ROCHELLE — At its meeting Monday, the Rochelle City Council gave the go ahead on a new mural design that will be painted in the downtown area.

The city shared a request for proposal to attract mural submissions from local and regional artists in 2024. A complete response was submitted by the deadline and the city’s arts committee began working with the artist. The location of the mural will be on the south side of the second story of ALM Fine Cabinetry. The location will enable traffic coming from the south on the overpass to see the mural.

The mural design depicts the words “Rochelle, Illinois: The Hub City!” with a train, skydiver, hub and corn also depicted. City council members chose a color scheme Monday. 

City Community Development Director Michelle Pease said work on the mural would start immediately. 

Luna

The council unanimously approved a resolution authorizing a redevelopment agreement with Luna at 531 S. 7th St. The city previously entered into redevelopment agreements with the owners of Luna to assist with the costs of replacing the building roof, clubhouse, outdoor patio and gravel parking lot. Most recently, its ownership approached the city about unexpected extensive and essential sewer improvements needed. The problems related to the original sewer piping resulted in an estimated $115,000 in construction repair costs. The agreement approved Monday allowed Luna to be eligible for up to 50 percent of the estimated $115,000 sewer repair ($57,500).

Upon proof of completion of the work, the city will provide payment of 50 percent of the costs over three years, with $19,166.67 payments at the end of 2025, 2026 and 2027.

Luna adjoins Fairways Golf Course, which is jointly owned by the city and the Flagg-Rochelle Community Park District. City Manager Jeff Fiegenschuh said the dollars for the agreement will come out of the city's Downtown & Southern Gateway tax increment financing (TIF) district, which is made up of increment funds generated by property value increases.

Fiegenschuh and Council Members Rosaelia Arteaga and Tom McDermott expressed a desire Monday for more work to be done to make other businesses aware of TIF dollars available to them.

"A lot of people in small businesses that aren't aware of the TIF are losing out because we keep giving the TIF funds to the same people that know the TIF is there," McDermott said. "I would like to see a lot of small businesses come here and get their chance."

Mayor John Bearrows said TIF funds have been used to help businesses in the past.

"This money in the TIF district is from their taxes," Bearrows said. "It becomes city money, but it's also money that all of the businesses in the districts pay in real estate tax. We do need to get more people to apply. In a sense, they're getting some of their own money back when we fund these projects."

Liquor license

The council unanimously approved an ordinance for a new restaurant (R-2) liquor license for a new business at 1310 N. 7th St. The business will be Birrieria Las Tapatias. The council also deleted the liquor license for the previous business at the location, Barrio Agave.

The class R-2 license allows for the retail sale of alcoholic beverages for consumption on the premises by restaurants without a bar. Additionally, the class R-2 license permits the retail sale of packaged alcoholic beverages, provided that such sales do not exceed 10 percent of the total sales of all alcoholic beverages.

Bus

The council tabled an agenda item for a potential lease agreement for a 2024 Chevrolet 3500 Starcraft Bus due to Council Members Ben Valdivieso and Kate Shaw-Dickey being absent Monday. The council wanted to have all members present for a future bus vote, which will now take place April 14.

The city has had previous discussion about purchasing a 12-passenger shuttle bus for community events and tours.

Cameras

The council unanimously approved a resolution authorizing the purchase, installation and maintenance of a camera system at the Rochelle Police Department and City Hall. The cost for the camera system from Beck Tech will be $111,686.76. It will include 34 new cameras and a new server. 10 of the city's current cameras will be able to be utilized. 

RPD Chief Pete Pavia said Monday that many of the facility's current cameras are outdated and go down several times per day. The system will include a five-year warranty.

MOU

The council unanimously approved a resolution accepting a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the union that represents the Rochelle Fire Department. The MOU is to inform the city of a change to the collective bargaining agreement (CBA) with the union.

The CBA required the city to bring total RFD staffing to 18. Those personnel members were hired and those employees will be undergoing training. The MOU will allow for staffing during the training of new firefighters to allow the city to save on overtime expenses.

The MOU also allows the city to bring back a fully-certified firefighter by converting his previous resignation to an unpaid leave of absence. It also includes verbiage for the new rank structure the council recently put in place for RFD to now have the rank of captain.

RMU

During his mayor's comments portion of the meeting, Bearrows thanked the Rochelle Municipal Utilities electric department for its work on outages due to windstorms in recent weeks. The mayor said storms resulted in over 40 poles going down and that utility crews from Batavia and St. Charles were called in to help.

"I think they did an amazing job of regrouping as fast as they could," Bearrows said. "We want to thank the mutual aid we had. I'm happy everybody stayed safe and we got everybody's power back on."