Urbana

Today's News-Gazette:

The city council voted Tuesday to convey three city-owned lots to not-for-profit groups that want to build affordable homes on them, including a lot that currently houses a mini-park across the street from King Elementary School.

Council members voted to convey the mini-park lot, at 1201 W. Beslin St., and a lot at 1405½ W. Beslin to Habitat for Humanity of Champaign County, and a third lot at 901 N. Division Ave. to Ecological Construction Laboratory for Affordable Housing Development.

The city is providing the lots for $1 each, expecting that the groups will build affordable homes there, said John Schneider, manager of the city's grants management division.

The minipark lot at 1201 W. Beslin has been the site of large gatherings and concerns about drug use, and council members didn't want those activities near a school, said Eileen Gebbe, executive director of Habitat for Humanity.

Discuss.

Today's News-Gazette:

Park board President Michael Walker said the draft report indicated that "there are multiple systems that have come to the end of their lives and will need major repair or replacement."

Walker said the park board had been hoping that repairs could be done in phases, but that the draft report indicates that "a phased refurbishment is not viable."

He explained that it appears that so many systems at the pool need replacement that city, state and national codes might be triggered that would essentially force the district to build a new pool because the pool would be required to meet current codes.

Walker said he isn't sure the current Crystal Lake Pool can be saved at this point.

Discuss.

Today's News-Gazette:

Though a racial and economic achievement gap is still evident in Prairie State Achievement Exam scores, and though many of the scores don't meet or exceed the testing benchmark of 62.5 percent, the high school's students have shown enough growth in their test scores in every category to qualify as passing.

The rising scores, as well as the school's new rating, provoked joy from many of staff member.

"It means what we are doing as a team works. It's awesome!" dean Stephanie Price-Hammond said to the group of teachers hearing the news Monday.

The passing scores also mean the school does not have to restructure this year, though staff plan to go through with the planned changes anyway, including adding more time to the school day for freshmen and sophomores to work with teachers in subjects where they need help.

Discuss.

This will put an end to one of the most entertaining, least impactful disputes in our local government in some time - the loud squabble in Cunningham Township over which advisory referenda to include on November's ballot:

A new law, signed by Gov. Rod Blagojevich late last month, prohibits registered voters who attend an annual township meeting from proposing advisory referendums without significant advance notice.

State law now requires 15 or more registered voters from the township to request an agenda item for consideration via written notice to the township clerk. The law now requires that such notice must be given no later than March 1.

That generally means a month in advance. Annual township meetings – where residents who are registered voters of the township get to vote – are generally held the first or second week of April.

Discuss.

Some of us have been wondering for a long time if any of the mandated reporters in Urbana's School District would be charged for failing to report suspicions about Jon White when they were first reported.

Today, three were charged:

Julia Rietz said Thursday that she filed misdemeanor charges Wednesday of failure to report suspected child abuse or neglect against former Urbana Superintendent Gene Amberg, former Thomas Paine elementary school principal Janice Bradley, and former Human Resources Director Carmelita Thomas for their failure to report their suspicions about inappropriate conduct by Jon White, a teacher at Thomas Paine.

Discuss.

One of the as-yet-overlooked aspects of moving the OTB back to Champaign from Urbana is that there is a considerable amount of revenue to the respective park districts which shifts with it.  Or at least it's supposed to:

The Champaign Park District stands to reap about $50,000 a year if the local off-track betting parlor moves to Jupiter's at the Crossing in Champaign later this year as planned.

Park district Executive Director Bobbie Herakovich said local park districts are supposed to get a portion of revenues from OTBs, and she'll likely recommend the money go for ongoing renovation of the Virginia Theatre.

But if the Urbana Park District's experience is any indication, the Champaign district shouldn't count its chickens too soon.

Vicki Mayes, executive director of the Urbana district, said her district received OTB money only the first year the off-track betting parlor operated at The Brickhouse in Urbana. The second year, Gov. Rod Blagojevich "swept away" the money earmarked for park districts, and Mayes said she doubts Urbana will receive anything for the third year either.

(Link was missing before, but fixed now.  Sorry!)

Today's News-Gazette:

Dimit and board member Brenda Carter – who has children at three schools in the district – will represent the board on the committee. Ota Dossett, the district's facilities director, will represent the school district.

Joe Vitosky, in the University of Illinois Office of Capital Programs and Real Estate Services, and Diane Marlin, who has been a Leal Elementary School, Urbana Middle School and high school parent, will serve as co-chairs.

Dimit said the rest of the committee includes Urbana police officer and parent Anthony Cobb; Sandra Carter, a parent active in the King Elementary School Parent Teacher Association; Mark Dixon, with The Atkins Group and an Urbana parent; Libby Tyler, community development director and city planner for Urbana; business owner and Urbana graduate Paul Tatman; David Guth, a parent from the Prairie Elementary School area; and parent and former school board member Donna Rinkenberger.

Discuss.

Today's News-Gazette:

Developer Howard Wakeland has gone to court seeking to overturn a July 8 decision by the Urbana City Council that denied him the ability to demolish an old rooming house at 809 W. Main St. and replace it with a new house.

This has been a topic of discussion on here for a while.  So, uh...discuss!

At the risk of parrotting every WDWS story today (why doesn't WDWS put their stories - at least headlines - online again?), they are reporting that Urbana Mayor Laurel Prussing will appoint David Gehrig to the Aldermanic seat vacated by Danielle Chynoweth, who resigned a few weeks ago.

Googling "David Gehrig Urbana" leads to some interesting results, one of which contains a little bit of biography:

David is Acorn's Secretary and a training coordinator for the GRIDS Center, a project of the National Science Foundation Middleware Initiative. He has been at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications since 2001, including three years as part of the NEESgrid project applying grid technology to civil engineering research for studying the effects of earthquakes. He has a degree in computer science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Good luck to Mr. Gehrig.  I believe this seat will be on the ballot in the 2009 municipal elections, for whatever it's worth.

UPDATE:  I think Mr. Gehrig is also on the NCSA staff, and is a site administrator at UCIMC.org.

Another interesting article from this weekend's News-Gazette regarding Urbana High Schools federally-mandated NCLB restructuring:

After months of meeting and debating, the plan to restructure Urbana High School in the wake of failing to meet federal testing benchmarks has yet to be finalized.

In a June 4 e-mail, the State Board of Education gave the district 30 days to come up with a revised plan for figuring out what's working and fixing what's not.

But those days have come and gone. School starts next month, and though parts of the plan are still undecided, Urbana schools staff members have begun altering how UHS functions.

When school starts Aug. 27 for freshmen (Aug. 28 for grades 10-12), students will have an altered day, including more extra-help time with teachers for underclassmen. Freshmen will share teachers in core subject areas like math and reading, and teachers will meet more regularly to share knowledge and skills, a concept called a professional learning community.

More on restructuring in general here.  Both articles are quite good.  The NG has been doing a great job with local stories lately (or at least so it seems to me), with this seris, the Jon White stories, and the Garden Hills stories, among others.

And so it begins:

Other defendants named include former Urbana schools Superintendent Gene Amberg, former Thomas Paine Elementary School Principal Janice Bradley, former human resources director Carmelita Thomas, afterschool program supervisor Rhiannon Ross, afterschool program worker and lunchroom supervisor Lamar Walker and current elementary teacher Kay Grabow.

The suit states that staff at the school – as well as staff in McLean County – should have made calls to the Department of Children and Family Services under mandated reporting laws.

The suit states that Amberg, Thomas and Bradley knew of the inappropriate behavior in White's classroom, let it continue, interviewed the child – referred to as Jane Doe-2 in the complaint – without her mother's consent or presence, did not inform the child's mother of the complaints against White and the child's known participation in activities after school in White's classroom and did not remove the child from the classroom.

"The school district knew that White was abusing her and did nothing," Bullock said. "They were intentionally keeping the parent out and keeping the parent uninformed, which made the child a sitting duck."

Discuss.

Urbana School District 116 is somewhat mimicking Champaign Unit 4's long-term visioning committee, although with an explicit emphasis on facilities:

The goal of the committee is to come up with a long-term "road map" for how the school district's buildings should look and operate in the near and not-so-near future, board President Mark Netter said.

He said the committee will have freedom to examine other issues related to facilities, including looking at redistricting – balancing population sizes in elementary school. "We're not really giving them too tight a rein," he said.

...

To apply, send an e-mail to district spokesman Mark Schultz at mschultz@usd116.org with "who they are, why they're interested, a little bit about their background," Netter said.

Discuss.

Today's News-Gazette:

The bonus payments, which all regular city employees get, are part of a worker's compensation self-insurance program in which city employees share 50 percent in overall savings when worker's compensation claims are lower than expected.

The bonus payments were made in November. The News-Gazette recently requested information about the payments, after learning about them, through the Illinois Freedom of Information Act.

For both Prussing and Clark, the bonuses represented two years' worth of payments, $450 for 2006 and $490 for 2007. Prussing and Clark had not received the bonus in 2006 and Prussing said she asked officials last fall why she and Clark were excluded.

"I checked it out with the (city) accountant," Prussing said. "I asked the question and the answer was we should be included."

Huh?

Via http://www.ucimc.org/node/3112, Danielle Chynoweth is apparently stepping down from City Council.

Dear Mayor Prussing and Urbana City Council Members,

Please accept this letter announcing my resignation from Urbana City Council.

After much consideration and attempts to schedule my professional life around council commitments, I have concluded that, with greatly increased travel and professional commitments, I will not be in a position to adequately serve Ward 2 residents.

Through my business, OJC Technologies, I have taken on the role of Development Director for Patch Adams. This new role will require me to travel extensively in the next year as we gather support to build a Health Care Teaching Center and Free Clinic in West Virginia. This is just one part of the growth in business we are experiencing at OJC. Other new contracts will be taking me out of the country as well.

These changes involve exciting professional opportunities as well as benefits for downtown Urbana. OJC Technologies, a company of 18 staff members (and growing), will be expanding into an office space in the former Busey Hall/Princess Theater on Main Street. This will allow OJC to grow, and for the Independent Media Center, which housed OJC for the past three years, to provide expanded services for artists and non-profits in the downtown post office building it owns.

I have thoroughly enjoyed working with you all and am proud of what we have accomplished together:
• Urbana’s new Public Arts Program, along with the gallery incentive program, will support and grow the arts and culture throughout Urbana.
• A Citizen Review Board of Police now provides independent review of citizen complaints.
• Business on Philo Road is expanding and beautification efforts are underway.
• Our new Rental Registration program protects tenant safety and levels the playing field for landlords.
• City Hall is more diverse in terms of gender and race than it has ever been in history.
• The firefighters have a contract that respects their contribution to this community.
• Urbana is installing bike lanes and paths throughout the city.
• The City of Urbana has sponsored two affordable homes that use passive solar to reduce energy costs by up to 75% and will soon be home to an entire affordable green neighborhood that will set a new standard for energy efficiency.
• Urbana Public Television has grown to hundreds of members and efforts are underway to establish a stand-alone public access television station where non-profits, churches, and residents can have a local voice.
• We have exciting plans for Boneyard Creek developments including a park and performance space by the creek that will greatly enhance downtown Urbana.
I am also proud of accomplishments with the previous council. We expanded the library, passed a living wage ordinance, passed an anti-war resolution which we hand delivered to Congress, and acknowledged the relationships of gay, lesbian, and non-married straight couples with our Domestic Partner Registry. And we consistently supported the growth and proliferation of local businesses that keep our tax dollars local.

Of the all changes, the one I am most proud of is the blossoming of citizen participation in government. Many council meetings are well attended because citizens see that their input has impact.

I am honored and blessed to have been able to serve Urbana for the past seven years. I thank everyone who has challenged me and supported me through these years. Although I am stepping down, I have every intention to stay in the community and continue to work to improve it, whether that be through holding a future elected position or in another role in our community. I wish you all the very best.

Sincerely,

Danielle Chynoweth
412 W. Illinois St.
Lovely Urbana, Illinois

Update: The News-Gazette has a story at http://www.news-gazette.com/news/local/2008/07/15/chynoweth_resigns_from_urbana_city_council

Today's News-Gazette:

The Urbana City Council rejected an appeal Tuesday night by Urbana developer Howard Wakeland, who is seeking to demolish a house in a historic district in the 800 block of West Main Street.

The council voted 4-3 to uphold the decision by the city's historic preservation commission to deny Wakeland a certificate of appropriateness to demolish a house at 809 W. Main St., and its decision to deny Wakeland a certificate of economic hardship.

Discuss.

The City of Champaign has a weak mayor. Nothing personally against the good mayor, but it is widely accepted that Steve Carter holds the power in Champaign.

The City of Urbana has a powerful mayor. Everyone now appreciates that if she wakes up on the wrong side of the bed, she might fire you in five minutes if you disagree with her. Score one for the strong mayor side making city employees more accountable.

The voters didn't elect Steve Carter and voters did elect Mayor Prussing. Score one for the strong mayor side.

Change can happen more quickly in Urbana. Score one for the strong mayor side.

The city staff of Urbana is going to do what the mayor says. The city of Champaign staff may or may not do what the mayor says. Score one for the strong mayor side.

Urbana city mayor can outline what priorities are for the city staff. Champaign city staff sets it's priorities according to the long term plan and it really doesn't seem to matter what mayor thinks the priorities should be. Score one for the strong mayor side.

In Champaign, everyone knows that it is not in your best interests not to disagree (too much) with city staff on something. In Urbana, if you disagree with city staff on something, the Mayor/council takes it under advisement. Score one for the strong mayor side.

In Champaign, the city staff seems to provide insulation from shady politics. Score one for the weak mayor.

In Champaign, things are looking pretty good overall. In Urbana, there are looking at very tough decisions in the near future. Score one (maybe more) for the weak mayor side.

We can look at two cities and see how they have progressed under these systems and determine which one we think is better based on results. Contrary to recent trends, I don't have a particular side that I favor. So which one is the better system? Am I missing something in my analysis? Am I just wrong on some assumptions?

This has been a topic of discussion on here before:

The city council on Monday will consider developer Howard Wakeland's request to rezone nearly an entire block of properties along North Lincoln Avenue.

The council meets at 7 p.m. Monday at the Urbana City Building, 400 S. Vine St.

The properties are west of Lincoln Avenue, between Hill and Church streets, just north of the Illinois American Water plant. The site is currently made up of single-family homes and Wakeland wants to change the zoning from residential to general business-university.

So, um...discuss!

I found this quite humorous . . .

The IRV advisory referendum will not be appearing on this fall's ballot in Cunningham Township after being defeated again last night.

It doesn't appear that Urbana voters will get a chance to weigh in on whether they would like to see city adopt instant-runoff voting for city elections.

At a special Cunningham Town meeting Monday night, a decisive majority of those in attendance, 98 to 43, rejected a proposed advisory referendum about whether the city should adopt instant-runoff voting for municipal primary and general elections.

Democratic regulars, along with some Republicans, jammed the 6 p.m. meeting and outnumbered instant-runoff-voting proponents headed by Urbana resident Durl Kruse. Any township resident who is a registered voter was eligible to attend.

I must admit that I find it both a little strange and very admirable that nearly 150 people care enough about an advisory, non-binding referendum effort to show up at a Township meeting on a beautiful summer evening.  The picture of the crowd voting at the meeting is just awesome.

Today's News-Gazette:

The Cunningham Town Board voted Monday night in special session to put one advisory question on the fall ballot but refrained from filling the ballot with two other questions.

The Urbana City Council, acting as the town board, was expected to put three questions on the Nov. 4 ballot to forestall an effort by local activists to force two advisory referendums in November, since three is the maximum number of referendum questions allowed.

The ballot question the board approved Monday will ask if motorists, bicyclists and pedestrians in crosswalks should be restricted from using cell phones.

The other two questions would have essentially asked voters if they support the status quo in regard to the local election system and in providing township financial and assessment information to the public. The board deferred action on the election question until after a town meeting June 30 and directed staff to come up with proposals to improve financial transparency.

Discuss.