This Urbana City Roundup includes City Council updates, an area police records system that has to be updated this year used by the County, Urbana and a few other police agencies locally, some budget figures for the "Gather" development, a few other development updates, and a couple Urbana Police Department updates on dismissed litigation and the suspended bike giveaway program.
- In December the City Council approved increased development incentives for the Philo Road Business District.
- Approved an increase to its food and beverage tax to 2%, matching cities like Bloomington/Normal, but still slightly less than Champaign's recent increase to 2.5%.
This month some big issues popped up at the Urbana City Council meeting (agenda and video links here). One involves the local police information system used by the County Sheriff and other local police department agencies, Area-Wide Records Management System (ARMS). From the information presented at the City Council meeting when updating the memorandum of understanding for the collaboration:
Urbana was the agency that created ARMS, and we are still the Lead Agency responsible for it. Part of that responsibility is keeping up with evolving requirements. One of those is coming up - starting on January 1, 2021 the State of Illinois and the Federal government will require police agencies to report by the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS). This method replaces the current method, which is the Uniform Crime Reports Summary Reporting System.
Although Urbana is actively researching replacements for ARMS, we will not have a new system in place by January 1, 2021 – and so we must modify ARMS to comply with these standards. Based on our estimates, we think that this will require more than 1,300 hours of effort.
The good news is that the Sheriff’s Office applied for, and received, a grant from the Department of Justice to help us comply with the NIBRS standards and be a pilot agency to help the State confirm its process. That is the “National Crime Statistics Exchange – Special Data Collections and Statistical Studies” grant. In addition, the Sheriff’s Office has a separate grant that has a requirement for a portion of its value to be used towards NIBRS compliance. (The latter is the “Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Grant Assistance Grant”.)
In both cases, the City of Urbana is acting as a contractor for the Sheriff’s Office, and we will bill the Sheriff’s Office for hours spent on this work, then they will seek reimbursement through the grants.
More at the full resolution information here. Two resolutions also passed to allow the City of Urbana to be involved with the County's Board of Review on hospital property tax exemption issues that may come up. From the explanation memo:
The two proposed resolutions will allow the City to initiate, intervene in, and participate in property tax exemption proceedings before the Champaign County Board of Review and the Illinois Department of Revenue involving OSF Healthcare System, d/b/a OSF Heart of Mary Medical Center, and the Carle Foundation for revenue year 2019 pay 2020 for parcels these entities own in the City of Urbana.
More at the full memo here and News-Gazette coverage explaining how this empowers the City to be involved if further property taxes disputes arise this year here. Excerpts:
Both Urbana hospitals have until the end of this month to file affidavits with the county that will be used by the Board of Review to determine whether they qualify for a continuation of their property-tax exemptions for that tax year...
City Administrator Carol Mitten said the council would be authorizing the city staff to challenge any finding by the Board of Review that OSF Heart of Mary and/or Carle meet the definition of a charity (and would thus be eligible for a charitable tax exemption) under a 2018 Illinois Supreme Court ruling.
Both hospitals have easily met the current standards for exemptions under state law, which makes them exemption-eligible if the dollar amount of the charity they provide is at least as much as the amount of property taxes they’d have to pay on any given year.
That full article here. A presentation on pedestrian and bicycle safety measures was presented at the same meeting. WCIA coverage of that here, with additional information available at the organization's website here. City Council presentation video here.
There has also been some coverage on the "Gather" development in Urbana that is being promoted as a new gateway to the University of Illinois through Urbana at the intersection of Lincoln and University Avenues. The News-Gazette recently had some figures on property purchase prices and expected project spending:
The Texas-based developer that bought it now plans to spend $30 million to develop a new project at the southeast corner of Lincoln and University avenues.
It is expected to include about 200 apartments, 50 extended-stay rooms and 15,000 square feet of lobby, retail and outdoor public areas.
More on that here. A more detailed overview of the project plan was published in the News-Gazette last month here.
WCIA had coverage of a potential new wellness center being discussed at Lincoln Square Mall here. They had additional coverage of a separate spiritual wellness center, Soul Care, that opened in Urbana this month here. The News-Gazette had some general updates on the Lincoln Square Mall current and possible future usage here.
A federal lawsuit was dismissed against the Urbana Police Department which alleged retaliations over litigation against another police department, that ended with a settlement with Champaign PD. The News-Gazette had coverage of that last month here:
The suit filed on behalf of Benjamin Mann and his girlfriend, Samantha Wade, alleged that the Urbana officers retaliated because he stood up to the city of Champaign regarding Rush’s alleged behavior on March 16, 2014.
The complaint sought damages for Mann and Wade on 11 counts, including retaliation, false arrest, fabrication of evidence and illegal search.
Two of those were dismissed in December, including claims against a University of Illinois police officer, and the remaining nine were rejected last week by U.S. Magistrate Judge Eric I. Long.
“There is no evidence the Officers considered (or even cared) that Mann was a plaintiff in a lawsuit against the Champaign Police Department,” Long concluded in a 37-page opinion granting a request from Urbana for summary judgment.
More at the full article here.
Urbana Police Department also had an update in Tom's Mailbag on their suspended Bike giveaway program and the storage issue that needs to be resolved to get it started again:
It’s a matter of storage space for all those bikes, said Urbana Police Chief Byrant Seraphin.
“When the Goodyear building at 202 S. Vine, which had been owned and used by the city, was torn down in June of 2019 as part of the redevelopment project there, the city was left with less storage space,” he said. “In order to work within the space we do have, we are currently making donations of useable, abandoned bicycles on a much more frequent basis to Salt & Light. This keeps our inventory much smaller and more manageable.
“It is our hope to restart the bike giveaway as we move through the storage space issue.”
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