Normal Mayor Chris Koos says a potential campus area grocery store may require both the university and town to help it succeed. And he said Tuesday that a lot more work needs to be done before such a project is ready to move forward.
A recent survey of more than 1,100 Illinois State University students done by the group Citizens for Equitable Food Access (CEFA), showed 97% of those who responded desire a grocery. About half the participants said they do not have access to a car to go to a grocery store further from campus. Meanwhile, community members who gave input for the Uptown South master plan expressed a strong preference for a grocery store there.
Koos said those are significant findings.
“The question answered is yes, I want it. The more important question is how to identify if you’ll actually use it,” Koos said on WGLT's Sound Ideas. “The marketing data you need to find out if they would really use it is another step.”
Koos said he has been encouraging the student group and has met with them multiple times. He also said it doesn’t have to be a grocery in Uptown because there are other suitable sites near the university that could be considered.
“Partnering with the administration at Illinois State University is going to be important to this. It’s going to need some help for it to function and move forward, whether we help or ISU helps or whether we both help,” said Koos. “Maybe some subsidies, rent subsidies, things like that.”
Another idea emerging from a visioning discussion with the student group, he said, is whether such a grocery should be run as an incubator or a lab for academic purposes.
“Is it a test module for business students, for finance students, or whoever,” said Koos.
Koos said the student group Assessing Concrete Community-wide Equitable Solutions Sustainably (ACCESS) has his support in moving the proposal forward.
“Is it ready to pull the trigger tomorrow? No ... there is more investigation. And I think that they understand that. They’ve done a lot of work on that and they understand the difficulty of getting this to fruition. And I’m definitely willing to work with them going forward on this,” said Koos.
Cannabis dispensary
The town council will have a policy discussion next month about the rules covering the placement of cannabis retail sales outlets within town boundaries.
On Monday, council members voted to approve the second and third such cannabis locations in the town — High Haven in the former Mandarin Garden restaurant building near the Shoppes at College Hills, and Revolution on Raab Road near Northbrook Drive. The High Haven proposal came only a month after council members rejected the initial proposal.
“They came back with a more robust plan for parking, and how to deal with some of the traffic issues that people were concerned about in how people enter and exit the property. I felt they had in good faith tried to address some issues. That's why I voted for it,” said Koos.
He acknowledged a month’s wait for the policy discussion to take place before acting on the applications would not have been unreasonable, but added there were state licensing deadlines to consider for at least one of the applicants.
“And if you didn't meet those guidelines, you lose the license. The applicants were kind of under the gun to get it done,” said Koos. “Also, they had a location they wanted, and they were working with the owner of that location. If there had been another delay, that might have might have gotten in the way of that.”
Koos said the council will have to decide whether to cap the number of pot shops and how to refine language covering special use permits and when rejected applicants can re-apply.
He said there are those who may wish for no cannabis sales in town, who may push for tighter siting regulations as a way to make it more difficult.
But Koos said, “We had an opportunity to do that when we passed our original ordinance. That ship has sailed and cannabis is legal in the Town of Normal and the City of Bloomington.”
Amtrak board
The mayor has been nominated for a seat on the Amtrak board that oversees the nation’s passenger rail service. That has happened under two presidential administrations, and there have been holdups for years over a variety of issues. Now there is another hurdle.
“Sen. Jon Tester of Montana put a hold on all the Amtrak nominees because he was making the argument the original charter required more board members to be from outside the Northeast Corridor, which is a significant part of Amtrak's operation,” said Koos.
Koos is the only one of the current batch of nominees who is from the Midwest and outside the northeast. He characterized as "politics" the effort to pressure the Biden administration for broader representation and not to carve out his nomination for the Senate alone.
“My relationship with Sen. Tester’s office is very, very good. But I understand what he's trying to do. I'm not comfortable, or happy about it, because I'm ready to serve. But that's above my pay grade,” said Koos.
Tester is a Democrat from Montana and viewed as perhaps one of the two most vulnerable members of the Senate who are up for reelection in the next cycle. Some observers suggest that plays a part in the standoff because Tester can point to his action as serving the interests and representation of his state.
Koos rejected the idea.
“In my dealings with Sen. Tester and his staff, he is a stand-up senator. He stands for his values. He's very clear on that. And I don't see him playing the political game on this one,” said Koos.
In two years, Koos also is up for re-election. He deferred answering whether he would run again.
“Ask me in a year and a half,” said Koos. “This is a very American thing that the moment an election is over, the next election starts. Let's give everybody a chance to govern for a while.”
