To the matter at hand presenters Will Heinisch, Mike Coghlan and Mike Carpenter urged the 90 attendees to the FOCUS DeKalb town hall meeting to support their citizen proposed ordinance for safe-but-business-friendly commercial property inspections.
Coghlan stressed the need for constituents to talk to their mayor and aldermen about reading the FOCUS amendment so that discussion could be on the actual language of the ordinances instead of concepts. He reiterated the important difference between theory and wording in legal matters and ordinances are laws.
Mayor John Rey attended the meeting as did first ward alderman Dave Jacobson and sixth ward alderman Dave Baker. Illinois House Rep. Bob Pritchard again attended the meeting. DeKalb Township tax assessor John Heitikko was also in attendance. Rey left the meeting early to attend to another commitment.
The Q&A session following Mike Carpenter’s presentation provided needed exchange on commercial property issues as well as overall business friendliness in DeKalb. Carpenter told of challenges of filling vacancies in DeKalb.
He said nearby Huntley with some similarities to DeKalb (Rte 47 and I-90 compared to Rte 23, 38 and I-88) is on pace to build 200 new homes and has been on that pace for the past three years. Sycamore is issuing 40 or so permits this year. DeKalb has issued 6 or 7 new homes in the past three years.
There was blunt language by Dave Franzene during questions and answers. He asked who was responsible for hiring transient policy makers who don’t live or have vested interest in DeKalb who leave those who have and will live their lives in the city with stepping stone policies as they pass through town.
Max Heide said it has gotten so unfriendly at city hall that when he was trying to bring in a mid-national company for a major investment in DeKalb staff said they didn’t want it and told him they should go to Sycamore.
Dave Baker and Dave Jacobson each took turns on the hot seat after the Mayor left because that meant there weren’t enough members of an elected body in attendance to violate the Open Meetings Act.
FOCUS DeKalb is uploading videos of their town hall meetings to their website. A segment appears below:
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