The Downtown Neighborhood Association of Elgin is being evicted from its city-owned office space after the nonprofit notified city officials it wouldn’t be signing a new contract in which the terms were changed without their input.
DNA has been told it has 60 days to vacate the space it shares at 31 S. Grove Ave. with the Elgin Area Chamber of Commerce and other nonprofit organizations.
DNA Executive Director Jennifer Fukala said no reason or explanation for the lease termination was provided.
Mayor Dave Kaptain said the city does not give free space to nonprofits “unless they are in an agreement with us.”
“It’s kind of unfortunate that it has gone this way,” he said.
DNA is a mostly volunteer organization that strives to “strengthen the economic vitality of the downtown” by providing business support services, working to bring more businesses downtown and creating events like the Downtown Elgin Market in the summer to drive foot traffic and visibility, according to its mission statement.
This summer, DNA negotiated a new three-year contract with the city under which the agency would be paid $180,000 in the first year and a 3% increase per year in the second two.
The tentative agreement included provisos that DNA have a financial audit conducted and hire a consultant by year’s end to explore the idea of creating a Special Service Area (SSA) through which a special tax could be collected to help fund DNA. Such a taxing district would need Elgin City Council approval to be established.
However, at the September council meeting at which the contract was finalized, an amendment was added to require DNA to add two new board members — one chosen by the Elgin chamber and the other by the convention and visitors bureau.
DNA officials balked at the last-minute change and notified the city on Oct. 24 that they would not be signing the deal because it was not the one they’d negotiated and upon which both sides agreed. They also cited other problems, including the expectation that they hire an SSA consultant by the end of the year without any guidelines or direction from the city.
“The feasibility of being able to accomplish this part of the contract seemed less and less likely,” DNA board member Kerri Liu said.
Elgin Councilman Anthony Ortiz said the organization’s “decision not to sign the (contract) is entirely their choice.”
“I value the work DNA has done downtown. This contract was to help them get to the next level and become independent from the city,” he said, calling the eviction an “administrative matter” of which the council was informed.
But Councilman Corey Dixon called the move “a travesty.”
“It should never have come to this. DNA is an excellent organization and they’ve rebuilt downtown to the best that it’s been in decades. As I’ve said publicly before, this is the result of personal and political grudges and is not a reflection of DNA’s value or impact.”
While the eviction was an administrative matter, city staff took the unusual step of having the city council negotiate the contract terms rather than having it go through the city manager’s office. The previous contract expired in June.
Board President Brian Piñon called the negotiation process chaos. Board member Joy Symonds agreed.
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“We’ve been going back and forth on this for months without much collaboration,” she said.
The issue of creating an SSA didn’t come up until two weeks before the contract was set to expire, Fukala said.
“Nobody has had a single conversation with us, especially me, about an SSA in the eight years I’ve been employed here,” Fukala said. “This has all been a very vague conversation.
“Once DNA saw the new agreement and looked at it from a practical perspective, it was not practical,” she said.
While Piñon agrees that it is acceptable for the city to ask DNA to explore a downtown SSA, it takes time, shouldn’t be rushed and requires direction from the city, he said.
The city owes DNA $53,000 from the previous contract, and the organization plans to move ahead with its winter promotions, including the annual Holiday Beverage Crawl and for which the city is a sponsor, Fukala said.
In the meantime, DNA will meet with its members to figure out a plan for moving forward, Piñon said.
“This (eviction) was an eventuality that we planned for,” he said. “Still, this is petty.”
Gloria Casas is a freelance reporter for The Courier-News.