Committee recommends e-bike ordinance, seeks ban on unlicensable 'emotos' on public ways

The Community Life and Public Safety Committee on May 4 voted to recommend to the village board a draft update to chapter 82 that adds e‑bike classes and clarifies where small electric motorized recreational vehicles may operate.

Chief Hunt, speaking for the department, urged the committee to treat so‑called "emotos" — battery‑powered mini motorbikes without operable pedals — like dirt bikes and to prohibit them from roadways and sidewalks. "I don't think they should. It's more of an e‑motorcycle and we don't allow anything with a gasoline engine to run on the roads or sidewalks," Chief Hunt said during the discussion, citing safety complaints about riders performing wheelies and operating at high speed near pedestrians.

Committee members discussed several technical points: whether class‑2 e‑bikes (which can reach about 30 mph) should be treated differently, whether licensed electric motorcycles would be exempt, how state statute definitions intersect with local rules, and whether to explicitly protect electric personal assistive mobility devices used by mobility‑impaired residents. The committee asked staff to include the statutory mobility‑device definition in the ordinance and to add explicit language that licensed, registrable electric motorcycles are not barred by local restrictions.

After extended discussion about enforcement, speed definitions and exemptions for mobility devices, Olsen moved and Sherwanka seconded a motion to recommend the ordinance to the village board with edits to prohibit emotos on roadways, sidewalks and other public property; the motion passed by voice vote.

The committee did not finalize every technical detail — members asked staff to refine definitions and confirm state statute interaction before the village board takes up the measure — but the vote cleared the ordinance for the next step in the legislative process.