LETTERS
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WHY PARLORS EXIST My name is Matt Gietl, and I am an owner of Miss Kimmees gaming parlors in Springfield.
I do not understand the beating our establishments take (“Sweeping up ‘broom closet’ gambling,” by Patrick Yeagle, March 12). The people that come in to our establishments are not the type of people that go to bars and want to play at restaurants. We cater to a different crowd. Our customers come into a clean, secure, nicely lit place. They come to play video gaming in a place where they do not have the loud atmospheres of bars, or a restaurant where a 5-year-old’s pizza party is going on. If outlawed, these people would quit playing because they favor this atmosphere. Revenue for the state and city would drop because the bars and restaurants that have their already established customer base are doing well. Will they succumb to this law? Can you ask a bar that does not pass this test to lose video gaming as well? A lot of the bars and restaurants cannot pass this test. As these places start losing gaming, then the bar clientele will go down the street to play and then that location eventually loses gaming because of being too busy.
I think you can ask any of the bar owners or restaurants if these gaming parlors are taking away from them. They should say no because of the different clientele that we cater to. I’ve even asked my customers why they come, and they say not to drink, not to eat, but to have a soda or coffee and play the games for entertainment. So before they think about outlawing the [gaming] parlors, they need to look to see if they are hurting the businesses they are protecting. Matt Gietl Springfield
PRAISING PALAZZOLO Andrew Brown’s March 19 letter cannot stand unchallenged.
He unfairly implies Sangamon County Auditor Paul Palazzolo, now a Springfield mayoral candidate, is little more than a political appointee via a “backroom” process involving “partisan party bosses.” The further implication is that Palazzolo is an opportunist of sorts (to now seek a different office) while his opponent, City Treasurer Jim Langfelder, “will not jump ship in midterm.” Mr. Palazzolo was eminently qualified for the auditor appointment in 2002, having earned a bachelor’s degree in finance from the University of Illinois, and having served as treasurer of different organizations, including the Springfield Airport Authority. So good a job has he done as county auditor that voters returned him to the job in 2004, 2008 and 2012.
Palazzolo is a tireless worker who networks easily with other civil servants in a happy-warrior people-person style. His joy in public service is palpable. Consequently, he was a trusted known quantity when the auditor opportunity manifested itself 13 years ago. Mr. Langfelder, a decent man whose father was once Springfield mayor, knows this is how politics work and has parlayed his own connections in advancing his own political career. Moreover, officials of both parties sometime leave office midterm to seek higher office (as famously both then-Senator Barack Obama and then-Senator Hillary Clinton did among Democratic officials).
Far from being an opportunist, Paul Palazzolo is one of the most giving, generous, civic leaders and volunteers I’ve ever known in my 86 years. While he’s too modest to tout his own generosity, I can tell your readers that Paul Palazzolo has been wonderfully involved in the Salvation Army’s Tree of Lights campaign, Springfield Urban League, Senior Service Center, Make-A-Wish Foundation of central Illinois, Knights of Columbus, Hoogland Center for the Arts, Springfield Park Board and perhaps most impressively as a Key Club advisor via Kiwanis. He has been involved in the latter organization for 33 years, once even serving as International President coordinating the service of 600,000 Kiwanis family volunteers in 80 countries. Howard L. Beagles Springfield
