The interview in the 5/26 The Hub with Urbana’s newly elected Mayor Laurel Prussing, avoided issues that have caused Urbana to lag behind Champaign, and to earn its reputation as a poorly managed and governed city. 

In the interview, Ms. Prussing attributed her election primarily to the contrast in communication style between herself and the previous mayor.   Her campaign lacked any substantive criticism of the former mayor’s policies.    Ms. Prussing’s lack of original ideas bodes poorly for Urbana.  Urbana’s bozo electorate probably has replaced Tweedledee with Tweedledum.

Although the mayor and city council must produce policy and some ideas for keeping the city vibrant and competitive, Urbana’s planning and administrative staff must provide the majority of creativity and innovation for this.   A significant Urbana problem has been the inferiority of its city staff compared to that in Champaign.  Urbana’s staff more often than not has been coerced into, rather than be the innovator of development.  

The Hub interviewer prefaced one question to the mayor with “I know the U of I has continued to shrink the city’s tax base.”  The university certainly has nibbled at taxable Urbana properties.   However, over the last 20 years Champaign’s staff has expanded that city’s tax base to the north, south and west with residential, retail and commercial development, while until 2000, Urbana’s staff failed to achieve similar progress for Urbana to the north and east.   That year a group of property owners east and north of Urbana’s borders attempted to incorporate a village named Big Grove—which would have ended any possibility of Urbana ever expanding in those directions.    Urbana’s staff, awakened from its hibernation by this threat, negotiated costly annexation agreements with property owners on Urbana’s outskirts, which dissected the proposed Big Grove into several pieces, thus preventing Big Grove’s creation.   (Actually, these annexations proved unnecessary, since Big Grove failed to win the County Board’s required approval.) Urbana city staff has since managed to attract commercial and residential development to the newly annexed areas, but only with excessive subsidies and not of the quality and quantity that the more skilled Champaign staff has achieved on its city’s periphery.  

Interestingly, the leaders of the Big Grove “revolt” were probably inspired by several citizens, who through advertisements and letters to the editor in the News-Gazette identified Urbana’s incompetence, and associated Urbana with the word bozo.

Urbana’s city staff is at least a decade behind Champaign in development of its downtown.  To catch up, Urbana has let developers hoodwink fat concessions from the city.    For example in the last few months, the city had to give away to a developer a valuable downtown lot, plus additional monetary concessions.    One of the developers of the intersection of University and Cunningham, the second busiest intersection in the county, publicly announced he is awaiting the city’s subsidy before determining the scope of his project. In the past two years, Urbana council member Danielle Chynoweth and former council member Laura Huth, rather than city staff, have provided the largest impetus to Urbana’s downtown development. A prime example is Ms. Chynoweth’s involvement in the planned conversion of the downtown post office into a cultural center. Either Ms. Chynoweth or Ms. Huth would have been a better mayoral choice.

Because of lack of leadership from city staff, Urbana always must follows the innovative Champaign’s initiatives.    When Champaign extended bar hours, Urbana followed. “Conservative” Champaign, not inept Urbana, has initiated discussion of whether to make all bars and restaurants smoke free.

The public knows that Champaign, with better shopping, services and amenities, is a superior place to live.  Homes in subdivisions with comparable prices sell much faster in Champaign than in Urbana.

Urbana’s electorate has amorphously requested change in electing Mayor Prussing.  For approximately two decades, the same individual has been Urbana’s Chief Administrative Officer (CAO).  This appointed official, who serves at the pleasure of the Council and Mayor,  and who oversees the city planning and administrative staff has been the same individual.    Given the lack of leadership and innovation from Urbana’s staff and the dearth of ideas Ms. Prussing displayed during her campaign, one action Ms. Prussing and the council should take to effect a more vibrant, non-bozo Urbana is to seek a new CAO.