Cannot solve ical issue with timezone

using chicago timezone on server and in WP – no matter what I do, on the help page of events calendar always shows “server timezone UTC”

The impact i’ve seen with this (calendar views and other functions seem ok) is that the ical URL to subscribe to shows UTC and will not reflect CST/Chicago in my calendars. Can’t seem to make EC reflect chicago timezone in the help screen – I ‘assume’ this is the main reason – but not sure. thx.

WORDPRESS VERSION
4.3.1
PHP VERSION
5.5.9-1ubuntu4.14

Here’s what’s weird – server is verified CST (Chicago)
[username]@[hostname]:~$ date
Tue Dec 8 07:28:17 CST 2015

but plugin info shows:
WORDPRESS TIMEZONE
America/Chicago
SERVER TIMEZONE
UTC

https://wordpress.org/plugins/the-events-calendar/