City Council Regular Meeting

CITY OF URBANA COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE – Tuesday, May 28, 2019 CITY COUNCIL CHAMBERS - 400 SOUTH VINE STREET, URBANA, IL 61801 The City Council Committee of The Whole of the City of Urbana, Illinois, met in regular session Tuesday, May 28, 2019 in the Council Chambers of the Urbana City Building. ELECTED OFFICIALS PHYSICALLY PRESENT: Bill Brown; Shirese Hursey; Eric Jakobsson; Jared Miller; Dennis Roberts; Maryalice Wu; Charles A. Smyth; Diane Wolfe Marlin ELECTED OFFICIALS PRESENT VIA TELECONFERENCE: None ELECTED OFFICIALS ABSENT: Dean Hazen, Ward 6 STAFF PRESENT: Sheila Dodd, Melissa Haynes, Wendy Hundley, Charles Lauss, Carol Mitten, Lorrie Pearson, Marcus Ricci, Bryant Seraphin, John Schneider, James Simon OTHERS PRESENT: Carletta Donaldson, Dan Maloney; Jason Rock; Members of the Media 1. Call to Order and Roll Call There being a quorum, Chair Dean Hazen called the meeting of the Committee of the Whole to order at 7:00pm 2. Approval of Minutes of Previous Meeting Alderman Dennis Roberts made a motion to approve the minutes from the meeting held on May 13, 2019. Alderwoman Maryalice Wu seconded. Motion carried by unanimous voice vote. 3. Additions to the Agenda There were none. 4. Public Input Carletta Donaldson addressed the committee to express her gratitude to the Mayor, city staff, and council members especially the alderman from Ward 7 during the recent tornado devastation in the Southeast Urbana. She also announced a Salute celebration that will be hosted by the VFW post 559 at 704 N. Hickory, May 31, 2019, to honor WWII/Korean veterans. Mayor Marlin added that the city will be picking up trees and brushes from both public/private right of way. She directed the public to the city’s website or Facebook page for more information about pick up, which will continue until June 4, 2019. Trees and brush collection must be place on the curb without blocking any fire hydrants. Alderman Miller added that the tree limbs and brush debris must be eight feet long or shorter and 10 inches or less in diameter. Public Works Interim Director Carol Mitten added that the services mentioned only apply to Windsor Road., Race, Philo, Silver, and north of Mumford. Mayor Marlin had additional remarks about the overall team work, neighboring assistance, and the impact to the neighborhood. Dan Maloney addressed the committee in support of Resolution No. 2019-05-014R and about establishing the Downtown Urbana Historic District and its tax benefits. Page 1 of 5  Jason Rock addressed the committee after the pedestrian stop discussion to express his concerns about infrastructure and correlation with crime. Alderman Dennis Roberts reported that Day of Gratitude was held at the Unitarian Universalist Church Thursday, May 23, 2019. Alderman Roberts also reported that this day has been celebrated in Urbana for the past three years. Mr. Abdulhakeem Salaam reported that it is an official Day of Gratitude in the State of Illinois. Mr. Salaam received a proclamation signed by the Clerk of the House John W. Hollman and Speaker of the House Michael J. Madigan. Next year this event will be available to any community who would like to celebrate. 5. Presentations There were none 6. Staff Report Community Development Director John Schneider reported that City Planner Marcus Ricci has completed his certification with The American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP) and is now a certified planner. 7. Resolution No. 2019-05-013R: A Resolution Approving a Loan Agreement with the Urbana Free Library Finance Director Elizabeth Hannan presented Resolution No. 2019-05-013R with the recommendation for approval. She said that property tax bill has been delayed this year by a month, but because the library is so dependent on property revenue, which is about 80% of their operating fund this creates a cash flow problem for them. To avoid any disruption of services, employee, and vendor payments the city could provide a short-term loan to the library. This resolution would authorize the city to loan them up to half a million dollars at no interest and would be dispersed bi-weekly as needed. Loan terms are as follows: Terms are no interest charged, full repayment within ten days of receipt of second full property tax installment, maximum amount of $500,000, funds draw as needed, draws based on a review of cash balance, and projected expenses reviewed bi-weekly. This loan will result in a loss of income to the city of a couple of thousand dollars. After the presentation, Alderman Roberts made a motion to send Resolution No. 2019-05- 013R to council with a recommendation for approval. Motion seconded by Alderwoman and carried by unanimous voice vote. 8. Discussion: Pedestrian Stops Interim Police Chief Bryant Seraphin and Crime Analyst Melissa Haynes gave this presentation. Mr. Seraphin started by giving a background of the data that has been collected. He said that the state of Illinois passed the Police and Community Relations Improvement Act. He also read the following state statute “Whenever a law enforcement officer subjects a pedestrian to detention in a public place, he or she shall complete a uniform pedestrian stop card, which includes any existing form currently used by law enforcement containing all the information required under section [625ILCS 5/11-212]”. The information presented addressed the data collected from the Urbana Police Department during 2016-2018. In light of the disparities in data, the department decided to reach out to other police departments to find out how they interpret their data. After speaking with many agencies, the information was then evaluated to include certain guidelines about a pedestrian Page 2 of 5  stop which gets reported to IDOT. In order for this information to be reportable to IDOT it must include:  an investigative stop  of a pedestrian  in a public place  (accessible to the public, irrespective of whether the property is publicly or privately owned)  involving a frisk, search, summons (NTAs), or arrest. UPD also collects non-reportable information where all the mentioned applies except for frisk, search, summons, or arrest. Ms. Haynes talked about the data analysis from 2018 noting the number of stops that were consistent with 2017 data. Most stops were conducted for reactive reasons, 68.29% (reportable calls) of the 2018 reportable pedestrian stops conducted with African American individuals, 66.10% (non-reportable calls) of non-reportable pedestrian stops, and echo police report demographics, with neither comparable to the census population. Changing methodology for collection of 2019 data has been modified as follows: narrowed definition of public place to be in line with legislative intent and other agency reporting practices, early data indicates number of stops will be significantly lower in 2019, and data will no longer be comparable with previous years for Urbana. Mr. Seraphin added that seven out of the eight reason are stated by statute. Council members engaged in discussion about the information presented and the new way of reporting, and Ms. Haynes addressed some of the questions by explaining how the data is collected and evaluated. Mr. Seraphin also addressed some of the questions by providing scenarios of event and the way each event is handled and of possible outcomes. Council members mentioned that some of the resident’s complaints expressed in the past have been about the bad interaction with police and that maybe the focus should be on making the appropriate corrections to improve the resident police interaction. 9. Resolution No. 2019-05-014R: A Resolution in Support of Establishing the Downtown Urbana Historic District Planner Marcus Ricci presented Resolution No. 2019-05-014R. Alice Novak, chair of the Urbana Historic Preservation Commission, was present. Mr. Ricci said Ms. Novak submitted a nomination to list the downtown Urbana Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places, on behalf of the City. The area nominated covers approximately seven city blocks. The Illinois State Historic Preservation Office determined the nomination satisfied the National Register’s standards for documentation and will present the nomination to the Illinois Historic Sites Advisory Council on June 28. Mr. Ricci said city staff believe the district should be recognized on the National Register. Alice Novak answered questions and concerns from committee members. She said the listing is an honorary designation and does not give the federal government control over a property or impose any financial obligation on the owners or interfere with owner’s right to alter, manage, or dispose of the property. Those restrictions are governed by state and local programs. Page 3 of 5  There was a suggestion to create a downtown design overlay district to provide guidelines to those making changes to downtown buildings. This could prevent changes that might remove a building from being considered for the National Historic Register. After discussion, Alderwoman Wu made a motion to send Resolution No. 2019-05-014R to council with recommendation for approval. Motion seconded by Alderman Roberts and carried by unanimous voice vote. 10. Discussion: Consolidated Social Service Funding FY 2019-2020 Grants Manager Sheila Dodd began the discussion and said that she did some research and spoke with other agencies, Township Supervisor and staff, Council Members, and other staff members. After all of the information was gathered with positive and negative feedback, all consideration was taken into account to create an application and process. The reviewing team consisted of Township Supervisor Danielle Chynoweth and staff, Sheila Dodd, Alyssa Jaje, and City Council Member Maryalice Wu. The consolidated social service funding guidelines for reviewing each application were based on the priorities from City Council and Township goals. Two workshops were held to explain the application process and evaluation criteria. Questions were highlighted to prompt agencies of the importance of the issues during the evaluation process. Each agency attendee received a list of the frequently asked question (FAQ), then the process was open for five weeks to allow technical support to any agencies that showed interest in applying. Forty-six agencies attended the workshop and 34 submitted applications with 45 different programs and a total grant amount request of $820,000, Ms. Dodd added that this was a learning experience and that next year the application process will be shorter. Once all applications were received in Urbana they were distributed to the evaluation team, during that time each application was evaluated by considering the longevity of the program, the agencies that were the consider were: lack of capacity to execute grant project, poor performance or misuse of funds in the past, limited experience with managing grants. The overall objective of the funding is to provide long term support to extremely low- income residents. The capacity of each agency was evaluated based on their current financial health through audit and financial statement, the ability to support the program with other revenues or resources, the capability to increase services to Urbana residents as it is City and Township money that is being used to fund all programs. The narratives in the applications were a significant factor in the deciding process. This year government or quasi-government organization that have their own revenue resources and own taxing body were not consider for funding, however, Regional Planning Commission (RPC) submitted an application for the homeless intake system that is mandated by Housing and Urbana Development (HUD), which is not funded by RPC as they are only the repository of the program. After a thorough review of each application, the recommendation is to fund 17 agencies and 18 programs. One of the applications submitted was incomplete, and that was for the youth program at Urbana Neighborhood Connection. The team is recommending funding because it is the only program that truly serves Urbana residents only. City staff is currently working with Janice Mitchell to make sure that they get their funding for the Youth Program. Ms. Dodd said that the total amount for all of the agencies is a little under at $ 225,000. Council asked about the other $ 25,000 because it was agreed at a previous meeting that $ 250,000.00 was going to be allocated for social service funding. Ms. Dodd explained that the Township Supervisor Danielle Chynoweth wanted to set aside $ 25,000 for rapid response. Page 4 of 5  After an intense discussion, the committee was in agreement that guidelines need to be in place for the allocated rapid response fund. Mayor Marlin addressed the council and commended the new process and the deciding team on the process and the way it was streamlined, giving everyone an equal opportunity. However, she was troubled by the nomination of CUFAIR-CU Friends and Allies of Immigrants and Refugees. This was their first time applying, and they requested full funding for three different programs which go against the social service guidelines, but they have been nominated to receive $28,000 out of the $40,000 that they requested. Mayor reiterated the process and guidelines to get funding, and does not feel that CUFAIR-CU meets those qualifications at this time. On the other hand, you have an agency such as the Refugee Center who has served Urbana residents for over 40 years and increased their services by 12% last year, were only awarded $5,000 out of $8,000 requested. She believes that to preserve the integrity of the grant application process, and expenditure of tax dollars, and to be fair to all who applied, The Refugee Center should be fully supported instead. Mayor Marlin said that she was also troubled by the fact that the Champaign County Regional Planning Youth Assessment Center (YAC) was not considered for funding. She believes there was a miscommunication about the source of the financing from the City of Urbana. The YAC program is not funded through the Urbana Police Department. She explained the importance of the program and its valuable resource for Champaign County and the City of Urbana. Chair Jared Miller reminded committee members that they are not looking for direction at this time this is only a discussion with comments to be considered at a later date. 11. Adjournment With no further business before the committee, Chair Miller adjourned the meeting at 9:23pm. Wendy M. Hundley Deputy City Clerk This meeting was video recorded on cable television, and website link to view documents and video is: https://www.city.urbana.il.us/Scripts/CouncilVideo/Video.asp?v=/_Video/City_Council/2019/20190528 Minutes Approved: June 10, 2019 Page 5 of 5