A MOVE UPSTAIRS
An era has ended. You wouldn’t realize it
unless you frequent the Sangamon County Courthouse (and, let’s face
it, we hope you don’t). Even then, you might not notice if you park
in the county garage, because you wouldn’t need to get your parking
pass stamped. But if your business takes you into the big brick building on
Ninth Street, you’ve probably noticed that the Lady is gone. We call her the Lady because (a) she’s prim,
proper and ladylike and (b) she doesn’t want her name in the
newspaper. Unlike so many inhabitants of that building, the Lady has no
detectable ego. Known as “the grandmother of the courthouse,”
she seemed happy to validate our parking pass and perhaps exchange
pleasantries about the weather. But now there’s just a little table
with a mechanical contraption where motorists validate their own tickets;
the Lady is nowhere to be seen. Yet we still occasionally hear her voice over the
county public-address system, paging people to report to a courtroom (a
duty that has, over the years, resulted in the Lady’s unwittingly
summoning such imaginary characters as Harry Sachs, Dick Fitzwell, and
Craven Moorehead at the request of prankster attorneys). “She moved upstairs,” a sheriff’s
deputy tells us, giving us a profound moment of dread stemming from the
fact that the Lady has been county receptionist for many years. “She was there before Abe Lincoln passed the bar
exam,” one lawyer tells us. “She was there when God was a
corporal,” another says. “Nah, I think she was there when God
was still in junior high,” says still another. Fortunately, the deputy isn’t speaking
euphemistically. The Lady has indeed moved upstairs, to a small office in
the state’s attorney’s suite, as the result of some budget
issue. Nothing exciting — which is just the way the Lady likes it.
WAVERING WAVERLY
Waverly, located in the
southwest corner of Sangamon County, may soon join the growing list of
Illinois towns building plants to process ethanol, a corn-based fuel
additive. But some of the town’s 1,300 residents say that
although they’re not completely closed to the idea — after all,
ethanol plants are cash cows nowadays — they want more communication
from the company proposing the facility, Johnson Grain. In addition to the fact that Johnson Grain is
proposing an ethanol refinery, says one Waverly woman who asks that her
name not be published, the company hasn’t asked for any input from
the plant’s prospective neighbors. “We all moved out there because it’s out
in the country, away from this sort of thing,” she says. Jay Johnson, president
of Johnson Grain, did not immediately return calls Wednesday morning
seeking comment. At 7 p.m. tonight, Thursday, July 6, the Sangamon
County Zoning Board of Appeals will hold a special hearing to consider
Johnson’s petition to rezone the site of the proposed plant from
agricultural to industrial use. Meanwhile, some Waverly residents are circulating
petitions asking for more information before plans move ahead. The full
County Board is expected to vote on the matter at its regular meeting on
Tuesday, July 11.
FIRE DRILL Last week, when we wrote about
the retirement of Springfield firefighter Charlie
Washington — who had spent the last
several years of his career as driver/engineer at the firehouse closest to
Lake Springfield — his captain told Illinois
Times he would miss Washington’s
intimate knowledge of Station 11’s wide-ranging district, much of
which was apparently laid out by that crack planning team of Higglety &
Pigglety Inc. Still, it was surprising to see, just days later, the
State Journal-Register’s top story lamenting the 20 minutes it took Station 11 to
respond to a lakeside house fire. The guys in the red trucks say they’re still
unraveling what went wrong. But they seem most annoyed by persistent
problems with the dispatch system and their radios. They call it
“getting honked off” because of the honking sound their radios
make when they can’t pick up a signal. But that phrase takes on a
whole new meaning when you’re the guy in the attic of a burning
house, trying to contact your buddies outside. Expect to hear more honking about this topic in the
weeks to come.
— From staff reports
This article appears in Jul 6-12, 2006.
