Planning and Development Committee - Regular Meeting

I'd like to call to order the Planning and Development Committee meeting for Monday, 04/27/2026. Tonight's invocation will be given by Pastor Levi Farrar of Calvary Christian Church, followed by the pledge of allegiance. I just ask that everyone could stand.

Father in heaven, thank you for this opportunity to gather. Thank you for the opportunity to really focus on how you are guiding all of us to lead here in the Rockford area. I bless all the leaders here that are taking place in this meeting that they're able to listen to the needs of the community, that they're able to build up the best way to serve the people here in Rockford. God bless us in only the ways that you can bless us and work in only the ways that you can work to build your kingdom here on earth as it is in heaven and more specifically in the Rockford area. In Jesus name I pray. Amen. Amen.

Thank you. I'm going to kick it right over to Mayor McNamara for tonight's proclamation. Hello.

Thank you chairwoman. This evening we are fortunate we have two proclamations. The first proclamation is for world migratory bird day and we have Jennifer Garota with us. Whereas migratory birds are some of the most beautiful and easily observed wildlife that share our communities and whereas migratory birds and their habitats are declining throughout The Americas facing a growing number of threats to their migration routes in both their summer and winter homes and whereas public awareness and concern are crucial components of migratory bird conservation and whereas since 1993 the world migratory bird day has become a primary vehicle for focusing public attention and nearly three fifty species that travel between nesting habitats in our communities throughout North America and their wintering grounds in South And Central America Mexico The Caribbean and Southern United States and whereas world migratory bird day is not only a day to foster appreciation for wild birds and to celebrate and support migratory bird conservation but also a call to action. Now therefore I Thomas P.

Maxwell as mayor of the city of Rockford do hereby proclaim 05/09/2026, to be World Migratory Bird Day. Would you like to share a few words?

Thank you so much. Thank you to the mayor for continuing to recognize the importance of World Migratory Bird Day, a day that is celebrated each year for as birds make their migratory journey between North And South America. This recognition is also part of the Bird City Illinois requirements. Rockford was one of the first communities to receive this recognition in 2022, and the mayor has entertained my regular advocacy requests on an annual basis since then, maybe even before then, when my daughter was advocating for an official city bird, our peregrine falcon. So, thank you for all of that and hearing me out.

There are several events you can attend to celebrate World Pugatory Bird Day in our area. On May 8 there will be an arse public event with the release of our third collaboration of Birdsongs with local musician Mickey Torpedo. Both the Illinois Arts Council and Rockford Area Arts Council actually awarded us a grant for this collaboration for this album. And additionally, just north of Rockford, in Rockton, also an up and coming Bird City, Illinois, you can attend the Rockton Pelican Fest on May 16. The Mississippi Audubon, of course, will be there at both events, and we hope to see you there.

Could you repeat the time for the partnership with Mickey Edin?

Sure. That is on May 8, and it's at wherever they hold our wherever ours Republica holds their events, it's at a gallery on State Street. And I believe perfect. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Appreciate your honor. Great to see you. Thank you. Our next, proclamation is for Motorcycle Awareness Month, and we have Susie Jones and Mike Brush with us, as well as others, if you'd like.

If you're going to take a photo, can come on in here so you get a better one. Hey, how are you?

How are you? Going great.

I'm going give that to you. Whereas safety is the highest priority for highways and streets of our city and state and whereas the great state of Illinois is proud to be a national leader in motor motorcycle safety education and awareness and whereas motorcycles are common economical means of transportation that reduces fuel consumption and road wear and contributes in a significant way to the relief of traffic and parking congestion and whereas it is especially meaningful of of the citizens of our city and state to be aware of motorcycles on the roadways and recognize the importance of motorcycle safety. Whereas the members of of eight of Illinois inc continually promote motor safety education awareness programs to drivers and host educational programs to the general public with over 350,000 participants in Illinois in the past year and whereas the motorcycles of Illinois have contributed extensive volunteerism and money to national and community charitable organizations now therefore I thomas p maximer as mayor of the city of Roford do by here proclaim May 2026 to be motorcycle awareness month would you like to share a few words.

I just want to tell everybody put their phones down and look out for us because we get ran over. And May 2 we'll be having our annual parade from Carlson's Ice Arena down to Kegels to kick off motorcycle awareness month.

Thank you. Appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you.

We'll move right into our public speaking. We do have five public speakers tonight. I just want to remind you that you will have three minutes to make your comments. There are two microphones located at the back end of this horseshoe. Once you hear an alarm sound excuse me via my phone, if it's working properly, We just ask that you bring your comments to a close at that time. Our first public speaker tonight is Kelly Lewis of Davis Junction.

All right. Before I begin, I want to address the resolution proposal. The current draft does need work as it lacks sufficient protections for our community, but it is definitely a step forward. Until now, we've been told there is nothing to discuss. We have fought to change that. Tamir Bell has opened the door for communication, and I urge you to include the community members in the next draft. We are not against growth. We are a community that care deeply for this area and will fight hard for our water, land, air, homes, and our health. We want to grow, we want growth, and we already exists. By now, you are aware of the four requests that have brought into question how much planning has quietly gone into this data center by Rockford And Winnebago County officials.

As a resident on Friday Road, these documents are shocking. They have directly contradicted repeated public statements from city and county leaders. They reveal questionable moral boundaries, misinformation, and manipulation, much of it coming directly from Charles Kuntz, COO of Monarch. These communications go back to January 2025. When my family was living life we worked so hard to build, decisions were being made behind closed doors to dismantle it.

On 04/28/2025, city administrator Todd Cagnoni told Kuntz, we look forward to advancing the project and requested the site plans. On May 15, Kagnomi sent the inducement letter. On July 10, Kunz requested a call to discuss the development agreements before, in his words, firing up the lawyers. Inducement letters and development agreements are not exploratory conversations. They are planning.

On 06/23/2025, Kuntz wrote to Mayor McNamara and Chairman Schirrelli urging them to pressure state legislators to fight regulatory standards on data centers and threatened that companies would leave Illinois if lawmakers did not comply. On 12/18/2025, Scott Sanders of Public Works wrote to Kuntz after a meeting with a traffic engineer. He offered, we may be able to do you one better and are willing to consider removal of the southern half of Friday Road altogether, replaced with a cul de sac at the edge of the residential parcels. Those residential parcels are my neighbors. Those are residents who were part of a conversation they knew nothing about, a conversation erasing any concern the city, county, or monarch may have shown for their neighbors.

Since the day we learned of this project, we have asked for transparency. Instead, the planning continued behind closed doors. By the time a formal proposal arrives, it will be designed to press quickly and far too late for residents like myself to save our homes. Transparency is a practice of openness and honesty in communication and decision making, sharing clear, complete information without hiding essential facts. This is not what transparency is. We are no longer asking for this transparency. We are demanding it. Mayor McNamara has said that he has not lost sleep over this project. The residents at risk of losing everything no longer have that luxury.

Thank you. Our next public speaker is Peggy Cain of Saint Charles.

My name is Peggy Cain, and I'm a property owner on Friday Road. I've heard that some of the city consider those organizing against the Monarch Energy Data Center to be misinformed. I want to speak to that label. Maybe we are misinformed. But what I'd like to ask this body tonight is how can the public be informed about a project when officials chose for a year not to share any information about it?

A FOIA request shows a year of planning involving many people. The request produced over 100 documents, mostly emails exchanged between April 25 and March 26, about the Monarch Rock Air Project. More than 30 people representing 26 organizations participated in them. Monarch Energy among them, Monarch Energy and its consultants, the city of Rockford, Winnebago County, R1 Planning, the Illinois Department of Commerce, the governor's office, ComEd and Nycor Gas, two lobbying firms, two building trade unions, at least six members of the Illinois General Assembly across both parties. Of those emails, more than half were about coordinating meetings between monarch public officials and paid lobbyists.

One in 13 mentioned jobs or economic impact. What was the share of the emails that discussed public consult consultation? Zero. I'd like to read an email from 12/20/2025. Scott Sanders, a water and utilities official with Rockford, writes to Charles Koons, the chief operating officer of Monarch, we have no objections to the Friday road vacation.

In fact, we may be able to do one better and are willing to consider removal of the southern half of Friday altogether if you would construct a cul de sac at the southern edge of the residential parcels. Mr. Coons forwarded that email to our one Planning Commission with a short supply. I like the sound of that. I'd like to ask, how can city officials be that casual about removing half of a public road when they hadn't consulted the public?

I understand that the early stages of economic development sometime require confidentiality. But in May 2025, a year ago, Rockford's city administrator had already developed delivered a formal inducement letter to Monarch. From that point on, the FOIA records show that planning accelerated. In March of this year, mayor McNamara told the Rock River Current, I'm now on weekly phone calls and having weekly meetings about our ability to land this development. That same month, in an email to a constituent, the mayor wrote, there is no deal now, and that he would make it a priority to share it with the public once he had information.

So my final question is this. At what point did this project move from an idea that you were exploring to something real? And at that moment, why was it not the right time to bring in the people who own the land you were planning around? Thank you to Mayor Bell for recognizing this is more than a business proposition. Guardrails must be established to protect people, resources, and the environment, too. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next public speaker is Amanda Becker of Rockford.

Good evening. My name is Amanda Becker, and I stand before you tonight as the City of Rockford Historical Preservation Commission President and Auburn High School History teacher. I wish to address the need to preserve Rockford historical structures and to thank the Council for approving funding to save Rockford's historical identity for future generations to come. The loss of the Briggs Mansion has spurred me, along with many other concerned historians, researchers, librarians, and architects, and community activists to take action to prevent future losses. Therefore, a new organization of active community members will, over the course of this summer, preserve pursue completing paperwork to designate at least 10 new historical structures to become new local landmarks.

Why is this work important? Buildings such as the Briggs Mansion provide a physical connection to the national movement. Mister Briggs was an avant garde abolitionist, a human equity activist, and a women's rights proponent in the Rockford community. Now that civic pride in knowing that Rockford vibrantly was a part of the abolitionist movement could be lost. Gary Anderson, a local architect in the Rockford area, lectured on the monetary value of saving historical structures.

An empty lot does not pay taxes and nor does it gain new residents easily. As president of the HPC, I find it very difficult to look at a Haight Village resident in the eye who asks to put vinyl windows into their Victorian home. And yet, the UW Madison can destroy an 1863 mansion without penalty. Why is that? The reason boils down to simply Rockfordians in the past caring about the city.

The people of Rockford silently on social media are demanding action now. And those caring Rockfordians of the nineteen eighties have proven to me that preserving our history can be done. I thank them because without their efforts, local landmarks such as the Stewart Square, 1891 Madison YMCA, the Metropolitan Lofts, Woodbull Woodfire Building of '18 56, and the crown jewel of Rockford itself, the Coronado, would be nothing today but pictures in a dusty Mississippi saga book from 1968. Rockford is a fighting city. It should not allow outside entities to dictate what should and should not be done with its history.

I refuse to think that Rockford could be seen as a silent victim, simply telling its public to relax and take it. To conclude, I thank the council for investing in Rockford's past by funding projects such as Coleman Yards, where my grandfather worked as a grinder, the watch factory in the Coronado Theater, in which many of our RPS children today are exposed to the arts, public funding should indeed continue. I thank Scott Capovola and the mayor's office to allow a team of RPL librarians, Rockford historians, architects, and community partners to pursue making 10 new sites local landmarks over the summer. I hope to prove our case for these sites by beginning of July. And I would also suggest that the Council approve an inventory to be made of historical residential districts, as has been done with the Rockford Industries, along with approving an ordinance to forbid historical demolition of buildings that are pre-nineteen hundred for one hundred twenty days to allow time for historical resources and community input before it is too late.

Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is prophet Youssef of Rockford.

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. In the book of Haraj, the fortieth chapter, the twenty eighth to the twenty ninth verse, it says, my son, live not the life of a beggar. Better to die than to beg. When one has to look to another's table, his life is not really a life. What I wanna speak about tonight ending homelessness, poverty, and war.

Under this wise economic plan, we can use the collective power of immunity to build a future for ourselves. We do not believe that America will ever be able to furnish enough jobs for her own millions of unemployed in addition to job for the millions of black people. Pulling our resource to achieve a common goal is a universal concept that makes a lot of sense. Why? Analysis say, the wealthy elites and political power have forgotten about black America and the poor in The United States.

The blueprint calls on 16,000,000 black wage earners to give just 35¢ a week to a national treasurer. In one year, the fund would amass $291,200,000 to be invested in housing so people can have a place to stay, invest in business so our people can have a job, so they won't be idle because idle man, idle or idle mind is the devil's workshop. Open our own schools, open twenty four hours free day care centers so mothers can go to school or work. Open up our own hospitals and clinics so we can help our people who are sick, and also give felonies a second chance like God gave us with his grace and mercy. This economic plan will help reduce crime, homelessness, poverty in America because poverty and you can look at this up.

Poverty, hopeless, and despair is a mother of pride. You can ask any criminology. He'll tell you this. And keep putting money in this economic plan so our children will have a positive future. Thank you for allowing me to speak.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Denzel Winter of Rockford.

Good evening, council. I'm coming here with I got a nasty attitude because things have been happening to me, and I worry for my family. I worry for my neighborhood. The things that that happened shouldn't be happening. My son's name was mentioned, and it shouldn't have been because he don't even he's not even here.

He don't even work he don't even work in this town, but his name was mentioned. You know? Just like I said, I done lost I I done lost a child here. He got ran over. The people came up on the sidewalk and ran him over.

But you know what they said? They said it must have been a drug deal or a a gang deal that went bad. Never heard no more from it. Now I got to worry about the rest of my kids, And I shouldn't have to, and parents shouldn't have to in our neighborhood. I know for a fact we got more pedophiles running around up in the neighborhood. Why do you why you put them people in our neighborhood? Do you got a East Side. You got you got got a North Side. You got a South Side. Why you always hacking people in our neighborhood?

We need to be protected too. Not after one of our kids go missing, not after one of our kid children come up dead, but we need the protection that you give these people on the East Side. We pay taxes too, and that's something you guys better start realizing.

Thank you. That concludes tonight's public speakers. We'll move right I'm gonna refer to our legal department.

To the ability of public to participate in our meetings, the chair has the discretion to direct an individual interrupting to remain seated.

You're referring to city council rule 21, correct? For which this is not city council?

Madam chair, I'm not permitted to address the public. Would be I'm giving you information. You can address the public.

At this time, sir, we're done with public speaking. If you will, please take your seat so we can get on with the rest of the meeting.

I would still like to offer public comments. It's there.

And as chair, I'm telling you no. As chair, I'm telling you no.

The chair can direct a to be I'm sorry? The chair can direct a person to be your removed. They don't want to comply with the rule of

Yes. At this time, officers, can you please escort the gentleman out, please? Alright. Clerk, will you please call the roll? Here.

Here. We have two items up for discussion tonight. Item one is an approval of the amendment Here.

Here. President? This this

Thank you. Item one is an approval of the amendment to the AP 90 program specific requirements, all current and prior year annual action plans. Do I have a motion to approve?

So moved. Second.

Are there any questions or discussion on the item? Seeing there's no discussion or questions, all those in favor, please state by indicating aye. Aye. Any opposed, same time. The item passes. Item two is an approval of the amendments to the fiscal year 2025 addition of projects and budget amendments. Do I have a motion to approve? I moved. Second. Are there any questions or comments? Seeing that there are none, all those in favor, please indicate by stating aye. Aye. Any opposed, same sign. Do I have a motion to adjourn? So moved. Are there any questions or comments? All those in favor, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed, same sign. This meeting is adjourned.