ROCHELLE — Rochelle Mayor John Bearrows and City Manager Jeff Fiegenschuh took to Facebook live Thursday afternoon for their yearly State of the Community address.

The city officials reviewed 2021 in terms of city projects, programs, numbers and facts and discussed its current position and what’s expected during the rest of 2022. The hour-and-a-half PowerPoint presentation laid out how the city’s recent expenditures have aligned with strategic plan priorities.

Bearrows and Fiegenschuh said the city’s financial reserves remain strong and above council-approved floors. Plans include continued redevelopment of all city corridors and continuing growth in all tax increment financing (TIF) districts. 

The future redevelopment of the Hickory Grove site was touched on as demolition has started to come to a close and the city plans to solicit developer plans soon. The city is also continuing work on renovating and moving more departments to its new facility on South 7th Street, which is the former Johnson Tractor building it purchased over the summer. 

The presentation also included plans to continue to pay down debt and issue new debt at lower rates, a final implementation of internal ERP and asset management systems, a request for proposal for city liability, property and workman’s compensation insurance, continuing to seek grants where possible and applicable, continued reevaluation of employee positions and developing a joint fire training facility with the Ogle-Lee Fire Protection District. 

On the Rochelle Municipal Utilities side, Bearrows and Fiegenschuh said plans include continued investments in water, water reclamation, electric and communications infrastructure and increasing its renewable energy portfolio and increasing allowances for residents, such as a solar rate that was recently put into place for residential and small commercial RMU customers. 

The city officials talked about recent happenings in each city department and touched on various other ongoing projects for the future such as Geographic Information System upgrades. 

Earlier this month, it was revealed that the mystery company that is filling the former Nippon Sharyo buildings at 1600 Ritchie Court in Rochelle is Zekelman Industries, the largest steel pipe and tube manufacturer in North America.

Operations will commence in Rochelle this fall and the development is expected to create between 100 and 150 jobs locally.

“I believe it’s one of the biggest projects we’ll see in a long time for the city,” Fiegenschuh said during the state of the community address. “They’re here to stay. They’ll double our daily power usage. I think they’ll be great partners. I’m proud of the project.” 

Bearrows detailed how the city’s portion of residents’ property tax bills is spent. The city gets 10 cents of every dollar and it’s spent on police officers, firefighters/EMTs, police cars, ambulances, dispatchers, school crossing guards, engineering, economic development, community development and street department operators. 

Bearrows and Fiegenschuh fielded questions from residents during the Thursday address. One involved the possibility of getting a larger chain restaurant like a Cracker Barrel in town. Bearrows said city staff has worked to do that, but the response from those businesses hasn’t been fruitful due to Rochelle’s close proximity to larger cities with them like DeKalb and Rockford. 

“Our community development department has reached out and provided data to Cracker Barrel in the past,” Fiegenschuh said. “Businesses like them locate to make a profit. They look at our retail trade area to get the maximum number of people in the door and they haven’t decided to locate here. Being near Rockford and DeKalb doesn’t help.”

During Bearrows’ opening comments, he thanked the community for its support during the COVID-19 pandemic as lower case rates in the area have brought about what he called “light at the end of the tunnel.”

The mayor also thanked city staff and employees for keeping things on track during uncertain times. The pandemic saw the city issue grants and implement things like the RMU Shop Local program to navigate the pandemic’s effects on the community, namely small businesses.

“Thank you for supporting our local businesses and being patient with our staff as we work through very difficult times,” Bearrows said. “I want to thank our city council for supporting the change and programs we’ve put in place over the past couple of years. That group provides the final pieces and acceptance of various programs that we’ve come to know in our local community. I also want to thank the city manager for continued leadership and guidance not only in the pandemic, but he continues to keep the day-to-day operations running smoothly.”