The Champaign City Council voted Tuesday to approve seven council bills including raising the minimum fine for handicapped parking violations, the annexation agreement for Berbaum Tract and the 2006 Byrne Justice Assistance Grant.

The raise in the minimum fine for handicap parking violations will increase the cost from $100 to $250. With the approval of the ordinance, it is expected that Champaign property owners will update the handicap parking fine plates.

“There have been too many times where people have a handicap sticker in their car (but are not handicapped), hop out and run into the grocery store,” Council member Kathy Ennen said.

In addition, increasing the fine helps private property owners, she said, since they will not be required to create more handicapped spaces by making sure that those who use them are meant to use them.

The council also approved an annexation agreement of Berbaum Tract, a 120-acre plot of land located west of Staley Road and south of Curtis Road. Champaign Planning Director Bruce Knight said the city of Champaign benefits from hiring the private company, Pinehurst Development, to complete the sewage system construction before the future growth development in the area.

“There will be some savings of having a private-sector party build the sewer versus (the city) because typically they get better construction prices and have the staff and time to get it started,” Knight said.

The city council unanimously agreed to receive the 2006 Byrne Justice Assistance Grant amounting of $57,675 from the United States Department of Justice. Champaign police, Urbana police and the Champaign County Sheriff’s Office want to continue the fingerprint identification system project that was started with the 2005 grant. The Urbana Police Department would receive $5,210 and the Champaign Police Department would receive $41,465, according to a city council report. Another addition to law enforcement tools is the voice stress analysis computer system.

“This is just one more tool (that) may not produce direct, immiscible evidence but it may cause someone to behave differently or oftentimes can be used to free the innocent,” said council member Tom Bruno.