Last night, City of DeKalb held a public hearing and approved an annual budget for the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG). CDBD is a federal program administered by HUD that helps ensure viable communities, particularly in the area of decent and affordable housing for low- to moderate-income residents. The general public did not participate in…
City emails reveal tactics in the condemnation of Lord Stanley’s
Emails obtained by a member of the City Barbs Facebook Group indicate City of DeKalb worked the Lord Stanley’s and Stanley’s Annex condemnations of April 6 in a decidedly business-unfriendly manner, and then blamed social media for frightening residential tenants with impending forcible eviction. As indicated in last weekend’s post, the city failed to follow…
Cutting through DeKalb’s spin on the condemnation of Lord Stanley’s
***Update 4/17/2017: The Daily Chronicle published a related letter to the editor: “Social media uproar warranted regarding condemnation.” Thanks, DC.*** City of DeKalb is in spin cycle over actions taken to condemn Lord Stanley’s and Lord Stanley’s Annex earlier this month, defending its actions during the last council meeting and now on a blog hilariously…
Alderman Marquardt is so very tired of you spoiled NIU students
Monday night, DeKalb’s city council members wrestled with proposed parking restrictions in neighorhoods adjacent to campus. Except for Ald. Mike Marquardt, who lost a wrestling match with his tongue. At a local town hall meeting a few years ago, an audience member who pays attention to such things said the DeKalb-NIU relationship might be a…
Police & Fire Pensions are only part of DeKalb’s liability story
The Better Government Association has just rolled out a statewide police and fire pension database. It tracks public safety pensions for every municipality, township, and special district (e.g., fire protection district) that have one or both types of pension funds. According to this database, DeKalb’s fire pension showed a net liability of $42.7 million and…
DeKalb’s credibility is suddenly becoming visible to the naked eye
“Folks, we blew it,” said the mayor. Mayor Jerry Smith recalled his previous State of the City assertion that DeKalb must “acknowledge our shortcomings and our mistakes” last night, when he brought up DeKalb’s violation of the Open Meetings Act of last Friday. “We blew it” is what he told the staff members involved, he…
We’ll soon see what this council is made of
***Updated 6pm: Check out the city attorney’s “blooper” during last evening’s meeting when he explained why he advised the mayor to adjourn the meeting before council could vote on the matter at hand. I’ve placed a video clip of it at the end of this post, or you could click here for the clip and…
Regarding DeKalb Library’s other loan
Here’s an excerpt from my latest at DeKalb County Online: Thanks to recent discussion of DeKalb Public Library’s plan to pay back taxpayers for emergency help with its expansion project, much of DeKalb knows about DKPL’s $4.5 million bank loan to keep construction going during Illinois’ budget impasse. Not many know about the bank loan…
DeKalb playing favorites with the bandit in the castle
Cohen Barnes owns a building in downtown DeKalb under the name “The Bandit’s Castle, LLC.” So he’s a bandit who bought a castle. Is this like the tv shows where the psychos leave little clues of their crimes? The imagination runs wild. The thing with bandits is that, by definition, they belong to gangs. This…
Rockford aldermen promising to control themselves if voters give back home rule
***Update 3/21/2018: Home rule was rejected by nearly 54% of Rockford voters.*** Let’s start by reviewing what almost happened here a couple months ago. The city manager in DeKalb decided she wanted to raise the sales tax, claiming complete inability to balance a budget without it. Having the highest sales tax around is not the…