City of Macomb Committee of the Whole met Oct. 26.
Here is the minutes provided by the committee:
The Committee of the Whole, of the Macomb City Council, met in the City Council Chambers on Monday, October 26, 2020 at 5:15 p.m. located in City Hall at 232 East Jackson Street, Macomb, IL.
Mayor Inman called the meeting to order.
Roll call was taken and the following were present: Aldermen Mike Wayland, John Vigezzi, Annette Carper, Tom Koch, Gayle Carper, Tammie Leigh Brown-Edwards, and Dennis Moon.
In addition to the Mayor, Deputy City Clerk Renee Lotz and Aldermen, others present were: City Attorney Lisa Scalf and City Administrator Scott Coker. Also, in attendance, CDC John Bannon.
Public Comment: Sent by E-mail and read by the Clerk.
Nicole S.
I would like for my last name to be withheld due to my career and fear of retaliation so please refer to me as Nicole.
I’m very disappointed in Detective McLaughlin’s comments. I thought highly of him and have even had people from out of town get their concealed carry license from him. I’m upset I recommended him and will never do so again.
I read his post and every comment to try to understand where he was coming from. The post seemed t leave out a lot of details.
Also, even off duty, why is this allowed to be posted at all when you work in law enforcement? It’s on a public business page. Working in healthcare it would be viewed poorly since a member of the community you serve is being called out, so why is it acceptable to discuss altercations on social media in law enforcement? I don’t know whether this occurred and am not condoning said behavior, but when you are seen highly in a community then you should think before posting online. This caused more hate in the community and people were quick to say they would handle said problem. The majority are known keyboard warriors, but since he chose to post this, he should now hold responsibility to tell those people it’s NOT ok to “handle” and doing so will lead to consequences.
Another concern was saying he can’t be intimidated. That statement has a completely different tone when being posted on a firearms business page than when posted on a private personal page. This shouldn’t have been posted anywhere, but the choice to post from a firearms page made it worse.
The attempt later saying he meant no harm seemed forced. He didn’t apologize. He said he’s sorry people took it wrong. He also said he was vague because he doesn’t promote violence but if you don’t promote violence why post this from a firearms training page? If I posted anything similar, even on personal social media, I would be fired. My career doesn’t even focus on protecting the community.
This type of behavior is why I didn’t follow through with law enforcement as a career. This is why so many members of our community can’t go anywhere without being targeted by other community members for no reason. It’s unacceptable.
I’d like to thank the Racial Justice Coalition, though. The leadership team has provided resources on voting, how to watch town hall meetings and even submit comments so that I can be heard. Whenever I have questions about racial equality or anything I’m uncomfortable asking, I know I can ask them and be given educational resources to make my own decisions.
Emiliano Vera,
Good afternoon Macomb City Council, Mayor Inman and citizens of Macomb. I am writing to describe a situation I saw on Friday while I was attending the African Student Association’s #EndSARS vigil highlighting the recent violent suppression of protesters by police in Nigeria. Several Nigerian-Americans and Nigerian exchange students spoke of the fear they had for their friends and family back in Nigeria and educated the crowd, which included American students and Macomb residents, about the situation.
I felt solidarity with them even as an American because of the common fight against police violence, having witnessed the recent forceful suppression of protests across the country by police and white nationalist violence, as well as the daily intimidation and threat of violence lived by poor and black people in this country. I was therefore horrified when these students – guests in our town – were subject to intimidation by men in trucks revving their engines and blowing smoke. This event was held far from the road in the gazebo in the park, and was not directly related to the Black Live Matters protests that are consistently harassed by motorists.
I suspect that the sight of a medium sized group of black people was enough to make some people go out of their way to reinforce that black people shouldn’t be welcome here.
The city council needs to be updated about all public instances of racial harassment because, it nothing else, you need to know the constant fear that black people specifically are forced to endure in this community and realize that if there is a disconnect between “town and gown”, it is because many students of color do not feel safe to stray too far from campus. This is not how Macomb should treat its people, and this is certainly not how Macomb should treat international guests who are contributing significantly through their tuition dollars to our local economy. Thank you”
Angel Smith,
Macomb Police Department, Detective JP McLaughlin conducted himself in a very inappropriate manner with his comments on his Facebook business page about protesters. He was wrong about the facts and was deliberately provocative in posting veiled threats of violence and encouraging others to do the same. This sort of conduct promotes public mistrust of law enforcement as only interested in protecting the “right” kinds of people – and who are the right people?
The Racial Justice Coalition is doing extraordinarily important work in Macomb, and they are to be commended for it, not threatened.
John Huston,
Want to thank the DWMC and the RJC for the hard and relentless work of fighting for the POC of Macomb…while most don’t believe there is a problem they are blinded to what our blacks/latinx go through and how they feel…that in its self speaks volumes. As a victim of hate crimes and a witness to the systemic racism in our own community I will not be told by the white community that its none existing or we are the problem…there is no question that hate in our community exists…our goal is to bring awareness and accountability to those who perpetuate and deny the problem…our community leaders and voters in town want to deny the facts, we as a community need to unite and address the issues are we to the level of gorge Floyd or breonna Taylor or young man rice no…So lets make changes before we are…lets handle these issues before a life is lost…before another person has to die…lets be pro active instead of retroactively dealing with the racism in our community.
Justice Coalition,
Dear Macomb City Council, It is unacceptable for white city council members to misuse their power and authority to attempt to silence our expressions of our very real and as yet unaddressed concerns about the Chief, the police department, the complaints, and the racism here in our community. We demand the city hold Mayor Inman and Chief Barker accountable for the harassment of the African Student Association at their event – and the city MUST issue a public condemnation of any and all hateful, dehumanizing, and racist behavior that continues to perpetuate in our city.
White council members, specifically, have you used your time to express concern for our hurting Back community? Or express support for Tammie Leigh Brown-Edwards? You have heard many concerns brought to you by our org and others, with no real action taken.
Instead you used your time to tone-police our righteous anger and frustration at your repeated refusals to deal with the problem of systemic and interpersonal acts of racism, intolerance, and bigotry in this community. Tone-policing is a tactic used by those who have privilege to silence the one who does not by focusing on the tone of what is being said rather than the actual content. It is used to silence, derail or disengage from conversation by controlling the people participating and the conditions under which the conversation is happening.
So why should you stop tone-policing? Because it suppresses the voices of the marginalized. It makes them feel that their anger caused by the injustice and oppression is invalid. It preserves privilege of the people who want to avoid conversations that make them feel “uncomfortable”. Tone policing prevents you from acknowledging your mistake, educating yourself and uplifting others.
Put a discussion on the agenda, or create a town hall to talk about racism in this community before things worsen – as we’ve already seen a large uptick in aggressive behavior and verbal harassment of protestors.
You already have failed to show allyship in real time during council meetings after demanding to hear directly from Black people. Yet when Black people speak, you fail to respond with actin or expression of concern.
Aletheia Ares,
To Whom It May Concern, White Silence Is Violence. Black Lives Matter. White Silence Is Violence. Black Lives Matter.
I am deeply troubled by the handling of the public comment I submitted to be read one week ago.
White Silence Is Violence. Black Lives Matter. White Silence Is Violence. Black Lives Matter.
Disregarding the lackadaisical and faineant manner in which Ms. Falk read my comment, which, in itself, speaks volumes to the optical apathy demonstrated therein, it had been my understanding that public comments were to be read, uninterrupted, unedited, and unfettered, until such time as their completion, or the three-minute time limit had been reached.
White Silence Is Violence, Black Lives Matter.
Not only was my comment inappropriately shortened by Ms. Falk; even considering the caveat she made that, “this phrase is repeated verbatim fifty-eight times”, she deliberately neglected to read the final following sentence.
White Silence Is Violence. Black Lives Matter.
The last sentence was as follows: “Please read the entirety of this message, until such time as the message has been completely read, or the three-minute time limit has been reached (whichever comes first”).
White Silence Is Violence. Black Lives Matter. White Silence Is Violence. Black Lives Matter.
Her deliberate refusal to read this last sentence further demonstrates the greater issue of aggressive silencing tactics used against voices of color and their associated advocates and allies in the community, particularly those that do not advantageously align with the evident morals, values, and priorities of 87.5% of this city council.
White Silence Is Violence. Black Lives Matter. White Silence Is Violence. Black Lives Matter.
Whereas my last submission for public comment was perfidiously censored by way of unsolicited discretion by Ms. Falk, I would respectfully ask that this message be read, in its entirety, from subject line to signature line, to the objective of not being silenced by a demonstrably ambivalent group of elected officials, excluding Ms. Brown-Edwards.
White Silence Is Violence. Black Lives Matter. White Silence Is Violence. Black Lives Matter.
The following Public Comments were made in person.
Heather McMeekan,
On Wednesday, I received a phone call from the African Student Association, asking for help for an event they were going to hold on campus, but they were moving to Chandler Park. I reached out to our leadership team and we decided to help them. They asked for help with logistics and help understanding how to hold an event in our park safely. We decided to do and honor support detail for them and I called the City Clerk the next day and let them know there would be an event there and I also reached out to Officer Hamer to let him know. I told them both, we were very concerned because we’re seeing a real uptick in targeted racial violence. It’s not just this community, every community all around here, is reporting the same thing. We’re having reports in Adams, Fulton, Schuyler, Hancock and Mason County.
So, I was really concerned, and I thought, you should all know that on-line, they are gas lighting groups of people who already show a propensity for, gleefully laughing about driving over people, or people who already show racism and a propensity for liking to harass people. They are targeting them, trying to pull them further and further into a dehumanizing space. What they do is, they look at the posts that people make, we kinda do that too, we reach out when people have been harmed and we say, “are you okay” and “there’s therapy over here”, or you know. But what they do is, they say, “why don’t you join us in this group, you think a lot like us” and then they start messaging further and further with dehumanization and pulling them into that tribalism and they keep reinforcing the hate and they’re hoping to provoke outbreaks, random outbreaks of lone wolf violence. That potential does exist, we think, here in this community and we hope to inoculate it! That’s what we’re trying to do.
So, I met with the students over my lunch hour and let them know what we had faced and what our concerns were, but I also let them know that in the park we were fairly confident that even if vehicles were a problem, they would still be able to hold their event. We would be there for them and if anyone did show up in the park, us white allies that have been trained in de-escalation would act to keep our students safe.
They were able to hold their event. They did end up with a lot of targeting. They were going to stand with us on the sidewalk afterward, but after what we were seeing, we were like, “better if you all like head back to campus and we pulled out just a few of our team members because we wanted to at least document and be able to say what we saw.
I spoke with Deputy Burnham about that today, you know, I wanna make it clear, the police have told us we’re on our own there. They’ve made it clear, that is an assumed risk, that it is, us standing there, they consider us to also be……3 minutes.
Marcial,
I want to co-sign Heather’s sentiments. We do need a conversation on this and it needs to be an official one. Which begs the question. Because I missed last week’s meeting, but I did read over one of the hand outs about all the things Mayor Inman has done. One of them was talking about how many official events he went to building up the community. It was 71 unofficial things and 15 official ones. Has there been any trackable change? For example; I would ask, do people feel safer? From what Heather is telling me, no, people aren’t feeling safer. You really have to ask yourself those questions. What type of change is being made by what I’m doing? Is it working? If the answer is yes, great. If the answer is no, then you really have to go back to the drawing board. Right now, the answer is no, so you need to go back to the drawing board. You also need to listen to more of the voices, black voices, we are the, we understand our situation better than anybody. I really have to reiterate, that you have to listen to your black constituents when we tell you, we’re not safe. I’m going to share with you all an example, why you should defer and ask more questions.
The Abe Lincoln monument you put out there, essentially, well it’s racist. Abe Lincoln didn’t care about black people. He only freed slaves so that he could win the war. He would of, if he could have won the war without freeing the slaves, then he wouldn’t have done it. Essentially, we were a tool for a means to an end. So, when you co-sign on that, or you allow that, or you ignore it, or when you say I’m so glad we got this out here or it looks nice, that ranges from micro aggression to ignoring flat out racism.
If you look at his, even the one piece of conversation with Stephen Douglas that I read, um there’s several more like that, he just does not care, like he doesn’t care about me, he never did; and for everybody that’s like, what a great president, your understanding of a great president is a racist. So, you really need to listen to more black voices, cause some of you thought that was a good idea, and it’s not a good idea.
I do like public comments, I do think they’re important. I’m wondering why public comments aren’t open on YouTube….3 minutes.
Essie Rutledge,
One purpose, in regard to what is happening to black people in this community. My main concern at this point is, the fact that we have had quite a bit of what could turn into a real problem, and a loss of lives. That’s the vehicular kind of activities that have been going on with those who have been attending the rallies. I have attended some, not all, but this is something that happened outside of that too. There are people in this community that have felt threatened by the fact that trucks, men in trucks, have tended to drive very close, which gives them the feeling that they will hit you.
I have had an experience like that. It wasn’t near the square, this was at Wal-Mart. I was crossing the walk coming out of the door and there was no car behind me; and all of the sudden, I heard this motor running, I looked behind me and there was a person in a car, this was a car, and was very close behind me. I looked back and the person said “I’m not going to hit you”, well, if he didn’t have that in mind, maybe he wouldn’t have said it that way. But I don’t know how there could be anybody who encounters a car or a truck, coming so close behind them, that they don’t feel their lives are threatened. I hope you do know that this kind of behavior is not reactive. There are such accidents or intentional behavior that is done by people all over this country. This is not a false fear that you hear happening, it’s a real fear…3 minutes.
The first item on the agenda for discussion was on an ordinance to create a Class A liquor license for Niemann Foods Inc. d/b/a Apollo Coin Laundry #687. This ordinance had first reading last Monday night. City Attorney Lisa Scalf stated there was a summary of the application as well as an overview of the factors necessary for issuance of the license.
Alderman G. Carper presented questions from an email she had received concerning the following:
A component of revenues; percentage requirements between liquor sales and the other thing, and she wanted to clarify that there’s not percentage requirements for a Class A liquor license.
City Attorney Scalf stated, that is correct.
Also did the license have to be tied to a specific business, example the grocery? Alderman G. Carper read the statute as saying, tied to any business the applicant had.
City Attorney Scalf stated, she would agree.
Also, ownership requirements; must the applicant reside within the city limits.
City Attorney Scalf explained a “resident” manager was required.
Concerns of not enough parking. Alderman G. Carper stated she believed this application met all requirements for parking.
City Attorney Scalf stated, yes.
CDC John Bannon explained the parking was adequate according to code. 300 square feet are committed to the gaming, requiring 2 parking spaces. There are 29 parking spaces total.
Alderman Brown-Edwards questioned the resident requirement and the liquor sales tied to a Class A.
City Attorney Scalf stated the resident manager as it pertains to this application was for the location. The Class A license allows for all liquor sales, not limited to just beer, however the applicant wishes to only serve, sell beer at this location.
Alderman Koch asked how children would be kept from the area.
City Attorney Scalf referred to the site plan, doors and barriers to prevent the co-mingling.
The applicant Mr. Dave Riney of Niemann Foods explained the site plan. There’s currently an area not accessible to the public that will be reconstructed into the gaming area. This area would not be visible from the laundry area. It’s located down a hallway and the glass doors would be obscure.
There is no entry by anyone under the age of 21, due to the gambling component.
There have been no complaints towards the current Wash N Win operated by Niemann Foods Inc.
Mayor Inman stated this would be further discussed at the first meeting in November, with additional information concerning compliance with fire code.
The second item on the agenda for discussion was on an ordinance annexing certain territory located in a part of the Southwest Quarter of Section Five (5), Township Five (5) North, Range Two (2) West of the Fourth Principal Meridian, McDonough County, Illinois (Julie Davis Trust). This ordinance had first reading last Monday night. This is an area on Grant Street east of Candy Lane, a 6.83 acre tract. There was no discussion and Mayor Inman stated it would be placed on the agenda for second reading and final action at Monday night meeting.
The third item on the agenda for discussion was an update from Community Development Coordinator John Bannon on Economic Development Grants. He reported that the Downstate Small Business Stabilization Grant recipients, Michaels Hair, Magnolia’s and Nostalgia’s were sent back to us for updates on the GATA budgets. This has been updated with the business owners and back to DCEO. Hopefully these businesses will receive their money promptly.
He reported along with WIRC, they have put together a grant proposal under the local CURES Economic Support Payment program. An application has been submitted for $200,000 for the outdoor dining support. Receipts must be received before December 31st. The intent is to receive support from the State for local businesses that have already expended monies to support outdoor dining at their location due to COVID-19. There are 4 or 5 businesses that have expended a significant amount of money for outdoor dining. There’s $1.798 million dollars available and they wanted Macomb to get a share.
The fourth item on the agenda for discussion was a resolution extending the Mayoral Emergency Proclamation Declaring a Civil Emergency due to the COVID-19 Pandemic issued April 16, 2020. This would be an extension of 63 days, January 4, 2021. Attorney Scalf stated there were no changes other than the additional date extension of January 4th, and confirmed COVID-19 cases. There was no discussion and Mayor Inman stated this would be placed on the agenda for final action at Monday night meeting.
Alderman Vigezzi moved, seconded by Alderman Koch to move into executive session to consider information relative to: a). Appointment, employment, compensation, discipline, performance or dismissal of an employee of the public body or legal counsel for the public body, pursuant to Sec. 2 (c)(1) of the Open Meetings Act and b). Collective Bargaining matters between the public body and its employees or representatives, or deliberations concerning salary schedules for one or more classes of employees, pursuant to Sec. 2 (c) of the Open Meetings Act, on question being put, Aldermen Wayland, Vigezzi, A. Carper, Koch, G. Carper, Brown-Edwards, and Moon being all Aldermen voting “Aye” on roll call and no “Nay” votes, Mayor Inman declared the motion carried and they moved into executive session at 6:05 p.m.
Alderman Vigezzi moved, seconded by Alderman Moon to move back into open session, all Aldermen voting “Aye” by voice vote, Mayor Inman declared the motion carried and they moved back into open session at 6:34 p.m.
There being no further business, Alderman Moon moved, seconded by Alderman G. Carper to adjourn the meeting, all Aldermen voting “Aye” by voice vote, Mayor Inman declared the motion carried and they adjourned at 6:35 p.m.
https://cityofmacomb.com/10-26-2020-committee-of-the-whole-minutes/
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