City Council - Special Meeting

Alive Um-hum I lot of red, huh Hi Jake, congratulations. Happy for you Haven't seen you in about 100 years now. I was like, I know that guy. I think everyone's getting tired of seeing me. Oh, were you spoke dominating gonna be here. so Thank you OK. Yeah. I would like to to spend. I'm Ready? OK. The chair will call the May 12, 2026 special meeting of the City council to order. Please rise for the Pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the United States of America. and to the revolve which stas. one nation under God individual with liberty and justice for all. Clerk, can you please call the roll? Yes. Alderman Cox. Here. Alderman Gregory. Here. Alderman Williams. Alderman Rockford. Alderwoman Purchase Alderwoman no Triano Alderman Carlson Here Alder one Conley present? No. Alderman Donelly here Alderman Hanauer. Dear. Mayor Bucher, President. Mayor Aquaorum is present. Thank you, and we'll acknowledge the alderwoman purchase has joined us. You're welcome. Uh, can I get a motion to allow Alderman Donlin to join. We have a motion a second to let Alderman Donlin joined by the phone. Any discussion, seeing none, all those in favor say aye. Those

oppose nay, the I have it. Alderman Donlinn, welcome. Thank you everyone The Civility pledge and the interest of civility, I pledged to promote civility by listening , being respectful of others, acknowledging that we are all striving to support and improve our community and understanding that we each may have different ideas for achieving that objective The next item on the agenda will be 2026-221, a resolution to support the expansion of the BOS Convention Center and other downtown tourism projects subject to the review and approval of the elected city council of the City of Springfield. The chair will entertain a motion to place the resolution on final passage. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion? No, ma. Alderman Hanauer. I'd like to, um, put in for amendment number one, we'll pass it out. um, it basically um well, Jim doesn't need one, but um, it basically takes, gets rid of some of the language that um is not uh. I guess not correct. as far as what uh taxing bodies and things like that, but it does, uh keep, keep our support for the BOS expansion. So the alderman has a motion for Amendment number 1. Is there a second? We have a second Any discussion on the amendment on the amendment only will be discussion. I'll let you all get it before I close down discussion that way you can have it. Well. I'll put my lights off. I'll let her. Older woman, no Triano. Um so. What, uh, can, can one of the sponsors explain like the motivation behind this. It looks like um instead of addressing the mayor's concerns, it looks like

it red lines everything. Thank you. Well, what, what does, I'm, I'm sorry, pardon me, I think that's two separate issues to the resolution was different than AldermancGregory's ordinance that I gave suggestions on that's too, just to clarify, but go ahead, Alderman Hanau. Like I said, what this does is, uh, it, it just basically it, it's a it it gives us our support to the BOS uh expansion. and uh you know some of the language in here, we, we know that it's not a it it it strikes language that uh just basically is not correct like uh they're not taxing authority and things like that. I wanted to show our support for BOS expansion, but you know, some of the things in here is, is just, you know, not correct and, and, uh, so. therefore we, we put this together Any other discussion, alderwoman ? Oh, yeah, I mean, I, I guess, uh h. I think that's it for now. Thank you. OK. Alderman Williams? Uh, yes, Mayor. Uh, you know this is part of game playing and I just want the citizens to understand. So everything is struck out but we support. Something we already knew. from weeks ago that we support the expansion of the center uh, and we are really arguing about key points, and tonight is about understanding the key points that I object to and I wanted to make sure we slow this down, so all of us would understand what's going on, but yet we start off. with amendment that just strikes the whole thing but a paragraph

that says we support the ball center. This is playing with the system. He has every right to try to mend it. I recommend that we uh deny this. amendment and go on with the original, discuss it. Let our public speak and weigh in on this, and then let's have our vote and not play these games. Thank you, ma'am. Absolutely. Aler McGregory. Uh, yes, um, you know, I, I think, um, you know, looking at this, I, you know, I, I don't have the bill in front of me to read, um, but Alderman Williams, I, I know what you, um, are trying to get at and the main thing is, is the council's um opposition or approval of SB 3499, so it, you know, and, and I think the authority within that, um, um, and what the county has and what the city has and our point of view on that, um, you know, my particular take on it is and you know I met with Brian McFadden yesterday. I told him to his face. where I'm at with it, and he told me to my face where they're at with it and um I maintain there that that the city of Springfield not only provides fire and, and, and police and infrastructure that we have just as much um exposure and authority, um, um, over anything and our taxpayers taxpayers' dollars, um, on top of, um, um, you know, raising county sales tax and things of that nature if those things happen, um, you know. it's sort of hard to talk about this because we don't have the numbers, so to speak of, of how much we're being asked to commit to the project, um, I do remember, um, some time ago, um, we, we were sent communication and, and, and not only, uh, not even you knew the full scope of it and you know we had some calls about the county, uh, wanting to raise our sales tax and I believe all of us said no with that for this BOS so um the knowledge of them trying to do something with it is, is, is not new to me certainly um we we realized that I think we all have been trying

to to do some things auto a woman purchases had some conversations even about the Wyndham, um, and somebody trying to do something with that so you know to me you know that's what the ottoman is trying to get at is, is, is really a um response to what how we feel as a council and the authority of it, um, there's no reason that we should have one seat. when, you know, and I, I said it like this too, we're not the little brothers. We're the big brother of Sangamon County and whether it's future sales tax. is still cities taxpayers' money , our citizens are gonna use the hotels too. They're gonna have banquets there too. um, and, and we should have just as much say on how that board looks it's still gonna be appointed by whatever mayor is here, Mayor Busher, um, um. so, so, so those things are are still gonna be appointment, but there's no reason why we have one seat on the board and and our sales taxes could be up for it, um, um. you know, raising, raising the hotel motel tax. I think what we're at 8.5, 9, it will go to 9 , they can under this um lasher's law, um, you know they can raise the hotel motel tax up 3% could put us at 16%, so we as a council, when do we start thinking, hey, hold up. is that fun oversaturated? Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. you know, their, their position is 20% is when we start getting that close, so, um, it's a long way from where we're at right now. So those are things that we gotta think about. It's just about informed decisions, um, for the future, um, you know. I'm not one of those that feel comfortable after I'm might leave the seat whenever that may be, um, to look back and and and regret anything. I wanna, I wanna be knowledgeable on the decisions I'm making. I don't think this is a um a badass from our alderman, um, for us to

really fully understand that they will have the authority of um for me I understand is there you know that that's their lot they're gonna try to expand on it they're donating to it, and we're gonna have to do everything else, so, um, that's my take on it. I'm against them having that much authority, um. but I'm not opposed to working with them this city. has worked together on major projects, the Dare improvement what we all brag on we did that without a extra authority. Mayors work together, council did what we needed to do. We put in our money. There's been other projects where we've been asked to work together, um that's my take on it and I appreciate your time. Thank you. All the woman Conly, thank you, Mayor. Um and, and think, and I guess we're gonna kind of talk about the amendment in in the larger context of, of also kind of what we're looking at with this proposal. Um, yeah, I also talked to Brian McFadden. I've talked to Senator Turner, um, yesterday even and hopefully everyone around this horseshoe heard the same thing that I heard, which is this legislation is still being amended. It is still in flux. There is not a final product in place and what I was told, and again, I didn't sit down with anyone else because I was on the road, so it was a phone call with just me, but what I was told, um, was that the city will have an option as to whether or not we even want our sales tax to be contributed as part of the, the payment fund source for the bonds that would that would that would build this , um, expansion. um, some of the things that I asked about, you know, what does this mean? When we're talking about expanding VOS, is it just a hotel? Um, no, it's, it, it includes what I think another 6000 square feet of 60, sorry, 60, I'm sorry no seats. Numbers numbers were, um, thank you, I forgot the other 0, but a significant number. So ballroom

space, meeting space, greatly expanding our conference capacity, um, in a way that is going to spread out and impact not just downtown, but the entire city, um, we do know and I, I did ask to be included on this largely because A, I, there are miss there are things that are misstated in here. This is not creating a new taxing authority. We as a city will not lose any of our other municipal authorities, our zoning, our code, those are the heart of our standards. If you know, we know how we deal with this. The code division, um, Public Works, that's where most of my calls go. That ' s where, you know, some of the hottest topics that come before us deal with zoning issues. We maintain that control. We as a city will still be opting into how we participate in this. There are still things that the city has to vote on that will come before a future city council and, and I think it's really critically important at this stage where we have Senator Turner making a huge push for one of the biggest transformational changes to our downtown in a way that can bring in more revenue, bring in more people, and, and show an investment in in expectations of what we expect to see in our community and, and a higher standard of what we offer to people who come to our community. She's done a lot of work on this and it's not done because I did ask her, hey, we've got this special meeting. Do you have draft language that we can go through and we can talk about at the meeting. It's not ready yet, right? So I, I wanna be very careful that we not undermine the work that she's done, that the governor's office is getting behind and and showing support in a way that I think high light s the fact that we are the capital city. We should be getting special treatment in something like this because. we have a lot here to offer. Um and it's, it's coming out of that Star Bond model, which I think is also good for us. Um, Alderman Gregory, you brought forward a a Starbond concept. If this changes in how it's financed and it's not that Star bond which limits us to the one

project. Now we've got another, we still have another door that we can open with, with additional opportunities that are unique to the city of Springfield. So, um I, I think again I, I want to be very careful that we not weigh in on something in a way that looks to undermine the work that , that the senator's done, that the governor's office is investing in. Um, we've got, you know, bipartisan support with, with Representative Coffey getting on board. They're doing a lot of work to help us help our community and I think it's really important to not muddy that and to just say, look, we really appreciate this and we want to see this expansion go forward. um critically, I think we need to do something different. We've mentioned this before. I, I know it's difficult to participate when you're on the phone. So I will say for Alderman Donelly, um, because he's said it here many times, we need to be creative. We need to see things done, not the way they've been done and we're not we're not losing control of our city. We're not losing control of our downtown with this. I think there's been a message that's gotten mixed. We're, we're discussing, we're discussing a moving, we're discussing a moving item that's not completely put together. I think the message has been heard that we as a city want to be engaged. We want to be involved and we want to be part of the process I heard that when we talking to the senator and talking to Brian McFadden. So I think while the target is moving, we need to be careful what we're slinging at it because in the end, what we're getting is an opportunity to really transform a part of our community that I know people want to see grow and thrive. I have Ward 8, I, I know it's not in my ward, right? It's not my ward. I don't come this far downtown um, but I have a lot of business owners in my ward who have businesses in downtown Springfield, and they want to see a stabilization of our base.

They want to see us grow and they want to see one of my one of my residents, one of my constituents was at that ribbon cutting and and I'm very proud and excited for her business and I wanna see that one grow and thrive. And if that means that we need to be a little creative and we need to put some faith into Senator Turner into our governor's office and into this process that is still happening. then I'm willing to take that chance So thank you, Mayor. Uh-huh. Uh, older woman, no Triano. Thank you, Mayor Uh, so, I guess let's start off with saying that nobody is opposed to expansion of the BOS. Nobody is opposed to development in downtown. What the people who oppose this bill as it's put forward, pose is the lack or the loss of local control. So this, uh, will this bill in its form will give unelected officials with up to um well actually we don't know in this portion, uh, how long their terms will be, but, uh, terms, terms of, of years, um, if it follows the medical district, uh, outline, and these unelected folks uh will be the majority of them will be appointed by the county board and one person will be appointed by the city and one person will be appointed by SMEA. and that is not up for debate, um, that is the way it's been proposed. So my question to you all, as my colleagues is.

why and how would you accept that. giving away your duties and responsibilities with regard to economic development, um and what goes on in downtown without trying to negotiate for more influence on this board. I I, I'm gonna tell you and I know , unelected board is not something I can get behind. Uh, we have a very in your face frontal assault on democracy in this country right now and um an unelected board making decisions just rubs me the wrong way to begin with, but the fact that we would have only uh, one vote, essentially on this board is even more disturbing, um the I, I met uh Alder McGregory and I yesterday met with the, uh , county administrator to talk about this project and um. it was remarkable to me when I asked, how does this fit into the city of Springfield's master plan. And he said, what master plan? So that's a problem for me and probably a problem for a lot of you, uh, who participated in, gave your time and energy, uh, in and expertise to developing a master plan that this city passed last year that shows priorities for downtown. Uh, so, so that's, that's a big problem, and then we also know that um the current model for

Springfield's downtown. If we have one, is based on tourism and the legislature. and guess what? it's not working . You don't need me to tell you that. Just go outside, uh, and try to get a sandwich on a Sunday afternoon downtown. Good luck to you um part of the, the thing we should be looking at with downtown, uh, is the fact that the smear I'm not gonna blame Smia. The BOS center is operating at a $2.2 million loss . annually, currently. They say it's because they can't get these outside people to come , um, outside conventions, um, if you read the uh the, the study put forward by the consultants hired by the county, uh, that's not really the full story. A lot of the story is that we are not maximizing on the types of events that would do well with people in and around the city of Springfield and would do well in that type of environment, that big, um, open. uh spectator environment, uh, so one of the things that I know, uh, did really well and I have personal experience hearing from someone about attending was a monster truck show for kids. It is stuff like that that we need to focus on and prioritize, uh, that will get people who live 30 minutes, an hour from here to come here and go to the BOS center and

start chipping away at that $2.2 million deficit. and make that convention center viable, and I've got to say to everybody on the SMA board, I apologize for getting in your business. I did not want to do this, but this, this entire issue has made it such that I now have to dig into the budget of SMEA and dig into, uh, county commission reports, um I don't wanna tell anybody how to run their um government entity, but what it feels like the county is doing is taking the BOS center, which is not doing well. and trying to plug the hole by developing a hotel to try to bail the BOS center out. um, and we don't, we, we don't even have to, uh, if you look at the, the the county's own report. We don't even have to build the hotel to help the BOS center do better. We could just expand it and spend 200 million less of taxpayer money. um and, and get more visitors and get more people to stay in our hotels and get more people to spend money downtown without incurring all this debt, um and I I. I don't know, maybe I haven't been privy to the debate on these sorts of things, um, but these are the types of things that you're elected officials need to be talking about and bringing up when proposed with something like this, uh, also another thing that shocked me in my meeting yesterday with, uh,

the county administrator, Currently, this is purely publicly funded There is no public-private partnership right now. All 200 some odd million dollars of bonds are going to be taken out by this capital area Tourism Authority. Let's talk, I mean, y'all, the bonds right now that we're, we're still paying until how, how long until we pay off Dolman . Yeah yeah. So we're, you know, we're still, still worried about that. We're, uh, was it last year or the year before where we um reissued bonds to uh get more money for our just you know building firehouses, um, for the sports complex. I, I'm sports complex is in my district. I, of course, support it. I'm happy to see it doing well, um, but we've already stretched ourselves on a new development project. Why? What's the urgency beside behind pushing for this huge project right now. in downtown That's gonna double down on our failing tourism-based strategy for developing downtown. Boy oh boy, and its director Doll here? He's Hi director. I have a couple of questions for you. I, I wanted to start here, but I just get on a roll. Sorry. Sure. Um, OK, so, uh

your agency, uh, your main focus is to draw tourism to Springfield. Destination marketing, yeah, so how would you interact with this capital area tourism Authority. Well, we would, we'd certainly work with them. uh, for sure. I mean, I don't, I guess I've heard, uh, rumors that we would be folded into them, and I don't, I don't believe that's the, that's the case. Wow. I don't think the city's going to give up their power of the visit, uh visit Springfield, uh, and funded at the same time. I think that's uh certainly would not do that. Um, that's been floated through the years, by the way. Wow, that's. So, I can certainly see us having a, a larger role though with that authority we would take on more, uh, in the system we have the professionals at visit Springfield. Right. We have 15 of them. So, yeah, we could see helping them along and helping certainly the expansion as well. Yeah, definitely. Your, your point about, uh, tourism and that failed strategy. Uh we have record numbers. We sold 13,000 more room nights last year than we did the year before. We had 4 in the last 5 years record tours and numbers. So when I say failed strategy, I thank you for giving me the opportunity to clarify because I do not want you to think this is a hit on you or your department at all. What I'm saying is what we're doing and is good as it is doing. Businesses are closing downtown I, I, I went to see a comedian, a nationally known comedian out at UIS, not at the BOS Center, and that nationally known comedian made a joke about our downtown about the fact that he was staying in a hotel down here, and he was like, Where is everyone? And, and he said like, I don't try to get anything to eat downtown on a Sunday afternoon cause the show was on a Sunday.

um that's what I'm talking about And I know that you understand that's, that's not your wheelhouse, right? That, that's not, you cannot do it all alone. Tourism cannot do it all alone, um. so yeah, I, uh, please, I apologize. I did not mean that as a knock on you or your department or any of your colleagues, they're doing a great job and the issue is that's just one piece, right? Sure, I, yeah, you have to diversify, but the issue right now is that uh we need new space and the issue right now is that we have a hotel that's closed that has reduced our largest, our biggest advantage when we're selling meetings and conventions and that is our peak room nights. We had 500 peak room nights. 5 more rooms that you could use on one, on any given nights that were right across the street from each other. Uh, we had 50,000 square feet in, in the Wyndham, uh, are obviously the 40,000 square feet in the BOS center and then the Doubletree as well so we had that all within walking distance right there. Certainly with the window closed, uh, and with the BOS Center space getting older, we need new competitive space. So why do you think there? has not been hotel developers. Why, why has the market not um generated that new hotel in downtown Springfield because we do need it So my personal I mean I'm guessing my personal opinion is because they don't know what's going to happen with the Wyndham . If we could, if we knew what happened with the window, you would have a hotel developer that would be here in a heartbeat. They would develop downtown and they would do that. I'm sure they're they're afraid of putting in 250 rooms downtown . and then having the window reopened with 200 rooms or, you

know, 250 rooms. That's out of mix at that point. So is that going to say this goes through and passes, is that going to hurt that project then? What project? The county's projects of expanding the BOS center and building the convention hotel. like is the fact that we have ambiguity around the Wyndham I'm gonna harm that undertaking to begin with. Well, I think that's , that's the choice of the developer, right? I mean, obviously that's a risk you take , uh, at that time, but certainly, uh, you know we don't know what's gonna happen with the Wyndham, and somebody's gonna take that risk, uh, and, and, and see if they do reopen some hotel rooms. I mean, I, I think that the mix would be about 100 rooms, uh, if, if it a chance did reopen at that time. And I wanna make a quick point about the BOS Center. it currently isn't being used for what it needs to be used for expo, entertainment, sporting venue because many times their space is booked with these meetings and conventions. So when you're trying to hit a music act on their way, uh, to a metro city and you can have them here on a Wednesday or Thursday night. It's already booked and that expansion will give us an opportunity to put the meetings conventions in one side and have the BOS center operate what it needs to be. And you can see it right now, 60,000 square feet, uh, next door. and you maybe you have a concert the same night that you have a convention here, yeah. And you, you know, what's wonderful about that is Sia. in 2021, I believe. took out bonds to get that extra money, so they could do that expansion. So I'm wondering like why? I'm just trying to get to the bottom of what this is all about . We want the expansion, everybody wants the expansion. The sia wants the expansion. Why is it taking this form? Why

are we creating, and this isn't for you, this is for everyone else. Why are we creating an entirely new unit of government. to get this done, um. I by no stretch of the imagination am not a person who's, you know, all for small government, but um this, this, um. it, it's, it's, it's challenging it, um, it's sort of I it's kind of ridiculous to think of creating a new government authority for this, this purpose , uh, when we could do it using the current uh apparatus that exists in state law, but again, that's not directed at you. I am so sorry. What I do want to ask you about is this 3% potential increase to hotel motel tour tax . So when the budget was being passed, I asked you. do we have room? Is this, can we raise our hotel motel tax to get a little more revenue because we need it. And you said, I don't know if you remember. I don't remember, no. Oh, OK. Go ahead. You, you said that we were like at the top. We, we were, we were getting to the point where we didn't want to add another percentage point. so in this instance I mean, uh, what are we as, as city legislators to beli or or think. like. how, how do we make this decision given that. So we currently are, we're competitive right now. There's uh actually cities that are a little bit uh uh more hotel tax than we have right now and there's some cities that surround it a little bit lower, uh, certainly tourism improvement districts around the

state are changing that as you see tourism in Chicago just created one. they added 1%, uh, to their hotel tax. We'll see others being created throughout the state. You'll see that that hotel tax increase, uh, so you'll see 1516, 17% becomes the norm. I think what I was getting at at in the budget was that do we have room to increase it just to increase it or to use it for something that will not, uh, bring back tourism dollars to the city, so I think it's an investment. So if you're looking at increasing the hotel tax, you're looking at making an investment in that increasement. Um-hum. And that increased amount. Sure. That's, that's really where, where we're at. If, if you're going to use it, uh, and, and increase it for just general funds or revenues or maybe infrastructure, whatever it may be, uh, I think that's a bad move increasing it for that if you're using it for something that's going to re in ve s t in those tourism dollars then absolutely I, I do. I think the TIDs catch up. I think you'll see hotel tax anywhere between 15 and 17 or 18% in the next five years. OK. OK. To me, we were just ahead of the curve OK And, and that is a question we should all think about. Can we, uh, is it a good idea for us to be ahead of the curve, uh, can we maintain that, um. but, but yes, thank, thank you for that um so this question is not necessarily for you, but you might know how much public engagement uh has been done on this BOS expansion. like public meetings and things like that. Well, I, I would say that, you know, we first took a look at this with, with the tourist Improvement District, uh, that's the first year, uh, the reason it didn't work immediately is because there's a 2 year cap on the tourism improvement district and you, and you, you couldn't bond it out, you couldn't get the financing work on 20 years,

you really needed, uh, 30 years or more. So we did take a look at that actually one was formed, uh, at, at the time so that was one mechanism where we looked at um there was some, some public input there, uh, as well, uh, for that, but I think what's happened is that the county decided that yeah we're gonna uh redirect this and move this forward, uh, we tried the tourism improvement district, it didn't work, uh, and so this was another avenue for the county to move this forward. But I don't want to speak on behalf of the county for the public input. Sure, sure. Thank you. um OK, I, I do believe that. is it for my questions for you. Thank you very much for being a good sport. Thank you, director. Um yeah, so I, I really don't know. I really don't know that any of that, um, makes me feel a whole lot better Um, I, I will say that in the bill as it stands, are, uh, contribution is 50% of the taxes from this district above and beyond the year the district starts. so that's what's in the bill. That's what someone has negotiated on behalf of the city of Springfield. um I, I'm thinking, uh, you know, I I, I would say why did we choose 50% and also is one vote. does that equate? Mayor, do you know why we chose 50%? of the city hasn't committed to anything. The city cannot commit to anything unless the city

council passes it. I don't have the authority to do that, ma'am. Um, but it's in the legislation and your lobbyist has been. lobbying for the legislation. So there's amendments going forward as alderwoman Conley pointed out . So I think you're discussing something that none of us know currently what's going on. OK, OK Um I, I think, uh, you know, I've talked for plenty, uh, I am going to, uh, end with this, so uh, in the meeting yesterday with the administrator, um, the, the pitch was the argument was that in this new taxing districts, the county should get more of a say because they're going to give all of the revenue that's that they would get, uh, from the district to this new governing body. that is their decision to do, um , and it has not been decided like the county board still has to vote on whether or not they're going to give 100% of this revenue. so for us to put in statute the representation of a board where we don't even know how much the potential, uh, governing bodies, the city, the county, SEA, or going to put an end to the body, why would we as a city, agree to set representation that disadvantages us, um this is, I this seems like such a bad deal,

um I. it sounds like I'm not for this. I am for expansion of the Bank of Springfield Center. First and foremost, um, but what we're, what, what is trying to be done in statute. is trying they're trying to circumvent the city of Springfield lawmakers. In order to get this big behemoth of a project done. Make no mistake and I would say we should all be paying attention to the individuals who are gonna support that. Thank you Alderman Williams. Yeah, thank you, Mayor, and thank you, you, you, you stole a lot of my thunder, but I'll just say uh, you did a good job. and I will say to the alderwo first because she keeps talking about moving parts. but yet she wants to vote and do everything for the moving parts except the stuff she don't like, for example, we didn't make up the board, it's in the language. That's not a moving part. That's why I asked citizens to come and address that and come to talk about that, the borders, the territory. I'm talking, you haven't spoken yet. That That woman that spoke, yeah, the one that spoke. The one that spoke what I'm talking about which was moving parts. The senator tells me that moving parts. So why are we having press conferences if we don't know enough, Mayor. she participated, so she triggered me because like they try to do this thing like it was a done deal and they had and it wasn't, obviously amendments. She sign that there's there's a lot of amendments going on. That's their process, not just this bill, any bill, it can change and go depending on what house it's in and what what they got going on. What I was after

was Carlson's celebration that we gonna do this and that and I said no, we gotta slow this down . We haven't even heard from our people. Then we went through every step possible not to hear it. Now tonight we're trying to, you know, to really knock it down, but we need to hear from our people. We need to listen, and we need to learn. I'm learning so you should be willing to learn because in the end until we understand what's going on, who the major development, Nobody knows who the developer's gonna be. You know, you keep hearing, oh what authorities going to be to do that's straight from the senator. There's no moving part there. There's gonna be 5 people on this board, 3 of them. If you really want to zip in in a bub, make us have a poor outing. Let the city council have the majority on that board, in other words, the city controlled the majority. I don't care what the number is, and then we're fine. They can build their hotel, they can expand their boss center cause all of us want that. But it doesn't take them to have to create their own mini city council to do this. That's why I agree with my colleague when she says they're just still in authority, they're still in power, and all this about they paid for a study, so that's all it takes to buy a zip code? Senator Turner, 62701, or is that all it takes? Cause there's gotta be a territory, if you read the bill, they have to have a territory. It has to be at least 10,000 people. It's supposed to be blighted underprivileged area. There's a lot of rules to this star thing, but the problem I'm having is that when it's their turn, they do all this publicity they do and then when I asked the citizens to come in and speak, we still fighting to get hurt. The people are gonna be heard tonight, and I thought after they were her then we'll just make a decision. If you think this ain't correct, we'll put the right language in there and get it right, but it's kind of hard to do when all they do is they have some down there cause they're passing something down there.

And that's all I'm going by. You could play with words. It's still, it may not be the kind of taxing body in a traditional farm, but it's still going to involve sales tax. It's still gonna involve our hotel motel tax. It's still gonna cost that hotel is not going to be free. So we might as well quit that. It's gonna get revenue generated and maybe in a non-traditional way, but it's revenue that this council was elected to be over. The sales tax in the territory and now it's lately it's been, oh only the sales tax in that one hotel really for 200 million , come on. And then they still won't address projects. It's more than one project, that's just the first of many. So the county's gonna be running the city, like I said, we may not, we, you may think we're not losing, but we are. because each project that they will fall under that authority, not in, yeah, we'll still get to she'll still get to do her plants, we'll still get to do the sidewalks and and the zoning , you're right. But the big stuff, the intimate domain Oh yeah, it's in there. That's a very important power. Demolition is in there. So there's powers that they do get. I wanted to spend time talking about what's it going to cost us as a city? What are we really giving up and what are we gonna gain from it? And so we could weigh this thing properly instead of the rush rush job that y'all put on this through the mayor just saying, well, cause her reason is I talked to your mayor, your mayors on our team. Well, the mayor sure hasn't talked to all of us, cause she, like I said earlier, she didn't even talk to the, to all the men that represent downtown. We have to stop this and think about this, that's unfair and that ain't right. and we hadn't heard from our citizens, but yet we was doing press conferences and everybody was happy, and this was gonna go on and the more I learned about it, the uglier it gets, and if

I'm wrong, we wouldn't get a red lined out thing but one paragraph. What are they scared of? They don't want to hear the discussion. They don't wanna understand that other people have ideals what to do about town and it's curious that the ones that have been on the city council the longest are the ones acting like only the county can fix it and we should let them fix it. You've been here a long time. Ask yourself why to Wyndham, because before they had their problems, it's that side that voted no. on developers, straight up developers saying, uh, last week he was saying, oh, and we need bodies down there. We need residents. Well, the guy came and was wanting to do apartments and both developers wanted to cause they both told us this is the way they're doing these new big hotels. They're mixing it with hotels, people live downtown. They told you their shopping was gonna be their restaurants, the whole bit. We rejected it not once but twice. And then we gonna sit up here and act like, oh we need this authority because they studied it No, we failed. We should have picked one of those developers and maybe wouldn't be where we are today with the Wyndham. So we need to just be honest with ourselves as a city council . It's our job to develop our downtown. They want to own a hotel, we treat them like any other developer. They just need to go through the process, develop the hotel and build it. But they can't just create an authority and cut us out because they got the right mayor to do it. No. and we need to do our jobs. We elected as Springfield City council members, not the Sangamon County Board member Carlson Maybe you need to go back there. I'll, I can interject. I was never on the county board when you say that all the time. OK, fine. We're all represented by county board members by don't know that I've got 3 of them. Who don't know that? Everybody knows that we're,

we're, by the way, since you wanna say that, we're 60% of the county. So we got them that way too. We the majority of the county. But yet we're letting them do this. I don't know what the game plan was with the amendment mayor or what this was all about, but it's very different from what the people come out for. We need to hear from the people, discuss this thing like I said, and then just make up your mind and live with your decision. If you think it ain't enough information, I then you ain't gonna vote for it . That's fine too. Take a position though, and quit high. Oh well, it's moving parts and and so we just gonna say very little. No, we have to let them know our intentions as well. What we feel about it. We shouldn't just sit here quietly. Thank you, Mayor. Alderman Hanau. Thank you, Mayor. Um well, first of all, um, we haven't put anything in this project, 0 absolutely nothing Counties put in they're given the land they put in, I don't know how many thousands of dollars or hundreds of $1000 whatever projected, um, convention center has put in some has pledged money for it. I think what was it? $22 million or something. We pledged zero, we've given 0, we've had quite honestly you know, they're letting us be a part of this project. by and, and we should have one person on the dang board. because right now here's what they're as of the meeting and that I went to yesterday and this is my understanding and if I'm wrong, somebody correct me they, they would like for us to give uh the hotel motel tax City Hotel motel tax for that particular hotel. for that particular hotel, you know how much we give them now? 0 because that hotel doesn't exist.

and then it's up to us how much of the increment above the current base of the sales tax in the 62701 that we decide to put in, we could put in 25%. We could put in 10% That's up to us but we benefit I don't know if this is legit. but what takes precedence, what we vote on or what's in statute? It's regard to what A the percentages. According to what I heard yesterday, the sit that we we will have to vote on what we put in what we put in. It's not in a statute that we have to put in that's the other point that bill, that House bill that everybody keeps throwing out there. My understanding was that was somehow that that got through in the house it was a draft bill that got through and that's basically been, been gutted and they're redoing it in the Senate. So you know we get, we are absolutely we're not committed to anything right now. and, and quite frankly if they wanted to, if they if they if the numbers work out they could tell the city, you know what? we don't want you, we don't, we don't need your money, we don't need you on the board. At least we'll have somebody up there to to and I would assume it'd be the mayor or the mayor's designee that that would take part of that board, so that's, that's the way I understood things. um in regards to the Wyndham yeah, we voted it down. 325 square foot apartments. Terrible terrible. And then, oh by the way, let's look at what happened allegedly by the owner of the Wyndham. That's why, why it's in the shape of it it's in now, and we were gonna, we're gonna pledge $17 million towards that Absolutely not. I, I, I don't, I don't think twice about that

vote. It, it was, it was that, that's not what downtown needed. that is not what downtown needed . What we need is we need more conventions and more people walking downtown. I've talked to , I've talked to plenty of business people downtown they wanna see more foot traffic. period. and you know, concerts and all that are great, but people come to the concert, they go home. They may get one night stay. We want conventions that are gonna be here all week. They spend the money. so you know this is not we we we keep talking about the taxing body. It's not a taxing body. They have no authority and again this is from my meeting yesterday. They have no authority to raise taxes on the citizens that's us, that's the county board, that's the convention center. We are taxing bodies That's the only group that could raise taxes and if we decide that we don't wanna give any sales tax in that's up to us, but that's gonna come back to us. so we gotta do something about downtown. Everybody complains downtown. What what are you gonna do with downtown? What we've been doing in, in, it's not working, it's just not working. and you're and you're right on that older woman, it, it, what we're doing now is not working. This is something new, uh, my understanding this board is in in a sense like the McPier up in Chicago that runs uh the Navy Pier and the McCormick Center That's kind of how they've they've um, they've they've kind of got got the formation kind of through that. it's not a star bond. The star bond's out. That is not a part of it anymore . so all that is gone.

that was all, you know, the as of yesterday from what I heard and it correct me if I'm wrong, that is all gone. It's not a Starbond anymore. and so you know, I sat up here with, with Senator Turner for many years. and the senator and I, I, I, I consider her a friend. and I think that what she's doing is trying to do her best to get uh things downtown and to help this area and I can't thank her enough and I trust her when she says this is going to be good. and you know, and my Coffee, I know him real well, yeah, I consider him a friend and, and they, they both tell me that this is gonna be good for the city of Springfield. and and, and, and less and I, I would be the first one if, if, if I don't like something, I don't, don't I'm not afraid to say it, but so far what I'm hearing I like but uh you know, we gotta stop with the Star bond. We got to stop with the, with the taxing authority because they cannot raise taxes. It's, it, they're oversight. that's all they are so I would appreciate, uh, I appreciate everybody listening and uh hopefully we can get to a vote before tomorrow morning. Thank you. Alderwoman Conley. Thank, thank you, Mayor. I, I just want to really quickly correct something. I want to be very clear, I have, I, first of all, we have been talking about this I, I can tell you we've been talking about it because my mom called me and it was in the Peoria newspaper. What we're talking about here. And then some of the context it was in was the fact that Peoria is getting the future Farmers of America conference. and we're losing it because they're expanding. She's like, oh, and I saw you guys. I saw what you're talking. Oh God, I'm sorry, I'm doing my mom voice here. I saw what you're talking about. It is, it, our

conversations, we have been talking about this legislation for weeks now. Yeah, I, I promise you Alderman Williams that will come back at me. My mom's gonna get me, um, but we've been talking about this, so I wanna be really clear, there is no fear, there's no lack of desire to hear from people. We've got people who signed up tonight. I've had people contacting me I think we need to be very careful that we're not painting any of this as a disinterest in hearing from residents or from hearing from each other. I mean, I'm making notes. I've, I think there's some interesting points that are coming up. I'm making notes. I want to make sure I understand and um I didn't have the chance to do the deep dive into SMEs, uh, budget that allvo Notriano did, but so I appreciate that she brought that forward, right? These are good conversations to have. I did support the amendment, um, and I do support this amendment, largely because I think that there are things in the underlying resolution that aren't factually based again just talking to all to Senator Turner yesterday who I want to point out, we are also constituents of hers. There's no reason why people have to just talk to the city council about this. She's my senator. She's my state senator. I voted for her. I've got her sign. I call her, we should be calling her. We should be having these conversations with her body too because that's where a lot of this debate is going on, uh, there, there's no reason why we can't talk to her. She is an extraordinarily approachable woman. And if you can't find her , you can track her on Facebook, right? Um, so I think it's, it's really, well, let's be very careful. I, Alderman or Senator, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm going to promote you and then demote you, and I'm not sure which one's which. Alman Williams, I told you last week, I said, I'm, I'm glad we're having this conversation. There needs to be no even though in no hidden sort of sense that, hey, council's afraid of this. People are afraid to hear from others. That's not the case. I want to

be really clear about that. I'm hearing a lot about this. There's been a lot of conversation. My reasoning for the, for this amendment, my thought behind this is there is a, it is not a done deal. I think we, we are making some good points. We're having good conversations and we need to make sure that we are making our thoughts clear to the people who are actually considering this legislation, which is in the general assembly and we have elected representatives that we should be talking to about this, right? I also think that since we all support BOS and we're not going to agree on every component of of what you put forward because I, I, I don't think it's all factual. Again, it's not a taxing body. We retain our municipal authorities. We are not ceding control to the, to the county. We don't control the county's property anyway. They, we don't control the county building they're using their land for something like this. That's their choice. We need to talk to our county representatives. We need to talk to our state representatives and we have this conversation we have a full airing so people understand we as a city want to retain authority over city city property over how the city spends its monies, about how we allocate our sales tax revenues. These are important decisions for us, and we don't lose that control and I think it's really important that we're having this conversation that we're making that very clear. The reason I support the amendment is because at the end of all of this I think what we need to send over as a united vote is something that we can all get behind, which is, as everyone's saying, we support this expansion. We want to see this big change here. since it's still being made, you know, it's still, that whole process is happening. Let's have feedback with the people and input with the people who are doing that process. That's critically important. We're gonna hear from more people tonight. That's great It gives us more our obligation as representatives, yes, this is what I heard from my constituents. This is what I'm hearing, but also I am your

constituent. I am Senator Turner's constituent. I'm a constituent of Governor Pritzker . I'm a constituent of my county board member, and I, well, I don't talk to the governor, um, but I do reach out to my local officials. That's what we should all be doing, and I appreciate that we're having this tonight. It's a, it is a, I think we're having a really full robust discussion about this. We have a significant number of people who signed up to speak about it, but let's please not imply that there's any sort of a fear or a running away from hearing from people. OK, aldermen? Because we are not, that's not, you know, I sit here , I stay here because I believe it is that is what we can agree on and that is not afraid to talk about it, that is redlining stuff that is not factually accurate. You can wave it at me all you want. I know. Listen, we can, we can disagree, we can be respectful about it. I think that's, that is the heart of being good politics. Alderman Nottriano is right, is correct. There is some crazy stuff going on in our country right now in this room, in these chambers, we can control our conversation and we can be reasonable and respectful to each other. We can have a full robust conversation. We can disagree We can highlight issues, we can learn from each other, and I think that's what we're doing right now so I want to be real careful that we're not presenting something as a denial of a conversation or a fear of hearing from people, because that is never my intent and that is never my actions. Thank you, Mayor. AldermancGregory, thank you, and I'll try to be quick. I , I, you know, I said back listening to the conversation. I didn't plan on speaking but you know. the window's gonna have to be dealt with either way, right? and, and, and I don't like talking about that. I, I, I, I feel like the city's implying something that we don't know so but within that that owner who whatever. he brought a different buyer to it. that the Growth Alliance came up and said, hey, he's good, he's a good guy, he's this and this,

they already have 200 apartments in there that's been approved that's that was approved. The question was could he do 100 more We said no, we needed a hotel rooms. Now there's none who we're doing fine we're breaking record numbers. I get it. See how that works. Then we say Ralph Autum and Hanauer, you say, well , you didn't like the size of the apartments. but we'll vote to put that over there in my ward, tiny homes. against what I'm asking but we don't wanna do it in a in a apartment complex that's already there, it's already there. We need people staying downtown. The uh the expansion, all that ballroom, I get that, but that's stale. It is stale. for what people really wanna see our downtown they wanna come down and have some fun. We have to get into the 21st century we had to do some different things. We gotta get people living downtown and you know who's gonna live downtown? Probably 40 and below And what do they like to do? They like to have fun, more outside of just bars so we have to get some unique businesses down there to attract people. I, you know, we go to events, all of us go to events, and it's cool. It's the same thing. We're gonna eat the same meal. We're gonna hear it's gonna be some different things uh at what point do we worry about those conventions, you know, the rooms being so high that those conventions are like, man, you know, I know people looking for weddings and all types of stuff. It's like $6000 for a stinking caterer. um because we use these hotels and we use these facilities too in our city and we cannot forget about our own citizens and, and, and, and to base everything off, oh, you know, visitors and tourists gonna come in so we're gonna, you know, Jack prices up on them and stuff. I don't know. It just makes me feel because I don't, I hope they ain't pray preying on me when I go to these different places. I, I, I know people got, um, um, you know, pay for things, but good grief,

the way we talk about it is like , oh yeah, you know, visitors gonna come in and pay for it and so everything's gonna be sky high because they ain't gonna have no choice when we go to the airport, don't we hate that, that iPhone charges $40 when we know it's only 20. you know, things are getting high. I'm not I'm against raising anything. unless we absolutely have to. It's already, I mean, I, I know, hey, everybody money different, but man is getting tough. Everything is so high and then we wanna raise the hotel rooms up even higher. The sales tax portion of it. we just don't know. We may need it. My community may need it, your community may need it. We don't, we don't know, so I feel like anybody proposing anything or they don't need our tax money. Fine, go be able to do what you wanna do that that's fine, but we still have concerns about raising taxes on all hotels. The hotels don't like it. They're against it. Those are our citizens. Those are our businesses. We should take that into consideration. Those are important things, you know, everything, everything is raise, raise, raise, raise, raised, raise, raised., raise, raised That's why I'm against a simple $10 raise. Jeez we got a hold for a second and do for people. we getting beat down and, you know, and, and, and you know, I'll say this, you know. I heard so many good things said about the state and Senator Turner, but, but boy before we was getting some. it was all the stage running crazy. Then crashers running it in the ground and all of these, these things, it's a hypocrisy. Y'all don't love the governors, some of us. don't let a governor adores no more than outside this thinking project. we live in our community, we know our sister. I've grew up, ain't nothing that nobody can say up here make us look like all we against the senator and her be a Y'all

can keep calling her name 1000 times. She absolutely understands that we don't want the county to be controlling and telling us to do anything. I get it, y'all have a different relationship with them. We don't agree with that because for us and and and their roles in the things that's supposed to be for my community we don't, we don't, we don't get the good services. I'm gonna die 20 years before somebody like you wrote, uh, uh, all have been hand hour. That's what the stats say. We gotta improve on those type of things and that's that's in their hands we gave that away. so you know I, I got a few more notes on, on, on, on that, um, you know, the hotel across the street that Abraham Lincoln, the things that, and, and I agree with my, my, my, uh, my brother, we it is our job to develop our city. That was, that was really what I took away from that because you guys can't do it. we gonna do it We had a chance to do it We could have got it out of the, if everybody believes he's a bad owner. I don't know the guy more than anybody else. But we could have got it out of his hands and boom, the windows there. But regardless of what happens. This thing can go whatever. We gonna have to deal with the window one way or the other. The new owner gonna buy it, he gonna want an incentive. to tear it down gonna be 30, 18 minutes, 12 minutes, I've heard a bunch of different numbers, but it's gonna be like a Pillsbury. It's gonna set a while, it's gonna take a while. So we, we, you know, good things come across us all the time and, and at times it does seem like we don't wanna do things. It it does seem like we want to sink the window for this opportunity. and that's not good for us on the city side we, we, you know, um still over there still boarded up right now it's gonna be boarded up with this brand new thing. How embarrassing is that for our

city? Brand new hotel next to one that's boarded up. People come out of the BOS bank or whatever walking around downtown and walk past. I was like, because we do it when we go to Saint Louis and we go to other places and stuff. We, we say the same things, so um shiny new objects I always take the attention So everybody go stay there and then they won't stay at the 8 Lincoln and you know they'll come from the crown and now we'll hurt them. You hope not, but now we'll hurt them. We have to think about those things that's important to balance it, um, just the same thing with the sports complex. Every, everything gonna go out there and then we're gonna have problems in different places. You gonna have some things to address so, but I won't tell you now, um thank you I appreciate you Alderman Carlson. Thank you. Um, you know it seems like and I'm, I'm gonna try not to talk long. We've been talking about this for a month. and I think we're gonna end up talking about this again because tonight I think we're overthinking this thing, it's just a resolution. a simple resolution to say as a body. uh we're for the expansion of the BUS center. I mean, we're probably gonna always agree to disagree on, on your resolution, Roy, um, because, and so that's why I think, you know, we had to amend this thing, but everybody says up here they're for the Everybody says they're for the BOS expansion, so, um, I'll, I'll address a couple points so I think it's just a simple vote to now tonight to send a clear message, a clear message to the capital that we appreciate what they're trying to do. and, and I think, you know, I know the big hangup is this authority. I mean, this authority is really just a mechanism for bonding and to get this project off the ground, uh,

you know, we all set, we, we've all been up to speed the last couple of days of what's going on and uh you know apparently I was in a a a meeting differently than some others, but as we all know, the county is in for, for the land, uh, they're imposing a whole town motel tax. They're taking 100 % hotel motel tax. 100%, 100% of the sales tax they have, I have the floor they've said that I have no reason. I don't have any reason to, to, to believe they're not telling the truth. We are in it for a free ride. The city is in it for a free ride. All we have to do because we're going to debate this again , I'm sure in a couple of months when we vote for what percentage we give of the sales tax, you know, so it's, it's, we get all the advantages and no risk. That's why the authority is set up. They assume all the risk if for some reason this would go belly up 2345 years down the road, there's nothing, there's nothing in it on us. There's no risk in the city at all. This is essentially, I mean I'm not gonna say free money, but whatever percentage of the new hotel of the new hotel, not right now. and so that's where I'm looking at it. I mean. it was mentioned today, I mean FFA is leaving We need bodies downtown and thank God that that that the governor and Senator Turner are trying to help us with this because I at the same time I don't think the governor is gonna get his state employees back to the office so we need people downtown. We need to go be able to walk downtown on Sunday, all women, and get a sandwich like you said mentioned an hour ago, and I don't know why we're fighting this, why we're fighting this. I mean, up until now, I mean up until this expansion, you know, we can have what one convention at a time, maybe two, Peoria has multiple conventions. We need to have multiple conventions at one time . where the capital city, 5 months a year we have legislators here we have out of town lobbyists,

out of town out of out of town staff, um, that's why we need the hotel to go along with the convention space and you know, I, I, I, I, I just, I just think there were a number, uh, there's just a number of, of misrepresentations that that I've heard tonight again, the simplistic thing, there's no risk to the city we're just gonna end up voting eventually, so I'm sure we'll have another long discussion on this, which is fine on what percentage we give back to them, but tonight it's just a simple resolution again. I hear everybody, they agree for the bank, uh, they agreed to the Bank of Springfield expansion. So let's just do that and send the right message to the Capitol that we are grateful, uh, of, of what they're doing to help the city of Springfield. Thank you, Mayor Alderman Cox. Oh, boy Welcome Um, I, I want to address just a few points, um, and there's a lot of talk about local control and giving up responsibilities and what have you and I don't believe that regardless of if it's 5 people appointed by our council or er that we are giving up any local control because the CATA will be a authority that is guided by a statute, not municipal ordinance, not our city codes, so no matter who sits on this board. they're gonna have to follow state statute, OK. Um, we've talked enough about the liability of the bonds, what have you. Uh, bonds are incredibly expensive, especially for, um, what's probably considered a medium to high risk situation. I'm in a high risk industry myself, and I know bonds are very expensive. Um, I don't think the city of Springfield wants to take on that bond. I think it makes a whole lot more sense for a state agency or state authority to take on that bound rather than us. I will reiterate that this is not a star bond, which I don't think there's any argument about that anymore. The city's risk in

this situation is basically 0. All we will do is reap. proceeds and tourism and new restaurants and high bar tabs Keep in mind too that typically, and I'm not all for raising taxes, I don't want to raise anybody's taxes either. But if taxes get raised if we are having conventions come in here, do you think that the mechanic at Caterpillar that has to come in here from Philadelphia or something is paying that hotel bill. He's not . Caterpillar's paying that hotel bill and they can afford the extra 2 or 3% that gets put on there, because they don't mind coming to Springfield, that also has some tourism stuff that will have a state, state of the art hotel. Um, a ballroom, which we don't have one in Springfield to speak of. Uh, so some of my thoughts, um oh, back to local control though , they want to put a sign up that we don't like and it, and they need a variance. Guess what ? We can vote it down. They want to do something in the street we don't like cause it's against our code. They need a variance. We can vote it down. We have to issue permits, we have to perform inspections. We have to approve a certificate of occupancy, so we're not giving up control. We will still, we don't control the place as it is . We don't control that parking lot. We don't control the building across the street that needs, that needs some rehab. Um, and yeah, to follow on, I think everybody in the room's point, what we're doing right now is not working. I'm new here . I've been watching this city for the last 45 years. Downtown's not working, and that's not a knock at anybody in this room or anybody that sat here before me. It ain't working . Here we have the golden egg. being presented to us saying, we're gonna give you $200 million and we're gonna take a little bit of your tax proceeds, maybe. And let's not forget

our debate right now isn't even about the legislation because the legislation isn't our choice . They're going to do what they do at the dome. We don't have a choice We need to be paying attention. We need to lobby what we can lobby. I agree 100% with older woman Connelly that we need to be reaching out to our local state senators, whether it's McClure or Senator Turner, Mike Coffey all your US reps, you don't think they don't have connections? Talk to those folks too If, if the amendment that we're actually debating uh passes and, and we adopt this amendment just for everybody's clarity. It's gonna say, whereas the city of Springfield is a home rule unit as defined in Article 7, Section 6A, the 1970 Illinois Constitution has jurisdiction over matters pertaining to its government and affairs. and the city corporate authorities of the city of Springfield hereby states its support for the expansion of the BOS Convention Center. You want to vote no on that, that's fine. Um because all the stuff that we marked out and read, it's, it's not to be argumentative. It's because it's not factual anymore , because it's an old bill And a lot of this stuff is changing Now when they pass a new one, somebody wants to file a resolution in support or against the new bill that when it when it actually goes somewhere, so be it. Bring it in. Let's chat. But right now what's in the original resolution is no longer factual. It would be irresponsible to push it forward as originally drafted. Thank you, Mayor, I appreciate the time Alderman Rockford. Yeah, thank you, Mayor. uh of course I'll start off number one, the, the eyesore that sits over it called the Wyndham, eventually, you know, we, if we put a new hotel in or or whatever, something's got to be done with this, and this is gonna be here and it's a, it's embarrassment. Number 2, we talk about people downtown. Can

somebody tell me how many state buildings are downtown with no workers in them. Can you, can you tell me that and, and just so can we, you know, are people still working remotely? I'm sure. So there, there was a ton of foot traffic that were, you know, because of our pandemic that we lost. So that has a big effect, effect on downtown. You know, and then thirdly, you know, we had, how many outdoor festivals and, and, and parties and stuff going on downtown that we don't see anymore. that we don't see anymore. So, uh, that plays in the foot traffic. also. So all these small restaurants, these mom and pop shops and everything that moved out and you know, this had a big effect on it. So your pandemic was a big, big factor. So if we can get workers back into some of these state buildings maybe we can get some businesses back. Thank you. Um-hum. Alderwoman purchase. Thank you, Madam Mayor . So I think that I wanted to hear from the sponsors of this amendment which was Alderman Cox , alderman Carlson, Alderwoman Conley. Um, I know Alderman Donalyn is on the phone, so we haven't heard from him yet, but he's spoken a couple of weeks on it and then Alderman Hanauer just to see where the thoughts was because I think I have to take notes because we've been talking for over 45 minutes, so I wanna make sure I don't misquote, um, I know that Alderman Carlson brought up a good point. It's just a resolution, so I know that also aldermen, uh, the resolution at Alderman Williams brought forward is just that a resolution and listening to everyone which I am so glad that this is a fruitful conversation because I see a lot of my downtown businesses in the audience I see DSI in the audience and there's been a lot of ordinances, acts for downtown and we've never had this much conversation about saving downtown. I wanna be very clear on that so I'm, I'm glad we're talking so much about downtown right now

and I hope to keep the same energy as we move forward with um businesses like or organizations like KidsM that's been asking for a lot of help as well because when these different groups come here sometimes they're gonna be looking for something for their kids to do and they shouldn't have to just go out to the Shield sports complex they should be able to stay within downtown within walking distance . I said this doesn't work without one or the other. Businesses can't be closed but conventions come here and they come outside to as this a a running joke the sidewalks pick up after 5:30. so we're missing our local dollars and our local population that should be going downtown as well too so trying to find that balance and I thought that I was doing a good job by bringing it up. we we're having concerns about the authority, right? 221. That means 2 people appointed by the mayor for the city. Two people appointed by the county and I ain't hear nobody bring that up so I was finding a solution for all of us to be OK with. So I wanna just reiterate that and I'm sorry I don't wanna forget about Smme one. and nobody has said anything about that. so far When I went and spoke with Andy Van Meter and Brian McFadden and um one of my uh local business owners, Karen Khan. we brought, they brought up to me. that made that gave me a little bit of relief, so I wanna be transparent on why I said I was OK because Andy Van Meter brought up that um one of the biggest considerations for the appointment may be for one of the 3 seats could be senator Turner, so everybody keeps saying Senator Turner's name tonight. So I thought that OK, well that gives me a sense of she understands where we're coming

from so I can digress with that. So then I said OK well that could be the 221, but it's not a guarantee because I asked that question, so I felt like if we could really just bring that as a solution moving forward that everyone would feel OK around the horseshoe. There is neighborhood associations downtown business, small business owners and we need to hear from all of them, especially when I'm seeing the people that I represent in the audience as well as well as some of your businesses, they live in your ward, but their business is downtown so I totally get why you all are talking about it. I think we really need to hear from them. I'm 100% in support of the BOS expansion and I will continue to say I'm not gonna talk for 1520 or 30 minutes on this. I've been talking every week about it and it's the same thing that was the request when we were in the meeting with Senator Turner. She said, what is the request that you have? I said my only request to make everyone feel feel OK about this is having two people appointed from the city having two people appointed from the county and one person appointed from Smear. I, I didn't think that was a huge ask. I didn't think that it would be a big problem. but it's kind of been silent so I think I've gotten my answer on where that stands because as you stated there's multiple amendments coming forward and that has nothing to do with who's being appointed to the board, so I have to wait to hear from them so I don't wanna put the cart before the horse, so I'm supporting my colleagues on what they are bringing forward and I'm also supporting my own backyard that I represent. that's why I chose to speak last and talk about it and I wanna hear and I also see that we have our hotel motel representative here so I I'm hoping that we can hear from him too as well. A lot of people coming in to speak, you guys get to hear us every week. We don't get to hear from some of the people that's in the audience. I

, I can say some of the people that's in the audience I haven't seen in years in here. so I'm hoping that we get to hear from them and really, really take in and listen not listen to respond I listen to go and post, not listen to go and do an interview but actually listen to process what's being said. I'm trying to listen to y'all for an hour to process what was just being said I wanna really hear from the people in the audience and as I know half of them that are here is going to speak to why they are in support of this that sit right here in downtown and some of my neighborhood people are out here too, but it shouldn't be a problem for us to ask questions, get clarity because I see that's what just happened tonight when this amendment came forward and I thank all of you for speaking on it so that I could understand too you know why you did this and I get it. but I also got to do my due diligence too and I, I need to continue to put that forward that that was the solution for us having concerns with two people from the city of Springfield, two people from the county and one person from Sia. and I'm looking forward to hearing from everyone in the audience too that signed up to speak mayor. Thank you. Alderman Carlson all one person, let me ask you that, and I, I, I probably didn't close the loop earlier, but I think for me when you assume the risk you get, you get a few more rewards and I think the 4 or 5 things that we've talked about with the county is putting in and assuming the risk. That's why they get 3. uh, uh members. I mean, after the next study, you know, we, we did that we all were invited to the study a couple years ago, the, the, the the,, uh, the consultants were in. They had meetings and we all were invited , maybe not everybody showed up, um, but it, there's gonna have to be another study as we all were told to confirm the original study. It's got to be from a different a firm, so in the end, uh, I think the number

is, you know, the county is gonna be in for well over $2 million to get this project off the ground. and for them, again, back to what I said, we, we're in for nothing right now. We, we don't have any risk at all. So hence, the one member similar to BOS. I mean, it's about to me, you know , a little bit of fairness and equity in the whole thing when you have more risk, you get more reward and right now they are, they are in you know, a heck of a lot deeper than the city that that was my take the last few weeks and it was clarified to me yesterday. Thank you, Mayor. Mayor, can I rebuttal to what he just said to me older woman, do you mind if she speaks? Oh, no, please go ahead. Go ahead. I'll, um, thank you Alderman Carlson, and that's why I also said too I'm not contradicting myself at all. I said when I went to the meeting that I felt a little bit more at ease when Andy Van Meter said that Senator Turner may be one of those appointments of the 3 because she also understands where we're coming from and we had a meeting with her, so I'm in a place of trying to find a solution and a common ground I'm gonna continue to do that sometimes and sometimes it looks I'm I'm gonna be honest, it looked like from the amendment that we have sitting up there it's a certain group of us and then looking at this amendment it's another group, so I hope that it doesn't put us against each other because I had just said to you a few weeks ago too, Alderwoman Conly, it was a breath of fresh air. It seemed like it was a new leaf turning it was um a lot of support and uh uh one thing that was a common ground for everybody to agree on, but today I think it's looking just a little bit different, but I want to hear from everybody and try to figure out where that common ground could come back again. Thank you . Um-hum. Older woman Noriano. Thank you, Mayor. Um, I just in response to Alderman Carlson, um the county has put in so much

upfront because this was their project. It's their land. They want this. They're coming to us now because they can't do it on their own. They're asking for us to give and I'll call your bluff It's easy to promise 100% of revenue that doesn't exist, why don't we go ahead and, and if it's gonna get us equal representation or more representation, let's, let's promise 100% all in. I'm for it We want to see this go somewhere , right? Thank you, Mayor. Alderman Donlin, do you have any comments you would like to make? You've been patiently waiting on the phone. No, mayor, I think I've said all I needed to say in the last couple of weeks. I appreciate the opportunity. Thanks for the discussion this evening, everyone. OK, thank you, Alderman. If you want to go ahead, clerk, judge and let those who signed up to speak. We, we want to do the amendment first or? The, well. No, no, we do not. Point of order Or is it OK to let the community speak before they'd vote on the amendment? It is OK. That's in the chair's discretion. OK, I feel it would be best to let the community members who signed up to speak speak first, then we'll vote on the amendment. If you don't want to speak prior to the vote on the amendment, you can waive and then come back and speak your one time on the entire ordinance. I'll leave it up to the community member that way you can decide when you want to speak on it. Go ahead. James Johnson. So Mister Johnson, I just want to make sure you're aware you can speak now or you can let them vote on the amendment and then speak. I just want you to have your choice, OK? Thank you. I'm going to speak now, um, the amendment kind of throws everything off. I'm in agreement , um thanks to the Order woman

Lakisha. I, I'm for the BOC expansion. but I don't like power being taken away, so um the 221 sounds great to me. but. nobody else mentioned that until she spoke, so that's where I'm gonna stand with that um I really I have to say that you guys forget that. all of you all are politicians. and everybody at that dome is a politician. Now do y'all really want me to say how we feel about politicians. and what, what we think, what comes out of their mouth because I heard everybody threw up names . The only person that haven't threw up who they be talking to is the mayor and mayor, I would love to hear who you be talking to because we all know this is Springfield and everybody talks to everybody, you know, and everybody has their conversation in private conversations. So we wanna be able to call and talk to the same people you talk to, so we can let them know where we stand. Now I don't know about the rest of y'all, but for us ones who been around Springfield for a long time A franchise called McDonald's. and Hardy's used to be downtown They left. When was the last time you've known a McDonald's to close. So that should have told somebody then. Somebody should have looked at their study and said, well, why is McDonald's leaving downtown Springfield? Why is Hardy's leaving?

But this has been going on for years. and like Alderman Rockford said, we don't have the leaking fest no more. We don't have the black , white, and blues fashion no more. We don't have anything downtown. anymore but we wanna get downtown back to where it used to be. Newsflash It's not gonna happen It's definitely not gonna happen overnight. Now I don't know what's coming and what they're bringing, but if you guys think just hotels and more space is gonna bring people downtown. It's not I'll give you a suggestion though. How about we start with some parking downtown. because if people don't have nowhere to park, they ain't coming downtown. Especially the senior citizens who got a walk. You're not gonna do it Then you need to get some places to eat downtown. Until you get some places to eat , they got some good food. When you get that then you could bring your conventions in and your concerts . And let me say something about the concerts because all the contins that come downtown since I've been around. I can count on one hand and have fingers left, how many of them were something I wanted to go to . State fair is the same way. We don't get nothing for my people. and uh brother Carlson I washed your face when the old woman says something about democracy being attacked Yeah, our people were being attacked. Our voting rights are being attacked. It's no joke. Some of us know what's going on. And we ain't standing for it just to let you know. because in my opinion, I think they're trying to take power away from uh uh War 2 and 3.

That's what this is all about in my opinion. And we're not standing for that mayor, so you can let them know. that we want this horseshoe to have a say. and anything that deals with war two, War 3, and War 5. the people wanna be able to say something. And because the attack on our 14th Amendment in our voting rights and our civil rights we will stand up and we will fight And we're gonna get to the point where I'm at this point already. I'm not asking for permission. I'm taking a position. Rosanna Polito Miss Polito, just making sure you are aware you can speak now before they vote on the amendment or you can choose to speak after. Thank you. I'd like to speak now. Thanks. I don't understand all, OK, sorry, you're all involved in the megaproject bill. but I did my research and found some legislators who had voted against the mega project who did the work for me. The following or talking points, um, from what they did, um, the 377 beers bailout bill was rushed through the legislative process. is another example of self-dealing and influence peddling that has become the calling card of Illinois government. This bill is a clear example of Illinois picking winners and losers, and the working people consistently are on the losing end. By granting millions in property tax relief to billionaires, we are shifting the tax burden onto local property owners, jeopardizing

home home ownership and harming the middle class, so the bill that's why these legislators voted against it. They said the result of it is going to be taxing people out of their homes and decimating the middle class. um the other one is, you know, I heard my Coffee's name mentioned , and this is what I got from Americans for Prosperity. Rosanna, we appreciate your help in taking one small step in keeping our elected officials accountable. Thank you for adding your voice to the letter. Disgraceful, betrayal of Illinois taxpayers, megaproject bill and uh it's been sent to Mike Coffee. So that's what Americans for Prosperity had to say. about what's going on and the people's taxes um literally taxing people out of their homes so we can have a mega project and um you know I'm just kinda confused because I don't know that government should be getting into the hotel business and um you know we have private enterprise downtown and we're gonna be competing against them, but what this has all brought back is as a young woman, uh, in Chicago, I worked at Navy Puran McCormick Place, the Metropolitan Py and Exposition Authority. I was a security officer, an emergency medical technician, and my first day on the job. This is one thing that hasn't been mentioned, but what I know, I've lived it um, and so, uh, an officer came up to me and said So who do you know? And I said, what? He said, Yeah, who do you know? You have to know somebody to work here. and I said I know the man upstairs and um

you know, I was pretty stunned, but that's you know, Chicago's the home of Mike Madigan, who's in jail now, but we know that he gave jobs and favors and perks to anyone who would vote with them and vote the way he did and um all the different people that were appointed, you know, so now you're gonna have the friends of friends of friends and be able to use those perks. The director of security that I worked for, I loved the guy. Of course he was appointed by somebody. It's who you know, not what you know. That's what we're setting up very strong here is it's not who you know, it's what you know and the taxpayers are gonna foot the bill. Thank you. Thank you, Clerk Bradley Russell I want to Thank you, sir Not really sure where to start. One, Brad, you're voting for us. You're not voting for the state offices, Sir, if you would direct your, uh, comments to the chair, that would be great. You guys are crazy with this. You can go on the radio show and talk about us and you can go into your little inaugural thing and talk about somebody over there. like why is it you can talk about us, but we can't talk about you. Make that make sense This is for the citizens to speak Who are we speaking to? We can only speak to one person. That makes no sense. He said something that doesn't he's not voting for anybody in the state. He's voting for us. We voted him in here.

So I'll, I'll tell you everything. like it makes no sense. You guys are just gonna give away downtown you know, the, the, the thing that really somebody over there made a, an amendment that you weren't here for 23 weeks later, you show up and you're like, oh. I'm vetoing that And then somebody over here came up with an amendment that said, oh, you know what, there was a bunch of stuff in there that was wrong. That was yours That was your amendment that he said there was a bunch of stuff and there was wrong. What Alderman? You said that that that this was all about the amendment that you vetoed, is that correct? This is your time, sir Oh, Shawn because I at least know I'll get answers from him. It makes no, I know, I know, I'm just saying. this this is useless We're useless. We put you in office, but, but we don't really have a say like you know, the ones we voted in are just trying to please other people. you know, the whole registry, landlord registry you know you didn't want it in Your husband's in real estate, of course you don't want it in. It's everything that goes on there's something else behind it It's not really what it is. It's all smoke and mirrors The 1908, like across the tracks . 1908 was over 100 years ago and we have nothing to show for it. We don't have a building for it.

You talk about, you know, bringing people here. You don't think that would The end of NAACP was started from it. You guys don't do what you need to do to make downtown that way. You, you're just like, well, we can't do it, so we're gonna give it to somebody else. Why can't you do it? This is a job you took You know, this is the thing you said that you were gonna make Springfield better. You were gonna bring businesses in Nothing has been done since you've been up here for the last 3 years. and now we're giving away downtown and uh we're gonna have a a five-person board. We didn't vote them in. We voted these people in. We want these people to make our decision for us not some 5 people in the other building. It makes no sense Like, are we gonna have a time to we can have our 5 minutes to talk to them. Like it, it seems like our vote is even useless because you know, we vote you in and then you're not really there to make us happy. You're just there to make some senators happy here. This is ridiculous And uh, you keep it up, I Mr. Johnson's right Well, there's gonna be an uprise . And uh I have to figure out what side you're on, man. clerk. Sheila Stocks Smith Oh, it says do not touch the microphone. Sorry. Um, Madam Mayor, council members , city officials and public. My name is Sheila Stock Smith, and I live in Ward, uh,

Springfield's Ward 7. As you note, as you all know, 2 weeks ago I submitted to you an opinion letter voicing my concerns about the BOX expansion effort. The letter was also printed in the Illinois Times. At the core of my concerns is the fact that this authority with its expanses, powers, and large boundary is in no way accountable to the public. No one on this authority will democratically represent me. I cannot vote them in or out, and they have no obligation either directly or indirectly to represent my interests. None of our elected city or county representatives will have any official power to influence their decisions. Upon passage, the statute creates the Capitol area Tourism Authority with broad powers and duties. I'm reading from the statute directly from the statue that activate if and only if the Sangamon County Board imposes a tax on all hotel operators in business as a hotel operator within a Starbon district that is established in the territory of the authority and resolves that all of the revenue generated from that tax as well as all of the tax receipts generated from local sales tax within such a starbon district shall be dedicated to the payment of the project costs for any Starbond project. First, which is it? A hotel, motel tax in the Starbon district or a countywide tax which it states later in the statute. Second, how can the county board resolve that all local sales taxes within a Starbund to be dedicated in this way. Perhaps they can dedicate their portion of the local sales tax to the project, but how do they resolve to dedicate the city's portion. I'm assuming the city would have to vote approve this. The

minimum combined sales tax for Sangamon County is currently 10.75%. With Springfield's rate ranging from 9.75 % to 10.25%, with increases up to 11.25% in certain business districts So sorry if I'm playing catch up here, but are you as representatives of the City of Springfield in favor of dedicating all of the local sales tax revenue generated from walnut to 11th and North Grand to South Grand, essentially the entire downtown and beyond to an authority unaccountable to you or to the citizens of Springfield. without even knowing what the fiscal impact of that would be. I've heard no discussions about how doing this will impact the broader city budget or how increased hotel motel taxes can stifle tourism, making Springfield too expensive for travelers. It's simply unconscionable that any of you would do that It's also crazy to me that this statute does not list terms for authority members or end dates other than a brief mention in the county code amendment portion that says taxes generated can last no more than 40 years. 40 years. Let that sink in a little bit I don't doubt that those in support of this genuinely and apparently desperately want to find a way to pay for the BOS expansion and hotel and believe that this mechanism will help revitalize downtown. However, dig in a bit to the work of Heyward T. Sanders, a retired professor at UT San Antonio, and you may rethink the accepted assumptions that convention center expansion is an effective tool of broader urban renewal. He's a recognized expert on urban development, convention center expansion, and public investment frequently analyzing the economic impact of these

projects in cities large and small across the country. He basically concludes that convention industry does not generate sufficient direct or indirect return to justify the huge public investment required. He calls them lost leaders since they rarely, if ever, turn a profit and describes a never ending arms race of competition for newer and better facilities, often fueled by the very consultants, the pitching the projects who are also making a lot of money along the way He tracks the history of convention center development from the early days when they were promoted as a public improvement meant to benefit the general public and paid for with city tax dollars to today when projects are reframed as downtown revitalization catalysts and linchpins of growing tourism industries. More dra dramatically, they changed from projects requiring voter support and or approval to projects that today remove that pesky, uncertain public account ability feature by creating standalone authorities. In one statement, Sanders concludes Ma'am, please wrap up. Your time is over Thank you. Thank you. Joe McMenamin Good evening, Mayor. Good evening. Council members. So I've been working downtown 47 years. I was born 26 years before that. That puts me at 73. I, uh first worked downtown as an Illinois Department of Revenue Manager in the legal division with uh what they call term

appointments. where you study legislation, you study fiscal impact. You try to get to the bottom of things. Um I agree with a lot of the comments that have been made from the public tonight and, and from the older persons that are questioning the legislation as introduced what the problem we've got now is that there's all these moving parts, but I'll tell you what, S introduced, that legislation was not a golden egg. It was a stolen egg. By that I mean it's said that all the sales tax increment from this massive area which was at that time South Grand and North Grand Walnut to 11th Street. Israhan, 2 McDonald's restaurants, still in that area. Lulu's, a lot of different places. It was gonna be the sales tax increment. over indefinite number of years. Um, so it's, it's a taking of revenue that this city council has specifically appropriated to infrastructure. Some of the sales tax is appropriate for infrastructure, uh the sales tax goes, you know to pay all those services we get, please for, but anyway, it was a taking. Now, now we say, OK, it's not that large area anymore. It's 62701. Now we hear it's not all of the sales tax increment is 50% of the increment. Now we hear all these uh different possible amendments . Let me jump to some conclusions here.

Um, my wife and I own a building downtown, 423-427 East Washington. It's directly across the street from the Myers building. What's unique about that building is that it was bor it wasn't born, it was erected in 18 55 And guess who used to meet in our building on the 2nd floor. The Springfield City Council asked indicated by the city directory from 1855. And when I go to that building, every 6 days a week, typically. I try to take a nap every once in a while, and, and I had this dream and it was you know, Lincoln and Willie Herndon, they were partners. They, their last office was across the street from our building. I had this dream and Willie Herndon, who was mayor of Springfield in 1855. 1 year at terms at that point in time. In the dream, Willie Herndon is saying the city council is responsible for downtown. Don't let these other people try to grab it. Uh, don't let unelected, unaccountable persons get involved with downtown. Um, then , then Abe Lincoln was also in the dream. He's also against, you know, most of the, the bill us introduced and uh Lincoln said, you know, you can't trust the people that wrote that bill because they didn't even come to the city council to get input at the front end Now they're changing everything at the back end and we don't know what they're changing. But I want to address, I got a minute left. You know, I was on the city council the last time we passed an expansion of the convention center. And you know what I'm a, a real fiscal conservative, and I said, no, the city of Springfield is not gonna subsidize the convention center at $100,000 a year, and we're still doing it because we have our own responsibilities and the convention centers got their responsibilities. Tim Griffin, you were on the council

at that time. I hope you remember it the same way. We also dedicated $5 million of TIFF money to the convention center to make that expansion grow and be better. How far did that get us Um, but I remember sitting and writing Ward 6, Corey Job, he said, I'm not voting anymore for any TIFF project except for housing development. We want bodies downtown that live full time, and I wish I could address that vote that was taken in the fall of 20 22 So four years ago, we had a buyer for the Wyndham. And uh all he wanted was zoning relief, and this council voted no, and I remember who voted yes and who voted no, and I said at the time , I wrote him an email, we're playing Russian roulette with the Wyndham. And we did, and we lost all 400 seats at the time. So at any rate, uh, your time is up, sir. hang in there Clerk. Cantaa Can you say it again, please? Yeah, Kenpa. called Give me one sec, please So I gotta say I'm confused Because what I hear from some of the council members doesn't sound like what I hear from the people that are actually involved in it. It kind of sounds like you guys either don't know what they're actually saying, or you're lying . The simple fact is, is Van Meters openly admitted there's no guarantee it won't include more of our sales tax. We're looking at $14 million a year in bond payments projected. There is a litany of things

they're going to draw money from , and a lot of it's the city So I mean, it just seems foolish that you guys describe it as a golden egg or some sort of wild scheme that's gonna just rain down money downtown. Build model airplanes, said the man. But what if the man's a crazy glue sniffer. I mean, come on, guys. How ridiculous does it sound that we're gonna have a municipality funding what they're promising will be public privately run. County's already said that. They got Marriott and other places lining up to do it. So that's our money going to that, right? Are we, what kind of small business conservative wants government money going to private enterprise. I mean, genuinely, any other time you guys would argue against it, but now it's suddenly a brilliant idea It's ridiculous. Let's talk about who actually benefits from this bill. Saputo's is right next door. Who owns it? Are we kidding ourselves with the the clear conflict of interest in who's pushing this. Not only does he own Saputos, he will directly benefit because he's also what? The president of SMEA. I mean, are you guys kidding? You don't even acknowledge the truth of what's happening here, because you try and pave over it with promises of dollars you can't deliver. 55% is our hotel capacity on a good night. It is $160 cheap night at the Abraham Hotel over there. How many families pack in 4 paying $5 a gallon or coming here to blow money, because you built a convention center. How much glue are you inhaling at this point to buy this stuff? No, because it seems crazy that you guys literally talk about organizations that come up here like 1 in a Million or Better Life, Better Living for kids. And how long do you make them

stand here and do a dance for you for 30K. For 70K for 50K for business incubation on the east side. But you guys are willing to literally bulldoze a $200 million thing. And, and what? Trust Pritzker? And that isn't because I don't trust Pritzker's because if I catch you guys sitting over at Saputo's, which is where you head out of here early when citizens come speak half the time. I promise you'll be sitting there with coffee while he holds court Don't act like we don't know what goes on in this town. This is embarrassing that you guys are getting usurped in your authority in our tax dollars by county It is taxation without representation for an appointed board, and any other time. Again , most of you would actually stand up against it. But the simple fact is, is you know who's lying in your pockets . You usually do. It's a big club, we ain't in it. I ain't never been invited over for cocktail hour with coffee, and I bet I never will. And I wouldn't want to, to be honest, because I don't want the kind of person who would manipulate the process, to benefit themselves and the old boy network that's been corrupting this town for decades . You wanna know why downtown isn't doing well because businesses are dying in front of you and what are you doing about it? You're gonna hand over our authority and how much money, because there is no promise that it won't be more of our sales tax. They absolutely have the ability to add additional surcharges. This is all in the bill, and that isn't changing. That isn't being amended or anything like that. That's still there, guys. You can go look at it right now The simple fact is, is what's happening in front of you as a usurping of your authority. They said, you guys can't handle downtown. So we'll do it for you . I'd be embarrassed if I were a business owner, I wouldn't be excited about an independent board that has no recall ability . and doesn't actually owe anybody

anything. other than the people that got him there, of course, right? If you guys bulldoze this through if you don't really think long and hard about how much you're leaving out of what you're actually saying. Not only will you be remembered as the people who sold out our downtown when we end up paying more of our money when that hotel fails. Because what guarantee do you have that it's gonna succeed? Projections, pie in the sky ideas. The, the idea that we're going to pull away hundreds of millions of dollars from Peoria. You ever been up there during a convention, guys? You ever been to their 20,000 seat facility. We have 7000 That convention center is not gonna save downtown. It's not gonna manufacture hundreds of millions of dollars, and the idea that you guys are tying up to that. Sir, your time is up. Uh, thank you. Um-hum. Laurie McKiernan Good evening. Well, I think everything I'm gonna say has been said already tonight, but I'll, I'll, I'll keep going here . So I fully support the expansion of the BOS center. Um, now I understand there are discussions outside of this meeting in order to move projects forward. However, with this legislation, it seems obvious that there's more than just planning economic development in downtown Springfield going on here. This looks like a power grab by the county from city council members being left out of discussions to the last minute veto of unanimously passed ordinances. It's pretty obvious that people are trying to take power away from the city and give it to the county or sell it to the county maybe. with the mayor's veto and the majority of alders voting against, um, Mr. Alderman Williams' ordinance to oppose the state bill, all of you who are supporting this state legislation without fighting for the city. All of you are abdicating your responsibility to lead this city. It's our city , that's our contribution to

this project. So regardless of the details of this bill, all these moving parts, this city still needs to have the majority of votes on this commission. You show us on a regular basis that you don't want to take responsibility for oversight and management of CWLP. Now you're doing the same thing here. You've already delegated a huge portion of our economic development to the Springfield-S Sangamon Growth Alliance, who's not held accountable for their decision, who doesn't have to report to you or to us on the work that they do on our behalf. Now to hear several of you say, if this commission doesn't do the development for downtown, then who will is so disturbing. It's your job to do this. That's what you were elected to do Good leaders delegate, but good leaders also understand their responsibility to own the decision-making process. You were elected to lead. The voters put their trust in you to make the best decisions for Springfield. If you give away your power as an elected official to an appointed board, you take away my ability and the ability of the entire community to choose who manages our city. When you ignore the responsibilities that go along with that support from the voters, you give away your power , and when you give away your power, you give away my power and you give away the power of all the people sitting behind me and you give away the power of all the voters in Springfield. The Growth Alliance and the Sangamon County Board have proven that they don't understand responsible economic development and that they don't care about their constituents. They can't be trusted with managing a huge portion of Springfield. This is a power grab, an obvious power grab that you can't let happen. The decisions by county board members about the data center will have repercussions in their future elections. The same will happen here with this vote in next year's city council elections. We want leaders who understand their responsibilities and take them seriously. It's time to take back control. It's time for change in Springfield. Thank you . Thank you. OK Sarah L

Do you want to say it one more time? Sarah, Al Oh, she's here Jim Langeler Good evening, Madam Mayor and City council members, uh, Jim Langfeld award One. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak with you tonight regarding the resolution to support the convention center expansion in the capital city tourism district. It is abundantly clear that downtown Springfield needs investment, and everyone around the horseshoe is for the convention center expansion. The only difference that this resolution rightfully brings forward is that the city of Springfield should have the majority of appointments on the proposed capital city Tourism Authority board. After all, the entire district lies solely within the city's corporate boundaries, as to all the hotels that will generate the majority of hotel motel tax dollars for the proposed $200 million initiative. Unfortunately, some people are trying to cloud the issue of providing the best accountability and transparency to the citizens of Springfield. The primary responsibility of elected officials is to provide accountability and transparency for its citizens as a policy issue, the city of Springfield has continually supported the convention center by providing $5 million to the last expansion in addition, since 2011, the city has given the convention center $100,000 annually in hotel motel tax money for the entirety of the term of their 2032 bonds. The city also supported the transportation hub in numerous ways, one of which was the transferse city of Springfield property to the county along Adams Street with no strings attached. This decades-long financial commitment by the city to the Bank of Springfield Center substantially overshadows the

county's one-time gift of the property across the street and money for a feasibility study. Under the city's leadership, collaborative projects utilizing cooperation between multiple governing bodies and revenue streams have been done. We did that via the Shields Legacy sports complex, the city of Springfield provided the lion's share of tax revenue via sales, hotel, motel, and property taxes and other taxing bodies pledged property taxes for this public, private, mega sports tourism project which is like no other in Illinois This was accomplished without creating a new special governmental body with a non-elected board that is not directly accountable to the public. The proposed non-elected board will have special powers like the condemnation of property. It is essential that the city of Springfield takes accountability and make it transparent of what happens to the Wyndham Hotel because other bor bordering governmental entities have a conflict of interest in the property. One elected official and private property owner is on record for wanting to tear down the Wyndham Hotel prior to its closing during our discussions at the Wyndham and it's unfortunate that the Delta Marriott project didn't have enough aldermen to support it and have the guts to support it, otherwise we'd have a better downtown today since over 80% of the tax revenue generated for this project would come exclusively from within the city of Springfield. Our city elected officials should have the majority of the appointments on the proposed Capitol Tourism board, we do not need people living outside the city prioritizing for us how city resources have been should be allocated within the city. That is what each of you are elected to do. I ask that each of you do what is right for the citizens of Springfield and support this resolution. So without amendments, so the resolution and the initiative can move forward with the best interests

and accountability for the transparency for our residents. In summary, we all agree and support improving downtown Springfield, which is the heart of the city, the elected city council of Springfield must have a direct input and oversight of significant downtown developments which use city tax resources to ensure the community's priorities are fully oops sorry are fully met uh oh Well, I lost my last page Anyway, the bottom line is, we should, you should, as a governing body, you want to take the vote for that responsibility . You don't want to cede your authority to others. We do not need another animal control board like is currently in place with Sangamon County. All of you have complained about that. This is a duplication of that. One last thing I'd like to thank uh Jennifer Altman Notariano for bringing up the smia, uh, financial issues that would explain why one previous board member came and had the idea of consolidating the tourism convention Visitors bureau with the city of Springfield. It should be the reverse if it is done at all, because the city is driving economic force for not only the city as the capital, but for the county. Thank you Let us all the citizens who have signed up to address the council , we're on Amendment number 1. We had a 1st and a 2nd, we had a discussion. Is there any further discussion before we take the vote on the amendment itself. Alderwoman Connolly. I'm sorry, I just want to be really clear. We are not the General Assembly. We're not voting on this legislation The, the amendment that we're voting on is simply to express support. The one thing that we know that we can all agree on as , as all the woman Purchase said , we can all agree on on supporting this expansion. I think we've made it very clear tonight and in previous conversations that that there are still issues of concern to our community and again, I will encourage people,

this is in the General Assembly. It is not a vote that we're taking. We don't, we are not elected to the General Assembly. We're in the city of Springfield . If you have concerns about the actions that that the General Assembly is taking. Please reach out to your elected officials there. So I am going to vote in support of this amendment because I believe this is the one thing that we can all agree on, and I think it's really important that we express that support. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. So to see What's her name What is your name? Megan Swanson Yeah I. Uh, not on the special one. Not for the special meeting . She said we're, we haven't gone to the committee the whole meeting yet. That meeting's still coming. Is the special meeting when I signed up. I'm going to let the clerk pull your slip, OK? Yeah. And if somehow that can happen my intention was to speak at the special meeting. It is coming up journal Um-hum Oh, sorry I made OK. It looks like you just signed up one time. It does say in the subject matter Starbond megaprojects bill. Um, so if you want to utilize your time now, I'll allow it, but then you can't speak at the committee meeting if you didn't sign up for it. I don't want to see it. OK, got you. No problem. Thank you for speaking up, Ms. Swanson . Let me just, can you give us one second so they can get their computers ready. Oh yeah May I ask a question while we're waiting. We are talking about Senate Bill 3499, right? We're talking about a resolution that was, yes, yes, yes, yes, we don't vote on Senate bills. No, no, no, but I understand that

OK, they're ready for you, ma'am . Thank you. Thank you so much for letting me speak. I am here because I do not understand why this process has been so hard Why is the city not able to advocate for what we really want and need, instead of what the legislature thinks we need. I have some ideas about it, and the first one is transparency. Even tonight, as we're sitting here and listening to different aldermen speak about what's in this bill you're saying, uh, everything is different. This has changed. There are amendments, there's a lot going on. What is in the record right now. as of probably 6:30 tonight because I went back and checked. Was the Starbond language. It was the taxing body language. There is no amendment that has been submitted and that is registered and posted. So when you say that that's all out of it, you're talking about something that is not true, that is just factually not true. There is a severe lack of transparency. A bill like this should not come as a surprise to any of the people that will be affecting. So who's really behind this and who was in the room when it happened? When these's decision questions have been asked, the mayor and her supporters portray themselves as just as surprised as everyone else about what's in the bill. We don't know what's in the bill. This is a shell bill right now. There's nothing in the bill. I don't know why we would support a bill that we have no idea. what is in it That's wild If this was truly a surprise to the mayor and everyone else, there's clearly been a fundamental breakdown of communication between the city, the county, and our legislature. The city is standing by and allowing the county the to have

a taxing body to take control of downtown. I can't make it clear. I love Springfield. I love Springfield with all my heart, and I support the expansion improvements of the Baker Springfield Center. Facility needs it, the downtown needs it. I love downtown. But without any real input from the city, we know that this is not meeting our needs. We have a mayor and council members rather push the responsibility for this onto Senator Turner, Representative Coffey, huge conflict of interest, and the Illinois General Assembly. They feel like we need to sit down, shut up, and take what's given to us and be happy for it This highlights the failure of the city council to lead. This is a once in a generation opportunity for the city to revitalize a flagging downtown to create a venue that can host concerts, conventions, conferences, and to give our city something to be proud of. Several weeks ago, Alderman Williams tried to initiate a route for the city to advocate for what they need, what we need , the constituents, adequate representation on the board and clear boundaries on what this bill will and will not allow. Recently, even Chairman Van Meter said that this bill was confusing and that there was some language that would need to be addressed before it passed. Yet when our older people want to do the same thing, they're warned against micromanaging or conspiracy theories. or my favorite making Senator Turner so mad that she somehow will not help us. That's my favorite because that's ridiculous. She's a professional She is not going to throw a tantrum because the city tells her what we need. It's insulting to refer to her that way, like she doesn't have control of her emotions. She does. It makes me wonder what the people making these monk excuses . Are you just providing yourselves cover for the day when things go bad for the city and the Starbon district and the fails because you're too scared and weak to actually work with the county and state towards the

changes that need to be made. It seems that way The good news is this Senate Bill 3499 is sitting in committee. Amendments can be made. Compromises can be made. clarity can be found. We can work together to do what's best for the whole city. We can make sure that the historically disenfranchised citizens inwards 2 and 3, are clearly represented . We can communicate clearly with our community. No one in this room, even you guys up on the horseshoe, do not, you know what is in this bill. We need to communicate with the community about what is in it. We need to work with our downtown business and hotel owners throughout the city to make sure no one is being hurt or left behind. And guess what, guys, there's no huge rush. This bill is sitting in committee in the end of sessions in 2 weeks. Focus on making it the best that you can for the city and pass it in veto session . Do it this fall. This is all worth doing, but only if we do it well. This is an opportunity for you all to make a positive lasting change in Springfield. You can do this. It's not hard. That's it. We're going to allow a roll call vote on the amendment only, so the roll call vote because I'll let the machines be for the final, uh, the roll call vote is for the amendment only that was proposed Amendment number 1. Alderman Cox. Alderman Gregory? No Alderman Williams? No Alderman Rockford. No. Alderwoman purchase? No. Aler woman, no Triano. No. Alderman Carlson. Alderwoman Conley Alderman Donelly Hi Alderman Hanauer. Uh, so it's 5 to 5, correct? I

vote I as well to break the tie. So the resolution passes. Amendment number 1 for the resolution passes. Sorry. correct? OK, so now we have the resolution itself that needs to be voted on. Is there any discussion from the alders prior to that vote and you'll use your machines for that vote. Alderman Hanauer, uh, put, uh, um, the amended version on final passage . a motion and a second to put the amended version of the resolution on final passage. Um, all those in favor would say aye . Those opposed, nay nay. Are we gonna say finals or? We have to put a little. Just to put it on vinyl. Yeah. We'll take a boat still, yeah, as amended. This is not. So, it's on so we'll take a vote. Sorry, go ahead Well, we, we already had a motion in a second to put it on and then it was amended. All right. Never mind. We already had that. We didn't need it. We didn't need it. Yeah. We don't need that because it, it was already, it was moved and amended to go on final passage and or it was moved and seconded to go on final pass and then we've then we've amended. And so now it's back to the original. You're the boss. I, I thought that we had to do. Now, now we need, now it's Final vote, yeah. All right, so this would be the, for the resolution as amended, uh, all those in favor would vote yes as amended. All those op pose d would vote no on the resolution. Voting will now be open. So we're using, oh, I don't know Chano's not here. Oh, Alderman Alderman Donelly, how do you vote? Alderman I. I. So the motion passes, you want to wait? Uh, because it's 5 to 4 , so it, it takes 6 votes to pass. OK. So with 5 voting in favor, the mayor, uh, but did not passing the bear's law to vote. So what? So it's an older woman, no Triano, just, I assume she's

I don't have a mouse.za. There we go. Now you say it again, corporation council that in the microphone so they all hear first. Sorry, the, the uh so the vote right now is 5 to 4, so half of the alders have voted in favor of the resolution, but the resolution will take 6 votes to pass, so the mayor is allowed to vote. And do we need alder woman nuriana? It doesn't matter I think she's left. She left. It doesn't matter. It'd be still , it'd be 6 votes. right? You just need, you need 6 votes. So, we have 6 because Alderman Donlin voted yes, yeah all the woman's gone, it she votes no, it's still 6 votes . That's right, so it feels. Does the resolution fail then? No. The resolution 6 with the mayor votes at 6. It's mayor, yes, So the motion passes with 6 voting yes, 4 voting no, 1, not present. for the, for the And so did everyone speak? Sorry , Mayor, just for clarification, Alderman Donelly voted yes on that also. OK, you are correct. Yes. That's how we got to 6 It was all the citizens Yes. So motion for adjournment. Adjournment. All those in favor? Yes. All those in favor first say aye. Those opposed, nay, the ayes have it. We're gonna take, yeah, let's get back to about 10 till it's 7:47 1 10 minutes. We're gonna take a break because they do need to redo the mics and the recording, sir. Whenever they're ready they're