Riley Eubanks
The State Journal-Register
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Following the ceremony, council formally convened and approved the following ordinances, among others:
- The purchase of five traffic control cameras totaling at most $127,000 from the lowest bidder. Those cameras are designed to help administer the changing of traffic lights and aren’t designed to check speed or enforce other ordinances.
- An allocation of $35,765 toward Springfield-based Melotte, Morse, Leonatti, Parker Ltd. to design a one-stop design for administrative services in Municipal Center West.
- An amendment to the city’s ordinance on paid sick live to pay out one-half of all sick time accumulated beginning November 1988, except for employees hired after July 2014. This brings the city up to code and amends a technicality that budget director Bill McCarty said affected virtually no one.
The council opted not to vote on a contract totaling $195,000 with General Electric Steam Power Inc. (Boston) for inspection of a vibration issue for City Water, Light and Power‘s Dallman Unit 33.
That ordinance was presented for emergency passage and required unanimous approval for a vote. Three council members voted against hearing the bill on emergency passage including Ward 3 Ald. Roy Williams, Ward 4 Ald. John Fulgenzi and Ward 7 Ald. Joe McMenamin.
That ordinance is now referred to the Springfield Committee of the Whole and will likely return to the agenda for council’s next meeting Aug. 17.
McMenamin argued against the ordinance with the rationale that CWLP is already planning to retire Unit 33 by the end of 2023, so allocating money toward fixing it may not be the best option, he said.
An inspection for the currently inoperable unit would lead to a repair, which is estimated to total $915,000. Without repairs, the unit would be retired prematurely, CWLP chief deputy engineer Doug Brown said, threatening the jobs of the 23 workers assigned to that station.
CWLP workers were disciplined after a malfunction caused an estimated $6 million in damage to Unit 33 in 2019.
Joe McMenamin for Ward 7 