<p>Speaker 1: Let's talk a little about what is pressing the city, because we want to tell the great stories-</p> <p>Mayor Richard Irvin: Right.</p> <p>Speaker 1: ... but there's also issues that the city's facing. The biggest one you're dealing with right now and you addressed recently was the census count. What's the update with that? Recently you lost 17,000. You dispute that. What's going on?</p> <p>Mayor Richard Irvin: We have a number of issues in Aurora. And it's not anything we can't handle. But being a large city, second largest city in the state of Illinois, a big city like our with over 200,000 residents, we've got to deal with things that happen day to day. We've had problems like COVID, which has affected the whole world, the whole country, the state, and the city. We've had civil unrest that has affected our city personally with our downtown being almost destroyed with $3 million worth of damage in one night. And just recently we've had the issues with the undercount of the census, undercounting Aurora 17,000 people. Now, these 17,000 people are still here. They just weren't necessarily counted, which affects us.</p> <p>            And the reality is, we've got to tell our story. We've got to tell our story about economic development. We've got to tell our story about great education. We've got to tell our story about being one of the safest cities in this country. And telling our story isn't always easy, but with this platform, Talking Cities, I think we can tell our story and the whole world will hear.</p> <p>Speaker 1: You mentioned it, 17,000 on paper you've lost. That impacts you. How does that impact you?</p> <p>Mayor Richard Irvin: The fact that it shows that we've lost 17,000 on census counts impacts us over 10 years about $310 million. And the reality is, if you go around Aurora, whether you walk or drive, there's not 17,000 empty homes or apartments. There's not 17,000 less of water used, percentage in water used, or traffic on the street. The people are here. They just weren't counted. It affects us, and we have to figure out how we're going to fill that $310 million gap over the next 10 years.</p> <p>Speaker 1: Is there any talk of maybe doing a canvassing for a special census?</p> <p>Mayor Richard Irvin: With the undercount of 17,000 people, a whole city ward in the city of Aurora, there's absolutely a talk of recounting. First we're going to challenge it at the basic level, that they just totally recount it or misconstrued or put 17,000 people in another census tract and not in Aurora. And if that doesn't work we're going to do another count where we will personally go door to door knocking on our residents' door and finding out who lives in every home so we can get every single person counted, man, woman, and child, so we can get the benefit of it from the federal government and all the tax dollars that comes along with being a large city like the city of Aurora.</p> <p>Speaker 1: Sure. And you mentioned earlier talking about the civil unrest that you had here last summer, which obviously all stemmed from George Floyd and everything that happened up in Minnesota. Recently the city launched as part of your CHANGE initiative the community review board. Tell me about that. Where do you see that going and how will they get involved?</p> <p>Mayor Richard Irvin: Recently as part of our CHANGE initiative... and when I say CHANGE, it's Community Helping Aurora's Necessary Growth and Empowerment. After the murder of George Floyd and the civil unrest that ensued after, we said instead of having our residents marching in the street with dissatisfaction, let's all get in a room and talk about what we can do to make a difference in our city.</p> <p>            One of the things that our residents, our citizens of Aurora, said that they needed was a civilian review board for oversight to make sure we had pure transparency, and we said that's absolutely a thing we can do. Matter of fact, the police department said, "That's something we'll sign up on as well because we want to ensure that we have transparency and our residents know exactly what's going on in our city."</p> <p>            Once we enacted that board, which was just sworn in last Monday for the first time and had their very first meeting, now our citizens are feeling comfortable creating a relationship with our police department. Now they had that before George Floyd, but it's renewed now after that terrible circumstance that affected our whole country. It's renewed now here in the city of Aurora, and we're going to make a difference.</p> <p>Speaker 1: Do you think that the board has enough power to enact real change, or is it more just opinion-based and leave it up to the city to enact on whatever discrepancy may arise?</p> <p>Mayor Richard Irvin: Do I think this board has the power to do what it needs to do? We picked nine of the most progressive, nine of the most intelligent, nine of the most capable and prepared individuals to be on this board. They're going to make a difference not only because this board exists but because of who they are. And we wanted those strong opinions, those strong minds, those strong voices on this board so we could actually make a difference. And I think they will.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p>