Urbana City Council Update

The News-Gazette had an update on last night's Urbana City Council meeting:

Urbana council OKs permit for OSF's first urgent-care facility in area
The city council gave its approval Monday to a special-use permit that paves the way for the opening OSF HealthCare's first urgent-care outpatient clinic in the area.

The clinic at 520 N. Cunningham Ave. needed the permit to open in its zoning district. The facility, which will be near the recently renamed OSF Heart of Mary Medical Center, joins OSF's 13 other PromptCare centers in Illinois...

In other business, the city council voted to allocate its $4,331,250 private activity bond cap for 2018. It decided to equally split the money between its Mortgage Credit Certificate 2018 Program and the Eastern Illinois Economic Development Authority.

The EIEDA will use the funds for "possible neighborhood initiatives in the community, such as multi-family affordable housing developments," according to a council report.

The mortgage-credit program is federally authorized and allows homebuyers to "qualify for a federal income-tax credit equal to a percentage of the interest paid on their home loan each year," according to the report.

More details at the full article here.

Plaza Planning

The News-Gazette had some updates on potential ideas for a future Champaign "Neil plaza." From today's paper:

Champaign city planners test fitting Neil plaza ideas
City planners working on a downtown public plaza are putting ideas to paper and seeing what sticks.

Faced with a parking lot about the size of a football field, located at the corner of Neil and Washington streets, the planners will see which publicly-submitted plaza ideas are physically and financially feasible...

Some specific plaza features that the public has expressed interest in, according to Rains-Lowe: — An open-lawn area with some form of grass or seating.

— Ground-level water features that people can

interact with but aren’t like a children’s splash park.

— Movable seating and spaces to eat and work outside.

— Being family-friendly and pet-friendly.

— Shade and areas for kids to play.

— Components that change throughout the year to keep people coming back.

Because the plaza is being planned to occupy a parking lot, the city could replenish the lost spaces in different areas. Rains-Lowe said it will be a tricky decision because some people want to keep the same amount of parking spaces, while others don’t mind letting them go.

The city’s Neil Street corridor, which spans from Interstate 74 to the future plaza, is also being redeveloped. Planners on each project are working together to make sure that none of their designs clash, Rains-Lowe said.

A combination of private, public and grant dollars will go toward building the plaza. The city has created the website planourplaza.com for the public to describe their preferred plaza vision in five words or less.

Full article here.

Reentry Housing in Champaign

For the last couple of weeks the "Week Ahead" posts have been talking of potential updates from various local organizations working on the housing recommendations from the Racial Justice Task Force. There's still plenty of updates I'm waiting on this week, but I have some updates from the Reentry Council (more in this post on their last meeting here) involving the Housing Authority (HACC)'s attempts to institute a pilot program for reentry housing. I also have updates on CU Indivisible's latest meeting with Mayor Deb Feinen on those recent updates and previous tension with the County Board vote urging their action on the ordinance.

First, here is the CU Indivisible's position statement on the City of Champaign housing ordinance exemption: Full Statement in PDF format

And a few quick excerpts (though the full statement has the history, legal nitty gritty, supporting data and materials, links etc and is worth the read):

I. Our Position

CU Indivisible believe it's high time that the Champaign City Council strike Section 17/4.5 of its Human Rights Ordinance. This exemption puts renters with a conviction record at risk for discrimination from landlords at a time when they are in most need of sensible housing options up to 5 years after they’ve completed their sentence. We join many other groups in the conviction that this exemption restricts housing options for people of color, constraints opportunities for community and economic development, compromises the moral standing of our community, and may constitute a violation of the Fair Housing Act.

II. Background

In 1970s, the Cities of Urbana and City of Champaign updated their municipal code chapters on Human Rights to prohibit discrimination in the areas of employment, credit, housing and access to public accommodations on the basis of a person’s “prior arrest or conviction record.” Read the full ordinance here.

III. The Problem

In 1994, the City of Champaign added an exception to this ordinance that protects housing providers that choose to discriminate against housing applicants that have lived outside of jail or prison for at least five years. This exemption, Section 17/4.5 of its Human Rights Ordinance (HRO, henceforth), worsens Champaign’s existing housing problems by putting renters with a conviction record at risk for discrimination from housing providers.

IV: Reasons for Urgency

Given the wide support this action has received and its absence in Urbana’s City code, it is our position that the City of Champaign ought to strike the provision without a study. We believe the problem is one of political will, not a lack of evidence or voices of support. We believe the study session called for recently was aimed to provide a middle ground for council members and the information gained from those sessions as a means of justifying their decision. Two extenuating factors make striking the exemption even more necessary.

First, with expected cuts to federal spending on the horizon, advocates such as the Campaign for Housing and Community Development Funding (CHCDF) and the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC) worry that existing housing problems will develop into crises for localities like Champaign.

Second, the exemption stands as mark against our county that detracts from our ability to attract attention from programs and initiatives that would provide opportunities to improve life for all in our county. Earning the support of organizations such as the Vera Institute would ease Champaign’s housing issues. Both the incoming and outgoing Executive Directors of the Housing Authority of Champaign County recently spoke of their intention to apply to take part in a trial program that would open up more housing for the reentry population. The Vera Institute would supply funding for this program, and housing programs outside of the HACC would benefit. Recently recognized as an Innovator County for its work in criminal justice reform, the Directors believe that Champaign County could be a competitive candidate for this funding. However, they believe the exemption would greatly damage our chances.

The Mayor has promised to review the materials provided and invited CU Indivisible back for a follow up to see where any changes, if any, could be worked on. There is a balance of issues at hand that have to be weighed, from safety concerns that cannot be ignored to the rights of those involved. How the language is changed if not outright struck has consequences on how effective the change could be in improving the odds of reentry success stories. The goal is to have a safer and more equitable community by legal and better landlord screening, all while helping ensure less recidivism for the individuals and the community at large.

One issue mentioned above that came up is the confusion about the County Board vote to urge the City of Champaign and Housing Authority to make the changes recommended by the Racial Justice Task Force. That County Board action itself was recommended by the Racial Justice Task Force (page 55 of the final public report). It specifically cited the City's own Human Relations Commission's support and apparently many County Board members assumed that the Champaign City Council would see it as supportive of their efforts to make the change (efforts that had not yet begun, as it turns out). The unanimous vote instead was interpreted by some council members, most notably Clarissa Fourman, as a critical or even possibly patronizing move.

The County Board members may have erred in not reaching out and contacting the Council members about details of the action ahead of time, perhaps assuming the Council was not only aware, but already working from the same recommendations. At least some board members seemed genuinely surprised by the Council reaction and their own surprise.

Hopefully that communication hiccup won't derail a recommendation that has wide and growing support from people across the community — from activists to law enforcement to various government bodies familiar with the issue. It'd be a shame for politics to derail what appears to be a nonpartisan pragmatic reform.

There are a lot of delicate issues and community interests to protect along the way. I hope to add voices and concerns here so people reading here can be informed and make up their own mind and support what they believe is the right thing.

Wind Generated Revenue

The News-Gazette had a bunch of information today on what those wind turbines all over the County are generating, and it's not just electricity. From today's paper:

Analysis: Four wind farms, 329 turbines generate $9.9 million across area
For those whose homes butt up against one, wind turbines can be the sort of nuisance that leads to less sleep, more trips to the car wash and spotty TV reception, critics charge.

But for cash-strapped school districts, community colleges and township governments around the area, those tall, white, spinning electricity generators you see up and down Interstate 57 help pay the bills — and then some.

As Ford County officials prepare to meet Monday to discuss whether it's time to lift their six-month wind farm moratorium, The News-Gazette analyzed two years' worth of property tax revenue data to determine which towns, townships, districts and counties benefited most from the area's turbines — now at 329 and counting.

Among our findings:

— In 2016 and '17, the three area counties with wind turbines — Champaign (32 of them), Ford (144) and Vermilion (153) — received more than $9.9 million in tax revenue from wind farm projects.

— Between them, the tiny Armstrong High School and Armstrong-Ellis Grade School districts — which pull in approximately 210 students from Champaign and Vermilion counties — received more than $2 million in wind farm tax revenue the past two years.

— Fire districts in the three counties received $191,650 last year alone. That went toward purchases that ranged from new gear to replacing an old fire truck, which the Vermilion County village of Rankin did.

— Parkland College received just over $40,000 in revenue last year — far less than the $135,479 Danville Area Community College took in but still "very meaningful," said Christopher Randles, the Champaign college's chief financial officer and treasurer.

"That's about the rate of a full staff member," Randles said. "And there's other ways you can try to translate it."

The article then has this chart (click to enlarge) and another blurb on Champaign County specifically:

For Champaign County, the $60,000 in annual wind farm revenue is "nice," as Treasurer John Farney put it, "but a drop in the bucket" in the grand scheme of a $115 million budget.

In Vermilion County, it means much more.

The presence of wind farms has allowed that county to keep its tax rates low — "and lessen them even," Treasurer Darren Duncan said.

"Wind farms are among the top 10 taxpayers in Vermilion County," he added. "In our county, revenue and economic development have been stagnant. So they're a blessing there."

What both Vermilion and Champaign counties have in common, though, is the way the tax bills vary from turbine to turbine, land parcel to land parcel. Sometimes by just a few dollars at a time.

One parcel in the California Ridge Wind Farm, for example, pays $1,971.24 annually to the Champaign County government. Another pays $1,965.16. Another, $2,029.60.

Sasha Green, tax extension specialist with Champaign County, explained that variations in taxing districts make those totals different. They're based on different assessed values, which can vary by just a few hundred dollars. But they're all meant to be about the same.

More area-wide information and other details in the full article.

Community College 4 Year Degree Bill

A broader version of a bill that would allow two-year colleges like Parkland offer a four-year nursing degree is starting to move through the Illinois Senate. From the News-Gazette today:

Tom Kacich | Parkland president stumping for nursing-degree bill
Controversial legislation pitting two-year community colleges in Illinois against four-year universities is scheduled for a return trip to the Senate Higher Education Committee this week.

Tom Ramage, president of Parkland College in Champaign, will be among the chief proponents of legislation that would permit community colleges to offer four-year baccalaureate degrees in nursing.

The bill (SB 888) suffered a setback in the committee last May, although that was a different version. That measure would have restricted the initiative to 11 community colleges — among them Parkland and Lincoln Land in Springfield — and to no more than 7,000 students. The original version of the bill permitted as many as 20 community colleges to offer a four-year nursing degree.

Under this newest version, the limitations are off...

 Last year, the same committee voted down a different version of the bill 8-7. The two local senators on the panel, Democrat Scott Bennett of Champaign and Republican Chapin Rose of Mahomet, cancelled out each other’s vote. Bennett voted for it; Rose was opposed.

Bennett said last week that he needed to review the new proposal before making a commitment. Rose said he’s interested in the legislation and the issue but that he thinks it ought to be part of a broader plan for administering higher education in Illinois, something a bipartisan higher education working group of legislators is reviewing.

The full article has more on the resistance to upending the separation between community colleges and four-year institutions as well as support for the idea given the economic realities people are facing in Illinois.

Charter School Questions Remain

[UPDATE: The timetable has been adjusted for the charter school applicants to address questions on their proposal by the board. Excerpt from an article in yesterday's News-Gazette:

Charter-school proponents get more time to answer Unit 4 board's questions
...

Pressed by board members during Monday's hearing to provide answers to 116 questions about an application lacking in detail, North Champaign Academy founders frequently deferred, asking for the chance to provide clarification later.

The deadline set at the meeting — of noon today — has been pushed back to Wednesday, Unit 4 Superintendent Susan Zola informed NCA in an email obtained by The News-Gazette.

That's two days fewer than NCA asked for but still came as a relief...

For now, the district's plan is to provide a written decision about the charter school at a special meeting at 5:30 p.m. May 2.

That's later than the original timeline, which called for a ruling on April 23.]

In a packed school board hearing the proponents of a new Charter school were grilled on their application with a litany of questions, many of which proponents said they'd have to follow up on. Here's an excerpt from the News-Gazette website last night:

Unit 4 board grills charter-school proponents about gaps in plan
...
Under state law, Unit 4 must reach a decision within 30 days of Monday.

After Kloeppel finished his questions, other board members asked ones of their own in a similar vein, attempting to understand perceived gaps in the budget or instances in which the proposal failed to align with state law.

Most questions were again answered with a request for a delay, which NCA members said they were doing on behalf of the public, who, by 8 p.m., had not had a chance to comment about the proposal.

When the public did get a chance to speak, comments ranged from uncertainty about the application due to lack of clarity to pleas directed at board members to support a charter school whose founders say is aimed at improving academic progress in low-income and low-achieving students within the Champaign school district.

"Seven of my nine students are African-American," said Joel Wright, a special education teacher at Jefferson Middle School. "I am highly concerned with several of the gaps (in the proposal) — these kids need very intensive support.

"The other thing I wanted to say to the board, regardless of your decision, what you're seeing tonight is that the stakeholders — the black community — feel like they don't have a stake to hold. I think there's serious problems in the application, but I think Unit 4 needs to figure out a way to include these stakeholders. Everyone in this room has the best interests of students in mind. But how to do that will be the challenge ahead."

Full article here with more details on the questioning and remaining questions. In other business Centennial High School got a familiar face as their new principal:

The Unit 4 school board on Monday night named Associate Principal Chuck Neitzel to succeed first-year Principal Brian Riegler, whose resignation takes effect on June 30.

Neitzel has been Centennial’s associate principal since 2012. Before that, he was the school’s assistant principal (2009-12) and dean of students (2008-09)...

Earlier this year, about seven months after replacing Greg Johnson as Centennial principal, Riegler announced he was stepping down in June, citing separation from his family as the motivation.

[Originally published 4/10/2018 at 4:07am]

School Property Tax Update

Upcoming property tax bills will reflect changes in local school district moves. From the News-Gazette today:

Coming property-tax bills include first bump for Champaign schools
The first financial sting from the Champaign school district’s building improvement plans will be arriving in mailboxes soon.

Bills for 2017 property taxes — payable this year— are set to go out April 30, and they’ll give Champaign taxpayers their first look at how much $183.4 million in bond issues approved in a 2016 referendum will actually cost them.

In simplest terms, expect to pay about an additional 76 cents for every $100 of assessed valuation over last year.

That’s based on a Unit 4 2017 tax rate of $5.0299 per $100, compared to its 2016 rate of $4.2704 per $100, according to numbers supplied by the county clerk’s office.

On a $150,000 house with the standard homeowner exemption, the higher Champaign school rate will mean about $334 more in school taxes over last year, or about $28 more a month...

 The new, higher tax rate for Champaign schools closes at least some of the gap between Champaign and Urbana school tax rates.

Urbana’s 2017 school tax rate, set at $5.9684, is a bit over 4 cents per $100 more than its 2016 rate, and will cost the owner of a $150,000 Urbana home about $19 more than the previous year.

The Urbana school rate — traditionally higher than the Champaign school rate because so much property in the Urbana school district is tax-exempt — is about 94 cents-per-$100 higher than the Champaign school district’s rate, even with the Champaign school bonds factored in.

Better news for Urbana taxpayers is they can look forward to a school tax decrease next year, with payments on an Urbana school bond issue nearing an end.

Full article here.

University Ventures

A bill in the State legislature that would promote business ventures locally with ideas developed at the University of Illinois is making it way out of committee. From the News-Gazette today:

State Senate panel advances Rose's bill to let UI take researchers' work to market
Legislation that would allow the University of Illinois to form limited liability companies with the inventions or technologies of researchers or faculty members has been approved by an Illinois Senate committee.

The Senate Higher Education Committee voted 10-0 this week in favor of legislation (SB 3568) proposed by Sen. Chapin Rose, R-Mahomet. Rose said the measure would give more flexibility to people affiliated with the university who develop new intellectual property.

“The nice thing about this is that it gives a lot of flexibility to individual researchers at the university and professors at the university because a lot of what already exists — for example, the Illinois Ventures — maybe there are other things out there that aren’t on the scale of an Illinois Ventures but they could go ahead and license that technology,” Rose told committee members. “It’s just another tool in the toolbox for our researchers and professors to take their ideas and their creativity to market.”

The UI would have to have a majority ownership interest in any company formed under the legislation, he said.

Full article here.

Champaign Council and Bristol Place

There seems to be an obnoxious provision required for the federal funding, but I don't completely understand it. It may relate to this funding announcement and refer to this program. If I'm wrong it might at least get those looking for more information a starting point to keep looking. More Bristol Place project information on the City website here. From the News-Gazette coverage of last night's City of Champaign Council's regular study session meeting: 

Champaign council members raise concerns with Bristol Place details
Although unhappy with one aspect of the Bristol Place development, the city council is preparing for the affordable-housing neighborhood to break ground.

Council members on Tuesday discussed the requirement that a family must first rent a single family home for 15 years before being allowed to apply for a mortgage to buy it. Several of the officials said that’s too long of a period to wait.

“It’s really hard for people who don’t have anything and come from nothing,” said councilwoman Clarissa Nickerson Fourman. “Fifteen years seems like forever.”

But Kerri Wiman, the city’s neighborhood services director, said the Bristol Place project financially relies on federal low-income housing tax credits, which can’t be received unless the 15-year rental period is part of the deal.

The project’s developer — Jim Roberts with minority-owned, Chicago based AHDVS LLC — said that over the course of the 15 years, there will be education programs for renters — some of them mandatory — on topics including financial literacy, creating good credit and home maintenance. AHDVS plans to partner with local banks to administer the programs, he said...

The Bristol Place neighborhood is slated to be built between May 2018 and November 2019, Wiman said. The area is bordered by East Roper Street on the north, North Chestnut Street on the east, East Bradley Avenue on the south and North Market Street on the west.

Full article here.

Urbana Bike Share Consideration

[UPDATE: The N-G had a followup of the board's discussion here. A quick excerpt:

In response, council member Eric Jakobsson said what happens would depend on the city's culture.

"My guess is ... that the system will be respected and used properly," he said. "If you have good reason to hope ... it's really better to make decisions based on that hope, rather than on the fear that something might go wrong."

Urbana City Planner Kevin Garcia said bike theft isn't typically a problem for dockless-bike-sharing companies because the branded bikes don't have much resale value, are hard to break down into usable scrap components and have tracking devices in them. He said employees of those companies will retrieve an abandoned bike in at most three hours on a regular day and 12 hours on off days.

Some city council members said there should be certain circumstances where a bike is retrieved as soon as possible, such as if it's in the middle of the road. They also suggested lowering the recommended number of bikes each company could bring, which was initially set at 500. Garcia said at least seven companies have expressed interest in the CU area.]

In a Committee of the Whole meeting the Urbana City Council will be considering the dockless bike sharing project for the area (agenda and relevant report here). From the News-Gazette today:

Urbana to join bike share? Possible regulations under review

Tonight, the city council will consider a proposal to roll dockless bike sharing into Urbana.

Dockless bike sharing allows cyclists to rent rides with a phone app that locates bikes via GPS. Payment is processed by the app to unlock the bike, which has a locking mechanism on the back wheel, and a rider can place the bike anywhere around town when finished.

Urbana's look at dockless bike sharing comes after the Champaign city council approved a similar proposal at the end of last year. Urbana City Planner Kevin Garcia said the plan going forward is to create a uniform set of regulations if both cities and the University of Illinois approve the activity.

For Urbana and Champaign, Garcia said both city staffs are aiming to have dockless bike sharing and its regulation system all approved by May...

These are some of the proposed dockless bike-share regulations, according to a city staff report that the council will review tonight:

— Creating one dockless bike sharing license for Champaign, Urbana and the UI, which would be administered by the city of Champaign as the lead agency.

— A non-refundable, annual license fee of $600 that Champaign would receive the largest share of.

— A $1,000 security deposit that dockless bike-share operators pay to both Champaign and Urbana ($2,000 total).

— Each operator could have a fleet of 500 bicycles.

Full article here.

Charter School Arguments

The News-Gazette highlighted a personal story along with local arguments surrounding the achievement gap along racial lines in Champaign. Excerpts from the News-Gazette today:

Proponents ready to argue case for new Champaign charter school
...
At 5:30 p.m. Monday at Unit 4's Administrative Center, founders of the North Champaign Academy will make their formal case for why Unit 4 should support a new charter school, to be housed in a 15,000-square-foot facility at 1400 W. Anthony Drive. The request seeks a $14,845-per-student-per-year investment by the district.

School board President Chris Kloeppel has said a decision is expected within two weeks of Monday's hearing...

Central to local charter school supporters' proposal is six years' worth of standardized testing data, taken straight from the "report cards" compiled by the Illinois State Board of Education from data provided by each district.

NCA founders focused on data from 2011 through 2017, hoping to illustrate a point about the achievement gap in Unit 4:

In 2011, test results showed that black third-graders within Unit 4 comprised 15.2 percent of the lowest-achieving members of their demographic.

By 2017 — following several statewide shifts in assessment standards, types of tests administered and scoring changes — the number of black third-graders within the lowest-achieving category had reached 52.1 percent...

Some community members say the numbers show what was already common knowledge: that the district achievement gap is a significant one, necessitating a bold, new approach.

But Unit 4 officials argue that the issue is more complex than two numbers reveal. They attribute the widening of the gap to a number of factors — including a shift in testing, from the Illinois Standard Achievement Test (ISAT), which was used in 2011, to the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Career Readiness (PARCC) test in 2015. That, they say, caused a downward spiral in test scores and negated the ability for the numbers to be compared at all...

The effect those changes had on students across the district, however, wasn't uniform.

After PARCC was implemented in 2015, 9 percent of white third-graders fell into the Level 1 — or "did not meet expectations" category. For black third-graders, that number was 39.1 percent.

By 2017, 11.8 percent of white third-graders were in Level 1 compared to 52.1 percent of black third-graders.

"The 'apples-to-oranges' argument because the test changed is bogus," said NCA steering committee member Craig Walker. "The percent drop by black students is way larger than the percent drop by white students in the same time period."

Full article here.

Boneyard Cleanup

In some more inspiring news volunteers and local organizations, in coordination with the Champaign Park District, braved the elements recently to help the environment. From today's News-Gazette:

Volunteers brave cold for Boneyard Creek cleanup

Hundreds of volunteers — some wearing orange Boneyard Creek cleanup T-shirts over their coats — pulled litter and invasive plants from the Champaign waterway and other local sites Saturday morning, as part of the 13th Boneyard Creek Community Day.

At least 200 people, according to an unofficial lunchtime count by Zoe Stinson of the Champaign Park District, searched waterways in Champaign, Urbana and Savoy for trash despite the day's cold weather.

"At this time, we have 391 volunteers registered through the website. We have walk-ups the day of the event as well," she said before the cleanup.

It was only 27 degrees out midway through the event, which began at 9 a.m., but by the time things wrapped up and volunteers were munching on Jimmy John's sandwiches at Scott Park near noon, the sun was out and the temperature had climbed to about 32. That was an improvement over last year's event, which had been rained out...

Stinson said the volunteer event promotes appreciation, stewardship and naturalizing of urban stream corridors.

In addition to the original members that created the event — the University of Illinois; city of Champaign and Champaign Park District; city of Urbana and Urbana Park District; and the Prairie Rivers Network — other groups have taken on an involved role, she said.

They include Champaign Rotary, Champaign Rotary West, Savoy Rotary, Champaign County Design and Conservation Foundation, Don Moyer Boys and Girls Club and Champaign County Soil and Water Conservation District.

Urbana Dual-Language Program

Urbana's school district is looking to expand its dual-language program. More information in yesterday's News-Gazette:

Urbana district's dual-language program looking to expand
The Urbana school district's dual-language program is looking at a possible dual-level expansion that could begin this fall.

The move comes after the English-Spanish program's initial class entered sixth grade this year. Since their introduction to the program in kindergarten in 2012, the students, both native Spanish speakers and native English speakers, have spent the intervening time in the same classroom, receiving instruction in both languages, and watching them progress has been "amazing," said Guadalupe Ricconi, director of the Elementary Bilingual Program...

The question facing the district is less about whether it wants to expand the Spanish program and more about how and where that will happen. Officials recently solicited input from parents and community members via an online survey where they chose from three options:

— Create a single dual-language school within the district. According to an explanatory video by Joe Wiemelt, the district's director of bilingual and multicultural programs, this would allow the district to centralize materials, resources and specialists but could create the possibility that non-dual-language students would have to be moved to another school.

— Expand the program at Dr. Williams and Leal, which could also necessitate the transfer of some staff and non-dual-language students.

— Expand the program to a third school, which would mean less transferring of staff and students but would make it difficult to collaborate among buildings and could raise "growing pains" with a new program.

"The cons in all three options are not insurmountable," Wiemelt added. "Ultimately, the most important part is the magic that happens inside the classroom in the teaching and learning."

Nearly 600 people provided feedback, with most preferring the third option. But the district's decision is still up in the air.

More at the full article here. More from the district website here.