Urbana City Council has begun discussions on the feasibility of adopting a stormwater utility fee, after a presentation given to the council Monday night.
The presentation was given by Brad Bennett of the Urbana Public Works Department, after a year of research by Bennett and the stormwater advisory committee.
If approved, this effort would mean treating stormwater as any other utility such as water or electric. A fee would be established depending on the runoff potential of a property, and the revenue would go toward improving aging infrastructure.
The city of Champaign is also considering adopting stormwater utility, and if both communities did so, they would be only the 11th and 12th cities in the state with a stormwater utility.
In the current plan, streets would be exempt from the fee, but Clark Bullard, Boneyard Creek Commissioner, pointed out that a quarter of runoff comes from streets.
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“It doesn’t make sense to exempt them,” he said.
Urbana Mayor Laurel Prussing said any action the council will take on the matter will “have to be looking at prevention as well as solving the problem.”
The issue will be kept in committee for two weeks and will be brought up again at the Oct. 10 city council meeting.
The council also discussed funding for the Champaign County and Convention Visitors Bureau, or CVB.
In July, Prussing used a line-item veto to prevent the city of Urbana from funding the CVB with $72,000. The baseline level of support the council intends to fund the CVB with now stands at $18,000.
After the information was presented to the council, Prussing addressed CVB president and CEO Jayne DeLuce directly, citing a lack of Urbana representation on the CVB board and a lack of information regarding CVB’s contribution to Urbana as reasons for cutting the city’s funding to the bureau.
“It’s been hard for Urbana to get basic information from the CVB,” Prussing said.
Prussing said the CVB generates around 1 percent of Urbana hotel visitors, and that it is the University and not the CVB that brings the most visitors and spending into Urbana. She asked DeLuce for more documentation showing a direct relationship between CVB’s efforts to the city of Urbana’s revenue.
“We should not pay out any tax money without proper documentation,” Prussing said. “It’s not a question of lack of record keeping, but a question of lack of performance.”
A few council members were concerned about the lack of representation on the CVB board, but DeLuce pointed out the $4,000 minimum funding required for representation on the board.
Council member Heather Stevenson, Ward 6, said DeLuce and the CVB’s efforts could be traced back to some revenue generated as part of the Illinois Marathon’s “27th Mile.” Stevenson said visitors tended to stay past the race as a result of this event.
Council member Charlie Smyth, Ward 1, said the CVB and Urbana need to work together for visitors.
“We need to quit the game playing on both sides,” he said. “Let’s serve the people who come to town as visitors.”
CVB funding will be voted on at the next city council meeting.
