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, February 11, 2025 7:00 PM Village Hall I. Call to Order Village President Vicki Scaman called the Regular Meeting to order at 7:04 P.M. II. Roll Call Trustee Enyia joined the meeting via remote participation per Village policy. Present: 6- Village President Scaman, Village Trustee Enyia, Village Trustee Parakkat, Village Trustee Robinson, Village Trustee Straw, and Village Trustee Wesley Absent: 1- Village Trustee Buchanan III. Agenda Approval It was moved by Trustee Straw, seconded by Trustee Wesley, to approve the Agenda. A voice vote was taken and the motion was approved. IV. Minutes A. MOT 25-122 A Motion to Approve Minutes from the January 28, 2025 Regular Meeting and February 4, 2025 Regular Meeting of the Village Board. It was moved by Trustee Wesley, seconded by Trustee Straw, to approve the Minutes. A voice vote was taken and the motion was approved. V. Non-Agenda Public Comment There was no public comment. VI. Village Manager Reports Assistant Village Manager/HR Director Kira Tchang presented information about the Village's partnership with the Greater Chicago Legal Clinic (GCLC) to host a series of free know your rights workshops focused on immigration enforcement. The first session will be held in Village Hall, Room 101 on February 18, 6:00-7:00 P.M. and is open to the public. GCLC can be reached at 312-726-2938. Village of Oak Park Page 1 Printed on 3/5/2025 President and Board of Trustees Meeting Minutes February 11, 2025 President Scaman expressed her appreciation for the partnership and support for the community statement that was made yesterday. B. ID 25-214 A Report on Pedestrian (Field) Stop Data From the Third and Fourth Quarters of 2024. Police Chief Shatonya Johnson presented the Item. Trustee Wesley noted most of the stops are calls for service initiated where the community makes a call and the police respond. He said he gets the feeling that our community doesn't understand how to recognize suspicious white people and are calling the police on mostly black people. Chief Johnson noted some of the calls are business-related criminal-type activities like retail theft in which the business owners chose not to make an arrest. Village Manager Kevin Jackson said the Village restructured our government to address this issues to build capacity to better understand the aspects of how we operate and community engagement. There is a new position in the Police department to focus on community engagement in addition to the Neighborhood Partnership office to stand up a robust community education program to try to get at issues like that. President Scaman asked if any are repeat offenders. Chief Johnson said they do get repeat offenders but there were not any in this situation. Trustee Parakkat asked if the data appears to be biased. Chief Johnson said she does not see biased stops but rather sees the partnership the Police department has with the community in helping keep the community safe. She noted the large number of calls for service to our businesses. Trustee Wesley said there is disproportionately a huge amount of black folks who are the target of community calls for service versus white folks. He said he thinks there is a segment of calls that don't show up here because a lot of folks don't recognize it as bias. He gave an example of a social media post about a package theft on a homeowner's porch. If we are only looking at suspicious black people, there will still be crimes committed in our community that are unaccounted for because they happen to be the same race as the person who is looking at them. He said he doesn't think there is bias in this data either but rather the data that is not showing up here. Trustee Enyia agreed there is absent data here which makes this hard to consume. He asked if these are continuous addresses that are making these calls. Chief Johnson said she would have to look deeper on that but quite a few calls are to specific businesses. He asked if community engagement is happening after the calls are determined to be unfounded. Village of Oak Park Page 2 Printed on 3/5/2025 President and Board of Trustees Meeting Minutes February 11, 2025 Chief Johnson said the conversations vary and she can get back to him on that. He said he hopes we would have a standardized process for following up with the suspicious callers so it doesn't continue to happen. He noted Oak Park is 17% black and account for 80% of the calls. He asked if the offenders are Oak Park residents. Chief Johnson said it varies but most of them are not Oak Park residents and some are unhoused. Trustee Straw inquired about the protocol for calls for service for unhoused individuals, particularly in the middle of the night. He referenced the call on October 2 at 3:48 A.M. where an unhoused individual who was sleeping was made to leave the location. Chief Johnson said we are working on alternative calls for service and utilizing our care team to help get those individuals the services they need. The care team will work closely with the police to identify situations where there are folks in need versus individuals that are engaging in any type of criminal activities. He suggested a more compassionate response would be to respond to them in the morning rather than rousing them in the middle of the night if there is nothing actively occurring in that situation. Chief Johnson noted that person had the exact same clothes on as an offender who was engaging in a burglary to an auto earlier that night. She said the police welcome individuals if they have no place to go, such as coming into the police station or going to the overnight shelters. Trustee Enyia inquired why the rate of arrests are a lot higher when it comes to police-initiated contact than when it is suspicious activity. Chief Johnson said the officer probably saw the individual engaging in a criminal activity and stopped them and initiated an arrest. C. ID 25-166 Review of the Updated Village Board Meeting Calendars for February and March 2025. Manager Jackson presented the updated Board meeting calendars for February and March. VII. Village Board Committees Trustee Robinson said the Historic Preservation Commission is continuing its speaker series with the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy. The event will take place February 27 at 6:30 P.M. at Village Hall, Room 101. Trustee Enyia said the Citizens Police Oversight Committee has been working with the consultant Pivot and had some really good interactions. President Scaman agreed the conversations have been very rewarding and hopeful. VIII. Citizen Commission Vacancies Village of Oak Park Page 3 Printed on 3/5/2025 President and Board of Trustees Meeting Minutes February 11, 2025 D. ID 25-212 Board and Commission Vacancy Report for February 11, 2025. President Scaman highlighted that there are vacancies on the Farmers' Market Commission and Environment & Energy Commission. IX. Citizen Commission Appointments, Reappointments and Chair Appointments E. MOT 25-124 A Motion to Consent to the Village President’s Appointment of: Farmers’ Market - Charlotte Lacey, Appoint as Commissioner Farmers’ Market - Jill Stewart, Reappoint as Commissioner Village Clerk Christina Waters read the names into the record. It was moved by Trustee Robinson, seconded by Trustee Wesley, to approve the Appointments. A voice vote was taken and the motion was approved. X. Consent Agenda Approval of the Consent Agenda It was moved by Trustee Enyia, seconded by Trustee Robinson to approve the items under the Consent Agenda. The motion was approved. The roll call on the vote was as follows: AYES: 6- Village President Scaman, Village Trustee Enyia, Village Trustee Parakkat, Village Trustee Robinson, Village Trustee Straw, and Village Trustee Wesley NAYS: 0 ABSENT: 1- Village Trustee Buchanan F. MOT 25-116 A Motion to Approve the Bills in the Amount of $6,544,178.68 from January 1, 2025 through January 31, 2025. This Motion was approved. G. RES 25-142 A Resolution Authorizing the Execution of a Settlement Agreement in Workers’ Compensation Case Numbers 22 WC 06181 and 24 WC 09384. This Resolution was adopted. H. RES 25-143 A Resolution Authorizing the Purchase of One 2024 Ford F250 Pickup Truck with a Plow from Currie Motors of Frankfort, Illinois, in an Amount not to exceed $64,893.00 and Waiving the Village’s Bid Process for the Purchase This Resolution was adopted. XI. Regular Agenda I. ID 25-182 A Presentation on the Outcomes of the Design Charrette Process for Village of Oak Park Page 4 Printed on 3/5/2025 President and Board of Trustees Meeting Minutes February 11, 2025 Schematic Design of the Oak Park Municipal Campus Project. Public Works Director Rob Sproule introduced the Item and Johnson Lasky Kindelin (JLK) Architects Owner & President Meg Kindelin presented the Item. Dewberry Architects Associate Principal Jonathan Tallman and Project Manager Natalie Clemens provided additional information. Facility Review Committee Co-Chair Colette Lueck said the charrette process was a wonderful day and there was a lot of consensus across the groups. Everyone agreed on underground parking to have more green space and to have a shared welcome space. It was helpful to have expertise for the needs and demands of a building to support police functioning. Trustee Straw asked what the options will look like in March and when we will start having conversations about budget numbers and how projects could be phased. Director Sproule said three schemes will presented to the Board on March 18 to offer opportunities between the different schemes on different priorities for the Board that can likely be mixed and matched, including phasing which depends on the priorities the Board selects for the project. Costs will also be included on March 18. President Kindelin said it is part of JLK's mandate to look at pricing phasing and constructability. Trustee Straw said the ongoing programmatic expenses where grant support is drying up changes the ability of the Village to look at large capital projects. He said he likes the idea of Council Chambers being located in the center of the courtyard as a statement on open government. He said he struggles with the expense of the Village Hall renovation but it is not an inclusive structure and many people in our community cannot access their government in the way they deserve to. Trustee Robinson said she would like to see the property tax implication connected to each pricing. Manager Jackson said we know there will be an impact to property taxes. In order to do a project like this, you cannot rely on a single revenue source for a project of this magnitude. In order to estimate the impact on property taxes, you have to know the entire financial plan for the specific project. She said there has to be somewhere in the middle. The financial piece informs her feedback on construction and design choices. She said she will be limited in the direction she is able to provide without knowing the impact to the people this building is meant to serve. We either need to start to introduce some property tax analysis in the next round of conversation or we move forward understanding that the Board's feedback is highly contingent on what the numbers look like. Village of Oak Park Page 5 Printed on 3/5/2025 President and Board of Trustees Meeting Minutes February 11, 2025 She requested categorization of the design choices to distinguish between structural integrity and secondary priorities. Director Sproule said the Board would need to determine the priorities such that structural integrity is more important than ADA accessibility which is more important than sustainability. Manager Jackson said the staff takes direction from the Board so the Board determines the priorities. Staff will come back with some definitive order of magnitude numbers. President Scaman noted the increasing costs to maintain the current building as-is and acknowledged that her colleagues do not want to get backed into a number and there will be a financial threshold and impact to our community that we are not willing to accept. She said she trusts that Manager Jackson and the Finance team will be able to help us understand the impact in the next phase. Manager Jackson said on March 18 we can provide the cost to exclusively fund this project with our property tax levy, though we cannot yet provide which additional resources can offset that impact. Co-Chair Lueck acknowledged the concerns about increasing property taxes and said you have to anchor your decisions in the function and the values. She gave the example that Police need secure parking which is expensive. Trustee Parakkat said the issue he has is that the design process is not tethered to any constraints. Principal Tallman said the layouts did have constraints and participants had to follow rules for the charrette concept designs regarding the parking and entrances. Trustee Parakkat said he was referring to the financial constraints. He wondered if remote work is being considered. President Kindelin confirmed the number and sizes of offices are being considered. Trustee Parakkat agreed that values need to be the basis of our decision and said if inclusivity is a value, then the price point and how it lands on the community is going to impact inclusivity. He said he does not know how we can decouple those two things and make a decision without enough data. He said he would appreciate cost estimates of the tax levy implications in the absence of any other resources we cannot bank on. Manager Jackson said we can look at the levy implications for every option. Trustee Parakkat asked if one of the options that will be presented March 18 will be just the police station. Director Sproule said a standalone police station as an individual project is not the direction we have received from the Board to date. The directions being worked on are a police station with a complete renovation of Village Hall. Trustee Parakkat said the underlying question is Village of Oak Park Page 6 Printed on 3/5/2025 President and Board of Trustees Meeting Minutes February 11, 2025 whether the options presented will allow the Board to make a choice based on the financial burden we place on the community. President Scaman said the question is if we will be able to break down the cost of the police station separate from Village Hall. She acknowledged the maintenance costs for Village Hall. She said disability access and sustainability matters to her and for this to be a functional building for those working in it and our residents. Trustee Parakkat said he would like to see the remote work considerations in terms of how the work spaces are looked at from the future. He said he would like to see the financial analysis in a little bit of depth to inform meaningful decisions. He said he would like to see options that align with the financial assessment so when trying to make a decision, we can correlate its impact on the community and the possibility of buying lower or higher depending on what we believe is digestible by this community. Manager Jackson noted the police station is the most expensive part of the project and asked if the request is for a cost analysis on the police station alone. President Scaman said it would be helpful to understand that breakdown. President Kindelin said we are looking at phasing and pricing and our three schemes will have options baked into them. The schemes are exercises in trying to figure it out so there will be a lot of opportunity to see what works and doesn't and understand some financials related to that. She said we are removing the police program out of the basement and to be a good steward of what remains, you have to have some program in that basement. A lot of self-imposed restraint went into this. The phasing will address some of the concerns about price. Trustee Parakkat said an average Oak Parker spends less than five minutes in this place in a year. A resident is looking at here is this big structure that I don't go to but I'm having to spend a gazillion taxpayer dollars on an effort like this. I'm barely trying to hold onto this community and here you are placing one more thing on top of my head which pushes me out of this community. He said that is the average Oak Parker's feeling from the many people he has spoken to. We can sit here and talk about these as millions of dollars, it doesn't matter, we have to make this investment. President Scaman said no one is saying that. Trustee Parakkat said that is what he is hearing. She said our consultant just said they are hearing that we are very concerned about the cost and they are also hearing that from members of the facility committee and staff who work here. To say that Village of Oak Park Page 7 Printed on 3/5/2025 President and Board of Trustees Meeting Minutes February 11, 2025 anyone here doesn't care about the financial impact is really not a fair statement to make. Trustee Wesley said the project has cost too much for him since the beginning discussions. He said he doesn't want to spend $100M on buildings that in 2040 lots of people won't even go into. He asked if we've engaged the youth of Oak Park on this project and asked them how they engage with Village services. Director Sproule said we did not do any specific outreach to youth. Trustee Wesley said we are talking about buildings with 50-year life spans and if we are only talking to people his age and older, we're talking to the wrong demographic. He said he appreciates the work and passion of JLK and they are the right folks to be having this conversation with, though he wishes they were there from the beginning. He said he is not comfortable with $120M but he is comfortable with JLK's work. Maybe a police station should cost $1,000/square foot but Village Hall should not which is where these numbers net out. These numbers are at lease one order of magnitude out of sync with what he would be comfortable spending because he can think of a lot better things to do with $60M. It is only going to get more convenient to access services remotely so the physical presence will get less necessary over time. The space requirements are those we have now but might not have in 20 years. He said he would like us to do much better than what we are seeing here and he has seen other communities do much better than what he is seeing here. President Scaman asked how these numbers compare to those of Countryside and elsewhere. Trustee Wesley said the Countryside project is $624/square foot, which Principal Tallman confirmed. He said that was finished in 2019, which would be well over $1,000/square foot in today's dollars. A police department is a first responder facility which needs to be structurally upgraded above and beyond a normal office building, including withstanding earthquakes, providing storm shelters, and bulletproofing. We're currently seeing $650-$750/square foot. Depending on the timeframe for construction, we're currently seeing a 4% increase year over year. President Scaman asked if we're seeing other communities working more remotely. Principal Tallman said we are not seeing that in police departments. In other Village Halls, some staff work from home but they do come to the office every week. In California he is seeing set hours where it is open to the public and the staff are there during those hours. He said over half of their municipal clients are predicting a return back to the office more than working remotely. Village of Oak Park Page 8 Printed on 3/5/2025 President and Board of Trustees Meeting Minutes February 11, 2025 President Scaman said she is also hearing this and she sees renewed potential in the relationship between the Village and our governmental partners in potentially sharing space. She noted that the 2019 Village Board voted no on a police station pre-COVID. Pushing things down the road is not benefiting our residents either. Trustee Enyia said he agrees we need to become more efficient in how we're spending those dollars, find partners we need to be working with who are also looking for rental space, and figure out the tax implications for residents. We have the right people thinking about these things and it is going to be us as a Board making sure that we bring back those priorities to staff so they can work on making those things happening for us. He said he agrees the price is really high and does not seem fair to solely rely on taxpayer dollars to do so he wants to feel out how do we bring the numbers down. It will always be a difficult decision but we are trying to make it easier. J. MOT 25-123 A Motion by Trustee Enyia and a Second by Trustee Parakkat to Consider Village Board Action for a Tax and Age Restrictions on the Sale of Unregulated THC Sold in the Village of Oak Park. Judith Alexander: Thanked the Trustees for bringing this Item back. Unregulated THC, or Delta-8, chemicals are dangerous. A regulation or ban needs to be done. The state of Illinois is unlikely to do anything. Deputy Village Manager Lisa Shelley introduced the Item. Trustee Enyia said he supports an age limit and said there has to be strict rules and regulations around what is going on right now. Unlike dispensaries, these shops do not have to provide any education when selling these. Taxing helps to pay for the regulation of these things and ongoing enforcement. We are putting our younger community in a bad position if we are not making sure they are safe out there. One way to start to do that is to put an age restriction on it so we are at least starting the conversation on where we need to be with this. Trustee Parakkat said he is in favor of regulating, considering the negative externalities for a product like this. He is not sure how quickly state legislation will move. Some action at our end to regulate and tax and enforce including fines would be a reasonable next step. He asked where the enforcement would fall in our operations and if the Village has the bandwidth to enforce. Manager Jackson said it will likely be the Public Health Department and the Neighborhood Services and Police Departments could also be involved. He said we need to do more analysis on the implications around enforcement and whether additional resources would be needed to enforce whatever regulation we come up with. Village of Oak Park Page 9 Printed on 3/5/2025 President and Board of Trustees Meeting Minutes February 11, 2025 Deputy Manager Shelley said we need to talk to the Finance Department on collecting a tax such as this and a business license fee would fall on Development Services. Unlike the state, a municipality is limited in how much they can tax. We can tax per unit but not on percentage of sales. Village Attorney Greg Smith confirmed the Village cannot impose a targeted sales tax. If it is going to impose a tax as a percentage of sale, it has to do so evenly across all products except where specifically authorized. Hemp-derived products could be on a per unit basis. Another option is to look at a potency-based tax. The Village does not currently have any per unit or potency-based taxes. Trustee Straw said he supports looking at a holistic system that involves taxation and public education. He said in the interim he thinks there are public health measures that should simply be implemented as quickly as possible, including eliminating the sale to individuals under the age of 18 or 21, moving the products behind the counter with limited access, and providing point of sale education. Those should be implemented immediately and we can wait for the state on a larger regulatory scheme. Trustee Robinson said she is not sure why we are having the same conversation we had in October. A lot of the legislation is still in progress. She asked if the Village has met with local business owners who may sell unregulated THC products. Deputy Manager Shelley said the Village has met with the person who came to the last meeting who represents a few of the local businesses and will continue specific outreach to anyone we think will sell it. Trustee Robinson said she is concerned about enforcement and if we can't enforce this, there is no point in doing it so staff need to analyze and come back on that. Trustee Wesley said he doesn't want to sell this to kids so he supports getting that scale of staffing to do that. He said he is in favor with aligning with whatever the state legislation does. He said he does not want to sell to kids while we wait for the state to figure out its politics. There are folks in our Village who are selling this stuff to kids and he finds that unacceptable. He said he is okay with us spending money to keep us from selling this to kids. President Scaman asked if we can move faster on the underage restriction while we do research on tax options and follow what the state does. The next steps are for staff to prepare options to consider in an ordinance form. She recommended a potential future partnership with the Township. Trustee Enyia said he agrees the main focus is stopping the sale of this to Village of Oak Park Page 10 Printed on 3/5/2025 President and Board of Trustees Meeting Minutes February 11, 2025 minors. He said he is willing to make a budget amendment to commit the dollars we need to be able to enforce it properly. He said he wants to take the first step as soon as we can to make sure this is no longer being sold to minors. He said working with the Township would be a great idea as they helped us with underage vaping. Trustee Robinson requested to prioritize the outreach to retailers. Deputy Manager Shelley said the Public Health and Development Services departments have identified 8-10 businesses they are aware of so they will start with them and then do broad outreach to all licensed businesses. Trustee Robinson asked if it is realistic for this to come back before the end of the quarter. Manager Jackson said he thinks staff can bring something back on March 18, with the age piece as the priority. XII. Call to Board and Clerk Trustee Wesley said he shares his colleagues' commitment to the community and that expression of solidarity and supports our values here. President Scaman said every elected official that serves the Village of Oak Park is aligned with protecting our most vulnerable and believing fully in our DEI values. Trustee Enyia thanked the staff and community for the Black History Month celebration at the Nineteenth Century Club and the first responders for their assistance. XIII. Adjourn It was moved by Trustee Straw, seconded by Trustee Wesley, to Adjourn. A voice vote was taken and the motion was approved. Meeting adjourned at 9:57 P.M., Tuesday, February 11, 2025. Respectfully submitted, Deputy Clerk Hansen Village of Oak Park Page 11 Printed on 3/5/2025