County Public Transportation Updates

WARNING: This post may use and link to references heavy on abbreviations and local government jargon. The Champaign County Regional Planning Commission has a handy abbreviation reference list (with agency names at the bottom) here.

At the last County Board meeting, there was a long explanation of the bureaucratic hurdles and timeframes that can undermine perfectly good projects. In this case, installing some public transportation shelters in Rantoul as part of the rural transit program here in Champaign County (jump to video link of the presentation here). The presenter who goes into great detail about the regulatory steps and timelines was Rita Morocoima-Black, Planning and Community Development Director at the Champaign County Regional Planning Commission (RPC).

RPC's website has a basic description of that function:

The Regional Planning program of RPC provides planning-related technical services to local governments throughout its service area. These services include a range of programs which address policy analysis, planning processes, demographic, economic, environmental and geospatial information analysis, and technical analysis. Most services are either contractual or funded and governed through intergovernmental agreements.

If one goes to the committees and meetings page of the RPC website, they'll find that the Regional Planning Commission is primarily made up of representatives of local governments: village presidents, mayors, the Champaign County Executive, etc. It has a long local history, especially with transportation planning, and now has multiple divisions and works to coordinate intergovernmental agreements and programs across the area.

You'll hear RPC mentioned a lot in local government meetings because it is often at the center of programs that run across government jurisdictions. This is, of course, a very common occurrence in any county dealing with local units of government, but especially in counties with "twin city" population centers.

You'll also hear the long RPC acronym for transportation planning thrown around a lot in this context: CUUATS. I'm pretty sure only the people who work at CUUATS (and not even all of them) can readily ramble off what it stands for with 100% accuracy. If you have to google it, every time, you're not alone. It stands for Champaign Urbana Urbanized Area Transportation Study and also has a long history within the RPC.

But the County Board Agenda said "Rural Transit Advisory Group"

This County Board presentation, for example, was a presentation on the Rural Transit Advisory Group, which was established by the county to oversee the collaboration between the Champaign County government and the MTD (local mass transit district) for County wide and rural services. In basic terms, the County gets public transportation funding for services around the County and works with MTD to provide many of the services.

In the complicated realm of federal grants, Illinois Department of Transportation regulations, and working across various local government bodies and transit districts, this is only one piece of the puzzle, however.

Rita Morocoima-Black wears many hats in this bureaucratic overlap. As a recent CUUATS agenda packet points out, she's variously listed as: 

• Planning and Community Development Director for RPC (the overarching planning commission in Champaign County)
• Transportation Planning Manger for CUUATS (the transportation planning group within RPC)
• Also acting as bit of a liaison with the County's Rural Transit Advisory Group (RTAG).

At the heart of all this is transportation planning. In spite of all the acronyms, committees, and paperwork, this is all about connecting real funding to real transportation projects.

When you're dealing with federal, State, County, and local government bureaucracies all operating with their own tax bases, regulations, and authority, however there's not just simple agreement. The written agreements tend to establish a working relationship to protect the interests of everyone involved. They're often heavily scrutinized before and after, especially if voters or an interested party think any tax money was wasted or mishandled!

Staying Informed

Unless it's your job or you have a lot of time and coffee, the average voter couldn't possibly keep up with all of the details and meetings involved with just these organizations and related boards, committees, and groups. And that's just for the County's public transportation planning, funding and spending. 

You have to choose your level of interest and commitment to this issue:

• If you simply follow the County Board meetings, you'll get very general updates from all of these commissions and groups from time to time. And that's probably enough for your average voter.
  
  
• If you're more generally interested in area transportation planning and budgets, you might consider going through the CUUATS Policy Committee (remember, the transportation planning group within RPC!) documents or even attending one of their meetings.
  
  
• And if you're extremely interested in public transportation policy within Champaign County, you can also follow the CUUATS Technical Committee meetings and documents as well as the MTD's own meetings and documents that include their C-CARTS program and even more glorious acronyms. The Champaign-County Area Rural Transit System or C-CARTS is a real public transportation system at the end of all this planning, funding, agreements, and appropriations.

And of course that's just where you might start on this particular issue. For more specific concerns about rural public transit in this town or the other, you might have your own local committee, commission, or village group to work with!

If you live in Rantoul and really want to find another funding path for building those public transportation shelters at June's County Board meeting, hopefully this post helps a little!

[UPDATE 6/29: The MTD Board also approved the intergovernmental agreements with the County on their side at their 6/28/2023 meeting. That is covered on a Cheat Sheet C-U Local post here.]

June County Board Updates

 

At this month's County Board meeting they had to break out extra chairs for the audience who packed the house. The overwhelming majority had come out to show their support for the County to lead on making sure their were quality nursing home beds available to families in Champaign-Urbana. A recent letter to the editor in the News-Gazette mirrored many of the concerns vocalized during the meeting's public participation. 

Speakers emphasized the need for the County to ensure beds are available, a needs assessment is carried out, and that they show leadership on finding a solution. With the sale and now closure of the County's old Nursing Home facility and other local reductions in beds, families are insisting there is a growing local need. There was more about the nursing home organization at the Cheat Sheet posts on May County Board Updates as well as last month's Nursing Home Updates post.

The County gave a local City of Champaign project a funding boost with some the County's allotment of federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds. The News-Gazette highlighted the issue prior to the vote. Excerpt:

The money would come from part of the approximately $40 million in American Rescue Plan Act funding the county has been receiving over two years. It’s intended to help pay for sidewalk and lighting improvements in Garden Hills, a neighborhood on the city’s northwest side, according to the resolution going to the board.

In an April 12 letter to Summers, Champaign City Manager Dorothy David said phases two and three of the Garden Hills project were estimated to run $39.7 million, but it’s anticipated final costs will run significantly higher due to the high rate of inflation.

Full article here. More on the Garden Hills improvement project at the City of Champaign website here. Smile Politely had an editorial arguing for the need to invest ARPA funds towards projects like Garden Hills improvement two years ago. There was an update on the project presented to the City Council a couple months ago, with a written report available here.

In other related County ARPA spending, there was a Kathy's Mailbag question on the timeline for rural broadband projects coming to fruition. Unfortunately, for those familiar with the government process, she notes that the county is still finalizing the contracts:

Michelle Jett, Director of Administration in the County Executive’s office, said the Champaign County Board has committed $10 million to expanding broadband access “and is in the final stages of finalizing contracts for installation to begin.”

According to a memo distributed to county board members in early May, Volo Broadband and Nextlink were chosen to complete the build-out in the unserved and underserved portions of rural Champaign County. Generally speaking, Nextlink will provide broadband service across the northern and far southern tiers of Champaign County, while Volo mostly will serve rural customers across the middle of the county.

More at that Mailbag article here.

There is also a special meeting on 6/27 for a time sensitive intergovernmental agreement between the Circuit Clerk's office and the Illinoid Department of Healthcare and Family Services. More on that from the agenda packet here. Relevant excerpt:

For several years the Champaign County Clerk has had a contract with the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services to provide access to various court records to HFS to facilitate the child support services they provide to their clientele. In addition, the Clerk’s office also receives payment for the provision of copies of child support orders entered by the Court based upon a formula established by HFS for that purpose. People who receive services from HFS for this purpose do not have to receive benefits from HFS to qualify for this assistance

Other Champaign County Updates:

• Kathy's Mailbag had additional information on how Champaign County Crime Stoppers selects the Crime of the Week to highlight among the various law enforcement jurisdictions.
• Comparing May unemployment rates between Champaign County (3.7%) and other counties, Champaign (3.6%) and Urbana (3.8%) contrasted with other metropolitan areas. The News-Gazette article also included changes from last May.
• The News-Gazette also had updates this past week on the ongoing drought conditions. Some local fire departments are warning against using personal fireworks this year due to the increased risk of fire.
• The News-Gazette highlighted the open appointment slot and duties of board members on the sanitary district boards. For more Champaign County appointment openings, see the appointment web page or current listings here.

May County Board Updates

 

The May County Board meeting approved a solar farm on private property, but opposed by the local Homer government and many residents. Public participation at the meeting had representatives of the Village of Homer and the solar farm company make their cases (jump to video here). The County Board discussion before the vote actually involved a diverse range of opinions and philosophies behind the different members (jump to that point in the meeting video here). 

The Republicans weighed the impact and desires of the community with the private property rights. The Democrats had more internal disagreement about prioritizing private property rights versus greater needs of the community and world. There were also some back and forth on issues like long term climate change and more immediate world hunger issues depending on our regional agricultural world breadbasket.

The full meeting agenda packet and video are available now, and the minutes will be available on the County website at a later date.

There was also a detailed breakdown and spreadsheets of County ARPA federal relief spending and projects in the agenda packet (page 160 of the packet, page 164 of the PDF file here). There was a more brief oral update towards the end of the County Board meeting itself. 

For a more detailed look at the remaining spending decisions, I recommend the long, but extremely detailed discussion at the latest Prevent Violence Task Force meeting. They go through the remaining funds, timetables and time limits to use the funding, and break down the projects by committee member support and projects to be funded. The agenda packet for that meeting also includes the minutes from the previous committee meeting and an overview of the presentations at that time. The News-Gazette had an overview of area ARPA spending in a March article here.

Other Meeting Highlights:

• There is ongoing discussion on how the county should proceed in purchasing additional facilities for Animal Control (from the old Human Society owned facility that was on county land). Board members are looking at the tradeoffs and complications with exposing the unique facility to the market as opposed to purchasing based on (but under) the appraisals. 
  
  
• The Board will be setting up a committee to look at using the county's opioid settlement funds when they're made available in the future. The general plan as laid out by chair Patterson was for a few members from each side of the aisle to hear from stakeholders at these meetings.

Other County Updates:

More on the Nursing Home today on the News-Gazette front page this morning (article also has some additional County Board related information):

With another local nursing home gone, a group calling itself Advocates for Nursing Home Care sees a crisis ahead — not enough longterm- care beds in Champaign County at a time aging baby boomers are going to need them most.

It’s an issue the group’s founder, Cathy Emanuel of Champaign, said she confronted recently when her late husband needed nursing home care.

“We’re already finding that many of the people involved have friends or loved ones who have to go out of the community, because there aren’t enough beds locally,” she said.

Of immediate concern to Emanuel and more than 50 other members of the new group is the closure of the 243-bed University Rehabilitation Center — formerly the Champaign County Nursing Home until it was sold in 2019.

That full article at the News-Gazette's eEdition here. More in a Nursing Home Updates post here.

There will also be another post (to be linked when available) on the current jail and juvenile detention facilities, staffing issues, and other updates soon.

Nursing Home Updates

 

Following up on earlier Cheat Sheet posts on the new owners of the old Champaign County Nursing Home wanting to sell it as a drug rehab center from last October. The local nursing home facility is now in the process of being closed. From the News-Gazette:

The nursing home at 500 S. Art Bartell Road, U, which has operated as University Rehabilitation Center of C-U since the county sold it in 2019 — has launched a 60-day process to voluntarily close as of June 17.

County officials have received a formal notice of the impending closure of the facility commonly known as University Rehab...

The closure notice cites declining demand for beds, shorter post-acute stays and a low Medicaid reimbursement rate as contributing factors in the decision to close.

More at the full article here. The News-Gazette also had an editorial blaming the closure on a lack of demand (a letter to the editor disputed that framing). Champaign County Health Care Consumers had previously disputed the lack of demand claims. From the CCHCC website in March:

Low census numbers in nursing homes often correlate with quality of care. The more quality of care problems there are at a nursing home, the more likely that their census will go down because they will receive fewer referrals, and fewer families will want to place their loved ones in nursing homes with poor reputations. Many Champaign County residents are currently being transferred to nursing homes outside of our county (which is a real hardship on them and their families) because they cannot be placed in local facilities.

WCIA had more on this ongoing dispute between quality of service and actual demand in their coverage.

A Champaign County nursing home is shutting down, and it’ll cost the community 243 licensed beds. But the owner of University Rehabilitation Center says keeping it open is not an option.

“It’s bad faith behavior, and the people of this county are going to pay the price for it,” Champaign County Health Care Consumers Executive Director Claudia Lenhoff said...

University Rehab will become the third nursing home in Champaign County bought and closed by Rothner since 2018. He says he operated the Helia and Heartland buildings for a short period of time before selling them, and says while he didn’t make money in those transactions, he hoped patients would flow to University Rehab, which he bought from the county in 2019. But it wasn’t enough to stay afloat.

More at that full article here. There are also additional WCIA articles on the announcement and the impact to local families.

More background on the Champaign County Nursing Home financial crisis and eventual sale that led us to this point at the Nursing Home page on the Cheat Sheet here.

Website Updates

We're back, after a long hiatus, household and family medical issues, and a lot of new faces in local government!

The first updates were to some of the outdated links on the page to board members prior to the 2022 election, new maps, updated contact information, etc. I've decided to have a more general link to the County's own website for current members as they tend to change too quickly for me to maintain individual district pages. I'll highlight new changes in posts.

I'd like to take greater advantage of the News-Gazette's "Meeting Minutes" feature as well as non-partisan organizations already observing local government meetings to avoid duplicating those efforts (or re-inventing the wheel).

We're still relying on Twitter for social media notifications of new posts and sharing local government updates for the time being at the Cheat Sheet Twitter account.