By Jason Crane
The Aurora City Council listened to dozens of speakers in a standing-room-only crowd after agreeing to allow nearly an hour of extra time for public comments at the Tuesday, Oct. 28 City Council meeting.
The majority of speakers expressed anger and sadness about the recent actions of ICE in Aurora and request the City Council to pass an ordinance prohibiting ICE from staging on City-owned spaces.
Mayor John Laesch said City officials are considering an ordinance.
“There’s a number of ordinances that have been passed in other municipalities. What we’re doing now is looking at all those ordinances and trying to combine them to find an ordinance that would work for the city of Aurora,” he said.
Mayor Laesch stated an ordinance prohibiting ICE from staging on City-owned spaces could be approved next week.
•The meeting with presentations and input from individuals can be viewed on the city government of Aurora’s YouTube page after the 3-minute mark by clicking here.
The City Council approved the following agenda items:
•Approval was given to a Resolution authorizing the expenditure of special service area tax funds in a total aggregate amount not to exceed $50,000 and the provision of staff member support for the purposes of organizing an independent not-for-profit organization to render special services within Special Service Area One.
The purpose is to establish a non-for-profit organization to provide special services within the Special Service Area One. While the city is facilitating the reconstitution of this entity in order to facilitate its formation, it will operate independently from the city.
For most of the existence of SSA One, the City contracted with Aurora Downtown, an Illinois not-for-profit corporation comprised of owners and representatives of commercial properties within SSA One, to provide special services within the district. September 12, 2025, Aurora Downtown was dissolved by the Illinois Secretary of State, leaving no entity authorized to administer or oversee these services or a mechanism for its reformation.
The Mayor’s Office organized a series of listening tours this past summer to have downtown real estate owners and businesses opine on a direction going forward. Establishing an independent successful entity was favored (as opposed to being part of the city’s committees or becoming part of another economic development entity).
The staff members then solicited a group of volunteers from those in attendance to oversee this process of re-establishing a representative entity.
The group of volunteers requires legal assistance to form the new organization including but not limited to determining voting membership, board composition and selection, preparing governing documents, and applying for federal and or state tax-exempt status. Other items such as extending the existing boundaries of the SSA will also be considered once this new governing entity is established and operating. Another conclusion of the listening tours was to have this entity work in concert with the city’s Sustainability, Development, and Business Opportunity department, specifically the Downtown Economic Development Manager to advance the vibrancy, attractiveness, and offering within the downtown.
Having a strong independent entity representing the interests of businesses and property owners coupled with a working partnership with the city will encourage transparency, communication, and the joint sharing of information that will make the sum greater than its individual parts.
•Approval was given to a Resolution to accept a grant award in the amount of $4,000,000 from the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity (DCEO) for the Mastodon Lake Dredging and Shoreline Restoration project.
City government of Aurora documents show the purpose is to improve water quality in Mastodon Lake, improve shoreline aesthetics, and make the shoreline less susceptible to erosion.
Mastodon Lake was excavated in the 1930s during the construction of Phillips Park. Over the years, sediment and decaying organic matter have accumulated at the bottom of the Lake to an average depth of nearly 2 feet. The average water depth throughout the Lake is now less than 2.5 feet. Such a shallow aquatic system is susceptible to warming, excessive nutrients, and becoming overrun with algae and other aquatic vegetation. These conditions are unsightly and limit recreational opportunities such as boating and fishing. In recent years, the City has used herbicide to control the growth of aquatic vegetation and has vacuumed the sediment near the intake for the Phillips Park Golf Course’s irrigation system, but these are not long-term solutions to the problem.
In 2023, $4,000,000 was reappropriated from the Build Illinois Bond Fund to the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity (DCEO) for a grant to the City of Aurora for costs associated with “the rehabilitation project at Mastodon Lake at Phillips Park” (see attached Legislation). Following several years of project refinement, document submittal, and agreement drafting and review by the State of Illinois, the attached funding agreement was provided to the City for execution.
$5,045,000 was included in the 2025 City Budget for this project and has been requested to be carried over to 2026. This amount includes the estimated project cost of $4,545,000 ($4M of which will be reimbursed through a grant with revenue account 280-1852-334.30-02) plus an additional $500,000 to account for any cost escalation and potential bid variance.
Fishing and boating opportunities will be limited during dredging operations. Also, several small parking lots and areas around Mastodon Lake may be used for dewatering dredged material, making them unavailable throughout the duration of the project, which should occur in 2026.