Good evening.

Welcome to the November 18th Naperville City Council meeting roll call.

Worley.

Here.

Gibson.

Here.

Hulseauer.

Here.

Jane.

Here.

Kelly.

Here.

McBroom.

Here.

Cyan.

Yeah.

White.

Here.

Wilson.

Here.

Please rise and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Our first item tonight is public forum.

As we start the public forum, I'd like to remind everyone of the citizen participation rules in the city's municipal code for speaking at city council meetings.

Speakers are asked to present their comments in a respectful and courteous manner.

Speakers should stay on topic and be cognizant of their words.

Personal attacks on council members, staff, other speakers, or members of the audience are not allowed.

If inappropriate language or comments are expressed during this meeting, you will be asked immediately to stop commenting.

Also, for audience members, there is no cheering, no jeering.

Actions such as applauding, cheering, finger snapping, booing, or any other noises during or the conclusion of any remarks made by any speaker are not allowed.

If this occurs, you will be asked to stop immediately, and if it continues to persist, I will recess the meeting until the audience abides by the rules in our city code.

No speaker should ever feel intimidated by the crowd.

Audience disruption is meant to intimidate those speaking, and I will not allow this in the chambers.

Audience members with signs, the signs must not block any other audience members' view.

Speakers are given three minutes to address the city council to help speakers stay within three minute time frame.

We have a timer located on the side dice to your right.

It gives the visual cue when the three minutes are expiring.

This helps speakers conclude their comments in a timely manner without being cut off.

Timer will buzz when it hit zero, and we will alert the speaker that their time is up.

If the speaker's name is called and they are not in the room, we will move on to the next speaker and we will not go back.

Speakers are encouraged to remain in council chambers until the conclusion of public forum in the event council members want to ask follow-up questions.

Mrs.

Schatz, please call the first speaker.

There are nine public forum speakers and three written comments that have been posted to the website.

The first three speakers are Mike, followed by Jim Filar and Jordan Avanante.

Recall the first speaker.

First speaker is Mike.

Next speaker.

Are you Mike?

Okay.

Sorry about that.

Good evening.

My name is Mike Galley.

I am a Sir.

Could you get the microphones are super sensitive, so you got to get really close to the microphone for it to be heard.

Okay.

Thank you.

Okay.

My name is Mike Gallie.

I am a uh uh member of a group called Affordable Naperville.

We are a growing concern group of citizens here in the uh in the Naperville community.

Um Naperville Affordable Naperville has been around for a short time.

We are making an impact in the in the community at large.

Um just as a kind of an intro.

Um my wife and her family moved here in 1961.

Um, this is home.

After college, we moved back to Naperville to raise our family when Naperville was relatively affordable.

We have deep passion for this community.

Naperville is not what I would currently call affordable.

Everything has become a premium just to live here for many residents.

The one major expense that has remained sub, has remained stable and competitive, has been through electricity provided by IMEA.

According to Lowe's and fishes, 23% of our community makes less than $75,000 per year.

If we leave Imea, the taxpayers will pay estimated 40 million dollars more for electricity per year.

Mr.

White and several of you have advocated over the years for affordable housing.

If you don't elect to renew IMEA, these will be some of the hardest hit citizens, along with retirees and individuals on fixed income.

The top 300 companies in Naperville use 50% of our electricity consumption of our electric consumption.

If we move away from AMIA, they will pass those increases on to all of us.

IMEA currently is one of the most efficient power plants in the U.S.

that we have been paying bonds on for an estimated 650 million dollars.

If we move away from IMEA, it would be like paying off our home mortgage and abandoning our homes.

Finally, Bill Gates, who has spent billions of dollars on climate change, recently stated climate change will not lead to humanity's demise.

We have exaggerated its effects.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

The next speaker is Jim Fular, followed by Jordan Abenante.

Good evening.

I'm Jim Fular.

In October, the city manager issued a manager's memorand memorandum about IMEA.

The document contained a now familiar but once again revealing chart.

It shows the rate IMEA members have paid for their electricity since 2012.

I've recreated it on this slide.

Very roughly speaking, our electricity costs are composed of three major components transmission, energy, and bond payments.

With that, let's break this chart down and analyze it a bit.

My first adjustment is to take the vertical axis down to zero.

Never trust a graph that doesn't start at zero.

I've been highlighted the fixed bond payments estimated by IMEA at 23 per megawatt hour.

So here we have the three components transmission, energy, and bonds.

Now let's simplify.

Transmission costs are determined by the grid operators.

Unfortunately, they are growing, but IME has no control over those costs.

So let's remove them for now.

Bond payments are fixed.

They are what they are.

Let's remove them too.

You're left with the energy component of cost.

This is not an exciting chart to look at, but remarkably, this represents a decrease in energy costs of 8% over the last 12 years.

Think about that for a moment.

What uh what other services essential to your day-to-day existence and livelihood have you witnessed a drop in price over the last 12 years?

As a comparison, the consumer price index over this period increased 40%.

Had energy prices followed that trajectory, Napervillions would be paying $24 million per year more for their electricity.

Another affordability metric is Naperville's costs versus communities that surround us.

The utility department provides a monthly analysis of our rates compared to customers served by Comed, assuming the same usage.

For the year, Napervilleans will save more than 400 compared to their neighbors across the streets in Aurora, Warrenville, and Lyle, et cetera.

Naperville businesses enjoy these savings as well.

The cost difference will only grow in future years.

Generation shortages are spreading across the region, renewable tax credits have been eliminated, making them pricier, and demand is exploding, particularly with AI.

Comet energy prices are based on the market, which is increasing in price every day.

The data bears it out.

IMEA's low-cost generation portfolio has a permanent, I repeat, permanent, structural cost advantage over any other source available today, or will be available only nine short years from now.

The world is waking up to the fact that the energy transition's time needs to tap the brakes.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

The next three speakers are Jordan Aminante, Stephanie Jax, and Timothy Farrito.

And if you heard your name called, please move to the front row so you're ready to go when you're called next.

Go ahead and proceed.

Hello, uh, I'm Jordan Nabinante.

I am a barber slash suite owner inside Salon Lofts here in downtown.

Um I wanted to address the situation of the parking in the river district.

Um we've been having this issue for a while of employees getting towed in the back parking lots, especially that strip, you know, behind Chipotle, salon lofts, fat rosies.

Um, it's led to cars being towed with people in them, being towed out of handicap spots, cars being damaged, employees coming back to their car and not finding it, and we just want to see if there's a way that we can approach where we can make everybody happy and reform the parking so that people aren't getting towed and their cars aren't getting damaged and they can still have access to close parking.

As of now, they want us to park on the top floor of the parking garage, which right now, I mean we have lots of teenagers working in the strip that work late at night.

It's not safe for them to walk by themselves upstairs.

We have lots of young women.

Um, I recently came across a post on Facebook about this parking, and if council would like, I can bring up the photos.

Um, but it's basically a civilian um posting about the towing company and how it's very um very aggressive as of late.

So um there's about four pages of comments worth of people wanting to boycott the businesses, such as again, Fat Rosies, Chipotle, all those places.

So I wanted to address this because obviously, as a business owner, it's affecting me as well, and I just don't want to see any of these businesses suffer.

So yeah.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

And if you have time, stick around.

We'll probably respond to that a little bit later.

Because there's another speaker with the same topic.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

The next speaker is Stephanie Jackson.

Good evening, Mayor and Council members.

I uh sent in um a citizen support request last week uh about the lack of parking enforcement on Washington Street between the hours of 4 p.m.

and 7 p.m.

I have a 15-year-old who is learning how to drive.

Uh, as we were coming through there about 620, 6:30 one day, somebody who had parked at in front of Tapville was running across the street to the new sandwich stop.

I think it's called Prontos or something, uh, in all black at night, um, and she almost hit them.

So I don't know what the legal ramifications would have been, but surely physical and traumatic for her would have been awful.

Plus, whoever she hit, there would have been issues there.

I don't know.

I haven't investigated enough to see if there if someone's jaywalking, if that would be the fault of the jaywalker or if she would get in trouble because you know she was definitely going below the speed limit, but anyway.

Um, I'm here to ask for more enforcement of parking uh between Giamia and uh what was Barnes and Noble, but Chicago Avenue uh during the hours of 47 p.m.

I would assume this also applies to the morning parking restrictions, but since I don't really go through there, I don't know if it's as big of a problem.

Umfficer Musca replied to my citizen report support request.

It did take a few days.

Um I had to call to the mayor's office and say, hey, what's going on with my request?

It's been a few days, no one's responded, or uh I see still see it as pending uh on the website.

Um the holiday lights that were put up on the lampposts by the parking signs that are lit up and flashing no parking are obscuring those parking signs.

The flashing parking lights, uh flashing no parking signs actually look to be part of the decoration now, so people can't really differentiate between no parking and holiday lights.

Um today I did see as I was driving through at 645, there was a community service officer there giving someone a ticket who had parked in front of Tatville, so thumbs up there.

Uh I'm asking for bigger signs, more enforcement, and perhaps cameras that can be uh fed into the communication center where somebody at the communications center could be eyeballing that amongst other things and say, hey, you know what, there's somebody parked there.

Can we get an office a beat officer or community service officer?

There's the traffic's being blocked right now.

Uh and I'm just asking for some additional general um support, um, not just for my young driver, but for the commuters that are trying to get back and forth through town between rush hour.

Okay, thank you.

Stick around and we will respond to some of those things at the end of public forum.

Next speaker.

The next speaker is Timothy Farrito, followed by Mary Boyle and Teresa Huss.

Great evening, Tim Ferrito, Naperville resident.

I'm here tonight to speak about a critical issue that directly affects our community's energy affordability.

We are entering a perfect storm in our regional power grid PHM.

First, the supply of reliable power is shrinking.

Over the last decade, PGM PJM has lost more than 54,000 megawatts of dependable 24-7 generation, mostly coal and other thermal plants.

These retirements were driven largely by federal and state environmental regulations implemented about 15 years ago and made continu that made continued operation on economic.

This is already strained the grid, and consumers are seeing the effects in their electric bills.

At the same time, demand is rising sharply.

PGM PJM now expects 30,000 megawatts of new load of new load from data centers by 2030.

And the growing adoption of heat pumps is adding even more demand.

So we have spent 10 years removing 54,000 megawatts of reliable supply, and now we are preparing to add 30,000 megawatts of new demand.

Renewable addition simply are not closing the gap effectively, which is why PJM is now fast tracking new gas power plants onto the grid.

While the Northern Illinois portion of PGM is relative is in relative better shape, major changes are coming to that zone.

We have already seen 2600 megawatts of thermal capacity retire a couple years ago, and close to another 7,000 megawatts are scheduled to retire in 2030 under CEGA.

For context, the proposed data center in Naperville would require 36 megawatts.

Just a tiny fraction of capacity set to shut down.

Where is outrage?

The excess energy of our zone has benefited, has benefited from dec for decades is shrinking and will disappear, pushing market prices higher along the way.

Looking ahead in 2030, IMEA supply profile will be provide an 80% hedge against volatile market forces.

But if Naperville leaves IMEA, the city's entire electric electricity supply will be exposed to those volatile market forces.

That would be an economic risk to our residents, our businesses, and our long-term stability.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

The next speaker is Mary Boyle.

Hi, can you hear me?

Yes.

I currently reside in Enclave at Country Lakes Homeowners Association.

We don't have anything in our bylaws saying that there can only be, let's say, 20 or 30 percent of uh investors, landlords, and we currently have about 50 percent right now.

Uh one of them got elected to the board last year.

At the time it seemed like a good idea to have a representation.

There's five board seats.

Uh another one ran this year and got elected.

Now we have 40 percent.

What we're afraid of is they're they're going to be serving their own interests if they get more than 50 percent.

Uh currently, one of them has an idea to split off the plumbing and bill the homeowner separately, and it's an over a million dollar project, and the assessments will be passed on to the homeowners.

So, my question is is there anything in the city ordinance that would prevent landlorders, landlords, or investors from having the majority of board seats on an association.

We'll probably take up that with some sort of response to you at the conclusion of public forum.

Okay, thank you.

Stick around.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

The next speaker is Teresa Huss, followed by Ashley Penick and Jen Kuchda.

Hi, I'm Theresa Huss, and I am part of the Naperville Environment and Sustainability Task Force leadership team, and I am here for tonight's three minutes with NEST, which is focusing on the importance of future-proofing our buildings and saving residents money by adopting updated building and energy codes.

You may know we update our building codes every six years and our energy codes every three.

So, in an upcoming meeting, staff and the building review board will present recommendations for these updates.

And we see this as an essential opportunity for Naperville to improve their building energy efficiency.

75% of our carbon emissions come from our buildings, so the only path to meaningful reduction is to update our energy codes so that new buildings are significantly more efficient.

And this isn't a new idea.

In 2021, the City Council approved a sustainability work plan with an explicit objective to adopt codes that would guide us toward net zero by 2030.

And the Illinois Stretch Energy Code is the tool to move us toward that goal.

With energy prices rising nationwide, we have an opportunity to ensure new buildings are constructed to the appropriate efficiency standards to give residents and businesses the lowest utility costs.

A 2024 Pacific Northwest National Laboratory analysis shows that the added cost for a typical new home with these stretch codes would add about $3,000, but that is quickly offset in energy savings and future retrofit expenses, and incentives, rebates, and tax credits can help these initial upfront costs even further.

We view the stretch codes as an opportunity for our builders and local businesses because demand for high performance homes is rising.

Buyers want houses that are comfortable, healthy, resilient, and future ready.

Energy efficient homes appraise higher, sell faster, and stand out in the market.

At the city level, the benefits compound.

Energy efficiency supports job growth, reduces dependence on fossil fuels, strengthens our grid, and helps us meet our climate goals for today's family and tomorrow's generations.

And finally, as extreme weather events become more frequent, homes built to stretch codes offer greater resilience.

They keep families safer and more comfortable during outages and temperature extremes.

Residents have consistently prioritized saving money and maintaining healthy indoor and outdoor air quality.

Adopting the Illinois stretch codes would support those priorities.

So we encourage you to support adopting the Illinois Energy Stretch Codes.

Thank you for your time and your service.

Thank you, next speaker.

The next speaker is Ashley Penick.

Good evening, Mayor and City Council.

I'm Ashley Pennock.

I am here to ask you to vote to stay enrolled in IMEA.

It is okay to change your mind.

Even Bill Gates has changed his opinion on climate policy.

Let this sink in.

Even Bill Gates has changed his opinion on climate policy.

Last month, the Illinois legislature passed Senate Bill 25, known as the Clean and Reliable Grid Affordability Act.

SB25, to my understanding, raises rates outside of communities that are not enrolled in IMEA.

So in actuality, if you are not enrolled in IMEA, your rates are more expensive.

I started to understand business when I became a manager and balanced books for retail and restaurant businesses.

When you manage a business or own a business, you need some type of stability.

When things fluctuate all the time, it's hard to budget things.

Staying enrolled in IMEA gives businesses, especially restaurants and homeowners an idea to keep things steady.

If we don't enroll in IMEA, these charges will be added to your utility bill.

Let's try to keep Naperville affordable.

People move to Naperville because we have been fiscally responsible and safe.

It is troublesome to me that we keep on proposing these new taxes, which will make Naperville less desirable and less affordable.

Thank you and have a great Thanksgiving.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

The final speaker in public forum is Jen Kuchta.

Good evening.

My name is Jen Kukta.

I'm the market leader for Salon Loves at 22 East Chicago Avenue.

I'm here because a recent change in parking enforcement and our property is harming the small businesses that work there.

Since April, the landlord has strictly enforced a two-hour parking limit, which does not match the length of a typical salon service.

As a result, six business owners and multiple clients have been have had their cars towed without warning, and some have resulted in damages to their vehicles.

This has caused us to lose nine business owners from that location, which was previously full.

We've worked with the property management to prevent clients from being towed by calling the towing company and relaying client information, but this process is time consuming and burdens the business owners.

The larger issue is now parking for the professionals themselves.

They are required to park across the street on the third floor of a garage.

Many, especially women working late, do not feel safe walking there at night.

One business owner has a restraining order against an against someone and cannot safely use an isolated garage.

And another recently had surgery and cannot physically access the parking facility.

Despite these concerns, the property management will not allow employees to park in the front or back of the building.

This situation has been unfair, unsafe, and harmful to our small businesses.

I'm asking for the council's help and encouraging a reasonable, safe, and workable solution for all for our professionals so they can continue earning a living wage.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Are any more speakers?

All right, let's um start by responding to um Ms.

Abanate and uh Ms.

Kukta regarding 22 East Chicago and the River District.

Um, just to bring everybody up to speed on where we are with that.

That is um a private landlord owned and operated facility.

The city does not own the parking lot.

We only have a trespass agreement with our police department in place for people who happen to be trespassing there and not necessarily vehicles.

So the the towing contract that the landlord has with the licensed relocator is between the landlord and the relocator.

The city is not involved in that whatsoever.

Um to that end, we certainly can pass along concerns that we've heard both through your testimony tonight as well as social media about what impact or effect this is having on the employees, the businesses, and potentially the patrons of those facilities, and let them know that um there has been some great concern brought up here in the community.

With regard to Ms.

Jacks and the um uh Washington Street ban, uh Chief Aries, can you address what your program is for how you enforce the the Washington Street ban with CSOs and how that continues or how it could continue into the full period, not just the initial shutdown period of the Washington Street ban?

Yeah, sure, thank you, Mayor.

So we do have a group that patrols it during the day, and then there's a shift change, so there was a lull in that, but based on the complaints we received and the uptick of um violations we've heard about, and as you heard this evening, I was actually happy to hear that we were ticketing someone tonight.

We've shifted our CSOs on the night shift to head straight out to assist in the gap between the two shifts.

Now, I will say, when there are not vehicles parked on Washington, that is not that community service officers' only responsibility.

So they are patrolling the entire downtown for traffic issues, so it's not just the state dedicated to Washington Street.

So when it's clear, they go to another area.

That's why we always love the eyes of our community members if they see a violation, call that in to our dispatch center, and we can have them come back out.

But it's in the regular rotation of what they're checking throughout the night.

Okay.

Mr.

Krieger, could we get follow-up with regard to the sign complaint and the potential distractions from the Christmas decorations and those things for the lighted signs?

Uh absolutely, Mr.

Mayor.

Um, we will uh discuss that um with both uh internal uh city staff as well as have a discussion with the downtown neighborhood alliance as well.

Yeah, could you also ask the DNA to get some communication out to their restaurants regarding food runners and the different folks to remind them that they're gonna get ticketed and we can uh we can um have them push out more education on that.

Okay, and then the um the last one that I have voted for follow-up here is the Enclave Homeowners Association question about uh investors holding positions on the homeowners association board.

Mr.

DeSanto.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Uh, to my knowledge, homeowners associations are privately organized groups that are uh intended to handle private property issues.

Uh the city, uh I don't believe the municipal code has any regulations.

We don't track homeowners' associations, those are um uh regulated under state law, and so any remedies there I believe should be pursued either uh privately through the homeowners association or or through state law because it's not uh from the purview of the city neighborhood.

Okay, Councilman Halzar.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um first I wanted to um go back to one of the speakers' comments about the importance of a graph showing uh zero on the x-axis or the y-axis, I think was the effect of the quote.

And what I understood it to mean is you need to see the full picture, otherwise a graph can be very misleading.

I agree with that.

Um, I would also say a graph that shows the costs of energy in Naperville for the past two years between that and Comed is um not starting at the X or Y access because a graph that showed the full history of our price comparison to Comed would in fact show many years where Comet has come in higher uh lower, excuse me, the Naperville.

Um, giving the speaker the benefit of the doubt, maybe they're not aware of the full price history, but I would appreciate it a future presentation if we could see that full price history going back 15 years um instead of just just the last couple years.

Um second, with regard to um the off-sided uh Bill Gates changing his position.

Speakers have asked that we take a look at what he said, and I have done that.

So I'm going to quote from the article uh that Bill Gates recently put out quote to be clear, climate change is a very important problem.

It needs to be solved along with other problems like malaria and malnutritions.

Every tenth of a degree of heating that we prevent is hugely beneficial because a stable climate makes it easier to improve people's lives.

With the right investments and policies in place over the next 10 years, we'll have the new affordable zero carbon technologies ready to roll out at scale to find in this article an argument that we should invest in a coal power plant until the year 2055.

I think is stretching the argument within the article beyond any reasonable interpretation.

Um turning the attention to an email that we received, totally different topic this week.

Um, Marilyn Schweitzer, Ms.

Schweitzer had asked a question about um our city's use of um funds for artworks on private property.

Mr.

Krieger, I was wondering if you could address some of the concerns in her email, maybe summarize what those were and and what you've researched.

Mr.

Krieger.

Uh thank you, Mayor.

Um, I I do not have that in front of me, although I did pass it on.

Um, so uh I believe Director Mark Cortis can um respond to the points that were raised there.

Director.

Sure.

Um Melanie Marcordis, Director of Community Services.

Um, to hit the first point that Marilyn had asked about um maintenance on public art pieces is preferred.

Um but that being said, age and condition of a piece uh of a piece of artwork, damage, construction impacts or access time frame sometimes make work on private property pieces the more practical cost or cost-effective um option.

These factors can influence the maintenance schedule and occasional shift the overall plan.

Um the other piece of that is we do work closely with original artists, so sometimes projects are deferred when schedules don't align, or um, if construction impacts timing.

Um projects are also reprioritized when repairs or opportunities arise.

Um, for example, this year the streaming history and notable athletes' murals were both repaired due to damage.

Those were not scheduled to be repaired.

Um Genevieve statue was restored and returned.

That was not originally on the um schedule, and the River Reveries mosaic benches, which was on the schedule, but was redamaged after it was already fixed, also um was repaired again.

So all of those impacted the um 2025 schedule and that had to be adjusted, which is always happening with all of these art pieces.

So I hope that answers your questions.

If you want more details on that, thank you.

I really appreciate that research.

Thank you, Mayor.

Councilman White.

Thank you, uh, Mayor.

Uh question uh for staff.

Um Ms.

Hust came up and talked a little bit about stretch codes uh and so on.

Can you can someone comment as far as maybe what you are getting from builders, developers, um is it going to be cost neutral?

Is it going to be more can just give me your comment based off of what you've heard from them?

Director Loudon.

Thank you.

Um, yeah, this was actually um the subject um of part of a discussion at one of our recent building review board meetings.

Um so we are taking um the various parts of the code updates uh through the building review board for their review and recommendation prior to this coming uh to city council.

Um so we did um have an opportunity for a presentation um that Nest arranged for the building review board to give them background information um on the stretch energy codes.

Um at that meeting, we did also have a number of speakers who signed up, many of the local home builders.

Um they did talk about um they actually had their energy writers um take an example house and then run it through what would be required if we adopted the stretch energy codes, and they did indicate to them that it was a significant increase in cost.

So um we are getting feedback from all sides um on this matter right now, and um you know, are gonna be continuing those conversations through the building review board again before we bring it to the city council for uh our formal recommendation.

Okay, and and just to follow up, if I may, any uh discussion as well as far as um bringing in codes that just make a building more healthy for the individuals who are actually working in there, efficiencies with the HVAC systems and so on, uh, with the thought being the healthier the building is, uh the healthier the employees are, and that's that's less people calling off uh sick for work and all those different things.

Uh any uh comments on that?

Um I am not uh familiar with anything specific in the code related to that, but I can look into that with our building team and follow up on that.

Okay.

Um thank you.

And and mayor follow up with one more.

The um work with uh I mean, as far as the parking is concerned, and this was something I actually wanted to bring up in uh in new business, because I understand the concerns uh that um that that we're having right now.

Um, but uh can someone talk to me or talk to the council as far as um block 59.

Uh just a lot going on up there.

Um, I think they're opening up the ice rink here uh soon within the next day or two, I think.

Um just a lot of restaurants, it's it's uh I think it's been a great great addition to Naperville.

But have we done any study as far as what is the impact of block 59 on the on the downtown?

Because as we're looking at potential parking decks and so on, we're talking about one over at the library as an example, um, and people are always discussing parking in the downtown area.

Um as we come to a to where we need to make a decision there, I like to see what uh that impact might be.

We uh all of a sudden maybe there's 10% less traffic downtown based off of everything happening at block 59.

I'm just throwing out a number, but um before we make a decision spelling potentially spending millions of dollars on a parking deck, we may not necessarily need it if that stuff if we do a study and it shows that maybe we don't need to build that, and maybe we can redirect funding uh somewhere else.

If anyone can comment on that.

So that's not something that we are specifically studying at the moment.

If there is you know trips being diverted from the downtown um where people are choosing to go to block 59 in lieu of going to downtown.

Um, but I think that is something that um you know we can work with the downtown just to see how you know we can get data with them, um, also with the Naperville Development Partnership on just different trends um in terms of visitors to the downtown and and see if there's um you know if we are seeing uh a decline or an increase um in either direction, um, and then you know, from there, based on what we see, we could you know look into what the causes might be.

Right, because agree it's not built completely out yet at block 59, but if we're not thinking along those lines, you know, understanding that wow, there's a lot of folks are attracted to this air to this area.

Um, where where is it going to what's it going to take away from?

And it may not take away anything.

I don't know, but if we don't do the work to kind of look into that, I think we we may be doing ourselves a disservice.

Thank you.

Councilman McRoe.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh, as far as these stretch codes go, uh I I've talked to a lot of home builders.

I think if it got serious here, I think you'd get a whole room of home builders here objecting to stretch codes.

There's a significant cost, but um maybe this question for Director Groff.

Uh uh NICOR uh came to a PUAB meeting that I missed, and I haven't had a chance to go back and watch it.

But my understanding, and correct me if I'm wrong, they do offer service for energy efficiency for commercial customers, maybe even residential, and is is it free?

Do I have that right?

Is that something in the ballpark?

Director Groth.

Ryan Growth Electric Utility Director, yes, NICOR has um residential and commercial energy efficiency programs, as does the city through IMEA as well as RL.

Councilman Sayed.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh Councilman Benit said, uh block 59.

It's a lot of things that are happening there.

And we see a lot of restaurants coming up, a lot of projects are coming up there.

So with that, you know, 59 is one of the busiest roads.

And almost I drive on the on that day uh every day, uh four times in a day, and I see it as jump back always whether you drive at morning seven o'clock, ten o'clock or evening four or seven, you know.

So what are the plans to easy that 59 traffic so that it is convenient for the community as well as you know, when this projects are coming up there, that means we are adding the traffic to block 59 as well as you know block 59.

That means we are adding the traffic to block 59 as well as you know route 59.

Just one to do, yeah.

Deputy Director Heinz.

City engineer.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh so uh so Route 59 is a state highway and it is managed by the Illinois Department of Transportation.

IDAT doesn't currently have any improvements planned for for Route 59, uh, but it is something that we can continue to monitor.

Our projections do show that traffic will continue to increase on Route 59, and as IDOT moves forward with their next planning cycle, we can uh you know express our concerns and and ask them to to evaluate that.

Or can we do a traffic study about that through how things were there last time when we have done the traffic study or now in 25 or 26, something like that?

Uh so as part of our road improvement plan project, we we did evaluate the traffic on Route 59, and you know, I we based it based upon uh you know regional traffic uh projections.

Um so it it's like a it does show that you know we there will be continued increase in traffic on Route 59.

Uh but as far as uh any proposed improvements that would be uh that would have to come through the uh through the state.

Okay, thank you.

Councilman Wilson.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh on related to that uh stretch code.

Um had a question for Dr.

Groth.

With uh I realize it's not directly under you now, but uh do you recall uh the participation in that renewable program that we offer director approximately growth electric utility director?

Um if you're referring to the city of Naperville's renewable energy program, I believe there was about 3600 participants across the city.

Do you recall how many participants there could be, I guess, or how many homes?

Maybe that's a question for somebody else.

From an electric utility perspective, we have 63,000 customers.

So it's a low percentage.

Um not doing the math on off the top of my head, but um so it's a low percentage of uh folks that get into the or participate in the program, it would seem um thank you, director.

Uh the uh just a comment, I guess too, on the folks that came and spoke about IMEA.

Um I I mean I do think it's important to considering many of the council uh much of the council talk is about uh if you go back to the grocery tax um discussion looking at how those taxes would affect people and uh the effect uh particularly low-income folks um or budget workshops that we've done or been doing, the effect of uh those taxes on people that live in Naperville, and it's the folks that came here to talk about IMA tonight.

It's important to look at considerations for IMEA with regard to how that'll affect uh affordability in general, as we've seen drastic increase in in inflation.

Um you know, people if you if you listen, watch MSN or CNBC or whatever Wall Street Journal, they'll go well, inflation's down to 2% now.

Well, it didn't go down, it would went down from a higher number that was last year.

So all these factors with regard to energy prices, I think are pretty important.

Um thank you.

Our final public forum acknowledgement tonight is for the Naperville North High School Boys' Soccer Team, the class 3A IHSA state championship team.

They won the state championship in a horrible cold Saturday night with rain and chills and and uh freezing drizzle and everything that could go wrong.

Double overtime plus penalty shots for the win.

Congratulations to those boys.

We celebrated with them with a proclamation at a school assembly on this last Friday, and we wanted to make sure this was part of the official record of our city council.

Congratulations to Naperville North.

And we'll allow applause for that one in the public room.

Our next item is the consent agenda.

May I have a motion to use the omnibus method to approve the consent agenda.

Councilman White.

I move to use the omnibus method to approve the consent agenda.

Council Kelly.

Second Kelly.

All those in favor sign aye.

Aye.

Opposed?

Motion passes 9-0.

May have a motion to approve the consent agenda pulling I eight and I-14.

Councilman White.

Mayor move to approve the consent agenda, removing items I eight and I 14.

Council Kelly.

Second Kelly.

Motion a second.

Mr.

Schatz, please read the consent agenda as amended.

Approval of the October cash disbursements for a total of 49,993,257 and 33 cents.

Approval of the regular city council meeting minutes of November 4th, 2025.

Approval of the city council meeting scheduled for December 2025 and January and February of 2026.

Receiving the year-to-date budget report through October 31st, 2025.

Receiving the year to date investment and cash balance report through September 30th, 2025.

Approval of the award of the cooperative procurement for police and fire SUV vehicle replacements to Curry Motors Fleet for an amount not to exceed 393,936.

Approval of the award of the cooperative procurement for hydro excavator replacement unit 777 to VACCON for an amount not to exceed 739,351 dollars.

Approval of the award of option year number two to their RFQ for design build pollinator and native vegetation program to V3 Construction Group for an amount not to exceed 325,000 dollars.

Approval of the award of option year number four to the contract for parkway tree trimming services to NJ Ryan Tree and Landscape and Steve Piper and Sons for an amount not to exceed $500,000 for one year term.

Approval of the award of change order number one to option year number one of the contract for street lighting controller, public building and municipal lot lighting maintenance to meet electric for an amount not to exceed 175,000 dollars passing the ordinance proposing the establishment and setting up a public hearing for special service area number 37 for northwoods of Naperville passing the ordinance and granting a temporary use to locate vehicle inventory on an existing parking facility is located at 40 Schumann Boulevard for a period of not to exceed three years expiring on November 18th 2028 and scheduling a public hearing for the 2026 annual budget we have a motion and a second to approve the consent agenda as amended removing I eight and I 14 roll call or lee yes Gibson aye cold tower aye Jane Kelly McRome Sayed I White Aye Wilson motion passes nine zero next item item I eight is a recommendation to approve the calendar year 2026 SECA grant fund program city obligations allocations in the amount of 1,309 thousand one hundred and ninety eight dollars there is one speaker Marilyn Schweitzer hi good evening uh city obligations are a curious concept obligated by whom clearly not the public because the public doesn't have sufficient time to FOIA the applications that theoretically each entity submits to staff it's not clear to me that even staff and council review the applications to ensure that this 1.3 million dollar request serves the public in the best manner possible i appreciate every entity on the list but I question the oversight and whether the requests best serve the needs of the public through the food and beverage tax these are just some examples the parking for fireworks at Frontier Park can only accommodate about 10% of Naperville households is too far to walk traffic is miserable so we don't go other people find traffic to be miserable but apparently it's not miserable enough from staff's perspective nor even worthwhile asking the community whether shuttle buses would be helpful and what might be an acceptable ridership fee.

Second example I love that we have the historic Naperville municipal ban but it seems 100% of this funding comes from the city.

Although it is a 501c3 there's no obvious means to make a donation still the obligation for the entire band's function is less than the annual marketing for the NDP.

The entity marketing costs seem to be really steep to me but and is it worthwhile I can't tell my final example is public art maintenance this began a century walk maintenance for art only on public property in 2025 it was expanded to cover privately owned art on private property increased from 50k to 75k and renamed perhaps to cover art beyond century walk.

I love public art and familiar with the art around town thus I was surprised to see this year art previously listed to be on private property now being listed on city property and pieces previously listed be on city property now on private property I doubt anything was really located relocated.

Murals perpetually seem to be maintained at a high cost rather than ever being decommissioned.

The Zika commission and the city clerk and our special events coordinator is responsible for keeping a catalog of pieces of public art in the program.

It is supposed to include the maintenance and record amongst its attributes.

Yet, even though this pro program is supposedly for the public, this catalog did not have an online presence.

This obligation is requesting to have QR codes to go somewhere, but there isn't even a comprehensive website that is up to date for the art program for the public to explore.

Yeah, private business owners with privately owned art installed on their property, get it maintained at the taxpayers' expense.

This makes no sense to me.

It is sloppy, it does not reflect good stewardship of our public art.

It is that three minutes already.

I'm so sorry.

It's over.

Okay, sorry.

Okay, can I have a uh motion on the mayor added comment?

If I'm sorry, we gotta have a motion, a second, then we'll have discussion.

Okay.

So uh motion on I eight, Councilman White.

Mayor move Mayor move to get in the wrong button.

All right.

Mayor move to approve the calendar year to uh 2026 seeker grant fund program city obligations allocations in the amount of 1,309,000, 1980, 1 million 309,198 dollars.

Councilman Kelly, a second second Kelly.

We have motion and a second discussion.

Councilman Halzar.

Thank you, Mayor.

I uh appreciate again the staff report earlier on with regard to Merr Marilyn's questions.

Um she stated it very eloquently up here.

Um I do think a lot of taxpayers would be surprised to hear that city dollars are maintaining private artwork on privately owned property.

Um not something that in the next month I think will be solved, but I do think this is something that should be looked at in calendar year 2026 to see if um there's adjustments that need to be made.

I mean, we have nonprofit entities that are being asked vociferously to um find more private sources of funding, and yet here we have private for-profit uh entities that are receiving city dollars for the maintenance of their artwork potentially.

So I think that's worth looking into.

Thank you, Mayor.

Councilman McRoom.

Thank you, Mayor.

I agree with all that.

Uh, Councilman Holtzauer.

Councilman, you've got a hug up on the microphone there for us.

We can't hear you.

Oh, okay.

Uh I agree with everything there, uh, Councilman Holtzauer, and uh thank you, Marilyn, for speaking.

Um the uh the the request that I made um, I guess a couple meetings ago to to review secret grants was specifically this the grant portion, but um there's a lot of questions.

Um, the art I think is really messy.

Uh these are hard conversations.

Um, you know, once the government starts collecting tax dollars and giving giving them to either pro for-profit or nonprofit organizations, it's really hard to ask questions and it's really hard to unwind.

And um, you know, I hope that a bigger discussion can be had, and a lot of hard questions can be asked, and um you know, maybe maybe a bigger discussion about the food and beverage tax um and how all those dollars are being spent uh needs to be taken a look at.

Thanks.

So no further discussion, we have a motion and a second on an I8 roll call.

Gibson.

Aye.

Hold tower.

I Jane.

I Kelly.

I big room.

I say White, I Wilson, Warley.

Yes.

Motion passes 90 I-14.

Item I-14 is a recommendation to pass the ordinance amending section 11-4 of the Naperville Municipal Code for regulating the operation, classification, and safety of e-bikes and e-scooters.

Staff is recommending that this item be tabled to December 2nd, 2025.

There is one speaker, Justin White.

Mr.

DeSana, you want to make a statement before the speaker?

Sure, if I can just provide a little bit of background, uh staff is requesting that this item be tabled to the December 2nd meeting.

It did have a first reading at the uh previous city council meeting.

Uh, the reason for the request to table is that we've noticed a loophole.

Uh that their uh the orders probably doesn't sufficiently address low-speed electric vehicles that lack pedals, and so if we can get two weeks, we'll clean that up and bring it back to council for final action on December 2nd.

Okay, uh Mr.

White.

Okay, thank you for that update.

Uh, but I'll still share my information here.

So, as I mentioned earlier, as you know from the last uh two weeks ago, my name is Justin White with uh Naperville Nest.

I'm also the Napoleon Bicycle Club.

Um, I do appreciate that this uh issues come forth.

I do want to kind of provide a little bit of guidance here as we move through this process the next couple weeks.

Uh I think that as we go through, you know, when we look at micromobility transportation, enforcement kind of leans on the police department a lot, park district, etc.

But I do think that with that role, enforcement's praise is a big part of it.

We also need to consider education.

So I know that this came up in the last time at the council meeting two weeks ago.

So just a couple ideas for you guys to consider.

Uh, one is the school districts, they are partners in this.

Uh, they have kids that are riding their bikes to the schools.

So please consider how we can leverage the school districts.

I have talked to them on occasion, and they do express interest in supporting this effort.

Um, driver's ed, that's a big one.

But those are 16-year-old, 15-year-old kids.

What about eighth graders, ninth graders?

There's SOARS programs, there's home rooms.

So let's please consider that.

Let's give uh uh Chief Aries that support there.

Uh Wright Illinois, who provided the support on the uh the the uh terminology for this ordinance.

Um, they have a new program coming out in spring so that they can help to educate the the kids or even through free programs, park districts, etc.

Um, I'm gonna bring up here a couple uh items here with park districts.

So some of us here have experience with the park district.

Uh, let's please encourage the park district to support this effort.

You know, we have spoken to them about uh signage in the past, that's I think that's a really important thing, regardless of whether it's the e-bike or somebody riding a regular bike.

And finally, can we see more of the officers from police department and the uh park district to ride bikes during the appropriate weather just as a community effort?

We see community officers.

Why can't we see community officers on the bicycle?

Uh maybe there'll be some volunteers.

I'll go ride with them if they like, so no problem there.

Um, so in the next item here I just want to touch on is the infrastructure.

So we talked about this last time with the council, the consultant Epstein, they are on doing their job.

Um I think it's important that as we move people in and out of the lanes.

Let's consider that people are gonna be shifting into different parts of the the road we're not used to.

So we really need to make sure we consider this consultant and supporting them in their plan.

So as people start riding in the roads, then there's other car issues.

So just try to keep it safe.

And finally, in closing, I think this is a good effort for us to all as a community to look at micromobility and to think about not just cars, not just bikes, but people walking, safety, etc.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Councilman White, may have a motion to table I-14 to the next meeting on December 2nd.

Mayor move to table the ordinance amending section 11-4 of the neighborhood municipal code regulating the operation classification and safety of e-bikes and e-scooters to the December 2nd 2025 meeting.

Councilor Kelly, second Kelly.

We have a motion and a second to table I 14.

Roll call.

Ine.

I Kelly.

I McBroom.

Hi.

Say Ed.

I White.

I Wilson.

All right.

Worley.

Yes.

Gibson.

Aye.

Motion passes 9-0.

Next item is 01.

Item 01 is a recommendation to receive the bicentennial framework report and direct staff to initiate the selection of the 2031 bicentennial chairperson.

There are three speakers and then opening comments by staff.

The first speaker is Bill Simon.

Good evening, Mr.

Mayor, City Council members.

My name is Bill Simon.

I'm a resident of Naperville, and I'm speaking for Naperville Preservation Inc.

Our historic buildings are our most visible and impactful reminders of Naperville's past and Naperville's bicentennial heritage.

Many of the people of bygone eras are gone.

And those events are gone.

They're memorialized in books and in museums, but our buildings around us that are historical are there every day.

So Naperville preservation has a unique ability to help in this effort.

We have members that are steadfast supporters of our history.

We have a wide email and social media audience who are already big fans of Naperville's history and huge uh fans of our city.

So we're uniquely positioned to add to the celebration planning.

And you may be impressed that Naperville Preservation has already made plans to align our organization with the bicentennial.

We have in progress our preservation plan, which is called Progress Through Preservation, and it acknowledges the role of historic preservation and the bicentennial and our 2026 SECA application that will hopefully get some funding for cites the proposal support of the city's bicentennial movement in the coming years.

So Naperville preservation celebrates the bicentennial plan, and we offer our involvement in any way to support the bicentennial plan through our expertise and our point of view and our connection to the people of Naperville.

And uh we're reminded that in 1976, which was a while ago, for our nation's bicentennial.

We know that an interest in historic preservation and the nation's celebrations went hand in hand.

So we see the same thing for our city of Naperville.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

The next speaker is Mary Lou Worley, followed by Marilyn Schweitzer.

Good evening, elected officials, city staff, residents, guests.

My name is Mary Lou Worley, and I want to thank you all for your public service.

Structure is good, but so is the breath that flows through structure.

I commend our professional, thoughtful city staff for aligning best practices of 21st century municipal government to encourage and support celebrations of Naperville's bicentennial 2031.

The stories we tell ourselves energize behaviors and actions that are the breaths of life we experience every day here on our 25,000 acres.

To apply, to nominate, to select, to emerge.

I hope this first step before you tonight will inspire conversations, attract visions, and welcome stories, perhaps not all pleasant, but necessary to acknowledge.

It is complicated.

Joseph and Elmeida Naper established a presence here in 1831, but it was not until 1842 that the laws of America granted title.

Native peoples, though forcibly removed, are vibrant among us today.

Federal policies allowing financial support of homeownership to select persons have dwindled to strengthen Naperville with an exciting variety of residents.

The 1917 homecoming events offered by the Chamber of Commerce highlighted Naperville's prosperity and commercial successes.

The 1931 Centennial and the heart of the depression accepted and noted every nickel offered to create a surface review of the past and multi-generational festivities bouncing the ball into the future.

45 acres and a beach, the commemorative gift.

1981, the Riverwalk, the unpronounceable sesqui centennial.

Parades, pageants, businesses and families, young and old, a recreation of Joseph and Almeida Napor's cupboard wagon journey from the shores of Lake Michigan to the clear waters of the roaring west branch of the DuPage River.

As tonight may begin as tonight may begin a structured process, curiously without a budget or an office, I am confident resources will emerge for the pe from the people, from the people who are here, from the people who continue to arrive for a better life, just like the speculators, Joseph and El Made in Naper.

And the journey will include people who've been here who have called Naperville home for years.

It will include the environment, Mother Nature, Planet Earth, our best practices ensuring its health.

Thank you for laying a foundation for us to say yes to our next celebratory adventure, to share stories, to build relationships, and to leave a lasting commemorative to fortify the future.

I believe we always have much to learn from each other, and we will make efforts to benefit everyone.

We move on together.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

The final speaker on this item is Marilyn Schweitzer.

Okay, let's try this again.

So there's a lot to digest here.

First, I'm disappointed that the L presentation was given a year ago and yet nothing was on the city website.

The public should have had an opportunity to contribute to it and to this framework, not just to be notified when looking for a chairperson.

I worry about the relationship of the committee with SECA.

SECA has and continues to be controversial both in terms of its events and its fundings.

This is not a good start.

Because this will not be under the Open Meetings Act.

I fear that too much will be undocumented and out of the public view.

Too similarly to how public art has been and continues to be managed.

Meeting agendas, meeting dates, and meeting minutes should be well announced and publicly documented.

The public should be encouraged to be involved.

I don't get the emphasis on so much competitions and events without seeing a historical con you know context.

This is not just a celebration and a bunch of special events.

It is an opportunity to research and document and publish our historic record.

For example, digitizing the Naperville Sons.

Once documented, our record should be published and made available to our library as well as places like the Illinois Digital Archive.

The library should be involved.

Finally, Naperville Preservation should have been included in the list of organizations consulted, and I ask that they be included in future planning.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

And now Mr.

Zucker, I think we are ready for your presentation.

Good evening, Mayor and City Council.

My name is Rudy Zucker, and I am a project manager in the finance department.

Good evening.

I'm Tammy Spencer.

I'm a commander with the police department.

We are happy to be here tonight to present the bicentennial framework and to recommend starting the selection process for an executive committee chair.

In 1831, the city of Naperville was established.

Approximately 100 people followed Joseph Naper and his vision for Napers settlement.

195 years later, the city of Naperville has grown to the third largest city in the state of Illinois and is quickly approaching its bicentennial celebration.

Each milestone celebration has focused on Naperville's community.

In 1931, during the depths of the Great Depression, 6,000 residents came together to celebrate Naperville and established Centennial Beach.

Each milestone celebration to date has been a community-driven event, set another way, a celebration by the Naperville community for the Naperville community.

During our interviews, the project team interviewed or sorry, the project team learned that the organizers of the Sesku Centennial frequently met in living rooms to plan that celebration.

To support the Neighborville community and planning the bicentennial, members of the city's emerging leaders program were tasked with researching and developing a comprehensive framework document.

This document is designed to guide the bicentennial committee as planning moves forward.

The 46-page report offers recommendations on key aspects of the celebration, including committee structure, fundraising, marketing, risk management, capital projects, and special events.

As recommended in tonight's agenda item, once the bicentennial framework is accepted, the next step will be to select a chairperson to lead the bicentennial committee.

We are encouraged by the many individuals and organizations eager to contribute to the celebration in a variety of ways.

Each will bring unique skills, strengths, and ideas.

The chairperson will need to articulate a clear, achievable vision for what it means to celebrate 200 years of Naperville's community and history.

The ideal candidate will be an experienced, proven leader, someone who is organized, open-minded, able to delegate effectively, connected to a broad and diverse network, and deeply passionate about the Naperville community.

On behalf of the Emerging Leaders Program and those who worked on developing the framework presented to you this evening, thank you for your time and consideration.

We're happy to answer any questions you may have.

Councilman Holzor.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, I actually just wanted to thank the presenters and all speakers for the passion you have for this and the just really moving words that you're put out there.

Um, one of the things that Mary Lou talked about was um sort of the many stories in the city over time.

Some of those are uncomfortable, but they're all an important part of the fabric of our community.

Um I think looking back to Centennial Beach, and I think a lot of people don't realize that's a New Deal era project, but when you look at the architecture of the beach house and the grounds there, it's really a beautiful encapsulation of American history right in that one spot.

By the way, the quarry where that was built was stone that was used to rebuild the city of Chicago after the Great Fire.

So these milestones, I think, are more than just a party, it's more than just a celebration.

Hopefully, we can make a mark that will be remembered a hundred years from now.

Um, for my own part, one thing I'm really excited about is all the work that's been been done on the River Walk mission.

Um, this year we're gonna see groundbreaking and a significant part of the work done on the plot of land that's right now next to the Burger King, kind of an undeveloped plot, uh, which will add accessibility to our river walk, the extension of the river walk towards the Edward Hospital campus groundbreaking that'd be happening about a year from now.

Um the the one kind of piece of feedback I would give to all the people who will be working so hard on this is um this is a really really big city, and sometimes it's easy for us sitting up here or you know, the the people that we often go to the same events and see each other and know each other.

There's a lot of people in the city who've never met most of us, um, but they're still a really important part of our city.

So whoever's on this committee, I would ask that you really you know you go out over the next few years and you try to learn every corner of this town and um and meet people from all kinds of different groups, people who look different than you, people who um have different ideas, um, because I think the mark of a successful 2031 celebration will really be that truly everyone in Naperville, um, whether they've done anything in the community before or not, will feel like this makes them more part of the community.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Councilman Kelly.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh, just very quickly wanted to say thank you to the speakers and especially the emerging leaders program.

I know you guys are spending a lot of time that you don't have to be uh so thank you for doing that.

Um you've got a great framework uh going so far, and just for the public, just to kind of highlight the attachment to the agenda item today is 46 pages, uh 46 page PDF.

That's already got a lot in there before the committee even has really gotten going, uh, including a letter from uh Judge Nock from the centennial that to me was one of the most interesting things I read in that like just kind of jumps off the page at you, and you can feel him writing that from almost a hundred years ago.

So uh it's really kind of neat to have that visit visual physical callback to our history and uh in hoping that we can kind of keep that legacy moving going forward.

So thanks and look really looking forward to this.

So we're gonna be asked tonight to approve the structure for identifying the chairperson.

One thing that I would like council to consider uh, and and I'd like to hear some feedback from the committee as well, is the possibility of giving you some more flexibility on the number of chair people, perhaps co-chairs for this, uh, considering it's a five-year long commitment, and in some cases, we don't know if three years into it the identified chairperson might get transferred or have a medical issue or or some other type of concern.

So what we approve here tonight is written up as one person, and I think council might want to entertain the opportunity to approve more flexibility in what the committee might think would be the appropriate approach to making sure that we've got plenty of coverage.

So that could be maybe you've got two spectacular applicants or maybe even three at particular applicants that you want to put in place, and it gives you a little bit more latitude versus just one.

So that would be my recommendation.

Council members.

Are you okay if we throw that into the mix here?

Committee, are you good with that?

Okay, councilman Sayed?

Yeah.

So Matt, I agree on this thing because uh in 2020, Celsius, me and Mark Rice were handling that project, and we had two chairs, and we were able to manage that 2020 very well.

Sometimes it is always better to have two people, two views, maker and checker, and then you know we made history because of two people.

So maybe it's a good idea to have two chairs, and definitely I would like to support for that.

Yeah, okay.

Councilman White, would you like to put a motion?

We we need action on this, don't we?

Yeah, so we need to receive the report and direct staff.

Mayor move to receive the bicentennial framework report and direct staff to initiate the selection of the two thousand and thirty-one bicentennial chairperson uh incorporating um the idea of also having at least a deputy.

Hyperly I interpret a deputy uh chairperson or two chairpersons.

Just give us some options there so we can uh we can take a look at that.

Second Kelly.

Okay, we have a motion, a second.

Any questions, discussion?

Roll call.

Jane.

I Kelly.

Hi.

Paper room.

I cyan.

I Wilson.

All right.

Moraley.

Yes.

Gibson.

I hold tower.

I motion passes nine to nine zero.

Congratulations and thank you for all your work so far.

Now you're not allowed to retire or anything else during the middle of this.

Thank you.

Oh two.

Item O two is a recommendation to endorse the Naperville 2050 Road Improvement Plan.

Councilman White, may I have a motion?

Mayor move to endorse the Naperville 2050 road improvement plan.

Councilman Kelly.

Second Kelly.

Motion and the second on O2.

Roll call.

Kelly.

Aye.

McBroom.

Hi.

Cyan.

I.

Wilson.

Worley.

Yes.

Gibson.

I hold tower.

I.

Aye.

Motion passes 903.

Item 03 is a receiving the report on the addition of a police mobile crisis intervention unit to the proposed 2026 annual budget.

Director.

Director Munch.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor Raymond Finance Director.

So I wanted to provide some very brief background on this report for those in the community who may not be following our budget workshop series closely.

At the last of the three budget workshops, council requested a report around the uh thought of adding a police mobile crisis intervention team to the 2026 budget.

The history on that actually goes back to last year's budget process.

The 2025 budget process included a request from the police department to add five police officers and one sergeant for the establishment of a mobile crisis intervention team.

That request was evaluated through the finance department, the city manager's office, ultimately paired back to align with available funding in last year's budget, and was presented to council uh at a cost of uh 474,000, and that was uh for one sergeant and three police officers.

We ultimately presented that as a pro-rated budget request for six months of the year because at that time you'll recall we were still wrestling with the uh outcome of the grocery tax conversation.

There were also several other considerations that went into the 2025 budget process.

Uh, one of the most notable was that we were in the middle of negotiations with our two largest uh collective bargaining units, that being the police officers and the firefighters.

Uh as those negotiations played out, it became apparent that the final wage increases were going to be significantly greater than the amount that was included in the 2025 budget, and as a result, uh we ultimately were uh forced to reallocate uh quite a large dollar value within the 2025 budget, 2.2 million dollars specifically.

Uh those were budget transfers that came from various accounts within the general fund and also utilized the 474,000 dollars in funding that was allocated to the MCIT program.

So fast forward to this year.

Um, as we've discussed at length during the budget process, this year was a challenging budget budget process.

Uh, even after we solved for the grocery tax issue, uh staff was left with approximately four million dollar budget deficit in the general fund that we had to solve for.

So we did uh significantly more budget balancing work this year than we had done uh in this several years prior, and so as a result of that new new programs and new personnel in particular um were scrutinized quite seriously as part of this year's budget and ultimately not included in the final budget proposal to city council.

Uh as part of the request at the third budget workshop, council uh asked what would the 2026 dollar value be of adding MCIT.

Uh that is posed here on this slide uh in several options.

One would be to add uh two officers for that purpose.

And then the full budget request that we started at in 2025 was six personnel, one sergeant and four police officers.

On this slide, we've detailed the additional costs that come with each of those options.

Anytime you hire a new police officer, they're outfitted with their own radio, body cameras, tasers, uniforms, etc.

There's police academy training costs.

And then there's also requests call it the bottom lines there are more of a one-time cost for some additional vehicles, computer equipment that goes along with that.

Again, those are one time in nature.

I would say the first two lines of this slide are probably the most important to focus on as your personnel or your recurring costs year over year.

So the major consideration here is given that we presented a balanced general fund budget.

If you add new programs or new personnel at this point, there obviously has to be a funding source associated with that.

Being that the one funding source that is within our control is the property tax levy.

That would be the logical place to go in this conversation.

Otherwise, your other option is really to look at all other aspects of the budget and go back to budget balancing measures and look for other places to reduce.

So what we've presented here is the property tax options.

Were you to uh desire to add two, four or six police officers to the 2026 budget?

I won't go over every number on this slide.

Um I think I'll I'll focus on the bottom line.

Uh the first column current levy proposal is the levy that we proposed in next year's budget.

Uh moving up from there, what you're looking at is essentially the bill impact for a median valued home in the city of Naperville, which at this point is approximately 580,000.

So if you were to add the full contingent of six officers, you see a bill impact of $16 next year.

Again, that will be different for every homeowner.

And again, this is focused on the residential side.

If you started to look at commercial properties, those numbers change uh quite a bit more dramatically.

But this is a representation of probably our largest segment of property taxpayers within the city of Naperville.

Finally, uh, I'm just gonna share with you a few uh final comments as as we um deliberate on this.

I I think throughout this budget season, I have uh conveyed a message of caution.

Um there's various reasons behind that.

Uh much of it is is based on the data we've seen, uh, but there are also many signals in the economy uh that would uh tell you that we are probably entering a period of fiscal tightening.

As we we enter that period, um, you know, we're always cautious around the property tax.

It's it's probably the one revenue source in local government that receives the highest level of scrutiny.

We propose the property tax levy along with a balanced budget.

Um if there's a desire to add MCIT at this point, our recommendation would be that the levy is really the only logical place uh to effectuate that increase.

An important point here is that if the council desired to go down that path, that does require a long-term commitment.

Um, if you if you fund a program through a property tax, I I think it's safe to assume that the property tax needs to support that in future years.

Um again, you know, I've I've talked about some of the considerations that we're looking at.

Um, revenues have moderated.

I still think we're in a very good position to support our core services, the the services that we currently provide to our residents and business community.

There are certainly some things on the horizon that have led me to to urge that caution this budget season.

Um every time we get together, there seems to be something new emerging.

Um, one that I'll share with you tonight is there's quite a bit of traction at the state level in the pension system to revert what are currently tier two pensions back to something closer to a tier two pension.

Uh that bill got some traction uh this year.

It seems uh to have legs going into next year.

That would have some substantial financial impacts on the city of Naperville.

Um, so much so that we asked our pension actuaries to run a report on that.

And if that bill were to pass, what we would be looking at in our police and fire pension systems would be an immediate increase of 2.8 million dollars a year or 14%, and a total of 170 million dollars over the next 30 years.

So there are some substantial things out there that again, I I put in that bucket of unknown, but certainly worth watching and and worth being aware of as we consider new programs or new services.

Last but not least, I talked during the budget workshops about our sort of deliberate approach to leveraging the property tax levy over the past several years.

As our debt has fallen off, it's given us the ability to dedicate more property tax dollars to our core city services.

I envision that next year and the year after, that need will continue to exist, if not grow as costs continue to increase.

Um adding new programs and leveraging the property tax for those purposes, obviously limits our ability to do that for the uh expenses that we've we've already incurred or already dedicated ourselves to.

So again, um all things being said, I think we continue to be in a relatively good position.

Um, but again, as I've I've shared throughout this budget season, um, you know, we're certainly being cautious as we go into 2026 and beyond.

Um so with that, I will uh I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Councilman McBroom.

Uh thank you, Mayor.

Just some comments on this.

Um I don't think I have any questions for you, Ray, but uh you touched on a lot of things that I had written down that I was gonna talk about.

Um, you know, the pension bill and in Springfield.

Um, you know, I'm I'm uh I'm not hitting the panic button, you know, the sky's not falling, uh the city's in great shape.

We've got triple A bond rating.

Um, but if you're if you're being observant and you're paying attention to what's going on, not just with Naperville, but other municipalities and other local government bodies, there are some flashing yellow lights going off right now, and I'm concerned that that we might not be being as serious as as we as I think we should be uh up here.

Um, we had the discussion about the grocery store tax.

Uh one of the reasons why I thought that there's a lot of reasons why I thought the grocery stores tax was the right way to go.

Um if you listen to our finance director, uh he talked about that home real sales tax and and I believe referred to it as a last resort.

What do you think that means?

Um the food and beverage tax, we kind of throw money around like it's candy.

Um these are fallback plans.

So I I think everybody should be when you look at the operations and the salaries and the benefits, and we're kind of at a tipping point now.

Um and you know, some of these spikes with health insurance, hopefully we don't have to worry about those things, but it's going to be challenging moving forward.

Um that that we just we just be careful.

So, you know, there's things in this budget that that I don't like.

We're not always gonna get the things that we like, and um I was just a little taken aback by a third third budget workshop where we uh it'd be one thing if we were scrutinizing and asking the staff to cut, but we're asking the staff to add things after staff told us to to hold the line and told all the departments to hold the line.

So um, you know, MCIT, you know, I guess I mean we are talking about sworn officers, so uh we can just kind of, you know, they are uh specialized in mental health, uh, but we are talking about cops, uh more cops in the streets.

So I don't think anybody really objects to to having cops on the street.

I do think it should be a next year um consideration, and that was kind of the agreement last year.

We kind of knew these contracts were coming and and these hurdles were coming.

Um, but uh you know, if I were to support this, I I think that um the individuals that are um you know putting it forth, if it's a million or it's nine hundred thousand, give direction to the staff on where where they should offset that that revenue.

Go go into the general fund because throughout this process, I haven't seen any scrutiny on food and beverage, or very little um over the budget in general, and and and now the staff is being asked to add a million dollars on to uh um and a long-term obligation.

So I I would ask council to uh help the staff find where you're gonna where you're gonna replace and offset that that revenue.

Well, one thing I want to clarify for for members of the public is our police department is one of the most highly trained in the state, if if not the nation.

We have over 93 percent of our police officers, our crisis intervention team trained and certified, which is a huge statistic over most peer departments.

So we do have a large number of CIT officers now, so regardless of whatever transpires tonight, we have a well-equipped crisis intervention team in place.

To that end, we do also have a lower number of police officers per 1,000 than comp cities.

So there is justification in my eyes for an increase in sworn personnel.

With regard to where we are with the budget process and how this came about, and and quite honestly, some of the concerns that uh director munch has is uh brought forward in asking for a zero FTE budget.

I think that there's a more conservative approach to how we might move forward on this.

And what I might offer as a suggestion would be for council to consider moving forward with the initial two, a police officer and a sergeant on the MCIT team as part of the first portion of the 2026 year, and then the second corporate uh the the second um and and I'm sorry, the third and fourth police officers um being considered in August of 2026, after which we will know where we are on our revenues, and we will have some guidance where the state is on tier two pension reform.

Because if tier two pension reform happens, and suddenly we have a near three million dollar bogey that we're gonna have to find somewhere.

Well, having committed and hired six police officers at the beginning of 2026, you can't put that cork back in the bottle.

Now we've got a real challenge on our hands going into the 2027 budget.

So I believe we could make the recommendation to uh adjust the tax rate to accommodate for two at the beginning of the year, an additional four for the or additional two for the balance of the year, and then an allocation of the remaining two into the 2027 budget.

And if there's not support for that from council, I would ask council to consider having the last four hired after we have the August information and some guidance from our our uh finance director and whatever is gonna happen in Springfield on pension reform.

Hearing no further discussion, is there a motion on three councilman White Mayor move to let me back up a little bit?

Are we do are we we haven't received report yet?

Have we?

We need to have a yeah, we received the report.

Do we need to take action on receiving the report?

We don't have to receive the directions.

Yeah, I think we're good.

Mayor um I moved to receive the estimated 2025 property tax levy for the city of Naperville, including the Naperville public library tolling.

No, don't uh we're on 03.

I mean what's the police offset will be direction is to get uh right so the the question is we need direction on what you would like staff to do.

There's the two, the four, or the six or zero police officers for MCIT in the report, so we have to identify what we would like.

As a point of the case, thank you, Mayor.

I I had interpreted when I'm looking at the agenda that item three was just a receipt of the report.

Option four was the action because the decision in option four really kind of necessarily necessarily entails what you were saying.

So I I'd interpreted that the discussion on that topic was was in four.

Is that it does, but I I think we we still have to give direction on how many police officers we're gonna hire.

And we're authorizing.

Okay, well, I didn't realize that.

Would that be accurate, council?

Santo I'm hearing you you'd like comment on this now not in there will be really no no substantive discussion on four I think that would be our preference yes okay um then mayor may make a comment I didn't realize that thank you mayor um many good comments here uh and I appreciate that there are um you know everybody's acting good faith everybody wants what's best for the city and best for public safety um just to be crystal clear public safety mental health taking care of our victims are core city services and um you know one of my colleagues said staff told us to come back with uh no new hires or something along those lines just to be clear council sets policy council decides what core services are for the city that is the order of operations um speaking for myself um one of my memories I will never forget is as a prosecutor in the year 2008 um I prosecuted somebody who was accused of molesting his 12 year old daughter um which resulted in a full acquittal in a case where there was amount of evidence which unfortunately due to a lack of trained team that could have collected that evidence did not get in one of the things Chief Aries mentioned at the last meeting was the increased conviction rates that have happened in communities that have a unit along these lines how do you go to a child victim how do you go to any victim and say if this crime had occurred in the year 2027 we would have had the resources to address it but we made a budget compromise in 2026 when we knew we could have done better and we didn't um a lot of times these victims they can't they're young they can't vote they're scared to talk about what happened they're ashamed they don't have an advocate out there the way that people for other causes do and they rely on us to advocate for them this is not a problem that is going to go away it's not going to be different three years from now than it is two years from now than it was one year from now I I respect the mayor's offer to defer um some of the hiring here but I disagree with it and that's actually the decision we made last year um we actually voted for the hiring of police officers in the second half of 2026 that was never stricken from the budget and it didn't happen my fear is if we put similar measures in place this year we are just asking for the same result which is that an essential service will not be provided for more time for those reasons um I will be and I don't know that the format is here asking for hands but mayor when when we get to the point of asking for hands I will be asking for hands in the air for the full hiring of of six officers um thank you mayor thank you councilman councilman kelly thank you mayor uh a couple of quick questions for staff and then a few comments um uh for maybe the chief and then maybe shot I'm not sure who uh one question would be if we approved all six at what point in the year do you think you would actually hire them and that might be I don't know if it's based on the list or uh I so question would be when would those hires actually take place and then in terms of spring session and the potential of a tier two uh legislative change when could that potentially I know it could potentially take place at any session in the future but what would be the soonest that that could potentially take place Chief Aries thank you councilman so it would depend on if we hire laterals or send people to the academy so you're looking for six to twelve months after hire for implementation of the unit because we'd need to hire uh six officers we could promote the sergeant right away and actually a contract would require that we do that as of January 1st so we had a sergeant setting up the um the policies for the unit but the police officers would need to get hired which minimum is six months if it's laterals and trained up to go solo it'd be at least a year if it was uh officers we sent to the police academy and Mrs.

Schatz do you want to address the pension reform question?

Well uh well spring session will start in January.

It doesn't seem like anything actually really um solidifies until May.

So I think May is probably our best guess.

What we saw even last week though in veto session is that um there is a Senate bill, um, a tier two Senate bill that continued to to move forward, uh just another step even in veto session.

So they there is some decent momentum on that one.

Okay, thank you.

Uh so a few thoughts that I've got are you, you know, the timing is important, I think, for all of that.

It's gonna take some time to get the actual officers hired.

It's probably gonna be six months from now before we know about tier two.

But if it doesn't happen, then it could be another six months.

We don't know, it could happen in the next veto session, it could be the spring session after that.

We we just don't know.

And I the sense I've gotten over my six or now seven budgets is that every year presents some unknowns and and uncertainties.

Maybe there's been more last year and and this year and coming into next year.

Um, but I'll say for this year, I I think we thought 25 was about the worst in terms of uncertainty and potential challenges, certainly out of the six that I was a part of at that point in time.

Um, and I think we met those challenges head on, and not say that will always be the case, but we did replace the grocery tax, we had multiple options to do it.

We picked one, it was done.

Um, and despite all of the other challenges with revenue and increasing wages and inflation and contracts, I I checked with staff earlier today, and I think um the projection, we've got another month and a half to go, but the projection is that we're gonna be about three to four million dollars in the black um for 2025, despite all those challenges, uh we'll probably add somewhere between three and four million into our cash reserves at the end of the year with uh revenue exceeding uh expenditures by three to four million.

Uh so to me that's again, you don't know that'll happen next year or the year after that, but that's what happened this year in a super challenging year.

Uh and I do think in in hindsight, which of course is 2020, but in hindsight it was a missed opportunity that we did not hire the MCIT unit for this year.

We it turned out we would have had sufficient funds to do it.

Um it is a critical need, probably the the biggest need in terms of what challenges our residents face.

Um and we got into the program quite a bit at the at the last workshop, so I won't recap all that, but I do think it's critical program.

The property tax levy, of course, is also critical.

It's kind of two unmovable uh stones, right?

Uh, on this, and you've got to pick one or the other.

And it's just a question of priorities.

I I think you could make a very reasonable case in either direction.

Uh, but to Councilman Holzhauer's point, we did already approve this unit.

Uh, it wasn't hired.

Um, and we had the question last year whether we should guarantee that we would hire their spots with property tax levy, and that was voted down.

I think it was one to eight is my recollection.

Um, and then we did ultimately approve them as part of the budget with the caveat.

So it's it's been a long simmering thing.

I think we do need to go ahead and and do it.

Um, and the second piece I talked about earlier as well, but the mayor made a mention also of just our police staffing in general.

Uh, you know, I don't know exactly where we're at now, but about a year ago, the Daily Herald ran an article, and we were in the bottom five.

I think we're fifth from last in the entire Chicago metro area.

Um, and we met, you know, I mentioned last time about the additional development, both commercial and residential.

And that really is uh pressing a an issue for our police department that I think needs to be addressed as well.

So for all those reasons, I I do think the time is right to go ahead and add these.

We've got there will be some time, obviously, before they're actually on the force, and and I'm sure our budget team will be monitoring the budget as we go and any developments in Springfield.

If if things change, please let us know.

Uh but for now I would support adding uh the entire unit to the budget.

Thank you.

Councilman Wilson.

Uh thank you, Mayor.

Um, as Director Munch has spoken about um the budget has seemingly faced uh a lot of challenges.

Um at the same time, uh you know, I agree with many of the colleagues here that uh safety is up to the utmost importance.

Um that being said, like given the pension situation that's been mentioned, uh the bill going through I mean, my preference here would be to wait and see what what happens as far as that goes.

Um I mean, you know, Director Munch has also talked about us asking other departments to hold off or move things around, shuffled um and this request that kind of come in at the last very last budget meeting.

Um I get that it had been brought up the prior year.

Um but and sure, you can't you don't know, you know what's gonna happen in the future, but um plenty of indications that it uh that it may not be great again next year.

Um I I guess with with regard to Councilman Holzauer's point about you know not having the officers, not having the training.

I I mean by the same token I do um of you know I guess another anecdote here would be that um I'm I'm aware of another victim of sexual assault uh that in a in a city which didn't have this department and they were still process the perpetrator was still prosecuted and um convicted.

So uh just the implication that not having this, I don't think um at this point aligns with not being able to prosecute folks.

Um so again uh given the budget constraints here.

I don't think um I'd be on board with this and would like to revisit it next year.

Thank you.

Councilwoman Jane.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um Normally I wouldn't be um in favor of adding expenses given what uh Director Munch had stated and what many of my co-council members have also uh stated.

But I think this issue is different, and I think this proposal is unique in that it is going to the core and essential for strengthening public safety and health.

Uh Chief Aries' testimony um and information he provided in the last budget meeting for me was unequivocal in how critical this program is.

Um just with the stats of 900 mental health related calls last year, and each one taking approximately 103 minutes with two officers involved, put a strain on staffing and pull officers away that are not trained in this to have to deal with this program will free up officers who are not trained in this area to um attend uh B issues, and um that combined with the canine who has the ability to sense hormonal imbalances and calm residents in such a situation that would garner um more information um and um possibly um prosecu uh convictions or or long better long-term outcomes.

Uh gosh, that that to me um is exactly what moved me to be on council is is to to offer programs like this um that goes to the heart of what I think uh a municipality should do.

So I normally wouldn't uh vote for something um after a third budget meeting, but this this to me holds a uh unique position, and for that reason, I I will be supporting uh a full staffing of this program so that it can be executed and implemented um effectively councilman White and thank you um kind of in that boat as well.

Um great points by the way uh of things we need to consider um for a budget.

I agree.

I don't I'm not uh fan of you know doing something on at the third workshop, but I also recognize uh the issue at hand.

I think um what councilman Holzhauer's said and what's been said up here already is we actually have already referred uh this from last year, so um I don't want to keep you know kicking the can down the road.

And it's not that I I don't mean to be funny when I say that because you guys are doing a lot of good work and you're trying to make sure you're you're being conservative with the numbers to ensure that the city is in good financial uh shape, but uh I think that the funding uh definitely is there.

Um the other thing is this we all recognize that mental health is almost its own pandemic here, not just in Naperville, but across the country, and uh that that's that's real every I would imagine everyone up on this dias when they campaigned, they talked something somewhere around mental health and how much of that was a crisis uh and is happening here.

I spoke to Chief Aries, I've spoken the chief Pugnitus, and I'll I'll refer to you all real quick.

Um more or less 50% of your calls dealing with someone with a mental health crisis.

Is that accurate?

And uh Chief Pugnitis, if I can add, I mean, as an example, so how many calls do you all go on annually?

Chief McNight.

Yeah, we were the fire department responds to uh approximately 18,000 calls on an annual basis.

Um nearly 70 percent of those are emergency medical calls.

And um I couldn't give you the exact percentage right now, but I would say a large majority of that is uh has its core dealing with a mental or behavioral health origin.

Thank you.

And and that that that describes the need, then the need is there, and I mean the numbers, the numbers don't lie.

Uh and as councilwoman uh Jane said as well, um we have officers who who are dealing with that.

In fact, that Chief Aries told me they go on more calls than what was just described by the fire department again, 50 percent are dealing with someone with a mental crisis.

Um so imagine the number of officers who are going out and they're dealing with this, uh dealing with someone who's going through this, but that's taking them off their regular beats, all right, and doing the other parts of the uh of the job that's required here in the community to keep us safe.

Uh so I think that's uh that's a that's a really good thing.

Uh and the other part uh I think that resonated with me is uh how the hiring cycle would go.

Um I think uh the mayor brings up a a good point that uh if we're worrying about the pensions, but I think that the the time is embedded into the process that if the sky is basically falling, we can we can stop uh and wait until uh we hire that person.

It's uh what we've done right now is we've authorized it uh if we vote on this.

Um, but uh it's gonna be a process and based off of these pension uh reforms that are taking place.

I think we have the ability to react and respond um in case again if the fall if the pie if the sky is falling.

So uh based on all that I will be supporting uh to fund this at uh six officers.

Thank you.

Can you respond to the councilman's question?

Yeah, I I think there's an important point in there, and and maybe the chief and I will go back and forth on this and we can confirm each other.

But his comments about six to twelve months to stand up the the unit are for the unit to be functional on the street, but you're paying those police officers and they are they are on your payroll and a part of your budget the day they get hired.

So the entire time they're in the academy in the field training program you've committed.

It am I right there?

Okay.

So it's the question I guess for for chief is when do you think you'd hire all those six officers?

Would you hire them all at once in January, or would you hire them throughout the year?

No, they'd be hired, you know, with you gotta take into consideration backgrounds and all that, but it'd be I think with the way our lists are right now, latest would be the end of Q1, latest.

And they're either gonna be laterals and going straight to work or they're going to be going to the academy and still on the payroll and outfitted and everything else, correct?

Yeah, and as I yes, sir.

And as I looked up the academy dates, the next one's early January, so we're not gonna get a group in there, but we do have a long lateral list, so I would be leaning towards lateral lists to hire these positions.

So again, that would be before the end of Q1, and that would also accelerate the start time.

That's why I gave you a June to the end of the year start.

So once those hires are solo, that's when the unit would be able to be fully staffed, up and running, so estimated June, July.

Uh again, assuming there's no hiring hiccups uh with those positions.

Thank you.

Councilman What uh McBroom.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um couple things.

I'm gonna I'm gonna push back a little bit more here.

Um councilman Holtzfauer, I I I agree, um, or I guess I disagree on your assessment of our role here.

Um we have professional staff for a reason.

We have a city manager structure, uh we have uh finance professionals, um directors, public work directors, and we're here for oversight.

And normally what you see in in city government is that we're critical of the spending and we're critical of the plans.

You don't normally tell see city elected officials asking uh a conservative recommendation to spend more.

Um and so you know considering this uh the two or the four officers, um to respect, I I I can't I can't consider it uh a serious proposal when there's virtually no scrutiny over food and beverage tax, and so far I haven't heard of any requests for offsets or cuts.

Uh so councilman Holtzar, if you're willing to offer some cuts to the general fund, I'll consider this.

Um, but just simply adding a million dollars in a year like this with the uncertainty that we have, I do think thank things are different.

Uh all due respect Councilman Kelly.

I think these last two di budgets have been different than your first say four uh during COVID.

Uh there was a lot of cash uh swimming around.

Uh I do think the the future is is gonna be more challenging and it's a little bit different.

So um I would need to see some some cuts to the to the general fund uh to support this.

Councilwoman Gibson.

Uh thank you, Mayor.

Um yeah, as elected officials up here, our role is oversight and policy.

Um I think the city manager, council form of government, that's pretty well established.

We're elected by telling the community, you know, what we see as the vision and future for our community and listening to our community.

Um, and then those of you go to the polls and vote to elect us based on where you want to see the direction um of Naperville to go in the future.

Um we have an obligation to be good stewards of the public money, but we also have an obligation to make hard decisions that address the pressing needs of our community.

Um it's what we do up here all the time, whether it's our energy contract, our infrastructure, um, grounding electrical wires and how we address the public safety needs of our community and public health, um, prioritizing public safety and community health, public health, mental health.

Um, they can't just be something we talk about when we're out in our community saying that you know, these are the struggles of our community and we commiserate with you.

Um we are in these seats, so we can set the direction of our city along with our community members to make sure we are addressing some of the most basic needs, and I agree with Councilman Holthauer.

I think public safety and mental health are part of our core city services.

Um they affect everybody's life every day.

Um, just like water mains and electricity and road maintenance affect our lives every day.

Um I think 900 calls a year um that the police department is going on these mental health calls is a staggering number, and if we can do something to address that, um I think we have an obligation to do that.

Um waiting doesn't do much to help those members of our community who are making those 900 calls a year.

Um there's always gonna be a million reasons not to fund programs, um, but I think this is something council directed staff to do last year, and I don't want to kick the can down the road.

I'd like to see it fully funded at six officers.

Thank you, Mayor.

Councilman Sayed.

Thank you, Mah.

We as an elected official have been talking about public safety, mental health is the top priority for everybody.

When I speak to elected officials, what are your top three uh priorities?

Everybody says uh public health, public safety.

And when I speak to the community, they also say the same thing, you know.

And I got some data from fire chief uh website uh types of incidents caught responds to.

And it says over 80% of patients handled by CAT are non-emergency, which allows the EMS unit to responds to emergency calls.

And most COD patients are non-emergency patients.

Out of that, I can see mental health is 79.1% data is shows Nipperville needs officers today urgently.

And I can see citizens' assistance, it says 3.6%.

Six uh six persons, eight point two percent, and others nine point one.

Mental health, seventy-nine point one person in red highlighted on the website.

I can see that.

So it shows the data, black and white.

We need somebody to take care of our community on mental health, and we cannot compromise on that.

And I personally will say I think we should put this as a top priority.

And definitely we have got challenges with the budget, right?

I think we can work on that to accommodate this critical issue of mental health, so that you know, we can manage this one as well as take care of other things.

So I will be supporting for this.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilman Ozar.

Thank you, Mayor.

With that, I'm gonna ask for hands in the air for the full funding this program with six MCIT officers.

I think we're gonna actually take a vote on it.

Sorry, okay.

Can I so councilman?

Can I comment real quick before we do that?

Councilman Wilson?

Sure.

Uh I mean we've heard a lot about this 900 calls and how this will uh this this will help uh the situation.

Um I I just don't know if you can state that as a fact until you deal really deal with the root problem.

I mean, maybe some of the funding that's being uh allocated through CECA can actually deal with the root problem, uh which uh simply I don't know that adding officers to this is actually gonna do that.

Um so I mean what what this isn't really for this discussion, but if some of the money could be used to look at uh actually dealing with that that actually root problem, so that this wouldn't be necessary to begin with, would actually uh uh I'd like to look at that at some point in the future and still hold off on those.

Um it's kind of where I'm at.

Thank you.

Okay.

Um before I ask Councilman Holzar to make the motion, I I just want to make sure that one thing is explicitly clear, and that is in the city of Naperville, our police department investigates every crime with the utmost professionalism and dedication.

And I don't have to ask our police chief to know that he would be the first one to tell us if there was any potential compromise in his ability to investigate crimes that have occurred.

And I have never heard that come out of the chief's mouth.

So any suggestion that we are not sufficiently investigating crimes in this community is just an inappropriate suggestion.

So Councilman Halzar.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, and as I understand it, we are taking a motion on 04.

Is that correct?

Okay, Mr.

DeSantis nodding.

Um Mr.

Mayor, I uh motion to um on 04, I know four.

I motion for option B, which is to receive the estimated 2025 property tax levy for the city of Naperville, including the Napoleon Public Library, totaling 60 million six hundred and ninety-four thousand five hundred and thirty-seven dollars um further to direct staff to fully fund the MCIT program with six officers and direct staff to publish notice for a truth and taxation hearing on December 16th, 2025.

Second white motion is second on option B with the full funding of the six MCIT police officers roll call.

Sayed.

I white, I Wilson.

No.

Gibson.

I Holzauer, I Jane.

I Kelly.

I think Broome.

No.

Motion passes 725 item 05.

His recommendation to receive the estimated 2025 property tax levies for special service area numbers 23, 25, 30, 31, 34, 35, and 36.

Councilman White, may have a motion on 05.

I move to receive the estimated 2025 property tax levies for special service area numbers 23, 25, 30, 31, 34, 35, and 36.

Councilman Kelly.

Second Kelly.

A motion and a second and an O five roll call.

White.

Aye.

Wilson.

I really Kelly.

I broom.

I say in the motion passes nine zero.

Any new business?

Seeing none, is there a motion to adjourn?

Councilman White.

And thank you, Mayor.

Um I guess it's what I said earlier about the uh we're a new business, right?

Oh, new business.

Okay, I I I didn't see we're clicking on new business.

I was already on a motion to adjourn.

So go ahead.

Oh, okay.

New business, sir.

Go ahead.

Yeah, it's new.

It's new business.

Is what I mentioned earlier about maybe taking a look at that impact.

I'm not sure what that would look like or how much time it would take.

I don't want to burden, I don't want to burden staff with something that's gonna take out I mean days of work.

Um, but if we can get some kind of reasonable um impact study to kind of show what that's gonna look like because I think it's gonna help us as far as making decisions.

I mentioned the parking deck as the example, but um if there if there's no impact, great, at least we'll know.

But if there's no a 10% impact on our downtown or other areas within the community, I'd like for us to somehow explore that.

So I don't know any uh idea what we might be able to do there if anyone from staff can answer.

Director Louden, you want to try that?

Um I mean I I was thinking a little more about it since the start of the meeting where we talked about it.

I mean, I think there's a lot of approaches we can take to looking into that to see if there is has been an impact.

And um, I mean, I think I'll definitely talk with Director Munch and we'll we'll talk with downtown Newport Alliance, NDP and and start to um you know kind of look at what we might need to evaluate in order to bring some information back.

Yeah, and maybe even a comparable uh to comparable cities that may have done something similar to what we we're doing right now and see maybe what it looked like.

Uh you know, like I said, if we're it's gonna impact our this decision making in the future, if we can kind of get some get our hands around it uh at some level.

Um I'm I don't expect it to be a perfect thing, but yeah, uh that I think it would help us out.

Thank you.

Do we need hands in the air?

No.

Councilman White, is there a motion to adjourn?

Motion to adjourn.

Second, Kelly.

All those in favor stand aye.

Aye.

We're adjourned.