This post previews a couple upcoming City Council meetings and also has links and coverage of last week's regular City Council meeting which dealt with topics such as installing smart censors, parking requirements, and infrastructure planning. Council Member Fourman also had a call to the community for ideas on connecting those impacted by previous marijuana laws to entrepreneurial and career opportunities in the now legal and growing industry.
Upcoming Study Session:
CU Fresh Start is playing a key role in helping to implement and sustain an effective violence reduction strategy. After three years of addressing Champaign County’s increase in gun related activity, the initiative is just starting to gain traction and demonstrate that focused deterrence can be a viable option to reduce gun violence. Moving forward, the initiative will continue to be guided by the leadership of the MDT steering committee, prepared to incorporate lessons learned regarding the participant experience, increasing engagement of community stakeholders, and building more collaborative partnerships with law enforcement.
Champaign County continues to experience unacceptable levels of gun violence which confirms the need for continued gun violence reduction efforts. CU Fresh Start is one tool being used to provide intervention and deterrence for individuals identified as being at risk for continued involvement in gun violence.
More at the full Study Session report here. More information on the CU Fresh Start program here at their website (the main Champaign County Community Coalition website is likely to be updated soon if that link breaks).
Regular City Council Meeting 2/18:
Last week's regular City Council meeting agenda is available here and the meeting video is available here. The first Council Bill involved a plan to work with the University of Illinois to install six smart sensors around the City to measure various data. That discussion began at the 6:40 mark in the video. The vote was postponed until the March 3rd regular City Council meeting to review how the data and privacy concerns are addressed. The News-Gazette had coverage on that here:
Citing privacy concerns, the Champaign City Council decided to wait for further information before voting on a proposal from the UI to add six “smart sensors” around the city.
The sensors would detect air quality and noise levels, but also use cameras to measure traffic and pedestrian counts, raising questions from several council members about how that video would be handled...
“I don’t quite understand what the privacy concern is,” Toalson said after Tuesday’s meeting. “These are cameras placed in a public location, looking at a public location, where there is no inherent right to privacy.”
He said the cameras wouldn’t use facial-recognition technology and that the raw video wouldn’t be available to the public.
That full article here. The News-Gazette also had an article previewing this particular item here with additional information about the sensors and how the data would be used to improve future city planning. More information on the sensor arrays at the Array of Things website here. The item is likely to pass at the March 3rd meeting as the delay was merely to confirm the data and privacy concerns are covered as with other implementations in other cities. It was not added to a Study Session for any extensive review beyond that.
The other items on the agenda passed unanimously, including a parking requirement exemption for a car wash facility being added near the AMC Theater. From WCIA coverage previewing the vote:
AMC conducted a study from October 2018 to October 2019, and determined the theater never filled its parking lot during that time. It only exceeded 578 spaces the day Avengers: Endgame came out. The rest of the year, even during major releases and holidays, the lot never reached more than 400 filled parking spaces. 98% of the time, less than 260 spaces were filled.
City council members are considering changing the number of required parking spaces to one space for every six seats, and using part of that space to build a new car wash.
Full article with video segment here. The Mayor commented that she'd like to see the parking requirements overall to be reduced and to take into account the multi-modal transportation issues such as public transportation and bicycles used heavily in some areas of town.
Another item that had local coverage included a sewer project that will be added on to previous work near campus for another high rise development. The News-Gazette had more details on that:
With sewers built in the 1900s and rapid development in the past decade, Champaign is seeking a cost-sharing agreement to expand a sewer to the new high-rise going in at Sixth and Daniel streets.
The city council will vote Tuesday on a $550,000 agreement to reimburse Core Spaces for the sewer extension and other infrastructure upgrades...
That block used to be home to the popular bar Kam’s, as well as an Espresso Royale coffee shop, Subway, a short-lived Fernando’s brick-and-mortar location, Home of Gourmet Chinese and the former C.O. Daniels bar.
Full article available here. The City Council discussed whether there might be reason to look at a larger sewer upgrade for the area rather than additions on a case by case basis. City staff noted that such an investment might not be able to adequately predict future growth in a way that adequately meets future demand.
Towards the end of the meeting Council Member Kyles highlighted the hard work and commitment of staff to meet the commitment towards diversity in contracting bids.
Council Member Fourman put out a request to the community for ideas towards connecting those impacted by past cannabis laws to new jobs and career opportunities with dispensaries and other now-legal cannabis industry jobs. She highlighted that impacted individuals don't appear to have a direct path towards entrepreneurial and career opportunities in this growing industry. She suggested that programs like the City's Diversity Advancement Program might serve as a guide towards a future program.
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