CHAMPAIGN — Answers to many of neighborhood residents’ questions about a first-of-its-kind Saturday afternoon Central High varsity football game at McKinley Field were provided Monday night — just in time for tonight’s city council vote.
- All told, the game would run the Champaign school district an estimated $4,250.40. That’s $645.42 more than if the proposed Sept. 24 game against Wheaton St. Francis were to be played a night earlier at the shared home of Central and Centennial, Tommy Stewart Field, Unit 4’s Orlando Thomas told school board members at Monday’s meeting.
- For those concerned about parking: Dashboard permits would be issued to residents prior to next weekend, with seven side streets in the neighborhood marked “resident parking only, permit required.” Fans attending the game who don’t live in the neighborhood would be shuttled to and from the field from Central and the Champaign Country Club.
- Portable bleachers donated by the University of Illinois would be installed prior to the 1 p.m. Saturday kickoff. They’d have room for 200 — which is the number of fans St. Francis expects to make the 150-mile one-way trip, Central Athletic Director Jane Stillman learned — and total capacity would top out at 700.
- And most important of all to one of the two residents who spoke during the public comment portion of Monday’s school board meeting, any amendment to the existing intergovernmental agreement prohibiting varsity football at McKinley Field would apply to this one game — and this one game only, Thomas reiterated — though several board members would like to see it become an annual tradition if all goes well.
“If we want to do more than one game,” Thomas said Monday, “we will have to come back next year to modify the agreement.”
And with that, for the second time in as many months, school board members voted unanimously Monday in favor of asking the city to amend the varsity football section of their intergovernmental agreement.
A final decision is expected at tonight’s council meeting — some seven months after Central football boosters first went public with their proposal for a Saturday game at the Maroons’ longtime practice home.
Ahead of tonight’s meeting, city administration issued a recommendation for approval of Council Bill No. 2022-147. Among the advantages of doing so, according to a packet prepared by city staff:
- It “provides an opportunity to evaluate and determine whether varsity football at McKinley Field is workable under any circumstances.”
- It “recognizes the value placed on McKinley Field by coaches, players and boosters as the home of Central football” — and a spiffy one at that, following $7.1 million worth of upgrades and renovations that came about as a result of the six-school, two-field 2016 referendum approved by voters.
- It “allows the game to proceed based on an action plan approved through the City’s Special Event Permit process,” one that also includes plans for portable toilets (to be brought on-site at a cost to the district of $540, the same as a game at Tommy Stewart Field), trash left behind (to be picked up by volunteers during a postgame walk around the neighborhood) and on-site security (seven Unit 4 officers plus two officers and a supervisor from Champaign police).
