After being moved back to the committee as a whole at last Monday’s Urbana City Council Meeting, the sewer and sanitary ordinances were kept in the committee again this week for further discussion in the upcoming meetings.

These ordinances, which were discussed together, mandate that the city would be responsible for sewer lateral repairs within the public right-of-way, such as under city streets and sidewalks. Property owners would still own the lateral and be responsible for maintaining it.

Urbana Mayor Laurel Prussing said that the new ordinance would cost more if the city were to simply pay for all of the lateral damages and would end up costing the city an extra $42,000. Because of this, she suggested that the council melds options two and three together, and the city’s budget wouldn’t be affected as much.

Charlie Smyth, Ward 1, added to this saying that the when the city has to hire for repair, the city has higher standards, therefore it would end up costing more than if the owner of the lateral would to repair and get reimbursed. He also added that they should add limits to the ordinance so that the public doesn’t take advantage of the city’s reimbursement.

Carol Ammons, Ward 3, suggested that the owner of the lateral should pay for repairs up to the public right-of-way, and then the city would pay for repairs at that point in the case that roads and sidewalks would have to be broken into.

“For those who have the city right of way involved, it can be a real burden for them,” she said, referring to only having a 75 percent reimbursement for public right-of-way lateral repairs, something that the ordinance currently says.

Dennis Roberts, Ward 5, also expressed concern about who would pay for road repair if this were the case for repairing the lateral.

Roberts shortly then stated the motion to keep these ordinances in the committee for further discussion. He then said that people in city council should write proposals for these ordinances and bring them to the next meeting for discussion at the next committee of the whole meeting in two weeks.

The next item on the agenda was for changes in the ordinances of chapter 26, vehicles for hire.

Three members of the public commented on this issue during public comment at the beginning of the meeting. All three individuals expressed concern in the four-year waiting period that applicants who had committed a felony would have to wait before being able to apply for a job.

It was also pointed out that because more than 50 percent of convicted felons on parole in the state of Illinois were African American, it would also be a racial discrepancy.

This was the only problem in the ordinance seen by committee members as well. Because of this, there was a motion to move the ordinance to city council with a recommendation to rationalize the convicted felons part of the ordinance.

The next ordinance, the annual revision of the city fee schedule, was divided into two parts due to a conflict of interest from Michael Madigan, Ward 6, who is a business owner and has a liquor license, part of the ordinance.

Therefore, the part of the ordinance with the liquor license was moved to city council while Madigan excused himself from the room.

The rest of the ordinance was then discussed and Roberts said he thought increasing the residential recycling tax by 33 percent was too abrupt for people and should be done gradually.

“It’s astronomical for most people,” he said. “I wouldn’t support this.”

Madigan then moved to keep certain late fees and scheduled fees and send it to city council.

Ordinances 2013-05-042, 043, 041, 040. 020R, and 021R were then all moved to council without much discussion. Due to the meeting running late, it was then agreed to reconvene in two weeks and next meeting and pick up where they left off.