Author: joeward7

Bruce Rushton
The Illinois Times

It took nearly a year for the honeymoon to end, but Mayor Jim Langfelder this spring finally faced a room full of constituents angry at him.

City council chambers in April bulged with people clutching signs: “Enough is enough: Protect our kids.” The signs were held high as speaker after speaker attacked a scheme to move a planned Salvation Army homeless shelter from Ninth Street, where construction unexpectedly stopped in February

Bruce Rushton
The Illinois Times

Local elected officials due for pensions would have to keep logs showing that they have worked enough hours to qualify for pension benefits under a bill now pending in the state legislature.

That could mean a lot of paperwork for local pols. Elected officials aren’t required to take pensions, but all but one member of the Springfield City Council has signed up for pension benefits and more than half the members of the Sangamon County board are on board.

Tim Landis
The State Journal-Register

Sidewalks and bicycle accommodations are among less-expensive, short-term steps that can be taken to improve the look and flow of MacArthur Boulevard, Springfield public works director Mark Mahoney told a group of boulevard residents and business owners on Thursday.

Major changes such as widening sections of the busy thoroughfare, he said, could take years.

Tim Landis
The State Journal-Register

Discount chain Dollar General has opened on a piece of the former Esquire Theatre site in Springfield, and discount grocer Ruler Foods could be close behind. Monday’s opening of the Dollar General on a section of the old theater parking lot brings the number of stores in the city to 10, according to company figures.

Dollar General spokesman Dan MacDonald said in an email Tuesday the store at 1508 MacArthur Blvd. is

The Illinois Times
Letter to the Editor

Here are some of the problems with the agreement between the city and the Illinois Department of Transportation regarding relocating rail traffic off the Third Street tracks. Mayor Langfelder and the city council should have held out for a better agreement instead of voting passage on April 26.

The administration rushed the council to a vote with Mayor Langfelder initially giving the council only 24 hours to review the complicated agreement and then extending the time to eight days, less than the normal two weeks.

The State Journal-Register

There are 14 bargaining units in the city of Springfield that have agreed to language in their contracts that would allow for a residency requirement for future municipal hires. The most recent example is the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 193, whose contract is up for a Springfield City Council vote on Tuesday.

Those 14 agreements have been reached since last year’s city elections, when Mayor Jim Langfelder, who while campaigning pushed for the reintroduction of a residency requirement

Patrick Yeagle
The Illinois Times

MacArthur Boulevard has seen better days.

The historic thoroughfare, originally called West Grand Boulevard, once marked the western boundary of Springfield. It was built as a two-lane road in 1919, and by the 1930s it had become a hotspot for commerce. While still a major business corridor in Springfield, MacArthur Boulevard is plagued by congestion, blight, crumbling sidewalks – where they exist at all – and a lack of cohesive planning.

The MacArthur Boulevard Business Association, which started a decade ago

Jamie Munks
The State Journal-Register

The Springfield City Council on Tuesday approved a deal city officials have inked with the Illinois Department of Transportation that calls for all rail traffic through the city to be consolidated on the 10th Street tracks within the next decade.

The vote was 9-1, with the dissenting alderman, Ward 7’s Joe McMenamin, calling the agreement “fatally flawed” because Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern, the two railroads involved, aren’t part of it. McMenamin said

Tim Landis
The State Journal-Register

Somewhere beneath the traffic, sign clutter and crumbled sidewalks of MacArthur Boulevard is a greener, friendlier thoroughfare that would make it easier for pedestrians, bicyclists and motorists to get around. At least on paper.

The Illinois Department of Transportation presented six versions of that vision at a public meeting Thursday at South Side Christian Church where results were released from a two-year study of the boulevard between South Grand and Wabash avenues