Aurora Mayor Richard Irvin announces an award for the Citizen Police Academy, honoring its 30th anniversary, during his State of the City address on Wednesday evening. Aurora Mayor Richard Irvin’s second State of the City address this year started with the Aurora police and fire departments on center stage and ended in the announcement of a major house music festival to be held in the city.
House music is considered a genre founded in Chicago out of the ashes of the disco phenomenon, music that “defined a generation” – his generation – according to Irvin. For most of the speech on Wednesday night, Irvin’s voice lowered and rose to tout what he sees as accomplishments of his administration in the area of public safety and community engagement. He was interrupted numerous times with clapping and sometimes standing applause by the large audience at Purpose City Church on the city’s far northeast side, made up of many public safety workers and volunteers and supporters of the mayor.
One of his major announcements was that the city would move Fire Station 4, along Sheffer Road on the East Side, to a new facility on Indian Trail next to the Aurora Police Department building. The Aurora Fire Department administration would be moved from the Central Fire Station downtown to the new facility, forming a public safety campus.He pronounced the state of public safety in the city as “strong, and becoming more formidable every year.