There were nearly enough Springfield aldermen, would-be and otherwise, to field two football teams at a Monday candidates’ forum sponsored by Inner City Older Neighborhoods.
But the 21 candidates for 10 seats on the city council had difficulty answering yes-or-no questions posed by advocates for revitalizing and preserving neighborhoods such as Enos Park, Vinegar Hill and Harvard Park.
All of the candidates, for example, raised their hands when asked whether the city should hire a planner, and most also raised hands when asked whether they favored the creation of a neighborhood revitalization department comprised of officials from the police, public works and building departments. But there were plenty of but’s.
For example, both Sarah Delano Pavlik, who is running for the Ward 7 seat, and incumbent Joe McMenamin kept their hands down when forum organizers asked whether candidates would support the creation of a neighborhood revitalization department. Both also said that doesn’t mean they don’t support city action to clean up and fix blighted properties.
Pavlik said that she favors coordination between city departments to address deteriorating neighborhoods, but doesn’t favor creating a new city department. McMenamin, who helped lead a successful effort to clean up the MacArthur Park apartments, once one of the city’s most dilapidated apartment complexes, also said that creating departments doesn’t necessarily address issues.
“Calling something by a different name doesn’t make a problem go away,” McMenamin said.
Ward 6 Ald. Cory Jobe, one of two incumbents who faces no opposition, said that revitalization issues are important, but several questions from neighborhood revitalization advocates didn’t lend themselves to yes-or-no answers. In some cases, he said, it is a matter of mayoral priorities, not aldermanic wishes.
“Some of these questions you should be asking the five candidates for a mayor,” Jobe said.
Most candidates also said they favored increasing the number of building code enforcement officers, but there were reservations, with some candidates calling the question too open-ended.
“I don’t want to increase something unless I know what you’re going to increase it to,” said Herman Senor, one of six candidates seeking the Ward 2 seat now held by Gail Simpson, who is running for mayor.
Scott McFarland, who is running for the Ward 4 seat now held by Frank Lesko, who is prevented by term limits from running for reelection, said he has spoken with a person who is moving to Riverton because there are too many potholes in Springfield. People have moved out to places such as Piper Glen and Panther Creek because the city does a poor job of planning, he said, and something needs to be done with the Pillsbury Mills plant in the north end, which shut down in 2001.
“Why are we not planning around that?” McFarland asked. “Why are we not filling that void with something else?”
Most candidates also said that they favor a registration system for rental properties so that city officials have a point of contact with property owners in case of problems. Ward 5 Ald. Sam Cahnman, who is running for a third term, said he supports a registration requirement because it can be difficult to track down property owners, particularly when real estate is held by a trust. Cahnman also noted that the city has enacted ordinances that require derelict properties to be either fixed up or demolished within three years.
“The issue is enforcement,” Cahnman said.
McMenamin said he voted against a sales tax increase for street repairs because the money would be spent in just three years, leaving the city with a lack of funds for streets afterward. But Ward 8 Ald. Kris Theilen defended his vote to raise taxes to fix streets in a three-year period, saying that he and other aldermen who supported the increase were convinced that existing city officials could be trusted to spend the money as promised. Theilen also said that money from gambling is providing $1 million per year to pave alleys.
Contact Bruce Rushton at brushton@illinoistimes.com
This article appears in Jan 29 – Feb 4, 2015.
