MAYORAL FORUM INTEREST HIGH NUMEROUS CITY ISSUES DISCUSSED

The Chamber held a Mayoral Forum on January 25th at the Hoogland Center for the Arts. Incumbent Mayor Jim Langfelder and challenger and current City Treasurer Misty Buscher were featured in a 90-minute discussion moderated by retired State Journal-Register political writer and columnist Bernie Schoenburg. Hardly an empty seat was available in the LRS Theatre for this issues-focused forum.

Topics ranged from city affairs such as red-light cameras, parking meters, what to do with the Y-block and more. The conversation also touched on current state and national issues.

The followings excerpts are from the Illinois Times coverage of the event.

RELATIONSHIP WITH CITY COUNCIL: Buscher said she would work to mend relations with, and communication between, the mayor’s office and the 10 alderpersons when it comes to matters in front of the council. The mayor casts a potentially tie-breaking 11th vote on the council.

Council members “seem to go on a fact-finding mission on most Tuesday nights,” Buscher said. “We need to communicate as an administration what’s on the agenda, why it’s on the agenda, and answer their questions. … I want our aldermen to be empowered to do their job. They are the people who touch our citizens every day.”

Langfelder said he has a “good relationship” with the council that has benefited the city, though he said during the forum that the council blocked some initiatives he favored.

He alluded to a report from Business Insider, a New York-based business and financial news website, that in 2020 proclaimed Springfield the best city in America to live after the COVID-19 pandemic. “We’ve done that by keeping the council together, as well as our community, during these very challenging and difficult times for all of us,” Langfelder said.

“Direct communication” with the mayor’s office is always available to council members, he said. He added that his deputy mayor calls each council member every week about upcoming agenda items, and there’s a council coordinator who can assist members as well.

WYNDHAM CITY CENTRE: A proposal by New York-based real estate developer David Mitchell to convert and renovate the aging hotel, a downtown landmark, into market-rate apartments, hotel rooms and convention space has been stalled by three council votes denying Mitchell’s zoning variance requests to create more than the 200 apartment units allowed under current zoning.

Langfelder has been frustrated by council opposition to Mitchell’s plans for a $40 million acquisition and renovation of the 30-floor hotel. The mayor said at the debate he would like to see 225 to 250 hotel rooms remain. Mitchell’s latest offer to the city would preserve 125 hotel rooms for convention-related and other clients and create 274 market-rate apartments. The mayor previously proposed Mitchell maintain up to 150 apartments, an option the council shot down.

Buscher said there are some apartments already in the Wyndham, and she doesn’t want to see any more at the site. Downtown vendors worry that a decrease in hotel rooms for conventions downtown would reduce their customer base more than any increased consumer spending from new apartment dwellers, she said.

RELATIONSHIP WITH LABOR UNIONS: Langfelder said union leaders aren’t supporting him this election cycle, which is surprising to many rank-and-file members. But he said he has a good relationship with unions and supports project labor agreements on city-funded projects.

Buscher received more than $25,000 in campaign contributions from labor unions in the fourth quarter of 2022, including from Laborers Local 477 and unions representing iron workers, plumbers and sheet-metal workers. “My relationship with unions is, I’m a woman of my word, and the unions know I’m a woman of my word,” she said.

She said the city hasn’t done a good enough job enforcing project labor agreements and prevailing-wage rules. “Labor knows that I will enforce the rules we have on the books, and that’s all they’re asking for,” she said.

SECOND WATER SOURCE: Langfelder said he supports developing an additional lake as a water source for the city to supplement Lake Springfield, the city’s primary drinking-water supply, during severe droughts. An environmental-impact evaluation of the proposed Hunter Lake proposal is expected later in 2023 by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

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