By Jason Crane
At the Aurora city government City Council meeting Tuesday, through the Zoom video conferencing platform, the City Council approved, after much debate, resolution 20-0431 to purchase 150 complete sets of personal protective equipment (riot gear) at $88,583.00 for the Aurora Police Department.
The vote was 8-3 with alderman-at-large Sherman Jenkins, Ward 1 alderman Emmanuel Llamas, and Ward 3 alderman Ted Mesiacos voting against.
Alderman-at-large Sherman Jenkins said, “A number of our residents have spoken out against us making this move.
“They’ve said it tonight and they’ve said it earlier that they don’t want to see any officer injured but they have spoken!
“If we put ourselves in that position where they need that type of equipment ever again, that they be allowed to bring that request immediately to the Counsel and not have to go through our purchasing procedures, because you look at May 31 to this point, that’s a lot of time.
“The public has spoken. I agree with a number of our speakers this evening. We are not in favor of having any of our officers hurt, but I will be voting no.”
Ward 1 alderman Emmanuel Llamas agreed with Jenkins. “A vote no isn’t a vote against the police,” he said. “It’s a vote in favor of being fiscally responsible. We can support our police, but still question their purchasing requests just like we do with any other city department.
“We currently have 50 sets of riot gear and it’s only been used once in the last 25 years, and that came straight from APD at the last City Council meeting.
“Are we really being fiscally responsible by purchasing an additional 150 sets that we likely will never use?
“I get that this is something we need in a worse-case scenario, similar to having a spare tire in your car, but you have one spare tire. You don’t have four spare tires.
“I think the 50 sets that we have now is adequate. If those are at their end of term or end of life use, I would be okay with replacing those 50 sets.
“By tripling the amount just based off of one recent event, one protest in the last 25 years just doesn’t seem responsible.
“Like alderman Jenkins said, the public has made it clear they’re opposed to this. I don’t see how we can ignore them.”
Ward 5 alderman Carl Franco said, “I received a number of phone calls, texts, and E-mails to the contrary of voting no. As we listen to the people, we have to listen to everybody, not just the three-minute speakers of those that organized, but those that are not organized and those that don’t engage as often.
“I truly believe that voting yes is the right thing and I truly believe the vast majority of Aurora would be disappointed in us if we voted no to provide our police officers this.”
Ward 10 alderman Judd Lofchie said, “We can’t turn a blind eye to what is going on in all these other cities.
“We spent $1.6 Million on laptops but we’re not going to spend $88,000 dollars to protect (the police) physically?
“One policeman had a brick hit his knee and broke his knee. What’s that going to cost the City?”
Ward 9 alderman Edward Bugg said, “The people have spoken. They’ve said loud and clear, the first thing they wanted in these sessions that we had is the police body cams.
“All of these votes, I try to take them and look at them personally. My daughter will be driving next year for the first time and if she’s stopped by a police officer, I want that police officer to have a body camera for transparency, for her safety, and for the police officer’s safety.
“At the same time, kinda like what alderman Lofchie said, what if my daughter becomes a police officer and we have an uprising and our good chief sends out the crew and my daughter is the 51st to go to the scene. She’s not 1-50. She doesn’t have the gear, she’s number 51, to go out there and protect the citizens, protect the buildings, protect the community, but you don’t have any gear.”
Ward 2 alderman Juany Garza said she received 39 phone calls with only two said no. “We need to protect our police officers.”
• A proclamation for National Suicide Prevention Awareness Month was read and presented to two organizations; Simply Destinee, a youth inspired dance team that promotes suicide awareness in memory of Destinee A. Oliva and NSPAMP (National Suicide Prevention Awareness Month Proclamation Project) founded by Joel Frieders.
After Frieders had a friend complete suicide three years ago, he became an advocate for suicide prevention in a proactive probe to ignite a conversation on mental health, not only in Fox Valley area communities, but in cities and towns in multiple states.
• Approved was a resolution appointing Ahana Narayana, D’Angelo Carbajal, Gabriel Bradford, Gauri Venkatraman, Ian Ortego, Mariella Acevedo, Moises Jimenez, Pravallika Padyala, Satya Balmuri and reappointing Arleth Rodriguez to the Aurora Youth Council.