“Something old” and “something new” headlined the “money talk” portions of Tuesday night’s (Oct 21st) Danville City Council meeting. In the “old business” category, leftover COVID relief ARPA funds were allocated to, as required, open projects already in existance. $433,000 of that was approved to go to more Garfield Park work; significantly to road, sidewalk, and basketball court coating work. The motion passed with ten yes votes. Eve Ludwig, Jon Cooper, and James Poshard were not present; and Doug Ahrens voted no. Afterwards, Ahrens said looking back on how ARPA funding was allocated, he feels other parks were forgotten.
AUDIO: Winter Park and Winterview Park have been built with private dollars, from this community, with volunteers making those parks happen. To not participate, when you have that many people volunteering their time, and putting their own dollars into a project, is not community.
But Mayor Rickey Williams, Jr says that’s exactly the point. Garfield Park is supported first and foremost by city taxpayers, and deserves top priority.
AUDIO: In terms of Winter Park, Alderman Ahrens was speaking about Winterview Park and the soccer complex. The city does not own those lands, or those facilities. So I believe it’s my obligation, as our mayor, to prioritize the things that our taxpayers use and pay for first.
(1st Picture) Danville Comptroller Alyssa Sweeten. (2nd Picture) Danville Alderman Doug Ahrens.
Towards the end of the meeting, City of Danville Comptroller Alyssa Sweeten presented the first draft of the proposed new budget. One issue hovering around had been the mayor’s desire for cuts in library funding. Early in the council meeting Mayor Williams said he believes a compromise has been reached for an initial $214,000 in cuts based solely on personnel, and that he’ll continue to work with library board president Mark Denman and new library director Christopher Leggins.
AUDIO: There are a couple of positions that are vacant, that they intend not to fill. As Mr. Denman said to me, we can do this and not compromise the quality of service, and the level of service, that we provide to our citizens. And that’s the bottom line for me; that we just can’t afford to spend money that we just don’t have if we don’t need to.
As far as how the new budget looks overall; Alderman Ahrens says he has some problems with it.
AUDIO: It appears the casino funds are still being used for personnel expenditures. I didn’t hear any money being set aside for business incentives, or for economic development initiatives. It appears to be more for protecting the status quo.
The proposed new budget has expenditures of $39.9 million in the general fund, $55.5 million in other funds, totaling $95.4 million; $83 million if you subtract $12 million in transfer funds. The new fiscal year begins next May; but the budget is often passed in December, along with the new tax levy.
