LETTERS
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TEA PARTY ON IHPA Remember when President Obama made his announcement and VP choice at the historic Old State Capitol? It was IHPA that gave him special permission to do so, although the site is not to be used for political events. The Springfield Tea Party was then denied use of the same facility twice. A Freedom of Information request only resulted in heavily redacted minutes of their meeting.
Defunding the politically correct IHPA now seems appropriate, although it will save a mere $21 million. Jerald Jacobs Treasurer, Springfield Tea Party Springfield
IHPA STATUS QUO Governor Rauner’s proposed budget calls for folding the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency into the state’s Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity. This is a bad idea, for several reasons.
The IHPA has a small budget – roughly $21 million in 2015. It more than pays for itself, as it generated $181 million in economic activity and $12.5 million in state and local tax revenue in 2014. It also helped private developers qualify for federal tax credits on $1.3 billion worth of construction projects last year.
Two-thirds of the IHPA’s budget is devoted to the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum. Rauner’s plan would make the Lincoln library and museum a separate agency, not only causing it to lose funding, but also making it necessary to spend more of its budget on administrative staff to perform functions now carried out by the IHPA. This is a lose-lose situation for Springfield.
While some sort of budgetary reform is clearly needed in Illinois, it makes little sense to deprive a successful and profitable agency of its independence, especially when that move is unlikely to save taxpayers any money at all and may even be more costly in the long run. Nor does it make sense to make the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum an independent agency and deprive it of much needed support and increase its administrative expenses. This is one situation where the best solution is to support the status quo. David Randall Springfield
PROSECUTING A PUBLIC SERVANT In my view, a Springfield alderman is a part-time job. People in part-time jobs need to earn a full-time living. If aldermanic positions were fulltime positions, the ARDC may have more legal grounds. But first, we must consider that Alderman Sam Cahnman is not an attorney who is employed as corporation counsel. Would corporation counsel (Todd Greenburg) have a conflict if it represented Calvin Christian in a traffic case or lawsuit? Why, of course, the non-elected chief legal officer’s job is to protect city interests as highest priority and constituents are lowest priority to city interests. Aldermen exist to serve the people’s individual or group interests over and above city interests. If they don’t, they get kicked out of office at the next municipal election. I know that because Cahnman was elected by a constituent electorate and not appointed by the city. Cahnman was not elected to be employed part time to serve city administration only and absolutely. His first priority is to the constituent electorate, and city administration is a lower priority.
By this logic, no alderman should be involved with anyone for fear residents will sue the city for a civil or criminal activity. Even when Cahnman and others detected a perceived conflict of interest, Cahnman openly recused himself from matters pertaining to the Calvin Christian lawsuits regarding “shredgate” and the Springfield Police Department when provoked. If government were truly open, then there would be no conflict here. If the city wants to hide secrets in open government, then the city is violating the spirit of the Open Meetings Act and is further eroding transparency in government.
There should be sunshine on every aspect of an open government. I believe ARDC is overreacting here and trying to destroy the sunshine that the city taxpayers are funding. ARDC is essentially embracing an absolute need for government secrecy. Tim L. Thornton Springfield
