Downtown Advisory Panel

At last night's city council meeting, the mayor announced appointments to a panel advising whatever company gets the contract for developing a new Downtown Master Plan for the city.

While I am certain it is a good idea to have a plan for downtown development, I also remember the city had a comprehensive plan prepared and launched back in 2010 after 2 years of work and I do not hear much reference to it anymore.

TwoThirteen sold

According to this post on their Facebook page, Two Thirteen has changed ownership and will close until further notice while the new owner does some rennovating:

The new owner of Two13 will begin installation of the new flooring and countertops this week. Therefore the bar will be closed till further notice. Thanks!

Blocked Off Parking and 710 Building

If you haven't been downtown in the past few days, the entire old 710 building and parking area are now fenced off, pending demolition of the building and construction of the Carbondale Flats complex. In case you didn't know, most of that parking area west of the 710 strip belonged to the building owners. They had entered into an agreement with the city several years ago wherein the city installed parking meters and maintained the property in exchange for sharing the revenue from the meters.

The size of the parking area was far larger than needed most of the year for 710, Varsity Barber Shop and other occupants of the strip mall. Instead, students would use it to park free, rather than paying for a campus parking sticker, as the area sat across the street from the SIUC campus. Eventually, 710 decided it might as well generate revenue, as well as keep people from using it for long term parking at no charge, and in went the meters.

This will certainly affect a number of the businesses in downtown. While many of them have access to parking, much of it is shared with other businesses and can be difficult to access. The 710 lot is readily accessible from several directions and never filled, except during the first week or so of classes.

Rita Cheng Likely to Leave

Northern Arizona University has tapped SIUC's own Chancellor Rita Cheng to take over its presidency, likely when the current president steps down next June.  through there were three candidates invited to return for a third interview, Cheng was the only one to accept the invitation, the other two choosing to remain in their positions. According to the article, she visited the campus this past Thursday for a welcoming event and the NAU Board of Regents is expected to formalize the offer the week of June 15.

The process followed one that has gotten more common in the selection of heads of colleges and universities, keeping the names under wraps until an offer is extended and not releasing the names of those considered for but not offered the position. The SIU BOT followed a similar procedure when selecting Randy Dunn as the next president of the two universities. Those advocating for the policy of secrecy argue that knowing they had considered other positions would make it harder for those under consideration to do an effective job should they chose ultimately to remain at their original institution while those arguing for an open process believe that stakeholders should know when administrators are under consideration for other positions.

Incidentally, releasing the news on a Friday afternoon is a traditional way of quashing much discussion about it. The period leads into the weekend for most people, who are spending the time wrapping up their week's work and preparing for a couple of days off. during which little attention gets paid to the news. There will be discussion of it on Monday, to be sure, but nowise as much as if this had been announced on Tuesday or Thursday.

Too Many Governmental Units

Here's one way in which we could likely cut Illinois property taxes: reduce the number of local government units with taxing authority.

The state of Illinois has 5976 governmental units with the authority to level real estate taxes to pay bills. I think there are at least a dozen that show up on my Jackson County property tax bill every year. They collect just shy of $26.8 billion in property taxes. The state, by comparison, collects about $27 billion per year in sales and income taxes. Due to the way the state constitution is written, local government units such as cities, townships and counties are limited in the amounts they can borrow in order to fund infrastructure and provide services. Ergo, other taxing districts are set up to provide parks, libraries, fire protection, even mosquito abatement, usually without any means of ending them. Once  a district is established, it typically becomes a permanent fixture, unable to be dissolved, even if officials and citizens want to do so.

Illinois HB 5785 is on the way to the governor's desk for signature. It would allow residents and local officials to explore methods of annexing or consolidating  taxing districts into other districts, making local government a bit more efficient.  

Forgery Forum

Due to the spate of counterfeit bills hitting the city in recent months, the C'dale Police department will have a forum focusing on helping businesses identify said bill prior to accepting them. June 18 at 6 p.m at the Police Department offices, if you are so inclined to attend.

Year Round Farmers Market

There will be a public meeting to discuss the possibility of a permanent location for a year-round farmers market tomorrow night, June 3, at 7 p.m at the Civic Center.

For those who don't know, there are two farmers markets in Carbondale that operate Saturday morning, the decades old one that operates on the west side of town and the more recent one that sets up in the Carbondale Community High School parking lot during spring through fall and moves inside during the winter months. Councilwoman Jane Adams has a post with her thoughts on her blog.

From what I understand, the plan would be, ideally, to find or construct a location large enough for both markets to set up and weatherproof to allow them to operate 52 weeks a year. The Civic Center is a possibility but Saturdays require an all day rental, rather than just the morning. I don't think the Civic Center is large enough to house both markets comfortably, either.

I have not ventured inside the CCHS building in several years so, while the parking lot is certainly large enough to accommodate two markets, I do not know about the interior so have no idea if the combined markets could fit inside.

Possibly University Mall? I have seen successful farmer markets set up inside of malls before and the empty Food Court at UM has quite a bit of unused space, though many of the tables and chairs would need removing.

Another option are the two vacant lots in downtown along the railroad tracks where Southern Recycling and Peerless Laundry used to sit. It would certainly be nice to have something built there and a farmers market would draw people into downtown, something the city council has said is of great importance to them. Parking might be an issue, as both of the current markets have access to large amount of it and moving them into one location could tax available parking. Plus, from where would the money for construction come? The city is operating under budgetary constraints as it is, recently passing sales tax increases to cover costs, so likely does not have the funds available to embark on an ambitious building plan.