Champaign Mayor Gerald Schweighart missed his second consecutive city council meeting Tuesday as he continues to recover from last week’s surgery to remove cancer from his right lung.

Schweighart said doctors discovered the spot on his lung during an X-ray when he had pneumonia in late December. He said doctors took out a third of the lung during surgery on Feb. 7, and believes they have eliminated all of the cancer.

“For all practical purposes it’s over with except for the recovery,” Schweighart said.

He said he was fortunate that none of the cancer had spread to his lymph nodes. If it had, he would have had to undergo chemotherapy or radiation treatments. During the X-ray two other spots were found in his stomach, Schweighart said, but neither turned out to be serious.

The mayor, a smoker since his youth, said he kicked the habit for good after recovering from pneumonia during Christmas. He will have to go back to the hospital in two weeks for an X-ray to make sure the cancer is gone, and will have to return for yearly follow-ups afterwards. The full recovery from the surgery, Schweighart said, will take five weeks.

He said he had been to his office during the week to catch up on work, but skipped Tuesday’s meeting because it was just a study session.

In his absence, the council polled unanimously on their only two items. They directed city staff to complete work on the city’s downtown plan based on a framework presented by Assistant Planning Director Rob Kowalski and T.J. Blakeman of the city’s advanced planning division.

“We envision a vibrant, walkable downtown, built on its historic character and connected to surrounding neighborhoods,” Kowalski said.

To that end, Kowalski and Blakeman proposed creating a “recognizable downtown identity” that would favor pedestrians but still be accessible by cars. A significant part of the plan involves the expanding of parking in downtown Champaign by building parking structures instead of flat parking lots, a plan Councilman Tom Bruno favored.

“At some point, this is our downtown, and we don’t want acres of . flat parking lots,” Bruno said.

The guidelines for the downtown plan also include an expanded outdoor cafe program, preserving historic buildings, the creation of an arts district, discouraging vacant structures, and plugging up unsightly gaps in the downtown streetfront.

The final plan is expected to be completed by April.