After months of meetings characterized by
brevity, unanimity, and efficiency, Springfield City Council on
Tuesday night held a lengthy, contentious, and, at times, raucous
session that paved the way for several major changes for the city
— including a new $540 million power plant, a new retirement
development in southeast Springfield, and a new citizen panel to
review police conduct. However, to many people at the meeting, the
most important issue was Prairie Farms Dairy’s request to
park trucks on a lot adjacent to its 2540 South MacArthur facility.
Scores of neighborhood association representatives from as far away
as Washington Park and Vinegar Hill packed the chamber, and half a
dozen spoke to the council, asking that the variance be denied.
Ward 3 Ald. Frank Kunz and Ward 9 Ald. Tom Selinger promised an
amendment that would restrict the dairy company to its current
number of trucks if the variance passed, but Ward 7 Ald. Judy
Yeager stuck with her motion to simply deny the variance, and won
by a vote of 7-1-1 (Kunz voted against the denial, Selinger voted
present, and Ward 2 Ald. Frank McNeil chose not to vote). Minutes after the victorious neighborhood
activists left the chamber, the council approved a variance for
developer Charlie Robbins, whose main office is just a few blocks
north of the dairy on MacArthur. Robbins’ request concerned
additional entrances to Southwest Plaza, and had been returned to
committee at the council’s Sept. 6 meeting. The variance was
approved by a vote of 8-2, with Kunz and Ward 6 Ald. Mark Mahoney
voting no. Kunz said it was “very hypocritical” for the
council to grant a variance for Robbins, but deny one to the dairy.
The council voted quickly and unanimously in
favor of annexing property owned by Abundant Faith Ministry, Inc.,
at 2525 South Taylor. The annexation paves the way for Abundant
Faith to build a retirement facility, adding housing units to the
city’s tax base. But the voting turned partisan when the
council was asked to approve James Donelan as the mayor’s new
executive assistant. An amendment to the usual employment approval
ordinance gave Donelan a year to move into the city of Springfield;
he has said he expects his subdivision to be annexed in the near
future. Still, Ward 5 Ald. Joe Bartolomucci, Ward 8 Ald. Irv Smith,
and Ward 10 Ald. Bruce Strom — three of the five Republicans
on the officially non-partisan but Democratic-dominated council
— cast symbolic votes against Donelan. The major debate of the evening involved the
biggest price tag as the council ratified a 34 percent utilities
rate hike to fund construction of a new 200-watt coal-fired power
plant, plus a trio of ordinances granting about $445 million in
related construction and engineering contracts. As the first
ordinance was introduced, Ward 1 Ald. Frank Edwards presented data
from the U.S. Department of Energy Web site showing the cost per
kilowatt of new coal-powered plants across the nation. Emphasizing that he was still in favor of the
new plant, Edwards said he would be remiss if he didn’t bring
the questions forward. “In this case I’m the messenger.
A guy gave me what I think are some valid points,” Edwards
said, suggesting — but never making a formal motion —
that the vote be delayed for two weeks
Edwards never named the “guy”
during the meeting, but Illinois Times has learned he was referring to Bill McGreevy, a
Chatham resident who spent 30 years working for Roland Machinery
Co., the last dozen or so as president.
McGreevy’s analysis shows that the CWLP
plant cost per kilowatt is more than twice the average nationwide,
and 50 percent higher than the most expensive plant in the
government data base. At the council meeting CWLP chief engineer
Jay Bartlett responded to Edwards’ questions with a laundry
list of reasons he said the CWLP plant is “a completely
different animal” from the plants on the Web site. “We are not talking about apples and
apples, we’re not talking about apples and oranges, I’m
not even sure we’re talking about fruit,” Bartlett
said. “[These plants] are vastly different.”
But McGreevy, who watched some of the
night’s council proceedings on TV, says he still questions
the wisdom of approving this plan for the plant without competitive
bids. The city awarded the $437 million construction contract to
KBV Springfield Power Partners, a joint venture of Kiewit
Industrial Co., and Black and Veatch Corp. “The bottom line is — you and I
could never win an argument with these people. We don’t have
all the information,” McGreevy says. “The only argument
we could win is if we had [other companies] bid on this power
plant.”
After a prolonged discussion, the four
ordinances giving the go-ahead to the new power plant passed almost
unanimously, with Edwards voting “present” on the rate
hike. As the long meeting wound to a close, and the
mayor quickly read a small batch of ordinances hastily added to the
council’s next meeting agenda. One of those ordinances will
establish a citizen police review board — something McNeil
has been requesting for more than a decade. Sources in the police
department and city hall have confirmed that the patrolmen’s
union and the alderman have agreed on the structure of a review
panel, and they expect the council to vote on it Oct. 4.
This article appears in Sep 22-28, 2005.
