Bill Nicklas, former Sycamore Rotarian and recently hired as the DeKalb city manager, shared with us his vision for his new role and the challenges faced by DeKalb as they look to revitalize the town to be more business friendly. Bill has a lot of insight into city management, having previously been the city manager for Sycamore but most recently coming from a position at Kishwaukee College.
John Papas and Cohen Barnes have made substantial investments into the downtown and others are prepared to do so as well. Additional funding is being earmarked by the city to support additional downtown rebuilding efforts as they see the downtown as the City’s doormat to the rest of the world and something that can’t continue to be neglected.
Responding to a question from Mark Spiegelhoff, Bill addressed some of the initial measures he has taken in his first two months on the job to shore up the city, financially, to address pension obligations by finding $1.1M in savings. An additional hot topic he addressed from the club was crime, a hot topic due to the recent visit from the DeKalb Targeted Response Unit. He also spoke briefly about changes that have been made to incentivize residential building through the elimination of impact fees as well as efforts being undertaken to retain current businesses.