Council refers proposed changes to Welcoming City ordinance to city attorney

Alderman Pabon moved that the city adopt recommended changes to the Welcoming City ordinance and referred the item to the city attorney to draft specific amendments.

The move to refer the communication was made during Item I-1, which lists proposed revisions to sections of the ordinance. "So I just wanna thank the community members who have been working on this and really tracking some of the changes that are happening on the federal level," Alderman Pabon said, acknowledging resident Stephanie Nance by name for her work on the recommendations. The motion was seconded by Alderman Leija and approved on a voice vote.

The referral asks the city attorney to draft amendments to the ordinance based on the changes outlined in the communication and to return the draft to the council for consideration. The communication cited specific ordinance sections to be amended; the council directed legal staff to prepare formal language rather than adopting immediate text changes.

The action was procedural: it directed staff to prepare proposed ordinance language and did not itself change municipal code. No funding, timetable for drafting, or specific draft language was specified during the discussion. The item will return to a future council agenda after the city attorney prepares draft amendments.

Alderman Pabon framed the motion as an update prompted by federal developments and local volunteer work; the record shows no substantive debate on the council floor beyond the referral vote.