Sycamore City Council gives staff guidance on special event permits approach amid COVID-19

Aldermen tell staff they’d rather air on side of caution, not take deposits until there is more concrete state health guidance

SYCAMORE – Sycamore aldermen and city officials agreed they’d rather be safe than sorry when it comes to their approach with future special events amid the continuing COVID-19 pandemic.

Sycamore Acting City Manager Maggie Peck said during the Monday regular City Council meeting the City started to receive permit requests for special events and solicitation. This was in part due to more vaccines being rolled out to more eligible groups. She said City staff was looking for more discussion and direction from aldermen on how to proceed and no official vote on the consideration was requested.

Peck said she met with City department heads a few weeks ago as the weather grew nicer, the COVID-19 data looked more promising and people started to express their excitement for usual spring and summer activities within the city.

“We wanted to make sure that we do what’s best for our community,” Peck said.

Restore Illinois Region 1, which includes DeKalb County, has been under Phase 4 mitigations for multiple months. Recently, the region has seen an increase in its seven-day rolling positivity rate from 4.2% on March 28 to 6.1% on April 6, with DeKalb County figures increasing from 3.9% to 5.6% during that same time period.

“Staff continues to monitor this and the health guidance to ensure the safety of our residents and our visitors that come to our community,” Peck said.

Peck said current guidance for outdoor events includes allowing group sizes no larger than 50 people for indoors and no larger than 100 people outdoors. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is still recommending that social distancing be followed while still wearing masks in public to help prevent spread of COVID-19.

Peck said nothing is permitted up to May 1 currently. However, she said the challenge in planning these types of special events is that the events aren’t happening for several months still and that city police might be put in an uncomfortable position while they can’t enforce health regulations.

“I know that we have heard our neighbors in the south have already announced that they’re planning to do their biggest events this summer,” Peck said. “We have neighbors to the east of us who are now announcing that they are canceling events – I have heard of fairs that are going to be canceled in July at this point in DuPage County. So looking at those things and trying to do what’s best for our community is what we’re thinking.”

Peck said staff recommended the City to reserve special event permit dates, which would essentially mean the event would be granted conditional pre-approval, but no financial deposit would be collected from applicants at this point. No more than 250 people can gather indoors and up to 500 can gather outdoors under Phase 5 mitigations, according to the Monday City Council meeting agenda.

“Many of our businesses and residents look forward to special events each year, as does the City,” City officials wrote in the agenda. “With the permits essentially pre-approved, as soon as Region 1 moves to Phase 5, the permits would be issued with an understanding that it be limited to gatherings of 500 people, or whatever the guidance is at that point.”

The consensus among aldermen on Monday was that they would rather air on the side of caution and not risk raising the hopes of the community that any event is happening when that can still change. That included Sycamore First Ward Alderman Alan Bauer, who expressed concerns about organizers not being able to effectively advertise for the event while they’re still waiting for an official answer from the City about their special event application.

“I like airing on the side of safety, but it kind of puts them in a pretty bad position,” Bauer said.

Peck said City staff empathizes with event organizers in that regard and they will not hold anybody up when it comes to additional planning if they can help it.

“If we find out on Aug. 10 that the governor has opened up to Phase 5 and that their event now meets that criteria and it’s going to be under 500 people, we will open that event up and we will approve that event immediately,” Peck said.

Sycamore Second Ward Alderman Chuck Stowe said he believes exercising caution is the best approach.

“As much as these folks want to plan things, I would rather say, ‘We don’t know,’ than tell them, ‘Yes, we can,’ and then, at the last minute, have to change something,” Stowe said. “I really think it’s the only fair way to go. I have pretty high hopes that things are going to open up sooner rather than later, but we’re not there yet.”

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