Aurora City Council meetings will now be held in the Scheketa Hart-Burns memorial council chambers.
The newly-renovated chambers, under construction for more than a year, were dedicated to the former 7th Ward City Council member on Tuesday evening. Hart-Burns, the first African-American woman on the council, died last year after 32 years on the City Council.
Mayor Richard Irvin said with the dedication that when the council does its work, “we’re all going to be thinking about Scheketa Hart-Burns.”
Officials unveiled a plaque that will be installed at the entrance to the council chambers, featuring a photo of Hart-Burns and a list of her accomplishments.
After this week’s dedication, the council held its first regular meeting in the new chambers.
“Today we bless a brand new era in the city of Aurora,” Irvin said. “This is an update, not only for the City Council, but so the people can see what we do.”
The chambers were about a $2 million project that was about 65% paid from federal funds and about 35% paid from the fees the city gets annually from Comcast. That company pays the city about $1.7 million a year, coming to about $17 million over the 10-year agreement it has with the city.
The chambers now have a new, more inviting and usable entryway and new chairs that are stackable and can be moved around.
The expanded council dais has the corporation counsel and city clerk sitting to either side of the mayor. The dais includes Kevlar, as an added security measure.
The room is more tech and communication savvy, with cameras that swivel in all directions, new microphones, new speakers and repositioned display TV screens.
There are now two dais set-ups for citizens, staff or petitioners to address the council. They even have built-in timers and a light system to tell people how long they have to speak.
Tony Martinez, communications and marketing chief for the city, said the new chambers, a project done by his department, as well as the Physical Facilities and Information Technology departments, are designed to reach citizens whether they are watching council meetings at home, at an office or in a coffeehouse.
“We wanted to make sure we meet our citizens where they’re at,” he said. “If they’re on public access, a website, a mobile app, our citizens can really check in and see what we’re doing.”
Ald. Michael Saville, 6th Ward, the longest-serving alderman, having first joined the council in 1985, remembered that when the city first built the City Hall building, it was considered an annex to the previous council building that sat where the Downer parking garage is now.
Saville served with Hart-Burns for her entire 32 years on the council, sitting next to her.
Irvin said the new chambers were necessary to make sure citizens can hear and see everything the council does.
“We owe it to the community to continually get better, to show we are the second-largest city in the state,” he said.