R. Christian Smith
Chicago Tribune
(TNS)
After a maneuver that involved temporarily suspending certain meeting rules, the Aurora City Council approved Tuesday the construction of a new $35 million fire department headquarters building.
The Aurora Fire Department’s new headquarters building, which will also include a relocated Fire Station 4, is set to be located on the site of the current Aurora Police Department headquarters on Indian Trail, creating a combined Aurora Public Safety Campus.
Aurora Fire Department officials have said this new facility will improve the department’s operations in multiple ways, including lower fire and emergency medical response times, much-needed expanded office space for department administration and a new storm-hardened, high-tech Emergency Operations Center.
Aurora aldermen have been publicly discussing the construction of the project across several meetings of various committees since early April. It was delayed in the committee process for several weeks as aldermen debated the project, its price and the process of its design.
At Tuesday’s Aurora City Council meeting, just before it was set to consider the project, the council voted to suspend a city code that would have allowed just two aldermen to delay the project without a full vote.
John Laesch, who was at Tuesday’s meeting as an alderman at-large but was just hours away from being sworn in as the city’s new mayor, confirmed with The Beacon-News on Thursday that he was planning to delay the project.
He wanted to either make minor adjustments to the plan, reducing costs, or redesign it to higher energy efficiency standards, making it eligible for certain grants or bonds, he said on Thursday.
Voting against the suspension of the city code and later against the construction of the fire department headquarters at Tuesday’s meeting were Laesch, Ald. Ted Mesiacos, 3rd Ward, and Ald. Edward Bugg, 9th Ward.
Bugg and Laesch previously used the city code that was suspended at Tuesday’s meeting to delay consideration of a new QuikTrip gas station, which has since been approved.
Although the meeting was opened and later closed by 6th Ward Ald. and Mayor Pro Tem Mike Saville, outgoing Mayor Richard Irvin briefly slowed up to take control of the meeting just before the vote to suspend the rules was taken and left soon after the construction of the fire station was approved.
“I’m here for AFD,” Irvin said after he took over control of the meeting from Saville.
Irvin also specifically voted in favor of suspending the rules even though his vote was not needed. Typically, the mayor only votes to break a tie or in a similar situation.
Ald. Patty Smith, 8th Ward, who made the motion to suspend the city code allowing just two aldermen to delay the project, said at Tuesday’s meeting that she didn’t see any way around building the fire station because otherwise it would leave a fire and emergency response gap in part of the city.
“The safety of our residents should be the number one issue for us, and if it is not your number one issue up here as an alderman, then you’re no more than a politician,” she said.