The Aurora City Council will consider Tuesday a measure that would devote certain tax dollars and city staff time towards creating a new independent organization for the city’s downtown area.
This proposed new nonprofit organization would be similar to the one that recently joined with other groups to form the Aurora Regional Economic Alliance, according to past reporting.
The former Aurora Downtown organization used to manage funds generated by a special tax applied to property within Special Service Area Number One, located in downtown Aurora. Using those funds, the organization worked to support the downtown area through things like marketing, improvements, events and more.
City staff are now asking the Aurora City Council to put aside $50,000 from Special Service Area Number One funds and to devote staff time to help reform a downtown organization, now set to be called the Aurora Downtown Association.
The resolution, which did not go through the typical committee process and is instead going straight before the Aurora City Council, is on the agenda for Tuesday’s council meeting at 6 p.m.
Last year, the former Aurora Downtown organization’s board voted to combine with three others — the Aurora Regional Chamber of Commerce, Invest Aurora and the Quad County African American Chamber of Commerce — to become the Aurora Regional Economic Alliance. The idea was to bring these separate economic organizations under one umbrella to combine their efforts and cut out repeat functions.
The city of Aurora originally supported the merger with $3 million. Between then and the city’s recent work to reform a downtown organization, John Laesch was elected and sworn in as the new mayor.
He previously voted against supporting the merger with $3 million when he sat on the City Council as an alderman at-large.
Laesch has said he heard, both on the campaign trail and during downtown-specific town hall meetings, that those within Special Service Area Number One wanted more authority over how the funds generated by the tax are spent. Based on that feedback, the city started the process of recreating an organization to manage that money and earlier this year sent a letter to downtown stakeholders with its recommendation.
The Aurora Regional Economic Alliance, once slated to continue the work of Aurora Downtown, will continue managing downtown events through the end of the year with funding from the Special Service Area One tax, as approved by the Aurora City Council last month.
The city has now organized a group of volunteers to oversee the creation of the new downtown organization, but those volunteers need legal assistance for things like determining board structure, preparing governing documents and applying for federal and state tax-exempt status, according to the proposal for funding and city staff support going before the Aurora City Council on Tuesday.
Once up and running, the proposed nonprofit organization is planned to be separate from the city but have a partnership with it. The letter sent to downtown stakeholders proposing the new organization laid out the duties that the city and the new organization would each have, and what they would share.
The city would be responsible for overseeing the budget, managing databases, board logistics and the legal setup of the organization, while the organization would be responsible for day-to-day operations and stakeholder communications as well as marketing and events.
Both would be responsible for financial transparency, reporting to stakeholders, strategic planning and support for the board.
While the organization’s function would be similar to the former Aurora Downtown, its governance and level of transparency could be different, city officials have previously said.
The letter proposed a board of directors with seven voting members, made up of four people who own property within Special Service Area Number One and three owners or managers of businesses located within the special service area.
The board would also have three to five non-voting advisory member seats for city employees and four “ex officio” members, one each from the Aurora Civic Center Authority, Waubonsee Community College, the Aurora Area Convention and Visitors Bureau and the Aurora Area Economic Alliance.
The letter, obtained by The Beacon-News through a public records request, also included a proposed timeline for putting the new organization in place. It proposed the legal formation of the new organization, as well as board elections, to begin last month or this month.
The letter’s timeline shows that, in November and December, the first board meeting could take place, bylaws could be drafted and the recruitment for a staff member could begin. A draft of the bylaws were proposed to be complete by January or February and approved by the board along with the hiring of a staff member in March or April.
rsmith@chicagotribune.com
