Champaign City Roundup

The past week or so has seen a few news items related to Champaign City government. A nullified panhandling ordinance was repealed, a deceased former mayor was again in the news due to a sex abuse scandal, and a hotel has gone from millennial to "urban inspired." Here's a quick roundup: 

WCIA had a short video segment and blurb about Champaign repealing its aggressive panhandling ordinance after a related court ruling. Video segment here. Blurb excepted below:

City leaders voted to repeal an aggressive panhandling ordinance Tuesday night.

The Supreme Court ruled the first amendment protects panhandling as free speech.

Officials say having the rule still on the books can make it confusing for law enforcement and leave them open to lawsuits.

They say people shouldn't notice a major change.

Aggressive panhandling hasn't been an issue for years in the city.

In more unfortunate news, a former Mayor was highlighted among local Catholic Priests involved in sex abuse scandals. From the News-Gazette a couple weeks ago:

At least 16 priests with area ties on Illinois list of alleged sex offendersAt least 16 priests with area connections are among the nearly 400 Catholic clergy members and church staff in Illinois named in a report — released Wednesday by a Minnesota-based law firm — that accuses them of sexual misconduct.

All had been previously mentioned on lists released by the Joliet, Peoria and Springfield dioceses, but Wednesday's report by attorney Jeff Anderson is the largest list of accused clergy in Illinois and includes where each priest served....

The report includes former Champaign Mayor Robert Dodd, who served parishes in Highland and Pana in the 1960s before leaving the priesthood in 1971.

He was mayor from 1983 to '87, and in 1994, Dodd was named in a child sex abuse lawsuit, according to the report. His name was also on the Springfield diocese's list of clergy with substantiated cases of sexual abuse of a minor.

Dodd died in 2013 in Champaign.

The full article has more information on the scandal, including other area priests listed in the report.

A downtown hotel (originally envisioned for millennials and called "Vib") will still be arriving, but with a different name and an "urban-inspired design" instead:

Aloft Hotel, by Marriott, now slated to occupy downtown Champaign lotPlans are still on track to develop an urban-style hotel on a small downtown Champaign lot, but the planned hotel brand has undergone a change.

Developer Doug Altenberger has been working with Marriott International to make the future hotel at 401 N. Neil St. an Aloft Hotel, according to Rob Kowalski, the city's assistant planning and development director...

Last year, the city believed construction would begin at the start of 2019. Now, Altenberger is working with his general contractor to finish construction plans and expects to be ready to start on the foundation work in the next couple of months, Kowalski said...

If construction begins in the next couple of months, Kowalski said, it likely won't be completed until next year.

More details on the ownership details  at the full article here.

Unit 4 Roundup

As I'm playing catch-up during a very busy midterm election season in County politics, I've fallen behind on a lot of C-U local updates. Here's just a quick rundown of Unit 4 news over the last few weeks:

• School A/C costs and obstacles will keep some students in the heat in the near future: Keeping students cool no easy task for some area districts (article from 2016 with an overview of the A/C issues facing the district prior to the referendum here).
   
• Crossing Guards were demanded and received at the temporary new home for Dr. Howard Elementary School.
   
• A safer crossing for South Side Elementary is being demanded after an car hit a child crossing Prospect.
   
• There's a discussion on whether Dr. Howard will be a two strand or three strand school going forward (referring to the number of class groupings per grade level as this ChambanaMoms article explains with triplets!).
   
• The Burnham mansion was demolished for Central High School's expansion in a final chapter of a long struggle between preservationists and expanding the neighborhood school.
   
• State level Invest in Kids Act having mixed results locally, but benefiting Catholic schools in the area.
   
• Potential for violence partly behind moving Friday Night games to Saturday Mornings: Has violence turned off Friday night lights?

Pardon the news dump as I try to keep up!

Champaign City Council 5/15

From yesterday's News-Gazette: A round up of the Champaign City Council meeting this past Tuesday.

Champaign council officially puts hotel project in former Illini's hands
After being in limbo for a few months, downtown's upcoming millennial-focused boutique hotel is officially back on track with a new developer.

The Champaign City Council unanimously voted Tuesday to turn the Best Western Hotel Vib (pronounced "vibe") project over to former Illini basketball player-turned-developer Doug Altenberger...

Construction on the hotel was supposed to start in January, after the city council approved the project last September. The new plan is to start work no later than Jan. 1, 2019, and be substantially complete by Dec. 1, 2020, according to a city staff report...

In other business:

— The council approved giving out $100,000 in Redevelopment Incentive Program funding to Main Street Rail LLC, which wants to turn the vacant building at 40 E. University Ave. into a microbrewery with upper-floor residential space. If the project goes through, the building would open up for the first time in 12 years...

— Council members heard a presentation Tuesday from a group of Centennial High School students, who proposed that Champaign ban the use of e-cigarettes, vaporizers and JUULs in places where traditional smoking is prohibited.

— The council officially approved an honorary street designation for Rabbi Benjamin Frankel, who created the University of Illinois' Illini Hillel in 1923. John Street, between Fifth and Sixth streets, will become Honorary Rabbi Ben Frankel Way for 10 years.

Mayor Deb Feinen also officially recognized and endorsed the Champaign-Urbana Eruv, which is a wire boundary set up to extend Jewish households out into public areas. Within it, activities that are normally not allowed in public on the Sabbath are permitted.

Full article here.