Remarks by Mark Bonne
59 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 1 of 3
- Play at 1:00:04
“Thank you, Mayor. Item one, I would move that we amend the committee report for the proposed funding agreement and lease with the Rockford Area Convention and Visitors Bureau to reflect the initial expiration date of December 31st.”
City Council · Oct 5, 2026
- Play at 1:00:27
“I jumped ahead a little, didn't I? A little bit. It's all right.”
City Council · Oct 5, 2026
- Play at 1:01:06
“Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.”
City Council · Oct 5, 2026
- Play at 1:02:02
“Alderman Bell says now is the time to speak.”
City Council · Oct 5, 2026
- Play at 1:02:09
“We didn't, never mind. I move to amend the committee report for the proposed funding agreement and lease with the Rockford Area Convention and Visitors Bureau to reflect the initial expiration date of December 31st, 2028. And we've obviously discussed this a number of times. I think clearly we have a local taxpayer money and”
City Council · Oct 5, 2026
- Play at 1:02:40
“I'm explaining why I'm making the amendment. All right.”
City Council · Oct 5, 2026
- Play at 1:02:59
“Again, I don't think this is a question of whether or not we don't need Go Rockford's assistance to fully activate Davis Park. It's a great new asset brought forward with our own investment of quite a bit of local tax money as well as It was a considerable investment by the state of Illinois. And clearly, I went back and reread our IGA with Rave. Rave has already carved out that their responsibility is only for ticketed events that they can turn a profit on, which obviously they're a private entity, and that makes sense. their for-profit entity, that makes sense. Many of the other things we…”
City Council · Oct 5, 2026
- Play at 1:21:55
“right council we have two items before us are there any questions or comments alderman bonnie um since this item is related to the one we're waiting for legal to provide us something with i'm wondering if we can't just hold these both over yeah that doesn't make sense these items under finance and personnel really are not related”
City Council · Oct 5, 2026
- Play at 1:22:34
“That being said, are there any... A while back for Alderwoman McNeely, but I don't get it. So I'm just... remain opposed to this for a lot of reasons, but the main reason is just this lack of transparency. I mean, we've heard tonight, again, this referred to as a self-imposed assessment. By definition, it's not self-imposed because if the If hotel owners and operators were asking us to impose it on the hotel owners and operators, then it would be self-imposed. But they're not. They're asking us to impose it on hotel guests who are not gonna have a choice about whether they pay it or not. And…”
City Council · Oct 5, 2026
- Play at 1:37:27
“Thank you. So, again, the hotel owners could do this on their own without involving the government, without us interfering. They could raise their room rates, and they could, as just like an HOA, establish a fund that they would then control themselves to market using their own funds from a rate increase. By doing it this way, they have to have our approval. So I don't know how you can call it government interference when it requires government interference. They can't do it without our approval. Again, if it were a self-imposed assessment, they would be imposing it on themselves. This is…”
City Council · Oct 5, 2026
- Play at 1:44:13
“Did anyone second my motion to lay this over for six months? No. So we're debating a motion that wasn't seconded?”
City Council · Oct 5, 2026
- Play at 1:44:29
“But we didn't announce that? I didn't catch that.”
City Council · Oct 5, 2026
- Play at 2:02:21
“Thank you, Mayor. I actually have four things. The first one is everybody received an apple on their desks. I went, I shopped local this weekend, which by local I mean in the 14th Ward. These are all from a orchard, little mom and pop shop one acre orchard. orchard that is on Phelps Avenue. And it is what's left of a much larger orchard dating back to the Depression era from which the intersecting Orchard Avenue got its name. And the owners sell apples there for, they have 22 varieties. They sell for $2 a pound. There's signs in there right away if you pull into their driveway and the barn…”
City Council · Oct 5, 2026
- Play at 2:06:26
“Are we going to be able to invite all these developers or have we invited them to our November strategic planning meeting?”
City Council · Oct 5, 2026
- Play at 2:06:47
“I guess if we haven't done that yet, do I need to introduce that as a resolution?”
City Council · Oct 5, 2026
- Play at 2:07:05
“I believe I brought this up about a month ago. Mayor indicated that it could be done. Has it not been discussed at all in the several weeks that have passed?”
City Council · Oct 5, 2026
- Play at 2:07:41
“somewhat related to that two months ago we approved a moratorium on data centers and requested staff to study best practices around regulation of data centers and i doubt we can get an update that on that tonight with the city administrator not here but i'm wondering if we can get sort of a it was you know a halfway point progress report on that so that”
City Council · Oct 5, 2026
- Play at 2:08:15
“Well, if we could, no, I know it was, we gave six months to staff to develop that, and I'm wondering if we can get a three-month progress report on how that's going, where staff is, you know, potentially to bounce ideas off council to obtain feedback before we reach the six month point and then it comes to us and having had no input up to that point.”
City Council · Oct 5, 2026
- Play at 37:09
“Thank you, Mayor. I move that we lay over item one.”
City Council · Sep 21, 2026
- Play at 43:23
“Yes, I move we lay over items six and seven. Second.”
City Council · Sep 21, 2026
- Play at 52:06
“Thank you, Mayor. I just wanted to second everything Alderwoman Meeks said about the property on North Main Street. I've already, at previous meetings, commended it as a... great adaptive reuse and new chapter for historic building. I just wanted to take a moment to, I think everybody here understands, but as Alderman Thunberg says, for the millions who are watching, I think it's pretty amazing that we just declared that property a landmark. a unanimous vote with no discussion when landmark issues have been highly controversial in the past and have ended up recently in the demolition of some…”
City Council · Sep 21, 2026
- Play at 1:16:14
“Thank you, Mayor. Director Haggerty, what is the total amount of not unspent but undesignated ARPA money that we have left, ARPA money that has neither been spent nor is earmarked for something in particular?”
City Council · Sep 21, 2026
- Play at 1:17:36
“OK. And we spend a lot of time under officers' reports talking about staffing in the fire department. I was wondering if Chief Taiyo could comment on the cost of, if we were to allocate funding to keep maybe not Medic 4, but Engine 5 in service, My understanding is that's about $400,000, if that would be the case in how we get to $400,000.”
City Council · Sep 21, 2026
- Play at 1:18:45
“Okay, thank you. And Not sure if anybody can answer this with any precision, but about what percentage of the city's population, following up on Alderman Durkee's question, lives east of Alpine?”
City Council · Sep 21, 2026
- Play at 1:19:21
“More than a quarter, close to a third. I just think that we need to start looking at this issue as well as our anticipated budget shortfalls. And even if we have designated all of our ARPA money, anything that we have unspent, I think we really ought to be thinking about setting that aside and not committing to, even though $50,000 doesn't sound like much. But I think in the court of public opinion, We keep approving programs like this while we have these very concerning staffing issues in the fire department and a looming budget deficit. They add up, and I just don't think it looks good.…”
City Council · Sep 21, 2026