City of Urbana Updates

 

There was a lot of City of Urbana news and City Council coverage this month. Below is a summary of that coverage, links to more information on new Fire Station placement, Florida Avenue path projects, Safer Streets proposals, and a whole lot more.

Starting with the most recent meeting, the News-Gazette looked at some of the nuanced drama in another extensive Urbana City Council meeting last week. From this week's "Meeting Minutes" feature.

During a marathon committee-of-the-whole meeting that lasted every bit of four hours, one organization’s funding request was pushed back, another’s sparked a philosophical debate and a third brought some tension of its own.

In the middle of all three: Grace Wilken, the inquisitive, second-year Ward 6 representative, who dominated the night’s discussion, asking to be called upon 17 times and following up with questions on another 31 occasions.

That full article here. If you want to jump to the various discussions covered in the article, here is a link to the agenda packet and the list of videos for each agenda item's discussion here. The sound was very low on the videos, so you may need a device where you can really amplify the volume. There were also some public comments related to develop around the old Lierman Community Gardens (see agenda packet staff report page 185-7 of the PDF). Many of the comments revolved around previous desires to keep the community gardens and previous discussion on insurance costs highlighted by WCIA this past summer.

This week there will be both a Cunningham Township Board meeting and a regular city council meeting with some of the final votes on topics discussed at this past Committee of the Whole meeting.

Previous Meetings:

The News-Gazette's 9/30 "Meeting Minutes" feature had an overview of some of the agenda items passed at the regular City Council meeting earlier that week. general updates including fire station issues. Video of the Fire station scoping follow-up questions and discussion is available on the City's website here. For those who want to start at the beginning of the new Fire Station discussion the first presentation began here at the 8/15 Committee of the Whole meeting (summary in item 4 of the minutes) and continued here at the 8/22 regular City Council meeting (summary in item 12 of the minutes). Older WCIA coverage on the Fire Station locations here.

The 9/23 "Meeting Minutes" feature included coverage of the presentation and mayor's remarks on Florida avenue plans: 

The topic: the recommended offstreet, shared-use concrete path on the south side of Florida between Lincoln and Race Street, which a working group determined would “improve safety and accessibility for pedestrians and cyclists” and fill in a gap that would create a nearly four-mile stretch of pathways.

That full article is available here in the News-Gazette's eEdition along with some data on local gambling revenues here. Video of the full Florida avenue presentation and Mayor's remarks are here with the Mayor's remarks starting at the 1 hour and 11 minute mark.

WAND also had preview coverage on the Safer Streets proposal along Florida avenue that was approved at the meeting. Discussion of the proposal (resolution number ending in -067R) was available under the video for the resolution ending in -066R (at the very beginning).

The 9/9 "Meeting Minutes" had an overview of study session items forwarded to the regular City Council meeting for a vote. It mainly highlighted the agenda items listed for the meeting here (minutes with more detailed summaries here).

The 8/26 "Meeting Minutes" had a lot of coverage and details about the Urbana City Council meeting. Excerpt:

Five things we learned from [Executive Director at The Urbana Free Library] Celeste Choate‘s fiscal-year-in-review presentation to the city council this week:

— Two-plus months since scrapping late fees altogether — and forgiving $70,363.13 in overdue fines accrued by 6,113 adults, 82 teens and 480 youths — library staff is “over the moon” at the response, Choate said: “We’ve already heard people coming in and saying: ‘I didn’t feel like I could have a card before because I was afraid of having fines.’ We have already seen that happening, and that’s very powerful for us.”

That full article is available here and covers a variety of topics from the library to homeless shelter collaboration with the City of Champaign, appointments, and more.

Earlier last month, the News-Gazette also reported that there may be the potential for another solar array in the old landfill location:

The city of Urbana may be poised to see an expansion of solar power being generated at its former landfill site.

The city is entering a lease option with global energy company TotalEnergies Distributed Generation USA that could lead to a second solar array being developed on the last unused acres at the 127-acre former landfill at 1210 E. University Ave....

The next step would be for TotalEnergies and the city to negotiate a long-term lease for the land, he said.

The presence of a second solar array at the old landfill is expected to take some time.

That full article here.

Other Urbana Updates:

• The News-Gazette's "Meeting Minutes" feature highlighted details of Urbana's search for a new Chief of police available here. More from the City's website here.
• Applications for ARPA funds to implement approved City projects and programs are open according to the News-Gazette. City announcement and links here. WAND coverage here.
• The News-Gazette also previewed Fire Prevention Week events in Urbana and Champaign here.
• WCIA had updates on the planned City Building remodeling.
• Smile Politely highlighted Urbana's upcoming leaf collection dates here.