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Name:
Marshall Doane
What office are you seeking?
2nd Ward alderman on the Rock Falls City Council
What is your political party?
Independent, conservative leaning
What is your current age?
31
Occupation and employer:
Trucking dispatcher at Riverside Logistics
What offices, if any, have you previously held?
I’ve previously been part of Rock Falls City Council, but I purchased my first house and had to resign because my new residence was located in a different ward.
City:
Rock Falls
Campaign Website:
facebook.com/share/15gHYkeora/
Education:
I have a high school diploma from Rock Falls High School, a 2011 graduate, and some college experience at Morrison Institute of Technology.
Community Involvement:
I’m part of the Sauk Valley Keystone Group and have done much volunteering through that organization. We recently repainted and preserved a number of Sterling’s historical murals, including Adelante on Napa’s west wall, the Lady Zouaves next to Grandon Park, and my favorite, The Secret Six on the alley wall of The Precinct. We’ve been tapped as resources for national developers to plan large projects in our area like the Sterling Riverfront Revitalization, where all the riverfront buildings will soon be put back into working order for our community. I volunteered my time and research trying to save the historic International Harvester building in Rock Falls’ downtown as well. I’ve also raised over $40,000 to build Dogwood Acres dog park and even set the fence posts and stretched the fencing in with help from the Dogwood Acres volunteer group in conjunction with the Sterling Park District, Sterling Fence and Sauk Valley College sports teams. I volunteered my time starting the Rock Falls holiday lights and spent many nights watching the drive-thru holiday light experience grow and change and I’m very proud of what we accomplish when we work together. I’ve also had small side fundraisers I started myself in which one raised over $1,100 to fill our local animal shelters pet food pantry for dogs and cats when they were in need. Last, but certainly not least, a current project I am working on is the planning and fundraising for a Rock Falls mural painted on the downtown Hueber/Dekalb Feeds loading wall that will brightly show off our town’s identity and history. I’m very familiar in both planning projects and rolling up my sleeves and putting in the hard work to see them through because I want to see Rock Falls and this community succeed and look great for years to come!
Marital status/Immediate family:
Single, two rescued German Shepherd dogs, Sirus (8, male) and Raven (4, female).
The demolition of the Micro Industries building carried with it quite a bit of discussion in the months before it was taken down. What do you believe the next steps should be for that property?
I believe the only thing to do at this point with the massive space available is address the housing issue our entire community faces. A local municipality paid big money and found there was need for some 300 housing units “urgently,” meaning there’s people of all age and income groups looking that will move in right now. Development of a downtown loft apartment building will satisfy the desperate housing needs of many and allow people to move to and live in Rock Falls. Just as data shows and other towns physically see, putting housing options downtown will generate the city revenue in its utilities and taxes, but also having people living downtown directly contributes to the downtown’s look. People that hang around old abandoned places find other places to go now that the empty spaces are occupied, and busyness in the area promotes interest for other new shops and developments as well. I don’t want to see the area turned into a cheaply built strip mall that will only gain interest from predatory title loan businesses, smoke shops or low-cost discount chain stores that only suck money out of our town, never to return. If not housing, the next idea should be affordable space for new locally owned businesses where I can take my paycheck and spend it at a local market or store. Downtowns belong to the people, not big box stores!
What do you believe are the top three issues that the city is facing right now?
Depreciation, apathy and access to jobs. There are no big-paying jobs in our area to serve that majority of our workforce. We have large companies that pay a couple bucks above minimum wage, but with the rising costs in housing and groceries amidst the extremely high interest prices on auto loans, people can’t afford to buy a new reliable car to get to a good job 30 miles away, so they have to take on a job close by for unskilled labor in a job market saturated by graduated students going to college who find the high-paying skilled labor jobs with their degrees and move out of this town to be closer to work. This leads to the depreciation of the town. Look anywhere and you will see an abandoned building with a perpetually dark second story. People can’t afford a loan to put thousands into their house when they can barely afford it as is. They won’t fix a rented house because they don’t own it. This leads to every building aging and looking the same way. Blighted. When every building and gathering space looks run down, it affects the way you think, which leads to the apathy and nobody gets excited or cares too much about any current events. There were six open seats on City Council this year and only three new people stepped up to volunteer their time, effort, and energy to utilize Rock Falls' potential because they’re focused on trying to get by in their own life. Two of them are in the same ward. That is telling. And low voting numbers show us trust is broken in the council to change things for the better. Aside from the Riverfront Park, the rest of the town has been being torn down for over 10 years, dating all the way back to the 2007-2008 economic crisis. Combating civic apathy and making positive change by policy starts at the top and I’m going to work hard to change things for the better, for all of us.
Rock Falls voters will be asked to vote in April on whether to approve a public safety sales tax to help pay for 911 services in Whiteside County. Do you support this tax? If not, what are your reasons for not supporting it?
To understand this tax is to know how it came about. In brief, COVID relief funds were used to establish the 911 Dispatch Center. Now that those funds are running out, the biggest cities, like Rock Falls and Sterling with Whiteside County, are all shouldering the burden. The latest proposal was a sales tax increase of .50 cents to every 100 dollars spent, and that would be on all cities and areas in Whiteside County to pay, not just the two biggest cities by population. I understand it’s hard to ask anyone for a new tax when we are taxed and billed so highly in Rock Falls alone, but in this case, it’s asking others to pay their fair share for our emergency services as well so I am for the tax as I intend to bring up discussions to lower our Rock Falls month-to-month utility costs overall.
How do you intend to balance economic development with environmental sustainability in the community?
I would like to see more green spaces and parks emerge from the remnants of what once were factories and industrial complexes filled with chemicals that are terrible for sustaining life. The city has done well in finding EPA Brownfield grants that help us remove toxic compounds from the ground, which seep right into the river close by. But with new economic developments like a travel center bringing new amounts of money into the city coffers, I would like to see or start plans to utilize a small portion of those funds in conjunction with a local business that would plant more trees and shrubbery in our area annually. I would also like to pursue researching more affordable options other than only road salt to combat ice, which is terrible for the environment and has killed a few trees along our roads very recently, including our old Lovelight Tree. A possibility that may be less expensive overall could be beet juice, which other cities have used, that would also help aid in the desalination of our river and land that would keep trees and landscaped greenery near our roads and sidewalks a bit healthier.
What are your plans for enhancing public transportation and infrastructure in the city?
Whiteside County Transportation has a free public transportation option for use to anyone who needs a ride, and can be scheduled on their website. I personally would love to see a few more Uber or Lyft options to help assist the community in needing not only sober rides on weekends but also quick rides for those unable to drive any other times. This would also provide some income for someone willing to step up to volunteer where they are able! As far a the transportation, with the new travel center coming to the edge of town near the interstate, refueling for commercial sized trucks and travel vehicles will be putting a lot more money into our motor fuel tax that exists solely to be used for the repairing of roads, and I will absolutely make sure to work to assist where I am able to develop a plan of action to get the worst and most traveled roads repaired in this town first and foremost. I develop a pothole report for every road in Rock Falls so the Street Department has ample notes and awareness for filling potholes each year!
What role should the city council play in supporting local businesses and economic growth?
The city council’s role in local business should be creating a business-friendly environment. That means investing in and maintaining city-owned infrastructure around the businesses. Meaning nobody should have a broken sidewalk leading to their front door. They also have a role in attracting new businesses to the area, promoting local industries that are already here, and collaborating with community stakeholders, people who own buildings or the business or the land, to foster growth with events and allowing all of these types of businesses to flourish. There are plenty of ways to combine all these things together like events that shut down the city streets for block parties, and doing local shout-outs of different businesses so people can see what they have to offer for services or products, and even who owns them and some history of their business or building!
What are your top public safety concerns for our community and how would you propose addressing them?
My top public safety concern is our water. Recently I’ve gotten letters, I assume most people have, addressing that there could be houses serviced with lead lines, and if so, the city might not know where they are. We should know that stuff for certain. I also have concerns for the quality of water we produce. We of course are held to a certain standard by law, but those standards are only what’s tested at the source and time of a problem. I had a really bad discoloration incident a few times now where my water was very clearly a different color in the early mornings but no mains or lines were broken around me. Upon testing hours later, the test came back OK, but not for my collected sample at the time of discoloration. They won’t accept any collected samples, and the test was only for choliform bacteria. I don’t know what was in my water by the time it got to my house; others in houses nearby have had the same issues. If it’s in my line or in my house it’s my responsibility to fix, but if these issues are happening in city-owned property, we should address what can be done to remedy these things and give our citizens the best we can.
How will you ensure that city policies promote inclusion for all residents?
By making sure our policy allows for everyone to be included, and not just cherry-picked areas or types of business. Right now our facade grant program has a territory, and the only areas are, in brief, West Second Street and First Avenue up to Dixon Avenue. That leaves the rest of First Avenue and Route 30 completely without access to a grant that would help people fix the facades of their businesses. That means a locally owned business and building in the 200 block of West Second Street could apply for the matching grant to help pay for new windows or a new awning, but less than a minute drive away, a locally owned business and building in the 1000 block of First Avenue cannot apply for help with new windows or an awning because they are considered out of bounds. That is unfair and I feel the lines need to be redrawn to promote inclusion for all businesses that might need help with upkeep on their storefronts. The projects get accepted by the committee and we should see to it that more projects are considered when making decisions and not just the same few buildings on the same short street over and over again.
Do you support requiring government officials to publicly disclose potential conflicts of interest, and how would you enforce this?
I absolutely support requiring government officials to publicly disclose conflicts of interest. Someone working at a fuel company should absolutely not be voting on whether or not that fuel station company should be allowing gambling machines on their premises, or a gambling bar owner in council should not be making decisions on what the city allows for those types of businesses. This only leads to slimy politics of someone trying to define how a person would benefit from basically making their own rules and if it should be OK for them to do so or not. I would personally think this is enforceable by simply removing them from committees or council where they have sway over others opinions so they don’t poison the others into voting in favor of something that only favors them. They are supposed to do this themselves and are trusted to. There’s already rules on this, but we unfortunately see them happen here anyways and I’m not sure why. As aldermen and alderwomen, we should be voting on matters that our wards are bringing to us, not trying to give ourselves personal advantages in business. Civic duty shouldn’t be a main income source.
How will you make sure you are accessible to your constituents?
My phone number is posted on all my city council business cards, as well as my email address, and I have a large following of engaged community members on my social media. Feel free to text or email me at any time for anything. I get mostly all notifications sent to my cell phone. I also have dispersed door hangers with my phone number on them as well, and I have no problem with anyone stopping over for tea or coffee on the front porch; my dogs are very well behaved. I am here for you, and promise to always be available as well.