The Urbana City Council approved an ordinance at its meeting Monday that will show support for Naomi Jakobsson’s, D-103, bill, HB-3634, to exclude Carle Foundation Hospital from its current property tax exceptions. The bill states that it will require the hospital to pay its fair share to the community.

Urbana Mayor Laurel Prussing’s concerns during the meeting rested over the hospital’s definition of a non-profit organization, and how the benefits of its tax exemption do not benefit the whole community.

“What was called not-for-profit are these corporations that are actually making much higher profits than other businesses and yet they don’t pay federal income tax,” she said. “They don’t pay state income tax, and then they want a property tax break for quote unquote charity.”

During the meeting aldermen also passed an ordinance to replace street signs in diminishing condition that no longer meet the standards for color and size of the 2009 edition of the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices.  

While Dennis Roberts, Ward 5, and Eric Jakobsson, Ward 2, said the community could benefit from more creativity with the color and decoration of signs, Bill Gray, director of public works clarified that signs, shapes, colors and fonts have explicit regulations within the manual. 

“You want to send a clear message, consistent message, whether you’re in California, New York, or Urbana,” said Gray, “If it’s not in the manual, the answer is no. We should not do that.”

The signs will include black lettering with a white background, six-inch capital letter font and four-and-a-half inch small letter font. The replacements are estimated to cost $4,000.

Also during the meeting, an ordinance on a solution for a sewer lateral problem that has existed since late last year was sent back to committee again for further discussion.

At an April 22 meeting of the council, the public works department laid out five options for the council to consider while making the decision for sewer lateral financial responsibility.

Evelyn Underwood, Urbana resident, said that option three, in which the city would pay for all repairs within the public right of way and home owners pay for repairs on their property, was the only solution in her eyes.

However, if this option was chosen it would increase the Sewer Benefit Tax to $2.10 in order to cover the city’s expensive of making sewer repairs in the Public Right Of Way.

Katie can be reached at [email protected].