There is no Champaign City Council meeting this week due to it falling on election day for the Consolidated Primary Election. Early voting has already begun (News-Gazette coverage, County Clerk early voting information) and there is more candidate information on the Cheat Sheet here.
Last week's Champaign City Council meeting (agenda, video) included a Study Session (report, video) focused on local programs attempting to address gun violence and the equity issues in Champaign neighborhoods. WCIA had an overview of the meeting afterward:
City and community leaders met Tuesday night to address a rise in gun violence in Champaign.
Officials reported in 2020, there were 189 confirmed shooting incidents, up from 100 in 2019. There were 57 shooting victims in 2020, compared to 34 in 2019. There were 9 gun-related homicides in 2020, up from 2 in 2019.
The cities of Decatur, Peoria and Urbana also shared their shooting data with Champaign. All of them also saw an increase in shootings and shooting victims.
That full article here. The News-Gazette had additional coverage the next day:
In addition to various efforts with community organizations, [Community Relations Manager Tracy Parsons] said the Community Coalition has also partnered with the Community Data Clinic at the University of Illinois to collect data and evaluate the various initiatives in place...
“Whatever we’re doing, we need to be doing something else, because it’s not working,” said council member Clarissa Fourman, who suggested a gunshot-detection system and encouraged more engagement with the First Followers prisoner re-entry program and more community-developed programs. “We need something new.”
That full article here. The full Study Session report is available here and goes into detail about local responses to gun violence, beginning with a brief summary on the first page going through recent years. On pages 3-5 there is breakdown of local gun violence data and comparisons. Following that is a deep dive into current programs, updates, and work going forward. There was a correction on one graph in the Study Session report versus the presentation given at the Study Session. The "Confirmed Shooting Incidents" were higher in Peoria (Council Member confirmed this in the Q&A time with the Deputy Chief). Here is the corrected graph from the presentation:
Meeting Writeups:
The regular City Council meeting (agenda, video) began on time. The Council Bills on the agenda were all quickly approved and without controversy. Public participation included a University student proposing game day liquor changes to encourage tailgating and alcoholic beverages at Grange Grove. He proposed setting age limits at the bars from 19 to 21 for those days. He also suggested offsetting bar owner concerns by allowing space for them to serve drinks at Grange Grove as well. The Mayor is also the City's liquor commissioner. Council member Fourman encouraged her to look into the proposal towards the end of the meeting.
Other public comments raised concerns about continued water shutoffs in the area and wanting action from the city to put an end to it. Two other comments revolved around police reform. One highlighting the intimidation and attacks suffered by reformers relative to the safety of speaking out in support of police. Anthony Tassone of pitched a pilot police reform program with his company GreenKey and Amazon for body camera analysis that would also help offset some costs.
There was general support for all the hard work that went into clearing snow by city staff with some extra praise from MTD relayed by the Mayor. The City Manager noted that next Tuesday is an election day and there will not be a City Council meeting scheduled.
Study Session:
Tracy Parsons, a Community Relations Manager for the City of Champaign and also the facilitator for the Champaign County Community Coalition led the presentation on local gun violence and community response along with Champaign Police Deputy Chief Matthew Henson and Mary Catherine Roberson, a City Community Relations Specialist (report, video). As noted earlier in this post, there was a correction on one of the graphs from the report in the video presentation itself (confirmed in the Q&A section).
Discussions noted the difficulty in addressing gun violence, especially watching the increase locally and across cities in Illinois and the country again. There were many technical questions about what we can truly know about a shooting, from the suspected shooter(s) or why the shooting happened in Champaign as opposed to somewhere else. Council members Brix, Kyles and Fourman encouraged more collaboration with First Followers.
Jamar Brown introduced himself during the public comments as the new chair of the Countywide Coordinating Committee. He has been part of the CU Fresh Start program to interrupt gun violence locally. He pointed to a need from community members for a commitment of time, manpower and energy to deal with these problems.
Local activist Haki Shabbazz (who sometimes also introduces himself as Drake Materre) chastised the City Council for failing to listen to community members and activists that have been pushing to dismantle structural racism. He raised concerns about adding investment and manpower into a system of policing and surveillance that he believes only ensures the disparities in our system.
Mike Emery, Law Enforcement Coordinator for the US Attorney in Central Illinois praised the Community Coalition and its adaptability in programs and in comparison to his work across the State and in other counties.
Local municipal candidates also made public comments. Rita Conerly, on the Democratic ballot for the Supervisor's race in the current primary election talked about her experience and work in Garden Hills. She raised concerns about the way policing is done by outsiders to the neighborhood and called for more radical and intentional changes. She also called for the Council to be more inclusive of radical voices and voices of the impacted communities.
Of all the Council Comments, Council Member Clarissa Nickerson Fourman were the most direct and urgent. She explained how she lives in the middle of these gun incidents. She hears the gun shots and her constituents call her from the floor during shootings. She called for more dramatic action, gunshot detection systems, and the end of gatekeeping important voices out of the discussion and collaboration.
The Council gave unanimous direction to the city staff to continue supporting the Community Coalition and its programs on gun violence.
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