About 45 businessmen attended the November Issues and Answers Breakfast Thursday at Monsanto, 3100 Sycamore Road.

“It was a nice turnout,” said Scott Ellenberger, president of the DeKalb Chamber of Commerce.

City Planner Ray Keller updated those in attendance about the process, to date, of the discussion with the community.

In the spring, the community development staff met with different groups and organizations to discuss the direction of growth in DeKalb.

Keller said the comments that came back addressed the city as a university, farmland and urban community.

The questions raised by people focused on the future growth of downtown, the development of the proposed arterial road on the west side of DeKalb and a tax base development including the ability to provide for school services, among others.

According to the comprehensive plan update draft, the Plan Commission has recommended a number of areas and issues to be studied further.

Two that concern NIU directly are a west side arterial road and the NIU Far West Campus Plan. The west side arterial road is a proposed road that would cross the Union Pacific Railroad and Lincoln Highway.

The Far West Campus Plan, which the NIU administration is in the process of developing, covers the development of the more than 240-acre area west of the campus and the impact it would have on the community.

Another area of study is downtown DeKalb, for which the city of DeKalb currently is working with Main Street/DeKalb Inc. and the Chamber of Commerce.

The DeKalb Chamber of Commerce Economic Development Committee and the DeKalb County Building and Development Association co-sponsored the event.

The breakfast was catered by the Voluntary Action Center, which runs the area’s Meals-On-Wheels program.