Who will bring Springfield toether?

Small businesses would be a focus for Houston’s administration, he says, noting that about 85 percent of Springfield businesses are “small” businesses. He says he would work to attract good business franchise opportunities with local owners, create a small business incubator to lower and share costs, and talk with existing small business owners to offer expansion help – all efforts he says he pushed in his previous administrations.

Medical district The Mid-Illinois Medical District is another focus for two of the candidates – though to different degrees. Stocks-Smith has made developing the district – which includes St. John’s Hospital, Memorial Medical Center, SIU School of Medicine and other facilities – a cornerstone of her campaign. She says she would reorganize the Office of Planning and Economic Development to have specialists focused exclusively on job creation in the health care sector, while also appointing her yet-to-benamed Planning and Economic Development director to the Mid-Illinois Medical Commission. She calls for increased efforts to seek state and federal grants, while promoting the district outside of Springfield through partnerships with medical facilities, educational institutions and more. Houston has also called for developing the medical district, though he has not announced a specific plan to do so.

Infrastructure The candidates agree that before new businesses will invest in Springfield, however, the city must improve its infrastructure. Crumbling streets, backed up sewers and broken or missing sidewalks discourage businesses from investing in Springfield, they acknowledge, saying that the city must stop “raiding” infrastructure funds for other purposes.

Kunz says the city could save money by purchasing construction equipment and having city workers make the needed improvements.

“The overhead by hiring the outside big companies is just killing us when it comes to how much it costs us to do a quarter mile of street,” he says. “I think we have the manpower, we have the talent. If we buy them the equipment to do it, we can get a lot more done for the City of Springfield than is being done this way.”

Though Houston has laid out specific plans for many other issues, he refuses to disclose his plan to pay for infrastructure improvements, saying it would be “jumped on” by his opponents. Questioned whether that approach requires too much trust from voters, Houston says it does not.

“No one has laid out a plan as to how they’re going to fund infrastructure,” Houston says. “To put out a plan in terms of financing infrastructure right now, it immediately becomes a target as to why you can’t do it. I will, after the election, lay out a plan to the general public. …It’s a matter that any time anybody brings up an idea during the course of a campaign – I’ve got three opponents, and they’re going to go after me.”

Houston did say, however, that more frequent cleaning of sewers would help alleviate flooding.

Hunter Lake One major piece of planned infrastructure could see some action under the next mayor. The long-delayed Hunter Lake proposal, which would give the city a second water supply, may either move forward or be completely abandoned in the next four years.

Houston says he would pursue the project if it did not require a new, expensive environmental study to be completed. Otherwise, he says, he would sell the land reserved for the project. Kunz says a second lake will someday be needed, but he would likely wait until enough money is available because it doesn’t cost the city anything to hold onto the land. Coffey declines to take a position on the project, saying only that he would study it and take action within the first year of his administration. Stocks-Smith says the project would not be a priority in her administration, and she would consider turning the reserved land into a temporary park because there currently is no money to build the lake.