We'll call a regular meeting for the uh Elgin City Council Committee of the Whole for March eleventh, the twenty twenty-sixt to order.

Will a court please call a roll?

Council members of our present.

Dixon?

Present.

Good.

Here.

Martinez?

Here.

Ortiz?

Here.

Powell?

Stefan?

Here.

Thorne?

Here.

Mayor Captain.

Here.

Approval of the minutes of the previous meeting of February twenty-fifth.

So moved.

Second.

Move to second and for approval.

Any corrections or additions?

Hearing none.

Cork, please call a roll.

Council members of our own?

Yes.

Dixon?

Yes.

Good.

Yes.

Martinez?

Yes.

Ortiz?

Yes.

Stefan?

Yes.

Thorne?

Yes.

Mayor Captain.

Yes.

Motions approved.

Uh eight zero.

We have uh brings us to the public comment portion.

We have three people that signed up this evening.

The first person to sign up is Mike Lagul.

Good evening, Council.

Uh thank you for time this evening and more generally, just thank you for your time.

Um while I may occasionally disagree with about half of you on some stuff, uh, I do appreciate that you come, you deliver um your time and your perspective to try to steer Elgin and Alginites in the direction that you think is best for the community.

So I do appreciate your thoughts.

Um I wanted to share my thoughts on the reoccurring topic from the last few meetings, uh the welcoming city ordinance.

Uh one of the objections that was noted in the last meeting was that proceeding with the ordinance uh would invite greater attention from ICE, uh, and that presence is not the same as intensity.

Uh I do wholeheartedly agree with that sentiment.

Uh ICE has not set up checkpoints throughout the city, they're not doing door-to-searches, uh, they've not imposed a curfew, confiscated any infrastructure to make uh makeshift detention facilities.

Uh their presence here is real, um, but in comparison to other cities around the country, it is light.

Uh to disagree that open resistance to this administration could exacerbate the ice situation for Alginites is to disregard the plain and obvious fact that this administration is led by petty, vindictive, insecure, small-minded, racist demagogues, warmongers, and pedophiles who would eagerly jump on any opportunity to punish dissent.

However, for the five years that I have lived in Elgin, uh, I have heard this council time and time again promote policies uh that elevate elgin as a standard bearer, uh, for neighboring communities to model.

Uh banning plastics, rehousing the homeless, promoting cultural diversity and inclusion, eliminating lead service lines, social, environmental, environmental, and economical.

Uh the list goes on.

Elgin, through its policies, presents itself as a model for other towns to emulate.

Why then should this issue be any different?

Why shouldn't Elgin show our neighbors that it's okay to stand up against tyranny?

There was a man who came up here and spoke a few meetings prior, and he quoted a passage from a book that went something like never obey in advance.

And there's a reason why that's such a crucial form of resistance.

There are only so many goose stepping Nazis for ICE to recruit in this country, and I guarantee it is only a sliver of the 340 million Americans who live here.

So, yes, passing the ordinance could potentially invite a greater ice presence, but with cities like Evanston, Chicago, Berwin, Oak Park, and Skokie are already passing similar ordinances and more likely to join in, ice will be spread thin, attempting to apply pressure to more and more municipalities across the country.

And as we all know, when ice gets thin, it cracks.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hank Romero.

Hank Romero?

Sorry.

Here we go.

Government was made to help the people.

If the government don't help the people, not even God can help the people.

Agencies by the government that their locations are empty.

They don't make themselves useful.

First Tuesday of the month in uh computer center and between one and three of Gale Borden Library.

Maybe they should be there every every day, Monday to Friday.

Um I got um the thing over here for them.

I gave it to Dustin, the uh the computer to get themselves in.

Um the government during the depression, uh you know, 1932, whatever, the depression young people put together to uh build parks.

Part of their paychecks went were sent home.

A good working man is a good soldier.

You got to work in the battlefield to stand a chance.

Okay, how much time?

Okay, good.

Put young people together to clean up America on the uh sides of the road, pick up the garbage, the plastic is there all over the place.

Um, you know, make America look beautiful.

Uh the these people in the homeless centers look like they uh have no hope, and they are young, they're young.

I know you you got to make an effort to get off the ground.

Look for life.

Um, there's a like one guy was telling me from the homeless, there's a place you can stay in in St.

Charles, but there's no churches with food.

So he lives homeless here in uh Elgin because there's no food in uh St.

Charles.

And uh I wish everybody the best and see what you can do.

Thank you.

Elijah Stein.

Good evening, my name is Elijah Stein, and I will be a bit of the voice of frustration today.

So if you need preparation, I'll give you that today.

Um I want to talk to you both is about the local issues as far as the diversity ordinances going.

And I heard before that there was considerations as far as whether or not it would take six months in order to hash out that ordinance.

That is too long.

That is two-thirds of the time in order to make a baby, and people are already dying to ice.

There are people on there are streets that have gotten pepper sprayed and beaten and tear gassed on Elgin streets.

Whether or not they're going to act anymore.

They already are acting.

We can't just sit around and wait and expect that they're not going to do something else.

They are already doing it.

By signing that, it at least puts into precedence a legal framework so that we can act in a situation like that.

And if you can't fix fix something like that within less than six months, then we don't need any sort of representation.

Representation is there so that action can get done quickly and swiftly.

That's my point on that.

Secondly, as far as the primaries are concerned, for the people who don't want to vote for the primaries, I urge you to do it.

I know that a lot of people are saying that they don't feel that it's it has any point, that their voice is going to just get thrown aside.

They're going to pick whoever they want to pick.

That's not going to happen.

Or at the very least, it is a guarantee that that is going to happen if you don't cast your vote.

That is a guarantee.

At least if you take the chance with the primary, you're deciding on who it is that is going to represent you, who it is that you want to be representing you instead of all these people who we already have behind the scenes who are not saying a single thing about the war that we that they decided to get in.

You don't hear a single peep about it, and yet that's the people who are deciding that it's just okay that we get into an illegal war.

At least with the primary, you are deciding that you want different people to represent you.

I'm not going to say who to vote for.

I know that there are various resources in order to find people that you want to vote for.

There's Ballotpedia, there's ground news, there's plenty of different resources research.

So I'm not going to tell you who to vote for, just please do some research.

Make sure your voice is heard.

And as far as the third thing in this last little bit, as far as to the Penosin, I mean president, the creature, as far as all of the things that you have done, as far as the people you have killed, including all of those children in the school in Iran, which we didn't need to bomb.

I have a little thing to show to you.

Okay.

Don't fuck with Illinois lest you get the clap back, bitch.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Mr.

Manager.

Thank you, Mayor.

We have one item this evening on both agendas, and that is a uh five-year agreement with for electronic citation services with DACRA Tech LLC.

The city's administrative adjudication division manages electronic citation software used by both the police departments and neighborhood services department.

The DACRA Tech is a cloud-based software platform that streamlines, automates, and organizes the city's local ordinance violation enforcement process by managing violations from the initial citation all the way through the collection of any unpaid fines.

Again, this item is on both agendas.

Any questions for the manager at this time?

Ms.

Alfaro.

Thank you.

Um I had a question on page 13.

It says the software is compliant with the criminal justice information services, or CJIS also know.

Um, overseen by the Federal Bureau of Investigation Investigations, which ensures safety and security.

I just want to ensure, because I'm not super familiar with the criminal justice information services, that this system isn't sharing information to the FBI than is shared with ICE.

And that's exactly correct in why that that provision is in there.

And there's another software agreement that we have the city council will be considering later on that similarly complies with the CGI the CGIS components.

Okay, so we're not sharing.

I just want to make sure.

Good question.

Thank you.

Items on both agendas.

Moving on, Mr.

Manager.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh the second item is a purchase of services agreement with the Elgin Area Chamber of Commerce.

The city and the Elgin Area Chamber of Commerce have been partnering in economic development initiatives since 2010 is the Elgin Development Group.

The city formally budgeted more than a half million dollars annually for economic development services provided by in-house staff and its private sector consultants.

By eliminating in-house staff and creating the E date EDG, the city's been able to substantially reduce its economic development budget without any diminution in economic development services.

The proposed purchase of services agreement enables the city to continue leveraging the services of the EGD EDG, which consists of a full-time president, one full-time economic development specialist, Mr.

Lisenko, a webmaster for economic for its economic development website, plus administrative support staff.

The first agreement with Elgin Development Group in 2010 established a 275,000 dollar annual payment.

The proposed three-year agreement for 2026 through 2028 and the amount of 355,000 contemplates 3% increases for EAC services during the second and third years.

This evening we have Madam President Carol Giske presenting on behalf of the EDG along with Tony Lasenko, the economic development director, and that looks like Rolando Guerrero.

Is that the current EAC chair?

No, passed.

Passed.

All right, we've got it all.

All right.

Thank you, Ms.

Giskey.

Good.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor Captain, City Manager Kozal, City Council members and community.

We're just very excited to be down here to talk to you today about the extension of our contract, our public, our purchase of service agreement with the city for our public-private partnership for economic development.

Before we get started, though, I would like to introduce uh many of our board members who were able to make it today.

So as uh Council uh City Manager Kozel said, our uh past board chair Rolando Guerrero with the Grand Victoria Casino, our current board chair Steve Megala with LaVelle Law, uh Jennifer Wong, attorney here in town from Hampton, Lanzini and Renwick, Ryan Livingston, our board treasurer Gabe Greskowitz with Porti Brown, Mike Warren with Ricky and with his own uh car washes.

Mr.

Thomas is here, Ross Thomas with Culvers, the owner of Culver's on McLean Boulevard, and Carrie Klein with Flender, who flew in from Houston just for this, right, Carrie?

Carrie got stuck in Houston from last night's storm.

So yeah, we're really glad to be here.

So uh we're gonna start it off with Rolando Guerrero.

Hello, good evening, everyone.

Uh Mayor Captain, City Manager Kozel, distinguished uh city council and staff.

Uh thank you for allowing me the opportunity to speak before you on behalf of our Elgin Development Group, but certainly as the past chair, I've had the wonderful experience and opportunity to kind of work with uh what is and has been and continues to be a very talented uh team uh at the Elgin Development Group, but also the chamber and certainly colleagues that I work with uh that are offering up their discretionary uh time and service to uh this larger effort.

And uh so for me, I just wanted to express a couple items and uh my appreciation for uh Tony Lysenko, the Elgin Development Group as it uh continues and uh operating, but for us uh we pick up uh month over month over month, the wonderful work effort that is happening through uh Tony and that larger uh Elgin Development Group uh I call it energy and effort because again, a lot of positives certainly coming out of that.

Uh personally for me, uh through the experience.

Obviously, I've uh engaged with Tony, he's really been terrific in the way of uh facilitating connecting with uh various officials throughout the city as we uh at the casino work through uh certain projects, obviously all in an effort to enhance uh the casino, but this downtown area, the larger Elgin uh cityscape, if you will.

So uh again, whether it be simply uh pointing us in the right direction, tied to permitting, uh helping us in the way of closing out projects uh that have been very, very successful for us uh and getting the inspections done and uh completed thoroughly, but also his insight uh tied to the city uh very very solid for us in the way of how important that serves us.

But uh again, just want to share a few pieces there tied to that, but further along uh the networking opportunity that certainly I've enjoyed over time, uh to connect with uh some terrific uh terrific folks, uh, but again, all through Tony's uh terrific uh hand, steady hand there.

So thank you for the opportunity.

Appreciate this.

We know you have a full agenda tonight, so we're gonna go quickly through the presentation, but please stop us if you have any questions.

Uh we're really grateful to the city council to your professional staff for the ongoing partnership.

We've built a stronger, more vibrant community as a result of our Elgin Development Group relationship with the City of Elgin and the shared vision and commitment to economic development.

The Elgin Development Group acts as a concierge for business, if you will, opening discussions and streamlining the process for businesses who are starting in the community, who are locating, expanding, investing in Elgin.

So it's what this one stop shop or this one step.

We provide guidance in many areas that you see on this chart, from how to start a business to site selection and permitting, working with Mark Millot and his team on permitting in the the community on workforce and connectivity in the area.

We connect businesses with the right resources, partners, and opportunities supported by a vast volunteer network of professional advisors who are across many of those sectors of business.

This busy slide just shows some of the volunteers who work with us as uh throughout the year.

They help to strengthen our program, amplify the community impact, and make Elgin a better community and a place where businesses can thrive.

And through your leadership, that's very evident that the mayor and the city council support businesses in our community.

It's my pleasure now to introduce my colleague Terry Tony Lusenko to talk about uh Elgin Development Group.

Tony, if you uh mayor, uh members of the City Council.

Um I wanted to first of all thank you very much for having the confidence in our organizations to continue the contract for three years.

And uh as we move forward, I would uh hope that you would consider uh renewing our contract for an additional three years.

Um basically uh we are a accredited economic development organization.

When I started here three years ago, we were only one of 75 in the United States, now we're one of uh 92.

And uh problem with that is I actually now sit on the International Economic Developments Council accreditation committee and accrediting other communities throughout the United States and North America.

So uh whatever it's worth, we are respected by other economic development organizations, and it lends credibility to our organization.

Our purchase of service agreement that you have before you uh calls out four specific goals, and all of which we work on in different ways, and we'll get into the details.

But each one of these are very important to us, and uh it is our guideline for how we work and how we uh interact within the community.

These are the core services that are mentioned in your um packet for our uh economic development effort, including business retention and attraction.

Retention is the number one key to our organization because most of the growth that happens happens within existing with existing businesses, and so we've networked ourselves with existing businesses by reaching out last year just to over 300 businesses by either uh meeting with them or surveying them or asking them, or through people contacting us uh for assistance.

Uh business attraction is another thing that we do.

Um, people on our board, we have uh uh Gabe who works with uh Porte Brown, for instance, has introduced us to a company that which we um and the mayor met with a couple weeks ago, and uh they are currently looking at moving into Elgin, and we've helped them meet with the Elgin Township assessor to talk about assessments.

We met with community development this morning so that they could understand what's required of them, and we'll be meeting with organizations such as Forward and others so that it their transition to Elgin is as easy and as smooth as possible.

This is our service area, which is the entire city of Elgin.

I just uh some of you have seen this before.

Our um we have 5200 businesses approximately within according to Dun and Brad Street in Elgin.

We have about 44 million square feet, and you can see the breakdowns of the different types of uh commercial developments in the community.

There's actually 11 types of commercial properties within Elgin.

They're not all shown there, but these are our three largest.

Wanted to mention also that when it comes to our vacancy rates, not only are we below what is the 10-year average for Elgin, uh the historic, we're also below the historic 40-year average for Elgin in our vacancies.

We're pretty much, except for office, we're full.

Uh commercial real estate.

This is the breakdown of the of the vacancy rates, which I just mentioned.

Also wanted to point out that um with regards to the labor force in 2020 when COVID hit, we'd peaked at 18.3% unemployment rate.

And since then we've been coming down.

Not only is our labor force increased, um, but the number of people employed has increased, and the number of people who are unemployed has decreased.

Currently, in 2025, the final numbers aren't out, but we are probably around 5.6 percent unemployment for 2025.

So that's shows that you know our economy is stable, it's diverse, and it's holding its own.

Trying to get this.

Oops.

Button here is a little tight.

And Carol, I'm gonna turn it over to Carolyn.

She's got a uh Elgin Image Awards and a few other things she'd like to talk about.

Thank you.

Um you know that we convene and we collaborate with many organizations around town to leverage what's happening in the community.

And this is an example through our Elgin Image Awards where we collaborate with many different players in the community.

Certainly, your staff is very important in our Elgin Image Awards.

We work with Elgin Community College, School District Q46, Downtown Neighborhood Association, Explore Elgin or the Tourism Bureau, Gailburn Public Library, the Museum, Elgin History Museum, and others that sit on this committee.

We started with we revived the Elgin Image Awards three years ago, and many of you have been at those celebrations where we've been able to celebrate recognizing excellence of many people in the community who have done things and organizations and businesses as well.

So we revived it, we reimagined it after the city and its image commission, I think at that point in time had run this program for years and years and years.

It is growing in popularity.

We outgrew the Galeborne Public Library pretty soon.

I'm afraid we might be filling up the center as well.

But what a wonderful problem to have.

So our um enhancing Elgin Committee this year has taken on a new challenge, which is very exciting.

We are celebrating Elgin's own uh semi-quincentennial celebration, right?

We all have to learn how to say that, semi-quincentennial.

We'll we'll uh go ahead and charge you at the end of spelling it as well.

But um as a result of the Elgin Enhancing Elgin Committee, we through um the talent in our office, Terry Gayevski, who has been with us for 32 years, uh, designed a brand new website.

So if you're interested, go to Elgin IL250 point com or dot com, and you'll find Elgin's celebration of the semi-quincentennial.

Lots of things are happening with this very creative committee, uh, including the local celebration of the milk wagon being at the library.

Have you seen the butter sculptures yet?

No.

There's four butter sculptures.

Uh obviously, going back to the history of our community.

Um, we're working on an art contest that will soon be happening with Side Street Studio Arts.

I'm sorry, I forgot to include them in that.

Uh time capsules will be introducing time capsules that families can buy from or design their own as part of the 250th celebration and many other themed items.

So if you go to Elgin, IL250.com, you'll find lots of history of our community as well as the celebrations that are going on.

We'll be posting programs from many, many different folks.

And um, if you have recipes or those kinds of things from your heritage, we'd love to include that as well.

Uh also with um our bridges program, which supports the black and brown businesses in the community.

Um, we're working, pardon me.

Hi, I'm Jessica Menavid.

I had too many.

Sorry, sorry.

We had to change how this works.

Um we are working on uh we're providing workshops and uh networking community partnerships with some of these businesses so we can help them grow and thrive.

We work with a lot of different small businesses.

An example we want to show you today is uh Barbara Roha, uh a local uh business that came to us as a result of the Elgin Mall closing a couple years ago, not knowing where to go.

Uh, we worked with them uh through Elgin Development Group and found them a location at Clock Tower Plaza.

So I'd like to introduce to you Jessica Benavides, who's the owner of Barba Roja.

Hi, I'm Jessica Benavides, owner of Barbaroja Barbershop here in Elgin.

We're very proud to be on this family owned business for us.

Our shop is more than her guts, it's about family culture and creating new opportunities for the next generation.

Moving from the Algin Mall was not easy.

The Elgin Development Group helped us through the permit process and help us find the right location for our business.

Because of their support, we're able to open our doors and serve our community.

We're tenfold to the Elgin Development Group and the CD of Elgin for supporting a small business like us.

Because when a small business exists, the whole community success.

Thank you.

Well, we appreciate Jessica speaking with you tonight.

She is just a prime example of the small businesses that we work with.

Often we um are um active in the in the community or the community publicity surrounds large projects with uh our footprint on it as well as the city's footprint, but um most of the time we're working with very small businesses like this and appreciate their uh the ability to work with them and work with the city staff who helped facilitate them uh setting up their shop down at uh Clock Tower.

So we're uh our team is bilingual, it has been for decades.

Actually, we have multilingual staff within our office.

We want to make sure that we can ensure all businesses are feeling welcome in our office, and that's important to us and important to the community.

So we want to make sure that we can break down those barriers in the community and provide the kinds of services that we need to small business.

Tell me.

As Carol had mentioned, when we heard about the Elgin Mall closing, we walked over there and introduced ourselves to all the businesses and asked them if they needed any assistance.

And Jessica and I worked closely to try to find her a new location and get her open as quickly as possible.

And like Carol had mentioned, we have a number of people on our staff that speak multiple languages, including myself, Joe Fado Portuguese, and I also speak Ukrainian.

So those are a couple in Spanish, of course, and we always use our staff when we have people come in who uh are um who don't understand English so well.

So this is another um indicator of some of the work we've done over the last nine years.

Um basically uh the key there is that we've brought in about 1.42 billion in uh gross domestic product.

It's probably a little bit more than that, but that kind of gives us a conservative estimate.

I wanted to say one thing that none of this stuff is done in a vacuum.

From the very beginning of any project, um, we rely on a lot of different people, from you to the city staff to the brokerage community to accounting firms to the businesses themselves.

We just happen to be facilitating some of those discussions.

But at no time do Carol or I, you know, uh do this on our own.

We we we try to partner with people, we try to work as closely as we can with everybody in the community and and do it respectfully.

Um this is tonight, uh one company that we had worked with in the community.

I'm gonna go through this real quick.

Uh there was a company by the name of Peak Construction that I had met in 2017 here in Elgin because they owned the building and needed some assistance with permitting.

Mike Sullivan, the president and CEO and I became uh friends, and in the meantime, he was looking to do another project in the community.

And so I identified a parcel of land and introduced him to the property owner.

Since that time, a company moved in called Preus.

Uh pre just took a whole the entire half million square feet, which was about the size of uh five Walmarts.

And they moved into town and started operations in the middle of last year.

Um those slides are really small, aren't they?

And uh basically that company today um is they're doing business, and um they make these um these paper bags, you may have seen some of these.

Uh they're uh um they're going towards a net zero in terms of their operations and they're using wind energy solar, and they've eliminated plastic and they're making these.

And in Algin, they employ about 500 people and bring in quite a bit of um spillover effect.

They make 2.5 million of these packages each and every day here in Elgin.

They consolidated their Elkgrove Village, Carroll Stream, and Bensonville facilities.

Over a billion of these are being made here in Elgin each and every year with Elgin's name on the package.

But they're all net zero, they're heading that way with their company, trying to eliminate plastic and and use uh um different types of energy sources.

This is the financial impact that the company has on the city of Elgin and the different taxing jurisdictions going back to one of those four um goals that are set out within our PSA, which is to try to bring additional revenues to the different taxing jurisdiction.

As you can see in 2022, is that what it says?

The property was vacant and it was you know creating about 40,000 in property taxes.

A year later, once that company was there and the the building was built, they're providing about four million dollars in property taxes.

Now, this is just one project of many that we've brought to the community, and that's like a annuity.

It's in forever.

Uh as long as that building stands there, uh, that kind of money is coming to the different taxing jurisdictions.

You can see over $2 million is being brought to um U 46, and about I think it's $700,000 to the City of Elgin each and every year.

This is another project back way back when, 2015, uh Motorola came to me and we uh uh organized a meeting, City Manager Kozel was present.

Uh the mayor, Carol, and I sat down, they wanted to know what Elgin was all about.

At that time, the city had guaranteed a fast track permitting process and they got it.

Um basically inspectors were out there on Saturdays and Sundays getting the work done, and they were in the building with all their equipment going and operating within a four-month period.

Today, just a few weeks ago, they they signed a new lease for another 10 years in the building that they're in, and what they cited within those meetings today was the fact that 10 years ago they were treated so well by the city and the city staff that that was one of the key reasons that they signed a new lease and decided to stay here in Algin.

Property taxes went up, employment went up, the net benefit to the community continues to grow, and these kinds of projects are going on every day.

I could add to that.

If I could add to that, um I remember the conversation was that the city acted faster than Motorola acted, and it really is a testament to what City Manager Kozal and the mayor was able to achieve through the many professional departments within the city that made that happen.

So John Talkington is the general manager of Motorola, sits on our board of directors, couldn't be with us tonight.

But Motorola obviously plays a vital role in our community.

We have a strategic partnership with them, and um they bring in thousands of domestic and international guests, customers every single year.

As a part of what we do through Algin Development Group, is we form associations and relationships, and so we uh went to uh Motorola and said, listen, the Holiday Inn Northwest here in the community has just gone through a multi-million dollar renovation of the facility.

You know the one I'm talking about on Route 31 and Airport Road, and um we said, let's take you out there and make sure your folks are comfortable because they were staying at hotels outside of the community.

So we took some staff on a tour of the hotel.

They were very impressed with the services, and the hotel also stepped forward and said, We have a shuttle, we'd be glad to work with you on bringing your customers over to the um to Motorola, and as a result of our opportunity to work with them now, uh, you know, the impact of those guests staying here in Elgin at a local hotel, supporting our community, supporting economic development, is pretty striking.

We also took the opportunity to design uh Terry helping again on this uh opportunity, a um virtual explore Elgin um magazine where once they were done with the day, they knew what kind of resources were there for after work hours.

So that relationship is really important to our community.

That's good.

I wanted to talk to you about one company.

We're not always successful in economic development and what we do because we can't control the eventual incumbent in certain instances.

You may have heard a couple uh months ago a company by the name of Print Pack was uh packing up and moving out of the community.

Uh I initiated a phone call to the company and um asked them if I could participate in um an event that they were going to be holding that included the Illinois Department of Commerce and the Unemployment Office, and they were gracious enough to let me come.

And I spoke in front of all of their employees, and what I was able to offer them, we have an HR committee that represents about 75 businesses and about 35,000 employees within the city of Elgin was 15 companies that were interested in hiring them.

So in the meantime, we've been getting resumes from folks, and we've been distributing them to these folks, uh, these other these these businesses within the community.

Subsequently, through our relationships with the state of Illinois, I had gotten a phone call from the Internet in Illinois Economic Development Corporation.

And uh they said we had they had a buyer for the company.

I got in touch with the buyer out of South Carolina.

Um the buyer was interested in not only buying the building but all the equipment and hiring all the employees.

Contacted the president of uh PrintPack, and um they're currently still in negotiations.

We couldn't prevent the company from falling apart, but we tried to do the best we could to try to at least keep them their employees here in Elgin.

These are some of the just a kind of a sampling of some of the businesses that we work with or have worked with in the last three years.

This is kind of some of the different things that we do in the community.

A lot of these committees, Carol and I sit on um representing the business community, whether it's uh through the King County uh traffic impact fee, uh working with Elgin Community College and introducing them to businesses.

We take them on tours, we go down and show them around, um, all kinds of different types of things.

I'm not gonna read this, you can look at it yourself.

Um of the key things that we did in this past year, we created a strategic economic development plan.

This is private sector-driven economic development plan.

It's different, it's unique, it looks at economic development, not through this the prism of um of local government, but through the prism of the business community.

Um talk a little bit about this.

Um basically we initiated a uh a company um called RW Ventures.

RW Ventures is a um firm that is uh worked on what is known as the Chicago Regional Growth Initiative Strategic Economic Development Plan, which is a seven-county economic development group that was formed to try to bring regional economic development thinking to all the counties within the area.

This group also did the strategic plan for World Business Chicago, and as you've probably heard King County is looking to organize this economic development organization and wrote their strategic plan, and um they've written ours.

And this plan basically um takes a look at these kinds of factors, um, which is they look like what you're typically used to seeing, but they're really a little bit different.

Just to give you an example, governance.

Governance doesn't mean governance of the government, it means governance by each institution.

So businesses within themselves have to govern themselves.

The health industry has to govern itself.

Those institutions look at things just a little bit differently with and are not looking through the pr your prism.

This is basically the result.

Um it's kind of real generic.

I can go through details.

I've got it here, it's dozens of pages.

We would actually entertain if we would like you to entertain maybe having our consultant come talk to you about this in more detail.

But it's a private sector-driven economic development plant.

And what it really is focused on to be to give you an idea of these three factors you can see here in front of you.

And I wanted to just briefly touch on one, and that is the idea of creative destruction.

Right now, in our economy, we have never seen so much change because of technology and because of AI and because of things that are happening out there in the world.

And right now, there are companies, more companies are failing and starting than ever before.

And we need to be ready for that.

We need to take advantage of it, and our companies are poised for that.

This community is rock solid when it comes to manufacturing, it is rock solid because it's diverse, and it adds its act together.

And the business community uh is being organized to meet those future needs.

Um I could talk about details, but we don't have a lot of time.

So, anyway, these are the four clusters that were identified.

Business services kind of takes in all the different sectors, which includes health care, education, law, uh, everything else.

Um, and uh metals and machineries, big transportation distribution, and logistics, not gonna go into detail.

But this is the eventual uh next steps.

We leverage, we launch, we build, we identify, develop, and strengthen.

I'll give you one quick example.

The mayor and I went over to Middleby Marshall, and um we went on a tour, and the company um, as we were walking through, said, Oh, you know, we use these conveyors here, and they didn't realize that there was a company in Elgin that builds conveyors.

There's a company that builds nuts and bolts.

There's a company that does sheet metal.

You know, then they're going all over the world and all over the country to buy these products.

So one of the things that our group has in the strategic plan has identified is creating an internal um marketplace for businesses to buy locally.

And so those are some of the ideas, and that's all I have.

But I I wanted to thank you again for the last three years, and I wanted to request that you take a look at that contract and renew it for an additional three years, and Carol, go ahead.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So I'd like to reintroduce to you our current board chair, Steve McGallow with Laval Law.

Steve.

Thank you, Carol.

Uh good evening, Mayor, uh, city manager and council members.

Thank you to those who attended our annual meeting last week.

During my remarks, then I mentioned that the Algin Area Chamber values its relationship with the city.

That is no more evident than in Algin Development Group's role in helping the city fulfill its economic development function.

We thank you for the trust you have placed in us today.

This renewal is really a question of momentum.

Does the city want to build on the momentum that it has experienced with EDG?

Tonight you have seen our slide deck showing what EDG has accomplished in working with the city in terms of attracting and retaining businesses and residents and growing and diversifying the tax base.

We think the evidence clearly and convincingly supports renewal of our contract and sends a strong message to our community and to neighboring municipalities that Algin is open for business.

Because make no mistake about it, whether you like it or not, the city is competing with its neighbors to attract and retain companies.

Renewing this contract elevates the city's profile in this competitive landscape.

Would you hope you agree that it's in the city's best interest for you to vote yes on this renewal?

Thank you.

Steve again, thanks to some of our board members who we were able to join us tonight, and thanks to each of you.

And if there are any questions, we'd be glad to answer those tonight.

Okay.

Any questions for Ms.

Giske or Mr.

Lisenko at this time?

Mr.

Ortiz.

I appreciate the presentation.

Your board, Mr.

Senko, and Ms.

Giskey for being here.

Um I was gonna ask a question, but Tony Mr.

Lisenko did such a good job.

He answered it, but uh I was gonna ask like that one business that was moving out of town.

What like what's it what do you guys do to help the employees?

And I'm glad to hear that you reach out to them and you went to their hate to bad say it uh bad way to say it probably, but they're laying off party because they're losing their job.

But you guys stepped in and had your network of businesses and helped them find new jobs, and then found the new buyer that could possibly come in and give them their jobs back.

So I appreciate you guys doing that.

That was one of my questions that when a business does leave because not everything is always perfect.

Yeah, how do you guys step in maybe and help alleviate some of the stresses that an employee might have that that might be the only source income and yeah, we get right in the middle of it.

Even today I got two resumes from some of the employers.

We you know, we're not sitting around, we're pretty quiet in the background.

Sometimes we just got too much going on, we don't have time to really express what everything we do.

So we just gotta we just do what we can.

So appreciate it.

And then uh the other one was the what interest me was the internal market.

The last thing you said, how we have a bunch of businesses and manufacturers in Elgin, and some of the other businesses are outsourcing from out of the country or out of the state.

And we have the same thing here, so I appreciate you guys trying to put that web together, yeah.

It's connect everything.

It's like wow, everything in the factory you could probably buy in Elgin.

So and then the biggest one that I appreciate is the Elgin Mall.

I remember when that saga was going on with those vendors not knowing where they're going.

Some of them went to East Dundee, some of them scattered throughout the city.

And I'm glad you guys went over there, introduced yourself to every vendor and uh helped the uh I know she's a barber, beautician, or hair stylist, but you helped her find a place to stay in business and continue what she likes doing.

So I appreciate you guys doing what you're doing.

The only thing that I'm gonna hit you on to give you one bad thing is I thought we were gonna get hamburger samples from Covers.

Wait a minute.

I think they're butter burgers, aren't they?

What is the flavor of the day?

Yeah, what Ross, what is it?

Uh oh, you might just hold on.

Oh, I don't know.

Pull a hamburger out of there, man.

That's a good thing.

Yeah, there you go.

Well, I was just complaining to him.

We were there Friday night for a fish fry, and he wasn't there.

He actually took a day off, which is unusual for a retailer, especially a small business like that one.

So we appreciate Ross who drives from Janesville every day.

That's where he lives.

And here is his um his businesses in Elgin, and we very much appreciate that.

Oh, after your vote.

I was just playing my own thing.

I'll just leave them here in case anyone would like.

But uh, yeah, no, I appreciate you guys, and you've shown that you've been successful, especially with a property tax going 40,000 or 4 million.

That's the money is going to everybody in the taxing bodies, not just the city of Elgin.

So thank you guys.

Mr.

Wood.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um so I appreciate the presentation.

Um, because somebody who is on the strategic plan committee a long time ago, I feel like you buried the lead to the end, so it's exciting to see this strategic plan process kick off.

So um, as soon as you're ready to share that with us, would love to see that.

Um, and that actually um touches on a couple of areas, requests for this partnership.

Um, on item four.

It's uh the language in there is basically we could ask Rick for you to give us a report every day if we wanted to.

I don't want to do that.

Okay, um, but I would do we I I would I mean, but I would be curious to see if the rest of council um would be interested in potentially seeing a biannual report, maybe something brief that just kind of gives us an update on general economics or the strategic plan advancements.

Yeah, councilman, we're glad to come anytime and talk to you about what's happening.

Absolutely.

And I would you I would take even something written.

Oh, okay.

So if anybody's open to that, I would like to throw that out to the group.

Um, and then the the other one is on item 23.

Um, there's just some language in there.

I'd be interested if we'd be willing to change that.

Um, it's laying out uh it's typically we say in contracts, it's just laid out for people who are legally able to work and legally authorized work in the United States.

Um it's line seven and item 23.

That's it's declaring that um everybody that's associated with this has to be a legal resident.

So I've seen it past contracts that we've had wording that just says legally authorized.

We would defer to City Manager Closal and that one.

Those are my two items I throw out to the case.

You can blame me for that oversight on that pulling together an agreement from before.

I'll talk to the corporation council because that's something we can change.

I apologize for that.

Thank you.

Other than that, that that's all I have.

Thank you.

Mr.

Thorne.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you so excuse me.

Thank you so much for the presentation and thank the board members for coming down here.

I compliment you.

Uh not on the program itself, but on all of your achievements.

And you have made Elgin such so inviting for new businesses.

I've had the pleasure recently of sitting in on some of the new business orientation programs that you specifically do and run yourself.

And it's so uh comforting, and you make everyone feel so good.

Uh then you highlight some of those businesses with a personal interview on WRMN once a month, as well as always announcing to the public on that show your achievements and new companies that have joined.

Uh I just I can't compliment you enough on all that you've done and the fact that uh you sit on all different boards.

So I think that's great.

So hats off to you.

Keep up the good work.

Thank you, Councilman.

Mr.

Dixon.

Uh thank you, Tony, Carol, uh, wonderful presentation, and thank you to all the businesses that have taken some time to show up this evening, um, board members.

Um really appreciate the work that you do.

I often tell people that I'm a product of the chamber.

You are probably about 10 years ago.

I went through the leadership program.

You did.

Right?

And uh we actually we have one going on right now.

We have the play happening, which I'm volunteering for.

Yep.

So I didn't know you were a thespian on top of everything else.

I yes, I I tell people I'm a thesbian too, you know, just so that you know.

Just so you know.

But um, you know, I I love you guys like my good luggage.

You do an excellent job at in every area.

Um the creation of just multiple events that allow for networking, um, that allows for resources to be tapped into by community members.

I know so many business owners, small business owners, large business owners who tap into your resources, family, friends, and everyone knows um how to find the chamber.

And so you're one of those organizations that are inviting.

Sometimes I just randomly walk into the office, right?

And you have the receptionist there, and they're always warm and welcoming.

And I think the last time I just walked in, um, Tony right there, he was right there in his office, and he told me about the business that unfortunately was relocating.

He was Johnny on the spot saying, this is what we're doing and trying to help the situation as best as we can.

And that's really all that you can ask for uh from a chamber is that you guys do everything that you can.

And even even more.

I mean, I I was at a Northwest Hispanic Chamber of Commerce event, and you guys are are are there supporting other commerce um chambers of commerce.

So and that's not the only one, and so it's just you guys just do so much.

And so um, I'm not gonna bear the lead.

I'm absolutely going to be supporting this tonight.

Um, and I I think I said this at the last contract.

I don't think we can actually pay you enough for what you do.

I mean, the billion dollars that you bought.

The billion we're we're we're tired.

Rick, are you shaking your head for some reason there?

The billion, the billion dollars that you've brought in over the nine or ten years.

I mean, that's that's amazing in that you're able to track to track that.

Um, but let me get a couple of things out of the way that were actually mentioned by my colleagues, which I'll I'll second, which is the uh the report.

I think a biannual report would be great because every three years isn't good enough for me.

It's not you know, I I want I want to, you know, if you you write it out or if you come every other year, that would be wonderful.

Oh, okay, okay.

All right.

Well, uh, you know, however, you all want to figure that out, but I think that would be actually an excellent move, at least to at least have something in writing.

Um that would be great.

So I would I would second that if we and maybe we don't need to make that change with the actual contract, we can do that in the in the background.

Sure.

Yeah.

Um, I love the internal marketplace idea um that you were really um talking about and trying to flesh out in the in the economic plan uh for the future.

I think that's crucial uh where we can create um our own ecosystem where our own businesses can support our own businesses where we can circulate the dollar more times here than in other places because of all the groundwork that has been done.

So I I so I absolutely love that too as well just that line of thinking.

How much was the contract previously the previous contract again?

They're finishing up this year at about 340 344.

Yeah so again 344 you asked for 355 again I mean you you're giving us a bang for our buck you you don't even ask for much and so I think the real one that they started again back in 2010 at 275.

It's not a $5,000 increase for for close to 20 years.

Yes yep I was going to point that out so thank you for that.

So I mean it just continues to you just continue to provide great value knowing that we're municipality and not trying to rake us over the call the calls and really partner with us so we we really appreciate that.

I do have a couple of questions and maybe you guys can answer this or if you have a business that wants to answer this.

In the materials it talked about the transitional how was it phrase transitional economy right?

We know that this economy is transitioning that's how it was you know described but you know can you on behalf of the businesses maybe talk a little bit about what they're experiencing because there was a slide there where we can see that there's a little bit of an uptick in unemployment.

Now we're not hit as hard here in Elgin as some other places because of what we have in place but can you talk a little bit about what businesses are experiencing in this current economy?

All of them all of it.

Yeah I think what we're gonna you know we don't even know the the real answer to that when you talked it was at a show called Fab Tech there was 55,000 people representing the Fabricators Metals association.

And when you go around and you ask them how is AI affecting your particular business you would get different answers depending on their technological savvy.

Eventually it's going to hit us all I don't know if it's going to affect employment or not we we you know we're we're trying to do the best we can to understand what the effects are on everyone probably Dustin could answer the question better than I but we're in a in an economy where transition is the norm and we better get with it.

You know you look at college kids these days they go into computer science their freshman year and they're already obsolete by their uh second semester you know so it's it's that kind of economy so I'd like to also add it depends on what business you're talking to and with 5200 businesses in the community they're all impacted differently and I don't carry I don't want to put you on the spot but Kerry Klein's the CEO of Flender Corporation making the gear drives for wind towers and you're German owned and what are the the conversations that I remember you talking about is what Germany is saying to you is let's get some stability and that's not available right now is that correct yeah it's just uh do you mind coming up to the microphone just for just a moment I'm sorry to put you on the spot but it's I mean you're just you're the perfect example uh so what we do is is highly skilled but all manual labor and just always training the people keeping them in entertained in interested even in the business because quite frankly manufacturing is old and ugly and you know most people want something more exciting uh aerospace something like that so we're always trying to challenge ourselves to figure out how do we make the job more interesting we are always asking the question how can we use AI we've actually got a team I think at corporate we've got a team of about 12 people actually assigned just to asking that question and trying to figure out where that could be integrated in the company and the Tony's comment nobody really even knows.

I mean yes it can be done but where are you doing it how you're doing it are you doing it in the right places the wrong places we actually bought a dog robot um just to see what it can do in at corporate again.

So um it's it's just always evolving always challenging yourself to see what you can do to make your your company more interesting to the employees that's it's really I would have to say I've been in the business for 40 years.

It's really the shoes on the other foot where the companies kind of dictated what they want out of the employees it's now really the employees kind of telling the companies here's what I here's what I expect out of you and and quite frankly we've got an answer to that.

That's wonderful thank you for that.

And you know and I'm asking out of curiosity you know what are the top things that you're hearing and um from different businesses you know so that's um so that's very helpful so I appreciate that sir.

I do have some questions about the PSA.

It looks like in this question for city manager, um, it looks like we are saying to them that we'll pay them what you know what their contractually um obligated to receive, but it doesn't give a pay schedule.

Am I am I reading that is there a pay schedule?

Is there no need for it?

I'm just curious.

I'm looking at paragraph three, and it talks about the quarterly payments that the city is gonna be making, it identifies all those for the three years of the agreement.

Okay.

Okay.

All right, perfect.

Thank you.

Um the next thing I wanted to ask about see confidentiality.

In the confidentiality statement, it says that the um prospect information shall solely uh go to the mayor and city manager as representatives.

Um and so I'm wondering um why city council would not be included in that.

Part of the benefit of the city's agreement with the EDG is there are entities in the private sector that recognize everybody can read our email.

So by limiting the discussions, particularly during those preliminary negotiations, it gives us a leg up with organizations or private with companies in the private sector that don't want their competitors to know what they're doing.

Gotcha.

And so when we come to those preliminary negotiations, I'm I don't I can't purport to be an expert any longer on open meetings uh law and and uh freedom of information act requests, but typically preliminary um negotiations regarding a contract or economic development agreement are exempt from disclosure, but by limiting those discussions to the mayor and manager, it makes it easier to make sure that that information while negotiations are proceeding remains confidential to the businesses that are trying to do a deal with us.

Got it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh item 28 substance abuse program, um, which is great, by the way, right?

Um, but we also live in a in an age where you know people have mental health issues, and so um, and I know you Carol, you know, you serve on the alignment collaborative for education board with me.

You know, we have a committee that is focused on mental health for for the youth.

And so I'm just wondering um, you know, where the chamber falls on there, why would that not be included you know, as a combination piece, even and so that's my that's my question.

This is boilerplate from city uh from agreements with cities with the PSAs.

It's part of policies that we have in place for the vendors that we want to operate with.

Okay.

So this isn't unique to the EDG EAC agreement.

Okay.

With that being the case, that's fine.

Yeah, I don't have a problem with that.

Okay, yeah, yeah.

I don't have a problem with that.

I'm just asking like why would we not include that type of um service to us well inside of the contract?

Do you get what I'm saying?

I'm sorry.

Okay.

What this is saying, we're hoping that they have a program in place so that their employees who might need that assistance have that available to them.

Right.

Okay.

I get that.

Okay.

I was just asking if we could provide other, I mean, if they could provide other sorts of services, mental health services.

And if you don't have that bandwidth or that ability, then don't worry about it.

We asking, I'm sorry, you mean you're asking them to expand their benefits to I'm sorry.

Okay.

Um, certainly in our human resources uh activities that would be included in our our process.

Okay.

Absolutely.

Yeah, I agree.

Thank you for bringing that up.

Right, because with mental, I mean with substance abuse or whatever, uh, mental health is right there with it.

So that's all.

Um I think I have one more question, a couple more questions.

Let's see.

I know that you all are really busy with other boards and organizations, and so I see you everywhere, so I really appreciate that.

Um but I do have a question about that.

We're not I you know I believe in equality in multiple ways, and you know, so this is not for for you guys at all, but maybe just for um my colleagues up here on City Council uh and the city manager.

Um we had a previous discussion with the downtown neighborhood association concerning their cooperation with other economic related boards and agency or just organizations throughout the city, and we were going to require them to um accept other organizations to sit on their board.

And so this language does not have that same requirement.

And so I'm curious as to why, you know, with another PSA we are doing it a little bit different from what from the way that we were just trying to do it.

It was the council's decision to change the board membership of the DNA, but the EDG has never had that requirement because it's recognized as being the umbrella organization, the top of the tripartite arrangement that did include the DNA in the EACB.

So with the chamber being up at the top, it was more important to have representatives at the lower for lack of a better term, the lower level organizations porting up.

There wasn't any need for the smaller organizations to be part of the greater orbit.

Okay.

And would you say the same thing for the auditors for the audit?

Not require not requesting, not requiring it, at least an audit.

We perform an audit and have for decades.

And that's available, a copy of sent to the city manager's office every year.

So Gabe, I don't know if you want to say anything about that.

We're undergoing our audit right now with a firm called Epsian, and we look forward to hopefully in the next 30 days having that audit coming back to us.

It's something that the chambers always done without the provision of a contractual requirement.

So and we will always continue to do that.

Absolutely.

Okay.

And I and I wasn't saying that you guys don't do an audit.

I understand.

Just want to make sure.

Right, right.

But the again, it was just different from how we handled the previous PSA contract conversation.

So just wanted to point out that language.

But you know, that was all my those are all of my questions.

Uh you guys are doing an excellent job.

Continue doing that.

And uh I can't wait to see the biannual uh report.

Thank you.

So thank you.

Anything else?

Mr.

Stephen.

Just just two quick comments on what you presented.

And first of all, thank you to everybody who's come and done this.

Um to Dustin's comment and others that followed up on wanting a biannual report.

I would support that because I think that's important to have it presented here where the community can see it.

But I would just like to point out that it comes from Carol's email, so I'm gonna give Carol the credit, but I think it's a team, but it's a Friday fact.

Yeah, comes every the stuff that you just presented us, is the unemployment rates, the vacancy rates, the that kind of stuff is all there.

So we are getting that weekly, and I appreciate that because I think it's important.

Um the only other comment I would make is to piggyback off of what Councilman Dixon say.

I I'm I appreciate that in this, and I guess it's been disclosed that this is boilerplate language, but for this PSA, we're just requiring you to allow us to see your books if we want to see them.

You have your audits.

Uh that seems to me much more reasonable and realistic in a PSA with an organization like yours.

So appreciate it.

Thanks.

Those were my comments.

Thank you.

Okay.

Anything else?

Ms.

Martinez.

Thank you, Mayor.

I really appreciate everybody that came out.

I know you have your businesses and business days, but um what I like what I love about this organization is the input from different entities.

Um had to go to Wisconsin to go get those, you know, that they're here in town.

Um I love the fact that uh, like let's say Caesar's Casino, you know, that's a national theme.

We have it here in town.

And um people who go ahead and one that comes to mind is NTN that have expanded and have I don't know how many buildings.

These are um companies that you know could have moved somewhere else.

A good example is Preus, who went ahead and had it in three different towns, and I remember uh going to their um opening their um ribbon cutting, and they were calling Algin a gem, you know, that they this is the the place to come.

Um not even long ago, um, this is kind of like a little on the side, but U 46 had something similar where they had the teachers, they went ahead and got the the buses and had the teachers come and see Algin and um see what Elgin had to offer, and I remember at the end they told the um retired teacher who organized this.

They said, uh, are you trying to trick us to move into Alga?

Because you know, really um a lot of people don't realize everything that we have here.

I appreciate that.

Uh in your annual meeting, there was uh an individual who um received an award, and can you talk about that, Carol?

That was very interesting about the pencils.

Um I I'd be happy to uh and Auntia Sim uh is the CEO of Fabricell Cosmetics here in the community, and she was planning on being with us, but she caught that bug that everyone seems to have, so she didn't have any voice left and regret she couldn't join us tonight.

Auntie received our Elgin Development Group Development Award.

Uh uh again, the mayor, City Manager Kozel, uh Tony and I met with the family that owns Fabrica Stell.

Have uh have any of you used a pencil before?

Well, if you have, uh it's probably likely that it was a Fabrica Cell pencil.

Um the firm is in Germany and was founded in the 1500s, and it is owned by the countess and her family.

And the countess came to our Elgin Development Group chamber office with uh Tony and the mayor and city manager, and we talked about three locations that they were looking at to expand into the United States for a domestic manufacturing location.

Uh and the mayor and uh city manager did a wonderful job because the countess and their accounting uh firm and their consultants chose Elgin.

Subsequent to that, and they're a neighbor of Carrie's uh out on the west side of town.

Um they moved into a facility of about 60,000 square feet.

And Tony is now working with Antia and her team to expand.

Uh they before uh had uh uh assembled pencils, eye pencils, eyeliner pencils for some of those very large companies that we know as Maybelline and L'Oreal and others.

Um and now they're gonna be doing bulk manufacturing at the plant in Elgin.

So Tony's working with the development community development team to facilitate that to build out that just kicked off two weeks ago.

So we're gonna just say one other thing.

Uh the company actually uh makes three billion number two pencils, own 20 percent of the Amazon jungle, and um are in their tenth generation of this company, so it's kind of stable.

They were also the fifth comp uh company in the United States at the very beginning of this nation's founding.

So on top of that, Auntie said they don't expect at all that their business will slow down because uh uh cosmetics are important to consumers, and social media uh is very important, and they have their products on social media and they are just expanding wildfire.

So very interesting product.

Thank you for for uh letting us tell that story about a local Elgin company.

You're welcome.

Uh I also belong to the transportation committee.

You do.

And that's very interesting because we hear from the county, the state, um we have education, businesses, um, and those are like my favorite meetings, not that this isn't, of course, right?

But um, those are my favorite meetings because um we're um like a hub here, you know, for all these things, and it makes you understand why this road here um we can't clean up because it belongs to the county or to the state, and so those are very interesting.

I just wanted to point those things out, so thank you very much.

Thank you, Mayor.

Okay, anything else?

I think everybody's had a chance.

Uh Carol, I have one question for you.

Yes, sir.

How many members do you have?

Uh we have uh just about 582.

582 members, uh mix of uh small and large people working out of their homes, mayor, to cities on the school district, which has 5500 full-time employees, so we have quite a uh uh range of businesses that we work with, absolutely.

And but through let me just clarify if you wouldn't mind, I'm sorry.

But through Elgin Development Group, we work with everybody complimentary.

There's no fee associated with working with these businesses.

So we work can work potentially with every business in the community.

And I I very much appreciate your uh uh uh organization's ability to uh uh anticipate problems and to uh work on both sides for people that uh uh businesses that have left.

There's still a heart there to help the people that uh have worked at Elgin and uh give them some hope.

I think that uh it's a reflective of a uh good management staff and a great board that is and a mixed board that brought talent and brought uh opinions, and uh that's what a board is supposed to look like.

Absolutely.

And uh have those discussions and sometimes have those hard discussions.

Yep, absolutely as to what have to be done.

But I I also just want to reiterate that it's a partnership that we have.

You as the city council set the tone and the tenor in the community, and we hear very often, Tony, don't we, from developers that Elgin is a great place to do business because everyone's aligned and welcoming businesses into the community.

And that's not necessarily what uh developers find in other communities.

Well, we we always tell them uh we all play well in the sandbox together, but we don't like sand kicked on our face.

So I don't worry about that because my cat plays in the sandbox too, so just be careful with that.

Um I hate to say this again because it's been said already, but I think at uh 355,000 dollars, uh the return on our investment is extraordinary, and I think that's something important, and that's what we should.

That's what the obligation of this council is to do for taxpayers is to make sure we get the best uh uh return we can for our money, and I think we've done that in this case.

And uh congratulations on uh on a good year.

At this point, I think we need a motion.

So moved been moved and second for approval.

Uh clerk, please call the roll.

Councilmember Zalfaro abstain, Dixon?

Absolutely.

Martinez good, yes.

Martinez?

Yes.

Ortiz?

Yes.

Stefan?

Yes.

Thorne?

Yes.

Mayor Captain.

Yes, motion's approved seven zero with one abstention.

Thank you.

Congratulations.

Okay, at this time we're running a little bit behind schedule.

I don't entertain a motion to adjourn and we'll reconvene at the regular council meeting in about five minutes.

So moved.

Second.

Move and second, clerk, please call the roll.

Council members alfaro, yes.

Dixon?

Yes.

Good.

Yes.

Martinez, yes.

Ortiz?

Yes.

Stefan?

Yes.

Thorne?

Yes.

Mayor Captain.

Yes, we are adjourned.

City Council for March 11th, 2026 to order.

Uh, please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.

One nation.

Liberty and justice.

Well, Clerk, please call the roll.

Councilmember Zalfaro.

Present.

Dixon.

Present.

Good.

Here.

Martinez?

Here.

Ortiz.

Powell?

Stefan?

Here.

Thorne?

Here.

Mayor Captain.

Here.

Approval of the minutes of the previous meeting of February 25th, 2026.

So moved?

Second.

Then movement seconded.

Any discussion or corrections or additions?

Hearing none, Clerk, please call the roll.

Councilmember Zalfaro?

Yes.

Dixon?

Yes.

Good?

Yes.

Martinez?

Yes.

Ortiz?

Yes.

Stefan?

Yes.

Thorne?

Yes.

Mayor Captain.

Yes.

Motion's approved eight zero.

We have two communications this evening.

Will Jenny Phillips?

I have a soft spot in my heart for 311 because I pass all the problem people on to them.

And they do a great job.

When I start uh having some issues with people and uh issues that are going on in our community, uh they usually do a great job of solving things.

And people ask all the time.

Uh they uh send an email to the mayor and have a complaint, and I always have the same uh line that goes back out.

I said, I'm gonna transfer you to the person that can answer best answer the question and solve your problems, and these people do a great job doing that for me.

Whereas 311 is the non-emergency telephone number established to provide residents with easy access to city services, information and resources, and whereas the 311 contact center enhances Elgin community by providing a streamlined and accessible way for residents to report by phone, email, and mobile app with concerns such as potholes, graffiti, street light outages, and other service requests, and whereas the dedicated 311 professionals who answer calls, respond to inquiries, and coordinate with other city uh departments, demonstrate daily professionalism, patience, and a commitment to exceptional public service.

And whereas these staff members play a vital role in ensuring that resident concerns are heard, documented, and resolved efficiently, strengthening trust between local government and the community, and whereas National 311 Day provides an opportunity to recognize both the importance of accessible municipal services and the individuals who make those services possible.

Now, therefore, I David Captain, mayor of the City of Elgin, Illinois, to hereby recognize National 311 Day on March 31st and extend sincere appreciation to the city's 311 department and the 311 citizen advocates for their dedication to serving our community while encouraging all while encouraging all residents to utilize 311 to keep our city safe, responsive, and well maintained.

Congratulations.

So I promised myself I wouldn't get emotional about this, but uh 311 has uh been around for uh quite some time now, and I had the honor and privilege to help the organization develop the uh 311 contact center.

So, mayor and city council, city manager Kozal, Assistant City Manager Karina Nava, thank you for this proclamation this evening and your unwavering support of the 311 department.

Back in 2014, our city launched the 311 department, giving our residents and the community a direct line to our organization.

Since then, 311 has become so much more than a phone call and so much more than a phone number.

On the other end of those calls are the incredible staff members who we call our 311 citizen advocates.

They're the first voice a resident hears when they need their help or the support from the city.

What makes our citizen advocates so special is they're not just answering questions or inserting service requests, they're solving problems.

And many times when 311 gets a call, the advocates in the 311 contact center are handling these calls and doing first call resolution, which is huge.

And that's affording our residents the opportunity to engage with us through that first call resolution.

Beyond their knowledge and their efficiency, what really stands out is their professionalism.

Every interaction is handled with patience, genuine care, they listen and guide and make sure that every resident has a voice.

Kathleen, who serves as our 311 manager.

Kathleen joined the organization several years ago and actually sat in the seats that she leads today.

Kathleen is a tremendous leader.

She is the cornerstone of the 311 department, consistently ensuring that her team is well prepared and supported.

Her ability to balance daily operational demand showcases her high levels of professionalism and commitment to customer service excellence.

The 311 Citizen Advocates and Kathleen are truly an invaluable part of our organization.

They represent the best of customer service excellence and community connection.

So today I say thank you to Kathleen for all you do, the 311 citizen advocates for the work they do, the problems they solve, and their support of our community day in and day out.

And I'll just give you this little teaser before I conclude.

In this year, probably in the next couple months or so, we're gonna have our one millionth phone call.

Wow.

So thank you.

Thank you all very much.

Um it's just an honor and a privilege to serve the Algin community.

Thank you.

At this point, I'd like to ask Councilman Stefan to come down, read the next proclamation.

Everybody is here for this, join me up here in the voting, especially Jan and Reed.

So first of all, I'm somewhat heartened that I'm not the only one sending Jennifer all the all the problems and issues and things they need to solving, and uh also to hear that uh everybody else is getting this great service as I know that she does when I do that because she follows up and make sure everything gets resolved.

So thank you.

Um I am here to read a proclamation to honor somebody that I've had the privilege to get to know over many years, it's been kind of hit or miss, on again, off again, city relationship, uh missed opportunities, maybe is the best way to put it.

Um so I wanted to first of all, I want to interstop there and introduce everybody who's up here, then I'm gonna read the proclamation, then I'm gonna use that to kind of jump off into something that's happening this year, which is the 50th anniversary of one of the things in this proclamation, we'll talk about it a bit more.

But first of all, this is Reed Lewis, Reed Henry Lewis, his wife Jan, Kathy Palmer, who was part of this reenactment that we're gonna talk about in a bit, Sherry Blazer and Judy Hayner from the Elgin Public Museum, executive director, board chair, am I getting that all right?

Okay, um, they're all here to help me uh read the proclamation and talk about what's coming.

So, for Reed, this is a proclamation from the office of the mayor, it says, whereas Reed Henry Lewis has devoted his life to education and to promoting French history and culture, inspiring generations of elegant students to see learning as an adventure, and whereas in 1976, this is the part I'm gonna come back to, during the nascent bicentennial, he led the LaSalle Expedition II, a 3,003 mile eight-month reenactment of the 1681-1682 voyage of Renee Robert Cavalier, Sure de LaSalle, guiding 16 students from Elgin and Larkin High Schools and seven adults to travel by handmade canoes from Montreal to the Gulf of Mexico in authentic 17th century attire, bringing national and international attention to Midwest history, and whereas the expedition demonstrated Reed's belief in the extraordinary potential of young people and resulted in a lasting educational legacy, including the permanent LaSalle expedit exhibit and handcrafted canoe displayed at the Elgin Public Museum in Lord's Park, and whereas Reed is a founder and director of Aventure Francais Inc., a total emergent front immersion French language school that offers weekend and summer programs for students and adults using engaging real-world activities, often outdoors, to teach the language, and whereas throughout his career as a French educator, Reed strengthened French American relationships, fostered French Illinois exchanges, supported French business connections, and educated thousands in the richness of French culture and history.

And whereas for his international contributions, Reed received the ordre de Palme Academique and numerous honors, including La Mede d'Or, I'm gonna ruin this French, De Solidarité et Valour from La Renaissance Franca delegation in the United States.

I think I got through that.

And whereas Reed Henry Lewis continues to enrich the Elgin community through his preservation and public engagement and a lifelong commitment to education, including recently this past May, accepting a mayor's award for preservation on behalf of the Elgin Public Museum for its encounter exhibit.

Now, therefore, I, John Stefan, on behalf of David Captain, mayor of the city of Elgin, Illinois, do hereby recognize and honor Reed Henry Lewis for his extraordinary achievements and lasting impact in our community.

In witness whereof, I have here to set my hands the 11th day of March 2026, signed by the mayor.

So I am going to give this.

Okay, good.

All right, I'm glad.

Decided to take an idea and recreate this expedition that LaSalle, the original Asale did in 1681.

And as you heard, he took, it was actually 15 out of 16 students for from Larkin and Elgin High.

Those were the only two high schools in U-46 at the time.

Took two years to train, took two years to create all their own clothes, moccasins, carve their own canoe paddles, build the canoes.

Kathy is the this is the liaison team.

Hold that thought.

We're gonna talk about that too.

And from August of 1976 to April of 1977, started in Montreal.

Went up the St.

Louis Seaway, they were going against the that was that's a river, they were going against current.

Around the Great Lakes, down past Chicago, through Indiana, Illinois, and all the way down to New Orleans, and then the mouth in the Mississippi.

So not only did they do that, they had it it was 16 high schoolers and seven adults.

They all had to play a specific role.

They all had to learn that role.

They all had to learn French, they ought to learn French songs.

And they all had to do this for eight months.

And and I I didn't mention the liaison team, but I want to now because they had what was probably a harder job, they had to guess where this six canoes were gonna get off the river or off the lake based on the conditions and the weather, and race ahead and get there and try to set things up and get ready for them, and whatever the evening performance or program was going to be, you had to arrange that.

Often was missing each other.

So that and that was a lot of women and a photographer.

Can't remember all the names.

And I want to point them out because you heard in the presentation from the chamber and EDG, there's a 250th anniversary celebration this year.

We're celebrating America's 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and communities all over this country are trying to figure out how they're going to celebrate that, how they're gonna recognize that.

And we have something that no other community has.

Everybody would probably struggle to have something as unique as this.

So this happened 50 years ago.

We're gonna try to celebrate, we're gonna try to have a float in the Fourth of July parade to kind of promote this and honor this.

And more importantly, uh this also coincides with the 50th high school reunion for the 15 students and the women that were in the liaison team, so they're all coming back from all we're all we're wherever they are all over this country.

And so we're aiming for a lots of workshops and panel discussions.

There was a film done on this expedition that we're gonna try to screen.

A lot of this is gonna happen at the public museum.

People are looking at me like, what are you talking about?

I see it in people's eyes.

Come and see the exhibit at the public museum.

There's a couple books on this.

It's something that I regret that I think as a community we've kind of lost memory of, and I'm so glad that I can be here to recognize Reed and give them some recognition.

We're gonna try to do more of this over the summer and be part of that 250th celebration that Carol mentioned.

So I don't know if anybody wants to talk.

Reed, do you want to talk?

General?

Um I would like to read wrote this and um he would like me to read this for him, okay.

Um he says, my sincere thank you to this Elgin City Council for this wonderful proclamation, which is indeed such an honor.

It is 50 years.

Is it possible?

We we don't 50 years, unbelievable.

Uh, since 17 students and seven adults embarked on LaSalle expedition to a reenactment that spanned 3300 miles and lasted for over half a year.

I conceived this undertaking uh to prove a point that young people of that generation were capable of meeting the challenges such a journey would present, and I'm most proud of the Elgin youths who eagerly and determinedly met each day with optimism and enthusiasm.

Indeed, despite bad weather, it was uh one of the coldest winters, or maybe the coldest winter.

The lakes, the rivers froze over, they had to portage their canoes, carry them through towns, you know, with all their equipment.

It was it was really tough.

Um, and a horrific accident that badly injured three of the uh young students when they were portaging, they were hit by a truck.

And uh despite all of that, we all ended up at the Gulf of Mexico on the prescribed date, the date that they said they were going to be there eight months earlier.

I know that I speak for all of us when I say that we are so grateful and appreciative for all the support and encouragement we received from the city council, the chamber of commerce, the school district U46, and groups such as the Kowanist Club, which made generous contributions to the expedition.

We are also indebted to the hundreds of people who turned out to cheer us on when we originally left Elgin.

Then again, when we visited Elgin during our paddle through Chicago, and finally went at long last after so many months away, we returned to our wonderful hometown.

You have all had a part in making this tribute to the explorers of our part of the country a reality.

And here's a special shout out to Sherry Blazer and the Elgin Public Museum, who did such an amazing job with the Ala Sal display in the museum.

And as John mentioned.

Go see it.

It was really wonderful.

Again, thank you.

Or as the French would say.

Oh, wait a minute.

I got one more thing.

You got one more thing.

Actually, this is Mariah Magazine.

Reed's brother Ken was is a writer.

And he did an article for Mariah Magazine, which doesn't exist today but was a outdoor living kind of magazine.

And so I have a copy of the article here, which tells all about the expedition, and I'm gonna leave that with John.

If anybody's ever interested in reading, go down the room.

Yeah.

On behalf of Elgin Public Museum, I'd just like to say how proud we are to be the permanent home of so many artifacts from LaSalle Expedition 2.

It was always Reed's intention that the ultimate and lasting result of his LaSalle project should be educational.

Using the props of their epic journey, the museum's most popular field trip for school students is the encounter, showing how the world was changed in ways both good and bad.

As trade between Europeans and indigenous peoples developed, a half century after LaSalle II, its lessons are more than ever expanding young minds.

Thank you, Reed.

Hibern.

All right.

I think that's everybody who wanted to speak.

So watch for our events.

We're going to be part of the 250th anniversary, and hopefully August 22nd, which coincides with Elgin High's class reunion.

Larkin can't get their act together.

I can say that as a Larkin grad, they haven't figured out when their class reunion is.

We're going to tie it with Elgin's and try to pull something off.

So watch.

Thank you.

Thank you, John.

Brings us to the portion where we allow public comments.

We have one person signed up this evening.

Elijah Stein.

I can't agree with you more about it.

I thought it was something small about this.

And Mr.

Steineman, I ask you to watch your language.

All right.

My name is Elijah Stein, and I would like to discuss a social movement that I would like to that I would like to impress.

I believe that throughout a lot of what I have been hearing from various parts of the um the situations involving the uh the Epstein files as well as various victims, a lot of people who have gone through various traumas and uh just various situations where they've been impacted by other people and have kept their voices silent.

I think one of the biggest problems with why there hasn't been a big response as to all of the different all of the different situations that have been occurring is that we have focused too much on the situation itself as opposed to creating a culture of accountability.

I believe that in order to see the response that we want to see when it comes to all of the different things that have been occurring.

We need to start making our voices known and sharing our different stories as to what we have experienced, whether that is directly as a result of uh what we have seen in the Epstein Files, what it is with the war in Iran, what it is with just people that we have in our various daily lives.

We need to start speaking up more as to the things that we have experienced.

I know that a similar thing had happened with the Me Too movement, and that was very successful in bringing a lot of light to all of the various things people had experienced that nobody had ever decided to discuss openly, and once it was out there, then we started to finally see a movement towards um action and accountability and making sure that the victims were taken care of.

We need to start doing that again.

That movement never truly died, and it needs to have a resurgence.

Um I would say that if you have something that you have experienced, whether it be from this administration, whether it be something in your life, do yourself a favor if nobody else and speak out to what it is you've experienced.

What you have experienced matters, what it is that you have went through matters, and people need to know that you have experienced it before anything will be done about it.

You have to share your experience to make it known that this is what you went through.

Uh that is all that I have to say on that.

Okay, thank you.

Brings us to other business.

We have no bids this evening.

First item is a resolution authorizing execution of a master software licensing agreement with DACRA Tech LLC for the purchase of electronic citation adjudication management system.

Move for approval.

Second move to second for approval.

Any discussion, Mr.

Stefan.

I uh wanted to piggyback off of comments made at the committee of the whole on this item regarding the uh the data and uses of the data.

Um it's something that I've commented on other software purchases in the past.

Oh, sorry, didn't have my microphone on.

Um, and that is with with this software and and I think uh item G, which we haven't gotten to on the committee, though, when we get back to it, and related things.

We we as an organization collect huge amounts of information and data on people when they go online and fill out a permit or a liquor license application, or get a ticket or a citation, as will happen with this software.

So I think the questions that were directed at this item from committee of the whole were regarding possibility of having the data leaked to DHS or ICE or those kinds of uses.

My concern is more broad than that.

I just want to make sure that we as an organization are keeping this confidential and safe.

As I pointed out in the past, these um agreements that we are reviewing in the packet used to be all the the confidentiality and propriety was all kind of went one way towards the vendor because as you can imagine, they are providing us with what they've developed to use, and they want to make sure that stays confidential and secure.

And I'm happy to see in this agreement, and we'll look for in future agreements in these areas that we are also protecting the data that is generated that it will not be leaked or sold or harvested or whatever, especially with AI and the and the demand for you know large amounts of data to create those LLMs.

So uh those are my comments.

I'm pleased, and we will be continuing to look at that, making sure that we kind of secure our data.

Thank you.

Anything else?

Okay, Mr.

Dixon.

Uh thank you.

I I do have a question about the um total cost, the fees and specifically.

Um the materials, the materials were stating that um there's a license and fee and usage fee, and I think every month we receive like 500 free usages.

Um but is there a uh is there all the when it comes to licensing fee?

Is there also a license and fee per user?

Um that's associated with this.

No, it's the terminals that they have on that.

There isn't anything that goes up with that.

There's a there's a terminal that's used for this in the adjudication process, and then whatever the agreement is for the police officers and the code enforcement officers to write the citations in the street.

Okay, okay.

All right, that's all.

Thank you.

Anything else?

Clerk please call a roll.

Councilmember Zelfaro, yes.

Dixon?

Yes, good, yes.

Martinez?

Yes, Ortiz?

Yes, Stefan?

Yes Thorne?

Yes, mere captain.

Yes, the motion is approved 80.

Item two is an ordinance amending section one nine that one die one nine five oh nine oh of the title nineteen of the LGA municipal code and title street graphics.

Move for approval.

Second, move the second for approval.

Any discussion.

Hearing none, court please call a roll.

Councilmember Zalfaro, yes.

Dixon, yes, good, yes, Martinez abstained.

Ortiz, yes.

Stefan?

Yes.

Thorne?

Yes.

Mayor Captain.

Yes, the motion is approved seven zero with one abstention.

Item 3 is an ordinance amending the ULG Municipal Code to provide for a new chapter entitled Retail Single Use Bags.

Move for approval.

Second.

Move the second for approval.

Any discussion.

Ms.

Alfaro.

Who made the motion?

Was that you?

Councilmember Ortiz?

Okay.

I would suggest an amendment because on page 37, the small retail description doesn't say that it has to be full-time employees.

It just has 250 or fewer employees.

So it's to be consistent with the rest of the language in there.

If we can't add in that description that it's full-time employees.

Do you want me to just rescind mine and you can do it?

Oh, yeah, I could do that.

I was resending my motion.

Okay.

So I make a motion to approve this orients with a minor change on page 37 indicating that the 250 and 250 or fewer employees indicates full-time employees.

Second.

It's been moved and seconded to amend the ordinance to include uh the wording that this is uh 250 full-time employees.

Yeah.

Movement second and any discussion.

Second.

Okay.

And I want to make sure that's yeah.

Well, I just want to clarify you're talking about the definition of small retail mercantile establishments.

Is that okay?

So that's in the section 6.05.

Uh oh one oh the definition of small retail marketale establishments.

It's in the definitions.

So 6.05.010.

It's towards the end, right before the 2020.

Yeah.

So employee is a defined term, and it it's it's defined as person who's employed on a full-time basis.

So you're saying it's already in there.

It's integrated in the definition of employee.

Um that was added to the ordinance.

So I I think it's already covered, but I mean it and if you want to provide additional clarification, that's it's consistent with all what's already written.

Right.

No.

I think it'll just be helpful that way.

If someone didn't read all the definitions, if they read just that one, they would know it was full time.

But I see your point.

Yeah.

Okay.

No, I agree.

Thank you.

Okay, we have a motion in a second.

Anything else?

Clerk, please call the roll.

Councilmember Zalfaro?

Yes.

Dixon?

Yes.

Good.

Yes.

Martinez?

No.

Ortiz?

Yes.

Stefan?

Yes.

Thorne?

No.

Mayor Captain.

Yes.

The motion is approved 6-2.

Okay.

Item 4 is up building up Illinois Developments or the Build Act.

House Bill No.

5626.

An analysis and discussion of proposed state legislation by community development director, Mark Millad.

Mr.

Millak.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Give me one second, if you could please.

Just making some last-minute adjustments here.

There we are.

There is okay work.

Excellent.

Thank you, sir.

Staff was made aware last week of legislation released by Governor Pritzker's office aimed at implementing housing housing and availability and affordability goals that he made during his state of the state addressed last month.

Now the need for more housing at various price points is well recognized, but several of the proposed amendments and the nearly 40 pages of legislation called the build plan, which stands for build up Illinois developments, have the potential to fundamentally alter single family neighborhoods by significantly limiting local control over land use decisions, would restrict local authority over parking and impact fees, and would impose rigid review timelines without flexibility for operational realities.

Now, while his comments did recognize some financial assistance, specifically IDA's next generational capacity building initiative, which is designed to provide capital training and technical resources that allows affordable housing developers more access to low-income tax credits.

The state is still facing significant national economic headwinds that significantly reduce housing availability.

For example, elevated interest rates have created the lock-in effect that let limits housing turnover and construction and labor and material costs remain high and more troubling, unpredictable.

This chart from the Associated Builders and Contractors released at the end of January shows that inputs to multifamily construction decreased from November to December month over month.

Yet they were up nearly 3% year over year, but more concerning, up more than 43% since February of 2020.

If you look there's uh highlighted there.

If you look at the 12-month change for copper and wire and cable alone, you can see the increase is over 70 percent to that particular input on construction costs alone.

So let's start with some of the six primary elements of the build plan, and then we'll turn our attention to the specifics of each because you'll start to see where some of those concerns come into play.

First, the build plan promotes middle housing.

These are the buildings less commonly built in new residential developments like duplexes, quads, small apartment buildings or flats, are typically found in our older, denser neighborhoods.

Next are accessory dwelling units or ADU.

These are commonly thought of the small apartment above the garage or even a standalone building in the backyard, perhaps for an older child or a grandparent or a caregiver.

The amendment proposes universally waiving and reducing parking requirements for certain land uses.

The amendments would create a statewide system of development impact fees.

The plan would impose strict time frames for local governments to complete plan reviews and building inspections, and if not met, allow builders to get their own third party plan reviews and inspections.

And finally, the amendments would allow only one exit stair for new multifamily buildings where the current code requires two.

Now let's dig in a little deeper here.

Let's start with the middle housing.

The proposed amendments would allow between four and eight unit apartments on small existing single-family lots in established single family neighborhoods, regardless of the city's zoning designation.

You could have an eight-unit apartment building on any single family residential lot larger than 7,500 square feet, subject to the same setback requirements or other size considerations as a single family home.

So let's have some context.

What's a 7,500 square foot lot?

Most single family lots in Elgin's far west subdivisions are larger than single 7,500 square feet.

Highland Woods, Tall Oaks, Bows Creek, Providence, Randall Ridge, Waterford, to name a few.

Coming in closer, most single family lots in the Valley Creek subdivision, West of McLean are larger than 7,500 square feet.

And even many older, many lots in our older primary neighborhoods around the central downtown like Nina, Gifford Park, and Swan are larger than 7,500 square feet.

Now, where those lots might be even smaller, like where a back of a corner lot was subdivided off of a larger lot, the state's changes would allow four or six flats on a lot between 2,500 and 5,000 square feet, or 5,000 square feet and 7,500 square feet respectively.

Equally concerning, these amendments are not limited to just new construction.

They would permit the conversion of existing single-family homes into multi-unit buildings with the same unit allowances.

Many on City Council remember that we've spent more than 20 years in significant financial resources to eliminate dwelling units in our older, more crowded residential neighborhoods like Nina, Gifford Park, and Swan.

Each dot on this map represents a property where at least one unit was removed.

Such multifamily buildings would be permitted uses.

Elgin could not require any extraordinary zoning reviews, such as by the Planning and Zoning Commission or by City Council as a conditional use or a plan development.

So you can start to see how the support for middle housing here, while a lofty goal could come at the cost of our existing single-family neighborhoods.

The state amendments would override local zoning and eliminate the concept of the traditional single-family neighborhoods in the city.

All this, even though the city has already thought of and planned for locations where different housing types are appropriate by our zoning designations with either the TFR, two-family residence districts, or MFR, multifamily resident district designations.

The city has more than 1,000 acres, which are zoned as such.

Here, for example, is on the west side of Elgin, along South Street between Long Common and Nestler Road, where the Providence, Copper Springs, and Shadow Hills subdivisions all come together.

These well-planned neighborhoods of duplexes and townhouses surrounded by single-family homes and open space.

The orange is two-family zoning and the brown is multifamily zoning.

Here is a bird's eye view of that same image.

Lastly, staff actively encourages various housing types in new and infill developments where potential impacts can be thoughtfully accommodated during the planning stages.

Here is one example that staff prepared for consideration for the owner of Simpson Electric property off of Dundee.

It includes 85 mixed dwelling units, ranging from apartments to townhouses to starter single family homes with accessory dwelling units.

Conversations with that owner even included ways in which the city could consider financial assistance to promote these more traditionally and more affordable housing types.

Here's another example that staff worked with that everyone is more familiar with, the Larkin Center.

This three-time award-winning 48-unit development on three and a half acres is a mix of apartments, duplexes, and four flats within a walkable, mostly single family neighborhood.

The 12 new buildings resemble single family homes that would have been built around the time of the original Larkin Center, but are actually four unit apartments on the left and two unit townhomes on the right.

Next, the state amendments regarding accessory dwelling units or ADUs as they're more commonly referred to, are better described as universally allowing second dwelling units anywhere in the city already allowing single family residential homes.

Again, we're all familiar with a nostalgic concept of an ADU, that second subordinate dwelling unit, most often at the back of a residential property occupied by a relative, so perhaps persons in the main house can keep an eye on an aging parent, or even a caregiver.

ADUs are often thought of as standalone buildings or built above a detached garage.

The state proposal would allow an ADU, either attached or detached, of any size on any single family lot as long as the ADU complied with setback requirements and other sizes considerations.

Any ADU would be subject to the same site designed aesthetics of the single family home.

No additional parking would be required.

In other words, on the right lot, you could have a second dwelling unit in any of the following configurations.

Detached, attached, above the garage, in the basement, in the attic, or after converting the garage.

The state would also not require any familial relationship between the occupants of the single family home and the ADU.

Now it's generally accepted that residential ownership in neighborhoods leads to stronger neighborhoods than ones in which persons predominantly rent.

And there is no requirement for a familiar relationship, and if there's no requirement for a familiar relationship for persons in the principal dwelling, then landlords who are already renting single family homes in Elgin may be some of the first to either construct new or remodel the interior of and create a second dwelling unit as a means to secure additional income from an existing property.

Thanks to research provided by Neighborhood Services Director Jenny Phillips, Elgin has nearly 2,400 single family homes that are rented.

Some considerations for parking should be provided, especially if no familial relationship is required.

Unrelated persons are unlikely to share cars.

And if a person and a family in such an ADU has a need for transportation, wouldn't that be the same as someone living in the main house?

Minimum lot sizes or perhaps keeping detached structures sized similarly to other already allowable accessory structures like a detached garage should also be considered.

Third, the state's amendments waive any parking requirements for a house less than 150 1,500 square feet, sorry, any IDA project, unassisted living establishment, ground-level non-residential spaces and mixed-use buildings, and buildings changing from non-residential to residential.

It also caps the parking requirement for multifamily residential uses at one half space for every dwelling unit.

The concern with these amendments is their universal application.

These types of land uses, except maybe for assisted living units, don't generally generate less parking in and of themselves.

Less parking happens when persons have access to alternative forms of transportation and/or where common parking facilities are currently available.

Persons living in a small house or a large house still generate cars, as do persons that are low and moderate income.

Apartments on Randall Road are going to need more parking than in downtown, where the city already waives its parking requirement.

A somewhat more palatable amendment would be like those within the recently adopted State of Illinois People Over Parking Act.

Effective June 1st, the state already eliminated parking requirements within one half mile of transit stops or within one-eighth of a mile of a transit corridor.

While the frequency of our bus service along Elgin's major routes don't meet the threshold for a transit corridor, at least demonstrates considerations for the availability of alternate forms of transportation as a reason why fewer cars are necessary.

But even those are not neat simple solutions, especially when coupled with some of the amendments that are currently on the table by the state of Illinois.

The orange radius on this map is one half of a mile from the two downtown metro stops.

And with the amendments we're currently discussing, that means anywhere you see an orange circle overlap a land parcel in yellow, which is our residential zoning, could have a multi unit building with no parking.

Here's the big timber metro stop with assumed to be half-mile parking exemption.

Everything on this picture would be exempt from parking, which is fine for the underly utilized industrial property immediately to the east of the metro station, but there's no way to cross the tracks.

Potential developments that will soon have will soon have to no longer provide off-street parking include the Valley Creek Townhouse development, which is we've had several people coming and trying to propose different configurations for that land.

An apartment complex on the Knowles property at the southeast corner of Big Timber and Randall, and it would have exempted Gifford Crofting, Gifford Crossing.

Sorry.

Fortunately, most lending institutions will require some amount of off-street parking lest they feel their investment may be at risk where tenants don't come simply because there's no place to park.

Elgin already waives parking requirements in our downtown, has reduced parking requirements for certain types of land uses, including assisted living facilities and efficiency dwelling units, and commonly supports departures to parking requirements where documentation is provided to substantiate the true parking demand and or the availability of alternate forms of transportation or common off-street parking facilities.

Next, the amendments no longer allow local governments to determine what are appropriate development impact fees.

Instead, the city would be required to use a model formula created by the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity to produce its impact fee schedules.

Certain adjustment factors or variations would be available to account for higher land and construction cost, among other things.

It's impossible to determine the financial impact to Elgin because the model formulas have not been prepared.

About 200 dwelling units paid various impact fees in 2025.

The city received about 280,000 for parts, 300,000 for public safety, 575,000 for water and sewer, and 270,000 for roadways.

The city received and remitted to area school districts U 46, 301, and 303 just under 1.2 million dollars.

And we did the same about to the tune of about $30,000 to the Gale Board and Library District.

Interestingly, the state amendments do not appear to authorize future impact fees for library districts.

But not all houses pay all fees.

The city works with developers to balance the impact of development against the resulting cost to the housing.

For example, of the 200 homes that we that uh paid impact fees in 2025, only 11 paid park uh paid parkland impact fees, and only 30 paid park capital fees.

That's because most developers choose to provide some form of park land or open space in their developments and make their own parks improvements.

Those are things that the city works through with developers on a case-by-case basis.

These amendments appear, however, to exempt existing developments that the city has already approved.

It's also unclear whether the city would have been able to increase its water system capital connection fee as it did in 2024 to help offset the documented attributable cost to the larger water system.

DECEO would have 18 months to develop the program, and then municipalities would have 12 months thereafter to adopt the local ordinance mirroring the state.

Until that time, we would collect impact fees as we do today.

Fourth, the state wants to allow developers, builders, contractors, and even homeowners the ability to seek third-party plan reviews and inspections if the city does not conduct their initial plan review for a single family home or duplex in 15 days.

In 30 days for multifamily mixed use or commercial, or in 10 days for the re-review of any plans.

Inspection results must be on or within two business days after the receipt of a request.

Now, the community development department, I will say, typically falls under these time frames.

But the amendment offers no grace period to account for staffing issues such as illnesses, vacations, vacancies, or even a peak demand period.

The amendment also does not consider that the state of Illinois only allows plumbing inspectors, plumbing inspections to be conducted by certified licensed plumbing inspectors, even if a building inspector has expertise with plumbing.

We often contract with our own third-party companies to help with inspections during such times.

And perhaps the amendments should allow local governments to establish the pool of third-party plan reviewers and building inspectors.

Otherwise, the amendments may result in the need to hire additional technical staff to ensure that either time frames are met without fail or to verify that builders submitted third-party plan reviews and inspections demonstrate compliance with city building and life safety codes.

The amendments do spell out what it means to be for a third party to be qualified, but I can tell you that plans submitted to our plans examiners often misapply building and life safety codes.

And those persons submitting those now are the same ones that would be qualified under these definitions.

The amendment does give the city the right to ensure that the review demonstrates compliance with applicable building codes, same for inspection results.

I'm afraid that the resulting approach to staffing would be like the big box retailers' approach to parking when they build enough parking to accommodate the peak holiday rush, and then otherwise it goes largely underutilized.

Finally, the state amendments would relax model building and life safety code requirements by only requiring one exit stairwell for multifamily buildings with less than six stories and with no more than four units per floor.

Current building and life safety codes, illustrated on the left, require two exit stairs.

Staff has been reviewing such considerations from other cities and states and believes the amendment may help, but only if the entire building is sprinklered.

Current model building and life safety codes require full fire sprinklers in these types of buildings, and the amendments appear to suggest that only the stairwell need to be sprinkled.

I've had extensive conversations with Chief Sagana to ask him if he could come up and explain why this technical element is important.

Good evening, everyone.

So I appreciate the opportunity to talk on this a little bit because to me this is a significant issue.

So the idea of the sprinkler systems only in the stairwells does not make any real sense.

So one thing I think the general public doesn't understand about sprinkler systems, because it's always depicted poorly in movies and on TV, is that when one sprinkler head goes off, that's the only one that goes off.

So you'll see in movies where one sprinkler head will go off and then they all open up, that's not what happens in real life.

So the scenario that I want to present, and the picture that Mark just had up on the on the screen, does not necessarily mean that the stairwell, the single stairwell would be in the middle.

We don't know where they're going to require the stairwell to be, or if there's if if there's going to be a requirement, just going to say there's one.

But the concern is we don't get that many fires.

As a national fire service, we don't get that many fires starting in a stairwell.

Stairwalls are typically a low fire load environment because the code also requires you to keep essential equipment out of there, debris, you you you have to maintain your stairwells.

The challenge is that if you have even just four units in one on one floor, imagine yourself in an apartment building, you're on the third floor, fourth floor, and there is a fire in your neighbor's unit.

What happens in that environment, whether the door is open or closed, can have an impact, but you're still going to create high smoke conditions, high heat conditions, and toxic environment conditions in that hallway.

So you the fire alarm goes off, assuming that we have fully alarmed building here, fire alarm goes off, the tenant leaves, potentially leaves the door open, maybe they don't have an automat closure on the door, and now you start to get smoke, hot gases into the into the common space, the hallway.

You come out of your unit.

I can't explain to you standing here today the impact that you would have when you open that door to your apartment and you're faced with high smoke, I mean heavy smoke, high heat, and these toxic gases.

Now, what this is saying is it's okay for you to get into that environment and make your way, try to make your way to the stairwell.

People die in fires, not typically because of the flames.

They die because of the smoke conditions, the high carbon monoxide conditions, and the toxic gases.

So when we find people, typically when we have have people caught in involved in fire events, we normally find them remote from the actual fire room.

They're trying to escape and they're overcome by the smoke.

What we're looking at, what Mark and I have talked extensively about is the need.

I I have other concerns about aspects of this, but and I had this conversation with the city manager the other day.

If we can get these buildings with single stairwells fully sprinklered, where when that fire alarm goes off, or that sprinkler head goes off in the apartment building, though it may not put the fire out, it buys time for us to get there, keeps the fire in check.

We can put out the fire the rest of the fire, but it allows all the occupants to get out safely.

Imagine while opening your door and having all this smoke and gases in the hallway, and you're seeing a stairwell right down there that has water flowing, and that's your safe haven, but you have to get to that.

That's where the challenge comes in from a fire safety and a life safety standpoint.

So the need is absolutely there to have I I think it's an easy thing for the general public to say, my steer wall sprinkler, this is a great thing.

That that's enough.

And I'm I'm here to express my concern that it absolutely is not enough.

These buildings to do what they want to do with a single exit way to have a fully a fully a full sprinkler system throughout the building, and hopefully, in addition, in addition to that, fully be fully alarmed.

So those are the six items.

The city's approached housing affordability and availability by balancing our local considerations against broader, albeit discouraging trends.

Those we've talked about high housing costs, we've talked about labor costs, uh, we've talked about interest rates.

But the city has taken significant steps to do what it can at the local level.

As mentioned earlier, the city regularly encourages developers to consider smaller single family lots and various building types that produce a higher density, like the accessory dwelling units, duplexes and quads, townhouses and multifamilies.

But that promotion doesn't come with a negative impact on the to the expense of others.

The city allocates significant resources of its Federal CDBG and home funds to building new affordable housing of various types and to maintain existing homes of low and moderate income persons.

The city works cooperatively with developers that bring low-income housing tax credits to the city, often suggesting various properties for them to even consider.

The city regularly reviews its impact fee schedule to balance the costs added to housing against the need to fairly cover unique and attributable cost of development.

For example, the water system capital connection fees that we were just talking about were increased in 2024 to help fund necessary cost to the larger system.

But then City Council also waived impact fees in 2025 for single-family homeowners and any affordable housing developer wanting to add bedrooms to an existing single-family home.

The city also waives impact fees for any development in a TIFF district.

And the city periodically evaluates the land cost to ensure that fees paid in lieu of school and park land donations are at or below market rate.

The city approved amendments to its parking requirements just in 2023 that allows administrative approvals of parking reductions for EV charging stations, accessible parking spaces, and where necessary for new tenants and existing shopping centers.

Staff commonly encourages developers that must already go through the development review process.

Remember that's anything that goes to planning and zoning commission and ultimately comes to you to request a reduction to the required parking if the city's generally applicable parking requirements are simply too great and unnecessary.

We actively encourage creating land banks for unnecessary parking.

And since development review processes are often required for our larger developments, granting these parking reductions in this manner doesn't add any time to the process.

A non-exempt community had to develop its own affordable housing plan to either get 15 percent of all new development or redevelopment as affordable or the 3 percent increase in total number of all affordable units.

The plan had to identify land in the community suitable for affordable housing and list incentives for affordable housing that the community community could provide.

In 2018, Illinois had 50 communities that were below 10 percent in terms of affordable housing.

And in 2023, that list list was reduced to 48.

Uh this is a map that shows Elgin at 62 percent affordable compared to our neighbors.

The percent uh in uh parentheses below the percent indicates the change from uh 2023 to from to 2018 to 2023.

So you can see in Elgin we increased our affordability by 4 percent.

We were at 58 percent in uh in 2018, the 2018 report.

I will give a shout out to the village of Gilberts.

They increased their affordability by 32 percent from 2018 to 2023.

Good job, neighbor.

So it would be uh possibly something to consider then that instead of perhaps imposing on our ability to make our local decision, perhaps directing state resources and or directives to those communities where the state has already determined that more affordable housing is needed would be a better incremental step.

Finally, at the federal level, uh last week the National League of Cities uh reported on progress on a substantial federal housing initiative.

The U.S.

Senate combined their Road to Housing Act with the U.S.

House's housing for the 21st century into one big bill, the 21st century Road to Housing Act, and it was unanimously approved by the Senate Banking Committee.

I'm not going to give you as deep a dive into this, but simply to say that according to the National League of Cities, the bill has support in both chambers and from both parties.

It aims to boost housing through improving existing programs, reducing federal regulatory barriers, and unlocking private capital.

Importantly, it does not preempt local land use or zoning authority, and as such has the support of the NLC and the U.S.

Conference of Mayors.

It reauthorizes the home program, which is the primary federal federal source of funding for affordable housing, and it expands the use of the CDBG program to cover new housing construction for low and moderate income persons.

This is going to be this would be a huge change for Elgin.

Authorizes a series of new grants and programs, streamlines federal requirements, such as exempting certain environmental reviews, provides several incentives aimed at private capital, like increasing uh the Federal Housing Authority multifamily loan limits, and it limits uh includes limits on build two rent developers.

I think it would be difficult to find someone who says we don't need additional and more affordable housing, but the causes for our current circumstances are complex.

We just want to make sure that when we reach for solutions, however good intention those may be, and that helping housing availability and affordability, housing availability and affordability to the end.

Let's drive it home here.

And that helping housing availability and affordability isn't at the cost of something else equally important.

Happy to answer any questions you might have.

At this point, there's no need for a motion at this point.

We're not uh sending anything to the state, but we have had a request from uh Metro West, and I talked to uh Leslie uh Melendi this afternoon, and they are consolidated, they are looking at uh gathering information from the 31 members.

And uh uh the state has asked for that from the Council of Governments to provide them with feedback from uh the communities, and that's what our job here tonight can be.

So I would recommend that uh uh we propose to staff that they they consolidate our comments and Mr.

Malot's comments and present those back to uh Metro West Council of Government uh for their uh use and for their uh distribution back to the state of Illinois.

So they'll represent us as part of the uh uh entire community.

And so at this point, Mr.

Millot uh questions for him and uh for uh Chief Saga.

Mr.

Ortiz Uh Mr.

Malat, I appreciate the uh the contrasts of what the bill is saying, what we already do and how the bill can maybe possibly help us in some things.

And also great tie how it's time.

Uh I got a bunch of notes here, so I might be going out of order from your slides.

Okay.

So going to uh the money we've been given for years for the deconversions and like our older neighborhoods like Swanina and whatnot.

How much money over the going off of 20 years have we given in grant money or non-interest money?

I don't know how we give it out to the homeowners to deconvert those units.

Yeah, those are their grants.

Okay.

Uh so we did our best to go back uh to the to 1995 when the program started and and count how many units were eliminated and what was the ultimate cost of that.

Some records were a little fuzzy, but I can I can safely say that we paid for the elimination of more than 300 units at a cost of at least 6.1 million dollars.

For like the whole project?

Okay.

And this new or filed bill that's been has it been filed already, or has it just been proposed?

Do you know?

I believe it's been filed.

Okay.

That would allow the current owner to reconvert them after us spending to deconvert them.

I would have to go back and look at the specificity of the grant agreement, whether there was any termination clauses or any sort of contractual obligation for them to maintain it.

But absent that, you know, it their neighbor could.

If their neighbor had a single family home and was on a uh uh a normal lot, could have put a a unit a unit or two in the basement, a unit or two in the attic.

Um, you know, our size requirements for for rooms going with a dwelling unit are are de minimis.

It's it's 70 square feet for one person in a bedroom.

If you have more than one, it's 50 square feet.

So a 10 by 10 will get you two persons in a bedroom, throw in a dining room, and you can have a couple hundred square feet constitute a dwelling unit.

Yeah.

And the half car parking requirement.

Like I know my neighborhood would go in an uproar if that happens.

And my mom used to live back here behind the police department.

I don't know if that's Gifford Park or a different neighborhood, but they have huge parking problems.

That's a lot of the deconversions were in her neighborhood.

And if they go as a half car parking per household or however you described it, like I think their streets are gonna be flooded with cars, and then we're gonna have public works, not be able to plow streets and pick up trash.

Well, and and equally important that they would have to try and make those accommodations on the lot itself.

So whereas you might have had at least an enjoyable backyard, they're going to be looking to pave that area to provide the required parking.

Yeah.

I do think believe, I don't know if I may have misheard you or it's probably misrepresented what you said, but we talk about infill.

I think infilling and putting like multi-unit homes with like a new construction would be better because then you can actually plan the building to have multi-unit instead of trying to convert old school houses that we already have into multi-unit houses.

And that's when you want info and doing stuff like this for like an infill project.

Right a thousand percent.

That's why we take great care when we when we work with uh the owner of Simpson Electric to try and lay out something that would create a uh a transition going from Dundee to the east and blend in with the neighborhoods, but still provide a lot of opportunity for a lot of different people to have housing.

And my other one's for uh Chief Sagan?

Sir.

When you when you mentioned like full sprinkler systems, and then you gave the like the vivid, I wanted to clap after your speech.

I felt like I was you're giving like an award-winning.

I appreciate that.

Thank you.

So it was really good.

Because I was picturing it while you were saying it.

The when you say like a full sprinkler system, and then I'm assuming the stairway would already be running once the unit went on, and then we said you open your doors.

I'm assuming you want them in the hallways also, so they have their escape route, kind of like lights saying go this way.

Well, ideally they'd be throughout the entire building, the hallways and the units themselves.

Because if the unit has a fire in it and that sprinkler head goes off, theoretically, it's designed to help control that fire.

Maybe not extinguish it.

That's what we end up coming in.

But if it does that, no other sprinkler heads may go off in the whole system.

As long as it causes it will contain that fire, it'll reduce the amount of heat, taxic gases, all of that to that unit, you're gonna walk out of your unit and you're gonna have, I won't say a clear hallway necessarily, but it'll be far more inhabitable for you to make access to that stairwell.

So if we have a fully sprinklered building, perhaps only one sprinkler head in the affected apartment will actually be going off.

Okay, but the ones in the hallway and the stairway might not be going off.

Correct.

Okay, I thought you thought the way you said it, that if the apartment goes off, then like the exit route would also go off.

No, not at all.

I misunderstood.

Every sprinkler head in this in in a building that like these types of buildings and a residential building, every sprinkler head operates independently.

Okay.

All right.

And uh that's what the code says today.

It's just a it's just the language in the in the proposed sta uh uh amendment gives the impression that they're only requiring sprinklers in the stairwell.

We just want to make sure that that's the same.

Oh, so you've got the entire entire building.

Okay, I got you now.

Thank you.

And then the 1530 and 10-day like windows that they're giving your staff, you say you mostly meet those?

Um do you know like the people that we may contract out?

You say we can we contract out some stuff sometimes in high value?

Like we do that for building inspections.

Okay, only inspections.

Just inspections.

Do you know?

We've not had we've not had to do it for uh for plan review.

Uh city council was gracious enough to give community development a second plans examiner about two or three years ago, so that has significantly helped the volume.

So we normally get out our our plan our initial plan reviews within within 10 to 15 business days on on that first go anyway, regardless of the project.

Okay.

Yeah, because I was gonna ask if you know any companies in the area that do stuff like that, if they're even credible, but we don't do that, so that's a good question.

And and there are, there are, but you know, the thing about model codes is then each municipality can go in and make their own amendments.

And so to have someone who's simply a licensed uh architect or other design professional and has other qualifications, doesn't unilaterally mean they're going to know our codes.

We have architects that work with us all the time, and they come back to us because they get familiar with our codes and they can get through our process at that faster.

But when we have new folks coming in, you know, we'll have we've had people come in and and want to propose uh stormwater uh regulate stormwater requirements in uh with uh in accordance with Cook County when we're completely required with Kane County.

You've got to know the municipality.

So I'm not gonna talk about the fees, but uh it might be a lot of impact fees that we could lose.

But there's a uh since it's kind of like a legislative review.

Uh city manager with since we could possibly lose fees with this one.

The governor also said that he wants to lower the LGDF funds for the city, I think like a quarter of a percentage.

With that proposal, when you s when you spoke about this one, how much money if you know can the city lose if you lose if he lowers that tax or that revenue stream?

So I don't know, but Deb Naraki, the chief financial officer knows, and based on her calculations, based on the 25 revenues, we expect that that would be in the range of about $600,000.

All right.

So if he so if the governor gets that, and then this passes, we lose impact fees in here, we lose.

Well, to be fair, we don't know if we're gonna lose them.

We just don't know what they're gonna be.

Yeah, I'm saying that if it goes through and they get what they want.

And then it comes back to the council, and then we have to try to find a way to supplement the money that we could possibly use.

It could come back substantially lower, and then all of a sudden we're left with holding the bag, yeah.

Oh in the bag, like like a grocery tax.

That's it.

Thank you.

Okay, any other questions?

Mr.

Millot.

Okay.

Mr.

Steph.

Well, I don't know if it's a question.

Mark, thank you.

Um I guess I'll start off with a with a comment and a story.

Um before this proposal by the governor kind of forced the issue and made you put this all together and make this presentation to us.

You and I have had this conversation specific specifically about how you and previous planning departments have always made an effort to have a variety of housing proposed in any development.

I lived here my entire life.

I my parents for South South Seagal Heights, which has that range, department buildings, duplexes, single-family homes, country knolls, Valley Creek.

I can think of numerous developments where we have done that.

And I think it reflects in the numbers you put up regarding the 2003 act about affordable housing, where we are leaps and bounds above everybody else around us, all the other communities.

So to the mayor's, I think question and prompt is how how do we what what how do we want to respond to this proposal?

Uh specifically back to the council of government so that they can put something together and respond as a group.

My thought uh in in hearing your presentation looking at this is ask them to exempt people above a certain threshold.

I'd say 50 percent, they would clear us completely out of any of this.

And below 50 percent have the the effects phase in as you are worse with your affordable housing.

Um you know uh uh to me that sounds like a reasonable response to have this affect those communities that need the effect.

And we don't need this effect.

So that's my thought.

Um I'm kind of answering the prompt that uh the mayor gave us.

Yeah, and I think that uh uh uh my understanding is that when they get the all the information gathered that we'll get a report back from them before they send it to the uh to the governor's office.

Uh I have two questions.

Uh one is a comment.

Uh I read the documents, very interesting, by the way.

Um they they seem to uh um have uh intertwined uh municipality and home rule municipalities, and I think that's something that's uh important as well.

Uh I assume that this would uh mean this ordinance would be in effect for everybody, no matter what size of community, so that needs to be home rules are over 25,000 people uh uh size-wise, so that needs to be clarified.

And I'm gonna ask you this question.

You've read it, I've read it.

Uh uh Dave and Sandy Captain live in a house uh that's in a uh development that was uh our house was built in 1962, and uh we have a lot we have a lot that's uh a larger than a half acre.

What would prevent me as a homeowner from demolishing my house and building an eight-unit apartment building on that lot in this ordinance?

Nothing, absolutely nothing.

So that's a concern for me.

And that's uh we talked about mansioning and uh things like that in communities where uh we have ordinances that we want to have homes that look similar to the homes that are there.

This really flies into the face of that, and I agree that the uh discussions that uh as we build these out, we try to make sure that we have these types of things, but to go back in and uh try to fix the problem that way uh creates other problems.

Yes, sir.

And I think that would uh um I would see that as a as a as a huge as a as a big issue.

Um the fire issue, of course, are very concerned about that, and the number one job here is safety uh for people, and we've had people lost while we have a uh changed our ordinance a few years ago and looked at basement apartments that had only one exit and people couldn't get out, even uh the windows didn't allow it, and we had to change ordinances around uh the whole city for that.

So uh staff has a direction and we'll consolidate those things and try to do the best they can do to uh bring it forward.

Mr.

Dixon, you have a comment?

Yeah, uh when by when do we need to provide feedback to National League of Cities or whoever else?

They requested it last week.

The governor has reached out and asked his and again didn't want to be presumptuous and speak on behalf of the entire council.

So they asked for the governor requested solicitation last week.

We're a little bit behind, but they want it sooner rather than later.

Okay.

So we we have not provided any feedback as of yet, right?

No, that that's the purpose of this evening with the preliminary work that Mr.

Millot and Chief Sagan have provided and then presenting the information to the City Council.

And again, with the recognition this is the beginning of a process.

This doesn't mean that we can't add later on, but it's to get something to Metro West sooner rather than later.

Okay, all right.

That's that's fine.

Um I would I would like to to hear what um some of the neighborhoods maybe they can um chime in on this.

Um you know we can send in recommendations, but I I think this would change you know significantly um how we operate.

So maybe neighborhoods can weigh in um you know around the transportation hubs, uh businesses or uh residential areas can just weigh in in general.

That would be my only add on.

I don't think you know what your recommendations there's anything crazy there.

Um it makes sense.

Um so I'm on board with all of that.

But if we so this is going to be a long process, nothing happens in Springfield overnight.

Um we can figure out a way to to allow others to weigh in as well.

Okay, anything else?

All right, okay, thank you, Mark.

My pleasure, Mayor Good luck.

All right, consent agenda.

Move for approval.

Second.

Moved and seconded for approval.

Any discussion?

Hearing none, clerk please call the roll.

Councilmember Zalfaro?

Yes, Dixon?

Yes.

Good.

Yes.

Martinez?

Yes.

Ortiz?

Yes.

Stefan?

Yes.

Thorne?

Yes.

Mayor Captain.

Yes, the motion is approved eight zero.

Miscellaneous business.

Move for approval.

Second.

Moved and seconded for approval.

Any discussion?

Hearing none, clerk please call the roll.

Councilmember Zalfaro?

Yes.

Dixon?

Yes.

Good.

Yes.

Martinez?

Yes.

Ortiz?

Yes.

Stefan?

Yes.

Thorne?

Yes.

Mayor Captain?

Yes, motion is approved 8-0.

Uh the announcements, the next committee of the whole meeting will be Wednesday, March 25th, 2026 at 6 p.m.

in the city council chambers.

The next regular meeting of the Elgin City Council will be March 25th, 2026 at 7 p.m.

in the City Council Chambers.

I'd entertain a motion to adjourn back to the committee of the whole.

So moved.

Second.

Move and seconded.

Clerk please call the roll.

Council members Alfaro.

Yes.

Dixon?

Yes.

Good.

Yes.

Martinez?

Yes.

Ortiz?

Yes.

Stefan?

Yes.

Thorne?

Yes.

Mayor Captain.

Yes, we are adjourned.

I entertain a motion to reconvene.

So move.

So second.

Move and seconded.

Clerk, please call a rule.

Councilmember Zalfaro?

Yes.

Dixon?

Yes.

Good.

Yes.

Martinez?

Yes.

Ortiz?

Yes.

Stefan?

Yes.

Thorne?

Yes.

Mayor Captain.

Yes.

We are back.

Mr.

Manager, I believe we're on item C.

Yes.

This is an intergovernmental agreement between the city and the village of Pingree Grove.

Pingree Grove is reconstructing its substandard roundabout at Rhinking and Damis Roads.

Damis Road, northeast of the roundabout is actually under the jurisdiction of the City of Elgin and hence requiring this intergovernmental agreement so that the village can perform reconstruction and related improvements that will be partially conducted in Elgin right of way.

Elgin is the council knows is scheduled to start construction on its roundabout at US 20 this spring.

That roundabout is about a thousand feet southeast of this Rhine King and Damis Road roundabout.

The US 20 roundabout should be largely completed before Pingree Grove starts its work in 2027.

The Rhine King and Damish Roundabout is estimated to cost that village about 3.8 million dollars and will take about a half year to complete second move and second for approval.

Any discussion?

Hearing none, Clerk, please call the roll.

Council members Alfaro.

Yes.

Dixon?

Yes.

Good.

Martinez?

Yes.

Ortiz?

Yes.

Stefan?

Yes.

Thorne?

Yes.

Mayor Captain.

Yes, the motion's approved 70.

Item D is the adoption of the official zoning map for 2026.

Illinois law requires municipalities every year before March 31st to publish their official zoning map.

The city every time that there's a zoning change updates electronic map.

Adopting this resolution formally comports with the outdated statute.

Move approval.

Or for municipalities that don't make the electronic change the way that the city does.

That's a better answer.

Second.

Then move to second for approval.

Any discussion.

Clerk, please call the roll.

Council members alfaro?

Yes.

Dixon?

Yes.

Martinez?

Yes.

Ortiz?

Yes.

Stefan?

Yes.

Thorne?

Yes.

Mayor Captain.

Yes.

Motion's approved seven zero.

Okay.

The next two initiatives, items E and F are coming from the Department of Cultural Arts and Special Events.

The first item, item E is a routine approval that the City Council sees every year with the Cultural Arts Commission, providing its 2026 grant award recommendations.

So unless well, so we know that this year the recommended awards total about $62,000 and are going to be distributed through uh among 10 area not-for-profit organizations for projects including visual art, live entertainment shows, and children's theater performances.

On the next initiative, we're going to hear a little bit more from the Department of Cultural Arts and Special Events.

Move for approval.

Second.

Move the second for approval.

Any discussion.

Hearing none.

Council members Alfaro.

Yes.

Dixon?

Yes.

Good?

Yes.

Martinez?

Yes.

Ortiz?

Yes.

Stefan?

Yes.

Thorne?

Yes.

Mayor Captain.

Yes.

Motions approved 8-0.

Okay.

Item F is a bit of a blended initiative.

It's entitled The Approval of the Encore Awards for 2026.

This is the Department of Cultural Arts and Special Events Outdoor Event Incentive Program.

So the technical component is there are three items that exceed the procurement threshold approval for the city manager.

Those three items total $84,000.

So that's technically what the city council will be voting on.

But Amanda Harris, Cultural Arts and Special Events Director, Selena Tapia, the special events manager, and Chris Holling, our community event coordinator, will be providing information this evening on the incentive program that's being initiated this year.

Also provide information on this 2026 special events lineup.

And before they go into all that, I think you're going to do a recap on all the good stuff you did last year, correct?

Correct.

There's Amanda Harris.

Thank you for waiting so long.

I appreciate it.

It was so terrible.

Special events again this evening.

Yeah.

Yes, so it has been a long evening, so we will try to keep it uh quick.

Um right, so tonight we will talk a little bit about 2025 and what the Department of Culture Arts and Special Events did.

We'll look into 2026 and we'll hit the few things that you see there.

Uh notably the Hemans Cultural Center, movies and concerts in the park, the outdoor event incentive program, which is the item in front of you, the large events, and then we'll we will be providing an update on the Dowdle project.

So talking about 2025, a few things that were most notable.

Obviously, we we uh had our ribbon cutting for the Hemans Cultural Center.

That was wonderful.

Um that was in May.

Uh we invited local arts organizations to come.

We had several hundred people.

Um NBC picked it up, and that was wonderful marketing.

Um started the return of the Hemans presenting season.

So that it was kind of a half season in 25 and 24 into 25.

Um, so moving into our full season was 2025 and 2026.

Um that has included nine shows that has dance, live music, comedy, and more.

There are four shows left in the season.

Uh so that is Step Africa, which is coming up next in March.

Style Thief, The Greatest Piano Men, and Mariachi Divas.

All of these shows are coming up to kind of round out the season, so that will come up next.

Um, another thing that uh we grew and changed in in 2025 was uh sponsorship and partnership outreach.

Um we did a ton of that.

We have Peter Temachko as well as really the entire DK staff to thank for that.

Uh the most notable partnership that we secured last year was uh Paramount Pictures, their division Paramount Scares for Nightmare on Chicago Street.

Um movies and concerts in the park grew significantly last year.

Overall attendance was was up.

Uh some of these events had several hundred people, four, five, six hundred depending on the event.

Um people continue to love them.

Uh I often joke a few years ago this was one of the things we thought, oh, everybody does these, why should we keep doing them?

Um and we heard from the community that this was one of their most beloved things, and I'm glad we kept it because they really really love it.

So let's talk about what that impact was.

Um in 2025 there were 42 D case events.

Now that really is only taking into account the outdoor things that doesn't really include anything that takes place at the Hemmings.

Um we permitted 120 events, that is everything from block parties to 5Ks to the giant events like Meachulada Fest.

There were 10 co-sponsorship events.

Um overall attendance to all DK specific events was about 65,000.

That is slightly down from last year.

Uh last year we entered we approximated the attendance overall to be about 70,000.

We attribute that to both uh some weather issues and then uh some fear of the increased ice activity at some of the events.

Um, and then the economic impact.

I'll just uh quickly note that again in 2022 from 22 to 23, the city participated in the arts and economic prosperity six study, um, and that showed that just for the nonprofit sector alone in the area uh for the arts and culture sector, drove 8.5 million dollars in economic activity.

The other thing that's important here is we have seen and I have seen working with the arts organizations.

Those that are visiting the website are utilizing this economic impact calculator, and it is returning to them more funding, which is pretty great because it's a direct data point of what their economic impact for their events and organizations is.

Okay, so moving into 2026, the first thing I want to introduce you to is our DKES mascot.

We're still fighting about the name, so if you have recommendations, you can certainly email that to us.

Um, but some of you may know that every year we have a different theme.

Uh this year we came up with the theme of the summer of imagination, um, and it spiraled out of amok as we often do.

Those of you who know me and these folks know that we do that.

Um, and our new marketing specialist drew this goofy little duck, and we fell in love with him.

Um, and instead of coming up with a new character every year, we've decided this is gonna be our our DK's mascot, and every year he'll have a new costume that represents what our summer theme is going to be.

Um so this uh this is him.

We're really excited about him.

So big picture moving into 2026.

The focus points are formalizing partnerships and residencies.

Um that comes in the form of continuing to work with those organizations that we're already working with and making sure that we are meeting their needs, but they're also meeting ours.

Uh we will continue to increase those sponsorship efforts and outreach.

Staff has already had many meetings with folks.

Um, nothing is is penned yet, so I can't announce anything yet, but we have wonderful new marketing uh materials for sponsorship that are both online and we have print copies.

I handed some of those out.

Um they are they're working, uh, and I'll tell you a little bit more about that later.

Uh, marketing efforts are continuing to grow too.

For the last few years, we've done a citywide mailer, and people look forward to this every year.

Actually, just today I got an email from somebody in Geneva to ask if we had our comprehensive document ready for the year yet.

Um, so we know that those things are working.

Um we have uh new things coming in with our marketing though.

We have uh planned new avenues such as WBEZ uh spots, radio spots, um, and some additional uh signage that you'll see.

So one thing that we heard from the neighborhoods and the community was it would be great if you could put a sign up a couple weeks in advance so we can plan.

We thought that's a great idea.

So that's what we're gonna do.

Um, and we'll see how that works.

Um, and bettering communication with businesses and residents.

Um, this is something that we always strive to do.

Uh, but last year, what we noticed and continue to notice, I say we added to it, these two wonderful people did most of it.

Uh, we send a letter for every single time that a special event, whether it is sponsored by the city or otherwise, right?

If it's a co-sponsored event, um, closes a street for an event.

If there's an impact to that area, a letter goes out.

We send thousands and thousands of letters, and at some point, right, it becomes you get blind to it.

It's like the traffic signal boxes.

Um, so we're working with the commute uh communications team in the city manager's office to find another avenue to communicate with people.

So, in the letters that folks will be getting this year, we're trying to slim those down.

But also, we've created a QR code so that we'll let people know hey, sign up here, and we'll start sending this to you in email instead.

You know, so it's another another way to keep doing that.

And we also do a lot of uh beating the pavement.

Uh, we call it door knocking, uh, especially uh Peter, Chris, Selena, we all know the downtown and many of the neighborhoods very, very well.

You can't go grocery shopping here.

Um, and then one more thing just to provide some scope.

Um Chris was just saying we have our next community engagement committee meeting this week, um, and that agenda is already three pages long.

So it's not just us that are continuing to produce events, it's the community.

Um, for example, from the beginning of May to the end of September, there are three weekends that do not have some kind of programming taking place, whether that is city-produced or a part of the outdoor incentive program.

Three weekends.

It's a lot.

Moving on to the Hemans Cultural Center for 2026.

Uh, we are really leaning into those new spaces.

People, the renters and people coming into the space are really loving that flex space, um, and they're using it different ways.

We're still learning how to use it and figuring out the best ways to get people into the building because the important thing is right, the Hemans is a community building, and so we want to make sure that the community feels safe there in every app in every way possible, right?

And sometimes that just means opening the door.

So, in addition to using the flex space, we're also using going to be using the box office in a more consistent manner, I will say, uh, and that comes in the form of bringing ticketing in-house, um, and so you'll hear more about that later in the year.

Um, and we're also doing more small space programming.

That comes in the form of uh the green room improv downstairs, the Darrell Nitz program downstairs, and we're utilizing those kinds of spaces.

So, not everything is taking place on the main stage, but rather thinking about the building as a whole space.

Um, the 26-27 season is currently being planned, and I can't tell you too much about it yet because contracts are still being negotiated.

But right now we have 11 shows planned.

Um, the two that I can tell you about uh is um Hollywood Revisited, which is currently slated for September 25th.

Um, it has performers coming in and reenacting songs and dances from favorite movies, and this is a program that is put on in partnership with the Gill Board Library that are that is doing a uh costume display, which they did once before, and it was really popular, and so that was a great collaborative opportunity for us.

The other one I can tell you about is October 30th.

Uh, we'll be showing Rocky Horror Picture Show with some live components.

That's as much as I can say about that one right now.

Um, yeah.

So uh formalizing partnerships again, it really is expanding how we're using the whole building.

So we're looking at things like additional open mic nights and that kind of thing.

Um, and then the two other pieces are the operations manager and the front of house supervisor, operations manager is uh was approved by city council in the budget.

This is an effort to continue our succession planning as long time Hemans Director Butch Will Hummy seems to think he gets to retire this year.

Um, and our front of house uh supervisor, which uh we actually just hired and we'll be starting very soon, and we're really excited about that too.

All right, now we're gonna talk a little bit more about the special events portion.

Um with the removal of the end of summer bash movies and concerts in the park, they're not really we're not adding more, instead, what we're doing is really deepening the intentions of those.

Um that is a direct response to the community.

So to talk about that, I'm gonna invite up community events coordinator Chris Holling, who is just the best.

I'm really tall, so I'm gonna have to um duck down a bit.

Thank you so much, Amanda.

I really appreciate it.

Um you can send the invoice to me later for all those wonderful comments you made about me.

I'll make sure to pay it.

Um good evening, everyone.

It truly is an honor and a privilege to stand before you.

Um I'm very excited to talk about um two um event series that um are I'm a little bit biased but are my favorites that I am very fortunate to stand at the helm at um with uh with my team as well.

So um starting with movies in the park.

Um, so we are we have been very intentional with curating very um community centered experiences when it comes to movies in the park and concerts in the park as well.

Um we are truly driving the neighborhood access and community reach.

Um we have uh 10 movies uh planned for this season, um more than in prior years, um, and then we will be going into eight different parks, um, focusing on the community increasing accessibility and neighborhood engagement for families.

Um, also with this series comes expanded programming beyond the film.

Um so we create a very well-rounded theatrical experience.

Um, but with that, um, and the theatrical experiences due in part um to the generosity of council um approving the projector a couple years ago.

Um, that truly has enhanced um the movie experience and has allowed us to be able to, excuse me, uh allowed me to be able to show movies earlier in the day.

Um, but with that, what kind of sets us apart is that we are able to offer these pre-movie enrichment programming, which um is a variety of different things that can include performers, props, visual arts, and different leisure activities that really um drives forward um the family experience.

Um we also have responded to the community demand, so we truly elevate a lot of the feedback that we receive from the community and make sure that we incorporate that into our planning process for a lot of these experiences.

We can't do anything without the community.

Um, they truly are the backbone for a lot of our experience.

So we definitely bring a lot of what they want to see at our different events to the forefront.

Um, attendance has steadily grown amongst these events.

Um the program expansion is in direct response to that.

Um, as Amanda mentioned with the removal of End of Summerbash, that allowed for resources from that event to be reallocated to these different um movie experiences to really strengthen that uh pre-enrichment programming initiative.

Um we also bring on community partners, these are non-for-profit entities that drive um concession sales.

Um, so very fortunate to partner with a lot of different groups that are able to elevate and expand their fundraising initiatives and efforts partnering with us.

Um speaking to concerts in the park next, uh, concerts in the park truly uh uh unites the community through music.

Um we bring in a lot of different variety of different entertainment acts.

Uh we have uh 10 uh concerts in our series for this year, um split between the Wing Park Band Shell and the Pavilion at Lord's Park.

Um we've been partnering with uh Parks and Recreation to ensure the usability of these different facilities, and they truly serve as a beautiful backdrop to these special events, um, which we're very excited about.

Um the conference concerts in uh in the park series emphasizes diverse entertainment acts.

Um, like I mentioned, um, this truly drives a stronger event atmosphere while supporting local organizations and businesses.

Uh for each concert, we bring out a food vendor so they are able to sell on site at our respective locations to really you know allow them to get access to the community and um drive some uh uh of their business as well.

And then at uh concerts in the park, again, we uh partner with different vendors to really elevate the programming that we have planned for those experiences.

Um and as Amanda mentioned, we um have restructured our movies on the lawn that formally took place on the Hemans Cultural Center South Lawn to brews and views, um, which um will create kind of an elevated experience for I won't say old, but a seasoned, more mature demographic um that really allows them to experience a very unique um kind of viewing experience.

It'll um, you know, have ticket sales and be able to create a very comfortable setting for guest.

And next, I will bring up my colleague, uh special events manager, Selena Tapia.

All right.

Good evening, everybody.

So I'll be dipping and weaving here as we talk about different things coming up in the slides.

So the Fourth of July parade and celebration returns this year with an expected combined attendance of over 25,000 people.

As this year event coincides with the nation's celebration of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

So staff expects the attendance to be a much larger crowd this year.

Some great things to come with all of that is that our grand marshal this year is the YWCA, which is celebrating their 125th anniversary.

The pet parade returns with a few new twists and partnerships that we're really excited about, and our part-timers have been working really hard on.

The showstopping Mid-American Air Force Band will be joining us in the parade this year, which is a really cool snag that we've been trying really hard at for a couple years.

So you may see some dinosaur shaped clouds or a life size ice cream and perhaps even a pirate ship.

We we make things happen, you know our team.

Fan favorite performers will come back to the parade as well, that include the Jesse White Tumblr's and I think Sam the Big Wheel of coming back.

So a couple of cool ones that people enjoyed last year.

Following the parade, the fun continues at Festival Park with the celebration.

So the tabletop games are coming back, the pie eating contest, uh, food and drinks all are returning this year.

Uh three amazing bands will grace the stage before the night concludes with the spectacular fireworks display that we always have.

Um to the celebration will be an interactive uh butter making exhibit and activity to coincide with some of the 250th celebration.

So folks will be invited to the table to turn cream into butter in just a few short minutes.

This was tested by Amanda.

Um then they can enjoy their homemade treat with a tasty breakfast snack or pancake.

So that'll be really fun to watch the kids do.

Um and then I think Amanda's back up to talk about the 250th a little bit.

Yes, she's right.

We tested it because they didn't believe it was possible.

It was yummy.

It was good.

I'm from the South.

We do this.

Stupidness.

Um, yeah, so uh we're working forward.

The Elgin is participating in the semi-quincentenal uh anniversary.

So the 250th uh anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, which is too many words to say.

It's an amazing group of people that we're really we've been working with with for several months, and we're really excited about all of the different things that they're doing.

Um the public art efforts are one of the things that I wanted to mention.

You'll see in this picture one of the things that we're doing, which is uh carving butter.

Uh so Elgin has a deep history of milk and butter, and I've had this idea for carving butter for probably eight or ten years.

Um we never figured out how to do it, and I pitched it to this room full of people, and immediately everyone started finding solutions, and now we have butter sculptures that are live at the Gilboard Library right now.

Um our amazing uh part-time special event coordinator Kim Alvarado was able to contact a whole bunch of different local businesses and get the butter donated by Prairie Farms.

Um, and there are a few additional partnerships partnerships and uh in-kind sponsors, she's sourced as well.

Um we haven't completely inked them, so I'm not gonna tell you who they are.

On top of that, uh Side Street Studio Arts, U46, the Illinois Arts Council, um, and the city are all working together to create and issue a call for art that will go out, if not today, probably tomorrow, uh, for both 3D and 2D art.

Side Street was invited by the governor and the Illinois Arts Council to apply for a grant, which they were awarded.

Um, and we're really excited to see what it is.

The theme is the future of America, and kids from K through 18, K through 12, 18 and under.

It's late, um, are allowed to apply.

Um, and Fred Wims, who is our artistic project manager and creator of nonsense, hence Pirate Ship, uh, is going to work with his artistic group, Your Neighbor to turn a 2D drawing submitted by a kid into a 3D sculpture, which will be installed on the corner of Riverside where it turns into prairie for the next several years.

We're really excited about that.

Um, the 2D images will be on display on the L250 website for the next several weeks after they're done.

And if we're able to get it done, what we would like to do as well is take a winner from that and have fabric printed, and that fabric will then turn into pet bandanas for our pet parade.

Every child that submits will also get gift certificates to Buffalo Wild Wings and a few other sponsors at U46 was able to source.

So it really is truly a deeply community effort when it comes to the public art efforts.

I spoke with uh several of their staff over there, and the response has been pretty phenomenal.

Uh and so they've asked to keep it a little bit longer.

Uh we've had sculptors from Go Rockford, they do an ice sculpting exhibit out there.

They've contacted us and want to participate, and so now we have additional sponsors coming in.

And so we're adding a second one.

So you'll be able to see a second display case of butter at City Hall in the coming weeks, which is very exciting.

Uh, we're also working with Chris Lee Murphy at Explore Elgin Area and the Illinois State Fair about a potential partnership to get some of these sculptures down to the state fair in August.

How?

I don't know.

That's an August problem.

Um then lastly is the website, which Carol also mentioned.

Uh folks are invited to submit recipes, which hopefully we'll be able to print into an Elgin cookbook at the end of the year.

Um, and then Selena was able to source some time capsules, so those will be available for purchase at many of the enhancing Elgin partners.

Um, and we're working with the History Museum to get a DIY sheet and a one-sheet on how to get those done.

So we're really excited about all these crazy bananas, ideas and a way to celebrate the 250th that is specific to Elgin and makes it feel like it's a community effort.

Um, and so with all of that craziness, I'm gonna hand it back over to Selena.

I'm back.

All right, so La Fiesta the Elgin returns to celebrate Mexican Independence Day at Festival Park on September 12th.

Um, this is building on the success of previous years.

Uh, this event marks the city's third largest event of the year behind Nightmare on Chicago Street, and only slightly behind uh the 4th of July.

So Saturday begins with the return of our car caravan sponsored by the Friends of Masons in the morning, while the afternoon and evening events take over Festival Park.

Um it truly is beautiful how it transforms into a little version of Mexico City, um, even complete with our own replica of the Angel of Independence, um, which stands right in the center of the park.

Um, some additional touches include the Piñatas, the callejones, and the Elgin Pape de Picado.

Um, obviously there's food and drinks, everybody loves those.

Um, and so they'll be there for the duration of the event.

Um, and this year's event we'll see the Angel of Independence will be adding the base to the sculpture, which I'm really excited about.

Um, and that's thanks to the funding from the city council in the 2026 budget.

Uh, live music is certainly the star of the day at Fiesta.

Um, so we'll have some internationally known bands hosted by MC DJ Eddie P.

Um, and then the evening is finished off with a second traditional grito um just before a fireworks display.

And I think you're back up.

All right, moving on to Nightmare on Chicago Street.

Just a quick recap of 2025.

Uh 2025, we had some new partnerships.

I've already talked about Paramount Skears, so I'm not gonna beat that dead horse.

Uh we had some new fun props because it's a Fred Shelf thing.

Uh we had a revamped circ area, which is displayed here in this image, and it was the most amazing part of the event for me, um, because I don't like scary things.

Uh, but it was beautiful, uh, so much so that it was the thing people talked about maybe the most, and so we'll be bringing that back.

Uh, we had a new undead pile that was built and led up to the plane crash that people loved and created several new photo opportunities, and we partnered with a few of the downtown businesses to create pop-up bars, which were really successful.

Uh, the event was uh what is technically called a functional sellout.

Uh, what that means is that if we hadn't reopened the previously capped tickets, so we had pre-sales in June.

We allow a thousand of those.

We did not sell those out, but those are set aside so that we continue to sell the regular tickets.

Um, if we had just sold those regular tickets, the event would have actually sold out, but rather than not get as many people in the door as possible, we we opened up all the tickets.

Um, and ultimately we sold 14,270 tickets out of 15,000 available tickets, and all of the VIP was uh VIP parking was sold out as well.

Um, a massive growth in sponsorship, merchandise sales, and profit shares also uh was great for 2025, and we're looking forward to more of that in 2026.

So let's talk about 2026.

Uh, the biggest thing, uh, biggest change is certainly the Friday night concert.

Um, we are so close to being able to tell you who the bands are.

Um, they're really, really, really, really good.

Uh, and we're very excited about it.

Uh, so much so that Peter Temechko, who is the major events coordinator, has some incredible sponsors on on board uh that are national uh and looking to not just write us a check but actually collaborate with us, which is how we like to do stuff, and we're really excited about that.

Um the Friday concert was approved as part of the 2026 budget.

Um it will take place just on Chicago Street and it features the main stage with three bands and some sneak peeks of nightmare flavored things because it is still at nightmare.

Uh, food and drinks will also be on offer for Friday.

Moving into Saturday, uh Nightmare Perimeter remains the same while some of the things on the inside of the zone may shift a little bit.

Uh the return of the themed streets, which is going beautifully.

This is uh image from the Plaza Milan Street, which is on Grove.

Um, if you haven't been to Nightmare to see this, this is worth going for.

Uh the Kingdom Plantai, the Safe Zone, and many more.

Uh, we will also have the Plaza Stage and the DJ stage coming back.

Vendor applications for Nightmare will go live soon and musical artists are being finalized now.

Pre-sale tickets will go on sale in June for those early birds as usual.

Um, so the next thing that we're gonna talk about is the outdoor incentive program.

Uh, this is in relation to the item that's on the agenda tonight.

Um, and for this, I'm gonna bring up Chris and Selena.

They are the leaders of this program, they're the architects, they are the people who deal and handle and uh cajole and handhold all of the folks um that that manage it.

So they will take it from here.

All right.

Um, so based on the co-sponsorship program is the newly revamped outdoor event incentive program, um, which provides funding for businesses and organizations to produce outdoor events in Elgin.

The program was revamped this year to expand what was previously offered to provide additional guidance to potential applicants and increase and diversify award levels and options.

Um so there are four um thank you, Chris.

There are four program options uh for producers to select from.

Uh there is Active Elgin, which is your 5K's runs and walks.

Um, some that come are coming through this or have come through this are Elgin Foxtrot, um, El Trote, the one that's hosted by the Gillboard and Library.

Uh there's Market Makers, uh, which is um farmers markets, uh, art fairs, things like that fall under this one.

Launch programs are uh folks wanting to do new events in Elgin.

So new program producers.

This one's my favorite out of the four because it just brings in new events and new community leaders to do stuff in Elgin.

Um, and then the last one is the Encore program, um, which is your larger outdoor festivals, which can include like Elgin Pride, Love and the Lawn, um, things like that.

Only the launch and encore programs provide a financial component in the form of a one-third payout of the total award, and then the rest of them are all only in kind.

So active and market are in kind.

Um, a total of 15 applications were received in 2026, um, and that's up from six applications in 2025.

Um, so it is great to see how many events are coming through this program.

Um, it's been awesome to see.

Events are increasing, uh, but the bucket of funding remains the same.

So this means there's more competitiveness among um community groups and the type of events that are coming to Elgin and finding greater efficiencies for this program.

Is there anything you want to add?

Ditto everything settles, Selena said.

Um, but I just want to highlight that it truly has been a rewarding process being able to empower these groups through this um program.

We get to work with um a lot of different um diverse um event producers and truly helping them make their event operations more successful.

Um, kind of again giving them the freedom and autonomy to produce these unique experiences within the city of Elgin, but also allowing us to amplify some of the resources we have that you know rather might not be accessible to them.

So it really is great to be facilitators, facilitators of this program and really um partner with these different entities and putting on their experiences.

It's been really magical for us.

So thank you.

And to round it out, I'll just provide a very quick update on the Dowdle project.

Council may remember in 2024.

It was approved to partner with Eric Downle studios to create an original folk art drawing, uh painting image of Elgin, which will then also be turned into a puzzle.

Um working with them, the image has been finalized.

Um it's fabulous.

Uh, we will have our unveiling with Eric, um, which is actually called No Missing Peace.

It's a beautiful ceremony where the community is invited.

Um we're looking at late spring, hopefully sometime at the end of May.

We haven't finalized the date yet, just based on his availability.

Um, the puzzle sales will take place at a variety of the city's partners, um, as well as some of those uh businesses and locations that are actually depicted in the puzzle.

Uh we are looking forward to that.

Those will happen in conjunction with the unveiling.

Um, and uh will also be available at the Hemans uh through the DKES department.

Um another big piece about this is I guess I could change to the actual slide, that'd be helpful.

Another big piece of this is uh the city also purchased an eight foot by ten put 10 foot version of the image.

This is just an example of his work that is puzzelized uh and is coming as well.

It will be at the unveiling, and that eight foot by ten foot puzzle will actually be displayed in the Fourth of July parade for people to see as well.

A little bit of a little bit of Elgin uh in a different way.

So we're excited about that.

After that, it will be displayed at the Hemans Cultural Center.

Um and it's a traveling wall, so who knows where you'll see it after that.

Um so with that, that's that's all we have.

We tried to be quick.

I'm sure it wasn't as quick as you wanted.

I apologize, but um questions for Amanda and the uh Chris and uh Ms.

Paul.

Thank you.

Um thank you for that information.

I have a couple of questions and a couple of comments.

Um can you share with um I know uh Amanda you and I met recently, and so you guys share some information that I think it's beneficial for the public.

Can you share a little bit of like the technical assistance that your office does when people are looking to apply for a grant and how you walk them through?

Can you share a little bit of that?

Certainly.

So uh the very first thing we do is one of the things that most people know about our team is we're ridiculously available to available, so you can call, email, you can stop by.

Um, and one of us will get you to the right person.

Um outside of that, everything that we provide in terms of uh assistance is always online.

Um for this year's um program, Chris and Selena actually hosted an online session uh because there were some changes, and we wanted to make sure that it was available to people to you know ask questions.

Hey, this is slightly different.

What about this?

What do you recommend here?

That kind of thing.

And while Chris and Selena don't sit on on the voting and the scoring, they are the ones that are making sure that the application is complete, that is it is as tight and and fully fledged, fully fleshed out as possible.

Um outside of that, their application itself is incredibly detailed.

Uh it provides uh direction on which place which of the four programs you can apply for online as well.

There is a matrix that helps you determine at least as a as a base point what kind of staffing you would be looking at.

Uh there are some things that we know for sure require specific staffing.

So, for example, if your event is gonna have alcohol, you're absolutely gonna have to have police.

So that kind of information is also online.

But that said, at any point, any person, whether they're applying for this or whether they're just looking to host an event, can contact um Chris, Selena, and or myself, and they'll walk them through the application.

The kinds of questions that we get are everything from what kind of what street do you think we should close, or what about this?

And because we work with every department in the city, we have just enough knowledge of every piece to to provide some starting direction.

No, thank you for sharing that because I think many times um when people apply for grants specifically government grants, um it could be burdensome, hard and not sure who to go to for assistance.

And so I appreciate that your office is providing that assistance and being that you know welcoming and open to the public.

So thank you for sharing that.

Um I do want to ask a question that I know council member um Paul has asked in the past and just wanted to follow up.

Um we brought up the updates to the Hemmings.

When could we see a credit card use?

That's in pro in we have that now.

Oh, it's in there already.

Yeah, okay, perfect.

Thank you for sharing that.

No problem.

I haven't been over there since they have the credit card.

Um, and thank you for sharing on the slide at the uh Lores Park concerts are coming back because I as an eastider, I really appreciate that.

So I don't have to go all the way to the west side for that.

Uh so thank you.

Um and then my other comment is um, and I know this is a comment I brought up several times in the past before.

If there's a way that we could find a showcase more of Latino heritage beyond the Mexican culture, and I say that as a Mexican, um, to figuring out how we can you know uplift other ethnicities, Guatemalans, Colombians, Salvadorians, Venezuela uh Venice Lanos are um uh oh god, I'm thinking in Spanish now.

Okay.

Um but like different ethnicities, right, that live in our community now and their numbers have grown.

And so seeing how we could figure out and how to incorporate them during Hispanic Heritage Month or sometimes throughout the year.

So can you explain maybe some plans you might have to be inclusive to those demographics?

Sure.

Um I can tell you as a starting point when when La Fiesta first started, it was actually Canta Conagullo.

Uh and that started as a all-inclusive Hispanic Heritage Month celebration.

Uh we opened the doors because that's who we are as not just an organization, but as a community and as individual people.

Um, and had everybody who wanted to be at the table at the table.

Um, and it didn't work.

Uh people were the feedback that we got was overwhelmingly that it was too watered down.

Uh this is similar feedback to what we have what special events in general receives when uh an event isn't specific enough.

This has happened at a few other locations and a few other events.

And so moving into the next year, we altered it and made it much more specific to Mexican Independence Day.

And the idea there was to kick off Hispanic Heritage Month.

And what we did instead was to partner with those other entities, other community groups who were already doing that program rather than duplicating it.

One thing that we always try very hard to do is collaborate with things that are already happening rather than recreating the wheel.

That's an efficiency, especially because as lean as we are, and you I mean you saw the calendar, we don't have any availability.

Um so we did that with the library with a few other organizations, um, and that has worked incredibly well.

Um beyond that, as we moved into the outdoor incentive program, I know I had several meetings with a few of the other organizations in the community about how to engage with them and how we could meet their needs, and pointed them to some resources in the same way that I would do with anybody.

Um, and that's really how La Fiesta started as well.

La Fiesta started from the community and has grown for that purpose.

So moving into the next year, I'm assuming you mean like 2027.

Yeah, because I mean, assuming you know it's 2026, a lot of the bands have been contacted, things are contacted, right?

And I've mentioned in the past, like as we use Fiesta as a kickoff to Hispanic Heritage Month, showcasing just one Latino culture is not inclusive to Hispanic Heritage, right?

And so trying to figure out how we could do another event that it encompasses some of the other Latino cultures, right?

Um, if we're gonna utilize Fiesta as a kickoff uh to Hispanic Heritage Month, right?

And so like going beyond that.

So figuring out what that might look like, maybe in 2027, there's right as you mentioned you like uh partnering with community organizations, maybe there is a call out for something specific that this is what we're looking to partner with if someone has the capacity to do this to um to uplift additional Latino heritage in the community.

So some of that's actually already happening this year via the outdoor incentive uh uh outdoor event incentive program, um, which is how we want to see these things grow, right?

It's about empowering the community, it's a it's a you know with not for it's uh with not, you know, it's it's not everything comes from us, uh, and it and it shouldn't.

And so with this program, we're able to empower groups that are bringing BaricoFest and Vivala, and you know, as as they mentioned, we had 15 applications up from six, and many of those are doing exactly that.

And so from my perspective, and I think the staff on my team would agree, rather than the city producing it, it's about creating space so that those who are doing it in their communities have the ability to do that and connecting them to resources to do so.

That's what I was saying to like maybe there's a call out for that, right?

Um the additional demographics, I know uh you had mentioned sharing and and the organization did come publicly and shared in public comic, that there's Bordicuefas in August, etc.

Right.

Um, but if we're utilizing Fiesta um the LGIN as a kickoff and saying it's a kickoff of Hispanic Heritage Month, then as a community, as government, as taxpayer dollars, and as we are committed to a diversity, equity and inclusion policy, we should be inclusive to all as much of the Latino heritage that we represent in this community than just one.

I understand, Councilmember.

And we did remove that language from the website as requested.

The event is La Fiesta de Elgin, a celebration of Mexican Independence Day.

Yeah, and so if there is a way that your office can work in finding a way to be more inclusive next year to additional demographics, and that's what I'm saying, right?

For this event specifically, or no, no, no, no.

It's just it could be it's separate event.

I'm not saying it has to be tied to fiesta, right?

It could be some other kind of event, which that's what I'm saying is you had mentioned partnering with other organizations.

Maybe there is a call out.

This is something we're looking to do in the future in 2027.

We're looking, we're seeking organizations who can showcase the culture of various different Latino cultures in the community, right?

What that might be.

An agurio Latino or something, right?

Latino proud.

And this is what that looks like, right?

And so I'm just saying to find a way to be more inclusive as the taxpayer dollars is for everyone in this community, not just for Mexicans for Fiesta.

For clarification, so we know there are two additional Hispanic-related events that are being recommended for approval in 2026.

Correct?

Right, correct.

Okay, right.

But I'm talking about just uplifting additional demographics of Latino events, right?

So one is focused to the Puerto Rican culture, and then the other one is more of just a Latino.

We don't know all the additional demographic to that, right?

We don't have all the details to that event.

And so I'm just saying if we could find a way to be more inclusive to ensure, or even during Hispanic Heritage Month, we as a city trying to find a way to uplift other Latino cultures.

I think there's a few issues.

Um having done that before, it would definitely not be my recommendation to add an additional event that is not as focused, um, and especially not one produced by the city.

Uh I definitely believe and would recommend that that stuff come from the community, and I think that that's where we're moving right now.

Um I think the other piece comes down to capacity.

We don't have capacity anymore.

There's not a free date on the calendar from May to the end of September.

When you start talking about Hispanic Heritage Month, right?

We're talking about the middle of September to the middle of October.

That's our busiest time of year, and so it is trying to figure out okay, if we can't do it, how can we provide opportunities for others?

But it sounds like what you're requesting is for the city to produce another event.

What I'm saying is finding a way to partner up with community organizations.

I said that we could do an RFP or something.

I'm sharing to I'm not super creative, so I'm asking that the office go back and try to figure out what that might potentially be.

But that's not just to that, like trying to figure out how we can engage the Asian community more and how do we uplift the Asian community and do an event that showcases the beautiful cultures of the Asian community, right?

And so trying to figure out how we can live up to our diversity, equity, and inclusion policy, and trying to find how we could diversify our events a little bit more with culture.

So maybe that's going to the grant and giving points, extra points to a demographic that we are not seeing events from, right?

Or or something.

I'm trying to ask the office to come go back and brainstorm and try to figure out a way to be more inclusive and to draw more from our community.

Understood.

I would also just offer that the La Fiesta event happens because there is a huge portion of the community that comes to that.

Uh we work with a extremely diverse population that represents the community in many other ways.

That comes in the form of the artists that we work with, the vendors that we work with, the people we showcase in the parade.

Um just because it's not a huge event, doesn't mean that that effort is not being made.

And I'd be happy to provide you with those statistics and that information if that would be helpful.

Yeah, but I'm just still asking, can your office look into trying to find a way?

It sounds like you're you don't want to.

I'm just not sure how to facilitate it, I guess.

Okay.

But I can certainly go back and look.

And see how there's a way that we could try to find a way in 2027 to be more inclusive to additional demographics.

That's what I'm asking.

Okay.

I'll leave it there.

Okay.

Miss Martinez.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you very much.

Um Amanda and Chris and Selena, thank you.

Um, you know, Amanda, I just like to say that I've been working with one of these groups precisely that um councilwoman Alfaro's speaking about um Borricoist.

Borricoa is something that is a uh community that um was very strong, and then it kind of faded out, and now they're coming back.

And so I attended uh one of their uh events, and it was um while uh attended at the library.

Yes.

And so I spoke to you and we're trying to do something where we could be a little bit bigger.

It's not something that the city's holding, it's something that they are holding.

Correct.

I know also with the Asian community, I've been to ECC where they also had uh it wasn't an ECC event, but it was the community event.

one of their uh events and it was um well uh attended at the library yes and so i spoke to you and we're trying to do something where we could be a little bit bigger it's not something that the city's holding it's something that they are holding I know also with the Asian community I've been to ECC where they also had uh it it wasn't an ECC event but it was the community event and uh I understand I love how when we first did um the the first event for uh the 16th of September and it did try to include everybody you know it's just that um it it was I don't know uh it wasn't attended as well and the people who did attend was because they had the their kids you know grandma grandpa were there and uh I remember it was um el grito and then after that we had um the concert and it was very very successful now uh the second time that we did it we um did it with uh the Mexican flair but what happened is we had different genres and even that didn't work you know I think the most popular were probably the cumbia and the banda you know and you know I I'll be honest I'm not a Vanda girl because I think that's like a younger group but um you know I welcome whatever brings people to Algin I think that's what we should concentrate on so I want to commend you and your group for doing that and um I have seen events where um like let's say I believe it was um the Indian community where they brought um the difference between uh India and um Pakistan and there was another one Bangladesh and that was very interesting because they were very focused on it and this is what people were looking for and not only did I see the Asian community but also different communities and I think that the library did a good job in diving into that I know for a long time too something that was really big was uh Somos Colombia right and so we we did things with them as well I know they did things at the ECC and um you know but I think it depends on the community and I think we've always been welcome to that thank you for doing a good job but I lately have not heard much about um Somos Colombia so you know it comes in and out so I get it so thank you.

Mr.

Dixon Mr Dixon Hello Hi butter butter.

Pretty awesome that's an inside joke but um thank you for the presentation thank you to the team um for continuing to do a wonderful job with these community events I always hear positive feedback about them and then I hear not so positive things sometimes and so I don't mean to you know to hark in on the negative but we have to sometimes have difficult conversations and that's the one that I want to have.

Absolutely and you and I had this conversation earlier full disclosure so I just want you know everyone else to to hear you know what I you know things that I hear and I want to uh want everyone else to hear what Amanda has to say um with the uh incentive program that's been in place now for a couple of years right um I've been approached as I was saying earlier by a number of different organizers event organizers who complained um about what they the bill that they received at the end of the event you know um and you and I talked about it and you kind of you know walked me through it and um it seems to be a headache in some instances and not all instances for you guys you know you know some event organizers are better than others as far as like the process is concerned and not to cast any shade on any one of these event organizers but it just is what it is and so I pose the question of is it worth it you know sometimes you know to have the program if it causes so much confusion um if it ties up your resources your time um of course and just you know your desire to do it some days so that's well just start and you know uh yeah no I know no it's uh it's a good question uh and I welcome it I welcome the difficult conversations look we work in a field where not everybody values the stuff that we do because it's it's squishy right it's not a road it's not a tree it's not a building um and we also work with so many different people in the community we're never gonna make everybody happy and we live with that every day and that's a hundred percent okay as long as we're within that majority right where where most people are happy with what we're doing that's a success and if we get complaints we try to address those as they come in relation to uh the outdoor event incentive program this is a program as I told you earlier and as we've discussed a few times here that is has shifted right over the years and that's due to several factors uh the majority of which comes back to the producers needing more guidance needing more information needing more help um it comes down to some of their feedback right they said this part didn't make sense and so Chris and Selena have sat with them

In relation to uh the outdoor event incentive program, this is a program, as I told you earlier, and as we've discussed a few times here, that is has shifted, right, over the years.

Um, and that's due to several factors.

Uh the majority of which comes back to the producers needing more guidance, needing more information, needing more help.

Um it comes down to some of their feedback, right?

They said this part didn't make sense.

And so Chris and Selena have sat with them for every event that is on this list.

Each of these organizations probably has six to ten meetings scheduled, not just with these two, mostly with these two, uh, but also with all of city staff.

It's significant the workload.

Um and it starts sometimes at the very base level.

What do you want to do?

How do you want to do it, right?

And it's picking through those things.

Um some folks have been doing this for years, and they're professionals and they want to bring their thing here to Elgin.

And we're really here to say, great, and we get out of your way.

The intent of this program was never to provide programming support, but only logistical support.

That remains the the core of it today.

Um, and that's been a very strong line that we've always drawn.

And that said, moving into this year, based on how things have gone over the last three, we created the four categories.

Part of this is because we saw growth, right?

More people are doing runs and walks and all sorts of outdoor things.

I don't understand it it is not my thing.

But a lot of people enjoy the outdoor stuff.

And so we saw this increase in those activities.

So we created this program specifically for that.

We understood that they really what they're needing is more of that in-kind support.

So that's how that program was built.

Same with the makers markets, right?

We saw more of this happening.

More of these small bid small tiny businesses who they don't have a storefront yet, but they see a market in Elgin and they want to come here and try some stuff.

They don't necessarily need cash, but they need a place to be and they need some support to get here.

So we created that version of it.

Again, all in kind.

But then we had a few people come to us and we had this one big pile in previous years.

But some of these folks were much smaller, right?

They were your they were your Berequifests, right?

They were these smaller groups who they didn't need the great big thing.

They're starting small, they need more help.

Not to pick on Berequo Fest, they're great, we love them.

But those smaller organizations, that's where the launch program came in.

And so it does start from the bottom.

And some of these folks needed that help, right?

It was Chris and Selena sitting with them and saying, okay, here's how you do your budget, here's what a budget looks like, here's what we think you're gonna need.

Um and then there's your there's your encore group.

These are people who have been doing things here for years, right?

They have a higher expectation to meet.

There's accountability that goes with this because at the end of the day, this is taxpayer money, this is city money, and the accountability has to go along with it.

And so this year we were moving into really trying to be strategic and implementing what those expectations are.

Um a lot of these folks we've worked with for years, um, and have had the same conversation many years.

And so at the end of last year, when some hard truths and difficult conversations were had, there was some hurt feelings and and some feelings, which is fine, feelings have a place, but facts and figures still matter, right?

Um that's I think a little bit of what you're alluding to.

Um now that said, there are people who they are doing this, and they say, I'm gonna do A, B, and C, and they show up on the day of their event, and they do A B and C and they're gonna do an extra thing here and an extra thing here, and they're gonna show up and volunteer at these other events, and they're gonna be a real community member.

Those people, this program, we don't meet with them ten times, right?

They know what they're doing.

The goal eventually is to potentially try to partner some of those people with some of the people who maybe need more help because again, it shouldn't all be us.

But we're not there yet.

Okay.

I spent last Wednesday with the three of these individuals with a group of three individuals were trying to put on two events for the first time.

And the patience, well, first the expertise, the knowledge, but most importantly, the patience that the three of you displayed while trying to work through summing something that's seemingly so easy is let's have a party on the promenade.

What does it take to do this?

It was three hours and we're nowhere close to completion.

So that's three individuals there plus me, plus the individuals over there.

The amount of time it takes to put this in is there, and I get it that sometimes people miss.

You can talk, it's no different with Mark Millot in community development.

You have all types of skill levels with developers that are coming in.

Some are great at it, some aren't.

But the sense that this staff should be judged by the by those who I think you hold on, Rick.

I I think you um I think you're missing where I was going.

Well, I think that's a good question.

I'm not criticizing staff at all.

I think they do an excellent job.

But what I what I'm speaking to is the miscommunication, and I and I hear it from from both sides, too.

So it's so it wasn't me saying on the behalf of organizers that I've heard that oh city staff is doing terrible.

That's not it at all.

This is just this is an open line of communication, and I made Amanda aware that we would have, you know, that I would, you know, that we would have this conversation.

It was the best intentions, but it's it's again, it would be like me saying I'm ready to do something on the promenade.

I think that I have it all figured out and I don't know anything.

So I don't know if commit miscommunication suggests that there's something missing on both sides.

I think, at least from what I saw that night, there is a whole level of detail that many people who are diving into this in the first instance don't comprehend and they make their best efforts to get to the finish line, but I haven't seen any indication because of any lack of time.

That's right.

No, no, no, I don't I don't doubt that.

That's that's not what I'm saying.

I don't doubt that.

Um you do everything that you can to make these events happen, and you probably and you go above and beyond to do everything that you possibly can do to make these events a success, right?

But it always doesn't work out the way that we had hoped, right?

So um so the the next phase of the conversation was it's two years into the program or those going to the third year.

What if any tweaks could we make to make it an easier process?

I know we implemented some things this year, but just thinking about it going forward next year, you know, after that, what other things can we do to continue to tweak this to make it to make it better and more streamlined and more straightforward so that we can kind of you know cut out as much of the confusion from the community as possible.

That's the and you I'm not asking for an answer right now, but that's just the mindset.

Sure.

Yeah.

Um, you know, part of that comes down to we're here all the time.

Um we're always willing and able to answer questions.

I do think that there oftentimes is a sentiment that when we come back and ask you ten more questions, that it's us putting a roadblock in your place when in actuality we're trying to give you a clearer path, right?

We're trying to get you to the correct application to to the correct humans to contact in those different departments.

Um and so in in recent history in our experience, it has been more positive than not.

Um it really, in our experience, has come down to funding and accountability, to be honest.

And so this year's this focus for staff is about resetting what a partnership looks like.

It is about resetting what an expectation of a partnership is and understanding that at the end of the day we do answer to the community.

Um and accountability does have to have a place here.

Um and so we are spending a lot of time doing that with these members.

Um, and we're looking at a few other things.

You know, we purchased a mapping software, and we're trying to figure out if there are pieces like okay, how can we unify?

What tools can we provide?

That sort of stuff.

Um but we're not quite there on those pieces yet.

Okay, all right.

Um can I ask you a question about um it's actually it was actually agenda item E.

Um, and it was concerning uh Schomberg on stage.

Sure.

Right.

So Schomberg on stage, they're doing programming in Elgin, even though Schaumburg and stage on stage, right?

Yes.

Okay.

And um in their in their questions, it seemed like they were kind of vague in answering some of those.

Does that you recall it?

What piece are you referring to?

I'm sorry.

Um, like you provided like some of the feedback um from each of the applications.

And it was, you know, they weren't exactly.

Oh, you're talking about the minutes, maybe?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

The minutes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So Schaumberg on stage is uh the organization that just recently bought and has renovated 18 villa.

It's where the showcase is relocating, but on the other side to 220.

Um and yes, they have they're one of these organizations that we've been working with with for years.

So, you know, years ago, their original applications were not great, and so I've spent years kind of developing that.

Um it's not that their application wasn't good, it's that it's hard to describe what a new work series is, right?

And so that's really what those questions kind of related to.

Um, and in terms of item E on the agenda, and um those organizations are not given the opportunity to answer, ask and answer questions when these are scored.

Gotcha.

So it's what's in your application is how you have to tell that story.

Gotcha.

Yeah, okay.

All right, that's cool.

But you don't understand.

That's the cult.

That's the cultural arts commission that's making those determinations in item E.

Not Amanda and her staff.

That's that's different than what we were talking about in F.

No, I think that's a different group of individuals.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, I know.

That's why I said jumping back to agenda item E, because we moved on.

I did try to ask a question about it, but I wasn't seen, so that's why I jumped back.

Okay.

Another question.

Um the difference in the amount available.

Um awarded, I'm sorry.

There was an amount set set aside of $332,500, but the amount being awarded is $211,000.

And I should say I'm jumping forward to item D now.

Okay.

Or F.

F, I'm sorry.

F.

All right.

Um the difference in between the two.

Um, we kind of talked about that.

Can you explain what that difference is used for?

Sure.

So um every year there is an amount that we award, but there's also amount that is essentially set aside.

Um that is to replace equipment.

Um equipment gets damaged every year.

Tents blow off in the wind, table legs break, um, and that's something that this this funding helps to replace.

That equipment is used by all of these organizations, um, and it saves them a ton of money.

So that's that's one of those pieces.

The other piece is for um overruns in staffing that some of these organizations shouldn't be responsible for.

So if something happens, um this is a bad example, but I'm going to give it to you.

Uh a few years ago, the during Pride, there was an FBI alert uh that there was you know some potential activity.

Um, and so there was a huge increase in staffing.

And so we met with the police department and the fire, you know, department because it was an office of emergency management conversation, um, and made the determination at that point that if something like that were to occur during an event, that cost should not be put on that event organizer because it's not part of their event, right?

This happened and this ha this event happened to be taking place.

Um and so that funding helps to cover those overruns as well as provide grace for some of these organizations if and when needed.

Gotcha, gotcha.

Okay.

Well, thank you.

Appreciate the presentation.

Okay.

Mr.

Ortiz.

Miss Harris, Miss Kathia, Mr.

Howling, appreciate y'all being here so late.

Just want to let everybody know Miss Martinez lost her bet.

She said we'll be out of here by 9 30.

She took the under.

It's now 9 47, so she owes me five dollars.

Perfect.

Um, I appreciate the present presentation and everything.

I got a few questions.

One to go with what Mr.

Dixon said about the extra money thing and some of the equipment that might break throughout the year because uh things happen in life.

Is that equipment the stuff that you recently like educated me on that this box trailer that has like a bunch of equipment that's replaced that stuff?

Yes, some of that, mm-hmm.

Yes.

Okay.

Um but it's also the additional equipment.

So uh what council member Ortiz is referring to is we have a special event trailer.

Um so when one of these larger events takes place, one of the ways that we reduce the cost of staffing is we put all of these equipment pieces into a trailer and a land management or public works person drops the trailer, and then the event organizer can then just pull all the stuff out, right?

It's an efficiency we put into place.

But that equipment gets damaged.

Uh but then there are other pieces.

So uh bicycle fence, for example.

You would not believe the amount of bicycle fence that it takes to enclose festival park and when you create cue lines, and so it's it's to purchase those things.

Okay.

Um I was gonna ask about the projector, but Mr.

Howling addressed that, seeing if it was working good for you guys.

The out of the 15 or 16 uh awardees that we're given money to today or tonight, if it's if I'm assuming this thing is gonna pass.

Uh how many of these are like Hispanic events?

I kind of six.

Is it is it's is what the one below the Fiesta Patricia one is that the one from St.

Joe's church?

Uh yes, Fiesta Property.

No, Fiestas Patrice is St.

Joe's, but they're yeah, they they were on the uh they applied, but they declined the money.

So we're not awarding them, but their event is still taking place.

Their event is huge.

Fiestas Patricia at St.

Joe's, yeah.

Oh, because it's still on our list.

They're on the they're on this, but they're not in the okay, okay.

I'm looking at the little spreadsheet thing you have here on colors.

So um I do have colors.

Rick makes fun of my colors.

Uh I was just wondering about that because uh I was wondering if it was the church that applied and for helping them out.

Three.

I mean, I I would say four day Oh, El Trote, yeah, five.

That's the library one, right?

And you're 46.

Yeah, so five of the 15 is what I would say.

Not that I'm eagerly putting groups into those types of boxes, but yeah, that's what I would say.

And then uh this image reminded me.

I know we uh we killed the end of summer bash for a staffing capacity.

We're killing the drone show completely this year, correct?

Or that and then your preview.

We are not.

The drone show will be joining fireworks at the fourth of July.

How do you let Mickey Mouse allow you to do that?

Supposedly he's the only one that could do stuff like that.

I mean, we're DKs.

We can do stuff.

All right.

Well, I'm glad to see it coming back because the whether you have for three years, I think the this last year with the 3D and the dinosaurs, I think that was the best.

Even though this is the best image that we've this became the signature image, yeah.

And the the butter making.

Mr.

Howling said it was for kids.

I'm a kid at heart.

Can I do it?

Absolutely, you can do it.

I encourage you to do it.

It's really fun.

The internet will tell you it takes 10 to 15 minutes, it doesn't, it takes four to five.

Okay, it's amazing.

You did join it.

I did.

I was like, it doesn't take 15 minutes.

Uh you we've got the little containers and local dairies are providing some cream and it yes, please do it.

It's gonna be so fun.

And then yeah, yeah, that's it.

And then your tie is better than Mr.

Mullat's.

Thank you.

All right.

I know he's watching, so uh I'm gonna throw a little jab at it.

And then my very last one is I was looking at on your slide, it's on page on slide number.

It's the one of the butter.

Right there, it's slide 14.

I thought that was Mr.

Thorne in that cabinet.

And I had to zoom in in and I realized it was George Washington.

Yeah, it's George Washington.

I was like, I wonder how he got his sculpture in there.

But that's it.

Thank you.

Okay.

Anything else?

Mr.

Thorne.

Thanks, Anthony.

I just want to compliment you because being the history-oriented person up here, uh valuing Elgin's past so much that uh some people might not know this, but Elgin was for over 40 years dubbed the butter capital of the world.

And even the board of trade set their times by the Elgin butter market.

And the quarter stick of butter, the way we're used to now, when you buy the pound of butter and it's in four sticks, that was invented here in Elgin and used to this day.

The Elgin cut, yes.

Yep, that's what it was called, the Elgin cut.

If you if you zoom in on our on our picture here.

That's a picture of me.

The the bottom of our display case, uh, a local artist that we work with um works in vinyl, and he designed the bottom of this to look like a butter stick, and it actually says Elgin cut on it.

Kudos to your history.

Yeah, that is okay anything else for Amanda.

Okay, we need a motion.

Motion to approve.

Second.

Move and seconded.

Clerk, please call the roll.

Council members of Barrow.

Yes.

Dixon?

Yes.

Good.

Yes.

Martinez?

Yes.

Ortiz?

Yes.

Stefan?

Yes.

Thorne.

Yes.

Mirror Captain.

Yes, motions approved 80.

See how easy that was?

You guys get to go home now, right?

Yes.

Okay.

Mr.

Mr.

Manager?

Thanks.

Um item G is a purchase from Urban SDK Holdings for traffic monitoring software.

Urban SDK mon traffic monitoring software is a geospatial analytics platform that provides traffic speed, volume, congestion, and safety risk data across the city's roadway network without the need for any physical sensors.

The city's seeking to purchase this software to use objective data to better inform traffic enforcement strategies, traffic safety initiatives, and roadway planning.

The data generated by this platform will be used by multiple city departments, including the police, public works, and engineering departments to prove operational efficiency and public safety.

Move for approval.

Second.

Move and second for approval.

Any discussion.

I had a question for staff.

It mentioned that is it.

That there was this a free 60-day trial for workflow models, and it starts after the first implementation call.

I was just curious.

Have we started that or is that after this passes and then?

We haven't started that.

We need the city council approval for that afterwards.

Yes.

And even with that 60-day period, um Corporation Council back typically includes what we call a I call it the get out of jail free clause.

There's typically something that allows us to exit any agreement for 30 days without any cause.

Okay.

Um importantly, this is a potential three-year agreement, but the city is is recommending just trying it for one year to see if it was whether it actually delivers.

Thank you.

That works.

Thank you.

Okay.

Clerk, please call the roll.

Councilmember Zalfaro?

Yes.

Dixon?

Yes.

Good.

Yes.

Martinez?

Yes.

Ortiz?

Yes.

Stefan?

Yes.

Thorne?

Yes.

Mayor Captain.

Yes.

Motion's approved 80.

Item H is an agreement with the Kane County Child Advocate Advocacy Center Investigative Services Division for Sensitive Crimes Involving Children.

The Kane County Child Advocacy Center, commonly referred to as KCCAC is a division of the Kane County State's Attorney's Office that investigates and prosecutes serious crimes involving children.

KCCAC has been providing investigative services to the city since 2000 at an annual cost of $35,000.

Council may recall that in 2022, the police department also assigned a part-time detective to KCCAC due to the number of cases originating from Lgin.

That part-time investigator or detective investigated 42 Lgin cases in 2025.

KCCAC in 2025 completed a total of 90 LGIN-based cases.

Given the significant caseload, staff is once again recommending the agreement with KCCAC.

Move for approval.

Second.

Move and seconded for approval discussion.

Clerk please call the roll.

Councilmember Zalfaro?

Yes.

Dixon?

Yes.

Good.

Yes.

Martinez?

Yes.

Ortiz?

Abstain.

Stefan?

Yes.

Thorne?

Yes.

Mayor Captain.

Yes.

Motion's approved 7-0 with one abstention.

Item I is a purchase agreement with Stryker Corporation for a power load ambulance stretcher.

Fire department this year is taking possession of a new ambulance that was ordered in 2023.

The city delays purchasing ambulance stretchers from Stryker to maximize the warranty period.

Waiting till the ambulance delivery is imminent so the city benefits from the longest period possible.

In this instance, it's a seven-year term.

Move for approval.

Second.

It's been moved and seconded for approval.

Any discussion.

Hearing none, clerk, please call a roll.

Councilmember Zalfaro?

Yes.

Dixon?

Yes.

Good.

Yes.

Martinez?

Yes.

Ortiz?

Yes.

Stefan?

Yes.

Thorne?

Yes.

Mayor Captain.

Yes.

Motion is approved 80.

Item J is an amendment to the existing agreement with Thomas Engineering for design and construction engineering services relating to parking lot and alley maintenance in the 2026 program and finishing up some work that we were not able to complete in 2025 because of earlier weather conditions.

So the city annually budgets for engineering services necessary to complete its annual parking lot and alley maintenance program.

Again, I stated due to the weather, the colder weather coming earlier in the year last year, the 2025 program was designed but not constructed.

This amendment agreement enables the engineering firm to conduct inspection services necessary to combine the unfinished 2025 program locations with the proposed 2026 program locations.

Services under the agreement include design engineering for the proposed 2026 locations and construction engineering for both the 2025 and 2026 locations.

Move for approval.

Second.

Move and seconded for approval.

Any discussion.

Clerk, please call the roll.

Councilmember Zalfaro.

Abstain.

Dixon?

Yes.

Good.

Yes.

Martinez?