President and Board of Trustees

123 Madison Street Village of Oak Park Oak Park, Illinois 60302 www.oak-park.us Meeting Minutes President and Board of Trustees Tuesday, November 19, 2024 6:00 PM Village Hall I. Call to Order Village President Pro-Tem Susan Buchanan called the Regular Meeting to order at 6:05 P.M. II. Roll Call Trustee Wesley joined the Meeting at 6:13 P.M. Present: 6- Village Trustee Buchanan, Village Trustee Enyia, Village Trustee Parakkat, Village Trustee Robinson, Village Trustee Straw, and Village Trustee Wesley Absent: 1- Village President Scaman III. Agenda Approval It was moved by Trustee Robinson, seconded by Trustee Straw, to approve the Agenda. A voice vote was taken and the motion was approved. V. Non-Agenda Public Comment There were no comments. VI. Proclamation A. MOT 24-270 A Motion to Approve a Proclamation Recognizing Small Business Saturday - November 30, 2024 Trustee Parakkat read the Proclamation into the record. It was moved by Trustee Straw, seconded by Trustee Enyia, to approve the Proclamation. A voice vote was taken and the motion was approved. B. MOT 24-271 A Motion to Approve a Proclamation Celebrating International Education Week and International Exchange Students at Oak Park and River Forest High School & Fenwick High School President Pro-Tem Buchanan read the Proclamation into the record. Dr. David Ubogy accepted the Proclamation. It was moved by Trustee Straw, seconded by Trustee Robinson, to approve the Proclamation. A voice vote was taken and the motion was approved. VIII. Village Board Committees & Trustee Liaison Commission Reports Village of Oak Park Page 1 Printed on 1/15/2025 President and Board of Trustees Meeting Minutes November 19, 2024 Trustee Robinson reported that the Collaboration for Early Childhood (CEC) received $350K in ARPA funding from the Village which was super impactful and included predominantly small programs. IX. Citizen Commission Vacancies C. ID 24-550 Board and Commission Vacancy Report for November 19, 2024 There were no comments. XI. Public Hearing D. ID 24-549 Truth in Taxation Public hearing for the Proposed Tax Year 2024 Property Tax Levy Village Attorney Courtney Willits stated "The notice of the truth in taxation hearing was published as required by state statute in the Wednesday Journal on November 13, 2024. The notice stated the means by which persons may provide public comment for this public hearing. The methods for providing comment are also stated in the agenda published for this meeting." Interim CFO Donna Gayden presented the Item. Trustee Wesley asked what is being lost for the variance missing on the corporate levy. CFO Gayden said services are not being lost. If it continues to go down, the Village will have to make a decision on how it wants to fund those services by going into the fund balance, raising fees, or increasing the levy. She recommends increasing the levy by small amounts over time to get t $1M back to become level. He said he is okay with the corporate levy decreasing as long as it doesn't decrease services. Trustee Robinson asked CFO Gayden how long she suggests doing the incremental increase. CFO Gayden said she is anticipating 3.5% for about two years and then re-evaluate but it also depends when the Village decides to take out the next bond. CFO Gayden confirmed the 3.5% will cover the $450K additions to the CIP budget and Chamber proposals. Trustee Parakkat asked if the proportion of the Village's debt service component in the future is expected to increase. CFO Gayden said she suggests covering for both debt service and the corporate levy. She advised not to compare what is being levied to the budget. If the property tax levy continues to go down for corporate, at some point the Village will not have enough money in its fund balance or it will do a large property tax increase. Soft costs to the police station should come out of the fund balance because they are not prudent to bond them. He said if you look at the proportion of the Village's revenues, property tax levy is the single Village of Oak Park Page 2 Printed on 1/15/2025 President and Board of Trustees Meeting Minutes November 19, 2024 largest revenue source. CFO Gayden said not to mix levies with budget. The Village has not made one property tax levy that will cover its operating budget. Trustee Straw said he is in favor of doing the 3.5% levy. His big concern with the corporate levy decreasing year over year is the Village is going to get to a point of having to have a significant levy increase. Trustee Enyia agreed it is a good idea to build it out gradually rather than all at once. Trustee Robinson said the incremental increase makes sense. There were no public comments. It was moved by Trustee Wesley, seconded by Trustee Straw, to close the Public Hearing. A roll call vote was taken and the motion was approved. The roll call was as follows: AYES: 6 - Trustees Enyia, Parakkat, Robinson, Straw, Wesley, and President Pro-Tem Buchanan NAYS: 0 ABSENT: 1 - President Scaman It was moved by Trustee Wesley, seconded by Trustee Straw, to open the Public Hearing. A voice vote was taken and the motion was approved. XII. Consent Agenda Approval of the Consent Agenda It was moved by Trustee Robinson, seconded by Trustee Straw, to approve the items under the Consent Agenda. The motion was approved. The roll call on the vote was as follows: AYES: 6- Village Trustee Buchanan, Village Trustee Enyia, Village Trustee Parakkat, Village Trustee Robinson, Village Trustee Straw, and Village Trustee Wesley NAYS: 0 ABSENT: 1- Village President Scaman E. RES 24-336 A Resolution Approving a Professional Services Agreement with RJN Group, Inc. for Sewer Manhole Inspections and Condition Assessments in an Amount not to exceed $99,100, Authorizing its Execution, and Waiving the Village’s Bid Process for the Agreement This Resolution was adopted. F. RES 24-337 A Resolution Approving an Independent Contractor Agreement with National Power Rodding Corporation for Project 24-10 Sewer Cleaning and Inspection, in an Amount not to Exceed $86,225 and Authorizing its Village of Oak Park Page 3 Printed on 1/15/2025 President and Board of Trustees Meeting Minutes November 19, 2024 Execution This Resolution was adopted. G. RES 24-338 A Resolution Approving an Amendment to the Task Order for Professional Engineering Services with V3 Companies, Ltd. for Construction Engineering Services for the 24-7 Austin Boulevard Sewer Improvements Project to Change the not to Exceed Amount from $76,493 to $95,493 and Authorizing its Execution This Resolution was adopted. H. RES 24-343 A Resolution Approving an Extension of an Independent Contractor Agreement with Thrive Counseling Center for an Additional Six-Month Term Through April 30, 2025, in an Amount Not to Exceed $83,000 and Authorizing its Execution. This Resolution was adopted. I. RES 24-344 A Resolution Approving a Task Order for Professional Engineering Services with V3 Companies, Ltd. for Topographic Surveys for the 2025 Capital Improvement Projects in an Amount not to exceed $59,000 and Authorizing its Execution This Resolution was adopted. J. RES 24-321 A Resolution Approving a Professional Services Agreement with the Eggen Consulting Group, Inc. for Water & Sewer Division Technical and Administrative Support Services in an Amount Not to Exceed $140,000.00 and Authorizing its Execution This Resolution was adopted. K. RES 24-330 A Resolution Approving an Intergovernmental Agreement between the Chicago Transit Authority and the Village of Oak Park for Special Transit Police Detail Services and Authorizing its Execution This Resolution was adopted. L. RES 24-322 A Resolution Authorizing the Execution of a Settlement Agreement in Workers’ Compensation Case Number 2023 WC 022250 This Resolution was adopted. M. RES 24-323 A Resolution Authorizing the Execution of a Settlement Agreement in Workers’ Compensation Case Number 2023 WC 018607 This Resolution was adopted. XIII. Regular Agenda Village of Oak Park Page 4 Printed on 1/15/2025 President and Board of Trustees Meeting Minutes November 19, 2024 N. MOT 24-262 A Motion to Receive the Citizen Police Oversight Committee’s Semi-Annual Report Assistant Village Manager/HR Director Kira Tchang presented the Item as the staff liaison to the Citizen Police Oversight Committee (CPOC). Trustee Robinson asked why this semi-annual report is 18 months late. Director Tchang said the committee has regularly scheduled meetings which are sometimes not able to happen due to lack of quorum or other items. The committee takes the responsibility seriously and works hard to provide the reports on a timely basis. She noted that in prior years, no reports were provided to the Board for a number of years at all. Trustee Robinson said she doesn't want to go another 18 months with no communication. This is about transparency and accountability and is an incredibly important function. If a report is not going to be provided semi-annually, she wants some acknowledgement that a report is due and will not be provided for whatever reason. Trustee Robinson inquired about the number of complaints that were found to have rule violations. Director Tchang said 11 complaints were contemplated during this time period. 4 out of those 11 complaints involved the Oak Park Police Department identifying they believed a rule or policy violation occurred. Trustee Robinson requested a breakdown of the votes when it is not unanimous. Director Tchang said that information is included on the last page of the report. Trustee Robinson requested a flock camera report for this relevant time frame. CPOC Chair Kevin Barnhart said that information can be provided. Trustee Straw asked what progress has been made on limiting flock data sharing. Police Chief Shatonya Johnson said OPPD turned off the data sharing the day after it was requested in the Board meeting. OPPD modified and trained on the policy. OPPD is currently only sharing with departments within the state of Illinois. The flock system can be audited to determine which agencies have utilized our cameras. Trustee Enyia inquired about data information sharing with parking lots. Village Manager Kevin Jackson said staff will follow up on that. Trustee Parakkat noted that 17 alerts were triggered, 9 were flock-related stops, 8 arrests were made, 3 weapons were confiscated. Chief Johnson said that was based on CPOC's data. OPPD will provide a comprehensive report on flock at the beginning of the year. Trustee Wesley requested the 11 complaints be listed in the complaint analysis section with the votes there. He requested that the metrics be broken down in the report to align with the typical reporting date range. Village of Oak Park Page 5 Printed on 1/15/2025 President and Board of Trustees Meeting Minutes November 19, 2024 President Pro-Tem Buchanan asked where the 11 complaints are shown on the table. Director Tchang said the complaints are identified by number. President Pro-Tem Buchanan inquired about the process when CPOC does not agree with the internal investigation. Director Tchang said CPOC discusses every complaint that comes to them. They review the investigation materials. They speak to the chief and other members of the police department. They provide feedback and recommendations. Then they take a vote on whether they agree with the findings. Chief Johnson can make changes and the information is included in the report to the Board. It was moved by Trustee Enyia, seconded by Trustee Wesley, that this Motion be approved. The motion was approved. The roll call on the vote was as follows: AYES: 6- Village Trustee Buchanan, Village Trustee Enyia, Village Trustee Parakkat, Village Trustee Robinson, Village Trustee Straw, and Village Trustee Wesley NAYS: 0 ABSENT: 1- Village President Scaman O. RES 24-345 A Resolution Approving a Professional Services Agreement with Pivot Consulting Group to Conduct a Review of the Village’s Citizen Police Oversight Function in an Amount Not to Exceed $100,000.00 and Authorizing its Execution Director Tchang introduced the Item and CEO and Co-Founder Bart Logue of Pivot Consulting Group presented the Item. Trustee Wesley said the timeframe seems long. Director Tchang said the Village was thinking this could be a year-long engagement. The intent is for preliminary engagement and discussion to begin and to deliver no later than June 2025. Trustee Wesley requested that check points be built into this. Manager Jackson said staff can provide periodic updates. Trustee Robinson said it is not clear to her what we expect the impact to the oversight process to be. Director Tchang said the intent is to conduct a comprehensive review of our civilian police oversight model process, enabling language, and procedures. The outcome is not clear because it will be driven by stakeholder feedback in the engagement period. Trustee Robinson requested to also have a check-in with the commission to see how they think the review is going. Director Tchang said staff are happy to bring periodic updates back to the Board. Trustee Parakkat asked if OPPD will work closely with this effort. Director Tchang confirmed OPPD is a critical stakeholder and will participate and provide feedback to Pivot. He inquired about the costs of the proposals received. Director Tchang said the RFP was put out several times. No bids were received for $50K. The responses received for $100K were Village of Oak Park Page 6 Printed on 1/15/2025 President and Board of Trustees Meeting Minutes November 19, 2024 consistent with that estimate. Next steps are for Pivot to come back to the Board and present their findings and recommendations. Staff will work with them to identify updates to Village Code that would change the enabling language. Trustee Enyia asked how the outreach will be rolled out. CEO Logue said feedback will be obtained in any way possible, including in person and virtual opportunities. Trustee Enyia asked about their experience with the New Orleans department. CEO Logue said there was strong community support for the oversight office. Trustee Straw requested the difference between the stakeholder engagement in phases 1 and 3. CEO Logue said the needs assessment looks at what we have right now and then what are the gaps so it is a multi-pronged approach to make sure we get to the right place. Trustee Straw asked who will be included in the needs assessment. CEO Logue said it will be CPOC, the Village Manager and attorneys, and community members who have been through the process. It is trying to make sure we are presenting something the community and stakeholders will buy into. President Pro-Tem Buchanan noted this cost for this one commission is one-third of the cost of the BerryDunn report of the entire police department. Manager Jackson said we went to market and received three responsible proposals with a price that is not unusual in this niche field. Director Tchang noted the first RFP did not include a price point. The Village received proposals from law enforcement specializing firms that don't have specific oversight experience. Staff believe this is a good value for what is being contemplated here and the best pathway forward. Trustee Robinson asked if the Village considered bundling this with the rest of BerryDunn's consultant services. Director Tchang said BerryDunn did some evaluation of police oversight. Staff had a conversation with BerryDunn about the potential for continuing to work with them. The decision was made at that time that BerryDunn might not be the best partner for this project because they have less experience specific to police oversight. Trustee Robinson asked if the reason for the review is because Village has been hearing complaints about the process or if it just has not been reviewed in a long time. Director Tchang responded that it is both. CPOC has had concerns and challenges and it is important to continue to evaluate all areas of policing as the relationship between the community and policing has evolved so much. Trustee Robinson said she wants to make Village of Oak Park Page 7 Printed on 1/15/2025 President and Board of Trustees Meeting Minutes November 19, 2024 sure this is in lock step with input from the commission as the process is going along. Given this dollar amount, she wants to be sure we are covering that needs to be covered. Trustee Enyia said the commissioners really want to make sure they get it right with the firm taking this on and finding consultants that have real-world experience and are a good fit. He said it sounds like the price tag fits the bill. It was moved by Trustee Enyia, seconded by Trustee Wesley, that this Resolution be adopted. The motion was approved. The roll call on the vote was as follows: AYES: 6- Village Trustee Buchanan, Village Trustee Enyia, Village Trustee Parakkat, Village Trustee Robinson, Village Trustee Straw, and Village Trustee Wesley NAYS: 0 ABSENT: 1- Village President Scaman P. ID 24-563 Review of the Fiscal Year 2025 Proposed Budget CFO Gayden presented the Item. Trustee Straw inquired about the cost for three additional firefighter/paramedics to the Oak Park Fire Department (OPFD). Chief Ron Kobyleski said the first year cost for salary and benefits would be $284,841. At the end of six years when they reach full pay, it would be $433,257. Trustee Straw asked how many days of overtime are expected to reduce with three additional firefighters. Chief Kobyleski said the last 12-month period had 248 days of overtime. Hiring three people would be about 300 shifts. Trustee Straw said in the first year we would save around $100K. CFO Gayden said the Village will look at that when it does the strategic financial planning. She said she is not one that is willing to reduce overtime because three additional people are hired because you don't know what the future may hold. Due to the cost of benefits and pension, it is often cheaper to offer overtime than hire people. Manager Jackson said the Village has added six firefighters in the last few years and put the third ambulance into operation since April. He said it would be beneficial to accumulate at least a year's worth of data and doing a deeper analysis of OPFD's operations and our overall financial situation to identify how we want to address the needs of the department. Trustee Straw inquired about the feasibility of doing a budget amendment for new hires. CFO Gayden said if the Board wants to add something to the budget, staff will say how it will be financed, and the Board will decide. Trustee Parakkat said the Village had the same analysis last year where we added three new firefighters. Overtime was brought down and then it went back up. He said he thinks it makes sense to wait for the financial Village of Oak Park Page 8 Printed on 1/15/2025 President and Board of Trustees Meeting Minutes November 19, 2024 analysis to understand the full implication and then make a decision. Trustee Straw noted we actually spent over $1M in overtime last year before three additional firefighters were hired. Trustee Wesley asked if we have fewer firefighters now than in the past. Chief Kobyleski confirmed and said in the 1970s we had 105 firefighters and we now have 72. Trustee Wesley wondered how staffing levels are determined for police and fire. Director Tchang said they are different staffing models and the Village receives a much higher call volume to the police department. The Village periodically conducts studies to understand the optimal level of staffing from an external resource. Chief Johnson said the BerryDunn report found our current police staffing levels (114) to be on point with industry standards. Trustee Wesley said he would vote for three additional firefighters. Manager Jackson said if the Board wishes to skip the analysis, the staffing study, the long-term strategic financial planning, and information we might gain about pension applications, we could do this in isolation. Trustee Robinson inquired about the $20K health department survey and waiting until a new director is hired. Deputy Manager Lisa Shelley said the cost of the survey was budgeted in 2024 but it has not been released yet. Trustee Robinson said her preference would be to hold off until a new director is hired. She inquired about the grant funding that ended that was supporting positions within the health department that the Village is now paying for them through the general fund. Deputy Manager Shelley said COVID grant funds and positions have ended. The Local Health Protection Grant was reduced throughout the state so the Village needed to make up that difference. Trustee Robinson asked if the Village is budgeting to outsource the environmental services positions. Deputy Manager Shelley said outsourcing is only budgeted for when the positions are vacant. Trustee Robinson asked if there was unspent carryover for those positions. Deputy Manager Shelley said that would show up in the year-end estimate which goes back to the fund balance to be used for next year's budget. CFO Gayden said the Village asked the health department to allocate the staff that were working for the grant. Grants can only be used during the grant period and cannot be carried forward. Trustee Robinson asked if each department pays for language access. Deputy Manager Shelley said there is a larger amount in the DEI budget. This smaller amount is meant to supplement the larger effort as a lot of the health department's work is in the community. Trustee Parakkat wondered why the state reduced the grant funding. Public Village of Oak Park Page 9 Printed on 1/15/2025 President and Board of Trustees Meeting Minutes November 19, 2024 Health Nurse Kitty Monty said the state held back about $5M statewide when it came to that local health grant. The hope is that they will allocate that out to all of the health departments but we cannot guarantee that. Trustee Parakkat inquired about the $400K affirmative marketing program in the Neighborhood Services budget. Assistant Village Manager/Neighborhood Services Director Jonathan Burch said it is a placeholder in the budget to give us the flexibility to consider a potential internal option or how to work with an external partner like the Housing Center to operationalize that program. Trustee Parakkat said before we decide to expand that, he would like to see an exploration of optimization across departments on how that $400K or whatever is needed is right-sized and gets spent. Director Burch said staff are exploring options and taking feedback to think about it in new and different ways going forward. Trustee Parakkat noted that when the Village withheld funding for the Oak Park Regional Housing Center, it was in that $400K range and that amount still exists in the budget. XIV. Call to Board and Clerk There were no comments. XV. Adjourn It was moved by Trustee Wesley, seconded by Trustee Straw, to Adjourn. A voice vote was taken and the motion was approved. Meeting adjourned at 8:33 P.M., Tuesday, November 19, 2024. Respectfully submitted, Deputy Clerk Hansen Village of Oak Park Page 10 Printed on 1/15/2025