Charlie Smyth Urbana City Council Ward 1	email: csmyth at charliesmyth.org phone: 367-2813 805 S. Coler, Urbana, IL 61801

Dear Friends and Neighbors,

Updated July 20, 2008

To see current council and committee agendas please visit the City of Urbana Website Council Agendas

Neighborhood Meetings: I will be at the Urbana Farmer's Market many Saturday's through October. You can find me at the ChampaignCountyBikes.org table which is usually about 6 tables east of the City of Urbana tent at the northwest corner of the parking lot. I currently plan to be there on July 26, Aug 30, Sept 27, and Oct 25. At the table you can find information on the various bike groups in the area including Prairie Cycle Club and theBikeProject. We recently unveiled a Share the Road bus and a new cities area bike map. In addition, ChampaignCountyBikes.org and theBikeProject (tentative) will be hosting a bicycle parking coral at the 33rd annual Sweet Corn Festival in downtown Urbana August 22-23.

Upcoming Council Activities: Staff are moving into another round of public viewing and discussion of a Busey-Lincoln corridor design review standard. The next public session will be Wednesday July 23 at the City Building begining at 5:30 pm. We'll be taking some time off in August.

Recent Council Actions: With the support of Mattslaw.org, I proposed a cell phone ban while driving ordinance that was discussed at the Urbana City Council on Monday, May 12. City staff seem reluctant to support it and a version of a distracted driving penalty ordinance was passed instead. However, the ordinance does include a ban on text messaging making Urbana the first place in Illinois to do so. Research links and and more about this below. A group of us are also looking at sustainable lighting issues and have put together some resources on the University District Lighting Project that we will use in this same council meeting. Working with staff, we are pursuing a number of sustainability initiatives and the Mayor appointed a Sustainability Commission whose first task will be to prioritize efforts that can be made by the city to meet a number of green initiatives. The lastest report from staff will be the starting point for the commission.An Art Commission has been appointed, a Citizens Police Review Board has completed training; Carle Expansion plans are moving forward with construction beginning on infrastructure along Church Street between Lincoln and Busey. With the first phase of street sales completed, Carle submited a more complete proposal for building to the State in March. There are two documents in pdf format associated with their proposals to date though I don't have the latest version (proposal, discussion). The city will be redesigning its web site and coordinating some companion marketing sometime in the coming year as well.

Neighborhood Preservation: A citizen driven Neighborhood Conservation District creation procedure has been approved by City Council (November 5, 2007) as well as a new Historic District encompassing the 800 Block West of Main Street. Issues of demolition review have been incorporated into a separate discussion of historic and landmark buildings and how the city identifies these structures and has resulted in a 45 day Demolition Delay procedure. Staff has also increased notification of surrounding areas and started publication of demolitions. Last year, there was a presentation by Bob Yapp on the formation of Neighborhood Housing Development Corporations at the Phillips Recreation Center, and several follow up workshops have occurred.

Rental Registration: A Rental Registration and Inspection ordinance was passed by Council last year. Additional staff was hired and inspections have been underway for a number of months. There is a link from the city's main web site detailing this expanded program which now includes 1 and two unit rentals. Further, the Property Maintenance Code (PMC) has been brought up to current international standards (2003). Included in the PMC are important provisions related to inspection items and repair schedules. Recently, council passed an ordinance clarifying gravel parking lots and defining more carefully, their use and such. I'd like to thank the neighborhood associations including WUNA, the Mayor's Neighborhood Safety Task Force, along with staff and council members for their work in getting this legislation completed.

Campus Safety/Bicycling/Pedestrian Issues: Various Campus Area Transportation reports were released earlier this year and several proposals are being formulated that are supposed to address additional pedestrian concerns and iinclude more specific bicycling related issues, bike path connectivity in particular. The Urbana Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee has a draft Bike and Pedestrian Master plan that will be presented at a public meeting December 6, 2007 in the Urbana Middle School Cafetorium from 7-9 pm. This plan is based on an earlier public input meeting involving hired engineering staff from the Regional Planning Commission in conjuntion with Ed Barsotti of the League of Illinois Bicyclists.

There are a number of efforts under way with respect to biking and walking with work being done by some with the League of Illinois Bicyclists and as part of the County RPC Big.Small.All planning efforts. Various useful links can be found on the ChampaignCountyBikes.org web site. This web site is where to go if you want to get involved in biking activism in Champaign County. We really need to work towards plans that encompass all of our communities. Of particular interest to those near campus are plans announced by the engineering department for bike lanes as part of the roadway on Illinois, Oregon and Goodwin west of Lincoln as pedestrian bump outs and other road work gets done over the next 2 or 3 years. Illinois between Lincoln and Goodwin is complete and the City of Urbana was awarded a $900,000 grant for improvements on Goodwin Avenue from Clark to Gregory that will be constructed summer 09. Many improvements will occur around the new construction of Gregory Place II as well next summer.

Economic Development: Several major developments are under way following completion of the O'Brien's Auto Park on North Cunningham and I-74 and the Walgreens/Five Points Gateway East complex. These include the redevelopment of Five Points West (Gateway West) patterned after downtown Urbana's streetscape, where the UI Credit Union is locating an additional facility. The former KMart site at Philo and Florida is nearly complete with apartments finished and construction of business space beginning, additional site improvements along Philo Road have been budgeted ($125,000 this year), the new Pines at Windsor (and Philo) including a new Christie Clinic, Mejier's at Philo, Carle Clinic, and various outlot developments including a new Walgreens. Menards plans and completion of Florida Avenue through to Hwy 130 are in various stages. On campus, another building to match the JSM building on Gregory Blvd between Oregon and Nevada is well underway. Plans for Orchard Downs continue to develop though a final report and plans have yet to be issued.   

Construction Season: Road construction and repairs for 2008 will be discussed as part of the upcoming Capital Improvements Plan discussion that is part of our annual budget process. This past year, there are several sewer repair projects and expansion of Windsor Road near the Meijer site is ongoing. A large number of sidewalk ramps in the West Urbana Neighborhood were done this year, Illinois from McCullough to campus, repaving of the multiuse path on S. Race, and repaving Windsor between Race and Wright Street (extended). The 10 year Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) is updated yearly for all road, sewer, and related lighting, sidewalk, and pathway projects. This document is available at the Urbana Public Library and parts are on the city web pages.

Driver Cell Phone Ban: As many of you know, I'm interested in legislation banning the use of cell phones and similar interactive technologies by drivers of moving vehicles. If you are interested in getting active in these efforts which are being led by the parents of Matt Wilhelm, contact me or check out their website, Mattslaw.org.  Locally, more than 1200 people have signed petitions asking that local government enact legislation. For more on local efforts please check out my links and articles.

Background Information:

If you have issues or questions, please contact me. I work generally 8:30-5:30 weekdays but will answer email and phone messages over lunch and in the evenings or weekends. I tend to stay up late and feel free to call me in an emergency any time.

Council and Committee meetings are broadcast live (and repeated) on UPTV, Cable Channel 6 every Monday night at 7pm (though we meet on Tuesdays where Monday is a legal holiday and we don't meet on 5th Mondays of a month). A full schedule for UPTV can be found on the city web site:     http://www.city.urbana.il.us/urbana/finance/is/uptv/Main.asp

The City Council has developed a set of goals covering a variety of important issues that the mayor and a majority, if not all, council members support. These serve as a road map for our work during our term on the council and form the basis of a number of study sessions and several task forces or commisions. If you are interested in helping out in one of the areas mentioned, or have ideas, please contact me. The linked site includes a progress report and updates from staff.                                                                                                                                                          -Charlie