I'd like to call the order the Planning and Development Committee meeting for Monday, December 8th, 2025.

Tonight's invocation will be given by Chaplain Norma Morrero, immediately followed by our Pledge of Allegiance.

So if everyone can stand, please.

Heavenly Father, we ask your presence by way of wisdom and knowledge tonight, and we pray for this council meeting tonight.

Give the council members wisdom and guidance as they deliberate on the items before them.

May every decision be righteous in your sight for the benefit of the citizens of Rockford and for your glory.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

I'd like to be able to the flag of the United States of the Republic for which it stands.

One nation under the business with liberty and justice for all.

Good evening.

This evening we have a whole host of local uh small businesses here in our committee, so I'd ask them to come forward as we have a proclamation for Shop Local in December.

Whereas Rockford, Illinois celebrates our local small businesses and the contributions they make to our local economy and community.

And whereas, according to the U.S.

Small Business Administration, small businesses represent 99.7% of firms with paid employees.

And there are 36 million of these small businesses in the United States.

And whereas a frequently cited 2018 study by the American Express and the National Federation of Independent Businesses found that 67 cents of every dollar spent at a small business stays in the local community.

Of that 67 cents, 47 44 cents supports the small business through wages and benefits, while the remaining 23 cents is reinvested in other local businesses.

And whereas, according to the email marketing platform, constant contact, three of every five small businesses make up to 50% of their annual revenue during the holiday season.

And whereas if every employed person in Rockford moved just one 40 dollar gift from Amazon to a small local business this holiday season, the shift would bring a nearly 2.5 million dollar impact into our local economy.

Now, therefore, I Thomas P.

Magmer is mayor of the city of Rockford, do hereby proclaim December 2025 to be shop local in December here in the city of Rockford.

I just want to say sincerely thank you.

If it's business districts or business uh owners, uh the amount of courage and entrepreneurial spirit that each of you have is amazing, and now it's on us to support all of you.

Uh but you make Rockford a really special place.

You're a place that people can go, some for a sense of community, other for that unique gift or that long loss item or that just consistent great customer service.

Just want to sincerely thank each and every one of you for the work that you do to make Rockford a great place and wanted to see if you wanted to either introduce yourselves, say something about your business, or just share about what small businesses mean or what the business during the holiday season means to you.

Hi, everybody.

Uh Jared Henness, owner of Rockford Art Delhi.

Uh, we've been downtown for 15 plus years, and uh we love being a part of the community, and we love the support from the city uh and all of you guys.

Thank you.

Hey, I'm Skylar Davis, owner of Culture Shock Clothing Gifts and Records on Charles Street.

Uh for 19 years now, I've been enjoying uh supporting and utilizing a spot for local musicians and other bands to sell their merchandise and of course helping people find gifts and collaborating with other uh local businesses too.

I am Dave Peterson, owner of Mays Books and River District Association board member.

Uh owning a business in Rockford is incredible.

We have the best customers in the world, and we look forward to continuing to serve the community for as long as we possibly can.

I'm Amy Honing with the Miracle Mile Rockford.

We are the business district along State Street between the two hospitals and Charles to Guilford.

Um and we collaborate our small businesses together through trainings and fun activities and see what we can do to help our local businesses grow.

And I brought Yolana Sanders from Rockford Community Bank, um, who is also um they as a bank support our business district as well.

My name is River.

My name is September.

My name is Matt Simpson.

I'm here on behalf of uh 815 Capital in a business called Wire Cafe.

Also here, my brother Josh.

Um we're a family-owned business, so this is part of the family, and it really means a lot to uh participate in this event tonight.

Entrepreneurship is ultimately about solving problems.

So what we've done is we've scraped our pennies together, and uh we support uh a food and business restaurant that also is a platform for rich experiences and quality relationships.

So through business, you can solve those problems, and it's an honor to be able to wake up and try to do that every single day with our family.

Hello, uh, my name is Tamika Brown, um owner of Infinite Soul Vibrations.

Um been in business about eight and a half years.

Uh so this is an awesome uh this is an awesome, awesome proclamation.

Thank you to the city of Rockford.

But um Infinite Soul Vibrations has started out as a crystal shop, um, and it's turned into um like a mini healing haven um as well as a crystal shop.

Um, and I just love being there to just spread love through the city, um, share my light, lift the vibration.

So thank you.

Uh just to add to what Matt said, you know, our the name of our company is 815 Capital.

Uh it's really just a cool way of saying 815, which everybody knows as the area co here.

Um, as I look around, um, I see a lot of members of the Wired family.

And yeah, absolutely.

And um just want to say it's just been uh Rockford has been a great place.

I'm not originally um born and raised in Rockford, so I'm a transplant, and I've been able to make Rockford home.

Um I love Rockford, and I've been able to grow and develop into the young man that I am and that I'm becoming because of all the many people in Rockford here who have welcomed me and uh helped to support me, including my brother Matt, um all the partners in A15 Capital, and this has been a special place for us to grow and to develop and to have a business.

Um and I appreciate we appreciate all the support that's in this room and in this city.

So thank you.

Thank you all so much.

Also just a reminder this is a holiday season.

This is a huge time that a number of our small businesses make up a significant amount of their revenue for the year.

So just encouraging all Rockford residents, don't be the boring person.

Go out and get a unique gift.

You don't get that on Amazon, you don't get that at big box stores, you get that with amazing local entrepreneurs and at your businesses.

So thank you so much for all that you do and being part of a significant part of the fabric of our city.

Thank you, all right.

We'll go ahead and move into um our portion of public speakers.

We have five tonight.

Just as a quick reminder, each public speaker will have three minutes to make their comments, at which time you will hear an alarm sound.

And at that time we ask that you bring your comments to close.

Both microphones are located at the back end of the horseshoe.

We just ask that you step up and speak clearly into the mic when it is your time.

Our first speaker tonight is Mr.

John Tack Brantley.

Uh for a whole hour at Source Radio Station uh talking.

And I came, I've talked about uh regrowth.

I am uh not surprised, but I want to uh I uh honor the fact that Alderman, Frank Beach, Alderman, Karen Hoffman, and and uh that's not here, they did what they supposed to do when it comes to representing their constituents.

Their constituents did not want their property tax to go up, so they voted, they voted yes, to utilize the regrowth.

I'm also proud of the fact that our African American arguments and the uh Hispanic arguments stood up for the first time to show the backbone, even though they didn't win.

My question is the regrowth money was only supposed to be used for the people that was affected by the war on drugs.

Why not use the the peace and justice uh grant money to uh to cover the uh deficit?

But I'm gonna get away from that for right now because our main topic, which I'm gonna go into, which I'm kinda uh disappointed when I drove down Rear Street, I looked at the side streets, all the side streets was clear of snow and like the main street in the in the white neighborhood.

Come on the west side of Rockford, all our side streets still got ice on it and still got snow on it.

But let me get back to the main reason why I'm here.

The Holland Gold Travelers is coming to Rockford, we got 100, uh, we got more than 100 individuals that's gonna be participating in Holland Gold Travel.

The blessed part about it is having the showmobile from the four police department, the fire department being there, interacting with our kids.

This is gonna be the first time our kids gonna be able to take autographs, take pictures, and shine and play basketball with the Holland Gold Travelers, and we're looking at doing this at the Patriot Gateway Center.

This is bigger than me.

I'm uh really looking at the school board, the school, this is something the school board should be doing uh every uh every every year.

And once again, looking at the regrowth and uh money.

That money, if I you gave me uh uh $50,000 for regrowth, and I took that $50,000 and took our kids to Disneyland.

When I got back here, what y'all think I'll be at?

Uh using that money for some nice closer use as well.

So a great but this is not the first time that this had been that this has happened.

This has happened over years and years and years that our funds are supposed to go to the have not, never go to us.

We only get to kibbles and bits, and then you give us what you want to give us, and then you get upset with us when we tell y'all about what you just did.

Instead of uh getting upset with me, what can we do to rectify our situation?

I'm looking forward to the meeting that I got coming up with uh with uh with the mayor that's coming up Thursday, even though it's a half an hour.

But just remember 3200 people viewed me dancing, and 362 responded.

They didn't talk about my dancing, they talk about the accolades of Brother John behaving an unstoppable voice in Rockford and fearless with standing up for our community.

I'm not Dr.

King, but I will follow Dr.

King's dream.

I'm not Malcolm X, but I do believe in what Malcolm X say by any means necessary.

We have to look out for ourselves.

We can't depend on somebody else to look out for us.

We have to be the ones to uh take care of ourselves and not worry about where the funds are gonna come from.

But we always know the Lord is never gonna put too much on your plate that you can't handle.

Thanks for allowing me to speak.

Thank you.

Uh my name is Stephen McMaster.

Uh many of you may recognize me at this point.

I've spoken a number of times.

Um I also wanted to touch on what we decided last week in in these chambers.

Uh there was a lot of debate about specifically the regrow funds.

Um and where the or where the cannabis fund money should be going.

Um I appreciate this council's decision to award $850,000 for the regrow program specifically.

I have yet to hear how we plan on using that money.

I hope that there are plans in place.

I hope that people are discussing opportunities to use that money.

But like last week would have been a great opportunity for you guys to talk about where we plan on using those funds.

I I don't know if this city has a racism problem.

Uh it gets brought up every single city council meeting.

Uh it gets brought up by multiple people, usually at city council.

But I know this city has a messaging problem.

Because last week shouldn't have gone that way.

It shouldn't have been a four-hour debate where the community is angry at what you are doing.

You work for us.

We give you money to do things that we want.

That's supposed to be the point.

So when the community is confused or upset about what you guys are doing, you need to interact.

It needs to be a back and forth.

We could have, as the city staff outlined, delayed the decision an additional two weeks without impacting city services in any reasonable capacity.

We had the opportunity to just lay over two out of the three items.

We didn't do that.

We had a couple of proposals brought forward that made perfect sense from somebody who is informed, but not completely about how the budget works in the city, where we were going to reimburse possibly the 2.6 million dollars worth of grant money.

I don't know if that makes sense.

You know, but what I heard last week was not a city that cares about this money.

What I heard was a city who cares about not raising property taxes.

That's great.

I I appreciate that, I guess.

Um, I don't own property, so it doesn't really affect me much.

Um come to think of it, most of the people who have been most harmed by the war on drugs don't own property.

That's where that money's supposed to go.

So when it instead is used effectively as a tax break for property owners, the citizenry is gonna be upset.

And it's your job to explain to them why they shouldn't be.

That that didn't happen.

It's disappointing.

Uh in my last ten seconds, I would like to address just boards and commissions in general.

I would love a list of what boards and commissions exist that I can participate in and what their rules are and what times they meet.

Seems like that doesn't exist.

Totally should.

Um if it I'll be here, otherwise I'll have to submit a FOIA for it, which sounds frustrating for everybody.

Thank you for your time.

Our next public speaker is Denzel Winter.

Good afternoon, City Council, committee members.

Yesterday, eight years ago, just about Franklin Deliner Roosevelt said that day would live in infamy.

We were attacked by the Japanese.

A whole race of people out of defending this country that gave their life for this country.

First American that brought down the first zero was a cook in the Navy.

He had no idea how to use the gun, but he did shoot down a Japanese plane.

In 1941, blacks were not welcome in the army.

The first black Marines were sent to combat, not to fight, but to dig holes.

We fought.

We fought for this country, we died for this country, we bled for this country.

And it's about time, instead of talking about taking uh history away from us, that they start telling the the true history that we did fight for this country, and if it hadn't been for us, especially in uh in Korea, they would have pushed United States and the UN into the sea.

It's time that they start telling the whole history of the United States instead of whitewashing it.

Like we didn't uh we didn't do anything.

We had soldiers, black soldiers come to come from uh uh Europe.

They get into New York, you know what happened to them.

They got attacked.

Thank you.

Our next public speaker is Hannah Underhill.

Hannah Underhill here.

Our next speaker is Prophet Yusuf.

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.

In the book of Psalms, the 30th chapter, the fourth to the fifth verse, it says, sing to the Lord, you saints of peers.

Praise his holy name.

For his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime.

Weeping may remain for a night, but joy comes in the morning.

What I want to speak about tonight lies about African American service members.

What he said.

Secretary of the Navy, Frank Knox said in World War II, only things blacks was good for was to be stewardmates and messens that were not qualified to operate the sophisticated machinery of the United States Navy.

A messman, first class, proved to be proved him to be wrong.

His name was Leonard Roar Haman.

He was awarded the Navy Cross, the Purple Hob for Ballot during the Battle of Guadalcanal.

He saved the life of the exo while under fire.

He was a messman, first class assigned to the USS San Francisco, a heavy cruiser.

He was the first black to have a United States warship named after him, the USS Hum, a destroyer escort 678.

He also commemorated for his heroism for the name of the bachelor's enlisted quarters at Naval Air Station, North Island, in 1975.

A state historical marker was placed in his hometown in Searro, Texas, at Surround Municipal Park in 1977.

A poster of him hangs in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington.

So African American people don't believe the lies they say about our people.

And thank God for all veterans.

Also, they want to tell my great niece Angela, who is a linguistic, Mr.

Gasparini, a for a funeral director, and Mr.

Rock, a barber.

This was a long time.

And I'm gonna get it off my chest tonight.

I don't like you, I love you.

And you can't do nothing about it.

And happy birthday, my good friends, and I wish you many more, and God bless you and your family.

Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday to my good friends, happy birthday to you.

Thank you for allowing me to speak.

Thank you.

Is Hannah Underhill here?

Well here.

Here.

Present.

Here.

Thank you.

Um item one under committee reports is approval of the 2026 annual action plan to have a motion to approve.

Are there any questions or comments?

Um, all those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed, same sign?

Item passes.

We have one item under a resolution.

Um is in a resolution approving the creation of grant programs to support Rockford Business Associations.

Do I have a motion to approve?

Any questions or comments?

All the woman meets.

I just wanted to um I only have a comment.

Wanted to say thank you for presenting this program and listening to the numerous residents that sorry business associations that kind of came together to um say that this was needed.

So thank you so much for creating this process and especially to Anna Garrison as well.

Thank you.

I got you now.

Sorry.

Alder Woman Hoffman.

Thank you.

I I really like the concept, and I've met with Anna and everything, but I cannot remember what the funding source is.

Sure.

So for the four um existing or already up and running business, uh, they are all in TIFFs.

So they will most of that funding will come from TIFFs.

And then for the business create the associations that could be created, again, if there's a TIFF, we'll use that.

If not, we'll use casino funds.

The economic development portion of casino funds.

Thank you, because I know my area is one of the ones being considered, and it's not a TIFF, so that's the other place the casino funds.

Yes.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Um, what I was clear on is the forty thousand dollar limit.

That's not available to the current business districts, only to ones that are going to start up.

Is that right?

No, it's the opposite.

The 40,000 is only available to the current districts.

Like you have to get you can apply for up to 40,000 if you're already organized, functioning, and can show a you know a business plan and that you'll be able to use it for the activities it's meant to go towards for the newly forming organizations.

We're first offering up to ten thousand dollars while they form.

Thank you.

And then they could apply for the other.

Thank you.

Any other questions or comments?

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed, same sign?

Do I have a motion to adjourn?

Are there any questions or comments?

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

All those opposed, same sign.

This meeting is adjourned.