Along one wall of the City Council chambers, a half-dozen Springfield firefighters stood poised to provide crowd control. Downstairs in the lobby a TV monitor and rows of folding chairs were set up, ready to accommodate overflow. Outside, a handful of protesters marched in the drizzle, their chants providing a buzz in the background of […]
Dusty Rhodes
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The Incident
Jane Ross Galliher doesn’t like using the R-word. She refers to what happened that night as “the incident.” She keeps the police reports and hospital records in a manila folder labeled “The File.” It comes in handy when she has to describe “the incident,” because she can just hand over documents from “The File” instead […]
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Mixed bag
To most voters, Tuesday’s primary election was a snooze. Even before the polls opened, John Kerry had overpowered all other Democratic presidential candidates, and Jack Ryan and Barack Obama, who led opinion polls in the U.S. Senate race, handily won. But for Democrats on Springfield’s East Side, election day was more suspenseful, as a younger […]
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TIF rift
When Alderman Frank Kunz first floated his idea to put an end to special incentives for downtown developers, he thought it would go over like a lead balloon. After all, the Central Area Tax Increment Financing program, better known as “the downtown TIF,” has been responsible for the extreme makeover that has revitalized the area […]
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X marks the spot
Kay Watt was working in her front yard when a couple of fishermen wandered past and asked her if she knew what those markers meant in the woods behind her house. Markers? What markers? Watt was curious. As an avid bird watcher and environmental activist, Watt keeps an eye on the old-growth forest adjacent to […]
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Seeing red
The big story from this week’s City Council meeting was supposed to be the sales tax. In a party-line vote, the council raised the city sales tax from 1 to 1.5 percent for a two-year period beginning July 1. The vote marked the first time since the tax was established in the mid-1980s that the […]
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Shenanigans
The past week taught me two new lessons about the Springfield City Council: First, never make predictions, as I did in the previous Aldermania, because these characters are more creative than a boatload of buskers. That lesson is related to the second, which is to never erase a recording of a City Council meeting. Because […]
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Unexcused absence
There was a place on the dais reserved for Mayor Tim Davlin when the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People held their annual Lincoln-Douglass banquet last week. They had every reason to expect him to attend: Not only had he given his verbal commitment as early as December, but also he had the […]
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Aldermania
Covering City Council for a weekly newspaper is a task that comes with its own set of quirks. Obviously, the fact that most council meetings happen on Tuesday and our paper doesn’t hit the street until Thursday means the daily media will always have the newsy-news first. That’s the downside. The upside is that this […]
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The queen of hearts
It’s showtime at the Station House and Mahogany Knight is splendiferous in white satin hot pants and go-go boots, lip-synching to Shania Twain’s hit “I’m Outta Here.” Later, she appears in a bare-midriff gown constructed of glittery swatches held together by Mardi Gras beads. At closing time, she works the crowd into a froth with […]
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aldermania
The decision to pay the law firm of Husch & Eppenberger another $80,000 was arguably the lead story coming out of this week’s Springfield City Council meeting. But the vote itself had all the sizzle of cottage cheese. “Anybody want to make a political statement?” the mayor asked as aldermen voted. Aside from an emphatic […]
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Wrong turn
When The Spot closed at 3 a.m. on May 11, 2002, Don Loftus left driving the wrong way down Cook Street. He had traveled less than a block when he smashed into a car driven by Malinda Gray. “He couldn’t even walk,” Gray says. “He got out of his car and was just wobbling back […]
