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State of the City Address - 2008
Print VersionThe Honorable Brad Cole, Mayor
City of Carbondale, Illinois
Fifth Annual State of the City Address
Carbondale Chamber of Commerce Luncheon
December 9, 2008; 12:00 Noon
Carbondale City Hall / Civic Center
Good afternoon. Thank you for joining me here today and thanks to the Carbondale Chamber of Commerce for helping with this annual luncheon event.
We are gathering a little later in the calendar this year than before, mainly because of the election and holidays that occupied November. The delay has been welcome since it gave me a little extra time to prepare my remarks and it allows for a little more material to review in the year that has now almost entirely passed by.
But before I get into the details and the news that we have to share, let me pause to recognize a few people and some organizations that have helped us get here today. First, as already mentioned, the Carbondale Chamber of Commerce has been a solid partner with the City of Carbondale in promoting our economic development strategies and in our efforts to support existing businesses. With new leadership and a re-commitment to their goals, I am certain that we will continue to have many good days and years ahead of us together.
We are also partnered again this year with Carbondale Community High School, and there will be some lucky students who see the benefit of that relationship and of this luncheon by way of some much-needed scholarship funds next year. Based on those of you who were here last year, we were able to award $1,500 in scholarships to local students who are now attending Southern Illinois University. We will hopefully be able to do the same next year, as well. The money for those scholarships comes off the top of your registration fee for attending today and we appreciate your contribution toward a good cause.
I mentioned the high school and I want to take this opportunity to recognize the CCHS Scholar Bowl team, which recently continued its winning streak in conference play by defeating teams from Murphysboro, Salem, Herrin, Marion and Hamilton County. Our team is now ranked third in the state, behind schools in Rockford and Wilmette. So, congratulations to them and hopefully those students will decide to stay here and study at SIU after graduating from CCHS.
Speaking of Southern Illinois University, I should take a moment to recognize our partners in higher education.
First, Interim Chancellor Sam Goldman and his senior staff at SIU have joined us today. As you know, we embarked on a unique and mutually-beneficial relationship a little more than one year ago that will see new construction and growth on campus, and will yield not only more jobs but also more visitors and more business coming to the community. It is my understanding that the Saluki Way project is underway and, per our agreement, the facilities will be open in time for the 2010 football and basketball seasons.
We are also just getting started on a public-private partnership with the City and SIU that will look to build new senior housing in the current Southern Hills area. President Poshard and I have had discussions about our active involvement in this project, with most of the work being done by private developers. This is a potentially exciting project that will bring yet another amenity to Carbondale and campus.
Secondly, I want to mention our good friends at John A. Logan College. Their president, Dr. Robert Mees, is not able to be here today, but his staff is in attendance. The positive and close working relationship we have with Logan is second only to our strong ties with Southern. In the case of Logan, we have been able to see some terrific successes lately, particularly in the area of job development. You will recall that we recently announced the creation of nearly 500 jobs with NEW Corporation, a nationally-known customer service firm that is coming to Carbondale and southern Illinois. One of the primary reasons that we were able to lure that employer to our area is because of the willingness of John A. Logan College to provide us with training staff and a dedicated training center for the company. Man-Tra-Con Corporation and others were also helpful in that effort, but we owe special thanks to Dr. Mees and the College for their involvement. For us, internally, Kevin Baity handled this project and he did a great job on it.
As we all know, it takes many people to make things happen. Sometimes it only takes one person to foul things up, but it can take a lot of hands to make something go well or work right. I would like to thank the members of the City Council who have supported our efforts and have stepped-up to advance our cause in making Carbondale a wonderful community. While nothing is ever perfect, we mostly have a good group of dedicated and caring individuals who work well together and are focused on the future of this organization.
I also wish to recognize my assistant, Faith Johnson, who has earned her share of credit along the way, for a lot of reasons…. putting up with me being number one on the list. You know, it’s kind of funny, our relationship. We talk about a lot of issues, I bounce some things off her for a different perspective, we laugh at each other, and we yell at each other (well, I kind of yell at her and she just looks back at me). But most importantly, we are friends and we trust and respect each other. I’m not sure what more there is to ask for in an assistant, and so I thank her.
For your information, this presentation is being broadcast live on CityVision 16, and if you want to see it again, you’ll be able to watch it on replay at home a couple of times this week and next. For the first time, it is also being carried live as a webcast via the Southern Illinoisan newspaper’s website. And, if you care to have a text of my remarks, they are available now on our City website.
So, here we are again, just another year later. It has been an interesting year, to say the least. We have seen our economy go up and down, we have elected a new president for our nation (a man who has been on this very stage several times), and we have watched as our National Guard troops were deployed overseas again. Many people have had their jobs affected, their homes or personal finances affected, they have known people desperate for help and, as a community, we are faced with uncertainty on some fronts. In spite of the national trends, we still have found our way to provide for the basic health, safety and welfare of the citizenry, we still have come together to work in partnership to see growth and new investment, and we still have acted as one region, with one vision toward the future. Our friends in other cities have helped with that, too, people that Mayor Vic Ritter of Herrin and Mayor Bob Butler of Marion.
Let’s take a look back for a moment, so we can then take a step forward.
Probably the biggest undertaking for the city government this past year was transitioning from our past city manager to our current city manager. After more than three decades with the City of Carbondale, Jeff Doherty retired and we went through a lengthy process to identify the best candidate possible to fill that role. I am pleased, very pleased, to introduce you to Mr. Allen D. Gill, who was appointed City Manager effective this past July first….. Mr. Gill.
Coming to us with a career background in city management and with roots in the metro-east area, Mr. Gill has hit the ground running and is making some real progress. A number of issues were waiting for him upon his arrival and, with the help of the Council, we are chipping away at that list and developing a renewed sense of direction. I am particularly satisfied with his performance and I encourage all of you to get to know him and his wife, Suzanne.
This past year we also took a giant leap forward in our relationship with the Jackson County Board. The cantankerous days of previous County Boards are behind us and I want to take this time to publicly recognize the leadership of Chairman John Evans. Chairman Evans and I have a mutual respect for each other and an admiration for the job each has to perform, understanding that there could be disagreement from time to time, but further understanding that disagreement doesn’t have to mean conflict.
An example of our positive approach to issues can be seen in the County Board’s recent action to fund the Jackson Growth Alliance (formerly the Jackson County Business Development Corporation) with $20,000 in county tax dollars. My commitment to the Chairman was to match whatever they would put in, and so our next fiscal year’s budget will reflect the same investment. These contributions will bring the County Board back into the fold and they will supplement the support also being provided by Mayor Williams and the City of Murphysboro. The three of us are behind this effort and we ask the other communities and private entities to follow suit. This is something that must be done for the sake of the entire county, and we (the three leaders) support that fully.
Along the lines of economic development and job growth, last year was the first year for a bold new idea that I offered for the City to directly invest in job placement at the high school level. You may recall that I announced the creation of the Carbondale Futures Program. This program was a partnership between the City, the Chamber of Commerce and Carbondale Community High School. Here is how it worked: we granted $25,000 to the Chamber to develop guidelines and parameters for hiring high school students (that were identified by the high school and their counselors and teachers). The Chamber solicited interested businesses that were willing to hire students that otherwise would not be finding jobs or would likely not go to college. Our money was used to offset half of that employee’s salary and the employer took on the responsibility of training the worker, with the hope and expectation that the worker would stay-on and possibly be hired full-time after graduation. It was a new concept and it garnered attention from cities all around the region and nation… and it has worked.
Yes, there have been some hiccups along the way and not all of the young people succeeded in their efforts. But we now have a second round of high school students asking about the program and wanting to be part of it next year. We also have young people who were hired, learned tangible skills, and are still employed to this day (and will probably continue working after our incentive funds are used up). This is the kind of success we are looking for, a few people at a time, and we should continue it. Last year we were able to positively impact about two dozen young people in this program. I will submit the same budget request this year, to fund the Carbondale Futures Program again at $25,000. If we keep this up – if we keep focusing on our young people – the impact will not be just a couple of dozen kids, the impact will be on hundreds of young, employed workers and the impact will be lifelong.
Hold that thought for a moment, please, because I’m going to be coming back to the issue of young people and some of the other issues facing Carbondale in today’s world.
Probably the most memorable and most inspirational moment of this past year came with my announcement at last year’s State of the City Address, regarding the Varsity Theater. The moment at which the lights were turned-on, when the marquee came alive again, was a terrific moment for downtown Carbondale. The work and volunteer efforts to renovate and open the Varsity Center for the Arts has been nothing short of amazing, and there are so many people to thank for it. Mainly, we must recognize The Stage Company (who was willing to blindly meet my challenge, to accept the building and to accept the monumental task at hand), and Carbondale Community Arts. Along the way, we saw people like Jack Langowski (and many, many others) come forward to lead in the chores and get us to opening day less than ten months after the property ownership was transferred. What a wonderful treat.
I will admit that when the old theater closed, just a month after I was sworn-in as mayor in 2003, I was concerned with what might be sitting there vacant for decades to come. But when the lights were lit on that October night, just a couple of months ago, I felt like a proud doctor after a child’s birth. I couldn’t really feel like a proud parent, because I hadn’t conceived or carried that thing to term, but I definitely helped with the delivery…. and it will forever be one of my happiest moments as mayor.
For the community in general, we have continued our efforts to raise our presence and to increase our role in various affairs. We continue to work closely with Members of Congress and have seen successes in obtaining federal funds for new projects. (Special thanks go to Senator Dick Durbin and Congressman Jerry Costello for their steady support.) We have maintained our emphasis on providing quality child care and minority outreach services, both at the Eurma C. Hayes Center. We have routinely gone about the business of providing quality drinking water and effective sanitary sewer services for the public, which have been recognized as the best in the state. Through the Convention and Tourism Bureau, we established the Southern Illinois Culinary Tourism Destination Project, encouraging networking in the “foodie” industry and promoting food and wine trail related travel. We have kept our budget balanced and we have done so without going back to the property tax well, for the sixth consecutive year now. We have hosted visitors from around the world and we are rightly proud of being an international community with more than a hundred nations represented by our residents.
Even before gas prices began to skyrocket, I am pleased to report that our ridership on Amtrak passenger rail was also going up, from years past. During the state’s 2007 fiscal year, we saw more than 91,000 (actual 91,015) passengers go through our Carbondale station. In the state’s last fiscal year (2008), we experienced a 19% increase from the previous year, which equated to more than 108,000 (actual 108,323) passengers stepping-on or -off a train in Carbondale. No one can argue what a positive impact the addition of the Saluki train service has been… and we are working every day to make sure we are able to keep that highly-used service and possibly expand it even more. The future of transportation in this country must include passenger rail, and we’re at the heart of it along this important corridor.
Basically, we are doing the things that need to be done, and we are fulfilling our promises to the people.
Those are just a few of the highlights since we last visited in this forum. So, now, what’s next?
This next year, 2009, will see one of the biggest shifts in City policy that we have seen in decades. With last year’s adoption of sweeping changes in our rental housing inspection program, Carbondale is now positioned to make major, and critically-needed, progress toward improving our housing stock and core.
When the university was growing so quickly in the 1970’s, people took-in renters and old family homes were converted to rental property. All of that was necessary and good, but it caught up to us twenty years later in ways that saw a lack of real investment by some – some, not all – of the property owners. Places began to look bad and the competitive market softened and some – again, not all – of the property managers got complacent and cared more about fast profit and less about good business. What we see now is a large number of our rental homes and units that appear to be in poor condition, that negatively impact their surrounding areas, and that may serve a certain segment of the population but don’t truly serve the community’s interests.
At the same time, we have seen the market tighten-up some with new investors building hundreds of new apartment units and creating a competitive edge that didn’t exist for years. In the almost-six years since I have been mayor, there have been 1,465 new rental/apartment units (bedrooms) constructed in Carbondale. This has been a direct investment of more than $78 million. And in the current fiscal year and finishing next year, there are 367 more units under construction or in planned development, totaling nearly $10 million more. As you can imagine, the scenery is changing and so, too, must we change in our approach to handling it.
If we are to meet our population target goal of 30,000 by the next national census, not in 2010 but in 2020, we must continue to provide new housing opportunities for people of all ages and backgrounds and in all housing markets… this means attracting new development and actively supporting additional growth. If we are to meet our community’s expectations for safe and quality housing, we must also address some of what has plagued us for too long, and we are doing that through stricter enforcement of building codes, by adherence to international standards and safety requirements, and by equal, fair treatment for everyone across the board. We have added new inspectors through a cost-recovery formula that will finally allow us to inspect all properties on a regular schedule and with enough frequency to be able to have a positive impact. We are tracking our data now, something which never happened before, and we are buying the necessary software upgrades to make the information readily available to the public and accessible to the community.
I have instructed, in as clear a way as is possible, for the City Manager and our Development Services Director to make our inspection programs work, to clean-up our neighborhoods, and to be both effective and efficient in these efforts. There is no margin for error and there is no time to spare. Just more than a year from now, in 18 months at the end of the 2010 fiscal year, there will be strict accountability toward these objectives. We will likely meet resistance along the way and we will have some problems to deal with, but the old days are behind us and we simply have to get this done and done right. We owe it to everyone who lives in or around Carbondale, we owe it to the people that visit here, we owe it to the parents who drive around looking for a decent place to rent for their son or daughter, and we owe it to ourselves. If we are unable to get it done in that time frame, then the necessary corrections in personnel will be made; period.
Neighborhood revitalization is a broader topic than just that which affects housing. It really takes-in all aspects of life and living in a community, or in a specific neighborhood and even down to one or two particular blocks. Carbondale has several distinct neighborhoods that, over time, have developed differently or have highlighted different characteristics. One such neighborhood that is often discussed, for various reasons, is that of northeast Carbondale; this is the predominantly and historically African-American section of town.
Over the last several months, we have seen a rise in the number of violent crimes in that area of Carbondale. We have seen young people fighting each other, drug activity surging, anger escalating, and a real concern developing for where it is all headed. After a string of violent crimes and serious criminal activity in the area, I decided to take a late night walk one weekend. I wanted to get out on the street and talk to the people that are living right there, the people who won’t come out from behind their home’s locked doors and the people that we should probably lock-up behind doors of another kind. I wanted a first-hand look at what happens on Chestnut Street around midnight.
I can’t say that I was surprised too much, from what I witnessed. I was a little shocked by the number of people that seem to just appear from nowhere, or actually from other towns, that are just hanging around on our streets. I observed that a lot of people come from other communities and they bring their problems with them; they bring them for us to deal with.
I also found a lot of people who want it to change. They want to be able to rest easy in their homes, without the fear of who might be outside and what might be happening down the street. The residents want our help… not all of them, but most of them. So, here is what we’re doing about it.
First, we have maintained and increased our commitment to police the problem areas and dedicate officers to patrolling the streets and keeping the peace. Our Street Crimes Unit was designed specifically to address crimes like we have seen in that area and they will be further utilized to identify problems and extract them from the neighborhood. Second, we are bringing attention to the issue and seeking the help of those living in the northeast. I have asked for people to help take back their streets… to be the nosey neighbor that asks a young person why they’re not home by ten o’clock or to be a little more strict in their own households to keep the kids and trouble-makers off the street corners. Third, we’re reaching out to form a consortium of groups and people who share in the common interest of seeing that neighborhood (and the entire community) be a better place for everyone.
In other forums, I have called on the pastoral community to use their pulpits to drive home the message of responsibility and involvement. Our young people need to hear us talking about what is right and what is wrong, and they need to be reinforced with that message in all of their activities. They also need to see the adults doing what’s right, and not what’s wrong; they need us to lead by example. The black community has historically been proud of its strong religious leaders and their role in community building. Now is the time for them to preach the same ideals over and over again, for our young people (and the adults) to step back from the depths of addiction and dependency, to step back from the grips of teen pregnancy and unwed parenting, to step back from falling into the self-perpetuating cycle of struggle and strife. We – the community and the city government – can help with these efforts, but we need the people to be willing to seek the help to begin with.
Just like I mentioned with our Carbondale Futures Program, we can help young people get valuable training and find much-needed jobs. We can identify risk factors and offer alternatives. We can spend money on programs and services. We can do a lot of things, but it is clearly a two-way street. The churches and the ministerial alliances in Carbondale can help us do these things, and I’m talking about all of the churches and all of the ministers, not just those in the northeast. This is a community-wide effort that will only see community-wide results if everyone is involved and supporting the forward momentum.
The other key group to the success of this charge is the NAACP. There is now new leadership within the Carbondale Branch and my hope is restored in their commitment to progress. The NAACP must take a leadership role in promoting individual accountability for actions and overall responsibility in the black neighborhoods. The Branch is ideally situated to do this, and the establishment of this partnership (between the Branch and City Hall) will go a long way to closing the loop that many have felt would never come together.
What I’m asking for out of the NAACP is a coordinated effort to build a network of role models, of young leaders in the community… a group of people that will step forward and push, pull or drag someone from the wrong direction and wrong pattern of activity. We don’t need a march, we need a hundred men who are willing to do what’s right and to take-on the thugs and bullies. We need a hundred men who can help mentor and support our grade school and middle school students, because they might not otherwise have a male role model in their home. We need men who can explain the damage that drugs do to a person. We need these men to be dedicated to developing the respect of others and to promoting respect for others, including themselves. We need a hundred concerned and committed black men, we need young and not-so-young men, we need to show what can be done when we come together to do it. This is my challenge to the NAACP.
For too long, the women in the northeast and in the local NAACP branch have carried the burden for these efforts. We need the men to stand up and take charge, to provide a strong presence that will support the women and children and that will make a positive difference for the community.
But you should know that the challenge comes with strings attached. Strings attached for us. If the NAACP Branch can organize this effort, we will assist. If the Branch can energize this effort, we will assist. If the Branch can maximize this effort, we will assist. If the Branch will get behind this effort, we won’t let it fail. We need their help, they need our help, and we can make a substantial impact in the long-run (together) by doing so. And if this isn’t the right way or the best action idea, then I challenge the Branch to bring me a proposal that is better.
Our efforts won’t stop there, either. I have reconvened the Intervention Task Force, which is an at-will group of citizens and stake holders that share in the desire to make Carbondale a better place to live. This group brings together people from the business community, law enforcement and the judiciary, social service agencies, churches and concerned parents. I have challenged this group to bring me ideas that we can implement to make a difference in the lives of young people, so we can catch them before they fall and before they start to take that step off into the wrong direction. To supplement their work, I will ask the City Council to specifically fund their efforts with $20,000 in seed money. This money will be used to leverage other private funds that are put to use in similar efforts, it will be used as matching funds to apply for new grants and to establish programs that are based on quantifiable outcomes, not just numbers. The money will be an investment in the future and it will pay more dividends than anything in the stock market right now, guaranteed.
When you combine this effort with our Futures Program, with our summer youth employment program (which I will again request funding for, to employ nearly 50 young people next summer), with our partnerships involving the NAACP, the Carbondale Elementary School District and Carbondale Community High School, when you add in the work of the Boys & Girls Club of Carbondale, Southern Illinois Regional Social Services, and all of the other agencies at work… when you put all of this together, everyone should know that Carbondale is committed to its youth and, therefore, to its future. And it will be a bright future.
Shifting gears a little, much of the talk these days is on the national economy and the declining state of industry. We have been somewhat insulated by that in Carbondale, while other communities around us have suffered, but that doesn’t mean we haven’t seen the effect of the downturn. We all know that a job in any southern Illinois town is a job for the entire region. When we create jobs in Carbondale, it helps surrounding communities. And when jobs are lost around us, that impacts us, as well. We are especially keen to this because our budget is funded primarily through sales tax generation. When people stop shopping and don’t spend as much at the cash register, that has a direct and noticeable impact on our city government’s budget. To date, we have stayed flat with last year’s budget numbers and we see that as some kind of actual good news. With things collapsing around us on the national scene, holding our own is actually something of a plus. And we had encouraging news last week, with an increase of about 5% in the after-Thanksgiving sales that took place for the real start of seasonal holiday shopping.
We have had to make adjustments and we are measuring our expenditures so that we can keep moving forward, and we don’t expect to see any loss in our reserves or any drastic reductions in our services. We are doing what all of you are doing, either at home or at work, we are making prudent, conservative decisions and we are doing so because we know that it is, in fact, your money that we’re spending. We will maintain a sharp point on our pencil for the next year or two, as this hopefully swings back and the economy rebounds, and I have asked the City Manager to bring forth a budget for our next fiscal year that is based on zero-growth in revenues. Our budgeting process is open and interactive, and I encourage anyone to be involved with that as it unfolds.
By the way, our budget is now fully available on-line, as is our annual audit. We are making major improvements to our website and will be able to make some additional announcements about our web presence in the very near future; so, stay tuned for that.
But even as there seems to be no end to bad news, I am pleased to finally answer some of the questions about what is happening on our west side. Rumors and speculation have swirled since the closing of Mugsy McGuire’s this past spring, and I am happy to say that a major new development is being planned for that high-traffic corner. In addition to their existing store location, a developer for Walgreen’s is planning to build a new store where the vacant Mugsy’s building currently sits. There are still some infrastructure improvements needed under the proposed new building location, but that site will be cleared shortly after the start of the new year and it will be a quick shot in the arm for new growth in that area.
Once that deal is done, we will also be able to finalize our role in acquiring the northern-most piece (the back piece) of the same property, which is situated at the corner of Glenview Drive and Sycamore Street. We have identified this location as the best site for our proposed new fire station, which will replace the existing station on the corner of Oakland Avenue and Walnut Street. Our desire has been to move that station (which we refer to as Fire Station No. 2) further west, to help us in better-serving our west side residential and commercial areas. As we focus on new housing starts and a planned retirement village on New Era Road (which was approved by the City Council last year), keeping our response time short is critical. Currently, our response time to a fire call is approximately three-and-a-half minutes from the time of dispatch (when we hang-up the phone from your call). We are rightly proud of that and we’re proud of our men and women in the service of public safety. This new fire station will be a welcome addition to that edge of town, and to the department, and we’re all very excited about it.
Speaking of the new fire station, I want to remind everyone that our process is fully underway for the construction of a new police station on the site of the former Lincoln Middle School on South Washington Street. We are in the design phase now and are staying on target for a completion date prior to Spring 2011… which will be preceded (hopefully) by the finished fire station in Fall 2010. As we search for a new police chief, it will be important to maintain the progress we are making on the police station and so we will be asking for a lot of help and understanding from our police officers over the next few months; and, I’m sure they’ll come through as always.
While we don’t have anything to announce today – and may not for quite a while yet – we are actively pursuing several options for bringing another grocery retailer to the vacant Kroger location in West Park Plaza. With Aldi’s moving across town next year, the need will be even greater to have more grocery options on the west side and we are working on it.
I should also point out the recent news that a restaurant and sports bar has already broken ground and is under construction in the heart of our downtown area. This new business will fill a much-needed void in our first and only TIF district, and it will help bring more and more people into the downtown. With incentives that are available in the TIF district, and with businesses that have been willing to invest in the heart of the community, we have been very happy with the results of our redevelopment efforts.
People can hardly remember the old car lot or abandoned gas station that used to sit on the corner of Main Street where First Southern Bank is located. And people have forgotten about the old houses and dilapidated properties that sat on Walnut Street prior to the auto parts store and Save-a-Lot Grocery. Add in all the work that Dan Terry has done renovating the Bening Square properties (the Newell House and now Associated Lumber and those adjacent to there) on Washington Street… the downtown has come a long way in just a few short years.
Our emphasis on the west side or downtown is no different than that throughout the rest of the city; we are committed to see growth and we should be able to respond to the market’s trends in providing what people need and want. To help us with this in a long-range way, we are just starting to develop a new Comprehensive Plan that will guide some of our planning, zoning, economic development, and growth patterns for the better part of the next decade. The Comprehensive Plan is a template for us to use in strategizing about future developments and in managing our current resources. I have named a committee that will assist in this review, which will take about 18 months to complete. Along the way, the committee and our staff will be helped by a consultant that will bring-forth additional ideas and best practices from around the country, all oriented toward specific long-range plans that are tailored to meet Carbondale’s objectives. More about this process will be shared as we go, and every step will be done to allow for public input and suggestions. This is both tedious and exciting at the same time, and I want to thank staff and the volunteer committee members for their involvement.
I mentioned earlier that we continue to increase our exposure to places beyond Carbondale, and I want to thank the City Council and community for supporting those efforts. I am fortunate to participate in many organizations that advocate on our behalf and on the behalf of southern Illinois. Particularly, I am proud of our relationship with the Southern Illinois Mayors’ Association and the Illinois Municipal League. I serve on the boards for both of those groups and was also recently elected to serve on the board of directors for the National League of Cities. These opportunities allow me to carry our voice to other cities and to have discussions with other leaders, all of which helps Carbondale and the region.
In closing, I would like to wrap-up things with a note of tribute to someone special in our community. There are lots of special people that have served this City over the years, but I have recently been thinking a lot about one in particular. The impact that people make in public service is often not fully seen until after they’re gone, but that isn’t necessarily the case with this person. No, the impact this person made was seen at that time, it has just taken us a while to find the best way to memorialize it.
I am pleased to report that we have been working cooperatively with the Carbondale Park District to identify open space land throughout the community that can be dedicated as public green space. Realizing that most of the central core of Carbondale is already developed, we have agreed to jointly fund the purchase of available open spaces. (The money for this is set aside as a direct allocation from the increase in sales tax that also is supporting the Saluki Way projects.) Any new recreational areas will be under the control and ownership of the Park District, and they will maintain them. Depending on the property we acquire, the land could be an ideal location for a dog park or a play field or just as open green space. Either way, this cooperative will lock-in land that will be kept from development and will be open to the public.
And I am especially pleased to announce today that, if our efforts are successful to identify (and negotiate for) an acceptable piece of property, we have already agreed that our community’s next park will be called the “Helen Westberg Park.”
In case you don’t already know, Helen Westberg served on the Carbondale City Council from 1975 until 1983, and was elected Mayor of Carbondale, serving in that position from 1983 until 1987. Mayor Westberg lived on Cherry Street in the heart of Carbondale, not far from where this building is today. She passed away in June 2006 and I have a feeling that she would like this idea quite a bit… I know we do.
This effort to invest in open space is the result of a true partnership with the Carbondale Park District, and I want to thank and recognize the board’s president, Mr. Harvey Welch, the Board of Commissioners, and their executive director, Kathy Renfro, for their help with this endeavor. I firmly believe that the test of a real community is its ability to invest in quality of life amenities; this is something the City Council has actively and financially supported during my administration, and I hope they continue to do so.
So, that is kind of a snap shot of where we have been and where we are going. We are a local government that is stable in times that are anything but stable. We are focused on providing quality programs and services to the community and region. We are committed to doing the best we can with what we have, and resolved to doing it in the best interest of our citizens and guests. There will undoubtedly be some hurdles and some unknowns in the coming months and year, but we are well-positioned to handle them as they arise. Ladies and Gentlemen, the state of your city is well.
Thank you again for your attendance today and for your support. All of you, and everything you do, help make Carbondale the Capital of Southern Illinois. Have a good afternoon.
Mayor Brad Cole
