Gary Storm for Urbana City Council

Initiatives:

• Promote police-community relations programs that bring local residents and landlords together with human service and law enforcement personnel to assess neighborhood problems and design solutions for them; these might include neighborhood-based bicycle patrols that “mainstream” police into the life of the community often in helpful or constructive roles.
• Develop neighborhood resources/programs that give residents access to needed services or constructive outlets for their leisure time; the services might include child care or substance abuse counseling and the constructive outlets might be a community garden or small park with sports facilities.
• Promote neighborhood watch programs; ideally these would evolve naturally out of neighborhoods whose streets, sidewalks, parks were alive with residents of all ages participating in a rich array of neighborhood activities, especially leisure activities (outdoor recreation, community gardening, music groups, etc.).

Initiative: Provide a City "Matching Grants Program" to encourage the development of a wide range of neighborhood/community improvement projects. These might include a number of projects described above, and they could be organized through existing clubs or organizations (often nonprofit) or through new grassroots associations (often cooperative), but with financial help from the City, perhaps on a declining basis over several years until the activities can become self sustaining.

• Child Care Cooperatives
• School- or Public Housing-based Health and Social Services
• School- or Public Housing-based Community Centers
• Community Gardens
• Neighborhood/Community Beautification Projects
• Recycling Projects
• Mini-Parks and Playgrounds
• Workshops and Tool Exchanges
• Reading/Discussion Groups
• Political and/or Debate Clubs
• Athletic and/or Sports Clubs
• Civic Organizations
• Monthly Neighborhood/Community Forums to identify and discuss issues and problems
• Arts Organizations (different media)

I will work to:

Procure new federal funds for economic recovery and reinvestment to pay for public works of numerous kinds: infrastructure improvements; new information/communication technologies; improved public transportation systems; upgraded school, health and social service facilities; and grassroots community improvement projects organized by citizen groups.

Use existing sales tax revenues, special TIF funds, and new grant revenues for the same purposes in order to provide the physical and social infrastructure required to attract business, residential and cultural investment.

Promote development within established areas rather than on the periphery of the community in order to minimize urban sprawl and destruction of valuable agricultural land surrounding Urbana.

• Specific to Ward 7: Monitor development of the University’s old Pomology Orchard (at the SW corner of Philo and Windsor Roads) and of Orchard Downs (west of Race Street between Windsor Road and Florida Avenue) to insure that Ward 7 residents have a voice in decisions made and that the developments be completed in ecologically-responsible ways that also respect the social, cultural and aesthetic character of the existing neighborhoods.)
• Downtown Urbana: Involve the City, business and citizen groups in downtown planning and development; create incentives for small scale commercial and cultural enterprises; establish higher density housing for a variety of age and income groups; and connect the two downtowns and campus through an energy efficient transportation corridor that includes walking and bike paths (increased land values along the corridor will attract many kinds of investment)

Promote intensive, organic approaches to gardening and farming both inside and outside the city through the promotion of neighborhood/community gardens and community supported agriculture (CSA) efforts.

Encourage the development of ecologically responsible leisure activities that are rewarding but consume less energy and materials than current lifestyles—e.g., creative intellectual and artistic activities, reading and discussion groups, debate groups, amateur athletic competition and sport, landscape design and gardening, etc.; often these can be organized as clubs or nonprofit social or civic groups.

Initiatives:

• Use existing TIF funds to develop facilities/programs (e.g., store front schools) providing practical education and job training skills that can be employed by graduates to pursue private and public sector jobs in the community; ideally, students would be given opportunities to work as interns for pay while learning new skills and later be employed by cooperating employers—public, private or nonprofit.
• Encourage development of cooperative day care programs where parents, under the supervision of professionals, provide some care directly while learning child development skills; in most cases these parents would be combining child care with school and/or employment responsibilities.
• Locate health and social services personnel in schools and/or public housing facilities where they are readily available to both children and parents; with careful planning, schools and public housing facilities can become more comprehensive neighborhood or community centers offering a variety of developmental opportunities.

You can help us bring change to Urbana by donating to my campaign or volunteering to help get the word out about my campaign.

To volunteer, contact me and I will let you know about opportunities to help.

Phone: (217) 367-0879
Mail: 304 E. George Huff Drive, Urbana, IL 61801
Email: gary@electstorm.org

To donate, I can accept checks made out to "Friends of Gary Storm".

Thank you!

• Encourage regular neighborhood-, ward-, and community-wide forums to identify and discuss issues and problems of concern to residents of Urbana.
• Use new communications technology to open City Council deliberations to participation by place-bound and mobility restricted individuals.
• Experiment with "participatory budgeting" as a way of involving the wider public in decisions about how their tax money gets spent.
• Encourage greater use of publicly-initiated referenda (binding and non-binding) in City decision making thereby achieving more direct democracy.
• Adopt electoral reforms that will encourage wider participation (by candidates, parties, and voters) in City elections and guarantee that no candidate be elected with less than 50% of the votes cast.
• Initiate a City "Matching Grants Program" to encourage the development of community improvement projects throughout the community, projects initiated by existing nonprofit organizations or new grassroots citizen groups. Such a program would create new avenues for residents to become actively involved in bettering their own lives and the life of the community; it would energize citizen action in many constructive ways.

I will work hard to bring progressive and "green" perspectives on local issues to the Urbana City Council. These perspectives are embodied in the following "Ten Key Values" adopted by the local Green Party of East Central Illinois:

1. Ecological Wisdom. The Greens recognize that the Earth sustains all life processes. Green ecology moves beyond environmentalism by understanding the relation between abuse of people and abuse of nature.

2. Social Justice and Equal Opportunity. Greens want to replace the worldwide system of poverty and injustice with a world free of oppression based on class, gender, race, citizenship, age, sexual orientation, disability or belief.

3. Grassroots Democracy. The powerless suffer the most from resource depletion and toxic pollution. Greens believe in direct participation by all people in environmental, political and economic decisions that affect their lives.

4. Nonviolence. Greens reject violence as a way of settling disputes—it is shortsighted, morally wrong, and ultimately self-defeating.

5. Decentralization. Power and responsibility must be restored to local communities within an overall frame work of ecologically sound and socially just values and lifestyles

6. Community Based Economics. Greens seek a new economics based upon the limits of our natural resources, which meets the basic needs of everyone, under democratic, localized community control.

7. Gender Equity and Cooperative Values. The ethics of cooperation and understanding must replace the values of domination and control over others. Our primary focus is in the nurturing our world and each other.

8. Respect for Diversity. Greens honor biological diversity of the Earth and the cultural, sexual, and spiritual diversity of Earth’s people. We aim to reclaim this country’s finest ideals: popular democracy, dignity of the individual with liberty and justice for all.

9. Personal and Global responsibility. Greens are committed to global sustainability and international justice through political solidarity and in personal lifestyles based on self-sufficiency and minimal resource impact.

10. Future Focus and Sustainability. Greens seek a society where interests of the seventh generation are considered equal to the interests of the present. We must reclaim the future for our children and ourselves.

I consider myself a lifelong environmentalist. My interest in the environment was influenced greatly by my father’s career as a geologist/publisher and by my grandfather’s avocation as a naturalist and photographer. As a young person, I also had an opportunity to travel throughout the U.S. with my family in conjunction with my father’s work. This introduced me to many state and national parks during my formative years, and my grandfather’s movie footage of the west reinforced my commitment to nature preservation. These experiences then influenced the focus of my university studies culminating in my Ph.D. dissertation on environmental education, my public affairs involvement with Lincoln Memorial Garden in Springfield, and my efforts to establish a green residential community in Missouri.

My experience as a high school foreign exchange student to Switzerland reinforced my appreciation for natural beauty and the beauty of well designed communities that were modern and efficient but preserved many traditional architectural styles. This experience also introduced me to the role the United Nations played in the world since many of its specialized agencies were located in Geneva. I also came to appreciate the peacekeeping role Switzerland has played in international diplomacy through the years.