2020. By the way, it's also my first impersonating with my new job here. This is an important step for the village. As we move away from pandemic restrictions and move towards normal operations, we're live streaming this meeting and we posted it to links that live stream to the village of social media pages.
And it will make the recording available on the village's YouTube channel following the conclusion of tonight's meeting.
As this is our first in person meeting in a while, I want to remind everyone of the following.
If you were vaccinated, you can, but don't have to wear a mask.
If you're not vaccinated, we require that you wear a mask and we're asking everyone
that's here in the audience that you sign in on the sign-in sheets and please indicate
whether you're vaccinated.
The next item on our agenda is public comment.
This is the first time in over a year that we've had in person public comment.
So I want to remind everybody of what the rules are, they're the same rules.
This part of the meeting allows anyone in attendance to address the board regarding non-agenda items.
If you have a comment about an agenda item, don't make it now because there will be time to make it later.
All your comments should be limited to three minutes, and I've got helpers, but I'll tell you when your time is up.
And I, in my day chat for a long time, I was a lawyer and people always told me to shut up when time was over and uncomfortable doing that.
If you're speaking for a group of people and the other people are agreeing not to speak,
then we'd be going to give you more time and you should let us know that in advance.
When you go to the podium, state your name and address unless you've contacted the village staff,
ahead of time, you're not going to be able to present any audio-visual materials.
All comments should be directed to the board members.
Don't ask questions of the audience.
Don't direct comments to the audience.
If there's a question that's raised, we're going to acknowledge the question
and may or may not get back to it immediately.
And I'll last ask to sometimes meet meetings.
I don't expect this one will, but sometimes meetings can get heated.
Please avoid vulgar discriminatory or threatened comments, and if you file it that rule, we may stop you.
And also, please don't boo or cheer or applaud speakers.
We want the meeting to be as business-like as it could be.
While the Village Board was meeting remotely during the pandemic, one of the things we provided for was public comments could be made via email and then Jordan Lester, one of our intrepid staff members, would read them into the record.
That's not part of the rules for public meetings.
That was never done before.
We've gotten a request from a citizen asking if we would continue with that.
My recommendation is that we don't.
Public meetings are public meetings.
And what we think, what I think, and I'll ask the Board if they disagree,
is that people have something they want to say to the board as part of the public meeting.
They should come here and say it.
We recognize there might be exceptions to that.
Someone can't come for some good reason.
Possibly health, possibly out of town, alert us ahead of time.
And we may be able to accommodate you.
But if you're just someone that wants to be our pen pal,
You don't want that, and I always felt that even when it was necessary, that reading into
the record of our correspondence was pretty disruptive of the flow of the meeting.
By the way, if somebody sends us something, if I get such something, I read it all, if you
something important numbers, they will need it, all of it.
And I don't have any problem, assuming we're allowed to do it.
If you have comments that you want to send on something,
having it posted publicly, but what I really
don't want to do is disrupt meetings, particularly
meetings, where we have numbers.
The public who are spending their valuable time,
I don't want them listening to our mail be read.
Anybody disagree with that?
I think we should have a different approach.
Yeah, hi, thanks.
I think that's providing an opportunity for the public to comment by email as a perfectly
legitimate and acceptable form of submitting comment.
I don't know that we necessarily need to read them into the record as, you know, we have
the email.
I'm sure there's another way to get them involved in the record.
And perhaps what we could simply do is summarize the comment and so we all have a chance
respond to it publicly in a forum like this. I think that an email, you know, if we get into an
email thread and we're trying to address these questions via email, it can quickly become
fragmented discussion. So to me it would make sense to have somebody, if the email is along,
summarize the key points here at the board meeting and then let the board members react to that
and keep that dialogue as part of the record as opposed to not allowing this very common form of communication.
Anybody else want to comment on this, I mean, we probably did agree on a bunch of stuff in that and there are some areas where I'm not sure it would be workable, but that anybody else on this, I mean, I don't care.
The you make good points and maybe there's a way to attach those to the record.
I agree with the basic promise that we don't just read them in gross into the record.
I'm very concerned about trying to summarize someone else's points and missing what their point was.
And that can just run into all kinds of crops.
I think the President's point was well made,
and I'm sure you do this, and we all do this.
Well, read the stuff.
We get emails about things going on in town all the time,
and we read them, and make sure everybody else is aware of them.
So maybe that's the time when we could stop and say,
does anybody else want to address anything else about that?
That's related, and we can have a discussion
people want to or not. I mean sometimes people come and they make comments and we don't want
to respond immediately or it's we have to go back and think about it and have staff think about it.
So perhaps if people feel in need to append those somebody identifies an email says please put
this in the records so that somehow people could read them if they want to along with our notes
they go online, maybe that's feasible and appropriate, but beyond that, I just don't want
to get in the business of interpretation, but otherwise as I said, it's a good point.
Sleep.
Joe, did you have?
No.
So both, both, Pete and Gary have made good points, I would be very uncomfortable, and I don't
I don't want to be like Bill Barr, where we're summarizing something possibly in accurately.
And I'm not sure we should be doing that.
We should talk with our council about an extent in which we can include emails we get in the material that's in the record.
And I think Gary makes an excellent point and I think Pete was on this too.
If any of us think it's worth raising these issues, then we should raise them.
There's a time to do it.
By the way, you'll see in the regular meeting, we've gotten a bunch of correspondence
from a resident who's concerned about a sign near her house, and we're going to get raised
in an opportunity to discuss it.
I think that's probably exactly what Gary has in mind, and maybe what Pete has in mind,
except that there won't be any official summary of all the first
components it'll be up to the board to decide whether to
identify an issue and talk about it.
So I'm comfortable with the proposal by moving on.
I think what you say makes sense and I'd be very happy with that.
Because I think the significant change from what you're initially
proposed was that we would allow the public comment.
we would, or is there not, are we not differentiating between emails that come in, you're sort
of saying any email that we get from a resident where you should bring up if we would like
to?
Absolutely.
What I didn't want to do, which was happening before, because it had to, was reading
into the record.
I just thought that was disruptive and violent and disruptive to the, you know, sometimes
tiny audience, sometimes bigger audience who's here for meeting in general, I think it's
reasonable to expect people to come to our meetings if they want to, if they really
want to be sure, they can say something and have a captive audience if they want to email
us, we're getting it. I could represent, I'm leaving all of them, I think everybody here
is reading all of them and they're still an opportunity for any board member to say, I got
mail it's interesting and let's talk about what I didn't want was the reading of the record
which was challenging. I think we've got a plan, Dudley?
I just want to say that some of them want to be a whole fashion that sense of the better.
Same thing. Same thing. You know, hey, you can send a smoke signals if we get it. We're going to
going to pay attention to it. Okay. Welcome, Mr. Elrod. Thank you. Okay.
So, have been given
all the rules. Is there anyone that has anything that's a non-agenda item that they want
to raise now before we get to our committee of the whole agenda?
I'll see anybody. So, let's
go to the first item on the planned agenda, which is a discussion of proposed amendments
to the village of Glencoe's human relations ordinance, and that's something that's
been worked on by our community relations forum, and I'll ask the chair of the human
The community relations formed to be Clark to make a presentation. I'm happy. Welcome, Ms. Clark.
Yeah, I want to know it. Because it's because the microphone and I'm not sure if that microphone is on actually
Day of the second
Okay, thank you for having me here. My name is Gifty Clark. I live on 10.55 junior
And I am the chair of the community relations forum, which will not be called that for too long, I hope.
Thank you for inviting me here today to speak to the human relations ordinance.
I do not have a presentation as you can see, because everything that has changed is provided in the packet that you should ever see.
with, you know, thanks to Emily, who actually said, well, we're there before and what
is there in you.
So it's pretty easy to follow, so I'm not going to get into the details right now, however,
if you guys have questions on any of that and feel free to ask me after.
I just wanted to give you a little bit of a background on how we got to where we got
and why some of the changes that you see are in the ordinance.
Back in February or March was a bill, when we had presented to the board, it was on a Zoom.
And it was the first time I met at the chair that we had presented to the community relations forum, all the members, and what some of our goals are.
And where we see in the village of Lanko and working with our communities around us,
where we saw our four working towards those holes.
And we have come up with a mission statement that is on our website today, which focuses
a lot on diversity and inclusion.
So, when we were asked to come and present at the board meeting in February, one of the things
was raised by member Rubin was the ordinance for human relations.
It was.
Who lost leader would say, oh, 1997 was, I think, when it was last amended. And considering where we were heading, 25 years later, it was time to change.
So we took that upon ourselves as our relief of a priority, let's just say, I won't say it with our top priority, but it was a priority to come up with more realistic, more realistic, I'm not a lawyer, I can't say the right term for the ordinance, but duties and roles of what the forum is going to play in this village.
So we met as a group several times and went through every word several times, sometimes
spent too much time on a word, which we didn't need to, probably, but you know we're
reaping the benefits of it right now, so we did spend time, let's just say that that was my
idea of saying like when we spent so much time on every word.
So, every word was scrutinized and finally, we did come to a consensus in our last meeting,
which was last week, and we were able to present what you see today as the new Cuban relations
ordinance.
The main reason really, again, like I mentioned, it was an older document from
7. It didn't really fit with what we as a group want to do. Our goals that we have kind
of spoken with, you know, the village president and our village manager, and it just was
not aligned. So we just aligned it, made it more modern up to date, if you may. It is focused
on inclusion. They doesn't really have any of the other things that were there in the previous
ordinance. So it's more focused on the work that they are doing.
And you know quite
quite honestly it's not a second stone. So you know it's something comes up when the next chair for
example comes on the group and thinks that there's something that needs to be changed or terminology
changes because the EI is a very sensitive topic but also very evaluating. So it's always evolving
new new terminology comes up some other terminology either becomes old or inappropriate. So
you know when something like that comes up we would need to change that ordinance. So you
I mean, I'm sure it will get changed again, maybe not in 25 years, maybe sooner.
I would actually recommend that we do look at it sooner than in 25 years, probably in the next five years,
on more time.
It needs to be, you know, look at and kept up to date.
So, you know, I think it's very important for the work that we do.
So that's really up with it, like I said, I don't have a presentation, I didn't, I just wanted to come and see if any of you have questions on it.
Thank you.
Gravity is the source of all speaker points, so you don't get any demerits for being pointed and brief.
And thank you for the excellent work, which looks like an update that we're going to obviously have to have our council make sure that
that we're not creating.
Well, I was going to be a problem somehow, but I, you know, I focusing, particularly on
your new, you know, sort of the introductory provision, you know, I would be proud to
associate myself and my village with that.
So, thank you to you and your group, anybody else want to have any questions?
Yeah, of course, thank you for the work, it's super important.
This notion of being current and worrying about the ordinance, you know, sometimes you can move these kinds of policies into a separate document, that's easier to more living document and the ordinance just refers to it.
So we can have some language that points to a document which is a live document and then wouldn't require as much border approval so it doesn't go stale.
I don't know if that's an idea we'd like to entertain, but I suspect we've got examples of that here in the village where we establish a different type of structure than putting exactly what we're saying in the ordinance, but rather leave that outside as a reference manual if you will.
That's a serious and thoughtful point.
I gather that, you know,
the formerly treated relations form,
hopefully for them should be something else.
And what you were looking for was,
at this time was a buy-in by the board.
Yeah, so to answer the question.
I agree.
We probably don't want to keep changing the pick up
maybe we have references. However, this time, there are significant changes in the documents,
like I said, through this one, wasn't aligned at all with the world for doing. So it has taken us
time to align it, to the goals of what the forums is meant to do. So I'm not going to go back to what
was meant to do, but really what it is meant to do.
So I would definitely want to encourage you all
to look at it from that perspective
and see if we can get that new ordinance
that we have for it in place right now,
as our baseline, you know, for the future edits.
I do want to, I did not bring up the name.
We have worked very hard on a new name.
We are not calling ourselves a community relation forum,
but we would like to call ourselves a clinical counsel
for inclusion and community.
It resonates with the work we do
when a resident or non-seize the name
they see it for what we are, so it speaks for itself, and so that is a really large proposal
in that document is the main change.
One thing, if I can, President Rowan, I think, is just to piggyback on what the chair of the forum
is kind of talked through.
I think when we were dialing about this back in February, there was a desire to make sure
that the villages approved ordinances were fairly strong with respect to the issue of diversity
equity and inclusion. And I think trusty Mulvaney, as the counsel, if that's what it'll
ultimately be referred to continues its work.
This will be probably less of a document that is amended and more of one that is referred
to as the work of the council continues down the road and really as a generalized
yet strong statement of the village's perspective on these issues.
So that, I think that's why the update to the municipal code was suggested by the forum
and the work that they've done, I think, is brought the language up to speed with current
expectations.
But I don't think it precludes the ability for there to be other structures or documents
that are fed by that ideal, so to speak.
Thank you.
Anybody else?
I have a question about it.
Is this a policy document or a law?
It would be an ordinance which more is a structure or the organization of the entity
from which policy decision.
And trust you know, Dana's point could be incorporated in future policies, could be in a separate or living document.
This is the structure and form of the group, whatever it's going to be called.
Yes, it's an ordinance and it would be in the municipal code.
Council counsel for inclusion and community.
That's our proposal.
Believe me, we worked for many hours on that day.
We even thought community maybe just like cutting short of a word, but you know, well, some thought it was too long.
Yeah, well, I won't go there. It was, it was twice the daunting cast.
Anybody else, yeah, a couple of hundred comments.
If not, thank you very much for your hard work, for your presentation.
And, you know, we'll get the ordinance on the agenda.
Wonderful.
Okay, the next item on our agenda is a discussion of current regulations, best practices,
and potential strategies regarding murals in the central business district, and I'll
ask our development services manager, Taylor Faxcher, to fill us in, and then Taylor.
Thank you, President Rowan.
We also have the look plan to be brown here with us, and I do is going to be doing the bulk
of this presentation regarding some issues with murals that have come up.
This is really a risen out of three different proposals we've had in downtown Glencoe,
over the past year and a half, for murals, all on private property.
And as Leib will get into in a bit more detail, we've realized that we're not really fully
prepared to deal with this issue, from a regulatory standpoint, and also from the standpoint
of knowing what the village is, goals for public art,
murals, signage, et cetera, downtown, might be.
So I'll turn it over to Lee now.
He's got some slides with some more details on some.
Some of the issues that we're dealing with, as well as some
some pest practices and some potential wasteful work.
Thank you.
Thank you, too.
President Trustee, he's his pleasure to be here physically.
This is an issue that is not pointed at a specific property, though it was essentially in
gender by the fact that we received applications that involved the potential establishment
of murals in the downtown area.
you want to sometime just before the pandemic took us apart we received an application that was
associated with the reuse of 668 burning that included the potential for changing a very
blank wall on the north side of the building to include a graphic image. It was determined by
staff that it was not assigned and it was brought before the Plan Commission as part of the
overall appearance review process that requires the Plan Commission to make a determination
on the character and nature of the improvements that are proposed.
But the Plan Commission recognizing that the staff's recommendation that it was not assigned
looked at it simply for its graphic character and could not, in the end, determined that
it was a lovable or not allowed within the village.
It's not a sign, what is it?
We have a very specific standard in the zoning ordinance that says any object device to
play your structure or part there of situated outdoors or indoors that is used to advertise
identify, display, direct or attract attention and it goes on, that is a sign. The graphics
that were being proposed before the Plan Commission did not have those characteristics that
could be called a sign.
You may remember those of you who were involved in the tuna process
by which ultimately established the design, both the plan for downtown and then ultimately
the design guidelines that were adopted to follow the plan. There was discussion of public art
as part of the process, what makes a vibrant downtown, what with our Glencoe V if we allowed
a greater amount of public art. I think it's important and I'm referencing again what Taylor
to spoke to. There is a clear distinction between what we allow or encourage in the public
right of ways and the public properties versus what is allowed or not allowed within private
properties or on private buildings. And murals in this situation those that have been proposed
before us have been on private properties and would be either regulated through our zoning
ordinances or the design guidelines or not.
Our choices about what we would allow in the public way or in other public art conditions
is not what we're discussing here tonight.
But clearly, a mural is a painting, mosaic, fresco or other permanent artwork attached
or applied directly to the outside of a structure.
And most communities when they recognize the benefit or choose to allow for murals,
Distinguished between their definition of murals and signs.
Do we regulate murals? There is nothing in the zoning code or in the design guidelines.
That either permit, directly, or prohibit girls. We don't have the guidance and that is why we're before you tonight.
We do in the design guidelines speaks specifically to art, public art, and streetscapes, but they are within the public realm, those areas that we have direct control over.
The question essentially is, should we regulate murals? And if so, what condition should be considered?
When you look at other communities that regulate activities like murals in public art, it is
location that they consider, and particularly is it allowing for a safe location that does not
disrupt either traffic or other elements.
You can regulate how big or how small a mural can be on what surfaces on the building because
It may be just the facade or it may be you allow it on other faces of the building, those
that face public spaces or only private spaces.
And who is it that has the best ability to consider the appropriateness of the village board?
Is it the plan commission?
Is it an outside arts council?
It appears from a national perspective, those that have looked at murals as being an important element of their business districts and even in some cases.
There are residential districts.
They have not done it as a municipality as much as put together as an arts council, that encourages art, encourages murals,
and then so doing, they direct how that is best controlled, they don't do it from a we're going to allow for private developers to propose something and regulate it, they do it because they encourage it and they choose the artwork itself.
And then lastly amongst the other things that you consider is this, if we allow it, do we allow it on the basis of for a short term to test it, to allow that it,
creates a reaction in the community that's positive or we make it permanent once you're up
you have the authority to keep it up.
Can or should we control the content or image of the mirror?
And I'll allow Steve to choose to weigh in on this. This is an important element that distinguishes
both how we regulate signs and if we regulate murals. And that is that there are very
clear, now I shouldn't say it that way. There are strong decisions by the Supreme Court
that identify the fallacy of controlling the content of signs or murals. And the moment
you begin to engage in determining whether the message or the image itself is appropriate
for the community, then you are essentially becoming, you are losing your content and neutrality
and you may fall a foul of the Supreme Court decisions.
So what are some of the considerations concerning murals?
murals should not present a commercial message if they do, they are assigned.
murals should not be allowed to offend the community with a sanity or other offensive language
that falls outside the first amendment protections.
The size of murals should not diminish the character of the structure to which it is attached,
or adjacent structures or uses, need of the village board or the Plan Commission are currently
equipped to evaluate the qualities of the murals and evaluating their content is legally problematic.
And the village may wish to control murals through licensing rather than zoning.
So this is the element of, if you think it's appropriate to encourage murals, particularly
in the downtown, but it may be in other businesses.
That's a threshold question.
We're not presenting it as, in any way, if you had a complete idea that you'd want to do this,
but if you wanted to do it, these are some of the considerations you should be giving us
some important direction.
I don't have
any questions for staff at this point.
I didn't have a follow-up if we had time about not coming to the discussion.
It's related to this, but more general-sized sign code updates.
Taylor, why don't we touch on that, but a little bit?
I think it's probably, I don't want to.
So related to this is a broader discussion about our sign code, which staff is of the opinion needs to be addressed with some amendments.
The scalable amendments is up for discussion at this point, but there's some issues that we're dealing with with working with our assigned code kind of on a day-to-day basis.
The first is just the general clarity, consistency, usability of the code. It's very difficult for staff to work through. There's a lot of clarity issues.
Richmond Galen, our planner, works with it, where that anyone else, I know that he struggles
with, you know, our same language in there, and it's very difficult for business owners,
sign contractors, to get the information they need out of just from general clarity issues.
The second issue is content-based restrictions, which lead touched on, recent Supreme Court
decisions have really limited the ability of municipalities to regulate signage based on their content
and our code currently has quite a bit of content based restrictions in it, which we feel
need to be addressed in the near future.
And finally, there could be some policy updates that could be useful as we could do this
process.
Temporary signage is not very well addressed in our sign code right now.
Downtown window signage is unclear and difficult to enforce, which written right now.
And we feel like there could be some updates that make that a lot easier.
The work with as well as make better meat, the goals of the village will we want to see downtown and throughout the village.
So it's just something to start thinking about.
We are going to take this back to you at a later date with some more in-depth discussion of what these issues are
and some potential paths forward,
but we didn't want you to start thinking about this,
is it as tight as this in this section?
I would suggest that we, as Taylor indicated,
this is something that we're gonna be,
we're gonna be working on to bring back
some thoughts and recommendations for discussion.
And tonight, really is more about, as Lee mentioned,
talking about that threshold question
as it relates to murals.
Our murals, something that the Village Board
is interested in regulating, or is there a perspective that they're inappropriate or to complicate
it to manage and or regulate.
And I think that really, that really kind of does the point of tonight's discussion is not
exactly how we would do it, but do you want to do it?
To least point, it is somewhat silent that the newly redone design guidelines for the
downtown. There was some significant discussion at the Plan Commission level, but they couldn't
land it. And so it was not included in the final design guidelines. I think as we now sit
here and we see renewed interest in the downtown, a great deal of new business approaching us
and saying, hey, we want to be in your downtown, they're coming with new ideas. And some of
things should have evolved.
And so here we are.
We want to be able to answer questions that you may have.
But really, it's, you know, at this point,
you may need more information.
But is there something that's pulling you in one direction
or another given some of the considerations Jordan,
can you slide, go to the slide just prior to that?
Yeah.
I think this was a good summary for what we are thinking through.
Let me say thank you for the presentations, but I believe from this, this one isn't easy, and I can immediately see how murals could be just great, and I can also see how we can get stuck with a mural that ever going to want to gag with a spoon, and the question is, is there any way we could start down this road and not be subject to a mural.
that wants us to hang ourselves and think is harming our businesses and that, to me, that's the hard question.
And I don't know what the answer is.
I could give an example of what I'm talking about, but I won't.
They do y'all, you know, have a example on our heads.
But I think that's why it's a problem.
It's because of Europe, it'd be great.
We have this business district where we're excited about.
And I, for one, don't want to start down the road where somebody,
It was probably out of his going to put an eye sore right in the middle of him and you know what's an eye sore maybe an eye in the boulder and I'm going to let me ask this if you can answer this
We could a obvious problem is political speech which is you know used to be the most protected thing and the old day if you maybe could say okay
we're just getting rid of all political speech.
I don't know if that's allowed.
And if it's now allowed, you can proceed.
So let's also make a distinction between public property
and property, and I think that that's important.
And in villages, the worst speech versus regulated speech,
which is the majority of these people,
presentation dealt with private property, not village and north of the Redderville is regulated.
We're allowing size, so let's start with that.
And these are absolutely correct that our ability to regulate speech like that on private property has been significantly limited.
And we talked about it a little bit with political campaign signs, which is a whole other issue,
but it could be argued to fall within this category. Once you open up a door, the door gets wide open.
So, is it a year or so, especially, can we, with respect, just close the door?
You know, we don't want it because we see the problem and I don't know that we can't.
But, you know, there's no, you can't simply say, you cannot do political speech and fraud.
So, what if we said, okay, you can't do murals.
Very simple step, you know, to find it that, because that's because we don't love food
and wouldn't love certain murals, but because we could just see it won't be long before
we're stuck with something, Mr.
So you have a better, a better ability to have regulation where you are simply for pivoting
years. This seems really hard to me, but it's also seen, but I just don't want our village
to be defaced by something that's going to be a must. And I think it's worth recognizing
that it need not to have a single word to have a message.
I totally get that. I immediately have thought of two political statements with no words.
I don't want to get it.
To that point, making murals temporary rather than permanent.
So we allow for some amount of public art, which can make a community more vibrant, is exciting.
But at the same time, like he said, we don't want to be stuck with something that is permanent that no one likes.
And maybe some short time when it gives an answer or the answer.
I'd like to distribute this whole big stretch, because really kind of poor location, like limited to the commercial districts.
Not special.
One other, is there an ability, if you have an arts council, sort of like if you're an arts center?
they can veto certain pieces.
Can an art council do that or does public this free speech get in the way of having a qualitative evaluation of a mural before it goes out?
It would.
It gives it a little bit of a step away.
The arts council is more of a.
It is disassociated from the village.
In communities that have allowed murals, there they indicate that they have a council that
do not consist of elected or appointed officials.
You're not going to find many in the Chicago area, because there are,
I mean, some of
But there are more for what to do on public property and how to promote our street rights
of way or on public greens and open spaces with the village that are owned by the village.
Or to determine if there is a planned development or some discretionary relief
but it's quite kind of horrible.
Benefit would exist if the donation of art had to be put on a public right away, and you'll find that to be more common in our neighbors, in the international, but not that the concept of an art council that would be judging private and the concept of Europe.
So what's the next step?
I mean, so we've identified a really complicated issue.
Now what?
Well, I think you need to first address the threshold question.
You wanted it all.
And if you do, then we start figuring out ways to get to the gas,
to get you to allow it in the most possible way.
It's Steve, what do most of our neighbors, what chapters, most of our neighbors take this up in seconds?
The most prohibited.
You know, to be, I don't know.
Generally, generally, yes, that many communities just find it easier just to call them signs and limit
essentially area and location. I showed you the images that I showed you on those slides
are from Evanston. There were two graphics from Evanston. Some from Joey at one from Detroit,
which actually I put up because it became, it was a, everyone thought it was going to be a great image
of solidarity of the police, yet it turned into a local issue against blue.
anything can become a community issue to the President's point.
But the majority of communities that choose to encourage it are doing it through arts
consoles to essentially hand out either license or authority or grants to allow for art
in public places not on private property.
I think it's a great idea.
Think about how to earn it.
As opposed to the other work,
I mean, it's going to be a great idea.
I would put the other work in front of this.
It was complex and it would be thought.
And what you do, start to realize.
And the approach is that I found and he asked him to accept very well.
But the action will keep on and easing.
It's a great opportunity for people to be able to meet our scouts.
Do you think you can control the truth?
I think you know that you can do it.
You can do it.
It's an organization.
I guess that's what I'm sitting, is where I'm now, yes it's something to look at, but I'm
more concerned about what is happening in the building, that we have these other issues
Honey.
Anybody else?
Right.
And I can worry.
They're done.
Like no one would have to just sit and tell them,
but I just saw that I was starting to move.
I'm just trying to help themselves.
I am doing all for that and you'll see.
I know.
Okay.
Anybody else?
Gary.
Question you, Rick.
Any communities?
Given the potential downside.
We have to fortunate to say, well, that's not because it's too tricky.
And if we think we're like they didn't go there,
if we were seeing any media issues,
right now when I'm here, we have to go.
We have to go left.
Somebody wants to, and I do,
I don't want from our town to see all the left of the earth.
So one reason is to talk about a thousand and not.
Somebody wanted to put up something.
Anyway, what was the use of building proposed use of the building that that's came up that was
decided to back the side it was a restaurant and what might they be serving at that restaurant at the time it was intended to be sushi
They didn't think that was a song
Okay
I'll leave it for those folks to decide that try and get tension to the words
a particular use
giant fish
There's a lot, that's a fact that it hasn't come up and is this something where we should be saying,
well, we're worried that something might come up and then what's it's up?
Now we don't have nothing, no way to say no.
Somebody does it.
Now we pass an ordinance to really make it take it down like Washington ever.
That's something really.
So do we want to do something temporal to say, you know, let's get this on the agenda?
Let's just say, no, like everybody else does.
But the problem is to ourselves that we're going to revisit it in a much more fuller fashion
and decide if we want to do something.
I'm trying to make sure we're not going to let the problem happen.
And I was going to bring something up similar, and I was going to ask you, Steve.
If somebody comes to us and says, hey, we want to do this, and we say, well, we have no regulations to limit that, so no, and they do it anyway.
Because one aspect of our design guidelines that doesn't require a village oversight process were permit is paint.
If somebody decides to paint their building, they're not coming to us for approval to do so.
Right, the trigger is the building permit and we don't wear a building permit for a
repainted building. Right, and so I think to trust the Ruben's point, if there's a concern or
risk that we are at, given the fact that there have been three individuals who have approached us
indicated they might be interested in doing something like this. If we are we at some risk if we
don't take some action even if we may be interested down the road in revisiting it but at this point
should we be taking action and making it formal statement. On a temporary basis on more
I see, well, it sounds like the no, we should look then,
which I thought of this very thoughtful.
We should look at what villages have, it's musicals have done to say no.
We can always undo the no, but what have they done to say no,
I don't know.
It's a moratorium or if it's a...
But just to be clear on that, if I'm sorry to interrupt.
It's not that they've had American towns in this area have a thoughtful conversation like this
and come out and said, all right, we're going to just believe that they have better codes
that were written that would allow us to hang our hat on a denied order.
Okay, we should look at having a better code that gives us that right
which we can then subsequently think about more fully when we're ready to think about more fully.
But what I would like to avoid is some kind of mural to catastrophe, but we're all sorry, but I had, you know.
I'd like to add, I'd be in favor, I'd be against this no concept.
I would be totally in favor of allowing the murals, but having the right to limiting the time.
So, the first four weeks or some time period is fair game, but in order to remain further,
it requires board approval.
It seems like that's, to me anyways, yeah, we may run the risk of something that's offensive
to some, but you also eliminate the risk of something that's really beautiful and fantastic.
And I think it's worth it because I generally have the faith that somebody's going to invest
in a mural is going to be intended for with a positive intent and so I think if we give
ourselves the right to limit the time duration initially and if it's a disaster for four
weeks we'll get through it but to go along with in some time frame would require us to
grant that. And you could, you know, if it's wonderful, whatever, whatever, six
of some time frame, maybe six months, it's on the consent agenda, and we agree
or not, or whatever. I don't think there's going to be hundreds of these things
to manage. I mean, how many murals could we possibly have in Glencoe that
will have to manage and think through? It doesn't seem overwhelming to me.
Oh, sorry.
I also want to say, I'm in favor of an archival, so it sounds like a great idea
period, like regardless, and I would like to suggest that we consider creating an art council
with a scope to be defined, you know, public private, whatever it would work it out.
But that to me sounds like not a bad idea, and perhaps we could get some form of art beyond
mural or otherwise, if we were to initiate that and encourage it.
So thank you, this has been helpful. We haven't solved it. I think we have a lot of
couple of points. I think regulating murals, let alone signs. Clearly is complicated,
brought with difficulty.
The answer might be what murals. I'm not sure I know enough
that if we allowed a mural for a certain time and then all of a sudden we had to do something.
I don't know how we would do the regulations that said, take it down or we want to prove
that I think that sounds to me, fraud.
I think it could be an answer which two of our trustees suggested this timing.
But I just think, protectively, for now, we should have the,
you know, we don't have to
to say, you know, and if we need to adjust our code to give us the ammo, that seems to be the first thing we need to do.
I think the staff can come back with both potential moratorium and the study necessary to revise the ordinance to allow us to make a
So we'd say no, which I don't know if that's a moratorium or what that is, but I would like us to be able to look at that.
And then we should look at this, I mean, we can all imagine murals that we want.
I just immediately come to the murals that we don't.
One other would be, I mean, if it's paint.
What's a mural?
I mean, you put up stripes.
Is that a mural?
So I think our bright colors, I mean, you know, if we're regulating this, what where does the line, where's the line?
So I think it's just coming up with what actually is a mural.
To me time, the period of time where it can be put up, so it gives us some ability to have
it taken down if necessary.
I mean, I like murals for so.
That's the real shape of the design.
We have to say no to everybody because we're concerned about some one, but it's something
up that we would find.
It's not the community, it's not the community.
Unfortunately, we have a very small business district, you know, and even instead there's
a big town.
If they have a mural, they're much built out like they can probably negotiate that city without
I'm looking at it, but it's quite cold, if it's up it's it can't.
Okay. I think we have covered it, and I think we have marching orders that we sort of have agree on. That's great. Thank you, we thank you, Taylor. The next item on the agenda is an update on electric aggregation programs and assistance to the Village Manager Jordan Lester. You could make a brief presentation on that.
Thank you President Rowan and good evening trustees. Nice to see you in person. So as noted in this evening's agenda packet
Tonight we are requesting the boards feedback on the villages potential acceptance of a proposed power supply agreement
So as an update to the report that we provided you back in March,
in your committee of the home meeting, the North Shore electric aggregation consortium known
in the consortium, received one response to its request for proposals from MSC squared energy
services. Now some trustees they recognize this name, the village first entered into electric
aggregation 1.0 with MSC squared back in 2012 and subsequently has entered into programs for
with the same organization.
So for consideration this evening in Board Feedback,
MC Square is currently proposing a 36-month or three-year program.
Cost savings is part of this program would be
remitted back to the village and form of a grant,
unlike in the aggregation 1.0 program where any savings would be given
back to our residents and small commercial customers that are eligible.
So, as mentioned, more in the packet, we do have some concerns about this.
The first concern is unlike the aggregation 1.0 program where it was an opt-in.
Individuals who are interested in eligible would choose to opt-in. This is opt-out.
This means that everyone in the community who is eligible for this program would be automatically opt-in in.
And if they weren't interested, they would have to opt-out themselves.
So for their complicate matters, MCS4 is proposing a 21-day opt-up period only, although
the consortium is hoping to implement a very conductive comprehensive education program, there
be 21 days otherwise you are in the program.
Second, we are a bit concerned about the communities' receptiveness to the program because
it is opt-out and because of the limited time frame for doing so.
Last but not least, we do have concerns about the grant funding kickback each year, although
there is the possibility for the village to realize some cost savings each year, the
amount that had been estimated has been decreased by half from March to June from approximately
$80,000 a year to $40,000.
So we are concerned about if the market changes, if that may decrease and then putting it all
together, what have we asked our residents to do?
However, if the board were to ask us to move forward, we would be happy to prepare documents
for your consideration for the August Village Board meeting, including a power supply agreement
and an adaptive resolution.
So, at this time, I welcome any questions you might have and would like your feedback.
It's our first meeting, so we haven't talked about it, but I am very, very uncomfortable with the
the idea of some opt-out thing where we wrote for a residency to something of us, they act fast.
I just think, I can't imagine what we would want to do that, and I don't want to do it now.
And if anybody else feels different, we wish to pick up, but I...
I want to be different this 21 days, maybe?
How fast?
Yes.
So how that would work?
And let me flip to this real quick.
So MC squared would send each eligible residential customer
and small business, a letter that says,
you will be automatically enrolled unless you opt out.
They have to call a toll-free toll-free number
or go to a website.
And there is a lot of fine print.
However, as I mentioned,
at the beginning of my presentation,
the consortium wants to do a comprehensive education program.
So the first time they would be hearing it,
would ideally not be when it was in their mailboxes,
but yes, 21 days to off count.
I just assume there's soliciting me
for something to change something that I don't want to change.
It does not even get pulled back.
That's incredible.
I think it's not that program, especially the 21 days to count.
And I will say trustee Ruben, thank you for that feedback.
Other communities in the consortium
that are interested in moving forward
are doing so quite rapidly.
There has not been much discussion at this point
to what that education campaign might be,
but we do know that'll be very quick
from the time a municipality would enter
to when they'd be receiving those letters.
I think we know that there
would be also vulnerable
to ways of doing that, and that people still don't know.
So I think we'll do a little bit of a little bit of a little bit
of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit.
Sure, now there are benefits beyond the savings.
So, the main premise of this is the savings, unlike the aggregation 1.0 program or be going back to the residents at the village.
So, if the board were to, they could be used for any type of purpose, say, a sustainability-minded project that would benefit the whole community, but it is mostly savings,
for the municipal kickback and form of a grant.
Sure, one second.
So, the consortium works with a consultant who is a lot more well-versed than I can, but from what are you heard from that individual that is based on capacity costs in the market.
So, there is a significant reduction in capacity costs which impacted, reduced by half, the estimated civic contribution that we would have from $80,000 a year to $40,000.
So I don't know the exact technical specifics, but I could report back to you with more information.
So, the consultant that I mentioned, we get a report from ComEd of all of their electricity
customers, residential, and small business, and this consultant uses a calculation and then
in partnership with the proposed Alternative Service Provider MC squared.
Has a calculation on the percentage of residences and small businesses.
That would be served at a lower cost than ComEd, and that's where that savings comes in.
So, this is a probability as well as how many may be opting out versus remaining in.
So, it's certainly not a guarantee to write it maybe more, but this is their best educated
gas at this time.
No.
So, that's a good question, trusty Rubin.
So, the goal is that you would not be charged higher than Comed.
I'm sorry, would you say goal that's, I mean, that's, forgive me.
Forgive me.
I hope they have that happen.
Is it?
It's part of the agreement, yes, it's guaranteed that you the customer would not be charged more in good clarification.
It wouldn't be like Texas.
I sure would help not, but I can't pretend to.
It's part of the fear, yes, you know, you know, this looks great and then you're going to build for $50,000 and it isn't so good.
I like that I'm very uncomfortable with making our president sign up for something like this.
If it'll just be a surprise, you know, you know what it'd be a surprise.
Everybody want to proceed with this as it looks, and I understand the other chose to be a good point.
I would just add Jordan talking around it a little bit, because she's cautious to not drive down a certain path,
but staff has a hard time recommending moving forward with this.
think we've struggled a bit with the value of this effort up against what we knew what we had done early on with the electricity aggregation consortium.
I was one of the people responsible for creating that back in 2010. It made a lot of sense back then.
this is less of a sense-making move.
I think there are some benefits,
but I think they're outweighed by the difficulty
and communication and the difficulty
and the potential risk for the residents.
So I just don't think that staff has a strong recommendation
for you on a moving forward basis.
The last thing you'll say, in kind of to piggyback
on Manager Crowley, so the board may recall
but we have time is hard.
So, some time ago, within the last year, we approached the board with a community solar program,
where residents, and eligible small businesses would directly receive reductions on their
bill each month as participation as program, despite the messaging that we had each home should
have gotten a postcard, and we've had, I believe, less than 50 households total sign up for that.
And so, again, it's not a direct comparison, but it does speak to some of the challenges that
we have, especially for a program in which they would directly receive financial benefits.
business today, one on the board wants to discuss before we adjourn and maybe you'll be
heroically we could do our executive session between meetings.
We'll be as part of this meeting.
We'll be part of this meeting.
Oh, okay.
It's part of this meeting.
We'll go in there.
We'd like to go downstairs for that.
So we have about 15 minutes.
All right.
Anybody have anything else they want to raise?
If not, yes, they're a motion to move into a closed session for sure to be open
meetings act to do employment matters.
So moved. Second. Okay, what's our rope rule for?
Trusty Hallwack. Yes. Trusty listener. Trusty Mulvaney. Yes. Trusty
Andre Donk. Trusty Ruben. Trusty free. Yes. Okay, we will head down stairs to the
conference room. Thank you, everybody.