The April 29 Committee of the Whole commenced with the evening’s committee chair, Ward 1 Alderman Jeff Cox, addressing the car crash which occurred the day before at YNOT Outdoors After School Camp in Chatham: three children and one 18-year-old counselor were killed when a Jeep driven by a local woman went off the road, through a field, and into side of the after school program’s building. Several other children were hospitalized in the aftermath, with one in critical care.
An audibly shaken Ald. Cox extended his condolences on behalf of the City of Springfield to the Chatham community, then led the alders in a moment of silence for the victims.
Later in the meeting, Ald. Lakeisha Purchase of Ward 5 urged Springfield residents to make blood donations to ImpactLife Springfield to help replenish the area’s blood supply after the disaster.
“Your gift can be the difference between life and loss for someone else’s child,” said Purchase.
CWLP pressed to hear public input during resource planning process
During discussions over $13 million of solar power capacity for City Water Light & Power, alders raised the topic of ongoing preparations for the utility’s upcoming Integrated Resource Plan. Chief Utility Engineer Doug Brown confirmed that CWLP remains in closed door talks for direct solar power generation, a major renewable milestone which has been the focus of community advocates for many years.
Ward 3 Alderman Roy Williams, Jr. pressed Brown on the topic of community input on the IRP, stressing that it was vital that the community be involved with the utility’s energy investment plans. Brown acknowledged to Williams that CWLP has not held a public forum since discussing the utility’s ash ponds — which Ald. Williams deemed insufficient. The two engaged in a disagreement over the extent to which public input was appropriate, but Brown assured the horseshoe that CWLP will hold public meetings as the IRP begins to take shape.
Lift assist service fees under deliberation
Two major amendments to city code were sent to next week’s council: the first was a motion to formally criminalize impersonation of city officials. Doing so, explained Corporation Counsel Greg Moredock, would allow the city to directly pursue impersonation cases in the city’s administrative court rather than leaving it to the state courts.
The second amendment to code calls for a fee plan for lift assist requests sent to the city’s emergency services by assisted living facilities. It was heavily stressed that these fees would not be charged to individuals in need of physical mobility assistance, but rather would be directed at the organizations responsible for their care.
Lift assist billing is already present in several municipalities around the state, owing to an increase in the mobility assistance needs of aging populations, inverse to declining staffing levels at assisted living facilities throughout the country. At present, all manner of lifting assistance requests – helping someone out of a chair, delivering them to bed, or carrying them to the bathroom – are being called in to the municipal government. Ordinarily, these would be the responsibilities of nursing staff.
Ald. Williams explained that he had heard concerns from local nursing homes about the plan. Nevertheless, Williams expressed that while the city should pay attention to the worries of the local assisted living industry, the city still needs to address the potential for abuse of city services.
Ward 2’s Ald. Shawn Gregory was one of several alderpeople to share their frustration with the staffing situation at the city’s nursing homes. When asked by Ald. Jim Donelan of Ward 9 if there seemed to be particular “bad actors” contributing to the problem, Fire Chief Canny confirmed to the horseshoe that there are, in his view, some facilities which stand out among the private assisted living facilities in the city. These businesses, he confirmed, are responsible for the bulk of the problem, abusing the city’s open lift assist policy to essentially extract necessary labor without cost.
While the proposal progressed to council, the alders agreed that they needed to work to prevent tenants being financially burdened by the fees.
City left to aid local events as Wyndham Hotel’s future remains unclear
Funds for several local events made their way into next week’s agenda: first, the Committee of the Whole approved $15,000 in promotional funds for the Springfield Mile motorcycle race, to be held August 30th and 31st. Next, $30,000 was apportioned as sponsorship money for Juneteenth, Inc.’s local Juneteenth festivities. Finally, $35,000 was prepared in order to sponsor the Route 66 Mother Road Festival.
Alders winced, but nevertheless went forward with sending to next week’s meeting an appropriation of $150,000 for the Springfield Convention & Visitor Bureau. The money is sorely needed in order to support the transportation needs of local conventions, many of which were upended by the Wyndham Springfield Centre’s closure. No timeline has been given to the city for the hotel to be reopened after an apparent act of vandalism resulted in the building’s elevators flooding and its fire sprinkler systems failing.
With most of Springfield’s overnight lodgings spread out across the city, alders noted that the Wyndham is critical to visitor traffic in the downtown area. Downtown Springfield has suffered badly over the last several decades; last year’s Adams Street fire only made matters worse for the capital city’s historic core. Ald. Gregory went so far as to warn that if the city doesn’t find some way to help get the Wyndham reopened, then Springfield’s will continue to suffer the same decay that many other cities have suffered.
Downtown may have seen some silver lining from Tuesday’s committee meeting: the final item going to the May 6 council is a $2,646,760 allocation for the private redevelopment agreement hashed out with Springfield Partners IV in order to help rehabilitate the old AT&T call center building at 529 South 7th Street.
While the building’s new tenant is not yet public, the alderpeople were pleased to see the property being redeveloped and reoccupied. For the time being, the space’s parking lot has been made available to neighboring businesses.
