By Kevin Haas
Rock River Current
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LOVES PARK — It’s been said that everyone gets their 15 minutes of fame.
If you were to claim yours during a Loves Park City Council meeting, you’d still have two minutes of fame left over by the time the meeting concluded.
The city conducts its business at a notoriously quick pace, wrapping up in an average of 13 minutes during 26 meetings conducted so far this year, according to an analysis of start and adjourn times by the Rock River Current.
Compare that to a city like Rockford and you might provoke some jealousy. Loves Park’s bigger neighbor has meetings that last, on average, an hour and two minutes during its 17 meetings this year.
Rockford Mayor Tom McNamara says while his City Council meeting is just getting started he occasionally gets a text from Loves Park Mayor Greg Jury.
“Ope, just finished,” it reads, McNamara said.
The Rockford mayor isn’t joking. Rockford City Council meetings allow for five public speakers to opine for three minutes each at the start of a meeting. So by the time that’s concluded 15 minutes later, Jury and company are often already on the way home.
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There’s good reason for the fast pace, Jury says. He credits it to a mix of efficiency, weekly meetings as opposed to the every-other-week schedule some governments keep and the volume of work needed for a community of roughly 24,000.
Loves Park also typically uses the committee meetings that happen before the full council meets to debate any outstanding issues. That way, by the time the City Council meets they’re ready to simply cast a vote.
“We are very efficient. We let the committees do their job,” Jury said. “So when it becomes council time we basically go through the agenda. There’s not a lot of discussion because that’s already taken place before the meeting.”
Jury was even efficient in his interview, answering all our questions in just 3 minutes and 21 seconds. (Yes, we timed it.)
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The city also often has fewer items to tackle on its agenda than its bigger brother, Rockford, which has a population of nearly 150,000.
Rockford’s most recent City Council meeting, for example, had 44 items on the agenda. Loves Park, meanwhile, had 10, including the Pledge of Allegiance.
So when Jury banged his gavel to conclude this past Monday’s meeting, just 14 minutes and 44 seconds had passed. That’s a little longer than average, but most of the time was spent congratulating and then listening to remarks from the national champion Harlem High School bowlers, who had a proclamation given in their honor.
It makes sense that a larger community like Rockford would have longer meetings, but even similar-sized cities like Belvidere take quite a bit longer, with its meetings lasting an hour and three minutes on average.
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Machesney Park, Loves Park’s similar-sized neighbor to the north, doesn’t waste time during its Village Board meetings either. But its business still takes a little longer at an average 27 minutes over 11 meetings this year.
That could, in part, be credited to Loves Park meeting every week while Machesney Park meets the first and third Mondays of the month, Loves Park City Clerk Bob Burden and Jury both noted.
Short jokes
The pace of business has left Loves Park open to some good-natured ribbing from its municipal neighbors. When it comes to making fun of their meeting lengths, “everybody does,” McNamara said.
“Due to (Jury’s) age, there’s really two things that make those meetings so short: He usually has to use the restroom or it’s nap time,” McNamara joked.
We should note that some members of McNamara’s administration grimaced upon learning of that quote, but the mayor said it’s nothing Jury hasn’t heard before.
“I say that to him every time,” he said.
And McNamara isn’t the only one.
When Winnebago County Board Chairman Joe Chiarelli, a former Rockford City Council member, started his state of the county speech in March he paused when he spotted Jury in the crowd.
“He asked me last night, ‘How long are you going to talk.’ I said I’m not sure yet,” Chiarelli said of Jury. “He said, well you know Loves Park’s City Council meetings are only six minutes long.”
The exchange drew a laugh from those in attendance, but it wasn’t exactly an exaggeration. Loves Park City Council meetings have lasted six minutes three times this year, and on 10 occasions the length of the meeting was in the single digits.
“I do get a hard time from the other ones,” Jury said. “Sometimes they’re still on public comment when I’m driving home.”
While McNamara jokes with Jury about meeting times, he said it’s not something the city actually concerns itself with.
“Sometimes you’ll have really productive meetings that are incredibly long and sometimes you’ll have really productive meetings that are short,” McNamara said.
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Jury was seated next to the city’s attorney Gino Galluzzo on Monday when we told the mayor our calculation of the average meeting length. Galluzzo was surprised — that the meetings were that long. That’s for good reason. If it weren’t for three meetings that uncharacteristically lasted about a half hour this year, the average would’ve dropped to 11 minutes.
The city’s short meetings aren’t a new trend. It’s been like that in administrations before Jury took over, too.
“I was an alderman for 18 years before and it was the same thing,” he said. “Our meetings have always been very short.”
Happy customers, possible changes
Jury also says meetings move by quickly because the city has little controversy to address.
“We’re very efficient, and I think we do a great job,” he said. “I think the members of the community are very happy with what’s going on.”
Jury said, however, that the city has weighed the possibility of switching to an every-other-week City Council schedule. That would lead to fewer but more meaty meetings.
But it’s not a quick change, Jury said. Elected officials salaries, by law, must be set 180 days before an election. Right now, aldermen are paid at a rate of $225 per meeting. That works out to $1,038 per hour based on the average meeting time, although it’s probably not fair mathematics because City Council members often are called work with constituents round the clock.
There are five of the city’s aldermen up for election in spring 2023 and five more in spring 2025.
“So you’d be able to start that after the ’25 election,” Jury said.
Until then, the city will continue to try to conduct its business efficiently.
“I think everybody, their goal would be to have their meetings like ours,” Jury said.
Reporting intern Mary Sisk contributed to this story.
This article is by Kevin Haas. Email him at khaas@rockrivercurrent.com or follow him on Twitter at @KevinMHaas.