Let's call to the order the uh May 20 or May 9th meeting of the codes and regulations uh committee. Um clerk, could you please call the role? here. Thank you. Uh so we have um Chaplain Mark Miller here to deliver the invocation. That's what we'll start with. Let us pray. Father, we come to you tonight rejoicing that Rockford has been named one of the best cities to live in in Illinois. And we thank you for that honor, Lord. And we ask you to keep your hand upon this city, guide our leadership as they make decisions that affect all of us. And Lord, I just ask you to be in this room tonight. Let your spirit be felt throughout this room. Father, may the discussions be lively but civil. And Father, I ask you that great decisions be made here tonight for our city in Jesus name. Amen. [Music] Same mistake twice. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay, we have uh five people uh signed up for public comment tonight and um um you have three minutes. You'll hear hopefully uh some kind of an alarm when your time is up or I will let you know and uh you can speak from either mic at the back of the room. So our first speaker tonight is Denzel Winter. Good evening ladies and gentlemen. My name is Denzel Winter. And uh this weekend uh I live on East State Street and the cars are running down there. They're going to kill somebody. Uh I called uh 911 to get somebody out there to watch this traffic. This weekend there was two accidents out there. Two of them. And another thing that happens when they do have an accident out there, they don't clean up the mess. They leave it out there for cars to run over. That shouldn't that shouldn't be. They get paid. They They get paid them them them tow truck drivers get paid to come out there and get them cars. They get They should get They should be cleaning up that mess out there. People that that that it's unfair for other citizens to have to run over that stuff. probably cut their own tires because they too lazy to pick pick up after themselves. Now, that's not right, you know. But my main concern is the speeding that goes on on East on East State, East Jefferson. They they do it all all all day long. But we have one guy and I I complained about him uh uh couple of couple of weeks ago about him sitting up there in in in the in the parking lot eating popcorn and drinking pop and these people are flying up and down the street and I can tell you his name lame. But somebody somebody some old person because there's a lot of us old people over there. somebody's child gonna get ran over and that's not right. Something needs to be done before somebody gets hurt really bad. This accident, this last accident I seen over there, the car, what saved the people was that they had the side uh uh airbags. That's what saved them from getting hurt. But it was a bad nasty accident. And you know, something needs to be done, you know, and it just ticks me off when you know, you you you know, they they they just fly up and down the road. You got you got these little motorcycle guys going up and down the road with these uh ATDs flying up and down the road popping wheelies. You can't you can't run out there and and try to get a a a license plate because they don't have them on there and they they just don't care. They're going to they're going to either they're going to kill somebody or some uh somebody going to kill them because you know you you ride them little ATVs, you know that that that's not a lot of uh that's lower than a motorcycle. But things need to be done, you know, before somebody gets hurt. Thank Thank you, Mr. Winter. Our next speaker is Joseph Spangenberg. Hi, my name is Joseph. Um, I actually live uh right in the heart of downtown. I live right off of Chestnut, Wnebago. Uh, the reason I've come up here today is uh there's a lot of there's a lot of uh neighborhood standards not being kept up in downtown. and I live right on right across the street from the brand new courthouse. I have people coming into our alleyway. I've actually damaged my car in the alleyway that goes from Elm Street onto Chestnut. Um I have people coming into that alleyway going into the giant brush and relieving themselves. I have a young son. He's only three years old. He comes and visits me about every other weekend. I shouldn't have to worry about taking my son out and having a young man, you know, or an older gentleman in the alleyway relieving himself with, you know, exposing himself to my three-year-old son. I have We have a rodent issue over there as well. There is an abandoned building on our side there and I know it holds a bunch of different animals and things like that inside. There are gophers digging underneath the buildings and all around. You know, there's a bunch of issues. I've had people coming from Icehog games, breaking glass bottles behind my vehicle, breaking glass bottles on my sidewalk out in front. It's becoming a lot of a problem. There's not enough police interaction after those games, especially in that area. But besides that, during those Icehogs games and everything, the only residential parking we have is out in front of our building for us. I drove around again for another two hours trying to find parking and there is none. Even though it's residential parking after 5:00 p.m. and during the day from 8 to 5, it's 2hour parking for people coming and going from the courthouse. You know, I'm just hoping something can be done. I have made complaints to the city about this before. Luckily, the trash that was in the alleyway was actually taken care of quite quickly, which I was grateful for. But these other things, it's an ongoing issue. We have I mean, just over the weekend, I had about five to seven people in a single day go into the brush and relieve themselves in various manners. And so, that's really all I've got. Thank you. Thank you. Our third speaker is prophet Yousef. Good evening ladies and gentlemen. In the book of Psalms the 32nd chapter 8th verse it says the Lord say I will guide you along the best pathway for your life. I will advise you and watch over you. What I want to speak about tonight head toward his voice. When the now infamous American Airlines flight 77 barrel into the Pentagon on the morning of September 11, 2001, 38-year-old police officer Isaac Hoopy was nearby but outside the building. Immediately he began helping people out of the burning building. But officer Hoopy wanted to do more. Although he lacked protective gear, he ran into the Pentagon. Stop. Someone yelled at him. We got to get people out. He shouted back. He knew people were in trouble and he could not just sit by and be a spectator. Nearly suffocate on the smoke. Officer Hoopy heard the building cracking. He called out, "Is anybody in here?" From out of the darkness, he heard the cries, "Help me! Help me! Help me! I'm over here." Wayne Sinclair and five co-workers were crawling through rubble and had lost all sense of direction. Then they heard Officer Hoop voice. When they cried out, Officer Hoopy responded, "Head toward my voice." Sinclair and the others soon made their way out of the crumbling, burning building. By the time it was all over, Officer Hoopy had saved dozens of lives. Jesus rescued his own. And very much the same way. When we are stumbling around in the darkness of sin or doubt, we frantically cry out, "Jesus, help me. Jesus, hear us." And call out. Head toward my voice. When we choose to respond to Jesus, Lord, we find purpose. We find direction. We find peace. We find safety regardless of how lost we have been. Lord Jesus, give me ears to hear your voice always, but particular in those times when I feel lost. Thank God for police officer. I also want to congratulate fire chief for her new promotion. And I also want to say this about her. Sherlock Holmes don't have nothing on her. I want you to do something for me. Don't take no wooden knuckles. I'm And thank you. I'm going to miss you. Thanks for allowing me to speak. Thank you, Prophet. You finished ahead of time. And our our fourth speaker is John Tac Grantley. Prop uh right out of my page because I'm going start out. I walk through the valley of the shadow of death. I should fear no evil. For thy Lord is with me. Thy staff, thy ride comfort me all the days and glory of my life. I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Uh Mayor Mcamera, this year is our first chief female of the fire department. Now she's going to become the first chief of the Illinois Fire Marsh. We should have a big old plat or augments to vote on this and have a plaque with her uh going a home route from Rockford going to the Illinois State as the head marshall, the first female. There should be a plaque put up. That's history. That's history right there. But now I'm going to go into some more urgent history and what have you. I was going to read from that. But uh California, they rioting in in California. They uh they also rising in in New York about immigration. How long is that going to be before that riot comes to our front front doorstep? The thing the double standard is that uh wannabe dictator antichrist Donald Trump freed 1,750 insurrectionist that invaded the white the white house and he never called the national guard. Now he's talking about arresting the governor and arresting the mayor of California. We already is in the midst of a civil war. That civil war I talked about over the past couple of years been going on for the past eight years since Donald Trump been in office. That civil war is about to escalate and it's about to get more dangerous than we speak. So as the city prepared is uh uh are we ready to uh deal with ISIS when they come here? Are we ready to protect those who we uh feel that undocumented workers shouldn't be uh checked? Now I want to go with my case. We had a a meeting. We didn't have meeting. I was at West Gateway Coalition meeting. The chief of police was there and what I talked about the driving while being black and what have you. We have a serious situation here. Driving while being black. Why do uh uh black or brown, no matter what, rich or poor, always have this fear of the police? Also, the fact that some of the white police officers have no respect for us. So, I'm using myself as an example of how to deal with the police when you get stopped by the police. I got two more cases that I'm going to court with. The first case I already won, driving while being black. When I walked into the courtroom for the judge to stand up and say, "Mr. Brentley, is you ready?" "Yes, sir, I'm ready. Come on up." I came up, presented my case, and the state attorney case was so fluency. He asked the state attorney, "Why are you wasting my time?" And they threw the case out. I walked out that courtroom, tears in my eyes, and thank you to Jesus. I'll finish my speech because I got caught this Wednesday with 50. Thank you. And our final speaker tonight is John Lawrence. Good evening, alderman, uh, staff, mayor. Had a little surprise this morning between 9 and 10:00 a.m. Water was shut off to my house. I inherited the house, transferred all the utilities I could think of to uh my name and apparently I forgot about the water bill. Four months since that happened. No attempt to notify me by mail that the bill in the name of the previous owner was delinquent. No attempt. So I called. First person I talked to hung up on me. So much for customer service. Then I talked to somebody later on that said that they would have u somebody get back to me. Well, several hours went by and I found out the name of the person in charge. That person didn't call me until I happened to be at city hall. need to treat people better than that. I didn't know that my account was delinquent. They just shut off my water. No notice, no tag hanging on the door. I'll bet they didn't know my phone number. They didn't know my name. But they could have mailed something to the house. Very simple. A card, a letter, something. No effort. So, I asked about that and I'm told, "We haven't done that since co. Can't mail a card or a letter." Uh, I ended up having to pay over $1,000 to get my water turned back on, which it was just done like an hour ago. This is the way Rockford Water Department treats their customers. We're taxpayers. We're customers. Please. We're We're better than that. This town is better than that. Just shutting off with no notice. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. We only have one agenda item tonight. Um and that is under resolutions. Item one, request for authorization to allow the zoning officer to file a text amendment to remove the special use permit option for residential storage warehouse in C3 and C4 zoning districts. May I have a motion to approve, please? I'll second. Um before we have any discussion, um I'm going to open it up to administrator Kagnoni to walk through this a little bit. The background on this item is not the final the council. It would authorize Mr. Capavilla, the zoning officer to file a text amendment that would go through the zoning board of appeals. Ultimately come to codes and reg regulations committee with a recommendation and then city council would would render a final decision on whether they wanted to approve the text amendment or not. I would note that um there are other avenues. You know, should someone want to pursue a comprehensive redevelopment in a C3 district that included residential storage warehouses, they still would have the opportunity to apply for a planned unit development. Um should it meet the size limits um and then or alternatively pursue uh a zoning map amendment for the property to industrial. I believe we had previously changed the provisions of the C2 district um to eliminate the special use permit requirement several months ago um after Mr. Capavilla had reviewed our zoning ordinance as well as our our zoning map. You know, this is certainly within the jurisdiction of city council to make a determination on whether they want to allow it by special use permit. I only bring up the plan unit development provision. So should you advance this forward, you do recognize that should you see an application in the future for a special use permit for planned unit development, that would be the reason. In review of some other municipalities here locally, we have seen um other municipalities pull back on the permissibility of residential storage warehouses in various zoning districts to control it. um understanding that this has been a nationwide trend where we've seen uh residential storage warehouses going into uh locations that are more retail in nature um rather than industrial. Um our zoning ordinance currently allows residential storage warehouses in industrial districts as a permitted use. So they still would be allowed to establish in the city of Rockford. Um, if it's the intent of city council not to approve residential storage warehouses in the C3 district, um, I think it would be a good idea to amend the zoning ordinance because ultimately developers, investors, uh, rely on the zoning ordinance to provide guidance on the decisions they make to pursue different properties. Thank you. Are there any questions or comments? Alderwoman Fronty, I just want to make sure I understood this correctly. So, if um no, if this fails, the developer still has a pathway to is that what you're saying? Um sorry, chairman. So, every piece of property is different. So, it does um depends on the property. So recently over the last 12 months, we've had two um you know applicants pursue residential storage warehouse um most recently the one on Columbia Parkway um which was permitted by special use permit. should that avenue not um existed and so should this text amendment be approved in the future the the the most reasonable approach for that particular property would have been to apply for industrial zoning and it would have been a permitted use. Um additionally, you know, we had an application that was ultimately denied uh for a special use permit for a plan unit development at the Kmart on East State Street in Mulford. Um, should this text amendment be approved, that still would be allowed to advance forward as a special use permit for a planned unit development. So, those are two different scenarios. Thank you. Did you have any other questions? Alderwoman Brunte, Alderwoman Torina, I have a question for Mr. Capavilla. Um, in your opinion, what do you think what risks do you think the city would be taking by making this change? Well, um, potential risks. I it would take away the ability of someone to maybe redevelop a small building um in a blighted area where maybe um it's own C3, but it might make sense to have the special use permit option. Um but then you know you could say well oh they could reszone it to industrial but then you also say well is this spot zoning you know are we just going to zone this one little uh building industrial so they can have store you know residential storage and you know usually I would oppose something like that because then you can get into a lot of other things they could re reszone to industrial but then you could have a possibility of you know more intense uses going into that site. So at least with the C3 um having the special use permit in that still that would give the city flexibility to review any any you know situation depend you know like I said it depends on the actual location and the situation and um you know I think it I think we should have some flexibility to in the ordinance to allow for maybe some older buildings that could be rehabbed um and it would be an option that would be available. Yeah, I I agree with that. I think that it does reduce our flexibility for development. Um I think it makes us a little overly restrictive. Um another thing is I feel like just like you said the this can hurt corridors that are ultimately going to need their economic revitalization. And I think another point that I just wrote down was I think it removes our ability to approve things on a case- by case basis for so um I understand why it was brought forward but I just for those reasons I'm probably going to be voting against it. Um thank you. Any other questions or comments? Alderman Salgado for allowing me to speak on your committee. Um I have a question. Uh maybe this is for Todd and Scott. um and the zoning board of appeals. Um is there a way that we could restrict certain wards um in particular to this change or does it have to be citywide from that perspective for uh so and where I'm going with this uh Mr. Bonnie seems to think that it's oversaturated some of the residents and you know feel like there shouldn't be that piece of it um from a a storage facility for special use permit. So just wanted uh to ask that question if there are certain areas where it's oversaturated or whatever uh that the concept from an alderman perspective or constituents feel that way in that direction. Um is there a way that you could put a moratorum on that perspective in that ward specifically or does it have to be citywide from that perspective? Well, it it would have to be citywide. Um the ordinance is going to apply to every, you know, each zoning district, no matter what w it's going to be in. Um are there areas that are saturated? It depends on who you talk to. Um there's, uh, you know, uh, Alderman Bonnie has one of the largest industrial areas in in the city with the four major industrial parks there and I believe there's four or there's two facilities in that and then two that are adjacent to it that are actually in the county. Um, he also has one of the only buildings that's actually C3 that does have a special use permit that was granted back in 2019, I believe, on Waysford Way, which is part of boxed up storage now. Um, and I know there was concerns uh I think this was last year when we approved the expansion of a a storage facility on North Main where there was once a blighted car wash. And so people said, "Well, geez, how many more storage facilities is North Main going to have?" And that was a lot of input from council members and staff and we decided to remove that special use permit option from C2 because everyone said why don't we just keep it to C3 it's more of that heavy commercial uh you know almost kind of pseudoindustrial type zoning and that's why we eliminated the SU for the C2 and not C3. So I may Mr. Chairman, as a followup, um just real quick, you know, comments to I agree with Miss uh Gabrielle on this. Um I have a lot of blight and I have a lot of empty buildings in my area. So I wouldn't want to put a restriction from my perspective on that sense. So if you guys want to send them over to my area, you know, more more open to for that perspective. But I I understand, you know, the reason why this coming forward, but you know, uh from that standpoint and also, you know, changing it from industrial, you know, just to have a that kind of facility to me just doesn't make sense, especially if it's the surrounding neighborhood area businesses are C3 or whatever the nature of that might be. So it just doesn't make sense from that perspective. So, um, I do understand that and so I'll keep mauling on it. I I know today is not the the day that we actually take a vote, but those are the questions that I have. Wanted to see if there was a way that, you know, we could be restrictive in certain boards based on alderman and constituents, right? Um, what I think might be different than what others might think saturation is, right? So, um, but from that perspective, that's why I asked that question about whether we could limit certain pockets of the city. uh from that perspective. Thank you. Any other questions or comments? So, I would just add again this is this was referred to um committee by me. I don't want to repeat a lot of the debate that we've had at just last council meeting or previous council meetings when these have come up, but um some of the information that I quoted from industry publications last week um when administrator Kagnon talked about trends and there's a trend in communities and states across the country to ban self storage altogether. I don't know if those communities are all as diverse as we are and have um I guess as um both Alderman Sagato and Alderwoman Trina pointed out um blighted pockets where this the C3 option might be beneficial. But um I think the underlying and again I' be I'm repeating myself from last week but the underlying concept of having it be permitted in industrial and only without council approval and permitted in C3 with when and up until recently C2 with council approval as a special use is to is because the more appropriate place for that for this use is industrial and when we approve them in retail areas I I think we are setting ourselves we're working against our purpose if our purpose is to try to direct this to industrial use when we approve new shiny ones in higher visibility retail areas if we aren't already when we reach a point of saturation It is going to just logic dictates it's going to be the older facilities in industrial areas where we want them that don't um you know that don't survive. And I just think that other communities are being more restrictive. We should too. I think we've had, you know, in addition to the two that have been mentioned, we had a third in my ward that was not as divisive as of a vote as the first two, but it was to do it by PUD in residential area on Malford. So, of the three that have come up in in my ward in my tenure, the council has turned down two of them. And the two of the three of them have been pretty intense debates. And I think we could avoid some of these intense debates if we weren't sending the message out there to developers that we are likely to approve in C3 when maybe we're not. And I guess I would um you know I think uh to say that C3 is is um you know pseudo is is what was the term pseudo pseudoindustrial? I I don't I beg I beg to differ that anybody would call state and mulford pseudoindustrial. And if the question had been to the council to reszone state and Mulur to industrial, I think it would have been a much um shorter, less um divisive debate. But again, the the bottom line is this is to refer it to ZBA for ZBA to be able to debate it, for it to go to public hearing, and then come back to us with a recommendation. This is not for us to make a decision on tonight. Um, is there any other question or comment? Seeing none, clerk, will you please call the role? I motion fails. Uh, may I have a motion to adjurnn? Meeting adjourned. Good evening. Welcome to the Finance and Personnel Committee meeting June 9th. Uh sir, clerk, you please take role. here. Thank you. Uh first we have some information only items. Uh item A is um is a DCO weatherization health and human services grant. Additional funds of $55,000. The new grant is approximately $827,000. It does not require a cost match. The grant term is from June 1, 2025 to September 30, 2026. The additional funds are being used for equipment needed for the program. Item B is also from uh I'm sorry. Uh item B is a HUD continuing care Rose CR consolidated grant uh with additional funds of $41,040. The total grant is approximately $22,000. The grant does not require a 25% cost match uh in the amount of $50,614 which is covered by Rose CR. The grant term is from June 1, 2025 to May 31, 2026. The grant funds will pay Rose transfer approved clients housing uh and the city of Rock will retain $8,59 for administrative costs. Item C is a notice of emergency repairs to the East 8 Street Bridge in the amount of 35,74729. The emergency repairs included uh storm water storm sewer pipe inlet repairs, slab replacement, curb and gutter repairs, and sidewalk repairs. And uh item D is a quarterly investment report. Who's going to present on that? All right, Miss Hagerty. So, this is the quarter ending March 31st of this year. Um, as I'm sure many of you are aware, uh, we've seen some pretty significant market uh, instability so far this, excuse me, so far this year. Um, and our our investment performance um, has reflected that. So, we're showing approximately 5% earnings in over a 12-month period. Um, in all three of our investment portfolios, we have our short-term, our uh core account, and our motor fuel tax accounts all uh included in this report. So, um certainly happy to take any questions anyone has. Any questions? Alden Sagato. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for allowing me to speak on your committee. Um, real quick, Carrie, um, I saw there was a policy in there, um, regarding to that. Is there any specific um, based on fixed income equity percentages of of that allocation? Yes, there are. I'll be happy to share and and there uh, we follow state law restrictions. Um, I'd be happy to share the current investment policy with you. Appreciate that. Absolutely. Any further questions? All right. Thank you very much. Moving on to committee reports. Item A, we have approval of vouchers in the amount of 11,587,620 and4 cents. Is there a motion to approve vouchers? Any questions or comments on vouchers? All right, seeing none, all those in favor I I oppose. Matter passes. Under resolutions, item A is award a bid for Citywide Street Repairs Group number five to Rock Road Companies amount of 2,300,64322. The contract duration is through October 3rd, 2025 and the putting sources the 1% infrastructure sales tax. There motion to approve. Any questions or comments for staff? Seeing none, all those in favor indicate by I. I opposed. Matter passes. Item B is an award a bid for citywide pavement preservation microsurfacing to AC pavement striping of ELG in the amount of $668,22945. The contract is through August 1, 2025 and the funding source is the MFT funds. Is there a motion to approve? Any question or comments for staff on this bid? All right. Seeing none, all those in favor indicate by I. I opposed. Matter passes. Item C is award of joint purchasing contract for pure storage upgrade to Insight Public Sector in the amount of $152,31521. The contract duration is 5 years. The funding source is the information technology fund. Is there a motion to approve the contract? Second. Are there any questions or comments for staff? All right. Seeing none, all those in favor indicate by I. I opposed. Matter passes. Item D is award of joint purchasing contract for Legisar Agenda Minute Software by Granicus uh to Kerasoft Technology Corporation in the amount of $100,353.77. This includes a onetime data conversion, training, and imple implementation cost of $52,477.19. The contract duration is through September 15, 2026 with four possible one-year extension options. The annual price adjustments for CPI will be considered a contract renewal only. The funding source is the information technology fund operating budget. Is there a motion to approve? Uh I just had one question. Who Mr. Hughes, are you taking questions on this? Uh will will this uh new system for our meeting agenda be be better than or improved over the current one we have? Uh yes sir, in multiple ways. Um we're looking at um better um transmission of highdefin recordings of the meetings. Um it's also helped staff with uh doing the numbering of ordinances and communications that come out of city council. Um trying to think of all the other there's uh I think it's just overall more effective. We looked at eight different products and this by far outranked all the others. So um there's definitely a lot to be gained. Thank you. Appreciate it. Any other questions? I see none. All those in favor I I opposed. Matter passes. Item E is a rejection of bid uh and to solicit new bids for the FMLA administration. Only two proposals were received and two were were disqualified at opening due to docu documentation errors. Is there a motion to allow the rejection? Are there any questions or comments? Al Pruny, thank you for um allowing me to ask questions. Um what what kind of errors would um two um vendors make um that would make you reject and were they similar or the same errors? They were actually different errors for both of them. Um one did not complete our equal employment opportunity forms that are required documentation. The other vendor did not submit a hard copy of their bid, which is the the formal bid that they or formal proposal that they would submit. They just did a documentation online. Go ahead. How often does this happen? It does not happen as often as you would expect it to. It does not actually. Um it's usually on things where we don't see them very often. A lot of vendors, you know, when we're doing bids, you see them frequently. um or you won't see that frequently because the vendors are used to seeing the same documentation. This happens frequently um more frequently when there's something we haven't done before and they're just not used to seeing these formal these forms that they have to fill out. So, but it does not happen that often. Are these inexperienced vendors or are they No, I don't think either one of these two are inexperienced. They're just not used to our process. Um, so they haven't seen our forms before, but they do state very clearly on them their required forms. All right. Thank you. Yep. All right. Um, so is there a motion to reject? I think we may have already done that. All right. Are there any further questions? All right. Seeing none, all in favor indic. I opposed. All right. The rejection passes. Um, is there a motion to adjourn? All those in favor of adjourning, give I I oppos. Thank you. This means a journal.