you know done to date, uh the configurations done to date are really not haven't been effective at completely eliminating that sandbar.

So that's where we need to really look further and do do some uh additional iterations.

Um I think here we are talking uh turning it over to uh Jeff.

Is that correct, Nora?

Yep.

Thanks.

Thank you, Andrew.

All right.

Good evening, all good to see everybody.

Jeff Freeman with EEI.

Thank you for the opportunity to have been able to work with you on this challenging infrastructure project uh for the city over several years now, and uh we've gotten a long way down the road to be able to answer questions for you.

But as you see tonight, um our request is to be able to take it a little bit further to be able to get across the finish line here.

So amendment number two to the contract uh which you have as part of your packet, uh, really has four components to it.

Um component is to extend the 2D numeric model that uh Andrew just spoke about.

He's actually going to talk about that a little bit more on the next slide.

And then he's also gonna talk about after you take the computer model and results from that, moving into the physical model that uh director Bertram mentioned, where an actual physical model is constructed within the laboratory at the University of Illinois to be able to test what the computer is telling.

And he'll talk about that a little bit more in a second as well.

And then I'll take care of the last four bullets.

I promise to be quick tonight, uh, maybe not like previous nights, but um talk about the city's Fox River intake and utilizing a more detailed model there because it's such a critical component of your infrastructure, as well as the need to really bring this all together with a cost estimate so that you understand what the financial impact would be to the city if the dam were removed.

So with that, I will actually Andrew needs to advance the slide, please.

And then if you could talk about yours.

Yeah, so as uh Jeff just mentioned, uh, you know, the first step we feel would be to extend the the numerical model north to the former Carpentersville Dam location.

Um a reoccurring theme in this is that uh you know there's really not a lot of information on the the sediment discharge, you know, and how much sediment is actually coming down the river.

Um and that adds a substantial amount of uncertainty to our results.

Um because of the the area that we modeled, which I said is was somewhat limited due to available bathometric information, um, the influence of that boundary on the numerical model because it's so close to the intake, um, it's the the impact is unclear, and um it can affect the the extent and magnitude of the computed um erosion and deposition.

Um our hope by extending the model upstream is that the improved information will allow the channel to self-adjust.

So rather than having just a couple thousand feet of area upstream, you actually have several miles upstream where erosion and deposition of the channel can be occurring, and effectively any boundary effects due to an imprecise uh estimate at the boundary is will no longer be felt felt by the time you actually get to the uh reach in question.

Um another aspect of it is in 2025 this past summer, the uh Illinois Department of Natural Resources actually did a depth of refusal, a series of depth of refusal measurements.

So effectively they probed the the channel bottom to get an idea of the the consolidation level, um, you know, kind of what type of sediments you have at what depth, and being able to have that higher resolution uh information will allow us to improve our estimates of the uh sediment transport within the model.

And finally, as uh Nor and Jeff mentioned, you know, we we've proposed uh doing a physical model study.

Um the the image you have here is actually a model that we'd have done in the lab um looking at transport around bridge piers for the Tanama River in Alaska.

Um but what we use is a lightweight sediment, uh crushed walnut shells, to be honest with you.

Um it's been used for you know looking at sediment uh erosion and scour round structures, and it's also been used by uh you know Dr.

Garcia during his uh graduate school days uh to look at you know water intakes on the Minnesota River.

Um so the point of this physical model will be to examine the effectiveness and fine-tune the replacement of any flow training dikes, um, and to verify that they are effective at uh keeping the intake clear.

And we also want to confirm the effectiveness of those flow training structures within the narrows that we've recommended to make sure that you know they are effective in maintaining water surface levels in event of low flow conditions.

And we also want to be able to actually use the numerical model to inform this physical model study.

Um, we need to be able to know and apply at the upstream boundary of the physical model um the the appropriate sediment transport coming into it, so you know the the sediment loads and and the you know stages and and elevations and having the extended numerical model will help us do that.

And then I'm gonna turn it back out back to Jeff.

All right, thank you, Andrew.

And as uh we've continued to discuss the most critical infrastructure component for the city from your drinking water supply perspective is your intake on the Fox River.

When we started that this uh and went through the modeling, we essentially use more manual methods to identify what the minimum water level uh would be allowable before that intake becomes an operable.

And when I say manual, just spreadsheet calculations using graphs and charts and just overall calculations.

There's higher level analysis that can be completed.

This computational fluid dynamics analysis.

This is a number we can't get wrong, right?

We need to make sure that that intake is operable for the city under all flow conditions.

So we're proposing again as part of this analysis to do a CFD model so that we truly understand the hydraulics as water is withdrawn into that structure and can then be passed on to the water treatment plant for treatment and then out into the community.

The next slide then just says, as I stated before, that uh once everything is done.

I'm sure you'll be asking the question what is the cost?

What is the cost to the community?

Not only from the potential in stream riverine improvements that Andrew has already suggested might be a possibility, but the city does have several water mains and one sanitary sewer that crosses the Fox River that through initial analysis have indicated if there is a high degree of erosion, those pipes would be unearthed or essentially visible, and they may need to be reconstructed across the river at what could be a pretty significant cost.

So our goal again is to look at the instream rivering cost as well as the water mains and sand ja sewers that night might need to be installed so that you have that number uh to be able to compare against certainly some of the positives related to uh dam removal.

With that, then that concludes our prepared presentation, or certainly available for any questions.

Okay, before we have questions, we'd ask for a motion uh for approval.

Motion approval second, move the second for approval.

Any questions?

Mr.

Steph.

I I've got a couple again.

Thank you, everybody.

Um we just got the presentation this afternoon, so it's nice to be walked through this and and get this a little more in depth.

A statement and then some questions.

First of all, I'm glad that you are.

I didn't see it in the memo, but then I had to look at your proposal and then heard it again tonight in the presentation on the findings so far that you are going to use data after the dam was removed up in Carpentersville because I think that kind of changes everything upstream.

Yep.

Um along those lines, having driven up there a lot and and actually been there and walked the area above where the dam was to see how that has changed after one of the things anybody can see from East Dundee as you drive along is it Water Street or River Street, Rosie O'Hares, that street bricks is there's a whole bunch of what seems now to be sandbars developing in the river.

So it seems like the fact that that saddle and bar is an elegant could remain.

I mean, it's it presents that there's some evidence that maybe that can stay.

That's why I'm glad you're looking at that data and seeing what's happened after that dam was removed in Carpensville.

Um couple of questions, and um I'm glad we're doing this.

I'm glad we're gonna get more data.

I think we have to get this right.

Um we have to make sure that we don't jeopardize our water supply.

This is ninety-five plus percent of the water that we provide our residents usually.

Sometimes we can use the wells, but not for long.

Um couple questions.

You the presentation talked about the dikes and the narrows that you said would only be about two feet and under the water and really wouldn't show itself unless the water though we got to a real low flow and then everything would kind of channel through the openings.

Are the weirs the same way?

I didn't catch that, so I just wanted to make sure I understood I called them weirs because that's the way they were presented in earlier discussions, just to separate the concept between the dikes below the water intake and the narrows and the weirs, or you call them dikes above or equal to alongside the water intake to try and push the current over to the water intake.

Would those be below the water, or those gonna be it describe them, I guess is yes.

The the original intent and this dates back to even studies done before uh we got involved or Benwayers is what they refer to to start with.

That would be um what is envisioned is a rock um levee working its way across, but underneath the river, okay under most conditions.

Uh probably kayaks canoes could even probably pass over top of them without really even knowing that they were there.

As the water level gets lower and lower, uh they would be visible.

They as they're uh currently envisioned would be porous, so water actually could go through it, but at a very, very slow rate.

So the main current, the idea is to just try to have the main current, the main velocities pushed out towards the intake so it scours that sediment away from the intake, but doesn't necessarily take away any um volume or overall conveyance within the river, especially during flood flows because you can't really fill within the floodplain.

This is taking uh allowing that volume underneath the water to be there, but pushing again the velocities to the west.

So the and you're not envisioning to build a structure like a fishing pier you could walk out on and it's gonna be under the water.

Be submerged.

That's that was good that I asked that question because I think I had a wrong conception of that.

Um another question is um the in that area just west of our Slade Avenue water treatment plant, that shoreline's all been changed where it's just a cement wall that's been cut out.

Is does that have to stay?

Is do you envision maybe removing that?

Does that affect what happens in that?

I think that's where the narrows is, but yeah, we're so we're looking at that.

They talked about um the erosion in the narrows of being like around three feet, some pretty significant erosion in that area.

Um those walls are very old.

Right.

I'm thinking they probably will have to be replaced as a part of this, especially if there's significant erosion.

Um, some of them, if you if you go down there, they're not in good shape.

So um the concern would be as the water level goes down, they could be undermined.

Um we don't really have design information on them at all.

You know, we'd have to look at that some more.

But yeah, that is that is a concern.

Um I'm they I think they would have to be reconstructed, though.

I don't think we could take them away because they hold up a pretty significant hill there.

That's kind of how I envisioned it.

Yeah, I've been on them.

There they aren't all that safe.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Okay, those are my questions for now.

Thanks.

Okay.

So far.

Uh thank you for the presentation.

I did have one question.

Um will the replica also look at the increase intake given the population is increasing in Lgin.

Will it also be looking at an increase amount of intake that we'll need in the future for longevity?

I know the data sets that we use were from 2015 to 2023, so I was just curious if we're also looking at that for long term.

Um so our current intake is we average about 12 million gallons per day.

Um our peak is around 20 million gallons per day.

Our intake is sized for 42, so we're actually pretty undersized right now, or oversized, I guess, for what our needs are.

Um as far as population expansion, I don't know that we're projected to exceed that to through our through our master plan horizon.

So we would size that for 42.

Yeah, it's it'll be size for the 42 for the capacity.

So it's sized for 42 million gallons per day.

Right.

Yes.

Okay.

Thank you.

Mr.

Thorne.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you for the presentation.

Uh I'm curious.

Was your firm engaged by Carpentersville?

Uh we were not.

Not with Carpentersville, no, sir.

Had you been, do you think you would have in your studies and the way you study discovered the now visible pipes that are going across the river that are now going to cost that city an enormous amount of money?

I'm sure you know what I mean.

Since it was on the front page of the papers.

Yeah, hindsight's 2020.

Um, sure, I mean, we're perfect, right?

We would have uh identified it for them.

I I mean I I can't say for sure, but it clearly is an issue, and honestly, because of that, it certainly brings this more to the forefront and the cost as you stated.

Thank you.

Okay.

Anything else?

Ms.

Powell.

Thank you for the presentation.

Um speaking of the pipes, refresh my memory.

Where are those pipes located?

Uh that we were referring to.

Yeah, I don't have a pointer, but you see that diagonal one right there, kind of the blue line, the blue line, that diagonal one.

That's a uh water main.

The red one that goes horizontal across as a sanitary sewer.

And then as you get up towards the intake, um, you know what?

There's there's actually I think five pipes that go across the river there.

Um, and those are different um well, our well line goes across, um, our one going back to Slade goes across.

Uh so there's several that go that way.

Okay.

It looks like if I could just jump in, it looks like there's one in the dam itself.

Is that the uh that is under the bridge?

It's not oh that's under the bridge.

Okay, the dams below that got it.

Okay, anything else.

Okay.

I have a c uh uh well, it's not a I guess it's a comment, a couple comments.

Um you talk about the uh dikes, uh those would be as a plan for those to be concrete concrete structures or uh rock, uh uh rock dam.

Yeah, they call they have different names on the Mississippi, they call them wing dams, and they all serve the same function.

They uh redirect the flow.

They're uh uh a couple feet below the surface of the water most of the time until the water level drops and then they're uh visible.

So they are and fishermen love them, by the way, just so you can't.

Yeah.

More than likely, it might it would probably be a combination thereof because of the critical nature of them needing to remain in place to be able to hold that elevation for the intake.

You'd probably want the concrete just in case.

But also you would want something that's passable if for the paddlers going through there and the concrete maybe having some armoring with some rock around them uh to hold it in place would be a little bit easier uh to maneuver through that area.

So having totally thought that through, it would be part of this discussion and then part of the cost.

And it has been part of previous studies as a as a remedy, sure.

For some of the issues.

Uh, one other thing I didn't notice uh in the study much comment about the uh influence of Tyler Creek.

And uh uh the discharge of Tyler Creek is just downstream of the water intake of you know a few hundred yards and uh significant amount of sediment comes out of that creek as well.

And the velocity of the water when it comes out does slow the river down there, so it causes deposition there as well.

Is that something that will have to be addressed as well?

Do we see that as creating uh uh part of the uh uh issues of sediment issues near what and how is that going to be affected as uh uh if we take the dam out?

Is that going to change the uh the impact of that as well?

I think that's uh a fairly significant uh source of sediment.

Uh you're exactly right.

Um Silar Creek within the model that they've developed does have a sediment load, so they are including that in the model, and it creates uh the flow distribution that you're talking about when it comes in and then causes some of that slack backwater effect that Andrew had identified at the intake and then creates you know that deposition helps create that deposition upstream.

Part of it's the uh outside bend of the river coming down that also creates that deposition.

Uh ultimately there's I mean, obviously best management practices in Tyler Creek watershed will help reduce the sediment load coming down over time, and I know you know, as things happen out in the watershed that will reduce sediment load and therefore reduce its impact on the river downstream of this downstream of the intake.

Part of these uh Benway weirs that Andrew had shown on both sides of the creek is is presumably helping to mitigate Tyler Creek coming in too.

It's not only the Fox, you know, coming through.

So again, it's it's part of the overall analysis and plays a large effect, and we're evaluating um how it can be mitigated overall.

Okay.

And uh one last thing, and this is for uh the council and the manager.

Um uh Mr.

Stefan's point that uh I've been uh in contact with uh people in West Dundee and when they took the dam out in Carpentersville, some of the sediment uh that was uh above the dam in Carpentersville ended up in West Dundee, a mile or mile and a half uh downstream.

I think it behooves us to look at this study as long as we're looking at sediment, we should look below the Kimball Street Dam.

Elgin has more sediment above our dam than all the rest of the dams on the Fox River put together.

Much more than Carpentersville had.

Where's all that sediment gonna go?

And how's that going to impact our downtown?

We have to take a look at that, and I think as long as we're doing this study, it might be the time to do it.

And my suggestion would be a look all the way from the Kimball Street Dam to at least National Street.

I had a meeting with the uh uh Grand Victoria Casino on Saturday, and that was part of our discussion as how that is going to impact them and uh their boat at this time and what's going to happen, not just the dam, but what's going to happen in the future if the dam is taken out in the sediment.

So I think that's part of uh something that we have an obligation to do as well.

And it's a probably an opportune time to do that and leave that to the manager and look at costs and come back to the council.

But I would recommend to the council that we uh uh add that to uh this study as well.

So we have a motion, and uh if there's no further questions.

Yes.

Yes.

Good.

Yes.

Martinez?

Yes.

Ortiz?

Yes.

Oh, yes, Stefan?

Yes.

Thorne?

Yes.

Yes, the motion's approved nine zero.

At this time, I'd entertain a motion to uh adjourn the committee of the whole.

And uh we'll reconvene in a few minutes for the uh regular council meeting.

So move and seconded court, please call a roll.

Yes.

Dixon?

Yes.

Good.

Yes.

Martinez?

Yes.

Ortiz?

Yes.

Powell, yes.

Stefan?

Yes.

Thorne?

Yes.

Yes, we are adjourned.

We'll reconvene at the regular council meeting at uh seven twenty-five.

What do we have?

For the Elgin City Council for October 22nd, 2025 to order.

Please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.

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.

Councilmember Zalfaro.

President Dixon.

Present.

Good.

Here.

Martinez.

Here.

Ortiz?

Here.

Powell?

Here.

Stefan.

Here.

Thorne?

Here.

Mayor Captain.

Here.

Approval of the Minister of the Previous Meeting of October 8th.

Move for approval.

Second.

Move and second for approval.

Any corrections or additions.

Hearing none, Cork, please call a roll.

Councilmember Zalfaro.

Yes.

Dixon?

Yes.

Good.

Yes.

Martinez?

Yes.

Ortiz?

Yes.

Powell?

Yes.

Stefan?

Yes.

Thorne?

Yes.

Mayor Captain.

Yes.

Motions approved nine zero.

We have one communication this evening.

It's uh know your rights, a presentation by the Elgin Area Immigr Immigrant Alliance.

Mayor may I say something?

Uh yes.

Okay.

Um, so I just want to say good evening to everyone.

Thank you for being here.

I've asked that the Elgin Area Immigrant Alliance present know your rights tonight because the informed community is an empowered community, and I wanted to ensure that this information is accessible.

Um, your rights as an individual isn't just on paper.

They're meant to be understood, exercised, and protected.

And this is for everyone, regardless of your citizenship status.

Thank you.

Um, as we've seen and heard, U.S.

citizens are also being taken by ICE.

ProPlica had a news article that over 170 U.S.

citizens have been taken.

And if you've been watching the news today in Chicago, a U.S.

citizen was taken, who also is an elected official and is a city um government um staff member.

This place City Hall and City Council meetings is a place where residents come to participate in democracy, voice their concerns, and access resources.

That's why I thought it would be important to have this presentation here tonight.

Um the presenters are representatives from Centro de Información, which is one of the organizations within the Elgin Area Immigrant Alliance that will be presenting.

Um and after that we'll have a QA with the City Council.

Thank you so much.

Thank you so much for having us.

Uh, and thank you for the invitation here for tonight.

Um, my name is Diana Ortega, and I work at Centro de Información with offices here in Elgin, and also in Carpentersville and Hanover Park.

Uh we this organization, Centro de Información, but also our partner agencies, um, and many across the state of Illinois, do these know your rights presentations in both English uh or Spanish upon request.

They normally actually take 60 to 90 minutes, usually 90 minutes with questions, and can be done either in person or virtually.

What we have prepared for you tonight is a condensed version to fit within the 20 minutes that have been allotted to us.

Um, we ask that you please save all of your questions for the end.

Um please know that also the presenters may defer responses to some of your questions during the QA time to our partners uh from the Elgin area immigrant alliance seated here tonight for example.

Questions that are legal in nature will be deferred to our attorney, immigration attorney on the legal team.

And lastly, um, before we dive in, um, based upon the request that was made to us, please know that we consider this condensed version to serve as a refresher, perhaps for some of you.

Um, but uh it definitely will assist all members of the Elgin City Council to have a shared vocabulary and a shared understanding on educational information to help inform your policy conversations and decisions moving forward.

Okay.

Um we do have slides that were sent to over to the other podium.

You can see the slides will be up here probably.

Oh, I see.

Able to see.

Okay.

No.

Oh wait.

Okay.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

So first and foremost, one of the most important things to understand about this presentation is that these rights apply to all people residing in the United States.

The U.S.

Constitution is very clear that it guarantees these basic rights to all people in the United States, regardless of immigration status.

Whether you are a U.S.

citizen or someone who has a green card or someone who has DACA status, these rights apply to you.

Okay.

Thank you.

Pushing the wrong forward button.

Thank you.

All right.

So this slide is to uh share with you that local municipal law enforcement has a badge, a five-pointed star badge.

Algen police have been very good about identifying themselves when encountered by people in the community about where about their presence in the community.

The rest of these badges, it used to mean something to share with in the presentations to recognize the different badges that go with each different federal agency.

However, we know now that a lot of that most of the immigration enforcement officers are not identifying themselves.

And we also know that multiple additional agencies besides the ones listed here have also been debutized to carry out immigration enforcement.

So there are valid concerns for members of the community for people who are not presenting any identification.

But it's important to know that municipal law enforcement does identify themselves when asked.

Okay.

Okay.

Some ICE agents might identify themselves as police officers, which might be confusing to members of the community because they were also might be wearing a tire with the word police written on it.

And I learned this year, earlier this year, that anyone in any law enforcement capacity has the right to wear a vest that says police, whether it is local police or a federal agent.

So therefore it's it is confusing to members of the community.

And at this time I will hand it over to the rest of my team.

So the next portion is what to say, what to do, how to handle if you if you are approached.

Questions to ask are am I free to leave?

Am I being detained?

Am I free to leave?

Point blank that that clearly.

Am I free to leave?

And you can also say I do not consent.

Not consenting is also your legal right.

You do have to tell the police, you do have to identify the yourself with your name.

However, any other questions that you are asked, you do have the right to remain silent.

So it is lawful for you to identify yourself.

Um however, anything other than that, you have the right to remain silent until you have an opportunity to speak with your attorney.

What to do?

Always, always number one, stay calm.

Stay calm, don't run, stay calm.

Um, carry valid documentation, valid being the operative word, making sure that everything is all of your documentation is not expired, that it is current.

Um, so carry your documents for uh for immigrant or for green card holders, that means your green card, that can mean a work permit, that can mean um for citizens, it can mean passport or passport card.

Um if you do not have current status, legal status, carry copies of documents that show that you have been in the US for at least two years.

Um that two-year mark uh will help you avoid potentially avoid uh uh expedited removal.

So people that have documentation dated longer or older than two years, they're processed a little bit different.

Okay.

So if you do not have legal status, uh still carry documents, uh show a government ID, uh, school or work or medical records, um it could be assigned lease, mortgage, um documentation that'll show the date and it'll show that you've been here for longer than two years.

Do not carry false documents.

Do not uh do not lie because anything that you say can and will be used against you in immigration court.

Further, do not sign any documentation that you do not understand, which in most of our cases, it's gonna be most of it.

So don't sign anything without your legal representation at home.

Uh just know that no one is allowed to enter your home without your permission and without a valid warrant.

They must have a valid warrant in order to enter your home without permission.

Uh law enforcement officers may show up to your home and may, and you have every right to demand to see a warrant.

That warrant needs to be signed.

Um the way that you see it is either through the window, pass it through under the door, but do not open the door.

Opening the door is in an invitation in.

So once you crack open the door and you peek and say, No, I'm not talking to you, the minute you cracked open that door, you gave them permission to enter.

Okay, that means the screen door, that means your actual door, that means any door.

So have them slip your documents under the door or through the window.

Okay.

Um, and the things that you are looking for is for a valid date and a judge's signature.

And I will pass this on to no, you're in.

No, this is still you.

This is you.

All right.

So here we have a judicial warrant.

A judicial warrant is signed by a um by an immigration officer, not by a judge.

So it's important that you look at all the details that are on the judicial warrants.

Make sure that you are checking that your name is spelled correctly, your address is correct.

Ensure that uh the warrant is valid within the last 30 days.

Um again, this is the one that is signed by a judge.

Sorry, I said a judicial warrant is not signed by a judge, it is signed by a judge.

A immigration warrant is the one that's signed by an immigration officer.

So again, you have to double check all the dates and the um the signature on there.

This is what the immigration warrant looks like.

Um this is only saying that they are suspecting of any wrongdoing.

Um, it does not give them authorization to enter any um property.

Um again, this this warrant is only signed by an immigration officer or agent and not signed by an um a judge.

So, what to do if you are in your car, do not give them any excuses to pull you over.

Ensure that your license plates, your stickers, your insurance all are up to date.

Ensure that you are obeying all traffic laws.

Come to a complete stop at a stop sign, stop at a red light.

Um use your turning signals when you're turning or changing lanes.

Do not give police officers a reason to pull you over.

We also don't want to put anything on your rear rear mirror or on your on your mirror.

What to do?

So you want to carry your valid license, your car registration, proof of insurance, any ID, work permit.

It's good to know that police officers do have permission to search your car, and they don't need a warrant to do so.

So they would only search your car if they have any reason to believe that there is a crime or evidence of a crime.

A police officer should not be asking you about your immigration status, so that's also good to know.

When you get pulled over and you're going to be detained, you can ask to park your car in a safe location and then call someone to go pick it up.

But ICE does not have the authority to do these traffic violations.

Only police enforcement has the right to do these steps.

So I want to talk a little bit about Castañon Nava.

This is a settlement with DHS.

This states that officers must have a probable cost to make or to establish that there is an arrest.

Twenty-five were reported, only 22 were actual violations.

There has been an extension that went from March of 2025 and extended all the way to February of 2026 because of the high volume of all these violations that have been happening.

Also, I want to talk about the Trust Act.

So you may have heard a lot about the Trust Act and what it is.

So this kind of talks about the collaboration between law enforcement and ICE agents.

Law enforcements are not allowed to be transferring anyone or anyone to immigration custody.

They're not allowed to turn over a person to ICE custody, even if that's via phone or social media, they're not allowed to do that.

ICE agents are not allowed to use any police equipment, any of the facilities.

So let's talk a little bit about public spaces.

So before we had sensitive locations and public spaces with this new administration, we only have public spaces, which means that anyone is allowed to be in that area without permission, without warrants.

But this does not give authorization.

This does not give ICE authorization to question you, to stop you, or to arrest you.

You can ask, am I free to leave?

Again, these are the basic rights everyone has.

We have the right to remain silent.

We have the right to speak to an attorney, and we have the right to speak to our consulate.

There's no pro bono attorneys for immigration.

You would have to get your own.

If you've ever been through any immigration proceedings, applied for any immigration benefit, you have received this nine-digit number.

It's like a social security number for immigration.

Also, memorize phone numbers.

How many of you guys have phone numbers memorized?

You're not going to have access to your phone.

So it's important that you memorize reliable people who will answer the phone and then they can act and they know how to respond if you are detained.

How to find someone if they are detained.

There is an ICE locator website that you can go on, call locator.is.gov.

Here you're gonna be able to put in their name, date of birth, country of birth, and if you have the A number, you can put it in, and this will tell you if they have an immigration court, if they have a judge already assigned, if where they are, which facility they are, this will give you all the information.

The only problem is that it takes about three days.

So you have to be a little patient until then.

So it is also important to prepare, you need to have an emergency plan.

We've been kind of talking about having an emergency plan for a while now.

Um but now, seeing how things are now, it's important that you have it.

Have an emergency plan.

What is going to happen to your property?

What's going to happen to your bank accounts?

What's going to happen to your vehicles?

That's what a power of attorney is.

You're going to ensure that someone will be allowed to take care of those things for you.

Short-term legal guardianship.

Who will take care of your children?

Who will who's allowed to take them to school?

Um, who's allowed to take them to the doctor?

So these are people that you're gonna trust with your life, essentially.

Um you are interacting, or if you if you witness ice in public spaces or on property, is important that you remain calm.

We do not want to escalate the situation, we want to de-escalate.

Okay.

Screaming will not help.

It's remember because the the person that's being detained is going to be at a high intense moment.

Um so we all have the right to use our cameras to record to photograph the situation that is going to going on.

So, how do you do this?

So you have to make sure you do not interfere when you are recording.

Communicate it and record it.

I am recording the situation right now, and if the the officer says, please step back, you verbally say it.

I am stepping down or I'm stepping back.

I have the right to be recording you, I have the right to be here, I'm not interfering.

Communicate and narrate everything that you are doing.

Other thing, do not share these videos on social media.

How would you like it if your family member is all over social media, all over the news being detained, being held down?

Do not share these videos.

What you can do is that you can share it with the FSN hotline, and they will give you instructions on how to get that image or that documentation out to a safe location.

There's also an Algin area rapid response team.

You can send them there through the Facebook messenger.

There's a group of people that will look at it and will be able to contact the family and get these doc uh videos to the family.

Thank you.

I just want to add one last note.

Um, sharing videos and photos on social media unintentionally allows that content to be used against the person detained in court.

Um, and or so we have heard from attorneys who have who are who function in the network of the Chicago area for deportation defense, and um that's a more serious matter.

Um I also want to share with everyone here that the ice locator.gov page has not been updated since the beginning of the government shutdown, the federal government shutdown.

So whereas before there used to be a three-day delay in adding someone who has been detained, minimum, sometimes three days, sometimes more.

Um that that number continued, that number of days has uh grown because it has not been updated since the beginning of the government shutdown.

Um and also just another point of clarification.

Um that uh it's it's uh not that there's no pro boney pro bono attorneys available.

There's a lot of attorneys who are um sharing their time and their talent with the immigrant community these days, but it's important to understand that no attorneys are assigned to individuals in immigration court because immigration falls under civil law and not criminal law.

Just for a lot of people who don't understand that difference, that's important.

That's an important detail.

The family support network is the hotline that is set up across the state of Illinois for anyone who sees immigration or suspects immigration enforcement in their community.

And the answer to that question is that falls onto the community to do that verification process because of the Illinois Trust Act.

And that's why this FSN hotline exists is to call in reports, which get funneled to the rapid response teams across the Chicago area to go out and do that verification, but they also help to uh assist people who need legal support after someone has been detained to do that follow-up work.

So it's important for everyone here to have that number in their phones.

Um and um so that if you ever suspect um ICE is in your neighborhood to call that number.

And that hotline is staffed in multiple languages.

Um I learned that in the month of September alone that they received 14,000 over 12,000 calls just in the month of September.

Uh and as we close up here and open it up for resources and questions, um, the QR code here goes to uh a mutual aid fund that has been set up here in the Elgin area.

100% of all of the funds go to uh assist families that have been affected by deportations.

Large majority of the people who have been detained have been males and sometimes have been the um breadwinners of their families, and so um the rapid response teams um help to uh provide some short-term support to families in crisis through the dollars um in this fund.

So I invite people here if you are interested in supporting this is one of the things that you can do to help.

And the second chart is taken from uh data that is collected by the ICER and OCAD network that staffs the FSN hotline.

You can see the activity uh going back to January that you know there has been immigration enforcement in our communities since January, but it spiked immensely in the month of September as we all have heard of the um of the new operate operation Midway Bliss.

So I just wanted you guys to see what that spike looks like, um, which is why uh everyone's trying to recruit additional volunteers to support with all different kinds of efforts in all the communities across the Chicago area.

Um before we close up, um, this is a list of resources that we recommend to all of you to get additional information.

Um the slides that we present in all of our know your rights trainings, again in either English or Spanish or virtual or in person upon request, come to us from the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights in partnership with many other agencies.

Um the uh four immigrant serving agencies that are part of the alliance here, Centro de Información, YWCA Elgin, Chicago Workers Collaborative, and Casami Chuacan are listed here as well.

Um there's uh the network of uh um legal support in the Chicago area right now is sustained by the National National Immigrant Justice Center, um, ACLU supports and the Illinois Immigration Information Info.org is a hub for all immigration related questions in the state that um was put together by these partners over the summer.

If you have not seen it yet, I recommend that you do.

Um, and again, as was mentioned by my colleagues, um, please follow the Elgin Area Rapid Response Network on Facebook for updates about um about ICE activity uh here in your communities, and you can also send reports of suspected ICE in your neighborhoods to them as well directly on Facebook via messenger.

Okay, time for questions.

I appreciate you guys coming or ladies coming and uh giving us this presentation.

For your second to last slide or Thursday with the with the chart.

Is that how many times like the rap response was called out to like a scene to investigate, or was that what's that number represent like these numbers are from the Chicago area?

Okay.

So the Elgin Rapid Response sends data to the larger ICER network because in essence this is an expansion of the ICER network of rapid response teams across the Chicago area.

And so our numbers are included in here.

Okay, but it is encompassing of all activity in the Chicago area.

All right, thank you.

I appreciate you guys.

Yeah, thank you for the presentation.

Um I've got a series of questions.

So um just help us understand how in the spread of these points of contact, what is how many of it's civil, uh misdemeanor, like for everybody in the audience, there's you know a spectrum of offenses, like uh parking ticket is equivalent to what um, you know, do you either is equivalent to what and what are these encounters mostly shaping out to be?

That sounds like a legal question that I will defer to an attorney from our alliance team to answer.

Hello, I'm Marlene Romero Garcia, I'm an immigration attorney.

Can you provide clarification on the question?

Um are you asking in relation to immigration enforcement?

Uh I guess uh what I'm trying to get at is I think there's a a misperception sometimes of who these individuals are, what are the offenses, what's the official level of criminality?

Um and what I've seen is it's civil offenses in most cases.

Um and so to right-size that for people who are watching and listening, um, that's like equivalent to uh, you know, you didn't pick your parking tickets.

And so I just wanted to see if there was confirmation of numbers, what that looks like from what you're seeing.

Um I feel like there's some information out there where it's making it seem like these are really dangerous people in our community, and what we're seeing is these are people who are going to work, um to school, going to the medical office.

Right.

So other than arrest being made outside of courthouses, uh, when there are people attending their hearings, um, and many times it is a criminal hearing.

Um other than those arrests, and the numbers have shown um that the majority of people being detained and apprehended don't have a record at all.

And not having a record means maybe having a traffic violation, but other than that, not having a criminal record.

So the majority, I would just I think I last saw was about 60% of the people in detention or being apprehended are people without any sort of criminal record.

Okay, and I just I wanted to make that distinction because as they laid out already, when you are in that category of civil, uh it means entirely different things.

Um, not only to the the resources that are provided to you or not provided to you, um, what it actually entails when you overstay, it is a civil offense.

So I just wanted to lay that out.

Um so what you're going over is a lot of reactive tactics to take, you know, all the the um tips that you've laid out.

Are you seeing is there any advantage um for folks to have dash cams and or cameras on their front porch so that they have captured record of whether that door was opened or not?

Um is that something that you've seen one way or the other that's beneficial or um do you do you have advice in that area or is am I asking a question that should be asked?

Yes, documenting everything is important.

So if you can have a dash cam, if you could be recording the whole um interaction that's going on, that can that doc um video can be used at your court and be used as like any wrongdoing from the agent.

So if they're forcibly taking you out of your car, have and there's a bystander taking a video of that, we want to get that video.

That way we can show the courts that they were not rightfully or they were wrongfully arrested.

Okay, yeah, and then I want to again say that because it's unfortunately we're at that point of what can we do to prevent, but if it does happen, what can we do to strengthen your case?

Um so um are you observing any patterns that you encourage people to follow?

Um is it beneficial to try to limit activity to certain time of the week, certain time of the day, or is it just it too far spread?

So what we've noticed is like one week on, one week off.

Okay.

Um that's the kind of pattern we've been seeing, and then there's it's there's days where it's super super heavy where we get more than 20 sightings a day.

Okay.

And so I at least from my experience, what I've seen is you know it's unpredictable.

Um when this does happen, the the court costs could be in excess of three thousand dollars.

So just to give you a sense of trying to put the need in perspective of how many people are being impacted, depending on the complexity of their case, it's a ballpark number.

Do we do we know how many people at this point there is their account?

So we don't have the exact numbers because not everything is documented.

So but for the month of September, we had 200 sightings, and we had about 40 people getting detained.

But that is what we investigated, what we documented in just an Elgin.

Okay, so those are rough numbers are you're over 100,000 in legal fees already.

Yeah.

And then this month, I believe we're already over a hundred.

Um I don't know how many detains we have, though.

But we are already over a hundred this month.

Okay.

I think those are all my questions.

Um I just would encourage everybody, you know.

What we're seeing is that neighbors are trying to help out neighbors when this happens.

Um, you know, they're starting up their own fundraisers, and so what they're providing right now is a direct path to an organization that's overseeing these funds, um, and just try to check in on your neighbors.

Um, this is seemingly we we're having these meetings frequently now, and they're they're escalating, and you know, we I think I've heard that um there's gonna be a pause on some food benefits from the federal government, so it looks like November is gonna be our most challenging month yet.

So if you can um contribute where you can either hear to the food bank at Elgin.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh thank you for the presentation.

You know, I just feel that um the more you're educated, the more prepared you are.

What makes it very challenging and unfortunate is you know, I just heard yesterday where um a nice agent was saying, yeah, record me, go ahead, record me, record my license plates.

We change them every day, is what they said, right?

Yes.

And so then in the morning, I hear where Secretary of State uh DeLulius, he says um uh that he issued he issued a warning to ICE that changing or swapping ICE uh license plates is illegal and it will not be tolerated, you know.

So I point is that people's rights are being violated.

Okay, like how can you tell whether um I am uh born here or not, just by looking at me?

You really can't, right?

And so I think that's a confusion of um they just go ahead and arrest people whether you uh you are a US citizen or not.

By the time all this is uh said and done, and we go ahead and sue somebody for this, or things are already done.

I mean, how do you undo that?

You know, the harm is already done.

People are already gone.

And like you said, most of them are um uh breadwinners of the house, you know.

How do you unaffect that?

I think those are the challenges that we have, you know.

And uh I think as a community I work um uh hard to to educate people, so I appreciate the work that you're doing.

Thank you.

Okay, so far.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for doing this abbreviated presentation.

I just want to make that clear, like know your rights training is more elaborate, and thank you so much for being able to accommodate our time requests.

I do have a couple of questions.

Um as I mentioned earlier, uh US citizens are also being picked up, and there was that slide of like you're allowed to remain silent when you do have to disclose your name if asked.

So as a US citizen, if I'm getting picked up, should I disclose to ICE right away that I am a use US citizen?

And saying is there anything else I should say for US citizens?

Um, well, first of all, the this know your rights presentation and all the rights enumerated in the presentation apply to everyone, uh regardless of status.

So the the recommendations or um the rights apply and it's still the same things that should be answered, right?

Like exercise your constitutional right to remain silent.

Um you have the right not to consent to an entry into your home, you have the right to ask for an attorney.

Those are things that should be practiced uh by everyone, regardless of their status.

Um if a US citizen though is um decides to answer those questions as because it could be a personal choice too if it's leading to a detention and um and an ICE officer doesn't believe what is being said about the status, then at that point um that the they could answer the question about their status, say that they're a US citizen, that is a personal choice.

Um in terms of proof, then that becomes like another issue if they don't have proof, which they're not legally required to carry proof of a US citizen is not legally required to carry proof of their status.

Um that could be another issue, which is what we've been seeing where people don't have proof, they're being picked up and detained by ICE.

I had heard that some people had recommended if you're not going to carry your passport as a US citizen to take a picture of it.

Uh what's your feelings on that?

Should we have a picture?

I'm afraid like I show the picture and then they're going through my phone.

I'm not giving them access to my phone, just trying to show proof, right?

So just trying to get some thoughts on on that piece.

Right.

So a any copy should be a hard copy of a document.

So it should be in paper.

Um if you choose to as uh you a citizen or somebody with a status of lawful permanent resident chooses to carry um proof of their status.

A lawful permanent resident though um is legally required to carry their physical card.

A US citizen is not legally required, so they could carry a copy.

Um it's not recommended to be in your phone because then that does open it up to um ICE, maybe asking questions, intimidating the person to maybe uh let them see whatever is at the phone.

Um if the judicial warrant has my name misspelled, so my tocaya, the anna spells her name differently from the way I spell Diana, right?

And so if they came to my door and spelled it D I A N H A versus D I N A, um is that a valid warrant?

Well, if um we're discussing then the judicial warrant, yeah.

Um it could potentially still be a valid warrant if other identifying information is correct.

Okay.

Um but we're just we're talking about judicial warrants that have um that give uh any officer more of an authority um to arrest or enter an area, um and ICE is using administrative warrants that do not give them that same authority.

Uh and then lastly, is there any other data that you would like to share?

It is alarming to hear that you know there was over 200 sightings in Elgin regarding ICE in September with 400 or 440 people taken.

Um is there any other data that you think we as a council in the community should be aware of thank you?

Thank you.

So, other than the hundred people okay.

Um we can get additional resource data to you from the Chicago area if you request it.

Um, but as Maidani mentioned earlier, um that data we know that that data isn't complete because not every sighting is reported.

Um so um there is additional data collected, for example, by the resurrection project, which is one of our partners.

I think many of you are familiar with that agency, they do really excellent work in um uh providing legal uh uh resources to the immigrant community.

Um, and they put out uh a dashboard of data every week.

Um so if you go to the resurrection project website, you might be able to find that on your own.

Um, and I know that one of their data points is uh identifying uh the percentage of people who have received legal um uh follow-up support after they were detained and if they had a a criminal record or not.

And it so they do that verification, and so that's how we know that the majority of the people who have been detained have no criminal record, because that's a data point that they that they collect.

Thank you.

Okay, anything else?

Further questions, Mr.

Dixon.

Thank you.

Um I really appreciate the presentation tonight.

Thank you for all of the work that you are doing in the community and have been doing um since all of this has uh kicked off and really revved up uh at the turn of the new year.

And thank you too to all the residents and uh you know extended community members uh who have stayed with us uh this evening and thank you for bringing uh the children with you too as well to to listen and to hear what's going on here here in your own community.

Um so I really appreciate everything about the presentation.

Um you know but not but but um I I have some questions around you know things that I've researched and and I I'm just curious to know if if it would be any good or if you've heard of these things.

Um the first thing is a municipal ID program from our research.

Um a lot of uh immigrant heavy communities utilize this program um to make sure that everyone has identification and it's used in a way um that can that hopefully kind of thwarts some of the the confusion.

So uh so out of curiosity, you know, is this something that you believe would be viable of that or that you've heard be viable in other communities.

Uh yes, I think that is very helpful uh to uh especially in documentative people.

Um so in terms of immigration proceedings and um and just being able to apply for certain benefits, a person needs uh a photograph identification.

And because they have to to get one from the state of Illinois, there's certain requirements, and because they also have to prove um their uh residence in the state, then they're not able to get that identification um by the state, right?

Like driver's license or a state ID.

And because of that, then they're not able to apply, let's say, for um employment authorization.

Um that's one thing that it would benefit uh undocumented immigrants for, but it would also benefit them in being able to identify themselves if they are apprehended by ICE or if they're detained, because then um it doesn't give they need an identification that doesn't show a status, that doesn't show the country of birth and doesn't show their uh legal status.

So then if they all the identification they have is from their home country, then that's going to be, and I've seen it being used as a reason to detain that person and apprehend that person because it's sort of a confirmation of their lack of status for iCE officers.

So yes, it would be very helpful to have something like that.

Okay, all right.

And my my next question too, and we've done um as a city, I think we've done a lot of work in this area.

Um, but we don't have what you know I would call a legal um a language access policy to be able to get the information.

I think a few meetings ago I brought up having information on the website.

Um recently met with the city manager, talked about having 311 operators train um with the information so that residents can call in to retrieve the information and keep get and get pointed in the right direction too as well.

Um but a language access policy um you know in this community or you know how are they how is that being utilized maybe in other communities, and could that also be something retrofitted for ours?

Big question I would love to talk more with you about that.

I think one place to start would be to have language translation and then uh available at your city council meetings.

There's a lot of people this information uh these presentations we do in either English or Spanish.

We chose to do it in English, obviously, because of the time constraints.

Um, but um it applies to a lot of people whose primary language is not English.

So um I think it probably I would recommend that city council piece off chunks here and there, and starting with city hall city council meetings.

So thank you for that.

Um and just the the last thing um and it's more of a a point um than a question, which is um I appreciate um the acts being brought up, but I also wanted to bring up the voices act um that was passed in 2021, and um and that act just to summarize it um allows people who are a legally who are legally going through the process the protection um so that they are not picked up by ICE.

And um and that act, just to summarize it, um allows people who are who are legally going through the process the protection so that they are not picked up by ice, but those rights are being violated every single day.

So when we get to the two items, the other two action items that are on our agenda later on this evening, and I hope that everyone you know can stick around.

Um that is why we're having discussion about ice-free zones, because things like that is happening every single day.

So I just wanted to make that point.

So again, thank you for your time.

We appreciate you.

We love you, you're doing the hard work, and uh the community um owes you everything.

So keep it up.

Okay, you for Ms.

Powell.

I I do want to add that us here are not the only ones doing this work.

There is a whole team behind us.

There's the rapid response team, there's the Algin Area Alliance.

It's a group of just dedicated members of the community, and they just care and want to take care and just hold our hands as we're in this fear right now.

So it's not just us, it's everyone here.

So thank you.

Yeah.

Finish Mr.

Dixon.

Okay.

Ms.

Paul, yeah.

Question.

I just wanted to say I really appreciate um the presentation, a lot of really good information.

I know that I think you guys had signs available.

I I got some at the rally this weekend um with this information.

I don't know if you brought some with you that you know, if if you have yes, yes.

So, you know, if you have a place of business or someplace that um you can post those signs, they're very helpful.

Um, again, thank you for all the work.

Um I had the opportunity to sit in on uh the session that that was held, I think it was about a week ago, um, and that had a lot of this information and a lot more.

Um these are really trying times.

They're really it's just disappointing.

Um it makes a lot of us angry, it makes a lot of us very uneasy, and rightfully so.

Um what's happening across the country and particularly in our own community.

Um so this is really important to for people to understand what their rights are, what they should be doing if they're ever found to be in the in these situations.

Um, and and you brought up something that is really important because I know a lot of folks this because of who they are, what they look like, and what their native language is.

There are people being detained by ICE that are U.S.

citizens, they are people being detained by ICE that don't speak Spanish, that look like me, that look different, I mean that aren't Latino.

Unfortunately, our our Supreme Court has made it okay to target people based on how they look and what language they speak.

That's really disappointing.

I I can't even say disappointing.

It's it's infuriating.

Um, but I I want people to pay attention to what's going on because there are still so many people in this community and in this country thinking that they don't have to worry about this because of what they look like.

We all should be concerned about what's going on for so many different reasons.

Because and not because it affects our neighbors and the people we go to church with and the people we go to school with and our kids go to school with and folks that we work with and our friends, it can happen to any of us.

People's rights are being violated, and it is critical that we all understand what those rights are and what we should do in these circumstances.

So again, thank you so much for being here and the work that you're doing.

Um it's not easy, but it is so necessary right now.

So thank you so much.

Okay, Ms.

Okay, Miss Martinez.

Thank you, Mayor.

Just to your comment about how it's city council meetings, you know, everything should be translated.

We'll never get out of here.

But what we do have on our website is anything that's approved, anything that pertains to our residents.

It is in Spanish and in other languages on our website.

So I'm sorry.

Yeah, the YouTube videos are translated.

I don't know.

Can you say anything else on that, please?

This is translated in Spanish right now on our YouTube channel.

Yeah.

Thanks.

Okay.

Just wanted to let you know about that.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you very much.

Thank you.

Brings us to the uh public comment portion of the uh meeting for uh people to uh speak for up to three minutes.

First person to sign up is Ed Bates.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you very much for these presentations we've been hearing tonight.

We sincerely appreciate them.

To some degree, you could see this as an interlude that we are going to offer to you now regarding the Elgin Valley Foxtrot.

So this is a race that's been around for now 48 years.

Uh last year we had 1,156 registered runners, and we sincerely thank the city for the support that you have given us through the years since our group took it over.

Um we had nine nonprofits, and those nine nonprofits on a minimum made 14% more of a contribution than the year before.

So we continue to be more successful with this and with the city's help.

For 2026, we are adding a few things.

A 2K walk.

Uh and because of that, we're adding a tenth nonprofit, and that tenth nonprofit is a group that very much needs your support, which is Pads of Elgin.

Um we are also adding a Fox River Triad Medal where you can run the Dublin D5K, the Foxtrot, and the just completed El Trote De La.

Um I'm gonna butcher it.

Um for next year that uh uh if you run all three races, you will get a special medal.

So uh and um I'm we're gonna have some of our other nonprofits say a few words about what they have uh uh gotten out of this, but before that, since I've got the podium right now, I have a special gift for you, Mr.

Mayor.

So uh I have to walk away.

I've written a book about the Land and Can you please speak into the mic because people from home can't hear you.

Or here we're gonna be able to do it.

Okay, so the name of the book is Running Ten, The Story of the Valley Foxtrot, and the the subtitle is The People's Race.

A community history of Elgians Valley Foxtrot.

So and uh I have uh it inscribed here to Mayor of Mayor of Elgin, Dave Captain.

May you forever be our starter.

To the rest of you, I'm doing a presentation December 6th at the library, and it's 2999.

And and by the way, all of the proceeds from this will also go to the 10 nonprofits associated with the Elgin Valley Foxtrot.

So thank you.

Okay, Sherry Blazer.

And P.S.

You can buy Ed's book at Elgin Public Museum.

I'm Sherry Blazier, director of Elgin Public Museum, and on behalf of the museum, we thank the City of Elgin for its continuing support of the Foxtrot.

Being one of the nine original and now ten local nonprofit organizations to share in the profits of the race.

This helps to fund our museum's educational programs and community events, and we are very grateful.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Maria Ronan.

Jeremy Lindsey.

Council members, thank you very much.

Uh, just as an Elginite, I'm really proud of our city right now, having heard presentation from before and everything.

So thank you for making space for that.

Love being here tonight.

I'm here for the Foxtrot.

I am one of the coaches of Elgin uh Sharks.

We've been uh nonprofit running club for the youth of Elgin for almost 50 years now.

And so we're one of the beneficiaries of uh the fundraising that happens to the Foxtrot.

So my wife is normally here, she's the president of our board, and so she told she sent me a draft that she said I didn't have to use, but in light of my inability to stay on task, I'm going to read it verbatim.

So the funds we receive, we have they really expanded our opportunities to serve and uh the youth in Elgin and nearby communities.

Our biggest expenses are uh facility rentals, and thanks to the Foxtrot, we're able to keep using the Dream Academy Gym and Larkin Track.

This year we're also renting Judson's Linder Center over the holiday break, which will give our athletes a great jump on the indoor season.

We really appreciate the rental discounts that both U-46 and Judson have provided to our team.

Uh we also use the funds to buy extra training equipment and to help cover travel costs for athletes who go to such things as the national uh USATF junior Olympics that was in Savannah, Georgia this past summer, and uh some of this our athletes saw the ocean for the first time, um, which is really fun watching seniors in high school.

Um frolic.

So um one of our main goals is helping kids compete at the high school level.

So running often motivates them to stay focused academically and even opens college opportunities for them, so we're proud of the work that they put in through high school and the way we can start that.

So this past weekend, as an example, um, was the cross-country conference uh for U-46, and so ten sharks were named all conference, eight freshmen or sophomores uh sorry conference honors, and then last spring, eight sharks qualified for the state track meet down in uh down in Peoria.

So uh it's a privilege for us as coaches, and we have a lot of fun with these kids, and to be able to see them go to high school meets and then watch them both compete each other and encourage each other on as former teammates.

I haven't had a moment where my son, he runs for South Elgin, he's at the front pack, um, and he happens to find himself next to one of his former teammates who now runs for Bartlett, and they give each other this little fist bump and then jump in the rest of the three miles.

So it's really fun to watch.

So just want to say thank you again for supporting the Foxtrot.

Without those funds for our for our team, we wouldn't be able to have trained the 150 kids that we got uh to come through our system uh this past year.

So thank you very much.

Thank you.

Angel Martinez.

Yeah, we were gonna say because Gary left.

Gracias a todos, que queremos invitarlos on Foxtrot.

But then you can sound uh good evening, Council members.

Uh good evening, Mayor.

Um, I'm here tonight because something happened recently here in Elgin with an officer by the name of Jason Lentz.

He went on so social media, and again, everyone is in the right to post what they want.

But he went on to say that he standed, he stood with ice, and then he proceeded to put certain locations where frequent Hispanics happen to go on the weekends just to get a bite.

And it's really, really disheartening to know that our police force, again, they were transparent, but this is not the first time that he committed something like this.

This is the second occurrence.

He was he would let go, he was released.

But again, this is not who we want working for our community, and it's disgusting to see.

And again, I've been in contact with the butt with uh a couple police uh lieutenants, a couple commanders, but that's not enough.

They said they were going to be transparent, they need to expedite this, and they need to make sure that he's held accountable for what he is doing.

Because again, this violates what Elgin said they stand for.

And in in the midst of everything, is not correct that a person that we are supposed to look out to, a person that we reach out for when we are in need of help, is actually out there providing certain locations.

It is disgusting.

I am a resident of Elgin, and I've been here for 33 years, and this has never happened in my entire life.

And I am not the only one that's out there scared to walk the streets just to look at the sun every morning because again, we're scared that someone is gonna pick us up.

My dad just suffered a brain aneurysm.

That is his morning activity.

My dad, based on his skin color, could get picked up.

And that's not what I feel Algin stands for.

So please look into this matter.

Please look into this and make sure that he's held accountable.

Thank you for your guys' time tonight.

Thank you.

Marlon Roman.

Marlon Rolman.

Hi, I'm Marlene Romero.

Um so as I uh said before, I'm uh an immigration attorney.

I'm a resident of Elgin, and I practice in Elgin as well.

And what I have been seeing from my clients, um from potential clients who tell me that they're scared.

There's so much fear and fear of pursuing a um their immigration case, uh, fear of basically just living their lives.

Um something I just wanted to bring up would be to like when you're discussing and making a decision on ice-free zones, um, to focus on one uh one teaching uh people to about their rights.

That's very powerful.

Uh what we see is that there could be a presentation, um, but in the moment, if somebody's being detained, that's a very traumatic event.

And people can forget, so that's why it's important to repeat this information to people through signs, through um pamphlets being given to people in let's say um here in City Hall.

Um in ice for ice-free zones, something to consider would be to focus on areas that are very um that are important for people to access their resources.

Um, there's people who are afraid, let's say, to go to the food pantry because they don't want to leave their home.

Um, and um being able for like for them to be able to feel protected in those areas.

There are um people who don't want to sometimes, if there's uh high ice activity in the area, don't take their uh children to school.

Um they need to be able to know that they can live their life at least.

Um so that's something that I would like the city council to consider um when going over these uh ice-free zones uh regulation.

Thank you, Margaret Frisch Klein, Margaret Frisch Klein.

Still here.

She wasn't back, okay.

Maria Elena Nunes.

Hello.

Umas noches a todos.

Hi, good night to everybody.

Um I am speaking today as an Alginite.

I am speaking today as a community member.

I am speaking today as a recent ECC graduate from May of 2025.

I am speaking today as a scholarship recipient from the Algin YWCA.

I am speaking tonight for myself and for those who can't, whether that's some of my friends and people I've gotten to know over the years.

Um because I am fortunate enough to have met individuals who unfortunately are impacted right now because of a lot of what's going on right now.

I do want to say, and I will repeat this time and time again right now.

No one deserves to be afraid right now.

Whether they are DACA recipients, whether they're undocumented, whether they're from a mixed status household, whether they're Hispanic or Latinx, whether they're brown or whether they're anything but white.

I am disappointed in the city of Elgin for not acting sooner.

I am disappointed in the city of Elgin for leaving the community to basically fend for, inform, and defend themselves for months.

Again, and again, I need to say this again and again.

No one should have to live in fear.

I want to take a moment to talk about DACA recipients because DACA recipients essentially basically either grew up or spent a good chunk of their lives in this country.

They have spent their lives.

Let's put this into perspective.

There are there are doctor recipients who have basically lived here longer than I've been alive, and I've been alive for 25 years.

There many of them don't know or barely remember what life outside of the U.S.

was like.

Additionally, no one deserves to live to fear living the leaving their houses, whether that's to go for groceries, whether that's to go to work, whether that's to just live their lives.

No one deserves to be separated from their families.

No one deserves to live in fear of being sent to a country they haven't been in for 10, 20, 30, 40, or many more years than that.

No one deserves to think because of um recent events in another community over in Franklin Park.

No one deserves to think that because ICE is nearby, that they could die.

These people have trained themselves and their children to hide in the shadows and not stand out.

And we've seen this time and time again that these people are not criminals.

And as we've heard earlier in the presentation, that is um roughly around 60% of these people who have been detained.

They don't have a record as stated by another community member.

These are community members who paid their taxes and have done their regular due diligence.

They are churchgoers, they are working people, there are friends, partners or spouses, brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, but above all, they are also our community.

The people who are currently impacted, as well as the people who were detained, are well human beings, and just like us, they have aspirations, they have hopes, and they have dreams.

Just to quickly close this off.

As someone who was was witnessing this happen in the community of Elgin, I am heartbroken by this activity and the lack of action up until tonight.

And that's why I appreciate the fact that item C and H are added on the agenda for tonight.

Gracias y buenas noches.

Thank you.

Rosa Torres.

Rosa Torres.

Okay.

All right, that brings us to bids.

First item is bid number 25-010 led service line replacement.

Uh, this money was uh made available from uh Congressman Raja Krishna Murthy, and it will provide uh lead service line replacements for 90 homes city of Elgin.

Move toward the bid to Blue Water Constructions LLC of Wakanda, Illinois for lead service line replacement for year four in the amount of one million fifteen thousand eight hundred and forty dollars.

Second.

Move the second floor approval, any discussion.

Hearing none, Cork please call a roll.

Council Members Alfaro?

Yes, Dixon.

Yes.

Good, yes.

Martinez, yes, Ortiz?

Yes.

Powell?

Yes.

Stefan?

Yes.

Thorne.

Yes.

Mayor Camton.

Yes, the motion is approved 90.

Item two is bid number 25-051.

Meyer Park Cricket Patch.

Pitch.

I'm sorry.

Mr.

Mayor, I recommend that we award this contract to E.

Hoffman Incorporated in the amount of $58,370.

Second.

Move and second for approval and discussion.

Ms.

Farrell.

I had a question.

It had indicated that 17 responses were collected, but at no point did it share information of what those responses were.

They were in favor of the cricket pitch or not.

So I was wondering if staff knew a little bit of that information.

I don't immediately know, but my sense is that the information provided in those responses was used to inform the recommendation that's coming from the parks department.

Okay.

Thank you.

Anything else?

Okay.

Glad to see this has been asked for by a number of people over the last few years.

Cork, please call the roll.

Councilmember Zalparo.

Yes.

Dixon?

Yes.

Good.

Yes.

Martinez?

Yes.

Or please?

Yes.

Powell?

Yes.

Stefan?

Yes.

Thorne?

Yes.

Mayor Captain.

Yes, motions approved 90.

Uh brings us to item three is public works cantilever gate renovation.

It's a public it's a south uh source wall joint purchasing agreement.

Uh Mayor, I'll move that we award this to robe inc in the amount of 97,393.

Second move and second for approval.

Any discussion.

Hearing none, Clerk, please call a roll.

Council members alfaro?

Yes.

Dixon?

Yes.

Good.

Yes.

Martinez?

Yes.

Ortiz?

Yes.

Powell?

Yes.

Stefan?

Yes.

Thorne?

Yes.

Mayor Captain.

Yes, the motions approved 90.

Brings us to other business.

We have one item tonight.

It's an ordinance amending chapter 2.08 of the Elder Municipal Code as amended entitled City Council and the Title III of the Elge Municipal Code as amended, entitled boards and commissions.

Move for approval.

Second.

Move and second for approval.

Any discussion.

I had a question in section three e the last sentence it had indicated, and this is in regards to electronic attendance at meetings.

It says before allowing electronic attendance at any meeting, the city council shall provide equipment adequate to accomplish this objective at the meeting site.

What does that mean respectfully?

Not all of us use um city laptops, etc.

So I just wanted the clarification.

What does that mean?

I can confirm it.

I believe that's in the current ordinance.

So I'm I don't know what it means, but I think whatever the city is providing to allow people to attend electronically, currently those requirements.

I think we might want to get some um clarification on on that that we were all clear on what that means exactly.

Uh if I can there you store Ortiz?

Out the way when I read it, I assumed it was just like if you don't have a laptop, like I don't have a city device.

I have my personal one that I use.

And if I didn't have this, then I'll reach out to the I to Mr.

Casantino or City Manager Cozo and say I need a device to be able to remote it if I need to or not.

See, I read it the other way because it says shall provide equipment, meaning we the city provides the equipment.

So my interpretation was that it's city property.

If you're not using city property, so again, this is currently in the ordinance, and I think it's providing equipment.

The city has to provide equipment so the rest of the council can you know be receptive to the other member attending electronically.

So maybe we just revise it before allowing electronic attendance at any meeting, the city council shall use equipment adequate to it accomplish this objective at the meeting site.

Yeah.

Thanks, Mars.

Instead of the provide.

So then there is no misinterpretation of it.

Ms.

Powell.

I'm I'm fine with that minor tweak.

Um maybe we can add something to the fact that if if uh council member doesn't have that equipment, then the city can provide it, which I think is what this was supposed to kind of say, but it doesn't really say.

Um I think I think most of us use either our own equipment.

I don't know who you know.

I I think at one point in time the city used to provide uh laptops for city council members.

I don't think um a lot of folks are using those anymore.

I don't know.

Um but okay.

So yeah, it's just a matter of being clear, uh I guess.

Yeah, okay.

So I would um I don't know if that was a a motion to amend or that was being made by council member Alfaro.

Uh again, I just want to clarify this as I read it as for equipment at the meeting site.

I mean the ordinance predates even laptops where council members could actually telephone into a meeting, and you know, there is no requirement that we're providing telephones, you know, they're probably calling from landlines for all that.

So, you know, this is talking about providing means to accomplish the objective at the meeting site.

I don't think it's talking about providing the equipment for the council person to attend electronically.

So we can clarify that however we might like, but I mean it does say at the meeting site.

I think that's what was written.

I think we should because it indicates the city council shall provide equipment if the city council wasn't written in there, and then it would be could be interpreted in different way as in you're providing it yourself.

But since it says the city council shall provide, that means the council itself is providing that, right?

Right?

And I see where you're saying it was there before.

So maybe we just know just because it was there before doesn't mean it's always accurate, and so maybe we update it.

Yeah.

Okay.

Uh do you want to pass a motion on this or do you want to wait?

Oh, I don't think we need to wait as long as we pass a motion to just tweak that.

I think that should be fine.

So I make a motion to amend the city council.

Um is it called rules?

What's it called?

The ordinance amending the uh city council section 3E.

Um state before allowing electronic attendance at any meeting the city uh this the city council will use equipment adequate to accomplish this objective at the meeting site or the equipment will be provided.

Second.

Okay, it's been moved and seconded.

Any further discussion?

Mr.

Stephanie Steph.

Just a point of clarification.

I brought I raised this and I think it was done, but it might the version I have doesn't have it, probably because it wasn't updated on my computer, but in 2.08.060, the travel expenses section B.

The number of days prior to the event that we are going to force ourselves to alert the city of our inability to attend it.

The first instance says five business days, and a couple lines later it just says five days, but I think that was going to be kind of made uniform.

I just want to make sure that happened.

Uh just to confirm, Councilmember Stefan.

Uh that was conveyed to me in the final ordinance will clarify with the it is five business days in both instances.

Just for consistency.

Okay.

We have a motion to uh uh make an amendment.

We have a second.

I think there was a second.

Yeah.

Okay.

Movement seconded.

Okay, clerk please call a roll.

I think uh council member.

Yeah, I just'm sorry, Mr.

Dixon.

Mr.

Good, I'm sorry.

Thank you.

I just wanted uh a little bit more clarity on the distinction.

I think you said the city council will provide equipment instead of shall.

That's the substitution.

No, the substitution was before allowing uh electron uh electronic attendance at or not in order right.

Yeah, attendance at any meeting, the city council will use equipment adequate to accomplish this objective at the meeting site or shall be provided the equipment.

Okay, thank you for the clarification.

Okay, clerk please call a roll.

Councilmember Zalfaro?

Yes, Dixon?

Yes.

Good, yes.

Martinez?

Yes.

Ortiz?

Yes.

Powell?

Yes.

Stefan?

Yes.

Thorne?

Yes.

Mayor Camp.

Yes, motions approved nine zero.

Okay.

Consent agenda.

I'm sorry, Mr.

Mayor.

I know we want to be done with this, but that was just a vote to on the amendment.

Now we need to vote on the vote on the final amount of approval of the proposed ordinance as amended.

Second.

There's already as amended now for the original.

Yeah.

Okay.

Okay.

Court, please call the roll.

Councilmember Zalfaro?

Yes.

Dixon?

Yes.

Good.

Yes.

Martinez?

Yes.

Ortiz?

Yes.

Powell?

Yes.

Stefan?

Yes.

Thorne?

Yes.

Mayor Captain.

Yes.

Motions approved nine zero.

Consent agenda.

Move for approval.

Second.

Move to the second for approval.

Any discussion.

Hearing none, Court, please call a roll.

Council members of our own?

Yes.

Dixon?

Yes.

Good?

Yes.

Martinez?

Yes.

Ortiz?

Yes.

Powell?

Yes.

Stefan?

Yes.

Thorne?

Yes.

Mayor Captain.

Yes.

Motions approved nine zero.

Miscellaneous business.

Move for approval.

Second.

Then move to the second for approval any discussion.

Hearing none, court, please call a roll.

Councilmember Zalfaro?

Yes.

Dixon?

Yes.

Good?

Yes.

Martinez?

Yes.

Ortiz?

Yes.

Powell?

Yes.

Stefan?

Yes.

Thorne?

Yes.

Mayor Captain.

Yes.

Motion's approved nine zero.

Announcements.

Uh announcements.

Next committee of the whole meeting will be Wednesday, November 5th, 2025 at 6 p.m.

in the city council chambers.

The next regular meeting of the Elgin City Council will be Wednesday, November 5th, 2025 at 7 p.m.

in the council chambers.

I'd entertain it to uh entertain a motion to adjourn back to the uh committee of the whole.

So moved.

Second.

Move and second to adjourn.

Clerk please call the roll.

Council members alfaro?

Yes.

Dixon?

Yes.

Good.

Yes.

Martinez?

Yes.

Ortiz?

Yes.

Powell?

Yes.

Stefan?

Yes.

Thorne?

Yes.

Mayor Captain.

Yes, we are adjourned.

We'll reconvene at the regular council meeting and or at the committee of the whole in five minutes.

Motion to reconvene the uh regular city or the uh committee of the whole.

So moved.

Move to second to reconvene.

Please call the roll.

Councilmember Zalfaro.

Yes.

Dixon.

Yes.

Good.

Martinez?

Yes.

Ortiz.

Yes.

Paul.

Yes.

Stefan?

Yes.

Thorne.

Yes.

Mayor Captain.

Yes.

We're back in business.

Mr.

Manager believer on item B.

Agreed, Mayor.

Thank you.

This second item also includes a presentation from our uh current consultants, InQuest Consulting.

Over the past three years, Inquest has been an important partner in helping the city strengthen its organizational culture and build a lasting foundation for inclusion inclusion and engagement.

Together, the City and Inquest have developed a multi-year organizational culture and engagement strategy, have facilitated training for more than 800 city employees, and established the structure and leadership practices needed to carry this work forward.

These efforts have created meaningful progress toward a more connected and engaged organization.

As the city begins moving into its next phase, the focus will be shifting to continuity and leadership transition.

With the foundational work complete, the city is now recruiting for a director of organizational culture and engagement to lead the next chapter of this effort.

This will be centered on strengthening alignment, communication, and engagement across all city departments.

Continuing the partnership with Inquest at this stage will provide the stability, expertise, and consistency necessary to ensure that the city continues to build on the progress already achieved, and as it begins moving forward towards full integration of this work across the organization.

This evening we will hear a pre have a presentation from representatives from Inquest, Trisha Dupelka, and Perry Karin.

So welcome, ladies.

Thank you for spending some time with us on this long evening.

Good to see you again.

Hi Perry, hi Trisha.

Thank you for having us, and thank you for making the time.

We were here last, I think, in August of 2023.

We're in Quest Consulting.

We've been around since 2011, and we help uh organizations build workplaces that work for everyone.

Our team, uh Trisha and I have have been working very closely with the City of Elgin, but our team is much broader than just the two of us.

Uh, some of our colleagues are shown here on our presentation, but I want to give a special shout out to Gloria Cotton, uh, who is one of our founding members and a proud resident of the City of Elgin, uh, as well as David Stone, who has been partnering with us on this project, and many of you have worked with David as well.

For tonight's presentation, we want to upgrade uh update you on the progress that the city has made in their DEI efforts since 2023.

Understand how we embed DEI into our organizational culture by utilizing dignity, respect, and culturally competent mindsets as a foundation of our DEI work together and to share recommendations on moving forward, including uh what support from the city council uh might look like so before we Perry does an update on the progress that we've made.

And we do a lot of work around organizational culture, and we know that you can't just jump in to do the actions without setting the foundation for a long-term sustained change.

So we've used this approach since the beginning of our work to really understand the why of what we are doing, to engage with key stakeholders.

This is the third time that we are in front of City Council.

We've engaged with senior staff, leaders, employees across the organization.

And this has been a co-creation of what we have we have shared today.

So when we say we in sharing what we have done, this has been the city doing this.

Our work together started a number of years ago.

We're going to go through in more detail of what we've done in the last since we've been here before.

But really, it has been focused on finding what is needed here at the city of Elgin to further what is what is Elgin's DEI plan culture that we want to create.

From the beginning, we've looked at this as part of the culture.

So to really get understand the why behind it.

Elgin is a diversity that embraces history, aspires to be inclusive, innovative, and vibrant community.

This is from your strategy.

And embedding DEI and cultural competencies is going to support that strategy.

We also created a vision of like, well, what do we want that to look like?

And it is really it's embedded into what we do and how we treat each other.

It's how we lead, it's how we interact, it's how we serve the community.

It is how we behave.

And how we behave really is what culture is.

It's the formal and informal way we see and do things, and we want these cultural competencies in DEI to be embedded into how we do things.

It's not a separate activity, it's how we do the things we already do.

Because in defining what we are, saying what we are not is often as important as saying what we what we envision.

We did this back in 2023, and it has been incredibly helpful, especially as there has been pushback around DEI in the last number of months.

And back in 2023, we were up front and said we did not see DEI as being many of those things that receive pushback now.

So what we've really centered our foundation on is this idea of cultural competency.

We have behaviors here that show what that starts to look like.

This has been part of the center of that.

Another piece of the center of that is being clear around our commitments around inclusion and dignity and respect.

This has been in all of those sessions as well, so we're really clear on what we're talking about here.

Often people say, Well, isn't it obvious?

But it it's obvious until there's challenges and there's issues, and then we need to be clear around what those those definitions are.

So here at the city of Elgin, we have expectations for employees and and leaders in creating dignity and respect and building inclusion.

That second statement there is really it's pulled from what we call our definition of inclusion here at the city.

So the foundation that we've created has been come through a number of actions and specific strategies.

So we want to share with you that progress and then move towards what we see the next stage of work being for the city.

All right, so a little bit about our strategy and progress.

In 2023, we shared with you our three-year priorities around diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Those priorities were to establish the foundation for DEI here, to enhance our connected, engaged, inclusive, and vibrant community.

So applying that DEI lens to how we celebrate, how we support our community, uh how we uh support initiatives brought by the community.

And the third priority is building inclusion.

So what is the what does that look like in practice every day here at the city of Elgin across all departments?

And then lastly, addressing equity.

So part of our priorities here are really focusing on alignment and making sure that our policies, practices, procedures, and talent processes really are reflecting best practices in DEI.

So I'm going to share with you some of the accomplishments of the City of Elgin over the last two years since we were last here.

Some of these efforts are efforts that Inquest has supported.

Some of these efforts are efforts that have been led by the leadership and employees here at the City of Elgin.

So as far as progress towards our first priority, we developed a DEI strategy, which the priorities I just shared with you.

We established that business case for DEI here at the City of Elgin, which Tricia just shared with you.

And really focused on developing definitions of DEI.

We find that it's a best practice for organizations to define those terms diversity, equity, and inclusion for their organization.

What does it mean here in our unique context?

As well as a vision and actions to support the success of the strategy.

So we have a DEI leadership team here at the City of Elgin.

They were with us in 2023 when we were presenting here.

We'll share the list again at the end of those who who are still involved from the leadership level.

We know that organizations who have strong leadership commitment are more likely to be successful in these efforts, and the City of Elgin has had a leadership team that has been committed to DEI as long as we've been working with them.

We also the city also drafted a director level job description to support DEI efforts and conducted a hiring process at the end of 2024.

That process identified a candidate who is who was offered a position and then due to personal reasons, they weren't unable to fulfill the role.

It is posted until October 31st.

And as of last checking, we have about 58 applicants.

So there hopefully will be a good candidate who can really support your efforts going forward.

We at Inquest are committed to helping support that transition once the candidate has accepted the offer.

So part of that is getting more data from the employees through an engagement survey.

So an approach has been created with Tim leading the way on that and us supporting.

And then we also held foundational DEI education and commitment sessions with full-time employees.

So let me give you a little bit of sense what this looked like.

This was employees from all departments across the city in large group gatherings where we shared the city's commitment to DEI with senior level involvement, sharing their individual commitments to DEI, as well as sharing our strategic priorities and foundational level education.

What is DEI mean?

What do these terms mean?

How do we talk about diversity?

How do we talk about our differences?

What is that experience when you're not included?

And how does that impact our ability to show up every day and do our work?

So that was a mandatory session.

But it also, I think one of the beautiful things about that was that it gave employees an opportunity to feel connected to the whole organization and meet people that work in different departments.

So it was a way to understand their own connections, not only to their department, but to the city as well.

So we completed those in the spring of 2024.

The second priority here, enhancing our connected, engaged, inclusive, and vibrant community.

Our first task here was to apply a DEI lens to community initiatives.

The second was to establish a recognition approach and plan for how to internally celebrate heritage, culture, and other months that are that many of us will identify from our calendars, right?

What is the city going to do?

What months are going to be celebrated internally?

And so the internal and external calendar, the the city worked to identify the months, the days, the special recognition, which celebrations would take place.

So we established expectations.

So as Trisha shared with you, the culturally competent behaviors and mindsets that was rolled out to all employees.

So as Trisha shared with you, the culturally competent behaviors and mindsets that was rolled out to all employees first through a half-day session for leaders in all departments.

Uh that was a required session called Building a More Inclusive Elgin, your role as a leader.

This included skill building and practice.

Uh so they were able to put it, those culturally competent mindsets into practice through real-world scenarios.

We worked with leaders in all departments to create uh sessions and scenarios that were meaningful and accurate and realistic for the work that they do.

Uh following that in uh May and June of this year, we uh rolled out a version of that building and more inclusive LG in our roles and responsibilities for individual contributors.

So full-time employees were asked to attend that set those sessions, and we did them by department uh in these cases as a way to help build uh more inclusion given the unique roles of of each department here.

Um inclusion, the the experience of inclusion may look the same, but our working environment really impacts what we have to be mindful about.

Uh so we we did those sessions, those were small group sessions, so imagine about 25 people, lots of discussion, lots of practical application, lots of opportunity to ask questions and practice.

And then finally, the fourth priority around addressing equity.

Um the the first task here was about building alignment and policies, practices, and procedures.

We uh assisted the city in reviewing the employee manual and identified areas that uh could enhance DEI commitment and build more equity throughout the organization.

So that uh looking at the employee manual uh has been completed as well as a comprehensive compensation study, uh, which it interestingly included both private and uh public pay equity analysis, which is unique and and uh more comprehensive than many organizations do, uh, as well as uh a new compensation plan for full-time non-union employees.

And then lastly, uh a focus on talent processes.

So one of the things that we heard through our listening sessions was that some the HR could use more employees to fully support leadership, talent processes, et cetera.

So one of the things that the city has been focused on is making sure that your HR department is fully staffed to accommodate the size of the organization so that they can help build more equity in the talent processes.

Um so that's something that uh the city has done to uh build foundation and infrastructure to be able to uh better address those types of issues.

So the city has been busy.

A lot of work has been going on from you know from leaders from employees across the city.

But let's talk about moving forward.

So when we created our initial strategy, it was like a three-year strategy.

And so our priorities, those top-line priorities remain the same, but we're shifting from a sort of a level setting, a building alignment and awareness to more of a data-driven addressing specific needs, right?

We've level set, we've built a foundation, we've we've had, we've rolled out cultural competencies.

Now it's like what what are specific needs that can be addressed.

So for that establishing the DI Foundation, well, we've got to hire that organizational culture and engagement director, right?

They will lead the efforts going forward.

And to continue to listen to employees, and so recommend it as an engagement survey as a way of cost-effectively getting input from all employees on the culture and the environment here.

Those are the two big actions for the foundation piece.

For enhancing our connected engaged, inclusive and vibrant community, this is a place where the director being in place will really enhance this priority, right?

We'll really take more action in this.

It wasn't one that was focused on as much over the last year just because of bandwidth and not having that role in place yet.

Activities here is really around telling the story.

There are such amazing stories across the city of how the employees are connecting, engaging, supporting this diverse community.

And they're to bring those together to tell a full complete story versus the many little pieces that are out there now as a part of this.

Begin to really recognize and celebrate cultures internally.

Continue that co-sponsorship program for external events, but bring it inside as well.

And begin to enhance existing efforts with cultural competency.

This is focusing on those, especially those community-facing positions and helping them take those cultural camp competencies and apply it in those unique roles when they're facing the community.

Building inclusion, we need to incorporate those expectations into talent processes.

We share those expectations with you.

Well, so now are we making sure that that when we are hiring a leader, we're looking at their ability to build inclusion as part of that process, that type of thing.

Oh, here's an area we need to pay attention to.

Right?

With more specificity than for the entire organization.

That could be something like, gee, new employees are feel like they're not listened to as much.

We need to think about how are we bringing new employees in.

That type of specificity.

And continue to build cultural competency.

That's not a one and done, right?

You put those things up, have a conversation, and it's like, okay, now I can always engage with empathy in every situation.

Right?

We we have to continually to work and build on that.

Addressing equity.

So any updates to policies, practices, procedures, right?

And identifying and addressing potential barriers.

This is using data, using analysis and data to say where are there places where there may be a challenge that we can create more equity.

And here at the city, that definition of creating equity is really removing barriers to ensure that there's fairness, there's fairness and equal opportunity for folks.

So that is the overview of the actions that we propose for this year, and the the organizational cultural engagement director will drive those forward.

So our request of you support the director position, support that organizational culture and engagement role.

That include the work that they'll do, this focus on the strategy, the direction that we're that we're taking to continue to support.

To role model the cultural competencies with each other, with city staff and and with the community.

Then people acknowledge and follow.

If they don't see it role modeled, they start to go, this doesn't really mean anything here.

So role modeling those uh those cultural competencies.

And it was brought up in our last time here of you know, well, should we do some work with the the council, you know, pay attention to this?

So we're offering a session with the council to to focus on that, do some of the same type of reflection and practice that we did with all employees.

And final to stay committed to the vision for DI of the city.

There's been a lot of of discussion around DEI, its importance, priorities, etc.

And you know, we we commend the city for continuing to pay attention to this, to forefront it, to prioritize it, and ask that you continue to have that commitment as well and support the uh the vision that has been laid out.

We mentioned that this has not been in quest doing this, this has been the city doing this.

We've supported, sure, we've facilitated some sessions, but it's been with the city driving this forward, it's co-creating it with them.

And so the DI leadership team that has been part of every step of this is here on the screen, and we appreciate your support, your commitment.

You all have busy, important jobs to take the time out to also forefront support role model uh DEI as part of part of those roles.

So these are the folks that have been been in it with us in the in the detail, the entire senior staff.

We've had many discussions and meetings with them of important, important part of of this role as well, but wanted to call out these these folks who've been our our partners through through all of this.

With that, thank you.

Thank you for your support.

Thank you for the work that that you have done and the support you've had for for the the city of Elgin and the senior staff as they've undertaken all of this.

It's noted and very much appreciated.

Thank you.

Any questions for the presenters at this time?

Mr.

Dixon.

Thank you.

We appreciate the presentation this evening, and thank you again for sticking with us.

Um but it's all related.

It is the entire agenda of this presentation.

It's uh, you know, it's um no coincidence, I don't think that it's all coming together together on this evening.

Um so I owe you an apology, and let me tell you why.

Okay.

We had a consultant by the name of Denise Barreto prior to Inquest, who did an excellent job.

The city and Denise, you know, decided to part ways.

Um I was really impressed by the work that Denise did.

She was able to get members of the city council who weren't exactly on this fence.

I will on this in this boat, I'm gonna say.

She was able to convince them to like, you know, um give this a chance.

And uh, and so I was always impressed by the way she was able to tow that line.

Uh and so when she departed, I wasn't really optimistic on inquests eventually and the work that you all would do.

Um, and I never said that to you all, but I was just naturally skeptical.

But um, I remember a city manager and city staff um saying, like, no, Corey, they're the real deal, and uh, and I trusted it and I believed in it.

And they were right.

You guys are the real deal.

You guys have done an excellent job.

And then looking over the materials and all the people that you have in the city, the staff that you have trained, and you know, 800 plus folks now at this point, and just looking at your plan going forward over the next few years and what you're looking to accomplish, uh, and even in working with us, I think that you guys have done an excellent job.

Um, and I think we've come a long way as a city too as well, and a lot of that work is is thanks to do, thanks to you.

Um I also want to say thank you specifically for the for the now named director of organizational culture and engagement, which was the DEI position.

I forget what title we gave it before, but I was pushing that position years ago, and government moved slow, but here we are, and I'm just happy that we'll be getting this position here in place pretty soon.

So thank you in advance for all the work that you're gonna do with that person and transitioning them into their new role because a lot is going to be expected of them as you as was on display today.

Um they're gonna have a lot at their at their feet.

Um I had a uh when we had a break, I had a shall just stop talking.

I don't think I don't think it's my mic.

It must be a signal.

Okay, it wasn't well was me.

All right.

Uh um but no, the I forget I lost my train of thought actually.

I I don't know what I was saying.

Uh oh, I had a question.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um during the break, I I'd asked uh the city manager um essentially about um a document that we as a city could refer to um as we transition over these next few years and we you know hire the new position because you guys have done such an excellent job, and he gave it the name of playbook.

So, you know, is there a way that you guys can create a playbook for us, a manual of sorts that hits on like the core key principles of things that we should be doing as a f as a city, you know, five years from now, ten years from now.

Now we know that the face of DEI is going to change again eventually, right?

So, not those things that are subject to change, but when you are doing this type of work, there are core principles that should stick with no matter what the environment is.

And so having that type of document for us as a city to be able to refer to in the future, I think would be really crucial.

So, what do you think about that?

May I yeah.

Um, you know, our goal is to uh empower the city to be independent in leading these efforts.

So, whether that be a playbook or some other way of institutionalizing and uh storing sort of these best practices and knowledge, uh, we absolutely want to make sure that the city can be successful going forward once our partnership ends.

Uh and also I want to make sure that we're honoring the expertise of the person who is going to be taking that director role and making sure that whatever document we support creating is one that's usable and uh it it takes into account their vision and their leadership as well, because the last thing we want to do is hire a very capable person for that role and say you have to do it this one particular way when we want to honor their experience as well.

Yeah, and and I'm sorry I didn't go into the full explanation, but I I wasn't expecting for you guys to create it.

So but um but to work with the new person and create it.

That was the conversation that we quickly had.

So you're absolutely right.

I was right first because that's what I was thinking.

All right, so so but thank you for that.

Because I think that's really important going forward, having that crossover.

Um so again, I think that you guys have done an excellent job.

Um I don't have much questions about the materials.

I think the plan is pretty straightforward.

Um, and with that, I will let the rest of my colleagues um chime in.

Anyone else?

Mr.

Step.

Just two comments after I say thank you and thanks for sticking it out.

It's a long meeting but important meeting.

Um I want to the first point I wanted to make is I'm glad you in one of your earliest slides you talked about what DEI is not because a lot of this that you highlighted in that slide is what is going on at the federal level and at other places they set up straw men and talk about DAI and what it's not and then attack it that way.

So I appreciate that.

I appreciate you stayed on the course and allowed us to stay on course and keep moving this forward.

Um the other thing I wanted to say is I at the last slide of your presentation I finally got my question answered that I was gonna ask, which is who's the leadership team.

Now we know because I see in your statement of work the goal uh if this go comes off as you are envisioning is to have a monthly meeting between you, one of you, somebody from Inquest, the director and the DI leadership team to kind of keep this going and doing the math.

It looks like it's gonna be between an hour and two once a month, so one and a half hours on average.

So that's good to see because I was trying to figure out okay who's the DEI leadership team, but I got it in your last slide, so thank you.

That's all I am.

Okay, Mr.

So far.

As my colleagues mentioned, thank you, and thank you for you know staying as late as it is right now.

Um as a newest council member, I do appreciate that you gave some back history because that helped me really understand how we got to where we're at right now in the plan for right now, but I would be um not truthful if I didn't have state my concern that I do have.

My concern is the the entire 2825 and 2026 action plan focuses all internally and not much externally, and I think there's a lot more work that we need to do as a city in intentionality when we're doing work outside in the community, making sure every neighborhood feels heard, making sure we're reaching out to different organizations, etc.

And so how is external work, if any, going to be implemented in there in case I missed it.

Very good question.

And we had really intentional and detailed conversations about this and creating a strategy from the beginning of how do we balance that internal and external.

And uh back when we created that, we made the decision that we need to focus internally first and set that foundation first and equip people to understand and to to build that inclusion internally because it's really hard to do externally what you don't receive yourself, and so it was an intentional decision to focus more internally to start with.

The second priority here though is starting to look more external, right?

And with this this new role in place, they will be able to further that.

Um and that last bullet there in like 2C, you know, enhance existing efforts with cultural competency.

What that's really getting at is let's help the people serving the community.

Like let's start to make that outreach into more community focused, right?

And so these you know, priorities will shift and evolve, and at when that role is in place and is able to, you know, able to put their their stamp on this and and bring their expertise into it.

I expect the the external will be a part of what they're really thinking about.

Okay, no, thank you.

That gives um some clarification to it.

So I appreciate that.

Thank you.

Anything else?

Ms.

Martinez.

Thank you, Maynard.

I just wanted to say thank you for the presentation.

Um I uh was with you guys from the get-go.

You know, I remember when we met out in uh Hawthorne.

Yeah, and uh I remember um meeting flow at that time.

Yeah, um aka Gloria, right?

Yeah, and um what was impressive and what I uh believed in is that you guys are a team.

The City of Algern employs uh a large number of employees, and for one person to do everything, it's just gonna take forever.

So being as a team, that's one of the pluses that I really liked.

And uh the fact that uh just speaking to um speaking to our employees and how uh the engagement is and I do agree with you that um it's important to do the internal before the external, and it's not something that you take lightly, it's been taking time and it's going to, but uh I appreciate that.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Anything else?

Mr.

Good.

Thank you, Mayor.

I just wanted to give well thank you, obviously, for the presentation, all the work.

I also wanted to give a shout out to staff and to counsel for staying the course on this.

Um you know, Algen just more and more seems to just be experiencing all the things that are happening on the national level, and we've just got so even predating my time up here.

Um mentioned it's been an ongoing uh path for Algen.

So I just really wanted to give a shout out to staff, um, everybody who's working as part of that management team to to getting that message throughout the entire organization.

Um I'm just yeah, it it feels like a proud moment right now.

So thank you to everybody up here.

Okay.

Anything else?

Ms.

Powell.

Thank you for being here.

Um definitely support the work.

I have a a couple of questions.

Um one, I'll piggyback on something that was brought up by uh councilmember Alfaro about the need for the external work.

Um I'm just gonna make a pitch.

I know we've talked about this in the past.

Part of that external work, I would expect for us to look at our purchasing practices.

Um we we've talked about that for some time, and I I don't think we've we've followed through on that, but I think you know, as we look at how are we spending our money, who are we spending our money with, um, are we ensuring that we're we're we're our contractors and who we're doing business with uh fit what we're you know saying we're doing in terms of an equity piece um and and who's being included.

So I I definitely want to make sure that that external piece includes um uh looking at our our purchasing habits and making adjustments there.

Uh the the question or I just I I'm glad to see the position posted.

Um so it sounds like there's a lot of interest.

Hopefully we will get um you know a person who's going to be a good fit.

Um the question I have is how will this new position function?

Um is it uh because I see they're at a director level, do they have a staff or will they have a staff?

Um I assuming they report to the city manager.

Um so I guess those are probably questions more for the city manager.

So you're correct.

The the position will be part of the senior staff reporting to me or the other assistant city managers, but at this time, no direct staff, but we'll be working closely with Tim Bennett and the HR department, obviously.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

Um the other piece, and uh glad you brought up uh Tim and and HR department.

How are we incorporating DEI into the new annual performance evaluation process that's uh being put together?

How how are we holding staff accountable for this piece of the equation in the organization?

I think once once we get the position um uh on board and they start developing some of the strategies, they're gonna be working closely with myself so we can implement some of the things that NQS has already told us about.

We're gonna be using the employee engagement survey to see what uh employees uh see as opportunities for us to improve in areas and departments, and we're gonna use those those uh that feedback to incorporate into our evaluation process.

We're that one of the reasons we bring we're gonna have uh this new position is they're gonna help us with a lot of the DEI initiatives, they're gonna help us um strategize on ways to uh uh teach or or uh help uh orchestrate some of the things that uh uh department heads and supervisors need to know when they're evaluating staff and they're gonna use those strategies to um implement what what processes we use for evaluation.

So you know we're gonna work really closely with this person, so I I do hope we get a really good person.

I'm gonna be working closely with them with those strategies, and I'm you know they're gonna be working with the entire organization to do that, and they'll be working closely together.

So thank you.

Is that it, Ms.

Powell?

Uh that's all I had.

I guess um, the only other pieces I'm assuming someone will let us know about the training or the opportunity for city council to go through whatever training is is being made available.

Okay, thanks.

All right, thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you for making the time.

Mr.

Manager, we need to move approval.

I'll make the motion to approve the service agreement with inquest.

Second moved and second and any discussion.

Hearing none, please call a roll.

Councilmember Zalfaro?

Yes.

Dixon?

Yes.

Good.

Yes.

Martinez?

Yes.

Ortiz?

Yes.

Powell?

Yes.

Stefan?

Yes.

Thorn?

Yes.

Mayor Captain.

Yes, motions approved 9-0.

Item C is an initiative generated by Council members Ortiz and Good.

This is deferred action for childhood arrivals firefighter hiring eligibility eligibility.

The deferred action for childhood arrivals, commonly referred to as DACA, was introduced in 2012.

And this policy made it possible for an estimated 800,000 immigrant children known as dreamers to live in the United States without fear of deportation.

Many of these children have since grown into adults after arriving in the country at a young age.

In the past, many police and fire departments require U.S.

citizenship as a prerequisite for hiring.

But challenges in fulfilling staffing in addition to diversity requirements and greater cultural awareness have prompted police and fire departments across the nation to relax their U.S.

citizenship requirements so the DACA recipients can be hired as police officers or firefighters.

Illinois passed a legislation in 2023 allowing DACA recipients to become police officer.

Elgin currently has three officers who are DACA recipients on its payroll.

Efforts to pass similar statewide legislation for firefighters has not yet occurred.

So the proposed ordinance amending the LGIM municipal code will enable DACA recipients to be hired as Elgin firefighters, not unlike police officers.

There are no other positions in the city that had a res uh a U.S.

citizenship requirement.

Move for approval.

Second.

Move to the second floor approval.

Any discussion.

Mr.

Ortiz.

I'll set the foundation for this.

Back in March, maybe a little bit before then, Mr.

Good said that maybe it would have been before March.

I had approached him about this because once I realized the General Assembly wasn't gonna pick this up in the spring session, and it more or less died in the session before because of the new General Assembly.

So when city manager referred to in the 2023 legislation was uh proposed and uh sponsored by Representative Hernandez out of Aurora, and when I seen the firefighter wasn't going anywhere in the General Assembly, I contacted her and asking her if there's any appetite within the General Assembly to continue this adventure.

And she said no, not at this time.

So that's when I approached uh Mr.

Good asking him his opinion, his thoughts on it.

There's a lot of misinformation about DACA.

There'll be people on the internet or newspapers or media saying it's giving uh undocumented people or in their words illegal people access to jobs that this is not true.

The federal government gives them authorization to work.

They may not have status as a resident or a citizen, but they're protected individuals uh that President Obama did.

So that's all it is.

We're only changing we're adding one paragraph to a hiring process, which strikes out the citizenship part and adds in the DACA part.

I met with uh 439's president, the union's good with it.

Uh I talked to the fire chief, which I seen him sneak in behind us, and uh he seemed he was o okay with it, and I met with legal and Mr.

Uh Beck is the one that helped me draft this and get this going.

So I think I checked all the boxes, hit all those stakeholders that this could affect, and maybe this can even help the Elgin Fire Department with some of the EMT and paramedic shortages that maybe some DACA recipients are working for private organizations like ATEC Ambulance or whatever the other ones that are out there can now jump ship and come to us and have a good career, good benefits, and uh a good job here with the city of Elgin.

I don't know if Mr.

Good wants to add anything since he's the one that helped put some of the agenda or not.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um to uh council member Ortiz's points, uh brought this forward earlier in the year.

Um, and it was kind of an obvious decision to make.

Um I just want to give shout out to everybody who's helped uh advocate on behalf of any level of um I guess you know to give background.

I was first introduced to this in 2012.

You know, I think we were uh all looking at the Obama administration the second time around to see you know what was gonna happen and come out of that with health care and with immigration, and we got a couple things that didn't get all the way there.

Um I'm grateful for this.

I I think it's good, but obviously there's been a lot of people that have advocated for this, even though they weren't able to receive it themselves because they got left off by just it could be a week, a month.

Um so uh just want to give shout out to everybody who's worked on those fronts um for over a decade now, but um, to see this gap get closed, um, and really this is the only gap that was existing within this organization.

I think this is a a good move.

Um it's a good moment for Algin.

It is provides opportunities for people that could be life-changing.

Um, these are highly skilled positions.

Um, Algin has a really good reputation.

Um and it just keeps growing.

Um, you know, we we got some information about how uh our fire department is changing training.

So not only does it have a high standard to get in, but anybody who goes into our department and comes out is gonna have a solid career.

So um I guess I don't really have uh a great deal more to say about this.

I would be curious to hear from um a representative for the fire department to see how this is going to impact them for hiring uh flexibility or opportunities, and there he is.

Just so I would just happen to be standing how convenient.

So from our standpoint, when Councilman Ortiz brought this forward, we looked into this there with the fact that we have three police officers that are already being that are successful employees of the city of Elgin are is a testament to this program and to what you're looking to do with the fire department.

How the fire service was excluded initially is anybody's guess, but the fact that we have uh a growing segment of the Elgin community coming to the fire department in just the last five or six years, our diversity numbers have grown between women and Hispanics and African Americans.

So anything that we can do to help cultivate that growth, the city manager, the mayor, some of you uh you uh councilman Powell, Councilperson Powell and Councilman Dixon, we've had conversations over the years about how do we enhance our uh diversity within the organization, and we have been able to do that.

We've been able to do that in very successfully through our explorer post.

I believe we have three or four of our current firefighters come came from our explorer post.

We have an influx of females into our explorer program.

We're currently in the realm somewhere around 30 percent of our explorer post is diverse, and that is our pool that we're hoping to pull from.

So, what this allows is this doesn't prevent this never precluded people from that under that DACA uh designation from being a part of our explorer program.

But what this does is gives us that larger pool as Councilman Ortiz talked about.

We are having a difficulty nationwide in the fire service getting paramedics.

Illinois is particularly northern Illinois, we're all vying for all the paramedics that are out there.

So the more people that we can get, that larger pool of people that we can have that also enhances the department's diversity, enhances representation of the elgin community on the Elgin Fire Department, is a benefit to everybody, benefit to our organization, uh our department, as well as a city organization and the community as a whole.

So we're a hundred percent in support of all this, and I think that when you look at what it takes to uh Councilman Good's comments about being a highly technical profession, what it takes to be a good, strong firefighter requires a lot of heart and dedication commitment.

If we have people who have those traits and can get and can meet our internal standards, we should give them, we should give every one of those people a chance to be an elegant firefighter.

Yeah, thank you.

I just wanted to hear from fire department.

Thank you.

Sure, you're welcome.

Mr.

Thorne.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Chief.

Always uh your words are always uh uh eloquent and perfect.

Um I'm so in support of this.

Um as you mentioned, not only would it benefit the city and the fire department, but it would be an incredible opportunity for certain potential firefighters, uh essentially a ramp to success for them.

Absolutely.

And uh I'm behind it a hundred percent.

I think it's great.

It's obviously overdue as you put it.

Who knows why it was left out, maybe it wasn't intentional, it just uh happened with the police and and then it just happened, but now it's being brought forward.

I thank my two colleagues for bringing this forward, and uh I'm a hundred percent behind it.

Okay, so far.

Thank you.

I think this is uh an excellent thing to bring forward.

I just wanted to uplift something.

Um given that the comment that we had during public comment.

Uh if you or DACA, you can apply for city jobs.

Okay, you could apply for police officer jobs.

The only positions you couldn't apply for is the firefire department.

So I just wanted to add that from the public comment part, like the city is doing a really good job and trying to be as exclusive as possible, and so this just finalize it over the finish line that any city job now is uh allows DACA.

So that's correct.

Yeah, thank you to council members good and Ortiz for bringing this forward.

Mr.

Stefan.

Yeah.

Well, I was gonna ask that very question, but Diana got ahead of me and figured it out and is able to tell the community the important news that citywide anybody can apply.

DAC uh recipients can apply for all positions.

So thanks for clarifying that.

I and so the only thing I want to say is thank you to council members Ortiz and good for sticking with this and kind of pulling it through and uh kind of closing this hole.

So thank you.

Okay, Mr.

Dixon.

Uh yes, thank you.

Um I just had one question.

Uh did we look into including um TPS temporary protective status?

Uh folks under this, or did we decide?

Not now.

That wasn't that was not within my purview.

No, I didn't.

I just did what the General Assembly had passed for the police officers because that was already legislation that was somewhere crafted, so gave Mr.

Beck an easier way to draft this ordinance.

Okay.

So I I guess then you know my question would be could we include TPS alongside this as well?

Because that's also a group of um uh similar is there's some similarities between TPS and DACO folks.

So if we could include all of them inside of this uh ordinance, I think that would just be even better.

But maybe I'll you know ask pass that question to to Mr.

Beck.

I mean that's that's not anything I I've looked into.

I don't know if there's any unique issues that that would present or not.

I mean I can certainly research that and I guess this will presumably come back to the city council with the next meeting for final approval so I can report back on whether that's possible and if an appropriate amendment is warranted by the city council at that time, we can make that.

Okay, all right, and and I mean that's you know that's up to Mr.

Good, Mr.

Ortiz.

Uh I can make that motion, but you know, do you guys you know do you object to that at all?

No, if uh we vote on this and then Mr.

Beck comes back next week and says there's no legal ramifications and we're allowed to do it.

I have no problem adding that.

Okay.

Sounds good.

All right, thank you.

One other point if I can just make is that this is as Councilman Ortiz discussed, he talked with local 439 about this.

This is just one more example in the last handful of years that we have demonstrated collaboration between the local, the administration, and the city itself.

So to have these three entities coming together in the collaborative nature that we have over so many different topics in the last handful of years is another testament to where the department is today and where the city is today, and this is a great topic to for us to all come together on a motion.

Well, Miss Martinez, I'm sorry.

Thank you, Mayor.

I just want to make it very brief and uh to the point.

You know, it's just about time.

That's all I wanted to say.

Thank you to both of you for bringing it up and educating us on it.

And uh I think this completes it, so thank you.

Okay, Clerk, please call the roll.

Councilmember Zalfaro?

Yes, Dixon?

Yes.

Good, yes, Martinez?

Yes, Ortiz?

Yes.

Powell, yes, Stefan?

Yes, Thorne?

Yes, Mayor Captain.

Yes, motions approved nine zero.

Thank you, Chief.

Item D is an engineering services agreement with Collins Engineers Incorporated for the Kimball Street Dam 2025 through 30 annual inspection services.

The Illinois Department of Natural Resources requires owners of Class 2 dams, which is the Kimball Street Dam to comply with its annual structural inspection reporting requirements.

Kimball Street Dam, which the city is owned since 1999, falls under these requirements.

Collins has been performing dam inspection services for the city since 2001, and because of its qualifications and skill in diving and underwater inspections.

This is agreement.

Uh staff is recommending the continuation of this agreement to provide for continued inspection and reporting services through the next five years.

Additional services will include revisions to the emergency action plan, which details specific guidelines that must be followed in the event of a structural failure, and the operations and maintenance plan.

Any major inspections contemplated within the terms of this agreement may require additional funding from the city to make those repairs.

Major inspections under this agreement are scheduled in 2030.

Move for approval.

Second.

Move to second for approval.

Any discussion.

Hearing none, Clerk, please call the rule.

Councilmember Zalfaro?

Yes.

Dixon?

Yes.

Good.

Yes.

Martinez?

Yes.

Ortiz?

Yes.

Powell?

Yes.

Stefan?

Yes.

Thorne?

Yes.

Mayor Captain.

Yes, motions approved 90.

Item E is a change order for bid number 25-009.

This is a contract with Trine Construction Corp for the city's uh 2025 led service line replacement program.

Many on the dias know the city contracts with uh with contractors to provide emergency led service line replacements in areas of the city that weren't scheduled for repairs.

When the city received late notice about Illinois Department of Transportation coming in to resurface Illinois 25 uh Dundee Avenue from Page Street north to uh the expressway entrance, the city recognized that we needed to move a little bit faster in replacing lead service lines in that area because we didn't want to come through and break up the pavement that IDOT had placed down just one or two years afterwards.

So we repurposed um Trine Construction Company from their emergency repairs, got them to do the work on the IDOT work on Dundee Avenue from Page to the expressway, so that we're gonna have a smooth new surface that won't be interrupted, hopefully for a long time into the future.

So this change order contemplates the additional cost that uh that the city incurred having trying to do that work and need to point out that due to IDOT requirements, the services were replaced are at a higher unit cost than typical replacements on city-owned streets.

Move for approval.

Second, move to second for approval.

Any discussion?

Mr.

Thorne.

Thank you, Mayor.

Just an example here.

This is uh exactly how it worked when they did Walnut Avenue.

They were scheduled to do the resurfacing, but then the lead service line took place and they rescheduled the surfacing.

Uh Mike Pubins gave a talk on that.

Sue Webb was here.

She understood they were disappointed that it's gonna be taking a little bit longer, but now it would be perfect road rather than one with squares filled.

Anything else?

Any other questions?

Ms.

Paul.

Just uh a quick kudos to staff for kind of pivoting rather quickly to to bring this forward.

Um obviously the underground work that we do is is really important.

Um and and we definitely don't want to have to uh damage and and open up a uh a brand new uh street that's been re replaced and repaved uh to get that work done.

So appreciate staff moving quickly to accommodate this change.

Yep.

Nor and Mike talk to each other all the time.

Anything else?

Okay, Clerk, please call a roll.

Councilmember Zalfaro?

Yes, Dixon.

Yes, good, yes, Martinez?

Yes.

Ortiz?

Yes.

Powell?

Yes, Stefan?

Yes.

Thorne?

Yes.

Mayor Captain.

Yes, motions approved nine zero.

Item F is a purchase agreement with Perry Weather Incorporated for a weather warning system that will be used at the Wing Park Golf Course and General Park open spaces, the pool and ball fields, all at Wing Park.

Uh the Wing Park Golf Course has been using the ThorGuard lighting prediction system for the past decade.

This system uses the AM frequency and is unfortunately now out of date.

Since that original purchase, several other companies have entered into the market, and Perry Weather has established itself as the leader in managing large-scale weather warning systems.

By example, it currently provides its system for NASA, Major League Baseball, the Professional Golf Association of America at all of their events.

Perryweather is known for the professional grade weather monitoring and alerting system, which, unlike others, provides precise hyper-local data and customizable reserve uh alerts, excuse me.

The service aims to enhance safety efficiency and compliance while offering around the clock support from meteorologists for critical decision making.

It is designed for more reliable and actionable weather intelligence to assist the city in making weather-related decisions while also preventing disruptions from false or inaccurate weather monitoring.

This will be a pilot project, and if it's successful at Wing Park, you will see further initiatives to deploy the system at the other parks open spaces.

Move for approval.

Second.

Move to second for approval.

Any discussion?

Mr.

Ortiz.

I just want to say if it's good for NASA, it should be good for us.

Ms.

Alfaro.

I had two questions.

Is a similar weather warning system going into Lorest Park, or does the Lars Park already have one?

They have one, and I'm going to presume that it is still the Thorguard system.

As I said, this is the city's first venture into the more updated system.

And if it works as they are telling us, we will be making these improvements through not only Wing Park, Wards Park, all other open spaces where we have these warning systems.

Like how many staff members do we need to have funding for training?

I do not know the precise answer to that.

I know that one of the features of this though is the ability to do programming from a mobile device.

And so I do not know in this instance what Mr.

Lehman's or Parks Director Jen Hermanson's plans are for who has those capabilities.

But my sense is it's something that goes into the more granular levels for the people that are on the ground and have the ability to monitor what's happening, not just the highest director levels.

But I can provide that clarification in advance of approval at the next presumed approval at the next meeting.

That works.

Thank you.

Mr.

Thorne.

Thank you.

I would just give a little update so that you understand what a Thor guard is.

If you drive past a golf course and you see it out somewhere on the course, it it looks like a little miniature upside-down disk, and it detects lightning in the area.

Then an alarm goes off.

So it's all self-operating.

When the alarm goes off, people are to vacate the golf course.

So generally a Thor guard is just at golf courses for lightning uh warnings for golfers that are swinging clubs in range of lightning.

Now this is an expanded product for more warning for people in the park in general.

Anything else?

Clerk, please call a roll.

Councilmember Zalfaro, yes.

Dixon?

Yes.

Good.

Yes.

Martinez?

Yes.

Ortiz?

Yes.

Yes.

Powell?

Yes.

Stefan?

Yes.

Thorne?

Yes.

Mayor Captain.

Yes, motions approved 9-0.

Item G is the City Council 2026 meeting schedule.

It continues the established practice of convening on the second and fourth Wednesdays of each month, with just a few exceptions.

The November and December meetings are scheduled for the first and third Wednesdays due to the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays.

And an additional committee of the whole meeting is scheduled on the second Wednesday of November for the proposed 2027 budget deliberation process.

Move for approval.

Second.

Move and second for approval.

Any discussion.

Mr.

Ortiz.

I'm looking at the schedule next year when the meetings are going to follow my birthday.

So I'm going to vote no for next year's schedule.

Just so give everybody a year's notice.

I'm going to vote no next year.

My advice is skip the birthday.

I wish I can, but you get older no matter what.

Okay.

Clerk, please call the rule.

Councilmember Zalfaro.

Yes.

Dixon?

Yes.

Good.

Yes.

Martinez?

Yes.

Ortiz?

Yes.

Powell?

Yes.

Stefan?

Yes.

Thorne?

Yes.

Mayor Captain.

Yes.

Motions approved 9-0.

Item H is an initiative from Council members Powell and Stefan.

They are requested this item to discuss a proposed ordinance regulating the use of certain city-owned properties for civil immigration enforcement activities.

Okay.

Ms.

Powell and Mr.

Stefan, you brought the uh issue forward.

One of you lead it out.

Sure.

Thank you.

I left copies of a couple of different ordinances and resolutions that have been recently passed throughout the Chicago area.

One last night by the village of Carpentersville, the City of Chicago's ordinance, or actually executive order, and then one that was passed.

It was a resolution that was passed by the city of Evanston within the past month regarding this topic.

And obviously, we heard from folks in the community that are interested in seeing us do something like this here in Algin.

You know, in relation to what's happening in this country and the state and in our community in particular.

There are several council members.

So there's a lot of interest here on the dais in looking at how we might be able to do something like this in Elgin, how it would be implemented, enforcement, and things of that sort.

So that's why I wanted to kind of have this discussion publicly, see what the appetite was, uh, get some feedback, and and my hope is that you know, after the discussion tonight, we can provide staff with direction on drafting an ordinance that will be brought back to the city council for consideration at our next meeting to take action on.

Um, as I mentioned that there are several governmental entities in the area that have done this.

Um the Evanston resolution appears to be a little bit broader than the City of Chicago's executive order and that it applies to any city property and not just parking lots, parking decks, and vacant lots.

Um so that's one difference that I noticed.

Um but and and these comments are primarily for the general public because I know people hear about us doing these things, they get excited, they start thinking that okay, tomorrow this is gonna be in place, or they're not clear that they um think that our actions do something that they actually don't.

So I want to be clear that we we would only be taking action on an ordinance or a resolution affecting city owned property.

There are several other different units of government that operate within the city of Elgin, uh the library district, ECC, uh U 46, um, the township, all these other different units of government, whatever we are doing does not affect them.

They would have to implement and pass their own resolutions or pass their own laws regarding their property.

So I want to make that clear because people aren't always clear about that.

They think that whatever we do here for the city encompasses all of those other entities, and it does not.

So I just wanted to bring make sure that that was clear.

Um it also would not regulate what happens on private property.

Um looking at some of the um ordinances and resolutions that have been passed by other units of government, they have developed signage that could be used by private property owners to to place at their place of business designating and and making sure that folks, including ummigration officials, understand that this is private property, and you do not have permission to enter upon private property.

Um so that's I again I just wanted to make sure people understand what it is we're looking at.

Um again, what I what I hope that we get out of this tonight, because we've heard from the community, we've heard the frustration around making sure that we're doing what we can at this level to help members of our community feel more comfortable.

And if we can do something that per prohibits um ICE agents from you using uh city-owned property for staging purposes, uh for assembly purposes, um it does sound like that we do have the legal right to do that.

Um so I I would be very interested in us putting something together that would allow us to do that.

And with that, I'll I'll stop talking.

I'd love to hear from my colleagues and uh first I'll turn it over to Councilman Stefan who who seconded um putting this on the agenda tonight.

Thank you.

Well, it's given the hour.

I just want to say as little as possible, which is that I would be in support of the the broadest ordinance that we could possibly pass, and I think Evanston's out of the three that we have looked at so far is the broadest.

Um but I also want to piggyback on the need to explain what this does and doesn't do and um say that it's you know it's just city-owned properties and it's just certain city-owned properties, it's not all property, obviously streets and so forth.

But so that people again in in conversations with people in the community, they think that this is going to like keep ice out of the community if we do this, and it's not.

It's just something that we can do with some of the properties uh that are city owned.

Um to the comment that was made in the public statements, I think by Miss Nunes why why didn't this happen before?

Why why didn't this happen before?

Well, I'll speak for myself.

I have heard from community members, including from the Hispanic community who were of the mind, and I was willing to go along with it that we don't want to shine a spotlight on eligible, we want to stay under the radar.

Well, obviously that's not gonna work, and it didn't work, and it hasn't worked, and it's not gonna work going forward.

So clearly, um maybe I should back up.

I've been on this dais for 18 years, and I have a hard time containing my anger at this nonsense that we have to get into where we are literally at war with our federal government.

So this is what I think we can do at this time.

Unfortunately, at the local level, we're kind of restricted, but we have agents violating people's rights right and left, and we have to do something.

So that's why we're doing this, or that's why I am seconding this and and moving it forward.

So like my counsel person next to me, I'd open to anybody else's comments.

Okay, anything else?

Mr.

Good.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, thank you to my colleagues for putting this on the agenda tonight.

Um, so there's a lot to unpack.

Um, you know, we operate already in a ambiguously legal mechanism, right?

That is local government, and then you attach that to other local entities, and then you attach that to the state level and the federal level.

Um, and as councilwoman Powell already pointed out, uh, when we're talking about public property, which is often the blanket term that's used, it's considered that what we do here touches all public properties, and you already outlined all the different taxing bodies that would have to be in alignment with this for us to say this has been uh applied to the entire city, 38 square miles, etc.

Um, that still doesn't include private property, and um you know, again, we're we're we're dealing with a situation that's is operating outside the bounds of what is already established law.

Um we're seeing it frequently, um, whether it's the three pillars of our federal government, they're no longer operating the way that we've always seen them operate from funding mechanisms to the executive.

Um, so it's completely off the rails.

This is unprecedented for me and pretty much for the entire existence of this uh country.

So um I want us to be realistic when we have these conversations.

Um to the point of the spotlight being shin on elegant.

I've definitely um heard those same concerns express expressed by the people who are most vulnerable.

Um so I definitely don't want to just um move forward in these types of directions without consulting um our community partners and and people who are most vulnerable to this.

Um we just had uh a meeting recently where we took an action, and whether it's coincidence or not, we saw a reaction, we saw a presence of the federal government in our city that was unbelievable.

Um for civil violations.

We had a black hawk helicopter, we had the secretary of the department in our city.

Um we saw what happened in Chicago, and it turns out that a lot of those actions that were taken were not actually yielding the results that they were selling on social media and and in their content that they got from executing these these operations.

Um what we were just presented, and this is all happening really fast.

Um, I know there's people that are saying why didn't you move faster?

Um I completely understand that frustration.

Um, but as we got that this item was added to our agenda in the last minute, we just got materials comparing um three different things.

One's an executive order, one's uh ordinance, and one's a resolution.

So those are important to distinguish between.

Um, the the broad reaching, and I again I'll dig into this deeper, but when I hear a broad reaching resolution, it feels to me like something that could give a lot of um false sense of security.

So we have multiple things happening here.

We have legislation and we have communication that has to happen.

And so I just whatever we do here as a group, I want us to make sure that we're doing it in concert with communication efforts to make sure that we're not just doing things that can be grabbed by a newspaper headline or definitely put on social media and twist it around.

We need to be thoughtful with how we do this, we need to engage our community partners.

We need to make sure that we are definitely telling them what this is not, because we could prevent potentially again if they're following the law, which they've shown they're not following the law, staging, assembling, and processing.

Sure, we can encumber that, but I don't want people to have a sense of feeling that we made this move and we can now go over to this place and we are safe.

I don't want to prov provide a false sense of security.

So I am in support of this.

I just want us to be very thoughtful as we move forward with this.

I don't want us to be reflexive and just do something really fast.

We need to be thoughtful with this.

We need to execute not only the legislation, the policy, and the logistics of how this is actually going to play out for our community.

Um so I think I'll stop there and hear what my colleagues have to say.

Mr.

Ortiz Yeah, this thing has been giving me anxiety more than when I was in Afghanistan, and I remember when I got blown up my first combat patrol back, I was shaking and nervous as all hell.

And then when I seen this ice free ordinance, it brought back those those same mental state to me.

Because half of my family is undocumented.

A lot of their friends are undocumented.

And I have a lot of and a lot of my own friends that I grew up with, or DACA or undocumented, because how Mr.

Good said in the last item, they missed the cut and they couldn't get that, get that protection.

So I spoken to many or uh organizations that are immigration organizations, community leaders, the undocumented residents in the city of Algen, and a lot of them just how uh Ms.

Powell, Stephan, Mr.

Stefan and Good said is that as long as we educate the community and let them know that these aren't truly safe zones, that if they're getting chased by these by agents and they go to this parking lot or they go to this structure that ICE can't cross that line.

ICE can run that damn sign over and still take these people.

And that's what makes me really nervous is that we got to make sure that we educate the community and our community partners like Centro and Casa and uh uh workers collaborative and YWC and everybody else, they all know what we're trying to do because there was a lot of misinformation going around social media when we did a resolution for the masks, and people putting things on Facebook saying ICE is still in eligible masks, we're city council at, was eligible police at.

And that's not what we did.

We didn't do an ordinance.

We at we're asked for help, and we're at we're poking and pushing our federal delegation to do something in Congress.

So please, this if this passes and it goes somewhere, just know that if you're getting chased by people in masks, whether they identify themselves as I st or not, just know if you end up in one of these locations and you park there and stop, they will still try to take you.

And try is probably not even good where they will take you because they don't give a damn what they're doing.

And me and Ms.

Powell had a sidebar earlier today about uh a New York Times article of a judge saying that ICE agents can be held accountable and be arrested for things that they're doing.

If they're not listening to a federal judge, and they're not listening to Illinois federal judge about using tear gas and taking down stupid fences they have around their properties, they're not gonna listen to us on the city council.

And we're the lowest bar of government, or maybe the township's lower than us, but still any township people in here.

So I want to be very deliberate, make sure whatever we do is actually enforceable.

It's just not an honorary piece of paper on a stick stuck in somebody's yard or in one of our yards over here in the tank saying ice-free zone.

We really need to be deliberate and let the community know how much policy that does different levels of government.

We can't go tell the public library what to do.

We can't tell U 46 what to do, ECC, Algen Township, the water reclamation district.

We can't tell these other government bodies what to do.

Their own boards have to enact these, and it also will not protect people because one of the commenters said that my aunt's the same way, some of my family members out on their way to work, it's not gonna protect them.

Walking around the city of Algin, it's not gonna protect them.

Walking through their neighborhood, it's not gonna protect them.

So man, this really gives me a lot of anxiety because we really need to do a really good job of educating our community and what this does and does not do.

Because all the news articles I've seen, everything I've seen from these other communities, in my opinion, them not being as transparent as they should be, and with these resolutions, ordinances, and executive orders actually do.

I've talked to some aldermen out in Chicago, and I've asked them this morning, how is it going?

They're not even enforcing it.

They put the signs up and walked away.

That's not the council's fault, but there's some people do stuff like this, in my opinion, just to do it and check the box.

If us in the city of Algen, we've always done stuff that's meaningful and really helped our community.

So I would like to make a motion to send this to corporation council to research and come back with something that's meaningful, that's enforceable, and actually protects our community.

Motion we need a second.

I mean a second.

You have a second.

Okay, we have a motion and a second for up just what is it?

A motion and a second to uh send it to uh uh back to the corporate council.

Any further discussion, Ms.

Alfaro.

Thank you.

Um I do agree we need to do some education um to share what this can and cannot do.

Um regards to we did a resolution and then there was a lot of ice activity.

ICE has been here, and ICE is not going nowhere, unfortunately.

We need to hold our federal government accountable.

This is a way for us as a council as us as a community to be like, we don't accept this.

This is where we stand as a unit.

We want our property, our public taxpayer money, our public parking lots, our garages, et cetera, not to be used as staging and debriefing areas.

Exactly.

We do need to do the education, but I think we also need to do something to let the community know as a unit, as a council, we don't stand for this.

And this is why I'm in favor of us doing something of putting this together and in indicating and defining it in there what staging, what debriefing means, what a property means.

I did like I read five different um either resolutions, organs, et cetera, from different places.

The city of Chicago, I did really like that they had signage available for private owners.

So if private owners don't want ice on their property, they could go to the city and get a sign that they could post on their property to indicate to ICE that this is private property, and you're not welcome here.

So I really did like that.

In addition to the the city of Chicago also had know your rights trainings, and we heard that during public comment.

I would like to see us doing more education, and that goes to education not only just knowing your rights, but what do these ordinances and what do these resolutions mean?

Um, in addition to that, I think we as a community really need to work together but also understand our limitations, but we can do more.

We are local government, but we can't step forward and say this is not welcome here.

We could find other ways to educate the community, and I welcome the community to let us know what else we can do because I did talk to a number of organizations, etc.

And I did talk about like what are our limitations, and they're like, No, we still want this.

We want you to do this, we want you to send a message to the federal government, we want you to send a message to the city of Algin and where you stand, and I think this is something that we should be moving forward with.

Mr.

Thorne.

Thank you, Mayor.

Well, I I hear a lot of things up here, but there's something that hasn't been brought up, and I think that hopefully that'll be uh included in Mr.

Beck's um uh study, and that is uh involving Chief Lally and her department, and how will she react if they don't comply?

Uh I've I have a concern that that's gonna put our police officers in harm's way, and and uh I'm for this, I understand it, but Anthony couldn't have put it better.

The importance of proper communication so people understand because I was getting phone calls and texts like crazy uh the last time about the masks and people saying, I I understand you voted that police can't wear masks anymore.

That it would it's amazing how things get blown out of proportion, let alone sometimes even the way they're written in the paper, uh, and then people read things, so it it has to be handled uh properly to make sure that it's not misconstrued and people don't understand what it can or can't do, and I think also the police department uh I think her input would be very important to hear that side so that we know what's involved there as well.

Mr.

Dixon, thank you.

Um Mr.

Thorne made a really good point.

I was actually getting ready to make that.

I had a conversation with the chief uh in the city manager last week uh about this very same subject, and the chief of police um Anna Lally made it very clear that she understands what the ice-free zones are about and was concerned about the officers and well the community believing that the officers could intervene and putting the officers in a bad position.

Um and she just made it perfectly clear that the officers can't get involved.

They can't stop ice from going, you know, from their coming and going to whatever they're going to do.

So this would this would strictly be the only ramifications that we would have that we could employ would be legal uh if they were to violate these.

So it would not be within the police department.

Um because we don't want to put those men and women at risk because they could be arrested too if they interfered, right?

Um so that was just one thing I I wanted to point out.

Um another thing when it comes to the ice-free zones, and maybe we add this to your analysis, uh Mr.

Beck, um proper signage on city property for where this is enacted.

And I would say um in multiple languages, so I guess you know, Spanish, Laos, English, um and um also too, I was researching, I was researching this because in the ordinances that have been passed in some of those cities, especially I'm just gonna use the biggest one, which is Chicago.

Chicago is in control of the libraries, they're in control of the school district, so they're covering more territory.

We don't, you know, have that privilege, I'm just going to say, to be able to include that.

But one thing that we possibly could do, and I want Mr.

Beckett to to look into this, is through our ordinance, open what I'm going to call a um an open architect architecture or opt-in.

And let me explain.

We could potentially uh create an ordinance that is written for us, but we could take that ordinance and go to overlapping governmental bodies and say, hey, would you like to opt in to this?

So our library board, our township, um, the cane, the county, they could opt in.

Now they would have to create their own legislation for them.

They wouldn't be able to adopt ours necessarily.

They can use our language but and create their own.

But that is a way of creating more of a web and covering more territory versus only city property that we know is only going to go so far.

So, you know, uh according to the laws that I that I looked up in our intergovernmental agreement, um being able to create an intergovernment intergovernmental agreement, it says any, you know, any agreements we can do pretty much with different municipalities.

I'll leave the legalities to to you, Mr.

Beck, but that's something that I think we could look into to see what what those possibilities are.

So with that with that being said, you know, I would like to definitely see something placed on the books.

I and I and I totally get like we we want something that's going to be effective, but we also want to do everything that's within our power and not pull back because we're we're so concerned, or we have a we have paralysis of analysis and we're not doing anything because you know, God forbid, when the other side is not thinking like that.

The other side is going gung-ho, and they're doing free in anything they feel like it when they want to, how they want to, and expecting us to just take it.

So creating an ice-free zone is a part to me, it's part of a larger web of resistance that's happening throughout the country.

Because if you don't stand up to a bully and you just let them be beat you up, well, they're never going to stop.

It's going to get worse.

Um if you have multiple communities throughout the state, throughout this community, throughout the country, who are putting up a fight, and these things are going to court at some point in time.

I gotta believe that the federal government is going to say, hold on, wait a minute, we're tying up a lot of our resources and a lot of our time in these court cases.

And you know, and maybe not, but let's just not make it easy on them.

So I I so I look forward to to this uh proposed ordinance coming forward.

But those are the things that I would like to see, and um and I uh oh in accompanying that I believe too is the community education portion of it.

Maybe that doesn't have to be baked into the proposed ordinance, but that definitely has to be a part of it with the know you rights um being uh having having a part of that too as well.

So um so on all those ideas aren't mine.

I'm not gonna take all the credit actually was paying attention and listening to our speakers today, and so those were some of the things I would like to see incorporated.

So thank you.

Okay.

Ms.

Martinez.

Thank you, Mr.

You're welcome.

Uh I would like to commend uh Councilman Paul and Paul and Councilman Stefan for explaining uh what it is that you wanted to do because I was kind of turned off by the fact that uh this was just put at the last minute onto the council and like you know, I haven't been able to read the information that you gave us today.

Um because my feeling was that this doesn't give the council um enough time to research or review the options and you know the fact that there's no um staff reports, no insight from our police department, no details, no proposals, you know, it just a topic.

Um, you know, I I was concerned because sometimes we start making votes here.

Uh that was not the case tonight, you know, so I appreciate it.

And that's why I called you.

Yeah.

Yeah, but you called me to tell me it was on here, but you didn't say anything else, you know.

So now that you're explaining this, thank you.

You know, it really helps a lot because you know um forcing the city to govern from uh the die is completely unprepared.

It feels like to me it's reckless, and that would be adding to the pain and confusion that's already uh holding our community in fear and uncertainty.

So I'm glad that we're uh stepping back and that we're not rushing into this, um, because it's very important, you know, and uh we had situations where no matter what we do, people are gonna only hear what they want, you know, and they change things, and that isn't at all.

You know, um please don't think that I don't understand this.

I understand this very well, you know.

Uh when I was five years old, immigration raided our home.

Uh here down the block and on the 500 Black of North Grove.

My sister, my brother and I, we hid in the closet.

You know, that experience traumatizes people, you know, and to think that that's happening every day to the people in my city, it's not only disturbing, it's terrible, you know.

Um here it is 60 years later, and I'm currently having issues with my own status, you know, due to what's called a glitch, you know, in uh social security database.

Um that I was told three years ago is it was gonna be fixed.

Here it is three years later, and my status is still listed.

It's still listed as waiting to be deported.

How can that happen?

How can it happen when I'm born here, raised here?

I serve my country.

If that mistake can be can happen to me, it can happen to anybody.

Okay.

Um, you know, ICE training and enforcement appears to be very sk sketchy at the best.

You know, a lot of these people aren't trained.

They're not um they're not enforcing the law like it should be, you know, and and I agree with this idea.

It's something that we should do, and I think it's something that um uh has already been said.

We don't want to give a falsehood that this is we can do all this because we're limited to what we can do, unfortunately.

You know, uh I would like to ask our staff for some uh options and presentations at a future council meeting.