Letters to the editor 9/21/23

We welcome letters. Please include your full name, address and telephone number. We edit all letters.

Send them to editor@illinoistimes.com.

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ANOTHER PROJECT

I enjoyed the story on the renovations at the Capitol (“Renovation revelations, Aug. 31). I would like to see just a small amount of money allocated from all of these changes directed to preserving the gravesite of the original architect, Alfred Piquenard.

Piquenard is buried at Oak Ridge Cemetery alongside his young daughter and the child of one of his workmen. Piquenard’s tombstone is just about to tumble over and be lost forever; it no longer touches the ground on one side of the stone and it is cracked and nearly illegible.

Not only did Piquenard build the Illinois State Capitol, he also built the Iowa State Capitol. I truly believe that as an appreciation for such a magnificent building the least the state could do is restore the grave of the original architect.

Janice Moon
Springfield

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DON’T BLAME ADA

Thank you for this article. I do, however, take a little issue with referring to the new elevators as “ADA elevators.” I am disabled and use a wheelchair. When I was a young lawyer on the State Senate Minority staff in 1975, I used the elevators every day. So did many people who did not have a disability. The Americans with Disabilities Act was enacted 14 years later.

At times I have heard people say their project was more expensive because of ADA compliance. These will doubtless be new elevators available for all to use, not just those of us for whom the ADA is a standard for inclusiveness.

Saul Morse
Via illinositimes.com

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STATEHOUSE FIRE

The fire in the ground floor room on the west side of the north wing broke out in December 1886. It’s mentioned in the book, Thousand-Year Statehouse. In contemporary news reports, it was stated that painters had supplies stored in that room, and that the fire was attributed to spontaneous combustion. Boiled linseed oil, a common painter’s oil at the time, was infamous for building up heat and causing oil-soaked rags to smolder or burst into flames without warning.

There are no fireplaces on the first floor, where this fire occurred in 1886. And by fortunate coincidence, the historical paintings in the corridor had not yet been set into place (they were painted in Chicago) and thus were not affected by the smoke.

David Finnigan
Via illinoistimes.com

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USE ARMORY FOR EVENTS

This has been too long coming (“Phase one Armory renovation underway,” Aug. 31). I hope they keep a large event space on the first floor for commercial events and public gatherings. The BOS Center is a little too far away and not always available.

Mark Suszko
Via Facebook.com/illinoistimes

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ETHICS ARE IMPORTANT

We were saddened to hear about the recent closure of Memorial’s Clinical Ethics Center and the disbanding of Memorial’s Human Values and Ethics Committee.

More than 80% of hospitals in the country have institutional ethics committees. Memorial is now in the small minority of those without one. Memorial’s interdisciplinary Human Values and Ethics Committee began in 1987, meeting monthly to review morally problematic patient cases, help develop ethics policies for the hospital and educate its members and hospital staff about health care ethics. The inclusion of community members helped ensure that a broad range of values were voiced in discussions about ethical issues arising in the hospital system. In the early years of the ethics committee, its members only occasionally conducted ethics consultations on patient cases. But requests for bedside consultations increased, and the Clinical Ethics Center was founded in 1995.

The Clinical Ethics Center ensured that, when morally troubling situations arose, high-quality ethics resources were available to support decision makers, at the bedside when necessary. Experienced, highly trained, full-time ethics consultants employed at the Center began to respond to requests 24/7, mediating ethics conflicts and recommending ethically appropriate courses of action. They were in high demand, eventually conducting more than 10,000 ethics consultations at the request of Memorial nurses, physicians, social workers, patients and others. It is unfortunate that these resources will no longer be available when ethical issues arise at Memorial.

Bethany Spielman, Chatham; Barb Hinze, Perryville, MO; Peter S. Wenz, Springfield; Laura Dillion, Springfield

This article appears in Cash bail comes to an end.