The Finance and Personnel Committee met on Monday, May 11, 2026 at 5:30 PM to consider a variety of financial and operational items, including a major bond issuance for a convention center and hotel partnership with Hard Rock Rockford. All items on the agenda were approved unanimously by voice vote.
Welcome to the finance and personnel committee meeting held tonight, Monday, May 11th. Sir Clerk, would you please take roll? Here. Thank you. First item in our committee reports number one is approval of vouchers in the amount of 11 million eight hundred and sixteen thousand four hundred and forty dollars and eight cents. Is there a motion to approve vouchers? Any questions or comments on vouchers? Alderman Thunberg. Chairman, I actually have uh three, but I will hold those off until council and or call during the week, which uh unfortunately I didn't have time to make that call. So thank you. All right. Um other questions or comments. Seeing none, all those in favor indicate by I. Aye. Opposed? Matter passes. Item two is an appropriate approval of the bond sale for an issuance of 103 million dollars in taxable general obligation bonds, alternate revenue source for convention center and hotel public-private partnership with Hard Rock Rockford. Um is there a motion to approve? Uh before we have any questions or comments, we have a short presentation, Mr. Kagoni. Um certain, certainly, Chairman. Uh Director Hagerty and I can walk through what the request is this evening. And um Dan Fisher and Gino Fantre are also here this evening and just walking in now and would be happy to answer any questions that may go um directly to them. But what is up for consideration is the first step in a multi-step process, uh, which we are requesting authorization to start the bonding process where we're looking to secure $90 million in bond proceeds, so a total bond amount of $103 million to fund the construction of a hotel and convention center that would be attached to the Hard Rock Casino. Um their overall plan would be that this would be a convention center and hotel owned by the city of Rockford. Um, it would the debt service would be paid uh by Hard Rock Rockford through a development agreement, uh corporate guarantee and management agreement for the operation of the overall um convention center and hotel. Um they have secured uh a market study. Uh there's uh a summary of that uh within the packet as from the letter from Mr. Mr. Fisher, talking about the overall scope and scale of the project, uh their evaluation of the market, the occupancy rate, the average uh rate per night um within the hotel and convention center, which would demonstrate that it would have significant and sufficient cash flow to pay for the debt service. Um we I also referenced uh a development agreement that we would prepare uh which set forth additional terms related to an exit strategy for the City of Rockford um in the seven to ten year time frame uh where Hard Rock Rockford would be able to take over ownership um of the facility as well as revive revisions to the host community agreement on the minimum guarantee. I would note that the authorization to sell bond proceeds is the first step in the process and will come back before committee and city council uh for final approval after all the public notification process as well as the preparation of the development agreement, the management agreement, and the revisions of the host agreement and any other necessary uh documents. I just could you please explain uh what's meant by the alternate revenue source of these of these bonds for Ms. Agri. Certainly. So this language comes from state statute, which authorizes the city to issue bonds that are backed by the city's taxing authority, uh, but the repayment source is a pledge other than property taxes. Um we would traditionally issue those for an uh another construction project or development project as what we would call sales tax alternates. In this instance, the alternate revenue source is the net uh proceeds of the operation of the hotel and convention center. Thank you so much. Um do we have any questions from the committee? Mr. Alderman Logan. Thank you, Administrator Cagnonian and Director Uh Hagerty for that little presentation. I know I was uh tagged in a couple Facebook comments um with neighborhood groups uh wanting to learn more about the project. And um, of course, we all I think all aldermen around us, we always hear about public safety. People want to feel safe in their homes, and then um public infrastructure is really important to folks. Um concerns that uh other neighbors had brought up was like you know, they want they want potholes gone, they want uh better streets. I know the delta of the the project uh for our annual budget is around like four million dollars. Um those funds could be used in the future um in some capacity to to help rebuild streets and roads, correct? Yes, certainly.