URBANA — This Saturday, DeShawn Williams will be sworn in as the next mayor of Urbana. He’ll take the place of the current mayor, Diane Wolfe Marlin, who decided not to run for reelection.
Marlin was first elected mayor in 2017. She says her primary focus has been to strengthen the city’s financial standing while improving infrastructure and policing.
IPM News’ Jim Meadows sat down with Marlin a few weeks ago to reflect on her time as mayor. The two discussed her efforts to bolster city finances, build trust in public safety and navigate uncertainties with the federal government.
Editor’s Note: Marlin is a longtime supporter and a former volunteer with Illinois Public Media. IPM News covers her as it does any other leader in our area.
This conversation has been edited for clarity and conciseness.
JIM MEADOWS: What do you know now about the city of Urbana that you didn’t know when you first ran?
DIANE MARLIN: I’ll tell you, I thought I knew a lot about city government because I had served on the [Urbana City Council] for eight years, but you really never understand the full scope of responsibilities and duties until you take the office. I came into office and I had some goals, and we’ve accomplished all of those, I believe, but one of the major goals was to restore the financial health of the city. So that’s what we focused on the first few years.
MEADOWS: What was the state of the city’s financial health, and what was the problem with it?
MARLIN: Well, we were facing a $2.5 million structural deficit, and in order to fix that, we had to make some very painful decisions. We also needed to rebuild our emergency reserves, that was lower than what they should have been, and we needed to get ourselves back on track for funding our police and fire pensions. And all of those financial challenges had to be dealt with before we could even begin to look at other projects and goals.
MEADOWS: What sort of painful decisions did you have to do at that point?
MARLIN: Well, we looked at staffing levels, we looked at organization of departments, we did a service inventory. We were looking at any possible ways we could reduce our expenses and spending at the same time. We increased a few sources of revenue, including sales tax, food and beverage tax. So a combination of spending reductions and some revenue increases over a period of about three years was what we had to follow. We did a voluntary separation program. We literally looked everywhere we could and made very strategic decisions so that we could maintain essential services while still addressing our financial challenges.
MEADOWS: Where do you see the city now financially?
MARLIN: We build a strong financial foundation. We eliminated our deficit, we rebuilt our city reserves to now, where there’s 25% of our general operating fund. We have eliminated the deficit, of course, and we are halfway through implementing our facilities improvement plan. So we are in a strong financial foundation right now. Unfortunately, now there’s so much uncertainty at the federal government level that going forward, it’s hard to say what’s going to happen, but at least we are — I’m handing over a city that at least has a very strong foundation.
MEADOWS: You’ve touched on, you know, uncertainty with what’s going on in the federal government. I’m thinking of all your years in city government — council and mayor under, what, three different presidents and four different governors, if I’m counting right. How did work in local government change over those years because of impacts from state and federal government?
MARLIN: Well, they describe being mayor as like drinking from a fire hose, and that’s what it was like. You’re always as a city, always responding to what’s happening at the state level and at the federal level. I mean, during the early years, we went, for a couple of years without a state budget. We had a change in federal administration during the COVID years. So, now we’re looking at [a] great deal of uncertainty related to federal grants. Currently, our budget this year has about $7.5 million in federal funding. Most of that funding is in our Community Development Block Grants and the funding we get from [The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development]. Those are the funds that we use for essential services, human services, for housing and neighborhood improvement in our low income areas. So that’s a real challenge. We’re also looking at a $10 million federal grant that we had been awarded earlier this year to rebuild Florida Avenue. That is one of the grants that we’re still waiting to hear what the outcome will be. I’m hoping that they’ll continue with that one.
MEADOWS: Okay, so that’s where things — this is really a different situation from years past.
MARLIN: Yeah, in terms of the federal funding, we’ve never had this degree of uncertainty that then, compared to the past. With COVID, we, you know, we were lucky to have very strong state leadership from [Governor JB Pritzker] in terms of the public health response to COVID. That’s what I relied on a great deal, along with our community partners. I didn’t count, I didn’t turn to the federal government for accurate information during COVID. But we had very strong leadership at the state level. And that that was very important during those years.
MEADOWS: When I was looking back on some of the big issues that were debated at city council meetings over the last several years, it just seemed like a lot of them circled around the city’s police department about, you know, how they should handle, say, mental health emergencies, their use of force policy, how to address gun violence and treatment of African Americans. Where do you think Urbana is right now on these issues with its police department, as you end your term?
MARLIN: There are always going to be issues related to policing. We did make a lot of progress. We, following the George Floyd murder, we worked with the NAACP of Champaign County and the ACLU and the police department to completely rewrite our use of force policy. We adopted the 10 shared principles for community policing. We’ve continued to work with the African American community and with the police department to strengthen relationships where, you know, I’m part of the Community Coalition, which is a Champaign-Urbana, really a Champaign County-wide effort to strengthen relationships, and I think we’ve we’ve come a long way. And we’re on the verge of convening an alternative response task force. So we pulled this group together last summer. We now have a facilitator for this, and they’ll start their work soon, but we will be looking at how we can best respond to calls for service, especially the ones that are non-violent calls for service to better meet the needs of the community. And that is a high priority of the city council, and we are poised to start that work as well. So we had several years ago hired — we have a crisis co-responder team. So we have a behavioral health detective, a sworn officer who’s also has a degree in social work. And we have a social worker through Rosecrance to provide follow-up services for calls that relate to more mental health issues. But this alternative response model that we hope will be developed is going to, I think, fundamentally change the way we respond to some calls that come into our police and fire department. And that’s important. I think many communities are going in that direction now.
MEADOWS: Do you feel that you got everything done you wanted to do? Did you leave anything undone? You have a list, a lot of them are crossed out, but there are still a few left.
MARLIN: There’s just a couple left. I had a very long to do list, and of course, you come in with a certain set of goals and priorities and discover that other things may take precedent, but I wanted to resolve some long standing litigation issues related to hospital property taxes, the Windsor Road lawsuit, of course, getting our financial health back in order, reopening of the Hotel Royer. I felt It was very important to have good data and information to support what we do. As far as our public infrastructure, we developed a Facilities Master Plan. We’ve done asset mapping of all of our infrastructure, our streets, our sidewalks, our sewer system, everything, and that now forms the basis for a capital improvement plan. We have a draft of our new comprehensive plan that will go to City Council next Monday. That’s been several years in the making, and we’ve rewritten portions of city code. We rewrote the entire liquor code. The mayor also serves as the Liquor Commissioner in Urbana. So we spent a lot of time developing the plans and accumulating the information we needed to inform what we do from now on, and that’s all part of using your resources effectively. We’re in the process of building two new fire stations to replace the very old and outdated fire stations. We’ve remodeled City Hall, parts of City Hall, and plans are in the works for the public works campus, and we have seen a great deal of new businesses emerging in downtown Urbana, and that’s all part of the plan to increase both population in downtown Urbana, but also retail activity.
MEADOWS: Looking back, any regrets, anything you would have done differently? Say, if you knew now, what I know then, or, if I knew now what was going to happen that I didn’t know then?
MARLIN: Sure, you know, hindsight is always 2020, but I’m not going to dwell on regrets. You do the best you can with the information that you have at the time. You try to learn as much as you can, get as many different perspectives, but ultimately, you have to make decisions based on what you know. You have to keep your personal feelings in front of you and with you, but you also have to do what you think is best for the community as a whole. And that’s one of the hardest things that I’ve had to, that you have to learn as mayor, is that you represent the entire community, and you need to keep that in mind at all times.
MEADOWS: And as you step away from the mayor’s office and from elected city government, what do you see as the major issues that the city of Urbana will face in its future?
MARLIN: It’s continuing to provide the services that people need. I think, given the current tone and situation at the federal government, local government is the most important form of government. It’s where people will turn for help. We need to make sure that people have housing and food and the services that we need. We have to maintain essential city services. There are areas in the community that now we need to turn our attention to. And what we’re seeing now is in along the Philo Road corridor, I think we’re going to need stronger tools to deal with out-of-state property owners who allow apartment buildings to deteriorate. We have a number of ordinances and tools in place, but there’s just a whole other level of neglect that now we’re going to have to deal with, but mainly the next few years is getting through the uncertainty that faces this country.
MEADOWS: Any particular advice you have for your successor as mayor?
MARLIN: Do the best you can. Do the best you can, to the best of your ability. You can’t make everybody happy, but again, you have to make decisions based on what is best for the community as a whole.