Housing Ordinance Study Session

[UPDATE: The meeting video is available here with links to jump from the City Staff's report on the issue, public input, and the board's discussion afterward. The News-Gazette had coverage of the Study Session with a concise overview of the result:

Champaign staff ordered to rework housing-code language
It became obvious early on in Tuesday night’s marathon meeting that there were not enough votes to fully repeal the section allowing landlords to take into account a felony conviction received up to five years in the past when deciding whether to rent to a tenant.

The measure wasn’t up for vote, but a straw poll revealed it would have been defeated, 7-2.

So council members have asked city staff to come back in a future study session with two possible changes:

— A reduction in the amount of time landlords can hold felonies against potential tenants, from five years to two.

— A rewording of the language to make its intent more clear.

Members Tom Bruno and Vanna Pianfetti voted not to reduce the time to two years, but the vote on clarifying the language received unanimous support.

After two-plus hours of public comment and about another hour of council comment, it was clear to Mayor Deb Feinen that the language is confusing...

Council members also asked city staff to bring back more information on how the language can disallow a landlord’s consideration of certain drug convictions, and for a deep dive into a recently passed Chicago ordinance that limits criminal history inquiries by landlords.

Full article here with more information and reactions from some of those involved. Preliminary coverage of the meeting from the News-Gazette here. Additional coverage by WILL here.]

Tonight, Tuesday June 25th, the City of Champaign is having a study session on the Human Rights Ordinance exception added in the 90s that allows housing discrimination for some felonies in rental properties. The City Staff put together a report on the issue with information on the exception, the history behind it and the years long efforts to reverse it here. The News-Gazette had coverage previewing the meeting this morning:

Petition asks Champaign council to repeal housing rule on convictions
More than 700 Champaign residents have signed a petition asking city council members to repeal a section of the city code that allows for housing discrimination against people with prior felony convictions.

As it stands now, Chapter 17 of the city code permits "discrimination in the leasing of residential property based upon a person's record of convictions for a forcible felony or a felony drug conviction or the conviction for the sale, manufacture or distribution of illegal drugs" for up to five years after release...

Beyond tonight, council members will ultimately have three options of what to do about the language when the frequently debated topic comes up for vote: amend it, leave it as is or scrap it altogether.

Several community organizations, the council-appointed Human Relations Commission and now about 700 residents are in a favor of the latter. But it appears advocates have more convincing to do before winning the support of the full council.

More information at the full article here, including arguments for and against ending the exemption. Previous news updates on this reentry housing issue on the Cheat Sheet here, with a recent overview of the issue here. More on local data related to racial disparities here.

Update: Additional Coverage

• WILL this morning: Champaign To Consider Changing Housing Policy Advocates Call Discriminatory
• The News-Gazette's Adalberto Toledo had a twitter thread overview of the issue here.

[Updated. Originally posted on 6/25/2019 at 8:20am.]

Local Park Funding Updates

First, some various funding updates for area parks. From the News-Gazette last month:

Virginia Theatre among tourism grant recipients
The Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity has awarded $1.8 million in grants to increase Prairie State tourism — and the Virginia Theatre in Champaign is among the recipients.

The Office of Tourism announced the 17 recipients of two different grants, saying tourism produced more than $3 billion in tax revenue for the state and local communities last year.

One grant, awarded officially to the Champaign Park District/ Virginia Theatre, is for $50,000. It’s to be used for installation of “modern ‘intelligent’ theatrical lighting.”
...
The Tourism Attraction Grant program helps develop or enhance tourism attractions to boost visitation and overnight stays in Illinois. There were 13 recipients sharing $1.4 million. Officials say there were four times as many applications for this grant as there was available funding.

Full blurb available in the eEdition (with digital subscription) here. There was also an update by WCIA on Crystal Lake Park (with video segment here):

Work is underway on Crystal Lake Park Rehabilitation Project.

Developers needed the lake level lowered to allow for work on the new multi-use path.

The Park District is paying for this project with a grant from the Illinois Transportation Enhancement Program.

Carle Hospital matched the grant for a total of $537,000.

They expect the trail to be completed in July. 

Blurb and video segment available here. The Rehabilitation Project has an informational website here as well. There was also a blurb last week on State funding becoming available to local governments here:

Local governments in Illinois may apply for state grants to acquire or develop space for recreation areas.

The Illinois Department of Natural Resources announced Tuesday that applications will be accepted beginning July 1 for the Open Space Land Acquisition fund and the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund. The OSLAD program provides 50 percent funding for qualified projects by municipalities that can show they have the ability to finance the remainder of the project.

The money comes from a portion of the state’s real estate transfer tax.

That blurb also available from the eEdition here.

Citizens Police Academy

Several local police departments participate in a free program to educate the public on law enforcement in collaboration with the University of Illinois' Police Training Institute called the Citizens' Police Academy. This year's classes included at least eight police departments, other agencies, some current and former elected officials, etc. The 10 week program consists of a weekly 3 hour night class at the Police Training Institute on campus (free parking was provided) and a few other local facilities. At the end of the program, participants are encouraged to participate in a ride along with their local police department.

The Daily Illini had an overview and coverage of the first day of class back in April:

Police Training Institute begins 10-week course for citizens
The University’s Police Training Institute began its annual 10-week public course, Citizen Police Academy, on April 4. The program is offered to all citizens residing in Champaign County.

The interactive 10-week program will cover topics such as de-escalation, DUI enforcement and crime scene investigations. Students taking the course will also have the opportunity to visit the Champaign County Jail and meet some of the Champaign Police Department’s K-9s...

Michael Schlosser served as a lieutenant for the Rantoul Police Department before retiring. He is currently the director for the Police Training Institute, as well as the main instructor for the 10-week course.

“When citizens have the opportunity to gain knowledge and learn about all the different aspects of policing … then that gives them a better perspective when they’re trying to understand things they see on TV or read in the paper,” Schlosser said...

If the students attend 7 out of 10 classes at the end of the program, they will have the ability to graduate and get a small certificate saying they completed the course.

Full article here. Departments are generally trying to increase awareness of their various outreach programs, so if you have questions about this or any less intensive outreach options they may offer, they'll probably be happy to get you all the information you need. I'd strongly encourage this one if it's possible for you to attend regardless of any views one way or the other on the police themselves. The instructors encourage questions and criticism to have an opportunity to explain their perspective. Signing up was easy, but required a background check.

Below are some highlights from the course:

Week 1: An introduction to the class and how it's laid out. A brief history of the Police Training Institute and the role it plays in training officers from all over Illinois. An introduction to Dr. Schlosser, the Director of the Police Training Institute and general ringleader of the 10 week program. He covered the first subject of de-escalation and "verbal judo" involved in gaining voluntary compliance. Some may notice that some of the "verbal judo" techniques are being used as the class proceeds.

Week 2: Former Champaign County Sheriff, attorney and PTI instructor Dan Walsh explains the structure and authority of various law enforcement agencies in the State of Illinois down to local departments. He also explained various aspects of civil and criminal law, enforcement and prosecution. The limited options in dealing with mental health issues and the current role the criminal justice system plays in mental health intervention and treatment was raised. This is a recurring theme throughout the course.

Champaign Police Deputy Chief Troy Daniels explained "community policing," the history of it, and the principles behind it. Topics ranged from intelligence based policing and spearfishing to the mutual benefits of community policing for law enforcement and the community. He emphasized the sudden dangers involved in policing and argued that police constantly put their life at risk giving people the benefit of the doubt. He also tried to dispel the myth that local violence is a Chicago imported problem. He noted that it is overwhelmingly home grown local disputes between local people and cliques. There was also an overview of the local Crime Stoppers program.

Week 3: At the Willard Training Center by the airport, the class learned about use of force balanced with the situation at hand and the use of Tasers. The seating is a bit more Spartan here, so you might consider bringing a little seat cushion. The material covered various control tactics, from verbal to defensive  depending on the subjects cooperation or aggression. The use of deadly force in response to risk of life or severe bodily injury were detailed as well. Four student volunteers from the PTI, later in their academy training, were on hand for demonstrations. Including to be "exposed to Taser" as they prefer to say instead of "Tasing" someone. Various technical and legal issues were covered on the use of a Taser.

The use of force scenarios demonstrated an attempt to apply the most simple and effective tactics to deal with chaotic situations with endless variables, all within the legal limits set by courts and legislatures. A lot of the questions and concerns raised were dealing with those variables and complications.

Week 4: Judge Jeff Ford of the 6th Judicial Circuit Court explained DUI Court, DUI statutes and enforcement as well as Drug Court programs and drug enforcement. State Trooper Tony Micele explained DUI enforcement details on everything from sobriety tests and the legal framework they have to operate within to help ensure convictions. He repeatedly emphasized that they were "not out to get people," but also that these offenses have deadly consequences for both offenders and innocent people.

Week 5 was on active shooters and responding to them. I'll be covering that class in a separate post and link it here when it's up.

Week 6: Tours of the Champaign County satellite jail and METCAD. The jail tour was instructive regardless of one's views on the various contentious issues on jail expansion, criminal justice reform, etc. Some of the logistical and security issues are made more clear regardless of what future direction one supports. It can also make clear the very real safety and security concerns with a county budget stretched to the brink when you see how that affects the lives of both the jailed population and jail staff. The life and safety of everyone in the facility (staff or inmate) depend on other people being able to assist them and functioning equipment.

The METCAD presentation was similar to the one I saw with the Champaign City Government 101 course, but I was able to get an update on the backup center that was being upgraded. The backup center ran a couple hours of a shift back on April 14th and on its way to being ready to handle operations if the main METCAD facility goes down for some reason. Here's a quick overview of METCAD from a previous post:

Champaign County's METCAD system handles calls for 25 Fire Departments including Champaign and Urbana Fire Departments as part of its emergency dispatch services. This is on top of their services to 12 area police departments. It's an impressive collaborative agency with employees of the City of Champaign, an Urbana location, in a County building, and U of I phone systems. Its board has administrative and public safety representatives from local governments, the University of Illinois and rural representatives of police and fire departments.

The Q&A part of the presentation got into some of the technical hurdles in the long term goal of a fully integrated system and software updates to the system with varying local government and police department communications systems.

Week 7: Mike Metzler, the Chief of Police in Mahomet and a PTI firearms instructor led the class at the Tactical Training Center focusing on firearms and tour of the gun ranges. This class covered a lot of technical details on typical law enforcement firearms and an overview of marksmanship training. It highlighted the various training and requirements, including scenarios to prepare officers for situations they may face one day. The instructor explained the differences in various firearm laws, such as Illinois Firearm Owners ID card versus concealed carry permits. He also explained the difference and downsides of "open carry" laws in other states.

Week 8: Lt. Bruce Ramseyer of the Champaign Police Department explained Crime Scene Investigations and how a real life Crime Scene Unit operates locally versus what one sees on television. In real life people aren't experts or technicians in everything, a lot of the work is low-tech and certain testing is done by other laboratories and everything takes a lot longer. He explained the differences between elected coroners and (often appointed) Medical Examiners and their differing responsibilities. The whole process involves constant paperwork and a huge amount of evidence storage.

He explained how fingerprints are collected, analyzed and compared. He then covered a variety of evidence collection, chain of custody, and even his trip to "the body farm" at the National Forensics Academy. He outlined good calling advice if you contact the police. He encouraged people to not jump to conclusions, take a breath, and try to think positive — look for the facts.

Week 9: SWAT, K-9 and Bomb Squad demonstrations. Down at the U of I Stockyard Pavilion families were invited as well to check out the hardware, canine cops and explosive demonstrations. There were overviews of the local Metropolitan Emergency Tactical Response Operations (METRO) SWAT Unit, the types of K-9 dogs and their training, and Explosive Ordnance Disposal teams and robots.

A couple highlights included the multi-agency collaboration that forms our local SWAT team, including the SWAT medics who operate unarmed and work through a collaboration with Carle via the University of Illinois Police Department medical support unit. K-9 dog vests are available, but their use is limited by a more common danger to the dogs: overheating. The EOD unit is also a collaborative unit, currently with 6 techs split evenly from the Champaign Police Department and University of Illinois PD. There were a couple big booms in this class session.

Week 10: States Attorney Julia Rietz and Judge Randy Rosenbaum (who was the public defender years ago) explained the roles of the prosecutor and the public defenders office in the legal process. The SA explained various issues such as the plea bargain process, limits on evidence admission, and legal requirements and rights that have to be ensured. The former PD explained in more detail the rights of the accused and the ways how public defenders are appointed by the judiciary.

Afterwards those who attended enough classes graduated and got a certificate of completion and thanks from the chiefs of the participating police departments for taking the time to get to understand law enforcement better. Contact information and forms for scheduling a ride along with your local department was then sent out.


What next?

I'm looking forward to the ride along opportunity when that gets scheduled. I still have to finish the post on the Week 5 course on active shooters and catch up on several other topics that I've been collecting information on lately, including immigration and refugee services locally.

Unit 4 Budget Issues

Last week the News-Gazette highlighted the 10s of millions of dollars in cost increases for Unit 4's referendum projects. From their coverage:

Budget for Unit 4 referendum work now $31.4 million higher than projected in 2016
...
After that figure was presented to the referendum oversight committee at Monday's meeting, member Neil Strack asked officials whether it includes potential cost differences for International Prep Academy — one of the latest-scheduled projects with a current budget of $6 million. It didn't.

The $239.8 million number is an update from the original projected total of $208.4 million in 2016 and includes recent overages at Edison Middle School ($10 million), Central High School ($9.2 million) and Centennial ($8.1 million).

Potential overages could increase that budget. And depending on the judgment of board members, International Prep's 1957-era building could be the source of some of those overages, according to Elizabeth Stegmaier, the district's director of projects and planning. Officials are working on a capital projects plan at the board's request that will detail any needed work remaining, as well as any maintenance issues in need of fixing prior to updating a state-mandated health/life-safety report in 2023. The goal is to synchronize the capital projects work with any code-related updates — like fire alarms or accessibility — in a five-year plan...

Financing plans for the overages are still being worked out; board members have heard several presentations on available funding options, including selling land or using district "savings" or moving money from contingency funds...

As of Monday, there were 51 days for contractors to meet summer-specific construction goals prior to the return of students.

Full article here with additional information on weather issues and summer deadlines approaching for work to get done before students return.

Unit 4 Updates

Tonight Unit 4's school board will be meeting and discussing and touching on some items that were in the news last week (meeting information and agenda here). The first update is on the P-cards spending issue (more on that at a previous Cheat Sheet post here).  From the News-Gazette last week:

Unit 4 drafts policies on 'P-cards' designed to prevent alleged abuse
As the state appellate prosecutor weighs whether it will file criminal charges against any member of the Champaign school district, Unit 4 officials have drafted policies designed to prevent further instances of alleged credit-card abuse that led to a state police investigation.

Documents released by the district prior to Monday's school board meeting contain the first drafts of policies setting parameters for the use of Unit 4-issued credit cards, purchases and approval. Since purchasing cards, or "P-cards," were introduced in 2014, the district hasn't had a formal policy on how they were — and were not — to be used...

Now, district policy makers have responded to the controversy by drafting language that specifically prohibits all personal purchases, stating that P-cards "shall only be used for those expenses that are for the district's benefit and serve a valid and proper public purpose," which include "certain job-related expenses" or "purchases on behalf of the board or district or any student activity fund or for purposes that would otherwise be addressed through a conventional ... fund."

More details and information at the full article here. The draft policy is available here (administrative draft policy here) from the Unit 4 board meeting website. The other news item was on women and minority owned businesses in referendum bidding. Conflicting language in State law is making the attempt to encourage diversity in bid awards complicated. Also from the News-Gazette last week:

Champaign school board seeking to change rules on contract bids
Stymied by current restrictions, the Champaign school board plans to introduce a resolution in support of changing a state policy that it sees as preventing districts from selecting vendors based on their diversity goals for women- and minority-owned businesses.

It will take months to move forward, but it's the first step in changing language in the Illinois School Code that limits districts to choosing the "lowest responsible bidder" when awarding work to contractors or vendors.

That language often leads to the exclusion of women- or minority-owned businesses who don't come in as the cheapest bidder — something board members learned as work began on the district's eight referendum projects voters approved in 2016...

That's why the board will vote on a resolution urging the school board association to write legislation that would change the code to allow preference to local or minority- or women-owned businesses.

The resolution must be submitted by June 25 for consideration at a November membership-at-large vote, and could undergo some "refining" in the months prior, or not be adopted at all. Regardless, Shannon said, "We need to start the process."

More information at the full article here. Tonight's school board meeting also includes a proposed draft resolution to change State rules on the issue here.

Champaign Human Relations Commission 6/3

The bulk of the Human Relations Commission meeting focused on possible changes with the local police review board, including some Q&A with the chair of that board and the police department, as well as public input from the community including some critics of the department. The Champaign Police Department presented an overview of complaints and commendations. Emily Rodriguez, the Chair of the Citizens Review Subcommittee had a presentation and proposals for the Citizen Review Subcommittee that allows citizen review of complaints against the police department. The meeting video is available here on CGTV. News-Gazette coverage here.

Before all that, there was short reception congratulating student commission Walker on graduating from Centennial High School and moving on to U of I. Starting at the 5:50 mark in the video, there was an update on the Bristol Place Development by the City's Neighborhood Services Department. They covered the current status, an overview of the project itself, and collaborations between agencies: IL WorkNet, First Followers, the City of Champaign, and the Housing Authority of Champaign County.


Police Complaints:

Lt. Ramseyer of the Champaign Police Department gave a brief presentation of the 2018 summary of police complaints and how they were addressed (at the 13:40 mark). It included a contrast with 39 compliments along with an explanation of the possible complaint outcomes:

There were 5 former complaints which included 9 overall allegations. 5 allegations were over policy issues and 4 were over unreasonable use of force. Here's a breakdown of the findings:

The corrective actions taken for the two policy violations sustained included verbal counseling for one officer and a letter of reprimand for another.

The Citizens Review Subcommittee report began at the 17:38 mark. The Chair posted a copy of the recommendations on Google Docs here. The four key reforms listed were:

• Eliminate time limitations on citizen complaints.
• Fold opportunities for mediation into the complaint hearing process.
• Humanize the complaint filing process.
• Invite complainant participation and feedback. 

The presentation itself had an overview of the review board itself and how it has been developing, community feedback, and taking a hard look at the current situation. Rodriguez noted the absence of feedback from people of color in spite of national trends and other communities experiences. This was tied to issues of access and problems with the process to be remedied.

Some of the ideas floated included removing the time limit on complaints (currently 30 days) completely, humanizing the complaint process and providing access points in the community. Including people as part of the process was a recurring theme, not just with feedback, but with people currently feeling frozen out of the process. Audience comments later attested to that.

Alissia Young, the chair of the Human Relations Commission suggested and Rodriguez agreed to quarterly updates as opposed to annual for the review board being a good idea for the future. The Q&A session included the Chief and Lt. Ramseyer. They had also just heard these recommendations for the first time so their answers reflected a desire not to get ahead of themselves.

The board's questions and comments seemed overall positive and though the Chief wanted to temper expectations until some of these ideas were hashed out a bit more thoroughly there appeared to be a willingness to collaborate towards a reformed process.

The second audience participation opportunity had the bulk of the community input from activists and critics of the Champaign Police Department beginning at the 56:15 mark. Some explained their negative experiences in great detail and expressed deep frustration with almost everyone they interacted with at both the Police Department and the City Government itself. One speaker, Christopher Hansen, noted that he gets more complaints through his CorruptCU website than were listed for all of 2018 by the department. He claimed there were more complaints on the department's own facebook page.

Many of the criticisms included difficulties with getting documents and the Freedom of Information Act process for gaining materials as well as the amount of resources and time involved in their pursuit of justice.

There were concerns about proposed mediation options being used to "stuff complaints" as opposed to providing satisfactory resolutions.

The commissioners comments afterward were generally sympathetic and looking towards next steps on reforms and solutions. A few of the commissioners reiterated that they heard those in the community that spoke today and contacted them by e-mail.

The commission adjourned at 7:22pm.

Food Insecurity and Summer Food Programs

Local struggles with food insecurity as well as ways to help and get help were in the news recently. WILL had a short blurb on area food insecurity last week:

Eastern Illinois Counties Have Some Of The Highest Food Insecurity Rates In The State
A new report from the nonprofit Feeding America found that food insecurity in east-central Illinois is higher than in most parts of the state.

Map the Meal Gap 2019 uses data from the federal government and food price data from Nielsen to look at the number of people who struggle to access or afford nutritious meals at the county level across the U.S.

Champaign County had an overall food insecurity rate of 15 percent, with Vermillion County and Coles County closely behind at 14 percent, the analysis found. All three counties have higher food insecurity rates than Cook County, home to Chicago. Vermillion County also had the highest rate of childhood food insecurity in the east-central Illinois region at 20 percent.

Full blurb and audio clip here. Tom's Mailbag recently had a question on school lunch debt and donation options as well:

"After reading about school lunch debt and the controversy in Rhode Island, I was wondering what the policy regarding lunch debt is for the schools in our area. Is there a way to donate money to local kids/schools in our area that have lunch debt?"

Yes, but there is no longer "lunch-shaming" for students in Illinois. A law approved last year states that every school is required to provide a meal for every student who requests one...

"The district does try to reach out to families regarding (breakfast and lunch) balances," said Champaign school district spokesman John Lyday, "but we also still do accept donations for meal balances."

As of May 20, he said, the school district was owed $55,885 in meal debts.

Urbana's policy was different in that all students were and are able to eat breakfast and lunch free of charge thanks to the federal Community Eligibility Provision of the Healthy, Hunger Free Kids Act.

More at the full Mailbag article here. Summer Meal programs have also started up again locally and across the State. From WILL:

Summer Food Programs In Illinois Provide Meals To Children When School’s Out
Programs that provide free meals to children throughout the summer are kicking off all across Illinois.

The state's more than a thousand summer meal sites are federally funded through the U.S. Department of Agriculture and administered through the Illinois State Board of Education to ensure children have access to healthy meals when school is out of session...

CUPHD will provide breakfast and lunch in its lobby located at 201 W. Kenyon Road in Champaign. The program started last Thursday and will continue through mid-August.

Mobile site visits will occur on Tuesdays from 11 a.m. to 1 pm, beginning June 11, at Crestview Park in Urbana; and on Thursdays from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., beginning June 13, at Victory Park in Urbana. On Fridays from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m., Sola Gratia will hold a pay-what-you-can market outside Dollar Tree in Urbana.

To find a list of all summer food programs across Illinois, visit www.summermealsillinois.org—or text FoodIL to 877-877 to receive information via text about food programs in certain zip codes.

For more information on the CUPHD summer meals program and other available services, visit www.c-uphd.org.

Additional information at the full article here. The News-Gazette had similar coverage here. On the Summer Meals Illinois website it appeared there were also area summer food programs at locations in Rantoul as well.

Urbana District 116 Updates

A few recent updates from Urbana Schools on the new superintendent, construction costs, and school lunch vendors. There was a meet and greet event for the new superintendent of Urbana Schools last week. Excerpts from WCIA's coverage:

[Superintendent Jennifer Ivory-Tatum] already has experience with many of the kids and their families as a former principal in Urbana and as a parent of kids in the district. Now her main focus is working on a plan to repair relationships between students, staff, parents and administration...

For months, parents have been waiting to see how the district would handle their concerns. Scott Dowds has two kids in Urbana schools. He says, "A move to better communication and more stability is what most people are looking for, an ability to get information out and reengage the community and make sure everybody is buying into the ideas they have going forward.”

During the past year, there have been violent fights in the schools, suspensions, and a shift toward distrust within the district. Ivory-Tatum wants to mend the divisions between students, parents, staff and administrators. She says, "We really need to get in and start getting that positive learning climate restored at all of our schools, really looking at cultural climate, hearing the concerns and supporting our administrators and teachers.”

She says she'll be talking to PTA groups, visiting classrooms, and getting people's input on what their vision is for the future. She starts the job on July 1, 2019.

Full article here. More at the district website on the meet and greet here.


The District 116 Board is also dealing with the construction crunch and cost overruns with so much referendum work being done in Champaign. From the News-Gazette a couple weeks ago:

Urbana school board approves costlier-than-expected work on two buildings
...
Mark the Urbana school district as another public body feeling the effects of an abundance of construction work in Champaign-Urbana.

Bids for roofing work at the high school and some parts of work for the middle school came in overbudget, board members learned Tuesday night...

Work will occur over the summer, but the middle school will require additional work at a later date due to only some repairs being in the budget.

Full blurb here. Also Urbana's school lunches will be provided by a new company. From the News-Gazette Saturday:

For the first time in more than two decades, national food-service provider Aramark won't be handling operations in two local school districts after an Illinois-based company beat it out during competitive bidding.

School boards in Urbana and Mahomet-Seymour recently approved contracts with Arbor Management after the Itasca-based company came in as the lowest bidder.

Language in the Illinois School Code mandates that districts choose the lowest responsible bidder in competitive bidding processes; in Urbana, roughly $14,000 made the difference between Abor Management ($2,208,877) and Aramark ($2,222,737)...

In Urbana, those workers can expect a $1-per-hour pay bump; Carol Baker, chief financial officer for the district, told board members recently that that raise had already been built into the new contract...

Baker said the district also added an assistant director's position into the contract.

Full article here.

Champaign Citizens Review Subcommittee

Tomorrow, June 3rd, the City of Champaign's Human Relations Commission meeting will include presentations and proposals for the Citizen Review Subcommittee that allows citizen review of complaints against the police department. The Champaign Police will be presenting information on complaints as well. More information on the agenda including the earlier start time of 5pm here. More information on how to attend an HRC meeting here. The chair of the subcommittee, Emily Rodriguez, highlighted the upcoming meeting in a Tom's Mailbag Q&A a week ago:

"Next, this reader believes that the complaint process is not accessible. I agree. If a complainant feels 'frozen out' of the review process, we aren't succeeding at our job. I have heard these concerns echoed by a half dozen community members and neighbors in the past months. Several have reached out to me personally regarding their experience filing a police complaint. The CRS also heard similar feedback about the complaint process at our most recent meeting.

"At the upcoming Champaign Human Relations Commission meeting on June 3 at 5:30 p.m., I will propose a series of research-based reforms intended to make the complaint filing process more open and meaningful. I propose that the CRS (1) eliminate time limitations on the complaint filing process, (2) diversify the locations at which complaints can be filed, (3) invite complainants to address the CRS as a part of the review of their complaint, and (4) add a mediation option for officers and complainants. As a whole, the recommendations will lead to greater officer accountability, and will also create opportunities in the review process to build a new sense of community in place of what has been damaged. We need community support to make these recommendations happen. If these changes are important to you, make your voice heard at the HRC meeting.

More at the full Mailbag article here. Rodriguez has also been circulating the information on social media:

Do you want a police complaint process that is accessible, that empowers your neighbors, and creates opportunities to build a new sense of community in place of what has been damaged?

The Champaign Citizen Review Subcommittee invites you to attend the upcoming Human Relations Commission Meeting on Monday, June 3, at 5:00 pm in the City Council Chambers (102 N. Neil St.).

The CRS is responsible for reviewing the police investigation of citizen complaints against Champaign police officers, making policy recommendations, and public outreach efforts with the goal of improving community-police relations. A decade of hard work went into establishing the CRS.

In this meeting, you’ll hear from the Champaign Police Department and the CRS on how we’ve done in the past year. It’s an opportunity to hear and contribute candid thoughts about the successes and challenges of the CRS and the police complaint filing process. This is also an opportunity to talk about the next year for the CRS. The CRS Chair will detail four crucial changes the CRS must make in the upcoming year. We need community support to make these changes happen. If we don’t have community support, the CRS recommendations can be easily ignored. So if you can, stop by and voice your support in the audience participation section of the meeting.