HIGHWOOD CITY COUNCIL’S 10.3.23 MEETING IN A NUTSHELL
Finance
The City Council voted to approve the payment of various bills totaling $274k.
At a recent City Council meeting, a representative of a group of residents expressed concerns regarding the impact of special events on Everts Park and the surrounding residential neighborhood. The group requested - among other things - a cost-benefit analysis to be conducted for events. The City Council directed City staff to provide the group with a summary of financial information related to events that includes direct costs as well as ranges for indirect costs and benefits.
Licenses & Permits
The owner of Tapas Del Lago (329 Waukegan Ave.) recently requested consideration for the issuance of a valet parking permit. The City Council resumed discussion of the request and directed City staff to temporarily allow for valet services while the related impacts (e.g., parking, traffic) are monitored.
The owner of Tapas Del Lago (329 Waukegan Ave.) requested consideration for the installation of an enclosed outdoor dining area on the curb extension in front of the restaurant for use during the winter. The City Council requested additional information (e.g., renderings, material types, impact to pedestrian through zone) and continued further discussion to a future meeting.
Public Safety
Mayor Pecaro issued a proclamation declaring October “Domestic Violence Awareness Month” in the City. A framed copy of the proclamation was presented to North Suburban Legal Aid Clinic Staff Attorney Bob Badesch.
More than half of the City’s housing units are renter-occupied. Landlords have expressed concern that they are not notified when police activity occurs at their rental properties. In the extreme, an occupant could be arrested for, charged with and ultimately convicted of committing a violent crime at a rental property or elsewhere in the community, only to return to living at the rental property without the landlord ever becoming aware. Police incident reports are considered public records; however, these reports are typically only obtained via Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. Increasing landlord awareness of police activity involving their rental properties or occupants would likely result in a more accountable and safer community. I recently proposed developing and adopting a policy to proactively send landlords police incident reports involving their rental properties or occupants. This proactive process would treat the release of records in the exact same manner that it would if it were reactively processing FOIA requests (i.e., compliant with relevant protections afforded by state and federal laws). The new process would not be expected to be administratively burdensome for the Police Department. City staff presented a draft policy that would proactively send landlords police incident reports made at their rental properties as well as those related to occupants or visitors of the property. Notifications would be sent for police incident reports involving felonies, misdemeanors and local ordinance violations, save those involving juveniles or related to open investigations; notifications re open investigations would be sent upon closure of the investigations. The City Council resumed discussion of the proposal and voted to adopt the policy. The policy is more limited than I hoped for as it relates to the exclusion of police incident reports involving juveniles. However, State law largely prohibits the disclosure of records involving juveniles and there are criminal, monetary and civil penalties for noncompliance. In the final analysis, I decided to not let perfect get in the way of good and voted to adopt the policy. Further, I plan to closely monitor the policy's implementation and before long put forward some ideas to potentially strengthen it.
Other
The City Council voted to approve meeting minutes from September 19, 2023.
Highwood Library’s October newsletter is here.
Celebrate Highwood's Pumpkin Festival event will be held from Thursday, October 5th to Sunday, October 8th; information re this event as well as other Celebrate Highwood events can be found here.
Highwood Chamber of Commerce’s Business After Hours event will be held on Thursday, October 19th from 5:00pm to 7:00pm at ABLAZE Design Group (259 Waukegan Ave.); information re this event as well as other Chamber of Commerce events can be found here.
Meeting Records