The 7-4 vote against adding a fifth allowed license in effect killed the chance for a license for Paradise Tattoo House, which was looking to locate along High Street in the 1st Ward.

But Mayor Richard Irvin, who supported the new tattoo parlor, promised owner Brandon Rodriguez he would help him find a new location in the city.

Irvin, who grew up in the 1st Ward, recalled his days “walking up and down High Street” and patronizing some of its businesses.

“This is a legitimate business that deserves an opportunity,” Irvin said.

The business would be owned by Rodriguez, whose supporters portrayed as a well-known tattoo artist who wanted to open his own business. He was seeking to open in a building along High Street near the Jack Hill High Street Bridge, in a former barber shop building whose owner was willing to modify the building for Rodriguez.

Rodriguez said he intended to use his new business to not only support his family, but to provide for the youth of the city.

“This is not just about me trying to build something for myself, but doing something for the community,” he said.

Other family members and friends said the store would be safe and have a friendly environment, and that Rodriguez was trying to start a business from scratch.

“More and more tattoos have become commonplace,” said one supporter, who said through social media, people across the country ask Rodriguez to do work for them. “He’s a tattoo artist.”

But the crux of the argument against Rodriguez locating along High Street hinged on whether the area in question is more of a residential one.

Ald. Emmanuel Llamas, 1st Ward, praised Rodriguez for his life story, and said he wanted Rodriguez in the 1st Ward.

“But that physical location is a residential area,” he said. “I’m voting no because of that. Tattoos have come a long way, and if you can find another location, I would support it.”

Several other aldermen supported Llamas’ position because they felt as the representative from the 1st Ward, his wishes should be upheld.

“I do feel like the petitioner has the best intent in mind,” Ald. Patty Smith, 8th Ward, said. “But the ward alderman would know his ward better than anyone else. I feel I have to support him.”

Joining Llamas and Smith in voting against the new license were Alds. Juany Garza, 2nd Ward; Ted Mesiacos, 3rd Ward; William Donnell, 4th Ward; Michael Saville, 6th Ward; and Shweta Baid, 10th Ward.

Voting for the new license were Alds. Carl Franco, 5th Ward; Brandon Tolliver, 7th Ward; Edward Bugg, 9th Ward; and John Laesch, at-large.

Franco said because the city recently revamped the tattoo ordinance, and because Rodriguez had complied with everything in the new ordinance, it could be “discriminatory” not to allow him in under the new regulations.

Laesch, as the alderman at large, attended a recent 1st Ward meeting at which he said feelings about the parlor were mixed from residents in Pigeon Hill, the section of the 1st Ward in which the parlor would have located.

The tattoo ordinance was revised about a year-and-a-half ago, at which time the city allowed four licenses. The vote this week was whether or not to expand that to five licenses to accommodate Paradise; it was not a specific vote on the tattoo parlor itself.

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RiverEdge Park, at 360 N. Broadway in the city’s downtown, is Aurora’s outdoor entertainment venue along the Fox River and hosts a variety of events, including this weekend’s Blues on the Fox festival on Friday and Saturday.

Aldermen on the City Council’s Infrastructure and Technology Committee this week recommended a change order with Chicago-based Ratio Architects, LLC of $440,200. The change order would add onto the original contract for the RiverEdge work, approved last September, of $946,850, making the entire project for engineering the changes at about $1.4 million.

The reason for the change is that the project has gotten bigger than first thought, according to Jason Bauer, Public Works assistant director.

For instance, changes made to the backstage area, known in parlance as “back-of-house” changes, have grown from about 7,000 square feet to about 24,000 square feet.

Those changes would be new dressing rooms and storage. It would make the park more attractive for acts that might want to play the venue, officials said.

Other changes contemplated in the overall project include improved and expanded seating and viewing areas, additional restrooms, entry-gate enhancements, improved storage and improved access to purchase refreshments.

Those changes – known as “front-of-house” considerations – are to make the park more enjoyable and safer for patrons, officials said.

The changes would increase capacity of the park by about 2,500 people for all events. Right now, capacity for a festival event is about 7,300, and for concert events 6,500.

Bauer said the goal is to begin the backstage building as soon as this year’s season ends.

The project was originally budgeted for $7 million in one budget year, and more in a second budget year. The changes will take both 2024 and 2025 construction seasons to do.

“We’re really excited about it,” Bauer said.

The full City Council will look at the contract change at the Committee of the Whole meeting next week.

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City officials are looking at plans for the new Broadway streetscape, the main drag through downtown.

Jason Bauer, Public Works assistant director, said this week the city could be ready to move forward with the project by the spring of 2025.

He told members of the City Council’s Infrastructure and Technology Committee that the city and the Illinois Department of Transportation have “been going back and forth” on designs for the remake of Broadway between Benton and New York streets.

“We’ve finally come to agreement with the metrics,” he said.

Broadway is also state Route 25, which is why IDOT must approve any design changes.

Aldermen on the Infrastructure and Technology Committee this week recommended a change order with HR Green to engineer the Broadway project. The change order is one the city already has with HR Green to engineer the change of Galena Boulevard and New York from one-way streets through downtown to two-way.

Public Works officials decided the two projects should be connected.

“We’ve expanded the Broadway streetscape project,” Bauer said.

Plans for the streetscape include removing all the sidewalks and replacing them by refiguring the street. On-street parking would be removed and the sidewalks expanded. They would include plantings and highlights at the intersections.

The roadway would remain two lanes in each direction, but with no parking and larger sidewalks, it would be safer, officials said.

The city received a $3 million grant for the Broadway project from the Rebuild Illinois Downtowns and Main Streets Capital Program that was designed to support commercial corridors that saw a slump during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Some 50 commercial corridors and main streets across the state got money to put toward a makeover, part of more than $200 million in state and federal grants across Illinois.

The state originally allocated $50 million to the program in 2021, but because of a large number of applications, and eligible projects, state officials increased the funding.

Aurora has been moving toward redesign of the Broadway streetscape, and doing the underlying work necessary, since getting the grant in 2022.

Officials have been filling in all the remaining underground vaults under the sidewalks, and have initiated a downtown parking study earlier this year to look at how to replace parking lost on Broadway.

As it stands now, Bauer said about 20 parking spots would be lost along Broadway, but with additional parking lots, there would be a net gain in parking spots in the area.

In addition to recommending the change order to the HR Green contract, Infrastructure and Technology Committee members also this week recommended a $1.09 million contract for a sewer separation project along Broadway.

That project would be one of the last below-ground projects before work on the streetscape could begin, officials said.

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The VNA Health Center at the Jeff Craig Family Resource Center, housed in the former Mary Todd School at Oak and New York streets on the near West Side of Aurora, will serve West Aurora School District students and possibly eventually staff.

“It’s an exciting milestone for VNA,” said Linnea Windel, VNA Health Care president and chief executive officer. “It’s a natural next step to open a school-linked health center.”

Mike Shales, VNA board president, called Monday “another significant milestone” in the VNA mission of providing affordable health care.

“It’s an organization that has truly committed itself to the people it serves,” Shales said.

VNA Health Care serves more than 80,000 people at multiple locations, some 30,000 in Aurora, which still is home base for the organization.

The new center will couple with the Marie Wilkinson Food Pantry to provide both medical care and nutrition support for West Aurora School District households. It is named the Jeff Craig Family Resource Center after Craig, the West Aurora School District superintendent for the past 10 years, who is retiring this year.

“It’s humbling to see your name associated with a facility like this,” Craig said. “It’s a healthier and more equitable future for our students.”

Craig pointed out that the district has at times had to exclude as many as 500 students a year because they couldn’t afford to get necessary immunizations and vaccinations.

School physicals and immunizations are among the services the new center will provide. It also will include routine medical care, acute illness and injury care, chronic illness care, wellness exams and routine health screenings, lead screenings, tuberculosis tests and other lab services.

It also will engage in smoking, vaping, alcohol and drug use prevention education, mental and behavioral health services, and referrals for vision, dental, family counseling and other services.

The new health center will be open year-round. Same-day appointments and walk-in hours are available, and services are offered in English and Spanish. West Aurora School District will provide transportation services between schools and the health center, meaning students can receive care during the school day.

The center has already seen 139 students in the three weeks it has been open.

The new family resource center was remodeled into the former Todd School, which served as a West Aurora school for about 90 years. It is named after Mary A. Todd, who was high school principal between 1884 and 1887 on the same property, and who retired from school service in 1916, just two years before VNA was founded as the Visiting Nurses Association.

The former Todd School, which was built in 1934, is also being remodeled into affordable workforce housing.

“We’re happy to be able to use this building for years to come,” said Rich Kerns, West Aurora School District board president.

The whole former school complex – the health center, the resource center and the affordable housing – was a partnership between the state, the city, the school district and private business.

Mayor Richard Irvin said it has had an outstanding history, but “what it’s going to be is outstanding.”

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The Neighbor Project has placed $1 million in its fund with the Community Foundation. The money is half of the $2 million grant The Neighbor Project recently received from MacKenzie Scott’s Yield Giving Foundation.

“We chose to partner with the Community Foundation because of their deep roots in Aurora and the Fox Valley community along with their broad expertise regarding community issues and needs,” said Rick Guzman, executive director of The Neighbor Project. “The foundation will help multiply the impact of these dollars by pooling resources together and investing them for the future.”

In March, The Neighbor Project was awarded a $2 million grant from Scott’s Yield Giving Foundation for “taking transformative and inclusive approaches to some of the nation’s most pressing and persistent challenges.”

The Neighbor Project is dedicated to building new paths to homeownership for lower-income residents in the Aurora area. The grant from Scott’s foundation will allow The Neighbor Project to expand programs that help lower-income, working residents purchase their own homes, a critical step on the path to financial stability and wealth creation, officials said.

“Homelessness and lack of affordable housing ranked second and third respectively in top concerns felt by community members and Fox Valley nonprofits,“ said Julie Christman, Community Foundation president and CEO, citing findings from the 2023 Community Needs Assessment it commissioned with the Dunham Foundation. “Housing is clearly a critical issue in the community, and the Community Foundation is proud to partner with The Neighbor Project to help more families buy homes in the future.”

The Neighbor Project was awarded the $2 million from Scott’s Yield Giving out of 6,353 applications from nonprofits around the world. Originally, the organization planned to give 250 awards of $1 million each, but Scott’s foundation awarded The Neighbor Project $2 million because it was one of the highest-scoring organizations.

The Neighbor Project holds three funds with the Community Foundation, dedicated to affordable housing, home ownership and financial education.

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The funding arrangement is considered a long-term solution spending plan detailing the financial relationship between the city and the Civic Center Authority, which manages the Paramount Theatre and RiverEdge Park.

Mayor Richard Irvin, speaking during a City Council Committee of the Whole meeting recently, said he and Alex Alexandrou, the city’s chief management officer, have been “directly involved” with some of the meetings between the city and the Civic Center Authority.

“The (Paramount) theater was affected by COVID,” Irvin said. “This is too important to our downtown to let fail. It’s a longer, more involved project that we want to get right.”

Before the COVID-19 shutdown, the Paramount’s subscription base was about 41,000. Because of the pandemic, it fell to as low as 29,000, but has rebounded to about 37,000. Right now, it is the largest theater subscription base in the country.

City and Civic Center Authority officials have said the theater has rebounded better than many theaters that suffered similar fates during the pandemic. The reason for that is the partnership between the two entities, those officials have said.

In 2022, the council approved appropriating $5.5 million to the Civic Center Authority so the Paramount could cover operational costs to get fully reopened.

Earlier this year, aldermen approved another $4.5 million. The money came from federal funds the city received from the American Rescue Plan Act, and officials said that money was specifically to help theaters and restaurants recover from the pandemic.

City officials have said the Paramount Theatre and its Broadway Series brings about 500,000 people to downtown Aurora.

At the time the money was appropriated earlier this year, city officials said they would bring forward a new, permanent funding arrangement with the Civic Center Authority by April.

Chris Minick, the city’s chief financial officer, said that will be more by the end of June. He said the city and Civic Center Authority officials have met seven to 10 times combing through financial reports and looking at fundraising.

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Aldermen will vote at the Tuesday regular meeting on the appointment of Michael Handzic, a Metea Valley High School junior, to the Bicycle, Pedestrian and Transit Advisory Board.

He would be the first student to be appointed to one of the city’s more than 40 boards or commissions since the City Council made that possible by revamping its requirements for boards and commissions in 2021.

That does not count the 17-member Aurora Youth Council, which advises the mayor on youth issues and engages in outreach and engagement with the city’s youth, and is made up entirely of students.

The Bicycle, Pedestrian and Transit Advisory Board is an advisory body to the City Council, on the planning and development process for bicycle, pedestrian and public transit facilities.

Alex Minella, of the Mayor’s Office of Economic Development, is the staff liaison with the Bicycle, Pedestrian and Transit Advisory Board. He said it is the first among the city’s advisory boards to further civic engagement by reaching out to students.

“The board, in order to enhance public outreach, education and gather suggestions from the first users of the system, young and active residents, decided to reach out to interested students who could advocate for safety, recommend improvements …,” Minella said.

One member of the board is a teacher at Waubonsie Valley High School and he recruited candidates, Minella said.

In 2021, Aurora revamped its more than 40 boards and commissions to standardize things like size, how they do agendas, how they take public comment and handle other business.

When they did that, they also made it possible for students in the city to serve on boards. Handzic would be the first to do that.

“We’re very happy to have him on board,” said Alex Voigt, deputy chief of staff in the mayor’s office.

Bicycle paths and traffic patterns on the far East Side, which includes the Metea Valley area, have been a big concern with residents. The area has several high-traffic areas near both Metea Valley and Waubonsie Valley high schools, and residents have complained they are dangerous to bike riders and pedestrians, many of whom are students.

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For the third year, city officials raised the flag in One Aurora Plaza on Friday, the beginning of Pride weekend in Aurora.

In addition, Mayor Richard Irvin read a proclamation declaring June Pride Month in Aurora.

“You are part of our community,” Irvin said.

As usual, the flag-raising Friday morning was a little business, a little entertainment, a little fun and a lot of camaraderie. At the event, the city recognized businesses and individuals for their contributions to the LGBTQ+ community.

The Pride and Excellence Awards went to Altiro Restaurant, Rich Jacobs and Keri Train.

Altiro, a Latin fusion restaurant at Galena Boulevard and Stolp Avenue, is owned by Roberto Avila and Erika Villanueva. The restaurant has hosted brunches and initiatives supportive of the LGBTQ+ community in Aurora, city officials said. The restaurant has hosted events by the Aurora LGBTQ Advisory Board.

Jacobs is the chief of staff of Aurora’s alderman’s office, and Irvin lauded the talent Jacobs “brings to the team.”

“He makes things happen,” Irvin said.

Jacobs has worked for the Aurora alderman’s office for three years. Previous to that, he worked for many elected officials, including state Sens. Christina Castro and Mike Noland.

In introducing him, Clayton Muhammad, Aurora’s chief communications and equity officer, said Jacobs and his husband, 16th Circuit Court Judge John Dalton, “have worked together to make a more inclusive community for LGBTQ youth and adults.”

In accepting the award, Jacobs said he has felt truly “welcome” and “supported” in Aurora.

Also receiving a Pride and Excellence Award was Keri Traid, a well-known Chicago area drag performer who lives in Aurora. Traid was the 2023 Miss Chicago Trans Visibility, and last year’s grand marshal of the Aurora Pride Parade.

Traid also is a member of Aurora’s LGBTQ Advisory Board.

“As a young child, I could never have predicted where life would take me, but I always knew I wanted to make a difference,” said Traid. “Now, I’m proud to be an advocate for my community and to find my true self as a trans woman, a Black trans woman.”

The flag-raising ceremony opened Pride weekend in Aurora, which features several events, including the annual Pride Parade at noon on Sunday in downtown Aurora.

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Aldermen will vote Tuesday night on rezoning and final plat approval for a development at the southwest corner of Lake Street and Indian Trail. Because the council put the items on the consent agenda, they are expected to pass.

Under the plan, the 1.5-acre site would be home to Mariscos El Vallartizo, a seafood restaurant and the fourth to be opened by Martha Delgadillo. She also owns restaurants in West Chicago and Joliet, as well as one in North Carolina.

The location, a former commercial property that has been closed for a while, is made up of four parcels. Three of them are zoned B-3 for business and one is R-1 residential, because it has an old house on it. The owner is in the process of getting permits to demolish the house.

At one time, the property held a liquor store, and a member of the family lived behind the store in the house.

The developer is looking to get B-3 zoning for the whole parcel.

Tracey Vacek, Aurora senior planner, has said B-3 zoning was chosen because most of the property already has that zoning. It also matches the B-3 zoning running west along Indian Trail.

Delgadillo would use about 8,000 square feet of the building for the restaurant, and the rest would be restaurant storage. There would be 77 parking spaces on the property.

The owners also are asking for several setback variances from both Indian Trail and Lake Street for the development.

The intersection is a major one on Lake Street, which is a state highway and an entrance to the city, particularly to downtown. Indian Trail is also a major thoroughfare in town – going east and west – running from the city’s boundary with Naperville on the east, to past Orchard Road on the far West Side.

Delgadillo said the seafood restaurant could be open in four to five months.

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“As a company that was founded over 87 years ago, we take great pride in extending our footprint here into Aurora,” said Jeff Levine, Mesirow’s chief operating officer, this week. “This office is really symbolic of what our values are. We talk about investing in what matters. This is just another step along our growing relationship with Aurora.”

Mayor Richard Irvin hosted a ribbon-cutting ceremony to welcome Mesirow to the state’s second-largest city.

“We are expanding the types of companies we have here in Aurora,” said Irvin. “We have manufacturing, technology, retail and restaurants. Now, we are expanding with financial services.”

Mesirow Financial, an employee-owned financial services firm founded in 1937, is a global member of the financial services industry. With its headquarters in Chicago, and offices around the world, Mesirow’s main business units are Global Investment Management, Capital Markets and Investment Banking, and Advisory Services.

As of last Sept. 30, Mesirow oversees $261.4 billion in assets.

Mesirow’s new Aurora office is in downtown Aurora, just two blocks west of Aurora City Hall on Downer Place.

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