For June 24th 2026 to order.

Well the court, please call the roll.

Council members Alcaro?

Here.

Dixon.

Present.

Good.

Here.

Martinez?

Here.

Ortiz?

Powell?

Stefan?

Here.

The ward?

Here.

Mayor Captain.

Here.

Approval of the minutes of the previous meeting of June 10th.

More for approval.

Second.

Move the second for approval.

Any corrections or additions?

Hearing none, court, please call the roll.

We go.

Oh, sorry.

Yeah, sorry.

Thank you.

I just wanted to mention in the minutes it uh what page was it?

In the very beginning, they had talked about the presentation that assistant city manager Hiller had provided.

I just wanted to make sure um indicate that it said it's five initiative areas.

It's actually six civil engagement is also one of the niches, and so that should be um added.

And then we had said on page five.

Um where is it?

Oh, for the review of the council rules, we had said that um not only um to discuss like appointments for the C D BG, but I believe Councilmember Ortiz mentioned like all appointments.

Um, and so I was in favor of that, and so we could add that to the minutes as well.

Okay.

Miss Martinez.

I believe rather than civil engagement, I think it's civic engagement.

What?

It's rather than civil engagement, like you said, civic engagement.

Oh, yeah.

Well, I was just trying to go quickly because I was I couldn't find the page number.

Okay.

Anything else?

Okay, quick, please call a roll.

Council members already?

Yes.

Dixon?

Yes.

Good, yes.

Martinez?

Yes.

Ortiz?

Yes.

Stefan?

Yes.

Thorne?

Yes.

Mayor Captain.

Yes, motions approved eight zero.

Oh, we have two people signed up for public comment this evening.

First one is Tracy Howell.

Good evening, City Council and Mayor Captain.

Um I'm here to just reiterate that um many of us would like to know all.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Oh, uh talking about the many of us would like to know um how the um diversity and and um diversity ordinance is coming along.

Um just keeping that on the forefront.

Um, I'm still looking forward to learning what the city spends on each resident by demographic.

Um, and then one other thing came to mind that I and many others would like to know.

All the policies that have been ignored in the past five years, including any that have been recently taken back up again, because I believe city manager Koval stated that policies are enforced only when needed, but are not required to be enforced, like an ordinance is required to be enforced, and so that makes me wonder um what hasn't been enforced because we talked about it being um kind of on your honor kind of thing.

So um just to clear the slate and get everybody on the same page, um it'd be um maybe we should take a look into that.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, thank you.

Annalise Jackson.

What so I just have a couple of questions.

I was like getting updated on the past city council meeting.

Can you guys answer questions or will it be like addressing the next meeting?

I don't know, I haven't asked questions before.

Just looking for clarification.

I'm not understanding your question.

Uh I'm not understanding what your question is.

Uh well, so I just have some questions about the last city council meeting because I wasn't here.

Um, and I wrote them down, so I just I guess you guys can just let me know as we go through, but that's fine.

Is that sound okay?

Okay.

We have a video of a video if there's something that you can watch, uh it's uh yeah, it's from that video.

Okay.

Um okay.

So uh city, so there was a quote, I think it was COVID, it was the city manager's office reviews all incident reports.

Um coordinates with the accountability commission, the Illinois Accountability Illinois Accountability Commission, when appropriate, and may seek a court order to stop unlawful use of city property.

Um so I was just wondering because also during that meeting there have been 619 sightings and 182 abductions, I think since September.

Um so how many have how many court orders have been filed in regards to that?

I guess just like in general.

As far as it was my understanding that we're we don't answer questions during public comment, but I I I have no knowledge of those numbers that you just provided.

Okay there haven't been any instances since the city's ice free resolution was passed that required the city to take any additional action.

Okay.

Um well then, like if you guys can't answer my questions now, maybe it can be like in the next presentation, just because like these were just things I was thinking about.

Um and then for the trust act advocacy, this is within regards to the police.

I saw that excuse me.

Um they want to do more.

So I just want to know because I was reading it and it said they're advocating for traffic and crowd control purposes so that they can like get more involved because I know the trust act does murder the waters a little bit.

Um I was wondering why it was only traffic and crowd control purposes that seems more geared toward the community and not toward helping the community.

I you know it's uh really you're asking questions that are not uh part of our purview.

This is uh uh really it's this came from Kane County.

Okay, and uh the state's attorney is uh kind of leading the uh direction on this along with Chief Lolly to make some changes, but but we can't answer those questions for you.

No, I know.

I just I gotta say it.

Okay.

Um and then El Faro, I just wanted clarification.

Um in the last meeting, uh you said only two people in leadership identify as people of color to your knowledge.

Oh, I'll finish, I swear to God.

Um is it like which like city leadership or I was just yeah, I was referencing senior leadership at uh staff, senior staff.

Okay, like not like here.

No, not on the city staff.

Okay.

Um here.

Okay.

Um I guess that's really it since like we can't answer questions, but like I don't know, some clarification at the next meeting would be nice.

Um, especially within regards to I'm sorry, I know I'm going over time.

Just like the court orders and stuff, because if people are being abducted and we say that you know we are filing and trying to advocate for them, I would just like to, you know, see where the advocation is coming from.

That would be great.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, Mr.

Manager, items on both agendas.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, item A is the property uh insurance program renewal from July 1st, 2026 to June 30th, 2027.

City's property insurance is and renewed each year on July 1st.

Uh Kelly Wazlewuski, City's risk management manager obtained a renewal premium this year that is about 70,000 lower than the previous year.

This decrease is being driven by expanded capacity in the property marketplace, and also because of an increase in competition.

As you stated, Mayor, this item is on both agendas.

Okay.

Ms.

Wazaluski is present if if council members have any particular questions, whether you want to address them now or at the 7 o'clock meeting.

Oh, okay.

Sorry.

All right.

Okay.

Hearing no questions, moving on.

I guess the rest of that recording.

Mr.

Manager.

Thank you, Mayor.

I didn't go.

That's your phone that's not our siren, correct?

Perfect.

Okay, thank you.

I know I just yeah.

We've been in this situation before, and I wanted to add no, that's okay.

Uh item B is the 2025 annual consolidated financial report presentation by Sikich LLC.

Uh, this evening, Director Tom Suwicki of Sick It's will be discussing the City of Elgin's annual consolidated financial report.

Some of us maybe remember Mr.

Swicky from a couple years ago.

Welcome back.

Good to see you.

All right.

Oh, there it goes.

That's what we heard.

Did they go push the button?

No.

Is this for a tornado?

No, this is for a severe.

There's a severe storm.

That's all I need to know.

Thank you.

Okay.

Okay.

Oh we're good.

No, no, we got, yeah, unfortunately, Tom, you're gonna have to talk over the siren.

But I just wanted to confirm that it wasn't a tornado because then we're gonna I just got a notification that's a good thing.

Hang on, hang on, hang on.

I'm checking out there right now.

Hold on.

It may be a tornado one.

Okay.

Yeah, it's that's what it says on my Alexa.

I'm getting nothing.

Okay, that's how I'm saying that's how we're gonna.

Hey, we need to adjourn the meeting and go to the to the basement of City Hall where it is safe until the warning has passed.

We'll temporarily recess and go to the basement.

No, no, no.

Okay.

No.

Okay.

So uh Mr.

Manager will be on item D.

Agreed, Mayor.

This is a state of Illinois joint purchase master contract for fuel card services for the city's vehicle fleet.

City is seeking authorization to participate in the most recent Illinois joint purchase master contract for fleet fuel card services with Wex Bank for the next three years.

The city has been using WEX fuel cards for many years and participated under previous state contracts, the current one expiring in May.

The state has now competitively procured and awarded a new joint purchase master contract that is available to local governments, including Elgin.

Approving this item enables the city to continue purchasing fuel for its municipal fleet through the state's cooperative purchasing program.

It maintains access to WEX's nationwide fueling network and fleet management tools and also avoids any interruption in service.

The city has confirmed with WEX that its existing account has already been transitioned to the new state contract and that no additional agreements or enrollment documents are required for this transition.

Move for approval.

Second move and second for approval, any discussion.

Hearing none, quick, please call the roll.

Councilmember Zelfaro.

Yes.

Dixon?

Yes.

Good.

Yes.

Martinez?

Yes.

Ortiz?

Yes.

Powell?

Yes.

Stefan?

Yes.

Thorne?

Yes.

Mayor Captain.

Yes, the motion's approved nine zero item E.

An engineering services agreement with Engineering Enterprise Incorporated for the Ledge Service Line Replacement Program Year 6.

The year six program is scheduled to begin in 2027 and will be potentially utilizing IEPA funding, correct congressionally directed funds, DECIO grant funds, and other funding sources to replace approximately 1,000 services.

Staff recommends awarding a contract to engineering enterprises to prepare the design and bidding documents to secure the IEPA funding and to bid projects using other funding sources.

Move for approval.

Second.

Move and second floor approval.

Any discussion.

Councilmember Zelfaro.

Abstain.

Dixon?

Yes.

Good.

Yes.

Martinez?

Yes.

Ortiz?

Yes.

Powell?

Yes.

Stefan?

Yes.

Thorne?

Yes.

Mayor Captain.

Yes.

Motion's approved.

80 with one abstention.

Announcements from the City Council.

I just wanted to congratulate everyone who organized and helped throw the Juneteenth festival.

It was amazing.

I was able to attend.

Um actually my earrings are from uh business from there.

Um that I'm wearing today.

And then also um go team USA.

We're playing tomorrow in the World Cup.

And Mexico plates at 8 o'clock.

So anything else?

Mr.

Thorne.

Thank you, Mayor.

I just want to remind everyone that the uh no fireworks in the neighborhood signs are available at City Hall and at uh police department.

Hopefully, people will adhere to those.

There's a veterans, there's pets uh that have traumatic problems with it.

Leave the fireworks to the pros.

Okay, anything else from the council?

Ms.

Powell.

Thank you.

I'd like to echo what uh councilman councilwoman um Alfaro mentioned about Juneteenth.

It was a great festival.

So thanks to um the African American coalition of Kane County and all the sponsors that were responsible for putting the event on this past weekend.

We had perfect weather and had a good turnout.

Um want to offer my condolences to the family of Destiny Neal, the young lady who uh was missing and was ultimately um found deceased in the Fox River.

She was only 16 years old.

Um so I just want to offer my condolences to her family as a as a parent.

I can't even imagine what her family's going through right now.

That's it.

Okay.

Anything else from the council?

Anything from staff?

One item, Mayor.

Uh, this weekend, Saturday at 10 a.m.

in DuPage Court.

The city is inviting the community to attend a special public arts celebration, uh, featuring the unveiling of an original cityscape artwork by nationally recognized folk artist Eric Dowdle, a giant puzzle wall in the installation of the artist design manhole covers by local uh including uh the installation of artist design manhole covers by local artist Alisa Duda.

The unveiling will feature Dowdle's signature no pissing piece, no missing piece ceremony, which celebrates the importance of community connection and belonging.

Attendees will have the chance to view the original artwork alongside an eight by ten foot puzzle wall and be among the first to purchase puzzles featuring the Elgin Cityscape.

The puzzles are available in both five hundred piece and thousand piece editions and include an insert identifying the many locations and points of interest featured in the artwork.

Second.

Move and second to adjourn, please call a roll.

Yes, Stefan?

Yes.

Council for June 24th, 2026 to order, please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Steve, you would jump in.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic where we just stand nation under God with liberty and justice ourselves.

Councilmember Zalfaro.

Here.

Dixon?

President.

Good.

Here.

Martinez?

Here.

Ortiz?

Here.

Powell?

Here.

Stefan?

Here.

Thorne.

Here.

Mayor Captain.

Here.

Approval of the minutes of the previous meeting of June 10th.

Move for approval.

Second.

Move the second for approval.

Any corrections or additions?

Ms.

O'Farrell.

On page 10.

Um where we um the miscellaneous part, um, we had asked about best practices for taking minutes.

So I just wanted um if we could document that in the minutes here that we had a discussion about um looking into doing best practices for minutes, and if there is some further miscellaneous and the meeting minutes that we receive from other commissions, etc.

Okay.

So noted.

Okay, Clerk, please call the roll.

Councilmember Zalfaro?

Yes.

Dixon?

Yes.

Good?

Yes.

Martinez?

Yes.

Ortiz?

Yes.

Powell?

Yes.

Stefan?

Yes.

Thorne?

Yes.

Mayor Captain.

Yes, motions approved nine zero.

We have a number of uh communications and proclamations this evening.

Would Carol Geese join me at the podium?

You deserve it.

You should be doing 20 years' worth.

It's a great honor to uh read this proclamation for Carol Geese.

Whereas Carol Geese has devoted more than four decades of distinguished service to Elgin community through leadership roles with United Way, St.

Joseph's Hospital Foundation, the Elgin Area Chamber of Commerce, helping strengthen the economic vitality of the Greater Elgin area, and whereas throughout her career, Carol led efforts that raised more than $55 million for health care and community services, strengthened partnerships among businesses, nonprofits, and local government, and advanced programs that improve the quality of life for residents throughout the region.

And whereas during her tenure as President and CEO of the Elgin area chamber of commerce from 2007 to 2026, Carol expanded the chamber's role as a leading advocate and resource for local businesses, supported economic development, and partnerships, and helped guide businesses through the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Carol championed numerous initiatives promoting leadership development, volunteerism, education, and community engagement, including a day of caring, United Youth, Youth United, excuse me, the Elgin Area Leadership Academy, Open Elgin, the Chamber of Young Professionals Group, and the revitalation of the revitalization, revitalization of the Elgin Image Awards.

And whereas Carroll's outstanding leadership and service had been recognized through numerous honors, including the Elgin Community College Lasting Impact Award, the Daily Herald Influential Women in Business Recognition, YWCA Marie Grohlick Award for Social Service, Rotary Club of Elgin, Paul Harris Fellow Designation, and Community Crisis Center, partners and partner in peace recognition, recognition.

And whereas, as a fourth generation Elginite with deep family roots in Elgin's business and civic history, Carol Geese has dedicated her life to strengthening the community through collaboration, volunteerism, and compassionate leadership.

And now therefore I David Captain, mayor of the city of Elgin, Illinois, do hereby commend and thank Carol Geese for her extraordinary service, lasting contributions, and unwavering commitment to the city of Elgin, and extend our sincere best wishes upon her retirement.

Carolina.

May I make a comment?

You sure can.

Just a comment.

This is uh I am so honored and touched and humbled.

Thank you very much for this recognition.

I am um I have been so pleased to be able to work in this community and dedicate my career to uh this community and the enhancement, but it is not me, it is all of you, it is all of us.

As I said last night, uh, you know, this is a collaboration, and if you aren't a strong counsel that's believing in business, then the businesses in this community are not going to succeed.

So it is our pleasure at the Elgin Area Chamber, the Elgin Development Group to work with you, to work with our community to continue to uh deliver services.

I do want to say I want to extend my thanks to Chief Sagan.

We got out of our basement to come down here in time.

Thank you, Chief.

The warnings worked really well.

Thank you very much.

Uh but thank you on behalf of uh myself and my family, um many members here.

Uh we are so pleased and um honored to be in this position, and thank you for the recognition.

Okay, I I've asked uh councilmember Thorne to uh read the next proclamation, and uh following him will be uh councilman Stefan will read the last proclamation.

Should I go down and read it?

Oh, yeah, oh yeah.

Even though he's not here.

Oh, there's nobody here, okay.

That's right, Babylon's work.

Thank you, Mayor.

I'm very proud to be able to read this proclamation for Walter Porter.

I worked with him on so many projects, but unfortunately, his family was unable to attend this evening to receive it uh in person.

I will be delivering it to them at their home tomorrow.

Whereas Walter Porter, a devoted husband, father, veteran, community leader, and proud Elgin resident of Elgin, Illinois, passed away on May 27th, 2026, at the age of 68.

And whereas Walter honorably served his country in the United States Navy, traveling throughout the world while developing a lifelong appreciation for service, patriotism, and fellowship.

And whereas Walter dedicated many years of service to the Elgin community through leadership roles with the Watch City Post 1307 VFW, the U.S.

Navy Ship Club 7, and the Elgin Patriotic Memorial Association, and whereas Walter played an important role in the planning and development of phases one and two of the Elgin Veterans Memorial Park and helped organize services honoring those buried at sea.

And whereas Walter was known for his generosity, strong work ethic, and love of family, friends, fishing, gardening, traveling, and bringing people together through food and fellowship.

And whereas Walter's legacy of kindness, dedication, and community service will continue to live on through his family, fellow veterans, and the many lives he touched throughout Elgin and beyond.

And whereas now, therefore, I, David Captain, mayor of the City of Elgin, Illinois, do hereby honor and celebrate the life and legacy of Walter Porter, extend our deepest sympathies to his family and loved ones, and express our gratitude for his many contributions to the veteran community and the city of Elgin.

Thank you.

Just you?

I forgot to say it was me and not Mayor Campbell.

So some of these people are meeting for the first time.

But I want to do before I get started on the proclamations, is Chuck Campbell, one of the uh kids, I'll call you kids.

I'm gonna make that mistake so many times.

You're older than I am, but um, that went on this journey in 1976.

So uh here, I'm gonna give you this because these are the same.

You can hold on to that while I read this.

Yes, and people are taking photos, great, because we want to make sure that happens.

So as people remember, before I start this, we were here, I think in March to honor the person who led this project, Reed Lewis, who's a resident of Elgin, taught French at Larkin High School, got into all kinds of cultural and artistic things with France and the French language, and we honored him with a proclamation.

This is for the actual LaSalle Expedition reenactment.

So, and we're gonna tell you about a way to celebrate that.

And I think I've sent tried to make sure through our corporate council to send everybody an invitation to the event that we're gonna recognize them formally in August.

But let me start this with a proclamation, and I have to cheat.

So, whereas in 1976, during the nation's bicentennial, the LaSalle Expedition II, led by Reed Henry Lewis, undertook a 3300-mile eight-month reenactment of the 1681-1682 voyage of Renee Robert Cavalier, Sierra de LaSalle, traveling by handcrafted canoes from Montreal to the Gulf of Mexico, and bringing history to life for communities from across North America.

And whereas the expedition reflected years of research and preparation and inspired generations through its educational legacy, including the permanent LaSallex exhibit and handcrafted canoe displayed at the Elgin Public Museum in Lord's Park, hold that thought.

And whereas the adult crew included Reed Lewis, his brother Ken Lewis, some teachers, Dick Stillwagen, John Fialco, Terry Cox, Ron Hobart, and Father Lauren Fuchs, who played the Catholic priest who was on the original expedition, and student crew members, including Sid Bardwell, Gary Brown, Chuck Campbell, John DeFolvio, Randy Foster, Mark Friedenberg, Jorge Garcia, Keith Gorse, Rich Gross, Sam Hess, Bob Kulik, George Lesutre, Mark Lieberman, Steve Marr, Doug Sohn, Bill Watts, and Cliff Wilson.

And I wanted to stop here.

I originally had their high schools because every one of them but one of them went to either Elgin High School or Larkin High School, and were either seniors or juniors at the time.

They have a ringer from Evanston Township High School.

You're gonna have to chase down one of the reenactors and get the story behind that.

Whereas the liaison team included Janine Scholes Lewis, um Reed's wife, her friend Marlena Scavazzo, Kathy Palmer, Sharon Baumgardner, and photojournalist Barton Dean.

And whereas since 1975, the City of Elgin has honored the crew and liaison team through public programs and recognition, including Mayor Richard Verbick greeting the reenactment at the mouth of the Mississippi in April 1977, and also a recent mayor's award for preservation recognizing the encounter exhibit that exists at the Elgin Public Lords Park in Lord's Park at the Elgin Public Museum.

And whereas many members of the Expedition Crew and Liaison team are returning to Elgin for their 50th high school reunions and a recognition ceremony at the Elgin Public Museum will take place on August 22nd, 2026 at noon.

Now, therefore, I, John Stefan, on behalf of David Captain, the mayor of the city of Elgin, Illinois, do hereby recognize and honor the LaSalle Expedition 2 Voyageurs and the Liaison team for their extraordinary achievements and lasting impact on our community.

In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand this 24th day of June 2026.

So congratulations.

Yeah, you can, yeah, absolutely.

Uh mayor captain and counselors, thank you for this uh recognition of our crew who will be here.

Um I look around and I think some of you weren't even born yet.

So it'll be a chance in August to find us at Lord's Park, and you can ask all the questions you want.

And there's two books out, which I don't know if your library has, but we'll they do.

So they do.

Um and John can fill you on on that.

But thank you for this honor and uh recognizing the crew of LaSalle Expedition too.

Yeah, so I yeah, I wanted to.

I'm getting cued to tell you about that event.

So we're gonna be in the Fourth of July parade if we don't get tornado sirens and canceled, but um, and if we can pull this off, right, Sherry, Sherry and Judy.

Judy is the board president, Sherry works at the Elgin Public Museum.

We're trying to pull this uh Fourth of July float off and recreate what they did in 1976 in the parade.

We actually found some old photos.

But more importantly, August 22nd, it's a Saturday.

Uh I've been sending, trying to get you guys sent an invitation since everybody's certainly invited.

Noon, Lord's Park at the Elgin Public Museum.

We're going to try to do a ceremony and recognize them a little more formally, invite some other people.

And that day from noon to four, there will be activities.

There is actually a documentary made about this, and we're hoping that we can screen it.

We're going to have the books available.

We're going to have some outdoor activities and try to promote the recognition that this group deserves.

So hopefully you'll be there.

And not to put any pressure on the mayor or anything, but the thing that I learned through helping out with this effort is that uh we mentioned Mayor Richard Verbick, who was the mayor back in 1976.

He apparently showed up at a fundraiser for this event dressed as the Sun King.

Oh.

King Louis the Fourteenth.

So anyway, so to the community, hopefully you can come and uh look for that.

We're going to promote it in the Elgin 250th celebrations and try to have it up there so people can know about it and come and see it.

And we're going to try to do a little more formal ceremony at that time.

So thank you.

Okay.

Okay.

We have uh no public comments this evening.

Brings us to bids.

We have no bids.

Brings us to other business.

The first item is a consideration of petitions 36-25, 37-25 for 1152 and 1172 Larkin Avenue.

A map amendment and plan development of a conditional use to establish the Emanuel Church of Elgin's parsonage as a separate residential property.

Mr.

Millot.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

The subject property is located on the north side of Larkin Avenue between Melrose Avenue and North Aldean Street.

Here is Larkin.

This is Melrose and this is Al Dean.

This is the Larkin Center.

This is a former automotive repair shop Escamilla Automotive.

This is a former gas station, gas depot, and food shop.

Emanuel Church of Elgin requests zoning approval to divide the property at 1152 to 1172 Larkin so that the church's parsonage would become its own residential property, separate and distinct from the church property.

The church would convey the single family home and an approxim and approximately 9,500 square foot lot to its pastor, Richard Sanders, who resides in the home and would do so going forward.

The parsonage would be rezoned to RC2 residence conservation district, which matches the zoning of the existing homes on the south side of Larkin to make the new property compliant with the zoning requirements for single-family homes.

The remaining church property would be rezoned from CF to PCF, Planned Community Facility, with the property division.

The church's parking lot shed and existing building would not meet required setbacks from a residential property.

The approval of the plan development includes departures from the typical transition yard setback and transition landscape yard requirements to keep the existing improvements as they are.

Neither the church nor Pastor Sanders are proposing any physical changes to their properties.

The applicant is present.

Should you have any questions?

Staff in the Planning and Zoning Commission recommend approval, subject to the conditions outlined within your packet.

So moved.

Second moved and seconded for approval, subject to conditions.

Any discussion hearing none, Crook, please call the roll.

Councilmember Zelfar?

Yes.

Dixon?

Yes.

Good.

Yes.

Martinez?

Yes.

Ortiz?

Yes.

Powell?

Yes.

Stephen?

Yes.

Thorne?

Yes.

Mayor Cass.

Yes.

The motion is approved 90.

Congratulations.

Item two is consideration of petition zero 07 and 06 for 1730 and 1740 Berkeley Street.

Plan development is a conditional use to expand an existing emergency shelter and establish a transitional housing facility within an existing light industrial building.

Mr.

Millai.

Thank you, Mayor.

The subject property is located on the north side of Berkeley Street between 2nd Street and Shepherd Drive, which turns into Weld Road, which parallels U.S.

Route 20.

Here is Berkeley.

This is second, and this is Shepherd.

This is RL Carriers.

This is Courtesy Container Packaging Company.

This is Elgin Lanes, and this is Stamar Packaging.

Wayside Cross Ministries and Public Action to Deliver Shelter, more commonly known as PADS, request zoning approval to expand the services provided for persons experiencing homelessness at 1730 and 1740 Berkeley Street.

You may recall that last December City Council approved a transitional housing facility for Wayside at 890 North State.

Unfortunately, a purchase agreement with the property could not be finalized.

And Wayside has decided to instead expand their services at the Berkeley property, which they already own.

Since 2007, Wayside in partnership with PADS has been operating emergency shelter for up to 60 persons within the 10,600 square foot units A and B of the 21,176 square foot multi-tenant light industrial building.

In 2025, Wayside and PADS acquired two of the four remaining units within the building for general warehousing and storage.

Wayside and PAS are now proposing to expand within the remainder of the building, taking over the last two remaining tenant spaces.

One tenant has already moved out, and the others lease expires at the end of August.

The expansion would allow services for up to 118 persons.

Apologies, but I've rotated the plans here so you have to see a little more detail.

North is to the right, Berkeley Street and the front of the building is on the left.

Pads would operate the emergency shelter within the front 8100 square feet of the building for up to 48 persons.

Wayside would operate a transitional housing facility in the rear 13,000 square feet 13,000 square feet of the building for up to 70 persons.

Currently each operation is capped at 30 clients.

The emergency shelter operated by PADS provides overnight shelter and service coordination with other area agencies to provide training, education, and health care needs for people experiencing homelessness.

With the larger space, pads would also provide daytime shelter, including shower laundry, and other day-to-day services, all with eight employees, some of whom stay overnight.

Wayside's facility would be modeled on their facility in Aurora, providing a dorm-style residential housing recovery program for both men and women as they transition through their five-step program.

Their facility will be staffed 24 hours a day, including three trained resident staff during overnight hours.

Most property improvements are the are on the interior of the building.

Exterior improvements include filling some overhead doors with matching masonry, parking lot improvements to increase the number of parking spaces from 40 to 44, and the construction of a masonry refuse collection area at the rear of the building.

Future plans include the construction of a 600 square foot addition at the front of the building for pads with additional showers and support areas, and a 1,500 square foot addition at the back of the building for waysides donation collection center and additional program support areas.

The applicant is available should you have any questions.

Staff in the planning and zoning commission recommend approval subject to the conditions outlined within your package.

Move for approval conditions.

Second second.

Move the second for approval subject to conditions.

Any questions from Mr.

Malad or the applicant?

Ms.

Alfaro.

Thank you.

Um appreciate the utilize of using the space, right?

And expanding the services.

Greatly appreciated both organizations.

I just had one question out of curiosity.

When I was reading it, it had mentioned in the future that there might be an additional add-on to for pads, like adding more showers.

Where would that go?

I'm just curious.

Sure.

Yeah, no, no problem.

It would go in the lower left of that image in the blue little square.

Okay.

And the playgrounds in front of that then?

The playground that would be that would replace the playground.

Ah, I see.

So we'll print the playground now, and then in the future, that would be okay.

Yep.

Got it.

Anything else?

Okay.

We look forward to the expansion.

And I think Wayside's done a great job in the City of Elgin.

We're disappointed that uh the proposal on State Street didn't work out.

But sometimes we move on and we find a good solution as well.

So this will be a good solution.

Clerk, please call a roll.

Councilmember Zelfaro?

Yes.

Dixon?

Yes.

Good.

Yes.

Martinez?

Yes.

Ortiz?

Yes.

Powell?

Yes.

Stefan?

Yes.

Thorne?

Yes.

Mayor Campton.

Yes.

Motion is approved nine zero.

Congratulations.

Yeah.

Item three is a resolution accepting a proposal of alien property insurance program for the city of Elgin's property, inland marine and cyber liability insurance.

Move for approval.

Second.

Move to second for approval.

Any discussion.

Hearing none, Clerk, please call the roll.

Councilmember Zalfaro?

Yes.

Dixon?

Yes.

Good.

Yes.

Martinez?

Yes.

Ortiz?

Yes.

Powell?

Yes.

Stefan?

Yes.

Thorne?

Yes.

Mayor Campton.

Yes.

Motions approved 90.

Item 4 is a resolution ratifying the acceptance of a grant from the State of Illinois, Department of Human Services and ratifying the execution of a grant agreement relating there to in connection with the City of Elgin unsheltered pilot project and provision of temporary housing and supportive services for individuals experiencing homelessness.

Second.

Move the second floor approval.

Any discussion?

Ms.

Martinez.

Thank you, Mayor.

I just understand that this is because of uh the advocacy uh and the generosity of um representative Moeller, and I would decide to thank her for looking out for Algin and for what she does.

Thank you.

Okay.

Anything else?

Clerk, please call the roll.

Councilmember Zelfaro?

Yes.

Dixon?

Yes.

Yes.

Martinez?

Yes.

Ortiz?

Yes.

Powell?

Yes.

Stefan?

Yes.

Dorne?

Yes.

Mayor Captain.

Yes.

Motion's approved nine zero.

Consent agenda.

Move for approval.

Second.

Move and second for approval.

Any discussion.

Hearing none, please call the roll.

Councilmember's alfaro?

Yes.

Dixon?

Yes.

Good.

Yes.

Martinez?

Yes.

Ortiz?

Yes.

Powell?

Yes.

Stefan?

Yes.

Dorne?

Yes.

Mayor Campton.

Yes.

The motion is approved nine zero.

Miscellaneous business.

Move for approval.

Second.

Move the second for approval.

Mr.

Dixon.

No.

Okay.

Any comment.

Okay.

Hearing none, Clerk, please call a roll.

Councilmember Zalfaro?

Yes.

Dixon?

Yes.

Good.

Yes.

Martinez?

Yes.

Ortiz?

Yes.

Powell?

Yes.

Stefan?

Yes.

Dorne?

Yes.

Mayor Captain.

Yes.

Motions approved nine zero.

The next committee of the whole meeting will be Wednesday, July 8th, 2026 at 6 p.m.

in the council chambers.

The next regular meeting of the Elgin City Council will be Wednesday, July 8th, 2026 at 7 p.m.

in the council chambers.

I entertain a motion to adjourn back to the committee of the whole.

So moved.

Second.

Move and second to adjourn.

Clerk, please call the roll.

Councilmember Zalfaro.

Yes.

Dixon?

Yes.

Good.

Yes.

Martinez?

Yes.

Ortiz?

Yes.

Powell?

Yes.

Stefan?

Yes.

Dorne?

Yes.

Mayor Captain.

Yes, we are adjourned.

Motion to uh reconvene the committee of the whole.

So move.

Second.

And move and seconded.

Clerk, please call a roll.

Councilmember Zalfaro.

Yes.

Dixon?

Yes.

Good.

Yes.

Martinez?

Yes.

Ortiz?

Yes.

Powell?

Yes.

Stefan?

Yes.

Doran?

Yes.

Mayor Captain.

Yes.

We're back in business.

Mr.

Manager.

Thank you.

Agreed, Mayor.

Once again, SICH LLC Director Tom Swicky is going to be discussing Elgin's 2025 annual consolidated financial report.

No more sense.

Thank you for sticking with us this evening, Tom.

Absolutely.

Good evening, everyone.

Again, my name is Tom Swicky, director with Sicich.

Thank you for giving me a few minutes tonight to go through the results of the December 31st, 2025 fiscal year and audit.

I'd like to start by thanking Deb, Amy, and the entire finance team for all of their help during the audit this year.

Very smooth process.

We ask for a lot of information.

They get us everything we need very timely.

So I really appreciate all the assistance they provide.

Tonight will be going through at a high level the reports that we issued for the FY25 audit, mainly focusing on the largest of the documents, which is the annual comprehensive financial report.

The ACFAR is broken up into three sections.

You have an introductory financial and statistical section.

The introductory and statistical sections is what makes this a comprehensive report as it goes above and beyond the minimum report reporting requirements required for Illinois municipalities.

If you're following along, I direct you to page III in the introductory section.

This page is the certificate of achievement for excellence at financial reporting from GFOA.

This the uh city participates in the certificate program annually.

This certificate here represents the fiscal 24 submission from last year.

It is the 45th consecutive year the city has earned the certificate.

Deb will be submitting the FY25 um audit report, and we anticipate the city will get its 46th consecutive certificate next year.

If you flip to page one in the financial section of the report, this is the independent auditors report section.

Um as part of our audit, we followed two sets of standards, generally accepted auditing standards and governmental reporting requirements.

Um I'm pleased to note that we issue what we call an unmodified opinion in accordance with those standards.

Um it's also known as a clean audit opinion.

It's the highest level of assurance we can provide.

The financial statements are free from material misstatement.

The rest of the independent auditor report then discusses a few other matters, most notably what our responsibilities as auditors are for the financial statements and what management's responsibilities are for the financial statements.

Uh beyond that, starting on MDNA page one.

This starts the management's discussion and analysis section of the report.

So just as that name describes, management discusses and analyzes the financial information in the FY25 audit report.

Uh so Deb put it together, did a really nice job.

Um it's a great overview of the city's financial position and changes in financial position from the prior year.

The rest of the report really is just kind of static uh one-year type information, but this does a nice job of taking the current year comparing to the prior year and adding explanations for why things may have changed from the prior year.

So I always like to encourage you if you don't read anything else in detail in the audit report.

Uh please read through the MDNA section of the report.

Flipping past that, starting in your basic financial statements, uh pages seven and eight uh represent the city's entity wide financial statements.

Uh these two pages are the statement of net position and statement of activities.

Um essentially it's the uh balance sheet and income statement for the city as a whole.

This includes the normal information used to seeing plus some long-term activity like your capital assets and long-term liabilities.

Um, page 11 starts your fund financial statements.

This is the governmental funds balance sheet.

It's broken up into individual columns for your major funds, which are your general fund and your debt service fund, and then one aggregate column for the remaining uh non-major funds.

Uh looking at the general fund specifically at the bottom of page 12 in the fund balance section, you can see the general fund had 123.9 million in unassigned fund balance.

That's fund balance, the general fund can be used for any purpose going forward.

Um, that represents roughly eight months worth of expenditures in the general fund.

Uh page 14 is the uh governmental funds statement of revenues, expenditures, and changes in fund balance.

Again, looking at your general fund.

Uh the the fund itself actually had a decrease in fund balance of about 2.1 million, bringing it to about 141 million in fund balance.

Um, again, you can refer back to the MDNA for some explanations for why those balances may have changed from the prior year.

Page 18 uh is part of your proprietary fund financial statements.

Uh, this is the statement of revenues, expenses, and changes in net position.

Key number to look at on this schedule is kind of in the middle, the operating income loss number for each of the funds.

Um, that basically is showing whether or not the charges for the services provided are enough to cover the operating costs of those services.

So, as you can see, they all had operating losses during the year.

Um, the water fund specifically, though, a lot of that's due to the capital outlay for lead service line projects.

Um, there's a about a three million dollar IEPA loan forgiveness revenue down in the contribution line below that, which sort of offsets that the key with that number though, those numbers though, is really just to monitor those on a periodic basis to see um where those are landing, um just to see if there's something that's structurally out of balance in those funds, but no concern at the moment.

Uh page 23 starts the notes of the financial statements.

Um, I'm not going to go through this in detail, it's just adds additional context and supplements those financial statement numbers.

I just kind of went through there for some of the key areas, your cash investments, long-term debt, capital assets, things like that.

Um, after the notes, a couple of schedules to run through here on page 87.

Um, this is your general fund budget versus actual schedule.

So if you're looking at the schedule, the third column is the actual results of the fund.

The column to the left of it is the um the final budget amounts.

Down at the bottom, you can see the general fund had a decrease of 2.1 million in fund balance.

The column on the left of it, the budget column, you can see you actually budgeted for the fund to uh decrease by about 23.8 million.

So the fund outperformed how you budgeted for it by about 21.7 million dollars.

Just like to point out the budget for the actual schedules provide a lot of good information for the individual funds to see how they perform during the fiscal year.

Um the last schedule I'm gonna run through are our pension related schedules.

Um if you're following along, you can go to pages uh start at page 94.

94 and 95 is your schedule of your net pension liability for the Illinois municipal retirement fund plan.

Uh the city utilizes one-year-old data, uh, which is allowable.

So actually, 2024 is the information we're looking at here.

See down at the bottom of that schedule.

The uh net pension liability associated with that plan is about 1.6 million.

That's a decrease from 3.4 million last year.

The key number on this schedule is the top of the next page, 99.3%.

That's the funded status of the plan.

IMRF is one of the best funded plans in the state, so no concerns from a funding perspective for the IMRF plan.

Next schedule is related to your um, it's also part of IMRF, it's the SLEP plan.

Uh, there's no current employees contributing into this plan.

The plan itself is very small, but it does have a uh net pension asset position actually, about $800,000.

So it's in a really good position there financially.

The next schedule is the same schedule, but for your police pension fund.

The police pension fund at the end of 2025 had about 126 million in the net pension liability.

It's a decrease from last year about 137 million dollars.

Um again, looking at the funded status, it's about 63.1% funded.

Uh, it's pretty consistent with a lot of our um municipal pension plans that we we do audit and review.

Um, again, the the city is actually um looking to 100% fund this plan by the year 2040.

State statutes only require you 90% funded, so the city's actually going above and beyond those minimum requirements there.

Similarly with the fire pension um fund here, the fire pension fund had about 79 million in a net pension liability balance, uh, which was a decrease from 95 million from last year.

Again, this represents about 67.1% funded.

Um similarly to the police pension plan, this is the city is um 100% funding this by the year 2040 as well.

Um lastly, just quickly want to point out the the statistical section in the back of the report.

I'm not gonna go through this in detail.

Just want to point out what's included in there.

Um really good information to take a look at as a lot of it shows like trend information and the historical finances for the uh for the city.

A lot of those schedules are 10 years worth of data, so good information to see how finances have trended over the last decade for the city.

Uh with that, those are the high level um items I want to touch base on for the audit report here.

Uh real quickly, the other report I wanted to mention that we um issued is the auditor's communication to city council and management.

This uh document serves a couple of purposes.

First, it has a required communication from us to uh those charged with governance.

We call it a SAS-114 letter.

It's just standard um information we have to communicate under our auditing standards.

We have a list of any uh adjusting journal entries we identified during the audit process.

We only had one adjusting journal entry this year as part of the audit, which is fantastic for the size of the city.

And then lastly, a uh communication of deficiencies document, which we would um would indicate if we have any recommendations for improvement or other deficiencies we identify in internal control.

We had no comments this year, we had no residual comments from last year.

So again, a kudos to uh Deb and the entire finance team for getting the financial statements in such a good position this year.

Um really appreciate all the help and um how everything was um uh finalized for us this year.

So uh with that, those are the high-level comments for the audit for fiscal year 2025, but I'd be happy to address any questions you may have.

Okay, any questions at this time?

Ms.

Halfar.

Thank you.

Uh thank you for staying with us.

I know it's a little later than you anticipated.

Um it was a little hard to follow you.

You went really, really fast.

Um so um you mentioned there was no concerns that you found in the audit, right?

Correct.

Um, is there anything you say that we are doing okay, but we could do better?

And what is that?

Well, what you always want to do is just make sure you're consistently reviewing your control processes in place, make sure there's not one individual who has full access to everything within that uh process without a secondary review or second set of eyes on those.

Um as we go through, we do test those and review those controls that are in place.

We didn't have any issues, um, but it is always something to continually monitor as as processes change, systems change, things like that.

Um, that's always an area to always kind of look at and try and improve upon every year if you if you can if there's ways to to help with that, if that means adding more people within the process to look at certain things, not saying that that it's necessary, but it's something to always kind of continually monitor.

Thank you.

Okay, any other questions?

Mr.

Steph.

I don't have a question, I just have a statement or a comment.

Um, Mr.

Savio, thank you, and I'm appreciate this, and I'm gonna echo echo what you said.

If somebody, our residents um want to take this on and try to wade through this report of this audit, it's it's amazing.

But I'm gonna echo what you said and and start with or certainly make sure you get to the management's discussion analysis, MDNA.

But also with that, and it kind of piggybacks with it is Deb's letter of transmittal.

And I just want to point out that's great.

It has a list of the initiatives that we've taken on over the last year, which is you know a great summary.

Kind of forget that those things have happened, and every year I'm pretty sure because I think I've seen it.

She reiterates the guidelines, the financial guidelines we use, the threshold for having to get an RFP, a threshold for getting council approval, the percentage of reserves we we require in different funds, and how all of those guidelines that I think I appreciate having that kind of reinforced and getting reminded about that.

And and Deb did put a lot of effort into this, so I appreciate it.

Thanks.

Okay, anything else?

Ms.

Paul.

Thank you, and again, thank you for huddling in the basement with us uh while we went through the uh tornado uh warning.

Um, this is always um uh a big endeavor for our staff.

So thanks to Deb Naraki and and her team and everyone with the city, and thank you for um uh being our our auditor for a number of years and one of the top municipal auditors, I will say, in the state of Illinois.

So thank you.

Um you guys have a great reputation.

Um a couple of questions I have.

How does Elgin's unrestricted fund balance compare to other Illinois communities that you know that you've worked with about our size?

What is how how does our unrestricted fund balance compare to what you've seen in other communities?

I'd say it's pretty similar.

Um we want you looking at a range.

So TFOA um gives uh recommendation for at least two months of expenditures.

I think I mentioned that it's about eight months for the city.

Now that's not saying it's it's too high because a lot of other municipalities have probably I'd say six months is pretty pretty common, six to twelve months um is pretty is pretty common, so you're kind of right in the middle of the range there with where you're at currently.

Um so I'd say it's pretty pretty consistent with what I see in our other clients.

Okay.

Um the other question I have is and I think I know the answer to this, at least uh based on conversations we've had here at the dais.

But in your opinion, um, what do you think are the most probably the three most um critical funding um challenges that you see for uh LGIN over the next couple of years?

Um well you you're still relying on the state for a lot of your um taxes that come in, and there's always some uncertainty with you know if there's delay in payments or kind of what's going to happen when to happen at the at the state level.

So that's a big chunk of where the money uh comes from.

I'd say that's probably the most um relevant to you.

Uh otherwise you do have received a lot of grant funding as well.

Um if if the grant opportunities dry up or you don't apply for them, or you don't receive those grants, um, that could certainly impact your funding sources as well.

Um I'd say those are probably the two largest areas that could uh likely impact the city going forward.

Okay.

Great.

Thank you.

Sure.

Okay, anything else?

Uh just a comment.

One thing I always look for is uh uh it's on page 11 in the little book, and it uh talks about communications and internal controls, and the statement is that we noted no internal control deficiencies during our audit.

That means that uh staff did a good job.

And uh we follow the guidelines and uh uh report what we see, and that's the way that we try to run our government.

Is that the transparent and what uh it's the facts that uh we transmit uh to the council and to the uh uh uh public.

So thank you very much for the report and we look forward to maybe it'll be better time if we come back next year.

All right, thank you very much.

All right, thank you very much.

Thank you.

Okay, my head, good luck.

All right, Mr.

Manager.

Thank you, Mayor.

So item C is another presentation.

This is regarding the city's emergency warning sirens and enhanced activations.

Chief Sagan will be providing information on the manner in which the city's enhanced emergency warning sirens are being activated.

Following Rob, communications manager at Josie Beecher Crady will be discussing the city's plan to continue educating the public on what we're doing with the sirens.

I gotta start out, Robin, you know how to do a presentation.

It uh I'm sorry it got delayed, but it's uh it was a good start.

I do want to say one thing though to start out with, which was not on my agenda, is to is to thank you.

So this is not the first time this has happened, but you as the elected leaders are leading by example.

The fact that we suspended a meeting, it's not the first time we've suspended a meeting to go down to the basement and demonstrate exactly what we're saying needs to happen is truly leading by example.

So I I appreciate the support, and I think it's great for the community to see that.

So if you remember back, I believe it was April 22nd.

I was here, and I gave some discussion points related to our emergency outdoor warning siren system based on some complaints that we had received because we had two storms early in the season that resulted in multiple activations both times of our warning system, causing people to have confusion and having concerns over what is in fact happening.

Oh, okay.

So what I want to do is come back as I said I would at that meeting.

We have done a what I consider to be an exhaustive evaluation of a number of different factors related to outdoor warning siren systems, both what our capabilities are in town as well as what other communities are doing.

And so to reiterate the problem that we had, it was multiple siren activations and the unknown reason for those activations.

What we did was we went out and we talked to many communities, researched our system to find out all that is happening out there and get an idea of what other communities are doing and where are where do we stand with that?

And the first thing I want to say is why is all of this so important?

Well, we learned tonight as another example.

We learned a week ago with just a mile outside of town, Bartlett had an EF1 tornado that spawned out of nowhere.

In fact, a minute and 30 seconds prior to the Bartlett tornado touching down, I received on my phone from the National Weather Service an indication, an indicator that said the severe thunderstorm warning had expired.

And a minute 36 seconds later, the sirens went off, and it was a confirmed touchdown in Bartlett.

Weather is very unpredictable.

That's why this all matters.

Here's some stats I want to give you.

As of tonight, the state of Illinois is number one in the nation for tornadoes with 196 reported tornadoes.

Number two is Mississippi with 83.

We're more than double the number two spot.

Texas, I'm gonna look this one up because I forgot.

Texas, Texas, 51 tornadoes.

They're normally number one.

So we are more than doubling every other state to this point today.

We had the uh warmest and most active April on record in Illinois this year.

And we've had the and we are having the third warmest and active season, spring season on record.

The weather is changing.

I'm not the meteorologist, like I said last time.

I'm not I'm not here to explain all the weather phenomenon why this is happening, but it's very clearly happening.

There are uh I've read a lot of things out there that explain why this is happening, and it may not be this way next year, but we in the last two of the how can I say this, two of the last three years, we have been number one for tornadoes.

So this, what we're talking about very much matters.

So, what did we do?

I said we'd come back and we talk about our evaluations and and what we found.

So, first off, we benchmark with other communities.

We've I've heard you you ask us to benchmark what other communities are doing.

We hear something that another community is doing.

Will that work here?

Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't.

I also like to come to you and say, you know what, what we're doing, whatever the X is that we're doing, is we're the le we're leading the pack.

I love to tell you that.

I can't tell you that tonight, because what we're doing tonight, what we're talking about, is not new.

We are not leading the way.

What we're doing though, and we started this two years ago, because remember when I was here in April, this is the third storm season that we've had our system set up the way it is tonight.

The first two years we had no issues.

This year we did because of the types of storms that we had.

So when we look and see what other communities are doing, Mundaline, for example, is a community that's doing exactly what we're doing, and they've been doing it for a few years.

They have no issues.

Libertyville, Vernon Hills, Normal, Bloomington are all doing it.

The quad cities are doing it.

So what we're doing is not new and not leading the way, it's getting on board with what progressive communities are doing when it comes to notifying the communities of impending threats.

There are many other communities.

I have a list of about nine in our immediate area that notify for the destructive level thunderstorms.

So, one thing that I want to talk about, I never use PowerPoint, so I apologize.

Um talked about why it matters.

I gotta get caught up here.

Um, a few things that we that we that we looked at is um what levels of storms should we should we notify for?

We talked about should we use different siren tones.

We talked about zoning the city, all these things I'm gonna touch on.

So if you remember, and there's gonna be a slide a little bit later that's gonna talk about this in more detail, is we have the National Weather Service puts out different classifications for severe thunderstorms.

The considerable level are severe thunderstorms with 70 mile an hour plus winds and one and three-quarter inch hail, or one and three-quarter inch hail, and destructive thunderstorms, which are 80 plus mile an hour winds with up to two and a half, two and three quarter inch hail.

And destructive thunderstorms, which are 80 plus mile an hour winds with up to two and a half, two and three-quarter inch hail.

These are severe storms.

70 mile an hour straight line winds can do significant damage to structures.

It can do significant damage to people.

As I've said, our system, all these warning systems are called the outdoor emergency warning system to take care of the most vulnerable people in the community, and those are people who are outside.

That's who we're warning first and foremost.

But if you're in your house and you live near a construction site, having construction debris whipped up at 70 miles an hour will come through your windows.

It can cause a tremendous amount of damage.

Every resource that I found said, yes, it's an option, but it's fraught with danger.

And the danger that it poses is how do we communicate this to the city to all the people?

We can do that easily.

We can get everybody to know what's going on today, but then tomorrow with new residents moving in, they aren't going to know what happened, what those different sounds are until we do another campaign.

And it's an and we are, and and Josie's going to talk about our ongoing campaign efforts, but it's impossible to be able to get everybody at all the time to understand what the different sounds are.

In addition, we bring in maybe a hundred thousand people a year between the sports complex and all of our events throughout the city in a year.

None of those people are going to know what our what the different sounds are for.

Everybody knows the one sound for a tornado warning for an emergency warning.

It could be a tornado, it could be a thunderstorm.

What our talking points are to seek shelter and seek more information.

We don't want to be the community's weather station.

All we want to do is notify you of an impending threat and have you go get more information.

But Josie's also gonna talk about some ways that we can provide you extra information.

So the two siren system is just not gonna be practical, it's just not practical.

Warning zones.

When we when the National Weather Service puts together a warning box like we have on the screen, what zoning today, tonight, all the sirens go off.

Tomorrow, only those six sirens inside that blue box would be activated.

Because that is the area of immediate of that's the area of the city that's under immediate threat.

So what that does is it helps to reduce the multiple activations of areas of the city up north in this example that may be sunny.

And then we get the calls.

Why is my siren going off?

It's sunny.

So by taking advantage of the technology that we bought three years ago, we can zone the city's siren system.

What that means though is this, and we encountered it tonight.

As the storm moves across the off across the city, a new warning box may appear.

So the blue warning box moved, the white is the old warning box.

The three sirens in red would activate a second time because they're still in the threat area.

So when I hear people talk about, well, siren fatigue, why the sirens go off three times.

The sirens go off because you're under threat.

Last week, no, two weeks ago now, when the Bartlett tornado happened, prior to that, late afternoon, we went from a 60 mile an hour severe thunderstorm, which we do not notify for, to a 70 mile an hour thunderstorm to an 80 mile an hour thunderstorm within minutes of each other, and then an hour or so later, a tornado warning, and all the sirens went off.

So as this would progress, as this potentially would progress across the rest of the city, those three green sirens that are at the top of the blue box may activate again.

But the ones that activated in the first warning would not.

And we're only talking about severe thunderstorms.

When we talk about tornadoes, all the sirens were activate every time, which is what happened tonight.

Both times the sirens went off, all 25 of our city sirens activated.

And at that moment, when I was looking on our map, because I can see our sirens activating on my phone, the southern sirens weren't even in green.

There was no rain according to the radar, act hitting those butt lower siren sites, but they still activate.

And the reason we do that is because of the unpredictability of the weather.

Like I said with Bartlett, the National Weather Service said the storm is over.

And then the tornado happened.

This storm tonight, we were under an we've been under a tornado watch since probably I'm gonna guess about three o'clock, three to ten o'clock tonight.

But there was no storm on the radar.

And then it popped up, and we also have a storm coming this way from Rockford.

As of when I was walking in here, there are no warnings for it, but there's a lot of red and purple, which is bad, just so you know purple's bad.

So it's we have another storm coming, sometime around 8 50, 9 o'clock.

Very possible our sirens could activate again.

So when we talk about what the sirens are going to do, and and this explains what I had talked about earlier, is at the top there, it talks about the EF zero wind speeds.

So we looked at maybe we should just do siren activations for the destructive level, the 80 mile an hour.

We don't get a ton of those, it'll reduce the number of times the sirens go off.

But what I can't I can't fathom is how do I justify to you that we didn't set the sirens off at 70 miles an hour, but we'll set them off at 65 for an EF0.

And an EF0 has a much smaller footprint, and it lasts very in a it lasts a very short amount of time.

Very limited level of impact.

It's not your EF5 that's gonna travel for miles on the ground.

But a severe thunderstorm can span the entire city, all 38 square miles, can impact a much larger group of people for a longer period of time with 70 mile an hour winds.

As we went through this, and and I I will be honest, agonizing would not be overstating all the discussions we've had in the fire department about this over the last three weeks or so.

We've agonized how do we help the community be safe, but yet address some of the concerns.

This is what we have to do.

We need to notify our job as the appointed officials, your job as the elected officials are to help keep the community safe.

The National Weather Service has come up with these warning systems for this exact reason.

And now, three years ago, we gained the technology to be able to do this.

So one of the complaints, and this is incredibly frustrating that this just happened, is as we were hunkered down waiting for the storm to pass, there's already comments online.

Well, now that we don't, we don't know why the sirens are going off because you said they weren't for tornadoes, we never said that.

What we've said, and what we're gonna continue to say, is it doesn't matter the threat at that moment.

It doesn't matter that you you don't need to know at the moment those sirens go off why they're going off.

You need to do two things.

Seek shelter and then get more information.

We want you to get to a safe space and then find out it's a thunderstorm, 70 miles an hour, it's destructive, it's a tornado.

Get inside if you're outside.

That's the messaging that we're gonna push forward hard with.

All right, so I'm gonna bring Josie up now for her to talk about how she's gonna do that.

Good evening.

Um so Chief Explain what we're gonna be doing.

So now, how are we gonna communicate that to the public?

So I've been working very closely with Chief Sogan over the past several weeks, ever since it's become a topic of discussion, and from that, we've developed a very robust communications campaign.

So, in that campaign, while developing, we established what our main objectives are going to be in this campaign.

So, number one, we want to educate on the purpose and the function of those sirens.

Why are they going off, when they might go off?

Secondly, we want to clarify that the sirens are to alert people outdoors, just as Chief Sogan just said, the city is not the weather channel.

We want people to sign up for our emergency alert system, which is already in place, and we want to continue to build trust and address those resident concerns surrounding those sirens as we see them come up.

So, since this affects everyone in the city, we really want to make sure that our messaging is simple and easy to understand.

How we're gonna do that is we've established some key messaging that is going to be included in all of our campaign materials.

So, number one, again, sirens signal that people outdoors need to seek shelter, go inside and get more information.

Secondly, repeated activations may happen if warnings are reissued, just as Chief said, as that box moves, you may hear those sirens go off in your area again while your area is still under threat.

And then sirens are activated by the National Weather Service when they issue a warning and for that considerable or destructive storm in addition to tornadoes.

So making that clarification that again, considerable and destructive storms and tornadoes.

And then finally, residents should really use multiple sources to get that weather information.

So this affects everyone in the in the city.

How are we gonna get that message out there?

So we have a variety of delivery methods that we're going to use.

We want to reach as many people as possible.

This is public safety, we don't want to leave anyone untouched.

So how we're gonna do that is through social media.

That's probably our biggest reach there.

We're working on producing several videos, so we're gonna have some longer form and short form videos for all of our channels.

So if you're watching on the public access channel tonight, you should be seeing some videos in rotation and then upcoming weeks.

Uh we have the city newsletter, so we have a couple pages inserted into the Gale Board and Library newsletter.

That's a print copy that goes out to all the residents in the community.

Um that just went out last week, so you should be receiving that in your mailboxes if you live in Elgin, and there is a little note to sign up for those emergency alerts.

So we're getting ahead of the game there.

We're also developing some print handouts.

Of course, those are always bilingual, both in English and Spanish, and we're thinking of handing those out at our outreach events, uh, national night out is gonna be a great opportunity, and then getting those into the hands of our community partners.

In addition, uh in providing those materials to our partners, we plan on doing some targeted outreach to the people we work with and all of those local institutions where we know hosts a large amount of people at any given time.

So maybe daycares, schools, senior centers, etc.

And I just want to reiterate because we are trying to reach a very large audience, we want to make sure all of our materials are both in English and Spanish, and of course, digital materials are always able to be translated into 200 plus languages on our website and on social media.

So on your screen, you'll see an example of one of the very simple graphics that we're going to use.

Again, this is gonna be in a variety of mediums, so it reaches several different people, but we're keeping it simple, very high level, so it's easy to digest and easy to understand.

So sign up for emergency alerts, you're gonna get notifications on XYZ, and that's what an example of a text message that would come through.

Um I'll go back to at the bottom of your screen for those watching online.

I encourage you to visit LginIL.gov slash alerts, and that's where you can fill out a brief form and sign up for those emergency alerts, and you should be getting some text messages.

So, with that, we will answer any questions.

Any questions for Josie or Chief Sogan?

Mr.

Ortiz.

I appreciate you two giving us this update from a few months ago or weeks ago, however, whenever it was that you came.

I like the text message notifications.

We do it at the county with uh Kent County Emergency Services does it for all county employees.

Will you guys also have push notifications on the app?

Because I get push notifications my water bills due.

So will you guys do that the same thing when an emergency goes through will it push it through the app?

So whoever has the app doesn't sign up for the text messaging, they'll get that notification also.

I would say no.

I think we want to keep those channels separate.

Uh the app we are looking at push notifications for those resident-specific items like the water bill or leaf collection.

So we would have different opt-in opportunities for those two channels.

The other issue with that is it's manually activated.

So to get the to generate these alerts through the system that you can sign up for, it's a manual activation.

So tonight, when we had these one of our division chiefs at home sent that emergency notice out to over 220,000 people.

So we can do it, but we can do it very quickly through the one system, but to try to do it through multiple systems would be inefficient and ineffective.

Okay.

All right, thank you.

That's it.

Okay.

Ms.

Powell.

Thank you for the update.

Um this has been really helpful.

I know people have you know had a lot of uh comments and feedback about the system, and and I did as well.

And I appreciate Chief Sagan taking the time to talk to me this afternoon and address a lot of the questions I have, and you addressed a lot of those questions tonight.

Um I guess one question I have on the communication side.

If you can uh go to one of the earlier screens that talked about yeah, yes.

Um actually right there.

Key objectives.

And the second objective says that we're clarifying that sirens alert people outdoors only.

The city is not a weather information source.

I get that, but I think that's a little confusing and inaccurate because if the sirens go off and I'm in my home, it's a notification for me to take cover in my home.

Because if if there's you know, if it's a tornado, um, I need to go in the lowest level of my house.

Obviously, if someone's outside, they need to get from outside and seek shelter indoors, but I think we need to be careful about that type of messaging because that's not accurate.

We don't want people thinking that, and I don't think people take it like that, but I I would be can I'm concerned with that being said that that's a key objective, and if that's part of our messaging.

I think that I think the point that we're trying to get across is that the siren system is really designed, like I said, to warn those people outside.

You can certainly benefit from inside.

We understand that.

And so I think you know, taking the word only out is is the is what we can easily do.

But the messaging is that we want to notify the people outside, and if you're in your home, we still it's great if you get notified, but when you're in your home, you have potentially more access to notifications through the TV, radio, if you have a NOAA weather radio in your home, those types of things that you won't have outside.

And and that's fine, and and I think you know, just a little tweak of the wording to you know, especially those people who may be outside, because obviously they are at higher risk.

Um, so that's that's my my feedback.

Um, because I I do understand, you know, it's different if I'm out on a golf course, which would of course never happen with me.

But um, if you're outside and you know, we hear this siren, it would indicate okay, I need to seek shelter.

But if I'm inside, it would still indicate that I do need to do something.

I need to seek shelter in the lowest level of my home, and then hopefully get on my phone and figure out okay what's going on, and is this a severe thunderstorm warning?

Is this a tornado warning?

What is it?

Um, so and I you know I I like this.

I think um it's just an adjustment.

Change is hard for people, but given the stats that you shared with us today, I mean that's that explains it all.

I mean, we are now in the mid in the middle of tornado alley.

We are um we've experienced a lot of severe weather over the past two years, and um living through a couple micro bursts here in in Elgin and some severe thunderstorms that can be just as um damaging, if not more damaging than some of the tornadoes that have hit the area.

I think this is fully justified.

It's just changing the mindset because from I mean, the time that some of us up here were in you know, elementary school, and you had to go out in the hallway and sit, you know, with your legs crossed and your your your head, you know, down uh against the locker during a tornado drill.

Um so again, it's it's a change, but um I'm I'm confident we can help get the information out.

Um just a quick follow-up though.

How are we going to get this information to or ensure like some of our more vulnerable populations like seniors and other folks are are going to how are we gonna make sure that we are getting this this information in front of them?

Yeah, we'll do a targeted approach to those facilities.

So that's what um I was talking about with the outreach.

So we do plan on identifying some of those more vulnerable um areas and addressing them one-on-one, those community groups, the centers, and then also if we're able to push some of our print materials to their communication folks or managers, that's something we're looking into as well.

Okay, that would be helpful.

Um yeah, and look forward to getting that information.

I'm sitting here right now um filling in my alert, or actually making sure that I'm actually already, I think I'm already in the system, but just updating some things.

And that's what's important is if you uh if you update if you go in for those alerts, you will get the information as to why the sirens went off.

So we are gonna provide some information if you so choose to sign up.

Right, but if you don't want to, that's okay.

We're just notifying you that there's a threat, and then you'll have to find a different way to get that information.

Yes.

Great.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

Okay, anything else?

Miss Martinez.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh great presentation from both of you.

Um Chief, I believe you said there's a hundred and ninety-two or a hundred and ninety-six tornadoes so far.

Reported this year so far.

Normally, what is considered the weather season?

I mean the tornado season.

I mean, because we're just at the end of June.

I I don't I don't know that answer, but I know that with the weather channel.

I'm sorry.

I know, I but it's something I could have looked up, but I I didn't.

Um, but we know that we get a lot more tornadoes in the springtime.

We do get some in the in the summer when we get those really hot days.

Those can spawn severe storms, and then we start to see them again in the fall.

So what really is that time frame that I just don't have the answer for?

Okay.

And then just to uh go ahead and let everybody know it's algernillo.gov slash alerts.

But um in signing in, it says group code.

What does that mean?

Does anybody know?

That we haven't seen before.

Just skip it.

There's no it that would be like if we were doing something special, like with a HOA or and they get like their own special group code for certain notifications.

But I don't I don't think we we're not using that.

Okay.

Yeah, it should be optional.

There should be asterisks for your name and your phone number.

I believe those are the only two requirements.

Yeah, so you should be able to leave that blank.

Okay.

Good.

Thank you.

Okay, anything else?

Mr.

Ortiz.

I wasn't gonna speak again when I signed up.

So my street has this problem with spelled like three different ways.

So does a city and then we had this problem with LRS where people get in the recycling or the new recycling bins.

Does it go off the address off your water bill?

Or who how does the addresses come up?

It's gonna come off, it's gonna be text message.

Well, it's after my address, but now it's telling me I misspelled my address.

I I would I don't know why it would do that.

So we'd have to look at it.

We can talk to the people who monitor that who manage that.

Go ahead.

Is this because the police department has the ability to issue out issue localized alerts through the system?

And I think that that's where it is.

We'll deal with the problem with Wilbur Street.

I uh I know that, but I I if I'm not mistaken, the police, if there's a particular incident in a localized area, they'll use the addresses that were harvested to be able to geofence a certain area.

Yes.

This is not part of that.

So this is just this just goes off as a text message, and if you give us an email, it'll get you'll get a text message and an email.

Okay.

All right, thanks.

Okay.

All right, thank you very much.

We'll look forward to moving forward.

We'll look forward to moving forward on this.

Yeah.

All right.

Entertain a uh entertain a motion to adjourn to executive session.

So moved second.

Moving a second to adjourn.

I would entertain a motion to adjourn to executive session to discuss the setting of a price for the sale of proper of a lease or property owned by the city under subsection 2C six of the open meetings act.

Okay.

Please call the roll.

Council members Lafaro.

Yes.

Dixon?

Yes.

Good.

Yes.

Martinez?

Yes.

Ortiz?

Yes.

Powell?

Yes.

Stefan?

Yes.

Thorne?

Yes.

Mayor Camp.

Yes, we are adjourned.